up where they stay all day in the sun

Dinner with the Basha was, well, filling.

Rewind to the day before. Will's host brother, Mohammed, invites us to have breakfast the next morning. Will declines for the sake of sleep, and suggests lunch instead (dinner is booked with the Basha). I am not nervous at this point. Although every meal we've eaten with a host has been unending and completely stuffing, I figure I can handle a lunch and dinner out on the same day. After all, I'm a Stewart. We foodfest well.

The next morning, in accordance with the plan, we sleep in. At about ten, Will teaches us how to make non-lumpy crepes, and we eat them with peanut butter and dark chocolate.

Then, not in accordance with the plan, Will's middle-aged female neighbor drops by. She is upset that she hasn't been granted a meal slot with the visiting sisters, and she insists that we come over. Will explains that we have a lunch date with his host family. She persists; assuring us she simply wants to feed us a bit of couscous. Fine.

We trek on over and discover that, no it is not just a bit of couscous; it is a three course meal. Will hasn't taught his acquaintances much English beyond "What's up" and "Not much" (useful, eh?), but she asks him how to say "Eat," and spends the rest of the time commanding us to do so when we look like we're slowing down.

After the final orange is consumed (all the meals end in eating about two or three oranges each), we get up, exchange kisses and gratitude, and walk straight to Will's host family's house for our next lunch. Will assures us that if worse comes to worse, he will explain our first lunch hijacking, and we won't be obligated to eat. This explanation, of course, never happens.

Meals with Will's (ex) host family generally take about three to four hours. We sit along the walls on large cushions (a majilis), talk a bit, and then engage in communal T.V. watching. The ancient (great?) grandparents are sprawled on the cushions along the right wall, sleeping away. The rest of us: Will's host brother and sister, sometimes the mother, are seated along the left wall. The T.V. is partially obstructed by a large heater. The temperature inside the house is colder than outside – designed to cool down for the 10 months of incredible heat. (Will says during the summer he sleeps on the roof and pours buckets of water over himself throughout the night).

The movies playing are a bizarre variety of B movies, Sci Fi, and unknown sequels (Fay Grim?). All of them are dramatic and involve death or torture. They are thankfully in English with Arabic subtitles. Am and I later discussed how the selection probably affects their view of America. Or at least American taste in television.

**

We finally finish the lengthly lunch at the host family's house. Will's host sister asks him how to say something in English. He writes it down for her and she turns to us and says "Would you like to come with me to see our big garden?" Adorable, but unfortunately a useless phrase for anything except inviting people to view large gardens.

She leads us out the back door, through the door in the back garden wall, and down a path. Emma is throwing her Egyptian Arabic nouns at her, and they laugh as they try to communicate through body language and bits of language. I linger back, lost in thought, leaving the shady path to walk in the sunlight. Our time in Morocco is ending, and I'm not looking forward to the return. In the tourist trap cities, the distractions made it easy to switch into vacation mode, but in Tinjedad we have lots of lounging time; time for my mind to wander. If there was a way to sell vacation brains to use on holiday that left all the everyday stuff behind, someone would make a killer profit.

We hit the "large garden" and it turns out to be rows of fields where old women are sitting on the ground working with the crops. It is not beautiful by conventional garden terms; there are no bursts of flowers, no trees, no variety. But it is real, it is honest, and it is Morocco. Dusty, dirty, warm. We kneel on the ground to greet the women with the customary kisses, and one of them grips onto me as I pull away, jerking me back into a prolonged hug/kiss thing.

**

It is about 4:30 when we join Will for his lesson at the Basha's house. The Basha has decent English, and excellent French which he often switches into and asks me to translate. He says "Hello" to us with such strange tones/stresses ("Halloooo") that I almost laugh, thinking that he's making fun of the language. Nope.

There are cakes and cookies and tea set out for us. After our late breakfast and two huge lunches, we aren't exactly peckish, but we consume the obligatory few to be polite.

He is very friendly and inquisitive, writing down every other sentence we say to study later. (I'm very grateful my friends don't do this to me.) He asks us what we do, where we've been in Morocco, and how it has met with our expectations. Will isn't talking much; he has been feeling sick for a little while.

After an hour of chatting, the Basha turns to Emma. "So. Are you very hungry?" Will has told us to say yes to this or we will be in his house for hours and in the restaurant for more.

Emma answers jokingly saying she's always hungry. He doesn't quite understand her – maybe "always" is tripping him up. So she gets more dramatic. "I'm always hungry," she waves her hands, "If you don't stop me, I'll eat that and that," she points at objects, "and this cushion," she mimes eating the cushion.

He laughs at this. "You will regret that," he teases. We don't quite know what he means, but we all laugh.

He then asks me if I am really hungry and if we should go to the restaurant. "Really hungry." It would be one thing to agree to being kind of hungry, or reasonably hungry, but to say I am really hungry when I'm considering launching a career in bullemia – well it seems a bit dishonest.

I squirm and shrug. "Whatever you all want to do."

Will, pale and sweaty, is not happy with my answer. "Just tell him you are," he mutters. He doesn't look so hot.

The Basha is also not satisfied with my answer. "No. You must tell me if you are very hungry."

I shrug again. "Yeah let's go to the restaurant." I am a liar. But I'm lying to save my brother's health and rescue ourselves from hours of methodical, repetitive English discussions.

We trek off to the restaurant. It is extremely nice, and I am delighted by the sit-down toilet stocked with both toilet paper and soap. I recommend it to Emma.

Our starters are thick round loaves of Moroccan bread and olives. The Basha tears off a huge piece for Emma, the girl who is "always hungry." She smiles and eats it.

We discuss the practice of polygamy in Morocco. He says it's not very common anymore because the Koran commands the husband to treat all his wives exactly the same which is impossible. Technically I suppose it is, but this seems to be an odd interpretation. I'm pretty sure you're supposed to treat all your kids equally, but that doesn't mean down to the number of cornflakes in the breakfast bowl.

He seems surprised when we tell him that polygamy isn't practiced in the States because it's illegal. I'm surprised that he doesn't know this. Will tells him that men might have a girlfriend on the side, but they wouldn't marry more than one woman at the same time. Also, many people divorce and then remarry.

He insists that these amount to the same thing. We argue otherwise. I cannot help myself and throw in that Moroccan women aren't allowed more than one husband and this is unequal. He says it's very fair because they can easily get a divorce.

Looking back, he had a reasonable point: in both countries people have difficulty sticking to one spouse.

The rest of the meal passes fairly uneventfully except that my body is angry at me for forcing it to expand. Also, the Basha finds it terribly funny to keep adding food to Emma's plate. Five pieces of chicken. Extra bread. It all piles on. "You said you're always hungry." Ah, yes. Emma is stubborn, and always up for a challenge. She digs into everything, declaring that it tastes really good. Occasionally she tries to put food back on the main plate but he stops her.

I am becoming increasingly irrational – or rational – and have decided that I don't care about protocol, I refuse to continue stuffing myself. This results in a plate of half touched food.

"You told me you were very hungry," the Basha says, eying my plate.

"I lied, sir. I was stuffed. We wanted an early night so we told you we were ready to eat in order to wrap things up." These were not the words that came out of my mouth. Nope. I came up with: "I guess I was wrong." He doesn't understand. "Je n'ai pas..." I can't remember how to say right. Raison. I point to my brain and shake my head. "I was wrong." This is probably good practice for future argument resolutions: "I was wrong, I was wrong, I was wrong."

He's not buying it. "But you said you were very hungry." At this point someone jumped in and changed the subject. Or the waiter came. Either way, Emma and I learned our lesson. Don't tell someone you're very hungry when you're very full.