No, not me... the food poisoning wasn’t THAT bad (not that it was great or anything, but I’ll spare the details for the next Peace Corps get together, cus I’ve found that tales of unique digestive feats are a favorite Volunteer past time). My host mom, however, had to go in for a minor procedure on her arm her arm, though I’m not exactly sure what the problem was. My Arabic medical terminology is rather underdeveloped....
Thankfully, the procedure went very well, and I also got to experience a Moroccan hospital. Perhaps surprisingly, it was a perfectly hospital-y hospital, nothing like the image one may have cultivated imagining “a hospital in
What surprised me though was the “communal culture” aspect of the recovery room. When I entered the room with my host brother and five other friends who were there to visit Mama, I was surprised to see three other beds with three other women recovering from various sicknesses and procedures. All of them—with no curtains or dividers—were just relaxing in the open room. That in itself wouldn’t have been astonishing—it saves room, and none of the women seemed severely ailed—but what perplexed me was that our group didn’t end up just visiting Mama. We visited everybody. As we entered the room, everyone immediately fanned out, sitting at the feet of the other women’s beds, asking how they were feeling, even checking the forehead of one woman’s toddler who was seated in her lap with an iv in his arm. I was baffled because these were complete strangers, and in the
Somehow, when everyone else left to fetch some food for Mama, I ended up sticking around. I sat down at the foot of Mama’s bed—just me, Mama, and a bunch of veiled, middle aged Moroccan ladies in hospital beds (still accompanied by the cleaning-cats of course). Mama and I didn’t have much to talk about, mostly because my conversational Arabic runs out after a minute and a half with people who already know me because I can’t bank on my well practiced introductory phrases, though it was also because she was understandably tired. She looked quite discombobulated. After a few minutes, she got this far away look in her eye, like she was trying to remember if she had shut off the oven before she left home. Then she got a look of resolve as if she suddenly remembered what she needed to do. She proceeded to dig in a bag next to her bed, pull out a bag of cookies, hand them to me, and tell me to eat. I started to refuse, reminding her that SHE was the sick one. But then I recalled (from a lifetime of experience) that mothers—in times of uncertainty or crisis—have this wonderfully perplexing drive to care for OTHERS even if they’re the inflicted ones. I figured it was probably universal... and I was right. As I started to eat the cookies, Mama started to look much more settled.
After that, I just sat back and watched the recovery room dynamics. The women chatted across the room about their ailments, their children, and whether or not the others had seen how expensive the peas were at market this week. Then yet another patient meandered into the room, and everyone asked her about HER ailments. It all seemed like it would feel invasive and awkward to me, but for them it appeared to be a part of physical therapy. Plus there were none of those neat ceiling mounted TV’s in the room, so I guess one has to do something for entertainment.
Then of course, as it inevitably does, the entertainment shifted my direction. The women were understandably curious as to why there was a random foreigner visiting a sick Moroccan lady. Mama sleepily explained how I lived with her for a while, and that now I have a place by myself (cue the unanimous “By himself? Poor thing!” response). After that of course she had to tell them her favorite story of how I shouldn’t be living without her because when I tried to cook my first Moroccan “tagine,” I forgot to add oil. The room went into hooting hysterics (a long with more “Poor thing!” now partnered with “He needs to find a wife!”) It’s intriguing, because she never even has to FINISH the story and tell them about the charred smoking mess I ended up with. “And he forgot the oil!” is all the punch line she needs around other women. I was glad that my cooking ineptitude could at least serve to lift hospital spirits. In retrospect, it probably could have been even more effective if I would have wheeled Mama’s bed around from room to room as she shouted “And he forgot the oil!” through the entire hospital. We’d have had the whole place roaring.
Our crash comedy session was interrupted by the arrival of yet another hospital surprise. In strolled a quiet Asian man with glasses who was wearing a sweat shirt and slacks. He walked up to the woman with the baby, and with no words, just a few well rehearsed gestures, asked her if her child had eaten yet and if everything was going well. Turns out the hospital’s main doctor is from
Around this time, the others came back with Mama’s lunch and they, of course, had brought back enough for everybody. My host brother and company proceeded to walk about the room, delivering oranges and yogurt to each of the women bed by bed. It was received gratefully, yet casually, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
And as we left later on, every woman in the room was sure to remind me to use oil next time I make tagine....
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