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.
