Today's the big day! Eid Mubarak Said, my good readers! Today, Muslims all over the world are celebrating Eid al-Adha. This day commemorates the occasion when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Issac. For all of you who don't know the story, God told Abraham to take his heir, Issac, up to the top of a mountain and offer him as a sacrifice. Abraham, being the good patriarch that he was, agreed, dragged Issac and a ton of wood up the mountain, and right as he was standing above Issac, wicked huge knife at the ready, God realized that Abraham was actually going to go through with it. God then sent an angel down just in the nick of time to prevent Issac from becoming a sacred barbecue, and Abraham sacrifices a ram instead to express his heartfelt thanks. The good Moroccan Muslim way to honor this occasion is to sacrifice your own sheep or ram.
My family's Eid preparations began on Thursday when I woke up to my dad yelling the Darija equivalent of "Watch out!". I peeped out my window into my apartment's courtyard, and was greeted by the sight of a ram. This animal was freaking huge and had a pretty massive set of horns, at least in my inexperienced, city girl opinion. My dad tied the ram up by its horns to a little stake in the center of our courtyard. By the end of the morning, the ram was surrounded by a large pile of hay and nicely situated under an umbrella to protect it from the sun and rain. Throughout the day everyone in my immediate and extended family kept drifting in and out of the courtyard to look at, and make baaaaaaing noises to the ram. My little cousin Khalid was by far the cutest viewer. He kept dashing around the house on his hand and knees chattering away and making sheep noises. My brother Aymen yelled and gave the poor ram a bit of a fright, which my dad apparently thought put the beast off it's food. For the rest of the evening, every time my dad passed the ram he would look at it for a minute, point at they hay, and say "Kul!" which is exactly what my family says to me when they want me to eat more.
So, living with a ram outside my window for three days taught me a good deal about these fuzzy creatures. First of all, they smell bad. Not at first, really, but after two days of eating hay and digesting said hay, and well the hay really does have to go somewhere else eventually, the sheep starts to smell pretty ripe. So did my bedroom. I suppose it could have been worse. The sheep could have been living inside a closet, like the one my friend Alyssa's family got. I also learned that sheep can be quite loud. You know that cute little Mary Bo Peep baaaaa, that you think of when you hear sheep? Such not the case in real life. Our ram roared...at three in the morning. In reality, it wasn't that bad as long as I slept with earplugs. The biggest inconvenience was that neither Evelyn nor I could help laughing whenever the thing made noise.
For two days our ram just hung out on the patio, under it's umbrella, being baaaaed at by the likes of my father, my sister Sarah, my cousin Khalid, and I. Then, this morning, I awoke to the special Eid morning prayer being called from all of the neighborhood mosques, and a very loud sheep. Maybe he knew that his hours were numbered and just wanted to give life one last bellow, maybe he didn't like the call to prayer, maybe he was hungry. Either way it was quite the sound. My family all ate breakfast together, and Evelyn patted the sheep one last time. Then, while I was getting dressed, two guys in blood spattered clothing showed up at the house. My dad led the to the back patio, and they pulled out a rather impressive array of sharp, shiny knives. Evelyn and I rushed to my window, which overlooks the courtyard and pulled out the cameras. Then the slaughter began.
*Warning- What follows below is not for the particularly squeamish or faint of heart, as it compromises a true account of the killing, skinning, and dismembering of a sheep.*
Step One: Guys flip sheep over, ties feet together, and approach with huge knife. Moroccan host mother runs up and shoves some salt in the sheep's mouth. Not entirely sure of the significance of said act, but will ask my Moroccan Culture professor on Tuesday.
Step Two: Guys take aforementioned knife and slits (by this I mean hacks at) sheep's throat. Sheep makes surprisingly little noise, but spews an impressive amount of blood.
Step Three: Sheep's feet are untied and dead (or almost dead) animal flops around for a while. Evelyn and I go nuts with the cameras.
Step Four: Sheep is decapitated. Head ends up rather close to my feet.
Step Five: Guy puts a slit in (now headless) sheep's leg and uses that slit to (no joke) blow up the sheep. Apparently this helps with skinning. Evelyn remarks that she will never kiss a man of that profession.
Step Six: Guy breaks sheep's leg and uses tendon to tie sheep to a rope and hang carcass off of a ladder.
Step Seven: Skinning. Involves knives and treating sheep as a sort of macabre punching bag. Also much more photo taking.
Step Eight: Slice sheep open and pull out the insides. Highlights include more blood, intestines, and lots of organs going into different bowls.
Step Nine: Mom and sisters separate, clean, and chop up sheep's organs. Sheep is still dangling from ladder by its leg. Dad waters sheep carcass with a yellow watering pail. Ranks as one of the strangest things I've seen in this life.
Step 10: Clean up. Dad and sisters clean up remaining blood, intestine goop, and sheep bits from patio. Sarah and I walk sheep's head down the street to men who are roasting them. (Sheep's head is later given back to us...blackened and hornless. Was told this will be cooked in couscous sometime in near future.)
So, there you have it. Ritual slaughter of a sheep in ten easy steps! Let's try it at home next year, yeah?
The remainder of the day so far has mostly been taken up by cooking and eating. After all of the organs were chopped and sorted, by mom stuck the lungs, heart, and some other bits I really can't identity into a giant pot. This mixture has been simmering for the past five hours and I think it's going to be dinner. I assisted my mom in making the Moroccan version of chestnuts wrapped in bacon. By this I mean we wrapped sheep's liver in fat and roasted it over some charcoal. The resulting smoke flooded the apartment, and I was once again reminded of the differences between Morocco and America when there was a noticeable absence of smoke detector induced screeching. Said meat skewers actually didn't taste half bad, and my family ate such a huge lunch that I think I can make it to our 9 PM dinner without a snack!
Today was a good bonding day with the host fam, even though communication was possibly at an all time low. My Eid vocabulary extended to the words "sheep" and "dead". I'm afraid my Arabic just isn't up to questions like, "Dad, why are you roasting that heart over an open flame", "Sarah what is that disgusting goop you're squeezing out of that white gunk", and "Mom, when are we going to chop up the rest of the carcass still dangling in the middle of the patio." Luckily, my family was just happy to ask me repeatedly if I was enjoying myself, and I was more that happy to give an exuberantly positive response. I guess holidays really do have a way of bringing a family together, even if they involve death, gore, and intestines.
To sum up. Eid = best cultural experience I've had to date. I will be happy to show pictures to anyone who doesn't think looking at them will cause vomiting.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
A Month in the Life
Ok, I admit it. I clearly suck at blogging, but tonight I have managed to work up sufficient levels of guilt and an intense enough desire to not do my homework to give this thing another go. The past month has been rather eventful, to say the least. When I last left off, I believe midterms were fast approaching. No use dwelling on that subject except to say that now finals and final papers are looming large as the end of the semester is rushing forward faster than I want it to. It's more than a little weird to think that in about a month's time most of my current AMIDEAST buddies will be heading home to the States, while I stay here in Morocco. I know that a new group of kids, who I'm sure will be fabulous, will arrive in January, but I've made some great friends this semester, and I will be genuinely sad when they leave. My roommate has definitely heard a fare share of angst ridden whining on the subject as I cannot possibly imagine a better person to live with. I am fond of telling her that I am going to request "another Evelyn" as my roommate next semester.
But I digress. The past month has certainly been an exciting one. I have been to Spain...twice, visited Marrakesh, spoken to a member of Parliament, and tomorrow I am heading to the Sahara desert for a five day excursion. Where to begin? I suppose Spain is as good a place as any.
Spain part I was part of an AMIDEAST trip to Tangier, Chefchaouen, and Ceuta. Ceuta is a little tiny bit of Spanish territory hanging out in northern Morocco. For reasons that I cannot fathom, Spain sees Ceuta and its fellow territory Melilla as its foot hold in Africa and steadfastly refuse to relinquish the land to Morocco. Either way, what it comes down to is that in order to get into Ceuta we, literally, left Morocco and entered Spain. This was more than a little weird. Upon entering Ceuta we filled out our entry cards and walked through a set of chain link fences that looked disturbingly like something out of Children of Men. We then spent two hours walking around streets that were beautifully paved, looking at architecture that was decidedly European in design, and eating pork. It was quite a nice little break. When it was time to return to Morocco, we trooped back through the Children of Men gates, pas some disgusting toilets, a tiny little cat, and the random guys smuggling stuff back into Morocco, and as soon as we set foot on Moroccan territory we were sexually harassed by a group of men standing near the customs booth. It was good to be home.
My second trip to Spain was over Green March, or the long weekend that celebrates when King Hassan II organized a massive march of Moroccans into the Western Sahara to expel the remaining Spanish colonial forces and return the land to Morocco. It's a pretty big deal here, and my friends and I found it more than a little ironic that we chose to spend the weekend of Green March in Spain. Anyways, I passed my weekend exploring the cities of Grenada and Malaga. Grenada was a gorgeous mix of Moroccan and Spanish architecture, which is not that surprising given that it was the last Muslim hold out during the time of the Reconquista. Highlights from Grenada include the Alhambra, which is a spectacular old fortress full of lovely gardens and a palace absolutely covered in spectacular Arabic calligraphy, totally failing at tapas, eating an entire plate full of food only made from pork products, and drinking red wine. Our time in Malaga was spent shopping, sampling the tasty local seafood, and making poor life choices that involved blue drinks called playa iguanas. Needless to say, Spain was a lot of fun, although I did embarrass myself quite often by trying to speak Arabic with cashiers and waiters. It appears that Arabic is now my fallback language to use when I do not understand what people are saying to me. I suppose that's progress...of a sort.
My next weekend adventure was to Marrakesh, with the rest of the AMIDEAST group. This was our last AMIDEAST sponsored trip, and while it was a good time, I don't think I will be counting Marrakesh as one of my favorite Moroccan cities. Fez and Chefchaouen certainly had their fair share of tourists, but no place I've been to, besides Disney Land, can hold a candle to Marrakesh. I swear that sometimes it felt like there were more Europeans than Moroccans in the city! Marrakesh does have some great historic sites including gardens full of olive trees, a gorgeous old palace, and a hidden graveyard with a stunning tomb for the king of one of Morocco's later dynasties. After visiting all of these places, my friends and I devoted ourselves to some serious shopping. I was in rare bargaining form and seriously aided by the fact that most of the vendors were not expecting me to speak Arabic. My favorite part of our trip to Marrakesh though, was the Jamiyaa al-Fina. This is a huge open air market full of food stalls, snake charmers, fortune tellers, story reciters, and henna artists. Walking up to the square at night was an intense experience. Between the smoke visibly rising from the masses of food stalls, the smells, the music, and the yelling it is a complete sensory overload, but a lot of fun if you're in the right frame of mind. My friends and I enjoyed a delicious meal at one of the food stalls and the only shadow on the evening was a crazy little beggar kid who refused our food and insisted on following us for a good couple of minutes even though we were clearly not going to give him any money. Everyone's more aggressive in Marrakesh I guess. The night ended with a trip to the Michael Jackson movie, This is It, which was a ton of fun, as Michael Jackson is awesome and everyone in the theater sang along to all of the songs.
In between trips, school does continue, and I have made some interesting headway on my murshidat project. I have spoken to a member of Parliament, a women who is a leader in the PJD, which is Morocco's leading Islamist party. I have also visited the school where murshidat are trained and attended a class in the Islamic Studies Department at Muhammed V University. All in all, this project has been quite a whirlwind and although I have not yet managed to talk to an actual murshidat, I have still learned a lot about the program and the changing role of women in religion in Morocco. I hope that I will be able to continue looking into the issue of murshidat next semester as there is still so much I have to learn. The one dark spot of this project is that it has rather clearly brought home the sometimes seemingly insurmountable language barrier that I still struggle with. I am unable to talk to most people without a translator and miss-communication issues have resulted in some botched interviews and frustration and embarrassment on my part. Ah well. Hopefully my Arabic will continue to improve with time, and I really just have to come to terms with my decision to stop taking French in college.
The past week as been spent worrying about the three papers that I still have to research and write (which of course did not actually result in starting said research) and the impending doom of finals. I really do hate the end of a semester. Ah well, tomorrow I am heading to the desert, where I plan to put all of that yucky stuff completely out of my mind and instead focus on the beauty of sunrises over the dunes, dancing with nomads, and trying not to be too frightened of the camels! It should be rather wonderful.
But I digress. The past month has certainly been an exciting one. I have been to Spain...twice, visited Marrakesh, spoken to a member of Parliament, and tomorrow I am heading to the Sahara desert for a five day excursion. Where to begin? I suppose Spain is as good a place as any.
Spain part I was part of an AMIDEAST trip to Tangier, Chefchaouen, and Ceuta. Ceuta is a little tiny bit of Spanish territory hanging out in northern Morocco. For reasons that I cannot fathom, Spain sees Ceuta and its fellow territory Melilla as its foot hold in Africa and steadfastly refuse to relinquish the land to Morocco. Either way, what it comes down to is that in order to get into Ceuta we, literally, left Morocco and entered Spain. This was more than a little weird. Upon entering Ceuta we filled out our entry cards and walked through a set of chain link fences that looked disturbingly like something out of Children of Men. We then spent two hours walking around streets that were beautifully paved, looking at architecture that was decidedly European in design, and eating pork. It was quite a nice little break. When it was time to return to Morocco, we trooped back through the Children of Men gates, pas some disgusting toilets, a tiny little cat, and the random guys smuggling stuff back into Morocco, and as soon as we set foot on Moroccan territory we were sexually harassed by a group of men standing near the customs booth. It was good to be home.
My second trip to Spain was over Green March, or the long weekend that celebrates when King Hassan II organized a massive march of Moroccans into the Western Sahara to expel the remaining Spanish colonial forces and return the land to Morocco. It's a pretty big deal here, and my friends and I found it more than a little ironic that we chose to spend the weekend of Green March in Spain. Anyways, I passed my weekend exploring the cities of Grenada and Malaga. Grenada was a gorgeous mix of Moroccan and Spanish architecture, which is not that surprising given that it was the last Muslim hold out during the time of the Reconquista. Highlights from Grenada include the Alhambra, which is a spectacular old fortress full of lovely gardens and a palace absolutely covered in spectacular Arabic calligraphy, totally failing at tapas, eating an entire plate full of food only made from pork products, and drinking red wine. Our time in Malaga was spent shopping, sampling the tasty local seafood, and making poor life choices that involved blue drinks called playa iguanas. Needless to say, Spain was a lot of fun, although I did embarrass myself quite often by trying to speak Arabic with cashiers and waiters. It appears that Arabic is now my fallback language to use when I do not understand what people are saying to me. I suppose that's progress...of a sort.
My next weekend adventure was to Marrakesh, with the rest of the AMIDEAST group. This was our last AMIDEAST sponsored trip, and while it was a good time, I don't think I will be counting Marrakesh as one of my favorite Moroccan cities. Fez and Chefchaouen certainly had their fair share of tourists, but no place I've been to, besides Disney Land, can hold a candle to Marrakesh. I swear that sometimes it felt like there were more Europeans than Moroccans in the city! Marrakesh does have some great historic sites including gardens full of olive trees, a gorgeous old palace, and a hidden graveyard with a stunning tomb for the king of one of Morocco's later dynasties. After visiting all of these places, my friends and I devoted ourselves to some serious shopping. I was in rare bargaining form and seriously aided by the fact that most of the vendors were not expecting me to speak Arabic. My favorite part of our trip to Marrakesh though, was the Jamiyaa al-Fina. This is a huge open air market full of food stalls, snake charmers, fortune tellers, story reciters, and henna artists. Walking up to the square at night was an intense experience. Between the smoke visibly rising from the masses of food stalls, the smells, the music, and the yelling it is a complete sensory overload, but a lot of fun if you're in the right frame of mind. My friends and I enjoyed a delicious meal at one of the food stalls and the only shadow on the evening was a crazy little beggar kid who refused our food and insisted on following us for a good couple of minutes even though we were clearly not going to give him any money. Everyone's more aggressive in Marrakesh I guess. The night ended with a trip to the Michael Jackson movie, This is It, which was a ton of fun, as Michael Jackson is awesome and everyone in the theater sang along to all of the songs.
In between trips, school does continue, and I have made some interesting headway on my murshidat project. I have spoken to a member of Parliament, a women who is a leader in the PJD, which is Morocco's leading Islamist party. I have also visited the school where murshidat are trained and attended a class in the Islamic Studies Department at Muhammed V University. All in all, this project has been quite a whirlwind and although I have not yet managed to talk to an actual murshidat, I have still learned a lot about the program and the changing role of women in religion in Morocco. I hope that I will be able to continue looking into the issue of murshidat next semester as there is still so much I have to learn. The one dark spot of this project is that it has rather clearly brought home the sometimes seemingly insurmountable language barrier that I still struggle with. I am unable to talk to most people without a translator and miss-communication issues have resulted in some botched interviews and frustration and embarrassment on my part. Ah well. Hopefully my Arabic will continue to improve with time, and I really just have to come to terms with my decision to stop taking French in college.
The past week as been spent worrying about the three papers that I still have to research and write (which of course did not actually result in starting said research) and the impending doom of finals. I really do hate the end of a semester. Ah well, tomorrow I am heading to the desert, where I plan to put all of that yucky stuff completely out of my mind and instead focus on the beauty of sunrises over the dunes, dancing with nomads, and trying not to be too frightened of the camels! It should be rather wonderful.
Friday, October 23, 2009
The Past Two Weeks
I once again find myself apologizing for a lack of updating! Those of you who know me well are aware of the fact that I have never been able to keep a journal of any kind longer than two days, and I guess even updating this blog once a week became too much for me. OK, that sounds terrible and I promise to at least try and be better about posting in the coming weeks. In my defense, I haven't done many interesting things since Fez. Schoolwork has finally caught up with me and between studying for midterms and starting papers that I've been ignoring, my weekends have become study time, rather than adventure time.
So, to dredge up ancient history, the last trip outside Rabat I've taken was to my Arabic teacher's farm located about 45 minutes outside the city. Our morning began with a trip to the local souq. Now, I know the souq in Rabat pretty well. I'm familiar with the many stands selling clothes, jewelry, 5 dirham undies, shoes, and crafts. I also know how to get to the tailor souq, the food souq, and the stolen cell phone/ pirated DVD souq. The country souq was like nothing I had ever seen before. There were carts of people selling all kinds of fruits, vegetables, and meats. Some of the meat was still alive. Our teacher took us to the livestock section and showed us how to tell how old a sheep is by its teeth. It was all a little surreal.. The best part of the souq was theFantasia . A Fantasia is a horse show which mainly consists of teams of guys on horses riding at a judging tent in a straight line and firing off their guns at exactly the same time. Our teacher said that the Fantasia only happens every couple of months and it's an opportunity for the local farmers to show off their horses. Horses are a big deal here in Morocco. I don't know very much about them because my own horseback riding career ended rather unspectacularly at the age of seven when I took two lessons in which I was afraid of the horse and my teacher made me cry. Anyways, Moroccan horses are special because they are a mix of Arabian and Berber horses and apparently really super fast. Watching the Fantasia was pretty awesome even though my teacher said that most of the teams we saw were not very good (meaning they didn't ride in a straight enough line or fire their guns at the same time). I guess that the professionals were supposed to come later in the afternoon. We began our Fantasia watching in the spectator section (read a dirt bank next to the field), but one of the families that owns a stable invited us all to sit in their VIP tent and drink tea while we watched, which was cool. I would love to see a professional Fantasia sometime because even the amateurs were amazing. The traditional costumes were lovely and the horses themselves were breathtaking.
After the visit to the souq we continued on to the farm. My teacher really does own a legit farm with a small orchard, vegetables, and chickens. He's currently working on a swimming pool as well. We all went on a tour around the gardens, and my teacher insisted on sending us home with fresh fruits and veggies for our families. My Arabic class is eight girls, so after our walk through the farm we helped the women of the family prepare lunch, which was couscous, salad, and grilled meat. Dessert was fresh fruit and it was all delicious! Lunch was followed by another walk and the inevitable Moroccan tea. My teacher says that he wants to have us back sometime so we can all stay the night and see the stars.
Even through I've been hanging around Rabat for the past couple of weeks, I've still been doing some cool stuff. Last weekend my friend Sarah and I decided to do a little medina shopping. We wandered around for a little while and I ended up buying two bootlegged DVDs and a CD with three Cat Stevens and one Carole King album on it all for three dollars US. I consider this a rather smashing success even though Inglorious Bastards was completely in French, and thus I understand none of it.
I also spent an afternoon last week exploring Chellah with my language and culture partner, Ilham. Chellah is an old ruin from Roman times right near the Palace and it's in remarkably good shape despite the laissez-faire attitude that Morocco takes with most of its historic monuments. Ilham explained that only recently had the government decided to take an active interest in the preservation and renovation of Chellah. The highlight of our afternoon was being pulled over by one of the gardeners, who guessing that I was American and that Ilham spoke English, asked if he could use me to exchange a five dollar tip he had gotten from some American tourists. After negotiating a proper exchange rate, with much help from Ilham and much joking from the other gardeners, I was the proud possessor of a $5 bill and out 40 dirhams. The gardeners figured out that Ilham is Amazigh, or the politically correct term for Berber, and they all tried to teach me a little of the Amazigh dialect that Ilham speaks, but it was a rather spectacular fail. Our evening ended with smuggling a bag of some really large citrus fruit that I don't know the name of in English (compliments of the gardener) out of the orchards. I really like Ilham because she's an exceptionally nice young woman and very different from my host family. She's studying for her doctorate in biology right now, so she's busy, but she still takes time to listen to my pitiful Arabic and show me around Rabat. She even offered to translate for me if I need to talk to any Moroccans for school projects...which leads me right to my last bit of exciting news!
I have to do a project on some aspect of Moroccan society for my contemporary Moroccan culture class, and I chose to write about murshidat, or women who preach in the Mosque. They are not Imams, so they can't lead prayer, but they do offer classes, advise, and general religious support to the women in their communities. The program to train women murshidat began in 2006 as part of Morocco's "religious reform" which aims to promote a more moderate Islam in Morocco. Since the murshidat program is very new, I quickly learned that there is virtually no material published about it anywhere. All of my research will need to be through interviews and first hand accounts, which is more than a little intimidating. Luckily my Moroccan culture professor and Gender, Islam, and Society professor were able to give me some people to talk to. Next week I am interviewing the director of one of Morocco's leading Islamist newspapers (thank God he speaks English!), and a murshidat that AMIDEAST got me in touch with. I am also supposed to talk to one of the women who teaches murshidat courses in the big religious school in Rabat, and a couple of women's rights activists that my professor knows. I feel in a bit over my head, but hopefully this will be a great learning experience and I won't offend too many Moroccans with my ignorance!
So, that's about it folks. I'll try to update sometime next week, but with midterms it's most likely that you won't hear from me again before next Sunday.
So, to dredge up ancient history, the last trip outside Rabat I've taken was to my Arabic teacher's farm located about 45 minutes outside the city. Our morning began with a trip to the local souq. Now, I know the souq in Rabat pretty well. I'm familiar with the many stands selling clothes, jewelry, 5 dirham undies, shoes, and crafts. I also know how to get to the tailor souq, the food souq, and the stolen cell phone/ pirated DVD souq. The country souq was like nothing I had ever seen before. There were carts of people selling all kinds of fruits, vegetables, and meats. Some of the meat was still alive. Our teacher took us to the livestock section and showed us how to tell how old a sheep is by its teeth. It was all a little surreal.. The best part of the souq was the
After the visit to the souq we continued on to the farm. My teacher really does own a legit farm with a small orchard, vegetables, and chickens. He's currently working on a swimming pool as well. We all went on a tour around the gardens, and my teacher insisted on sending us home with fresh fruits and veggies for our families. My Arabic class is eight girls, so after our walk through the farm we helped the women of the family prepare lunch, which was couscous, salad, and grilled meat. Dessert was fresh fruit and it was all delicious! Lunch was followed by another walk and the inevitable Moroccan tea. My teacher says that he wants to have us back sometime so we can all stay the night and see the stars.
Even through I've been hanging around Rabat for the past couple of weeks, I've still been doing some cool stuff. Last weekend my friend Sarah and I decided to do a little medina shopping. We wandered around for a little while and I ended up buying two bootlegged DVDs and a CD with three Cat Stevens and one Carole King album on it all for three dollars US. I consider this a rather smashing success even though Inglorious Bastards was completely in French, and thus I understand none of it.
I also spent an afternoon last week exploring Chellah with my language and culture partner, Ilham. Chellah is an old ruin from Roman times right near the Palace and it's in remarkably good shape despite the laissez-faire attitude that Morocco takes with most of its historic monuments. Ilham explained that only recently had the government decided to take an active interest in the preservation and renovation of Chellah. The highlight of our afternoon was being pulled over by one of the gardeners, who guessing that I was American and that Ilham spoke English, asked if he could use me to exchange a five dollar tip he had gotten from some American tourists. After negotiating a proper exchange rate, with much help from Ilham and much joking from the other gardeners, I was the proud possessor of a $5 bill and out 40 dirhams. The gardeners figured out that Ilham is Amazigh, or the politically correct term for Berber, and they all tried to teach me a little of the Amazigh dialect that Ilham speaks, but it was a rather spectacular fail. Our evening ended with smuggling a bag of some really large citrus fruit that I don't know the name of in English (compliments of the gardener) out of the orchards. I really like Ilham because she's an exceptionally nice young woman and very different from my host family. She's studying for her doctorate in biology right now, so she's busy, but she still takes time to listen to my pitiful Arabic and show me around Rabat. She even offered to translate for me if I need to talk to any Moroccans for school projects...which leads me right to my last bit of exciting news!
I have to do a project on some aspect of Moroccan society for my contemporary Moroccan culture class, and I chose to write about murshidat, or women who preach in the Mosque. They are not Imams, so they can't lead prayer, but they do offer classes, advise, and general religious support to the women in their communities. The program to train women murshidat began in 2006 as part of Morocco's "religious reform" which aims to promote a more moderate Islam in Morocco. Since the murshidat program is very new, I quickly learned that there is virtually no material published about it anywhere. All of my research will need to be through interviews and first hand accounts, which is more than a little intimidating. Luckily my Moroccan culture professor and Gender, Islam, and Society professor were able to give me some people to talk to. Next week I am interviewing the director of one of Morocco's leading Islamist newspapers (thank God he speaks English!), and a murshidat that AMIDEAST got me in touch with. I am also supposed to talk to one of the women who teaches murshidat courses in the big religious school in Rabat, and a couple of women's rights activists that my professor knows. I feel in a bit over my head, but hopefully this will be a great learning experience and I won't offend too many Moroccans with my ignorance!
So, that's about it folks. I'll try to update sometime next week, but with midterms it's most likely that you won't hear from me again before next Sunday.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Fez and other Random Events
Someone in my neighborhood got married tonight. Evelyn and I were sitting in our courtyard studiously avoiding doing any homework, when we heard the sounds of tambourines and ululations. Rahma, our housekeeper, immediately ran out to the balcony that overlooks the street, with Evelyn and I right behind her. A large group of people surrounding two trucks were slowly making their way down the street. The first truck held a live ram and assorted other foods, the section had what looked to be gifts and flowers. The people following the tucks were all dressed up, and the women were singing, clapping, and ululating. It was so cool. Rahma, Evelyn, and I just stood there smiling at each other and the people below. Later, my sister Sarah came home and we learned that the bride was only 15, and the previous moments lost much of their initial shine and wonder. Morocco is an incredible experience, sometimes wonderful, sometimes disturbing, and sometimes overwhelming, because every day brings random new events like this one.
Speaking of overwhelming, last weekend, AMIDEAST took all of us in the program on a trip to Meknes, Volubilis, and Fez. This trip was intense, first because all thirty of us were traveling together in close quarters, and also because Fez (where we spent most of our time) is a city designed to produce sensory overload. I won't talk much about Meknes, because although we saw some really cool things, like the underground prison where king Moulay Hassan housed the poor souls captured by Barbary pirates until they could be ransomed off to their fellow countrymen. In truth, we were only in Meknes for a few hours because it was a Friday and everything was closed. In Rabat, Fridays are pretty much like every other day of the week, stores might close for a few hours in the afternoon, and you see a lot more guys in caftans carrying prayer rugs on the street, but nothing major. In Meknes, people are more religious, and the city shuts down Friday afternoons as everyone is in the mosque. Anyways, I hope to go back to Mekens and give you a more detailed account them.
Volubilis was awesome. It's an ancient city first inhabited by the Romans, and later by Moulay Idriss, the founder of Fez. The site if full of gorgeous ruins, including complete pillars, carvings, and tile work. Our guide told us that it was incredibly impressive, the shape Volubilis is in, given the fact that people used to use the stones, columns, and land from old Roman sites to build houses, mosques, and farms. I would also add that the fact that Volubilis is in such good shape is astounding given that (since this is Morocco) there is virtually nothing fenced off in the whole premises. Visitors are free to climb over the ruined walls and columns to their heart's content.
We arrived in Fez Friday night and spent all of Saturday and Sunday morning there. It is an incredible city. Fez is old, like 1200 years old, and is the first big city in Morocco. It was founded by this king, Moulay Idriss, whose shrine is right in the heart of the old Medina. Fez is made up of three parts, the old Medina, Fez Jedid, or new Fez (which means that it was only built a few centuries ago), and the section that the French colonizers built alongside the existing city. Our hotel was in the European section, but my friends and I spent all of our free time in the old Medina. I have to say that the old Medina in Fez is one of the most singularly intense places I've been in my entire life. The streets are incredibly narrow, in fact they were designed to be just wide enough that two camels could pass through side by side. Given the width of the streets, no cars can enter the old city and mules are still used to transport goods. The streets are winding and rather confusing unless one knows where they are going. My friends and I got totally lost after being shanghaied into following some random Moroccan guy around when we asked him for a restaurant suggestion, and we eventually had to exit the medina proper and follow the city wall back to the gate that we were supposed to be meeting at.
Parts of the medina also smell. Fez is known for the quality of its pottery and leather works. Leather means tanneries, and tanneries mean smells. We went up to the roof of a leather shop and looked down at the groups of men soaking skins in lye and natural dies. The only men wearing any sort of protective clothing were the ones working with the lye. The rest were literally standing in vats of natural dyes (mint for green, poppy for red, cedar for brown, saffron for yellow, henna for orange, and indigo for blue) soaking, rinsing, and cleaning skins with their bare hands and feet. We were given springs of mint to sniff when we stood above the tanneries, but the smell still cut through. As I said before, Fez is a city designed for sensory overload with the smells, sounds, overly friendly shopkeepers, and massive crush of people. It was astonishing to see the huge groups of European and American tourists competing for space in the narrow streets with native Fezians, Moroccan visitors, store keepers hawking their wares, and the every present mules (especially given that all of the former were constantly trying to avoid stepping in the mess left by the latter). Needless to say, the weekend was rather exhausting, and very fun.
Fez is also an intensely religious city. The oldest and most prominent mosques, madrassas, and shrines are located right in the heart of the old medina. Saints are a big part of the popular religious tradition in Morocco and people visit the shrines of important saints for cures for sickness, good luck, or solutions to the problems faced in everyday life. Every city in Morocco is full of shrines for local saints, and some like Moulay Idriss, have made it to the ranks of big time sainthood. People in Morocco will go on pilgrimages to the shrines of major saints as a substitute for the Hajj if they do not have the money to make it to Mecca. Anyways, we walked passed the shrine of Moulay Idriss. We were not allowed to enter, but the building was gorgeously ornate. All of the shops around the shrine sold candy, incense, and goods such as wedding dresses, that are of more religious importance than the wares sold in the shops crowding the rest of the medina. There were also so many people around Moulay Idriss. The shrine is a huge pilgrimage spot and tourist attraction to the rush of people was almost unbearable. I was surprised that no one in our group got swept away!
When we got back to Rabat, our family was eager to talk about the trip with Evelyn and I. It's nice, because we've been talking to our family a lot more recently, and I think that discussing the trip and visits that they had made to Fez brought us a little closer together. Rahma also made couscous for dinner (because our mom knows that Evelyn and I like it, according to Ranya), and she gave me a crash course in Moroccan cooking. Clearly, I still have a long ways to go before I'm making couscous solo, but Rahma and my dad found the situation hilarious. My dad told me that I need to learn how to make Moroccan food for my family back at home and future husband.
Talking about marriage is a common occurrence here. I've had no less than four cab driver enquirer after my marital status and my one last night seemed pretty interested until I told him I was only twenty and wanted to focus on my studies. Surprisingly, saying that I want to pursue an education before getting married is widely accepted and the quickest way to shut down awkward marriage questions. My host parents are always pleased when they see me doing homework, and random cab drivers and waiters have expressed approval when I tell them I got to university. Evelyn and I had a conversation with our sister Sarah this afternoon about how she thinks it's best for girls to finish their education, work, and travel before marriage. She says that she can't even imagine getting married now and she's two days shy of her 25th birthday! I really enjoy talking to Sarah. She's really chill, likes to joke, and was able to fix my camera for me after I dropped it in Meknes.
Back to the couscous! After the meal was prepared, Evelyn, my mom, and I ate the couscous with large spoons from a communal dish. Most of our meals are eaten with bread or fingers from a communal dish, but I guess couscous is messy enough to warrant silverware. My dad, however ate it with his hands. My dad likes to tease me about food. When I say that something is hot, or that I'm full and can't eat any more, he tells me that there is no such thing in Morocco. Towards the end of the meal, he told me to "eat like a Moroccan" and scoop up a bit of coucous with my hands. I did, and made a spectacular mess of eating it. My dad, mom, and Evelyn all laughed and laughed. I seem to get laughed at a lot here, but mostly it's in good fun, so I don't mind.
The next time my family found hilarity in my actions was when I went to the hammam on Friday, and fell flat on my bum, right in the middle of the room, when filling up my water bucket. I have a really nice bruise on my back, but am fine other wise, hamdulillah (thanks be to God)! Ranya and her friends were in the hammam at the same time, so the entire family heard about my misadventure. All of the Moroccan women in the hammam were initially very concerned and wanted to make sure I was OK, which was sweet. Luckily I know how to say, "no problem" in Darija. During dinner, Ranya told my mom about the accident and the two of them cracked up, they laughed and laughed, and I got really, really red. I was sternly told to always wear my shoes (a fact of which I am now rather painfully aware), but I felt a bit better after Ranya and my mom assured me that they have fallen multiple times. Sarah told me it was especially bad to fall in the hammam because your body is hot so you break things more easily. The whole episode made me feel about three years old again, and as Evelyn says, you really can't take me anywhere!
That's about it for this week's excitement. I went bowling at the MegaMall (which is just like a mall in the US, except in the nicest part of Rabat), which was fun even though we are all terrible. Tomorrow I am going to my Arabic teacher's farm with the rest of the class. He wants us to see his village and meet his family, which should be quite the experience. Stay tuned for the full report next week!
Speaking of overwhelming, last weekend, AMIDEAST took all of us in the program on a trip to Meknes, Volubilis, and Fez. This trip was intense, first because all thirty of us were traveling together in close quarters, and also because Fez (where we spent most of our time) is a city designed to produce sensory overload. I won't talk much about Meknes, because although we saw some really cool things, like the underground prison where king Moulay Hassan housed the poor souls captured by Barbary pirates until they could be ransomed off to their fellow countrymen. In truth, we were only in Meknes for a few hours because it was a Friday and everything was closed. In Rabat, Fridays are pretty much like every other day of the week, stores might close for a few hours in the afternoon, and you see a lot more guys in caftans carrying prayer rugs on the street, but nothing major. In Meknes, people are more religious, and the city shuts down Friday afternoons as everyone is in the mosque. Anyways, I hope to go back to Mekens and give you a more detailed account them.
Volubilis was awesome. It's an ancient city first inhabited by the Romans, and later by Moulay Idriss, the founder of Fez. The site if full of gorgeous ruins, including complete pillars, carvings, and tile work. Our guide told us that it was incredibly impressive, the shape Volubilis is in, given the fact that people used to use the stones, columns, and land from old Roman sites to build houses, mosques, and farms. I would also add that the fact that Volubilis is in such good shape is astounding given that (since this is Morocco) there is virtually nothing fenced off in the whole premises. Visitors are free to climb over the ruined walls and columns to their heart's content.
We arrived in Fez Friday night and spent all of Saturday and Sunday morning there. It is an incredible city. Fez is old, like 1200 years old, and is the first big city in Morocco. It was founded by this king, Moulay Idriss, whose shrine is right in the heart of the old Medina. Fez is made up of three parts, the old Medina, Fez Jedid, or new Fez (which means that it was only built a few centuries ago), and the section that the French colonizers built alongside the existing city. Our hotel was in the European section, but my friends and I spent all of our free time in the old Medina. I have to say that the old Medina in Fez is one of the most singularly intense places I've been in my entire life. The streets are incredibly narrow, in fact they were designed to be just wide enough that two camels could pass through side by side. Given the width of the streets, no cars can enter the old city and mules are still used to transport goods. The streets are winding and rather confusing unless one knows where they are going. My friends and I got totally lost after being shanghaied into following some random Moroccan guy around when we asked him for a restaurant suggestion, and we eventually had to exit the medina proper and follow the city wall back to the gate that we were supposed to be meeting at.
Parts of the medina also smell. Fez is known for the quality of its pottery and leather works. Leather means tanneries, and tanneries mean smells. We went up to the roof of a leather shop and looked down at the groups of men soaking skins in lye and natural dies. The only men wearing any sort of protective clothing were the ones working with the lye. The rest were literally standing in vats of natural dyes (mint for green, poppy for red, cedar for brown, saffron for yellow, henna for orange, and indigo for blue) soaking, rinsing, and cleaning skins with their bare hands and feet. We were given springs of mint to sniff when we stood above the tanneries, but the smell still cut through. As I said before, Fez is a city designed for sensory overload with the smells, sounds, overly friendly shopkeepers, and massive crush of people. It was astonishing to see the huge groups of European and American tourists competing for space in the narrow streets with native Fezians, Moroccan visitors, store keepers hawking their wares, and the every present mules (especially given that all of the former were constantly trying to avoid stepping in the mess left by the latter). Needless to say, the weekend was rather exhausting, and very fun.
Fez is also an intensely religious city. The oldest and most prominent mosques, madrassas, and shrines are located right in the heart of the old medina. Saints are a big part of the popular religious tradition in Morocco and people visit the shrines of important saints for cures for sickness, good luck, or solutions to the problems faced in everyday life. Every city in Morocco is full of shrines for local saints, and some like Moulay Idriss, have made it to the ranks of big time sainthood. People in Morocco will go on pilgrimages to the shrines of major saints as a substitute for the Hajj if they do not have the money to make it to Mecca. Anyways, we walked passed the shrine of Moulay Idriss. We were not allowed to enter, but the building was gorgeously ornate. All of the shops around the shrine sold candy, incense, and goods such as wedding dresses, that are of more religious importance than the wares sold in the shops crowding the rest of the medina. There were also so many people around Moulay Idriss. The shrine is a huge pilgrimage spot and tourist attraction to the rush of people was almost unbearable. I was surprised that no one in our group got swept away!
When we got back to Rabat, our family was eager to talk about the trip with Evelyn and I. It's nice, because we've been talking to our family a lot more recently, and I think that discussing the trip and visits that they had made to Fez brought us a little closer together. Rahma also made couscous for dinner (because our mom knows that Evelyn and I like it, according to Ranya), and she gave me a crash course in Moroccan cooking. Clearly, I still have a long ways to go before I'm making couscous solo, but Rahma and my dad found the situation hilarious. My dad told me that I need to learn how to make Moroccan food for my family back at home and future husband.
Talking about marriage is a common occurrence here. I've had no less than four cab driver enquirer after my marital status and my one last night seemed pretty interested until I told him I was only twenty and wanted to focus on my studies. Surprisingly, saying that I want to pursue an education before getting married is widely accepted and the quickest way to shut down awkward marriage questions. My host parents are always pleased when they see me doing homework, and random cab drivers and waiters have expressed approval when I tell them I got to university. Evelyn and I had a conversation with our sister Sarah this afternoon about how she thinks it's best for girls to finish their education, work, and travel before marriage. She says that she can't even imagine getting married now and she's two days shy of her 25th birthday! I really enjoy talking to Sarah. She's really chill, likes to joke, and was able to fix my camera for me after I dropped it in Meknes.
Back to the couscous! After the meal was prepared, Evelyn, my mom, and I ate the couscous with large spoons from a communal dish. Most of our meals are eaten with bread or fingers from a communal dish, but I guess couscous is messy enough to warrant silverware. My dad, however ate it with his hands. My dad likes to tease me about food. When I say that something is hot, or that I'm full and can't eat any more, he tells me that there is no such thing in Morocco. Towards the end of the meal, he told me to "eat like a Moroccan" and scoop up a bit of coucous with my hands. I did, and made a spectacular mess of eating it. My dad, mom, and Evelyn all laughed and laughed. I seem to get laughed at a lot here, but mostly it's in good fun, so I don't mind.
The next time my family found hilarity in my actions was when I went to the hammam on Friday, and fell flat on my bum, right in the middle of the room, when filling up my water bucket. I have a really nice bruise on my back, but am fine other wise, hamdulillah (thanks be to God)! Ranya and her friends were in the hammam at the same time, so the entire family heard about my misadventure. All of the Moroccan women in the hammam were initially very concerned and wanted to make sure I was OK, which was sweet. Luckily I know how to say, "no problem" in Darija. During dinner, Ranya told my mom about the accident and the two of them cracked up, they laughed and laughed, and I got really, really red. I was sternly told to always wear my shoes (a fact of which I am now rather painfully aware), but I felt a bit better after Ranya and my mom assured me that they have fallen multiple times. Sarah told me it was especially bad to fall in the hammam because your body is hot so you break things more easily. The whole episode made me feel about three years old again, and as Evelyn says, you really can't take me anywhere!
That's about it for this week's excitement. I went bowling at the MegaMall (which is just like a mall in the US, except in the nicest part of Rabat), which was fun even though we are all terrible. Tomorrow I am going to my Arabic teacher's farm with the rest of the class. He wants us to see his village and meet his family, which should be quite the experience. Stay tuned for the full report next week!
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