stress, spinners, and ISP

I just finished a paper about the standardization of the Amazigh language and its addition to the school system. I pretty much bashed both the “standardization” and the system, if you were wondering. It wasn’t a bad paper really, better than my Multilingualism one, but I still feel vulnerable when I’m asked to write something without solid references and based mostly on my opinion and what I managed to pick up in class. I like to be correct.

We all get a little bitchy about homework here, mostly because we have very little. OK, let me amend that: we have very little for our seminars. I have plenty from Arabic class. In fact, I approve of the Arabic homework. But back to the seminar stuff. Most of the lectures just barely scratch the surface of the subject matter, so to ask us to write a paper about what we’ve covered just scares us. Compared to a normal Skidmore semester, I have next to no homework, but I suppose the total mind fuck (excuse my French) of having 3 hours of intense language study every day makes up for it. By lunchtime I am nearly brain-dead from Arabic. In theory it’s not difficult, but we’re moving so fast that we have little time in class to review what we’ve learned. By the time I get home, I have enough time to do my homework, eat dinner, and then enough energy to make my bed and fall into it.

It’s a tough schedule, not to mention that being surrounded by a foreign language all the time keeps the brain working. I imagine it like this: my brain is like a cell phone that can’t find service, it keeps searching and searching for a signal, anything, that it can connect to, until it runs out of battery.

In other, more fun news about everyday life in Morocco, which is what you are reading this blog for, I will tell you about making thick string. Yes, you read me right. I’m not quite sure if it’s the business that does it, or the individual that busy the string and then makes it thicker. Any given day you can see men standing on the street spinning string thicker. They use little handheld thingies that look like tiny eggbeaters to spin the string. The fun part about this is that it turns the medina into a kind of Silly String party. First, one end of the string is tied to something on the wall about head height, it’s usually a bit of wire hanger or some sticky-out bit of a building. Next the string is hooked onto any number of wire hangers along the street, just so long as the path takes no sudden turns. Insert other of string into spinner, and GO. So men just stand in the street and hold these spinners and gossip with their friends who are passing by. They also try and amuse passerby like me by pretending the string is pulling them somewhere, or maybe that was just the one guy… In some places you have to duck under flying strings to pass along a street, and in others you have to avoid walking near walls because there is a mass of string oscillating. Today, for instance, I had to walk down the middle of the tiny alley leading to Veggie Street because there was string spinning on both sides. It felt like a high wire act to walk between them, except the wire and I had swapped places. I just reread that simile and it made very little sense.

I am still stressed about my ISP. I need an advisor and I need housing. More on that later when I actually want to think about it.

The henna from the village stay two weeks ago has worn off for the most part. Now my fading hands and feet make me feel like a henna leopard, like I have some kind of faint skin color variation on my hands and feet that looks vaguely like flowers and leaves.

In addition to juicing and slicing, Hajja also likes to fry. Moroccans in general like to fry foods, which is bad for my waistline, but let me tell you, Moroccans know French Fries. Hajja fried some eggplant a few days ago. So tasty. But then again last weekend she fried bread and then sprinkled sugar on it. That may be the epitome of my gastronomic experience here in Morocco: bread fried and sugared.

respect your zone

So you know about my newfound love affair with bread already, but I bet you are still curious, eh? Bread is anathema in the US, but here bread is life. Bread is at every meal, in fact, it is the entire meal of breakfast unless I can beg an orange or a banana from Hajja. More often than not I get fresh-squeezed orange juice…Since many Moroccans eat with their hands, bread is used as a utensil to scoop the tasty food up. In the Raissi house we have small forks for most meals so this isn’t necessary. Even so, bread is used to mop up tasty sauces.

Another thing you should know about Moroccan table etiquette: RESPECT YOUR ZONE. Many meals for a single family are served in one large dish in the center of the table, and you are armed with a large spoon, if there are any utensils at all. At a round table, in a round dish, everyone has their own wedge of space from which they can eat. You must eat only the food within this zone, unless a zealous host deposits other choice tidbits in it. This practice results more often than not in the creation of walls between the zones. This phenomenon is especially prevalent on Fridays, as Fridays are the day of couscous, a slightly sticky dish that holds together well. I guess it doesn’t really matter in the end because AL-Hajj just eats the rest when we’re done. OK, maybe not all the time, but I think it happened last Friday.

Side dishes, or salads, are served in individual plates for each diner. Hajja favors cabbage and cucumbers, or beets and potatoes. These are eaten with the minuscule forks I mentioned earlier.
I don’t know what the deal with meat is, but perhaps it is relatively expensive, because we don’t have it often.

In academic affairs, today was our first day of FusHa (standard classical Arabic), and we reviewed grammatical delicacies such as the idafa (possessive), question words, masdar (the gerund, a.k.a. nouns ending in –ing), and the several ways to say “because”.

This afternoon’s lecture was on Moroccan politics, which I enjoyed more than I thought I would. The addition of a cappuccino to my afternoon schedule may have had something to do with that.

I spent the afternoon messing about on the internet, applying for another summer internship (At Mesa Verde!) and trying to Skype with my dad, except the internet cut out about 10 minutes in (Sorry dad!) and I couldn’t reconnect. Balls.

It also had been raining all day, so evening plans to go out with some friends and Amine got cancelled. I did, however, have a pleasant experience with my French this evening, when I skipped English in my thought process and went directly from idea to French. If only my Arabic would do the same…

I think I am pretty much better after the great Weekend of Stomach Badness, but my tummy still aches. Perhaps I could tell my family that it only tolerates vegetables.