Recently, there was a death in the family that I live with. To show my condolences in this difficult time I wanted to find them a really nice bouquet of flowers. I was thinking of getting them one of those great assortments of chocolate covered pretzels or even one of those really delicious cookie bouquets that my mom once got me for being great, but they don't have those in Morocco. Turns out that buying a bouquet of flowers isn't really a thing in Morocco either, which means there are literally no places to buy a nice bunch of flowers in my site, not even the gas station. Sure, I could have gone to Marrakech, but time was a factor here. I knew from my Peace Corps Community Based Training (CBT) that the typical gift for a funeral was giving a huge cone shaped block of sugar, pictured above. But a large number of the neighbors had come over the day before and each brought one of these cones of sugar. They were literally given 100 cones of sugar, I mean, what are you going to do with 100 CONES OF SUGAR! So I wanted to be original and get them flowers...but I gave up, and gave them sugar instead.
I was so proud of myself walking back from the store with my cone of sugar. They will know just how much I integrated and that I am giving them a culturally appropriate gift to show my condolences for their loss. I finally figured it out! Go me! They are going to start thinking I am competent, this is going to be great! At least that is what I was hoping...but expectations do not often meet reality in this crazy crazy thing we call life...
I walk into their kitchen, tell them that in America we usually buy flowers but since we are in Morocco I got them some sugar and that I am so sorry for their loss. Silence. Then they all started laughing at me. For literally like 10 minutes, they all laughed at me. It was great, except that it wasn't.
So, it turns out that buying sugar is an indirect way of giving someone money. Wish someone had told me that part of the giving sugar as a gift during CBT. One of these cones of sugar can get you 20MAD. So what, you say, might someone do with 100 CONES OF SUGAR? They would sell them, for 20MAD a pop. So what my family found so funny is that they had sold all the sugar the night before, which means I most likely bought one of the sugars they sold and gave it back to them, like an idiot.
