Mama Africa

Game day in Marrakesh

My academic career led me to the South, specifically Mississippi where I finished at the University and went to Law School, and found my passion for the work of racial reconciliation. Until that time I had never lived anywhere more than 2 years. However, 2 military tours in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the one exception to this trend. I remember those first nights spent in a Muslim country. I was in the 3^rd or 4^th grade, we arrived in Dhaharan at night it seems. We stayed in a fully furnished villa until our new place on Al-Rashid Compound was available. The furniture was nice, cool marble-like floors, and my twin bed with a comforter with a hotel pattern that matched my sister's.

I remember those first few weeks of hearing the prayer call. The ghostlike way the Muezzin's voice wandered into my room long before the sun rose. It is better to pray then to sleep. God is the Greatest. This occurred 5 times a day, traffic would pull to the sides of the road as men pulled out their rugs to pray on the shoulder of those wild highways. The storekeepers in the souqs would close their doors, if you were in a restaurant you could continue eating but they would cease service temporarily. I used to think I'd never be able to sleep an entire night again! That this man with his huge microphone would always interrupt my dreams, thoughts, and television programs.

I can't recall the point at which that all changed for me, when I started sleeping through the entire night. It was probably around the time I developed survival tactics for living in a climate that Westerners would joke was 120 degrees in the shade. In the summers that meant getting up at 4 or 5am in the morning to run a couple of miles around the compound with my mom and dad. I think 7 laps was 2 miles give or take, but it was like a game when the mornings were so cool and dark. We'd hit the gym where I'd fiddle around on the machines and throw bucket after bucket of water on the hot rocks in the sauna simply for the satisfying hiss. We'd go home, shower, eat toast and grapefruit, then go back to sleep until 9 or 10am.

My best friend was Lauren Braford from Maryland, she lived 3 houses around the corner. We'd spend hours playing Nintendo (Mario Brothers 3 and Yoshi mostly). She had a golden Labrador Katie and taught me many things, that female dogs have periods, how to gallop on all fours like a horse, we learned all of the words to “Cecilia” and “Tom Dooley”, and how to make fart noises with my hands pulled to my mouth. It was during all of this time that I learned to use the prayer call as my time for reflection and peace as well.

During the summers we'd lay by the pool where she talk me how to swim in the deep end after hours when the lifeguards locked everything up and the lights were off. Even now, Hamilton can attest that I can doggy paddle with the best of them. We'd harass Deo, the young Filipino man who worked in the bowling alley, he'd tell us stories about his children and the family he left behind in order to build a better life for them. We bowled and play pool for hours. Once it was finally cool enough outside we'd hit the playground, screaming, yelling, and kicking up sand. At night huge compound wide games of ditchem or Capture the Flag were organized with another 10-15 kids, which always dissolved after an hour or two. Two military tours for a total of 4 years of my life.

I became accustomed to my mother never driving, and to all of the women being covered from head to toe with black abiyas and scarfs. By the second tour I too had to wear one when ever we left the compound (with the exception of going to school). All that I remember seeing of the Saudi women were their designer shoes and handbags, never their clothes or beautiful hair and skin. Of course I was accustomed to seeing their children at the international schools we all attended, but even their dress was fairly modest. At one point before it all ended, I became accustomed to the daily bomb threats and living under heavily armed guards around the clock with bomb checks for school buses and cars with every ingress and egress to the compounds I never have gotten used to the separation from all of my friends, the mere 3 or 4 weeks notice each of our families were given before we were forced to fly back to the United States. Much of the world became acquainted with Osama Bin Laden and Al-Quiada in 2001. He changed the course of the lives within those compound walls in 1995, when he bombed the office building nearby where most of our fathers worked, and then Khobar Towers several months thereafter.

Now some 14 years later I am once again in a Muslim country, Morocco. In anticipation I bought long loose tops, that would cover my butt and go with my loose khakis until I could buy a jallaba to cover up properly. On the ferry ride from Almeria, Spain to Nador I tried to prep Ham. As I carefully wrapped my head with my thick brown scarf I instructed him that he would need to start walking with me instead of his usual manner of darting through crowds many paces ahead. As I pulled on my long loose cargo pants, I reminded him not to shake hands or perform any tasks with his left hand, and never to show the bottom of his feet to another person (an issue when he crosses his legs). However, upon entering the city I saw the familiar site of women, but in beautifully colored and stylish gowns holding the hands of women in skinny jeans with short sleeved shirts and high heels. I could see the highlights in their manicured hair, the shapes of their butts, the fall of their breast. I saw teenager girls and boys walking holding hands. Morocco is a far cry from the conservatism of the Saudi Arabia that I once knew in the bubble of our parallel, privileged universe.

After 30 minutes or so of hunting for a hotel room in Nador we were informed that the King was coming to town in a few days and as a result there were no rooms to be had. His picture is everywhere here, just like Martin Luther King Jr. or JFK. If you are having a mint tea at a cafe, the young handsome monarch is depicted as doing the same. Wait wait my friend, you should visit my shop and have your photograph taken, just look at the nice picture I have of the King kissing his two infant sons. Perhaps you would like to go to purchase a beach excursion, you know his Majesty also water skis. By the time we reached Essaouira I was disappointed to find out that most of those pictures were at least 10 years old, that the King had been ill and gained a significant amount of weight, his infant sons are actually around 8 or 9 years old now. I finally saw a more honest portrayal of his royal highness, the glimmers of a young healthy man are buried under the weight of the head that bears the crown. However, word on the street is that he is a decent monarch, his reign has seen Morocco's first ever municipal elections, the introduction of Berber languages in some state schools, and a legal code protecting women's rights to divorce and custody.

We decided to take an over night bus to Fes. The bus line was a local one, not the sort that has a clear departure or arrival time, a listing in lonely planet, or an air conditioning system. The bus smelled of pungent body odors, spices, and heat. Within 10 minutes a fight broke out in the front with an older woman who had sweated it out for a couple of hours reserving her seats, only to be forced to give them up for two of the young hustlers that had flagged us down to purchase tickets. One of the men threw something her face and then it was on! I don't speak a lick of Arabic outside of a few standard greetings and cuss words, but this woman was a firecracker yelling and swinging away at the young punk, forcing the bus driver to pull over and take it to the highway literally. It was another 20 minutes or so before they stopped angrily circling the bus and stopping traffic before we were on our way. We finally arrived at about 2 am and took a taxi to a Hotel Royale, quite deceptively named, listed in the guidebook as a budget find. The beds had heavy comforters that hadn't been washed for many visits, I quickly pulled those all the way back, checked out the sheets and examined the inside corners of the mattress for bedbugs. Ham pointed out that there were additional comforters in the wooden armoire, I informed him that there was no way I was sleeping under those things and that I'd sleep in my sweatpants with my sleep sack. The bathroom had an old stained toilet with a seat that I did not plan on touching with any part of my body, and a shower head mounted on a wall to the left. There was a bathroom window with a huge hole torn in the screen, I stuck my head out to check out the first floor alley, we figured the accommodations were fine for the night. However, the Hotel Royale is now the standard for Hamilton drawing the line in how budget we go for the rest of our trip.

The next morning we showered and got an early start looking for breakfast and eventually our couch surfing host Abdul. Ham has described our experience with the Frustlers (Friends + Hustlers), it would be a fun short film (with a few choice embellishments). There's a great cast of characters:

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  The young intern-racial American couple with the faded “I Love My Life” visor searching for a croissant, identifying us as the mark.



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  Zack, the Connector, a smooth, middle-aged man of few words and perfect English.



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  Max/Sam the Architect--young, extroverted allegedly rich businessman man in shorts who looks equally comfortable at a Frat House or a mosque at prayer time.



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  Salim, the muscle (this is where we'd take liberties), always wearing mirror lense shades that conceal his eyes, and a dress shirt with tight pants, allegedly restauranteur in Japan with a wife and 2 daughters ages 10 and 9. He's not nearly as warm and likeable as his partner Max/Sam, a man of few words who tells you when to take your touristic pictures.



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  The rest are bit players, and scenes: a likeable master artist educator type, the director of the ceramic school where we bought our only purchase; the beggar that Salim gave some money to a signal for us to loosen up our wallets so God can bless us; the submissive young dudes who gave us a tour of Max/Sam's unfinished “palace”; the quiet respectable waiter who directed me to the bathroom and served us couscous; the aggressive rug shopkeeper who continued to remind us of the widows as he haggled with us over the cost of the Berber love rug that I fell in love with; his two helpers who obedient waived a dozen wool and silk rugs to show us the color change. At this point we are handed off from Max/Sam to Salim. Then the tannery that smelled of chemicals, pigeon shit and cow urine. We are passed off to a young kid. The raspy voiced fabric shopkeeper who wanted $30 for a teeshirt. The young Argun oil saleswoman with her thick mascara and black letter presentation of 20 cosmetic and aphrodisiac products, she complements Hamilton on my beauty and tries to sell him Berber Viagra as two old women obediently pound away at the Argun nuts. The teenager who takes us out of the medina to catch a taxi, long after the architect and the muscle abandoned us.

The closing scene, shows Ham and I sipping mint tea and debriefing our day. We can't help but laugh at ourselves the desire to believe that people, particularly the Moroccan people are simply friendly and welcoming and didn't want anything in return from us. On some level we desperately wanted to believe that this was just our community finding us and showing love, and was not a function of our passport color. But as our frustlers reminded us “this is Africa” and while there are many ways that this lives in the collective imagination as the “Motherland” or the “Dark Continent” it also means you have to get it how you live. I don't doubt the nature of Moroccan people being friendly and welcoming, its simply compliments this culture of bargaining and negotiating. When tourists' dirham are a major economic force then this means that everyone has something to sell be it crappy shoe shine jobs, a guide out of the maze of the medina, bowl fulls of boiled snails and goats brains, or some good ole hashish in a dark alley. We decided that we didn't regret our tour for the day, we saw many of the sights we had hoped to, and that in the future we would be the ones to initiate conversations instead of being taken in by the warmth of an unsolicited interaction.

The rest of our days were spent with our latest CouchSurfing host, an American Quaker who has been living in Morocco for 5 years now. This was a very different experience for us. First, he lives in a old riad which he shares with a few other families. He has one room that serves as his bedroom and basic living space, and off of this is a small narrow kitchen that leads out to a shared bathroom consisting of a pit toilet and a handheld showerhead. We all slept in the same room, Ham on the floor on our Thermarest, and our host and I on twin size beds that are perpendicular to each other. Of course my period which was super late coming on after 45 days instead of the usual 28-35, decided to start after our first night there. Using toilet paper is highly discouraged with the pit toilets so this meant that in addition to bagging my used toilet paper for the number ones and twos, I also had to collect my used pads in a plastic bag which I kept hanging out of the window. Garbage disposal was literally dropping your garbage out on the street, on a corner, or off the side of the large staircase at the entry to the Mellah. It was a little disconcerting dropping my little bag off by the steps on our way out, only to see my bloody toilet paper baking in the sun scattered around on the ground by the local cats upon our return. But anyways back to Fez.

Considering the close quarters and circumstances things went rather well. We played a card game called Scrupples that first night which gave some insight into each others' moral compasses. We learned that he was a third culture kid (TCK) meaning that he had moved around from place to place most of his life. He is a biology teacher at the American School, and he played us some really funny teaching tools that were remakes of old pop songs. When I asked him how his students responded, he joked that his students are not allowed to talk in class, and conveyed the difficulties of working with privileged kids who are accustomed to having people who work for them versus instructing them. I am much more of a popular education type girl, I believe that the teachers and students learn from each other through dialogue, respect, and hands on learning and application. But then I have never worked with youth of this particular demographic, instead I was educated right along side them in international schools in Riyadh and Dhaharan and suspect that we caused our instructors similar challenges. Our time together was brief and I am grateful for his hospitality and all that he did to make us feel comfortable.

We left Fes for an overnight bus ride through the mountains until we reached the deserts of Merzouga. This was by far the most touristy activity we've participated in yet, purchasing the whole “ride a camel into the desert tour.” We arrived at large hotel with mud and straw walls only to learn that our package did not include a hotel room and that we were to spend the next 7 or 8 hours sleeping in a common area until it was time to depart for our camp. Fortunately we managed to secure a room long enough to take a good nap and a shower. Afterwards, we had a hearty lunch in the hotel restaurant (only option available) and saddled up so to speak with an Italian couple and our guide, our camp mates for the evening. The first thing I noticed was the means of controlling the camel. I am a bit of an equestrian myself and appreciate the necessity of bridles but am also aware of those accessories that inflict discomfort or pain as a means of control. Upon examining our four camels I learned that some form of wire or rope is strung through the left nostrils of the camel and attached to a lead rope in order to control them! This is so effective that one need only lay a light blanket over the lead rope and the camel will not move from that very spot for an entire night. And so it was that we embarked on our 2 hour ride through the desert in a single file line with our guide walking by foot, the two Italians, myself and then Hamilton on his camel which had a torn nostril.

The desert is incredible and takes on too many colors to name, in the sunset it glows like a red gold, rosy and buttery looking all at once. The evening sky matches this beauty with streaks of pink, purple, and blue clouds. (I wish I could post pictures right now but our hard drive is on the fritz). We climbed to the top of a sand dune the size of a small mountain to watch all of this miracle unfold. We then returned to camp for hot mint tea and vegetable and beef tagine for dinner. We spent the rest of the evening playing cards with our guide, a version of Gin Rumi which requires 2 decks of cards, effectively breaking up our monotonous routine of standard Rumi and Cribbage. We partook of a large hookah filled with green apple and then chocolate flavored tobacco that left me feeling nauseous at first, and then sent me flying. When I was a child this is exactly the type of thing that I would scold my father about. It was customary to smoke with his fellow Saudi officers, an apparently this is as bad as smoking several cigarettes at once. I also think of Vicki, and all of those old pictures of her traveling throughout this country and others, so beautiful, young, contemplative, sometimes a cigarette in hand. And I can't help but feel some guilt as I look at all of the smoking that Ham and I have engaged in, directly or secondhand, in the spirit of community, desire, or simply to be accommodating to our hosts' rituals.

I didn't sleep very well that night, the flapping of the tent door left me a little uneasy as I imagined scorpions and wild cats creeping in to climb all over me. It had rained that evening so there were no stars to be seen before we went to sleep. However, due to my restlessness and a full bladder I caught a glimpse of the black sky blanketed in shiny diamonds. I don't know many constellations but I bet that you can see almost everyone of them out there. My excursion to the bathroom was thwarted by two freakishly large frogs that were camping out underneath the dripping commode, every step I took towards the toilet they took towards me (not hopping, literally walking). In the end I opted to pee outside underneath that beautiful scene and hurried back into the tent just in case these strange desert frogs were sending reinforcements.

After almost 3 days of very little sleep we were once again on an overnight bus ride, this time to Marrakesh, Hamilton's proverbial promised land. His parents first met in this bustling city almost 40 years ago, by chance. Those desert stars must have crossed in the most advantageous manner causing Tony to have an accident on his BMW motorcycle leaving him stranded in a campground for weeks, long enough for Vicki to pass through, for them to become inseparable. It is truly one of the most romantic real life love stories I have ever heard. So it was under this impression that we arrived, hoping to find some of that magic for ourselves, secretly searching for the remains of this encounter, a glimpse of Vicki in the maze of the Medina.

We headed to our hotel located just off the main plaza, the center of the universe. It was very early and our arrival was met by other tourists being dropped off in droves, it seemed that all of the residents were still sleeping or engaging in morning prayers. Our room was not ready at check in and we were asked to return in a few hours. After a breakfast of hot mint tea and a croissant I opted to go back to the hotel to sleep where ever I could (fortunately the room was ready then), Ham went exploring for a few hours. I wish that I could say that Marrakesh was magical, that I loved every minute of it, but I can't. We were in the heart of all of the hustlers, snake charmers, hashish dealers, mosques, faux rastafarians, vendors, tourists, roving packs of amped up young men, and then local people. Despite my attempts to where conservative clothing (jeans and a long sleeved shirt) I was still met with unwanted attention. At first it was exclamation of “Mama Africa” or “Obama” after the customary game of what country are you from. This soon led way to “big ass, nice ass, good ass” and stares that left me feeling like I had my breast hanging out or something. It seemed that Hamilton was oblivious to all of this, locked in some spell looking for his parents' spark in random mundane details.

I liked walking through the Medina though, I enjoy getting lost there and checking out all of the different wares: a museums' worth of spices, beautifully hand died silk scarves and fabric, fancy leather shoes with colorful embroidery, tempting bakeries with delicate flaky pastries, caftans and jalabas galore, painstakingly crafted Berber rugs of wool and silk mixes, wood carvings and boxes, cheap touristy tee shirts glittering lanterns hammered from metals that shoot shards of light in all directions etc. Unfortunately, Ham has some aversion to shopping (even “window shopping”) and after about 30 minutes becomes as impatient as a 5 year old in a mall. This greatly decreases the time available to enjoy this smorgasbord for the eyes, to banter with the shopkeepers and born hustlers who are simply trying to take your money.

In hindsight it was all very stressful for me though. I was definitely on edge in Marrakesh and just not very happy there. I think that part of it was that it was expected that I was supposed to be thrilled to be there. God forbid that I hate the city where my in-laws met! The truth is that I was not captivated by it all, the pace of it and the interactions left me feeling drained and overwhelmed. Ham and I went our separate ways on several occasions, and during those times I was constantly on guard. At one point as soon as I rounded the corner to head into the Medina some guy named Samir walked up on me, obviously high out of his mind, asking if I remembered him, if I liked him and then patted my ass cooing “nice ass, good ass....” I quickly whipped around and told him not to touch me! His response was “fuck off,” mine was “go fuck yourself.” I would have slapped him or pushed him back but this was clearly his territory, all of the faces that I regarded as strangers are friends and family, fellow entrepreneurs. From there I quickly found my way back to the hotel.

The next morning I told Ham about this incident and that I might have to smack someone and not to be alarmed. Within a couple of minutes of emerging from our hotel and entering the plaza there was Samir, obstinately smiling at me and shouting his familiar greeting of “fuck off” which was met with my standard response. I wanted Hamilton to do something, I didn't want violence or scuffling, but as one man to another he could have told him that I was his wife and that I was not to be disrespected in this manner. Instead, my husband looked at me wide-eyed and asked rather stupidly, “Is that the guy?” Nope, I'm just in the regular habit of telling strangers to fuck off. All of this only fueled my growing unease in this city, further confirming a reoccurring feeling throughout our travels that I alone am responsible for my own protection.

Our final day there was the big football (soccer) game between Morocco and Tanzania. I made the mistake of wearing my light blue dress with my new blue silk scarf (the colors of the opposing team) and was met with gears of “Tanzania?!” I resolved to change into my red and gold dress later that day, closer to the colors of Morocco. We decided to walk to the new city to speak to travel agents about intercontinental flights. This was a particularly enjoyable walk as the game day festivities were in full effect. It seemed that everyone either had an I Love Morocco shirt on or the red flag with a green pentagram draped around their shoulders. The flag was affixed to the front of every passing vehicle, or added to the overloaded cargo of the scooters and vespas already loaded down with a father, wife and two children (and impressive sight). It reminded me of game days in New Orleans when the Saints are taking the field and everything short of victory ceases to exist. That evening we sat outside a small cafe that was lined with rows of chairs, filled with all young men of course, chanting and clapping in unison. Shouting “ole” with every pass. The streets were completely quiet with the exception of the radio and television commentary. Morocco prevailed that night, Tanzania was a poor opponent indeed, and the streets went wild. In truth there had been celebrations for several days leading up to the game and this was the climax, throngs of jumping, singing boys dominated the streets, forcing you to the side as they worked their way to the plaza. Ham had no interest in participating in the festivities, and I wasn't too keen on going out alone just in case I was mistaken for Tanzanian again, we stayed inside that night, fussing and playing cards on the rooftop of our hotel.

Essaouira was a welcome retreat, a quiet coastal village that was markedly cooler during the day and foggy in the evening. We arrived by bus where we were met at the station by our new CouchSurfing host Dan, a Canadian writer who had been living in Morocco just shy of one year. Dan was friendly and sort of wired in a pleasant low-key kind of way. We enjoyed talking about literature, politics, and Moroccan history of which he was pretty knowledgable. He took us out to dinner the first night and made sure we knew how to reach the beach and the Medina, and left us to our own devices. In the evenings we watched international television stations laughing at the odd, insignificant talk show topics on Saudi stations for English speaking audiences, marveling at the BBC documentaries on human trafficking in the U.S.

After a couple of days we met up with Molly, our new CouchSurfing host, and headed to the tiny village of Akermoud. We took a taxi there basically a standard size car filled with 3 people in the front, and 4 people in the rear, quite the cozy ride indeed. Molly is a Peace Corps volunteer working on a public health project in the small town. She lived in a small villa of sorts with two bedroom, a decent sized kitchen with a cistern as there was no running water, and a sitting area (known as a salon in these parts), and a pit toilet. Molly was from South Dakota, a vegetarian, and a pure pleasure to talk to. Our first night there we talked for hours about a huge range of subjects including the Diva Cup (the feminine hygiene choice of champion travelers), inside baseball on the Peace Corps (history and the participants), literature, and the cultural differences she had experienced. We cooked vegetarian dinners for 2 nights in a row, our first opportunity to cook since arriving to Africa. Her favorite founding father is Benjamin Franklin.

Molly also took us to our first hamman, a true Moroccan experience. These bathing houses are common throughout the country where many people don't have running water let alone hot water for bathing. Men and women use different sides, you strip down to your underwear and are given 2 large buckets for your hot water. Once inside it feels like a steam room, you sit on floor on a mat that you should bring with you, grab some soap and a loofah and proceeds to buff off several layers of skin. When Molly and I arrived there were 5 other women there who all seemed to know each other, taking turns scrubbing each others backs thoroughly. We stayed for about an hour, washing, shaving, talking and stealing glances at the other women who were themselves skillful at staring. Upon exiting the hamman the real party started, as the women who were mostly silent broke out into boisterous chatter. This is a great place for women to social in a society where woman mostly stay home and do not walk the streets alone unless accompanied by other women. Molly shared that she was usually the only woman to walk down the main street into town by herself, the others usually opted to winding side roads to make it to their destinations. After the cleansing we crossed the street to visit Molly's host family, very nice people with 6 daughter and 1 son, the baby of the bunch. The husband makes delicious olive oil downstairs and was glad to show us the operation. The large pestal and mortar type aparatis is mechanized, but in olden days was powered by mules walking in circles. If created a huge mash up of black and green olives that is then collected in round woven baskets, the baskets are then placed on a press that squeezes out the dark murky deliciousness that we dipped homemade bread in. As a parting gift he gave us a Coca-Cola bottle full of oil, I decided to fill my canteen with it seeing as we are now in the land of bottled or bagged water everywhere we go.

The next morning we took a small bus back to Essaouira than an 8 hour bus ride to Casablanca, and then caught a 2 hour bus to Rabat where we would meet up with one of Mara's old classmates from high school. Gizelle and Orion live in a beautiful apartment in a complex populated by diplomats and wealthy Moroccans. The décor is minimalist and tastefully decorated with all of the comforts of home like a pillow top mattress and flat screen televisions. Orion works for a division of the World Bank and Gizelle spends her days studying French, custom ordering furniture, and from what I can see living a life of leisure and luxury. This couple was a stark contrast to all of the hosts we've had thus far. Spending time with them was a reminder of the stratifying effects of a top quality education, the lifestyles of the upper class, and kind of forced us to reflect on where it is that we fit in, undoubtedly somewhat closer to this end of the spectrum versus that with pit toilets and cold showers. After only one night in the lap of luxury, we were off to Dakar, Senegal and what I considered to be the REAL Africa—if there is such a thing.

A final thought on Morocco would be the overabundance of felines! I mean there are cats everywhere and these bad boys are fat, well tended to, and healthy. I never once saw a mouse or rodent anywhere throughout our travels, although with the abundance of trash that is disposed of on the streets I know they exist. These cats definitely do their part in maintaining order, and are often the subject of many tourist photographs. I am always amazed at how people will touch and coddle these creatures without restraint. As a child my grandmother always had adorable little kittens hanging around her chicken coop. My sister and I would play with the and love on them, hoping against hope that my mother would allow us to keep one. It was at this age that we had to come to terms with the reality of ring worms, fleas and other ailments that afflict cats that have not been properly vaccinated. It is due to this early education that I have refused to touch any of the animals despite their pleasant appearance.

I was also appreciative of the warmness of the people that we met. We were always greeting and being greeted, and for those who spoke English I believe their interest in us was sincere and that they love Barack Obama, even if in many instances they were attempting to sale us something. Many families are dependent on the money generated from tourist dollars, and as I've said many times along our journey you have to get it how you live. I'm not mad at folks for trying to make money in whatever honest way they can even if there is a little overpricing involved. I know we are Americans which means that we have access to more resources than many of the people we have come in contact with. So its fine, charge me more for my dresses and taxi rides, I will enjoy the dance as we do the haggle two-step.