Thursday, December 2, 2010

Eid al-Adhan --> watch yourself if you hate blood



Head set aside as the rest of the body was dismembered
disemboweled
SOME BLOODY PICS. BEWARE

Ohh salam alakum

Sorry it's been a while again. These last couple weeks have been fairly busy - mostly with traveling, etc. And I'm kinda sleepy and also working on this damn ISP (independent study project... love my topic. But dear lord it's a lot to write) but I figured I'd stop being lazy about the blogging thing and end the terrible suspense of the last post and fill you in on Eid al-Adhan! Ahh I'll start with some pictures of the big day (and because I'm not entirely sure who's reading this blog and because I don't know your gore/blood-tolerance level, I'm going to keep the pictures I post relatively tame. But if you hate the sight of blood, don't look at these pics. **Just to warn you.**)
Sorry if this grosses you out. I just felt like
I shouldn't deprive you of the scene I got to
witness
Skin --> off
Disemboweling 
                  


The end
Alright. So. Those pictures tell you a lot about how we started our day. Again, if you don't care to hear about the details of the event, skip down a few paragraphs. Woke up, had a little breakfast, watched the king on TV as he sat through the imam speaking at the mosque, saw him kill 2 sheep on TV. The atmosphere in the house felt somewhat like it does on Christmas - everyone's just kind of lounging around, ready to relax for the day. Then without any warning, the ram is on the 2nd floor with us, as are an imam and 2 men that clearly do the killing and later butchering. They wrestle the ram down to the ground and cut it's throat very quickly - tons and tons of intensely bright red blood poured out, but the ram was dead relatively quickly. It kind of scared me a little later though, because like a chicken running after his head's been cut off, the ram kicked out and went crazy after his throat had been slit. Gaah. The imam left shortly after, and we were left to watch the dismemberment of the body of the ram. That part was a lot easier to watch, oddly (esp with the skin off, you kind of distance yourself from the idea that that body was just a few minutes ago a living, breathing animal and it becomes just meat someone is butchering) and I've included some pictures from that. The final picture is what the body finally looked like, once all the organs were taken out. I'm really surprised I made it through this whole thing without either throwing up or passing out, but for some reason the setting of it and how quickly it all happened made it somehow tolerable. Can't really explain it, but maybe I was partially just shocked by it all too.

We then waited while my friend's host fam prepared lunch. This was a meal of liver skewered on sticks with a slice of fat wrapped around it grilled over some coal. The taste was pretty good, but I'm not a huge fan of the texture of it all. Oo boy. For dinner later, we had organ and chick pea stew! Mmm, tasty? Apparently, the first day you eat the organs and you wait for the next day to eat the actual meaty part of the sheep. So that was that. I'm glad I tried it but I don't think I'm going to be ordering it in a restaurant anytime soon. 

Anywho, as crazy as the actual slaughtering was, we had an experience outside the house that I thought was just as interesting. The aftermath of Aid... da da daaa. My friend and I walked down to the end of her street, which met up with the main road, and immediately in front of us was this chaotic smokey scene of destruction. Maybe a little melodramatic, but really. This was intense. There were these huge fire pits set up for roasting the heads of the sheep - but not just roasting. Blackening to a crisp. The guys out on the streets (between the ages of about 13-28 maybe) would then grab the heads out of the fire (some bare-handed! gah. Only the older ones though) and proceed to chop the horns off the head and then split the head in half. Next to these massive fire pits were piles of these skins turned inside-out, all waiting to be picked up for cleaning and drying. All along the street too, people were trying to keep these huge fires going, so were throwing in old doors, chairs, crates, whatever would be fire friendly and was currently unused. You can imagine all the sounds I got to hear that day! What with all the sheep killings, the blood, the heaps of sheep's skins, the blackened heads emerging from these fire mounds, the kids throwing chairs and doors into these fires, the gray sky and the smokey air, it seriously looked like some apocalyptic, end of the world scene from a movie. So. Intense. It felt like being part of some sort of exclusive club though, being out on the streets with all this happening and witnessing it. Sometimes it pays to be American - though I'm a girl, since I'm foreign I didn't get shuma-ed off the streets. Hurray.

So, needless to say, Eid was intense. If you didn't read about it from the last post, it's basically reenacting the biblical story of Abraham. He was instructed to sacrifice his son, but at the last minute there was divine intervention and instead Abraham was told to sacrifice a sheep in the place of his son. Hence killing the sheep. Crazy how many people go all out with getting one sheep (or more... depending on econ status) - of the 4-5 million sheep that are killed in Morocco each year for food, 1 million are killed on Eid al-Adhan. This probably seems like such a waste or cruel to animals (which I still am unsure how I feel about it) but, when you look at it, the sheep are killed quickly (if it's done right I suppose) so suffering is, inshallah, minimal. The sheep is not wasted either - everything is consumed. So you eat every part of the body (except possibly the hooves? I never saw what became of those) and the skin is dried and cleaned and used later as blankets or else the wool is taken and spun later. So the animal is being put to use and not wasted, as it probably would be in other parts of the world. Though I will say, the religious significance seems to have been lost over time. There wasn't much ceremony around the killing of the sheep - it was more of just an exciting spectacle people look forward to everywhere, with special food to go along with it. It's also been fairly heavily commercialized, as could be seen with all the advertisements the week or two before. But hey - look what's happened to Christmas. 

That's all I have for you for now. Sorry if the formatting is funky - it's taking me forever to do it all and I don't feel like fixing it 0:) I'll probably want some distraction from my ISP this week so inshallah I'll fill you in on the rest of what's been happening lately. Talk to you sooon. 

Word of the Day:

Inshallah - God-willing. Used as the English equivalent of 'hopefully' but soooo much cooler and powerful. Used all the time - will you come back and visit? - Inshallah. What time is your train arriving? 3:00 pm, inshallah. So. Good

Humdullah - Thank God. Kind of goes along with the theme of inshallah I guess. This word is also used a lot, and is pronounced differently according to how much you want to emphasize the word. So much fun to say.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Here comes Eid al-Adha

Alright. I realize it's been a little while since my last post, and I probs won't have too much time in the next week to post again. BUT I wanted to write something real quick because it's the holiday season right now! Tomorrow is Eid al-Adha, pretty much the equivalent of Christmas in the States. Dear Wiki can tell you more about the background and tradition of the holiday if you're curious:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_al-Adha

So I'm staying with my friends family for the next couple days (complications with my family and had to move out) and they already have a ram! It's in this little room right next to the living room where I'm sleeping. Goofy little guy, but he can be loud when he wants. So basically the fam is going to kill the sheep and then we'll eat it. Big big occasion. Everyone's super excited about it - there are tons of sheep/rams in the streets, ready to be sold or are being delivered. Little stands have popped up selling hay for the sheep and coal, or guys sit along the streets with a wheel to sharpen blades. All the commercials and ads recently have been filled with sheep. Also, the bigger the sheep you buy, the better - gotta impress the neighbors!

And soon I get to experience this tradition of sacrificing the sheep. I don't like seeing animals suffer and I'm queasy around blood so not gonna lie, little nervous about the whole thing. But it's something that people have mentioned ever since Ramadan. There is another Eid then, but this is Eid Kabir, or the Big Eid. So inshallah, everything goes well!

Just thought I would just give you a little taste of the atmosphere and upcoming event so you can feel some of the suspense/build up that everyone else here is feeling.

More to come after the holiday :)

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Southern Wanderings

Oy ve. It's been a while again. I've got a ton of emails to send but this stupid internet stick is taking FOREVER (I lost my other one that worked like a dream... damn) so I figured I might as well start writing a new post while I wait.

Anywho. I don't even know where to start with this and enough has happened that telling all is somewhat daunting. So. I'm going to try and use pictures and give you a rough idea of what's been going on in the past 2 weeks or so.

Ahh digression before I even start... Halloween happened... when? One thing I've been missing from America has been fall and the whole build up to the holidays. Apple picking, leaves changing, that distinctly autumn smell.. ooh dear. And of course, the wonderful holiday of Halloween. It was so strange this year to not think about a costume at all really and to have some people just say.. ooo yeah. Happy Halloween. I got to hang out with my Vass friend visiting from London on Halloween! And went to someone's house. But other than that, nothing at all resembling dressing up, trick or treating, or whatever occurred. I'm going to have to do a better job with creating some sort of makeshift Thanksgiving because I can't miss both fall holidays. That just wouldn't do.

Oh. Another little side note before I get into the happenings of the past 2 weeks. I was talking to one of my friends online and he asked me to tell him about weird customs I've encountered in Morocco. That's an easy one, right? I'm surrounded by Moroccan culture all day and all night, I live in a Moroccan household, and my house is in the old part of the city where European culture has been held back to some degree. But oddly, I drew a blank and couldn't think of anything. Weird customs? I had no idea what to say. The only thing that really came to mind was something to do with food.. but even that was a kind of lame, I-need-to-think-of-something response. And then I started thinking about it more... there are a lot of things that happen daily that were alien to me at first, but since I encounter them so often I've started taking them for granted and so don't think of them as that strange anymore. Take bargaining for example. The first couple weeks that was something difficult to try and do - shopkeepers inevitably set the price really high, especially since they know I'm American tourist. Arguing with the shopkeeper about their product being too expensive and trying to get the price down was really uncomfortable at first. But now I like it - it's become a sort of game. And you get such an awesome feeling of accomplishment when you've managed to bring the price down a good deal. Here's how a typical conversation could go (abbreviated version):

Me - 200 dh for that bag? Pshh that's way too much. I'll pay 100 dh.
Shopkeeper - 100 dh, no. 200 dh is a good price.
Me - No. 100 dh.
Shopkeeper - How about 180 dh?
Me - No, I'll pay 100 dh. I'm a student.
Shopkeeper - That's not possible. What's your last price?
Me - I'm not paying anymore than 120 dh.
Moment of truth. Here I'll either get it or I won't. Still not perfect at it, obviously, but I had some good luck getting some little presents in Marrakech. Wooo. That's one thing I've decided I'm going to miss a lot about Morocco. I can just imagine going into a Macy's or Urban Outfitters or something...
$90 for the jeans? That's ridiculous. I'll pay $50.
Um ma'am, you either pay $90 or you don't buy the pants.
That's no fun. But anyways, the whole point of that was that language barrier/street harassment aside, I actually feel pretty comfortable here now, to the point that things like bargaining or even eating tajine that were once awkward and nervous activities for me are now easy and natural. I thought I would always be conscious of the differences and foreign habits I encountered here, but now it's just a part of everyday life. Gah. So great.

Alright enough with that. So, the past 2 weeks! The first interesting thing that happened was my venture up north during the school week. I finally decided for sure that I'm going to do my big research project on contemporary women artists in Morocco. Which means I just get to travel all over and talk to people :) That's not why I'm doing it obviously, but it works out well. My professor for one of my classes got me into contact with two women we studied in our visual arts class. They live close to each other and both agreed to meet me, so I picked up and went up north to Tetouan (sounds like something from Star Wars) to meet these women. They were both just the sweetest people in the world - so accommodating and so helpful. It was fun to get a glimpse into the Moroccan art scene, especially with artists that exhibit their work internationally as well. I still have a long ways to go with the project but this was a really, really awesome start.


Typical view during the bus tour. NBD
Again, through the bus window
So yeah, I ended up spending about a day and a half in Tetouan and a nearby town. That was on a Wednesday and Thursday, and so upon returning to Rabat, I barely had time to catch my breath before my program had us pack up to head south. Ah the Southern Excursion... what the program insisted would be one of the highlights of the program and oh how right they were. This was quite a trip though - our destinations included Ifrane-Azrou, Middelt, Merzouga, N'qob, Ouarzazate, Marrakech, and Essaouira. All in a week. There was a lot of bus time at the beginning of this trip. We stopped by cedar forests to learn about deforestation, drove through palm valleys since that industry sustains so many people, stopped by this fancy shmancy university called Al Akhawayn (means two brothers, and which was absolutely gorgeous and I can't believe I didn't apply there ha), etc. Being on the bus for so long was kind of rough, but the drive was absolutely gorgeous. We drove through the Atlas mountains and a bunch of tizis, or the valley essentially between 2 mountains, and that was breathtaking. Oh lord. At this town called Rissani, we ditched the bus and took Land Rovers out to pay a visit to the Sahara! Gah. Oh that was one thing we learned - don't say Sahara Desert. Sahara means desert in Arabic. So it will sound real redundant to say Sahara Desert.



Desert at sunset
Once in the desert (in a small town called Merzouga) we settled into our hotel and went outside to go grab our camels :) Actually, my camel and the one on the same lead kind of terrified me. They both made some angry noises while on the ground and mine had really pointy teeth. But once actually on, it was fun. We rode the camels up to the top of one of the dunes to see the sunset - my pictures can't really do justice to the colors we saw, so you'll have to take my word for it. But it was absolutely incredible. I'll try to add in more later but my internet is being exceptionally lame right now and will only load this picture to the left. Camel pictures to come later.

But anyways, after sitting atop the dunes for a bit, we meandered back to the start of the dunes and went back to the hotel. Which was awesome. It was dinner time by then, so we had a lovely buffet and had the opportunity to hear a Gnawa concert afterwards. Gnawa music is incredible. It's a type of music that came to Morocco with the sub-Saharan slave trade, and over the years has developed according to sub-Saharan, Amazighi (Berber), and Arab influences. It's usually very spiritual or mystical, and at times induces trances for exorcism, for connection to the more spiritual realm, etc. It's easy to see how it could do this - it's got a strong drum base and the same phrase is repeated over and over again, often times for hours at a time. The rhythm changes though. It felt somewhat awkward, because a hotel dining room full of European and American tourists is clearly not the place that Gnawa music should be played. It was hard to not feel like this was, again, an activity catered to the Oriental fantasies of colonialists. That aside though, the music was amazing. And later on, some of the waiters started playing just the drums so people got up to dance, which was awesome because this just felt like a celebration. Gotta find a CD of Gnawa music before coming home.

After several days of traveling around the Atlas region and seeing several towns, we stopped in Marrakech for two days. Marrakech was really awesome. There were tons of tourists, but Marrakech still had a certain charm to it and there was so much to do. The Djamea Lefna is the huge huge square in the middle of the old medina and definitely lives up to it's reputation of being just crazy. It was most fun at night, when a large area of the square was devoted to long tables where you could sit and have skewers of meat and veggies, vendors came out selling this incredible but super intense spiced tea (we came back to our vendor several times, so he ended up putting some ginger jam and menthol into ours... it was like smelling Vicks vapor rub. So definitely cleared the sinuses but after the initial shock of the fumes was fine to drink) and of course, the famous entertainers were out and about. Musicians were everywhere in the square, and I did walk past a snake charmer a couple times. But there was also a guy dancing with a rooster on his head that was pretty hilarious. Just all kinds of things to see in the square at night.

This is one of the smaller squares we went to with an awesome
cafe with this fun view
There was plenty of shopping to be done in Marrakech and lots of sight-seeing. My fav parts were definitely the art museum that had some great contemporary art, and our illegal picnic in the Majorelle Garden (this garden was gorgeous but felt super structured, which I didn't really like).

After 2 days in Marrakech, we headed out to our final destination - Essaouira. This small city sits on the ocean and has a gorgeous, clean medina and tons of cute shops and art galleries. I'm going to live there for at least part of the time of my independent research period. It's the south, which I loved, and is a city but seems very manageable. Ahh can't wait for the independent study time.

Anyways, I think this post is long enough so I'm going to go to bed. Night!


WORD OF THE DAY:

Al-Fan (fus'ha) - Art. I'm doing my independent research project on al-fan in Morocco! Heeey

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Global phenomenon and... just for kicks

Alright so I just wanted to add this real quick, because I meant to mention it in my last post and forgot. So here it is!

Back to the village for a sec. So remember that I said I had a sister who spoke English in the house I was staying at? I think I said that. Anywho, we got on the subject of music, and she was telling me the names of some Moroccan artists I should check out and also listing the American artists she likes. She mentioned Cat Stevens, which seemed random to me but I guess since he converted to Islam, it might make him more appealing? Also, my pretty conservative host-sister, who said she would wear the burka if her husband asked her too, said she was a fan of Bob Marley. I thought that was so great - while I've seen a lot of Bob Marley merchandise here, I didn't expect her to mention him. But that's not all. The thing that got me the most was that she talked about watching TV last year and seeing Michael Jackson's kids with their aunt. Clearly referring to all the footage of his family and all the events surrounding the death of Michael Jackson. Obviously I knew that Michael Jackson was a global phenomenon and his death was felt around the world, but hearing my host-sister talking about watching it made it real. She lives in a bigger town than the rest of her family because she goes to school there, but even still - we shared a kind of connection even back then, just because we were all following the same pop culture event unfold on TV and all sharing in the loss of this American icon. Ah globalization and the super-culture you've created.

And then just this little fun thing I wanted to share because I finally got a picture today.



Guess what we call him? Yeah... dread dog. Easy enough to remember. He hangs around near the main center where we take classes and oh. Makes me so happy every time I see him. 

WORD OF THE DAY: 

Fayl (pronounced f-eye-l, roughly) - verb. I'm studying a bunch of AFAAL (plural form of verb) right now for my test tomorrow. So I should go. Bye!

Friday, October 15, 2010

Taking a peek at village life

Oops. So I guess it's been a while since I've last written... and a good deal has happened. And if you're like me, seeing a super long post might be daunting and I don't want to bore you, so instead of recounting every little thing I've done in the past 2 weeks or so I'll just give you some little glimpses at what life has been like. Cause let me tell you - there have been plenty of new experiences in the past 2 weeks. I'll start with the village.

Alright so! As you might have read in the last post, my program planned an excursion to a rural village called Alateesha (don't hold me to that spelling). The closest city is Boujad, about 20-30 min away or so. Here's a map - Boujad is in the bottom right corner, right under the 's' in Atlas. Just to give you an idea of where we were at. Sadly my time was shortened a bit - because my stomach loves me so much, it decided to act up the night before. And by act up, I mean my body really didn't want me to leave quite yet for the village. So I stayed behind for a day or so to catch up on sleep and whatnot and set out on my own to the village a couple days later. And woo! That was a journey. I hopped on a train to Rabat at 9:45 am, switched trains at Casa to go on to Khouribga, caught a bus from there to Boujad (and whoa I stood out there. Not only was I the only non-Moroccan on that bus, but I don't think there was anyone not from a rural area on that bus) got a ride to the association in Boujad, and from there got a ride with the driver/2 policemen accompanying the program during the village stay all the way to the village. Made some friends along the way (there's no way I would have made it to the village had I not asked someone every single step of the way where I should be going) and 10 hours later, I pulled up in front of the house that I'd be staying at. By this time, around 7:30 pm, it was completely dark and had been for about an hour - the sun sets around 6 pm now, so after that you pretty much have to be back at your house in the village. I was pleasantly surprised to find one of my friends was staying there too! So especially after that long day that was really nice to just sit and relax and catch up on all the happenings of the village.

 Here's a look at where I was at for real. My house! There's a small TV I saw them turn on once or twice the entire time I was there but other than that there were no functioning electronic devices, so we had dinner by candlelight. And when it was time to brush our teeth/use the bathroom before bedtime, that meant taking a flashlight and walking around the side of the house to the backyard. That was actually a really cool time to be outside - when I turned my flashlight off and looked up, the stars were INCREDIBLE. Something I've only seen a handful of times in my life. I tried to look for constellations and actually couldn't find any, because there were too many stars and I couldn't distinguish any shapes. I also understand now how the Milky Way got it's name, because it definitely lives up to that when you can actually see it. And ahh I like to think of it as a little farewell, but the last night in the village my friend and I saw a shooting star - and not just the little ones you see for a millisecond in more lit up areas. This one had a trail and went far across the sky - it was something out of a movie. I could deal with having a sky like that every night.


Front yard of my home, with the oven
in the corner
On a different note, one thing I learned in the village is how much you can communicate without words, or at least with a very limited vocabulary. I really got a chance to test my Darija out here - my family, comprised of a mother, father, and 3 sisters, spoke only Darija (the middle sister, who had pretty good English, didn't come til the 2nd or 3rd day I was there. So after that we got into lengthier, more in depth convos, but until then we were limited to whatever we could communicate in Darija and through hand gestures). The youngest daughter knew some French, but it was about as good as my Darija. The father spoke some French, but thought it was way better than it actually was and also didn't understand why my friend and I didn't speak more. So that wasn't too helpful. He was saab bezzof - very difficult. Like I said, I won't go into detail about everything about the village and I don't want to use this as my ranting space, but he was a very traditional man who believed that women shouldn't have rights and should stay at home. He wasn't around much and didn't eat meals with the rest of the family, so I spent most of my time with my host mom and sisters, which was awesome. They are truly some of the sweetest people you'll ever meet - right away, they welcomed me into their home. The language barrier didn't stop them from talking to us a lot, and we actually got a lot across. The older sister, Naima, was about the same age as me. One of the little gestural-conversations we had revolved around ideals of beauty, if you will. She pointed to the side of my nose (implicating the nose ring) and basically asked why I had it. Same with my toe ring, and my non-lobe ear piercings. I didn't know what to tell her other than I liked them and they're pretty in America, to which she made sure to tell me that girls didn't do that in Morocco. Ha I think she thought it was a little strange (I've seen a handful of girls with nose rings in Morocco but yeah, for the most part it seems like it's not really a big thing here).

Rug I'm pretty sure my host mom wove. If you
turn right, right before the open door, you
enter the kitchen. But if you go out that open
door, you're in the backyard. And right next
to the cows and chickens.
But this little gestural-convo took an interesting twist that I didn't really expect. Naima asked my friend and I why we didn't wear a headscarf - I couldn't really give her a good answer, except that we just don't do it much in America and that I just chose not to wear one. Her response was "mashi zwina," or not beautiful, not so good. She then made a prayer gesture, and the sign of the cross, asking if either of us prayed. Neither of us do, which we told her. She seemed a bit confused - but as with my unconventional piercings and bizarre toe adornment, it just seemed to be just another odd thing about me. She didn't seem offended by it, or think of me differently (at least she didn't act any different around me). Surprised? I was. Maybe it's because I'd been warned that being a Jew or Christian was better than not practicing any religion, but this attitude and subsequent continuation of the conversation, as if this was just another weird thing making me different from her, was not what I expected. I anticipated that I might have offended her somewhat, or at least caused her some distress that I didn't pray. But no. She told her mother, and the other sisters found out later too, and again none of them seemed bothered. That a family living in a small, rural village with little exposure to the "West" (with the exception of the English speaking sister) could be so accepting certainly surprised me and gave me something to think about. If nothing else, this trip helped to break down some of the stereotypes often associated with rural life, and about how they view the rest of the world. But hey - what happens when you assume? Ha.. I hope someone can tell me the answer to this.

Anywho. Life in the village was sweet - it was quiet and tranquil, and nothing was rushed. If you enjoy a farm-animal soundtrack, then you'd be right at home. It was surprisingly cool here, too, but I actually liked that a lot - one thing I've been missing about being in the States is experiencing autumn, mah fav season. But on one of the days towards the end of the trip, the air definitely carried that distinct, autumn smell/feel, which made me super happy.

Another thing that made both my palette and my stomach happy was the food. Ah. Remember how I got sick right before leaving? Well, looks like I should have just gone to the village right away to experience my fams cooking - I was recovered by the time I got there, but my stomach felt so super normal, like it hasn't felt in a while there. That was awesome. The hobz (bread) was fresh everyday - the first morning there, I woke up and while eating a breakfast of tea, bread, and an olive oil/honey mixture (I was skeptical at first.. but again, my assumptions were proven wrong and it was delish) watched my older sister mix and knead the bread in a big bowl, and then set it aside to rise. I watched my host-mom put it in the igloo-like mud oven later. We had tajine of course, which again was so. good. Our couscous, or ksuksu, was a little different than what I've been getting in Rabat - there were of course the requisite vegetables like potatoes, squash, and carrots, but they also poured hot milk over the entire platter and it was even a bit sweet. Omg this was yummy! My host family also made a kind of oatmeal-like rice pudding thing for dinner one night that was also delicious. And every meal was, of course, accompanied by the wunderbar fresh hobz, which I so wish I still had. Ah.

You don't get an idea of the entire
 compound, but this was one of the walls of the
school. I just liked the picture...
I guess I'll skip to the last important part now. One of the things we did the last 2 days we were in the village was hang out at the local school and help out around the grounds. Ahhh. These kids were so cool. They were between the ages of 5-13 I'd say, and were clearly excited for us to be there. We sat in on class one day, and I ended up in a room where the teacher taught both 3rd and 6th grade, since they didn't have enough teachers to separate them. The teacher seemed really awesome - he spoke at least 3 languages and was super sweet with the kids. I've been learning about gender disparity when it comes to education, especially in rural areas, but this teacher made it a point to include all the kids in class, regardless of them being a girl or not. We stood up at the front of the room at the beginning, and our program director told us to do something for the kids. So we taught them "head, shoulders, knees and toes," which proved to be quite a hit. This turned into a lesson, learning some new English words, and they repeated it over and over again. Gah it was cute, and a bunch of them were singing that song for the next several days. When leaving the school compound to go back to Rabat, some of the kids followed us down to the end of the road and a few of them were still singing head shoulders..


Working hard. Yeah
But yeah, after that we spent the rest of our time outside, cleaning up the yard, whitewashing the walls surrounding the compound and the trees/rocks, and then painting the walls with designs and whatnot. It didn't feel like much at the time, but after everything was done, one of the teachers made it a point to let us know how important it was that we had come and how much it meant to all the kids/teachers. I guess we should keep in mind not to underestimate our actions, and what even the smallest gesture can do.

I was just starting to settle in and feel more comfortable with life and our routine in the village when already, it was time to go. So went a little less than a week in this village that somehow managed to accommodate 40+ of us. It was definitely leaving but, oh well. My host fam said I could come back anytime and I wouldn't mind taking them up on that offer.


Oh and you think I'm done writing. I'll keep the rest of this short. So I had a night in Rabat before leaving again, this time to the northeast of Morocco to a town called Al-Hoceima, right on the Mediterranean Coast. Again, this was quite a journey - overnight train in a freezing train car and then a 2 1/2 hour taxi ride left us with about 3ish hours of sleep, but we arrived, checked in to an awesome but relatively cheap hotel, and set out about our day. The group I was with took a boat ride of the coast and whooaa was that worth it. Ha I'm bombarding you with pictures with this post but I can't not show what this place looked like! Plus they're actually from my camera now so I feel better about it. Anywho, the coastline was rocky, cliffy, what have you, and it was a really gorgeous day. Our captain and first mate were both super cool, and oo hey the captain was originally from Corsica so spoke Italian! My Italian was rusty at first fo sho but ooh my lord it felt so good to break that out finally.

If you thought that looked like a Spanish
fort atop a small little island, you were
right - Spain still has some random and, in
some cases, pretty useless territories in parts
of Morocco. Colonialism/imperialism lives on!
The next day we made our way to another little town to do some hiking, which ended up being really sweet since we were right on the coastline. It definitely wasn't a stroll in the park, but that ended up being more fun - it felt like no one, besides maybe some goats and their owners, had seen this area of the land that we climbed. Again - so worth it.

Got back to Al-Hoceima later, called up our captain friend! And hung out with him and the first mate later. And then left the next morning. The hiking, boating, and general atmosphere of this town and the spontaneity of it all definitely made this one of the best weekends by far. I would go back there for sure.

I guess this about wraps up this post. I don't think I can tell you anything else exciting that's happened, except for what's to come next weekend - the southern excursion! We'll be spending a week down south, hitting up Marrakech, Essaouira, and ooo even taking a peak at the desert. But that's for another post. Bislemah!


WORD OF THE DAY:

Aloomam Almootaheeda (forgive me, I don't know how you actually spell it with Latin letters..) - United Nations. Not only is this word really fun to say, but it's totally random right? Yeah, one of the first words we learn in the Arabic textbook. Good stuff

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Quick little thang

Ooo hey. I meant to post earlier, like after this weekend - we went to this ADORABLE town called Assilah, near Tanger, and had the coolest experience with the beach (will write more later.. promise). But, of course, scheduling was weird this week and we were basically going to class from 8:30 am til around 5 pm, one day 6 pm. And I won't be writing for a little while because... drum roll...

Rural Village Stay!! We're leaving mad early tomorrow and ahh I still have some packing to do - hence the very short little piece just so you all know what's going on.

I'll just tell my real quick story before signing out!

So before Assilah we had class, as always, on Friday. But Friday is a special day in Morocco - aside from it being the day that most people go to mosque, it's also couscous Friday! So for lunch, you can bet that a majority of Moroccans are digging into the communal ceramic bowl every Friday, enjoying that wonderful meal. But ah, you can't have couscous without washing it down with something! And my family chooses to drink leben (pronounced luh-BEN) with their meal. What's leben you say? Yeah, I didn't know either - or at least didn't know the term. Which oh.. got me in a little trouble.

So my host mom (daughter? I don't know.. the younger woman who's a motherly figure..) had just gotten out of the shower and the older woman rarely leaves the house. So my host mom asks me to do a favor.. tells me to get leben, hands me a note that has the word leben written in Arabic and Latin letters, hands me a 20 dh note (around $2) and tells me to get some of this stuff, speaking in rapid French, and tells me to go right away so we can eat. One of the only words I catch when she's describing the stuff to me is 'les vers'.. 'the greens,' or so I think. So I think I'm on a mission to get some kind of herb, I'm guessing for the older lady since she's been sick, with this 20 dh note and I have no idea how much to get. So I turn out into the little street and make my way to the nearby souk. There, I see a man selling all kinds of veggies and guess that he'd either have leben or know where I can get it. So I ask him (he has little French btw..) and he tells me I must go a long ways down the street to get some. I have no idea which stand I should be making my way to, so he ends up leading me and pointing me to a little cart. I say shukran and he leaves.

So I go up to this guy at the cart and ask him for leben, showing him the piece of paper just in case my pronunciation is totally off. The guy nods and asks how much I want. I of course have absolutely no idea, not even knowing what leben is, so ask for 10 dh worth. The guy starts scooping tons of bigger couscous into a plastic bag... I question him and say leben? and he just says yes and keeps on scooping. He then opens another bag and starts ladling some think milk looking substance into another plastic bag. Ahhh. We had this last week for lunch. It was like buttermilk or something - real thick and sour and, in my opinion, not good and not something I want to have with lunch. But anywho, I figure out that that's what I'm supposed to be getting and so tell the guy that I don't want the couscous, cause I def not supposed to get that. I hand the guy the money and wait around for a little while, double checking that this was leben, and when he doesn't give me change I walk home. Dumb.

I get home with the bag of leben and at first my family looks happy. But then my host mom looks in the bag confused, asks where the change is, and when I tell her he didn't give me change she looks real mad. Freshly showered, she throws on her headscarf and djellaba and tells me to come with her back outside. We end up walking all the way back to the guy selling leben (apparently I walked waaay too far and should have gone to a closer stand) and watch while my host mom yells at the guy at the cart, hands him the bag he gave me and demands her money back. Turns out that this was one of the carts that people come up to to have a snack and so eat couscous with leben, like cereal, at the cart before going on their way.

My host mom and I then go to a little boutique right next to the veggie stand that I'd first been to, and I watch as she gets 2 cartons of the stuff for 6 dh total. Oh. If I'd known that's what I was supposed to be getting, I so easily could have done that cause that was nothing. But omg. My host mom was super angry, cause 20 dh and 6 dh is a big difference, and she was pissed that the guy hadn't given me any change. So while she's getting the cartons of leben, she's ranting to the guy about the man with the cart, saying 'Shuma shuma!' which means 'shame!' and is used often enough when someones done something taboo. All the other shopkeepers around were of course listening and exclaiming, clearly saying things like "Oh my god! I can't believe he would do that!" and so on. So awesome. I totally brought shame on a shopkeeper in the madina. He did rip me off so I guess he had it coming, but still. I feel bad.

So yeah, I don't think my host mom was mad at me at all - I think she found it somewhat amusing. But there's my story of issues with the language barrier and having NO IDEA what I was supposed to be doing.

Talk to you after the village stay!

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Alif Baa

Oops it's been a while. So, plenty has happened since the last time I posted. 

I guess I'll start with the title of this post. Alif Baa! !اب Not only is that the name of the textbook I've been using recently, but it's also the names of the first 2 letters of the Arabic alphabet. Yep. We've learned the alphabet now! All 28 letters, their 3 different positions, and then the vowels that exist but people don't actually really write with. Ahh learning the alphabet really brought me back (to kindergarten, that is) - having to write the same little symbol over and over again, practicing your handwriting and trying to get everything to look juuuust right. And then of course, listening exercises and trying to distinguish between letters that sound so damn similar. It's getting better though. And oh! You take reading for granted - at our level, we've gotten to a point where you almost can't not read a sign when you see one. So we might not remember that feeling of actually being able to distinguish those weird symbols on a sign and actually know what it's talking about! Ha I'm getting to experience that feeling all over again. Signs and streets and menus aren't just incoherent pretty little symbols - sure my vocab is super minimal, but I'm actually able to sound out words now. And there are some that I can sound out and even recognize the word! Take for example Mohammad V Avenue... Sure it's an easy one. But I can actually sound out the word for avenue, and then recognize Mohammad in Arabic. Bah. Do you know how exciting this is?!? I'm excited... Oh also, I can show you what my name looks like in Arabic   أنا yeaaah. Which leads me to a little story about my name that I checked and can't believe I haven't written about yet! Some of you already know so sorry to repeat. But. My name. We had to do a project on our names in 7th grade, and I found out my name means 'graceful' (ha.. yeah). It also is supposed to be a 'bridge' name - one that transcends different cultures, or bridges them even, and so can be found in a number of different languages. So I was totally unprepared for what I found here when I introduced myself to people! My name, ana, literally means "I" in Arabic. So when people asked me my name and I said "Anna," they looked at me funny like "Ok... go on.." No. That's it. Anna. Or I. My name is I. That's what it sounds like. So needless to say I've been given some other names here. A few people have been calling me "Anni," which is kind of cool. My Arabic teacher said he'd be giving us Arabic names soon, so hopefully he works on that.

So yeah, the Arabic's been taking up a lot of time. 3 hours a day! But let's see, besides that there's other things I could tell you about. This past weekend we went on our first bigger excursion as a group - the "Four Dynasties" tour. That meant leaving Rabat mad early Saturday morning and hopping on a bus to hit up Meknes first (you can see on the map - Meknes and the other cities we went to are just east of Rabat, the red dot). Meknes is the pretty little city that was the capital of Morocco for about 20 years I think? Way back in the 1500s. We visited this enormous old granary that supplied the horses in the army of the sultan - the granary could hold enough food to feed 12,000 horses for 3 years. Yeah, it wasn't small. We also went to this one shop that told us about the crafts that they make only in Meknes - like this black metalware that they hammer silver into to make designs. That was GORGEOUS - there were plates, bowls, more sculptural pieces like birds, etc. I wish we'd seen more of Meknes but right after that we got on the bus to go to Moulay Idriss - this small little town nestled in the valley between some mountain-ish hills. It's not very wealthy but apparently this town does pretty well for itself - the land's fertile, so they grow olives, wheat, and I think grapes. It's apparently a good location. Because if you drive about 15 minutes away (which we proceeded to do right after lunch, which is all we did in the town. Again, wish I'd seen more of it) you get to Volubilis! Roman ruins much? Yeah - for those who weren't aware, the Romans made it all the way to Morocco and set up camp here. The ruins we saw were kind of like what you would see at someplace like Pompeii or Ephesus - a pretty substantial town, complete with a Roman bath house, indoor plumbing, a basilica/church, brothel, etc. The ruins would be in better shape, but there was a massive earthquake in the 1700s that destroyed a lot. Still though, you got a pretty good feel for the town. The ruins were gorgeeeous. It was cute too, on 2 of the columns that are still left standing are some enormous birds nests. Apparently there are storks that spend part of the time at these ruins, where they lay their eggs, and spend the rest of the year in Paris. What a life, right?

Fes old walled madina
Tannery in Fes
So after time at the ruins, we drove on to Fes, which was founded in something like 791. Ah Fes. This city is huge. Our old madina, where I'm staying, can seem overwhelming to those who've never traveled it with all the winding streets. We have about 40,000-50,000 people living in the Rabat madina. Fes? about 900,000. The madina takes up something like 750 acres, and I'm pretty sure is the largest madina of it's kind. I think I could spend a year in this madina and still get lost all the time. The streets are way crazier here too - some are so super narrow, your shoulders are practically touching the walls on either side. And, the most popular form of transportation is a donkey. So, you hear "Balak!" "Attention!" often because oo hey! There's a donkey coming down the street, carrying some load for its owner. The donkeys never really looked so happy - I felt really sorry for them. But apparently some lady started a veterinarian clinic just outside the old madina, so now at least they can get treated when they're sick. But yeah, in this madina we were taken all around to different sites. Saw an absolutely beautiful madrasa, or what used to be a functioning school, that looked more like a mosque it was so finely decorated. They also took us to a leather shop, where we also got to the see the famous tanneries. Ooo lord. Talk about exploitation of workers. The owners are apparently pretty wealthy, but the workers see hardly any of the profit. The working conditions look absolutely miserable too - this picture is one I got off the internet, and let me tell you that pic is doctored. All day, guys are stuck in these huge vats of either dye or some kind of fixative, to work the leather. It looks like a huge amount of work too - the skins are enormous, and with all the absorbed liquid look really heavy. It was pretty hot in Fes, so it's got to be some pretty nasty, sweaty work. Ah lord, these are some working conditions that need some improvement soon. As soon as I get my own pictures up you can see the real thing. The smell is incredible too - when we walked in they gave us all a sprig of mint, so we could have a kind of gas mask to cover up the stench. I feel weird now, seeing all the leather goods everywhere, when I saw for myself the process of how those came to be.

Besides that though, Fes was pretty sweet. A few of us got these kaftan kind of things - apparently the new style of dress in Morocco. It's like a dress sort of thing but has a piece running along the middle. It's one piece of fabric and really hard to describe how it looks/how to put it on because it's really weird, but basically I feel like a princess in it and it's clearly Moroccan, not Western, so people in the streets always say "Ah zwina!" and clearly get a kick out of American girls wearing Moroccan dress. But I think, for the most part, they appreciate it too.

So anyways, I'm going to go to bed soon (got sick after this weekend of travels, which made an appearance during my stay in Casablanca - had to leave early, no fun. Need sleep) but before I do I just want to say one other thing I did this week that was a definite highlight! Finally visited a hammam - a Moroccan bathhouse. I went with a few of my friends, one of their host moms, and the host mom's friend and daughters - so it was a partay. We picked up this weird, brown taffy looking substance on the street that was our soap, along with some henna to mix in with the soap to get extra clean and soft. For 10 dh, we got admission into the hammam. From there, we took all our shampoo, soap, and requisite mats and made our way into one of the three rooms. If anyone has ever seen a Roman bathhouse, it was the same idea except smaller, with a long room that had an arched ceiling. We had buckets of water in front of us and... were completely naked. There wasn't a ton of lighting in the room but still - you saw everybody. Then, for 20 dh (about $2.50), a lady came over and used the scrubby thing I'd bought from off the street to scrub me down... everywhere. And whoa, my scrubby thing was pretty new, so it was like taking sandpaper to your body and rubbing hard. It was interesting though, and the whole process just felt really motherly. I felt super clean afterwards, definitely the most clean I've felt this trip. And ah, being in that pretty hot room and dumping cold water all over feel soo. good. I would definitely go back. I think we're going to try and hit up some other hammams, to do some kind of comparison. I want to go to one of the more high end hammams to get the mud masks done - that sounds sweet. But yeah, that was my interesting bit of culture I got to explore this week.

So I've got to go to bed. But I'll try and write more again soon!

WORD OF THE DAY:
Darija:

Tabib - doctor. The older woman in my house keeps telling me about the tabib, because she's apparently had to go a bunch recently and I think she's not supposed to be eating much sugar now (Ramadan definitely takes its toll on people, and a bunch of them have health problems afterwards because of all the tons of sugar they consume during that month).

Monday, September 13, 2010

Aaand normal life begins...

Before I start in with the rest of this post, I thought I'd just follow up with the juice bar thing that I ended with in my last post. I went back for a second time today because the juice bar was just that good. The first time I tried the avocado juice (didn't have much of a choice actually...) and OMG it was delicious. It was mixed with a lot of milk and I think honey, so ended up being relatively thick and almost like a smoothie, but was surprisingly light and refreshing. And today I had papaya juice, and I think they literally just blended a papaya and maybe added some water. I'm considering opening up a juice bar back in the states because I can't think of any place that has stuff like that, or at least not at a reasonable price. They didn't have it today but I'm going to have to go back for the hazelnut juice... yuuum.

But back to the rest of the post! So I guess I last left with you with the soccer game. It's kind of hard to keep track of everything but I guess I might as well start with last Thursday, since we had Thursday off (4 day weekend whaa). Actually I guess nothing too exciting happened... my friends and I had a little picnic by the river, lots of walking around the medina and the Ville Nouvelle at night. Oh! Thursday night we did get henna done though - I went with my friends host mom, her daughters, and a couple more of my friends to some ladies house to get it done. She did one of my hands and one of my feet and aahh it looked so good. We were sitting there for ages though but it was kind of funny being there - henna seems to be a little girl thing, so 4 college students looked a little out of place there. This was clearly a popping place to get henna done though, people kept coming in and out and dropping off their girls and coming back later. Awesome. After that we dropped by McDonalds to hear some live music (by the time we got there it had kind of died down). Yeah, McDonalds. Only in America is McDonalds somewhat sketch and just a place to grab some food - here it's actually considered a good meal, and apparently a place to host a band. The inside is much nicer here than in the states, for the record.

Then Friday was Aid (pronounced ay-eed). That's the celebration of the end of Ramadan, and what some people told me was roughly the equivalent to Thanksgiving/Christmas because of all the food/fam time. Sooo I woke up, got to have breakfast with my family for the first time since I've been here, and then went to put on a long dress since I'd have to sit and greet people with the rest of the family. But oops, dress is not the proper attire for Aid. My host mom (sister? whatever.. the younger one) brought out one of her fancy shmancy satiny djellabas for me to wear for the day - pics will go up eventually, but I can tell you that I still looked pretty damn American. The two women made me put on makeup too and then wanted pictures of me in a couple of the rooms wearing the djellaba - it felt like prom all over again ha. Felt cool wearing my Moroccan slippers and with my fresh henna though, to complete the look. But anyways, two men came over first, my host mom's brother and his son (too many new names/can't spell any of them, so sorry for not writing those down). I thought the two women I'm staying with are pretty religious, but whoa I think my host mom's brother and nephew are more so. I stood up to greet these two men in skull caps with long beards (and the younger one with kohl-rimmed eyes) as I have every other person I've met at the house (including other guys) and was quickly told that that's a no-no... these men don't touch women, so shaking their hands wasn't going to happen. Oops. The other brother came over, who is not as orthodox and who I've met before, so I shook his hand and met his nephew? who was 12 and super adorable. At first it was a little annoying, because they were looking over and laughing and clearly talking about me (as have most everyone who's come to visit. It's the same with everyone else and their host families - the Moroccans that come into contact with us seemed fascinated with people hosting Americans, and so talk about them right there for a long time). But then the little boy came over to sit across from me and said "You speak English?" Ah, the first English I've heard in the house since I moved in. So, I proceeded to talk to this little boy, who was clearly excited to be able to communicate with me and get some practice in with his speaking. I felt like I was reviewing one of my beginning language textbooks - "What kind of music do you like? What foods do you eat? Do you have any brothers or sisters?" was how most of the convo went. It was cute when we got to the age question though, because I asked how old he was and he said twenty. When he asked me I said I was twenty, and he said O no wait! I'm 10 and 2... so I told him he was twelve. He burst out giggling then and thought it was so funny he'd said he was 20. Gah he was so cute, it was fun talking to him.

Wow I'm writing a lot, I'll try not to ramble so much. So I left around 3ish that day (the most important part of the Aid celebration apparently happens in the morning) to go to a beach house with a big group of people about 20 minutes south of Rabat. That was a huuuge mess at first, because my friend who was organizing it thought we could fudge the numbers a little and fit a lot of people in the house we rented. It was a house for 12... and we showed up with about 30 ha. Oops. The landlord was not happy. About 10 people broke off and found another apartment nearby, and we ended up fitting the rest into the first place where I stayed. By the time we got everything settled it was later though, and so we ended up just going out to dinner basically and then coming back and hanging out at the house. It was really nice actually - I liked all the people there, but we usually can't do stuff like that altogether because going out in public with that many people doesn't work well. So it was fun to actually hang out with everybody for a while. Also watched a bootleg version of Titanic 2 that someone bought in the street that day - the movie is actually way more horrible than it sounds. I'm pretty sure it was trying to be serious, but it was like watching one of those parody movies like "Scary Movie.." "Date Movie.." "Sinking Ship Movie." God it was terrible. But as much as I hate to support the whole pirating industry, it is pretty cool to be able to pick up some movies on the street for 5 dirham (50 cents) to watch later. Inception anyone? I guess it's not out in the states yet but we've got it here :) Some of the movies are burned copies of an original DVD, but a bunch of them are filmed theaters and then sold on the street. Pretty entertaining.

Ah sidetrack! Ok so the next day we went to the beach and walked around for a while - there wasn't really a good place to swim it turns out, but it was really pretty and fun to walk around. We came back on a bus, when I had my first introduction to a shanty-town. So yeah, let me digress and explain the class structure a little bit, as I'm experiencing it anyways. As I'm sure you can guess already with the prices I've been throwing out, Morocco is not a rich nation. We learned a little bit about the budget in one of my seminar sessions and let me just put it all in perspective for you - the GNP for allll of Morocco is roughly $80-85 billion/year. The budget for the U.S army? $700 billion/year. The budget for the Ministry of Education, which deals with all the public schools in the nation is something like  $5 million. Harvard's endowment, ONE college (which yes, I know is absurdly wealthy... but just work with me for this comparison) is around $14 billion. So as I'm sure you can guess, we're not exposed e to loads of wealth, unless you go to some 4-5 star hotel or hit up the palace.

The old madina where I'm living! (sorry, stole the pic from a friend)
The Ville Nouvelle (part the French colonialists built) is definitely the nicer part of the city and cleaner, but we're in the old madina, which when looking at it through Western eyes, could probably use some fixing up. It's pretty dirty, there's trash everywhere, stray cats roam the streets, and people live pretty modestly and don't have much in excess (TVs are a must, however) and for the most part buy for necessity. Most houses are relatively small, and most people have something like 3 rooms and a kitchen in their house - and this is all pretty nice. But, I realized, even in the madina ghadima, which definitely has its fair share of beggars, we're in a bubble. The shanty town which we passed along the coast was enormous, and exactly like how you see it in films/news reports. I think it was good to see though - Rabat is the capital city, so things are at least decent here. But seeing the shanty town definitely brings home the idea that even if the government here has started some programs to improve the welfare of the nation, they still have a loooong ways to go. I know we have poverty in the U.S, but this was different. Might consider this for my independent study project later this semester...

The shanty town all passed by in a hurry, though, and we found ourselves back in Rabat. The rest of the weekend was fairly uneventful. A group of us went to the beach again on Sunday (it apparently doesn't start really cooling down til mid-October? looks like the beach will be on my agenda for a while..). This time though, we met an interesting guy. He told my friends and I that he would teach us to make tajine (like a casserole, the dish and the actual food have the same name. The kind of tajine we'd be making would most likely consist of cooked eggplant and whatever else). There's a picture by the way. He said we could make it on the beach - ahh fun. And that he'd teach us to surf. Who needs the expensive surf club when we can have a surf buddy.

Mausoleum at Hassan Tower. And I know, getting all
fancy with all these pics. But still not my own picture ha
Let's see I guess I can tell you one more thing. FINALLY went to the Hassan Tower - a mosque that was started in the 11th century (or a little later) by Yacoub el Mansour, and which was destined to be the biggest (or maybe 2nd largest, next to the one in Mecca) mosque in the Islamic world. But alas, it was never finished, and so now is just a huuge huge tower with rows of half columns and a mausoleum (which I'm pretty sure the previous king, Hassan II, had erected). Sadly it was closed when we went, so I guess I'll have to go again sometime soon to see the inside of the mausoleum. But there's still plenty of time.



Well. I think you have a pretty good idea of what I've been up to lately. I start fus'ha tomorrow! Standard Arabic, and finally the alphabet. And oo yeah, the title of this post is in reference to the end of Ramadan and the beginning of normal life here (no more eating at midnight or 3 am, night life's dying down, people are resuming regular schedules, etc). Hopefully this means less sweets too - I think I'll be on my way to developing diabetes if I keep the Ramadan diet up. Although I just found out today that some people continue to fast 6 days after Ramadan to make sure their prayers are heard, like my family. So things aren't completely normal in all the households, but in the streets/public life they are.

That's all for now. Good night!

WORD OF THE DAY:
Darija

mdegdeg(a) - pronounced ma-DIG-a-DIG-(a - fem version). Ana mdegdega - I'm tired! Useful phrase, and oo so much fun to say.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Sense-scape

Ok. So I figured the theme for this post would be to give you all an idea of what my environment is like, because I realize almost every single time I take a picture that it just doesn't do the scene justice, especially with so many new scents and sounds. I also want to do this before everything becomes natural, because I think I'm even starting to get used to the sensory overload that is the wonderful souk (market). It feels like I've been here a long time already - I can't believe it's only been a little over a week.

So anyways. My day starts with my alarm waking me up and hearing the sounds of the older woman, Hadija, shuffling around the house making me breakfast (I feel bad when I wake up later, cause she fasts for Ramadan so prepares me breakfast but doesn't eat it. Waking up before school seems to be early enough tho that she joins me). I usually wake up covered in sweat though, because my room gets a tad stuff and there's not much ventilation in the house. Buuut as soon as I'm done getting dressed and all that, have my breakfast of bread and marmalade and sweet mint tea (ate be nana) I leave the house to go to Arabic lessons outside the medina. I really wish I were a morning person and could be up this early all the time, because the streets then are the best. It's fairly quiet but people are starting to wake up, so some people are milling about. Most of the medina streets are fairly narrow, maybe 4 people could walk abreast? but are certainly wide enough for a motorcycle to go zooming by. Most areas smell pretty neutral in the morning, but you do pass areas where someone clearly took a piss there. The walls are either white, cream, or some kind of blue (some areas also have red painted halfway up) and are pretty decrepit and dirty, but for some reason I love them. I don't like when things look too new anyways, and I guess there's something bare and honest about them. I took pictures this morning, so as soon as I find time to load my pics on my comp I'll put some up. Ooo yeah, they're there all the time but particularly in the morning I see tons of cats. They're adorable but keep to themselves, which is good since rabies isn't uncommon here. Ha one scared me this morning though, because it jumped down from over a door but looked like it kind of feel, and it just startled me.

To get to the Arabic school, we have to walk through Mohammad V (Mo 5 seems to be the consensus abbrev) which is one of the main streets in Rabat and cuts through the medina. Mo 5 is awesome - there's always people there, but particularly at night and the afternoon. Bustling would put it lightly - especially at night there are TONS of vendors out, selling everything from these slipper shoes to shirts to candies to hardware items to snails, fresh fruit, and oo yeah. DVDs for 5 dirham (about 50 cents) that definitely have a little while til they come out on DVD. Inception anyone? Titanic 2? Found out that came out last week - but vendors on the street in Rabat have it! Walking through the medina, and also the souk thats perpendicular to Mo5 brings with it all kinds of scents/sounds. You get the smell of baking bread, yummy looking pastries, frying or rotting fish, raw meat (hanging up everywhere - slabs of lamb but also cow and lamb hooves, lamb heads, cow tongue, etc) leather if you're going through the shoe souk, etc. But you also get the smell of piss, some B.O, and some other unpleasant scents. Ahh the sounds are awesome though. Tons of people speaking in darija or French, vendors yelling constantly, traffic sounds, motorcycles zooming by, little kids yelling 'Maman!' and sometimes the call to prayer. I'm definitely gonna miss hearing the call to prayer everyday - the muezzin have such beautiful voices. It's entrancing.

That's something I've found interesting though - I pass mosques all the time, but in the madina you wouldn't necessarily assume they were mosques from the outside. Some have minarets, the tall tower-ish structures that muezzin originally would climb to do the call to prayer, but now just house loud speakers. But many are buildings in among the houses, and you only know they're mosques because the doors are open and you see rows of pillars and carpets and, if you're lucky, people kneeling praying. Sadly, as a non-Muslim, I'm not allowed in any. Ah well, I'll just keep peaking in.

To continue with my soundscape though! Language is a huge huge part of it but is still so new to me. I like the sound of darija... but mimicking those sounds is. Yeah. There are a bunch of sounds in Italian, Spanish, French, whatever that are difficult and that we don't use in English but you can figure them out eventually. There are several letters in Arabic though that we don't have anything even close to in English, and trying to pronounce some of them is like trying to roll your r's for Italian or Spanish and literally not being able to do it - that's how at least 5-6 letters are in Arabic. Needless to say, everyone hearing you trying to say some of the Arabic words gets a kick out of your pronunciation.

Some words are easy though and I've been trying to use them as much as possible! My friend and I are even buddies with a guy in a shoe store, who taught us a few little phrases. Ah that's another thing - prices of things. Everything here is so. damn. cheap. At this shoe store, I bought a nice pair of leather shoes, with a colorful design apparently of Berber origin (the people who originally inhabited Morocco, before the Arabs came) for roughly $6.50. That doesn't even seem fair, but that's how everything is. Internet cafe's charge $1/hour, compared to what, $3-4/hour in Europe? A really nice scarf was $2.50, a small nice leather purse is probably $8.00 tops.

Which reminds me of the next thing I have to write about! Leaving the sense-scape a little, I have to tell you about quite the deal I got a few nights ago. 60 dirham, or about $7.50, got me a whole night of entertainment. That was the price of a ticket and 20-ish minute ride, there and back, to see the national Moroccan soccer team!! Ooohh my lord that was an experience. A bunch of us piled into the back of a truck to be driven to the stadium (one of the guys on our trip lives in a household with a Moroccan guy about our age, and he had a friend who had the truck and offered to drive). We were dropped off about a half mile away from the stadium (tons of traffic) and walked the rest of the way. Getting closer was funny, and my one friend put it perfectly - it was like walking to the Quidditch World Cup. There were no lights for miles around, except for the stadium. We had to go through a huge parking lot and foresty kind of area, and everyone was hurrying to the same place. Gooood thing we had some Moroccan guys with us - I don't know how we would have figured out how to get tickets/get into the stadium otherwise. Once in the stadium, we sat behind one of the goals because it was less crowded. And the game had already started - Morocco vs. Central Africa!! As stereotypical and cliche as this might sound, this is the first time I actually felt like I was in Africa - everyday I have to remind myself I'm in Africa, because it feels more like I'm in the Middle East or even India. But the soccer game was great. Anyone watch the World Cup? No vuvuzelas (sp?), but there were other reminders. The crowd was never quiet - there was always either some chanting going, whistling, cheering, etc. My favorite though was that several people around us had some drums out the entire time, so people were dancing together and running all around. It was incredible, to say the least. I have the feeling the crowd gets a little out of control some of the time though ha - there were policeman with shields next to their feet around the entire perimeter of the field, some with dogs as well haha. Ooo boy. This wasn't the most exciting game in the world though, and ended in a tie, but I'm so so glad I went. Soccer in general is fun, but the atmosphere of the stadium totally made the game. We did leave early though, so we could beat the crowd. And I'm glad we did cause it was already kind of crazy when I left. The truck picking us up again turned around and came to the side of the road where we were, and about 10 guys we didn't know were trying to jump in the back of the truck. We had to quickly hop in and drive away, and still 2 or 3 managed to find a spot on the back of the truck. It was kind of funny though, can't lie.

We went to the beach the other day too, which was pretty fun because a big group of us ended up together. There are some pretty awesome waves at the beach, and a surf club - so lessons this semester? Maybe? It's a little more expensive though so we'll see.

I guess the thing that some of you are wondering about, which I haven't really written much about and which I'll write more about later, is the whole concept of gendered spaces. Most of the things I'm doing are clearly in the men's domain - beach, soccer game, even cafes at night. Saying girls are a minority in all these places is an understatement, but in places like cafes an all girls group can kind of get away with it because we're clearly not Moroccan. And though there were women at the soccer game, we definitely stood out, and at the beach? I usually see 5 Moroccan women tops at this very crowded beach when I go, and when I do they're covered from head to foot (many women dress in a pretty Western style, but at the beach for some reason, that's the time to cover up and be way more conservative). And though I'd like to say as girls we can do the same things as guys, it's definitely more difficult at night, and helps a ton to have male escorts to accompany us. It hasn't been a problem so far, but I think it's definitely going to get frustrating to have to have a guy walk me back to my house every single night I go out, because the madina can get kind of sketch at night. I'll write more about that issue because I'm just about to leave right now actually! Trying a juice place our Arabic teacher recommended for us today that apparently serves any type of juice you want - mango? almond? avocado anybody?
Talk to you soon!!!

Word of the day:
Darija

mashi mushkil (pronounced mesh-y moo-shki) - no problem. I have to say it in person for you but it sounds soooo great and I love saying it.