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A Moroccan in San Francisco

Bari gave me a birthday card.  I opened it.  The inside was blank.

“You didn’t sign it,”  I said.

He didn’t know he was supposed to sign a card.  In Morocco they don’t celebrate birthdays.  There is no such custom of gift-giving, let alone card-giving.

“I’m learning,” he said.

He knew a guy who just arrived from Morocco and went into a restaurant to work.  Within two weeks he was kicked out.

“He doesn’t understand how people think here.  I tell him not to be discouraged.” Bari told me.  He has his share of suffering: discrimination, miscommunications, rejections, etc.  Recently he bought a car, working as a pizza delivery person.

“It’s better.  I feel freer working by myself.”

We had dinner at a Moroccan restaurant.  When we spoke Arabic to the server he replied in English.  There was no interest in making a deeper connection.  He was almost a one-man show, taking orders clearing tables running the cash register.

The food was not impressive.  We both knew what it should taste like.

Bari insisted on paying for dinner.

“Okay,” I said, and thanked him.

 

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