...And a Happy New Year

T and I will be heading out tomorrow for an 11 day vacation in northern Morocco, Gibraltar, and some parts of Spain. That means this is my last opportunity to publicly reflect on 2010 before the year is over.

And I think I'll decline that opportunity.

Instead, I will just wish you all a Happy New Year. May 2011 be filled with good things for all of you.

Christmas in Morocco

Imagine a plate of traditional American treats – frosted sugar cookies, molasses cookies, puppy chow– but the plate is the base of a tagine or a hand-painted plate from Fez. That was Christmas in Morocco. We all took our Christmas traditions and adapted them to our new place.

Our first adaptation was the Christmas tree. The daughters of our friends LW and JW were very insistent that T and I have a Christmas tree, and they found a small plastic one for us in the church. LW gave me some gold bells she had bought at the dollar store in Rabat (where, inexplicably, all of the merchandise is marked with prices in dollars). Then the girls made us some Christmas tree ornaments out of construction paper and staples. I was quite happy with the result.

We also made some adjustments to our traditional Christmas Eve dinner. When I was growing up, my mom would usually make a simple but satisfying dinner of clam chowder (which I never ate), potato soup, and homemade bread. For various dietary reasons, potato soup wasn't going to work for us, so I went with Moroccan bessara instead. We bought some khobz at the nearby bakery and finished the meal off with shlada limun, a simple salad of oranges, cinnamon, and orange flower water.

In case you're wondering what that weird stuff on top of our soup is…it's traditional to top bessara with olive oil, cumin and (if you like) cayenne and/or black pepper.

Midnight mass was another tradition in my family. Oddly enough, there are three nuns (members of the French order Little Sisters of Jesus) in Azrou. They had a Christmas mass – in French, of course – at 8:30 on Christmas Eve. T and I went to the mass with the Ws and one other person. We were the only people there besides the three nuns and two priests. It was not like any mass I had ever been to before.

Late on Christmas morning, we had brunch with the W family. That was probably the most unadulterated American part of our Christmas celebration. LW had made Russian tea (in my mind, a classic Midwestern winter drink) and a very American-looking breakfast casserole. And to top things off, we saw our first Moroccan snow as we were walking to the W's house for brunch. The snow didn't stick around or anything, but snow falling on Christmas morning is always special.

On Christmas evening, we got together with other Christmas celebrators for dinner. We had turkey, tamales, lasagna, hummus – it was truly an international Christmas dinner.

So there you have it. My first Christmas outside of the United States. Same, but different.

Things I miss at Christmas time

-Watching A Christmas Story all day on Christmas day

-Canned pumpkin

-Christmas light displays on houses (and even gaudy Christmas lawn ornaments)

-Seeing Christmas trees in everyone's windows at night

-Nativity scenes

-Stockings

-Snow (but just a tiny bit)

-My plastic Christmas tree and my ornaments

-Homemade fudge

-Soy nog

-Wassail

-My mom's rum rolls

-Watching family members open their gifts

-Being with family

Welcome to apartment 10!

Wait, didn't I post an entry very similar to this one, like, four months ago? Why yes, I did. But since I so kindly welcomed you to that apartment, I thought I had better welcome you to this one.

Our new apartment is inside what many people in town call "the bank," as (apparently) the property used to belong to Banque Populaire. It is now called the "Al Akhawayn downtown residences." Most of the building  contains small apartments (they're basically studio apartments), but on the ground floor there are four duplex apartments, and we now live in one of them.

What the heck am I doing here?

I ask myself this several times each week. I never ask it when I am, for example, sitting outside a café in the sun drinking coffee with friends (the weather is still nice enough, even now in December, that we can still do this on warm days). I ask it when I am trying to solve a problem, such as a broken tooth. I ask it when I am trying to figure out how to get my textbooks here in time for next semester. I ask it when I realize that there is only one online Master's program in speech-language pathology that will even consider admitting me while I live in Africa. I ask it when I have to pay a ridiculous amount of money to send a few small packages to family and friends back in the United States. I ask it when I realize that the novelty of my living in Africa has worn off for both me and all of those people back home, and when I go days without hearing from any of those people. I ask it when I discover that the downstairs bathroom in my new apartment, which is supposed to be much nicer than the apartment I moved out of, smells strongly like sewage and I am told, "the faculty member who lived there before you never complained about any smell."

I need a vacation from my life. But even planning a vacation sounds like too much to me right now.

On going to the dentist

Last Friday evening, after spending a wonderful but long day in Rabat with my friend LW, I decided to relax on the couch while watching TV, eating some popcorn, and drinking a beer. After biting into a particularly crunchy piece of popcorn, I noticed that one of my molar teeth felt a little funny. I touched it with my tongue, and I went cold. A chunk of my tooth was missing.

As far as I was concerned, one of my biggest fears had come true. I had gotten some crazy idea in my head about Moroccan dentistry that it consisted only of getting teeth pulled (without anesthesia) at the souk by people who may or may not be dentists (yes, you can get dental work done at the souk). I have been experiencing a little bit of "Morocco fatigue," so the idea of having to find a competent and hygienic dentist, figuring out how to make an appointment, figuring out how insurance works, getting to the dentist, and communicating with the dentist was exhausting. In addition, never before had I broken off a chunk of a tooth, and I wasn't sure how much pain I could potentially be in, nor did I know what might be required to fix it.

Luckily, there is an American trained, English speaking dentist in Fez who is used to working with people from the University. And luckily, I have a generous friend here (LW) who was willing to take me to the dentist. The office even had a receptionist who spoke English. Communicating my problem wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it might be.

However, this was the most painful dental work I can remember having. I was warned that this dentist is "rough." I think she's used to people telling her that what she's doing hurts, so she didn't believe me when I said that the anesthesia she injected did not extend to the tooth she was working on. Tooth nerve pain – ouch. She filled the heck out of the tooth and warned me that it would be sensitive for several days. I'm still a little nervous because if the sensitivity doesn't go away, I may need to have a root canal. If that happens, she had better do a more thorough job with the anesthesia.

It cost me 500 dirhams to have this work done. That's a little over $60, which is affordable even if the insurance company doesn't reimburse me for 80% of the cost. That seems so absurdly cheap to me as an American, and yet it is a cost that is completely out of range for many Moroccans. If I were an average Moroccan, I would probably just have to live with what was left of my tooth, and if it got bad enough –if the whole tooth rotted out –I would go to the souk and get it pulled out. There would be no other option.

Packing again

Didn't I just do this?

I guess it was quite a bit different last time. Then, I was packing all of my things either to go into long-term storage or for international travel. This time, I am "packing" my things to move them one or two kilometers away. Then, it was very difficult for me to say goodbye to the place I was leaving. This time, I am completely indifferent to the apartment that I am moving out of. Then, I knew I was coming to Ifrane, Morocco, but I didn't know exactly what my apartment would be like. This time, I have visited the apartment I am moving into (it's in downtown Ifrane).

This time should be easier. Right?

Moulay Yacoub thermal springs

When I am in a new situation, I have a tendency to get very insecure and very nervous. So when I'm in a new situation that is supposed to be relaxing, I'm lucky if I can become 50% relaxed. I would say that's the state I was able to achieve yesterday when T and I went to the Moulay Yacoub thermal springs and spa with a group of other faculty and staff from the University.

The spa is located in a low spot amongst brown, dusty hills 20 kilometers outside of Fez. Outside the building were palm trees and citrus trees covered with cheerful looking oranges. Inside were glass display cases with fluffy towels and expensive, organic body and hair care products. There are all kinds of services one can get at this spa--massage, facial, pedicure and manicure…or one can just pay 100 dirhams to sit in the hot, sulfurous pool.

Sounds great, right? Overall, it was. While I didn't appreciate the smell that was imparted to my hair and clothes, the warm water was relaxing and seemed therapeutic. I also splurged and paid for a massage, which was nice. The stress just came from being in a different country, where the protocol for everything is just a little bit different, and I can only communicate with the staff using one-word phrases and childish gestures.

Besides providing me with an opportunity for relaxation, the spa got me thinking about gender differences and attitudes towards the body in Morocco. The place was not nearly as gender segregated as one might expect it to be. All customers go to a coed dressing room location. The staff at the desk give you a big robe (with a hood, which is useful for the ladies who like to keep their heads covered) and some slippers. You go into a little dressing cubicle, change into your swimsuit, cover up with the rope, and then check in all of your belongings at the desk. There are individual dressing rooms, but there are no separate ones for men and women. There are two pools – one for women only, which has glazed glass doors so that no one can see into it, and a coed pool. I actually like that. I used the coed pool so that I could talk to T, but I think it would be fun to go with a group of (female) friends and use the "women only" pool. For those getting massages and other services, there are not separate sections for men and women. Showers are also individual but in coed locations.

I was also reminded that Americans can be total prudes. For my massage, the massage therapist brought me into a little room, closed the door (but not all the way), and indicated that I should take off my top. I think she was confused about why I waited for her to leave the room (and completely close the door) before I did so, especially since there was no blanket for me to cover up with during the massage.While a Moroccan woman might be expected to keep more of her body covered up around men than an American woman might be, a woman keeping herself covered up around other women probably doesn't make much sense to Moroccan. and there are some places, like a hot springs pool, where it's okay for everybody to be just about naked. (I saw several Moroccan women in bikinis and men in Speedos.)

Also: if you get a massage at Moulay Yacoub thermal springs and spa, expect by the end to be completely covered–from the ends of your hair to the tips of your toes–with olive oil. Thus the showers.

In other news: This past week we had glorious, warm, sunny, springlike weather. The clouds returned just today.

Day Six

And on the sixth day God said, "Let there be light...a little bit of light for, like, an hour." And there was, and it was good, but it would have been better if it hadn't gotten cloudy and started raining again right away.


Or something like that.

(Seriously, though, people, the country of Morocco got deluged this week. And tomorrow's forecast calls for more rain. But Saturday should be "partly sunny and warmer." Yippee! Maybe the leak in our roof will get fixed this month after all.)

Day four (morning)

Drip...drip...drip...drip...drip...drip...

Patterpatterpatterpatterpatterpatterpatterpatterpatter

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...
 
Aaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Day three

This is day three of rain in Ifrane, and the forecast calls for more of the same for the rest of the week.

Those of you who live in rainy parts of the world might be thinking, "So what?" Maybe I should explain what it means to rain in Ifrane. Once the rain starts, there will be no hint of the sun or of blue sky for days. The rain never stops. The lake between the University and Centre Ville floods. And the rain is accompanied by wind that would put to shame that in Cheyenne, Wyoming. And, of course, it is cold. Think about the fact that many residents of Ifrane are pedestrians (being unable to afford their own cars) and that they live in unheated homes. We do much of our shopping in outdoor spaces. Add to all of that the fact that many ceilings and windows leak (including ours)*, and you might begin to understand why the rain is so miserable here.

I find weather like this to be extremely unmotivating. Somehow, T and I managed to make ourselves go down to the taxi station yesterday, take a taxi to Azrou, and walk around Azrou to go Christmas shopping. But now that I'm back in my apartment, I may not leave until the rain does. Especially now that… I have someone else to do my laundry for me! That's right; the only (non-literal) ray of sunshine on this gloomy, rainy day is that I have finally managed to hire a "maid" (an entry on my feelings about that word, and about the experience of hiring someone to do my laundry for me when I am perfectly capable of doing it myself, will come later). Today, I didn't have to drag my laundry through the cold rain.



*I have had leaky ceilings before, when I lived in the States. In the past, that sort of thing drove me nuts. But when I got up this morning and found the peeling paint on our ceiling and the wet spot on the carpet below it, I just calmly grabbed a towel and a bucket and called T to ask him to submit a work order. Living in a foreign country really is changing me. :-)

Moroccan greetings

A typical greeting of two American people goes something like this:

"Hello."

"Hi. How are you?"

"Fine. How are you?"

"I'm well, thanks."

That's pretty much it. At this point, the two people will go their separate ways, or their discussion will move on to something else.

And here, based on my experience in Morocco, is a typical greeting between two Moroccans (translated into English for your convenience):

"Greetings!"

"Greetings!"

"How are you? Are you well? Are things good?"

"I'm well, thank God. How are you? Are you well? Are things good?"

"I'm well, thank God. How are you? Are things good?"

"I'm good, thank God. Are you well?"

"I'm well, thank God. How is your husband?"

"Very well."

"Thank God!"

"How are your children?"

"They are well, thank God."

"Thank God."

Okay, that's pretty much how it goes, except that the people are usually speaking Darija, and they don't really take turns speaking; they both talk at the same time, so that, in Darija, the discussion sounds like a jumbled repetition of ssalam, la bes, b-kher, and l'hamdullilah. 

I love it.

Chefchaouen

Chefchaouen is a beautiful city nestled in the Rif Mountains. If you want to, you can take all day to get there from Ifrane, but if you drive straight from Ifrane to Chefchaouen, it will take about 3 1/2 hours. I think this drive is completely worth it, despite its potential for car sickness (and death).


View Larger Map

We arrived in Chefchaouen last Thursday evening and left on Sunday morning. We had to do a last minute hotel hunt that first night, but the hunt ended well. We stayed in a clean (but very cold) hotel. The next two nights, we stayed at  Dar Gabriel, an upscale medina hotel.

This was our hotel room at Dar Gabriel. The room is decorated with a lot of "typical" Moroccan stuff. Notice the painted wood and the sequined wall hanging. I think the bed cover is made from cactus; I bought something similar to it (but in completely different colors) in the medina.

I think this is a typical Moroccan hotel bathroom. Rather than an enclosed shower, there's just a showerhead and a drain. This means you have the whole bathroom in which to take a shower! Nothing could possibly go wrong!

Happy Thanksgiving

Most of my readers (if there still are any) celebrate a holiday today.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Volubilis

Last Thursday, T and I headed out of Ifrane with our friend LW and her two daughters. Our ultimate destination was Chefchaouen, a town in the Rif Mountains, but we allowed ourselves to take all day on Thursday to get there. Our first and main stop that day was Volubilis. Just a few kilometers outside of Meknes (which, in turn, is only an hour's drive from Ifrane), Volubilis was, according to The Rough Guide to Morocco, the "most remote" outpost of the Roman Empire. The town was well-established back in 45 A.D. Roman rule withdrew from the area in 285 A.D.

But I'm not as interested in giving you a history lesson as I am in sharing some cool pictures:

Something to keep in mind if you go to a grocery store in Morocco the day after Eid Kbira

All of the people in town who can afford to will be bringing their sheep carcasses to the grocery store butcher to have them cut up, ground into sausage, etc. They will load the skinned and gutted carcasses from their cars into grocery carts, where the skinless legs will be sticking straight up into the air. They will then mob the meat section of Label Vie, and it will be impossible for you to turn in any direction without seeing a whole, upside down sheep carcass. It will also be impossible to get to the alcohol section, which is where you were trying to go. Finally, you will leave the grocery store wondering whether you were putting your groceries into a shopping cart that had previously been carrying a sheep carcass.

The big holiday

If you look at your calendar, you might see that this coming Wednesday, November 17, is labeled as "Eid al Adha." Here in Morocco, this most important Muslim holy day is called "Eid Kbira." "Kbira" means "big," so basically Moroccans call this "the big holiday."

Come Wednesday, this sheep will probably become a former sheep.

The purpose of this blog post isn't to give a religion or history lesson, so those who want details about this holy day can look here or here. I will note that the day is marked by each family slaughtering a sheep, goat, or even cow. An important part of the celebration is participating in and watching the slaughter.

Many of the Americans I know who live here seem to be a bit disturbed by this holy day. I think this is because, while most Americans greatly enjoy eating meat, "animals" and "meat" are generally two separate things in their minds. (I think it helps a little bit that in English – and, I'm sure, in other languages – the words for many animals are different from the words that are used to refer to the meat that comes from those animals. When you're eating a hamburger, you are probably thinking about eating "beef," not "cow.") Most Americans get their meat from the grocery store, where it doesn't look much like the animal that it came from. In contrast, many Moroccans buy their meat while it's still alive! They watch the chicken transition from a living, feathered thing to food on their plate. They participate in that transition. So the idea of watching their kids play with a sheep for a few days, then slaughtering and eating the sheep, is completely natural and in no way disturbing.

At least these sheep look happy right now...

As a vegetarian, I actually admire this. One reason I don't eat meat is because I know that I could not kill an animal. And I don't want to watch someone else do it.

I have been told that the streets literally run with blood on the Eid, and I will not go out on that day. If a Moroccan were to invite me to his or her home for the Eid, I would turn down the invitation. This means I miss out on a significant cultural experience. But I guess I'm completely okay with that.

Videos of Morocco

Here are some videos I came across that can give a fuller sense of Morocco to those who are interested.

The first is a music video of a Chemical Brothers song. I don't really know that much about the Chemical Brothers, but I think their video, filmed near Marrakesh, does a good job of depicting Morocco.

The second video is of the Fez Medina. It's a bit long, but at least watch the first three minutes, up until the point at which the host very aptly describes the smell.

The third video is of Chefchaouen. I haven't visited this town, but again, the video captures certain aspects of Moroccan life that are difficult to describe in text and even photographs.


The Chemical Brothers - Do it again
envoyé par truemozzer. - Regardez la dernière sélection musicale.

Tarmilat

Yesterday evening, T and I went with a group of members of the University Christian church and a few sociology students to the nearby village of Tarmilat. Not more than a ten minute drive outside Ifrane, Tarmilat is really just a collection of houses (like the one pictured at right) in which about 24 families live.

Apparently, these families were brought there decades ago to be sheepherders for the rich families of Ifrane. While some of the villagers now have their own flocks of sheep, they still have no legal rights to the land on which they live – they're basically squatters.

Members of the church became interested a few years ago in helping the villagers of Tarmilat. To make a long story short, the village women were taught how to make rugs, blankets and other handicrafts out of the wool of their sheep.

Soon after we arrived in Tarmilat, with the rock-covered hills all around us covered in gentle rose-colored light from the setting sun, the women of Tarmilat laid out their handicrafts for us to look at and, they hoped, to purchase.

These are the blanket that T and I purchased.

When it grew dark and cold, we were invited inside one family's home for a meal. As you can probably tell from looking at the pictures of these houses, they are extremely simple. A person of normal height can only stand up in the middle of the house. The house we entered had no furniture except for a china hutch at one end. Next to the hutch was a tall pile of wool blankets. The floor was covered with rugs. T asked someone what the families do in the winter, and she pointed out a place in the ceiling where a hole could be made. The families build fires under those holes and use pipes to carry the smoke out of the houses. Most of the homes don't have electricity, although some families are using the money from selling their wool blankets to install solar panels. The community also now has a couple of literate women and even a schoolhouse.

I wish I had taken pictures of the meal they served us. It seemed incredibly extravagant, especially given the surroundings. It began like a traditional ftour meal, with dates, melwi, and chebakia. That was followed by whole roasted chickens, which, I was told (and I had to take people's word for this) were delicious. After that, the women brought out giant plates of steaming couscous and pumpkin. Everything was served on small, round tables, around which people gathered, sitting on the floor. We all ate from the same dishes, with our hands. It was the closest T and I have yet come to eating a traditional Moroccan meal, Moroccan style. (For those of you worried about the idea of a bunch of poor Moroccan women feeding rich Moroccan students and Americans, please note that we paid the women for the meal.)

After the meal, we put our shoes back on and exited the house. We were greeted by a breathtaking autumn night. The sky, unobstructed by buildings or trees, undimmed by electric lights, was the clearest, most beautiful night sky I have ever seen.

I left Tarmilat wondering how best I could cognitively represent or conceive of the lives of its people. The common responses of pity or romanticization are clearly too simplistic. What are their lives really like? How do they feel about living in their rock and tin houses, cooking their meals over open fires? What dreams do they have for their sons and daughters? And with a university with great wealth so close by, what is the responsibility of this university community to Tarmilat? These are the things I wondered about on the van ride home, in the dark.

Rockin' the Casbah...in Rabat

T and I spent the past weekend in Rabat, the capital city of Morocco, with our friends Brian and Sara--they are Americans and former Peace Corps volunteers. We had a great time, and I learned a lot. Some highlights of what I learned:

-A Peace Corps volunteer's definition of a "good hotel" may not be the same as my definition.
-When you pay for a "room with a shower" in Morocco, that's exactly what you're paying for--a room with a shower. Your room won't necessarily have a bathroom, and it won't necessarily have a toilet.

The shower in our budget room at Hotel Central.

Another thing I learned? It's worth paying the extra dirhams, no matter how many, so I have a full bathroom (with toilet) in my hotel room and don't have to use a communal toilet. (That's what I did the second night we stayed in Rabat, when we moved to Hotel Berlin.)

-Towels are not standard. You can ask the hotel staff for towels, and you might get some. They might be clean.
-Don't assume that the presence of a toilet (even a western-style one) means the presence of toilet paper. (This is true in all public places in Morocco, not just in hotels.)

JABS's "I don't have any Mexican ingredients" quesadilla recipe

Ingredients:
Two tortillas for each person
A handful of grated cheese (half gouda, half parmesan) for each person
A small handful of almonds for each person, finely ground (the almonds, that is, not the person)
Cayenne (or other hot pepper), to taste
Olive oil

Directions:
Heat your skillet and add a little olive oil. For each quesadilla, spread some cheese and almonds on one tortilla. Sprinkle with cayenne and then cover with another tortilla. Cook each quesadilla in a hot skillet for a few minutes on each side, until tortillas are slightly browned and cheese is melted. Serve with some kind of green vegetable – whatever you happened to find at the souk.

Shopping extravaganza! (and monkeys… and for those who stay till the end, a mystery… )

One of my earliest blog posts was about shopping at Marjane in Fez. Those of you who read that post know that I did not have a lot of fun, so you might understand why I put off my next big trip to Marjane for several weeks. This weekend, however, I couldn't put it off anymore. So Saturday morning, T and I began our weekend shopping extravaganza by hitching a ride to the Marjane in Meknes with our friend LW.

It turned out to be a productive shopping trip. We found, among other things, a battery charger and Parmesan cheese. (It's funny how such laughably miniscule accomplishments can make me so happy.)

That afternoon, we went with the W family to Azrou. The highlight of the trip was the monkeys. Yes, you heard me right – monkeys. Actually, they're called Barbary apes, but I think they are, in reality, macaques. I'm not really sure what that's all about.

Does your phone do that?

Sure, there are probably hundreds of super cool "apps" that you can download onto your iPhone or Droid or Blackberry or whatever.

But in Morocco, even the cheapest, most basic cell phone (which, of course, is what T and I bought) come with a function for programming in reminders of prayer times.

Does your phone do that?

Why I wish I could be allowed to learn language like a baby

For my class on language development, the instructor had us watch a video which compared a baby learning his or her native language to an adult trying to learn a foreign language in a foreign country. As an adult trying (admittedly halfheartedly) to learn two foreign languages in a foreign country, I was not impressed by the comparison.

But the more I got to thinking about it, the more I realized that it would be really nice if adults were allowed to learn languages the way children do. So here's what I think I should be allowed to do here in Morocco so I can pick up on more Arabic and French:

1. For at least six months, I should be allowed to do nothing but listen to adults speak. I shouldn't have to cook for myself, transport myself anywhere, or even clean or dress myself. I should just be allowed to sit around and listen to people talk. I should not be expected to respond in any way, other than maybe smiling at them.

2. For the next six months, I should be allowed to make fairly random sounds. I should be allowed – without any self-consciousness whatsoever – to play with my tongue and lips. I should be allowed to walk around making velar fricatives, nasal vowels, glottal stops, etc. I should not be asked to connect any of these sounds with any real-world referents.

3. After about a year of listening to people talk and practicing individual sounds and combinations of sounds, maybe then I'd be ready to start pointing to objects and naming them. (That's pretty much what I do now. Rather than saying in Arabic "Could I please have a kilo of lemons?" I point to the lemons and say "Kilo? Hamd?")

4. Maybe, maybe after that I would be ready for a little bit of formal grammar instruction. But I still shouldn't be expected for at least another year to construct utterances of, say, more than five words each.

I think I might actually be able to learn something if I were allowed to follow these steps.

Seriously, though, I am discovering that I actually can pick up some words just by listening to people talk. (I'm talking about Arabic here. I still absolutely cannot parse French words from each other. French still sounds to me like a bunch of vowels mushed up together. Sorry, HBW.) We went with an American couple to Azrou on Saturday, and the husband, B, speaks pretty fluent Darija and likes talking to Moroccans. So I got to spend a good chunk of the day listening to people speak in Darija. At the end of the day, I realized that I had actually parsed out some individual words. I asked him and his wife what those words meant. I seriously felt like a two-year-old, but I was also proud that I was learning something. Not that knowing the words for "good,"  "there is," and "yes, it's clear," is particularly helpful, but this was an accomplishment for me.

Maybe there's hope for me yet. Maybe.

Hike near Immouzer (which I did not go on)

I can't get T to post a blog entry about the hike he went on without me a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't want to deprive you of photos from the hike, so here they are without commentary. Make up your own narrative to go along.

On socializing and making friends

One of the stressors of moving to a new place is, of course, not having friends in that place and needing to make new friends, something that has always been difficult for me. When I meet a potential friend, it takes me a long time to put the label of "friend" on that person. I don't usually have very many friends at a time. For most of my life, I had only one or two close friends at a time.

I have also always had a tendency to be drawn to the "outcasts" or to those who don't entirely fit in (sorry, my dear friends). I have met a lot of interesting people this way. When I was in high school, I got to know exchange students from Czech Republic, Japan, and Germany, while many of my classmates didn't bother to take the time to get to know those people. in Morocco, though, who are the outcasts? Who are the people who don't fit it? The other expatriates, of course. T and I are starting to hang out with some great people – most of them Americans. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this, but we are finding it a bit difficult to get to know Moroccans, and we both agree that part of having an enriching experience in another culture involves getting to know members of that culture.

So what's standing in the way of my making Moroccan friends? Well, as I mentioned above, there is my tendency to be drawn to the misfits. There is my introversion (yes, I am an introvert). But there are also some interesting Moroccan cultural factors. T and I have noticed a great deal of separation between Moroccan and expatriate faculty members at the University. We talked to an American faculty member who has been here for 10 years about this. He didn't seem to think that establishing friendships with Moroccans was going to be very likely for us. The reasons seem complicated, but I think they are partly related to the strong emphasis put on family in Moroccan culture; a lot of Moroccans are busy spending time with their families, and I think they assume everyone else is doing the same. Religion also plays a role. Islam is a religion that pervades every aspect of the lives of its devout followers. Whether I'm comfortable with it or not, I understand that religious differences create some divisions between people here. And actually, if I think about it, I realize that things aren't any different in the U.S. People tend to spend time with those who share their beliefs. Think about your own political affiliations, for example; if you are a Republican, are most of your friends also Republicans? If you are a Democrat, how many Republican friends do you have?

One of the main things we do with our new potential friends is go out to eat, even though our choices are fairly limited here in Ifrane. This tagine with French fries on top, which T was surprised to discover he had ordered, is one of the tasty offerings in the Ifrane restaurants. (I've been waiting for weeks to have an opportunity to post this picture.)

For now, I'm not going to worry too much about the nationality of my friends. I'm going to remain open to the  possibility of making Moroccan friends. But I'm also going to be patient.

The gap between "says" and "is"

In this blog post (and, I suspect, in future blog posts) I will be making observations about Moroccan culture. I make these observations from my own limited point of view, and from my own limited experience in Morocco. If any Moroccans or anyone more familiar with Moroccan culture than I am reads this blog, I hope they do not take offense. If I have made any observations or claims in error, please, please correct me.

Three weeks ago, on the first day of yoga class (about halfway through class), loud dance music begin playing in the room next door. We completed our yoga practice listening to intermittent, booming night club music. It seemed to become especially loud during savasana, of course. After class, the instructor apologized and said, "The student activities office assured me that this would be a quiet place for yoga class."

I had to smile. My instructor had just found herself in the gap between "says" and "is."

The gap between "says" and "is" (a term dubbed by one of T's colleagues) has been– by far – the most difficult aspect of Moroccan culture for me to adapt to. Generally, in American culture, when we ask someone a question, we expect an answer that corresponds as strictly as possible with reality. In Moroccan culture (and I base this claim on what I have observed, what I have been told, and what I have read), you aren't nearly as likely to get an answer that corresponds with what most Americans would call "the truth." You are more likely to get the answer that the person thinks you want to hear, the answer that he or she thinks would make you happy, or the answer that he or she wishes were true.

I was warned about the gap before I came here. But I think my American upbringing kept me from completely understanding how wide, and how strange to me as an outsider, it really would be.

I'll give you some small examples of my experience with the gap between "says" and "is." When T and I were learning about the University, we read about a multi-kilometer forest path going around the University. T's dean even mentioned to him during our first week here what a pleasant walk it is. When I went looking for the path, I found that it did not exist. I thought I saw signs that it had once been present, but the path was completely overgrown. I quickly (meaning within about five minutes) had to give up. When we asked a few people about the path, they said that it has not been maintained for quite a while. It is essentially nonexistent.

Here's another example. There are a shuttle for faculty and a bus for students that drive back and forth between the University and strategic parts of the town. The grounds and maintenance office continues to claim that faculty (or other people) who wish to use the student bus must buy tickets. I have spoken with many people who have worked here for a few years, and none of them have ever bought tickets. Nevertheless, if you visit the University's website, you will see that it says tickets must be purchased for use of the bus.

What I realized, then, is that when people say "There's a nice forest path going around campus," what they really mean is "We used to have a nice forest path, and wouldn't it be nice if we still did?" When they say "You need to purchase tickets to use the bus," what they really mean is "We wish we could figure out a way to charge money for use of the bus."

The examples I have provided are just two rather small (and somewhat lame) examples. I experience this gap on a daily basis, so much so that I have gotten into the habit of assuming any answers I get to my questions to be inaccurate unless I get the same answer from a minimum of three different people.

I don't mean to suggest in any way that Moroccans are liars. I'm not an anthropologist, and I'm certainly not an expert on Moroccan culture, but I think this tendency to tell people what they want to hear comes from an essentially good place, from a place of generosity. When an American might be likely to "tell it like it is," it seems as if a Moroccan is going to be more likely to "tell you like it should be." Doesn't that take more imagination? Isn't it really more generous than the cold, hard truth?

Perhaps so. But I have a feeling that this aspect of Moroccan culture has been responsible for driving away more than one non-Arab foreign faculty member. I hope to adjust well enough that it doesn't drive me away.

What it means to pay shipping to Morocco

I am writing this blog entry using what very well might be the world's most expensive copy of the software program Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

The story started several weeks ago when I realized that, for reasons I don't want to get into here, it was going to be difficult for me to do all the computer work that my online classes require. T discovered a voice to text computer program called Dragon NaturallySpeaking, but because it comes with a headset and microphone, it has to be ordered online and mailed to you – it can't be purchased and downloaded from the Internet. T ordered the program for me, and we paid a ridiculously high shipping cost. And then we waited.

To make a long and fairly uninteresting story short, what we learned is that when we pay shipping to Morocco (at least through DHL), we are paying to ship the package to Morocco, not to our address in Morocco. After the package got to Rabat, we were told we were going to have to pay even more money to get it to us in Ifrane. After weeks of exchanges between T and representatives of DHL, we finally got our package as far as Fez. Yesterday, we went to Fez for the sole purpose of picking up my software program, which, for some reason, DHL could not possibly get to Ifrane. We also ended up paying a lot of money – whether you measure it in dollars or dirhams– just to get it from DHL.

I'm trying not to be angry about all the time and money it has cost us to get this computer program to our apartment. I'm trying not to be upset that we were charged at least double what we should have been for shipping. I'm trying to treat this as a learning experience. Maybe I'll let you know later how successful my attempts have been.

What we talk about when we talk about love

No, this blog entry isn't about Raymond Carver's subdued short story. It's about the idea of "loving" a country. When we told people we were moving to Morocco, some said, "So-and-so went there last year and just fell in love with the country." Others said things like, "Oh, you'll love it there."

I have no idea what people mean when they say they "love" a country. I've never loved a country. I don't love the U.S. There are things I like about my home country, and probably things I'll come to appreciate more now that I'm not there, and there are also many things I greatly dislike about it. But I know people who "love" the U.S., and quite a few people who "love" Morocco. We have met an American couple working at the University who were in Morocco with the Peace Corps a couple of years ago and "fell in love" with Morocco. They've wanted nothing else since then but to figure out how to get back here. We know another American couple who want to own a second home in Morocco, and a third couple who knew the first day they got here that they loved it. What do they mean when they say they love Morocco? I'm really not sure.

As of right now, my feelings about Morocco on an average day, at their most positive, are probably best described as ambivalent. Especially after Ramadan, I kept waiting for feelings to develop. I kept waiting to fall in love (or not to). Anyone who has been reading my blog knows that I have carefully highlighted the positive elements of my experience here; nevertheless, I remain ambivalent. I'm not saying I think I should feel anything other than what I feel.

I'm just saying.

Absinthe update

If I had done even a minimal amount of research before making some guesses in my previous blog post about shiba, an herb sometimes added to Moroccan mint tea, I would have discovered that yes, it is absinthe, also known as artemesia or wormwood. But the word "absinthe" is used to refer both to the alcohol (which is illegal in many countries) and the herb, shiba/artemesia/wormwood that is an ingredient in the alcohol. Shiba has some medicinal effects, which is why Amina advised me only to add a small amount to my pot of tea, but it doesn't appear to be dangerous in any way when added to tea like that--and it makes the tea taste extra yummy.

Speaking of medicinals, I came down with a cold yesterday. I think I have been sick more often than not since we got here (part of culture shock, right?). I'm missing out on a hike today, but T assures me he will take pictures, and I just might be able to convince him to be a guest blogger so you can all join in the hiking fun.

The souk

Several posts ago, I said I would post some pictures of the Ifrane souk. But I think I had better back up and also explain what a souk is. Souks are markets, and every Moroccan town has a souk location. Big cities have several souks; smaller towns, like Ifrane and nearby Azrou, have one souk location and have designated souk days.

The Ifrane souk is on Saturdays and Sundays. The souk takes place in a large area a bit outside of town. If you've ever been to an outdoor craft fair or some such thing in the U.S., you might be able to imagine the souk's basic layout. There are dozens and dozens of vendors selling everything from fruits and vegetables to soaps to clothes to electronics. It is outdoors, but some of the area has a permanent covering over it, and much of the rest is covered with canopies to provide shade and, in the winter, some protection from snow and rain. The food vendors are in the middle, with those selling non-food wares on the periphery. (Much of the non-food items are used, and a lot of them look like things that most Americans would send to the landfill. In fact, I suspect many of the items for sale came from dumps. I was also told that some of the clothes sold at the souk are leftovers shipped here from countries like the U.S.)

Souk etiquette is pretty simple. Most produce vendors will hand you a plastic bag (mikka) and you fill it with whatever fruit or vegetable you want. Produce is sold by the kilogram (kilo), although you can usually get a nuss-kilo (half a kilo). Spices are sold by the dirham. You tell the vendor how many dirhams worth of a spice you want, and he (always a "he") expertly wraps it in paper and then puts it in a mikka for you.

Most shoppers have their favorite vendors who they return to again and again. Two of the three times I have been to the Ifrane souk, I was lucky enough to go with American women who speak Arabic, so they have helped me immensely with navigating through the huge piles of tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, artichokes, apples....Today I also had the help of LW's maid, Amina (yes, "maid" is the word that's used, regardless of how much it makes you cringe), who was grabbing items and bagging them for me. (Amina is also, as far as I know, the only woman in Ifrane who makes tortillas, which can be purchased for two dirhams a piece. She makes them one at a time, by hand!) LW and Amina also bought me a little of an herb they called shiba, which my research tells me means "absinthe," so I hope what they really bought me is something the book Eat Smart in Morocco calls sheh. Little bits of the herb are added to Moroccan mint tea, and I put some in my tea this afternoon with no apparent effects. Hmm.

Moving on...

The sense of abundance at a souk is incredible. The Whole Foods marketing team should take note. And food here is cheap (by my rich Western standards). Today, for around $15 U.S., T and I bought kilos and kilos of tomatoes, grapes, green beans, sweet potatoes, lemons, melon, and fresh mint. Today I also got several free dates from LW's favorite date vendor. And I came home with a nuss-kilo of his best dates, even though I'm not sure what I'll do with that many of them.

The next time you're buying groceries at Wal-Mart, think of me walking around in the fresh air, munching on free dates, picking out fresh fruits and vegetables and paying pocket change for them. Not so bad, is it?

Trust and generosity

In the U.S., what happens if you try to buy something in a store but don't have the money for it? Unless there is some incredibly generous person behind you who will give or lend you some money, you're probably walking out of the store empty-handed.

In Morocco, at least sometimes, the clerk lets you take the item anyway. "Bring the money later, when you have it," the clerk will say. I have seen this happen a couple of times. Once, not only did the shopper walk out with the grocery item he needed, but the clerk also lent him a 100 dirham note.

When we ate at Al Kasabah in Asilah, the server gave us our tea for free--just because he liked us (or because he liked the Ws' little girls, anyway). Also in Asilah, when LW saw a painting she liked but didn't have the money for it, the artist offered to let her take the painting and pay later, as she was able.

When we stopped at a market in Rabat and asked about some fruit we didn't know the name of, the vendor put a handful in each of our grocery bags.

These seem to be fairly ordinary occurrences here. The only people I have heard say anything about these incidents are people like me--outsiders. I can only guess about the origins of such trusting and generous behavior, that it must have something to do with Islam and with the idea of hospitality. But I'm not really that interested in analyzing it. I'm really more interested in just appreciating it and trying to absorb it. We can all benefit from trying to live each moment with a spirit of generosity.

Moulay Bousselham, Asilah and a little of Rabat -- in pictures

Dear Americans, want to know what the Atlantic Ocean looks like from the other side? Read on.

JW and LW, an American couple living here for a year with their two daughters, invited T and me to go on a trip to the beach  with them over the weekend. These are the towns we visited:


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Moulay Bousselham is so small that it doesn't even show up on Google Maps, but the marker on the above map shows you approximately where it is.

Asilah is not even an hour's drive north of Moulay Bousselham, not far from Tangier.


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We stayed at Driftwood Apartments in Moulay Bousselham for two nights.

View of Driftwood Apartments from the street

These cows walked through town each morning to rummage through the garbage across the street from where we were staying. This was part of our view from the balcony of our apartment. It was more entertaining than it might seem, although the meat-eaters amongst us (i.e. everyone but me) were a bit disturbed to see their future dinner eating garbage.

 The beach was spectacular. I especially enjoyed searching for crabs, fish, and shells with the girls during low tide.

LW with Sandy the dog, who adopted us during our time in Moulay Bousselham. Did I mention that there are a lot of feral and homeless cats and dogs in Morocco?

T, as if you didn't know

We loved Moulay Bousselham enough that we are already plotting our return, but I think I have to say that my experience in Asilah made it my favorite Moroccan town or city thus far. It is a community of artists, and the medina is full of beautiful artwork--some of it painted right on the buildings. It is a low-key, open, and peaceful medina, especially compared to the one in Fes.

 After walking around the medina, we ate dinner outdoors at Al Kasabah, where I had a divine vegetable tagine and T had his first taste of bestila (I think there are at least half a dozen ways to spell that).

On the drive home, we stopped briefly in Rabat. We had lunch at the mega mall, where I ordered tofu at a Japanese restaurant. It was silken tofu, which I usually dislike, but it tasted wonderful. We also briefly visited the medina and then had some ice cream by the river.

T with JW and LW in the Rabat medina

I loved the colorful boats in the river.

If I remember correctly, Sale is the city that you can see across the river here.

We drove home on Sunday evening with the sun setting, tired but with a feeling of fullness and blessedness. How lucky we are to know such a wonderful and generous family, and to live in such a beautiful country!

On being a student again

While T teaches, I am auditing beginning French and taking four online undergraduate courses in a pre-speech language pathology program. Before starting my classes, I was apprehensive, for many reasons. I had a lot of questions. What will it be like to move from the social role of teacher to student? What if the classes are too hard? What if they are too easy? What if I decide I hate the field and have to scrap my plan? What will it be like to start school at the same time that I move to a new home in a new country? Will it be too much?

Now I'm developing answers to some of those questions. I thought that, as a former college instructor, I would be very critical of my own instructors. I am, but I am also much more sympathetic to them than I would have been at, say, 18 years of age, because I now have a much better understanding of how difficult their jobs are.

The classes are both too hard and too easy, in certain ways. Because I'm not sitting in a classroom (and maybe because I'm over 30 years old), retention of material is more difficult. Much of the material in three of the classes is review, making it easy but a bit boring. Anatomy and physiology is  kicking my butt. That class is teaching me that I cannot re-adopt my perfectionistic student habits. I cannot, for example, learn all of the material for the exam I'm taking tomorrow morning. I have been studying for a week. My brain will not memorize everything. I have to be okay with that.

I maintain that it is harder to be a student at 30 than at 18, despite all of the benefits that maturity bestows upon the older student. I see this most in French class, where a University professor who is about my age sits next to me, and we roll our eyes at each other as we try to make even the simplest of utterances in French, while the 20 year old American students in the class are clearly picking up on things more quickly than we are.

One final problem with being a student again is that these classes are not taking up enough of my time. Why is that a problem? Because I haven't yet figured out how to fill the time not taken up by classes. Even laundry, which seems like a ridiculously laborious task now, doesn't actually fill very many hours in a given week. Filling my time is a part of my unemployment and an aspect of culture shock which I anticipated. But that doesn't mean I've yet figured out how to do it.

When I start to feel frustrated by the challenges of my new role as student, I just look at my French instructor, or my husband for that matter, and remind myself that their position is the alternative. I really am content with being on the student side of the desk. For now, anyway. And I am thankful for the distraction it provides for at least a few hours each week.

Tomorrow we head for the beach with some new acquaintances (potential friends?). Photos to follow next week!

A scene

Female students are not allowed in male residence halls, and male students are not allowed in female residence halls. But of course college students find creative ways of getting around this. On the ground floor of the building next door, I see a modern-day Romeo and Juliet, forbidden by conservative policy from being in a dorm room together. She sits in his open window (no screens on the windows here), and he leans outside from his room to talk to her. She is not, technically, inside the building. They are talking and laughing, gently illuminated by the light from his dorm room.

On being homesick

WARNING: This post isn't exactly about Morocco.

Maybe it's because I've hardly left my apartment for days. Maybe it's because T and I have both been under the weather this week. Maybe it's because the literal weather has turned cool, overcast, and rainy. Maybe it's because I was looking at some photographs of Wyoming yesterday. Or maybe this is just what happens after being in a new place for about a month. I'm homesick.

I miss my house, which finally (hamdullah!) has renters in it (although, ideally, it would have new owners in it). I miss the Wyoming mountains. I miss my friends who (ahem) I haven't gotten to talk to since moving here. And, of course, I miss my birds.

Mango bird

Pierre (a.k.a. Cresty McCrest)

Superfluous video of Mango taking a bath

Surely I've gone through this every time I've moved. I think the reason I feel (or think I feel) the homesickness more strongly this time is that I never had to give up as much before. But maybe this time, while I've sacrificed more, I have more to gain.

Right?

A few of my favorite things

I have been feeling a little under the weather these past few days and thought an upbeat blog post--about the things I have discovered in Morocco and really like--might help cheer me up (because it's all about me, you know). It's easy to focus on the annoyances, the inconveniences, the bewildering differences, but there's really much to love here. For instance:

-Storks on rooftops.

-Egrets in trees.

-People at the marché, both vendors and other customers, who are willing to do just about anything to figure out what it is I am asking for. They'll usually try to teach me the word for it in French or Arabic, too. And they are very patient!

-The phrase "Welcome to Morocco!" which almost everyone says once they find out we are new and actually live here.

-Safety. I feel very safe here.

-The view from my living room window.

-Schweppes citron.

-Little flan-flavored yogurt cups. (They aren't really yogurt, but they are yummy!)

-Fresh loaves of bread for 2 or 3 dirhams (that's less than a dollar) each.

-Moroccan mint tea.

-Buying fresh things in bulk. Our favorites? Harissa and olives.

-T and I both like what appears to be a slower pace of life. It's something I feel I can learn a great deal from.