NYU Black Renaissance Noire Summer/Fall 2010 | Page 17

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Victor Hernandez Cruz riding a camel.

16

It is time for co?ee and Mina suggests we walk out of the old
city into the new part of Mohammed V Avenue and head
towards her favorite café, The Majestic. Throngs of people
scurry about. From a bird’s eye view, it must all look like a
demonstration down the street. When we get to the popular
café, no table is available so we have to wait. We go browsing
in a bookstore next door. All French literature is available
without any censorship. We see books by Tahar Ben Joullen,
Mohammed Choukri, even an English section with Penguin
English classic paperbacks, Edgar Allen Poe, Robinson Crusoe
by Daniel Defoe, some Henry Miller. There is a rich variety
of titles, including a small section of books in Spanish. Perhaps
there would be prohibitions of certain titles in Arabic and
suppression of explicit sex material, but for the urban cultured
middle class everything seems to be available. After some
browsing we get back to the café where several tables have
cleared. We sit down and immediately observe a display of
juicy looking cakes known as gatos, chocolate, caramel, cream,
almonds, pastry of every kind, vivid colors. On another counter
petit pain, Danishes, croissants. Rows of breads and baguettes
were stacked behind it. We order two co?ees along with
petit pain and two strong aromatic cups show up. Co?ee in
Morocco is better than anything that I have experienced in
New York or Puerto Rico. There is no Starbucks, a pretentious
North American invention for a people not accustomed to
drinking co?ee traditionally. In the café, we listen to people
speak French and Arabic, hovering, sometimes code switching.

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The upper class intelligentsia speaks and writes French
while using the local Arabic as slang with family and friends.
Morocco is a bilingual country while Puerto Rico is still a
Spanish-speaking place in spite of its claims to Americanization.
A good example of this is that the King’s address to the
country will occur in Arabic, followed the next day by the same
address in French. This would not happen in Puerto Rico
because the Puerto Rican governor does not address the country
in English. In this sense, we are not a colony of the Americans,
but rather a United States territory, good mostly for commerce
and military. In the café, we see a mixture of upright people,
dressed in European clothing and con?dent postures, as well
as some women dressed in jellabas. It occurs to me that this is
a culture of highly developed protocol. Mina recognizes a
woman friend at another table, she goes over to say hello and
when she comes back I ?nd out that her friend is principal
of a local high school in Rabat. All around us I hear the word
sa?, a multifaceted word depending on how you use it and
somewhat like the national word of Morocco — it could mean
agreement, proceed or halt. Sa?: stop, sa?: keep going.
There is vale in Spanish, which means ‘worth’ and ‘value’, but
it could also be the opposite, vale: stop, vale: proceed. Vale,
validation, vale means yes and can also imply no. Over co?ee
and sweetness, Mina tells me that we should get back over to
Sale where she and her mother had been invited to a ganawa
gathering. She argues, it would be good for me to come along,
promising excitement, music and healing. We would eat
couscous there later that night.
We take bus number 42, headed toward Hay Salam, Sale.
The bus looks like it has been running since the 1950s.
This is because wasted busses from France get ?xed up and
shipped to North Africa for a few more years of service.
Eventually we are back at the house where we have mint tea
with almond cookies. Mina brings pictures of her as a
little girl and one stands out in particular. She is about eight,
all dressed up as a Berber girl, her lips painted red, and
with an elaborate head adornment. From a nearby house, we
hear young girls singing and clapping hands to the music of
the famous Egyptian singer Al Kathum. Every once in a
while, the girls ululate the unforgettable sound created by
the rolling of the tongue from side to side. Mina comments
that they do that a lot at weddings. We tangle our ?ngers
and enjoy a mini kiss, taking advantage of the momentary
privacy when Mina’s mother leaves to do something on the
terraza. As we hear the steps of her mother coming back,
Mina announces that she was going to the beauty parlor to get
ready for the evening ganawa festival. Gan