Couscous is the national food of Morocco. It's an amazing dish with vegetables and meat and several spices (including saffron!) that you eat from a common plate around a table. Typically you eat it with your hands by rolling/smushing the food into a ball in your hands and flicking it into your mouth, but a lot of people now eat it with spoons. It's also customary to eat this meal on Fridays, have fruit for dessert, wash it all down with mint tea, and then take a nice, long nap.
I (Ben) was asked to eat couscous yesterday with a Moroccan friend whom I met while playing soccer with some other friends. Another guy and I went to this friend's house, and we enjoyed a wonderful meal. I've had lunch with these guys once before, and both times after we've eaten we've all talked for a little while afterwards and then fallen asleep. It's pretty funny (in the sense that it's so different from our culture and customs) to wake up from an hour-long nap with a bunch of other guys you've basically just met. I'm always worried that I snored or something.
While I was doing this, Ashley was able to join some other friends for (another) lunch of American food. One of her Moroccan friends is going to be a Fullbright scholar in the U.S. teaching Arabic, and so Ashley went to a lunch to talk about the part of the U.S. where she'll be teaching. The girls, however, never take naps like the boys...they talk and dance instead. They're missing out!
Sorry that we don't have any pictures to post today. We forgot our camera for both lunches. Thanks for following our blog...we're so appreciative of our friends!
