Moroccan Cards and Taxi Drivers' Brothers
Moroccan cards is the best game ever. I play with my neighbors and the mirth (yeah, I just used that word) that accompanies this distant cousin of "go fish" is incredible. So you can recreate this game at home, here are the basics:
First, there is the deck of cards- it is intentionally bent in half. Yes this makes shuffling near impossible and also makes it really hard to deal when the cards look like little tents, but none the less, a good deck of cards is thoroughly creased through the middle…
Speaking of cards, it is important to note that there is no 8 or 9 in this magical deck. There is no reason for this but again, it seems to be a defining characteristic… and no it's not that the deck we used happened to be missing the 8s and 9s. They are just never included.
So basically everyone gets four cards and one by one throws one card onto the table forcefully. The force with which you throw the card is directly proportional to how much you laugh during your turn. Some variations include forcefully throwing down the card and calling out the number, also a popular one is to throw down your card and yell "hek" (here ya go). Should you (forcefully) throw down a number that has already been (forcefully) thrown down, you get to keep them plus any consecutive number that is also there. Keeping in mind that if you get a pair of 7s, you can also pick up a 10 because there are no 8s and 9s. So that's the game. I plan on bringing it back to the states to perplex you guys. There is really no skill involved, other than the force with which you throw down your cards… Oh Morocco.
So I had what I thought was a very uncharacteristically smooth sequence of events last week. I lost my phone. I left it in a taxi, but realized pretty promptly and called it and the taxi driver picked up and we arranged a place to meet so he could give it back (okay it wasn't quite that smooth, he didn't speak French so he passed the phone around to 15 dudes when I called until one could figure out whatI was saying… and then he called the first arab name in my phonebook and confirmed the plan with him who called me back). But yeah, smooth, he was only half an hour late for the drop off too but when I called he answered and told me he was coming and we even conversed in arabic for 43 seconds! When I looked at my call history, yes he did make some calls on my phone but then he RECHARGED it! So I didn't lose any minutes either! Whoa. I was so incredibly proud of this exchange and it totally restored my faith that not everything here has to be really difficult. For those of you who want to end on this happy positive note, skip the next paragraph…
Okay, so the catch came about 2 hours later when I got a phone call from a number I didn't recognize. It ended up being the taxi driver's brother who called 'just to chat'. Apparently his kind brother passed my phone number on. I thought it was a little weird but chalked it up to 'maybe he was involved in the scampering of frarabic translations and just wanted to check up to be sure the transaction worked'. Then he called again later that night. I programmed his number into my phone under the name "DO NOT ANSWER" and continued to receive numerous calls from him in the next few days. Then came the text messages. He very nicely invited me to dinner and to come meet his family or to go sightseeing… which might have beennice if I had EVER MET HIM! What made him think that getting a phone number from his brother from a phone lost in a cab was an appropriate means of meeting a girl? Is this an appropriate channel for hitting on someone? It's just ridiculous. I finally sent him back a text message that said that my husband and I have left the country (so future calls will be expensive and long distance). And that was the end of 'do not answer'.
In Fes I had a taxi driver who picked me up at the train station and was supposed to take me somewhere and only took me half way and told me to get out of the cab. It was so annoying! He just stopped next to a bunch of people waiting for a cab and told me my ride was finished and let them get in. Grrrr. Can you do that?
Another one of my cab drivers was a Marxist anthropologist. That made for interesting cab conversation.
I'd say my most storyful interactions are with taxi drivers… such aweird breed here. There will be many more to come I'm sure. Until then, enjoy the holiday spirit and the fact that where you are you can leave your house in a hoodie and comfy pants without your doorman asking you if your going to work out... People care about their appearances here and I don't fit in. Boo. At least if I look like a bum they may stop assuming I'm a prostitute.
First, there is the deck of cards- it is intentionally bent in half. Yes this makes shuffling near impossible and also makes it really hard to deal when the cards look like little tents, but none the less, a good deck of cards is thoroughly creased through the middle…
Speaking of cards, it is important to note that there is no 8 or 9 in this magical deck. There is no reason for this but again, it seems to be a defining characteristic… and no it's not that the deck we used happened to be missing the 8s and 9s. They are just never included.
So basically everyone gets four cards and one by one throws one card onto the table forcefully. The force with which you throw the card is directly proportional to how much you laugh during your turn. Some variations include forcefully throwing down the card and calling out the number, also a popular one is to throw down your card and yell "hek" (here ya go). Should you (forcefully) throw down a number that has already been (forcefully) thrown down, you get to keep them plus any consecutive number that is also there. Keeping in mind that if you get a pair of 7s, you can also pick up a 10 because there are no 8s and 9s. So that's the game. I plan on bringing it back to the states to perplex you guys. There is really no skill involved, other than the force with which you throw down your cards… Oh Morocco.
So I had what I thought was a very uncharacteristically smooth sequence of events last week. I lost my phone. I left it in a taxi, but realized pretty promptly and called it and the taxi driver picked up and we arranged a place to meet so he could give it back (okay it wasn't quite that smooth, he didn't speak French so he passed the phone around to 15 dudes when I called until one could figure out whatI was saying… and then he called the first arab name in my phonebook and confirmed the plan with him who called me back). But yeah, smooth, he was only half an hour late for the drop off too but when I called he answered and told me he was coming and we even conversed in arabic for 43 seconds! When I looked at my call history, yes he did make some calls on my phone but then he RECHARGED it! So I didn't lose any minutes either! Whoa. I was so incredibly proud of this exchange and it totally restored my faith that not everything here has to be really difficult. For those of you who want to end on this happy positive note, skip the next paragraph…
Okay, so the catch came about 2 hours later when I got a phone call from a number I didn't recognize. It ended up being the taxi driver's brother who called 'just to chat'. Apparently his kind brother passed my phone number on. I thought it was a little weird but chalked it up to 'maybe he was involved in the scampering of frarabic translations and just wanted to check up to be sure the transaction worked'. Then he called again later that night. I programmed his number into my phone under the name "DO NOT ANSWER" and continued to receive numerous calls from him in the next few days. Then came the text messages. He very nicely invited me to dinner and to come meet his family or to go sightseeing… which might have beennice if I had EVER MET HIM! What made him think that getting a phone number from his brother from a phone lost in a cab was an appropriate means of meeting a girl? Is this an appropriate channel for hitting on someone? It's just ridiculous. I finally sent him back a text message that said that my husband and I have left the country (so future calls will be expensive and long distance). And that was the end of 'do not answer'.
In Fes I had a taxi driver who picked me up at the train station and was supposed to take me somewhere and only took me half way and told me to get out of the cab. It was so annoying! He just stopped next to a bunch of people waiting for a cab and told me my ride was finished and let them get in. Grrrr. Can you do that?
Another one of my cab drivers was a Marxist anthropologist. That made for interesting cab conversation.
I'd say my most storyful interactions are with taxi drivers… such aweird breed here. There will be many more to come I'm sure. Until then, enjoy the holiday spirit and the fact that where you are you can leave your house in a hoodie and comfy pants without your doorman asking you if your going to work out... People care about their appearances here and I don't fit in. Boo. At least if I look like a bum they may stop assuming I'm a prostitute.
posted by Laura | 12:39 PM
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