She (let's call her Princess Leia, due to PCV rules about privacy, security, et al.) and I sat next to each other on the bus, both of us holding a hundred dirhams in our hands and prepared to pay for our bus seats. After travelling back and forth from my site to Errachidia, I know that the price is fifteen dirhams for each each. The man comes to our seats and takes my hundred dirham note and gives me back seventy.
"No, I need fifteen more dirhams." I said.
"Ticket to your village is thirty dirhams total."
"No, we aren't together." I said, surprisingly forceful.
"You are sitting next to each other. You two are married."
"No." She finally said, brandishing her hundred dirham note like a gun. "We are not married. I pay for my own. We go to different cities."
"You two Americans are so crazy." he says, to the laughter of the bus.
"It's okay," Princess Leia said, "I'll just owe you fifteen dirhams. He thought we were married."
I sat there, fuming, and then I realized why I got angry so quickly - I didn't even take the time to think about whether he thought we were married, but rather I immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was just trying to rip off two foreigners to get more money. But for some reason, that thought, too, unsettled me. Is it because I don't want people to have a false notion of who I am? Is it because I don't want my identity to be wrapped up in another person, and that association being the only thing someone knows about me? Granted, we are known by the company that we keep, but still, it was unsettling that living here, just because a man and a woman sit next to each other, it is automatically assumed that they are married.
I got back to my site and started walking around. I managed to speak with the president of our association here, and we started to walk around the town, where I met more of the men of the village and even was shown a potential house to rent. While in the village, I am used to dealing with only men, though - my lack of arbitrary language skills keeps our conversations to the point - and the few times that I have dealt with women have always been very limited. I wonder if after two years, this is going to affect the way that I deal with women back home?
That is definitely one thing I miss about American culture - the ability to associate with women. But right now, I am in the mood to ramble, so let's go further with this; let's look at both sides.
I have always found it easier to associate with women than with men - I'm not good at memorizing sports statistics or feigning interest in The Super Bowl or The World Series or The World Cup, nor am I adept at navigating the constant haranguing of each other that characterizes so many interactions between men trying to establish themselves as the Alpha Male. Granted, it is people in general that I find it difficult to connect with - sometimes it is even to the point where when I deal with people, I feel like I am not really there, or that there is an invisible glass wall between us and we can't really touch. But at least, when I deal with women I don't feel as obligated to prove myself to them.
But in Morocco, I deal with almost exclusively men. I don't understand a lot of what they say - and maybe that's the reason I don't feel like I need to prove myself now - but the culture that encourages this separation of the sexes seems interesting to me. The fact that some women walk around in coverings that don't allow me to see their faces, that some women stay inside, that some women won't really talk to me, it just makes me feel like in a way, they aren't supposed to be seen, like the goings on of the world are meant to be experienced by only the men. But then I go home and I see how my host mom and dad interact with each other and I can see a completely different dynamic. The women make the meals, the women interact with each other while the men are gone. The women find out the goings on of the community and tell it to their husbands at day's end.
It's like the world here is a ticking clock, and Morocco, there is an enormous face on the clock with innumerable hands - each of the hands are the men. But inside the clock is the gears, the things that make the surface of the clock actually move. The women are the gears that make the clock go, but the gears and the hands never touch. In America, that used to be the case, but now, America could be thought of as a Mobius strip in regards to women and men. The roles of women and men are no longer clearly defined, and this allows everyone to connected to each other in some form or another. But if a part of the Mobius Strip is destroyed, it is gone.
So we have two issues at stake here. In Morocco, the roles are clearly defined, and so it is easier to find your place in a culture and your role to keep it going. However, this makes two distinct worlds - one of women and one of men, leaving little room for individual growth. In America, the relaxation of gender roles allows individual growth, but a more chaotic society that can be a bit more confusing to keep working well.
I know that there are many worlds beneath the surface one - worlds of race and class and sex and education - but just speaking from a gender point of view and the abilities to associate with whom you choose, I can't help but wonder if men and women here wish they could look around the other side of the clock face. Likewise, I wonder if the men and women of America ever wish they had another side to look to and wonder about.
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