On Monday we wanted to get to a grocery where we could buy a few specific food items. A “western” style grocery. Rumor had it that there was a carefour in town but I couldn’t find it on google. And if it’s not on google…. I did find a grocery via google. It was in the basement of a mall at the Twin Center. Two 28 story office buildings in a part of the city we had not yet visited. We joined up with Lois Olson who was on a similar mission, and caught a cab. The grocery was fine. Had everything we wanted. The mall was a bust. We didn’t find anything interesting. Kathy and I took our bags of groceries and caught a cab back to the ship, with chocolate, soy milk, cheese and crackers, sparkling mineral water, etc.
In the evening we went to a local family’s house for dinner. The father is Berber and Arab, the mother is from Pennsylvania. They met at a school in Morocco. At that point she spoke no Arabic and he spoke no English. They courted in French. Many (most?) people in Morocco speak both Arabic and French. Many also speak on of the three major dialects of Berber. English is not as popular, but not rare. The children in this family are tri-lingual.
We had big platters of couscous for dinner. They usually have a common serving dish but separate plates but to give us the “traditional” feel, we all ate off the common plate. Of course they brought more food than we could have eaten in two days, but we gave it our best shot. I loaned my camera to his daughter and she took some of these pictures. After dinner, a sister and a niece offered to draw henna tattoos.
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- Taxi ride to Twin Center
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- Twin Center
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- Large modern grocery
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- Checking out Zara with marketing prof Olson
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- Dinner – cute kids
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- Our host
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- Couscous piled with veggies and chicken
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- Henna tattoos
