i-pods corrupt your soul anyway

5-23-10
So I still like Morocco, but for God’s sake it is doing everything to change that opinion. My i-pod was stolen this morning. Directly right out of my hand. I was going the same way I always do, the same way I always have for three months, and I was about two minutes away from my house, just off the main street in the medina, when some guy came up behind my and just snatched my i-pod out of my hand. I yelled “stop him” a lot and some other profanities that I’m not proud of, and I and another bystander ran after him- but unfortunately I’m a distance runner, not a sprinter, and he got away. The man who ran after him with me called the police, and soon there was a group of men gathered around my crying self, all flustered at this pathetic American who didn’t know to keep her electronics tucked away and out of sight where people can pickpocket them instead of taking them directly out of your hands. The very unsuspecting looking police came, neither of them were in uniforms, and I went to the police station to file a report and all that jazz. I had to go home to get my passport so my host mom came with me, and we waited forever while the police went to look for the thief. The whole time I wanted to say just forget it, obviously I have no dreams of getting my i-pod back. Then when the police officer was filling out some kind of incident report I actually got really nervous because he seemed confused by my entry date and then re-entry into Morocco and I was really worried I was going to end up in trouble because of the whole lack of VISA thing which would’ve just been a cup of tea. Luckily, I think, it’s all over, and all that remains of the incident is my increased dread of my long trip home now music-less and one headphone that broke off in my ear as my i-pod was ripped away.
I feel pretty sick about all of this, the irony alone is enough to make me nauseous. Of course, four days before I leave, back to the “safety” of America, is when this happens. Then there’s the guilty feeling, I don’t want to cause my host family any problems, and I don’t want to leave being that girl who had all these problems. I can’t help feeling like it’s my fault, like even though I have never had any issues, I should’ve known from the beginning that I shouldn’t carry valuables around. I’m angry because I feel like people were judging me unfairly, that it was almost my fault for even having an i-pod in the first place. And then I feel, too, like I almost agree with them. Who am I to come to this third world country in Africa and walk around with an i-pod like it’s no big deal. I feel unsafe now, and nervous about travelling alone. I was really mad when I was told to “stick to the main roads” because I’m not sure what more I could have done to do that when it was nine o clock in the morning, I was on a street with other people, and I was walking the same way I have every day, several times a day, for the past three months, definitely not a some deserted route.
So that’s my morocco, I had a great day yesterday, went shopping for presents with my host mom. Was going to blog about her great bargaining skills and my awkward tea time with dustin’s host dad and how he “let” me make the tea because dustin told him I like to cook. But no, instead it’s this tale of trauma, and somehow it seems an appropriate send off. See, this way I get to prove m dedication, because guess what, I still love this place, I still think the people are good, and I still think the thief can go shove it.

I am leaving in a week, and my feelings on this change approximately every second, which is weird, because I also have mixed feelings about it all the time. There are days, hours, seconds, when I’m bored, or tired, or cranky, and I cannot wait to go home. Then there are days, hours, seconds where I realize I am home here, too, and picturing the good-byes I’m going to have to say makes me sad enough to want to just stay. One thing I decided I don’t want to do, at least in blog world, is try to summarize or attempt any type of overview of my experience here. There will be no final, “so this is what I think of Morocco” because I feel like that would be very unfair to this place. The truth is, after living here for three months, I feel like there is a lot more that I don’t understand than things that I do, so concluding thoughts would really not be appropriate because there is no finality to things here or my feelings about them. I guess that would be the only overarching lesson I could offer from my trip: you can never know enough about people.
Today was the last couscous Friday. Dustin came over and we had a wonderful and delicious lunch. I still think it’s funny how my host dad insists on knowing everything. He told me that lamb head makes the best couscous and that I was mistaken for not wanting to eat it. I emphasized it was the best in his opinion. but apparently everyone else feels the same as he does, or so I’m told. He also would not accept that Dustin would stay in a hotel the night before his flight, even though the plane leaves at 8:30 in the morning from Casablanca (a four hour train ride). There were a couple times today though that he said “sorry” after interrupting us, but then he would continue talking. Baba Ahmed knows best. Actually, Baba Ahmed is the only one who knows anything, and if you think you know something, it might be right if you agree with him but you definitely do not know how to say it properly in Arabic so it would be better if he just said it and you agreed when he asks at the end “fhmt?” (you understand?). I say all of this completely lovingly. I think his “la la” (No, NO!) interrupting whatever I try to say followed by an explanation of the way things “really” are, will be missed almost as much as my host mom telling me to “kuhlee!” (eat). My host parents asked Dustin what he had bought for his family in America and they thought it was hilarious that he bought his dad a cookbook. We explained that his dad actually owned a restaurant, so this would be helpful, and my host mom offered to write down recipes and cooking tips for him. I piped up because this whole time I’ve been telling my host mom I want to learn how to cook Moroccan dishes and she says, “You’re my daughter, I cook for you.” And I said, “But in America it will be necessary for me to cook myself!” And she looks straight at me and says, “No I’m coming with you to make you food.” As much as I would love this, I think I will still try to squeeze some cooking secrets out of her before I go, and anyone who reads this blog is invited when I attempt my very own couscous Friday in the states.
Also, I’m finally posting pictures of Fes and my host family, so, as Dustin’s mom would say, you should “do the Facebook” and check em out.

Fatima

As my semester here comes to a close, I would like to highlight some moments from my gender studies class, because as bored as I was listening to Fatima’s stories for the thirtieth time each, she said some things that, fee rah-ee (in my opinion), are pure gold. I will miss Fatima; she has the strangest idea of America ever, she loves Lady Gaga, and she argues that traffic problems in Morocco stem from its patriarchy. If there is one person who could bring gender equality to this country I would definitely bet on her. She is just nuts enough to take on the challenge.
Some “Best of Fatima Quotes” :
-She was telling us about how after a surge of Islamic extremism in her university she started to challenge the Islamist students by giving them parts from passages of the Quran and teasing them when they could not complete them. She said, “One of my students came to me one day after class and said, ‘teacher, please stop, we really like you and if you continue this they are going to kill you!’ and I thought to myself, well, if it happens, it happens.”
-Fatima has only been to America once. She went to apparently the richest part of Florida and this is her picture of the country. She was surprised that none of us flew our private planes to school. She recalled one time when she was invited to tea with an elderly couple, “the place was like a hospital and a hotel… I don’t remember what it was called but there were a lot of old people there. It was very, very nice.” It’s called a nursing home, but that’s what it is, parents, a mix between a hospital and a hotel.
- “ I was amazed to learn that you still have polygamy in America. I watched that show, “Big Love” and I was amazed! Do those people really exist? How do you call them, Mormons? Are there a lot of them in your country? ”
- “Tell me, do women in your country often fall in love with gay men and they do not know that they are gay and the men do not tell them and then they are heartbroken when they find out?” We were confused, saying there would probably be signals before true love that the man was gay. She replied, “But if it is love at first sight, and she does not know, is she very heartbroken? Does this happen a lot?” Maybe…? Love means something different, I think, when marriage is arranged or dating means “exchanging words of love and sometimes kissing but not in any way that could bring up sexual feeling.”
- “I cannot understand why your country has not made it illegal for people to have guns! Don’t you feel afraid? Do people just walk around holding their guns? And you are just sitting by a person on the train and he has a gun on his lap?! I simply cannot understand how you are not terrified.”
- “We were so angry when you elected Bush for the second time and we could not understand why you would do this. And then every American I talked to said, ‘No we did not vote for him.’ So who was it that voted for him?”
- “ I saw John McCain and I thought, he is so old he cannot even stand! Were you worried that he was too fragile to be the president?”
- “There is a big Islamic feminist movement but there is no thing called a Christian feminist movement. Why has no one asked why, for example, the Pope cannot be a woman?”

So many good points, Fatima, I’ll tell you when I figure out the insanity of Americans, and you keep explaining the insanity of Moroccans. We’ll do a cultural exchange, and I will love every minute that you don’t retell the stories I’ve already heard three times.

Side B: when gift giving is mucho appreciated and just amazing.

Went to Cheffchaoun this past weekend which is this town in the mountains where all of the buildings are randomly painted blue. It’s beautiful. On Sunday, the weather was a little crappy, though, so we were kind of at a loss for things to do other than wander around the old medina. Then, God bless him, Abraham found us. He, like everyone else, and their brother, and their dog and their brother’s dog, asked us to come take a quick look in his shop. He, like everyone else, brothers and dogs included, promised to give us good, “democratic” prices, prices for students, not tourists. Well, why not, we had nothing better, so we went and sat down so we could add Abraham to our list of people who have explained the different Berber carpet designs. Well, he did do that, but he also gave us some lessons on humanity. He hugged and kissed every one of us on the cheek multiple times, telling us how much he loved us. “Good people” he said, “I can tell you are good people.” He talked about how nice we smelled and how we were all perfect. He told us that in the whole world everyone is the same, and that all anyone wants is to be loved so he tried to give as much positive energy as possible so it would spread. He said he would tell everyone they were beautiful because they just might believe him and then they would spread that love to others. “I want to be good to you, I want you to be so happy” he kept saying. And you might be thinking that this guy was a really good salesman, which he was, all of my friends bought things from his store, but he was genuine too. He gave us all free plates (me included even though I didn’t buy anything) and we drank tea in his shop. He promised that if we ever returned he would have us over for dinner as long as we brought the wine. He hugged us all a lot more before we left and asked us to carry out his good energy. And boy did we, we all left that store feeling great. That is Morocco.
In other news, kitten number two has been dead for a while, there is now a dead rat outside my front door which grosses me out, and I saw a police officer today chasing young school children with a night stick. That is also Morocco but I like the other part better.
In completely unrelated news, I asked my host dad today if he thought I was better at ARabic now than when I first got here. He said, yes, but you are always writing and reading and you don't talk enough. Now this is kind of a delicate topic because of recent events where I felt bad about not talking to them enough since which I have made a conscious effort to talk to them more! So I said, "well I don't know what to say" and he said "well you can say anything, but like yesterday, you sit and read and write while I watch T.V." (this happens quite a few nights while the rest of the fam is out at the mosque or on the computer) So I got a little defensive and said, "well, you don't talk to me either!" and he grins at me and says, "I know, I want to listen to the T.V.!" who knows....

Dealing with Grace

How do you politely refuse gifts? In America, we do it secretly. “Oh, thanks so much” and then we make a holiday of the day after the holiday, taking all the crap we got from our families back to the store. I also sincerely appreciate my sister’s skill of “re-gifting” where she gives her precious crap to others, passing on the things she doesn’t want. My host family really wants me to be happy. They want very much to give me things, the problem is, I don’t want them, and while in America I would just accept them graciously, here I really don’t want them but the word “no” does not mean very much to a Moroccan who wants to do you a favor. Prime example; my host mom has been buying me clothes from some Moroccan second hand store- like Good Will but quite possibly a lot sketchier. I wear some of the stuff she gets for me, a long sleeve T, the pajamas, (still haven’t broken in the sequined “Princess” shirt), but the thing is, I don’t want Moroccan second hand clothes. I have so many old clothes in America, I could start my own Moroccan Good Will. And, I was already planning on leaving some of my now overly worn stuff here, to make more room in my suitcase for stuff I do want to take home. So now what do I do with this stuff? Each time my mom presents me with something new I try to express sincere gratitude, but I also always tell her, “really, please, you don’t need to do this.” But she always just says that I’m just like her daughter and that it’s all good. Yet, while I know that nothing she gets me is going to put this family into severe debt, I don’t feel good accepting gifts when a. I don’t want them and b. the family could use the money for other things.
It’s tiring too, because “no” does not exist in this world of beneficence. I got into a semi-heated scene with my family the other day about it. My family does this thing sometimes where if they have something they don’t really want to give me, they kind of try to hide it so it doesn’t look like they don’t want to share. It sounds worse than it is, mostly it’s just my sister- if she has some candy or something and I see it she automatically gives it to me. Actually she automatically forces me to take it even after my insisting that I in no way shape or form want it. So that’s what happened, Miriam came home from school in the afternoon with an ice cream cone she had bought and as soon as she realized I had seen it she somewhat reluctantly handed it off to me. I refused to take it and the whole family was in an uproar. Eventually, she left to go get me another ice-cream cone. I was absolutely furious because they would not accept me saying that I didn’t want it. I used every way of Arabic I knew how (which, granted, is not that many) to say that I did not want ice cream, I was incapable of eating ice cream right now, it was not possible for me to have the ice cream, it would be a big problem if they got me ice cream, etc. etc. I said that in my culture, if I say “no, thank you,” it means “I don’t want this.” My host mom replied, “In Morocco, if you say no, it means we will give it to you anyway.” I said, “But this is really important in my culture!” She got me with, “But you are in Morocco now.” My host sister returned and I was handed an ice cream cone, and I had no choice but to eat it begrudgingly, somewhat frightened at the fact that I had no control over not accepting things from these people. After the episode, my host mom came up to my room and apologized to me. I thanked her for the ice cream, apologized for my attitude and we agreed that in the future, “no, thank you” would mean “no.” Yesterday, she bought me a new pair of second hand pants.
I was talking to my gender studies professor about this, and she reminded me that I was here to learn about Moroccan culture, and that I should try to adapt. Which, I know was a needed reminder, but I also don’t like how I can be showered with gifts no problem, but they still wont take ANYTHING from me. I tried to get my host mom to use some of my lotion the other day and she absolutely refused. There was more yelling involved and I ended up leaving it in the flower pot where she keeps small packages of Kleenex. It’s hard to be the sole beneficiary of gifts and still feel like it is a show of love. I understand more than ever how difficult it can be to be gracious, it is all I want to be toward these wonderful people, but often there love is just very frustrating!!

This past weekend was Moroccan daylight savings time, kind of ironic because Moroccan’s don’t really go by any clock. The phenomenon of “springing forward, falling back” is not new to the country, but let me tell you, it is not popular. It was funny, because no one really seemed to know when the clocks would actually change, or if they would actually change at all. My host family told me it was not a good idea. My host sister was very upset that she would have to wake up an hour earlier everyday, and was not convinced when I tried to explain that no, you only lose one hour of sleep on one night. My friend Dustin’s host family is an older couple with no kids to get to school (minus him) and they are simply not changing their clocks. They will be staying on old time, which my host mom and I agree is a little bit crazy and a lot hilarious.
I talk a lot with Dustin because we both live in the medina so we often walk to and from school together. We have been talking lately about things we miss/are excited to return to in the states. His list mostly includes foods, because, as he put it today, “if someone asked if would rather be blind or lost all sense of taste, I would choose to lose taste, but it would be the worst decision of my life.” His food cravings are also quite different than mine, seeing as how most of them involve meat, or deep fat frying, or some combination of the two. The things that we do come up with, though, are sometimes funny. It’s weird to think of the things you like to have available even if you don’t take advantage of them all the time (or if you do especially). Some honorable mentions (in case you want to get me a welcome home present):
Indian Buffets- Cathy, can you FedEx me some carrot pudding desert?
Free Refills – I don’t drink a lot of soda, but how great is it that when you do drink soda you can have an unlimited amount of it?!
Ice- and cold beverages in general, fridges aren’t so popular here.
Street signs- they do have a few here, but I don’t think they count unless people actually obey them.
There is more to this list, especially foods- cheese, spinach for me, bacon for dustin, mashed potatoes, ice cream in a cone larger than one licks worth, cookie dough, etc. but right now I have to return home to my just as delicious and satisfying Moroccan dinner.
One thing not on the list anymore: Miley Cirus “Party in the U.S.A.” Thanks sissy you’re the best. I’m working on making a Moroccan version in Arabic.

Updates and Dead Cats

I don’t think I have mentioned this before, but Fes has a cat problem. Of all the animal problems a city can have, I have decided cats are one of the better ones. If you have a cat problem, you do not have a rat problem; and cats are better than stray dogs that get rabies and bite people. Lucky for me, I’m not a big cat fan anyway, sorry Grandma, but it’s still kind of sad to see all of these starving animals roaming the streets. In particular, I have been rooting for this family of Mama and three kittens that live outside my school’s Riad in the old medina. Unfortunately, today, we are one kitten down. R.I.P black one with white tummy, may your siblings survive to roam the garbage filled streets.
Other than dead cats, Morocco is great right now. My classmate friends and I went to Rabat this past weekend and had a blast. Highlights include but are not limited too; befriending Muhammad, who was a pleasure, kind of, to talk to but a pain to try and explain that you needed to go back to the hotel to, sitting in the gorgeous garden of the Kasbah and listening to casually gathered musicians playing there, exploring the Chellah and hoping my future fertility was helped out by the eels there that supposedly help you be fertile, and realizing that there are places in Morocco that are more modern than Fes and that I might not actually mind living in for long periods of time. Overall of these things though, was my love affair with the tragic story of the Hassan II minaret. Sunday morning when my friends were surfing I ventured out on my own to Muhammad V’s tomb that is built right next to the remains of this mosque. The story is that in some century oh so long ago Hassan II was going to build this ginormous mosque bigger than any mosque at that time. Well, he died during the construction and it was never finished. Most of what was built was destroyed in a big earthquake a century or two later, and now all that remains are the foundation pillars, one piece of wall, and this gorgeous unfinished minaret. The incomplete dream in this story is really beautiful and tragic to me; standing in the ruins of what this man wanted so badly was a little heartbreaking.
I returned from my weekend travels to the best family on this side of the Prime Meridian. I had a mini-breakdown last week because I was being kind of an ungracious guest and I was worried my host family hated me. We had a semi-emotional conversation about it (emotional for me anyway) and I since then I think we’ve both been going out of our ways to understand and love each other. I’ve started “helping” my host mom in the kitchen which consists of me carrying out complicated tasks like carrying dishes to the table and putting salt and pepper on the tomatoes. But, it helps me feel useful and it’s been good bonding. Travelling really makes me enjoy and appreciate life here more, and I’m excited to go to Marrakech and Cheffchaoun these next two weekends, while still spending quality time with the fam bam during the week. As predicted, following a spell of “let’s get this month over with,” I am feeling now like my time left is too short.
This has nothing to do with anything but I just have to mention that one of my professors has two different completely corduroy outfits; one in brown and one in mustard yellow. I didn’t think fashion got any worse (better?) until he wore his denim outfit, topped with denim zippered vest. Let’s just say as soon as I find those in the medina I know what everyone is getting as a souvenir present from Morocco.

Kill Bill volume childhood

This morning my host mom and sister had some kind of fight. I know because when my little sister whines it’s nails on a chalkboard times twenty and when she screams I wish I was back in America because that’s how far I’d have to travel in order not to hear her. My family doesn’t fight a lot, I’d say they get along pretty well considering they have a nine year old girl and a fourteen year old son. If I remember those years in my childhood correctly I would say they were not the most peaceful between my sister and I or between my sister and my parents (I always got along great with the rents, though, right?) Anyway, I’d say there is a normal amount of family discontent, but there’s this thing in Moroccan culture I call acceptable violence and I don’t really understand it. So at lunch today, my host mom was showing me where Miriam had bit her this morning- and it was this huge black and purple bruise!! I was appalled. But my host mom was laughing about it and assured me that she had punished Miriam by hitting her for it. And it’s common, that when my siblings do fight, there is almost always hitting and kicking involved, and my host parents just kind of sit there and let it happen, sometimes they tell them to stop, or try to hold one of them back. In general, though, it’s like this violence between kids is just expected and therefore acceptable. I see it on the street a lot, too. Kids are mean to each other, and physically so. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen school kids beating up on each other or shoving each other around. Sometimes there is even playful laughing during the whole affair or if not during then after. A lot of times during what I think are fights my host sister will kind of squeal and then giggle and I can’t tell if it’s like a game of “Mercy” or if she is going to be a victim of death by sibling if someone doesn’t intervene. So is it just Moroccan kids being kids? I guess, but it’s definitely not something I’m used to and not really something I want to get used to. Physical violence makes me very uncomfortable and I certainly don’t think it’s a good way to teach any kind of lesson. In fact, I think that the lesson that should be taught is that violence is unacceptable, that beating up your friends or siblings is not a good way to have fun, and that the idea of hitting or kicking someone should make you feel like hailing Muhammad Mary’s for a year until your soul is cleansed of those horrible thoughts. If I ever have a kid they are going to be so screwed up- and probably beaten up now that I think about it. So that’s where I’m at- terrified of child violence; and raising any future children in an overprotective bubble and filing their teeth down so they can’t bite me.

don't know how to....

In both gender studies and culture class, we have been talking about how no one here is accustomed to living on their own. From the day she pops you out of the womb ol’ mommy does everything for you until the day you move out to live with your own spouse. There is no period of living alone, doing things for yourself, if you’re a girl your mom slowly passes down her homemaking knowledge to prepare you to pop out your own kids and that’s that. In the coming age of modernity, though, this is becoming a problem as more and more Moroccan youth leave home for college, or travel to European countries for a better education. They don’t know how to live on their own, and it’s a bad kind of dependence on the family. Sure, the U.S. might be individualistic, but there are some real benefits to having a well educated and independent youth population.
A few of the gaps in the education of living that I have noticed of late:
Well, obviously, sex education; I’m amazed that the Moroccans have any kids at all because Allah only knows how they figure out what sex is or means. It’s scary, actually, at the women’s conference I went to they were talking about how sometimes in rural areas, girls wont know they are pregnant until they are several months along because they don’t know how to read the signals from their bodies’ or that pregnancy comes from having sex. Of course, these are extreme cases, but still, the process behind reproduction is very much taboo. I am amazed and amused that my host mom has started talking to me lately about periods. She asks if I am “frustrated with blood” (translated literally, but it’s not actually weird like it sounds in English). The Always pad commercial, too, has a really catchy theme song that my host sister sings along with all the time. So I think this is changing, albeit like most changes, very slowly. But, I also know from gender class, unfortunately, that beyond a quick lesson on natural reproduction in bio class at who knows what age, sex ed is not a part of the Moroccan school system.
The same type of black hole has sucked up nutritional education. My host brother, I guess, is trying to lose weight. When the subject first came up, though, it was this big family discussion as to what exactly he should do to achieve this end. They asked me what people in America did to lose weight and argued about what kind of exercise he should participate in. He doesn’t eat as much as he used to, I have noticed, but his restriction is only in quantity and not so much in quality of food. He only had cake and custard for dinner last night, for example. Like sex ed, there is never any lesson in school beyond bio 101 about what kind of food or exercise is good for you body. I mean, obviously Moroccans, especially educated Moroccans, know. I don’t want to paint this picture of this ignorant people who don’t know cookies from vegetables or sex from riding a bike. They’re by no means stupid- my host family knows what a diet is and I’m pretty sure they’re towards the bottom of the educated class. It’s just that it’s not a formal part of education. There is no food pyramid with stairs up the side to tell Muhammad how many snails are in one serving. Combine these gaps in schooling with never being taught how to do your own laundry, or cook your own meals, or balance your own budget, or take care of your own house, and now we have a problem when it becomes increasingly common that little Muhammad or Miriam gets the chance to go live on their own for college in France. Fahemmt? (you understand?) So that’s what I’ll be telling my kid, “do your own damn laundry and be grateful for it.”

A food post- in honor of Couscous Friday

So my mom (real mom, not host mom) recently asked me what the food was like, here, and as long as I don’t have to think about it once being alive, everything is absolutely delicious. My host mom is a really good cook, and even though I am more opposed than ever to eating meat, I don’t always feel terrible about not being a vegetarian when her dishes are so letheeth (tasty). There are a few things here, though, that I just am not into, the biggest of them being snails. I don’t know if you have ever smelled snail soup, but it is nasty in a way that makes you want to vomit it up before it even gets near your mouth and the Moroccans absolutely love it. It’s a huge delicacy and you’ll find street carts with crowds of people around drinking this poop colored soup and then picking the snail bodies out of their shells with little sticks. I did try it, because I have made an arrangement with myself that I will try anything once, and the soup part was not as bad as it smells, it’s kind of just really salty flavored water. Eating a snail, however, seems to me like what eating a big booger would be like. Not a fan, especially when you can see their little antennae, and especially after my host sister carries them around the room the day before like a pet. The other things I don’t like so much are leben- which as far as I can tell is sour milk and kefta- this weird seasoned ground beef that comes in rare cooked meatball form.
The best foods here are everything else my host mom makes, the oranges and anything made with fruit, and the delicious delicious honey custard. The honey here is to die for, it is straight from the comb, as is the jam straight from the fruit. I guess it comes as no surprise that when you don’t have a fridge, everything has to be fresh- go figure. I plan on getting a Moroccan cookbook before I leave so I can attempt to re-create some things back home. They have approximately one million ways to cook bread like substance here, and I figure none of them can be too hard. It would be better if I could just bring my host mom back with me though, she is really an amazing cook. She always tells me to just call up Obama and ask for her Visa. I reply with, oh I already spoke with him, he said it’s no problem (we are so clever with our jokes). Her favorite group of people to joke that I am friends with are; President Obama, Hilary Clinton, Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, and Margaret Thatcher. How old Margie got into this mix I will never know.

Tonight I was talking with my host dad about how I should just stay with them forever and never go back to America. I would live with them, for no money, and find a Moroccan man if I wanted, and I would have the life of a Moroccan, just sitting with my family and sleeping. Even though we were just joking, the truth of it is, what they wanted to paint as a Moroccan paradise- is my nightmare. I am sooo not a sitter. I love Morocco, but even though my family and I have great conversations, I just have to do more stuff. I like to be busy, and I wake up early to run, and I have been playing a lot of solitaire at night because there is just not a lot to do here but I need to do more than sleep after I eat dinner. I know I’m not alone in a feeling of overall boredom; my classmates and I often make plans for weekends and evenings because we all agree that sitting at home is somewhat agonizing, as much as we all love our host families. We plan weekend trips because we want to see the countryside and other cities, but also because after you’ve been in Fes for one weekend you’ve pretty much exhausted the outing possibilities. This weekend I was excited because there was supposed to be this big Suffi music festival going on. Well, as usual, Morocco was more talk than happening, and though there were some suspicious looking Berbers camped out in Bab Bajloud, I saw no music festival. There may have been one, but no one could tell me where or when it was and the streets were all as quiet as ever come nine o’clock, with the exception of maybe a few more Euro tourists. In a lot of ways I like the relaxed pace here. I definitely love the family togetherness; I absolutely adore my host mom and sister especially. But in the long term I want more than time to just sit and sleep. I want time to fill with stuff. With family and friends and running and studying and a job I like and going out and seeing things and enjoying the outdoors and dancing and… making my life. Obviously I keep busy here too, but I feel like that is more because I am me, than because of Morocco. My host family I’m pretty sure thinks I’m nuts. They tell me a lot that I need to stay home and sleep during the weekend. I just can’t do it though. I’m thinking about all this, too because I’m starting to feel like my time here is coming to an end and I was trying to decide how to make the most of my last month. What is it that I really want to do in Morocco? Well, I want to travel more, so that’s good,and I also want to spend time with my host family, and just be in Fes, but I’m not really sure what else there is for me to do here. I’ve explored, I’ve met people, I’ve sat in cafes for hours, I’ve done as the Moroccans do, and now, I want to do more. I want to do as the Jennifer’s do- and some of that needs to be done past 11:00 and pretty much all of that needs to be done not in front of the TV. I’m have plenty to do with school, and homework, and Arabic, and language, and studying, and Arabic, and did I mention school or studying at all- because if I finish all that I could also study more. But I want other things again outside of being a student. I like to relax, but I really appreciate the variety of opportunities that I have in America. For now, I would prefer to save the sitting and sleeping for my old and decrepit years and live my twenties out and about; running, exploring, and ruckusing (the verb for “to dance” in Arabic but sounds a lot like creating a ruckus to me…)

I wrote this today...

I had spring break in Spain. I feel pretty good about that. Made a pit stop by Gibraltar on the way, which is just about the cutest place you’ve ever seen in your life! Picture someone taking a delightful little British town and plopping it down on this huge rock in the middle of the Mediterranean. There were monkeys and red telephone booths, Mosaic fountains and fish and chips- it’s kind of an opposite twilight zone- something just that weird but instead of being scary in any way at all everything about it is adorable and happy. It was also so nice to be in an place where I could understand everything. Reading a sign that said, “mind the step” was doubly enjoyable because not only was it in English, it was cute British English! Spain was a much needed cultural break. There were toilets, and toilet paper, and soap, and drinking water, and (mom don’t read this) alcohol, and women in full force, and runners, and tank tops, and gorgeous churches, and clean streets, and clean linens, and big ice cream cones. I met up with a high school classmate who was studying in Seville, (crazy, by the way, what a small world this is that two girls from Ames high will just get together for Tapas in Spain) and we were talking about our experiences and cultural differences. I was telling her how great it was that I didn’t get cat called here- that women actually go out in public and it’s normal to wear just about anything. She replied with, “oh yeah, but that happens a lot here too, the Spanish are very forward and men will harass you a lot.” I decided we must not have the same definition of “a lot.” To me it means every time I step out my front door (literally, my next door neighbor is a little boy with an eye patch who snaps at me). So yeah, Spain was a bit more progressive. I didn’t really miss Morocco while I was gone but I was really happy when I came back. The thing that made me the most excited was that I felt again like I was in a country that I could understand the language! Gibraltar was great for a day but in Spain I was stuck with “gracias” as the extent of my Spanish. Coming back to Morocco I realized again just how much better my Arabic is, because I felt like I could communicate! Of course, once I started class I again felt incompetent, but still, it was there for a second- the “I know this!” The whole thing made me think a lot about going back to the U.S. in just over a month, in shah allah. I’m preparing for culture shock extreme, looking forward to a lot of things, but also very said to think of some things not being in my life again for a long time. If anyone speaks or knows someone who wants to talk to me in Arabic, give me a number. Also, I don’t think I will be using silverware for a long time, so if we dine together upon my return, forgive me. I’m also wondering what life will be like when I have more than two shirts to choose from in my wardrobe. I would just like to say, if you happen to look at any pictures of mine- pretend I’m not wearing the same thing every day. Please. Oh Morocco, you are strange but you are home and what will life be like when I return to things like democracy and Target!?!

I wrote this yesterday(ish)

So we were talking yesterday in gender class about how literacy and education are the keys to women’s empowerment in the Arab world. Fatima (the teacher) was talking about her research in rural areas and the attitudes of women there. We do a lot of cultural comparisons so we were discussing what education means to people in the U.S. too. My class concluded that pretty much, in the States, people value education for the employment opportunities it creates. That is not meant to sound completely materialistic, although it kind of does. I don’t think it’s just about money, though, but also what kind of job you can have, one that you like, or not, what kind of hours or how hard you have to work, etc. but the main point is that my education is for me, for my life and what I want to do with it. According to Fatima this is very different from Moroccan women. She said that to them, education means three main things; first and most important, educated women are better mothers, second, they are more aware of their rights, and lastly, they have better employment opportunities. What is interesting to me here about the difference in the meaning of education in the two cultures is not as much the patriarchy, but more how American culture focuses so strongly only on the individual and here it is all about the family unit. It’s hard not to feel selfish in Moroccan society sometimes; it’s so different from the U.S. where things are all about you, you, you. Individualism is not all evil, it does have its pros, but it just makes me feel even worse about illiteracy in this country. These women don’t even want to be educated for themselves, but for their children!! Al Hemdu Allah (praise be to God) let’s build some schools!
Fatima mentioned that sometimes she hears people ask if uneducated women are aware of their situation, or if they are content to be as they are. She told us a story from when she was doing research when a rural, illiterate woman she was interviewing pointed to a cow and said, “You see that animal? That cow is better than me because I cannot read. Without education I am nothing.” So, yes, they are aware that there are things they are missing, especially rights they are supposed to have under the new family code, like the right to not be beaten by their husbands or inheritance. Hard to enforce your own rights when you can’t read them.
After the cow story Fatima also told us about how these women were kissing her hands and praising her, saying how high and mighty she was. She said she felt embarrassed because she knew she was no better, no smarter, no different than them- just really freaking lucky. There is no way to know just how close I was to being anyone else, but I think I agree with Fatima that I just picked a long straw. So I live in America and am now enjoying my years of post-secondary education with the possibility of more without being any different than the woman whose straw was a lot shorter. What do I take from all this? Well, first of all, don’t take anything for granted. Your education, the fact that you can read street signs, and restaurant menus, and instructions on forms, the fact that you know you have certain rights, your ability to look up other random rights, your ability to take care of your children, the fact that I know how to write this blog because I can stream together ideas and express them concretely in a manner that others can understand. Thanks long straw. Also, I take from our discussion that things have to change so regardless of gender, people everywhere get to learn to read. In shah Allah, I will find my role in that. In shah Allah everyone will.

I wrote this a while ago...

So the professor of my gender studies class is a really nice professor from the local university, and she is determined to rid us of our negative images and stereotypes of Islam. The only thing is, we don’t really have negative stereotypes of Islam, maybe some misconceptions, but especially the Muslim girl in the program, we have all been exposed to the religion before and we are all college educated, studying abroad, and so are at least somewhat accepting of and knowledgeable about religious diversity. In Fatima (my professor)’s view, however, this is not the case. She asked us what we associated with Islam, and my “devout religious people” somehow turned into “religious fanaticism and extremism” when she wrote it on the board. She also wrote terrorism and violence though I don’t think anyone said those at all. My friend Erin was saying how when she was in middle school she had traveled to Syria, so she was exposed to even a more extreme version of Islam then but thought that things like the call to prayer were really beautiful and the people were so friendly, and Fatima asked, “but before you went you were afraid, right?” Erin leaned over to me and whispered, “before I went I was in eighth grade and had a crush on a boy in my art class and didn’t really think anything about Islam.” According to Fatima, a negative image of Islam as some kind of “opposition to modernity,” is not just limited to westerners. She says that the students in her class, even the Muslim ones, see their religion as traditional and unmoving in the face of modern culture. So, she took a long time outlining how Islam calls for interpretation and change, how it is a religion of scholars and scientists, and how inherently it is all about gender equality, these things have just been overruled by patriarchal traditions that have corrupted Islam’s true meaning. Well, of course, with me, she is preaching to the choir, which makes for kind of a boring lecture, but I do want to remember some things in particular that I think are really beautiful about the religion of Islam when you look at how those things have positively manifested themselves in Arab societies (as opposed to the gender equality thing, which hasn’t quite caught hold).
First, is the idea of helping your neighbor. The public services here pretty much just suck. There is no social security and very little public funding for any kind of medical care or anything like that unless you work for the government. But the social services, in reality are not as terrible because people really do take care of each other. People give to beggars what they don’t need, you can call on any family at any time for anything, and the whole network of favors is just kind of amazing. Definitely not a replacement for official help, but still amazing. Everyone really is family in this country and the loyalty and help to that family is a number one priority.
Next, in Islam there is nothing separating you from God, which I think is really special. There is no third party, no mediator; they have religious scholars and people who sing prayers but no priests or anyone to confess too. If you want to talk to God, well, there you go. This also means that there is no hierarchy within the “church” (in theory). Everyone is equal because everyone is directly connected to Allah.
I also really like how Islam and the Quran encourage education and the continuous re-interpretation of texts. Life was made to change and grow and the religion places a lot of importance on knowledge and reading and growing in faith. Now, of course you can point to people who claim that modernization is Westernization and demoralization but I think that more and more even in the Arab world, people are regaining a commitment to re-read religious texts and apply them aptly to today’s world, stressing the benefits of technology and education for all Allah’s people.
Finally, there is the idea in Islam that you should live and love. As in, self control is good, but self deprivation is bad. Sex is not evil (ok so alcohol is evil, but whatever) but eating is good and running is good and enjoying life is good! Sure, they fast during Ramadan, but overall, earthly pleasures are not evil and you shouldn’t do things that keep you from enjoying this life. Don’t overindulge, but live a little.
I know that these things are not unique to Islam, you can find similar ideas in a lot of religions and sects and blah. But what I have seen in Morocco is that because it is such a religious country, when these aspects of Islam are good parts of society they are really really really good. So, myth busted, not all Muslims are terrorists. And guess what, every religion has its dark spots in history and modern life but remember the loving your neighbor part? That part could/can/does do so much more.

oh, Morocco.

Yesterday I discovered that apparently they don't tell you when you get package slips from the post office here, so I asked the desk if there was anything and then gave me a slip and said to take it to the post office and to bring my passport. So this morning I left early to go to what I thought was the main branch of the post office, pretty close to my school. I got there with my package slip and showed it to the sole worker in a very small office and here is where language difficulties got the best of me. She was trying to explain something to me, but I couldn't understand. She didn't ask for it, but I figured maybe she wanted my passport since I had been told to bring it so I showed it to her. She examined it, politely now I think, and told me again something I did not understand at all and I couldn't figure out why she wasn't getting me my package. After frustrated minutes of trying to understand each other, a line had formed behind me, and I finally asked in Arabic, "Is my package here??" Well, no. It was at another post office. so she told me to take a taxi to "blah blah blah" but by now I needed to get to school so I asked her if it was close and it was so then I asked where it was thinking I could go later. she replied again with "take a taxi to blah blah" so I said, no where is it, I want to walk. She looked at me, annoyed, and a man in line says, "here, I'll take you." So he grabs my arm and starts to chit chat with me as the Moroccans do as we walked down the street to Allah knows where. He took my package slip and carried it for me and looked both ways before he held my arm as we crossed the street. he did tell me fairly quickly that he was not married, but I was pleasantly surprised when I was not proposed to. We walked for about ten minutes and he told me about his family, etc and finally got to this hole in the wall post office building number two. I got the amazing box my wonderful family had sent me. (I love you parents!!) And this man went on his way after making sure I left the post office safely with package in tow. And that, is why the people here amaze me.

My other friendly interaction of late is with this adorable store owner who I stopped by yesterday for the first time and he was so friendly because he said he had seen me running every morning. He insisted that I stop by every day now and talk with him for five or ten minutes to practice my language.

My Arabic soul, as one of my teachers calls it, is very happy right now, minus the test it has to take tomorrow. But, after that, inshahallah, spring break in Spain! Whose life is this!??!

I cannot believe that it is already April. I am more likely to believe that it is February 4- when I see the date written with the day first and then the month it still confuses me. You can take the girl off the farm but you can’t make her learn things like the metric system or to write the date differently. Speaking of which, I had a strange lesson about the difficulties of globalization today. there are issues harder to make sense of than even the 24 hour clock.
Just before dinner I was called over to the computer by my host brother and he gestured to the screen and asked me to read. He had gotten some junk e-mail, but it was in English, and it was that kind that talks really personally, “Hey, I just got this I-pod from this website and it’s so great. Stuff here is really inexpensive and you get just what you pay for! Etc. etc.” My host brother asked me to translate it for him, so I kind of chuckled and gave him my best attempt at a translation, expecting that he would get the point that it was just trash. Instead, he opened up several other e-mails from the same address, all in English, all telling him to buy whatever electronics from one website or another. He kept asking me earnestly what they were saying, telling me they were e-mails from his “friend”. I asked him if he knew this person, and he said he did, so I tried to more politely to tell him that he should just ignore the e-mails. It then became a family affair, and both my host mom and dad asked me what Muhammad’s “friend” had said. I asked my brother how he knew this guy and he said through the internet, a chatroom or something. And I felt bad explaining that in America, online, you can “meet” people but it’s not real and when they ask for your money, you should be careful and probably just ignore it. Now, Moroccans aren’t stupid, and the internet didn’t come here yesterday, but there are deep cultural roots in the intimacy of personal relationships and friendship and I think this has the potential to make people, especially less educated people, like my 14 year old brother, more vulnerable to online scams. In America, we are used to impersonal relationships, but even still you hear horror stories about meeting crazies online and thinking they are people they are not. It’s hard to think what this might mean for a Moroccan whose culture is that if you call someone a friend, it’s very real, and business transactions are no different. Also, the abundance of technology in the West, in reality, is too good to be true to lower class Moroccans, so it’s really hard to separate that from swindlers who are literally “too good to be true.” I don’t actually know how general this case is, but at least with my host brother I felt like he needed a lesson in American/electronic culture more than an English translator. He also might not be the brightest crayon in the box, though, I don’t get the impression that school is his favorite subject and in general sometimes he just acts kind of like a doofus. Maybe there are some things that are cultural universals; 14 year old boys are kind of just doofuses and little brothers are obnoxious at times. Don’t poke me when I’m brushing my teeth, I don’t like it, what part of my frowning, foaming mouth don’t you understand, Muhammad?

Without language what are we?

So this past weekend we traveled to the Sahara, and I think the most often quoted words of the weekend were, “Whose life is this?” Riding through the desert on the back of a camel led by an Arab man in traditional clothing and full desert head wrap, it was too much Disney Aladdin to be real, let alone be my life. The whole trip was absolutely beautiful. We stayed at an amazing hotel the first night. The buffet was probably the most elaborate display of food I have seen in my life; the best American buffets would be horse troughs in comparison. My friends (of age of course) enjoyed screwdrivers made from Moroccan oranges they watched being fresh squeezed and as we drank and ate by the poolside the Moroccan band played and we were entertained by belly dancers. Yet, as amazing as this all was, at the hotel, and on the camel ride as well, I didn’t feel like I was really in Morocco. Just being in Fes every day I feel like I see more of the country than I did this weekend. The things I was doing, this hotel palace we stayed in, was so obviously for foreign tourists it seemed like a different place, or a fake version of the real Morocco. I tried to imagine my host family staying at the hotel, and it was about as impossible as the prospect of my host mom letting me skip dinner. Don’t get me wrong I did enjoy it all; but I also decided that being a tourist is not how I want to see the world. Staying in a place tells you what it’s like, the culture and the people. Traveling is wonderful and relaxing, but living is more my style.
That being said, the desert was beautiful, and sleeping the second night under the stars with our Amazight guides was so fun. They were fabulous hosts; after dinner they stayed up and told us jokes that were mostly only funny because they were in broken English with thick accents, but still, it was memorable. We also had a meaningful conversation with one of the younger guides talking about the Amazight people. He was telling us about the Saharan war, and how the government had mistreated the tribe and how it was hard because the language was dying because it was not taught in schools. He was 22 and a university student as well as a teacher of the Amazight alphabet in local elementary schools as well as a camel tour leader. He was very eloquent for only being able to speak “a little English” and he had what I thought to be very wise words: He said we should learn as many languages as possible, because we have to be able to communicate with others to survive. But also, we have to keep our own language, because it is the source of our culture. “Without language, what are we?” He asked, and at that moment I have never been happier to be studying Arabic. I am learning to communicate with more people, something I believe in very strongly, but on top of that, the Arab culture and Islam and life in this area is fascinating and wonderful to me. There are things that are difficult, and things I don’t like, of course, but I love learning who people are, and I don’t think you can really do that until you speak the same language. I was never more confused by war after this man’s talk, either. His speaking about the Saharan war made me think of the wars that America has been involved in with Arabic speaking nations and it so beyond ridiculous. How could you ever justify a war if you don’t even speak the other person’s language? Of course you don’t understand where they are coming from; you couldn’t even understand their knock knock jokes, let alone their foreign policy. Anyway, I suppose those thoughts just go along with the surreal campfire peace, love, and happiness feeling I got in the cool desert sunset, and then again come sunrise. That’s the one nice thing about being a tourist, it’s easy not to feel problems when you don’t live with them.
In conclusion:
Ride a camel, but not for two hours because they are very uncomfortable and your sore behind will feel that problem.

So I got up this morning and my mom had packed me a lunch, and I realized that I haven’t packed a lunch for school since high school which is an ever increasingly long time ago. Then I ate my baguette breakfast and felt very nostalgic as I put on my sneaks, grabbed my backpack, and started off on my walk to school. My morning walk is often the highlight of my day. Class never starts on time so I’m never in a hurry, and Moroccans don’t start doing anything really early, so the streets are still pretty quiet, even though it’s between nine and ten in the morning. I listen to my new “walkin’ to school” playlist or “This American Life” on my I-pod and I am in a pretty good mood. The only people out at this hour are either other students, or, I find this hilarious, giant buses of the most typical tourists you’ve ever seen. I walk right by the palace and there is always some adorable looking group with fanny packs and giant cameras out taking in the exotic scenery. I repeat the phrase my host mom tells me to say, “I am not a tourist, I am student” and even though I’m a foreigner I feel good that I can at least say I live here. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with tourism, and I am a tourist when I go anywhere other than Fes, but I still feel some pride knowing that the sandwich in my backpack means this is my home.
The funny thing about walking here, that all of my classmates have mentioned too, is that it is one giant game of chicken. The sidewalks are not really that crowded, but there are absolutely no rules of the road. It seems like someone is always walking directly at you, and one of you eventually will have to change your path or step out into the street. I don’t think any of us has really figured out the game, because somehow it seems like everyone else knows how to walk without running into people, but somehow, if I put on my best poker face, and walk straight into the oncoming traffic, I end up in constant collision. I’ve experimented with different strategies, told myself that no matter what, I would not be the one to change course, but I usually “chicken out” and move aside, feeling confused like how could I have possibly missed the one way sign. This pedestrian competition is far more intense than crossing the street, here, but luckily, less deadly. Cars will occasionally yield to pedestrians, but it’s better to wait for a sizable gap in traffic before crossing the street.
After I ate my packed lunch I continued my good day by getting my first Moroccan ice cream cone. There is this adorable man who has a little Glaceria and from seeing him prepare his ice cream shop I have come to the conclusion that he is the kindest and most responsible man in Fes. Something about how he cleans the sidewalk in front of his store, and sets up shop diligently even in nor really ice cream weather, not to mention how he owns the source of my favorite Moroccan and American cuisine (ice cream is universal, actually), makes me sure that if I do have a Moroccan love, it will be him. You can keep your camels, but offer me ice cream and we’re hitched. I’m a cheap bride, apparently, because my ice cream cone today was 6 dirham which is approximately 75 cents. This man and I will be developing a relationship, I am sure this is the will of Allah.

It's not that easy being white

So, being white in Morocco means that two assumptions are made about you. The first is that you have a lot of money, and the second is that you may be easily swayed (for females I mean sexually, for everyone it means you can be swayed to part with the money you undoubtedly have). Now, to give the Moroccans some credit, this is not entirely untrue. Most white people are comparatively richer than most Moroccans, especially the ones who come here as tourists, and especially with the language barrier, it is pretty easy to swindle foreigners out of a few Dirhams. Bargaining here is not just for tourists, either. My host mom and I went to three different stores today before she found someone who would give her the price she wanted for bread. It's hard, though, to never be able to count on buying the same thing for the same price, and it's also hard not to take it personally. It is the principal, not the extra ten cents, that makes me mad when I'm asked to pay more than yesterday for a pack of gum or some roasted nuts, but the option of paying a better price after a minor argument in broken Arabic doesn't make me feel much better. (p.s. the roasted nuts are to die for)
It also seems that Moroccan men are under the assumption that because I am white I will be easily swayed by their cat calls. Sometimes humorous, but mostly not, I'm starting to get really sick of the "hello sweetie"s that I hear constantly. I have started to get furiously annoyed that I can't leave the house alone without some stupid comment and it will be an act of God if I leave this country without breaking someone's nose. Most of the time, the men don't even know what the English words they spew out mean, but I know that the sentiment is the same. The other day I was approached with an offer for "many camels if I would the marrying and we sit in the shop of the coffee you drink" from a kid who was maybe 13 years old. The young one's I want to smack upside the head but the older creeps I want to punch in the face. What is most frustrating is that I don't even have a good comeback in Arabic yet and it can be encouraging to offer any kind of response. So let this be a warning to any poor schmuck in the states who tries to cat call me when I get back. You will be getting my pent up fury from three months worth of sleeze and it will not be a pretty sight. On my own turf, I decide what does and does not fly and unless you've got more camels than the king of Morocco you better shut up.
I hate to paint this negative picture, life here is still great, I still love it, and it's really a beautiful country with wonderful people. Also I ate a snail. But I'll have to write about the ups later because it is now 4:10 and I have a 4:00 class. I do like Moroccan time, It's more like Jennifer time, more of an estimation of when something might happen than an actual appointed hour.

The Arabic language is absolutely ingenious. Unfortunately, it takes a genius then to be able to speak it. There are a lot of really amazing things about it that make it 1. Absolutely beautiful, and 2. Very practical and efficient, but also 3. Ridiculously difficult. I will give you my present example, one of the things I think is wonderful about the language and the thing that daily makes me say, “this is impossible.” So each word comes from a root of three letters. And by putting these three letters into set patterns with other letters, you get different meanings. For example, the letters “k” “t” and “b” are the root of the words for reading. If you make a word “keh-teh-beh” you get the verb to read. “ehk-toob” is to write, “kee-taab” is the word for book, etc. So for verbs there are ten patterns that these letters go into to make different actions. Put the letters in the first pattern and you are doing the action. The second from, you are making someone else do the action. So, like the root letters for knowledge in the first form mean to teach and in the second from mean to learn/study. We get the idea? So you can make all kinds of words just by knowing these three letters which is wonderful but the problem comes in that now you have all of these words that sound quite similar but mean quite different things. Going back to the example with the verb “to teach.” So the difference between the first and second forms is a “shadda” over the second root letter, which basically just means you pronounce it for longer. So in English, basically it would mean that if I say “I study at the school” it means I’m a student at the school, but if I say “I studdddy at the school” (with a slightly longer “d” sound) it actually means I teach at the school. So yes, these two are connected and that’s so great that we can derive so many meanings from the same root but WHAT THE HELL ARABIANS? You want me to tell my action based on the slightly emphasized sounding of one freaking letter?? I mean, what if I just naturally have a longer “d” sound? What if I have a stuttering problem and you think I say a letter longer but really it’s just a nervous twitch because I’m worried you are going to ask me to stand up and teach the class instead of sitting with the rest of the dumbfounded students where I belong? Yesterday, one of my teachers said, “Arabic is really quite clear, you just have to know it,” and that is so how I feel. The smallest vowels (which aren’t included in informal written texts, mind you) make the biggest difference. Pronunciation in English can make things sound different or weird, but we can still understand meanings! Not to be discouraged, though, I do feel like it’s getting easier and “shewya shewya” little by litte as my host mom always says, it will come. The same teacher also said yesterday in class that when Western thinkers use Arabic to express their ideas, it comes up with all kinds of new ways to use the language and is really quite beautiful. So that is inspiring. In shah Allah, I, too, will make beautiful ideas in Arabic, but first I have to find out if I’m studying this subject or teaching it; if I am sending a letter or being sent one; if I am being born or giving birth; you know, little things like that.

Arabic Aerobics (say that one ten times fast)

The only men in the building are the two security guards who sit in a booth just inside the main door. They greet me warmly and assure me that they remember me from Saturday, the first time I attended the 6:30 class. In the locker room, bodies are unwound from the fabrics that cover them head to toe. Hair and faces are exposed as veils come off and women walk around freely in the nude, in between showers and clothes. For some reason I don’t find it surprising how free and comfortable Moroccan women are with their bodies. I guess I’ve had enough feminist-ing to know that a lot of body insecurity comes from the social pressures of more revealing Western clothing, something women here obviously don’t have to deal with as much. In Morocco, who cares how you look at the gym- you will never have to show the shape of your body like that on the street. This attitude also makes for an interesting group appearance. Unlike posh gyms of the west, where middle class women attend daily services in their Sunday best Nikes (I should know, I have two pairs of my very own Nike sneaks), women here work out in a strange variety of baggy sweats and well loved spandex. Exercise isn’t exactly common, so the situation is increasingly humorous when you take into account that most of these women are at least a little hefty, and are not accustomed to following dance steps or aerobic instruction. This stops no one, though, and when the American techno pop blares out of the 1996 style boom box, all two dozen or so 15-55 year old Moroccan women start marching in place to the hip-hoppin beat. The instructor calls out counts in French, and occasionally throws in a good hip sway or two I cant follow to remind me that my belly dancing days were over before they began. Again, the lack of dance experience and probably lung capacity of a majority of the class causes most of the women to stop each exercise early or to simply sway back and forth in place, but our fearless leader steps on, with moves to keep our hearts pumping and muscles burning. She’s the Arab Denise Austen that will get your rear in gear. After a half hour of line dancing mixed with jumps, squats, and those seductive and discouraging belly dance moves, we each take a “rank piece of Styrofoam” (read: abs mat) and Fathima Denise leads us in core like Core Power has never seen. The exercise portion of the class ends long before the class dismisses, the music is not turned off, only down, and at the end of an hour, the teacher continues to wow me with her mid-section prowess as the rest of the women divide into friend circles and watch and chat. Today was only my second class, but I can already tell you that getting my groove on to Daft Punk with every color, shape and size of female and sweat suit will be the highlight of my trip.
Also, just an F.Y.I. – to all of anyone who told me not to pack too many clothes: a little bit, you suck. I am freezing, and I think even the street children are starting to question my personal hygiene. I am currently wearing every long sleeve shirt that I brought, except for the one that I have been running in, I am wearing leggings under my jeans, and three pairs of socks. And, I have been wearing all of these things for the past week.

I’m getting a lot more comfortable at home. I’m feeling really good about my family and we have had some pretty decent conversations considering we don’t speak the same language. Last night I helped my host brother with his German homework which was funny. If there is one thing that will make you better at a language it is translating it into another language you don’t know very well. Despite my rough, rough Arabic that no one actually speaks though, I have been really inspired by the progress I have already made with the language and by seeing how well other students are doing who have been here longer. Last night I went with a fellow student who has been here since September to a belly dancing class. I was really impressed at how well she can understand and speak Derrija (the local dialect). Unfortunately, both of our belly dancing abilities were not quite as refined as our language skills. Let me tell you there is nothing that can make you feel less attractive than awkwardly rocking your hips while a beautiful Moroccan woman sways seductively in front of you. I also have been able to go running, which has been a great way to see more of the city, and has made me feel happy and at home. The cat calling is actually minimal when I run, too, which I’ve found nice. People really don’t run outside here, so I think instead of thinking “ooo… white woman” when I run by men think, “umm… white freak.” The other day I had a really nice interaction with a man on the street on my way to school. We exchanged “good mornings” and because I was pretty close to ALIF, he asked me if I was a student there. I replied that I was and we had a short conversation in which he told me my Arabic was moomtez! (excellent) which probably made my life. My conversations with my host family, like I said, have gotten a lot better too. The other day we were talking about how my host mom was busy in the kitchen and she said, “you’ll be busy in the kitchen someday too” and I said, “no, I’ll be busy in my office!” and she said, “but, it’s like how I made you a sandwich for lunch the other day, you will make your husband a sandwhich?” and I said “my husband can make his own sandwich!!” Conversations here revolve a lot around marriage and the future children I will have (in shah allah) and food. But as long as I can understand the conversation, I like it. I also love falling asleep to Moroccan rain and the Quran being sung on the TV. I am definitely starting to feel like ena mgrhbeeya (I am Moroccan).

Answering Questions, Dispelling Myths: the haves and don’t haves of Moroccan lifet

As I was packing for this trip, a lot of questions came up, do they have plumbing there? Toilet paper? Clean water? Internet? Face Wash? Shampoo? Etc. etc. so I have compiled a short list of the things I think future travelers or curious blog readers should know that Morocco (my part of it anyway) has and does not have.
Morocco Does NOT Have:
Trash Cans- that is unless you count the street. Littering here is how you throw things away. I’m not sure where it all goes and it’s really pretty sad because Fes is absolutely gorgeous. Really nice landscaping, greenery and parks and fountains galore, but all of it is littered with garbage. No sanitation system and no shame about it.
Silverware- We did have spoons for couscous, and a grits like gruel I had one day for breakfast. Otherwise, we eat with our hands. It’s ok though, I feel like I’m almost better with my hands than with knives and forks.
Nightlife- I did see a nightclub today in the new city, but for the most part, people are in their homes by nine or ten. Especially in the medina, there is just nothing safe to do past that time. (p.s. if you include alcohol in the nightlife category that is a DEFINITE no no. Morocco is an Islamic country let’s remember which strictly forbids boozin’. I did, however, see non-alcoholic beer on the menu at this pretty western style café I went to.)
English- If people aren’t speaking the local Arabic dialect they speak French. A few shopkeepers or people who have been through a lot of school will speak broken English, (also obviously the people at my school speak English), but otherwise you are in no man’s land. No English text, all Arabic and/or French. In a cab the other day the driver asked us, “why in America you no speak French?” Instead of, “because we think Jesus spoke English and we know that it is the chosen language,” we responded that no one really speaks French in America, instead a lot of people speak spanish too. (I should have told them that my sister is actually a French scholar, but I didn’t, sorry Cathy)
Clean water- The water in the new city is drinkable but not tasty. In the medina they boil it into coffee or tea. These people are NOT getting their 8 glasses a day, let me tell you, and they are just fine, which lends a hand to showing how relative “objective” western science really is. I am a huge water chugger though so I always fill up my water bottle in the new city and drink it at home. My host mom asked me why I drink so much water the other day and I didn’t know what to say so I said it was because I run a lot.
Morocco Has:
Stuff- Electronics, clothes, shoes, soaps and shampoos, cell phones, candy, Kleenex, toilet paper. If you know how to say it in Arabic, French, or you can pantomime it, you can buy it (very cheaply) in Morocco. The only thing I haven’t seen for sale that was on my packing list was tampons (I would not recommend pantomiming that one)
Toilets- They are not uncommon, but I do get the impression that western style toilets are still new and limited to at least the middle class.
Internet- My host sister and brother fight over the computer constantly. Cyber cafes are around every corner (though sometimes they are kind of sketchy corners). Wireless, however, is more of a rarity and sometimes doesn’t work as well.
EXTREME hospitality- The word extreme is capitalized for a reason. Yes shopkeepers want you to by stuff, but they are also just super nice. I, and all of my classmates, have had numerous invitations to come in, come back, join for coffee, sit and talk, practice Arabic, help with English, sit, eat, look, try, etc. etc. I hear my mother’s warnings to be careful, and the foreboding words that sitting in a coffee shop here is the road to marriage, so don’t worry, I haven’t taken up any invitations. Still, people see you and are so excited to talk to you, host you, and they remember you the next day, too. The host families themselves, of course, are so so welcoming, but the culture here overall is about family and friends. You buy something from the same shop twice, you are friends, says my professor. And, in my experience, you don’t buy anything, and you are still friends! It’s genuine hospitality and it’s amazing. Today my friend Erin from the UMN and I were walking through the medina and there was a mini-parade like of drums and horns. Naturally we followed it, and discovered it was a wedding parade! We were hurried along with it by women and children and eventually people started crowding into this building. We were about to turn around but everyone started saying (if they could in English or body languaging it) to “come in, come in” so we did, and were led among the throngs of people to see the beautiful bride. It was kind of late so we left after just a few minutes but we were invited back to another wedding tomorrow. One of the women we met was somehow associated with the language school we go to so she gave us her phone number. Like I said, these people love… people!
Allah- Every greeting, goodbye, and saying has Allah in it. Morocco has Allah like America has McDonalds; which reminds me, Fes also has a McDonalds. I walk by it on my way to school. There is a large billboard featuring the McArabia which makes me want to vomit. I am not going to lie, though, I will be going there soon for some soft serve, inshahallah.
Well, it’s getting late and tomorrow is my first day of school! I am very nervous; I have not been a student in so long and Arabic is saab jdn!! (very hard!!) Sabach al- lacher. (til morning!)
P.S. If anyone has any other questions about life or stuff in Fes, let me know and I will happily tell you about it. If you want to start putting in requests for super cheap stuff you want me to bring back for you, I can buy everything you ever dreamed of and more for pennies. Somehow I feel ok about it too because the shopkeepers are so damn friendly. It’s gonna be a very Moroccan Christmas.

I never ever ever thought I would say this but today, for the first time ever, I wanted to be a boy. There are these gorgeous fields on my way to school where all the boys play soccer. I would so much love to run in those fields. The way women are semi-invisible here is almost eerie. I haven’t decided yet whether it is worse to be verbally taunted or to not really exist. I’m sure I will get a better feel for things in the future, and have a deeper and more appropriate insight into the situation, but so far, my observations are thus:
- women are not really respected. The respect for your elders thing is reduced to, you probably shouldn’t harass her in the street, when the elder is a woman. Last night I was walking back from the bakery with my host mom and there were these boys playing in the street and as we walked by one of them pretended to throw a ball at her and was laughing. Cat calls are common, mostly for westerners naturally, but boys can be extremely rude and crude. For the first time I can see how a burqa might be desirable. Being completely left alone and untouchable… may be better than being threatened. Even a rough crowd I don’t think would touch a woman fully veiled.
-women do not get the same enjoyments as men. The soccer example is a good one, I have also seen several men jogging, something I of course would really like to do, but definitely no. The other big thing here is to sit at a coffee shop and just drink coffee and smoke for hours and hours. But women do not go to coffee shops, or, I was informed today, they go to ones very far away from where they live, where no one will know them because it is shameful for women to be seen like this.
-women do not interact with men. My host brother and I are not very close. He doesn’t talk to me much, partially because I think he is just an awkward teenage boy (somethings ARE universal) but today, my brother walked me and my male classmate home from lunch and the two of them were chatting up a storm (as much as you can when you speak zero of the same language). In public, women go out with each other, their kids, their husbands, and occasionally alone. Mixing not so much.
-women are not safe like men. Don’t get me wrong on this one, I don’t think anyone, male or female would want to be walking the streets of the medina at night, but the ratio of men to women out past dark is even more disproportionate than during the day. Men and even really young boys are still hoppin around and hanging out in the bigger streets or creepily lurking on the side streets at night, but women not so much and they’re definitely not out alone.
Ok, now all of this with a grain of salt. There are highly respected females at my school, professors and professionals. Few women here wear a burqa and a lot don’t even wear a hijab (not that that is necessarily about inequality… debatable) my host mom goes out alone and with my sister and i. Miriam and I even go after dark together before it gets too late. And the medina of Fes is more conservative, in the new city it’s way more modern, gender equality included, and there are other cities more liberal than Fes. Also, I know it’s all cultural and I am here to learn and blah blah. I cannot help being bothered by the small things that I do notice and don’t necessarily like, though, and I also always remember there are country areas too where it is ten times worse. It’s hard, and it’s still very new to me. come to Morocco and decide for yourself, I guess. Until then, can I play soccer with the boys?

Kindeys in my couscous

Moroccan food and flaws:

The food here is very tasty, if you like everything white and with oil. All white bread, a majority of the time with sugar. The big meals are lunch and dinner where white bread is used to scoop oil and meat hunk out of giant center plate. I have a courtesy, "you are the weirdo we are hosting" napkin but otherwise we eat with our hands. On Fridays the big treat is couscous. which was delicious at lunch today. The meals can be a little awkward because we eat in a room with a TV so the kids just kind of eat and watch the Hindi soaps I don't understand in drreja(Moroccan arabic) so to make conversation and for my language skills, I have begun to name all the foods on the family plate (table). Today, I pointed out what looked like an olive and said "zeitoon" (I know the word for olive because zeitoon and zeit zeitoon (olive oil) are at EVERY MEAL) and my host mom looked very confused. noo she said and then said something else in arabic. That's when I knew. "meat?" I asked? and she nodded. then I pointed to my stomach. "from here meat" yep. that's right, there were lamb kidneys in my couscous. Now, as my real American sister puts it, I am a recovering vegetarian, and I have been fine eating meat here, and I also want to try everything, experience the culture, blah blah. but the veggie in me does not want kidneys, does not want to see chickens throats slit in the market, and definitely does not want to see whole lamb heads bloody and on display for sale. la aheb (i dont like)
the other problem with food right now, is that there is so freaking much of it. My mother has made it very very clear that she is personally responsible for my putting on minimum of 200 pounds before I leave Morocco. I swear to you, this is only a slight exaggeration. EVERY meal it is non stop "kuhlee, kuhlee" eat eat! which is very nice but when i have food in front of me, in my hand and in my mouth there is not much more I can do! It started off as nice but now I just feel bad- I get a lot of frowns from my mom. overall, I think she is just very protective of me and thinks of me as younger than I am. The fact that I am short an dlittle, and also a girl I do not think help this situation. My prime example of this (which my fellow UMN students think is hilarious) is that I was washed. Yes, that's right, because Moroccan women scrub their young children, I asked how to use the shower, and my host mom showed me, then proceeded to strip me down and wash me. Luckily, I am not super modest, so I didn't feel violated at all, but this morning I had to be very stern that I would wash myself. I said "I am big, I wash alone" and she said "no, you are small" But I insisted, so we're making headway, but still, I would like a little more independence.
Another thing I have been noticing here is the gender differences. Women are not respected, not really seen in public, and overall just kind of in the woodwork of society. I have stories but I'll have to tell them later. My classmate is waiting for me to walk home together. Triwizard cup tournament maze has be solved, I can now find my way to my house and I WILL be walking home from school by myself.

Tomorrow is Muhammad's birthday and the other UMN kids and I will be exploring the medina.

hey, want to hear about Morocco?

My House
Remember the harry potter tri wizard cup maze? Somewhere in there… God only knows how to find it- there is a small door marked by an 18 over it that is the doorway into my house. Everything in Morocco is masked by a tiny crumbling outside and then you go through the doors into the palace. My home is really nice, I have my own room across from a room with a sink and there is another washroom complete with toilet (woo) downstairs. We eat in the living room area complete with TV. My only concern about my house really is that I have absolutely no idea how I would ever ever find it.
My Family
Um-mee (my mother) is the most loving person on this planet. She has insisted that I come to her for absolutely everything. She will be walking me to school everyday. She gives me big hugs- which I am so so grateful for, and she came into my room to make sure I wasn’t crying. (I was not! I don’t know how I could my family is wonderful) She was a bit horrified at my packing job though and so helped me fold every last piece of underwear and put it away. I think she was a little overwhelmed with how much underwear I had. (I was told to pack a lot) My Ab-be (father) is a taxi driver. He is diabetic and showed me he has lost all of the toes on his left foot so in the evenings he is home early. My brother, Muhammad, is 14 and is taking German in school. Even with this common language, though, I’m not sure we will be super close. I don’t get the impression he wants to work hard enough to make me understand… at least not yet. Did I mention, by the way, that none of my family speaks any English. There are small, small pieces of French with the kids, but only my mom speaks modern standard Arabic, my dad mostly speaks colloquial which makes communicating a little (lot) difficult. They have had a lot of exchange students in the past. My mom showed me pictures of all of them, and I’m not sure how much Arabic their past student spoke but I get the impression they are surprised by my lack of knowledge. I don’t think they would ever judge me (not that I could help it if they did) but at times I feel a little like I’m doing something wrong. I can tell, though, that by the time my stay is over I will be one million times better with the language. Of course, this brings me to my final family member, Uchtee! (my sister) I am so lucky to have gotten the best tutorial over the past two months on big sisterhood, because I have the cutest little sister ever! Miriam (yes, my siblings are Miriam and Muhammad, welcome to the Middle East) is so adorable. She is nine years old and a master teacher of Arabic. She spent an hour reading me a bed time story- the story of the fall of man- Adam and Satan. She pantomimed everything for me and would not move on until she was convinced I understood. She is a strict teacher too, and she likes to color so I know we will get along very well. Cathy, I gave her your t-shirts and I think she was overwhelmed with all the presents so she wouldn’t take them so I told her they were for her and Muhammad, not from me but from my sister, especially for her. She was extremely grateful and I told her you wanted to meet her on Skype. After today combined with Colorado, sisterhood has a whole new meaning for me and it is somewhere in the magical indescribable loving feeling zone; I really hope you get to meet her via cyber café. I feel you two are transcendentally connected to each other. Also, Mom, I showed Ummee el meghrib (my Moroccan mother) your picture (the one of you holding all my 21 birthday candles) and she said you are very beautiful. Dad, the only picture I had on my camera of you was your snarky face one so they haven’t seen your picture yet. Sorry, I’ll find a good one on my computer I promise. 
My school
I still don’t know a ton about it but there are a lot of people there learning both English and Arabic. It really is an international language school. Today I overheard and English class going on. The teacher was explaining sun bathing as “when people go outside, with very few clothes on, to darken their skin. That is sun bathing.” I am nervous for classes, because like my Arabic class has always been, school here is said to be a lot of very hard work. I finally met some of the staff and they are all very nice and accommodating. I feel like part of a very needy group but that is mostly because of the lack of experience we all have I think. I hope that we are the rule of inexperience and not the exception to the more experienced crowd. La arf. (I don’t know) The other students from UMN are really nice and fun. We are a small group and only one other person lives in the medina with me, the rest live in the ville nouveau. (fes is really like three cities in one. Medina=old city/unfathomable maze city. Middle city=inbetween new city/ville nouveau= French city which I was promptly informed has zero history). The school is in the new city, and like I said getting back and forth might be interesting. I haven’t given up hope on learning the ins and outs of the medina- there was never hope to begin with. I don’t think you could ever learn it. I think you are either born here, you have a guide, or you die trying to find your way out alone. For once in my sarcastic life I am not exaggerating. Pictures will come soon I hope.(inshahallah) for now, though, I have to go to bed.

The Medina

ok, so first put yourself in a maze. Not an Iowa corn maze, but a Harry Potter Tri-wizard cup maze with stone walls and cobblestone street. Now add in every type of shop you've ever seen in your life. Every farmer's market, butcher shop, world market, and the L.A. fashion district. Take every strong scent you have ever smelled, times by a ten, add that in. Add a roof, sometimes, and never be quite sure if you are inside or outside. Now add a Mosque and the "infinity" that is in Arabic mosaics. Now add chickens (being killed and lamb heads). Now watch out for donkeys about to run you over. ok now you can maybe start to imagine the Medina.

Today I went to Quranic school and listened to kids recite the Quran. Yesterday I had a conversation with my cab driver about love in arabic. It went something like this (all in Arabic on little sleep):
Him: do you have a love?
Me: yes, we go to the same university. he is in London now.
Him: Do you sleep in the bed with him?
Me: (weirded out) no
Him: why not?
Me: my mother wouldn't like it
Him: that is your mother!!
Him: you do not love him then
Me: yes I do!
Him: you say it only with your mouth
Me: No, I say it with your heart.

Then for a long time we practiced saying "my love, I love you with my heart and soul"

I love Morocco.

I really wanted the start of my Morocco blog to be in Morocco. But seeing as how that process has been delayed and I feel it warrants some explanation: I will begin my travel stories with travel nightmares. This is the shit they don't talk about in your Lonely Planet travel guides. First, let me just say that I started off this day more prepared than I ever have been for a trip. I had everything on the famous Lily Dobson's packing list, I had spent the past week making daily lists with my sister of things to do to prepare to leave, I'd been doing a lot of nothing but waiting to leave since Thanksgiving, and I have spent the last two plus years of my life researching, applying, planning, waiting, and dreaming for this day when I would study abroad where they speak Arabic, traveling on my own to learn about a culture and language I love. Anyway I'm pretty ready to go. So I walk up to the check-in, a little over two hours before my flight is supposed to leave, just like you're supposed to for an international flight. Yes, my checked bag is a little overweight, so I take a few things out, my bad, and then promise the friendly United worker I'll say hi to Bogie for him. Then I'm waved over by the woman inspecting my passport and the following dialogue takes place:
Nameless woman who I would hit with my car if I could remember what she looked like: "Do you have a visa?"
me: "No, for stays of 90 days you don't need a visa"
NW: "yes, but 90 days would bring you back on May 23. your return flight is booked for May 28."
me: I don't know why, but I don't need a visa.
NW: you are going to have to enter that line and re-book your return ticket or you'll get to paris and they wont let you on the plane.
me (inner monologue): I am not an idiot. I swear I'm not an idiot.
So my blessed sister says it will be ok, and we start making frantic calls. Everyone should mail Andrew Harris Christmas cards. And even though the Denver airport lied about their free wireless, I found out that- No stupid idiot woman from United I don't need a visa, I apply for a student residency card with the University once I get there. So I'm sorry that knowledge was not at the top of my head but ok. So I stay in the line specially designed by Satan to move slower than tectonic plates to make sure I am checked in because I'm pretty sure I just watched my bag go on the track to Chicago. I get my ticket, it's ok I go through security, I get to my gate and with time to spare I board the plane that will take me from Denver to Chicago, where I will meet all my best new friends from the University of Minnesota and travel on to Paris and then Casablanca together. As I'm about to climb into my seat I hear over the speaker, "Ladies and Gentlemen, due to air traffick because of weather our flight will be delayed an hour. If you want to exit the plane you can or you can stay seated" Well, pardon my french, but I'm not in Paris so, fuck. I only started off with an hour layover in Chicago so my flight is scheduled to leave just as this one lands. Although the stewardess advised me to stay in Denver, the woman at the ticket counter said there would be a good chance my flight in Chicago would be delayed too and said to stay on the plane. So I took a chance, and the whole flight I lived with the hope of Obama. Well, despite 7 years of running competitively, I lost the race against United Airlines. And it will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I definitely cried as my breathless "Paris?" was responded too with a sad, sad gaze and the words "you just missed it." And that is the story of how, while I am supposed to be in Paris, I am alone in a hotel in Chicago, watching Forest Gump, and blogging my woes to all of you. It's not all bad. I made a lot of friends. Several United employees think I am psychotic but are very sympathetic about it, apparently many older women feel the need to console when they see young girls alone sobbing in the airport, I helped a woman who was at the customer service counter and couldnt understand because she spoke mostly German, and Miguel, the man who drove the shuttle to the hotel was really nice and wants to be a police officer someday. Hopefully, my next blog update will be about all of the sights and sounds of Morocco- but as the Arab's say, "In'shah Allah" which means, "God willing" and though I have no idea why God willed this, tomorrow, I'll try again, In'shah Allah.