AdventuresintheMaghreb

One of my closest friends in Morocco is a senior in high school named Chahrazad, who I met in my first few weeks in Rabat. She’s hoping to attend university in the States, and we generally get together once a week to catch up, pore over her college essays, study for the SAT, and work on improving my Arabic. Her wonderful family very kindly invited me to come with them to Chahrazad cousin’s wedding in Oujda, a town in eastern Morocco smack dab on the Algerian border. So we set out one Saturday morning from Rabat, drove eight hours through the beautiful winding mountain ranges, and finally arrived in Oujda. I had been warned by my host family that Oujda was one of the most traditional areas in Morocco. And indeed, it was a strikingly different Morocco from the one I’m used to – the streets were entirely populated by men, all of the women in Chahrazad’s extended family were veiled, and women and men didn’t eat or socialize together for the majority of the weekend.

The first major element of a Moroccan wedding is the henna party, which is strictly for women. On Sunday morning the men were banished from the house, and the bride, clad in an elaborate robe of moss green velvet and lace complete with veil and tiara, sat for four hours while a henna artist covered every inch of her hands, wrists, feet and ankles with beautifully intricate designs.

The bride with her completed henna designs

The women, garbed in variations of colorful Moroccan festival dresses (qaftans – long flowing dresses with a high mandarin collar or takshetas – a sleeveless underrobe with a gauzy overrobe) danced, ate pastries and tea, and sat and gossiped. I had borrowed two lovely takshetas from Doha, our program director at Amideast, so I joined in the with the rest of them, puzzling out the Moroccan Arabic flying thick and fast around me, and trying desperately to speak coherently whenever anyone addressed me!

Chahrazad and her mother, both wonderful dancers, at the henna party

When it was time for the men to return, I walked out with most of the women to the start of the neighborhood, where the groom waited, clad in a traditional djellaba (full-length white robe) with the members of his family and a ghinnawa band, groups of men who play and dance at any Moroccan festival. Two of the groom’s cousins carried gifts for the bride piled on their heads – platters of dates and pastries and new ceremonial robes. We all processed back to the bride’s house, clapping along to the ghinnawa beat and (in my case) trying desperately to keep from tripping over our long skirts and heels.

Wedding procession back to the bride's house

Intermittently someone would start up the age-old Moroccan wedding invocation, a wonderful hoarse, guttural chant repeated by everyone in the procession: “Slaaa, slaaa, rullah! Ilehhh, jinaa ‘ala Si Mohammed! Jii ruslaaa, subna Allah!” Neighbors piled out onto the street to see the wedding procession, and I had more than one curious glance directed my way – a tall blonde foreigner dressed like a Moroccan, chanting and chatting along with everyone else. There is no tourism in Oujda, and very little investment, so I was even more of an oddity than I am normally in Morocco!

Me and Chahrazad at the henna party!

After arriving back at the house, men arrived to recite the Qu’ran, which only the men are permitted to be in the room to listen to. I stayed in the kitchen and helped the bride’s mother and aunts prepare yet another huge meal, while everyone silently mouthed the words to the Qu’ranic recitations. We served the men and I headed upstairs with most of Chahrazad’s girl cousins to eat bastilla – a mouthwatering concoction of layers of flaky pastry, chicken, almonds, cinnamon and powdered sugar. It was a lot of fun to talk to these young women, to gossip and relax after having been on my best behavior for the past two days lest I make some sort of cultural mishap and embarrass Chahrazad and her family. I learned that the bride and groom were a love match, having met in El Jadida, the groom’s hometown far to the south and continued their courtship long-distance. We traded stories late into the night and finally tumbled, exhausted, onto couches at the home of one of Chahrazad’s uncles and slept like the dead.

On Monday morning, the day of the wedding, I went out with Chahrazad, her parents, and her older brother who studies in Paris but flew in for the wedding. I had mentioned how interested I was in Algeria, so we drove half an hour east to Juj Brehl, the garrison on the Algerian-Moroccan border. Algeria and Morocco don’t have diplomatic relations because of their quarrel over the Western Sahara, a desert region south of Morocco which Moroccans consider as part of their territory. Algeria, however, funds the independence movement and insurgency. It’s a very sensitive subject in Morocco, but many people seem wistful that they’re cut off from their North African neighbors. In the recent African Cup finals, for example, everyone that I talked to supported Algeria over Egypt. Juj Brehl, the border area, literally means “the two stubborn asses,” a dig at the Moroccan and Algerian administrations’ refusals to come to terms.

Pictures of the border were forbidden, so I clandestinely snapped this one from the backseat of the car, and then we drove away very quickly!

Chahrazad’s father is from Oujda, and he proved a wonderful source of information about the region. We talked about cross-border smuggling (Moroccan smugglers receive weapons from Algeria which they then ship to Casablanca to become part of the international black market in arms, while the Algerian smugglers are provided with high-demand items such as blue jeans and dishwasher detergent. It reminded me of Soviet-era Russia!), and the late King Hassan II’s dislike of the region, which led to its neglect and current state of poverty. In spite of (or perhaps because of?) royal disdain, people from Oujda are fiercely attached to their hometown, and when they travel, think longingly of “Oujda habiba” (my darling Oujda).

One of my favorite moments the entire trip happened when we paused along a winding mountain road to snap pictures of the parallel road just fifty feet away which was in Algeria. As we snapped pictures of the cars passing by (noticeably older and shabbier than their counterparts on the Moroccan side), an Algerian family noticed us, pulled to the side of the road, and got out of their cars to wave to us. As we stood there, I’m sure they were wondering, as I was, what life is like on the other side.

Me with Chahrazad's family and Algeria in the background behind us

In the afternoon, Chahrazad, her mother, and I stopped by a local beauty salon to get our hair and makeup done. I was a little apprehensive, not necessarily having the Arabic to convey what I wanted, and so my relationship with my hairdresser became a little fractious: at one point, she was literally chasing me around the room with a can of hairspray, while I protected my head from her attempts! I ended up with a combined up-do and bouffant worthy of a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, which I surreptitiously doctored as soon as she finished. I also instructed the woman doing my makeup by pointing to other women in the room and firmly saying, “I want less eyeshadow than her. A lot less.” Finally beautified to within an inch of our lives, we went back to the house, put on our fanciest festival robes, and went off to the wedding!

The actual wedding ceremony, witnessed only by the bride and groom’s parents, had taken place earlier that morning. The wedding party, however, attended by several hundred of their closest friends and family, was held in a reception hall outside of town. I am firmly convinced that Moroccan wedding parties can give McNamara ones a run for their money! I have never had so much fun in my life. The bride and groom processed in at the beginning, dressed in the first of what would be six separate ensembles, accompanied by musicians, and the party began.

Everyone sat down to a feast of chicken, lamb and olives (the women and men again separate, which I was informed by Chahrazad is extremely traditional; families are generally seated together) and as soon as we had finished, the dancing began! We danced from about 11 at night to five in the morning, sitting occasionally to watch the bride and groom display a new outfit. Each ensemble was carefully coordinated and dazzling, and it provided a nice break to rest and watch for a bit. I had made friends with most of Chahrazad’s girl cousins the night before, which made it much easier for me to find people to dance with. I was very grateful for my belly-dancing class last semester, because it gave me just enough knowledge and confidence to dance and enjoy myself.

Moroccan dance party!

The dancing finally broke off when it started to get very cold (nights are freezing in Oujda this time of year), so we all sent the bride and groom off in their bedecked car and headed home ourselves.

I slept for maybe three hours and then got up to take the eight hour train back to Rabat, arriving back home tired but exhilarated. Going to this wedding was definitely an experience that I wouldn’t have gotten to see any other way, and it definitely remains one of my favorite Moroccan memories.

Hello again from Rabat! I know that I have been horribly, inexcusably remiss in writing this blog, and I apologize for that. I got caught up in finals, papers, and travel planning for my winter break, and completely got out of the habit of writing. But now that I’m settled back in Morocco, hopefully I’ll be better at keeping up.

I promise at some point I will tell the story of my adventures over winter break, spending a magical Christmas in Northern Ireland with Aunt Paige, Uncle Rob and my cousins, going to London for New Year’s and seeing the fireworks over the Thames River, and falling in love with Istanbul during my week in Turkey. But that will have to keep for another rainy day.

I am thrilled to be back in Rabat for another semester, and I can already tell that time is speeding by. I’m living with my same host family, who keep telling me how much they missed me over break, and how hard it will be to say goodbye in May. My host dad keeps asking me about possible jobs I could have in Morocco, and my host mom about possible husbands I could meet and marry here, both as strategies to persuade me to stay! If nothing else, they tell me, I have to come back to visit. “Wallah!” my host brothers make me say: “I promise.”

Me with Maman and my little brother Mamoune in Rabat

I’ve got a whole slew of exciting classes and activities this semester, and am a little worried about being overcommitted, but I think I can juggle everything. I’m continuing with my study of Modern Standard Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, and Media Arabic (so I can watch the evening news and not be completely lost!). My new classes are The Islamic World and the West – which is fascinating, we’re doing a study of Moorish Spain at the moment – and Amazigh History and Culture, which focuses on Morocco’s indigenous population (otherwise known as Berbers). In addition, I’m interning at the Association Démocratique des Femmes du Maroc (the Democratic Association of Moroccan Women), Morocco’s oldest women’s rights organization. It’s a vibrant, fascinating place to work and I do a little bit of everything, from translation of human rights reports between English, French and Arabic, to combing newspapers and magazines for articles relating to our mission, to administrative work for their shelter for battered women. I’m also teaching English classes, taking yoga and painting, and of course trying to find time to travel in the midst of everything!

There’s a whole new group of students at Amideast, the organization where I take classes. Most people only spend a semester in Morocco, although there are five other girls besides myself from the last group. It makes for a completely new dynamic, and as I live by myself now since my roommate from last semester is back in the States, I’m still getting to know people.

One exciting thing I have to look forward to is Dad, Mom and Will’s visit to Morocco at the end of March! We’re starting out in Madrid, spending a few days in Marrakesh, and then the rest of the time in Rabat as I have to be there for classes. Travel plans are flying back and forth fast and furious on both ends, and I can’t wait to see them and to have them see my world here. Will’s already asking me to teach him useful phrases in Arabic (of course, his idea of useful is “thou son of a jackal!”) so I’m sure we’ll have a lot of stories to tell at the end of their visit.

This post is already a bit long, so I’m going to end here and pick up with the tale of my trip to a very traditional Moroccan wedding in Oujda, as far east as you can go in Morocco before literally running into Algeria! Stay tuned!

For the past few weeks, I had been seeing these flyers all over Rabat, advertising the week-long “Fantasia d’El Jadida.” El Jadida is a town about three hours south of Rabat, known as a quiet beach resort. A fantasia (the name in Arabic is “Game of Gunpowder”) is a traditional equestrian performance held during cultural festivals in Morocco, or at Berber (nomadic tribesmen) weddings. The whole thing is hugely nationalistic, evoking images of proud desert knights roaming the Sahara with naught but a rifle, a tent, and an Arabian stallion.

So needless to say, I was determined to go. Thus began the luckiest weekend I’ve ever experienced! I started researching hotels online, only to be dismayed at how everything in town was booked because of the 150,000 people flooding into town to see the fantasia. My last call was to the Dar Del Mare, a tiny inn in the old Portuguese city on the coast. It turns out that they had just had a cancellation, and I snapped up the room without having anything else settled: train tickets, travelling companions, nothing. A Moroccan friend of mine here heard that I was going to the fantasia, and mentioned that her family had two “invitations” to the show that they wouldn’t be using. Without understanding quite what these invitations were, I was happy to take them on the off chance that they would be useful. So my friend Alyssa and I headed down on the train after classes on Friday, arriving Friday evening. We were met in the Cité Portugaise by Monsieur Lionel, the lovely old French gentleman who runs the inn, which turned out to be a jewel box of a home:

The terrace outside our room

We drank mint tea and chatted with him, during which I learned that Morocco is corrupting my French! M. Lionel found it hysterical that I would unconsciously pepper my sentences with darija Arabic. I have even greater respect for Moroccan language abilities than I did before, because people switch flawlessly between languages seemingly without even thinking about it. My dream now is to get to that point.

Alyssa and I then hurried off to see the show, which was at a stadium outside of town. The entrance where the taxi driver dropped us off just happened to have a mini-riot taking place! Fuming Moroccan families clutched the very same invitations I had in my bag, brandishing them at the security guards who were refusing to let them through the gate. “But we have invitations!” shouted one woman. “We’re not stupid, we have a right to get in!” yelled another. Alyssa and I looked bemusedly at each other, trying to understand as much of the rapid-fire Arabic as we could to figure out what was going on. Somehow or other, the guards capitulated, and we hurried through the gate, expecting at any moment to be turned back. On our way to the main theatre, we were stopped at another checkpoint. Here we finally got a real explanation from one of the young guards preventing people from entering the hall; he puffed out his chest impressively and explained that “the king of Morocco and his family are here to watch the show, and it’s my job to protect them.” Unfortunately for us, the extra security meant that there were no more seating in the hall. Disappointed, everyone milled around the barrier, trying to explain to their children why they couldn’t go in and see the horses. It was an intensely proletarian feeling, to be part of the masses up against the establishment! Alyssa and I were at the front of the crowd, and starting talking with some of the families near us.

The next thing I knew, the whispered consultations going on behind the barrier resulted in an announcement that they had places for ten people in the hall. A group of djellaba-clad Moroccan men near us winked in camaraderie at Alyssa and me, told the security guards that we were with their group, and all but shoved us through the barrier!  All of a sudden I was sitting in front-row seats in a packed auditorium, watching the fantasia!

The show was more of a circus than anything else, with different equestrian acts from all around the world. We saw a funny little Scottish man who had more than a passing resemblance to Sean Connery perform a Chaplin-esque routine of being unable to control his recalcitrant horse, four Belgian brothers crack gunpowder whips in unison and perform amazing stunts (have you ever seen a horse jump into the air and click its hooves together?), a Spanish man with a beautiful flowing Arabian perform a matador routine, and Tibetan archers shoot flaming arrows from horseback towards human targets! But the real point of the evening was the Moroccan spectacle. The lights dimmed, and a few lone musicians began a sinuous, serpentine melody. The crowd broke into a spontaneous cheer as fierce desert tribesmen riding pure-white Arabian stallions thundered out, firing their rifles in unison and presenting a very intimidating sight. My favorite (and also most terrifying) moment was having a line of riders gallop towards me at full speed, continuing long past the point where they should have slowed down, and finally pulling up two inches from my nose! All together, it was an evening of pure fun, just to get lost in the excitement and wonder of the spectacle.

Imagine this roaring towards you!

The next morning, we went on a walking tour of the beach, which was lovely. I’ve now been in the Atlantic Ocean in New Jersey, Ireland, and Morocco – three continents! Wandering through the town, which is calm and the least touristic place I’ve been so far in Morocco, I noticed signs that called El Jadida…”The Deauville of Morocco”! Of course any McNamara reading this has the same point of reference that I do, and I love that I can find a Strathmere connection thousands of miles in Morocco. A bit of research revealed that Deauville is a town in the northwest of France, and has been “a fashionable holiday resort for the international upper class since the 19^th century.” Our Deauville Inn is more pedigreed than we thought!

Alyssa and I wandered the beach, marveling at the fact that we’re spending a day in the end of October on the beach, and found lunch at a hole-in-the-wall right on the beach. Being on the coast of course means seafood, and my three dollar “variety” plate consisted of me watching in not a little alarm as the large jolly Moroccan woman, who obviously ruled the kitchen with an iron fist heaped a platter with shrimp, calimari, mussels, and every type of fish under the sun!

We came back to the hotel, drank one last glass of tea with M. Lionel, and prepared to depart. I jokingly asked him if he needed any employees, since I would happily live here, and he immediately replied, to my great surprise, that I would be very welcome! “I need someone to manage the hotel and attract more tourists, and you speak English, French, and Arabic,” he told me, “so give me a call when you finish your studies.” So here’s my first indication that learning languages actually will help me find a job! Who knows, if I graduate without any idea of what to do, I might decide to take him up on it!

Alyssa and I in my future home?

This week was midterms, which I have just finished and am celebrating by writing this blog post, which I have been meaning to do all week. We’re headed off tomorrow morning with Amideast for a three-day trip to Tangier and Chefchaoun in the north of Morocco and Ceuta in Spain! So I should have many more adventures to write about very soon! Love to everyone!

p.s. The rest of my photos are here from this weekend: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=119155&id=676158521&l=99acb462a1

Hello from sunny Rabat! The weather here definitely has not realized that we’re in the middle of October, and neither have I! I can’t believe that I’ve been almost two months here. The semester is speeding by: we have midterms next week, trips planned almost every weekend, and it will be December before I know it.

I’m stealing a quiet moment at home to type, since I’ve been very remiss in emailing lately. Well, quiet is a relative term, since my Maman just bustled in with mint tea, insisting “Kulee, Kathryn!” which is the Moroccan version of the stereotypical Italian grandmother urging her flock to “Manga, manga!” And then Mamoune wants to know if we can finish watching the Lord of the Rings movie that we started over the weekend. The film doesn’t have French subtitles, so I’m acting as a one-woman translation service! It’s certainly forcing me to reach far back into my dim store of French vocabulary (the word for bow and arrow, anyone? How about “One ring to rule them all”!?). And then Amine wants to find my house on GoogleEarth, so we spent a half hour looking at satellite images of my street. The boys were wide-eyed at the idea that I had squirrels, deer, hawks and the occasional fox or raccoon in my backyard, and it was fun to have something exotic to show them for a change. They LOVED the pictures I pulled up of G’ma and G’pa’s farm in Kentucky, and have started pestering their parents to take them horseback riding!

I have yoga class this evening, which is one of my favorite parts of the week. There are very few safe spaces here where I can truly be, without having to worry about language or harassment or culture, and it’s lovely to just spend an hour catching up with myself and recharging.

The most exciting thing in the past couple weeks was definitely the Amideast-sponsored trip to Meknes and Fez two weekends back. We spent the majority of our time in Fez, which is Morocco’s cultural heart, a 12^th century noisy, colorful, fascinating labyrinth of a city. The medina (old walled city) was everything you would expect from Morocco – tiny winding alleys where you have to press against the wall to avoid being squashed by the passing men riding donkeys (the most common form of transport in the medina, believe it or not!), dim, incense-scented stores with unbelievably beautiful bolts of silks and satins draped everywhere, and quiet madrassas (religious schools) tucked into corners with cross-legged students sitting and reciting the Qu’ran.

A noisy, crowded, fascinating place to wander

Amideast gave us tons of free time to explore, which was very welcome. I grabbed a few friends and wandered up and down the streets of the medina, stopping to haggle for vivid wool scarves, hammered silver jewelry, and jangling belly dance outfits, more for the pleasure of interacting and practicing my Arabic than anything else. One of the highlights of our route was the tannery section of the medina (which you literally find by following your nose!).

A fascinating process, but you can't imagine the smell...!

We climbed up flights of rickety stairs to look out at barefooted men scrambling agilely among huge concrete tubs filled with chemicals for treating the leather, bright dyes, and other substances I couldn’t begin to identify. The process has changed little from the techniques used centuries ago, and it was fascinating to watch the experts at work. I bargained fiercely for an emerald green (mint was the principal dye) camel-leather suitcase, which I plan on using during my travels over winter break.

In the evenings, friends and I made a point of wandering around to different areas of the city in search of dinner. Fez has one grand boulevard with huge colored fountains that are spectacular to see at night, and it was a treat to just sit on the benches eating spectacular gelato ice cream and people-watch.

My other favorite stop of our trip was Volubilis, the mountainous ruins of one of the Roman Empire’s most remote outposts.

The Romans envisioned Morocco as Rome’s breadbasket, but never succeeded in subduing the nomadic Berber tribes that fiercely resisted Roman rule. Even after the Romans pulled out of Morocco in 280 AD, the city’s inhabitants continued to speak Latin for the next 400 years, up until the arrival of Islam in the 7^th century. I sat on a fallen pillar under an olive tree and spent an hour looking around me and imagining my life as a girl in the Roman era. Friends and I spent dinner that evening pulling bits and pieces of different Roman and Greek myths out of our memories, and vowing to spend more time reading the classics. It was an absolutely magical spot and I’d love to go back.

p.s. The rest of the pictures from Meknes, Volubilis and Fez are here if you’d like to see:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=117077&id=676158521&l=4c9251c6d4

Last week we had one of the most fun and interesting evenings I’ve spent in Morocco – we had our very own wedding! Amideast wanted to give the students an idea of what a traditional Moroccan wedding is like, so we invited our Moroccan friends, got dressed up, and bore witness to the “wedding” of two of our classmates! A mischievous ghinnawa band played traditional Moroccan music and amused us all with their antics. If you can recall the famous dance scene from Fiddler on the Roof, with the Russian soldiers precariously balancing bottles on their heads while leaping and cavorting around, then you’ll get an idea of the energy and acrobatism of these men!

Krista, the “bride,” wore a traditional kaftan robe in white, and was hoisted up in the air on a platform and carried around for everyone to admire.

Hopefully her real wedding will live up to this one!

She and Yanik, the “groom,” went through the whole ceremony with admirable grace. They fed each other dates and milk for prosperity, tossed party favors, and endured hundreds of photos.

I stood next to Yanik’s host parents in the audience, and tried to allay their fears. They had come to make sure that he wasn’t actually getting married, and never looked quite convinced that they weren’t witnessing a real ceremony! We danced to the infectious music for hours, and I came away with the conviction that Moroccans could give the McNamaras a run for their money when it comes to having a great time at weddings!

My other favorite party of the week was my friend Alyssa’s birthday party. Her host family lives across the hall from us, and our host moms are close friends, so our family crept into their apartment, hid, and surprised Alyssa with a full-on party! Her mother and sister dragged her off to put her in a traditional kaftan robe and coated her with makeup, and we all ate luscious homemade chocolate mousse cake (which Tata Rachida, Alyssa’s mom, had apparently hid from her by mixing the ingredients in her bedroom? Impressive). Yacin, Alyssa’s host brother and her father, who are both very talented classical guitarists, played and sang everything from “Hotel California” to traditional Arabic folk songs that the families harmonized to beautifully.

On Friday I went over to another host family’s apartment for a henna party. Henna is a reddish-brown plant dye that is used for decorating your hands and feet at celebrations. The host mother has a friend who is a henna specialist, and she painted gorgeous, intricate designs on our hands and wrists in an amazingly short amount of time.

(The rest of the pictures from the wedding and henna are at the end of this album – http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=102017&id=676158521&l=6f81eef1f2)

Interestingly, I’ve noticed a change in the comments I get while walking down the street.  People see my hands, assume that I’ve just been to a wedding, and thus am a cultural insider, not just some random tourist. So instead of cat-calls, I get respectful addresses of “Bis-saha” – meaning “Allah grant you health.” An unexpected side effect, but one that I’m enjoying!

My midterms start next week, so I’ll have a quiet weekend at home to study before the semester picks up. From now until the end of the semester, I only have one other free weekend, where I’m not travelling or off doing something. Yikes! My one mission this weekend is to go with Mamoune (my 11 year-old brother) to find a pair of “slim” jeans. His girlfriend at school has told him that she won’t look at him anymore if he doesn’t wear them, since they’re apparently the latest fashion. She’s apparently the prettiest girl at school, and Mamoune is determined to do whatever it takes! Never a dull moment!

Love to everyone,

Kathryn

This past weekend, I spent a glorious few days in the Middle Atlas Mountains (about four and a half hours southeast from Rabat, check out the map for a general idea).

Two friends, Emily and Hannah, and I left Arabic class on Friday morning and headed to the train station to catch the 11:00 train to Meknes. About an hour and a half into our journey, the train chugged slowly to a stop, and we heard cries of “En panne! En panne!” Oh dear. “En panne” happens to mean broken. A group of men instantly gathered by the head of the train, smoking their cigarettes, gesticulating at the engine, and nodding sagely, which is so typically Moroccan that I found it irresistibly funny. Luckily we were soon moving, and arrived to spitting rain in Meknes. We caught a grand taxi from the station towards Azrou, and were soon enveloped in glorious rolling hills, beautifully cultivated fields, and spectacular views.  I spent most of the ride trying to come up with a parallel to the landscape that I was seeing – the olive groves of Greece and Sicily, the highland hills of Scotland, the craggy mountains of Wyoming and Montana (none of which I’ve actually seen in person!) – but I finally had to conclude that I was somewhere completely unique.

A panorama from our stunning drive from Meknes to Azrou.

We arrived in the Berber village of Azrou that afternoon, and checked into our hotel, whimsically and romantically named “La dernière lion de l’Atlas,” or “The Last Lion of the Atlas.” Amideast had given us the name of a contact of theirs who lives in Azrou, Lotfi, so we met him at a café to introduce ourselves and talk about an itinerary for the weekend. He turned out to be a fascinating Renaissance man: a high-powered Moroccan businessman – turned carpenter – turned cultural exchange non-profit manager. As he walked us around the pretty town of peaked roofs, bright-eyed toddlers swathed in bright wool blankets and slung over their mothers’ backs, and Amazighe (Berber) women with tattooed foreheads and chins to identify their tribal affiliation, Lotfi talked enthusiastically with us about everything from political exposés of corrupt politicians, the situation of single mothers in Morocco, and his children’s clever attempts to thwart his fundamentalist brother-in-law from radicalizing them. Everywhere I go, I learn more from talking to Moroccans than I ever do by looking at scenery, and we were so fortunate to have Lotfi as a guide and resource throughout the weekend.

The day was chilly and overcast, and as we walked to dinner at an inn on the top of the mountain, lightning crackled overhead and we stopped a few times just to marvel at the boiling clouds and the darkening sky. I spent the whole day grinning like a fool just to be away from the city and to be surrounded by crisp mountain air and vast pine forests. We feasted on fresh-caught local mountain trout for dinner, and went back to our inn eager for the next day.

We woke up early the next morning and bundled up in fleeces and hiking boots in search of our breakfast. One wonderfully refreshing characteristic of Azrou is that the town is far enough off the beaten path that people who stopped us in the street to chat were genuinely friendly and welcoming, rather than threatening or harassing. The town was definitely more conservative than Rabat, but we also had more freedom in some ways. We bought fresh pastries at a pâtisserie and sat at a café to drink coffee, something that is definitely off-limits in Rabat. After breakfast, we met Lotfi to start our day. We had originally envisioned that he would recommend a guide and some sites to see, but of course this is Morocco. Lotfi not only planned our entire day, he found us a car, volunteered to be our driver, and invited his friend Khaleed, a Berber mountain guide and head of an ecotourism non-profit. The five of us set out in a tiny Peugeot sedan up winding trails into the mountains.

Our first stop was to see the famous Barbary apes, a species of macaques native to the area. The government has set aside a small number of monkeys in a forest reserve as an exhibition, in order to prevent overenthusiastic tourists from bothering the wild population. These monkeys were quite used to humans, and came right up to us to eat peanuts out of our hands! My favorite was a tiny baby monkey clinging to its mother’s back, who suddenly jumped ship in order to catch a peanut flying through the air, and landed on his startled father’s back in one smooth motion.

My new friend, who followed me around the whole time we were there!

We then headed out of the forest and up a winding mountain path, which we soon left in favor of off-roading. We rattled and jounced over the rocky terrain, got stuck in the mud quite a few times, and finally got out to begin our hike. The entire region is volcanic, with rocky fields that suddenly give way to magnificent cedar forests and craggy gorges.

Hannah, me, and Emily at the beginning of our hike

Khaleed, wiry and tough in a leather bomber jacket, spoke in rapid-fire French as we hiked, explaining the different plants and animals found in the region, the problems with desperate villagers clear-cutting the cedar trees, and how to find a rare type of fungus even more expensive than white truffles in Europe. We walked through the misty forest, skirting our way around rocky cliffs and trying to get above the fog to the stunning view of the valley below. We were at about 1,800 meters altitude and all thrilled with our adventure. The setting was perfect for letting your imagination run amok, and I kept expecting to see Robin Hood with a bow and arrow peering from behind a tree or some fantastic creature out of the Lord of the Rings racing through the woods.   

Breathtaking

I could almost forget that I was in Africa, except for little things like scorpions(!)

This is about as close as I was willing to get!

 Our next destination was a picnic lunch at a bird-watching outpost by one of the largest freshwater lakes in North Africa. It was COLD there, probably around 40 degrees, and we happily ate fresh figs, spicy fish, and freshly-baked bread, and drank clear, bone-chillingly cold mountain water. 

Picnicking at a gorgeous lake for lunch

We shared the remains of our lunch with the two hopeful sheepdogs of a Berber shepherd who was grazing his flock nearby. This area is one of Morocco’s most underdeveloped and underpopulated regions, and is mostly home to nomadic Berber tribes, the original inhabitants of Morocco. Berbers (their name for themselves is Amazigh, or Free People), are primarily shepherds, and build temporary shelters on their tribal lands as they raise their flocks, migrating from one grazing area to another. Many of them look quite different from the ordinary conception of Moroccans, with lighter skin, finer features and some even have blond hair. We spoke briefly to the shepherd, praised his herd of sheep and adventurous little brown goats, and heard about his new baby son. Khaleed translated since the shepherd spoke a Berber dialect which I didn’t understand a word of.

We got back into the car and drove higher into the mountains, passing through tiny villages where a car was enough of a spectacle that the village children would come racing out to wave at us. We stopped at one point and shared chocolate croissants with two tiny girls in colorful kerchiefs, who gave us shy, awestruck glances and hid behind the pack-laden donkey they were driving as soon as we were back in the car. I would love the opportunity to come back and get to know this region and its people better.

I still can't believe that I was here looking at this!

One of the coolest stops of the entire weekend was at Ras el Maa, the headwaters of over forty rivers in the region. We scaled our way up slippery rocks to reach a tiny Berber village literally built through the rushing sources. The rain of the past few days had turned the normally clear waters into Willy Wonka’s chocolate river, and they roared deafeningly past.

We explored different tiny streams, some salty-tasting and some sweet, depending on the minerals they flow through in the mountains. A Berber woman invited us into her home for tea, and we sat on the floor in her living room, which had an entire back wall open to the river that flowed inches away. We drove back to Azrou through more of the glorious countryside, and crashed at our hotel after a very full day.

The next morning we caught a bus to Ifrane, a town known as the “Little Switzerland” of Morocco, which was a winter retreat for the French colonial government and is now the ski playground of the king and his family. It was very surreal after the warmth and color of Azrou to be strolling down tree-lined boulevards, past carefully manicured parks, and through neighborhoods full of chalets that wouldn’t be out of place in a wealthy French town. Ifrane is also the home of the prestigious Al-Akhawayn University, where Morocco’s elite send their sons and daughters for an American-style education. Even with our tales of a fictional friend who was meeting us, the guard wouldn’t let us into the campus to walk around, which was disappointing. But I was very glad that we spent the weekend in Azrou, which was infinitely more interesting and real.

We caught a taxi to Fez and travelled the three hours back to Rabat, most of which I spent talking with an American couple who had been visiting their grandson at Al-Akhawayn. The husband, who proudly announced that he was 84, regaled me with tales of his adventures in the navy in WWII, detailed his and his wife’s upcoming 60^th wedding anniversary, and gave me a desire to see all of the places they’ve seen! It was lovely to be home and feel comfortable in a city that I know, but I can’t wait for our next adventure! All of the Amideast students are taking a group trip to the cities of Fez and Meknes, and the roman ruins of Volubilis this weekend, so I’m sure I’ll have more stories soon! Love to all!  

p.s. All of my pictures from the weekend are here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=111848&id=676158521&l=cbbab85dd3

Asaalumu aleykum! This will probably be a record-setting blogpost in terms of length, but I have so much to write about, so please bear with me! This weekend was by far one of the best that I have spent in Morocco.  Starting on Friday, which is a great day since I finish class at 9:30am, a group of the Amideast girls decided to head over to the Hilton Park to play Frisbee. We spent about three hours tearing around the forest, playing intense games, and laughing ourselves breathless. It felt so good to be doing something physical, since Ramadan seems to consist of a never-ending procession of one huge meal after another as soon as the sun goes down. We enjoyed ourselves so much that we’ve decided to make Fridays at the park a weekly event! The locals there were quite bemused by the gaggle of American women acting like six year-olds, but we even attracted a few spectators towards the end who seemed to enjoy our romping around.

I went out Friday night with Hannah, Afshan, and Krista, three girlfriends who live nearby, to burn off some steam from the week. Our first stop was at one of the neighborhood hanoots, or corner stores, to stop and talk to the owner, who we had made friends with a few days earlier just by passing by his shop on the way home.  We stopped in, drink delicious apple and coconut sodas, and had some of the most profound conversations about religion, love, and life that I’ve ever experienced.  We shared our experiences fasting with our host families during Ramadan, and he in turn counseled us to take as our religion whatever makes our hearts feel pure, whether Islam, Judaism, Christianity. He, for his part, is a Muslim because Islam teaches him to love everyone as he loves God. We stayed and talked for at least forty five minutes with this man, who personifies everything that is welcoming and tolerant about the Morocco that I’m discovering. Whenever I begin to have an off day, I almost invariably have an experience like this one that reminds me why I’m here.

We spent the rest of the evening watching furious soccer matches at an indoor stadium in town. I think we were the only women in the stands, and thus the object of some interest, but the vast majority of men ignored us in favor of the furiously played match. As a huge soccer fan, I’m used to being in the minority in the United States, so it’s great fun to be somewhere where love for the game is ubiquitous. The highlight of the matches was definitely watching a tiny four year-old smoke his older brother at halftime, scoring goal after goal and exhibit footwork that I couldn’t replicate in my wildest dreams!

After a night out, where going and coming is always a bit of a nerve-wracking experience, it’s a lovely feeling to be able to come home. My host family has shown me nothing but love and welcome in the few weeks that I’ve been with them, and coming back at the end of the day to laughter and warmth is making my experience here a thousand times better.

This weekend, I took my first real excursion out of Rabat since I’ve been here! On Saturday morning, five other girls and I took a 10:00am train to spend the day in Casablanca. The train system in Morocco is quite good, and it’s a very independent feeling to add another mode of transportation to my repertoire of petit taxis, grand taxis, buses, and walking!  We left the train station and were immediately offered the use of a grand taxi for the day and a personal guide, for the equivalent of $11 a person! After much discussion and such apprehension, we took Hishem up on his offer, and ended up being very glad we did. The seven of us crammed into his sedan, and off we went!

We started off at the Kasbah, a fort built by the Portuguese in the 1700s whose windows and cannons overlook the ocean. Just around the corner was…Rick’s Café! Ok, ok, I know that it’s a sham. There is no Rick’s Café. Casablanca was filmed entirely in Hollywood, and the café in Casablanca was opened in 2004 by an American woman to cater purely to tourists. But the mere fact that it exists makes me happy. We didn’t go inside, just posed at the entrance, but I have a promise from friends to go back in March for my 21^st birthday. Slinky dresses and elbow-length gloves are mandatory.

From Rick’s, we headed to Casablanca’s one real monument, the Hassan II mosque. Built by the current king’s father in the 1980s, the Hassan II mosque is the only mosque in Morocco that allows non-Muslims in. We’re coming back to take the tour with Amideast, so we just wandered around the outside. But even then, I could have spent all day there. Hassan II built the mosque according to a verse in the Qu’ran, which specifies the creation of a mosque at the edge of the sea that points towards Mecca. The mosque can hold up to 50,000 worshippers, and is the second-largest mosque in the world after Mecca. It reminded me of “my” mosque in Brunei, with its green marble towers (Mom, Dad, Will and I each had our favorite design), but on a massive scale with gorgeous aquamarine and jade tiles, airy columns soaring upwards, and the crashing sea just feet away. To complete this experience, I fell head-over-heels for one old gentleman who was wandering around the area singing the “Nessun Dorma” from Turandot, a soaring victory anthem, for nothing more than the pure pleasure of singing. The guards eyed him warily, but he finished his song in magnificent unconcern and received the applause and compliments (for he truly did have a lovely voice) as nothing more than his due.

Hishem was a wonderful guide because he did his best to show us all the facets of the city that we could cram into five hours. From the airy splendor of the mosque, he took us to Casablanca’s bidonvilles, the tin and cardboard shantytowns where entire generations are born and die without ever gaining an inch of social mobility. Ironically enough, just outside the bidonvilles lies the best view in Casablanca, a magnificent panoramic encompassing the mosque, the harbor, and the rippling patterns of the sea. Hishem, who spoke amazingly good English for someone who has learned it only by driving his taxi and watching Dr. Phil(!), spoke eloquently about Morocco’s problems of unemployment, lack of social services, and resilience in the face of everything. He had a great sense of humor, pointing out a passing donkey and cart as a “Moroccan Mitsubishi.” He was also a fantastic Arabic teacher and patiently helped us coax our mangled sentences into something resembling real Arabic. He also insisted to whomever we encountered that they speak Arabic to us, which was really helpful, and even occasionally comprehensible!

One of the most bizarre parts of our trip was a ramble along the coast in a very built-up area of Casa. All of a sudden the city was transformed into a tropical resort, complete with spas, cabanas, eternity pools and Western women in bikinis lounging in the sun. We spent some time puzzling over the unfamiliar Arabic names of the resorts, and eventually figured out that they were the Arabic renderings of “Miami beach,” “Tahiti” and “Tropical Paradise!”

Our next stop, a quasi-island on the outskirts of Casa, presented a stark contrast. I say quasi-island because when we were there, it resembled an outcropping of rock with tumbledown whitewashed houses. According to Hishem, twelve families have lived there for hundreds of years, in pretty extreme poverty. When the tide comes in, it completely isolates the land into a true island. The shore is too rocky to be accessible by boat, so the locals have improvised by setting up a water taxi service of rafts made out of tires with wooden slats as bottoms. The main source of income on the island are the seers: women who heat bits of aluminum until they melt, drop them into cold water, and read the signs contained in the resulting shapes. People on the mainland, mostly women, consult the seers about how to find a husband, how to conceive a child, etc. etc. I felt very out of my element there, part of a gaggle of Westerners coming in to gawk at the lives of “ordinary Moroccans.” But these women and men received us with quiet dignity, didn’t attempt to sell us anything, and warmly invited us to come into their homes and drink tea. Hospitality, one of the most universal features of Moroccan society, was at its most gracious on this tumbledown island.

We next drove through Amra, the old name for Casablanca and one of the city’s most exclusive neighborhoods. These villas were definitely the most ostentatious examples of wealth that I’ve yet seen in Morocco, and reminded me forcibly of when the McNamaras toured the grand neighborhoods of Hollywood for Evan and Heather’s wedding. Hishem showed us his dream home, a four story manor with peacocks strutting around the front lawn! From there, we headed through the downtown, which could have been the commercial district in New York, Milan or Singapore, complete with horrendous traffic.

At the Sacré Coeur Cathedral, we wandered around a modern art exhibition by young Moroccan painters, sculptors and metalworkers. A few girlfriends and I decided to walk to the top of the belltower, and braved the rickety, narrow stairs (and evidence of a huge pigeon population!) to see a fantastic view of the city.

Our last two stops were definitely some of the most interesting. Hishem drove us to an old house in the Jewish Quarter of the city, where we climbed a flight of stairs somewhat apprehensively and come out into…an ancient traditional pharmacy! The pharmacist graciously led us into the room where he teaches students, which was packed from floor to ceiling with jars of herbs, spices, animal horns, and other things that I couldn’t begin to identify. The pharmacist then proceeded to fascinate us for an hour by explaining the uses of different types of traditional medicine, concocting them in front of us, and even letting us try some of them! Black cumin seeds (fennelgrec) to clear the sinuses, argon oil to make the hands “as soft as a baby’s bum” (said the pharmacist, putting on the leering grin of a carnival sharpster to make us laugh), which comes from a tree that cannot be grown anywhere except southern Morocco, handmade rose cream, frankincense and myrrh, and remedies for anything under the sun. The recipes were part folklore, part tradition, and part pure alchemy. I would happily apprentice myself as a traditional pharmacist here, just to learn the secrets contained in all the jars!

Lastly, Hishem deposited us with a flourish into what he introduced as “Ali Baba and the Flying Carpets,” a dimly-lit carpet shop tucked away in a corner of the Jewish Quarter. Before we knew it, the proprietors had sat us down on low divans and were whisking mountains of slippery silk, plush wool, and vividly dyed camel’s hair around the room. I learned about the difference between thread counts in carpets, distinctive Berber designs from various regions, and the importance of Morocco’s carpet industry to its economy, explained mostly in classical Arabic by the courtly shop owner. One lovely part about our tour with Hishem is that at no point were we cajoled or pressured into buying anything, or even approached by the hawkers who can spot a tourist at 200 paces. At this last stop though, we were all completely seduced by the gorgeous wares. My personal rationalization goes something like, “did I really think I could come to Morocco and not buy a carpet?” So I bought three: beautiful vivid colors with Berber designs, two blue and yellow rugs I’m planning on hanging on my wall, and a bigger red carpet that I could use as a bedspread. With all six of us, there wasn’t the time to spend as long on individual haggling as I would have liked, but I bargained to the best of my ability, and my Arabic held up pretty well. I fully realize that I probably got ripped off, but I’ll call it my contribution to the Moroccan economy!

With our negotiations concluded, Hishem dropped us off at the train station, and we collapsed back onto the train to Rabat, thrilled with our day. I frantically brainstormed with the rest of the girls about everything we had done and seen and experienced, and scribbled it all down in a notebook, which is what I’m working off now. Otherwise I would never remember everything we crammed into those five hours!

This week has been adventurous as well; I woke up to sheets of rain and huge peals of thunder on Monday night, and when Ginna and I left our apartment building to walk to school on Tuesday morning, we were confronted by a wave of water that came up almost to my knees! We slogged our way through the pouring rain and past the occasional floating car during the 45-minute walk to school, and arrived drenched but thrilled at our adventure! Winter in Morocco means the rainy season, but such an early storm caught everyone off guard, and basically flooded the entire city and surrounding villages.

I’m looking forward to this weekend because it means the end of Ramadan! Hurrah! The Eid al-Fitr celebration will probably take place on Monday to Tuesday, depending on the moon. We have classes off Monday and Tuesday, so I can’t wait for the chance to catch up on sleep, have Harry Potter duels with Mamoune, play cards with Amine, and get ready to experience Rabat post-Ramadan. I love the anticipation of having a whole new city to explore in a few days. I’m starting belly dance and yoga classes next week, will be volunteering as an English teacher to Moroccan youth, and can’t wait to get started! Much love to everyone, maa salaama!

Today is my first rainy day in Morocco!  I’m sitting near an open window, listening to the rain splattering cozily down onto the street below.  I was beginning to believe that rain didn’t exist here, so I’m glad to be proven wrong.

I’ve started keeping a journal of my days here, just a couple words that will help me remember everything that’s happened, or else everything passes so rapidly that I’m afraid I’ll forget all of the wonderful things I’m doing.

Top of my list is that I met my language partner this week.  We had the option of being paired with a Moroccan student who is studying English, with the idea that you meet frequently with them to practice speaking English on their end and Arabic on ours.  My language partner, Chahrazad, is seventeen and is applying to universities in the U.S.!  She’s been studying English for five years, so her English is much better than my Arabic.  This is really helpful because I can say an idiomatic English expression and she can give me the equivalent, both in classical and in Moroccan Arabic.

I’ve definitely had to reevaluate my perceptions of language a few times since I’ve been here, and I’m sure that will continue.  What I’ve been studying, Modern Standard Arabic or fus-haa, is the Arabic that’s spoken on official news stations, at diplomatic conferences, and among educated people who speak different dialects.  But there are a lot of people in Morocco who don’t speak any classical Arabic at all!  Darija, or Moroccan Arabic, truly is a completely different language, with different verb structures, different vocabulary for what seems like almost everything, and no written form.  So the challenge that I confront every day is basically trying to learn two different languages simultaneously, one from the ground up, the other that I only have basic conversational skills in, with the added bonus of speaking French a large part of the time!  My conversations meander from language to language, and somehow get my point across, but I worry about how much my language skills can actually improve if I have to divide my attention so much.  I’d like to learn darija, the Moroccan Arabic, because it’s what my family speaks to each other and what everyone on the street uses to communicate, but it seems a pretty daunting task at the moment!

I am very grateful that I speak such good French though, because I’m realizing that it opens doors here that I wouldn’t have access to otherwise.  For example, Chahrazad and I went yesterday to a retirement home in Rabat where she volunteers.  She and some friends organized a mini-party for the people there, with juice and cakes out in the garden and old Edith Piaf tunes crooning in the corner.  The retirees were all of French origin, who had either been born in Morocco while it was still under French rule, or married Moroccans and moved here from France.  It was a bit surreal to be in a place where Westerners predominated, because I’m so used to being the only one on the street!  It also made me very glad that my experience here is so down-to-earth, because I can see how easy it would be to get sucked into the expatriate circle, speak only French, drive around in an air-conditioned car, and basically forget that you live in Morocco.  That being said, I really enjoyed speaking with the people who live there.  One gentleman had lived for a time in Australia as a cattle rancher, and was keen to revive his English skills, so we talked for about a half hour.  The one awkward moment came when he asked me my opinion of President Obama, and I answered enthusiastically.  He responded that he was “un peu raciste,” and started talking about his opinions of race relations in Morocco, which is an interesting topic, given the complexity of the society, but not a conversation that I particularly enjoyed, given that I had to bite my tongue the whole time!

I also spent time out in the garden with the Moroccan students, two ladies who were significantly more lucid than the others, as well as a young Moroccan architect in his twenties who was visiting one of the ladies, his mother.  We had heated conversations about whether Morocco is a closed or open society, with the younger Moroccan students, who are educated, Westernized, and activist, arguing passionately for their country, and the architect arguing that the circles that they move in don’t represent the real Morocco.  I was fascinated, and thankful that I could follow the mix of rapid-fire French-Arabic well enough to contribute!  I was aware the whole time though, that the two Frenchwomen spoke to me more as an equal than they did the Moroccan students, even though the students spoke flawless French.  It was as if I was immediately accepted into an exclusive club of Westerners just by dint of being white, regardless of my nationality, socioeconomic status, language ability, or personality.  Like I said, I’m glad my experience in Morocco is shaping up quite differently.

Classes started yesterday, which completely changed the dynamic of my stay so far in Morocco.  Up until now, I’ve basically been on an extended holiday, with obligations at Amideast and everything, but I’ve been using every possible opportunity to run around the city and explore.  Now everything is settling down, which I’m actually really looking forward to.  I think that being in a rhythm will help me to feel more at home here. However, I’m also realizing just how demanding my class schedule is going to be here!!

I have Arabic at 8:30 every morning, and then Moroccan Arabic just following that, and then Media Arabic just following that every Monday and Wednesday.  I have to completely switch languages and tones in between classes, since they’re completely different, which is going to be quite the challenge.  Media Arabic is fantastic: we’re going to be reading news articles and watching Al-Jazeera and doing news presentations and basically learning how to navigate the Arabic media, but I’m giving myself this week to see if I can handle the class.  There are only three other students, and I’ve taken the least Arabic, so I can just barely keep up!  I like to think that I’m fairly handy with languages, so we’ll see! 

I had my other two classes today, which are Gender, Islam and Society and North African Societies in Transition, both of which I’m really excited for.  I’m trying to push myself out of my knee-jerk tendency to automatically take political science classes, so the prospect of taking a sociology/anthropology class and a women’s studies class has me pretty pumped.  Both classes have fieldwork elements: in Gender, Islam and Society, we’re going around to talk to different women’s organizations in Rabat, Casablanca and other neighboring cities.  Our professor is at the vanguard of young Moroccan feminist women, and did her doctorate on women in Moroccan prisons, so she has a lot of interesting contacts.  North African Societies in Transition is a comparative class on Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Mauritania, Libya and occasionally Egypt.  We’re going to be ranging all over the place, from the problem of illegal migration to Europe, to the structure of the economy pre- and post-colonialism, to the dynamics of these ethnically mixed societies, with Arab Muslims, Berber tribes, Jewish communities, and various others.  I can’t wait!!

My host family is still absolutely lovely; we’ve gone out with them the past two nights (to walk off our ftoor feasts!) and walked around the souq in the old medina and the marina where the king stores his boats.  My host dad and brothers helped my roommate Ginna and me to find CDs, bought us ice cream, and pointed out various aspects of Moroccan history and culture.  I’m really enjoying becoming a part of their family so far. Here’s a photo of me and my host family at the marina!

Mamoune, me, Mama Bouchra, Amine, Baba

I took a petit taxi home from Amideast yesterday evening, and we ran into a roadblock almost as soon as we entered L’Ocean, my neighborhood.  I asked my taxi driver what was going on, and he proceeded to tell me at length (taxi drivers in Morocco are almost universally friendly, helpful, and very willing to teach me about the country, which is quite a change from the US!) about how it was the anniversary of Mohammed V’s death, the beloved king who transitioned Morocco to independence.  So the king and the crown prince had been paying their respects at his mausoleum, and happened to be on their way home at the same time that I was.  Smartly dressed policemen had cordoned off the entire area, and I watched as a huge motorcade of cars and motorcycles roared by.  The policemen all snapped to salute as the king passed, which is how I picked him and the crown prince out.  Pretty cool!

I have mega amounts of Arabic homework to do, so maa salaama!

I’m constantly amazed at what a dynamic place Morocco is.  There’s such energy and movement and color that seems to never stop.  If you get into a cab, the driver seems to feel it his personal mission to get you to your destination as if your business was life-or-death and as if you were the only person on the road!  The market bustles and chatters and froths with buying, selling, haggling;  arguments break out constantly accompanied by theatrical hand gestures and eloquent words, and a crowd quickly gathers to shout encouragement to both of the participants.  There is constant construction taking place to improve the city, which never quite seems to be completed.  Especially during Ramadan, Qu’ranic recitation is the continuous soundtrack to the day, playing out of every shop window and punctuated by the five daily calls to prayer from the numerous mosques around the city.  By contrast, the private life of Moroccans is serene and unhurried.  Apartment buildings that appear beat-up on the outside actually house lovely homes, with gorgeous mosaic tiles, a large family room for gatherings and modern Western appliances.  Family is the center of life here, and mealtimes are especially important.  A meal that lasts several hours is nothing out of the ordinary, with everyone talking and joking in a blend of Arabic, French and occasionally English.

I absolutely love my host family so far, and find it hard to believe that I’ve only spent about three days with them!   I spent all day yesterday at home, since I had decided to fast with the family this weekend and had been advised not to be really active when I was fasting.  So instead of exploring the city as I’ve been doing on most days, I watched an absolutely horrendous early 90’s era movie called “Funky Monkey” with my host brothers, which they adore and were delighted to share with me.  Mamoune, my younger host brother, had a playdate at a friend’s home, so Amine (the 14 year-old) and I hung out for the rest of the day and played cards with his younger cousin (I taught them “Go Fish!” which was a lot of fun), practiced various magic tricks (Amine loved the dumbfounded looks on my face when he would pull off a particularly spectacular card trick), and talked about life in America.  I feel like I’m really getting to know him well, which is a great feeling.  Both of my host brothers are absolutely fantastic, and I’m so lucky to have them.

All of the Amideast students and professors met at T.G.I. Fridays for ftoor, incongruously enough, although the food resembled nothing that we serve in America!  Fasting all day was not nearly as difficult as I had envisioned, and I wasn’t terribly hungry for dinner, but it was nice to be able to drink water!  During Ramadan, you eat ftoor around 7pm when the sun goes down and you can break your fast, and then a lighter dinner at midnight, and then you get up at 4am to eat suhoor, the meal before the dawn prayer.  I’ve been doing this schedule for the past couple of days, and haven’t had too much difficulty, although I did a lot of walking this morning and it is extremely hot!

I tried to get Skype to work last night so I could wish Mom a happy birthday, and I did manage to connect with Mom, Dad and Will even though their webcam wasn’t working.  Mine was, so my family got to see Amine, Mamoune and my host mother, which was really special.  My host mother especially made a point of saying “Kathryn est ma fille, comme Amine et Mamoune” to Mom (“Kathryn is my daughter, just like my other children), which was lovely.  Hopefully we can get the webcam working so my two families can see each other!  My host family is really interested in my family, since it’s such a big part of life here.  This is when my French skills become indispensable, because I can explain to them exactly what my parents do, how Will’s a senior in high school and is looking at the military academies for college, and about all of my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  I brought some pictures from home, which they absolutely love!

I woke up this morning and went to the cathedral in Rabat for Mass, which was an incredible experience.  The congregation is almost entirely young men and women from West Africa, with a few scattered Westerners, Filipinos, and Koreans.  The church is beautifully light and open, with high arching ceilings, stained glass, and gorgeous mosaics of the Stations of the Cross mounted on the walls.  I went with a couple friends from the program, and we got there early enough to grab a pew, because the church soon filled up with a couple hundred people! Who knew??  My favorite part of the service was definitely the music, which was primarily African, with drums, what sounded like a hammered dulcimer, and the most beautiful harmonies I have ever heard in my life.  Hearing this choir’s African take on some of the traditional Latin songs like “Kyrie Eleison” was absolutely breathtaking.  The service was in French, which meant that I could follow along well enough to sing the songs and say most of the responses, which made everything a lot more meaningful.  I absolutely loved it, and would definitely go back.  People stayed to greet each other after the service, so hopefully I can get to know some of the members of the congregation!  The service did make me (and everyone else!) a bit homesick; some of the girls started to cry at various points, so it was really nice that we were all there together because we understand what each other are going through. 

I’m at the Amideast building now, steeling myself to plow through the mass of Arabic homework that we got from our professors last night in preparation for the first week of classes!  Eek!  I’m planning on attending a few more classes then I will actually take this week, so I can figure out what I like best.  I’m really excited to get into a rhythm and to be in an academic setting, because that will make me feel more settled here.  Love to everyone!!  My skype address is kathryn_mcnamara if anyone wants to chat!

I’m almost to the end of my first week in Rabat, which is incredible!  I can’t believe what a good handle I feel like I have on the city already, just from spending literally hours every day walking around, getting lost, finding new routes, having great conversations with taxi drivers, and basically adventuring around in my new home.  I’m putting up some pictures here of some of the different places we’ve been during the past week:

A gorgeous shop at an artists' collective in the city - very Arabian nights!

Friends from the program and me at a lovely restaurant for ftoor, the evening meal

At the Kasbah Ouadais, a lovely walled neighborhood overlooking the ocean

Team Kathryn and Rachel at the Tour Hassan for Rabat Survivor, a challenge during orientation to find different landmarks around the city

Door to one of the mausoleums with incredibly intricate mosaics laid into the stone

I met and moved in with my host family yesterday afternoon, which is something I’ve been dying to do!! I will be living with the Bennis family in L’Ocean, a nice neighborhood of Rabat near, surprisingly enough…the ocean!  It’s actually a great location: near the medina, which is the old walled part of the city with the incredibly picturesque souq (market), near the ocean, and only about a half hour’s walk from Amideast, where I have my classes.

The entire family came to pick myself and my roommate up at Amideast yesterday, which was great.  My host father works for a bank, and seems really nice, a bit quiet and scholarly, and not at all uncomfortable with hosting young women.  My host mother is incredibly sweet and did everything she could immediately to make us feel at home, chattering away to Ginna (my roommate) and me.  I have two host brothers: Amir, who is about 14, and Maimoun, age 10.  They are definitely my favorite part about my host family so far!  We spent the afternoon and evening with them, playing the Moroccan version of bullshit (kedebchie!), during which they found incredibly entertaining how bad my poker face was, talking about Harry Potter, iPods, and Titanic, judging their dancing competition to American rap music, and watching Slumdog Millionaire.  Amir, who is just about to enter high school and wants to work with cars, chatters away to me in French constantly.  Maimoun, who has the sweetest, most impish smile I’ve ever seen in my life, helpfully pointed out objects around the room all night and told me their names in Arabic, and constantly chastised Amir for speaking French, and not Arabic to me. The family seems really understanding that my goal is to improve my Arabic, so while we use French to get our points across if needed, I think that this will be the perfect situation for improving both my fushha and my darija, since the family understands both!

We broke the Ramadan fast with the family around 7pm, but didn’t get up for either the midnight meal or the 4am meal, since Ginna and I were both exhausted!  I’ll try to do that tonight, and would like to try fasting with them for a few days, since I think it really will bring us together.  It was a little uncomfortable having our host mother bring us breakfast before we left for Amideast this morning, since we were eating in front of them, but they seemed to be really understanding.

Two other girls from the program live across the hall from us in our apartment building, so the four of us walked to Amidest this morning, about a half hour’s walk, which was nice in the cool morning air.  It looks like we can alternate walking or taking taxis to places when need be, although I would like to take a crack at the bus system, which seems to have no fixed routes, no signs for bus stops, and no schedules!! That will be another day’s adventure.  I can’t wait for the weekend, just the chance to sleep and have some quiet time and keep getting to know my family, but classes start on Monday! I’m awaiting the results of my Arabic placement test, and will hopefully have a fixed schedule by the end of next week!

Thank you everyone so much for your comments, they mean so much to me!  I’m trying to stay really busy and not be homesick, so it’s lovely to hear from everyone! Much love!!