It was an early morning in Fes – we were up by 7 and on the bus a half hour later. But the early start was completely worth it: our excursion completely saved the best for last as we headed northward!
The first stop of the day was a few hours away – the ruins of the Roman city of Volubilis. The site represents one of the Romans’ southern-most outposts along the Mediterranean, and it served as a pretty sizeable base for operations further south. I’m a sucker for anything Roman (and ruined) so I was in heaven among the crumbling pillars and well-preserved mosaics throughout the site. Apparently they are not 100% authentic: the whole site was demolished by an earthquake a few decades back and was rebuilt to reflect its appearance as it was known before the earthquake. The excavations are continuing today – our guide mentioned numerous times that they had uncovered only half of the city and still expected to find the remains of a coliseum, among other things. As for what’s there now, we got to walk through a bunch of destroyed homes and baths, as well as the forum, a main temple, and even a brothel!
From there, it was a five-minute drive into (or up to) Moulay Idriss, a small village which looks as though someone plopped it on the top of a hill and the houses gradually spilled downwards like melting ice cream. Which would have been so delicious in the early October sun. But instead, we had a quick walking tour of the small town and then settled for lunch at a B&B owned and operated by the sweetest old lady and her daughter. They cooked us a delicious meal of veggies and rice, chicken with quince (and even showed us exactly what a quince was: like a giant apple that’s too hard to be eaten without cooking it first), with pomegranates for dessert. If there’s 1 thing I’ll miss about Moroccan cuisine, I think it’ll be the incredible profusion of pomegranates – I think I’d only eaten 1 in my entire pre-Moroccan life.
After relaxing for a little while, we hopped back in our van and drove until we hit the old colonial border separating French Morocco from the old Spanish-controlled territory. What a relief to know that I could speak comfortably with the locals here in the language of their once and former oppressors! Well, at least my Spanish is much better than my French (and certainly my Arabic, for that matter).
It was only maybe a half hour further until we came upon the village of Chefchouen, which is, in my humble opinion, the most beautiful place that I have seen in Morocco. The entire village is nestled onto a mountainside in the Rif range, and its name comes from the two twin peaks poking out like horns over the city. What is more, nearly every building in the entire village is painted white and sky blue, so the only colors you see everywhere are the deep green of the tree-covered mountains, and the pure blue and white of the sky and the houses. We checked into our hotel to discover that every room (at least every room on our floor) was decked out in a Pretty Pink Princess theme, including pink walls and pink bedspreads on the huge canopy beds which every little girl dreams of having… or so I imagine.
The sun was just setting as we went out to explore our new location a bit, so we wandered around the tight, hilly, beautiful medina and did a little bit of window shopping at the various shops of wool and silver and fossils. Fadoua met us an hour later for dinner at Café Hassan, where we had carrot soup, beef couscous, and lemon pie (I hadn’t realized how much I missed pie – mmmm!). Before settling in for the night, we did a little bit more shopping, the girls were offered a few thousand camels a piece for their hands in marriage, and we found a bunch of Spanish environmental activists painting a few different murals on the medina walls (which turned out pretty well, we discovered when we returned to the site the following morning).
We got to sleep in all the way until 8:00! But it was all made alright by the best breakfast of my entire semester – they had cereal and milk! Add in some Boston (brand) tea, pineapple juice, and bread with various jams – plus complimentary cookies which I stole for the ride home – and I was a happy young man. And best of all (for those still following the random clogged ear side story) my right ear popped and would remain clear to this day! The left ear, however, remained moody for another week before finally returning to a normal level of hearing.
We had a few hours of the morning free to go out on the town, so we returned to the medina on the hill had a small group photo shoot among the windy blue-and-white alleys, doors, and cobblestone streets. Eventually, we wandered into the Kasbah museum and garden, complete with a tower that had some exquisite views – I took literally hundreds of pictures. A few of the best are up online! We also made a few final shopping stops – I gave in and bought an extremely soft and toasty blue and grey sweater made of a wool/cashmere mixture for 145 dirhams (just short of 20 bucks!). I only barely resisted adding in a pair of knit, woolen socks like Aunt Lil makes for me back home and which would have been perfect for wearing around the house here in Morocco (no one ever goes around barefoot in the house; the sole exception is the very formal, carpeted dining room where you must remove your shoes to enter).
Unfortunately, we had to start the return trip, so we all boarded the van and watched the Rif Mountains drift into the background and fade into our memories. A little past the border back into French Morocco, we stopped at the town of Ouazzane for lunch. Fadoua explained to us that the house at which we were stopping was actually the vacation home of the CCCL’s founders, Farah and Abdelhai, whose families were both very prominent in Northern Morocco (Farah’s family is even a part of the Sharif, meaning that they can trace their heritage back to the Prophet Muhammad). So, as you can well imagine, this house was gorgeous. Set on a hill where it overlooked the stretch into “downtown” Ouazzane, the house was a gigantic and beautiful building with pillars, a huge terrace, and a small fountain. We took a tour through their garden slash orchard, looked at their old olive press and had a basic explanation of how they still use the press and their home-grown olives to manufacture their own olive oil for family, friends, and personal use. Then we had an enchanting (I can’t think of any other word to describe how good this food was) meal of vegetable and bean salads, chicken tajine, and pomegranates, all along with olive oil and tangerines from the property. Eternally jealous of the employee parties which get held here a few times each year, we set off toward Rabat once and for all.
We had one final rest stop perhaps 20 minutes outside of Rabat, and while everyone else was using the restrooms, I wandered over to look at some construction just winding down for the day to the side of the parking lot. Before I knew it, 8 or so Moroccan construction men came over and just started talking to me, asking how I was and where I was from. Among the first questions, of course, was whether I spoke Arabic, to which I always answer, “Shwiyya,” (a little bit) in true Stuff White People Like fashion. Next they asked if I spoke French or Spanish, and after I told them that I could speak decently well in Spanish, they proceeded to speak with me in Italian. Granted, I could understand them well enough, but the situation as a whole fairly ridiculous: here I was in the middle of Morocco speaking in broken Spanish with a group of construction men who, in turn, answered me in broken Italian. But it was an immensely enjoyable 10 minutes, and made me realize that what I like best about Morocco, I think, is its people. Certainly, they can be a little annoying when they play point-and-laugh-at-the-funny-blond-foreigner out in the medina streets (and that happens even more than you’d think), but for the most part, they are among the friendliest and most outgoing people that I have ever met. As long as you’re nice in return and making some sort of effort to learn about their culture, they’re likely to tell you that your Arabic is quite good (though you haven’t said more than 3 words), continue conversing for an extended period of time, and invite you into their home for tea.
However, I left my new friends after a short while to make the final leg of the trip home to Rabat. Over the past week, our eyes had been opened to a vision of Morocco as a much more diverse and beautiful place than we had even imagined – and there was still so much left to be seen. Our excursion was complete, but our learning was far from over.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Excursion, Days 4-6: Toward Fes
We woke up in the desert to the sound of gongs. Well, at least I’m told that there were gongs ringing. True to my heavy sleeping habits, I dozed right through them. It also didn’t help that the rapid shifts in elevation during our earlier drives through the Atlas Mountains had left my ears half-plugged up and uncomfortably unable to pop. But I digress…
Breakfast was amazing considering we were in the desert – bread, jam, butter, cheese, and fruit, along with tea! We took our Jeeps back through the desert and into Zagora, stopping for a quick tour of an oasis palm grove. There, we got to climb some palm trees (the jagged palm tree bark makes it so easy!) and eat some fresh-picked dates! Once in Zagora, we re-boarded the van with our trusty driver Mohammad and began the long drive northward toward Fes.
Our stop lunch stop was a hotel in N’Koub (for more Moroccan tajine, of course) and we also got the chance to go swimming and to shower off all of the Sahara which had stuck with us. Apparently, this area has more ancient Kasbahs than anywhere else in Morocco, and we took a quick glance at them all from the roof of the hotel.
After driving all afternoon, we stopped for the night in the small town of Rissani, where we had a dinner of eggplant, rice, barbeque chicken, and French fries, with flan for dessert! It was all eaten in the presence of the cutest but loudest kitten I’ve encountered in Morocco.
We were up early the next morning to continue the drive, and stopped in Midelt for some couscous (on a Thursday – heresy! I thought couscous was only for Fridays!). By mid-afternoon we had reached Ifrane, a little mountain village of Swiss chateaux stuck up in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco by someone with a great sense of humor (or the Moroccan monarchs, your pick). It was actually quite eerie – I highly urge you to look at the pictures I posted of it. You drive through miles and miles of desert, then some rocky mountain terrain, and suddenly you’re in this beautiful little forest enclave – it’s surreal. It reminded all of us of New England, and the tree leaves were just beginning to change colors, giving us the first sense of a real October day. After grabbing a quick Magnum (ice cream) and taking a peek at al-Akhawain University, we drove the final hour and a half to Fes!
By the time we reached Fes, it was already just getting dark and we were exhausted, so we decided to stop by an Internet café and then have a nice night in. At the end of our hotel dinner, we were even serenaded by a group of Dutch travelers who broke out into folk songs for a good half hour. We settled into bed after ordering some room service and just hanging out for a bit.
And so, finally, on the following morning our time in Fes began! We met our tour guide Ahmed and started out at the impressive golden Palace Gate. We moved on through the Mellah (the old Jewish quarter) and stopped in a recently renovated historic temple before heading up to a fortress high above the outskirts of the old medina. The view was incredible! The medina seems to stretch out for miles – apparently it was the largest city in the world during its time as capital of the Almohad dynasty – and tourists can get lost in it for hours. Fes’s medina is actually the largest in Morocco, and lies nestled into a valley surrounded by protective hills. The city’s traditional section is made up of “Old Fes” and “New Fes.” Mind you, New Fes was built around the 1200s, so it’s really a relative term. Like any Moroccan city, this old section is then surrounded by the Ville Nouvelle – the “new city” built during the French occupation beginning in 1912.
From here, we dove back into the medina and wandered through the labyrinthine alleyways. It was quite different from any medina I’d navigated before – since it’s built on hills, you’re constantly moving up and down in elevation, ducking under buildings and going up stairs, so not only can you get lost among all of the twisting streets and dead ends, but you also have to keep track of your position on the vertical plane. Thank God we had Ahmed there to lead us. Unfortunately, we were touring on a Friday – the Muslim holy day – so many of the conservative city’s shops were closed and city life was much calmer than average. But still, we got to pass plenty of donkeys traversing the narrow alleys and a shop owner even placed a live snail on my hand (in hopes that I would then buy it and eat it, I guess…).
Our next official stop was one of Fes’s main leather tanneries. In a country known for its leather goods, the city of Fes is pre-eminent. And let me tell you – this place was crazy. Stacked with bags, jackets, slippers, wallets, and any other leather good and in any color you can imagine from floor to ceiling, the entire shop is a case study in sensory overload. Plus you have to throw in the smell of recently worked leather – for which the shop owners gave us each a sprig of mint leaves. We went to the back of the shop to look out on the men tanning the skins in dozens of gigantic drums down below – the site can’t be described in words, you have to check out the picture I posted. I ended up buying a leather briefcase for 400 dirhams (about $55), bargained down from an initial quote of 1400 dirhams ($190). Ahmed helped quite a bit. The salesman insisted that it is made of camel skin, but I remain skeptical.
We passed by the Al-Qarawiyyin Mosque, which we couldn’t enter as non-Muslims, and spent some quick time touring the nearby medersa before eating a huge lunch of various vegetable “salads” and lamb tajine at a local restaurant (where my left ear finally popped, for all those raptly following my health developments! It felt so amazing, but I remained hard of hearing in the other ear.)
Our tour continued with a Wood Museum (yup, a museum dedicated entirely to wooden crafts) and a textile ship, where we all tried on jellabas (traditional Moroccan robes worn inside the house or out on the street, depending on the style; they look strikingly like Jedi robes) and some more turbans. Finally we passed the Moulay Idriss Mausoleum with an outdoor wishing spot (where all of the money goes toward alms!).
Our day finished up with a tour of the Moroccan Initiative for Human Rights’ recently constructed Women’s Rights Center. They do some amazing work there, functioning as a women’s shelter, women’s employment center, and job training facility. And it’s all non-profit! As we toured, a baking class was having their final examination and we got to try some of the results. My stomach gave them all an A.
It was a long day, so we went back to the hotel, had our Friday couscous, and took a little stroll around the Ville Nouvelle before getting some well-earned sleep. Well, as well-earned as vacation sleep ever is!
Breakfast was amazing considering we were in the desert – bread, jam, butter, cheese, and fruit, along with tea! We took our Jeeps back through the desert and into Zagora, stopping for a quick tour of an oasis palm grove. There, we got to climb some palm trees (the jagged palm tree bark makes it so easy!) and eat some fresh-picked dates! Once in Zagora, we re-boarded the van with our trusty driver Mohammad and began the long drive northward toward Fes.
Our stop lunch stop was a hotel in N’Koub (for more Moroccan tajine, of course) and we also got the chance to go swimming and to shower off all of the Sahara which had stuck with us. Apparently, this area has more ancient Kasbahs than anywhere else in Morocco, and we took a quick glance at them all from the roof of the hotel.
After driving all afternoon, we stopped for the night in the small town of Rissani, where we had a dinner of eggplant, rice, barbeque chicken, and French fries, with flan for dessert! It was all eaten in the presence of the cutest but loudest kitten I’ve encountered in Morocco.
We were up early the next morning to continue the drive, and stopped in Midelt for some couscous (on a Thursday – heresy! I thought couscous was only for Fridays!). By mid-afternoon we had reached Ifrane, a little mountain village of Swiss chateaux stuck up in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco by someone with a great sense of humor (or the Moroccan monarchs, your pick). It was actually quite eerie – I highly urge you to look at the pictures I posted of it. You drive through miles and miles of desert, then some rocky mountain terrain, and suddenly you’re in this beautiful little forest enclave – it’s surreal. It reminded all of us of New England, and the tree leaves were just beginning to change colors, giving us the first sense of a real October day. After grabbing a quick Magnum (ice cream) and taking a peek at al-Akhawain University, we drove the final hour and a half to Fes!
By the time we reached Fes, it was already just getting dark and we were exhausted, so we decided to stop by an Internet café and then have a nice night in. At the end of our hotel dinner, we were even serenaded by a group of Dutch travelers who broke out into folk songs for a good half hour. We settled into bed after ordering some room service and just hanging out for a bit.
And so, finally, on the following morning our time in Fes began! We met our tour guide Ahmed and started out at the impressive golden Palace Gate. We moved on through the Mellah (the old Jewish quarter) and stopped in a recently renovated historic temple before heading up to a fortress high above the outskirts of the old medina. The view was incredible! The medina seems to stretch out for miles – apparently it was the largest city in the world during its time as capital of the Almohad dynasty – and tourists can get lost in it for hours. Fes’s medina is actually the largest in Morocco, and lies nestled into a valley surrounded by protective hills. The city’s traditional section is made up of “Old Fes” and “New Fes.” Mind you, New Fes was built around the 1200s, so it’s really a relative term. Like any Moroccan city, this old section is then surrounded by the Ville Nouvelle – the “new city” built during the French occupation beginning in 1912.
From here, we dove back into the medina and wandered through the labyrinthine alleyways. It was quite different from any medina I’d navigated before – since it’s built on hills, you’re constantly moving up and down in elevation, ducking under buildings and going up stairs, so not only can you get lost among all of the twisting streets and dead ends, but you also have to keep track of your position on the vertical plane. Thank God we had Ahmed there to lead us. Unfortunately, we were touring on a Friday – the Muslim holy day – so many of the conservative city’s shops were closed and city life was much calmer than average. But still, we got to pass plenty of donkeys traversing the narrow alleys and a shop owner even placed a live snail on my hand (in hopes that I would then buy it and eat it, I guess…).
Our next official stop was one of Fes’s main leather tanneries. In a country known for its leather goods, the city of Fes is pre-eminent. And let me tell you – this place was crazy. Stacked with bags, jackets, slippers, wallets, and any other leather good and in any color you can imagine from floor to ceiling, the entire shop is a case study in sensory overload. Plus you have to throw in the smell of recently worked leather – for which the shop owners gave us each a sprig of mint leaves. We went to the back of the shop to look out on the men tanning the skins in dozens of gigantic drums down below – the site can’t be described in words, you have to check out the picture I posted. I ended up buying a leather briefcase for 400 dirhams (about $55), bargained down from an initial quote of 1400 dirhams ($190). Ahmed helped quite a bit. The salesman insisted that it is made of camel skin, but I remain skeptical.
We passed by the Al-Qarawiyyin Mosque, which we couldn’t enter as non-Muslims, and spent some quick time touring the nearby medersa before eating a huge lunch of various vegetable “salads” and lamb tajine at a local restaurant (where my left ear finally popped, for all those raptly following my health developments! It felt so amazing, but I remained hard of hearing in the other ear.)
Our tour continued with a Wood Museum (yup, a museum dedicated entirely to wooden crafts) and a textile ship, where we all tried on jellabas (traditional Moroccan robes worn inside the house or out on the street, depending on the style; they look strikingly like Jedi robes) and some more turbans. Finally we passed the Moulay Idriss Mausoleum with an outdoor wishing spot (where all of the money goes toward alms!).
Our day finished up with a tour of the Moroccan Initiative for Human Rights’ recently constructed Women’s Rights Center. They do some amazing work there, functioning as a women’s shelter, women’s employment center, and job training facility. And it’s all non-profit! As we toured, a baking class was having their final examination and we got to try some of the results. My stomach gave them all an A.
It was a long day, so we went back to the hotel, had our Friday couscous, and took a little stroll around the Ville Nouvelle before getting some well-earned sleep. Well, as well-earned as vacation sleep ever is!
Eid al-Adha, Part 1: Not for the Faint of Heart (or PETA activists)
My new friend is watching me as I write this. His name is Phineas, and he is standing in a corner of our living room in a pile of his own waste.
Phineas is our sheep (qebsh in Moroccan Arabic, which is just fun to say). And in 3 days, he is going to die.
Perhaps I should explain. Eid al-Adha (or Eid al-Kebir, “The Big Holiday”) is one of the most important holidays of the Muslim world, commemorating Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Ishmael. For Muslims, Jews, and Christians the story is the same: Abraham so loved God that he was willing to sacrifice his first-born son to appease him, but at the last moment, God stayed his hand and provided Abraham with a ram to sacrifice in Ishmael’s place. In honor of this moment, each year Muslims follow his example and sacrifice a sheep to honor Allah’s benevolence. Farah, one of the CCCL’s directors and an expert in comparative religion, told us that many Moroccans take the ritual quite personally – parents see the sheep as taking the place of their child, while children thank Allah that they have been spared. She also explained that in Morocco centuries ago, the holiday melded with early Tamazight pagan beliefs which claim that the blood of a sacrificed animal can help to rid the home of evil spirits and demons. So that’s a plus. Eid al-Adha also always corresponds with the official Hajj to Mecca each year, upon which only a certain quota of Muslims can embark each year.
And so it was that on Sunday morning I awoke at the brisk, early hour of noon and walked toward the bathroom, only to double-take at the fuzzy creature staring at me from across the living / dining / television room. He’s a bit smaller than some of the other sheep I’ve seen in the shops that have sprung up around the medina in the last week, and is actually rather adorable. He doesn’t make very much noise – though he chews very loudly – and just sort of hangs around as we watch TV and eat our meals. My little cousins love running into the house to feed or play with him – all in all he’s sort of like a temporary pet. I think I’m going to miss having Phineas around after Saturday. And yes, he lives right in our living room – he’s tied up to a hook on the wall (with enough slack to lay down or walk around a bit), eats straw, and does his business right on the tiled floor (my host sister cleans up after him once a day). Virtually every family in Morocco will get one, though I imagine that basic sheep care and storage is a bit easier outside of the city.
In an effort not to make the holiday seem too barbaric, I should emphasize that the proper method of sacrifice is very exact and meant to cause the least possible amount of pain to the animal. Also, Moroccans use all of the animal after the sacrifice. Any part of the sheep that can be eaten is eaten – and I mean ANY part. Everyone eats lamb for days. The wool is used to stuff the mattresses of our couch / beds or can be woven into rugs. I’m not yet sure what happens to the rest, but I am intrigued to find out. Well, and maybe slightly nervous.
Hopefully you’re just as excited for Part 2 – coming once Eid is over!
[UPDATED! Side note for curious Bible-ophiles or BU Core Curriculum enthusiasts: After further investigation, I have discovered that the story of Abraham's sacrifice is presented differently in the Quran and the Bible. According to the Muslim holy book, Ishmael was nearly sacrificed by Abraham, while Christian and Jewish scripture both place Abraham's other son Isaac on the chopping block. This is significant because Isaac and Ishmael shared Abraham as a father, but had different mothers (Sarah, Abraham's first wife, and Hagar, Sarah's maidservant, respectively). Following a jealous maternal conflict, the two sons split and went on to father the Jewish and Arab peoples, respectively. Naturally, each of these groups wanted to promote their own ascendency by claiming that their ancestor was the son favored by both Abraham and God. So for Muslims, the sacrifice (and other events follow and recreate the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael from Abraham's land) has merged with pre-existing pagan traditions in the region and evolved into the modern Hajj. Interestingly, Moroccan Jews perform their own sacrifice in honor of Abraham and Isaac, but at a different date.]
Phineas is our sheep (qebsh in Moroccan Arabic, which is just fun to say). And in 3 days, he is going to die.
Perhaps I should explain. Eid al-Adha (or Eid al-Kebir, “The Big Holiday”) is one of the most important holidays of the Muslim world, commemorating Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Ishmael. For Muslims, Jews, and Christians the story is the same: Abraham so loved God that he was willing to sacrifice his first-born son to appease him, but at the last moment, God stayed his hand and provided Abraham with a ram to sacrifice in Ishmael’s place. In honor of this moment, each year Muslims follow his example and sacrifice a sheep to honor Allah’s benevolence. Farah, one of the CCCL’s directors and an expert in comparative religion, told us that many Moroccans take the ritual quite personally – parents see the sheep as taking the place of their child, while children thank Allah that they have been spared. She also explained that in Morocco centuries ago, the holiday melded with early Tamazight pagan beliefs which claim that the blood of a sacrificed animal can help to rid the home of evil spirits and demons. So that’s a plus. Eid al-Adha also always corresponds with the official Hajj to Mecca each year, upon which only a certain quota of Muslims can embark each year.
And so it was that on Sunday morning I awoke at the brisk, early hour of noon and walked toward the bathroom, only to double-take at the fuzzy creature staring at me from across the living / dining / television room. He’s a bit smaller than some of the other sheep I’ve seen in the shops that have sprung up around the medina in the last week, and is actually rather adorable. He doesn’t make very much noise – though he chews very loudly – and just sort of hangs around as we watch TV and eat our meals. My little cousins love running into the house to feed or play with him – all in all he’s sort of like a temporary pet. I think I’m going to miss having Phineas around after Saturday. And yes, he lives right in our living room – he’s tied up to a hook on the wall (with enough slack to lay down or walk around a bit), eats straw, and does his business right on the tiled floor (my host sister cleans up after him once a day). Virtually every family in Morocco will get one, though I imagine that basic sheep care and storage is a bit easier outside of the city.
In an effort not to make the holiday seem too barbaric, I should emphasize that the proper method of sacrifice is very exact and meant to cause the least possible amount of pain to the animal. Also, Moroccans use all of the animal after the sacrifice. Any part of the sheep that can be eaten is eaten – and I mean ANY part. Everyone eats lamb for days. The wool is used to stuff the mattresses of our couch / beds or can be woven into rugs. I’m not yet sure what happens to the rest, but I am intrigued to find out. Well, and maybe slightly nervous.
Hopefully you’re just as excited for Part 2 – coming once Eid is over!
[UPDATED! Side note for curious Bible-ophiles or BU Core Curriculum enthusiasts: After further investigation, I have discovered that the story of Abraham's sacrifice is presented differently in the Quran and the Bible. According to the Muslim holy book, Ishmael was nearly sacrificed by Abraham, while Christian and Jewish scripture both place Abraham's other son Isaac on the chopping block. This is significant because Isaac and Ishmael shared Abraham as a father, but had different mothers (Sarah, Abraham's first wife, and Hagar, Sarah's maidservant, respectively). Following a jealous maternal conflict, the two sons split and went on to father the Jewish and Arab peoples, respectively. Naturally, each of these groups wanted to promote their own ascendency by claiming that their ancestor was the son favored by both Abraham and God. So for Muslims, the sacrifice (and other events follow and recreate the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael from Abraham's land) has merged with pre-existing pagan traditions in the region and evolved into the modern Hajj. Interestingly, Moroccan Jews perform their own sacrifice in honor of Abraham and Isaac, but at a different date.]
Sunday, November 22, 2009
More Pics!
Hey all! I've put up more photos!
They are all on the Google/Picasa site alongside the first batch - the link to the right should take you straight there!
Also, keep checking back because I'm hoping to get up some more photos and posts of my excursion and my Iberian adventure by the end of the week!
Lots of exclamation points!
They are all on the Google/Picasa site alongside the first batch - the link to the right should take you straight there!
Also, keep checking back because I'm hoping to get up some more photos and posts of my excursion and my Iberian adventure by the end of the week!
Lots of exclamation points!
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Rumination: The Land that Didn't Listen to It's Parents
“Stop eating with your hands!” “Don’t talk to strangers!” “Don’t play in the road!” “Cross the street only at the crosswalk, when you get a signal!” “Don’t eat too many sweets!” “Use your inside voice!” “No rollerblades in the house!” “Take a bath every day (…or every few days… or once a week, for that matter)!”
These are all things that you will never, ever hear in Morocco.
Here in the medina, life is sort of like a little kid’s paradise. You eat with your hands (and usually a piece of bread), reserving silverware only for soup and couscous. You say hello to anyone and everyone, and men are free to say virtually anything to try to get a woman’s attention. And I mean anything. You play soccer or tag in the middle of the street and cross even major roads wherever and whenever you want, regardless of traffic. Meals, especially during Ramadan, tend to be all sugar and simple carbohydrates, all the time. The volume of even peaceful conversations tends to be quite elevated, let alone the intensity of actual arguments. And bathing is basically optional – if you get to the hammam (public baths) once a week, then you’re doing better than most people.
It all makes for a really relaxed, laid back society, right? Well, in some ways. Moroccan culture has developed its own idea of hashuma, or “shame.” Almost any action that is contrary to societal expectations and the status quo can be considered hashuma, from poor or disgraceful behavior to inappropriate dress to a range of other offenses. And Moroccans, especially family members, are rarely afraid to call you out on it – either verbally or by pulling down one of their lower eyelids (often reserved for younger children and adolescents who should know better).
However, some parental classics still apply. For example, “Make your bed!” takes on additional importance when the household furniture is couch by day and bed by night. Also, sharing extends to every aspect of life, from the communal plate and communal cup at meals to virtually any item which you bring into the house. You lose the concept of “mine” and gain the permanent idea of “ours.” Of course, when you’re sharing cups and food to this degree, you are also unfortunately bound to share germs with each other – hence, “Wash your hands!” remains a popular adage. Additionally, I don’t think that I have ever encountered a more charitable people – the idea of giving is built into not only society, but religion (with its mandatory alms gift each year at the end of Ramadan). It is not uncommon, then, to see people giving food and money to the myriad handicapped people begging on the streets, as well as supplying the rampant street cat population with food or drink.
In the end, Moroccan society is paradoxically both far more open and far more closed off than American society – it’s all just a case by case evaluation.
These are all things that you will never, ever hear in Morocco.
Here in the medina, life is sort of like a little kid’s paradise. You eat with your hands (and usually a piece of bread), reserving silverware only for soup and couscous. You say hello to anyone and everyone, and men are free to say virtually anything to try to get a woman’s attention. And I mean anything. You play soccer or tag in the middle of the street and cross even major roads wherever and whenever you want, regardless of traffic. Meals, especially during Ramadan, tend to be all sugar and simple carbohydrates, all the time. The volume of even peaceful conversations tends to be quite elevated, let alone the intensity of actual arguments. And bathing is basically optional – if you get to the hammam (public baths) once a week, then you’re doing better than most people.
It all makes for a really relaxed, laid back society, right? Well, in some ways. Moroccan culture has developed its own idea of hashuma, or “shame.” Almost any action that is contrary to societal expectations and the status quo can be considered hashuma, from poor or disgraceful behavior to inappropriate dress to a range of other offenses. And Moroccans, especially family members, are rarely afraid to call you out on it – either verbally or by pulling down one of their lower eyelids (often reserved for younger children and adolescents who should know better).
However, some parental classics still apply. For example, “Make your bed!” takes on additional importance when the household furniture is couch by day and bed by night. Also, sharing extends to every aspect of life, from the communal plate and communal cup at meals to virtually any item which you bring into the house. You lose the concept of “mine” and gain the permanent idea of “ours.” Of course, when you’re sharing cups and food to this degree, you are also unfortunately bound to share germs with each other – hence, “Wash your hands!” remains a popular adage. Additionally, I don’t think that I have ever encountered a more charitable people – the idea of giving is built into not only society, but religion (with its mandatory alms gift each year at the end of Ramadan). It is not uncommon, then, to see people giving food and money to the myriad handicapped people begging on the streets, as well as supplying the rampant street cat population with food or drink.
In the end, Moroccan society is paradoxically both far more open and far more closed off than American society – it’s all just a case by case evaluation.
My Friend, the Bucket
At my homestay, showering is something of a process. In the absence of any real running hot water, my host sister has to heat up a pot of water on the stove and then I take a bucket into the bathroom and do my thing, letting the water drain down our Turkish toilet.
Luckily, Morocco has a special institution devoted to alleviating this process (and alleviating my smell after not showering for nearly a week), and this magical place is called hammam (the public baths). It elevates the bucket shower not only to something that is tolerable, but something that is even enjoyable.
You begin by accumulating supplies at home: towel, clean change of clothes, shampoo and soap (you can even by special olive-based soap in the market), a small scooping bucket, and an amazing Moroccan scrubby glove, amusingly called a “kiss” in Arabic.
When you arrive at hammam, you store your bags and strip down. For men, most choose to keep on their underwear, though some prefer to go all the way. I hear that women tend to hammam in the buff (though some keep undergarments on for modesty) – but I’ll never really be able to confirm this one way or the other, as the sexes are completely segregated through the process.
Once rid of your dirty clothing, pick up a bucket or 2 from the front desk and then enter the hammam proper, consisting of three rooms, each one progressively hotter and steamier as you move through. The first destination is the hottest room, where scalding water is constantly running from the faucet into a basin and people are constantly filling and dumping buckets of it, which never fails to remind me of Fantasia – as if any minute the Sorcerer will run in and put a stop to the whole scene Mickey has dreamed up.
After quickly washing out your bucket, you dump some water onto the floor tiles to heat them up, and then for anywhere from 10 minutes to half an hour, you just lie down and relax, taking in the biggest breaths of the thick, steamy air that you can manage. Eventually it is time to actually get clean, and you apply your first coat of soap – preferably the olive stuff if you have it. After this, the “kiss” comes into play, and you rub yourself raw, removing all of the dead skin and grime which builds up after a week of medina life. Naturally, it’s about impossible to scrub your own back, so it’s necessary to ask a friend, family member, or perfect stranger to help you out. It’s a very literal example of the proverb “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” Every time I go in, it always amuses me to see an entire room of practically-naked men scrubbing and massaging each other in the midst of a society where homosexuality is not only a mortal sin, but is simply thought not to exist at all.
It’s usually around this point that my host brother Hisham – who is, by the way, maybe 30-something and at least 200 pounds – tells me to flip over onto my stomach and then proceeds to crack my back and contort my arms and legs, releasing all of the week’s tension. It’s amazing.
After rinsing all of the dead skin off with the hot water (and yes – you can see the skin coming off – it’s kind of gross), you move into the other two chambers and fill up the bucket again with cooler water. Here, you shampoo your hair and lather up your body with soap as you would in any typical shower, and then rinse off using the bucket system.
Once you’re done with this, you move back into the reception area, reclaim your bags, and dry off. However, far from done, most Moroccans just tend to hand around for a bit and socialize or lay down on the benches to relax. Also, you can do any necessary shaving here. I was surprised to find that besides their facial hair, lots of young Moroccan men also tend to shave their chests and armpits, while the older crowd with often shave their whole heads.
Finally, after 1 and a half to 2 hours, it is time to change into your clean clothes and go home. Hammam takes the idea of a long, steamy shower and elevates it to a new level. But for the next few days, you feel cleaner and your skin feels healthier and softer than ever before. This is one tradition that America should totally catch on to.
Luckily, Morocco has a special institution devoted to alleviating this process (and alleviating my smell after not showering for nearly a week), and this magical place is called hammam (the public baths). It elevates the bucket shower not only to something that is tolerable, but something that is even enjoyable.
You begin by accumulating supplies at home: towel, clean change of clothes, shampoo and soap (you can even by special olive-based soap in the market), a small scooping bucket, and an amazing Moroccan scrubby glove, amusingly called a “kiss” in Arabic.
When you arrive at hammam, you store your bags and strip down. For men, most choose to keep on their underwear, though some prefer to go all the way. I hear that women tend to hammam in the buff (though some keep undergarments on for modesty) – but I’ll never really be able to confirm this one way or the other, as the sexes are completely segregated through the process.
Once rid of your dirty clothing, pick up a bucket or 2 from the front desk and then enter the hammam proper, consisting of three rooms, each one progressively hotter and steamier as you move through. The first destination is the hottest room, where scalding water is constantly running from the faucet into a basin and people are constantly filling and dumping buckets of it, which never fails to remind me of Fantasia – as if any minute the Sorcerer will run in and put a stop to the whole scene Mickey has dreamed up.
After quickly washing out your bucket, you dump some water onto the floor tiles to heat them up, and then for anywhere from 10 minutes to half an hour, you just lie down and relax, taking in the biggest breaths of the thick, steamy air that you can manage. Eventually it is time to actually get clean, and you apply your first coat of soap – preferably the olive stuff if you have it. After this, the “kiss” comes into play, and you rub yourself raw, removing all of the dead skin and grime which builds up after a week of medina life. Naturally, it’s about impossible to scrub your own back, so it’s necessary to ask a friend, family member, or perfect stranger to help you out. It’s a very literal example of the proverb “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” Every time I go in, it always amuses me to see an entire room of practically-naked men scrubbing and massaging each other in the midst of a society where homosexuality is not only a mortal sin, but is simply thought not to exist at all.
It’s usually around this point that my host brother Hisham – who is, by the way, maybe 30-something and at least 200 pounds – tells me to flip over onto my stomach and then proceeds to crack my back and contort my arms and legs, releasing all of the week’s tension. It’s amazing.
After rinsing all of the dead skin off with the hot water (and yes – you can see the skin coming off – it’s kind of gross), you move into the other two chambers and fill up the bucket again with cooler water. Here, you shampoo your hair and lather up your body with soap as you would in any typical shower, and then rinse off using the bucket system.
Once you’re done with this, you move back into the reception area, reclaim your bags, and dry off. However, far from done, most Moroccans just tend to hand around for a bit and socialize or lay down on the benches to relax. Also, you can do any necessary shaving here. I was surprised to find that besides their facial hair, lots of young Moroccan men also tend to shave their chests and armpits, while the older crowd with often shave their whole heads.
Finally, after 1 and a half to 2 hours, it is time to change into your clean clothes and go home. Hammam takes the idea of a long, steamy shower and elevates it to a new level. But for the next few days, you feel cleaner and your skin feels healthier and softer than ever before. This is one tradition that America should totally catch on to.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Hot Nights
So I think I just had a fun, new cultural experience with my new family. It’s a little hard to tell sometimes.
If there’s one thing that I can say about my new family, it’s that they love to eat. The only thing that they seem to enjoy more is feeding me, to the point where I am past full and almost in pain, yet still feel guilty over leaving the communal plate with a few uneaten morsels on it.
Tonight around 10:45 PM, my host sister brought out a plate full of a red sauce which I assumed to be tomato-based, along with the plate of bread obligatory at any Moroccan meal. Told to “Kul!” (translation: “Eat!” – and yes, it sounds just like “cool,” which is a constant source of entertainment for me) I simply obeyed.
To my surprise, it was not really tomato sauce as much as hot sauce, full of peppers, seeds, and whatever else one uses here to make things hot. My sister started gulping the stuff down, while I ate a little bit and enjoyed the burning sensation that began to tickle my tongue. After a couple of bites, I noticed that a few of my host family members were sitting around and looking at me in anticipation. My sister anxiously asked “Izween?” (literally: “Is it beautiful?” but used to mean “delicious” or “pleasing”) to which I answered “Nam, izween – har, wa izween.” (“Yeah it’s good – hot, but good.”) One of my host brothers came over and tried a bite, reacting strongly to the spiciness, and my host cousin started involuntarily coughing after only one bite of the bread dipped in the sauce. However, one of my host sisters ate an entire slice of bread covered in the sauce, and the first sister continued gobbling the stuff down as if it were nothing, though chasing it with large gulps of water. I followed suit, eating a few slices of bread at a moderate pace and drinking the glass of tea they had given me.
So, if this were a test, I think I passed. At any rate, a few of my host relatives were too afraid to touch the stuff at all, and from what I could pick out of the conversation, they were definitely talking about “heat,” “bread,” and “water” and looking at me a bit funny. Eventually, I had to stop and eat some plain bread to help my tongue, but I felt accomplished enough (and still full from our earlier dinner).
Perhaps this would have been a task better left to Grandpa Snazzy or Rene….
If there’s one thing that I can say about my new family, it’s that they love to eat. The only thing that they seem to enjoy more is feeding me, to the point where I am past full and almost in pain, yet still feel guilty over leaving the communal plate with a few uneaten morsels on it.
Tonight around 10:45 PM, my host sister brought out a plate full of a red sauce which I assumed to be tomato-based, along with the plate of bread obligatory at any Moroccan meal. Told to “Kul!” (translation: “Eat!” – and yes, it sounds just like “cool,” which is a constant source of entertainment for me) I simply obeyed.
To my surprise, it was not really tomato sauce as much as hot sauce, full of peppers, seeds, and whatever else one uses here to make things hot. My sister started gulping the stuff down, while I ate a little bit and enjoyed the burning sensation that began to tickle my tongue. After a couple of bites, I noticed that a few of my host family members were sitting around and looking at me in anticipation. My sister anxiously asked “Izween?” (literally: “Is it beautiful?” but used to mean “delicious” or “pleasing”) to which I answered “Nam, izween – har, wa izween.” (“Yeah it’s good – hot, but good.”) One of my host brothers came over and tried a bite, reacting strongly to the spiciness, and my host cousin started involuntarily coughing after only one bite of the bread dipped in the sauce. However, one of my host sisters ate an entire slice of bread covered in the sauce, and the first sister continued gobbling the stuff down as if it were nothing, though chasing it with large gulps of water. I followed suit, eating a few slices of bread at a moderate pace and drinking the glass of tea they had given me.
So, if this were a test, I think I passed. At any rate, a few of my host relatives were too afraid to touch the stuff at all, and from what I could pick out of the conversation, they were definitely talking about “heat,” “bread,” and “water” and looking at me a bit funny. Eventually, I had to stop and eat some plain bread to help my tongue, but I felt accomplished enough (and still full from our earlier dinner).
Perhaps this would have been a task better left to Grandpa Snazzy or Rene….
Excursion, Days 2 & 3: Deep in the Dunes
Our second day of traveling was fairly uneventful. We all boarded the bus again at 7:30 AM and went for a windy drive through the mountains. After 4 hours of twisting and turning – when we had all nearly reached the point of nausea – we took a quick bread for a picnic lunch at a rest stop in the High Atlas Mountains. Fadoua had packed bread for sandwiches, along with tuna, Laughing Cow cheese, PB&J, and a substance called “Happy Crispy” which was basically a melted Nestle Crunch bar in a jar. So wrong, and sooo right. Balanced out with some Sprite and paprika chips, we finished up and climbed back on the bus.
On our way into the desert, we passed the Moroccan Hollywood, a movie studio and growing town where many Moroccan films are filmed, which has also served as a shooting location for some American movies like “Gladiator” and “Alexander.”
Around 4:00, we arrived at our hotel in Zagora, where we wasted no time changing to jump into the ice-cold outdoor pool for a quick round of Marco Polo (which we had to explain to Fadoua – nothing makes you realize how weird your own games and traditions are like explaining them to someone else…).
After this, we all went shopping for turbans in preparation for tomorrow’s desert trek and learned to tie them properly. We ate a chicken tajine dinner in giant carpet tents which were set up outside the hotel. After lounging outside, staring at the full moon and stars – followed by a quick turban photo shoot – we went up to bed.
The following morning, we drove out and picked up our desert guide, Ibrahim. Our first stop was a small village where we wandered the ancient Kasbah, toured the abandoned synagogue, and watched an old jeweler create silver amulets out of silver melted down in a fire and poured into clay molds.
In a second village, we visited a library of old Qurans, history books, and astrology texts, and then we went on to a little (expensive!) pottery shop.
From here, we transferred from our van to a pair of jeeps and headed into the desert. We ate lunch at the house of a Berber chief who fed us veggies, rice, beans, lentils, fruit, and peanuts. Then, over some tea (Berber whiskey, as they like to call it), he answered our questions about his tribe, his 3,000 year old position, and living a semi-nomadic life. You know, everyday sort of stuff.
At one final stop at the desert’s edge, in a village that was being slowly abandoned and moved westward as the desert’s boundaries pushed inwards, a group of children found us and began commenting on my soccer jersey, telling me about how Real Madrid was better. With my limited Darija skills, I tried to argue back and failed horribly.
And so, we took off and drove for a half hour or so through the dunes of the Sahara Desert – a crazy, rather bumpy ride – until we arrived at our desert camp for the night. Essentially, we had a ring of canvas tents outfitted with carpets, cots, and blankets, and dominated by one larger, central tent where all of our meals took place. Off to the side there was another tent with some Western-ish toilets, which you still needed a bucket to flush. I’m still not quite sure how our toilets in the desert were more Western than the one in my new homestay….
After getting acquainted with the place and having some more tea, we organized a soccer game along with our guide and the Berbers taking care of us. Aside from being dominated by our new Berber friends and getting pegged in the face by a direct kick from Anthony, the game was really fun!
And then came the moment which we had all been anticipating: CAMEL RIDE!! We all loaded on to our camels – staying on while the camels stood up was an adventure in itself – and then rode out for a half hour to one of the higher dunes in the area, where we got down and sat to watch the sun set over the Sahara.
Right when we arrived back at camp, we were treated to a traditional musical performance by a group of Berber singers. After watching for a bit, they pulled us in (literally) and we all danced together until it was time for dinner (veggies, lamb tajine, lots of fruit). After dinner, we had another mini performance and dance party, then went back outside to sit by the campfire. One of the Berber men demonstrated a method of cooking bread which basically involves burying the dough in sand and ashes next to the fire for 15 minutes. It came out perfectly done and delicious; magically, it had none of the awkward sandy crunch that you would expect from bread that’s been buried in the sand.
Not yet ready to settle into bed, we decided to go duning for an hour or so, and set out a little bit beyond the light of the camp and the fire to lie in the sand and look up at the stars. The sand in the Sahara has this really nice, fine texture to it – almost like you’re lying in velvet. Only, it’s velvet that gets all over you and into your clothes. Especially when you’ve been making sand angels…. So we just relaxed for a bit, watched the shooting stars, and one of the Berber guides tried to convince Laura that Berbers exchange massages when they are tired. I can’t say how true that is, but it sounded like a good enough suggestion to us. Eventually, we emerged out from the dunes and settled in for a restful sleep in the cool desert night.
On our way into the desert, we passed the Moroccan Hollywood, a movie studio and growing town where many Moroccan films are filmed, which has also served as a shooting location for some American movies like “Gladiator” and “Alexander.”
Around 4:00, we arrived at our hotel in Zagora, where we wasted no time changing to jump into the ice-cold outdoor pool for a quick round of Marco Polo (which we had to explain to Fadoua – nothing makes you realize how weird your own games and traditions are like explaining them to someone else…).
After this, we all went shopping for turbans in preparation for tomorrow’s desert trek and learned to tie them properly. We ate a chicken tajine dinner in giant carpet tents which were set up outside the hotel. After lounging outside, staring at the full moon and stars – followed by a quick turban photo shoot – we went up to bed.
The following morning, we drove out and picked up our desert guide, Ibrahim. Our first stop was a small village where we wandered the ancient Kasbah, toured the abandoned synagogue, and watched an old jeweler create silver amulets out of silver melted down in a fire and poured into clay molds.
In a second village, we visited a library of old Qurans, history books, and astrology texts, and then we went on to a little (expensive!) pottery shop.
From here, we transferred from our van to a pair of jeeps and headed into the desert. We ate lunch at the house of a Berber chief who fed us veggies, rice, beans, lentils, fruit, and peanuts. Then, over some tea (Berber whiskey, as they like to call it), he answered our questions about his tribe, his 3,000 year old position, and living a semi-nomadic life. You know, everyday sort of stuff.
At one final stop at the desert’s edge, in a village that was being slowly abandoned and moved westward as the desert’s boundaries pushed inwards, a group of children found us and began commenting on my soccer jersey, telling me about how Real Madrid was better. With my limited Darija skills, I tried to argue back and failed horribly.
And so, we took off and drove for a half hour or so through the dunes of the Sahara Desert – a crazy, rather bumpy ride – until we arrived at our desert camp for the night. Essentially, we had a ring of canvas tents outfitted with carpets, cots, and blankets, and dominated by one larger, central tent where all of our meals took place. Off to the side there was another tent with some Western-ish toilets, which you still needed a bucket to flush. I’m still not quite sure how our toilets in the desert were more Western than the one in my new homestay….
After getting acquainted with the place and having some more tea, we organized a soccer game along with our guide and the Berbers taking care of us. Aside from being dominated by our new Berber friends and getting pegged in the face by a direct kick from Anthony, the game was really fun!
And then came the moment which we had all been anticipating: CAMEL RIDE!! We all loaded on to our camels – staying on while the camels stood up was an adventure in itself – and then rode out for a half hour to one of the higher dunes in the area, where we got down and sat to watch the sun set over the Sahara.
Right when we arrived back at camp, we were treated to a traditional musical performance by a group of Berber singers. After watching for a bit, they pulled us in (literally) and we all danced together until it was time for dinner (veggies, lamb tajine, lots of fruit). After dinner, we had another mini performance and dance party, then went back outside to sit by the campfire. One of the Berber men demonstrated a method of cooking bread which basically involves burying the dough in sand and ashes next to the fire for 15 minutes. It came out perfectly done and delicious; magically, it had none of the awkward sandy crunch that you would expect from bread that’s been buried in the sand.
Not yet ready to settle into bed, we decided to go duning for an hour or so, and set out a little bit beyond the light of the camp and the fire to lie in the sand and look up at the stars. The sand in the Sahara has this really nice, fine texture to it – almost like you’re lying in velvet. Only, it’s velvet that gets all over you and into your clothes. Especially when you’ve been making sand angels…. So we just relaxed for a bit, watched the shooting stars, and one of the Berber guides tried to convince Laura that Berbers exchange massages when they are tired. I can’t say how true that is, but it sounded like a good enough suggestion to us. Eventually, we emerged out from the dunes and settled in for a restful sleep in the cool desert night.
Excursion, Day 1: Seeing Red
Hello, blog.
Wow, it’s been some time since I last saw you.
How are you?
Yeah, I know. I’m sorry I… I just got so busy and forgot to write! I mean, with midterms and traveling and –
What’s that, blog?
Yeah, you’re right. I have no excuse. But I’ve got so much to tell you!
Well here, maybe this will make you feel better….
Once upon a time, in early October 2009, the 7 members of the BU Rabat Program, along with their program coordinator Fadoua and their trusty driver Muhammad, boarded a van for points unknown. They took with them only a few bags and bottles of Sidi Ali (water), and took away only memories.
Well, memories along with a few souvenirs.
After packing up the van, we headed out, leaving the city for only the second time (after Casablanca). In the first of many long drives through the kingdom of Morocco, we passed through some of the agricultural areas of the country and glimpsed the mountain chains in the distance. After about 5 hours of driving, we pulled into the thriving city of Marrakesh.
The Red City is actually quite beautiful. The stone around the area has a reddish iron tint to it, so all of the original buildings also took on this reddish hue; nowadays, it’s actually a law that any building within the medina has to be painted this shade of faded red. Which makes the city alluring, but also makes it very easy to get lost….
After checking in to our hotel, we found a random restaurant and ordered up some Moroccan food – I got chicken kebabs with veggies (and some very traditional French fries), and then had my first taste of bastiyya by stealing some of Anthony’s dish. Oh. My. God. So delicious! It’s a recipe traditionally from Fes which essentially takes chicken, egg, raisins and almonds and wraps it all in luscious fried dough with cinnamon-sugar (like at the good ol’ Terryville Fair!). There’s also a very common recipe that uses pigeon meat instead… I prefer to believe that we ate the chicken variety. I personally enjoyed the cats which roamed freely throughout the restaurant, but my travelling companions seemed none too pleased and forbid me from trying to slip them any food. Pity.
For the afternoon, we had free time to visit the city as we pleased (with reimbursements for any museums or gardens!). So, we split up – one group went off to the Sa’dian Tombs while my group headed toward the Majorelle Gardens. Unfortunately, this meant braving the city’s horribly corrupt taxi system. As there were 5 of us, we had to split into 2 of the little golden cars. I was in the second cab, and our driver told us that we’d merely go off the meter of the leading taxi, which would have posed no problem – had the other driver chosen to actually use his meter. Instead, he insisted that it was broken so that he could trick us into giving him far more money than the ride was worth. Despite the fact that the girls in the first taxi told him repeatedly to turn on the meter and even had him pull over so they could get out and find another, he fell through on his promises to use the legally-mandated taxi meter. So, we paid the drivers about half of the ludicrous 30 dirhams they demanded and went on our way.
The gardens themselves were a bit smaller than I had expected, but were gorgeous. Picture lots of trees and cacti with fountains and ponds and tourists. All very peaceful. Yves St. Laurent (who was born in Algeria – go figure!) actually owned the gardens until his recent death, and there is a monument to him set up in one hedge-lined corner.
From there we went back into the medina toward the Medrasa, though Katherine and I decided to walk in order to see some of the city life and avoid another taxi fiasco. Instead, we were approached twice by men who offered to lead us and to whom we explained that we were students and could not afford to pay them for their services. The first then left us alone, but the second insisted on showing us the way to our destination, only to curse us loudly when, upon arrival, we repeated that we had no money to give him.
The inside of the Medrasa was gorgeous with its intricate tiling and woodwork and a small fountain in the central courtyard. Inside they set up a few of the rooms to look as they would have when the Quranic scholars had resided and studied there. Believe it or not, they were even smaller than a modern college dorm. Next, we spent a little bit of time in the Marrakesh Museum, which contained mostly modern artwork and a few examples of traditional costumes and weaponry. Finally, we looked at the Qoubia, a squat 2-story tower that is one of the last surviving examples of Almoravid architecture (dating from around the 12th Century, I think).
Before dinner, we spend a little bit of time wandering through the souk – so much larger than the few market streets to which we have become accustomed in Rabat, the market here is massive and maze-like, filled with goods and people and a little bit claustrophobic. Eventually, we ended up in the city’s famous Djemaa al Fnaa, which can be translated either as “Square of Death” or “Square of Nothing” – competing stories claim that the square was where the severed heads of dead enemies used to be displayed or that there had been plans to build a massive mosque in the square, but that these plans had come to nothing. Either way, it is now a huge open arena where musicians, storytellers, snake charmers, and performers of all other type gather to entertain the tourists and locals alike. I was amazed at how crowded the huge square became as the sun went down, and the energy throughout the place was amazing. We bought some fresh-squeezed orange juice from one of the vendors, along with some apricots and delicious candied peanuts that seemed to be covered in sugar and sesame seeds.
For dinner, we went to a restaurant / juice bar called Dallas and I had some chicken pizza (made “Moroccan” by the addition of a few olives on top) along with a cocktail of orange, banana, and peach juice. Over dinner, we decided that, since we were now living outside of America, we needed to become fans of football (soccer). So Fadoua took us out on a jersey search and we picked teams… mostly by who had the nicest-looking jersey and best reputation. I am now officially a fan of Inter-Milano! Granted, we just suffered a few crushing defeats, but whatever – I’ll stand by my newly adopted team through thick and thin!
Since everyone was exhausted after our first day of travel, we took a calm night and headed to sleep at the hotel. Anthony stuck me with the smaller of the two beds….
Wow, it’s been some time since I last saw you.
How are you?
Yeah, I know. I’m sorry I… I just got so busy and forgot to write! I mean, with midterms and traveling and –
What’s that, blog?
Yeah, you’re right. I have no excuse. But I’ve got so much to tell you!
Well here, maybe this will make you feel better….
Once upon a time, in early October 2009, the 7 members of the BU Rabat Program, along with their program coordinator Fadoua and their trusty driver Muhammad, boarded a van for points unknown. They took with them only a few bags and bottles of Sidi Ali (water), and took away only memories.
Well, memories along with a few souvenirs.
After packing up the van, we headed out, leaving the city for only the second time (after Casablanca). In the first of many long drives through the kingdom of Morocco, we passed through some of the agricultural areas of the country and glimpsed the mountain chains in the distance. After about 5 hours of driving, we pulled into the thriving city of Marrakesh.
The Red City is actually quite beautiful. The stone around the area has a reddish iron tint to it, so all of the original buildings also took on this reddish hue; nowadays, it’s actually a law that any building within the medina has to be painted this shade of faded red. Which makes the city alluring, but also makes it very easy to get lost….
After checking in to our hotel, we found a random restaurant and ordered up some Moroccan food – I got chicken kebabs with veggies (and some very traditional French fries), and then had my first taste of bastiyya by stealing some of Anthony’s dish. Oh. My. God. So delicious! It’s a recipe traditionally from Fes which essentially takes chicken, egg, raisins and almonds and wraps it all in luscious fried dough with cinnamon-sugar (like at the good ol’ Terryville Fair!). There’s also a very common recipe that uses pigeon meat instead… I prefer to believe that we ate the chicken variety. I personally enjoyed the cats which roamed freely throughout the restaurant, but my travelling companions seemed none too pleased and forbid me from trying to slip them any food. Pity.
For the afternoon, we had free time to visit the city as we pleased (with reimbursements for any museums or gardens!). So, we split up – one group went off to the Sa’dian Tombs while my group headed toward the Majorelle Gardens. Unfortunately, this meant braving the city’s horribly corrupt taxi system. As there were 5 of us, we had to split into 2 of the little golden cars. I was in the second cab, and our driver told us that we’d merely go off the meter of the leading taxi, which would have posed no problem – had the other driver chosen to actually use his meter. Instead, he insisted that it was broken so that he could trick us into giving him far more money than the ride was worth. Despite the fact that the girls in the first taxi told him repeatedly to turn on the meter and even had him pull over so they could get out and find another, he fell through on his promises to use the legally-mandated taxi meter. So, we paid the drivers about half of the ludicrous 30 dirhams they demanded and went on our way.
The gardens themselves were a bit smaller than I had expected, but were gorgeous. Picture lots of trees and cacti with fountains and ponds and tourists. All very peaceful. Yves St. Laurent (who was born in Algeria – go figure!) actually owned the gardens until his recent death, and there is a monument to him set up in one hedge-lined corner.
From there we went back into the medina toward the Medrasa, though Katherine and I decided to walk in order to see some of the city life and avoid another taxi fiasco. Instead, we were approached twice by men who offered to lead us and to whom we explained that we were students and could not afford to pay them for their services. The first then left us alone, but the second insisted on showing us the way to our destination, only to curse us loudly when, upon arrival, we repeated that we had no money to give him.
The inside of the Medrasa was gorgeous with its intricate tiling and woodwork and a small fountain in the central courtyard. Inside they set up a few of the rooms to look as they would have when the Quranic scholars had resided and studied there. Believe it or not, they were even smaller than a modern college dorm. Next, we spent a little bit of time in the Marrakesh Museum, which contained mostly modern artwork and a few examples of traditional costumes and weaponry. Finally, we looked at the Qoubia, a squat 2-story tower that is one of the last surviving examples of Almoravid architecture (dating from around the 12th Century, I think).
Before dinner, we spend a little bit of time wandering through the souk – so much larger than the few market streets to which we have become accustomed in Rabat, the market here is massive and maze-like, filled with goods and people and a little bit claustrophobic. Eventually, we ended up in the city’s famous Djemaa al Fnaa, which can be translated either as “Square of Death” or “Square of Nothing” – competing stories claim that the square was where the severed heads of dead enemies used to be displayed or that there had been plans to build a massive mosque in the square, but that these plans had come to nothing. Either way, it is now a huge open arena where musicians, storytellers, snake charmers, and performers of all other type gather to entertain the tourists and locals alike. I was amazed at how crowded the huge square became as the sun went down, and the energy throughout the place was amazing. We bought some fresh-squeezed orange juice from one of the vendors, along with some apricots and delicious candied peanuts that seemed to be covered in sugar and sesame seeds.
For dinner, we went to a restaurant / juice bar called Dallas and I had some chicken pizza (made “Moroccan” by the addition of a few olives on top) along with a cocktail of orange, banana, and peach juice. Over dinner, we decided that, since we were now living outside of America, we needed to become fans of football (soccer). So Fadoua took us out on a jersey search and we picked teams… mostly by who had the nicest-looking jersey and best reputation. I am now officially a fan of Inter-Milano! Granted, we just suffered a few crushing defeats, but whatever – I’ll stand by my newly adopted team through thick and thin!
Since everyone was exhausted after our first day of travel, we took a calm night and headed to sleep at the hotel. Anthony stuck me with the smaller of the two beds….
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Casablanca! Day 2: At the Level of Gargoyles
We woke up slowly the next day and got some breakfast at the hotel, all very Moroccan-style: coffee with tons of milk and sugar, 2 different types of bread (1 fluffy and 1 flat), apricot spread, and painfully slow service. By noon, we were ready to head out and face the day.
The first stop was Hassan II Mosque, which is not only one of the only mosques in Morocco which non-Muslims can enter (as part of an old French law left over from the colonization period), but it is also the third largest mosque in the world (after Mecca and Medina) and has the largest minaret in the world. In The World!!! St. Peter’s Basilica could fit INSIDE this mosque! Believe me when I say that this place was massive. And gorgeous!
Finding the mosque was not at all difficult – it pretty much dominates the entire skyline. For about an hour we walked around the outside and took a bunch of photos while we waited for the next tour to start. Inside, it was kind of dark, but incredibly beautiful. The mosque had been completed fairly recently – commissioned in 1998, the building was finished in 1993, which is honestly unbelievable considering the amount of craftsmanship that went into it. It was so amazing to look at the small details all over the place – from woodwork to tiling to painting – and to hear that everything was hand-crafted blew me away. The main part of the mosque is reserved for men, while women have separate elevated sections gated off on either side of the main nave (or whatever the main aisle would be called outside the Christian world), to reduce distraction. The mosque can fit 20,000 worshippers at once, and if they reach capacity – which apparently does happen during Ramadan and other major prayers or holidays – then they can open all of the side doors and allow thousands more to worship outside. We had to remove our shoes to enter the mosque, and almost the entire place was carpeted, except for a small tiled channel down the center where they allow water to flow through the mosque during some services, before cascading down into the ablution room below. Did I mention that the mosque is built right on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean? Yup, some allusion to the Quranic verse about God’s throne being located on the sea. And the coolest part of the construction: the roof opens! That’s right, the roof slides open stadium-style to reveal the sky above, though most of the time they keep it closed to minimize tarnishing and water damage from the humid sea air.
Our tour guide took us around the mosque itself, the ablution rooms, and the built-in hammam (which doesn’t seem to ever actually get used…). He was incredibly friendly and spoke very good English, and when we asked for pictures with him at the very end, he joked that we only wanted them so we could say we met Barack Obama – to which he bore a striking resemblance.
Our tour left us quite hungry, so we wandered the city discouraged that all of the cafes and restaurants seem to go into sleep mode between the hours of 2 and 6 PM. Eventually, we found one place, and boy was it worth the wait! Bruschetta, vegetables, bread and oil, and the second pizza that I’ve had on the whole trip! This one was had tomato sauce, mozzarella, chicken, and potato, which sounds kind of random, but turned out pretty delicious. I ate the whole thing. By myself.
Feeling an intense need to walk off all of those calories, and get a balanced diet of daily religion, Laura, Maura, Katherine, Juliana, Luzki, and I went to check out the Sacre-Coeur Cathedral. From any angle, it was like no other cathedral I had ever seen. Outside, it was fairly plain and seemed very influenced by the city’s surrounding Art Deco architecture. On top rested not gargoyles, but in their place, solid rectangular blocks. The inside was concrete painted completely white, except for the colorful, shining stained glass windows lining the walls and behind the altar. There were no pews or decorations, just awkward barriers set up that made me wonder if they were in the midst of remodeling or if the cathedral just never saw any use in this Muslim country. Either way, we were there to ascend the twin bell towers, which we did after handing over 15 dirhams a piece (definitely a Catholic church…).
I’d be lying if I told you that the climb up wasn’t sketchy – the tower wasn’t very well lit and we found random doors along the way, propped wide open and leading straight to the roof outside. But the view from the top was spectacular! We were up there for about 20 minutes as sunset approached, watching the life of the city down below and admiring the sheer massiveness (real word) of the city – buildings out as far as the eye could see! Giving into temptation, restlessness, and adolescent stupidity, we also took advantage of the chance to leave the safety of the tower and climb across the roof of the building, built like a huge backbone with flat and fairly wide ribs sticking off every 15 feet or so and those huge rectangular blocks at the ends. The roof itself was maybe 2 feet lower than these ribs and their closest point and sloped down independently. I walked out balance-beam style, toward the setting sun and right to the edge, hugging one of the big blockish monuments. In the midst of our fun, we were slightly scared to suddenly see the caretaker of the cathedral shouting and waving from where we’d climbed out onto the roof. But after a few seconds, he too just hopped up and started climbing with us, even pushing a few of the more timid girls out farther. The guy was hilarious and kind of a flirt with some of the girls, and we made sure to take pictures with him, too, after it had become too dark to stay up there much longer. I have to wonder whether the Moroccans on the ground below had seen our silhouettes up on the cathedral roof and wondered what in the world we were doing up there….
Back at the hotel, we reclaimed Anthony and Sarah, who had been napping, and took a taxi out to Ain Daib – Casa’s club district by the beach. First, we grabbed a round of drinks at a hotel bar overlooking the ocean, where a small jazz ensemble was singing odd versions of American songs. After this, we split up into a couple of groups to dance the night away at some of Casa’s discotheques – great fun, lots of techno, and some sketchy characters. At the end of the night, Anthony and I helped the girls throw off a couple of very insistent men who could not take a hint, and then regrouped at McDonald’s for a midnight snack. By the time we got back to our hotel, it was 3 AM and we were exhausted.
The following morning we ate breakfast at the hotel once again and shortly after half of us boarded the train back to Rabat to get some homework and family time in before the weekend drew to a close. All in all, an incredibly successful trip… if a little pricey. Here’s looking at you, Casa.
The first stop was Hassan II Mosque, which is not only one of the only mosques in Morocco which non-Muslims can enter (as part of an old French law left over from the colonization period), but it is also the third largest mosque in the world (after Mecca and Medina) and has the largest minaret in the world. In The World!!! St. Peter’s Basilica could fit INSIDE this mosque! Believe me when I say that this place was massive. And gorgeous!
Finding the mosque was not at all difficult – it pretty much dominates the entire skyline. For about an hour we walked around the outside and took a bunch of photos while we waited for the next tour to start. Inside, it was kind of dark, but incredibly beautiful. The mosque had been completed fairly recently – commissioned in 1998, the building was finished in 1993, which is honestly unbelievable considering the amount of craftsmanship that went into it. It was so amazing to look at the small details all over the place – from woodwork to tiling to painting – and to hear that everything was hand-crafted blew me away. The main part of the mosque is reserved for men, while women have separate elevated sections gated off on either side of the main nave (or whatever the main aisle would be called outside the Christian world), to reduce distraction. The mosque can fit 20,000 worshippers at once, and if they reach capacity – which apparently does happen during Ramadan and other major prayers or holidays – then they can open all of the side doors and allow thousands more to worship outside. We had to remove our shoes to enter the mosque, and almost the entire place was carpeted, except for a small tiled channel down the center where they allow water to flow through the mosque during some services, before cascading down into the ablution room below. Did I mention that the mosque is built right on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean? Yup, some allusion to the Quranic verse about God’s throne being located on the sea. And the coolest part of the construction: the roof opens! That’s right, the roof slides open stadium-style to reveal the sky above, though most of the time they keep it closed to minimize tarnishing and water damage from the humid sea air.
Our tour guide took us around the mosque itself, the ablution rooms, and the built-in hammam (which doesn’t seem to ever actually get used…). He was incredibly friendly and spoke very good English, and when we asked for pictures with him at the very end, he joked that we only wanted them so we could say we met Barack Obama – to which he bore a striking resemblance.
Our tour left us quite hungry, so we wandered the city discouraged that all of the cafes and restaurants seem to go into sleep mode between the hours of 2 and 6 PM. Eventually, we found one place, and boy was it worth the wait! Bruschetta, vegetables, bread and oil, and the second pizza that I’ve had on the whole trip! This one was had tomato sauce, mozzarella, chicken, and potato, which sounds kind of random, but turned out pretty delicious. I ate the whole thing. By myself.
Feeling an intense need to walk off all of those calories, and get a balanced diet of daily religion, Laura, Maura, Katherine, Juliana, Luzki, and I went to check out the Sacre-Coeur Cathedral. From any angle, it was like no other cathedral I had ever seen. Outside, it was fairly plain and seemed very influenced by the city’s surrounding Art Deco architecture. On top rested not gargoyles, but in their place, solid rectangular blocks. The inside was concrete painted completely white, except for the colorful, shining stained glass windows lining the walls and behind the altar. There were no pews or decorations, just awkward barriers set up that made me wonder if they were in the midst of remodeling or if the cathedral just never saw any use in this Muslim country. Either way, we were there to ascend the twin bell towers, which we did after handing over 15 dirhams a piece (definitely a Catholic church…).
I’d be lying if I told you that the climb up wasn’t sketchy – the tower wasn’t very well lit and we found random doors along the way, propped wide open and leading straight to the roof outside. But the view from the top was spectacular! We were up there for about 20 minutes as sunset approached, watching the life of the city down below and admiring the sheer massiveness (real word) of the city – buildings out as far as the eye could see! Giving into temptation, restlessness, and adolescent stupidity, we also took advantage of the chance to leave the safety of the tower and climb across the roof of the building, built like a huge backbone with flat and fairly wide ribs sticking off every 15 feet or so and those huge rectangular blocks at the ends. The roof itself was maybe 2 feet lower than these ribs and their closest point and sloped down independently. I walked out balance-beam style, toward the setting sun and right to the edge, hugging one of the big blockish monuments. In the midst of our fun, we were slightly scared to suddenly see the caretaker of the cathedral shouting and waving from where we’d climbed out onto the roof. But after a few seconds, he too just hopped up and started climbing with us, even pushing a few of the more timid girls out farther. The guy was hilarious and kind of a flirt with some of the girls, and we made sure to take pictures with him, too, after it had become too dark to stay up there much longer. I have to wonder whether the Moroccans on the ground below had seen our silhouettes up on the cathedral roof and wondered what in the world we were doing up there….
Back at the hotel, we reclaimed Anthony and Sarah, who had been napping, and took a taxi out to Ain Daib – Casa’s club district by the beach. First, we grabbed a round of drinks at a hotel bar overlooking the ocean, where a small jazz ensemble was singing odd versions of American songs. After this, we split up into a couple of groups to dance the night away at some of Casa’s discotheques – great fun, lots of techno, and some sketchy characters. At the end of the night, Anthony and I helped the girls throw off a couple of very insistent men who could not take a hint, and then regrouped at McDonald’s for a midnight snack. By the time we got back to our hotel, it was 3 AM and we were exhausted.
The following morning we ate breakfast at the hotel once again and shortly after half of us boarded the train back to Rabat to get some homework and family time in before the weekend drew to a close. All in all, an incredibly successful trip… if a little pricey. Here’s looking at you, Casa.
State of Sean
So, my apologies to everyone for disappearing from the blog for a few weeks - first I suffered some collateral damage from a raging battle between my stomach and something I ate. After that, I suffered a severe case of classwork. I'm not yet sure which was more painful...
However, I have returned temporarily before I set off on a new adventure through Morocco! That's right - it's excursion time! The CCCL is taking us on an 8-day trek through Morocco from the desert to the mountains, from Marrakesh to Fez, and to a bunch of places in between! So I'll once again be out of contact for a little bit, but I should have plenty of stories to tell upon my return!
Also, in case you need to fill the disparaging lack of Moroccan stories caused by my temporary absence, I have added a list of links to 3 other blogs which some of the other BU students here are creating. Enjoy!
However, I have returned temporarily before I set off on a new adventure through Morocco! That's right - it's excursion time! The CCCL is taking us on an 8-day trek through Morocco from the desert to the mountains, from Marrakesh to Fez, and to a bunch of places in between! So I'll once again be out of contact for a little bit, but I should have plenty of stories to tell upon my return!
Also, in case you need to fill the disparaging lack of Moroccan stories caused by my temporary absence, I have added a list of links to 3 other blogs which some of the other BU students here are creating. Enjoy!
Casablanca! Day 1: As Time Goes By
Casablanca – probably the one town in Morocco that you can name off the top of your head… if you knew that it was in Morocco at all.
At any rate, it was the site of our latest adventure! Last Friday after our morning of classes finished up, the 7-strong contingent of BU kids (and Juliana’s visiting friend Luzki) packed up our bags with clothes and packed up our stomachs with our families’ cous cous (I LOVE the idea of cous cous Fridays!) and we were off! We boarded the train for a brief one-hour ride through the Moroccan countryside, looking out the windows as Africa (Africa!) passed us by. We saw grasslands, we saw cows, we saw the shore, and – mostly – we saw the slums on the outskirts of both Rabat and Casa (as Moroccans like to affectionately refer to the city… although really Moroccans don’t seem to have too much affection for it – when I excitedly told my host brother where I was going for the weekend he just blankly looked at me and asked, “Why?”).
Pulling into Casa, it was apparent that this city was much more Western than the rest of Morocco. The fact that it is known by its Spanish rather than Arabic name (Dar al-Baida – both literally translate to “White House” in English) should be telling enough…. Sections of the city were dominated by high-rise buildings, more signs were in Roman script than in Rabat, and even the old medina section was more open and navigable than the narrow, maze-like streets to which we have become accustomed. And, of course, this also means that there’s a whole lot more traffic, pollution, and general dirtiness to be found in Casablanca.
Our first task was finding Hotel Central, which we had booked earlier that week for $20 per night for a couple of triples with private bathrooms, breakfast included! The directions we got from Google maps led us completely astray, but a few locals pointed us in the right direction. Expecting to find a sketchy, grungy hostel, imagine our surprise when we stumbled upon a quaint little place at the back of a beautiful little square with a few cafes and a small park (and, of course, the standard hordes of Moroccan street cats which only I among the group seem to appreciate). Inside the hotel, we were greeted by the owner, who proclaims to be insane and follows through on the promise. Loud, boisterous, and hilarious, he treats us all to a round of high-fives before giving us a few forms to fill out and giving us the keys to our rooms. The rooms themselves were awesome: painted bright orange with white sheets on the beds and blue and tan highlights from the decorations, the room was alive with color. My room had a set of doors with glass panes which opened out onto a small balcony overlooking the square in front of the building. Later that night, we would meet a nice middle-aged, blonde woman from Orange County who was relaxing on the balcony next door and was still a little perplexed by the culture here. But then, aren’t we all?
For dinner, we got dressed up and headed out to the legendary Rick’s Café of Casablanca fame. Well, ok, technically the entire movie was filmed in a Hollywood studio and in no way reflects the actual local culture of the time, but about a decade ago a nice American woman named Kathy Kriger moved to Casablanca and decided that it needed a real Rick’s. So, she bought up a building on the edge of the old medina and created it as best she could in form and atmosphere. They have a live piano player (named not Sam, but – get excited – Issam!), who played an assortment of jazz tunes, including at least 4 separate renditions of “As Time Goes By.” And if that wasn’t enough, they show the movie on a continual loop in one room upstairs. The place is actually quite swanky, and was the site of my classiest, most expensive, and potentially most delicious meal yet in Morocco. Of course, the food was pretty Western: I had a chicken pot pie dish with wine (pretty much unheard of in this Muslim country…), a garden salad, far too many rolls of bread, communal sides of cauliflower, eggplant, and cooked apples, plus a dessert of pineapple slices with ice cream over coconut pastries. So good!
Since only 3 of us had actually seen the movie, all of my Casablanca-unaware traveling mates were scared away by the price tag (my meal came out to about 170 dirhams all told, which is really only $25ish dollars, but that’s fairly hefty around here…). Instead, they all went to a Spanish tapas restaurant that we had seen in some of our earlier wanderings. We went to join them after we finished, finding them in restaurant’s basement dance club in the midst of a number of Moroccan men downstairs. Apparently the men had been seated nearby during dinner and provided them with a number of drinks and a few side dishes. Did I mention that they were all women? We joined in the dancing for a bit and even got to do some flaming shots – B-52s, apparently. Mine was not on the Moroccan men’s tab, naturally.
As the club began to calm down a bit (around 1:00 or so) we decided to leave before things got too awkward. Walking out of the restaurant, I couldn’t help but notice some employees up on the first floor dressed up and playing instruments to the patrons mid-meal – it looks like the El Sombrero mariachis are harder to escape than I thought! We managed to wind our way back through the medina streets and to the hotel for some sleep, despite some rather loud meowing outside our window….
At any rate, it was the site of our latest adventure! Last Friday after our morning of classes finished up, the 7-strong contingent of BU kids (and Juliana’s visiting friend Luzki) packed up our bags with clothes and packed up our stomachs with our families’ cous cous (I LOVE the idea of cous cous Fridays!) and we were off! We boarded the train for a brief one-hour ride through the Moroccan countryside, looking out the windows as Africa (Africa!) passed us by. We saw grasslands, we saw cows, we saw the shore, and – mostly – we saw the slums on the outskirts of both Rabat and Casa (as Moroccans like to affectionately refer to the city… although really Moroccans don’t seem to have too much affection for it – when I excitedly told my host brother where I was going for the weekend he just blankly looked at me and asked, “Why?”).
Pulling into Casa, it was apparent that this city was much more Western than the rest of Morocco. The fact that it is known by its Spanish rather than Arabic name (Dar al-Baida – both literally translate to “White House” in English) should be telling enough…. Sections of the city were dominated by high-rise buildings, more signs were in Roman script than in Rabat, and even the old medina section was more open and navigable than the narrow, maze-like streets to which we have become accustomed. And, of course, this also means that there’s a whole lot more traffic, pollution, and general dirtiness to be found in Casablanca.
Our first task was finding Hotel Central, which we had booked earlier that week for $20 per night for a couple of triples with private bathrooms, breakfast included! The directions we got from Google maps led us completely astray, but a few locals pointed us in the right direction. Expecting to find a sketchy, grungy hostel, imagine our surprise when we stumbled upon a quaint little place at the back of a beautiful little square with a few cafes and a small park (and, of course, the standard hordes of Moroccan street cats which only I among the group seem to appreciate). Inside the hotel, we were greeted by the owner, who proclaims to be insane and follows through on the promise. Loud, boisterous, and hilarious, he treats us all to a round of high-fives before giving us a few forms to fill out and giving us the keys to our rooms. The rooms themselves were awesome: painted bright orange with white sheets on the beds and blue and tan highlights from the decorations, the room was alive with color. My room had a set of doors with glass panes which opened out onto a small balcony overlooking the square in front of the building. Later that night, we would meet a nice middle-aged, blonde woman from Orange County who was relaxing on the balcony next door and was still a little perplexed by the culture here. But then, aren’t we all?
For dinner, we got dressed up and headed out to the legendary Rick’s Café of Casablanca fame. Well, ok, technically the entire movie was filmed in a Hollywood studio and in no way reflects the actual local culture of the time, but about a decade ago a nice American woman named Kathy Kriger moved to Casablanca and decided that it needed a real Rick’s. So, she bought up a building on the edge of the old medina and created it as best she could in form and atmosphere. They have a live piano player (named not Sam, but – get excited – Issam!), who played an assortment of jazz tunes, including at least 4 separate renditions of “As Time Goes By.” And if that wasn’t enough, they show the movie on a continual loop in one room upstairs. The place is actually quite swanky, and was the site of my classiest, most expensive, and potentially most delicious meal yet in Morocco. Of course, the food was pretty Western: I had a chicken pot pie dish with wine (pretty much unheard of in this Muslim country…), a garden salad, far too many rolls of bread, communal sides of cauliflower, eggplant, and cooked apples, plus a dessert of pineapple slices with ice cream over coconut pastries. So good!
Since only 3 of us had actually seen the movie, all of my Casablanca-unaware traveling mates were scared away by the price tag (my meal came out to about 170 dirhams all told, which is really only $25ish dollars, but that’s fairly hefty around here…). Instead, they all went to a Spanish tapas restaurant that we had seen in some of our earlier wanderings. We went to join them after we finished, finding them in restaurant’s basement dance club in the midst of a number of Moroccan men downstairs. Apparently the men had been seated nearby during dinner and provided them with a number of drinks and a few side dishes. Did I mention that they were all women? We joined in the dancing for a bit and even got to do some flaming shots – B-52s, apparently. Mine was not on the Moroccan men’s tab, naturally.
As the club began to calm down a bit (around 1:00 or so) we decided to leave before things got too awkward. Walking out of the restaurant, I couldn’t help but notice some employees up on the first floor dressed up and playing instruments to the patrons mid-meal – it looks like the El Sombrero mariachis are harder to escape than I thought! We managed to wind our way back through the medina streets and to the hotel for some sleep, despite some rather loud meowing outside our window….
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
The Flood
So, I was aware that Moroccan houses would be fairly damp during the rainy season (winter). I was even prepared for some possible leaks within the house. But I’m not sure anything could have prepared me for this morning’s adventure.
I can remember waking up around 7:00 AM a little bit cold, so I walked over to the empty bed across the room from mine and took a blanket to keep me a bit warmer. I remember hearing the rain on our roof (which is covered by plastic but open to the air on the sides), but my room was still dry.
Around 8:00, however, I was awakened by some slight sprinkling. At first I figured that it must just be some strange dream, so I pulled up the covers and rolled back over. After another 10 seconds, though, the fact was undeniable: it was raining inside my room. And after another few minutes, it was more like a downpour.
I jumped up from my bed, switched on the lights, and saw that I had not just a leak, but water streaming from various points around the ceiling. One of these rivulets hit a small ledge over my bed, propelling the precipitation over a wide area of my bed (which was quickly becoming saturated with water); another was just over the doorway, creating a waterfall effect blocking my exit. Meanwhile, the fallen rain was beginning to pool and spread across the tiled floor toward me. For a moment I felt like I was part of a crazy house-possessed-by-a-vengeful-poltergeist horror movie.
After reserving a moment to just think, “What the…?” I snapped into action, grabbing my backpack (with my laptop) and moving it outside the room, where it was still dry, making sure that my charging cell phone was out of the water, and covering up my exposed books with a towel. At first, I’d assumed that the problem was spread throughout the entire house, but quickly discovered that, no; my room was the only one hemorrhaging water from every corner.
Fortunately, my suitcases were all standing up on their wheels, giving them an inch or so of space above the rapidly deepening puddles on the ground. For about a minute, I stood in my pajamas in the driest square foot of space that I could find, hopelessly staring as the water rained down.
Then my family kicked into action.
My host brothers and sister, noticing either the light coming from my room or the noise of cascading water and my own desperate shuffling, charged in and helped me move the rest of my belongings from the room and into the dry sanctuary of the sitting room (where they all slept). By this point, the water on the floor was about an inch deep throughout the room, and my sandals and shoes (which had been on the floor near the bed) were thoroughly soaked through. But fortunately, all of my clothes in the dresser were untouched, and except for some slight dampness, the rest of my belongings in my bags were fine.
Judging by my family’s slight confusion, I assumed that this sort of thing had not happened before. And after some stern talking with a woman who came in, I learned from Yassine that apparently the house next door (directly attached to one side of my room) was undergoing some construction. And at some point in the night (it had been raining since at least midnight) the volume of water just became too much, and it began to spill into our building and through my ceiling. I didn’t press for details on the logistics – I actually had to get to class by 9:00 – but I was reassured by the fact that the rain both outside and inside seemed to be letting up.
So I hope that I didn’t over-dramatize the whole event for you guys. This was by no means a regular event – the rain last night was torrential and unexpected – later in the afternoon we caught a news report about flooding throughout Rabat. And my ceiling had managed to hold up through all but the storm’s final hour – at least I wasn’t awakened at 3 AM! Again I’ll emphasize, too, that none of my things were damaged, and Yassine assured me that not only would it never happen again, but they fully intended to get to the bottom of everything and call in the police to investigate, if necessary. I’m sure they want to figure out what’s damaging their house even more than I do….
Fortunately, there is a quasi-happy ending to the story. First off, there’s always the bonding experience inherent in any crisis situation – I feel like the utter ridiculousness of the situation helped me connect a little better with my host siblings, despite the language barrier. And they seem to feel really bad about what happened. By the time I returned from classes at 4:30 PM, the room had been bailed out, with the beds stripped, mattresses airing out, and only a slight puddle remaining in the sunken area just beyond the door.
But even better, it looks like I won’t have to return to the haunted room: they prepared a new bed for me within the small bedroom near the kitchen in which, until this afternoon, they had been installing new decorative tiles on the walls. So it looks like, until further notice (and perhaps for the rest of the semester…) I will be bunking next to my host brother Mourad, and I will be dry, rain or shine!
I can remember waking up around 7:00 AM a little bit cold, so I walked over to the empty bed across the room from mine and took a blanket to keep me a bit warmer. I remember hearing the rain on our roof (which is covered by plastic but open to the air on the sides), but my room was still dry.
Around 8:00, however, I was awakened by some slight sprinkling. At first I figured that it must just be some strange dream, so I pulled up the covers and rolled back over. After another 10 seconds, though, the fact was undeniable: it was raining inside my room. And after another few minutes, it was more like a downpour.
I jumped up from my bed, switched on the lights, and saw that I had not just a leak, but water streaming from various points around the ceiling. One of these rivulets hit a small ledge over my bed, propelling the precipitation over a wide area of my bed (which was quickly becoming saturated with water); another was just over the doorway, creating a waterfall effect blocking my exit. Meanwhile, the fallen rain was beginning to pool and spread across the tiled floor toward me. For a moment I felt like I was part of a crazy house-possessed-by-a-vengeful-poltergeist horror movie.
After reserving a moment to just think, “What the…?” I snapped into action, grabbing my backpack (with my laptop) and moving it outside the room, where it was still dry, making sure that my charging cell phone was out of the water, and covering up my exposed books with a towel. At first, I’d assumed that the problem was spread throughout the entire house, but quickly discovered that, no; my room was the only one hemorrhaging water from every corner.
Fortunately, my suitcases were all standing up on their wheels, giving them an inch or so of space above the rapidly deepening puddles on the ground. For about a minute, I stood in my pajamas in the driest square foot of space that I could find, hopelessly staring as the water rained down.
Then my family kicked into action.
My host brothers and sister, noticing either the light coming from my room or the noise of cascading water and my own desperate shuffling, charged in and helped me move the rest of my belongings from the room and into the dry sanctuary of the sitting room (where they all slept). By this point, the water on the floor was about an inch deep throughout the room, and my sandals and shoes (which had been on the floor near the bed) were thoroughly soaked through. But fortunately, all of my clothes in the dresser were untouched, and except for some slight dampness, the rest of my belongings in my bags were fine.
Judging by my family’s slight confusion, I assumed that this sort of thing had not happened before. And after some stern talking with a woman who came in, I learned from Yassine that apparently the house next door (directly attached to one side of my room) was undergoing some construction. And at some point in the night (it had been raining since at least midnight) the volume of water just became too much, and it began to spill into our building and through my ceiling. I didn’t press for details on the logistics – I actually had to get to class by 9:00 – but I was reassured by the fact that the rain both outside and inside seemed to be letting up.
So I hope that I didn’t over-dramatize the whole event for you guys. This was by no means a regular event – the rain last night was torrential and unexpected – later in the afternoon we caught a news report about flooding throughout Rabat. And my ceiling had managed to hold up through all but the storm’s final hour – at least I wasn’t awakened at 3 AM! Again I’ll emphasize, too, that none of my things were damaged, and Yassine assured me that not only would it never happen again, but they fully intended to get to the bottom of everything and call in the police to investigate, if necessary. I’m sure they want to figure out what’s damaging their house even more than I do….
Fortunately, there is a quasi-happy ending to the story. First off, there’s always the bonding experience inherent in any crisis situation – I feel like the utter ridiculousness of the situation helped me connect a little better with my host siblings, despite the language barrier. And they seem to feel really bad about what happened. By the time I returned from classes at 4:30 PM, the room had been bailed out, with the beds stripped, mattresses airing out, and only a slight puddle remaining in the sunken area just beyond the door.
But even better, it looks like I won’t have to return to the haunted room: they prepared a new bed for me within the small bedroom near the kitchen in which, until this afternoon, they had been installing new decorative tiles on the walls. So it looks like, until further notice (and perhaps for the rest of the semester…) I will be bunking next to my host brother Mourad, and I will be dry, rain or shine!
Monday, September 14, 2009
Pictures.
Alright, so as you may or may not have noticed (depending on just how observant you are...) the menu on the right-hand side of the page now contains a section for links to my pictures!
So hopefully the link works for you - it should bring you straight to my Picasa Web Albums page (it's just a fancy name for Google's photo site), where I've uploaded and conveniently captioned and mapped out all of my photos! Well, that is, most of the good ones. Because uploading pictures out here takes forever.
So enjoy these, and I'll try to add more every so often, along with a new link! Or, if you're feeling adventurous, all of these photos are public in Google's photo application - my user name is slink726! It's all the same stuff, but more direct access to it.
Enjoy!
So hopefully the link works for you - it should bring you straight to my Picasa Web Albums page (it's just a fancy name for Google's photo site), where I've uploaded and conveniently captioned and mapped out all of my photos! Well, that is, most of the good ones. Because uploading pictures out here takes forever.
So enjoy these, and I'll try to add more every so often, along with a new link! Or, if you're feeling adventurous, all of these photos are public in Google's photo application - my user name is slink726! It's all the same stuff, but more direct access to it.
Enjoy!
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Pictures?
OK, so that last one was a first shot, and it looks like only 4 of the 35 got posted. Oh well - enjoy the taste! Savor it! Eagerly anticipate more!
I'll continue searching for the most practical way to upload more pictures - this may be via a different site...
I'll continue searching for the most practical way to upload more pictures - this may be via a different site...
The Other Member of Our Family
Moroccans love television. It is an established fact.
In fact, they love it so much, that I can barely think of a moment in my time here thus far when it was not turned on. If my family is awake, then the TV is, too. I am not exaggerating.
My greatest exposure to the last member of our family has been during meal times, when he joins us and selfishly tires to drown out our already-loud conversations. In fact, it is our brother the television which announces that it is time to break our fasting, by interrupting our regularly-scheduled programming to take the strains of “Allah akhbar” which echo from the city’s minarets and pump them directly into our living/dining room.
Moroccan television is, to say the least, never boring. It is filled with loud noises, ubiquitous laugh tracks, and disturbingly catchy theme music (I often find myself humming the 2M channel’s promotional theme music throughout the day and, much to my dismay, cannot erase it from my head afterward). Oddly, though Moroccan satellite TV seems to have hundreds of channels (and everyone has satellite TV – looking out over the city’s skyline is like gazing upon a sea of satellite dishes), every family seems to only watch 2 channels – 2M and 1, both of which show very similar types of programming in Arabic (and, sometimes, news reports in French). The shows all seem slightly shorter than American shows (perhaps due to decreased ad time) – the longest seem to end in 20 minutes, and some go no more than 5 or 10. This is actually really convenient for someone who has no idea what any of the characters are saying – when I lost the plot line, I know that I only have to wait a little bit before something new will come on and hopefully make more sense.
Most of the popular programming fits the standard sitcom format – larger than life characters with obscenely overdone facial expressions, ridiculous voices, and absurd plots – at one point a few characters were blow-drying a rooster. I’m not sure even a complete understanding of the Arabic language would have helped me to figure out why. There’s also a candid-camera type show (or is it just sketch comedy?) where a man dressed as a woman (complete with a flowery hijab) goes around and generally makes people feel awkward. Another involves this 20-year-old kid who goes around on the streets of various Moroccan cities asking people questions and getting humorous answers. As the night wears on, the shows slowly drift more toward soap opera fare, where everything becomes super-serious and melodramatic. Perhaps my favorite part of all of these shows is their music – especially when they adopt very unfitting American tunes for use in the background (think Eminem at really serious moments…).
Of course, the many-named sport of soccer/football/qarat al-qadm is extremely popular, as is the case basically anywhere outside of the United States. And late at night, we get a lot of foreign movies dubbed in French or Arabic – so far I’ve caught part of the animated Tarzan and a Jet Li kung-fu film. Also, they import lots of American television. Yassine and I spent some time at his apartment watching “Made” and “Pimp My Ride” on MTV. Both shows were completely in English and seemingly unedited, but with Fus’ha Arabic subtitles – some of which I even understood! The weird thing is when you begin to consider how contradictory it is for a culture that asks women to cover all parts of their body besides their faces and hands to also watch an Arizona girl try to become a pageant queen, or, for that matter, to see scantily-clad women dance around in a music video by Pitbull or Shakira. But hey, that’s globalization for you!
My favorite find thus far, however, occurred last night over our midnight dinner. So essentially, when the 12-year-old boy first stepped out on the small stage with his Quran, sat down, and began singing verses, I thought that it was simply some wholesome religious programming. Then I noticed some adults sitting in front of the stage with pens and paper who seemed to be judging the poor exploited boy. The announcement at the close listing various numbers to which one should send texts confirmed it: American Idol has reached Morocco, and it is crazy. That’s right, Moroccan Idol (not the real name – I couldn’t understand the actual title) involves bringing a dozen children (both boys and girls, all seemingly under 15 years of age) and forcing them to compete with each other over who can best recite religious verses, according to the families all across the country who are eating their second Ramadan dinner to the background / foreground noise of the television set.
The national idol indeed.
In fact, they love it so much, that I can barely think of a moment in my time here thus far when it was not turned on. If my family is awake, then the TV is, too. I am not exaggerating.
My greatest exposure to the last member of our family has been during meal times, when he joins us and selfishly tires to drown out our already-loud conversations. In fact, it is our brother the television which announces that it is time to break our fasting, by interrupting our regularly-scheduled programming to take the strains of “Allah akhbar” which echo from the city’s minarets and pump them directly into our living/dining room.
Moroccan television is, to say the least, never boring. It is filled with loud noises, ubiquitous laugh tracks, and disturbingly catchy theme music (I often find myself humming the 2M channel’s promotional theme music throughout the day and, much to my dismay, cannot erase it from my head afterward). Oddly, though Moroccan satellite TV seems to have hundreds of channels (and everyone has satellite TV – looking out over the city’s skyline is like gazing upon a sea of satellite dishes), every family seems to only watch 2 channels – 2M and 1, both of which show very similar types of programming in Arabic (and, sometimes, news reports in French). The shows all seem slightly shorter than American shows (perhaps due to decreased ad time) – the longest seem to end in 20 minutes, and some go no more than 5 or 10. This is actually really convenient for someone who has no idea what any of the characters are saying – when I lost the plot line, I know that I only have to wait a little bit before something new will come on and hopefully make more sense.
Most of the popular programming fits the standard sitcom format – larger than life characters with obscenely overdone facial expressions, ridiculous voices, and absurd plots – at one point a few characters were blow-drying a rooster. I’m not sure even a complete understanding of the Arabic language would have helped me to figure out why. There’s also a candid-camera type show (or is it just sketch comedy?) where a man dressed as a woman (complete with a flowery hijab) goes around and generally makes people feel awkward. Another involves this 20-year-old kid who goes around on the streets of various Moroccan cities asking people questions and getting humorous answers. As the night wears on, the shows slowly drift more toward soap opera fare, where everything becomes super-serious and melodramatic. Perhaps my favorite part of all of these shows is their music – especially when they adopt very unfitting American tunes for use in the background (think Eminem at really serious moments…).
Of course, the many-named sport of soccer/football/qarat al-qadm is extremely popular, as is the case basically anywhere outside of the United States. And late at night, we get a lot of foreign movies dubbed in French or Arabic – so far I’ve caught part of the animated Tarzan and a Jet Li kung-fu film. Also, they import lots of American television. Yassine and I spent some time at his apartment watching “Made” and “Pimp My Ride” on MTV. Both shows were completely in English and seemingly unedited, but with Fus’ha Arabic subtitles – some of which I even understood! The weird thing is when you begin to consider how contradictory it is for a culture that asks women to cover all parts of their body besides their faces and hands to also watch an Arizona girl try to become a pageant queen, or, for that matter, to see scantily-clad women dance around in a music video by Pitbull or Shakira. But hey, that’s globalization for you!
My favorite find thus far, however, occurred last night over our midnight dinner. So essentially, when the 12-year-old boy first stepped out on the small stage with his Quran, sat down, and began singing verses, I thought that it was simply some wholesome religious programming. Then I noticed some adults sitting in front of the stage with pens and paper who seemed to be judging the poor exploited boy. The announcement at the close listing various numbers to which one should send texts confirmed it: American Idol has reached Morocco, and it is crazy. That’s right, Moroccan Idol (not the real name – I couldn’t understand the actual title) involves bringing a dozen children (both boys and girls, all seemingly under 15 years of age) and forcing them to compete with each other over who can best recite religious verses, according to the families all across the country who are eating their second Ramadan dinner to the background / foreground noise of the television set.
The national idol indeed.
Day 6, Part 2: Childlike Wonder
After all of 5 minutes in my new home to set down my suitcases and try to get organized, my host brother Yassine asked if I wanted to come along for a ride with him since he was headed over to his apartment for a bit. This was the first time I’d heard anything about a second apartment, and came as a bit of a shock to me. I guess I just didn’t expect a host family in the medina (typically the location of lower-middle class families who have had homes passed down to them as the wealthy moved out to newer suburbs) to have a second residence, especially not within the same city’s borders. But, defying expectations as always, it seems Yassine does indeed have his own apartment about 8 minutes away in the Ocean district just outside the Medina.
And let me tell you, those 8 minutes of travel were among the most exciting of my life.
[Side note: Mom, you may want to skip over this part….]
So, it also turns out that Yassine has a car. In the medina. Now, those of you who have been here probably realize the impracticality of driving within the medina walls. For those of you who have not, picture a tight cobblestone street, the broadest of which are about 14 feet wide. As you drive off of the main avenues, the streets shrink down to about 5 or 6 feet wide, no joke. Now, fill these thin streets with not only vendors and merchandise, but people. People everywhere. People who don’t really care whether or not a car is coming toward them, because they don’t plan to move out of your way anyways. People who are in the middle of haggling for goods, people who are praying, people who are playing soccer, people who are riding bicycles or motorcycles, people wheeling carts and carrying bags and visiting with friends and yelling and wandering and generally taking up most of the available space – especially during the daily rush to the market at around 4 or 5 PM.
A sane person might not try to take a motor vehicle through such streets. Moroccans do.
My first hint should have been when Yassine had to climb through the passenger side to get to the driver’s seat – he had to park literally within inches of the wall in order for anything else to pass by the car. Also, I initially attributed the lack of a side-view mirror on the passenger’s side to an odd design choice or perhaps to ease of parking. After my drive, I now think I might have a better inkling of the real reason…
The car itself is an older model Renault, I would guess late ‘80s. It’s pretty small, but still roomy enough inside, and the outside is dark blue with the assorted scratches expected from city driving.
We got in, and the music started up – House music. Now, I’m not sure how prevalent this music is in America – I know I had never really heard it before, except as described by people I know who have been abroad. Basically, it’s extremely close to techno or electronic music – with their thumping bass lines and repetitive though entrancing synthesized melodies – but with a lot more talking. Not singing. Just talking. Where electronic will have no voices at all and techno will tend to have some sung vocals, house just sort of speaks to you. And, more often than not, repeats to you. All in all, it’s not bad. It’s actually kind of catchy and almost forces you to dance along. Especially when it’s dictating that you must dance. Because when house speaks, you listen. Provided you understand the language in which it is speaking….
And then the roller coaster ride began. I must say, Yassine did things that I didn’t think were possible with a motor vehicle. (And let me say, after driving later on with his brother Mourad, I have a new-found respect for Yassine’s level of proficiency with the stick shift….)
We started out backing straight out of Zankat Jamaa Moreno, on which we live. This sounds simple, but trust me – it’s a good 50 foot stretch of narrow roadway filled with human and inanimate obstacles. And he did it speedily, with complete confidence. When I moved to reach for my seat belt, he assured me that it would not be necessary. Hesitatingly, I chose to believe him.
We then pulled around through the narrow maze-like streets, at one point encountering a large truck trying to come through in the other direction. After a little maneuvering from both parties, we managed to get past, but with a slight scratch on our side from his rear-view mirror. My driver seemed less than concerned.
I noticed that many of our human obstacles seemed to recognize us (well, Yassine) and would wave or shout out some phrase I didn’t understand. Rarely did they make any conscious effort to move out of our way, however.
Upon reaching the medina walls, we came across a slight traffic jam – someone not quite as skilled or experienced at Moroccan driving seemed to have gotten pinned in between a few lanes of traffic and couldn’t back up enough to swing his turn. Horns erupted everywhere. Rather flustered, the offending car eventually managed to get out of the way and we pulled out into the city’s regular streets. From here driving got slightly easier – the streets were wider and some even had multiple lanes! Of course, that doesn’t mean that you have to obey the lines separating them. Yassine wove in and out of traffic, speeding up to 70 km/h and then hitting the brakes, passing wherever possible, and so on. There was never a dull moment.
We finally managed to pull up to his apartment, and after fiddling with the television for a bit and then calling up the landlord to fix it, our mission seemed to be accomplished. I got a short tour of the apartment, which was quite gorgeous – spacious for one or two people, with bright colors everywhere. Out on the terrace, you got a beautiful view down the couple of blocks to the ocean.
The ride back was more of the same, our most exciting moment occurring when we came across a group of men praying on mats in the street outside of a mosque. We held still for a minute, and then they all finished, stood up and allowed us to pass.
We made it back in one piece, I rolled the windows shut, and thanked God that I was back standing on solid ground.
[Note: Mom, it’s safe to start reading again!]
But my favorite moment of the ride by far: Yassine playing the Black Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow.” Later on we listened to a techno-fied version of “I Gotta Feeling.” How I love cultural melding!
After we got home, we still had a good half hour before futur (the traditional meal breaking the Ramadan fast, once the sun sets). So, I sat down to work on a crossword puzzle. But before long, a young girl walked up to me. She couldn’t have been older than 6 with her bright brown eyes, brimming with bouncy energy and even bouncier dark curls pulled back in two separate ponytails. She pointed at my book and said a word in Darija (Moroccan Arabic) that I couldn’t quite understand.
I decided to try out some of my recent (and very limited) Darija vocabulary. “Smeetee Sean. Shnoo shmeetek?” I asked, trying not to sound ridiculous. “Smeetee Maha,” my new host-niece replied in an adorable squeaky voice. And yes, fellow Al-Kitab sufferers – I have now officially met a real, live Maha. And loved every minute of it.
Following introductions, our conversation took an awkward turn. Essentially, she would try to tell me something, and I would stare at her blankly and either shrug cluelessly or smile and nod enthusiastically as if I understood her. She saw through me pretty quickly and seemed to pick up on the fact that I did not speak any of her language. Or was simply in desperate need of some quick tutelage. So, for the next half-hour until dinner, she took me by the hand, led me around the house, and became my teacher. We played a little game where I would point to something and ask “Shnoo hatha?” to which she would tell me the object’s name. Usually I would try to repeat whatever she said, fail horribly, and we would play call-and-repeat until my part was satisfactory. And little Maha was a tough judge. I only wish I could remember any of the words she taught me – I am a horrible student.
We concluded our little game by playing with my digital camera for a little while. She seemed really intrigued by the device (and I think she liked some of my pictures), and she especially loved removing and replacing the batteries. Even though I was terrified that she might drop it, she was extremely gentle and no harm was done.
All of this completed, we gathered around the table and sofas in the living room and waited for the muezzin to call out “Allah akhbar,” which would announce the evening prayer time, the setting of the sun, and – most importantly – the signal that it was alright to break our fasting (and by “our,” I don’t actually include myself – the CCCL has kept us non-Muslims well-fed). The meal was delicious, and the experience itself was something completely new to me. Everyone around (all of my new host brothers, sisters, and my host mom) was speaking in a tongue that I could barely understand, while Yassine to my right spoke to me in English, Mourad to my left conversed with me in Spanish, and I meekly tried out my feeble Arabic or French with everyone else. It was an incredible, yet somewhat overwhelming, blend of foreign tastes and foreign tongues. As we shared our communal plates of delicious treats, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of wonder, sitting at once within and outside the moment. It all promised an interesting and intense semester to come.
And let me tell you, those 8 minutes of travel were among the most exciting of my life.
[Side note: Mom, you may want to skip over this part….]
So, it also turns out that Yassine has a car. In the medina. Now, those of you who have been here probably realize the impracticality of driving within the medina walls. For those of you who have not, picture a tight cobblestone street, the broadest of which are about 14 feet wide. As you drive off of the main avenues, the streets shrink down to about 5 or 6 feet wide, no joke. Now, fill these thin streets with not only vendors and merchandise, but people. People everywhere. People who don’t really care whether or not a car is coming toward them, because they don’t plan to move out of your way anyways. People who are in the middle of haggling for goods, people who are praying, people who are playing soccer, people who are riding bicycles or motorcycles, people wheeling carts and carrying bags and visiting with friends and yelling and wandering and generally taking up most of the available space – especially during the daily rush to the market at around 4 or 5 PM.
A sane person might not try to take a motor vehicle through such streets. Moroccans do.
My first hint should have been when Yassine had to climb through the passenger side to get to the driver’s seat – he had to park literally within inches of the wall in order for anything else to pass by the car. Also, I initially attributed the lack of a side-view mirror on the passenger’s side to an odd design choice or perhaps to ease of parking. After my drive, I now think I might have a better inkling of the real reason…
The car itself is an older model Renault, I would guess late ‘80s. It’s pretty small, but still roomy enough inside, and the outside is dark blue with the assorted scratches expected from city driving.
We got in, and the music started up – House music. Now, I’m not sure how prevalent this music is in America – I know I had never really heard it before, except as described by people I know who have been abroad. Basically, it’s extremely close to techno or electronic music – with their thumping bass lines and repetitive though entrancing synthesized melodies – but with a lot more talking. Not singing. Just talking. Where electronic will have no voices at all and techno will tend to have some sung vocals, house just sort of speaks to you. And, more often than not, repeats to you. All in all, it’s not bad. It’s actually kind of catchy and almost forces you to dance along. Especially when it’s dictating that you must dance. Because when house speaks, you listen. Provided you understand the language in which it is speaking….
And then the roller coaster ride began. I must say, Yassine did things that I didn’t think were possible with a motor vehicle. (And let me say, after driving later on with his brother Mourad, I have a new-found respect for Yassine’s level of proficiency with the stick shift….)
We started out backing straight out of Zankat Jamaa Moreno, on which we live. This sounds simple, but trust me – it’s a good 50 foot stretch of narrow roadway filled with human and inanimate obstacles. And he did it speedily, with complete confidence. When I moved to reach for my seat belt, he assured me that it would not be necessary. Hesitatingly, I chose to believe him.
We then pulled around through the narrow maze-like streets, at one point encountering a large truck trying to come through in the other direction. After a little maneuvering from both parties, we managed to get past, but with a slight scratch on our side from his rear-view mirror. My driver seemed less than concerned.
I noticed that many of our human obstacles seemed to recognize us (well, Yassine) and would wave or shout out some phrase I didn’t understand. Rarely did they make any conscious effort to move out of our way, however.
Upon reaching the medina walls, we came across a slight traffic jam – someone not quite as skilled or experienced at Moroccan driving seemed to have gotten pinned in between a few lanes of traffic and couldn’t back up enough to swing his turn. Horns erupted everywhere. Rather flustered, the offending car eventually managed to get out of the way and we pulled out into the city’s regular streets. From here driving got slightly easier – the streets were wider and some even had multiple lanes! Of course, that doesn’t mean that you have to obey the lines separating them. Yassine wove in and out of traffic, speeding up to 70 km/h and then hitting the brakes, passing wherever possible, and so on. There was never a dull moment.
We finally managed to pull up to his apartment, and after fiddling with the television for a bit and then calling up the landlord to fix it, our mission seemed to be accomplished. I got a short tour of the apartment, which was quite gorgeous – spacious for one or two people, with bright colors everywhere. Out on the terrace, you got a beautiful view down the couple of blocks to the ocean.
The ride back was more of the same, our most exciting moment occurring when we came across a group of men praying on mats in the street outside of a mosque. We held still for a minute, and then they all finished, stood up and allowed us to pass.
We made it back in one piece, I rolled the windows shut, and thanked God that I was back standing on solid ground.
[Note: Mom, it’s safe to start reading again!]
But my favorite moment of the ride by far: Yassine playing the Black Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow.” Later on we listened to a techno-fied version of “I Gotta Feeling.” How I love cultural melding!
After we got home, we still had a good half hour before futur (the traditional meal breaking the Ramadan fast, once the sun sets). So, I sat down to work on a crossword puzzle. But before long, a young girl walked up to me. She couldn’t have been older than 6 with her bright brown eyes, brimming with bouncy energy and even bouncier dark curls pulled back in two separate ponytails. She pointed at my book and said a word in Darija (Moroccan Arabic) that I couldn’t quite understand.
I decided to try out some of my recent (and very limited) Darija vocabulary. “Smeetee Sean. Shnoo shmeetek?” I asked, trying not to sound ridiculous. “Smeetee Maha,” my new host-niece replied in an adorable squeaky voice. And yes, fellow Al-Kitab sufferers – I have now officially met a real, live Maha. And loved every minute of it.
Following introductions, our conversation took an awkward turn. Essentially, she would try to tell me something, and I would stare at her blankly and either shrug cluelessly or smile and nod enthusiastically as if I understood her. She saw through me pretty quickly and seemed to pick up on the fact that I did not speak any of her language. Or was simply in desperate need of some quick tutelage. So, for the next half-hour until dinner, she took me by the hand, led me around the house, and became my teacher. We played a little game where I would point to something and ask “Shnoo hatha?” to which she would tell me the object’s name. Usually I would try to repeat whatever she said, fail horribly, and we would play call-and-repeat until my part was satisfactory. And little Maha was a tough judge. I only wish I could remember any of the words she taught me – I am a horrible student.
We concluded our little game by playing with my digital camera for a little while. She seemed really intrigued by the device (and I think she liked some of my pictures), and she especially loved removing and replacing the batteries. Even though I was terrified that she might drop it, she was extremely gentle and no harm was done.
All of this completed, we gathered around the table and sofas in the living room and waited for the muezzin to call out “Allah akhbar,” which would announce the evening prayer time, the setting of the sun, and – most importantly – the signal that it was alright to break our fasting (and by “our,” I don’t actually include myself – the CCCL has kept us non-Muslims well-fed). The meal was delicious, and the experience itself was something completely new to me. Everyone around (all of my new host brothers, sisters, and my host mom) was speaking in a tongue that I could barely understand, while Yassine to my right spoke to me in English, Mourad to my left conversed with me in Spanish, and I meekly tried out my feeble Arabic or French with everyone else. It was an incredible, yet somewhat overwhelming, blend of foreign tastes and foreign tongues. As we shared our communal plates of delicious treats, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of wonder, sitting at once within and outside the moment. It all promised an interesting and intense semester to come.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Day 6, Part 1: A New Beginning
Oh. My. God.
I love my host family so much. They are so amazing!
For any former Rabatians following along, my host family was Matt’s from last semester. For all others, they are Zhoura El Brouhmani and her son, Yassine. And, since it’s Ramadan, all of their extended family. And I love them all, even if we don’t understand a word the other is saying.
To start at the very beginning (Sound of Music reference aside) I had a few concerns when I first got my sheet of paper with their names and a few quick family facts. For example, the Turkish toilet. And the (relatively) small size – a father, mother, and 2 sons.
When Yassine and I met at the short, hour-long time set up by the CCCL for first impressions, most of my fears melted away – he was an incredibly friendly guy who seemed to know half of the other host families there and spoke almost perfect English. Score! He told me that the family had been hosting students for quite some time – 6 times before (or maybe he said 6 years… it was loud in there and I still had some stress floating around and distracting my thoughts.
However, he also gave me the unfortunate news that my family had recently become even smaller: the first was for a very good reason – Yassine’s brother Adil had gotten married and moved into his own place. However, there was also less happy news – his father, Abdelgani, had died recently, in August if I understood him right. Allah yarhamhu.
Needless to say, I remained a little unsure of what the household would be like when I walked into it this afternoon. Following a morning of overly pretentious theoretical discussion on diversity and other orientation wrap-up, Yassine and I set out through the slim medina streets with my backpack and 2 suitcases in tow. I was grateful for the help – the morning’s walk from the Hotel Majestic across the medina to the CCCL had been a bit taxing to say the least. It was the first quasi-exercise I’d had since arriving, and the sweat pouring down my forehead in the early morning heat made that fact rather apparent. (Of course, it didn’t even begin to compare to a certain Parisian suitcase adventure – I’m looking at you, Rebecca and Monica!)
We pulled up to the house around 3 or 4, and I found the brown, studded door to be fairly large, but otherwise unassuming. However, the minute it opened, I was astonished. The entrance hallway was a vision in blue, with gorgeous navy-and-white patterned tiles and teal accents leading down at least 20 feet until it turned the corner into the central atrium. Here, the already massive ceilings shot up through the second floor to a translucent plastic covering above that let sunlight stream in while barring the elements. My host family owns the entire building, but they rent out the second floor to another family (who seem much louder than we are…). The tiles continued to line half of the wall in this room, with the upper half painted plain white and spotted with a few decorative plates, photos, and a clock. The second floor’s balcony is supported by four stunning teal columns with teal and silver relief carvings which broaden out into teal-rimmed white arches. The entire room is bordered by white carvings in elaborate patterns, and the doors are large made of a beautiful, dark wood. If you can manage to yank your eyes away from the ceiling, you will notice the fairly simple black-and-white tiled floor. Mom would be in heaven with the absolute lack of “clutter” – the sole furniture are a simple table just off center, surrounded by 6 chairs, and 3 fluffy navy sofas arranged in the shape of a “C.”
On each of the atrium’s 4 corners is a different room: two sitting rooms on opposing ends, completely bordered by long continuous sofas (one in red, the other in green). Both rooms also have small tables in the center, and the red one contains a television. When I came in, Zhoura and a few others were relaxing and watching tv, weary from a still-continuing day of fasting. Zhoura was incredibly nice, and I tried my best to remember all of the formal Darija greetings that we had practiced a few days before in our classes. All in all, I think it went well. Zhoura is older, maybe in her 60s, with faded blue eyes, fairly pale skin, and white hair with what seems to be a touch of blond tucked under the hood of her cream-white gallaba (a loose, robe-like dress very popular among both sexes in the region).
On the same side as the entrance lies my room, which is small but perfect for what I need it, really. There’s a bureau which I can use half of, though I’m unclear whether they expect me to use it for clean clothes or laudry (the other half seems to be filled with laundry…). On the left side of the room lies a small cot which my host brothers seem to be dividing amongst themselves while they are visiting for Ramadan. My area is a small offshoot to the right, and consists of a small nightstand and a small bed with white, red, yellow, and blue patterned sheets.
On the final side lies the bathroom, completely green-tiled and rather long but thin. Inside is a sink, a shower, and – to my ecstatic surprise – a Western toilet! I’m not sure when these family description papers were last updated, but they really need to be… On that same side is the kitchen, huge by Moroccan standards, with cabinets and appliances and a microwave and spices and all sorts of fun food paraphernalia.
Inside the kitchen lies a stairway leading up to the first-and-a-half floor. As I said earlier, my host family rents out the second floor, but kept this room for themselves. The ceiling is absurdly low (I’d put it just under 6 ft., since I graze my head on the ceiling tiles if I stand up fully), and inside there is a blue-and-white L-shaped couch. But in the corner lies a veritable treasure among medina houses – a computer with a solid (and fairly high-speed) internet connection! Yassine seems to use it to check his facebook and chat really often, and he says I can use it as I wish. The only awkward thing is the international keyboard – it allows you to type in Roman and Arabic letters, which is really awesome, except they switched the keys for “A” and “Q” as well as “Z” and “W,” and moved “M” up to the colon’s spot next to “L.” It doesn’t sound like much, but trust me – it’s just enough of a shift to make it a bit of a nuisance when you’re trying to type quickly. That, and all of the punctuation marks are moved around, and I can’t figure out for the life of me how to get the keyboard to produce a simple period. Again, it’s just enough to make typing in any website’s address just that much more difficult. So for now, I’m going to continue to write on my laptop and go to the internet café.
Navigating up the tight stairway from this room gives you direct access to the roof terrace. Since ours is among the highest in the neighborhood, the view is beautiful! The first time I went up was around 8:30 PM, so the sun had set and the moon hung low and full, just barely obscured by a thin veil of clouds. Down below, the cramped and dimly lit medina roofs slowly gave way to the brighter, more open spaces of the colonial city and finally the modern sections. The outline of minarets and palm trees dotted the skyline, and I could see the blockish and elaborately carved tower of Hassan II out near the shore. For the first time, I felt the week-old knot in my stomach abate a bit, and I calmly breathed in from the light breeze which drifted in from over the ocean.
I apologize for all of this description, I realize that I’d promised some of you I’d try to keep these shorter. Well, take it in installments….
I love my host family so much. They are so amazing!
For any former Rabatians following along, my host family was Matt’s from last semester. For all others, they are Zhoura El Brouhmani and her son, Yassine. And, since it’s Ramadan, all of their extended family. And I love them all, even if we don’t understand a word the other is saying.
To start at the very beginning (Sound of Music reference aside) I had a few concerns when I first got my sheet of paper with their names and a few quick family facts. For example, the Turkish toilet. And the (relatively) small size – a father, mother, and 2 sons.
When Yassine and I met at the short, hour-long time set up by the CCCL for first impressions, most of my fears melted away – he was an incredibly friendly guy who seemed to know half of the other host families there and spoke almost perfect English. Score! He told me that the family had been hosting students for quite some time – 6 times before (or maybe he said 6 years… it was loud in there and I still had some stress floating around and distracting my thoughts.
However, he also gave me the unfortunate news that my family had recently become even smaller: the first was for a very good reason – Yassine’s brother Adil had gotten married and moved into his own place. However, there was also less happy news – his father, Abdelgani, had died recently, in August if I understood him right. Allah yarhamhu.
Needless to say, I remained a little unsure of what the household would be like when I walked into it this afternoon. Following a morning of overly pretentious theoretical discussion on diversity and other orientation wrap-up, Yassine and I set out through the slim medina streets with my backpack and 2 suitcases in tow. I was grateful for the help – the morning’s walk from the Hotel Majestic across the medina to the CCCL had been a bit taxing to say the least. It was the first quasi-exercise I’d had since arriving, and the sweat pouring down my forehead in the early morning heat made that fact rather apparent. (Of course, it didn’t even begin to compare to a certain Parisian suitcase adventure – I’m looking at you, Rebecca and Monica!)
We pulled up to the house around 3 or 4, and I found the brown, studded door to be fairly large, but otherwise unassuming. However, the minute it opened, I was astonished. The entrance hallway was a vision in blue, with gorgeous navy-and-white patterned tiles and teal accents leading down at least 20 feet until it turned the corner into the central atrium. Here, the already massive ceilings shot up through the second floor to a translucent plastic covering above that let sunlight stream in while barring the elements. My host family owns the entire building, but they rent out the second floor to another family (who seem much louder than we are…). The tiles continued to line half of the wall in this room, with the upper half painted plain white and spotted with a few decorative plates, photos, and a clock. The second floor’s balcony is supported by four stunning teal columns with teal and silver relief carvings which broaden out into teal-rimmed white arches. The entire room is bordered by white carvings in elaborate patterns, and the doors are large made of a beautiful, dark wood. If you can manage to yank your eyes away from the ceiling, you will notice the fairly simple black-and-white tiled floor. Mom would be in heaven with the absolute lack of “clutter” – the sole furniture are a simple table just off center, surrounded by 6 chairs, and 3 fluffy navy sofas arranged in the shape of a “C.”
On each of the atrium’s 4 corners is a different room: two sitting rooms on opposing ends, completely bordered by long continuous sofas (one in red, the other in green). Both rooms also have small tables in the center, and the red one contains a television. When I came in, Zhoura and a few others were relaxing and watching tv, weary from a still-continuing day of fasting. Zhoura was incredibly nice, and I tried my best to remember all of the formal Darija greetings that we had practiced a few days before in our classes. All in all, I think it went well. Zhoura is older, maybe in her 60s, with faded blue eyes, fairly pale skin, and white hair with what seems to be a touch of blond tucked under the hood of her cream-white gallaba (a loose, robe-like dress very popular among both sexes in the region).
On the same side as the entrance lies my room, which is small but perfect for what I need it, really. There’s a bureau which I can use half of, though I’m unclear whether they expect me to use it for clean clothes or laudry (the other half seems to be filled with laundry…). On the left side of the room lies a small cot which my host brothers seem to be dividing amongst themselves while they are visiting for Ramadan. My area is a small offshoot to the right, and consists of a small nightstand and a small bed with white, red, yellow, and blue patterned sheets.
On the final side lies the bathroom, completely green-tiled and rather long but thin. Inside is a sink, a shower, and – to my ecstatic surprise – a Western toilet! I’m not sure when these family description papers were last updated, but they really need to be… On that same side is the kitchen, huge by Moroccan standards, with cabinets and appliances and a microwave and spices and all sorts of fun food paraphernalia.
Inside the kitchen lies a stairway leading up to the first-and-a-half floor. As I said earlier, my host family rents out the second floor, but kept this room for themselves. The ceiling is absurdly low (I’d put it just under 6 ft., since I graze my head on the ceiling tiles if I stand up fully), and inside there is a blue-and-white L-shaped couch. But in the corner lies a veritable treasure among medina houses – a computer with a solid (and fairly high-speed) internet connection! Yassine seems to use it to check his facebook and chat really often, and he says I can use it as I wish. The only awkward thing is the international keyboard – it allows you to type in Roman and Arabic letters, which is really awesome, except they switched the keys for “A” and “Q” as well as “Z” and “W,” and moved “M” up to the colon’s spot next to “L.” It doesn’t sound like much, but trust me – it’s just enough of a shift to make it a bit of a nuisance when you’re trying to type quickly. That, and all of the punctuation marks are moved around, and I can’t figure out for the life of me how to get the keyboard to produce a simple period. Again, it’s just enough to make typing in any website’s address just that much more difficult. So for now, I’m going to continue to write on my laptop and go to the internet café.
Navigating up the tight stairway from this room gives you direct access to the roof terrace. Since ours is among the highest in the neighborhood, the view is beautiful! The first time I went up was around 8:30 PM, so the sun had set and the moon hung low and full, just barely obscured by a thin veil of clouds. Down below, the cramped and dimly lit medina roofs slowly gave way to the brighter, more open spaces of the colonial city and finally the modern sections. The outline of minarets and palm trees dotted the skyline, and I could see the blockish and elaborately carved tower of Hassan II out near the shore. For the first time, I felt the week-old knot in my stomach abate a bit, and I calmly breathed in from the light breeze which drifted in from over the ocean.
I apologize for all of this description, I realize that I’d promised some of you I’d try to keep these shorter. Well, take it in installments….
Friday, September 4, 2009
Trip Goals
Goals:
1) Go surfing!
2) Speak Arabic with a real person and have them understand me
3) Bargain something down to a really cheap price in the souk (maybe half the original offer?)
4) Visit
5) Visit
6) Ride a camel!
7) Join a gym / run often
8) Attempt to fast for (at least) 1 day
9) Form a great relationship with my host family
10) Update this blog regularly!
11) Sacrifice
12) Find Brahim’s turtle and/or buy him a new one
13) Hammam!
14) Evade pickpocketing
15) Get used to the Turkish toilet in my house… yes, it’s the only toilet in my house….
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Day 3: Down the Chute
Ahh Café Arab: the site of some pretty awesome mint tea and the first reliable Internet connection I’ve had in weeks – a veritable bastion of civilization! And yet, also the location of a new life encounter: the Turkish toilet.
Now, it’s not that I wasn’t prepared for this. I’d been warned for months that it would happen, by my Rabat recon team of Rebecca, Monica, and Hilary, among others. Yet, when I walked into the room labeled “toilettes” to discover nothing more than a hole in the ground and some foot rests, I was still a bit shocked. And slightly unaware of how to proceed.
So, I crouched down, leaned my back against the wall, tried not to touch too much or visualize the germs squirming all over the stone walls around me. Though a little uncomfortable, everything was going well until I found myself in total darkness. Apparently, the lights are on a timer. Which just seems cruel.
Thankfully, my arms were long enough to reach the button and restart the cycle without abandoning the position. I finished up my business and did as much “flushing” as I could with the bucket of water nearby. I can only pray there are no secret, obvious steps to all of this that I missed out on.
I left the room, washed thoroughly, and came back up to share with all of you. Overall, not too scarring of an experience. However, I’ll be sure to carry around some extra toilet paper from now on….
Now, it’s not that I wasn’t prepared for this. I’d been warned for months that it would happen, by my Rabat recon team of Rebecca, Monica, and Hilary, among others. Yet, when I walked into the room labeled “toilettes” to discover nothing more than a hole in the ground and some foot rests, I was still a bit shocked. And slightly unaware of how to proceed.
So, I crouched down, leaned my back against the wall, tried not to touch too much or visualize the germs squirming all over the stone walls around me. Though a little uncomfortable, everything was going well until I found myself in total darkness. Apparently, the lights are on a timer. Which just seems cruel.
Thankfully, my arms were long enough to reach the button and restart the cycle without abandoning the position. I finished up my business and did as much “flushing” as I could with the bucket of water nearby. I can only pray there are no secret, obvious steps to all of this that I missed out on.
I left the room, washed thoroughly, and came back up to share with all of you. Overall, not too scarring of an experience. However, I’ll be sure to carry around some extra toilet paper from now on….
Day 1: Second Time's the Charm!
Let’s begin the story circa 9:00 on Sunday, August 30. Following some Coconut-Lime Margaritas and a rather teary good-bye with some of my friends, my parents and I set out for Logan with the Boston traffic intent on making us late. While I was the last of our group to arrive to the airport, I still had plenty of time to kiss Mom and Dad goodbye, make a final phone call to Grandma and Grandpa Snazzy, and generally freak out about the months-long adventure ahead of me. Just before I was about to give in to the temptation of a pre-flight shot at Houlihan’s (to calm the nerves, of course…) I heard a pair of voices shout my name from the row of black leather seats near the gate. The ruckus was caused by Anthony and Catherine – the one intensely excited, the other possibly more nervous than I was. Within ten minutes or so, we gathered the rest of the group together (all 7 of us…) and boarding began. The wait was over.
The flights flew by, which was both exciting and unexpected, and definitely called for my blog’s first horrible pun. Air France was awesome as ever – I stuffed myself with curried chicken, white wine, and the most amazing banana-chocolate cake ever, despite the fact that I was still completely full from my chicken sandwich and nachos from Sunset Cantina. If only my overhead light had worked….
After talking with the rest of the row (Catherine, Maura, and Anthony), I turned on the Star Trek movie for about 15 minutes until not even the massive amount of explosions could keep me awake and I passed out. I awoke hours later when the stewardesses delivered a breakfast of sorts to us. Granted, it was about 12:00 Parisian time and felt like 5:00 EDT, but jets work in mysterious ways.
We landed in Charles de Gaulle and spent our few minutes of free time in our quick layover perusing the duty-free shopping for fun and exciting items, some of which were definitely purchased. Passively. The flight from there to Rabat was actually a bit longer than I expected at 2 and a half hours. I spent some of the trip reading up on Ted Kennedy (may he rest in peace) and the rest flipping though our good friend Al-Kitaab trying to remember all of that vocab which has trickled out of my memory since last December. Surprisingly enough, some of Al-Kitaab’s random words actually showed up in the city – like altijaara (commerce/trade). This makes me feel a little more respect for the textbook, but I’m still not convinced we should learn that word before “bathroom” and “help!” I’m just sayin’.
As we neared touchdown, I couldn’t help but notice the general brown-ness of the area. The only time I’ve ever seen anything like it before was while driving through Southern California, where you just don’t get all the green nature of New England. The buildings all tend toward off-white or drab colors, but every once in a while a bright blue door or a grove of palm trees come along to spice things up. As we deplaned (by stairs! That always makes me feel so much more exotic!) the heat hit us pretty quickly. It’s a dry heat, at least, but still felt just as bad as the heat wave back home earlier in the month. And the air in my room, even with the window wide open, feels about as hot and stagnant as Warren Towers on a hot summer night. As the sun goes down, though, the temperature hits a very comfortable level, and a light breeze comes in from the ocean.
So after going through customs and getting screened really flimsily for swine flu, we grabbed our baggage and rode out to the Hotel Majestic, where we got our first taste of the bustle of city life and the chaos that is Moroccan driving. So far we’ve figured out that street signs are minimal and jay walking is required. This is my kind of place! Fadoua (the program manager) then left us for 3 hours to do as we liked. Since we were lost, exhausted, and confused, this ended up being 2.5 hours of rest and bonding in the hotel with sporadic showers (using “sporadically warm” water) followed by a half hour walk into the city, once we had summoned up enough courage to take our initial steps outdoors. We wandered through a little bit only to discover a shell of a town – all of the shops were closed, though we picked out a couple of important spots for the future (i.e. an internet café, a cell phone store, and a delicious-looking bakery).
Fadoua met us a little before 6 (as promised) and took us through the medina to reach the Center for Cross Cultural Learning (to be referred to as the CCCL or, my personal preference, the Trip C L, from here on). If the new city seemed empty, the medina was still hopping despite the fasting. The place was insane – people everywhere selling everything you can imagine from fruit to knick-knacks to wool, kids playing soccer, street cats looking mangy but adorable, and above all an energy unmatched by anything short of Fenway on a game night. Rebecca, you were right. This place is so cool – I can’t wait to actually live there.
Once at the CCCL, we got a quick tour, which impressed all of us immensely (see below). At the 7:00 call to prayer, we participated in the breaking of the fast (though we had done little but eat over the last 36 hours…) with a traditional meal of milk and dates, figs, soup, hard-boiled eggs with salt and cumin, and a thin bread, along with sweet honey-dough treats. This was followed by a main course of couscous with beef and various vegetables (which seemed to be carrot, pumpkin, and squash… I think). Brahim was amazing. This was all followed by wicked strong coffee and a dessert of fruit – most of us chose peaches. Over dinner, Farah contributed the quote of the day: “We’re kind of crazy here – we really like to party.” How awesome is class going to be?!
The dinner finished, we walked back through the dark and labyrinthine streets of the medina to our hotel, then decided that 8:30 was far too early to go to bed. So, we picked a direction (right) and just started walking until we got tired, observing the surroundings, the people, and all of the action. Incredibly, due to the Ramadan holidays, the later it got, the more crowded it got! We stopped at an open-air market area as well as the French bakery from earlier, where I got a cup of vanilla and berry (raisin?) gelato. We also had our most pronounced encounter with the language barrier yet, leaving me unsure exactly what I was eating and whether Anthony paid for it or I got it for free…. Either way, it tasted amazing. Finally exhausted, we headed back to the hotel – passing Fadoua with a group of friends on the way. Kind of hilarious.
To wrap up, I can already see all of you reading this with a smug I-told-you-so look after all of my anxiety and reluctance to leave. And yeah, I guess you earned it. So savor it, and hopefully I’ll continue to be as constantly amazed and intrigued by the culture here as I was today. I’m still a bit nervous about meeting my host family and surviving with my limited knowledge of the language. It is such a weird sensation to walk down the street and understand absolutely nothing that is being shouted at you… especially when you harbor a guilty inkling that you should really recognize at least a few words after 3 semesters of classes.
But the fact remains that I miss and love all of you reading this, and wish you could be here, too.
In case you don’t want to read all of that (and I can’t say I blame you), here’s brief and reader-friendly list of initial reactions!
Things I love thus far:
-The pants and sandals combination is basically standard for men during the day. So comfortable!
-The nightlife is actually crazy – there are more people on the street at 10:30 at night than 5 in the afternoon. Though that may just be a Ramadan thing.
-The view from the CCCL – oh my god! You can look out over the roofs (that’s a word, right?) of the entire city, and on one side the Atlantic Ocean is about 2 or 3 blocks away! To hear the 7:00 call to prayer from there (along with viewing the accompanying sunset) is magical – mostly because it means that you are about to get food!
-Everything about the CCCL – the building is the most gorgeous place I have seen in a long, long time with arches and pillars everywhere, colorful tiling, cozy little nooks, and the aforementioned multi-level terrace view. I’ll try to put up pictures soon….
-I’m remembering more Arabic than I expected! Of course, no one in the country actually speaks the fus’ha Arabic that we study, but it’s a start.
-80% of the signs and pamphlets and such are written in both Arabic and French, so I might pick up 2 languages for the price of one. And when I say pick up, I mean get to know in a very vague, non-committal way.
-This place is padiddle heaven! And anyone who’s ever traveled with me knows how excited that makes me!
-The food tonight was so amazing – I ate figs and dates for the first time (what have I been missing?!) and a traditional Ramadan soup, along with a gigantic bowl of couscous with beef and vegetables that we barely even dented.
Things that confuse me:
-Elbow grabbing. For some reason, when two people walk together here, they don’t hold hands or link arms, but one seems to just hold on to the other person’s bent arm just above the elbow.
-The medina. I will get lost there incessantly. Though the little windy alleyways are so beautiful – it’s as if from straight out of your imagination (or Aladdin, which – let’s face it – is really the basis for all my assumptions about Middle Eastern culture).
-The low ceilings and doorways. Daily head-hitting count: 1.
-The cafes are full of men, while women are simply not socially allowed. But while men seem to be more common on the streets, there are definitely women walking around in groups at night – where do they go? Secret womany places?
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
