4 Months

We got a call Thursday morning to meet them in front of the youth center in 30 minutes. We would go visit the country side, and look at the American visa pasted in her passport. Anything else, we didn't understand. 

We had met this family the week earlier at the grand souq. We walked by their shop of pallet wood tables, stopped by kisses and greetings and welcoming to Morocco. She had a son in New York, and wanted us to eat with the rest of her family. As we left, they insisted on giving us a gift, one of their small tables they were there to sell. She called us son and daughter, and had her son punch in our numbers on her telephone using the arabic letters she couldn't read. In 5 minutes of stopping, we had left with a generous gift, a new family, and a promise to see each other soon for dinner. I couldn't help but wonder if her son would ever have this kind of interaction in his new American home. 

They did call, and we went after my own admitted hesitancy. I had looked forward to my needed visit to the bath house for over a week, but a shower would have to wait a day longer.  Riding in a grand taxi 20 minutes outside of town with them, we arrived at their home in the countryside. We had to be back within a few hours, but knew we wouldn't be. The women instantly went to work cooking 2 meals for our short visit. Others showed us around the farm, bought us popsicles, and laughed at my allergies to the spring. Where ever we stood for a moment, chairs would be brought to sit there and talk. They complemented us on our language and curiously asked about our presence here. How long had we been here? It was then we realized that we had arrived in Morocco exactly 4 months before. Has it been that short, and has it been that long? 

We ate, and we ate again, and we insisted amongst persuasion that we couldn't stay for the next meal. We returned, sent with a bag of fresh cooked bread and natural milk, after a perfectly Moroccan day. Unearned closeness, unnecessary expectations, hospitality and generosity, and strangers becoming family perhaps faster than anywhere else in the world.