Easter in Errachidia

Before sharing my experience celebrating Easter in Errachidia, I would just like to take this opportunity to wish everyone reading this blog post a belated Easter (unless you are Orthodox in which case this blog post may be published before you celebrate) and Passover. Most of us volunteers are located in smaller cities and towns where there are no houses of worship native to us, but I have been very blessed to be located an hour from a parish in Errachidia. My site mate Nadia and I thus made the decision to celebrate Easter in the city. Our last trip from our site to Errachidia was very convenient and stress-free. However, the Lord chose to challenge me this Easter and push my patience to the limits in order trust in him more than I have been doing. The first thing I learned on Easter is that Sunday mornings in our town are quiet…dead quiet and it seemed as if a cab headed to New York from our cab queue would fill up quicker that one for Errachidia. So after arriving at the queue, we ended up waiting for additional passengers to join us for around forty-five minutes.  After what we thought was paid due diligence, we arrived in the city around ten for an eleven o’clock Mass. However, before departing, I needed to find Joseph, another PCV, because he had left his wallet in the hotel we all stayed at a couple of days ago. This small side mission was accomplished without much complication and now our religious minority search party was up to three persons.

Based on some prior inquiries in Errachidia, I knew that a petit taxi was needed to take us to the neighborhood where our desired address is. When we three PCV’s finally arrived at the petit taxi queue, it was surprising to me that none of the drivers were aware of a Church in their city. This is strange because usually Churches are rather easy landmarks to identify in other Moroccan cities because only immigrants and tourists frequent them. However, it was reassuring that the cabbies were all familiar with the neighborhood the Church is supposed to be in. Accordingly, we were driven to the area by a kind gentleman who sincerely tried to help us find the Church and even went out of his way to ask a policeman for directions who ended up being just as confused. Our driver ended up giving up on the hunt, which was discouraging, but we were fortunate enough to be in walking distance of our destination (insh’allah).

The time was approximately 10:20 now and so we thought we had some wiggle room to find this sacred place. What became clear very quickly is that the urban planning and system of organization for addresses and streets in Errachidia is not at all like it is in America. We all walked around for about 20 minutes in a state of absolute confusion because the addresses on the street are not listed in chronological order, which would be manageable for Americans if street names referred to streets in the same sort of system we are used to in America instead of referring to a very large general area. Truly, this pursuit made Harry Potter searching for Platform 9 ¾ in the Sorcerer’s Stone look manageable even if Mrs. Weasely had not come to his assistance.

So now there were twenty minutes before the scheduled start of Easter Mass and the idea entered my head that perhaps this Church is no longer in existence. Although Churches are perfectly legal in Morocco, they are designated strictly for foreigners and since there are not many of those in Errachidia, it was wisely suggested by Joseph that this Church is probably very low-key and known only to its congregants and probably very few Moroccans. So with little time to spare, his instinct was to go from hanut (store) to hanut asking about the Church, Nadia’s was to find internet and to do some research on the web and mine was just to walk around and search for it by foot. Joseph eventually had to leave and so it was between Nadia and I to find this place. By this time, I was incredibly stressed because the Mass was about to begin and we had no idea where to go. Furthermore, we had decided to search for this Church by separate means. I had asked just about everyone I could find in the neighborhood where the Church was and the consistent answer was that the address does not exist and that there is no Church.

It was at this moment that I looked to sky and vocalized a number of complaints to God in rather obscene speech. At the time, such questions were popping into my head such as: “Why on earth would You not allow me to attend Mass on Easter,” “This is [fill in your favorite adjective] stupid,” and “How am I supposed to be an effective volunteer without Mass?” It definitely is the most frustration I have felt in Morocco and most likely in the past year. I was definitely heated and so most of these questions were coming out of my mouth uncontrollably.

Pause in the story for a little reflection: It seems ironic that someone trying to go to Church could get so upset so easily, but I think this is one of the most important reasons there is a Church: transformation. Crucially, I have also been much too self-reliant when it comes to my faith here in country. This is a very new context for me to practice my faith in and I do feel somewhat forced to individualize it because of the fact it is not the religion of the majority here and I want to respect the people I am now in relationship with by celebrating what we have in common instead of always focusing on our differences. The accompanying issue is that I think I forgot that God is love, located everywhere and present in all people. The universality of love is one of the most crucial bonds that we as people share with one another and I think that I lost sight of that in the process of worrying how I was going to practice my faith not only individually but in community here in country. Furthermore, this concept of community is difficult to grasp and I would never be ever to attend Church if it were not for the help of the many loving Muslims in Morocco who have continued to show me some of the greatest hospitality I have seen in my life. This applies to both attending Church generally and also in the events that are about to follow.

I am not sure what broke me from that fit of rage, but I started noticing taxis passing by on the street and thought just to ask for the “eglise catholique” because the drivers would most likely be used to hearing it asked for in French by foreigners than Arabic speakers. The first driver I talked to knew where it is exactly (I am still bamboozled as to why this was not the case at the queue), but Nadia was in the café looking up the Church on Google and so I obviously did not want to leave her behind. I begged the driver to wait and said this was a very important religious holiday, but his passenger was a very insistent lady who wanted no involvement with me and needed to catch a bus. I told the man our former driver did not know where the Church was and none of the other petite taxi drivers at the queue knew either, but he insisted the other drivers would be able to help us out. This was a crucial breakthrough because it was from hereon established that there is a Catholic Church in Errachidia and at least one Moroccan knows where it is. Nadia and I then literally bumped into each other and shortly thereafter another cab came. This driver was also aware of a Church in Errachidia, but we had some difficulty understanding his directions for walking because this building was clearly off the beaten path. He then volunteered to take us there despite the fact he had a passenger in the car (l’humdullah). So went down a seemingly random and undistinguished residential side street that existed long before the invention of the automobile. After maybe only a minute the driver got out of the car and led Nadia and I to the door of a house and showed us in the smallest of print (possible only a centimeter tall) and the most warn out of characters, the words: “Eglise Catholique.” What is even more shocking is that this Good Samaritan initially refused payment and considered helping us out during his work hours as an intrinsic act of kindness. I was able to quickly pull out the usual cab fee because I truly felt he may be the kindest cab driver in the entire world (free trips to houses of worship for people of different religions…a pretty incredible gesture considering where humanity is today). I hope he felt our appreciation.

Before leaving, he had rung the doorbell and so an elderly French gentleman who turned out to be the parish priest opened the door of this house and invited us inside in English for Easter. At first I could not believe what I saw was a Church, but the Diocese of Rabat essentially converted a Moroccan living room into a worship space and uses the rest of the house as a rectory and for storage. The worship space (much like a small California mission chapel) had icons and paintings on the walls, various Moroccan religious artifacts in Arabic and very short wooden benches that looked as if they were built for an elementary school decades ago.

We arrived early and so the priest sat Nadia and I in the Church while he got ready. Few by few the parishioners came: many French-speaking West African college students who are joined by Lebanese and Filipino employees at an international architecture firm. One of the really cool things about this service is that this priest conducts it in both English and French. The congregations and Masses in the other Churches I have been to in Morocco have almost always been exclusively French speaking and so I feel very blessed to live near a bilingual Mass. The Scripture that was read was also very impactful and really stimulated me as a whole to continue to pursue God. I think that focusing on the things of Heaven and not worrying so much about the things of the world were some appropriate concepts to wrestle with considering where I was earlier today.

When Mass was over Nadia and I met up with Connor, his new host uncle Brahim and another volunteer named Eleni. What truly surprised me about this encounter is that these two volunteers were each carrying violins despite the fact neither of them knows how to play. What Nadia and I learned is that they apparently decided to use the abundance of time they will have during Ramadan to learn how to play a new instrument. I have just continued to laugh to myself when I think of those two free spirits and their newfound passion (with the accompanying financial investment). Brahim, like all Moroccans, was just incredibly hospitable with us and had an entire lunch prepared for a group of strangers. When told Nadia and I had to leave at 2:30 to catch the bus, he took action and made sure we were watered and well fed before the return trip.

And alas…another Moroccan adventure, another lesson learned and a great story to tell for many Easters to come.

I would love to hear how everyone’s Easter and Passover went so please feel free to contact me!



In Errachidia, the name of the parish is the Fraternity of St. John the Baptist

I only took one picture of the Church (or chapel) itself. From here you can see the alter and cross above it. Below the cross and behind the altar there is an icon of Christ and the Last Supper. To the left I believe is an icon of the Holy Spirit distributing different spiritual gifts (This is my best recollection because I did not get to look at this one too closely). In the middle of the two windows there is a painting of St. John the Baptist preaching. Something exciting I learned is that the Bishop for all of Morocco will be coming to visit next month which is intense considering he is appointed by the pope and our congregation cannot number more than twenty to thirty people!