Will You Marry Me?

I was happy to attend Mass at the Catholic church in Marrakech this past weekend. On the vast majority of the days I've spent here in Morocco, I haven't knowingly interacted with other Christians. Consequently here in Morocco I often crave spiritual community and fellowship with other Christians. Given my usual lack of interaction with other Christians, I'm grateful whenever I get to worship in a church.

In addition to getting to worship in a church, I was also happy to hear the choir there in that church. Although I'd attended Mass at the Catholic church in Marrakech before this past weekend, I'd never heard the choir there. I so enjoyed hearing them sing, since they sounded so light and free, so joyous and celebratory. After the Sunday morning service, I asked about the origins of the music. They had been singing songs from a variety of locations, including the Congo.

After the service, the priest said that there were a couple of announcements. Then a Frenchman who was in one of the front pews walked up to the lectern. He spoke for a short time in French, and when he stopped speaking, I heard some of the female choir members up in the balcony gasp. He had just asked his girlfriend to marry him. The choir erupted briefly into apparently spontaneous song. Once they had finished singing, she walked up to the altar and the priest blessed their engagement.

When I had been in the church the previous day for the Saturday evening service, in the back of the church, I had seen photos of European couples getting married there in that church. When I arrived for Mass on Sunday morning, I saw rice scattered on the ground outside the church. I suppose I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was to hear his marriage proposal to her!

Getting News Reports as a PCV

When I'm in a Moroccan's home, the TV is usually on. When I go over to my site mate Stan's host family's home, the TV is always on. Sometimes we'll be watching a telecast of a musical performance in Arabic, or perhaps the Moroccan news, which is broadcast in either Arabic or in French.

Sometimes, though, when all of the members of the family happen to be out of the room, Stan will put on the BBC World News channel. Thus in the last week or so, we've gotten to watch news in English, which we've enjoyed. Recently on the BBC news channel, we watched coverage of Hurricane Irene making landfall in the USA.

I read news stories in English on the Internet when I'm in the cyber. As far as newspapers go, even when I'm traveling, most of the newspapers available are in Arabic, and the rest are in French. While I have gotten some news from French language newspapers, I've rarely done so, since I only do so when traveling to and through large cities.

When the Dar Chebab (youth center), where I do most of my volunteering, is open, the moudir (director) often watches news broadcasts on his computer, which include video footage, which I sometimes watch with him. However, those broadcasts, being on Al Jazeera, don't convey much information to me, since they are in Arabic, so I understand virtually nothing of what is being said in them.

Until Stan and I recently watched the BBC news, I hadn't thought of how I rarely watch video news coverage in English in the cyber. It's interesting how sometimes I don't realize that a particular thing has been missing from my life until I re-encounter it. It makes me start to think about what we habitually do in our lives, which it turns out we don't miss once it's gone, and which therefore perhaps we don't actually need...