First Embassy Party

Friday, October 16, 2009

Last night I was invited to a party at the Mexican embassy. It was my first embassy party and therefore a very exciting moment for me. I have been in contact with a Mexican couple here in Rabat and finally got to meet them last night. At first, I was a bit on my own since Olivier was busy working. Right away, however, I found a nice Mexican (Tapatía) woman and her husband. They live in Casablanca and have been in Morocco for about two years. Her husband, Abraham, works for a big security company and is the North Africa regional manager. Apparently it’s the second biggest employer in the world after WalMart. Anyway, I mention this because his is one of a few business cards I got last night. With that couple I began talking to another Casablanca-based couple that also came to Rabat for the party. I got a long really well with them because they, although Moroccan upper class, are really down to earth. I talked a lot with Saladino about his time in Mexico in the 1990s. With his wife we talked about being from small cities (she’s from Tetouan) and having to live in cities like Mexico City and Casablanca. By the end of our conversation we were all pretty comfortable and Saladino’s wife and I even ganged up on him in explaining how windsurfing (his hobby) is such a terrible sport.

At the party there were Mariachis from Mexico, lots of margueritas, Corona, wine, and lots of food. After getting away from the “older” crowd, I found the people who are my age. At the party there were lots of Spaniards and a few Mexicans and Moroccans. I met a really cool girl named Genesis from LA who has Mexican parents. She’s dating a Moroccan and we all got along really well. She lives near me which is always nice as well. We made plans to go surfing on Tuesday.

The party at the embassy ended around 11pm but everyone wasn’t ready to go home so we went to the house of the cultural minister for the Mexican embassy. A bunch of people came with boxes of alcohol (I think they brought it from the embassy) so there was plenty of drinks for all of the Spaniards, Mexicans, Moroccans, and Americans. I just realized now that Genesis and I were the only Americans at the party. I have to admit, that was quite nice considering I’ve only been with Americans since arriving here. At the house party (it was definitely a house party) I met a really nice guy from Mexico City who works in the embassy. He’s only been there for three months so we talked a lot about first impressions etc. I also finally met a cool gay guy. I told him during the night that now my circle of friends in Morocco can finally be considered complete because I hadn’t met a gay guy yet. He’s really interested and I got to hang out with him a lot last night. He’s from India but works here consulting for hotels. After the after party, Genesis, her boyfriend, and Visty (the Indian), and I went for late night food in the medina. We had sandwiches with Keftka (flavorful ground beef) inside. It was great to finally discover a good spot for late night street food.