back from the village stay

Back from the village stay, and yes, it was a life-changing experience. I know you probably want to know more than that, but you’ll have to be patient because I have to write two papers for this week, and attempt to document this past week to my liking. A challenge if I ever heard it.

So, we drove out past Boujaad, the nearest town to our village, and met half the parents on the side of the road. Most of us were nervous, but it was an expected nervousness because we’d experienced it before. We stared and giggled as half of the students milled around in the road waiting to meet their host fathers for the week.

Long story short, my host brother Mohammed met me at the next stop in the village proper, and I was then introduced to my two host mothers, Fatna and Fatna. We walked out of the village, past the school, turned left, over a hill and got home.

Note: Because both my host mothers were named Fatna, I will call one of them My Fatna because she was the one who pretty much adopted me, escorted me to the bathroom, mashed up my bread, gave me her bracelet, and cried this morning when I left.

Home
My house can more accurately be described as a complex. Out front are the stables for the donkey and mule, as well as the storeroom, laundry lines, the tiny homemade hammam, giant water jars made out of tires, and the entrance to the sheep pen. You have to stoop to enter through the front door, which has a homemade handle and locks, made out of assorted metal bits.

Once through the door, you’re under a covered section that leads into the main yard of the house, which is not roofed; all the rooms of the house open onto this yard. On your left as you enter is a low stone bench where the plastic water jars sit, along with a dipper. Straight ahead is the door to the largest room of the house. All the rooms of the house are pretty similar: rectangular, with a cabinet and pallet of blankets along the back wall. Some rooms have distinguishing features, like TVs, fireplaces, or looms, but really they can be used for anything because there are no large items of furniture. I guess the looms count as large items of furniture, but they looked like they’d be easy to take apart because they were literally tied to the walls and ceiling.

The room I slept in was the living room and bedroom for several people. It had a TV on a low table by the door, a cabinet along the back wall, and an enormous pile of blankets and carpets. Everybody sits on carpets and blankets instead of furniture. The walls were whitewashed and then the bottom half was painted blue. There was a giant clump of blue flowers painted over the window, and a stalk of grain over by the door. Up near the ceiling the word “Allah” was painted in blue, which I think was to indicate the direction of prayer. Once everybody was done with dinner and somebody wanted to go to bed (usually me) carpets and blankets and were spread on the floor for sleeping. Both Fatnas slept in the same room with me, along with either Atiqa, Usama, or Abd Al-Wahad.

Every small family in the house had their own room: Abd Al-Kabir, Zahra, Usama, and Driss; Mohammed and Atiqa, Nadia and Zuhir (I think), and I really don’t know about Abd Al-Wahad. My Fatna showed me her room, although she kept it locked and didn’t sleep in it while I was there. The only other different rooms were the kitchen and fireplace/storeroom. The kitchen was where the food and utensils were stored, and the food was prepared. The fireplace was in another room entirely where bags of something were also stored.

Most of the women in the house wove carpets. Zahra’s loom was in the kitchen, presumably because that was her domain (she made the bread). Atiqa’s loom was in the room she shared with her husband Mohammed, and the Fatnas worked one giant loom next to the kitchen. If Nadia had a loom I didn’t see it, but then again, I never went into her room.

So, I know you really want to know about the bathroom situation. It’s a non-question really: you just walk around the back of the house and do your business. I added new dimension to this, however, by using toilet paper. Nobody in the village really uses TP, if they really need to remove, er, something, they use rocks. There was a tiny hammam that looked like a teepee in the front yard. I didn’t use it, so I can’t report anything about it. I brushed my teeth in the front yard next to the door. Nobody really brushes their teeth there either. I gave My Fatna some toothpaste when she requested it one night. Her teeth aren’t in good condition, but neither would yours be if you ate mostly bread and drank tea with your sugar. Poor little Usama’s front teeth are already black, and he’s only 6. He’s a menace, so when he gets smacked upside the head he starts bawling because it hurts his teeth.

The oldest of the five brothers (don’t ask me what his name is) lives on the next hill over, probably no more than 100 yards from the big house. He lives with his wife Khadduj, and two daughters Umima and Shaima. He came over to the big house pretty often. Kate stayed with them and said that he was in a bad mood frequently.

thoughts before the village stay

Yesterday was one of the rare memorable Arabic classes. Before break we were learning parts of the body and Fatima Zahra (our teacher) told us to sing the “head, shoulders, knees, and toes” song. Now, I can do it in English, and I can do it in French, but I cannot do it in Arabic. I think we massacred the poor children’s song. Fatima Zahra told us to go on our break pretty quick after that.

St. Patrick’s Day has passed. Some students went out for expensive beers to celebrate. Only a few people remembered to wear green. The day was probably as exciting as this paragraph is creatively-written, which is to say, NOT.

I bought two disposable cameras in preparation for our village stay, as the one my father shipped has not yet arrived. We’re all pretty excited for the village stay that starts tomorrow. In fact, I am so excited, I will go to bed soon. The last time I will see a bed for a week.

And, for the record, I am not uninspired while writing this, I am just extremely tired. Several of us went to the hammam today, which tires you out by sucking all the moisture from your body. Afterwards we walked all the way to Marjane (a Wal-Mart type establishment) and all the way back. Don’t worry, Diana’s host-brother was with us, so we were safe and stuff.

Goodbye computer and internet! Goodbye bed! See you next Friday!

not about much of anything

Much to relate from the past few days.

Allison, Rachel, and I went to the Exotic Gardens in Kenitra this past Sunday. They’re not really exotic gardens in my opinion because the subdivisions looked remarkably similar. In any case, they were super fun because there were multiple levels and stairs and bridges tucked into corners. It was really more of a playground. It would make the world’s best game of Hide-and-Seek.

I finally got to go up on the terrace; I went up with Hajja when she was hanging laundry. It’s a shared terrace because the house is divided into smaller apartments, and everybody gets access to the terrace. The terrace is the clothes dryer. The view is magnificent, if you can look past the roofs of the neighbors: you can see the Oudaya kasbah, the Bouregreg River, the ocean, Sale, and way up the Bouregreg valley to where the suburbs of Sale are spilling over the hillside into the valley below.

Aside from the view, I was also treated to a minor rant about Hajja’s neighbors, who don’t keep their part of the house clean enough. I think Hajja also said that the other families rent from Al-Hajj, whose house it is. Mind you, this was all in French. Al-Hajj grew up in this house.

Our house is on the Rue des Consuls, which back in the day was the only street in the entire city where foreign representatives could live. Hajja is sure my room was once the office of a diplomat. She also said that a few years ago somebody knocked on their door and asked to see the house because their great-great-great(-great) grandfather had been a diplomat and lived here

I had never really associated our house with history before. The house is old, sure, but I had never stopped to think that it had a history; it’s just the building where I live. It’s very Moroccan, living in history. In fact, that’s what I want to do my ISP about.

My friend’s host sister has started teaching a belly dance class just for us CCCL-ers. Monday and Wednesday nights we get to see just how uncoordinated we are. Personally, I just don’t think American hips can move like Moroccan ones. And talk about a workout: I didn’t even know those muscles existed. Happily there were also showers at the dance studio, as I believe my brother may have messed up our hot water. You have to turn the gas on manually here to get hot water.

ankle splashers and The Giant Tea

A word on the accursed Ankle Splashers mentioned in the previous entry. So I told you the medina is paved, right? Well, the whole thing is kind of tiled with stones blocks. The streets are anti-crowned so there’s a low spot in the middle for all the water to flow down. It’s like an open sewer but don’t think about it too much. I don’t know what the surface is like underneath these paving stones, but it is obviously not level because the stones crack sometimes. When the stones or mortar around then crack, water gets under them and when you step on the paving stone it spews water. Thus, the accursed Ankle Splashers. Constant vigilance is the only way to avoid damp pants, but even then the lurkers may get you. I try and keep an eye out for the loose mortar, but even I don’t stay dry all the time.

The situation is reminiscent of “Indiana Jones and the...” ( I forget, but it was the one with Sean Connery) and Indy has to cross the room on stones that spell out God’ name in Hebrew and he dithers over how to spell it and has to choose the right stones or risk certain death when he falls through the floor. Yes, so that is like walking around the medina after it rains. It’s like looking for some kind of sacred sign in the paving stones that tells you where not to step. Although wet pantlegs aren’t as bad as almost certain death, but then the Indiana Jones movies give people false idea about archaeology. I definitely recall telling people that I study archaeology and they respond “Oh, like Indiana Jones?” and I have to say no, because my idea of a future does not, in fact, involve stealing sacred golden monkeys from unidentified ruins deep in the jungle, retrieving large pieces of jewelry from old flames who live in the Himalaya, witnessing human sacrifice, snakes, the Holy Grail, or Sean Connery. But I don’t mind snakes that much. So yes, paving stones.

Jesse and Allison came over for tea today, which was epic. I think Hajja or Souakina actually baked something for the occasion, and all the sweets were brought out, in addition to two little bowls of my favorite olives, popcorn, and hubs of course. So much tasty food. Gods, I am going to gain so much weight here. But after having read Fatima Mernessi’s book “Scheherezade Goes West”, I don’t feel that bad about it. You should read it too (especially you, mom).

So while we are eating all this tasty food, we start talking about dancing and eventually we all end up dancing around the living room (TV salon) to Egyptian music with scarves ties around our hips. Soukaina always leaves a scarf lying around the living room in case company comes and she needs to veil. It’s like relay race sometimes if one of Amine’s friends shows up: somebody gets up and tosses the scarf to Soukaina who throws it around her head with practiced ease and is really to receive the visitor in seconds flat. I digress; we were dancing around the living room. Hajja closed all the windows, and anytime we heard anything in the vestibule we paused to see what it was. Al-Hajj was also closed into his room after tea so he couldn’t see us.

I don’t think I have any room for dinner after all the tasty sweets…

anti jameel

I think some of my new Arabic vocab is starting to stick. I can recognize more words on TV and I can pick out a few in my family’s conversation. I have a strange mélange of vocab though, as some words I know only in darija or fusHa and not French.

Today’s not-so-fun academic exercise included waiting around for 40 minutes for a meeting with Abdelhay to chat about the upcoming ISP. I’m thinking I want to do something with the perception of history in Morocco and how it affects archaeological sites and materials.

I finally got home and began to get hamman equipment together because Jesse and I were going to go. When Hajja got home she told me that our hammam is closed to women after 6:30pm, when it’s the men’s turn to use it. Dammy. Thankfully the hamman Jesse goes to is open to women only and all the time. Jesse’s hammam is larger than ours and cleaner, however, there were considerably more people and it was exponentially louder, especially with the addition of screaming soap-covered children.

After I got home there was teatime, where I was literally cornered (as usual) and couldn’t leave until everyone had finished their tea and biscuits. I hurried to meet Allison for dinner at her house, although the wait was fine because her mother had forgotten twice that I was coming. Therefore dinner was spaghetti and involved CHEESE.

The best part was getting to meet another Moroccan family and seeing another house. Allison’s sisters are 3, 5, and 7 years old, and all the most adorable little girls ever. OK maybe with the exception of Isabella, but I guess I’m a bit biased. Malek, who’s 3, was teaching me words out of her school book in the manner of 3-year olds, but they weren’t the words written on the page. I know because I could read it. We played some games with family photos that I didn’t quite understand because the rules were created by Malek.

It was nice to be speaking English at home, a home anyway, even if it wasn’t mine. It gets kind of trying here at my house having to listen to all the conversation but not know what any of it means because it’s all in darija. I mean, I can usually get the gist of it if I pay attention because it’s usually based on what’s the TV at the time or about the food. Except that time they were talking about some kind of traffic accident and made the spoons roads and the knife a bus, etc. Anyway, Allison and I got to speak English and have our own conversational privacy where were were on the understanding side of the conversation wall instead of being the loners on the outside.

Walking back home at 11pm through the medina was an adventure, to put it mildly. All the shops were closed up, so the street was bare except for the odd pile of trash here and there and the roving bands of young men. Since I was a single female, and obviously foreign, of course I got “bonjour”ed and “bonsoir”ed and “salut”ed and “ooo la la”ed. My personal favorite was “anti jameel” which is in fact Arabic for “you’re beautiful” except the adjective was the wrong gender. Does that signify anything or were they just being lazy about adding the “a” to the end that would make it grammatically correct? I was tempted to holler back “ana a’rif”, which means “I know”, but responding to catcalls (hahaha because there are cats everywhere in the street) is a bad idea. I just had to hold my smirk in until the posse had passed.

The worst part about having to walk to or from home is the fact that I must walk down the veggie street. I forget the real name of the thoroughfare, but it’s a market street for fruits and veggies and meat and chicken and essentially any food item a Moroccan cook would want. During the day you have to dodge flying crates of produce, tiny trucks, pieces of animals on hooks, bikes, motorbikes, children with backpacks, mothers with children with backpacks, puddles, piles of goo, sewers, garbage and cats. At night you only have to worry about the last five and the roving bands of young men. The only good thing about walking down the veggie street at night is the absence of chickens. Chickens smell vile. The award for Most Vile Moroccan Smell is a toss-up between camel fart and chicken coop.

I went to an oriental dance class last night with a few friends. It was a good workout, if you consider that climbing a flight of stairs may be the only physical activity I have all day. It was a belly dancing class. American hips can’t move like that, period. When I got home (wet to the knees because of the accursed Ankle Splashers) I discovered my sister Soukaina is ridiculously good at oriental dance.

clean!

My first day back home in Rabat after our Southern Excursion. Hajja did laundry last night, so I was greeted by all my clothes hanging up in the central court. I’m still not sure how I feel about my undergarments on public display, though.

As the first step of Southern Excursion Detox I got up early and went for a run down by the Bouregreg. I timed it just right and hit breakfast about 30 seconds after I got home. And get this, our breakfast viewing was Aladdin. That’s right, the Disney favorite. Does anybody else think it’s weird that I was watching Aladdin with Moroccans? I wonder how they feel about the portrayal of an Arab kingdom as seen through the eyes of American children everywhere. It is like me watching what Bollywood thinks America is? Because Bollywood America always involves far too much midriff.

Soukaina and I went to the hammam, which is always fantastic. I will miss the hammam. Today we sat in the hottest room for 10 minutes and it was glorious: like a sauna but better because there was soap involved. I hope you don’t mind me talking all about my hammam experiences because I’m pretty sure it’s haram (forbidden) to do so if you’re a Moroccan. I’m not worried about H’shouma (shame, Moroccan-style) in this blog. If you’re reading my blog we’re probably had more awkward conversations.

It was such an extremely good hammam experience I was exhausted and took a nap when we got home. I got another Alone Tagine for lunch, which I inhaled without being told to “kuli, kuli”. I met up with some friends and walked around the nouvelle ville (the new part of the city outside the medina walls). I ran some important errands, including the acquisition of toothpaste (herby flavor) and toilet paper. The most popular toilet paper here is pink.

And here I am writing four-days worth of blog posts retroactively while wondering if there’s tea tonight. I sincerely hope so because I have the munchies something awful and lunch was at 4pm.

Is it juvenile of me to say I don’t want to go to class tomorrow?

southern excursion day 7 and homeward

We lugged our luggage to the bus station, accompanied by a puppy we nearly smuggled (ok not really) onto the bus with us. Our hotel search in Marrakech took awhile, but we eventually got some rooms on a street a stone’s throw away from the Jemaa Lfna.

We spent the rest of the daylight walking around the city, getting postcards, and going to the Bahia Palace. The Bahia Palace was built in the 18th century by one of the sultan’s viziers and then used as the residence of the French resident general. The only thing left of the palace is the building and the interior decoration, like the magnificent painted and carved cedar and plaster ceilings.

After dark the Jemaa Lfna really comes alive, and becomes way less touristy. Food stalls and tents spontaneously appear, serving food of questionable quality to tourists and locals alike. The smoke and lights made the square look like it was filled with white fireworks. We saw some performers, but not many. There were some fortune tellers, dancers, and also games where you could win a bottle of soda(?). We hung around for about 20 minutes until I noticed we were being followed by a super sketchy guy, at which point we hauled ass over to the Koutoubia mosque square to meet other friends.

G doesn’t go clubbing. The other three ladies I was staying with went out that night while I went to bed early. I didn’t have anything to wear anyway.

We caught the train the next day at 1pm, and arrived back in Rabat at 6pm. Although it was great fun to travel around the country for a week, I was glad to get back to Rabat. 57 Rue des Consuls does feel like home to me now. I had an awkward Alone Tagine for dinner and went to bed early.

The Alone Tagine is so called because I eat alone, from my own mini-tagine. Since my family eats dinner really late, I’ve been getting my meals earlier in the evening; for instance I had dinner when the rest of the family was having tea. I do appreciate Hajja making me dinner early, and even though it is a bit awkward, it’s my one American Thing I wouldn’t change. I just can’t handle eating so late at night and then going to bed immediately afterwards. I also get the hubs basket to myself, which may or may not be a good thing…

southern excursion days 5 and 6

I spent the first hour or so of the drive to Essaouira hemming the scarf I bought in Rissani. It’s an extra big scarf of a dark cobalt blue dipped in black on the ends. It’s extra big because you can wrap it around your head to create a proper turban-type thing. Because it’s a desert town, everybody in Rissani, even men, wears a scarf for when sandstorms kick up suddenly. Anyway, the hemming was less a display of my domestic skill than it was a way to keep the scarf ends from fraying.

You’ve probably noticed I like scarves by now. It would be a bad habit, buying all these lengths of different fabrics, except this is Morocco, and what is more feminine and proper than scarves?

Driving through all this farmland, I got to thinking about fertility. The whole country is fairly popping with life: there’s farmland and herds of animals everywhere, oodles of little children, and more puppies and kittens than you could shake a stick at, not to mention the emergent and rich Amazigh culture. Fertility isn’t limited here.

Essaouira is a beach town, even in the winter, when pasty Europeans fly south to get sunburned. The town was Portuguese for 200 years, from the 1500s to the 1700s, so it has European-looking ramparts and towers ringing the medina and port. We spent the afternoon wandering around the medina, because there are no sights, unless you count the beaches. Again, lots of tourists and the same old stuff in the tourist souqs in addition to the goods made of thuya wood, which looks like mahogany.

Essaouira is known as a surf/hippie town, so some of the young Moroccan men sport quantities of dreadlocks. Surfers could be seen riding the muddy waves of the cove.

The next morning the bus left for Rabat, but we weren’t on it. Only six people were, in the end. Most people chose to stay in Essaouira or went back to Marrakech for the weekend. We strolled along the beach, sat at cafes, and relaxed all day. A high point of the day that I will mention is our vegetarian lunch at a vegetarian café (catering to tourists no doubt) because it was, guess what, made of entirely vegetables. It was beautiful.

A group of us got a room at a hotel directly opposite the wall and ocean. It wasn’t the best of hotels, but hey, we’re students and we’re cheap. It was nice because our room opened onto the terrace, so our window looked out over the walls and ocean. Middle-of-the-night bathroom runs were very scenic because you could see the fishing boats cresting the horizon and making their way to the port. And the clear night sky filled with stars, that was good too.

southern excursion day 4

Spirits were low this morning because of the grey, rainy weather, not to mention the fact that 35 women had to use four turkish toilets. I know you’re probably tired of hearing about turkish toilets and showers, but really, that’s all we talk about. It’s important. Toilets are anyway, I couldn’t really care less about the showers, but some girls need to plan their week around when they can shower.

Moving on, the incessant rain for the past few weeks has taken its toll on the countryside: widespread flooding. The road from Ourzzazate was flooded in several places, forcing us to stop each time. The bus driver just drove through some raging torrents as if they were puddles. We were stopped for a good half hour at one stream. Nobody was crossing it, including us. Buses and cars were stopped and the drivers were having a little powwow at the edge of the rapids. An impatient CTM bus (one of the national bus lines) tried to cross the ocean and got stuck on a gravel bar. Eventually a heavy-machinery-giant-shovel-thing was sent in to clear the gravel and thus allow the water to flow down the valley and us to drive through it.

It wasn’t a bad stop really, we got cookies (biscuits!) and I discovered that my camera didn’t work. I guess I got some sand in the lens, and it got jammed open. Thankfully my friend Jesse has let me steal some of her pictures. Thanks Jesse! I did miss taking pictures of the High Atlas, Marrakech, Essaouira, and the rest of our trip, which was frankly, a total bummer.

Once we got the Marrakech and dropped our stuff at the hotel, we set out to explore the city for a few hours. Our first stop was Djmaa Lfna, the main square of the city, and some say the entire country. Our guide books were very eloquent about it, but during the day it’s a giant tourist trap, with henna ladies, monkey handlers, and others of the sort.

The souqs of Marrakech were very clean, but had the same stuff I’m used to seeing in many of the cities we visit, except for the surfeit of tourists. I did purchase a hat from a sweet-looking Amazigh lady. To be honest, I only stopped because she looked so nice. She didn’t speak Arabic, so the shopkeeper next door did all the bargaining. So I got a Purple Berber Beanie for 40dh, which I could have bargained down more (it started at 60dh), but I thought $5 was ok. The hat came in handy shortly because it started to rain. I was quite the sight, with my purple beanie under my pink scarf, but I look strange enough to Moroccans anyway so it wasn’t much of a change.

As the rain started to come down, I felt at one with the Marrakshis, dashing for doorways, not quite avoiding puddles, holding things over our heads, and in general getting soaked despite our best efforts. Moroccan puddles are nasty, in the cities anyway. You don’t really know how deep they are or what may be floating in them. I had Marrakech grit and nastyness all the way up to my knees.

southern excursion day 3

So about that predawn wake-up, it really felt like I was going to hop into a boat for crew practice instead of onto a camel to ride around the dunes. Some of our camels were late, creating initial fears that some students would not have a camel all to themselves, but they eventually arrived. Camels are smelly creatures and very flatulent. Another thing, did you know that camels have a special snack stomach? That’s right, they eat some food items whole and store them in s separate stomach that allows them to regurgitate, chew, and eat it again. All the camels were tethered in lines of four or five, so I was able to hear the camel directly behind me access its snack stores. Vile.

We rode the camels out to the nearest high dune to watch the sunrise. The moonset directly behind us was more spectacular if you ask me.

The Land Rover drivers went crazy driving us back to Rissani, doing desert donuts and swerving all over.

After yet another fulfilling handful of hours on the bus, we stopped in N’qob for lunch at one of the many kasbahs in the town. In the south, Kasbahs are not walled towns, they are more of a fortified house. The grounds of the kasbah had fruit trees, a small museum, and a pool. We all wanted to stay there instead of continuing on to Ourzzazate.

Possibly the most irritating incident of the day was the fly storm in the bus. One of the boys had left a bag of garbage on the bus overnight in the desert and it had spontaneously created a swarm of flies. We had to drive with the back door open to get rid of them, and even then there were some devious ones that managed to remain for the rest of the trip.

On our way to Ourzzazate we passed through the Draa River valley, which looked remarkably like the Ziz except it was a different color. And probably had many different cultural stuffs but we didn’t stop to find out and drove right on through.

I don’t think I can adequately describe the roads on which we were driving through the Middle Atlas, or the speed at which our driver was taking them. Remember that our driver has balls of steel? They must be titanium or something because these roads had only a guardrail between you and a 1,000-foot drop and he was driving in both lanes at once. We had to have a sick break for one of our number once we got to the valley floor because we’d been lurching around so much.

We stayed with other students in a dorm in Ourzzazate. The dormitory is the result of a foundation called Association Tischka, which provides housing in the city for girls from distant towns. Since they live so far away, they wouldn’t have been able to get to Ourzzazate for high school everyday by themselves, nor would it have been acceptable for them to stay in the city alone. The dormitory, Dar Taliba (House of the Students), gives them a secure environment for them to stay while they study in the city.

We slept on bunks, so it felt like one enormous sleep-over. But I got sick again that evening, so it wasn’t all fun and games for me, especially as they only had Turkish toilets, and that’s all I’m going to say. We got to have dinner with the students and chat, so far as we were able in our mélange of languages. The girls at my table were all from Zagora, a town east of Ourzzazate. Three were still in high school but one was studying film production (Ourzzazte is the capital of Moroccan film) They were eager to hear about what we were doing in Morocco, and gave us suggestions about what to see in Marrakesh the next day.

I don’t even know if I can count this evening as being in Ourzzazate seeing as I didn’t actually see any of it. I’ll save it for the next visit.