A Saturday Thanksgiving in Morocco

A turkey in Morocco

We had to wait until Saturday, and our little group did not include all of the American Muslims in Marrakech, but we had our own Turkey Day here.   Why would we acknowledge a secular holiday like Thanksgiving Day in Morocco? The answer is simple: the food. 

Everyone who came brought something. I made the macaroni and cheese.  Our hostess made a 30 pound turkey. It was the biggest turkey I have ever seen. There were 2 chocolate cakes, apple crisp and pumpkin pie.  There was mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, green beans, salad, enormous dinner rolls, oranges, deviled eggs, Craisins (as close as we could get to cranberry sauce), and 3 kinds of soda.  

Thanks to the internet, the 4 guys watched the previously unseen (by them) Packers vs Lions football game on television. The 7 kids played outside.  It was about 73 degrees.  There were a couple of American Muslim women I met for the first time. There were 6 women in all. We spent about 3 hours getting to know each other and talking about cultural differences and similarities, healthcare, and education in both America and Morocco.

Any occasion, excuse or opportunity for us to be together, sharing the experiences and journeys that brought us to a live in a Muslim country is something to be thankful for.  Especially when the occasion involves stuffing.


  

Outdoor Ramadan Prayers

 photo from Wikipedia

I have a favorite mosque that I like to walk to for taraweh, the extra prayers said each night during Ramadan. The mosque has a large courtyard and takes up a small block. The streets are blocked off so that counting inside the mosque, courtyard and surrounding streets, there are about 4,000 people attending the prayers. I love to pray there, always outside, as the night breezes begin to cool the city.  It is about half a mile from my house, though, and this year I simply did not have the energy to trek there and back again after fasting 16 hour days in triple-digit heat.

There is another large mosque just 3 blocks away, but it has no courtyard and just as I expected, the first night I went there it was miserably hot inside.  Still, I wanted to make taraweh at the mosque rather than alone at home. The taraweh prayers are optional, as is going to the mosque to say them.  But the beauty of the rectitation and the spiritual energy of crowd in the cooling air was something I craved. The next night I resolved to just take my time and get to the further mosque.

That evening I left the house with a trashbag in hand.  On the way to the dumpster the bag leaked all over my hands and feet.  I stopped at a store and bought a bottle of water and rinsed myself off on the sidewalk.  I was nearly at the mosque when I realized I'd left the stool on which I sit for prayer on the sidewalk where I'd bought the water.  I hurried back, praying my stool was where I'd left it.  It was, but by then I knew I was late.

I reluctantly started to go to mosque where I'd have to pray inside.  That's when I made a wonderful discovery.  This smaller mosque faced a busy boulevard, but the back of it open onto a small side street that was blocked off. I never took this route past this smaller mosque on the way to the larger one  during Ramadan, and so I had never seen the people praying outside. But here they were.

From the chain of events starting with that leaking trash bag, Allah led me to a Ramadan mercy. I could pray close to home and still be outside after all.  

The Sound of One Friday in Marrakech

from Wikipedia

I cannot explain the power of the adhan.

I awaken  when it's time for fajr,  the before-dawn prayer. The still morning air is carrying the overlapping sound of adhan from mosques near and far away.  The multiple calls to prayer serve as a gentle and peaceful start of the day.  But I am not quite awake yet.  In 15 or 20 minutes, I hear the prayer over the loudspeaker, and the soft recitation of Quran draws me from my bed to go and make my own morning prayer.

I  hear the adhan again around noon, reminding me that today is Jummah, Friday, and the Jummah prayer will start in one hour.  Time to wrap up Muslims all over to wrap up business, studies, play or sleep, and get ready to go to the mosque.  And sure enough, an hour later comes the first of three successive adhans.  Three adhans.  There is no mistaking the importance of this weekly prayer.

Today the first adhan is almost crisp, business-like.  Time for prayer.  Get to the mosque now.  The second adhan is so full of pleading and remorse that it nearly stops me in midstep.  Regrets pile upon my shoulders and bend my back.  There is just so much, so much to ask forgiveness for.  The third adhan soars to the heavens with longing.  Almost painfully, my whole being  resonates with the need to follow the sound of that final adhan up and into paradise.