Thursday

I have moved to Thursday. When the taxi was going to the town I was going to, and was going to Thursday, I thought nothing of it. Then, on the first Thursday I was in my new flat, my landlady said that the landlord had gone to Thursday. Right. Then I heard my lovely new Moroccan friend here tell some people that no, I didn’t live in the city anymore, I’d rented a place here in Thusday. So, the case is settled, I live in Thursday.

What I had been told that helped me make sense of this was that in each of the towns there is a big market one day of the week, and in this town, that day of the week is Thursday. So although I didn’t realise I was moving to Thursday when I moved here, because the town has a proper name too, I was able to work out (and I’ve checked this with people) that the town is known as Thursday because the market is on Thursday. Needless to say that the market is a big deal.

So if you are outside of Thursday and you go to Thursday that means that you are going to my town. If you are in my town and you say you’re going to Thursday that means you’re going to the market. Everyone goes to the market. So everything seems to revolve around Thursdays, and the market. It’s the day that people get off work (if they work in agriculture which most people do), it’s the day that they buy their food for the rest of the week. I should say we. It’s the day we buy our food, because I live in Thursday now.

Food isn’t the only thing at the market, but I think it is the main event. You have to go through the clothes and the stationary and the pots and pans to get to the food and everyone is headed for the food. Let’s take fruit for example. At the moment you can get apples and bananas (grown in greenhouses too nearby), the last of the grapes, the odd melon, and oranges and pomegranates. The oranges are small and green so I would have thought they were limes if I hadn’t eaten one the other day. Very nice. My taste-buds feared the acid of a lime but got the sweetness of a small orange. Not even the bland taste of a nectarine. Orange it was called and orange it was.

What else do we need to know about Thursdays? Well, there is no water. I think this is quite an important detail. On my second day here last week I mentioned that the water had been off for several hours and my landlady said (you guessed it), “yes, that’s because it’s Thursday”. Whenever too many people are trying to use the water at once it cuts off, but on Thursdays it seems everyone higher up the water-chain is using the water because it doesn’t come back until about 10pm.

Things have changed now I’ve moved to Thursday. I am now the only foreigner in town and so getting extra special care and attention, in both good and annoying ways.  Although I haven’t changed, the Morocco around me has, and that’s changed me in it. While the me in Morocco in Rabat was comfortable walking around with a modest pony-tail, and covering my hair would have made me feel like a fraud, the me here fits in a bit better with the pony-tail under a scarf. There doesn’t seem to be anything fraudulent about it. Apparently the baby downstairs was afraid of my hair. So covering it doesn’t feel like wearing a cross if you’re not a Christian any more. It feels more like taking your shoes off in someone’s house when that’s what they do. Things have shifted a little and I need to fit in a bit more here in order to be comfortable, and for others to be comfortable with me.

What was that I heard someone in some seminar say? Meaning is subjective. Maybe that’s the research moral I’m dragging out of this…. What does Thursday mean? Well it looks like it depends where you are, doesn’t it? And the headscarf? Well, right now for me it means I get a few less cat-calls and the baby downstairs looks slightly less frightened.