“These are the dates of Muhammed” my house keeper says to
me, eyes beaming, and points at a paper bowl filled with silky brown
dates. The skins are smooth and
wrinkled.
“And this is water from the Zam Zam fountain. In Mecca, I prayed to Allah that you would
have a baby” she continues, cradling her stomach. “Each morning, for seven days you should eat two dates and
drink the Zam Zam water and ask Allah for a baby.” She finishes, shyly motioning for me to eat my first date.
I offer a short Bismillah
before popping a date into my mouth and smile as I chew the delicious
caramel center and then spit out the seed.
We’ve been gone from Morocco now for almost a month. Leaving the people we have come to love
was much harder than I realized it would be. We’ll see our American colleagues again somewhere in the
world, but will I ever see Hassan, our toothless door man who once avenged us
in a knife fight outside our apartment?
Will I ever learn if our housekeeper Rashida’s daughter graduates from
her Architecture program and gets to design large buildings? Will I know if my colleague and friend
Abdellah ever lets his little Rayan get a dog? What about Bader, Mohamed, Smiley Jihad, The Professor, and
Samedi from my book club? Will I
ever hear if they continue to study English and visit America someday?
Maybe.
Probably not.
I know that loosing
after working so hard to find is part of our life, but it has been good
to grieve. To love our time in
Morocco for what it was, to mourn its end, and to look forward to our next post
with enthusiasm. I’m sure keeping
that level of excitement for what’s next in balance with sadness for what’s
gone is a constant struggle in the Foreign Service.
Back in my Casablanca kitchen I washed Muhammed’s date down
with a few swigs of water from the Zam Zam well. It is said the well miraculously formed after Abraham’s
infant son Ishmael cried in the wilderness for water. After being expelled, his mother Hagar wandered the deserts
of Arabia until she discovered the spring, a gift from Allah that has never run
dry.
Despite my strict adherence to the date diet, we are not
pregnant. But maybe Rashida’s
blessing is more about the consistency of Hagar’s hope than Sarah’s biblical
miracle. Since being home we have
selected and met with an adoption agency to start the adoption process in
Ethiopia. We’ve faced the time and
financial realities of International adoption, felt duly and tremendously
discouraged, but then, somehow, felt that cloud retreat as we move forward.
We have one more week at home in Utah before heading to DC for a few months of training where the cycle of pack, move, unpack, start job, make friends, make home, make life starts over again. Right now, our hopes are high.
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| On our last day in Morocco my housekeeper Rashida helped get my hands hennaed. |
