Girl. Roman.

I decided to switch the language that I will be tutored in from Arabic to Tashelhit because almost everyone around here speaks Tash. Although most people in town also know Arabic, they simply don't speak it among themselves. I have enough Moroccan Arabic to communicate with the people who do not operate in Tash (i.e. those who are not originally from here) like the directors of the youth centers and the schools, and the Minister of Youth and Sport in Tiznit.

Now that I have begun, I have decided I have to pick up the pace. Unlike before, I now know when people are talking about me, I just have no idea what they are saying. One of two words tips me off: "tafrukht" and "taromit."

"Tafrukht" means girl. Unlike in the States, the definition of a girl is someone who is unmarried, and that of a woman, someone who is. A 40 year-old unmarried female is a girl and a 16 year-old married female is a woman. When my host family or some of the women in town are talking about me, it is generally as "tafrukht." My ears perk up when I hear it, but I am still unable to decifer what they are saying about me. Frequently when there are children around I think it is "get away from the girl" or "the girl is going to hit you." Sidenote: one cultural difference I do not think I will ever get used to is that it is apparently perfectly acceptable, if not encouraged to physically discipline someone else's child. Despite threats from their parents, I haven't hit them, yet.

When people who don't know me as well talk about me, they refer to me as what is clearly my only other defining characteristic: "taromit." It's a Berberization of the Arabic word literally meaning Roman. In practice, however, its meaning is varied. It can mean modern, Christian, European, or generally foreign. The Arabic word in Morocco for foreigner is "Nasrani," which means Christian (literally, from Nazareth) but has been adopted to refer to everyone foreign. Taromit serves a similar purpose, but can also be used to describe vegetable oil as compared to olive oil, or homemade butter versus packaged butter, or family raised chickens versus farm raised. It's opposite is "bladi" (of the country) so we have romi butter and bladi butter, romi oil and bladi oil, romi chicken and bladi chicken. And apparently it is not hard to tell that I am not bladi.

I went to a party to celebrate the homecoming of a woman's husband from the Hajj in Saudi. There were probably 60-70 women there at one point or another (these occasions are sex segregated). I sat next to a woman (a girl, in Moroccan terms) who was continually referring to me, although most of the time I have no idea what about. I just heard my repeated call of "taromit." At one point I could guess that she was saying something along the lines of "Poor foreign girl, doesn't know how to eat" as she was ripping chicken off the bone and placing it in front of me, because by her standards, I was not eating enough, which must mean either that I don't know how to eat with my hands, or I am shy, when really it was because half a chicken was quite enough, thank you.

So I'm off to go work on my language, in the hopes of developing a biting Tashelhit wit to counter, or at least include myself in, the discussions of the roman girl.