It’s not often I extol the virtues of my home state. (Except when I talk about how Ohio is a microcosm for America, but no one ever seems to believe that, so I’ve stopped talking about that….also, not sure that’s necessarily a positive. I mean, I think it’s pretty cool, but usually when I bring it up, people say something like, “Who uses the word microcosm in ordinary conversation?”) Anyhow, if there’s one good thing about growing up in Ohio, it’s that it taught me to deal with rain. Back in the ‘Nati, it rained all the time. You just kind of learned to hike up your pants, grab an umbrella, and deal with possibly having wet pants for the rest of the day. People in the Gaf don’t really roll like that. They’re more like, “Oh, it’s raining. Let’s all stay inside and not have school or work or anything until the rain starts.” (This makes more sense if you know that there are a lot of farmers here, so they can’t really work in the rain….)
I’ve been waiting for nearly 3 weeks for Maroc Telecom to come fix my Internet, and Wednesday was supposed to be the day. I was walking around all day Tuesday in a haze of excitement. When I woke up at 2 AM Wednesday morning, I knew something was wrong and that after weeks of waiting, something was yet again to come between me and my beloved Internet. Seconds later, I heard the first clap of thunder. I resisted the urge to do something over-dramatic like call everyone I know to complain about the Internet or try to make a Grilled Cheesus to pray to. I just grabbed my sleeping bag, rolled over, and went back to sleep.
This is only the second time it’s seriously rained since I’ve been here (I know, right? Twice in six months?), so I was expecting that other than the massive disappointment that was my Internet not getting fixed, the day would otherwise be normal. I soon realized that would not be the case. I left my house at 9:30 for work as per the usual, and I had barely made it to the road before the tobis (15 passenger van that takes people between my town and the next town over) pulled over.
Tobis driver: What are you doing?!?
Me: Going to the youth center.
Tobis driver: What? Why?
Me: I do theater with the girls at 10:00 on Wednesdays.
Tobis driver: But it’s raining.
Me: Yes, it is raining a lot.
Tobis driver: Looks at me like I’m the dumbest person he’s ever met. But it’s raining.
After some awkward, confused silence, I hopped in. When I got there, the youth center was closed. No big. I sat down with my umbrella in the pouring rain and pulled out a book, preparing myself for a short wait until my mudir showed up. It took all of 5 seconds before an excited neighbor dragged me out of the rain.
Really sweet woman who I’ve never met before and whose name I’ve forgotten: Don’t sit in the rain! You’ll get sick and die!
Me: But I’m waiting for the girls to come so we can do theater.
RSWWINMBAWNIF: What?!? They won’t come. It’s raining!
Me: But it’s Wednesday.
RSWWINMBAWNIF: Come inside and drink tea!
Me: But then I won’t be able to see if they come or not, and they’ll think I’m not here because they don’t see me, so they’ll go back to the college and we won’t get to rehearse. (PS – Yeah, I know the word for rehearse in Arabic. I just learned that one last week.)
RSWWINMBAWNIF: Well, you come here and drink tea, and I’ll look at the window and tell you when the girls show up.
I couldn’t exactly turn down a deal like that, so I went into the house, had Breakfast – Round 2, and watched Pearl Harbor. Eventually the girls showed up and had their minds blown when they realized I had actually come even though it was raining. They ran off to get my mudir to open the door, and he was also shocked I had come to work in the rain. I tried to explain that where I come from in America, it rains a lot, so this is not a problem. They all kept looking at me like I was crazy, and then my mudir explained that there’s no school when it’s raining, so he just assumed I wouldn’t come into work, either. I had to LOL at the whole concept of canceling school for rain (if this had happened in Ohio, we would have gone to school like three days a week), but I guess to each his own.
Anyhow, after a couple of hours of hanging out with the girls/not really rehearsing anyway, I was ready to go back home. Everyone was all like, “You’re going home? But it’s raining. You should just stay here. You can stay at my house!” Again, I tried to explain that the rain is not a problem, but my mudir insisted that I wait for him to get his car and drive me home. I live 3 kilometers away and I’m lazy as hell, so this sounded pretty good to me. He drove me to the spot on the road closest to my road (my house is in a field). I “God bless your parents”-ed him and promptly stepped out of the car and into what turned out to be a 2 foot deep puddle of mud. All I could think was, “OMG, I just told them that rain isn’t a problem and that I could totally handle this, and then it takes me all of 2 seconds to get covered in mud.” But God must’ve felt guilty for screwing up my Internet because I got lucky and my mudir and his friend didn’t see me walk into the huge mud puddle. So I dragged myself home, caked in mud, and used the last of the water I had saved up to wash my leg. (Ironically, during all this rain, I haven’t had water at my house at all. Thankfully my neighbors left like 50 liters of water in our shared courtyard, so I haven’t died of dehydration yet.)
But yeah, since then, I’ve been trying not to leave my house lest I should step in another mud puddle and/or have Moroccans ask me why I’m outside in the rain. The rain continues, though it’s calmed down considerably. I’ve been pretty bored, as I’ve been entirely alone in my house for 2 days without Internet or TV or anything other than the trashy romance novels my sister bequeathed to me to keep me busy. Things I’ve done to fill my free time:
-Wrote this uber long blog post about a really unremarkable day
-Wrote a song about how sometimes chwiya is better than bzzaf. (When the Internet comes back, this song is totes going on YouTube, so tell your friends.)
-Whacked a kid in the face with my umbrella (purposely, but he had it coming).
-Tried to put up my mosquito net, failed, then tried again 10 hours later.
-Finally had Nutella crepes for breakfast!
But yeah, life without Internet or work is pretty rough. At least I have cheese and Nutella to help me get through this difficult time.
(In case anyone's wondering how I posted this when I claim not to have Internet - I had to travel 30 kilometers for this Internet. Still no news on when they're planning to fix the phone lines near my house.)
