a moment on the roof

I had a wonderful day, but not for any one particular reason. Arabic this morning went quickly, mostly owing to the fact that our real classes ended early with a nice quiz. All the classes gathered downstairs after their quizzes for a lecture on Koranic schools. We pretty much got to play pretend. We all sat on plastic mats while Badrdine (one of the Arabic teachers) gave a little presentation on Koranic schools. Children go to these schools until they’re around 10 years old, and they learn to memorize the Koran by reciting it, almost in a singsong manner. Students write on wooden boards covered in dried clay, with ink made from goat skin and milk mixed with water. I won’t go into all the details of the presentation, but it was a fun time. The whole thing was in Arabic, and miraculously I understood all of it.

As it was a glorious day, I hauled myself up to the CCCL terrace after lunch and just lay out in the sun. It was the noon (12:45ish) call to prayer, the sun was shining, and I had a full stomach. I can’t really describe it, but baking there in the sun, letting the muezzins’ voices wash over me, I felt calm and complete and one with the world. There was no other place I would have rather been at that moment.

In the afternoon we had short presentations on our upcoming Southern Excursion (!) and our day trips to Casablanca tomorrow. Then we all piled onto the bus and went to the Royal Institute for Amazigh (Berber) Culture. The whole visit was kind of surreal. It’s this giant, obviously new, building, but there was nobody in it. We had a short tour from the Director of Translations, but saw probably three other people in the whole complex. We got a lengthy lecture from the Director of Translations, outlining the institute’s purpose and mission. Of course I nearly fell asleep, like everyone else. If can’t be helped really: 3pm is prime naptime.

In a nutshell: the Amazigh is the cultural group that was present in North Africa before the Arabs overran it in the 9th century A.D. The word “Berber” was a term used by the conquerors, and has therefore begun to fall out of usage in favor of “Amazigh”, the name the people themselves use. Translated it means “The Free People”. The Amazigh resurgence in Morocco today is a cultural movement that calls for recognition of equal cultural rights, including language. Many Moroccans are of Amazigh descent, something like one third (and probably more) of all Moroccans. The Amazigh people were never persecuted, but in the face of widespread Arabization that occurred over centuries, many were simply absorbed into the Arab culture and stopped identifying with the Amazigh culture. The movement today aims to preserve the Amazigh language by teaching it in schools, standardizing it, and creating a more visible identity. The Amazigh dynamic within Morocco is difficult for me to understand, but to make a long story short, it was once pretty taboo to identify with being Amazigh. That is no longer the case. The institute gave us some of their nifty publications: a brief survey of Amazigh history and national landmarks.

Later I met up with some friends by the riverfront walk, and we did a little shopping in the souk. I bought a backpack for our Southern Excursion next week. The shopkeeper said 200 dirhams and I got it down to 150 and left it there, although my shopping companions assured me I could have got it lower. At least I brought it down some: it was my first real bargaining experience where somebody would actually bargain with me.

I came home, had a nice late tea with my family, took a shower (kind of), and my clothes are in the washing machine. Tea has become interesting lately, because I just spectate while the family talks together. It’s kind of nice because I get to observe, instead of having to try and describe my day’s activities in sub-par French. This evening I think Amine and Al-Hajj were arguing about a traffic incident, or the location of some event, because the table was turned into an impromptu map: the knives were the curbs of the roads, the jam saucer became a building, and after a brief search the spoon was designated the autobus. I think the whole thing was actually about a bus getting stuck on a curb somewhere (?).