The little known village of Anze

The other night, I went over to have tea with one of my students from class. We had a great, albeit quiet, evening together. She played Turkish and Chinese soap operas in the background while we ate our chocolate cake and Moroccan crepes.
I'm admittedly not so good with the small talk, but I tried. I asked about all five of her children. Memorized their names, ages, and current countries of residence. I "ooohhed" and "ahhed" over everything she made. And she sat in silence, just smiling at my attempts to fill the silence with words, words, words.
Later, I was talking about her to a friend of mine. My friend lived in Morocco this past year, and someone mentioned that the village of Anze is a village known for its quiet woman.
Well, guess where my student is from? Anze.
So, her village's one claim to fame is their uncharacteristically quiet women. Isn't that interesting? Anyway, my friend told me that it's best to just let her be silent and be silent with her.
"It isn't necessary to talk all the time," she said. "We Americans think we need to fill up silences, but she likes them. She's used to them."
Oh well, mental note for the next time, I guess. In the meantime, I've begun some basic Arabic lessons with another lady from class. I was planning to ask her to teach me all those practical phrases such as, "How's the weather in Morocco?" and "We're having lovely weather today!" and "Your cakes look delicious!" But scratch that. Not worth the mental strain!

A Sleeper in Class

Yesterday in class, I was trying my very hardest to teach, but everyone kept laughing and laughing. I discreetly checked my fly to see if it was down. I ran my tongue over my teeth to see if there was something caught in them. I hurried to the bathroom while they were working on an exercise to see if I'd smeared dry erase marker across my face (as I do often enough). But I could not figure out what was going on.
Later, we were having tea together, and I told Jan, the woman I work with, about the constant snickers. She asked one of her ladies (who speak French relatively well) to ask one of my ladies (who don't really understand questions in French at all) why everyone was laughing today.
So one lady asked another in Tachlhit. A discussion ensued.
And then, after it was over, one of my ladies put her head down on her palm and started making snoring noises. She then pointed to one of the ladies in my class who perpetually sleeps.
"They laughed because Aicha was sleeping," one of the ladies said.
"She always sleeps," I replied. "Nothing out of the ordinary."
But they all laughed so hard about the fact that Aicha slept through the whole class, that it almost seemed liked that really was the reason for the laughs. Still, later at home, I took a good long look at myself in the mirror, trying to figure out if there was another reason they still weren't telling me.
And I still don't know. But let's hope for less laughing next time, or I'm going to become paranoid!

Les Miserables...where it should be.

Guess who acquired tickets to see Les Miserables in Paris? (This is a somewhat rhetorical question...)