Ok, so back to Part 1 when I mentioned the huge culture
shock; this was my first time visiting a Muslim country. For me, the most
interesting part of this was the call to prayer. They start between 5am and
6am, and will likely wake you up, but it’s almost soothing. And, should you
happen to try to siesta later on, you’ll get woken up again around midday,
mid-afternoon, sunset, and nighttime. The pre-sunrise one always seemed to last
the longest though, with each mosque chiming in at a different time. I don’t
know if it’s because they need more of a reminder to get out of bed and pray at
that hour, or because it takes each person at each mosque that much longer to
get up and start calling. It was mesmerizing to sit on our riad’s rooftop in the
middle of the medina and listen to a call to prayer because of how it seemed to
surround you, coming from one mosque on one side, and then one farther away,
and then one right next to you.
One thing that always made me laugh (and only sometimes made me feel like a piece of meat) was some of the comments
we heard, that are obviously used on every single tourist so they come out so
naturally for them. I don’t know if they’ll have the same effect when you read
them, but here’s a sampling.
“Shakira! Lady Gaga!”
This was how they tried to get our attention. We felt like
real celebrities. Actually, that’s all that we respond to now. Oh, and neither of us are blonde?
“Need a place to eat?”
“No thanks, we just ate.”
“But you look Starvin Marvin!”
This we got a few times walking through the food stalls in
the square at night, and it made me laugh so hard.
“How much can you pay?”
Bargaining is the name of the game, but no one seems to
respond well to “nothing.”
“Everything is half off because tomorrow I close.”
“Oh, you’re closing?”
“Yeah, tomorrow is my day off.”
“Oh, so you re-open the next day?”
“Well, yeah.”
Good sales technique.
“Small store, small price. Big store, big price.”
In an effort to convince us he had better prices.
“I’ll take you to my brother’s / father’s / uncle’s / cousin’s / relative’s
store where you’ll get the best deal.”
We even promised this kid who showed us to Terrasse des
épices that we would visit his dad’s store after. We didn’t...
“Where are you from? English? Oh, Canada? I have a cousin
there!”
Doesn’t everybody?
“No guide, no money, no problem.”
We wised up pretty quickly and told anyone who offered us
directions that we had no money to give them.
“Oh, you’re looking for <insert any place here>? I’m
actually going there right now, I’ll show you!”
See comment above.
“Wow, nice wrists, nice eyes.”
Just kidding, they were actually saying “nice breasts, nice
ass” but it sounded a lot like wrists and eyes. Sweetest words a girl could ever hear?
No comments:
Post a Comment