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 the Fantasia. 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.

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!

Chefchaouen

Sorry for the delay in getting a new post up! Things have really started to pick up here in Morocco. Between traveling on the weekends and a sudden increase in Arabic homework, it seems that I have rather neglected my readers. Well, I guess this just means that I have an extra lot to tell you in this post!

Last weekend, I took my first big trip outside Rabat, to Chefchaouen, a small city nestled in the Rif, or the mountainous region of Northern Morocco. I went with five other girls from AMIDEAST. One of the wonderful things about studying abroad in Morocco is that, in Rabat, I am only a couple of hours away from great cities, mountain getaways, and the desert. Chefchaouen is considered one of the most beautiful places in Morocco, and it has a growing reputation as a great tourist destination, so I was eager to check it out.

My companions and I began our journey with a five hour long bus ride on Friday afternoon. Given that this is Morocco, we were happy when our bus only showed up half an hour late, and two thirds full. The ride up to Chefchaouen was rather uneventful, but I had a great time just looking out the window and catching glimpses of life outside of Rabat. Once we cleared the city limits it was not unusual to see herds of cows or men minding sheep right next to the highways that we were traveling on! The scenery gradually changed from grassy plains and scattered trees to hilly farmland, and finally rough mountainous terrain. In the farming areas, we passed by tiny little stone houses surrounded by fields and hours away from any decently sized town. It was a little strange thinking about what life must be like for the people who live in those little houses, isolated, so it seems, from the rest of the world.

We arrived in Chefchaoen at around 8 PM. It was dark by that time and the drive up to the city was gorgeous. Once we cleared the last bend in the road, Chefchaouen, which looked like a brilliant cluster of lights nestled into the mountainside was spread out in front of us, with the moon and stars shining on from above. I know that this sounds really cheesy, but you have to understand that right from the start Chefchaouen looked like the post-card perfect picture of Morocco, and this continued to hold true for the rest of the weekend. Anyways, we arrived at the bus station, just outside the city proper, and were immediately thrust into our first adventure: finding a cab in a section of the city that clearly goes to sleep after the sun sets. We walked out to the main street and began to wait. We knew that we were in the right place, as some men sitting across the street in the cafe informed us that taxis could be found, after laughing at our strange mix of French and Arabic. Being laughed at when I talk is beginning to define my life here. After ten minutes with no taxis, we called the hotel we were staying at and asked them to send us a cab. They did indeed send us one, but it was a "petit taxi" or a small car that only seats three passengers...not so good when you have six people! Luckily another cab came by, and our driver was nice enough to give us his number in case we needed anything.

The section of Chefchaouen that our hotel was located in is the main square area, around the old kasbah. It is full of touristy restaurants and shops selling the trademark Chefchaouen woolen blankets, shoes, and djellabas. Everything was so pretty! The architecture was charming, the square was delightful, and everything was painted a lovely shade of blue. Our hotel was on a narrow street right near the souq, and was just about the cutest place ever. It was three stories, and had a terrace on the roof. All of the stairways and hallways were narrow and the doorways were barely high enough for me to pass though. I felt like I was in a hobbit house! My room had a bathroom, with hot water, which was amazing, a double bed, and windows that looked out on the street below. There was also a little seating area with couches right outside the room. It was one of the most picturesque hotel rooms I've ever stayed in, mostly because everything from the headboard, to the light fixtures, to the sink and shower stall had some cool detail in the carving, metal, or tile work.

We only spent one full day in Chefchaouen, due to the fact that the only bus headed back to Rabat leaves Sundays at 7:00 AM. As such, we needed to make good use of our Saturday. The day started with a walk up to the ruins of an old mosque in the mountains near the city. We weren't sure how to get up there by ourselves, but one of the men who worked at the desk of the hotel volunteered to take us up. Apparently booking a hotel room in Morocco also means booking yourself your own personal travel guide, taxi caller, and general go to guy. Our companion was named Muhammad and was an incredibly nice guy. He put up with our terrible Arabic, stupid jokes, and constant questions about what something is called in Darija. Muhammad even kept his cool after telling us the word for "goat" no less than three separate times!

For our first stop, Muhammed took us to a spring, which produces the water that the women use to wash their clothes. We saw all of the local ladies standing at their washing stations on the banks of the stream washing their clothes by hand. Some women were washing out wool that will at some point be turned into the yarn that is used to make the blankets that Chefchaouen is famous for. After seeing the washing women, we continued on up the mountain. We walked along a rough path, stopping about every five seconds to take pictures of the gorgeous views of Chefchaouen and the surrounding mountains. After passing awkwardly by some people's houses (we totally spent five minute photographing their well), we climbed across this kind of sketchy bridge and were at the mosque! It is a lovely little building, although ruin is a very good description of its physical condition. There were a group of men doing construction on it, and we spent a few minutes hanging out and taking even more pictures. We ran into another group of Americans just as we were leaving, which was fun. In Morocco, it's always a little shocking to hear people speaking English, especially in Rabat, which is not a touristy town. In Chefchaouen it was a little refreshing to be able to understand snippets of conversation from some of the other groups we passed by on the street or sat near in a restaurant. I love hearing and speaking Arabic, but sometimes it's nice to hear one's mother tongue being spoken in a strange land.

Upon arriving back in Chefchaouen, we took a break for lunch. We chose a restaurant where we were served by a slightly creepy waiter and ended up befriending a stray cat which we named Jnoon (or mischievous spirit) and fed our left over chicken to. The afternoon was a little rainy, so we spent it in the markets darting from shop to shop. I purchased a lovely woolen blanket that I know I did not pay too much for, as I asked my host mom for acceptable prices before I left. She was definitely happier with me upon my return from this trip! Chefchaouen also had some cool jewelry stores and I purchased a few new additions to the rather meager collection of earrings and necklaces that I brought with me. Almost everyone in Chefchaouen was incredibly friendly. The store owners were chatty and highly amused by our attempts at speaking Arabic and Darija. After living in Morocco for six weeks, my bartering skills have definitely improved and I was able to put them to good use. The one exception to the welcoming Chefchaoueans was the complete jerk who owns a jewelry store near our hotel. I was trying to argue down the price of a necklace, and he first said that we needed to conduct our business "democratically" which meant that I should pay like 30 dirhams more than my top price. After I got him down he then proceeded to mock me for not looking happy enough. He also said that my Arabic accent was "interesting" (with a decidedly snooty smirk) after I tried to have a brief conversation about the weather while one of the other girls bought something. I have to say that he is one of the first unfriendly Moroccans I've met! Everyone else was beyond excellent.

Dinner was couscous at a nice restaurant, and I toddled off to bed after taking a lovely, hot shower. Sunday morning found us up at 5 so we could catch our 7 AM bus. I mostly passed the bus ride back to Rabat asleep under my new blanket or staring out the window.

My trip to Chefchaouen was incredible. I think that the city is one of the most beautiful places I've been in my life and I'm looking forward to going back again during my time here. It was also a lot of fun to just be a tourist. Now that I've been here for over a month, Rabat is starting to feel like home. I know my area really well and I'm more comfortable with daily activities like getting cabs or buying fruit in the local hanut, or store. Going to Chefchaouen was a great way to rediscover a little the magical feeling, almost like wonder, that I first had upon arriving in Morocco. It was also nice to have a real feeling of coming back home when I arrived at my host family's apartment.

This post is sort of epic in length, so I'll have to hold off on some other stories until my next post. Be looking forward to tales of Fez (my trip for this weekend) and my first attempt at teaching English to a class of Moroccan teenagers!