I got a cold from my friend Abdelhadi.
As
I declined, he perked up with, "Does this mean I am contagious?"
I didn't share his joy in using a new vocabulary word.
As it turned out, things went from bad to worse with the cold.
I missed three and a half days of school.
I had fever, headache, body aches and the Soufidis (my landlord's
family).
There is nothing quite
like Moroccan mothering.
It goes
way beyond anything expected.
But, sometimes I wondered how I got any sleep.
The first day that they noticed that I was sick, they came to my room to
check on me. By "they" I mean my
landlord, his wife, all four children and anyone else who might have been in
their apartment. They brought me
orange juice. Later, breakfast.
Again, lunch. And, coffee
in the afternoon. They brought
me supper and even cleaned the whole apartment.
Yes, it was a mess, but I was sick!
They picked up my clothes, washed all the dishes and even mopped the
floor. They were simply
amazing. They took care of me
the whole time I was sick (but I made sure the apartment only needed
cleaning the one time).
Abdelhadi brought me a bouquet of red carnations.
He said when you are sick, you need to see flowers.
Then, the Soufidis saw flowers near my bed and quickly whisked them
off to the kitchen. I couldn't
catch all of the reasoning but there was talk of flowers being dangerous in
an enclosed room. They
supposedly took away the oxygen supply.
Sounds like a Moroccan wives' tale to me.
I figured I could live with them in the other room as long as the
Soufidis took care of me.
The
worst part was I had a headache that just didn't want to end.
Aspirin didn't help.
Abdelhadi went to a pharmacy to get something else.
It made me want to vomit.
(I didn't take any more of that stuff.)
Finally, Abdelhadi decided that it was time for a Moroccan treatment.
He brought the goodies to Mrs. Soufidi and she prepared the
treatment. The "goodies" were a
mystery herb that looked sort of like parsley, a few onions, cloves and
vinegar. These were ground in a
mortar to make a sort of paste.
What did they do with the paste?
Well, they wrapped it in a cloth around my head and left it on for the
night. It smelled awful.
While applying it, Mrs. Soufidi dribbled the stuff all over me.
I mumbled, "Barakalofik, Hamara."
(Translation: The blessings of God be upon you, donkey.)
It was such an unexpected insult in Arabic that they laughed about it
all night and the next day.
I experienced this home remedy but I can't honestly say it worked.
By the time I got it, I was nearly recovered.
However, I didn't want to pass up on this Moroccan experience.
Besides, I'm not sure I would have been allowed to say no anyway.