So yay.. I love Morocco again! It’s been a pretty awful, down, last few weeks. I’ve been ready to be home and I just have been OVER being in Morocco. But that’s just because lots of silly little things had kind of piled up but slowly I’ve been able to dig myself out of this pile scoop by scoop. First of all, there’s only one week left of homestay and class. Then, although I’ll be traveling nonstop for about a month, at least it will all be on my own terms and I get to choose when and what I eat, etc. Plus class for the most part will be over except for the final paper. AND I finaaaallly got all the mail I’ve been waiting for! Mom’s package that she sent over a month ago finally got to me. Well technically, the slip of paper telling me the package is here arrived—I have to wait for Monday to pick it up, but I’m assuming that all goes smoothly. I also got my new debit card THANK THE LORRRRRRD ALMIGHTY. I was so worried it wouldn’t come before I left for 3 weeks for ISP. BUT IT DID!!! Hurrraaaaay! I went today to activate it at an ATM and at first, I thought it wouldn’t give me money, but my friend Berit showed me the secret of the ATM and TADA it spewed money! Life is just so different now knowing I can actually buy the things I want to. Yay yay yay. I also got one other important item of mail, but that didn’t turn out as well L (Of course my few seconds of bliss have to be spoiled.) In short, three of my best friends from home and I decided to do a fun “Traveling bracelet” over the semester because we’d all four be all over the world and we wanted an excuse to write to each other and to have a piece of jewelry we could all share and add a charm to as it came to us. I was so excited to get it! I’ve been waiting all semester and I already bought the charm I was going to add! WELLL Lisa sent me the bracelet that she and Val had already added awesome charms to from Spain but of course, by the time it got to me, the letter had been opened, the bracelet stolen, and THEN forwarded on to me. So the package was bracelet-less and I wanted to cryyyy. It’s just sooo annoying people are that selfish and have awful morals like that! I promise that bracelet had more meaning to me than the few dollars you would make taking it to a pawn shop. UGHHHHH.
Minus that small, but nonetheless depressing crisis, life is not.to.shabby. J Today I went on a “tour de Rabat” with a few friends to see all the touristy things of Rabat that we never have actually seen. We went to the mausoleum of the last king, Hassan II, and to an old Roman/Berber ruins that was awesome and very beautiful and there were lots of orange trees and it was totally ok, and even encouraged, to climb the trees and eat the oranges. Then we walked back into town and went to a café that magically sells smoothies! I would have put money on the fact that the concept of “smoothies” had yet to make it to Morocco, but no! I had a coconut/pineapple/mango/plum concoction that was deliiiicous. And then we sat around and vented about Morocco and gossiped about SIT hahaha. I also forgot to mention that it was an absolutely beautifullll day which played such a key role in my mood. I’ve been so used to rain, rain, dreary rain for the past few weeks that sunshine and beautiful weather was exactly what I needed.
I also talked to my academic director on Friday about my ISP project and he was so helpful. After chatting with him and sorting through my brain with him, I’ve decided to concentrate my research on the sociology and social concepts of childhood in Morocco. I’ll spare writing to you all the details of that right now but I’m actually very excited and anxious to get working—that’s a big plus considering I’ll be, in theory, spending three full weeks thinking about it (and thus writing about it on here so get ready! Haha) I was really worried that the topic I chose was going to only be mediocre in entertaining me but this topic is of a lot of interest to me, especially taking into account the Moroccan perspective.
I also have been stalking up on bootleg DVDs and am about to watch one that hopefully actually plays on my computer! Wish me luck on that one…
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
I sure do love it when people leave me comments!
So time is really starting to count down! Today is Thursday and it’s a national holiday so we’re off school. We have one full week next week, then three weeks for our ISP—which hopefully will go by very quickly because I’ll be traveling around a lot and I get to have my own schedule—then that’s it! After that we have one week for a “de-orientation” and to present our final projects to one another. I admit I’m very very excited for December to get here! For Thanksgiving, though, my friend Val is coming down from Spain and spending the weekend with me so that’s something I’m reaalllly looking forward to, too!
So election night was amazing beyond words. The final results didn’t even get to us until Wednesday late morning our time, but Obama’s acceptance speech was at about 5:30 am. The 35 American SIT students that study at the CCCL (the center where we have classes and where our program is based) all had a sleep over/ election watching party at the center that night. It was really more like a middle school lock-in as I keep describing it, but I successfully did pull an all-nighter to watch the whole thing and it was well well worth it. I’ll spare everyone my personal rhetoric as to WHY I’m so excited because those of you who matter already know themJ. Magically though, with literally only one hour of sleep before breakfast and Arabic class, I wasn’t exhausted at all! Even the next day, I made myself take a little nap before I finished my homework because I really thought I’d be suffering. But I wasn’t! Who knew?!
This week though, overall was kind of crappy. First of all, there’s been an unprecedented amount of rain throughout all of Morocco and it sucks. I did finally buy some cheap boots thank goodness but I still need a coat that will last through a rainy day—but I still haven’t received my new debit card so money is not able to be as generously spent as I’d like… hahaha Actually, this has probably been a very good thing for my bank account—I’ve saved so much money I would have otherwise spent! (It’s still incredibly annoying nonetheless) But that’s its own stressful subject.
I’ve also been more than annoyed with my host family in Rabat. I’m literally treated like a potted plant in the corner! (I’ve decided that’s the best analogy for it—they walk by me several times a day without acknowledging my existence. They make sure I stay alive, but that’s about it. Just like a potted plant.) When I got back from the village stay, no one even asked me about it or even cared to say welcome back. They only talk to me when asking if I want to eat or sleep. I also was never given a key so can only come home when they all get home from work and school at like 6:30 every evening. When my class gets out at 2:30 that means I’m stuck wasting time or spending money trying to fill my time before I can actually go home. BUT, on a brighter note, I did have a nice long conversation with my oldest host sister. She’s the only one who speaks English so without her I’m very much alone in this house. But she never socializes with her family. She has this tiny tiny little closet she’s made into a room and has a computer and TV in there so never feels the need to come out… EVER. But last night we were talking a lot about the election, Moroccan politics and many other things and she mentioned at one point that she and her family are very quiet and independent from one another—and we agreed that this is very uncommon in Morocco. She said something along the lines of “I know I have a bad personality at times, and I’ve tried to change, but I just can’t. It’s just who I am.” Although I definitely knew these things, and this is one thing that really frustrates me, it was nice to have her admit it to me for some reason. I know they mean well, and in a lot of ways I wish they were more interested in talking to me and getting to know me, but that’s just not the type of family or the types of people they are. The fact that they can admit it somehow makes the world of difference to me.
Also, I found out last week that sending a box home with all my gifts will be much much MUCH more expensive than I first thought—like $500 expensive. This is obviously absurd and not worth it. This price came from DHL and FedEx so using the regular mail service might be cheaper but that has not proven to be reliable whatsoever given that my mom sent me a package at the beginning of Oct that has yet to get to me. So I think I’m just going to have to buy a big suitcase instead and fill it with gifts. The really really sad thing is though that I have to re-think some of the gifts themselves now, too L I had suuuuch a great gift for Zac and now I have to do something else and I’m very sad about it. Good thing here that I did lose my debit card and haven’t bought all the gifts yet!
AND , to top off my complaining, I missed Halloween.. I don’t even like that holiday very much but it was still really depressing not to be around for it… Thanksgiving may even bring me to tears because it’s one my my favoritessss… I’m just not even going to think about it.
Back to the election quickly: I’ve never actually really been homesick yet…until Tuesday night. It was hard being abroad for something so important and something that made me so proud to be an American. I’m very excited to get home… although, I do wish he could take office starting today instead of next year!!
LOVELOVELOVE
So election night was amazing beyond words. The final results didn’t even get to us until Wednesday late morning our time, but Obama’s acceptance speech was at about 5:30 am. The 35 American SIT students that study at the CCCL (the center where we have classes and where our program is based) all had a sleep over/ election watching party at the center that night. It was really more like a middle school lock-in as I keep describing it, but I successfully did pull an all-nighter to watch the whole thing and it was well well worth it. I’ll spare everyone my personal rhetoric as to WHY I’m so excited because those of you who matter already know themJ. Magically though, with literally only one hour of sleep before breakfast and Arabic class, I wasn’t exhausted at all! Even the next day, I made myself take a little nap before I finished my homework because I really thought I’d be suffering. But I wasn’t! Who knew?!
This week though, overall was kind of crappy. First of all, there’s been an unprecedented amount of rain throughout all of Morocco and it sucks. I did finally buy some cheap boots thank goodness but I still need a coat that will last through a rainy day—but I still haven’t received my new debit card so money is not able to be as generously spent as I’d like… hahaha Actually, this has probably been a very good thing for my bank account—I’ve saved so much money I would have otherwise spent! (It’s still incredibly annoying nonetheless) But that’s its own stressful subject.
I’ve also been more than annoyed with my host family in Rabat. I’m literally treated like a potted plant in the corner! (I’ve decided that’s the best analogy for it—they walk by me several times a day without acknowledging my existence. They make sure I stay alive, but that’s about it. Just like a potted plant.) When I got back from the village stay, no one even asked me about it or even cared to say welcome back. They only talk to me when asking if I want to eat or sleep. I also was never given a key so can only come home when they all get home from work and school at like 6:30 every evening. When my class gets out at 2:30 that means I’m stuck wasting time or spending money trying to fill my time before I can actually go home. BUT, on a brighter note, I did have a nice long conversation with my oldest host sister. She’s the only one who speaks English so without her I’m very much alone in this house. But she never socializes with her family. She has this tiny tiny little closet she’s made into a room and has a computer and TV in there so never feels the need to come out… EVER. But last night we were talking a lot about the election, Moroccan politics and many other things and she mentioned at one point that she and her family are very quiet and independent from one another—and we agreed that this is very uncommon in Morocco. She said something along the lines of “I know I have a bad personality at times, and I’ve tried to change, but I just can’t. It’s just who I am.” Although I definitely knew these things, and this is one thing that really frustrates me, it was nice to have her admit it to me for some reason. I know they mean well, and in a lot of ways I wish they were more interested in talking to me and getting to know me, but that’s just not the type of family or the types of people they are. The fact that they can admit it somehow makes the world of difference to me.
Also, I found out last week that sending a box home with all my gifts will be much much MUCH more expensive than I first thought—like $500 expensive. This is obviously absurd and not worth it. This price came from DHL and FedEx so using the regular mail service might be cheaper but that has not proven to be reliable whatsoever given that my mom sent me a package at the beginning of Oct that has yet to get to me. So I think I’m just going to have to buy a big suitcase instead and fill it with gifts. The really really sad thing is though that I have to re-think some of the gifts themselves now, too L I had suuuuch a great gift for Zac and now I have to do something else and I’m very sad about it. Good thing here that I did lose my debit card and haven’t bought all the gifts yet!
AND , to top off my complaining, I missed Halloween.. I don’t even like that holiday very much but it was still really depressing not to be around for it… Thanksgiving may even bring me to tears because it’s one my my favoritessss… I’m just not even going to think about it.
Back to the election quickly: I’ve never actually really been homesick yet…until Tuesday night. It was hard being abroad for something so important and something that made me so proud to be an American. I’m very excited to get home… although, I do wish he could take office starting today instead of next year!!
LOVELOVELOVE
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Village Stay photos
playing music and clapping... a favorite pasttime in the village
my beautiful henna
my family: Jemila, little Mona and Haammi
Wardia and Lubna with Liz (in the middle)
the kitchen (only lit by candle light after the sun sets)
my house
baby doneky on the left... big furry head: ick
biggest couscous ever!!
little Mona learned to love us!
shepharding... kind of
baby sheep!! (i never got a clear picture of that hyper active baby goat though!:( )
the hot springs... thank god for nature's little space heater!
the valley where the fresh water and hot springs come/go
walking on the never-ending road back from the miserable souk (our house is in the far far background)
The living room/sleeping room/ dining room and our warm sheep skins
Posing with our Spanish speaking brother (? what is he doing? he looked away liek that in every photo a took... touuuuugh)
airing out the carpets and blankets on the roof of our house
playing dress up with our Mamma... (all women take pictures with that stern look. Smilimg is not considered pretty. I also wish you could see the face tattoos she has. Her generation of rural women very commonly have blue tatoos on the T line and along the jaw line. This represents serious beauty in their culture)
the goat, Sarkozy, almost came all the way inside while we were eating lunch.. no biggie
the skinny cows in the mountains
the 5 1/2 hour hike... well at least we survived!
the view from our front yardVillage Stay
(The Village stay is a weeklong excursion where we all go live with Berber families in the rural part of the country. The dichotomy between rural and urban life is very important to the dynamics of Moroccans, but also an important thing for us to experience on this trip. The city we were in was called Oulmes and we all stayed with families that lived miles outside the city because they were all farmers and shepherds. We were ensured we would probably be very sick because of the new environment and the new food, and that it might snow. Basically, I was really not looking forward to this before I left…)
But believe it or not, the village stay was beyond great! Overall, it was more like a bi-polar/rollercoaster-esk change of emotion from misery to pure glee. But, the important thing is that the majority of the time we were on the very happy end. I’ve never experienced a 6-day period that felt like months. We were all supposed to be split up into groups of two in each house but mine and Leah’s family and Liz and Camille’s family were really the same group of people so we were all 4 together the entire time. That was one of the biggest reasons the whole experience was so great— because we got to do it together. If I had been by myself I would have probably cried every night, and even if it was just me and Leah, it would have been much harder. But the power of 4 was awesome. So I don’t really know how to tell this very long story because there are just so many components! I’ll just start with the family:
Family dynamics:
This was a very bizarre set-up and it took us the entire time to figure it all out (we actually still don’t know who one man was and where he fell into the picture) Ok so Leah and my “parents” were technically one of the sons and his wife who still live on the same family compound because he’s the shepherd of the sheep and goats and that’s the “family business” aka the only way the entire family makes any money as far as I could tell. And Liz and Camille’s technical “mom” was my grandma. Ok so grandma Fadma is considered the leader of the house and this is very uncommon in Morocco—for a woman’s name to be the name that represents the entire family. This only happens when she is a widow. (We later found out that her husband died in 2000.) Anyway, she has 6 children. The the oldest son Mohammad was in his mid to late 30s and we didn’t meet him until the last day. He lives “in the city” (which is about 4 miles away from our farm house in the middle of nowhere) Mohammad is quote, “a lot, a lot, a lot Islam” meaning he’s a very religious person and had apparently gone to Mecca three times and we were told over and over, before we met him that he speaks English and French and Spanish, which, believe it or not, ended up only being partially true. His English was enough to get him by but it was still easier for him to communicate in French with Liz. Anyway, he asked us what we think of Muslims and why there were women fighting in Iraq and WHY have so many people died there? That was the point in which I got up and walked away so that’s the end of my personal story about Mohammad. (We surprisingly delt with a lot of anti-American and anti-Bush hostility in Oulmes—a LOT more than I’ve experienced in Rabat. Although, on the contrary, the people of Oulmes were also the most hospitable and most friendly people I’ve met in Morocco as well…?)
The second child is Haammi (maybe short for Mohmmad?) and this is my father. He was so so so great. I think he’s about 32 and is married to Jemila (that means beautiful in Arabic) and they have a 3 year old daughter named Mona. They were really great although they only spoke the Berber language and we couldn’t really talk to them one on one. Mona will get her own section in a bit but Haammi was such a great father with her and that was very refreshing to see! Jemila though, we didn’t even meet until day 2 because she never came into the main family room (the house consisted of 2 rooms: the sitting/sleeping/eating room and the kitchen). This was obviously not because she was shy, but because she was married into the family not a first person member. That ended up being such an interesting dynamic actually. Especially because she and Haammi are living on the land that she will probably be the ruler of one day if she out lives him. She’ll eventually be the Fadma of that exact house because the rest of the siblings will marry off and move away, yet at this point in her life she’s more treated like the hired help.
Next is Fatiha, maybe about 30, who is married and has 3 young boys. They also live in the city and we spent a few evenings there and they live a life in a very different, higher social class than the rest of her family. They have couches, a car, satellite TV, a western toilet, and a washing machine—all the while 7 other family members plus the four of us used the bathroom on the back wall of the house. Her husband Achmed (no idea how to spell these names in English) was the man who picked us up on the first night and he spoke a little French so that was nice for communication reasons. As a profession, he’s a driver and apparently just uses his big, very old, very broke down van to escort people to and from the city and this makes five times as much money as herding sheep.
So next in line is the infamous Moujub who we ended up detesting in many ways. He spoke “Spanish” which was also nice for communication reasons but in reality he did not actually speak Spanish. It was awful and even I could recognize that, and my Spanish is also awful grammatically. He learned Spanish when he was in Spain for 2 years as an illegal immigrant. He only came back because he got deported. “Mucho policia” hahah. So in his defense, he probably speaks perfect immigrant worker conversational Spanish; but he didn’t understand anything we said to him. Ok, so at this point I’m just so frustrated at him and icked out I’m probably being unfair. It was nice to have some Spanish to enable us to talk to the rest of the family and we did benefit from that in a lot of ways. Anyway, he’s a big 27 year old baby who doesn’t work or do anything except follow us around for the week we were there. I’m not sure what he’ll do now that we’re gone.
So then there’s Wardia who is the 22 year old daughter who does everything for the entire household. She spoke French so was able to communicate with Liz and we all became pretty close to her. She was so sweet and cooked the bessssst food!! But she and Jemila work so hard—just like most people in these villages—and so often I felt so bad for her because she pretty clearly expressed her own frustration with the situation. She has absolutely no freedom and can never leave the house without a male family member with her. There is an arranged marriage waiting for her if she wants. It’s a Moroccan man who lives in Germany and when they meet, if she wants they’ll get married and move to Germany. So she’ll get to go to Rabat and learn German first and then hopefully go to some type of college as well. This would be amazing for her but when this will happen no one knows. I just hope it does if that’s what she wants. (I also think seeing the 4 of us was an especially encouraging experience for her—I hope so anyway) So yes, I feel very very lucky to be me and have the opportunities I do. We once started having a conversation about what the 4 of us wanted to do after college and options are so unlimited, but explaining that to them was a very foreign concept. Although, how awful is it that her best option for her life is an arranged marriage with a man she’s never met?! That’s another story, huh…
Lastly there’s Lubna who we think is 13. She’s adorable and became pretty obsessed with us—especially our cameras. She also does a lot of work like Wardia and Jemila but she also goes to school during the day so isn’t at home as much. We went to visit her school one day and the classrooms, for being a rural schoolhouse in the middle of nowhere, weren’t half bad. The two classrooms in the building were actually just a step nicer then the classrooms I had in Costa Rica. Lubna also loved playing the game thumper that we taught them the first night and then pretty much never STOPPED playing for 6 days! She wasn’t very good, and asking any of them for some rhythm was out of the question, but we did have a lot of fun playing games with them.
So now I have to go back to little Mona who was just so adorable, so dirty and somehow never cold even when we were shivering under 3 large wool blankets. Her life is really fascinating. It’s beyond different from the average 3 year old in America and even very different from an urban child in Morocco. She is given so much freedom it was scary to us! We pulled her away from blazing fires, away from the edge of the roof and made sure she didn’t eat dirt (that very very easily could have actually been the feces of a human or any animal). She actually inspired me to possibly do my final ISP paper on the life of a 3 year old in Morocco. As for being a female, she was surprisingly not subservient nor very obedient which was kind of funny, but ended up being a pain as well.
There was also a man who we thought was grandpa but Fadma’s husband/the father of all her children died in 2000. I really doubt she has remarried but there’s really no other reason for this man to be around. It’s a mystery that was never solved. He was really nice and adorable though. The whole family was really quite great and I even teared up saying good bye to them! I won’t even KIND OF be sad saying goodbye to my family in Rabat (they hardly acknowledged me when I got back on Friday, and I’ve learned enough Arabic at this point to know they refer to me as “the girl”… so loving!) Anyway, my village family was really great and they were just so so so nice. I learned so much more from this one week than from my entire other homestay combined. They said over and over that we were welcome back anytime. They even said we should bring our families and they would slaughter a goat in our honor. (This was told to us via sign language as well… hahaha) Fadma told us over and over that we were like 4 more daughters to her. They just really, genuinely enjoyed having us and we were equally as happy to be there. It was a nice change of pace, that’s for sure!
FOOOOD:
Food on this trip was what was supposed to give us the never ending diarrhea. But I think no one was ever really sick, no one in our house definitely ever was! And, to top it off, the food was fantastic!!! First of all, they made all of their bread obviously, and there were like 5 different types! (As it is in all of Morocco bread is your utensil so it’s a key component to any meal.) There was some fried, some more corn-meally, some just plain, my personal favorite was like a big, soft, thick and buttery tortilla. Anyway, it was all just so great. The couscous on this trip was also fantastic and somehow was just sooo much better than the other couscous I’ve had here. We also had rice pudding when it was really cold and the mint tea, Berber style, had an extra herb that made it extra amazing. The only downfall to the food (but this is not unique to rural life) was the immense amount of sugar used in EVERYTHING. It’s scary how much sugar they go through actually. What they don’t use is salt, so they don’t have issues with sodium, but they more than make up for that in the diabetes I’m sure all old people have.
Day by day play black:
So this whole program in Oulmes was affiliated with a local association in town called Anwar—this was our meeting ground, and where our two advisors stayed. We arrived there on Saturday afternoon and had a welcoming lunch and tea. This town was so so so excited to have us there. They were very hospitable and there were so many people from the town there awaiting our arrival. There were many introductions—including making all 26 of us introduce ourselves in Arabic!—and a lot of local people did their best to introduce themselves in English which I thought was so noble! It would be hard to get up in front of a group of young Americans and speak their native language that you were very new at learning. I was impressed. I also felt so welcomed it was very nice.
One of the biggest things our academic advisor said to us before we left was to think about not only what we are getting out of this town for our own learning benefit, but what this town is getting from us. We don’t want to be a nuisance but we also want to make sure they are housing us and hosting us because they genuinely want to. He also mentioned that we really are the last generation that will be able to have the opportunity to see what it’s like to live without any of the technology we are so used to in our everyday lives. Even in this small town, only 3 of the 13 houses we all stayed at didn’t have electricity or a toilet (I was of course in one of those 3 but I loved it and am grateful I got to really experience life that way). But even in my house, several people even had cell phones! So this lifestyle without any contact to the outside world is coming to a close and I’m really glad I got to see it first hand before it’s obsolete.
I mentioned this because I wanted to say that during our introduction time at the association, 8 different cell phones went off during that one hour. And none of them were ours! I thought that was just so surreal and it really spoke to what our AD was saying before we left. I was assuming I was being sent to this Podunk village where everyone lived in straw huts... and I was massively wrong. Even in the poorest communities cell phones WILL haunt groups of people trying to have a polite meeting. Hahaha
So then we took a small group tour of the city itself. It’s very very small town—simply made up of about 5 square blocks and then a large unfinished housing project where some houses were finished and people were living in them and some were not. I think it was the kind of thing where people spend years and years—sometimes decades—to build a house for themselves; just waiting for more money to come in to add on slowly. Within these projects is where the sister Fatiha lived with her family and their house was definitely finished and very nice, but she lived directly next to vacant lots.
Then we got picked up by our families and my dad, Haammi came and got 6 of us (Sarah S. and Sarah L. lived with our neighbors so they were part of our little group as well from time to time). We drove in Achmed’s car down some very dark windy roads and arrived and our family was so thrilled to see us. We sat around and played music and danced and chatted for hours, I was just so happy and comfortable there—I was shocked I felt this way because I expected the opposite effect! But it was lovely.
So Sunday morning we woke up before 7 because that’s when the rooster and the sheep wake up and Wardia and Moujub took us on a walk around the land and there was such a beautiful view! You could see into the valley and across the mountains for miles! It was very very gorgeous. They told us about these caves that exists down in the valley so we decided to try go on a little hike to find them. Welllll that little hike turned in to a 5 ½ hour hike which wasn’t too bad going down. But coming up was another dreadful story that I have tried to block out of my memory. I’m just not one for hiking in the first place but it was a beautiful day that was cool enough that we never got hot but never too cold either. Overall, it was a great way to spend the morning even though we never made it all the way to the caves themselves because they forgot to mention you needed to literally rock climb to get there and we thought falling to our death on the first day in the village wasn’t the way to go. We did get close to them and took photos… it was cool. When we got back we took a little nap—life on the farm is very simple and I do appreciate that! I can also understand going from being used to that every day to the big city would be a shocking experience. We also discovered today that baby goats are, by far, without a doubt, THE cuuuutest baby animal. (I later found out that baby donkeys are the ugggggliest baby animal.) This little goat though just pranced around and hopped and hopped and hopped. Adooorable.
Monday after breakfast our mom and sisters insisted we play dress up so they gave us their prettiest jalabas and kaftans that are only worn for special occasions and we took like a MILLLION photos. Hahaha but I was very nice of them and they were beautiful gowns! Then we went for a little walk and met Sarah and Sarah (there are 5 Sarahs on this trip by the way). They had also played dress up earlier that day but their new mamma didn’t really think of is as game so much as a reality. They had to wear jalabas everyday and couldn’t wear their tennis shoes and got hennas and wore traditional Berber makeup every day. AAHAHAHA it was hilarious but they were really good sports and didn’t mind at all so they definitely got pared with the right family. At 3 pm we had to walk the 2-3 miles into town for part of our program at the association. It was good to see everyone and find out how their home stays were going. The planned program for the day was to chat with locals of the town and high school students and just have a dialog with them about culture, language etc. but what it turned into was a “we hate America party” which, I’ll just say, was not very fun. It actually put me in a horrible mood. They asked very difficult and sometimes absurd questions ranging from “what do you think of Arabs” to “Why is your government giving arms (specifically tanks and missiles) to Israel to KILL Palestinians?” I don’t know!! I didn’t vote for George Bush! First of all, none of us were of age to vote in the last election and we wouldn’t have voted for him anyway! I couldn’t beeelive it. Ok so it’s important to note that this was a Berber village, so they don’t speak Arabic and don’t consider themselves Arab. This issue over ethnicity is a very big one in Morocco right now and there seems to be a pretty apparent ethnic battle of Berber v. Arabs throughout the county in different degrees. So these people, who are not Arab, were also kind of offended that we came to Morocco to study Arabic not their Berber language because that’s “what is really native to Morocco.” Anyway, I was glad to get out of there because it got a little bit too heated for those circumstances. That night we got henna done on our hands and I was so grateful we got pretty designs and not the traditional Berber henna which is just the entire palm covered like you were finger painting with bright orange paint. Almost everyone else got that traditional henna which is so heinous. But ours was nice and pretty with lots of flowers J
Tuesday is souk day in Oulmes. Souk just means market in Arabic and most small towns like this just chose one day of the week for lots of vendors to set up shops and sell things. Places like Rabat don’t really have a souk once a week because there is pretty much a souk everyday because the city is so big and the medina is always hoppin. It was in a souk that I thought I was going to be trampled to death a few weeks ago when I went to the waterfalls but this time it wasn’t nearly as crowded. BUT it also happened to be an awful awful rainy, cold AWFUL day outside. In the end, we survived but souk day sucked! We were all given a little money from our program to buy our family gifts. So we were there long enough to spend our money and we bought them lots of great things. But it was pouring rain and the ground turned into this awful muddy mess that my tennis shoes were not cut out for. We finally told our sister we had to leave because we just couldn’t take any more but then of course… we still had the 3 mile walk back to the house! This is another moment I’ve kind of blocked out of my memory but we were all just so so so cold and miserable we wanted to cry. But of course, there was no possibility for a ride back so we did have to trek it and walk back. By the time we made it back the rain kind of slowed and inside our house a big, warm pot of coals was waiting in the living room to warm our toes. And they served us delicious rice pudding and all of a sudden we didn’t hate Morocco once again. This is a great example of the rollercoaster effect I was talking about: we went from suicidal misery to absolute bliss in a matter of minutes! Later that night we gave the family our bundle of gifts we bought and they were so grateful and so happy! It was a very good idea for SIT to have us buy gifts for them because they just loved it!
With souk day behind us, we woke up Wednesday and had this amazing fried bread for breakfast that was like carnival bread with lots of sugarJ Then we went with our SIT group again and went to the Sidi Ali factory. Sidi Ali is the brand of every water bottle in the entire country and this factory is one of the only, if not the only, huge mechanized factory in the entire country so it’s a big deal to the community and factories are so cool so I was glad we went. So that was the highlight of that day but that night I experienced the worst night of sleep, maybe in my entire life. Our sleeping situation is this: In the big room, where everyone sleeps, we have a sheep skin per person laid down on the ground then a big blanket over that, then on top of us we have three big wool blankets. So first of all sleeping on the cement floor, even with the warm sheepskin underneath us is awful and very very uncomfortable. (I missed my couch in Rabat so much!) But it was also very cold this night and Leah somehow stole all the heavy blankets. So even though I had 3 layers of clothes on, I was freezing to death. It was awful and I was glad for the day to come.
Thursday was our last full day there and we woke up and it was actually pretty sunny so we wondered around with the sheep for awhile then took a blanket up on the roof and sat in the sun and read for a few hours. Then we had lunch and it was couscous again because they knew we loved it. We were served the biggest bowl/mountain of couscous I’ve ever seen! It was enormous!! But delicious, too! Then we walked to Lubna’s school where we ended up just being a distraction. Although we got to see the classrooms and the kids, we didn’t actually get to really see a class in action because our being there obviously outweighed the necessity to learn hahaha. So we had to leave in order for them to actually have class, but it wasn’t too bad. It was nice to see the school at all.
So another thing to mention is the fact that the view of the stars at night was one of the most incredible views I‘ve ever seen! On a clear light, with no light pollution, I could have stayed out there for hours! It was so beautiful!
Friday morning we woke up, had breakfast and got picked up around 10:30. I was so sad saying goodbye, but at the same time we were so ready to leave. Not only had we not showered in a week, we hadn’t washed our faces either and I just felt icccccky. We did get to brush our teeth with water bottles every day thank goodness although our family thought it was a very bizarre concept. I was also tired of being perpetually cold and I’d been wearing every pair of socks I owned—needless to say I wanted to take them off after a full week of never doing so.
So the moral of this story was that the village stay has probably been the highlight of this trip for me. I now appreciate toilets in a big way, but also understand that they aren’t the necessity I once thought. I feel that way about a lot of things really. This family hardly produces waste in any form and they are also so loving and their family dynamics fascinate me. And although many times I was very cold, at least it didn’t ever snow!!!
But believe it or not, the village stay was beyond great! Overall, it was more like a bi-polar/rollercoaster-esk change of emotion from misery to pure glee. But, the important thing is that the majority of the time we were on the very happy end. I’ve never experienced a 6-day period that felt like months. We were all supposed to be split up into groups of two in each house but mine and Leah’s family and Liz and Camille’s family were really the same group of people so we were all 4 together the entire time. That was one of the biggest reasons the whole experience was so great— because we got to do it together. If I had been by myself I would have probably cried every night, and even if it was just me and Leah, it would have been much harder. But the power of 4 was awesome. So I don’t really know how to tell this very long story because there are just so many components! I’ll just start with the family:
Family dynamics:
This was a very bizarre set-up and it took us the entire time to figure it all out (we actually still don’t know who one man was and where he fell into the picture) Ok so Leah and my “parents” were technically one of the sons and his wife who still live on the same family compound because he’s the shepherd of the sheep and goats and that’s the “family business” aka the only way the entire family makes any money as far as I could tell. And Liz and Camille’s technical “mom” was my grandma. Ok so grandma Fadma is considered the leader of the house and this is very uncommon in Morocco—for a woman’s name to be the name that represents the entire family. This only happens when she is a widow. (We later found out that her husband died in 2000.) Anyway, she has 6 children. The the oldest son Mohammad was in his mid to late 30s and we didn’t meet him until the last day. He lives “in the city” (which is about 4 miles away from our farm house in the middle of nowhere) Mohammad is quote, “a lot, a lot, a lot Islam” meaning he’s a very religious person and had apparently gone to Mecca three times and we were told over and over, before we met him that he speaks English and French and Spanish, which, believe it or not, ended up only being partially true. His English was enough to get him by but it was still easier for him to communicate in French with Liz. Anyway, he asked us what we think of Muslims and why there were women fighting in Iraq and WHY have so many people died there? That was the point in which I got up and walked away so that’s the end of my personal story about Mohammad. (We surprisingly delt with a lot of anti-American and anti-Bush hostility in Oulmes—a LOT more than I’ve experienced in Rabat. Although, on the contrary, the people of Oulmes were also the most hospitable and most friendly people I’ve met in Morocco as well…?)
The second child is Haammi (maybe short for Mohmmad?) and this is my father. He was so so so great. I think he’s about 32 and is married to Jemila (that means beautiful in Arabic) and they have a 3 year old daughter named Mona. They were really great although they only spoke the Berber language and we couldn’t really talk to them one on one. Mona will get her own section in a bit but Haammi was such a great father with her and that was very refreshing to see! Jemila though, we didn’t even meet until day 2 because she never came into the main family room (the house consisted of 2 rooms: the sitting/sleeping/eating room and the kitchen). This was obviously not because she was shy, but because she was married into the family not a first person member. That ended up being such an interesting dynamic actually. Especially because she and Haammi are living on the land that she will probably be the ruler of one day if she out lives him. She’ll eventually be the Fadma of that exact house because the rest of the siblings will marry off and move away, yet at this point in her life she’s more treated like the hired help.
Next is Fatiha, maybe about 30, who is married and has 3 young boys. They also live in the city and we spent a few evenings there and they live a life in a very different, higher social class than the rest of her family. They have couches, a car, satellite TV, a western toilet, and a washing machine—all the while 7 other family members plus the four of us used the bathroom on the back wall of the house. Her husband Achmed (no idea how to spell these names in English) was the man who picked us up on the first night and he spoke a little French so that was nice for communication reasons. As a profession, he’s a driver and apparently just uses his big, very old, very broke down van to escort people to and from the city and this makes five times as much money as herding sheep.
So next in line is the infamous Moujub who we ended up detesting in many ways. He spoke “Spanish” which was also nice for communication reasons but in reality he did not actually speak Spanish. It was awful and even I could recognize that, and my Spanish is also awful grammatically. He learned Spanish when he was in Spain for 2 years as an illegal immigrant. He only came back because he got deported. “Mucho policia” hahah. So in his defense, he probably speaks perfect immigrant worker conversational Spanish; but he didn’t understand anything we said to him. Ok, so at this point I’m just so frustrated at him and icked out I’m probably being unfair. It was nice to have some Spanish to enable us to talk to the rest of the family and we did benefit from that in a lot of ways. Anyway, he’s a big 27 year old baby who doesn’t work or do anything except follow us around for the week we were there. I’m not sure what he’ll do now that we’re gone.
So then there’s Wardia who is the 22 year old daughter who does everything for the entire household. She spoke French so was able to communicate with Liz and we all became pretty close to her. She was so sweet and cooked the bessssst food!! But she and Jemila work so hard—just like most people in these villages—and so often I felt so bad for her because she pretty clearly expressed her own frustration with the situation. She has absolutely no freedom and can never leave the house without a male family member with her. There is an arranged marriage waiting for her if she wants. It’s a Moroccan man who lives in Germany and when they meet, if she wants they’ll get married and move to Germany. So she’ll get to go to Rabat and learn German first and then hopefully go to some type of college as well. This would be amazing for her but when this will happen no one knows. I just hope it does if that’s what she wants. (I also think seeing the 4 of us was an especially encouraging experience for her—I hope so anyway) So yes, I feel very very lucky to be me and have the opportunities I do. We once started having a conversation about what the 4 of us wanted to do after college and options are so unlimited, but explaining that to them was a very foreign concept. Although, how awful is it that her best option for her life is an arranged marriage with a man she’s never met?! That’s another story, huh…
Lastly there’s Lubna who we think is 13. She’s adorable and became pretty obsessed with us—especially our cameras. She also does a lot of work like Wardia and Jemila but she also goes to school during the day so isn’t at home as much. We went to visit her school one day and the classrooms, for being a rural schoolhouse in the middle of nowhere, weren’t half bad. The two classrooms in the building were actually just a step nicer then the classrooms I had in Costa Rica. Lubna also loved playing the game thumper that we taught them the first night and then pretty much never STOPPED playing for 6 days! She wasn’t very good, and asking any of them for some rhythm was out of the question, but we did have a lot of fun playing games with them.
So now I have to go back to little Mona who was just so adorable, so dirty and somehow never cold even when we were shivering under 3 large wool blankets. Her life is really fascinating. It’s beyond different from the average 3 year old in America and even very different from an urban child in Morocco. She is given so much freedom it was scary to us! We pulled her away from blazing fires, away from the edge of the roof and made sure she didn’t eat dirt (that very very easily could have actually been the feces of a human or any animal). She actually inspired me to possibly do my final ISP paper on the life of a 3 year old in Morocco. As for being a female, she was surprisingly not subservient nor very obedient which was kind of funny, but ended up being a pain as well.
There was also a man who we thought was grandpa but Fadma’s husband/the father of all her children died in 2000. I really doubt she has remarried but there’s really no other reason for this man to be around. It’s a mystery that was never solved. He was really nice and adorable though. The whole family was really quite great and I even teared up saying good bye to them! I won’t even KIND OF be sad saying goodbye to my family in Rabat (they hardly acknowledged me when I got back on Friday, and I’ve learned enough Arabic at this point to know they refer to me as “the girl”… so loving!) Anyway, my village family was really great and they were just so so so nice. I learned so much more from this one week than from my entire other homestay combined. They said over and over that we were welcome back anytime. They even said we should bring our families and they would slaughter a goat in our honor. (This was told to us via sign language as well… hahaha) Fadma told us over and over that we were like 4 more daughters to her. They just really, genuinely enjoyed having us and we were equally as happy to be there. It was a nice change of pace, that’s for sure!
FOOOOD:
Food on this trip was what was supposed to give us the never ending diarrhea. But I think no one was ever really sick, no one in our house definitely ever was! And, to top it off, the food was fantastic!!! First of all, they made all of their bread obviously, and there were like 5 different types! (As it is in all of Morocco bread is your utensil so it’s a key component to any meal.) There was some fried, some more corn-meally, some just plain, my personal favorite was like a big, soft, thick and buttery tortilla. Anyway, it was all just so great. The couscous on this trip was also fantastic and somehow was just sooo much better than the other couscous I’ve had here. We also had rice pudding when it was really cold and the mint tea, Berber style, had an extra herb that made it extra amazing. The only downfall to the food (but this is not unique to rural life) was the immense amount of sugar used in EVERYTHING. It’s scary how much sugar they go through actually. What they don’t use is salt, so they don’t have issues with sodium, but they more than make up for that in the diabetes I’m sure all old people have.
Day by day play black:
So this whole program in Oulmes was affiliated with a local association in town called Anwar—this was our meeting ground, and where our two advisors stayed. We arrived there on Saturday afternoon and had a welcoming lunch and tea. This town was so so so excited to have us there. They were very hospitable and there were so many people from the town there awaiting our arrival. There were many introductions—including making all 26 of us introduce ourselves in Arabic!—and a lot of local people did their best to introduce themselves in English which I thought was so noble! It would be hard to get up in front of a group of young Americans and speak their native language that you were very new at learning. I was impressed. I also felt so welcomed it was very nice.
One of the biggest things our academic advisor said to us before we left was to think about not only what we are getting out of this town for our own learning benefit, but what this town is getting from us. We don’t want to be a nuisance but we also want to make sure they are housing us and hosting us because they genuinely want to. He also mentioned that we really are the last generation that will be able to have the opportunity to see what it’s like to live without any of the technology we are so used to in our everyday lives. Even in this small town, only 3 of the 13 houses we all stayed at didn’t have electricity or a toilet (I was of course in one of those 3 but I loved it and am grateful I got to really experience life that way). But even in my house, several people even had cell phones! So this lifestyle without any contact to the outside world is coming to a close and I’m really glad I got to see it first hand before it’s obsolete.
I mentioned this because I wanted to say that during our introduction time at the association, 8 different cell phones went off during that one hour. And none of them were ours! I thought that was just so surreal and it really spoke to what our AD was saying before we left. I was assuming I was being sent to this Podunk village where everyone lived in straw huts... and I was massively wrong. Even in the poorest communities cell phones WILL haunt groups of people trying to have a polite meeting. Hahaha
So then we took a small group tour of the city itself. It’s very very small town—simply made up of about 5 square blocks and then a large unfinished housing project where some houses were finished and people were living in them and some were not. I think it was the kind of thing where people spend years and years—sometimes decades—to build a house for themselves; just waiting for more money to come in to add on slowly. Within these projects is where the sister Fatiha lived with her family and their house was definitely finished and very nice, but she lived directly next to vacant lots.
Then we got picked up by our families and my dad, Haammi came and got 6 of us (Sarah S. and Sarah L. lived with our neighbors so they were part of our little group as well from time to time). We drove in Achmed’s car down some very dark windy roads and arrived and our family was so thrilled to see us. We sat around and played music and danced and chatted for hours, I was just so happy and comfortable there—I was shocked I felt this way because I expected the opposite effect! But it was lovely.
So Sunday morning we woke up before 7 because that’s when the rooster and the sheep wake up and Wardia and Moujub took us on a walk around the land and there was such a beautiful view! You could see into the valley and across the mountains for miles! It was very very gorgeous. They told us about these caves that exists down in the valley so we decided to try go on a little hike to find them. Welllll that little hike turned in to a 5 ½ hour hike which wasn’t too bad going down. But coming up was another dreadful story that I have tried to block out of my memory. I’m just not one for hiking in the first place but it was a beautiful day that was cool enough that we never got hot but never too cold either. Overall, it was a great way to spend the morning even though we never made it all the way to the caves themselves because they forgot to mention you needed to literally rock climb to get there and we thought falling to our death on the first day in the village wasn’t the way to go. We did get close to them and took photos… it was cool. When we got back we took a little nap—life on the farm is very simple and I do appreciate that! I can also understand going from being used to that every day to the big city would be a shocking experience. We also discovered today that baby goats are, by far, without a doubt, THE cuuuutest baby animal. (I later found out that baby donkeys are the ugggggliest baby animal.) This little goat though just pranced around and hopped and hopped and hopped. Adooorable.
Monday after breakfast our mom and sisters insisted we play dress up so they gave us their prettiest jalabas and kaftans that are only worn for special occasions and we took like a MILLLION photos. Hahaha but I was very nice of them and they were beautiful gowns! Then we went for a little walk and met Sarah and Sarah (there are 5 Sarahs on this trip by the way). They had also played dress up earlier that day but their new mamma didn’t really think of is as game so much as a reality. They had to wear jalabas everyday and couldn’t wear their tennis shoes and got hennas and wore traditional Berber makeup every day. AAHAHAHA it was hilarious but they were really good sports and didn’t mind at all so they definitely got pared with the right family. At 3 pm we had to walk the 2-3 miles into town for part of our program at the association. It was good to see everyone and find out how their home stays were going. The planned program for the day was to chat with locals of the town and high school students and just have a dialog with them about culture, language etc. but what it turned into was a “we hate America party” which, I’ll just say, was not very fun. It actually put me in a horrible mood. They asked very difficult and sometimes absurd questions ranging from “what do you think of Arabs” to “Why is your government giving arms (specifically tanks and missiles) to Israel to KILL Palestinians?” I don’t know!! I didn’t vote for George Bush! First of all, none of us were of age to vote in the last election and we wouldn’t have voted for him anyway! I couldn’t beeelive it. Ok so it’s important to note that this was a Berber village, so they don’t speak Arabic and don’t consider themselves Arab. This issue over ethnicity is a very big one in Morocco right now and there seems to be a pretty apparent ethnic battle of Berber v. Arabs throughout the county in different degrees. So these people, who are not Arab, were also kind of offended that we came to Morocco to study Arabic not their Berber language because that’s “what is really native to Morocco.” Anyway, I was glad to get out of there because it got a little bit too heated for those circumstances. That night we got henna done on our hands and I was so grateful we got pretty designs and not the traditional Berber henna which is just the entire palm covered like you were finger painting with bright orange paint. Almost everyone else got that traditional henna which is so heinous. But ours was nice and pretty with lots of flowers J
Tuesday is souk day in Oulmes. Souk just means market in Arabic and most small towns like this just chose one day of the week for lots of vendors to set up shops and sell things. Places like Rabat don’t really have a souk once a week because there is pretty much a souk everyday because the city is so big and the medina is always hoppin. It was in a souk that I thought I was going to be trampled to death a few weeks ago when I went to the waterfalls but this time it wasn’t nearly as crowded. BUT it also happened to be an awful awful rainy, cold AWFUL day outside. In the end, we survived but souk day sucked! We were all given a little money from our program to buy our family gifts. So we were there long enough to spend our money and we bought them lots of great things. But it was pouring rain and the ground turned into this awful muddy mess that my tennis shoes were not cut out for. We finally told our sister we had to leave because we just couldn’t take any more but then of course… we still had the 3 mile walk back to the house! This is another moment I’ve kind of blocked out of my memory but we were all just so so so cold and miserable we wanted to cry. But of course, there was no possibility for a ride back so we did have to trek it and walk back. By the time we made it back the rain kind of slowed and inside our house a big, warm pot of coals was waiting in the living room to warm our toes. And they served us delicious rice pudding and all of a sudden we didn’t hate Morocco once again. This is a great example of the rollercoaster effect I was talking about: we went from suicidal misery to absolute bliss in a matter of minutes! Later that night we gave the family our bundle of gifts we bought and they were so grateful and so happy! It was a very good idea for SIT to have us buy gifts for them because they just loved it!
With souk day behind us, we woke up Wednesday and had this amazing fried bread for breakfast that was like carnival bread with lots of sugarJ Then we went with our SIT group again and went to the Sidi Ali factory. Sidi Ali is the brand of every water bottle in the entire country and this factory is one of the only, if not the only, huge mechanized factory in the entire country so it’s a big deal to the community and factories are so cool so I was glad we went. So that was the highlight of that day but that night I experienced the worst night of sleep, maybe in my entire life. Our sleeping situation is this: In the big room, where everyone sleeps, we have a sheep skin per person laid down on the ground then a big blanket over that, then on top of us we have three big wool blankets. So first of all sleeping on the cement floor, even with the warm sheepskin underneath us is awful and very very uncomfortable. (I missed my couch in Rabat so much!) But it was also very cold this night and Leah somehow stole all the heavy blankets. So even though I had 3 layers of clothes on, I was freezing to death. It was awful and I was glad for the day to come.
Thursday was our last full day there and we woke up and it was actually pretty sunny so we wondered around with the sheep for awhile then took a blanket up on the roof and sat in the sun and read for a few hours. Then we had lunch and it was couscous again because they knew we loved it. We were served the biggest bowl/mountain of couscous I’ve ever seen! It was enormous!! But delicious, too! Then we walked to Lubna’s school where we ended up just being a distraction. Although we got to see the classrooms and the kids, we didn’t actually get to really see a class in action because our being there obviously outweighed the necessity to learn hahaha. So we had to leave in order for them to actually have class, but it wasn’t too bad. It was nice to see the school at all.
So another thing to mention is the fact that the view of the stars at night was one of the most incredible views I‘ve ever seen! On a clear light, with no light pollution, I could have stayed out there for hours! It was so beautiful!
Friday morning we woke up, had breakfast and got picked up around 10:30. I was so sad saying goodbye, but at the same time we were so ready to leave. Not only had we not showered in a week, we hadn’t washed our faces either and I just felt icccccky. We did get to brush our teeth with water bottles every day thank goodness although our family thought it was a very bizarre concept. I was also tired of being perpetually cold and I’d been wearing every pair of socks I owned—needless to say I wanted to take them off after a full week of never doing so.
So the moral of this story was that the village stay has probably been the highlight of this trip for me. I now appreciate toilets in a big way, but also understand that they aren’t the necessity I once thought. I feel that way about a lot of things really. This family hardly produces waste in any form and they are also so loving and their family dynamics fascinate me. And although many times I was very cold, at least it didn’t ever snow!!!
Friday, October 24, 2008
I'm living in a rural village for a week...?
So it’s not really been the best past few days—mostly because the weather is beyond awful. Monday was gorgeous but we must have jinxed it because since then it’s been raining and freeeezing. Probably 20 degrees less than what it’s been! And I simply do not have the appropriate apparel for this weather! I only have tennis shoes that are not water proof and no rain jacket or umbrella. Who knew I should have packed an umbrella! I surely didn’t. But, then again, I had no idea how much walking outside I would do on a daily basis. (I do love that aspect of living in the medina of a big city though. Everything is so dense, that although it’s lots of twists and turns, we can walk practically anywhere or take a taxi for a few dollars… it’s a new way of life I’ve never experienced in my normal routine.) Anyway… today was just an awful, depressing day because we had to do so much walking in the rain and I was soaked. AND we’re leaving for the village stay on Saturday and apparently it’s going to be even colder there... it MAY SNOW! Ugghhh I will be such a cranky bitch if it snows.
Ok, a few weeks ago, I was really excited for this trip, but it’s just too close, time wise, to our last trip. Plus I won’t have a toilet, we have to get our water from a well and I’ll not be able to communicate with the people I’m living with whatsoever. The Berbers have their own language entirely, and it’s not like I speak Arabic anyway. Except this time there’s no way these people with speak French or English. That should be a fascinating aspect of how all this is supposed to work. We have also been guaranteed that we will be sick and have some digestive/stomach/diarrhea issues no matter what. God, I can’t wait to have diarrhea in the middle of the night when I have to walk into the snow to use the bathroom… God knows what we’ll do for toilet paper! (Well that post should be soo delightful for you all to read!)
AND to top it all off, I have no physical cash to use to buy long sleeve shirts and socks for the trip so I have to borrow money from friends which isn’t that big of a deal because many people have offered to help me, I just hate having to ask and be a pest. I have also decided that borrowing money from my host family will probably be a bad idea even though they offered as well. Money can just be such a touchy subject in a different culture and I might not even get my new card until I move out of their house anyway. But hopefully I can borrow a small sum from a few different friends so they don’t all feel overwhelmed.
I wasn’t the only one who felt this way today either. We had Arabic “office hours” again today and in my group there were 4 of us and our teacher of course. (This story is going to hard to explain but…)My very funny, articulate, bright and somewhat cynical friend Elana, who I’ve come to really really like was trying to tell Fatiha (our teacher) why we were all so grumpy. She doesn’t speak English and none of us spoke French so the way we communicate without words always ends up involving a lot of laughing. At one point we were all just laughing so hard and then all of a sudden we were all kind of crying too! Elana was laughing so hard and was just like “oh my god I’m going to start crying” and she did! Then, my eyes swelled up—all the while we were laughing so so so hard. I couldn’t even tell if I was crying b/c I was laughing so hard or if I was really crying. It was this bizarre, somewhat surreal moment but it was nice because I knew I wasn’t alone in how I felt. It was the perfect way to express the emotion I was feeling. Laughing SO HARD and crying at the same time. It was actually the most amazing relief! Fatiha totally felt our pain and we only did a little Arabic and then she taught us how to “dance like the village people” (hahaha pun not intended but that’s funny!!) Apparently the Berbers/Moroccans who live in the rural areas have their own way of dancing—this includes keeping your arms straight at your sides and just dancing with your shoulders. It was really funny and it cheered me upJ
Anyway, all day we all kept talking about how lovely it would be to be in our own beds, eating our own food, watching our own movies… ugh I miss food. But tomorrow is Friday and we leave for the village on Saturday morning, but we have the entire afternoon tomorrow free so my plan is to do some skyping, buy some warm clothes, SHOWER (b/c I won’t do that for another week that’s for sure) and go have dinner with some friends before we are either vomiting or immediately pooping everything we eat.
Enjoy your week! Because while you all have warm beds and sunshine, I’ll be milking goats and having diarrhea in the woods…
Ok, a few weeks ago, I was really excited for this trip, but it’s just too close, time wise, to our last trip. Plus I won’t have a toilet, we have to get our water from a well and I’ll not be able to communicate with the people I’m living with whatsoever. The Berbers have their own language entirely, and it’s not like I speak Arabic anyway. Except this time there’s no way these people with speak French or English. That should be a fascinating aspect of how all this is supposed to work. We have also been guaranteed that we will be sick and have some digestive/stomach/diarrhea issues no matter what. God, I can’t wait to have diarrhea in the middle of the night when I have to walk into the snow to use the bathroom… God knows what we’ll do for toilet paper! (Well that post should be soo delightful for you all to read!)
AND to top it all off, I have no physical cash to use to buy long sleeve shirts and socks for the trip so I have to borrow money from friends which isn’t that big of a deal because many people have offered to help me, I just hate having to ask and be a pest. I have also decided that borrowing money from my host family will probably be a bad idea even though they offered as well. Money can just be such a touchy subject in a different culture and I might not even get my new card until I move out of their house anyway. But hopefully I can borrow a small sum from a few different friends so they don’t all feel overwhelmed.
I wasn’t the only one who felt this way today either. We had Arabic “office hours” again today and in my group there were 4 of us and our teacher of course. (This story is going to hard to explain but…)My very funny, articulate, bright and somewhat cynical friend Elana, who I’ve come to really really like was trying to tell Fatiha (our teacher) why we were all so grumpy. She doesn’t speak English and none of us spoke French so the way we communicate without words always ends up involving a lot of laughing. At one point we were all just laughing so hard and then all of a sudden we were all kind of crying too! Elana was laughing so hard and was just like “oh my god I’m going to start crying” and she did! Then, my eyes swelled up—all the while we were laughing so so so hard. I couldn’t even tell if I was crying b/c I was laughing so hard or if I was really crying. It was this bizarre, somewhat surreal moment but it was nice because I knew I wasn’t alone in how I felt. It was the perfect way to express the emotion I was feeling. Laughing SO HARD and crying at the same time. It was actually the most amazing relief! Fatiha totally felt our pain and we only did a little Arabic and then she taught us how to “dance like the village people” (hahaha pun not intended but that’s funny!!) Apparently the Berbers/Moroccans who live in the rural areas have their own way of dancing—this includes keeping your arms straight at your sides and just dancing with your shoulders. It was really funny and it cheered me upJ
Anyway, all day we all kept talking about how lovely it would be to be in our own beds, eating our own food, watching our own movies… ugh I miss food. But tomorrow is Friday and we leave for the village on Saturday morning, but we have the entire afternoon tomorrow free so my plan is to do some skyping, buy some warm clothes, SHOWER (b/c I won’t do that for another week that’s for sure) and go have dinner with some friends before we are either vomiting or immediately pooping everything we eat.
Enjoy your week! Because while you all have warm beds and sunshine, I’ll be milking goats and having diarrhea in the woods…
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Moroccan/ American dialog
Today we had a discussion session with some students from the big Moroccan university in Rabat. The discussion was based around “Moroccan perceptions of the US election.” So many many things were brought up, but I mostly wanted to write to say how interesting it was! First of all, we don’t really have any type of discussion in this program—that’s something it really lacks although overall it’s really been an amazing program. I guess I’m just used to a) being a sociology major and b) going to a college that THRIVES off dialogggg. So it was really refreshing simply to have a classroom discussion on any topic. And because that topic was something of a lot of substance, importance and that is just plain dynamic, thus interesting, it made it all the better.
So in our SIT group, we are firstly 90% female, and secondly 99.9% liberal (one guy claims to be socially liberal yet fiscally conservative) so that doesn’t really give any room for debate because we all pretty much agree! Haha I sometimes find myself playing devil’s advocate on things that I don’t agree with simply to heat things up!! I’m apparently addicted to debate—something Kansas left me with I supposeJ.
Although, the discussion we had today wasn’t necessarily in disagreement, it was just really interesting to hear the Moroccan perspective. First of all, they know more about what’s going on and what the candidates are really about than a LOT of Americans, but they are also a unique group of educated young Moroccans of a new, more progressive generation. So they didn’t necessarily represent the average Moroccan, just like we don’t represent the average American. But nonetheless, it was nice not only to have a real discussion on the election but to hear what they had to say and the questions they had for us as Americans.
One of the most interesting points brought up was the fact that none of them vote in their own domestic elections because they technically live in a monarchy and, understandably, find no meaning behind their individual vote. Granted, it’s a pretty progressive monarchy in the midst of flirting with democratization, the king still has grand authority over practically everything. So, in the end, what I really brought away from that discussion was how important even the act of voting is. Even in the US, many people, including myself, really question the importance behind my one miniscule vote in the general election. BUT talking about US history and the progress that has come from Barrack Obama even being up there as a front runner proves that standing up to something, to anything, IS meaningful and absolutely has an impact. We would not be hearing his name today had it not been for civil right movements generations ago. I think we too often dwell on the NOW and the short term effects of things. There is this idea that whoever the next president is will be considered a failure no matter what because they are being put into an office with already so many issues that it’s impossible to make them go away in just 4 years if even in 8. BUT, again, that’s if we look at the short term—which inevitably, in 4 years that is what we’ll be forced to do. But ya know, the reason I voted for Barack Obama, (in the state of Florida I will proudly add), is simply because even if he is unable to pull us out of this economic crisis, or worse, I’m still positive the attitude and hope he has inspired in young people and people of color all over the country will have a continuously positive effect way past his or my time. If anything, he’s truly an inspiration and honestly, if that’s all he is that’s still more than most human beings can say they’ve accomplished. Simply by him running, I personally am less pissed off at “politics” and there seems to actually be a reason to why we have a president again. I think too often inspiration and positive reinforcement is overlooked and underestimated. I believe the quote from Tuesday’s with Morrie is something along the lines of: “a teacher affects inerity: he can never tell where his influence stops."
So that was me thinking critically for the semester! Enjoy!
So in our SIT group, we are firstly 90% female, and secondly 99.9% liberal (one guy claims to be socially liberal yet fiscally conservative) so that doesn’t really give any room for debate because we all pretty much agree! Haha I sometimes find myself playing devil’s advocate on things that I don’t agree with simply to heat things up!! I’m apparently addicted to debate—something Kansas left me with I supposeJ.
Although, the discussion we had today wasn’t necessarily in disagreement, it was just really interesting to hear the Moroccan perspective. First of all, they know more about what’s going on and what the candidates are really about than a LOT of Americans, but they are also a unique group of educated young Moroccans of a new, more progressive generation. So they didn’t necessarily represent the average Moroccan, just like we don’t represent the average American. But nonetheless, it was nice not only to have a real discussion on the election but to hear what they had to say and the questions they had for us as Americans.
One of the most interesting points brought up was the fact that none of them vote in their own domestic elections because they technically live in a monarchy and, understandably, find no meaning behind their individual vote. Granted, it’s a pretty progressive monarchy in the midst of flirting with democratization, the king still has grand authority over practically everything. So, in the end, what I really brought away from that discussion was how important even the act of voting is. Even in the US, many people, including myself, really question the importance behind my one miniscule vote in the general election. BUT talking about US history and the progress that has come from Barrack Obama even being up there as a front runner proves that standing up to something, to anything, IS meaningful and absolutely has an impact. We would not be hearing his name today had it not been for civil right movements generations ago. I think we too often dwell on the NOW and the short term effects of things. There is this idea that whoever the next president is will be considered a failure no matter what because they are being put into an office with already so many issues that it’s impossible to make them go away in just 4 years if even in 8. BUT, again, that’s if we look at the short term—which inevitably, in 4 years that is what we’ll be forced to do. But ya know, the reason I voted for Barack Obama, (in the state of Florida I will proudly add), is simply because even if he is unable to pull us out of this economic crisis, or worse, I’m still positive the attitude and hope he has inspired in young people and people of color all over the country will have a continuously positive effect way past his or my time. If anything, he’s truly an inspiration and honestly, if that’s all he is that’s still more than most human beings can say they’ve accomplished. Simply by him running, I personally am less pissed off at “politics” and there seems to actually be a reason to why we have a president again. I think too often inspiration and positive reinforcement is overlooked and underestimated. I believe the quote from Tuesday’s with Morrie is something along the lines of: “a teacher affects inerity: he can never tell where his influence stops."
So that was me thinking critically for the semester! Enjoy!
Monday, October 20, 2008
My money crisis
Day 1 (Saturday afternoon): Everything’s going so well. I have the entire day to check e-mail and spend time on the internet. I casually stop by an ATM on the way to the internet café because I’m out of cash. My one and only debit card that has worked 10 times already in the same city, at the same ATM, decides it’s done giving me money. I put the card in the machine and it simply does not give it back. I have a quick panic attack and an out of body experience. I just kind of froze next to the machine. The only other thing I have is an emergency credit card my parents gave me—but even in an emergency, credit cards don’t work as automatic cash. Credit cards are also not taken by the man selling oranges and t-shirts out of a basket in the Rabat medina—believe it or not. I have no cash money, and no way to get any.
I walked, in an absolute daze, to the internet café, called my parents an instantly broke down into obnoxious tears. They probably thought I had been mugged or something much worse (Mom and Paul: I apologize for the drama by the way). We figured out together that I can either use the credit card when that’s available, or they can wire money to me if I am unable to get a new card.
I e-mailed my bank and asked what was going on, and what I need to do to get that card or another card to me as soon as possible… hopefully they e-mail me back asap.
Day 2: I can hardly sleep because I’m totally freaking out about this issue. Although I realize much MUCH worse could have happened, I just hate that this added stress is all of a sudden in my life!!! I was lying in bed thinking “my life is suuuuucks” when I remembered my friend CB getting that call about her brother when we were on the train back from Tangier and I wanted to slap myself in the face. My money is still there at least! This isn’t really the crisis I turned it into yesterday. I just have to go out of my way to retrieve my money. MUCH worse could have happened. And, thankfully, I told my host family and they were very sympathetic, as well. My sister is going to go with me tomorrow afternoon to the bank that took the card and hopefully they might have some answers. I also added up in my head how much money I probably need for the rest of my trip, if my parents need to wire it to me, and that was actually a very soothing activity that made me feel a little bit less out of control. If I’ve learned anything from this thus far, it’s that I really hate not being in control. As much as it may not seem on the outside, organization—especially MY individual organization of self—is such an important factor to my sanity.
I have 50 dirhams that has to last me a while? (That’s like 7 dollars) My host family told me they would also lend me money until I could pay them back which was very generous and very nice of them as well.
Ughhhh this is simply annoying!
Later this evening I checked my e-mail and Bank of America wrote back saying that “there has been a hold placed on my card” but to get another one sent to me I simply need to verify my new address and a new card will be sent in 4-16 business days. (By the way, 4-16 is a big difference! I hope I’m closer to the 4 side or it might not actually get into my hands until December) fingers crossed…
Also... on a very different, brighter note, last night I went with a few friends to a “Tex Mex” restaurant in the rich part of Rabat—a part of the town I had yet to actually go to—and my burrito and margarita was literally to die for. I mean the rice was saffron rice not Spanish rice, but it was muy delicioso nonetheless. When I got home tonight, I big plate of spaghetti was waiting for me. But I was so excited to eat SPAGHETTI I didn’t really stop and think about how much was on the plate. I remember thinking once I dove in that I should, under no circumstance, actually eat this entire plate. But 3 and ahalf minutes later it was gone… I had no self control. But this is really making the spaghetti sound more spectacular than it was. It had a texture more similar the play-dough version we used to make in grade school and it somehow actually tasted like play-dough too. (Seriously though, what could have possibly been put into it that made it literally taste like play-dough?! I’m flummoxed really!) But apparently neither of those factors was enough to stop me from consuming 3 servings of it. I complain about all the bread but somehow allow myself that many noodles? I make no sense I agree…
ALSO I discovered what it was that I thought was so so so delicious (I believe I said “the best thing I’ve ever eaten”) the first week I was here. It’s called pastilla. I understand this is not a new concept outside Morocco, but it was new to me, and I had a little mini chicken pastilla pastry for a snack today which was also incredible.
I walked, in an absolute daze, to the internet café, called my parents an instantly broke down into obnoxious tears. They probably thought I had been mugged or something much worse (Mom and Paul: I apologize for the drama by the way). We figured out together that I can either use the credit card when that’s available, or they can wire money to me if I am unable to get a new card.
I e-mailed my bank and asked what was going on, and what I need to do to get that card or another card to me as soon as possible… hopefully they e-mail me back asap.
Day 2: I can hardly sleep because I’m totally freaking out about this issue. Although I realize much MUCH worse could have happened, I just hate that this added stress is all of a sudden in my life!!! I was lying in bed thinking “my life is suuuuucks” when I remembered my friend CB getting that call about her brother when we were on the train back from Tangier and I wanted to slap myself in the face. My money is still there at least! This isn’t really the crisis I turned it into yesterday. I just have to go out of my way to retrieve my money. MUCH worse could have happened. And, thankfully, I told my host family and they were very sympathetic, as well. My sister is going to go with me tomorrow afternoon to the bank that took the card and hopefully they might have some answers. I also added up in my head how much money I probably need for the rest of my trip, if my parents need to wire it to me, and that was actually a very soothing activity that made me feel a little bit less out of control. If I’ve learned anything from this thus far, it’s that I really hate not being in control. As much as it may not seem on the outside, organization—especially MY individual organization of self—is such an important factor to my sanity.
I have 50 dirhams that has to last me a while? (That’s like 7 dollars) My host family told me they would also lend me money until I could pay them back which was very generous and very nice of them as well.
Ughhhh this is simply annoying!
Later this evening I checked my e-mail and Bank of America wrote back saying that “there has been a hold placed on my card” but to get another one sent to me I simply need to verify my new address and a new card will be sent in 4-16 business days. (By the way, 4-16 is a big difference! I hope I’m closer to the 4 side or it might not actually get into my hands until December) fingers crossed…
Also... on a very different, brighter note, last night I went with a few friends to a “Tex Mex” restaurant in the rich part of Rabat—a part of the town I had yet to actually go to—and my burrito and margarita was literally to die for. I mean the rice was saffron rice not Spanish rice, but it was muy delicioso nonetheless. When I got home tonight, I big plate of spaghetti was waiting for me. But I was so excited to eat SPAGHETTI I didn’t really stop and think about how much was on the plate. I remember thinking once I dove in that I should, under no circumstance, actually eat this entire plate. But 3 and ahalf minutes later it was gone… I had no self control. But this is really making the spaghetti sound more spectacular than it was. It had a texture more similar the play-dough version we used to make in grade school and it somehow actually tasted like play-dough too. (Seriously though, what could have possibly been put into it that made it literally taste like play-dough?! I’m flummoxed really!) But apparently neither of those factors was enough to stop me from consuming 3 servings of it. I complain about all the bread but somehow allow myself that many noodles? I make no sense I agree…
ALSO I discovered what it was that I thought was so so so delicious (I believe I said “the best thing I’ve ever eaten”) the first week I was here. It’s called pastilla. I understand this is not a new concept outside Morocco, but it was new to me, and I had a little mini chicken pastilla pastry for a snack today which was also incredible.
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