You Can Call Me Klum

A couple of weeks ago, while sitting in the cafe at school, one of the Moroccan students, Sukina, approached me and asked if I would be a model in her fashion show for the forum. I was flattered, and seeing as I'm studying abroad, and what happens in Morocco stays in Morocco, I told her I'd be happy to. After all, what's so hard about walking across a stage in a dress?

This week we all gathered at Sukina's apartment to try on our Takshitas. Her mother designs and perhaps makes dresses, so there was a plethora to choose from. As I looked around the room I saw all sorts of jewel-tones and gorgeous black takshitas with splashes of color. I leaned over to a friend and whispered that I'd be happy with any of the dresses, except perhaps that light pink and white one. I don't do too well in pastels. Sukina then announced that we could all choose the takshita we would like. As I sprung to my feet, torn between a brown and orange dress or a black lace and green dress, Sukina grabbed my arm.

"I want you to wear this one," she said as she pointed at the frilly, light pink dress.

I won't lie, my heart sunk a little. As luck would have it (or skin tone or short fellow models), I was told to switch dresses with a girl who was tripping over a dress that was far too long for her. I happily put on the brown and cream satin takshita and looked at myself in the mirror that Sukina's mother held in front of me.

"My mother says she would like you to wear her green takshita," Sukina said, and I gathered from the way that she said it that this was a fairly big deal. However, I'd be left wondering what this dress would look like until about a half hour before the show.

Today was a jumble of meetings that were postponed and meetings that were just a jumble themselves. One thing I have grown to appreciate is the organization in America. A person organizes a meeting, and the others show up on time. The leader speaks, and the others listen. In Morocco, one's head spins as 15 girls try to talk at once, and no one pays attention to what is going on.

The show time seemed to arrive quickly, and all of the girls looked fabulous in their attire. The men looked handsome in their jalabas as well! We strutted our stuff on the stage, and it was quite a rush to hear the audience yell and clap (and even shout my name) as I posed awkwardly at the front of the stage. I have a newfound respect for models for several reasons. The first being that it takes a lot of time and stress to get a show prepared. The second reason being that it is a lot harder to pose than one would think--you become so much more aware of your body, and it doesn't seem to work the same way when you're out on a stage with no other purpose than to show yourself off. The third reason is that I thought it was perfectly acceptable to reward myself after the show with a pistachio ice cream bar-something a professional model would surely never condone. So I guess what I'm saying is, you can call me Klum tonight, but tomorrow I'll be perfectly happy to go back to being me!