The Pay-As-You-Go Moroccan Wedding





The costs of a Muslim wedding fall to the groom and his family, not to the bride and her family. In Morocco, wedding planning includes food, musicians, waiters...sounds familiar, right?  Once the prices have been negotiated and the money has been paid, it's time to enjoy the event?  Wrong.  All the money spent beforehand seems to have nothing to do with the amount the family is expected to spend while the ceremony is going on.

 

Here is an example: wedding singers accompany the groom, his family, and his gifts to the bride through the streets to the tent where the bride and guests await.  Each of the singers, perhaps 4, 6, or 8 of them, expect 20, 50 or 100 dirham bills will be places into their shirt collars several times along the route.

 

The Moroccan wedding singers are in the foreground.  One of the musicians is seated behind and one of the wedding ladies is the green dress

 

Pay each of the musicans liberally throughout the evening.  And all of the waiters as they bring and remove each course.

 





Don't forget the guys who may herald the approach of the wedding couple, and who will carry the bride and groom on their shoulders while doing a little dance step of their own.  Money in the collars right now, please.  After all, they are holding your child in the air.

 

 

They carry the groom on their shoulders throughout the tent while turning and waving their capes in time to the music

 

 

Pay the wedding ladies, or neggafates, who dress the bride through all of her dress changes and make sure every fold and drape and line on both the bride and the groom is perfect for picture-taking.

 

 

The wedding lady arranges the brides dress just so





Satisfied, she moves to the rear so the bride can be held aloft.

 

Then there's the photographer, the videographer...am I leaving anybody out?

 

You may as well be good-natured about it all.  You can't be stingy.  The denominations are color-coded so everyone can see at a glance how much you're shelling out.

 

Besides, the guests are free to stick money in collars, and they do.  They also compliment each other by giving money the same way to other guests who cut a fine figure on the dance floor. 

 

Relax.  Enjoy.  Dance.  Eat.  Get into as many of the pictures being taken as you can.  Just bring several thousand dhirham with you.  In small bills.

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 



Two Moroccan Marriage Proposals

Recently I was the recipient of  2 marriage proposals.  One was made jokingly by a 70+ year old grandfather with a wizened face and a twinkle in his eye. He suggested I pay him $4,000 American dollars for the privilege of marrying him and to support his hefty drinking habit (that was part of the joke-he doesn't drink).   In return, he would divorce his equally aged wife (a minor detail). I would get not only him, but also his donkey (bonus points).

There was also a suggestion by another family member that since I have the space, the grandfather could move in with me. The donkey could have my the spare bedrooom.  But I'll skip that part.

The second proposal went like this: if I give him the money I that I would spend anyway on a year's rent, I could marry a construction worker who lives in the countryside.   He earns about 80 dirhams or roughly $10.00 a day.  This little bit of money would allow for a diet of mostly bread and tea.

The first proposal was funny; the second one was just sad.  Both underscore the perception here that all Americans are rich. That perception makes it difficult to ascertain real motives when it comes to marriage proposals.

Money, Money, Money, Money, Money

A 20-dirham bill.  (from Wikipedia.org)

Learning about Moroccan money has been easy.  Learning how to spend it has been hilariously difficult.   Coins as well as bills are stamped with their denomination. So a coin stamped with 10 would be the equivalent of a dime as it takes 10 of them to make a dirham. A 50 rial coin is one-half of a dirham.  So I thought, "ok, that's simple enough".  And it is.

When it comes time to actually spend the money, though, that's when the problems start. Imagine going out to shop and having the price of everything given to you in nickels or in 50-cent pieces. Or in dirhams.  Aha! Now you see where the difficulty lies.  I have absolutely no clue as to why pricing is so...flexible, but there it is.

In the suq, or open-air markets, I will be asked for mia, or a hundred nickels, which is 5 dirham's worth of vegetables.  Mia mia is 10 dirhams. Maybe the vendor will combine units of nickels and dirhams: miasteen is a hundred nickels and 3 dirhams for a total of 8 dirhams. On the other hand, I can go to a hanute, one of the neighborhood stores, and the shopkeeper may ask for 72 rial or half-dirhams, which is 36 dirhams. 

How do I manage this confusing system? I can ask for all prices in dirhams, of course, but where's the fun in that?  It's like cheating. Besides, I want to figure this out. 

I have come up with some subtle methods to help. Sometimes I will turn to a companion and have her hold up her fingers as if I were a little kid.  Or hand her some money and let her pick out the right amount. Often I will have a general idea of the total and give what I hope is a larger denomination than the actual price, so I can get change back and figure the cost in reverse.

I'm starting to get the hang of it now. But sometimes, boy, I wish I had more fingers.