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.