Goat Feet and Keeping Cool

For only the second time since I have been in this country, I had to tell someone not even to bother asking me to eat something (the other time was a sheep head during Lﻉid). One common dish served here (in rural areas, at least) is plain couscous in buttermilk. People here drink buttermilk straight and like it. It makes me gag. But even that I have choked down before, most recently at Mina’s house where, no matter how many times I tried to explain that it was the buttermilk that I didn’t like (I’ve learned that, while I should be polite, I actually do better to set boundaries early when it comes to foods I don’t care to consume in large quantities), she and her sister kept offering me more buttermilk, thinking it was the couscous I didn’t like. So, last Friday, I was there hanging out at lunchtime, and Mina began frying a couple of eggs while her sister Aicha went to get the main dish. “You can eat eggs,” Mina explained, “if you would rather have that than couscous.” “I love couscous.” I told her, “It’s the buttermilk I don’t care for.” “We’re not having buttermilk,” she replied, and I was thrilled! Sure enough, as Mina and I were snacking on eggs and bread, Aicha walked in with a platter of delicious looking couscous, with zizaw (cabbage-like greens that are often used in soup here – no clue if such a thing even exists in English, but they are pretty bitter raw). We all dug in.

Normally, with both couscous and tajines, the meat is in the center of the platter, often buried under vegetables (if there are any). Apart from my host family, who all have a healthy respect for my minimalist meat-eating habits, I often worry about what I may or may not have to politely pick over when I eat at someone else’s house. The meat is the prime part of the meal, and it is rude for me to refuse it, especially when someone else picks it apart and places your serving directly in front of you (it’s a little easier for me during meals where everyone just tears at the same pieces in the center of the dish). Well, as the zizaw started disappearing, what began to appear were two goat legs. The lower leg, to be specific, so I couldn’t make out where there was any actual meat – just skin and hooves. There was also some unidentifiable long, slimy thing. I didn’t understand Mina’s explanation of what it was, as she was pointing at her head, but it definitely was not brains. It hardly mattered – I was already not enjoying my couscous and zizaw any more, as I was looking at the goat feet with a combination of nausea and fear. When Aicha finally went to divvy up the meat, I immediately said I couldn’t eat meat today (I have, in fact, done a pretty good job of convincing people that I really do feel sick if I eat too much in this heat). I took advantage of the presence of the remaining eggs, and said I would be happy to finish those. Thankfully, they didn’t fight me (a lot of people here would)! Still, lunch wasn’t over, and I had to keep eating, and looking at those things, and then listening to them crunching, crunching…



So, the heat is getting pretty bad around here! Even so, I know not to complain too much. Last week, in Errachidia, I was dying because it was so much worse than Assoul, but I was staying with a friend from even farther south in the desert who was rejoicing that he was somewhere cool enough to potentially sleep through the night (demonic cats notwithstanding).

Another friend living near Marrakesh recently posted to our volunteer web group a list of tips for staying cool without air-con. It left me thinking about what exactly it is that I do, in my world where an electric fan is not even an option (and believe me, that will be one of my first purchases if and when they finally do hook up the electricity in Assoul… I see the poles going up, really!).

The answer is, simply, water. Wet rags, wet towels, wet bandanas, wet newspapers. Buckets of water. Anything wet. Although this in itself can be a challenge in our world of massive drought and water flow regulated to an hour a day (and that can sometimes be a rather pathetic hour when it does come). Not to mention that, no matter how much insect repellant I wear, I suspect that all this standing water in my kitchen and bathroom has something to do with the fact that I walk around itching to the point of near insanity.

I sit around my house with wet bandanas tied around my pressure points. (Unfortunately, although tank top and shorts are my indoor clothing of choice, I have to keep long sleeves and pants handy to change into quickly whenever someone knocks at my door. My friend Najat has already teased me after seeing me – from someone else’s house – up on my roof improperly covered!).

Likewise, we have something called a “bled fridge” (bled is the term we use for rural areas). I am too lazy to do that, but it involves a clay jar wrapped in a wet towel, sitting in another bucket full of water. Not the same as a real refrigerator (a decent one at least), but it works. My m.o. is to eat my produce as quickly as possible (I never prepare my own meat anyhow), with no leftover prepared food. Any beverages I want to keep at a tepid (as opposed to warm) temperature I wrap in the wet towels or newspapers, and try to keep them near a draft (although the wind situation here remains rather all-or-nothing). I use a lot of powdered milk, but when I can’t resist the real thing (i.e. when I am treating myself to real coffee as, alas, the Nescafé mystique has now worn off, and I see it more as a necessary evil), I buy the specially treated milk that is available at our local hanut, and again consume it as quickly as possible. Anyway, this works all right for me. A real fridge would be nice, of course, but that’s a pretty big purchase, and it looks like now I’d only have it for one summer here… maybe not worth it.

Also, there is very little exercise, apart from uber-lazy yoga, so I am getting mushy yet again, in spite of what an appetite killer the heat is.

One upshot is that I do engage in some sort of bathing on a daily basis. And these days, even my awesome solar shower gets too hot, so I often just squat in my banyo (like a “low-rise,” wide plastic bucket, where I normally do laundry) and dump cool-ish water on my head or wherever else I need it). I may feel sweaty and gross all day, but let’s compare that to the winter situation when being naked is so unbearable that the bottom layers of clothing don’t even get changed more than once every few days, and being naked and WET is such a horrible thought that a weekly hammam visit is all many of us can bear. (The alternative is potentially killing myself by turning on every gas device I own and shut myself in a room with them while I bucket bath). So I know that I really am living a more hygienic lifestyle, courtesy of the heat.

So STILL, it beats winter, when I walk around wearing all the clothes I own and cursing out loud about the wind and the cold. If anything, this just forces you to relax a little. And no one else is doing much of anything either in the heat of the day, so I could actually aim for all-out laziness if I chose to do so, and probably face little criticism. (The reality is that I stay in and read a lot, so some people think I am inside sleeping… I don’t care…).


In other news, the women of our soon-to-be-cooperative have finally selected their initial officers! It may sound like a small thing, but it is a huge hurdle for them (and for me, as it is hard to make things happen when there is no clear chain of command). Next week, in sh’allah, one of them will travel with me to attend their first big craft fair. And, hamdullah, it’ll be up on the Mediterranean coast, away from this oven!!!