My favorite topic - living rooms!

Something that was fascinating me from the moment I arrived in Morocco were living rooms. I was impressed how big they are and how different from European ones. The living room here is more than just a room with a table in the middle and chairs around it. It’s a whole area of the house, taking even 30% - 40% of its surface, that has the function of a gathering place and is adjusted to people’s needs. Around the room there is a loooong couch, all along the walls, soft and filled with pillows. On the floor there’s usually a nice, dense carpet, and there is also one or more small tables.

But the real difference is not even in the furniture, but in the fact that it is made for people to enjoy their time there. It’s highly pragmatic in this sense, but the value behind what I call “pragmatic” is to enjoy and make the most of your time there. You can really feel it when sitting in this room – you are starting to feel relaxed and comfortable, the tension of the day goes down, you feel at home. After having some food it’s normal to have a nap on one of those couches. You can easily fall asleep and no one is surprised, even if you are not at your home. Once Souhail’s brother came for lunch to our flat and afterwards he just lied down and slept for 20 minutes, the same when we had lunch with Kouta – let’s have some rest before we start working…

Comparing it to European concept of meeting with people and having food together – it’s unbelievable how far we are from fulfilling our real needs, how stressed we are and how much we are forgetting about what really gives pleasure and comforts people. We are trying to “behave well”, have an intellectual conversation at the table, impress other people how much we know about the world, what’s happening in politics, or what are we currently working on. There’s no space for just enjoying our time together without being well mannered, thinking about what others will think if I do this or that. Ok, I’m not saying that in Morocco there’s no such a thing as being well educated, or no certain rules of behaviors, or social norms. But these things here make so much more sense for me - they are more natural and "made for people".