Laundry day!

It's official: Tuesday is laundry day.

My plan is to wash only two loads, every other week. From now on, in the S household, an item shall only be placed in the dirty laundry bag if it is giving off a strong bad odor, if it has a large and obvious stain, or if it has had serious exposure to germs. The rule stands until such time that someone else is paid to do the S household's laundry. In case you're wondering why, I'll explain the steps I had to go through to do one load of laundry.

1. Get Tate's ID card from him.

2. Go to the Business Office between the hours of 9am and 2:30pm, Monday through Friday--during which they may or may not be open--and put some money on Tate's account.

3. Go to the bookstore to buy laundry tickets (7 dirhams each--that's almost a dollar).

4. Go back to the apartment, sort the laundry, and load it into the duffle bag.

5. Walk down three flights of stairs with said duffle bag. It's heavy. I'm a wimp.

6. Walk to Building 36, about a quarter of a mile away, including some up and down stairs.

7. Once the laundry attendant is finished with her phone conversation, give her my ticket so she can put a token from her pocket in the washing machine and start it.

8. Walk back to the apartment because I forgot to bring something to do while waiting for my laundry, and anyway, there's no place to sit and wait.

9. Walk back down the stairs and over to Building 36 to move laundry into a dryer.

10. Laundry isn't done yet, so wander around outside for a few minutes.

11. Move laundry into dryer.

12. Walk back to the apartment.

13. Walk back to Building 36 and give the woman another ticket because the laundry is still wet.

14. Walk back to the apartment.

15. Walk back to Building 36, load up the duffle bag, and walk up and down some stairs to my apartment building.

16. Walk back up three flights of stairs.

17. Lay out the clothes that still aren't dry.

Hmm. Maybe there are some improvements to be made to this procedure.

(I have, for nearly my entire life, absolutely detested doing laundry. The only exception occurred during the three years in my house in Powell [which, by the way, is still for sale]. Oh, Frigidaire high efficiency washer and dryer right on the back porch! How I miss you!)

The U

Today I was supposed to do laundry. I have been putting it off for a few reasons. First, the hours of the two laundry facilities on campus have changed more than once even in the 10 days we've been here, so it hasn't been clear to me when I could do laundry. Second, the facility is, oh, I don't know, maybe a quarter of a mile away. I have no problem walking that far, but I've been procrastinating walking that far with a giant bag of laundry (especially since I've been paranoid that I'd get there and the facility would be closed because the hours keep changing). Finally, I know that some small thing will go wrong--I won't know how to use the machines, or I'll ruin one of T's work shirts. Something. I'm not being a pessimist here, and I'm okay with something going wrong, but I've still wanted to put it off.

So instead of doing laundry, I wandered around campus. The original purpose of my wanderings was to try to find a 4 kilometer nature trail that supposedly goes around campus. That purpose was not fulfilled. But I did get some pictures of campus. I focused on buildings that I haven't seen pictures of online, like the auditorium, which I think is a very interesting mix of Moroccan and European architecture:

People who actually know anything about architecture are invited to leave intelligent-sounding comments describing the architecture of this building.

All of the buildings on campus look like this one, with the red tile roofs and yellow walls. Actually, almost all buildings in Ifrane have a similar look. This is not typical Moroccan architecture.

Because all buildings on campus look the same, differentiated only by a small sign somewhere on the building indicating its number, it is very easy to get lost on campus.



Appearances are clearly important on this campus, so I was pleased to see a little "funkiness" in the form of artwork on a few of the buildings.

T is in building 10, on the second floor. He was busy working hard in his office while I wandered aimlessly around campus.

All of the computers on campus have French keyboards, which are just similar enough to QWERTY as to be rather confusing. The French keyboards can be reset as QWERTY keyboards, though. As long as T can type without looking at the keys, I guess he's okay.

 I thought I'd also post some pictures of the views from our apartment windows, to give you a better sense of the scenery.

View of student and faculty residence halls from our guest bedroom window.

View of another residence hall (which pretty much looks exactly like our building) from one of our living room windows. In the distance, we can see the auditorium.

This is the rest of the view from our living room window. In the distance is Michliffen Hotel, Ifrane's newest luxury hotel, which allegedly costs $7000 Moroccan dirhams a night--that's over $800 U.S.

School starts tomorrow for both T and me--he'll be a teacher, and I'll be a student. Tomorrow, real daily life in Ifrane will begin for us. This evening, as I hear the crows (which sound more like musical squeak toys than cawing American crows) calling to each other on the building rooftops, as the sun slowly moves toward the horizon, infuriatingly indifferent to the hungry and thirsty Muslim mouths waiting for its disappearance, I feel a strong sense of waiting, of suspension. Tomorrow I will begin to know what it will really be like for us to live here, when we will have to balance work (or school), and shopping, and laundry, and cooking, and all the daily things we had to do in the U.S., but that were done differently. Tomorrow!

First trip to Fez, or How I Came to be Eating Lunch in the Ladies' Restroom in Marjane

And it was a pretty lame lunch, too--half a Clif bar. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Because we are living in a small resort town where it can be difficult to find household items, the University takes all new faculty members on one free trip to two stores, Metro and Marjane, in Fes (about an hour away from Ifrane). We went today. I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I was told that Metro was "like Costco" and that Marjane was a supermarket and was "like Target." I had no idea what that would mean, though. "Like," as we know from William Lutz, is a "weasel word." "Like magic," for example, means "not actually magic." So I didn't get my hopes up. I tried not to guess what either store would be like.

Besides, before I could evaluate the stores, I had to get to there alive. Have I said anything yet about Moroccan driving? Surely, it must play a significant role in keeping the Moroccan life span fairly low. Americans know nothing about tailgating. A Moroccan driver will drive with literally no space (and I use "literally" literally here) between the front of his car and the back of the car in front of him. Moroccan drivers will pass in the most insane conditions, such as on a two-way curving mountain road with no shoulder and with at least four lanes of traffic going along it already (you have to remember that besides cars going in both directions, all roads also have people on foot, donkey, bicycle, and motorbike). *

Moroccan drivers are also much more liberal in their use of car horns than Americans are. Horns are used for the same purpose I have seen them used in the U.S., basically to say, "Hey! You did something stupid and I almost hit you!" But the horns are also used to say, "Hello, everyone walking, biking, or driving more slowly than I want to be driving. I am coming up behind you and you had best move out of my way because I am not moving or slowing down. I don't care if there's nowhere for you to go in order to get out of my way. Just do it!" 

Needless to say, since I am now at home writing this blog entry, we did make it to Fes and back. And it's a trip I would like to do again, but I'd like to be able to stop along the way--because we drove by some amazing scenery. (Much of the landscape is very similar to that along the drive from Powell to Clark, Wyoming.)  All along the road are men sitting next to piles of rocks, with large jars of honey (or sugar water posing as honey) for sale. There are also produce vendors selling melons and apples and vegetables on the road side. We passed by Berbers tending their sheep herds alongside the road, and Berber tents with handmade rugs hanging outside for sale. There were also small stands selling pottery along the way.

Once in Fes, we drove straight to Metro, and from there to Marjane. Some of you asked me to take pictures of the stores, but I didn't need to. If you want to see Metro, go to Costco. If you want to see Marjane, go to a Super Wal-Mart--the biggest one you can find. Wal-Mart was the one American institution that I was categorically relieved to get away from, and then I found it again in Morocco. But this was the Wal-Mart of nightmares, packed full of weary Ramadan shoppers, the organization of the store completely unfamiliar, the contents of packages mysterious. I nearly broke down. Maybe I did break down, a little. But we came home somewhat victorious. I got a low-end blender/food processor, a clothes iron, soy sauce. I found SOY MILK and nearly bought Marjane's entire supply. I had intended to come home with a few other things (like a room fan, tahini) but can return after Ramadan ends.

So how did I come to be eating lunch in the Marjane restroom? Well, that came shortly after the miniature breakdown. It was about 2:30 in the afternoon, I had just been rather snappy with my husband, and I told myself to take a timeout in one of the (luckily rather private) bathroom stalls and have a little food.

What did I learn today? I learned not to go to Marjane during Ramadan. I also learned, again, that people (i.e. me) do crazy things while experiencing culture shock. For example, I came home with 24 jars of tomato paste. Don't ask me why. I will not be able to provide a logical answer.



*Sorry, Mom S. I'm sure this is completely freaking you out. But it's the truth!

The little things

Before coming to Morocco, T and I did as much reading about it as we could. We had great advice coming from a lot of people, especially B, who worked at this University for five years. Even the University provides advice in the form of a fairly lengthy guide to settling in designed for foreign faculty. But what I have noticed in my first week here is that there are a lot of tiny but significant differences between the U.S. and Morocco. There are so many of these that no one can tell you about them. For example:

-No one gives you a detailed rundown of the money. The literature says, "Moroccan money is in dirhams." Right, just like U.S. money is in dollars. We also have cents, and Moroccan money has centimes. So you have to figure out which coins are centimes and which are dirhams. 

-Bathrooms. I'm still not sure if there are public restrooms around town, but even if there are, they won't be familiar. The public restrooms on campus that I've encountered look like this: 

Yes, I took a picture of a public toilet. Get over it.

Sometimes these bathrooms will have toilet paper, too, but sometimes they won't. There's an adjustment needed there.

-Lack of containers. Many foodstuffs, including herbs, spices, grains, pastas, and beans, are sold in bulk. When I bought my spices at the souk, the vendor wrapped them in bits of newspaper. Now they are sitting on my counter, wrapped in newspaper, in a plastic bag. I'm used to having a big spice collection, so at some point I need to figure out how to store all these spices.

-Speaking of plastic bags, you need to save all of them--grocery bags, any used ziploc baggies...everything. You need to save all jars and bottles.

-Fitted bedsheets. Don't have them. (Nor, apparently, are double beds common.)

-The water has super high mineral content. I have been boiling water to supplement our supply of Sidi Ali (popular brand of bottled water), and the boiled tap water has chunks of white mineral floating in it. My morning tea has a strange "skin" on top of it. How do people handle this? I don't know yet. It's too small to be mentioned in advice books.

You might be reading this list and thinking, "Why is she writing about this? These are really minor things. Boring, too!" That's my point. But there are a lot of them, and their accumulation contributes to culture shock. I'm sure anyone who has moved to a foreign country has experienced what I'm talking about. Heck, even when one moves to a new town, one encounters these little differences to some extent.

Finally, there are little things that I am missing, especially, right now, soy products.

Psst! Anyone who sends us a package is requested to throw in some soy milk and vegetarian jerky (of which Tofurky jurky [much better than Tofurky] is just one brand). I'll pay you back!

I am also keeping a running mental list of the things I wish I'd brought with me. I wish I'd shipped myself a big box of soy milk and jerky. I wish I'd brought more towels, a couple of board games, a pack of cards. I guess the key is not to dwell on it, but to say, "Next time I'll do better!"

How people dress

When T and I first decided to move here and started telling people of our plans, we got a lot of the same questions over and over again. Many of the questions were related to dress. "Will you have to wear a burqa?" or "Will you have to veil?" were common questions I heard. Fair enough. My experience has been that your average American (including me) doesn't know a lot about Morocco (nor about Islam, which has a great influence here because 99% of the population is Muslim). Several people confessed to me that--completely automatically--they conjured up images of sandy deserts, people living in tents, and camels. Even after a great deal of research, I still had trouble imagining what it would be like here. And part of "what it's like" is related to how people dress, which is, of course, inextricably linked to culture, religion, and gender and social roles.

So I think when people asked whether I would have to veil, what they were really asking about was what life would be like for me as a woman here. Most people I talked to knew that Morocco is in Africa and that it is a Muslim country. Well, how are Africa and Islam represented in the U.S.? Africa is a place of desolation, AIDS, and starving children, right? And Islam! It seems that in the U.S. there are very few images of Islam that don't come from places of great extremism, like Saudi Arabia, or that are not related to terrorism and oppression of women.

Morocco is clearly nothing like that, and the way people dress provides some of the evidence.

Yes, many women here wear a hijab. I suspect that, the more rural the area, the more traditional the dress will be. I have seen many women with hair, arms, and legs covered with traditional-looking garb (still need to learn the names for all the variations). But many of the young women are putting an interesting spin on things, wearing a hijab with a tight-fitting long-sleeved top, leggings, and heels. On campus and in the marché, I have seen young women in what I would call very American-style tank tops, with bra straps showing. I saw quite a bit of cleavage on one young woman today. I have seen short sleeves, low tops, short skirts, tight pants. I have seen these clothes on students and University employees. I saw no inappropriate staring from men, nor have I heard cat calls or lewd comments. There are women of all ages wearing hijabs, and there are women not wearing them. The point is that it is a choice here, just as it is in most places. And I have seen no indication that Moroccan women who choose to dress modestly and/or wear a hijab have any expectation that others should do it.

Okay, guys, maybe you are wondering what you could wear here. I must confess that I have paid more attention to what women wear because that is more relevant to me. But with men, too, I have noticed a wide range of dress. I saw a man downtown wearing shorts and a t-shirt and have seen many men in jeans and t-shirts. It does seem, though, that a lot of men dress nicely, in suits or collared shirts with dress pants. Some men wear traditional Moroccan garb. Again, as with women, there is a great deal of variation.

We will go to Fes/Fez on Saturday, and it will be interesting to see how dress is different in the big city from in our little resort town.

Being vegetarian in Morocco, or "Get over it and pick the meat out!"

Before T and I moved to Morocco, I knew that one of the greatest difficulties for me was going to be surviving as a vegetarian here. Most of you know that, for more than my adult life, I have been an unusually strict vegetarian. (Sorry pesco people, but fish have brains and eyes--they're animals in my book.) Add in my significant allergies to eggs and peanuts and a low tolerance for dairy, and you have one person who is annoyingly difficult to feed (right, G and K?).

My diet was sometimes challenging in the U.S., but I was at least dealing with people who spoke the same language as me. It may have embarrassed my co-diners, but I could always ask the server at a restaurant, or the host or hostess of a dinner, about the ingredients. The concepts of veganism and vegetarianism are fairly widely understood in the U.S.--even in Wyoming! :)

Now I'm in a country where English is not widely spoken. Nor is the concept of vegetarianism widely understood. Meat, being high in protein and in price, is highly valued. I get that. I certainly understand that people, especially those in poorer countries, like and eat meat. I wouldn't expect any Moroccans to convert to vegetarianism.

However, I am already frustrated by the lack of understanding of what to me is something much greater than a dislike of meat. I had a somewhat unpleasant encounter with an (originally American) person yesterday who, upon discovering that I am vegetarian, essentially told me to "get over it" and to get used to picking meat out of things (at a minimum--it was obvious this person would prefer that I return to the natural state of human food consumption and start eating meat).

I don't want to write much more about that encounter, but it did get me thinking more about my dietary habits. It made me ask, for the hundredth time, what is my problem? What's the big deal if my vegetable couscous or tagine has meat broth in it? These are not easy questions to answer. For me, the decision not to consume a certain category of animal products is not just based on health or environmental issues. It is not just based on the very real disgust I experience at the thought of consuming meat (sorry, carnivores). It is close to religious. Too bad there are probably no Buddhists here. Maybe they would understand. In any case, my strict vegetarianism is not something I could give up lightly, nor easily. To be blunt, I am concerned about the impact it would have on my conscience.

I think I am also frustrated because I would expect Muslims (and 99% of Moroccans are Muslims) to have a better understanding of dietary restrictions based on religious or philosophical reasons.* I don't think anyone would ever think of inviting a Muslim to dinner, make something with bacon in it, and tell the Muslim guest, "Well, just pick out the bacon. What's the big deal?" And yet that is essentially what I am being told to do. What gives?

Anyway, I think I'll be eating a lot of meals like this one, here in my apartment:

A simple chickpea and tomato salad with fresh lemon juice and YUMMY olive oil, with some biscuits and imported Spanish cheese. I don't yet have the supplies to cook any real meals that, you know, follow actual recipes.

I'm also going to find all the vegetarians I can find on campus and talk to them about what they do. I already found one, and I have the names of more. I can do this! Right?

I'll end with the major successes and failures of the day.

Successes:
-Went to the marché and found a vendor who speaks quite a bit of English. I taught him the English word for pois chiche--"chickpea." Also bought some much needed food supplies.
-Met a nice American who invited T and me to join him and his family at La Paix (a downtown restaurant) this evening for ftour (the Ramadan fastbreaking meal at sundown). (BTW, this meal will be an interesting test of the "to be, or not to be a vegetarian" question.)

Failures:
-Forgot to look for almonds at the marché. They're supposed to be everywhere, but I didn't see any. Must find more protein!
-Have continued to be unsuccessful at getting our apartment maintenance issues taken care of. Must learn to live on Moroccan time.

*Just to be clear, I'm not saying that no Muslims, nor that no Moroccans, are understanding of vegetarianism. But I have done enough reading and talking to other people to know that I will encounter little understanding of it here.

Welcome to apartment 304!

The first thing to keep in mind is that, when you are going to visit someone in an apartment on the third floor, you must go to the fourth floor, because the order goes ground floor, first floor, second floor, third floor.

When you come in, you can leave your shoes in the hallway.

Then, if you're tired, you can go straight into the yoga room (and maybe office if we figure out how to get wireless Internet). This will be your room while you're here.

Gotta love that institutional furniture!

Right next door is our bedroom.

Note that here, a "double bed" is just two twin beds pushed together.

 Across the hallway is the bathroom. Guessing how long you'll have water pressure is a fun game to play while taking a shower.

Can you guess how to flush the toilet?

I think you have already been introduced to the lovely kitchen.

Keep going down the hall, and you'll be in the office/dining room/living room.

The desk has to go here for now because this is where our ethernet connection is. I wonder if we can find a router in Fes?

We can borrow the TV for a month for free, but after that it costs 100 dirhams a month. There are 3 or 4 stations that have English programming. Last night we watched the last half of Queen of the Damned with Arabic subtitles. Good stuff!

We did finally finish unpacking, but as you can see, we weren't able to add much character to the apartment. We have to decide if we want to settle in here or request an apartment in the off-campus housing once one becomes available.

My next post might be about being a vegetarian in Morocco. Uggh!

French or Arabic?

Morocco is a place of amazing linguistic diversity. Road signs in and out of town, business signs, TV commercials, and products in stores display text in interesting combinations of Arabic, French, and English. There isn't any particular consistency to this. Some signs in Ifrane, for example, are only in Arabic; some appear to be only in French. Some businesses use English in their names, I assume in an attempt to attract the University crowd. Throw in the varieties of Berber that are spoken all over Morocco, and then the Spanish in some parts of the north of the country, and you have a beautiful but somewhat overwhelming combination of tongues.

It has become obvious to me that I won't get by very well with only English. I have not encountered anyone in town who knows English (with the possible exception of our cab driver yesterday who was able to tell us that our fare cost "ten dirhams" rather than "dix dirhams"). Merchants seem to naturally address anyone who appears to be a non-local with French. The only time we had been addressed in English, it was clear that someone was trying to get something (i.e. money) from us--what we would be giving them money for was rather unclear.

So...one of the decisions I need to make in the next few days is whether to take a French class or a colloquial Arabic class. French would be easier, and I would pick up on it more quickly. It would allow me to order food in restaurants and shop at the marche (still haven't figured out how to put an accent on that) and at the souk. But Arabic would be, in my opinion, more interesting. And while I can sometimes struggle through making sense of text written in French, of course there is no way for me to make any sense of written Arabic. And locals are generally very impressed by foreigners who can speak even a little Arabic. On Friday, when I thanked our van driver by saying "shukran," he excitedly asked, "You speak Arabic?" I felt I was disappointing him when I said, no, that was really the only word I knew.

T has already decided he will take an Arabic class first. Any advice on which language I should study this semester?

First days in Morocco

Before T and I moved to Morocco, I told many people I would keep a blog. I figured it would be an easy way of keeping in touch with a a lot of people (those of you who know me well know that I'm not particularly good at that) and of keeping track of some of the highlights of my experience. Now that I've started my first blog entry, I'm having trouble determining what will be most interesting to my readers. But maybe that's your problem, not mine...

T and I arrived in Ifrane around noon on Thursday. We had been travelling since 1:40 on Wednesday morning, when we left my parents' house in Nebraska for the Omaha airport. A combination of dehydration, lack of food, lack of sleep, and a couple of doses of dramamine had made the morning's drive from Casa (apparently no one says "Casablanca") rather unreal. I felt, the entire time, as if I was watching a very, very boring movie about an American woman moving to Morocco. It certainly wasn't something I was experiencing!

When we arrived in Ifrane, we were taken to our apartment, which ended up being on campus rather than in the off-campus housing.  The apartment is...well...a bit shabby and spare. Take, for example, the kitchen, the entirety of which is shown in the picture at right. A small stove, four burners (for which I am told I should be thankful), a camper-sized one-tub sink (without a stopper), and about a square foot of counter space. Under the counter is a dorm-room sized refrigerator. (We added a dresser beside the fridge for more counter space.)


I have not yet figured out how to cook in this kitchen, although I am trying to be okay with it. I know we are lucky to have a kitchen with a stove, with running hot and cold water, and with a fridge, whatever size it is.

T and I have had a lot of practice moving (this is our seventh move in eight years), and we have learned that finding and eating food, especially regular meals, can be a difficulty. It has been a particular challenge with this move, for several reasons, some of which are:

 #1: We haven't been hungry since getting here. I'm assuming that's a normal part of international travel?
#2: We moved here during Ramadan. One cannot eat nor drink in public during daylight hours, and all businesses are on "Ramadan hours."
#3: We don't speak French or Arabic, and we have yet to meet a merchant who speaks any English.
#4: There is no such thing as a grocery store in Ifrane. There is the marche (oh, shoot...how do I put an accent over that "e"?), and the weekend souk...but there is no one store that a person can walk into and take from the shelves what he or she wants. Those of you in Powell who complain about the selection of groceries and other products...come visit us for a few days. You won't complain anymore!

Another thing to note about moving to another country is that--at least based on my experience--it appears to be marked by serious emotional ups and downs, by incredible successes and devastating failures. Our first major success, after which I was ridiculously ecstatic, was that we managed to get to the marche and buy some basic supplies. Here is a picture of the meager supplies which so excited me: 

I immediately experienced a devastating low when I realized we had somehow returned to the apartment without dish soap, which I really thought we had purchased. (Luckily, there is a very nice American woman in the building next door who offered to lend me some. She also went shopping in the souk with T and me, which may be the topic of my next post.)

My big goal for tonight: Make a meal, even if it's just a chickpea and tomato salad. Wish me luck!