My favorite Ramadramedy: Aqba Lik

Television has been a constant presence since I got here, and Moroccans in the bled tend to watch an extraordinary amount of TV.  Or at least they have it on a lot.  The vast majority of houses in even the most remote locations are equipped with satellite receivers and get dozens or even hundreds of channels, mostly from the Arabic-speaking world but lots of other places too.  It's not that surprising, given that there isn't much else available for accessible, fun, and free entertainment.  I've mostly done my best to tune it out, or at least pay attention only when socially expedient.  Most Moroccan-produced TV shows are in Darija, the evening news is in French, but there is a body of Tashlheet programming, much of which of which is set in the bled and folkloric in nature.  Unfortunately, most of it is of extremely poor quality, and once the novelty of hearing Tash spoken on TV wears off, barely worth paying attention to, other than for the purposes of working on language.  And there are so many better ways to practice language.

For Ramadan, the networks have unleashed a slew of new programs that air every night for a month, presumably trying to capture the audience that's at home with family every evening breaking the fast.  One of these is called Aqba Lik, and I'm absolutely hooked on it.  It's a half hour comedy-drama about a single professional woman named Fatima-Zahra who works for a website (I think) called PUNISH! in Casablanca, and the colorful friends and co-workers she deals with as she looks for love, or whatever it is she's looking for.  I actually have no idea, because the show is in Arabic (with healthy dollop of French), but that hasn't stopped me from being thoroughly captivated every night.  There are obvious lifts from shows like The Office and Sex & The City, but the production values and quality/subtlety of the actors is unlike anything else I've seen on Moroccan TV.  It's fun to watch it with my host family, esp. my sisters, as the version of Moroccan life portrayed couldn't be more different from theirs if it took place in America, or on the moon.  Fatima-Zahra lives alone, doesn't cover her head, works outside the home, socializes freely with both sexes, goes on dates, drinks, you name it.  I know I'd be getting a lot more out of it if I understood more than 10% of the dialogue, so if anyone else has seen this show and can fill me in, I'd appreciate it.

I've found precious little about the show online, but there are some complete episodes available, like this one here: The 2nd episode.

The best part is the theme song, an irresistible jazzy, Motown-flavored thing that my sisters sing along with every night.

Ramadan, Day 1

13 August

Coming back to site from Agadir (short weekend after two weeks of PPST training in Ouarzazate), transportation was becoming difficult.  We traveled on Monday, Ramadan about to begin on Thursday, and already every stop the bus would make was like an incitement to riot.  Happy to be back in site before that madness peaked.

And then…not with a bang, but a whimper.  I stayed up very late on Wednesday hoping to sleep as late as possible into Thursday, knowing there wouldn’t be any breakfast or lunch.  (I’m still with my host family, by the way, of course the new house was not finished before Ramadan and probably next-to-nothing will happen with it over the next month now.  This was my biggest fear and was also completely inevitable.) Stepping out of my room into this strange new world that we’ve been preparing for since we first got here, all I could notice was how strangely quiet it was.  No kids playing in the street, no sound of work or activity coming from anywhere.  It felt like a bomb had gone off in the stratosphere—people were just lying on the ground wherever they happen the fall, conserving energy.  No work to be done and no fuel to do it with.  People shuffled around like zombies when they moved at all.

Around noon, my sister insisted on making me a light brunch of eggs and tea, despite my repeated insistence not too.  I didn’t plan to fast and my family knew this, but I certainly didn’t intend to have them cooking for me while they were fasting.  I had just received a big CARE package full snacks and goodies from my mom that would keep me from starving to death for a few weeks, and I was perfectly content to just nibble on that stuff ‘til dark.  Then again, if the young kids who normally live here (they’re away on summer visits right now) were around, they wouldn’t be fasting either and my sisters would be cooking for them, so I can justify it that way.

We broke fast around 7:45 with fresh local dates (from our own fields), askif (soup), and aghom n zit (a donut-like fried bread that you dip in honey—delicious), and got full to bursting just on those.  The usual dinner followed a couple hours later, but I was still completely full from “breakfast.”  The rest of my family woke up again around 3:30 in the morning to have another meal as close as possible to the start of the next fast.  It’s going to be an interesting month.