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.

How many Moroccans does it take to change a lightbulb?

This isn't the beginning of a racist joke. It's the beginning of a reflection on how the definition of "work" is strongly culturally bound. This isn't something I had thought much about before moving to Morocco.

Before T and I came here, B (who lived here for a few years) told us a story about an attempt to pay one of his utility bills (I forget now which bill it was). He went to the office of the utility company to pay his bill. The office was open; B had the right amount of money; people were working there. Nevertheless, he was told he couldn't pay his bill because the man whose job it is to take the money was not there. If I remember correctly, B had to make more than one trip and spend quite a bit of time waiting. Apparently the-man-whose-job-it-is-to-take-the-money also worked in another office at the same time that he worked in this office and had to be summoned back to this office in order to take B's money.

Here's the great part of the story: When the-man-whose-job-it-is-to-take-the-money showed up, he walked behind the counter, took B's money from his hand, and handed it to one of the other office workers who had been there all along.

His job was literally, and solely, to take the money.

I don't have such an extreme story from my own experience, but I did start observing similar "jobs" almost from the moment I got off the plane in Casablanca. I used a couple of the restrooms in the Casa airport, and each bathroom had its own attendant. The job of the attendant in the first restroom appeared to be to sit in the restroom and notify people that the soap was out. The job of the attendant in the second restroom appeared to be to talk to her counterpart in the nearby men's restroom.

There are also guards everywhere. The University campus has two sets of guarded gates that people must go through to get onto campus. There is also always some sort of guard standing by the road in town leading to what I think is the public swimming pool. And if you park in downtown Ifrane, you don't pay for a parking spot, but when you leave, you pay an attendant for "watching" your car.

My favorite work set up was in Banque Populaire (our Moroccan bank). The door into the bank is always locked, so the bank pays a man to unlock the door when people walk up to it so they can get in (I was in the bank for quite a while and never saw the man deny anyone entrance). This man is also paid to take numbered tickets from a machine and hand each person one so everyone knows when it's their turn to go up to the counter.

Oh, and speaking of the counter...when we went to the bank, there were only two tellers working, and they were working at the same station. The only other employee we saw was a guard. The line was long, and if we hadn't basically cut in line, the bank would have closed and we would have been turned away before our number was called. I'm sure many people were turned away at closing time that day.

My American sensibility says: Why pay a guy to unlock a door and hand people tickets? That's not essential work! Why not train him or someone else as a teller so the line can be moved along more quickly? Why not split up the two tellers who are working? But the fact that I have those thoughts shows that one's sense of what constitutes "work" is culturally bound. Morocco is a very poor country, with a lot of uneducated people who need jobs. Culturally, then, it makes sense to pay people to mop the sidewalks or attend the restrooms or whatever.

There's also another aspect to this idea of "work," which is that there is an amazing entrepreneurial spirit here. People create jobs out of almost nothing. There is a man who walks around the souk selling drinks of water. There are other people who sell plastic grocery bags at the souk. In Fez, I saw a young boy standing in the middle of the road selling boxes of facial tissues to people driving by.

I'm sure there must be jobs in the U.S. that make very little sense to people from other cultures. In fact, once I start thinking about it, there are jobs in the U.S. that don't make sense to me, especially all the paper-pushing jobs created by the private health insurance industry. But maybe that's a topic for another day. Right now, I have to go do laundry, which involves giving a ticket to a woman whose job it is to start the washing machine for me.

Adventure in Fez!

The first part of the adventure of Fez is getting there. (We had a ridiculously easy time of it this time.) The first thing you do is walk past the marché to the grand taxi station. Just say "Fez?" to the drivers you see leaning against their white cars, and they'll point you in the right direction. Walk to the guy shouting "Fez! Fez! Fez!" If he already has enough passengers waiting in the car, you can simply pay him 25 dirhams (just under $3), get in with the five other passengers, and go.

First Moroccan hike - Azrou!

Today we went with eight other people to hike near Azrou, a "real" Moroccan town 21 kilometers (13 miles) from Ifrane.

I hope to go back to Azrou soon in order to properly explore the town itself, but since we walked through town to get to the hiking trail, I used today as an opportunity to get some pictures of a place that looks more Moroccan than Ifrane does.

I really didn't mean to get this woman in the picture, but I'm glad I (accidentally) included her.

Kian, from the UK, and T.

I really wonder how clean people's laundry can stay clean with everyone walking by and kicking up dust onto it.

We walked through Azrou into the hills behind town. At first, we were walking along a small stream of water, and we surprised a man who was bathing in the stream. Further up we saw another man doing his laundry in the stream--he had his package of Omo laundry detergent and clothes laid out upon the rocks.

All along our hike, we came across Berber shepherds tending herds of goats and sheep, and we walked by some Berber homes. I kept thinking how ridiculous we must have seemed, a group of people walking about in the hot hills for no necessary purpose.

One highlight of the hike was an abandoned Berber home. The organizer of our hike, Kolin, said that he had never been able to get a close look at it because people were living there up until three years ago.

It ended up being a rather long hike, with a climbing scramble near the middle to the top of a ridge. But all of the effort was completely worth the view.

We came home this afternoon to a broken refrigerator that is leaking water all over the floor, so I'm sure I'll want to review these pictures later and remember that, yes, it was a good day.

On buying eye drops

In an earlier post, I mentioned how culture shock can cause one to do strange things, like buy an entire case of tomato paste. Here's another story to illustrate that, and to illustrate the mishaps that can occur because of language and cultural barriers.

A few days ago, I went to the pharmacy in the marche and told the pharmacist I needed some eye drops without preservatives. He didn't seem to understand, but after I wrote the word "preservatives" on a piece of paper and told him again that I wanted eye drops without them, he nodded and took a blue and silver box out of a display case. I thanked him, paid for my eye drops, and came home.

Today I opened my box of eye drops and discovered that my eye drops are actually condoms. Pink condoms, in fact. Without preservatives, of course.

The water problem

No, this post isn't going to be about the couple of times I've gotten up in the morning and had no running water in the apartment, but I could see why you might think it would be. (Maybe that topic will be saved for a different post titled "Indoor Plumbing: Right or Privilege?")

This post is about bottled water, or more specifically, the bottles the bottled water comes in.

Before T and I came to Morocco, we did a lot of research on food and water safety. All official advice says "don't drink the water!" but that seems to be blanket advice given to people traveling from the U.S. to any poorer country--which, as far as I can tell, includes all of Africa, Asia, South America, and North America south of the U.S. border. When we sought advice from individuals who had actually traveled to and/or lived in Morocco, though, most told us they drank the water without problems. Nevertheless, we decided we would start with bottled water, move to boiled tap water, and then slowly start integrating straight tap water to allow our systems to adjust.

When I started trying to add boiled tap water, however, I discovered two things about it. First, it is so high in mineral content that there are white specks and white sediment in the water after boiling it. (I have read that these minerals can cause health problems for people who didn't grow up drinking such water.) Second, the water tastes absolutely horrible. It has a chlorine taste that both T and I find unbearable. When we were trying to do tap water rather than bottled, we just didn't drink anything. Not good.

The environmentally offensive Mr. Ali

And so we persist in our environmentally-destructive consumption of bottled water. We buy it in 6-packs of 1.5 liter bottles and go through at least two of those 6-packs a week. There is no recycling center to take the numerous empty bottles to in order to help placate our consciences. Every couple of days I throw the bottles in the garbage bin outside Building 31, with a sick feeling in my stomach.

What happens to those bottles after I throw them away? Do they get picked out of the dump and reused in some manner (this happens with many items that are thrown away in poor countries)? Do they get burned, releasing toxic chemicals into the air?

In some ways, I think my negative impact on the environment is lower than it was when I lived in the states. My home here is smaller, so energy consumption should be less. I walk almost everywhere rather than driving, and when I do go places, I'll be taking public transportation. I am buying fewer food items in disposable containers. Most things I buy that would be in plastic, glass, or aluminum containers in the States are given to me here wrapped in bits of newspaper.

But am I just listing these things in order to make myself feel better about my unjustifiable and wasteful consumption of a non-biodegradable product made from non-renewable resources?

What choice do we have? What is the balance between personal health and environmental health?

Difficult questions.

Centre Ville

It's about time I start showing you around town. I'll start with Centre Ville--downtown Ifrane. It is within walking distance of the University, and the walk can be made quite pleasant by taking a shortcut through a park.

I think that tree in the foreground is a catalpa tree.

To the right of this path, which leads through the park, is the road going from the University to Centre Ville. To the left is more park, which we haven't yet explored. I have seen at least one pack of feral dogs out there and have been a bit reticent to explore too much.




 My favorite part of this park? The egrets (I think they are cattle egrets but need to confirm this).

The treetops in the park are filled with egrets and egret nests. Delightful!

One must be careful where one steps, as everything--including this trash can--is covered with, ahem, egret droppings.

The pond is lovely, too, although it is apparently a great source of consternation to the city, as it must be constantly drained and cleaned out.

Centre Ville is where one will find restaurants, banks, superettes (convenience stores) and the "green door''--apparently the place where one (presumably a non-Muslim) can buy alcohol (but not during Ramadan!).

No, you are not the first person to think the town is a bit like Disney World.

Notice the small Heineken sign above the door? That's the only hint that alcohol is sold here.

This is probably somebody's fancy pants summer home. Ifrane has a lot of these. This is not what a typical Moroccan's home looks like.

Centre Ville is also home to the "famous" lion statue, used both as a popular landmark for giving directions (as in, "walk a block past the lion" or "turn right at the lion") and as a photo opportunity. In fact, it was difficult to catch him alone. Immediately after I snapped this picture, a family came around the corner and started posing around the lion.


My favorite part of Centre Ville? The storks on top of the buildings.

They just plain make me happy.

I haven't had much experience in Moroccan towns yet, but I can make a few observations based on my limited experience. First of all, nothing is on a north-south-east-west grid. I still don't know which way is north, and several people have shown me. Second, it's better to rely on signs telling you which way to go for a given city or part of a city than it is to look for street signs. While walking around Centre Ville, I did see what I think was a street sign (only the second I've seen yet), but it was on a wall outside a home, hidden behind vines.

I've been told, too, that many streets are going through name changes from French to more Arabic/Moroccan names. Maybe that's related to the absence of street signs.

I guess it's time to head back to campus. I hope this post has given everyone a sense of downtown. Next up (I hope): the marche* and souk!

Pretend I'm in that car, driving back to campus.

*I'm not on a Mac anymore, so once again I don't know how to add diacritical marks. Darn it.