video of a Moroccan wedding

a Moroccan wedding

Blog post soon to follow, but until then here are some pictures to enjoy!

In my traditional Kaftan my family lent me.

My home stay mother and her nephew before the wedding

The bride makes a very fantastic entrance

This continued for about ten minutes...

The bride and the groom sit while a woman applies henna to the brides hand.

A little sample of the food selection.

The brides outfit change (and my favorite Kaftan of the night!)

The Bride changes again, and this time her and the groom reunite.

The final dress of the night while the bride and groom cut the cake (this is around 3:30 in the morning)

Finally some cake!

a view from Rabat

The land of olives

Local 'souk' or market here in Morocco

Mausoleum next to my house

Hassan Tower, also right by my house

Inside the mausoleum, beautiful architecture

Tomb of former King of Morocco

Sweet Moroccan guard outside the mauseleum

Bathing: Moroccan Style

The hammam in Morocco, where do I begin.  The hammam is a public bath or bathing area that is still very populat around Moroccans today.  Since I constantly see women with their buckets coming back from the hammam, I figured it was an experience I had to have.  After asking around, I found out about a nice clean one close to my house.  I asked a couple of other Americans if they wanted to come, for moral support, and off we went.

Now when you enter a hammam, there are separated doors and places for both men and woman.  The first room resembles a ladies locker room and there are women who you can leave your stuff with while you’re inside.  In this locker room you strip down to just your underwear grab your bucket and whatever other soaps or shampoos you may want and enter the hammam.  Once in the hammam there are three areas of varying degrees of heat.  We headed to the hottest first and grabbed a spot.  Luckily, Moroccans are always so generous and some women noticed we had no idea what we were doing.  They showed us how to fill our buckets with warm water and then how to scrub ourselves.  The key (and the best part) is to have the correct soap and scrubber.  The soap feels a little bit like clay and has a brownish.  It is made from henna and you smear it all over your bed.  After you’re nice and lathered you  take something that resembles a coarse glove and scrub.  Slowly but surely dead skin falls off.  You can actually pay woman to scrub you, and they do so not as a massage in mind, but to make sure you are really clean.  I elected to just try and see how well I could do my self while one of my friends opted to pay.  The amount of skin that came off of her was for lack of a better word, disgusting.  After the long scrubbing session, I washed my hair with the water from the bucket and rinsed off.  We spent some time in the warmer rooms, but after about 40 minutes we were all ready to leave. 

As we returned to the locker I couldn’t believe how clean and relaxed I felt.  It was like I had just taken the best bath of my life.  I wrapped my hair in my towel, put on my sweats and headed home.  It is not uncommon to see Moroccan woman with a towel on their head and in their sweats walking in the street.  I got home, made some tea and crawled into bed.  I had never felt so relaxed in all my life.

I am planning my next trip to the hammam ASAP, but I have been so busy with all my festivities. 

This weekend I will be attending a Moroccan wedding and a birthday party.  In preparation for the amount of food, sweets and tea I am about to consume I ran an extra 40 minutes today.  I am bringing my camera, and I will be borrowing a traditional Moroccan outfit for the affair.  Pictures to come.

A day in Europe

Ceuta.

Here is a map (courtesy of BBC) of Ceuta and its relation to Morocco and Spain.

Taking advantage of my time of from school during Eid (three weeks ago) I decided to travel up to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.  In Morocco there are two Spanish enclaves that are on Moroccan soil but are considered part of Spain.  It took a train ride, bus ride and one scrunched Grand Taxi ride to get up to the border in the North.  Once at the border, the Grand Taxi dropped my roommate and myself off (along with the other four people crammed in the car) at the customs/immigration area.  As we entered this sort of no-mans-land, we were a little bit at a loss for what to do.  There were about five different window booths with long lines (and mainly Moroccans).  We grabbed two forms and filled them out than just picked a random line.  After I got the OK my roommate was told he had to go to next window.  We waited for around 15 minutes until someone finally came up and told us we had to go back to the first window.  By this point, the line was about ten people long and we were both craving some European soil.  Luckily the man at the window let him cut the line and stamped his passport and we were off down the long corridor.  One Spanish police officer took a quick glance at my passport and like that, I was in Spain.

Since we didn’t have any Euros on us to take the bus, the only option was to grab a cab and have him take us to an ATM.  As I entered the cab I suddenly became aware that I was no longer in Morocco.  There was space to stretch out, and the driver wasn’t going to stop to pick up anymore clients.  In Morocco it is normal for a cab driver to pick up other people while you are in one, so you could have three people in a cab all going different places, that’s why it’s always important to watch what the meter is at when you get in.

The cab driver was nice and drove us to the center of town where we promptly found an ATM.  As my roommate and I started walking up the street to try and find a hotel for the night, I began to just cross the street (not at a crosswalk).  He grabbed me and told me to look around, and sure enough people were using crosswalks and waiting for the little green man to tell you to go.  If you tried to do this in Morocco, you would never cross the street, you are constantly playing chicken with taxi drivers, motos and bicylsts.  I like to call it aggressive pedestrianism. 

We found a nice hostel and immediately set out to find some non-Moroccan cuisine.  Although I do enjoy Moroccan cuisine, it is nice to get a break once in awhile.  We decided on Chinese.  I had sweat and sour chicken that was packed full of MSG, but my stomach and palette welcomed the change.  We then checked out an Irish bar in the area, and my Spanish slowly came back to me.  In the morning, I wanted to leave early since it was still holiday and I assumed the buses and trains were going to be crowded.  We packed up and headed out again to the border, where this time all we were the only ones crossing out and all we had to do was show our passports, get a nice stamp, and then it was welcome back to Morocco.

Immediately we were greeted with the sight of the white Grand Taxis and the drivers shouting different names of cities in Morocco.  We found out going to Tetouan and waited for it to fill up with six people.  Once in Tetouan, I decided it would be best to avoid the train and just try for the bus.  I caught the earliest bus and headed back to Rabat.  To my surprise, the bus was practically empty.  The problem was that the driver had a certain affinity for techno music and blasted it for the first two hours of the trip until finally someone said something to him.  I spent the whole time wishing I had paid attention in Darija class when we learned how to say “turn off” and “turn down”.

Lazy Days in Rabat

 Today has already been a lazy, perfect Sunday.  I woke up late (which is rare for me here) and enjoyed a nice breakfast of toast, jam and delicious coffee (delicious because it was ¾ whole milk, ¼ coffee) with my host family.  The weather has been sunny these last few days after the few days of torrential downpour that struck Morocco, so we ate outside in the courtyard.  Afterwards, I went for the first time to the Catholic Church here in Rabat.  Normally I try and attend the Protestant service, but today I felt the urge to check out a different type of service.  Here is a photo of the exterior of the church.

The interior is simple but very well maintained.  The entire church was packed, and as I arrived a little late, there was only room in the very back on some benches.  As most services here, it was in French so I did my best to try and understand what the service was about.  My favorite part of the service though was the music.  The choir was hands down the best I had ever heard.  Church is a nice way for me to maintain some normalcy in my life here.  Although the service is in French, the actions and motions are the same as in America.  As I am exposed to some many new and great experiences here, it is nice to feel that I have some sort of connection to the culture and religion I have left behind.

After the service ended, I decided to continue my leisure afternoon by visiting the Tour Hassan and the Mausoleum of Mohammed V.  These two sites are directly next to my new house.  Le Tour Hassan (Hassan Tower) overlooks the Oued Bou Regreg (a river that separates Rabat from Sale and leads to the ocean) and was started by the Almohads.  Their goal was to build the second largest mosque of its time (only second to Samarra in Iraq).  The Sultan of that time (al-Mansour) wanted to build a 60meter tall minaret, but unfortunately he died before it could be completed and the minaret reached only the height of 44 meters. The mosque that went along with the minaret was destroyed in 1755 when an earthquake struck.  As you can see in my photos, all that remains now are various pillars surrounding the tower.  An interesting architectural note for anyone who has visited either Seville or Marrakech, this tower was built with the Giralda (Seville) and the Koutoubia (Marrakech) in mind. 

Right next to the tower is the Mausoleum of Mohammed V.  Mohammed V was King of Morocco years ago (he is grandfather of the current King) and his body, along with his son and previous King Hassan II, are buried here.  

Although this is the area I run in every day, this was my first time visiting the sights.  My neighborhood is home to a lot of embassies so I feel safe running because there’s security everywhere.  Although I do miss running on the beach with the fresh ocean air, there was so much traffic that sometimes it became impossible to breathe.

Eid

I apologize for the lack of my posting, it has been a rather crazy and busy two weeks and I plan to blog about all of my new experiences and events.  To give you a little teaser, I will be blogging about the following:

Celebrating Eid Al-Kabir with Moroccans

Crossing the Moroccan/Spanish border at the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, and my night spent in Europe

Thanksgiving in Morocco, consisting of all the American favorites (Mashed potatoes, pumpkin and apple pie, chicken with dried apricots – a little bit of Moroccan touch, and of course Mac and Cheese with turkey sausage) and spending the holiday celebrating with Americans, Moroccans, Congolese and even an Italian.

My first visit to the Hamam here (Public baths)

And of course, my big move from the apartment into a home stay with a Moroccan family!

That is a little bit of what’s to come, but for this blog I am going to talk about my experience with Eid.

Now I talked a little bit last time about what happens on the holiday (each family slaughters a ram in honor of the story of Abraham, in which at the last minute God exchanged his son with a ram to sacrifice).  I woke up on the day of Eid, happy to have a full three days off from class, but with no idea of what I was about to experience.  My roommate and I left our apartment around 11 (purposely missing all of the slaughtering that usually occurs in the morning) and headed up on the twenty-minute walk to the bus station.  Within a minute of turning the corner from our apartment I began to see smoke coming from every street corner.  As I got closer I noticed that roasting on open flames was the skull and the legs of the rams.  Supposedly the meat is very delicious in their skull and you first have to burn off the hair to enjoy it.  That was shock number one.  Shock number two came as my roommate and I were waiting for the bus.  Now, not every family knows how to slaughter their ram so there are butchers who spend the day going from house to house slaughtering the ram.  As my roommate and I were sitting, waiting for the one bus that would take us to the small town outside of Rabat and munching on the cookies we had bought as a gift (we were starving…) all of a sudden two men, covered in dry blood from head to rain boot and carrying about four or five large butcher knifes each walked by.  In that moment I completely forgot that it was Eid and was immediately terrified, but after looking around, no one else seemed to take notice of them.  Life as usual on Eid.

After what seemed like an eternity the bus arrived and Moroccan-style, we pushed our way onto the crowded bus.  Once we arrived in the small town outside of Rabat we were greeted by roommates friend and went back to his house. Once at his house, after introductions were completed, the first thing to be done was check out the ram.  Lucky for me, it had already been killed and skinned; however the carcass was still intact and lying right on the kitchen floor.  The most impressive part about all of this is that his mother knew exactly what to do with the ram.  I starred at it for a while and realized that I had absolutely no idea how I would cut, clean or cook any part of this animal.  Luckily for me and thanks to Arab hospitality I did not have to help with the slicing, cooking or preparation.  In true Moroccan hospitality we were given tea so sweet it makes your teeth ache and of course, sweets.  After having my fill of all the different cookies, it was dinnertime.  Somehow, in the time I was greedily binging on sweets, my friends mother had prepared a delicious tagine with the lamb meat.  Normally in tagines, there are a lot more vegetables and not that much meat.  On Eid, it seemed that the tagine was ALL meat, and delicious meat it was.

After dinner, we walked around the town and visited a few of his friends.  One family had an entire cow hung up that they had sacrificed during the Eid.  I really never realized how much meat is on a cow until I saw one slaughtered, stripped and strung up from the ceiling.  It was taller than me. 

Around nine o’clock with full bellies we returned to his house and played some Moroccan card games (which I was horrible at) and slept extremely well. All in all, the holiday felt a lot like our Thanksgiving, at least in the amount of food that was consumed.

The next day we woke up early to travel back to Rabat, taking a Grand Taxi instead of a bus since there was absolutely no room on the bus.  A Grand Taxi in Morocco is a big taxi that holds six people (2 in the front, four in the back) and goes between cities.  They are not the most comfortable way to travel (constantly squashed) but it is efficient between cities and not very expensive. We got back to Rabat in the early afternoon and re-packed because the next day we headed off on our long journey to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta….

For those of you who don’t know, there are two Spanish enclaves in Morocco.  They are not next to each other, but they both are coastal cities in Morocco that belong to Spain.  To get to them you can grab a Grand Taxi that will drive you to the border, and from there you walk over to Spain.  My next blog post will be about my adventure in Spain and all the different methods of transportation I needed to get there.

it's beginning to look a lot like Eid

As I strolled through the medina of Rabat today after class, there were signs everywhere reminding me that tomorrow is the Eid  al-Adha (or the festival of sacrifice and one of the biggest holidays in Islam).  Men were sharpening knifes on every street corner, pastry shops were packed with women buying boxes of cookies and the sounds of sheep could be heard in every direction.  I will be spending Eid in a small city outside of Rabat as my roommate was kind enough to invite me to spend Eid with his Moroccan friend and family. 
The holiday is in honor of  the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his only son to God. In Morocco, it is an important time for family to get together (as the holiday starts Wednesday and goes through Friday).  Already I have noticed restaurants and shops shutting down, but the major aspect of this holiday is the slaughtering of the ram.  Most families purchase a ram, slaughter it (which happens tomorrow, Wednesday) and then spend the rest of the holiday eating the meat.  Tomorrow I am preparing myself for the reality that I will probably witness the slaughtering of a ram, followed by learning how to clean, cook and eat every part of it.  A longer blog post to follow...

A Walk in the Woods

While I have been settling nicely into life in Rabat, I have definitely been neglecting the blog.  When I first arrived it was so easy to write as everything was so new and exciting, and now I feel so comfortable in my life in Rabat that nothing seems worthy to blog about.  However, anytime I log into Facebook or talk to a friend on skype, I am reminded of how different my life is from the one I left behind.  Since it has been quite sometime since I have written, I will start with my adventures last week in the city of Azrou.

All (or most) of the students in the Fulbright program in Morocco got together to spend two days in the city of Azrou.  Azrou means 'Great Rock' in the Berber language and is located in the center of Morocco in what is known as the Middle Atlas.  It is a small Berber town, but is surrounded by beautiful pine and cedar forests.  I started my adventure for Azrou at 4:30AM on Thursday, leaving my apartment and heading to the train station.  I grabbed the earliest train to Fes and arrived in time to grab a quick breakfast of Moroccan bread that resembles a pancake.  From Fes, all of the Fulbrighters boarded a bus and headed off to Azrou (around an hour and a half drive).  The ride was absolutely beautiful, and at times, I forgot I was in Morocco.  Most people (including myself) think of Morocco as a sprawling desert, however we drove through vasts cedar forests and breathtaking green and lush scenery.  Upon arriving to the hotel, we had a relaxing lunch of chicken Tagine (which was delicious) and got back into the bus to travel into the forests and take a little hike.

The forest seemed to me like something out of a fairy tale, and of course the first thing that greeted us as we got off the bus was a small group of monkeys.  They were used to visitors (and more used to visitors providing them with food).  Of course all of us were immediately infatuated with the monkeys and immediately started taking pictures.  Our excitement grew even further when our guide pulled out apples and we each were given a couple to feed the books.  One student even throw the apple into the tree and the monkey, as if it was no big deal, caught it.  There were of course baby monkeys, which attracted the majority of the girls attention.  They were absolutely adorable to be fair.

After our great monkey adventure, we headed off on our 'hike' (and by hike, I mean walk) through the cedar forests.  It was really relaxing and a great opportunity to catch up with the other Fulbrighters who still live in Fes.  The fresh air and beautiful cedar forests made it so easy to forget about my life in Rabat, about the congestion, the traffic and all the people.  At the same time, sometimes all of a sudden we would arrive at a major road, cross it, and within ten minutes it would be gone, you couldn't even hear the sound of traffic. 

After our hike (which lasted around 3 hours) we returned to the hotel, ate some more Tagine, and I preceded to sleep like a rock.  I was grateful to have a bed again, as my current bed is a Moroccan sofa that's about the size of a twin bed and about as soft as the piece of wood its built out of.

The next morning we all had a nice breakfast and then the majority of the group headed back to Fes.  I decided to stay, along with two other girls, in the city of Azrou.  I was eager to spend some time in a Berber city, as I have never heard one of the Berber dialects before and know very little about the culture.  We checked into a resonable hotel (around 70 Dirhams or around $8.75 a night) and explored the town.  My two friends were interested in buying rugs, as the region was known for their high quality wool rugs.  We stumbled upon a nice shop owner who after a couple minutes of banter in Darija, begin speaking perfect English and invited us to go and see where the rugs were made.  We of course agreed and followed him down a small ally and into the shop.  My two friends were interested in buying rugs and I was just along for the ride (I am doing my best to keep my purchasing to a minimum as I am here until October...) The owner was extremely friendly and explained how the rugs were made, their history and even showed us pictures of his baby girl.  In the end, my two friends each walked away with two beautiful and unique wool rugs for a good price.  It was a very hasselle free exchange, and was another example of how friendly and welcoming Moroccans can be.  We concluded our evening with a nice dinner of pizza, pasta and fish before heading back to the hotel for another good nights rest. 

I awoke the next morning early to catch the bus back to Rabat.  As we left the city there were only three people in the entire bus and I stroke up a conversation in Arabic with the man next to me.  I was surprised at how easy the words started to come (at least with introductions and basic conversation).  However, the conversation progressed further than basic introductions and I was stuck pulling words from Modern Standard Arabic and French just to be understood.  He was very nice and worked with me to find the right word in Darija, but it just proved to be I have a long way to go before I can actually say I "speak" Arabic.  Like all Moroccans, he of course told me that if I ever want a nice meal he was welcome to come to his house and meet his wife and daughter.  This is still a custom I am getting used to, as in America if a man you met on a bus invited you over for dinner it would be very odd. 

Upon arriving back in my apartment I did some work, went out to dinner and had a relaxing evening.  It was only when I awoke Sunday morning and saw that it was the 31st that I realized it was Halloween, and that my normal routine in the United States would have consisted of some sort of costume, friends and a night out.  As it was only one year ago that I was dressed up like a Zebra and taking part in the festivities of Baltimore. 

Living in Rabat is sort of like being in the cedar forest sometime, at least with regard to American culture and connection.  After only a month, it has become so easy to fall into a routine. I'm beginning to know my way around the city, use the bus system and even make sure I don't overpay anymore at the fruits and vegetable markets.  It's only when I use my computer, log into Facebook, read CNN or chat with a friend on Skype that I am reminded of what my life was like only two months ago.  Halloween came and went with no planning or stressing over costumes, I look forward to my vacation from class during Eid al-Adha versus Thanksgiving break (which doesn't happen here for obvious reasons).  This struggle, of maintaining a healthy balance between embracing the culture without completely disregarding your own, is sort of like walking through a forest.  Even when surrounded by the new and beautiful scenery its important to stay true to yourself and not get lost in the excitement.  And sometimes even, when necessary, take a break and walk awhile on the paved road.

a good beach read

 View from my balcony in my new apartment in Rabat.

To summarize this last weekend in a few paragraphs would be impossible, it feels as though I crammed about a years worth of experiences, emotions and events into one weekend. To begin, I no longer live in Fes.  Friday was more last day living in my home stay, and parting early Saturday morning was a lot more difficult than I had expected it to be.  Living with a family was a truly invaluable experience; I learned so much about Moroccan culture and got a jump start on my Darija.  However, after six weeks I was definitely ready to return to a life of independence, and left Saturday morning to finish the rest of my language study in Rabat. 
Early Saturday morning I said goodbye to my home stay Mom, but not before she gave me a really kind parting gift of a keychain with the symbol of Khamsa on it (supposed to keep away the Evil Eye).  I left my old apartment in Fes and arrived at the train station and rode the three hour ride to Rabat.  On the train ride I met a lot of foreigners traveling, some from Australia, others from Canada.  Near the end of my ride a Moroccan woman sat down next to me and we started to converse.  It was in a sort of Darija-French language, where I spoke French and inserted the few Darija words I knew in.  We began talking about the upcoming holiday, Aid el -Kabir, and she of course asked me if I had a place to celebrate.  I am not Muslim, and she knew this, and when I told her I didn't have any plans, she insisted that I come over and spend it with her and her family.  She was so insisted that she wrote down her number and address and took my phone number as well.  Aid el-Kabir is one of the biggest holidays in the Muslim faith, in a way it could be compared to Christmas for Christians in the sense that it is a very important time for family.  The history of the holidays dates back to the story of Abrahams willingness to sacrifice his son for God.  Typically in Morocco, each family slaughters a sheep and eats it for about three days.  The woman was describing to me how for breakfast the second day,  you eat all parts of the animals head.  This encounter is a great example of how generous and welcoming the Moroccan people can be.  I could never imagine riding a train from Baltimore to New York and having someone invite me over for dinner, let alone a major holiday. 
Upon arriving in Rabat, I immediately hoped in a taxi and headed off to my new apartment and to meet my new roommate.  My new roommate is a Fulbrighter from last year who is staying here till February to finish his research.  The apartment is located in l'Ocean, and as you can guess by the name, it is right on the water.  In fact my room has a balcony that overlooks the ocean.  The view alone makes the apartment worth it.  After I got settled in, I ran all around Rabat picking up the rest of my belongings. I had four boxes at the Fulbright office and a bag at another Fulbrighters apartment.  This was excellent practice with speaking Darija as cab drivers are often shocked that not only am I speaking Arabic, but I am speaking Darija. After gathering all my belongings together, I had only a small amount of time to unpack as this weekend was the first annual Pot Luck at our directors house and there were around six other Fulbrighters coming in from Fez to attend and stay in my apartment.  The Pot Luck was a welcome break from adjusting to life in Morocco.  Everyone brought a dish so there was bean dip, pasta, all kinds of salad, banana bread and even gluten-free chocolate (I made guacamole).  The night was a great opportunity to catch up with all the Fulbrighters and hear how everything was going.  Sunday morning we all slept in and then went out to a great brunch at a French restaurant about a thirty minute walk from my apartment. 
Monday morning however, it was back to Darija class.  I am now enrolled at a new language school in Rabat that is unfortunately, a thirty minute bus commute from my apartment.  Currently, I have class from 2-6 every day and private tutoring for an hour Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  The class from 2-6 however, only has three people in it (including myself) from 2-4 and two people in it from 4-6.  This is such a great exposure to Darija, as I am always participating in class, but it is only Tuesday and I am exhausted.  Between the commute and the class time, its a lot.  However, this is the time during my grant where my sole focus is on learning the language so it makes it easier to manage my time.  Plus, the school has free, unlimited Moroccan tea throughout the day which helps keep me going.
Between starting at a new school, learning my way around a new city and cooking on my own a lot of changes have been going on.  There is also the matter of trying to shop and cook meals.  Morocco is set up, where there are groceries stores, but there are also stores that only sell eggs, little shops that sell all kinds of packaged foods and of course fresh bread, and then there is an incredible fruits and vegetables market right next to my house.  You can also always find fresh fish on the street.  As great as this sounds, and it is great, it can be very overwhelming as well.  Trying to learn what the right prices are and how many kilos you need can be hard in English, let alone in Arabic.  Tonight, I settled for the easy option of buying two eggs and bread (as I had a lot of left over vegetables from making the guacamole).  In total, my two eggs costs 2 Dirham and my bread costs around 1 Dirham for a total of 3 Dirham or around 36 cents.  Needless to say, a very cheap dinner.  This is easily contrastable with my Sunday brunch at the cute French restaurant which cost around 110 Dirham (for a salad and tea) which is around $13.50.  The key point is that in a city like Rabat, there can be such huge differences in prices and it becomes a manner of finding a good balance.  I am attempting to do this, while moving into my apartment, learning Darija and of course learning my way around Rabat.  My mind constantly feels at a loss and I think I've gone through every single emotion in the past five days. 
In the end, my move to Rabat has been great so far.  I am just happy to feel settled (at least until January) in one place, and I can't complain that the place is located on the ocean.  Waking up every morning and looking out on the water has been a great motivator and kept me calm throughout the moving process.

Desert Solitaire

My first encounter with some camels.

Caravan into the desert.

The camp where we spent the night.

Quality bonding time with my camel, who I somehow forgot to name...

Sahara!

Sahara!

 

 

 

 

 

This weekend I had the great opportunity to spend the weekend traveling down south and into the Sahara. After another long week of Darija class, we left directly from school and boarded two small buses for a seven hour ride.  Now, as unenjoyable as  a seven hour bus ride sounds, imagine a seven hour bus ride where air conditioning consisted of a few puffs of air and a mix CD composed of Celine Dion, Johnny Hallyday and Hotel California being blasted the entire time.  The one consolation was getting the chance to observe the diversity that lies within Morocco's geography.  As we left Fez, we passed through the beautiful forests and mountains of Ifrane, before heading further south to what felt exactly like driving through Arizona or New Mexico, with high mountains and sparse terrain.  The windy and steep roads can only be described as beautifully terrifying, as our driver seemed to think that the best way to traverse them was in the center of the lane going what felt like a hundred miles an hour.  Through the blasting music, the curving roads and the terrifying driving, we finally arrived at the hotel. We were greeted with men playing Berber music as well as delicious dates. The hotel itself, which was decorated to look exactly how people would picture Morocco, was in reality, nothing like the Morocco I have come to know and love.  Stepping into the hotel, I immidiately realized that this hotel was designed with tourists in mind, and although beautiful, I had never felt so far away from Morocco. 

Now, all this aside, the hotel had great rooms and two amazing swimming pools.  After four weeks in the heat and congestion of Fez, a swimming pool was a welcome relief.  We were so eager to swim, we immidiately changed into swim suits, ate dinner and headed straight for the pool before collapsing into our comfortable beds around 11.

Saturday morning we woke up with quite a bit of free time, so once again I went swimming.  Afterwards we boarded back on the bus, and immediately the same mix CD began to play, leaving Celine Dion songs I had never heard stuck in my head for the next two hours.  We arrived at another hotel, where we dropped off our stuff and prepared for our excursion into the Sahara.  I have never road a camel before in my life and I was expecting at least same kind of instruction before we left.  Instead, one of the guides pointed at me, pointed at a camel, and said 'get on'.  So, putting on my bravest face I climbed onto the camel.  It was sitting down, and really did not look that big.  Immediately after I got on, the camel began to rock and I clenched the small, metal handle, and held on for dear life as the camel first lurched forward, lifting up his back legs, then sharply threw me backwards as the front legs followed.  A little warning might have been nice, but I was up and I was staying up there for the next two hours.  Everyone warned me that camels were mean and smelled bad, I experienced neither of those, however they are extremely uncomfortable to ride.  After the first five minutes, the excitement of riding a camel began to wear off, and my legs and butt began to fell the pain.  The other thing about camels is they don't move fast and the Sahara although beautiful, is just sand after sand after sand...Truth be told, I was extremely happy to arrive at the camp and get off the camel.

The camp where we were staying is at an oasis, so there is a well for drinking water.  There was no electricity and the bathroom (which did have actual toilets, just no means to flush them) was located outside the camp and slightly difficult (actually impossible) to find without a flash light.  We all immediately settled in and took in the beauty of the night sky. I have never seen so many stars in all my life.  The rest of the night consisted of table discussions over tea, a nice dinner, and music performed by the guides.  We then pulled out our little mattresses from the 'tents' and spent the night sleeping under the stars.

The next morning we awoke around 5:30 to watch the sunrise.  Conversations were pretty much at a minimum, as we were all without breakfast and it was 5:30 in the morning...After the beautiful sunrise, I realized it was time to get back on the camel for another two hour ride back to the hotel.  It somehow seemed to go faster, and it was fun hearing all of the names of the camels (from Barack Obama to Michael Jackson).  We got back to the hotel around 8:30 and had a buffet breakfast waiting for us (which included cereal, a welcomed change from my usual bread, butter and jam that I have every morning). After breakfast was a quick shower (to get all the sand and camel stench out) and we boarded the bus for the ten hour bus ride back to Fez. 

This bus ride too seemed to go by quicker than the ride out.  There were a lot of different trivia games played, ranging from twenty questions to naming capital cities.  It became apparent that the bus was full of nerds when the answers to the 20 question game consisted of Rangoon,Venus Flytrap and Stephen Hawking...

As soon as the bus arrived in Fez, I went straight home and went straight to bed.  I don't think I have ever been so exhausted in my entire life. The experience though, was truly once in a lifetime, and was well worth the lack of air conditioning, Celine Dion play lists and the fact that I am still sore (3 days later).  It was also a good reminder that my time in Fez here is ticking away, as I will be moving to Rabat in two weeks to finish the rest of my language study.  Oddly enough, Fez has started to feel like home.  I am finally getting to know my way around, speak enough of Darija to communicate at the most basic level, and even now believe that no meal is complete without bread and coffee must have at least two sugar cubes and be 3/4 milk.  Although I am ready to start the next chapter of this adventure in Fez (and hopefully start working with some immigrants) there is still a lot I need to see and do in Fez and will use my next two weeks wisely.

Cooking Class

Cooking class begins! Learning how to make couscous.

Step one: Add all the vegetables

Step two: Add spicessssss.

 Step three: Wait around 3 hours while everything boils...

 Step 4: Enjoy!

 Now, to be fair, this is not as simple and easy as the process went.  There were a few steps in between that I skipped...

Pride and Prejudice

As part of the language program here in Fez, we have lectures every week on different aspects of Moroccan life.  Today we had a fabulous lecture on Islam in Morocco, which for me was a real education.  Like most Americans, my knowledge of Islam has been fairly limited.  I do my best to read and be knowledgeable, but when it comes down to it, I can name which celebrity is in rehab this week and who won last weeks Project Runway, but I couldn't tell you more than few sentences on the major religion of the country I'm living in...

In an attempt to pass on what I took from the lecture, I will do my best to summarize, but know all intelligent points belong to the lecturer (Niaz Ahmad).

A good starting point of understanding Islam in Fez is to start with a little history.  The oldest university in the world, Al-Qarawiyyin, is in Fez and is still a leading spiritual center for the Muslim world. The mosque associated with it is one of the largest in Fez and was built by a Tunisian Princess Fatimah Firiyyah. Upon arriving in Fez, sh actively scrutinized her funds, fearful of money that may have been obtained in a tainted manner.  Instead of spending her money on a palace or personal pleasure, she invested all her savings in the construction of the mosque that still exists today in Fez.  In the five pillars of Islam, one of the pillars is known as Zakat and it is the belief in giving alms.  This means, that each year Muslims should give 2.5% of their savings to the poor.  This money can also be distributed to travelers and those who have lost their high standing in society (like a doctor).  They belief behind this is that they have played an important part of society and should not be abandoned in a time of need.

In current day Morocco, this notion of generiosity is still very present.  For example, if you are on a train or bus and eating food in public, it is the norm to offer some food to those around you. 

Another pillar of Islam is the daily prayers.  The times of these prayers are timed with the sun, forcing people to be aware of the sun and the sky in their daily lives.  You must also perform ablution before prayer, making prayer time an opportunity reconnect with water, acknowledging waters purity and ability to maintain life on earth.  The fourth pillar is fasting during the month of Ramadan from dawn to sunset.  This is a way to practice self restraint, as well as staying in touch with the moon, as  Ramadan begins and ends with the cycles of the moon. 


As most current day discussion on modern Islam, our lecture did discuss a little about violence.  In taking into account violent acts today, it is important to always keep things in perspective.  Although violence has been a constant throughout the history of mankind, the 20th century saw violence and death in unparelled levels.  Between the Holocaust, Stalin, Mao and the dropping of the Atomic bomb over Japan, mass killings and genocide have become feasible. Technology, globalisation and imperialism have created a world where organized violence can occur on a massive scale.  Mass killings have occurred under the guise of many different beliefs and ideas in the past, and it is important to hold accountable the man and not the belief, for a belief cannotthe trigger of a gun.

This lecture left me in a state of reflection, forcing me to set aside my own pride and accept the fact that I too have fallen prey to generalizations, and in turn prejudice.  At the beginning of the lecture he asked us all to describe our experience with Islam.  As I reflected on the question, I realized my knowledge was limited to a few personal interactions, the classroom and of course what I hear on the news. Like any religion, there is a great complexity and beauty that extends beyond the doctrine and expresses itself in the people, history and culture. Throughout the rest of my time here I hope to observe without prejudice and without pride, comfortable with the fact that I have just begun to learn and that I have a long way to go.

 

 

a mad tea party

Learning Darija.

I have finished my first week of my five-week intensive Darija (Moroccan Arabic) course.  The first two days I honestly felt like a fish out of water; I had absolutely no idea what was going on.  I was placed in the accelerated beginner course because of my background in Moroccan Standard Arabic, and the majority of the course (and by majority, I mean all by about 2 sentences) was conducted in Darija or Modern Standard Arabic.  Having not studied Modern Standard Arabic for over year, I spent the first two days with the same smile I use during dinner with my home stay family (the smile that's a polite way of communicating that I have no idea what's going on).  On the third day, the clouds began to clear and I began to form my first basic sentences. My mind seemed to catch up to the rest of the class and by the end of the week I did not need my I-don't-understand-anything-that-you're-saying smile.  It was no longer like a mad tea party to me, I actually understood.

In addition to Darija class, we also have bi-weekly lectures on Moroccan culture. We had a very interesting one on feminist perspectives on the Medina in Fez.  When visiting the Medina in Fez, it is almost impossible to tell what the houses look like on the inside based on the outside appearance.  In fact, it is important to be humble in Morocco and so having a modest and almost shabby exterior is an extension of this belief.  On the interior however, the homes can be beautifully designed and decorated, a reflection on the introverted way of thinking.  The other lecture we had was on the challenges to doing research in Morocco.  Like any country, it is always important to know certain topics to avoid when dealing with acquaintances and for Morocco its: God, King and Country. 

With regards to my research, I am still not sure the Moroccan mentality surrounding Sub-Saharan migrants.  Here is a good link to an article about a Moroccan who is working with the migrants and has a video to show what the migrant camps are like.  This is based in Oujda, a city along the Algerian border, which I hope to visit.  However, the majority of my work will be with migrants in Rabat or Tangier.

Sub-Saharan Immigrants

On a future note: this week I will also be attending a Moroccan cooking class as well as visiting the city of Meknes and the Roman ruins in Volubilis.

A day in the Medina

Here are some photos from my visit to the Medina in Fez.

green eggs and ...

Yesterday I arrived in Fez and moved into my home stay.  After being met by my home stay sister, we walked down the street for what seemed like an hour (at least to me as it was boiling hot and I was hauling about six months worth of luggage).  I was prepared for the worst: cold showers, no western toilet, and a room hot enough to do bikram yoga in.  Boy was I wrong.

As I entered the top floor apartment, the room opened up into quite honestly the biggest sitting room I have ever seen in my entire life.  There are windows all along the wall looking out on the beautiful city of Fez and are always open, allowing a nice breeze to blow through the house all the time.  There were two gorgeous balconies off the main two bedrooms, a kitchen with a dishwaser, washing machine and two refridgerators.  My room actually has its own balcony so i can leave the door and window open and have a nice breeze.  I am living way better now than my college row house (which contained mice, water leaks and of the course the power outages and shutting off of water).  The family is very nice and I can communicate with them in French, but they mainly talk in Darija to each other, leaving me sitting there with a simple smile on my face as I have no idea what they are saying.

Last night at 8pm we found out the news that Ramadan has officially ended.  This means that the fasting is over and the next two days are holiday where people visit with family and of course, eat.  Being here for the last week of Ramadan has been a great experience.  Ramadan is not so much observable through the use of street decorations and commercial sales, but so present in the fact that nobody, and I mean nobody, is eating, drinking or smoking in the street from sunup to sundown. I did not fast and so when we ate we ate inside the hotel restaurant and did not drink water in the street.  However, each night we were able to take part in the Iftar (breaking of the fast) with the professors who gave us lectures during the day.  The fast is typically broken with a glass of milk, dates and other sweets.  Although sometimes we had fresh squeeze orange juice or my favorite, an avocado milk shake.  After that, soup is usually followed along with bread and then a meat course of some kind. All the food is new to me, with the exception of the bread.  I'm never quite sure what I am eating, mainly due to my lack of Darija skills.  Everything I have tasted so far has been delicious, and I am trying to taste everything in front of me. Sometimes my stomach needs some encouragement to do, as I am not used to soup for breakfast.  But in the end, my taste buds have not been disapointed by the endless use of spices, sugars and flour that Moroccan seem to effortlessly infuse together.

On a small cultural side note, I was watching TV with my home stay sisters yesterday and it was a cooking show.  The special guest was a man and the laughed and asked me 'have I ever seen a man cook?'  I just smiled and tried to think of how Anthony Bourdain would respond.

a tale of two cities

Today was a series of lectures on the Moroccan education system and language situation in Morocco.  I am going to focus on the latter.  To put it simply: Moroccan is the land of many languages.  Most people when they hear Morocco, they think Arabic, which is technically correct.  According to the Moroccan constitution: "Le Royaume du Maroc, Etat musulman souverain, dont la langue officielle est l'arabe, constitue une partie du Grand Maghreb Arabe."  Now this brings up so many questions for debate.  The first obvious one: why is it written in French?  The second being, Arabic is officially stressed as important (as the word appears twice in that one second) but what Arabic are they referring to?  The dialect here, known as Darija, is a blend of Arabic, French and some of the berber languages, but it is still a dialect of Arabic.  I have studied Modern Standard Arabic for four years in college, and being honest, I can't understand a single word that's going on here.  When I speak in my MSA, nobody understands me either.  Making matters even more confusing, there is not just Darija but there is also a Middle Moroccan Arabic that is supposedely some sort of hybrid between Darija and Modern Standard Arabic.  That's two languages, and two versions of Arabic.  They key different and what I find most interesting is that there are no native speakers of Modern Standard Arabic or Middle Moroccan Arabic.  Something for those linguists out there to think about.

Now, besides Arabic it is important not to disregard the language of French in Morocco.  It was the language of the colonizers, which in itself speaks volumes.  Most signs here are still in both Arabic (Darija) and French.  Science classes at the college level are conducted in French and the majority of important documents are also written in French.  People still speak and understand it, but there is a no push to be learning English over French.

 The other important language is of the Berber language, known as Tamazight.  Berbers have always had an important role in Moroccan life and there is a push to standardize the language and continue teaching it in schools.  This interest in keeping the Berber dialects alive is an interesting cultural quality of Morocco as most countries try and move to having a single language (I also heard that Princess Lalla Salma is of Berber descent, and Morocco is still a monarchy sooooo...)  Now I am no expert on the Berber dialects, and I know that they different greatly in different regions of Morocco. 
This was an attempt (and i repeat attempt) at trying to explain Morocco's language situation. I guess the diversity of the language situation is a pretty good way to look at Morocco: 


For me right now (especially since it is Ramadan) my mind is trying to wrap around everything Moroccan. There is so much information to absorb, so much information to learn and so many different experiences to have and all the while I am thinking of my American comforts that are no more (mainly air conditioning, my bed, a cell phone that was made in 1991 and of course, lattes)


As they say, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

stranger in a strange land

This year I will be working and studying in Morocco through the Fulbright Student program.  The first part of my adventure starts with a key aspect: language training.  I will spend five weeks in Fez studying Colloquial Moroccan Arabic (Darija) at the American Language Institute in Fez and living in a home stay.  After, I will move to Rabat where I will spend nine weeks studying Arabic at the Qalam wa Lawh Center for Arabic Studies. 

Following the language training, I will start my research project in early January and will stay through the end of September.  Immigration is a complicated and sensitive issue in any country and it will be no different in Morocco.  My project is to study the cultural and social factors that prevent immigrants from seeking medical care for tuberculosis.  Sub-Saharan immigrants typically arrive in Morocco seeking better jobs, fleeing war and poverty, or attempt to try to immigrate to Europe through the narrow Straight of Gibraltar. At the narrowest point, Africa and Europe are only separated by around nine miles.

Immigration has always been a strong interest of mine.  Having spent time living in Hong Kong and Brazil in elementary school, I remember what it is like to be a 'stranger in a strange land'.  Moving abroad is sort of like a riding a wave, the excitement and thrill of trying different foods, hearing different sounds and learning new cultures can be followed by the crashing feeling of homesickness where you feel like you are drowning in a world you could possible never fit into.  It takes an open mind, a welcoming culture and a good dictionary to fight the current and find a nice balance between the new world and the one you left behind. 

“Living the Moroccan Life” will be a unique experience as I try and stay afloat, swimming through the Moroccan culture full of souks, mint tea and a history as diverse and rich as its people.  I'll have the experience of being an immigrant from the West, bringing with me my Starbucks addiction, love of country music and the anticipation of working with immigrants from countries like Nigeria and the Congo.  My hope is to paint a more comprehensive view of Morocco, through the eyes of immigrants, locals and my own experience as a stranger in a strange land.