Monday, August 8, 2011

Spies, Drugs (again) and Sheep Feet

How could you resist a blog post with a title like that? I guess I'll start with the first word...

Johan came to visit me in Tangier this weekend since he is working on his graduate research. We didn't do anything too exciting, just walked around the city and spent a long time catching up. As we were walking to (attempt) to get lunch, we walked into a restaurant and I asked the two men sitting in the restaurant if they had any food or not because it is Ramadan and a lot of places don't have food. One of the men said, "No....and I wouldn't give food to Israeli spies anyway." I told him that we were Americans (Johan is Norwegian, but that's almost America, right?) and that we are not spies. But I was angry because of his comment, so we left, looking for a new place.

As a rule of thumb, I won't go to a place that has people out in the streets trying to get more people to come to their restaurant. You've just got to assume that there is something wrong with that restaurant if there's people fishing for you. Anyway, we ran into a man who wanted us to go to his restaurant. We told him that we were not interested (I only used Moroccan Arabic here just so the idea would click with him), but he became very hostile quickly. He said some very derogatory things and then accused us of being Israeli spies.

I'm very curious as to why we were called spies twice within 20 minutes. I have a feeling that it is because Johan was wearing what I call "FBI sunglasses." I don't know. Where do these people get these ideas that Israeli spies are infiltrating their country?

And moving onto the second word--drugs.

This is really a non-story because it happens so often, but to some of us who come from Wadsworth, Ohio, this isn't exactly an every-day experience. It's not uncommon to be walking down the street and have some creepy man come up to you and say in English, "Hey, do you want some hasheesh?" He may even then whip out a sample for you to see. Just like when you're accused of being a spy, this is another time when you just have to pretend like you only speak Japanese and you have no idea what he's saying (have I written about how I've had to explain to so many people that neither my mom nor my dad are from Japan?).

And sheep feet...

Yeah, I ate one. I wasn't really sure at the time. I had a suspicion, but I wasn't really sure. The meat was just in a strange shape and there were a lot of bones. It was kind of like leather. It wasn't very good. I probably won't eat it again...but it was a good experience...I think.

That's all for now. I have a lot of homework to do--write about some terrorist organization in Algeria and about the future of space exploration. Guess which one I'm really excited about...

Have a happy Monday!


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