They were the least pretentious people you could imagine. She with little make up and in her birkenstocks. He with a laugh so loud that you felt a kind of crazy happy when you heard it. The two had met in Cairo. She was Egyptian. He was Moroccan. She was the girl next-door. He knew a good thing when he saw it.
They had just sold 1500 acres of prime land in Marrakech. With the money, they didn't buy a palace -- they bought a small stucco house on a small piece of land. That's just the kind of people they were. He was a lawyer but secretly, in his heart, he was a barbeque chef. The blogging girl and her family had been invited over for lunch. Oh lucky, so very lucky....
Before she even walked in the house, she knew it would be a special place. Perhaps it was the bougainvillea growing by the door.
And the door! It beckoned her in....
(Did I mention that the Moroccan windows, with their panes of lavender and blue, were equally charming?)
This was a home with its heart in the kitchen. A Moroccan patterned dish, a sunny yellow tile, a bare cement wall.
There were matching flowers growing in the kitchen window.
There were cheery little rugs to admire and tiny little stools on which to rest.
The Moroccan barbeque sauce's secret ingredient was drying on the floor.
He told her that his barbeque sauce was called, Hot Lava Juice. Hard of hearing, she thought he said Hot Lover Juice. Oh my.
They diced and they chopped and the coals grew hot. The Hot Lava Lover Juice was liberally applied. And then it was done.
They ate and they ate. And then they ate some more. And then they sat outside. And there was a moment, or perhaps several, when she forgot every single worry. Because she was too busy being thankful .....for the Moroccan life she now lived.