An Evening with a Moroccan Family

     On my third day in Casablanca, I signed up for a field program titled: An Evening with a Moroccan Family. I was very excited to be truly immersed in Moroccan culture for a night. I was also very excited to try Moroccan cuisine. The field program was separated into groups of four people. My group was Carl, Hannah, Jeffrey, and myself. Jeffrey is the inter-port student from Ghana. He just arrived to the ship today. We were told that our host’s name was Amine, and that is all we knew. We took a taxi to his home, and it took about half an hour.

    When we arrived to his home, we were in awe. His home was gated and surrounded by a wall. The pool was very large! We walked inside his home, and it was very clear that Amine was very well off. He also had invited two of his friends, Kamil and Didou, over to meet up. Amine’s siblings were playing around the house the whole evening, and his parents remained mostly out-of-sight. His father is a businessman, and exports polos out of Morocco. His mother is a real estate agent.

     Amine is going to school for business as well. Kamil is taking a year off, and Didou is in the construction business. We talked for almost two hours before eating dinner. As a starter, we had many different kinds of cookies with chocolate. We drank a strawberry drink, which was similar to fruit punch with vanilla ice cream; it was delicious!  Before dinner, Amine played the guitar and sang to us different songs in Arabic, as well as different American sounds. He was really good!

     For dinner, Moroccans typically have three dishes. Because we were guests, we were served very large bowls of food. It is customary to feed your guests until they cannot eat anymore. It is an honor to be able to feed your guests. If they ask for something that the host does not have, the host will go out and buy the item. Our first dish was a “salad.” There was beets, green beans, potatoes, tomatoes, avocado, and a rice, corn, and ham mixture. All of these items were separate. This was my favorite dish of the evening, which surprised me. Our second dish was like a pot pie, but filled with seafood, mushrooms, and tiny spaghetti-like pastas. The other students really liked this dish. The third dish was four whole chickens served with lemons and garlic. There was also bread for this dish, so that you could soak up all of the flavors. We had a huge bowl of fruit for dessert.

    After dinner, we took pictures together and exchanged Facebook information so that we could keep in touch. They were the most hospitable people!