Liz's Rockin' Moroccan Adventure

Travel Flashback #2: Moulay Bousselham and Larache with the Habib

2009-09-04T15:58:00.000-07:00

Almost immediately after Dad departed Morocco, I was once again on my way to Casablanca to meet a visitor- This time, it was my significant other, Krister. Unlike my previous trip, which had a detailed itinerary and hotel rooms booked for each night, Krister and I had decided to play it by ear and, after hitting the major tourist cities with my dad, I was ready for something low-key. On the recommendation of fellow Fulbrighter Sam, we decided to visit Moulay Bousselham, a small coastal town south of Tangier.

We left my apartment in Rabat mid-morning and made our way to the train station, where we got on a fast train to Kenitra, about 45 minutes away. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the intricacies of Moroccan trains, there are two options: old and new. Old trains, while fairly reliable, are sweltering in the summer and freezing in the winter. The smell isn't particularly pleasant, and they seem to make stops every 15 minutes. New trains, on the other hand, are extremely punctual, make limited stops, and are a joy to ride in. I highly recommend them.

We got off at the wrong stop (there are two Kenitra stops, and it turns out we choose poorly), but we made it to the grande taxi stand with high spirits. Again, for those of you who have never traveled to Morocco, grande taxis are a common and convenient mode of transportation throughout the country. They generally have fixed routes and travel just about anywhere. The catch is that you need to wait for the taxi (usually an old, white Mercedes) to fill up- The capacity is six, plus the driver.

When we arrived to the taxi stand, we were the first ones heading to Moulay Bousselham, and so we waited for our taxi to fill up, which gave us some time to observe an impromptu chess game on the street.

After about an hour of waiting, our taxi finally had its six passengers, and Krister and I squeezed into the front seat for the hour-long ride to Moulay Bousselham, where we were dropped at Villa Nora, our hotel for the night.

Villa Nora is a beautiful British-owned bed and breakfast right on the ocean, run by a quirky Moroccan caretaker. After getting settled, we walked along the water down to the lagoon which boarders the ocean, where we had arranged for a bird-watching tour.

Our guide, another quirky Moroccan named Hassan, did his best to point out birds to us in broken English and Spanish (which Krister speaks) as we motored around in a tiny boat. Mostly, it was a two-hour tour of the beautiful lagoon, but we did see some flamingos and terns.

Our tour finished around sunset, and we made our way back to Villa Nora, where we shared a tasty dinner of fresh fish with a French-Moroccan family.

The following morning, we enjoyed the view from our room and a ate huge breakfast before we hit the road again.

We had decided to head further north to Larache. Larache, like Moulay Bousselham, is a popular beach spot for Moroccans in the summer, but it was still April and we were looking forward to another low-key few days. We hitched a ride with the hotel's caretaker, and arrived at the city's lively market mid-morning, making our way to Hotel Essalam, which the Rough Guide dubs the "best budget hotel in Morocco." The hotel has large, immaculately clean rooms, and our high expectations were met and exceeded.

With the goal of visiting Lixus, the dilapidated ruins of an ancient city that has Phoenician, Carthaginian, and Roman roots, we packed a picnic and boarded a city bus with the word Lixus written on the front. We should have known better than to blindly trust public transportation in Morocco- After about a half-hour of winding around the city, we returned back to where we started. At least the driver took pity on us and refunded our tickets. Undeterred, we ate our picnic on the corniche and took the afternoon to explore the city. Larache was formerly part of Spanish Morocco, and it was a little jarring to read signs and labels in Spanish instead of French.

At night, we headed out for dinner and found ourselves in the midst of throngs of people strolling the city streets. We bought some snacks and we ventured down to the corniche to people-watch and enjoy the ocean breeze.

The following morning, after a huge, tasty breakfast at Cafe Triana, we once again were on our way to Lixus. We boarded the correct bus this time, but, alas, we overshot the ruins and had to wait for the bus to loop back around before we reached our destination.

According to the Rough Guide, Lixus was the first trading post in North Africa, and is one of the oldest inhabited sites in Morocco. It's also famous for being the spot of the Labors of Hercules, where Hercules gathered the Golden Apples.

The ruins of Lixus are nowhere near as well-preserved as Chellah or Volubilus, and only partly excavated. There is no main entrance and no entry fee; when we entered, a man halfhearted tried to faux guide us, but, mostly, we were on our own to explore the site. Nothing was marked, so we tried our best to navigate the site using our guide book: "Oh, yeah. This could totally be an amphitheatre. Right?" Mostly, it just looked like a lot of old walls. (Apparently, there used to be a well-preserved mosaic, but someone tried to dig it up and sell it.) Nevertheless, the site, perched on a hill and bordered by an estuary, is undeniably beautiful and peaceful.

According to the Rough Guide, Lixus was the first trading post in North Africa, and is one of the oldest inhabited sites in Morocco. It's also famous for being the spot of the Labors of Hercules, where Hercules gathered the Golden Apples.

We enjoyed our picnic at the site, and then returned to Larache, where we headed to the bus station. While we waited for the next bus to Rabat, the ticket vendor invited us to eat with him and his employees. We ate steaming hot couscous from a communal plate, and then boarded our bus that took us the few hours trip back to Rabat.

Overall, our jaunt north was the perfect complement to my busy vacation with Dad. The hassle was minimal, the people were friendly, and the cities were beautiful. I'd recommend Moulay Bousselham and Larache to just about anyone.

PS- Check out my good friend Jackie's recent post on Moulay Bousselham. I can take credit for the hotel recommendation, but I can't take credit for her fabulous blog.

It's Not About Sex: On sexual harassment, patriarchy, power, and consent

2009-08-31T17:17:00.001-07:00

I've started, and subsequently set aside, several blog posts about sexual harassment in Morocco.

I don't feel particularly qualified to write comprehensively (or well) about this issue. However, sexual harassment has been a large part of my experience here, and I felt a new compulsion to write about my perspective after viewing this fascinating video about street harassment in the States (more on it later).

My experiences with sexual harassment in Morocco have been 99.9% verbal. Unlike in Cairo, where I was often physically grabbed on the street, here the harassment comes mainly in the form of catcalls. It can be anything from a man whispering "Ca va?" as I pass on the street, to a glue-sniffing teenage boy in my old neighborhood shouting broken vulgarities at me, to a man following me and a friend for 15 minutes, asking us all the way if he can practice his English with us. In more escalated cases, men in cars will follow women, commanding them to get in, or will use a crowded city bus as an excuse to grope and fondle.

My most upsetting experience happened when I was walking on the main street of Agdal, a ritzy neighborhood in Rabat. I walked past a young man. (A boy, really. He couldn't have been more that thirteen, and he was probably high on glue fumes.) As our paths crossed, he reached his hands out and grabbed both my breasts. He let his hands remain there for a few seconds, then kept on walking. Completely shocked, I froze in place during the act, then continued to my destination. I didn't (couldn't) react, and neither did anyone around me.

I felt completely powerless. Degraded. Furious. I didn't ask for this; I didn't offer my consent.

And this is how I feel just about every day when I walk down the street and am openly, unabashedly appraised by men.

I studied in Cairo in 2006, the year in which horrific, mass sexual assaults occurred during 3eed al-fitr (the holiday that follows Ramadan). For five hours, a mob indiscriminately attacked women on a busy Cairo street. For five hours, the police did nothing. It still makes me sick to think about it.

Following this incident, if you had asked me what leads to such a high prevalence of sexual harassment in the Arab world, I would have responded that sexual frustration was the cause. In a trend particularly well-documented in Egypt, but prevalent across the Middle East and North Africa, young people increasingly postpone marriage (and thus licit sexuality) due to the rising costs of starting a household. I would have argued that the licit gives way to the illicit, hence the rise in sexual harassment and sexual assault. (It's worth noting here that a reported 83% of Egyptian women and 98% of foreign women experience harassment on a daily basis in Cairo.)

Since I left Cairo, I've read more and thought critically about my own experiences, not just in the Middle East and North Africa but in the US as well. Slowly but surely, I've revised my opinion, and come to the conclusion that unwanted, unsolicited sexual advances, whether these advances are in the form of words, gaze, or assault, are an exertion of power, not sexual desire. Men, by harassing women, demonstrate that they hold the power to belittle, to grope, to rape, and that we, as recipients, are powerless to stop them.

To paraphrase this wonderful post (which does a great job of analyzing the dynamics of street harassment in the Arab world): Sexual harassment is a reflection of male privlidge. It is condoned through societal norms, particularly society's unwillingness to protect victims and punish offenders.

How do these ideas apply to the Moroccan context? Firstly, it's hard to argue with the assertion that Arab states, Morocco included, are patriarchal. Family is perhaps the paramount social institution (often, multiple generations live together under one roof), and within the family roles and authority are clearly defined: Younger members defer to older ones, women defer to men. Women are, first and foremost, wives and mothers, roles which relegate women to the home, whereas men have freedom of mobility. This structure leads to what Kandiyoti refers to as the "patriarchal bargain": younger women buy into a social structure that restricts and subordinates because someday, as older matriarchs, they will be able to restrict and subordinate the wives of their sons.

However, this system is contingent upon the ability of the patriarch to provide for those who defer to his authority, and, as economic structures shift and women increasingly take jobs outside the home (which used to be a strictly male domain), men no longer hold the power they once did. The patriarchal bargain is in crisis, and this threatens both men and women. Men display "frustration and humiliation at being unable to fulfill their traditional role and the threat posed by women's greater spatial mobility and access to paid employment," (taken from "Islam and Patriarchy" by Deniz Kandiyoti, in Women in Middle Eastern History, 46), while women are unclear of the alternatives, and if these alternatives are superior to the bargain they've already struck.

I think Kandiyoti's analysis provides a compelling explanation for why street harassment is so out of control in Cairo: Young men are frustrated that they can't achieve the role that's expected of them. They feel impotent and powerless, and, by harassing women on the streets, they both prove to themselves that they do have the power to subordinate, and they also attempt to revert to the old model, where public space was almost exclusively male. These problems of male frustration and unfulfilled expectations exist in Morocco as well, although, in my purely observational opinion, they are less rampant here than in Cairo.

Sexual harassment here is socially condoned through the rationale that it is complimentary: women put effort into their appearance to attract male attention, and many women would be upset if they didn't receive said attention. Maybe it's true that some women seek out positive re-enforcement in the form of male attention, but consent from one woman doesn't equal consent from all women. To assume that we all thrive on your positive re-enforcement is degrading.

It's incredibly frustrating, a feeling which is only compounded by the seeming lack of understanding on the part of Moroccan men.

Anyways, I think now would be a good time to view this situation in a comparative context: it's interesting to turn the tables and apply a similar critique to American culture. As my female readers can probably confirm, sexual harassment frequently occurs in the US as well. I have been groped on the subway, catcalled at by construction workers, and followed for blocks by men who wouldn't relent. And I've heard the same excuse ("It was a compliment.") from American men.

To put it bluntly, we, as Americans, live in a rape culture, a society "in which rape is everyday, common place, and allowed through basic attitudes and beliefs about gender, sexuality, and violence." (This quote is from a video developed by Chicago teens, which explores the pervasiveness of sexual violence in our society. I highly recommend you watch it.)

Don't believe me? Here are some examples of normalized violence against women, all from the past six months or so:

In the recently-released film Observe and Report, a women is raped for comedic effect. I suppose this shouldn't be particularly surprising, since the film's predecessor of sorts, Superbad, revolved around two teenage boys attempting to obtain alcohol so that they can get two young women drunk enough to take advantage of them.
During the recent trial of a serial rapist, the defense attorney repeatedly emphasized that the victims were sex workers, as if their profession mitigates the horrific crimes the defendant committed.
Following Chris Brown's highly-publicized assault of Rihanna, a poll of Boston-area teens revealed that nearly HALF felt Rihanna was to blame for the abuse she suffered.
In another recent rape trial, the judge questioned the veracity of the victim's claims because of the sexual position the attack took place in.
When a man exposed himself to a woman on a New York subway, she took a photo with her cell phone and brought it to the police, where she was informed that this "was not a police matter." (This activist group in NYC encourages women to take photos of offenders and email them to the site. They are rad.)

These are not isolated instances, but are reflective of a broader culture that tells men it's okay to take advantage, that consent is not necessary, and that we as women have somehow brought this behavior upon ourselves. It is real and it is prevalent. While the experiences are not be identical (and the Moroccan one is certainly more persistent and jarring), they are both are reflective of a power structure that puts men first.

This post is long, rambling, and not particularly coherent. Unfortunately, I don't have any brilliant prescriptions for positive change. I hope, if anything, I've inspired you all to examine how consent is depicted in American media and popular culture. Regardless, thanks for making it through my sprawling ruminations.

"Number One:" Gender, class, and power in a Moroccan film

2009-08-22T04:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a national holiday, and marked the last day before the start of Ramadan, the holy month where practicing Muslims abstain from food, drink, and cigarettes during daylight hours.

Perhaps it was the holiday, or perhaps it was the impending fast, but a lull descended over my normally frenetic host family, and I took the opportunity to watch "Number One," a fascinating Moroccan film that touches upon the impact of the Moudawana, the reformed family code that governs marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance.

Another researcher, Charlotte, has already written a wonderful analysis, but I wanted to add my thoughts as well, many of which mirror Charlotte's.

The basic plot is this: Aziz, a middle-class married man in an unnamed Moroccan city is a manager at a garment factory. He treats his employees (all female) poorly, and it's any kinder to his wife Soreya. With them, he is "Number One." Commendably, the film doesn't depict his behavior simply as a dichotomy between male and female, but brings in class elements as well. His condescension isn't reserved for women, but extends to everyone he perceives as being in a lower-class than him: the guard at his factory, for example. Additionally, his arrogant and abusive demeanor becomes submissive and cowering when he interacts with his wealthy boss.

One day, after a particularly unpleasant argument with Soreya, she seeks the services of a female magician. (Sort of, the word shouwafah doesn't translate well into English.) That night, she adds a potion to his dinner, and the following morning he wakes up a changed man. He is sympathetic towards everyone, from his employees to his long-suffering wife. Frightened by the changes in his personality, he seeks the advice of a male magician (again, sort of), who deems Aziz's problem unsolvable; it's "la syndrome de la Moudawana" (the Moudawana syndrome).

Unable to revert to his old self, he embraces his psychological shift. He cooks, he cleans, he does the laundry. In one particularly memorable scene, he views a bustling city square, where men have changed into women and women into men. Women sit in cafes, smoking, drinking, and reading newspapers, while men beat carpets over balconies and do errands with babies strapped to their backs. To my readers who have never traveled to Morocco (or Egypt, or Palestine, or Jordan. I can't speak for other countries.), this may not be particularly note-worthy, but I found it hilarious, although I wished this scene had included some reverse street-harassment as well.

The tail end of the film deals with the fallout from his change. Other husbands in his neighborhood become angry with him for being so generous and lenient with his wife. His friends feel neglected because he spends so much time at home. He is fired from his job for being so kind to the workers. His wife begins to feel guilty, and returns to the female sorcerer to reverse the spell. Again, Soreya puts the potion in his dinner, and confesses to him that she is responsible for his transformation. However, he chooses to not consume the potion, and remains afflicted with the Moudawana syndrome. In an ending straight out of Hollywood, he gets his job back and is dubbed "Man of the Year" by the popular Moroccan woman's magazine Femmes de Maroc.

There is so much to consider in this film. First and foremost, I wondered how my host family would react to it. The parents are well-educated; the father, Abdelsalam, is a professor of Arabic and the mother, Fateeha, is an office worker. Since it is currently summer break, Abdelsalam doesn't have any rigid time commitments except the occasional Arabic tutoring he does with me. Meanwhile, Fateeha works 20 hours a week at the office. She also does all (and I mean ALL) of the cooking, cleaning, and laundry. While Abdelsalam has plenty of time to read, watch TV, and sleep, Fateeha is constantly busy, always on her feet. Not that this is unusual, either here or in the US. But is it something I will never wrap my head around, and (potential future spouses, take heed) something I will never abide by. It would be interesting to ask Abdelsalam why he feels it's acceptable to contribute nothing to the household chores when both husband and wife bring in income (particularly since he spends quite a bit of time extolling the virtues of the Moudawana and of woman's rights in Morocco), but of course that would be overstepping my boundaries by about a mile.

(On a very tangentially related subject, I find the recent revival of food politics in the US to be interesting from a gendered perspective. Authors and activists such as Michael Pollan advocate for a change in American food culture, arguing that we should revert to a communal attitude towards meals and meal production. Meaning: Cook more, and start taking time out to enjoy your meals with your loved ones. Of course, this is seemingly a difficult sentiment to argue with, but this article over at Salon does a pretty good job. I have no gripes with the sentiment that we, as a society, should be cooking more, but, in practicality, who will the burden of cooking fall upon? Men or women? Pollan's male privilege is showing.)

Anyway, my host sister, Kawthar, watched most of the movie with me, and I was curious to hear her thoughts. She thought it was funny (Indeed, it was.) and she liked it. I asked her if she knew what the Moudawana was. She did not. But what did I expect from a nine-year-old?

One of my main Fulbright research questions deals with the scope of law. In this way, "Number One" was interesting. On the one hard, the Moudawana is depicted as a sort of "the sky is falling" marker of radical social change, particularly in the eyes of the film's male characters. On the other hand, many of the female characters were dismissive of the law. When two female factory workers discuss the cruelty of Aziz, one says something about the Moudawana, and the other responds, "The Moudawana is for husbands, not employers." At the beginning of the film, one of Soreya's friends suggests she gets a divorce, which is easier under the new law. Soreya barely registers her friend's comment. The distance between the ostensible goals of the law and the realities of life for many Moroccan women remains daunting.

The film is a powerful feminist statement, a comment on the common place gender disparities that exist outside the law. While it lacks any sort of prescriptive value (should we use magic to show all chauvinists the errors of their ways?), perhaps the act of watching this film, which was widely distributed and well-received, is a good first step towards more constructive action.

The New York Times covers Morocco's single mothers

2009-08-19T00:20:00.000-07:00

This morning, I woke up to an interesting New York Times article: 5 years later, Morocco is still adjusting to a Family Reform Law.

It sometimes seems like every article written about Morocco these days addresses the Moudawana (the reformed Family Law), but I was heartened to see this article focus upon single mothers, an often-ignored group of Moroccan women (and the focus of my Fulbright research):

"Latifa al-Amrani, 21, from Salé, near Rabat, [...] is about to become a single mother. She met a man, Ali, 24, who claimed he was a plainclothes policeman, and one day he took her supposedly to meet his aunt. It was an empty apartment, and they made love.

“He told me he wanted to marry me,” Ms. Amrani said. “But then he changed his phone and I couldn’t reach him anymore.” She filed a complaint with the police but has heard nothing from them. Her parents beat her, she said, so she ran away.

She [...] says she intends to keep her baby."

In general, the article provides a concise overview of the challenges of implementing the new law. However, I was disappointed that the author choose to highlight a foreign organization instead of a Moroccan one. I have no doubt that the Spanish group 100% Mamans is a worthwhile organization, but I would have liked the author to focus on one of the many Moroccan-run groups that makes headway on this issue. In the past 6 months, I've visited several, and I begin an intensive internship at one today.

Oum El Banine, my organization, was the first Moroccan organization to address the situation of single mothers, and was similar originally to the profiled 100% Mamans in that it's funding and leadership were based largely in Europe. Hands changed in 1999, and now Oum El Banine's leadership is Moroccan. In my recent conversation with Mahjoura, the founder of Oum El Banine, she remarked to me that it was easier to operate when the organization was perceived as foreign, because conservative Moroccans saw this as less invasive. It allowed single motherhood to be viewed as a foreign concern, not a Moroccan one. So I see the work of Morocco-based single mother's organizations as that much more difficult, brave, and important. Not to mention the fact that a Moroccan director probably understands the complexities of the issue far better than a foreigner (like the founder interviewed in the Times article) does.

Close, but no cigar, New York Times.

Last night, I had doughnuts for dinner.

2009-08-18T03:05:00.000-07:00

This was not my choice.

Yes, doughnuts are a tasty treat. They are sugary. They are fried. They go well with coffee and make a nice afternoon pick-me-up for crappy afternoons that require improving. However, they are not dinner. At least not in my book.

But, for the last, 4 days, I've been living with a Moroccan host family in Agadir, and thus I have little to no control over my meals.

Let's start at the beginning. Ever since April, when I visited a wonderful organization here in Agadir, I've vowed to return in the summer and begin an internship with them. June was pushed back to July, July to August. Truthfully, I was beginning to enjoy the routine of my life in Rabat, but my lease ended at the beginning of August and forced me to make a choice. Weighing the pros (a chance to do in-depth, one-on-one interviews with single mothers; a change of pace; exploring southern Morocco) and the cons (moving my massive amount of things; finding lodging; finding Arabic classes; stepping (leaping) outside my comfort zone), I decided that I would seriously regret not seizing the opportunity to challenge myself.

Once that decision was made, it was time to make some more. Most pressingly, where to live. Finding an apartment is a hassle, to say the very least. Especially alone. Especially as a foreigner. Especially not knowing the city. This was not for me. What I really wanted was a homestay, but with no contacts in Agadir it would be difficult to find one.

Meanwhile, I looked around online for Arabic classes in the area. I found the website of the local university's Arabic as a Foreign Language department, and called to see if I could work out some private tutoring. The man who I spoke with, Abdelsalam, was extremely nice and helpful. When I inquired about arranging a homestay, he suggested I stay with him.

This was a MAJOR RED FLAG. A random man in a city 10 hours away (marital status unknown) offers up his home to a young foreign woman. I mean, really.

But as we corresponded in the following weeks, I learned more about him. Yes, he is married. Yes, he has 2 children. Yes, he has hosted students before. Granted, these things don't preclude sketchiness, but they did assuage my nerves a bit.

Finally, it was time to move. Abdelsalam was speaking at a conference in Fes, and had offered to pick me up in Rabat when he passed through on his way home so that I wouldn't have to take all my junk on the train/bus combo to Agadir. Again, I am not stupid enough to get in a car with a strange man for hours upon hours. He said his family would be with him, and, if they weren't, I was prepared to bolt.

The day I was supposed to leave Rabat (also, the last day in my apartment), I received a call from Abdelsalam, saying his father was sick in Fes and he'd be delayed a bit. Perhaps the only notable thing about this was that I expected things to go smoothly.

So, I was homeless. Fortunately, I have wonderful friends who provided me with both emotional and material support. My friend Gabi, a non-Fulbrighter working in Rabat, offered up the spare bedroom in her beautiful apartment, which I gladly accepted. Serendipitously, her apartment is only about half a block from my old apartment, and both buildings have elevators, so I was able to move my belongings with minimal hassle. I settled in to her place and waited for Abdelsalam to let me know when he would return to Agadir.

Nearly a week later, I received a call from Abdelsalam. They'd returned to Agadir, and so I could move whenever I wanted. No ride. I had to move my stuff on my own. Crap.

It would have been impossible for me to board a train and transfer to a bus with all my belongings, and so I used the extremely efficient, extremely reasonably-priced messenger services the train company offers. I sent 33 kilos for 120 dirhams (15 dollars). Why don't we have things like this in the US?

With my large suitcase out of the way, I was prepared to board the train the following morning. I bid my farewells to my wonderful roommate-for-a-week Gabi, and was accompanied to the train station by Jackie early Thursday morning.

In order to get to Agadir from Rabat, you must first take a 5 hour train ride to Marrakesh, the train's final stop. Then, you need to cross the train tracks in Marrakesh and take a bus operated by the train company to Agadir, another 5 hours or so. When I arrived to Rabat's train station, the vendor informed me that the Agadir portion was full, completely full all day.

Dejected, I weighed my options with Jackie. I could buy a ticket for tomorrow and spend another night in Rabat. I could go to Marrakesh and make my way by grande taxi. Or I could go to Marrakesh, spend the night with my friend Rachel, and set off the following morning. I decided on the later, and set of on my voyage, mentally waving goodbye to Rabat and the six months I spent there.

Once in Marrakesh, I met Rachel and was whisked away to her beautiful apartment. Among the Fulbright community, she is known as having a taste for the finer things, and she didn't disappoint, taking me for wine and an appetizer buffet at Grand Cafe de la Poste, followed by a dinner at a restaurant I could have sworn was in San Fransisco. Or course, she knew everyone everywhere we went. Of course, she was effortless fabulous. And, of course, I was sweaty from the train and wearing an faded skirt from Old Navy. Typical.

When we returned to the her apartment, I met her roommate Iman, whose family lives in Agadir. Iman would be bumming a ride to Agadir the following morning, and offered me a ride as well. However, the driver wanted to leave at 8:00 am, too early for Iman, so it was just me and this random friend of a friend of a friend, cruising to Agadir. After the experiences I'd had so far, I couldn't help but go through a laundry list of things that could go wrong on the final leg of my voyage.

As it turns out, I had nothing to worry about. Dunya is extremely friendly and kind. She studied in Switzerland and speaks fluent English. And she brought her dog along for the trip! We chatted and shared a thermos of coffee as we drove the winding road from Marrakesh to Agadir. Occasionally, she would talk on her phone (sometimes two at once), steer, and shift the gears all at the same time, which sent me into a state of panic, but mostly I felt safe in her hands and happy to have avoided the bus.

About 4 hours later, we arrived at her family's house, located on Agadir's bustling corniche. It was Friday, and so I had couscous with them. On the road, we'd called Abdelsalam and arranged a meeting time. Dunya had pronounced him "nice-sounding," and told me if he seemed weird when we met him, I could stay with her family until I found something more permanent. Thank goodness for protective Moroccans. And so, I was picked up by Abdelsalam (after Dunya gave me a wise nod of approval), and driven to the house of my new host family.

The family consists of Abelsalam, a university professor, the mother Fateeha, an office worker, a 9-year-old daughter, Kawtar, and a 12-year-old son, Anaas. The house is nice and fairly spacious. I have my own room, although I'm fairly certain I evicted Kawtar. She doesn't seem to mind though; I filled my iPod with Hannah Montana and she's been stealing it ever since.

By Moroccan standards, they are great about giving me personal space. Unfortunately, they adhere to normative Moroccan ideas about feeding guests. For example, the day I arrived, I'd just eaten couscous with Dunya's family. I told them this, and they promptly presented me with a beef tajine, insisting that couscous is digested quickly and I'd be hungry again soon. I've gotten better at refusing second portions, but I have no control over what's put in front of me, hence the doughnuts last night.

All in all though, it's been a great experience so far. I am well outside my comfort zone, but I don't regret making the decision to move. Soon, I will start my internship, and with that comes the chance to do interviews. And so my research is moving along. In the meantime, I'll keep studying Arabic, keep reviewing for the LSATs, and, hopefully, we won't have doughnuts for dinner again anytime soon.

Travel Flashback #1: Visiting the imperial cities with Dad

2009-08-07T01:07:00.000-07:00

Today, I resolved to update this blog. I am perpetually shamed by friends who write way more diligently than I do, and by family and friends who request updates. I have no real excuse, except that the more time passes, the more overwhelmed I become. I am falling into the black hole of blog back-entries.

In an attempt to pull myself out of the black hole (please picture me clawing my way out of a vortex, shouting, "I will not let you win, Blogspot!"), I will take you back several months to March 19th, when I boarded the train from Rabat to Casablanca to pick up my dad from the airport. Dad had visited me in Egypt. He survived there and, as I often tell people, Egypt is about a million times more crazy than Morocco, but I was still nervous for several reasons: I'd planned our trip so we'd be traveling mainly but the notoriously insane Moroccan trains; debilitating stomach issues aren't uncommon for first-time travelers to Morocco; and Morocco can be incredibly overwhelming for travelers who don't speak French or Arabic.

Despite the worries floating around in the back of my head, I was excited to host my first Moroccan visitor. I often tell people that an unofficial part of my grant is being a tour guide. Fulbright emphasizes cross-cultural understanding, and I'm always excited to show around guests who would never visit Morocco if I didn't live here.

And so I greeted my dad at the airport. We made our way to the train, which would take us to Fes, our destination for that day. Our plan was to visit each of Morocco's four imperial cities: Fes, Meknes, Rabat, and Marrakesh. All are accessible by train, and, since we didn't want to rent a car, this was imperative. While we waited for our transfer, my dad made an upsetting discovery: He had left his camera on the plane. Not his plane from Paris to Casablanca, but from Boston to Paris. Yikes. I handed my camera over to him and told him that it was his for the next 10 days.

To my delight, it wasn't difficult to find seats in our second-class car, and Dad was able to experience firsthand Moroccan train culture, where it is almost impossible not to engage in conversation with your fellow travelers. By the time we arrived to Fes, we had some new friends and several couscous offers.

Once in Fes, we made our way to the Hotel Batha, located right outside the medina and close to my old house. After getting settled, we walked up to one of the cheap restaurants near Bab Boujloud that overlook the city, where my dad enjoyed the hustle and bustle of the crowded market.

The next day was Friday, and so we opted to avoid the deserted Fes medina and take a day trip to Volubilis, ancient Roman ruins located near Meknes, another imperial city about an hour from Fes. We arranged for a grande taxi to take us to the ruins, and enjoyed the scenery and dodged the European tour groups that filled the site.

After we visited the ruins, our taxi driver took us to Moulay Idriss, a small but beautiful shrine town (dedicated to Moulay Idriss I, one of Morocco's most powerful rulers) with one of the only circular minarets in Morocco. We were guided up a winding series of stairs to a lookout point where we could see the whole city.

After spending a few minutes in the deserted Meknes medina (it was Friday, after all), we returned to Fes, ready to conquer the city the following day.

The next morning, we embarked upon my standard medina tour, armed with the fabulous Fes guidebook "From Bab to Bab." Shooing away faux guides and real guides alike (this was not my first time at the rodeo), we started at Bab Boujloud and made our way down Talaa Kabeera (the big slope), through the meat market...

... into Medrasa Bou Inania, which my guide book dubs the must-see building of Morocco. I don't know enough about architecture to make this assertion, but it sure it pretty. Also of interest, particularly to my Jewish readers: Directly across from the Medrasa is the former home of Maimonides, the superlative Torah scholar, who fled his birthplace during the Spanish inquisition and settled in Fes, where he studied at the university.

We made our way further down Talaa Kabira, stopping to see the honey and henna souks, until we reached al-Kairaouine, the oldest university in the world. At this point, Dad was getting hungry, so we stopped at and got some street food, then continued on our way to the Andalusian quarter, where we saw Medersa al-Sharija, one of my favorite sites in Fes.

Then we looped back up Talaa Kabira, stopped in to see the Medersa es Seffarine and making a stop at the famous tanneries on the way.

The next day, we took off to explore the Mellah, the old Jewish quarter of Fes. Following a walking tour in our guide book, we explored the synagogue and the Jewish cemetery, then made our way back to the hotel for a relaxing last night in Fes.

The following morning, we took the fast train to Rabat, where we spent 2 nights in my apartment and visited Rabat's two major tourist sites: Chellah and the Mousoleum. We also took advantage of Rabat's low-key shopping atmosphere and my dad was introduced to the joys of dirt cheap street food.

And then we were off to Marrakesh, a city I have a love/hate relationship with. The massive tourism industry is, to be quite honest, a little bit too much for this introvert. But my dad wanted to see it, and see it we did.

I would be lying if I said I remembered everything we did. I am no expert on Marrakesh, and, at a certain point, museums and tombs and souks start to run together in my head. But we had a great few days. (Except that my dad was finally hit with the inevitable stomach bug. It didn't seem to bring him down.) And I left the city with a more positive opinion of it, which is always heartening.

And then we made our way to Casablanca, on a train that was completely full in Marrakesh, it's starting location. And the three hours to Casa passed, the train became more and more full. When it came time to exit the train, we almost couldn't make our way past the pushy Moroccans who blocked the way and tried to enter the train before we had made our way off. I couldn't have been prouder of my dad as he used all his body weight to push through the sea of people with his luggage. After 10 days of being passive in the Moroccan crowds, he was finally bhal maghribii (like a Moroccan).

After checking into our hotel, we made our way to Hassan II mosque, the third largest mosque in the world behind the mosques in Mecca and Medina. Completed in 1993, it cost an estimated 800 million dollars. Think about that for a minute.
My favorite part of the mosque's tour was seeing the beautiful hammam (public bath) that was completed but yet to be opened, for administrative reasons. Whatever that means.

We returned to our hotel and embarked on an Art Deco walking tour of the city center, enjoyed some crepes, and people-watched a bit.

Our night ended fairly early, since Dad had to be up at 4:00 am to make it to the airport.

All in all, it was a really wonderful trip. Being a tour guide in a place that was recently foreign to me was incredibly gratifying; I proved to myself how much I'd grown in terms of language ability and understanding of Morocco.

I'm glad I was able to show my dad a good time; he's been calling it his "best vacation ever." And really, I'm not exaggerating when I say that this is a huge part of the Fulbright experience. Every co-worker, family member, and friend that he tells about his trip will have a better understanding of Morocco. And that, gentle readers, is the definition of cross-cultural exchange.

No complaints, okay? At least I wrote something.

Do I wear the shorts, or do the shorts wear me?

2009-04-28T13:27:00.000-07:00

When I studied abroad here nearly three years ago (Ack, I'm getting old.), perhaps one of the most difficult things to adjust to was the lack of outlets for regular exercise. I am certainly not an avid exerciser. My relationship with fitness ebbs and flows, but I find physical activity, particularly jogging, soothing in times of stress. I'd grown accustomed to the plethora of fitness centers and jogging paths in America, and knew that if I ever wanted to go for a job in shorts and a tank top I would hardly garner a second look.

I quickly learned that my favorite form of stress relief would not be easy to undertake in Morocco. Living with a host family that watched me with the same hawk's eye they applied to their actual daughters, it would have been completely unacceptable (hashuma, even) to jog around the streets of Rabat willy-nilly, even if I wore my loosest yoga pants and a baggy shirt. I tried to satiate myself by doing crunches and Yoga in my bedroom, but it just wasn't the same.

When I found out I would be returning to Morocco for 15 months, I realized I needed an exercise game plan. I bought Jillian Michael's "Cardio Kickbox" (You may know her as the pint-sized task master from "The Biggest Loser") and a Pilates DVD on Half.com, and packed some modest exercise clothes just in case I found a good place to workout. The combination of Jillian, Pilates, and a pilfered Yoga DVD (all practiced in my bedroom) kept me sane for awhile (Jillian in particular proved to be a worthy adversary), but after a few months the routines had become rote and my enthusiasm was lacking.

One day, when my legs were itching for a jog and I was feeling particularly bold, I decided to take it to the streets. The mean streets of Fes. I wore yoga pants, a long-sleeved tee-shirt, and sunglasses. I was armed with my iPod, cranked loud enough to avoid most of the street harassment I knew was coming. My house was in the medina, so I walked through the narrow alleys until I emerged near the post office, a building that marks the border between the medina and the Ville Nouvelle.

And then I was off.

I felt like I was playing a game of human frogger as I dodged taxis, city buses, giant tour buses, pedestrians, bicycles, and donkeys in the crowded Batha square. Once I made it out of the congested area, it was easier to enjoy myself. I relaxed into my stride and lost myself in my soundtrack of horrible 90s pop music. I made my way towards the Ville Nouvelle, and then turned onto a dirt path that I realized later was in fact a path used by donkeys, horses, and other livestock to reach the local animal hospital. After awhile, I looped back, dodged traffic at Batha once again, and then made the 3 quick turns that took me to my house.

Tired, sweaty, but filled with endorphins, I assessed my run: It was a long way from the wooded paths and pristine air I was used to in America, but it could have been worse. While the air was far from clean, the street harassment wasn't as bad as I was expecting, although I did feel all eyes on me as I passed cafes and bus stops. Despite the minor inconveniences, It was worth it to keep it up, I decided.

In the following months, I ran a few times a week, and learned that some times of the day are better than others. My two regular routes passed large schools, and so if I attempted to run as class was getting out I found myself caught in a sea of secondary students. People continued to stare, but I attributed it to the complete absense of joggers in Fes, not to any overt hostility towards me. I remained self-conscious, but this mostly mainifested itself in my desire to run really fast. If people were going to stare, I could at least hussle so I wouldn't embaress myself more than I already was.

When I moved to Rabat two months ago, I immediately learned about two wonderful jogging opportunities. One was the beach sidewalk across from my apartment. Largely frequented by male soccer players, there are also families strolling and the occasional jogger. The upside? It's free. The downside? The air is dirty, cars honk, and it's possible to zone out and find yourself in a less than desireable area. The other find was the glorious Hilton garden. A large park filled with Eucalyptis trees, joggers of all shapes and sizes, and frolicing families, it is truly an anomaly in Morocco: A place where outdoor fitness isn't just tolerated, it's encouraged. The air is clean and I rarely get the dreaded "elevator eyes" as I trot around the 2.1 mile loop. The only downside was that it was a little far away from my apartment, so it was a 3 dollar taxi ride each way.

Nevertheless, I ran most of the time at the Hilton garden. My roommate Stephanie and my friend Kate also ran there, making the taxi costs more managable. And when Steph and I moved to an apartment much closer to the garden a few weeks ago, I found myself there nearly every day. I continue to be happily surprised by the garden's varied patrons: Everyone from what I can only assume is some sort of track team, decked out in red and green spandex and flying around the path, to elderly women in jelabas strolling leisurely and chatting with their friends.

Spring has sprung in Rabat. With warmer weather comes a need for a "less is more" approach to workout gear. I learned this the hard way when I nearly passed out doing my regular laps a few weeks ago. (Don't worry, the Moroccan track team was there to help me and offer me water.) The culprit? My baggy black yoga pants. I decided it was time to invest in some decently modest running shorts, so I made a trip to the market, where I purchesed a pair of bright red men's soccer shorts for 5 dollars. Lightweight and comfy, they hang to my knees but can be rolled up to a more American length easily. Even though I don't feel particularly self-conscious when I wear them in the garden, I do feel pressure to run faster because of them. As in, "Oh, if she's silly enough to wear those ridiculous shorts, she must be really fast." I'm not, but I still look pretty rad in my shorts, I have to say.

This weekend, I ran in a road race here in Rabat, my first race in almost 5 years. It was an 8-km (5 miles? I think?) run through the streets of Rabat with 20,000 participants in total. The cool part? It was a women's-only race sponsered largely by the government, and many of the participants were schoolgirls who had never run a race before. Some came from towns 14 hours away. The pre-race crowd was absolutely crazy- All of us packed together, pushing and shoving, waving Moroccan flags, and anticipating the starting gun. If you've ever had a sardine-like experience at a Middle Eastern bank or train station, imagine that and times it by about twenty. It's a small miracle nobody was trampled to death when the gun went off. The run itself was difficult but fun. I stayed with a group of younger girls for most of the race, and, as we approached the end, I was grabbed on either hand by the girls as we sprinted towards the finish line. Our final time? A decently respectable 47 minutes.

I didn't expect to re-discover my love of jogging while I was in Morocco, but it's been a wonderful way to take some time away from my books, Arabic dictionary, and computer and clear my head. I only wish I could be back in Cape Elizabeth for the Beach to Beacon this year! Maybe I'd be able to actually run it instead of eating bagels and cheering people on.

True Life: I'm a government researcher

2009-04-19T10:36:00.008-07:00

It's been almost six weeks since I last wrote, but it feels like much longer. A lot has happened in my life, gentle readers, and I'll try my best to give you a partial update, probably in fragmented and spaced-out editions.

I am now an official Fulbright researcher. My language grant ended at the beginning of March, and so I'm one month into my nine month grant. At the beginning of March, I made my way down to the city of Agadir, a popular beach destination for Moroccans and foreigners alike. But I didn't go to work on my tan; I went to visit a truly remarkable organization, Oum El Banine.

The trip from Rabat to Agadir takes approximately 10 hours. I rode the train from Rabat to its final destination, Marrakesh, then took a bus from Marrakesh to Agadir. Along the way, I saw the famous (and truly bizarre!) goats in trees. They're exactly what they sound like. One in Agadir, I checked into a cheap hotel and made my way into the city's main square. Since it was still the off-season, it was fairly quiet, and I made more than a few Moroccan aquaintances who were puzzled by the presence of a non-Moroccan Arabic speaking in Agadir who had absolutely no desire to surf.

The next morning, I met with Marie, a lovely French-Canadian woman who is married to Hicham, an equally wonderful Moroccan man. They live in Agadir and work closely with Oum El Banine, one of Morocco's few NGOs that work specifically with single (never married) mothers. They had offered to be my tour guides for the day, and so we walked to OEB and conversed in an amalgamation of Arabic (Hisham is fluent, I am conversant), French (Marie and Hisham are fluent, I can understand but not speak), and English (Marie and I are fluent, Hisham can understand but not speak). Our first stop was the creche, the organization's day care center. OEB offers free day care for all the women that they work with, and also provides clothing and medical care until the children are two. The next stop was the administrative offices, where I met with some employees and the organization's founder, a truly inspiring woman. Our final stop was the foyer, an apartment with a capacity of seven where single mothers live in the last months of pregnancy and a few months after they give birth. Usually, these women have been cut off from their families, and the foyer offers them an invaluable safe space. I had a few very intense interviews with the women, thanked Marie and Hisham profusely, and made my way to the bus stop, where I had another 10 hour journey ahead of me.

Despite the grueling travel, I was inspired and energized by my visit with OEB. The organization's founder was generous enough to offer me an internship, and so I hope to move down to Agadir towards the end of the summer to finish up my grant.

This is my first experience doing human subject research, and it's an infinitely tricky field. Developing trust is essential, particularly in my field, where most of the women I hope to speak with have been through extremely trying experiences and face difficult choices in the future. Having an internship will let me work closely with these women, and hopefully they will feel comfortable enough to open up with me.

I've visited two other organizations so far, both located in Casablanca. Beyond these visits, I've spent the past month continuing my Arabic studies and taking advantage of Rabat's wonderful libraries to work on a literature review. The biggest challenge has been budgeting my time: I have no classes, no 9-5, no obligations to speak of. It's wonderful but also daunting. A few days have been spent watching The Office in bed with lots of Coca Light, but I'm mostly proud of my research so far. Getting out of the house is important, even if it's just walking down the street to a coffee shop to read an article. So far, it's been an interesting lesson in time management, which isn't my strongest skill.

Beyond my visit to Agadir, the highlight of my reseach so far has been the annual MACECE symposium, which started last Thursday and lasted until yesterday. All current Fulbrighters presented their research findings at the conference. It was a three day orgy of academia, fueled by coffee and pastries and filled with presentations on women's issues, water management, Islamic jurisprudence, and tourism development, to name just a few. Many of us had only recently completed the six-month CLEA grant, and so our research is still in it's infancy. But the opportunity to receive feedback was wonderful, and I made some great research contacts.

My presentation took place yesterday morning. My roommate had an unfortunately timed bout with food poisoning the night before, and so I spent the better part of five hours bringing her to the hospital and then to Rabat's only 24-hour pharmacy. Of course, when this all began my presentation still wasn't ready (Yay, procrastination!), and so my stress and fatigue compounded and compounded, culminating in me bursting into tears in a taxi cab while Stephanie puked out the door and a handful of Moroccans stood by, watched, and yelled at her that she needed to drink buttermilk. Jealous?

Needless to say, my spirits were lagging the following morning when I applied about a pound of cover-up around my eyes and attempted to attain the perfect level of coffee consumption: Enough to be awake, not enough to be jittery, and timed so I wouldn't have to pee during my presentation, which started at 9:00 am.

I was on a panel with two other researchers, both of whom research women in politics/society as well. I spoke last, and my presentation was pretty much a blur. I'm not the best public speaker in the world (Okay, I'm a flat-out awful public speaker.), but I was happy with my paper and the massive revisions I'd made in the past week.

Then came the moment of truth: The discussant. Each presenter is charged with finding a discussant to comment on his or her paper following the presentation. In my case, I asked my adviser, Dr. Fouzia Rhissassi, one of the most prominent academics in the country and the UNESCO chair on Women's Rights. Yes folks, she is a Big Deal. We met Monday to talk about an early draft of my paper, and she was less than thrilled with my work. I was told, in no unclear terms, that if I didn't make massive revisions she would be unable to offer positive feedback. Point taken, I worked my butt off on the paper throughout the week, but I wasn't particularly confident that she would be pleased with my work. So when she took the microphone, I was nervous. Probably more nervous than I've ever been, ever.

But she had nothing but nice things to say! She said I had developed a fine critical voice and was impressed with my research so far. Readers, this was a highlight of my life so far. Even though I was exhausted and over-caffeinated, I was happy and proud of my work.

Last night, I slept like a baby. I slept for nine glorious hours, and have done nothing today but drink coffee and read. Novels, not research. Tomorrow, I'll be back in the groove, following-up on contacts and visiting libraries and polishing up my paper, but that's tomorrow.

Little House of Horrors

2009-03-08T04:54:00.000-07:00

Over the past 5 years, I’ve moved approximately 9 times. While every living situation has it’s up and it’s downs, I can confidently say that I have never been overcome with such a profound urge to bolt as I am now.

How did I wind up in this mess?

You may want to get a cup of coffee or something, because this is going to be a long one.

I’d always planned on moving from Fes to Rabat to start my research after I ended my language grant. Rabat, Morocco’s capital, is home to government offices, libraries, NGOs, and, most importantly, a beautiful beach. It's a great place to start research and spend the summer. And so my Fessi roommate Stephanie and I embarked upon the great housing search approximately six weeks ago in the hopes of moving to Rabat in mid-February.

Trip One:

We took the train to Rabat (anywhere from 3 to 6 hours, depending on how lucky you are) Thursday evening with high hopes and good spirits. After enjoying the hospitality of fellow Fulbrighter Chris, we spend the better part of Friday walking around and scoping out the city. Each area in Rabat has it’s own personality, and we wanted to get a feel for each before began looking for places. We saw only one “apartment” that day, an overpriced medina house where we would theoretically rent the middle floor of a three floor house. There was no kitchen, the top floor was a construction site, and the bottom floor was home to a family of eight. The whole scenario was so ridiculous that I almost blurted out, "Seriously?!?," but was able to bit my tongue until after we left the house.

Throughout Friday, we also made several attempts to contact various simsars. A simsar is roughly equivalent to a Moroccan “real estate agent,” but is in reality a mostly unemployed Moroccan man who hangs out a lot and thus knows of housing vacancies. As anyone who has used a simsar will tell you, they are a cruel and fickle group, never truly listening to your housing desires and taking advantage of you at every turn.

We finally crossed paths with our simsar, Muhammad, on Saturday morning in Hassan, a nicer part of town near our language school and close to the train station. We had previously told him we would like a two-bedroom apartment, furnished if possible. We also gave him a price range (no more than 4,000 dirhams). He took us to two apartments that day. One had one bedroom, the other had three. Both were completely out of our price range. Typical.

Explaining to him that the price was extremely important to us, he said he knew of a place in Ocean. Ocean is a more modestly priced area where many Fulbrighters live, and, although the street harassment rivals Fes, it's in close proximity to a huge, wonderful vegetable market and is within walking distance of our language school.

Stephanie and I remained cautiously optimistic. But when we arrived to the apartment, we realized that we weren't in Ocean, but were instead in Der Jamee3, an area we'd already ruled out due to the completely sketchy vibe we'd gotten the day before.

Irritated with Muhammad's lying ways, we decided to call it a day. To add to the frustration, he demanded money for the day’s work, which we flat-out refused to pay.

Trip Two:

This day holds the noble distinction of being the worst day I’ve had so far in Morocco. A week after our first excursion, we decided to try our luck again. Stephanie and wanted to take the fast train from Fes to Rabat, which is only 3 stops and is usually on time. We arrived at the station with plenty of time to spare. Except that our ticket line’s computer was broken, and so we missed the train by about 2 minutes. And the next train left late and took forever and was smelly and hot. We arrived to Rabat hungry, dirty, and frustrated. After a frustrating exchange with our simsar about where to meet him, he came to the station and brought us to another apartment. This one was fully furnished, nice, and in a decent area. But of course the simsar had lied about the price, and so we left the apartment in a hurry after an awkward exchange with the landlord about how much we were willing to pay. And then, of course, our simsar’s cell phone died, so he couldn’t make any phone calls, and we couldn’t see any other places.

This day happened to be Super Bowl Sunday, and we had originally planned on heading to the Rabat Marine House to watch the game. But I was tired, thirsty, and vaguely sick to my stomach. I hadn’t used the bathroom in 8 hours. I did not want to socialize. I just wanted to sleep. I went back to the train station and bought a ticket for the next train to Fes. And then it started to pour. I mean, really pour. So of course the train was late, and of course once the train arrived I had to stand for the first 45 minutes until a seat freed up.

We arrived back in Fes 12 hours after we left, thoroughly depressed about our situation.

Trip Three:

We received a call from Muhammad telling us about a great place that just came on the market. We make our way to Rabat with positive attitudes on the earliest train Saturday morning.

The first place he took us to that day was a furnished apartment in Ocean. It was a good size, and it was literally right on the ocean, giving us an amazing view of the beach.

Stephanie and I decided we liked the place enough to venture to the landlady’s apartment to negotiate a price. We made our way to Centre-Ville, where we arrived at the tallest, swankiest apartment building in Rabat. One wall of her grand salon was literally nothing but floor to ceiling windows, with a panoramic view of the city. Clearly, she is labas aleeha, a Moroccan expression mean very well off.

After some tea and small talk (she sends her daughter to Al-Akhawayn University, the only private university in Morocco; her son plays Playstation all day), we got down to business. She would rent the place to us furnished or unfurnished (everything was new, she assured us). For furnished, it would cost 4500 dirhams a month, slightly more than we’d originally said was our maximum price. But the thought of moving into a place that had everything was just too tempting- We’d heard story after story from friends about the hassle of purchasing couches, beds, fridges, etc., and it seemed way less stressful to move into a place that was mufarajah (furnished).

And so we decided to go for it. We paid 2 months rent upfront and gave our simsar a commission of a half month’s rent. We’d call her when we arrived in Rabat from Fes the following week to get the keys.

We left her apartment ecstatically happy. We’d found an apartment! Right on the water! Furnished! We were no longer homeless!

We treated ourselves to a gourmet pizza lunch and boarded the next train to Fes with a huge weight off of our shoulders.

The Rahlah Kabeerah:

The following Saturday, we made our way to the 7:50 am train from Fes to Rabat. Much to our dismay, we'd both accumulated lots of stuff in Fes, and if our friend Addie hadn't helped us transport our belongings it would have been next to impossible to make it in one trip. Thankfully we had an extra pair of hands, and the trip went smoothly.

When we arrived to the apartment building, the incredibly kind doorman let us in, and her son took a break from playing Playstation to bring the house keys over.

As we started to get settled, we realized some things were amiss. There was definitely, definitely more stuff in the kitchen the first time we saw it. There were no pots and pans, only a few plates and mugs, and next to no silverwear.

The problems didn't stop there.

The shower head is detachable, but the part that theoretically attaches it to the wall isn't the proper size, and so showering is a cruel misadventure in dexterity, which I sadly lack. Equally annoying is the toilet: The toilet bowl takes approximately 20 minutes to refill after it's been flushed.

The apartment is also incredibly noisy. Stephanie's room faces the main road, where traffic whizzes by at all hours. I have the pleasure of being situated next to a construction site, where work begins promptly at 8:00 am and goes until 6:00 pm, without a lunch break. Very un-Moroccan, and very disruptive to my sleep habits.

The icing on the cake is by far the fridge. The day after we moved in, it stopped working. I found a local mechanic, who told us the compressor was broken. It would cost 1200 dirhams to replace to part. We paid, of course. We needed a fridge.

We asked our landlady to come over to talk about the problem (after all, she had told us that everything was new, and new fridges don't have broken compressors), and she immediately began telling us (yelling at us) that we broke the fridge and that it wasn't her fault or her responsibility. She wouldn't pay for it, and we would just have to deal with it. She even went as far as to call the repair man, talk to him in rapid Arabic, and then report back to us that yes, he confirmed that we broken the fridge. She didn't budge, and we were completely powerless. Hilariously, throughout this exchange, she constantly referred to us as "her daughters." I wish I had the guts to respond, "Your poor daughter!," but I didn't want to incite even more of her wrath.

When the repairman returned the next day to replace the part, he assured us that we did not break the compressor; it was just an old part.

At this point, we decided that we wouldn't be staying longer than the two months we'd already paid. In addition to the constant noise (which, admittedly, isn't our landlady's fault), she is an evil, stingy liar, and neither of us want to give her any more money than we already have.

Over the past 2 weeks, we've slowly but surely gotten settled, shoving ugly knick-knacks in the closet and rearranging the broken furniture she gave us. But the whole situation is transient, and it's difficult to feel completely comfortable knowing that we'll be moving in 5 weeks. We also will have to face our evil landlady's wrath soon when we tell her we're moving out, which adds to the stress. And, typically, a week ago the fridge stopped working again. This time, it was the fan, which cost another 600 dirhams to fix. This time, we didn't even bother calling her. Clearly, she doesn't care at all.

As for where I'll move when our lease runs out, I still don't know. The path my research takes over the past few weeks will play a big part in my decision. I'm making some NGO visits in the upcoming weeks, and if any of these groups are receptive to me working closely with them then it might make sense to leave Rabat and settle elsewhere. Or maybe I'll stay here for the summer and then move cities again in the fall. A lot is uncertain, and uncertainty stresses me out.

As awful as our landlady is, I'll be a little sad to leave this view behind.

B'salaamah, Senoir Qibsh.

2009-02-22T08:33:00.000-08:00

Perhaps my most memorable in Morocco thus far (and trust me, gentle readers, there have been many), was my experience during Eid Al-Kabir (Eid Al-Adha). This holiday, which marks Abraham’s sacrifice of his son Isaac to the Lord, is celebrated by Muslims around the world. (As you may recall, the story ended on a happy note when the Lord replaced Isaac with a ram at the last minute, rewarding Abraham for his willingness to make an immense sacrifice for his faith.)

This year, Eid Al-Kabir took place in early December, and so this entry is both cursed and blessed with the gift of time to reflect and ruminate on my experience. While I doubt I can add anything that hasn't been said before, I wanted to share this unique experience with my family and friends that read this blog.

So, the facts. Moroccans celebrate Eid Al-Kabir with the sacrifice of a sheep (qibsh), which is followed by eating nearly all of the animal.

In the weeks leading up to the Eid, subtle changes occur in the medina. Knives, barbeque sets, salt, and cumin, the accoutrements of Eid, are on display on every street corner. Moroccans drag reluctant sheep through the streets to their homes, where the sheep will live until they meet their maker. The sheep often live on the roofs, and so the bleats of sheep that seem to know what awaits them adds to the usual cacophony of roosters and stray cats in heat that make up our daily medina soundtrack.

Here is a photo of my friend Susannah's sheep, who we nicknamed Senoir Qibsh.

Our landlord Mustafa and his mother Fatima invited my roommate Roz and I to their home for the holiday. Not wanting to 1) Offend our wonderful landlords by refusing their invitation, and 2) Miss out on this singular experience, we accepted. We'll only stay for the sacrifice, we told each other. Whatever happens, we will not eat innards.

When we arrived to our landlord's apartment, the sheep was already up on the roof. The families in the building must have staggered themselves, because our group was the only one there. Our small group was composed of Roz, Mustafa, Fatima, a family friend, a butcher, and me. (Similar to Jewish dietary law, the sheep must be butchered in a specific way, and trained butchers are in hot demand during the Eid.)

The butcher and the friend held down the sheep, said B'ismilah (in the name of Allah) and slit it's throat. After the sheep stopped convulsing, the family decapitated the animal, drained the blood into the roof’s drain, and skinned it, the last of which involved poking a hole in the skin and blowing into the hole, effectively loosening the skin from the body. Then they went to work on the innards, cutting everything out and placing them in a large bowl.

Afterwards, we made our way downstairs, where Roz and I drank tea and watched Men in Black while Fatima prepared lunch. This is when Roz and I started to panic and doubt our resolution to avoid eating innards. We knew that brains take a day to prepare, and so they wouldn’t be on the menu. But what other organs would be presented to us? As we watched Fatima bring bread, cumin, salt, and soda out to the table one by one, I felt like we were in some insane parody of “The Tell Tale Heart,” in which every passing minute compounded our fear. It didn’t help that the decapitated carcass sat just feet from us on a spare table, slowly dripping its remaining blood into bucket.

Finally, lunch was served. Roz and I eyed the meat kabobs (neither of us had any idea what type of meat it was), made eye contact, silently weighed our options, and dug in.

The meat was chewy. And smoky. And wrapped in fat. I tried to keep my bread-to-meat ratio high, and followed every bite with a large gulp of soda. Fatima’s eyes were on us as we made our way through the kabobs, and so I tried my best to fight my gag reflex, keep a smile on my face, and not think about what I was eating. Roz did the same.

When we left, we thanked Fatima and Mustafa profusely. And, despite the greasy, charred taste that wouldn’t leave our mouths, we meant it. They opened their home up to us, not because they had to, but because they wanted to share the holiday with us. And I’m truly grateful for their hospitality.

Roz has a motorcycle, and, as we made our way back to our house, the streets were smoky with makeshift barbeque pits, where young men cooked sheep's heads. As we entered the gate of the medina, the streets literally ran red with blood. The slight rain only added to how surreal the experience was; it looked like the apocalypse.

I left the day with a mixed perception of the Eid. In many ways, the holiday has become less about the sacrifice's religious origins and more about the expensive rituals (and associated status). A nice sheep will set a family back more than 100 dollars, and families that can't afford a sheep sacrifice a smaller animal, like a goat or a chicken. Shortly before the Eid, a girl in the hammam asked me for money so that her family could buy an animal. This is not uncommon. And it seems to me that such a spiritual event taking on such a capitalistic dimension is the antithesis of the holiday.

And yet it is difficult to deny the impact of an entire nation (not just Morocco, but the larger Islamic ummah) celebrating the holiday together. It's about more than eating a sheep's brains; it's about faith. Not just individual faith, but collective faith. It's something Americans, raised in a nation of "secularism" and religious plurality, may have a difficult time fathoming. Even though I am not Muslim, there's immense power in the though that the King of Morocco and families in the slums of Fes, and everyone in between, celebrate a moment of faith, of belief, together.

And so the contradictions, and the beauty that lies within them, continue.

PS- I finally found out what sort of meat I consumed several weeks later, when my Arabic teacher asked us about our Eid experiences. "What did you eat?," she asked me. "Bouchra, I don't know." "You don't understand the question?" "No, I have idea what I ate."

After much discussion, she decided that I ate the sheep's pancreas. Bi Sahah. And B'Salaamah, Mr. Qibsh.

In which I went skiing in Morocco.

2009-01-26T13:33:00.000-08:00

Perhaps the biggest misconception about life in Morocco is that the weather is perpetually warm. True, spring is balmy, summers are brutally hot, and fall is temperate, but, at least in Fes, from approximately mid-October until mid-March the climate is horribly, horribly cold. The absence of central heating and insulated walls makes the temperature all the more awful. At the moment, I can see my breath in the house. My roommates and I have developed several coping mechanisms for dealing with the weather: We sleep with many, many blankets, constantly wear spandex and long-sleeved shirts under our clothes, and use a Butagaz, essentially a gas tank with a metal grate on top that acts as an archaic space heater.

In Fes, the temperature hovers just above freezing, and so rain, sometimes sleet, pounds down on our house, the sound amplified by the plastic roof that covers our open courtyard. Further up in the mountains, the rain turns into snow, creating the perfect conditions for a Moroccan ski adventure.

That's right. My first ski trip since high school took place in North Africa.

Our ragtag group of skiers gathered at 7:00 am last Saturday morning. 14 in total, we piled into our rented van while the rest of Fes still slept. Most of us dozed on the bus as we climbed further and further up into the mountains. Along the way, we passed through the town of Ifrane. I'd driven through Ifrane a few times before, but it never ceases to make me smile. France developed the town, which is situated about 45 minutes from Fes, as a resort village in the 1920s. The architecture is firmly European, the trees are neatly groomed, and joggers and recreational bikers abound. The drive through Ifrane is like passing through the Swiss Alps for ten minutes, only to be plopped back into Morocco again once you reach town limits.

We reached the Mischliffen resort an hour or so after we left Fes. Several inches of powdery snow were on the ground, and we took the opportunity to throw some snowballs and marvel at the fact that we were several inches deep in snow. In Morocco.

After some scrambling to find "suitable" boots, skis, and poles for all of us (Suitable is a relative term. My skis were a good foot taller than me and appeared to be about 20 years old. I did only pay around 5 dollars for all of my equipment, though.), we hobbled over the basin, where people were skiing, snowboarding, sledding, and generally taking in the scene. There were about 4 trails in total, but when we first arrived none of rope tows were running, and so we skiied around in the basin for awhile until one rope tow started up (50 cents per run).

After a truely meskeenah fall off of the rope tow, I began my first run. I quickly realized that super long, un-curved skis are extremely difficult to control, and so my hopes of parallel turning were replaced by a strong desire not to wipe out completely. I failed at even this modest goal when I took a spectacular wipeout on an icy patch.

The top of the run was pretty beautiful, though.

After a few trips down the open trail, a bunch of us decided to hike over to an unopened trail. This was perhaps my worst idea ever. Hiking in ski boots while knee-deep in snow and carrying skis on your shoulder is extremely difficult. Making our way down the ungroomed trail was even more difficult. Out of fear for our lives, Stephanie and I opted to take off our skis and walk down the mountain/slide down on our butts. The final straw proved to be getting my boots back into my binding at the bottom of the run. In case you're wondering, it took 2 friends 15 minutes to shove my boots back into my skis. Yikes.

We finally made our way back to the lodge, where we enjoyed some hot chocolate before heading to Azrou, a beautiful little town in the mountains, for lunch.

On the way to Azrou, we stopped briefly at a cedar forest which is famous for its Barbary apes. Apes were chilling in the road, climbing in the trees, and aggressively begging for food. As Stephanie posed for a photo, one of the apes attacked her leg. Barbary apes do not mess around.

After lunch, we made our way to our driver's family's house for tea. The house is located in a Berber village, and the landscape was incredibly beautiful. More importantly, I got to play with the family dogs a little bit.

We boarded the van once more to make our way back to Fes. 12 hours after we departed, we arrived to our city once again, and once again the city was dark. While my shins ached for the next few days and my socks took nearly a week to dry, I can now proudly say that I went skiing in Morocco, and lived to tell the tale.

Najib: Muul a-Taxi/Guardian Angel

2008-12-20T18:27:00.000-08:00

As I write this entry, I'm sitting in the international terminal of JFK, awaiting a flight back to Casablanca. As many of you probably know, I returned to the United States for the holidays; it was a wonderful break filled with friends, family, and all the American culture (read: beer, pizza, and Chinese food) I could soak up. But I'm not going to tell you about how much fun my vacation was. Instead, I'm going to tell you a story that should restore your faith in humanity.

Let's start at the beginning.

Fellow Fulbrighter Susannah and I booked the same flight from Casablanca to New York. The flight departed at 11:30 am, which meant it would be difficult/impossible to leave from Fes in the morning and make our flight on time, since Fes is a good 4 to 5 hours from Casa. So Susannah and I decided to spend the night with friends in Rabat, only an hour away from the airport, and to get an early start in the morning.

After a fun girl's night filled with junk food and a terrible movie ("The Women"- don't see it),
we rolled out of bed at 5:35 am, and left the house with our 120 some-odd pounds of luggage at 6:10, hoping to catch a cab to the train station for the 7:00 am train from Rabat to Casa.

When we exited the apartment, It was pitch-black and freezing cold. As we trudged along the sidewalk that runs next to the beach, it became glaringly obvious that no taxis were passing our way. After about a mile and a half of walking, I was close to crying tears of frustration, and my arm muscles were shaking from dragging so much stuff. Why do I always overpack?!?

Just as we were about to admit defeat and resign ourselves to the 7:40 train (which wouldn't be a total disaster, just a little more stressful), an unmistakable blue taxi emerged out of the fog like a beacon of hope and miraculously stopped mere feet from us to let of its sole passenger and pick us up.

With a taxi secured, we made our way to the train station, chatting with our driver in Arabic along the way. I noted with happy surprise that our muul a-taxi (taxi driver) had turned on the meter. Generally, taxi drivers in Rabat don't object to using the meter, but when passengers have many heavy bags it's customary for the driver to charge a higher fee. When we arrived to the station, our driver only asked for the metered fee. Pleasantly surprised, we insisted that he take a tip, and we made our way down to the platform.

We'd arrived at 6:45 am, in time for an earlier train to Casa at that time, and so we loaded our luggage onto the train, content with ourselves for making it so far, so good.

But, holy crap.

As we transferred our bags from the platform to the train, I did a mental check of our many possessions, and realized that Susannah wasn't carrying her small purse, which contained her only true possession of importance- her passport.

Trying to keep calm, I asked,"Susannah, where's your purse?"

Her face crumpled. I could see her entering panic mode (rightfully so). We needed a plan- Did she remember having it in the taxi? Yes. Okay, great. At least she didn't drop it somewhere along the sketchy beach sidewalk. But what to do now?

I waited on the platform with all our bags while she ran upstairs to scope out the situation. Nervously chatting with the station's employees, I ran through possible scenarios in my head. None of them were good. If she didn't have her passport, there was no way she could make our flight. Period.

But then!

I saw Susannah coming down the escalator, purse in hand, just in time for the 7:00 train.

You see, Najib, our taxi driver, noticed the purse immediately after we exited the taxi. He was planning on taking it to the police station, but when he looked in the bag, he saw the passport and airline tickets and realized where we were headed. He decided to return to the station, where he was able to give Susannah her purse back. Najib was truly our guardian angel that morning, and I will think of his kindness every time I'm on the verge of cursing Moroccan men.

And so we triumphantly boarded the train and made our way to Casablanca, where we caught our flight to the United States to experience what can only be described as reverse culture shock. And now, three weeks later, I'm prepared to go through it all again. While my jaunt to the United States was fun, I'm ready to dive back into my studies and experience the emotional roller coaster that is life in Fes again.

eid a-shukr

2008-11-27T09:13:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

This is my second Thanksgiving spent abroad, but my first time really celebrating the holiday outside of the country. (2 years ago, I spent my Thanksgiving in an off-season beach town in Egypt; there was lots of felafel, but no turkey.) This year, I'll be eating my Thanksgiving dinner at my school's residence hall, then heading back to the medina for dessert and drinks with Fulbrighters. I'm excited to spend tonight with all of the new people in my life, especially after all of the hard work that’s gone into preparing the meal.

For most Americans, myself included, Thanksgiving is all about the ritual. It just isn't Thanksgiving without turkey, cranberry, corn casserole, and pumpkin pie. It's been a challenge trying to recreate these dishes in Morocco, where many of the basic ingredients Americans take for granted (brown sugar, sour cream, cranberry sauce) are nowhere to be found. Don't even get me started on American desserts.

But, if any group is able to overcome these hurdles, it's my extended social circle. As many of you may know, a staple of my Thanksgiving is corn casserole, a delicious combination of corn, creamed corn, corn muffin mix, butter, and sour cream. It looks vaguely like vomit before it’s cooked, but, once it comes out of the oven, it’s warm, artery-clogging perfection. Amazingly enough, this dish also happens to be a staple of my roommate Roz’s Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, there is no sour cream, corn muffin mix, or creamed corn to be found in Fes. But wait! Roz’s mother is visiting from the States for Thanksgiving, and threw some corn muffin mix (and cranberry sauce) in her suitcase. One missing ingredient down, two to go.

Roz, a master chef, was confident she could make sour cream by combining yogurt, oil, and salt and letting it sit overnight. I remained skeptical, but, as I tried a spoonful of her concoction this morning, I had to admit that it tasted like the real deal.

Finally, the elusive creamed corn. Roz once again came to the rescue, combining regular corn, tumeric, flour, powdered cream, and sugar to create something that was remarkably similar to creamed corn. With all the ingredients available, we proceeded to make the dish, which came out just as we’d both remembered. And, lest you worry that I’m not getting my fair share of pumpkin pie, we’re lucky enough to be friends with a trained pastry chef who will be attending our dinner and supplying some dessert. In addition to corn casserole, our house is making sweet potatoes, green beans almondine, and sangria to bring to the communal dinner. All in all, it should be a great meal.

While I've always had some qualms about celebrating a holiday that essentially marks the beginning of genocide, I do think that Thanksgiving is an excellent opportunity to reflect on your life: what you're grateful for, what you wish was different, and where you're going in life.

I have a lot to be thankful for this year: I have wonderful, supportive family and friends; I was lucky enough to receive an amazing grant; and I’ve developed a pretty great life here in Morocco. I started a new chapter of my life this year, and, while I haven't always been sure-footed, I think I'm on the right path.

But of course there are some things that I want to change in the following year. I want to make more Moroccan friends, especially women my own age. I know I’d learn a lot from them, and (hopefully) the other way around as well. I want to improve my Darija and work on my Fusha and maybe learn a little French; I’m lucky enough to have quite a bit of language money at my disposal, and I want to get as much out of it as possible. I don’t want to squander this amazing opportunity.

It’s easy to think of my Fulbright grant as an excuse to ignore reality for 14 months, but I have some big decisions to make this year. Do I want to go to law school? Graduate school? In what? Should I work for awhile, or dive right back into school? I’m thankful that I have the time to make these decisions, and hopefully a year from now I’ll be a little closer to figuring it all out.

I hope everyone’s holiday is filled with good food and good company!

Makainsh mushkil?

2008-11-12T13:31:00.000-08:00

Most days, I feel pretty good about my Arabic skills. Basic, everyday things like grocery shopping and taxi rides are makainsh mushkil (no problem). I’ve even gotten to the level where I can sometimes eavesdrop successfully. But the past few days have been a severe blow to my Arabic ego, largely because of a persistent medical condition that I finally sought treatment for after almost a month of self-medicating.

My past few weeks have revolved around a pretty much constant UTI. Wait, wait. Before you freak out on my behalf, let me clarify: This isn't the horribly painful, peeing-blood, kidney infection type of UTI (Al hum du le lah!). The only symptom of my particular variety is that I have to pee pretty much constantly. Which, you know, isn't the end of the world. But it is exhausting and frustrating to constantly battle your body: "No, self, you do NOT have to use the bathroom. We just went 10 minutes ago. Shut up."

My biggest UTI-instigated setback has been travel, or my lack thereof. Since travel in Morocco generally means non-existent bathrooms (buses don’t have them), embarking upon a voyage with a UTI is a cruel misadventure that I've avoided for the most part (with one notable exception that I’ll blog about later, in sha allah). Even the seemingly simplest of excursions (exploring the medina right outside my house) can go south quickly. And so I’ve generally been staying in the house, where there’s a toilet I know and trust, which means that I’ve missed out on some cool adventures with fellow Fulbrighters.

With an Independence Day vacation looming and a trip to Spanish Morocco in the works, I decided that enough was enough. I found a well-recommended doctor in the Ville Nouvelle, Fes’s new city, and gave her a call. Unfortunately, she couldn’t fit me in until the 28th. So I decided to walk-in to another doctor. This is where my problems began.

The doctor was a French woman, with no knowledge of Darija. This made our communication next to impossible, since, while I can understand French pretty well, I can't speak it. At all. I never realized just how much I rely on a combination of basic Darija, even more basic French, smiles, hand gestures, and “makainsh mushkil.” This did not fly with the French doctor. She looked at me like I was crazy when I responded to her questions in Darija (a natural reaction, after 10 weeks of Darija class). After a few botched attempts at communication, she then summoned her male, Moroccan assistant, who spoke to me in Classical Arabic, even after I begged him not to. And so they both spoke to me at the same time, and I understood maybe 20% of what they were saying. Things were not makainsh mushkil.

Despite my general lack of comprehension, I was able to understand that there are no labs attached to doctor’s offices in Morocco. The patient goes to the lab on his or her own, then gets the results later, and brings them back to the original doctor for analysis. I was told to do this by the French doctor.

As I obediently walked to the lab this morning, it dawned on me that I was remarkably close to the original, well-recommended doctor. I guess a little of Morocco has rubbed off on me, because I decided to stop by and plead my case for an emergency appointment. Surprisingly enough, they agreed to squeeze me in today. The doctor was Moroccan, understood my Darija, and, most importantly, didn’t make me feel like a complete idiot. Al ham du le lah!

While I haven’t gotten any lab work back yet, I'm a lot more comfortable with my new doctor, and I feel well enough to take a trip this weekend, in sha allah. If there’s anything I’ve learned from my chronic UTI experience, it’s that your health is NEVER makainsh mushkil. It’s a lesson I’ve learned the hard way, and I’ll think of this experience in the future, since I’ll almost certainly encounter health problems again. After all, I’m in a country where even fairly complex medical care is affordable; I might as well take advantage while I can.

Makeshift Moroccan Election Center

2008-11-04T17:07:00.000-08:00

It's 1:15 in the morning. I'm sitting with ten other Fulbrighters in the larger of our two salons, smoking sheesha, and watching election coverage on BBC World. The tally is 34 to McCain, 103 to Obama, and it's going to be a long, long night.

Observing the US Presidential election from abroad has been a truly bizarre experience. In many ways, I feel disconnected from the process. I'm surrounded by a self-selecting group of young people who have chosen to live abroad; we're not exactly a representative sample of Americans, and it's been difficult to gauge how our nation truly feels about the candidates and issues. But living abroad, especially in the predominantly Muslim world, has made me acutely aware of how crucial this election is. The world is watching us. The Moroccans I've spoken to are incredibly inspired by Obama, and would be shocked if he didn't will the election. (Generally, when I speak to cab drivers about the election, they don't know McCain's name, but instead know him only as Obama's opponent.)

I don't know where I'm going with all of this. But I do know that it's a really exciting time to be American, and, however the election turns out, the whole world will know the outcome as soon as America does.

Where do I fit in?

2008-10-25T06:20:00.000-07:00

I’ll be honest: I think of myself as superior to the throngs of tourists that constantly crowd the Fes medina. I have a house, a lease, a landlord. I grocery shop. I study Arabic. My decision to live here was well-planned, a product of months of research and writing. My experience (I tell myself) is completely different from those of tourists who come here for a week on a package tour.

The reality of the situation is more complicated.

Because, as I may or may not have made clear before, absolutely nothing is simple in Morocco, and the tourism industry is no exception. And one of the most interesting (and convoluted) facets of tourism in Morocco is the riad phenomenon. In fact, my roommate Roz’s Fulbright project will look at the impact of riad restoration on medina culture.

Riads are restored medina houses, and they are everywhere. It seems that every other Moroccan I meet is converting his house into a one. Restored riads are either rented out as upscale guesthouses or bought by Westerners as a first or second (or third, or fourth) home. The restoration process usually involves replacing or repairing the house’s internal doors and zillij (tile). Many medina houses are stripped of their original decorations, since selling these doors, tile, fountains, etc., is an easy way for families to make some money. Western-style bathrooms and kitchens are usually added to the houses as well. All of these factors combined have created a huge demand for artisans such as tilemakers, blacksmiths, and carpenters (these professions were on the wane before the riad resurgence), as well as for plumbers, electricians, Moroccan contractors, etc., etc. It’s undeniable that housing restoration has created an influx of industry in the medina, and has revived a lot of artisan work as well.

But the long-term effects are less clear. In my mind, the medina will soon reach a saturation point; there are only so many houses, and there are only so many tourists and ex-pats to fill these houses. In addition, what impact does this influx of Westerners have on the medina? Is this centuries-old medina structurally able to handle a rapid increase in Western toilets and showers? And, more complicated still, will Westerners still be drawn to the medina when many of the original Moroccans have left? What’s the point of buying or renting a house in Morocco if you’re not surrounded by Moroccans?

Maybe I’m giving tourists too much credit; the rapidly changing medina may not affect tourism at all. Because riads-as-guesthouses, for all their restored Moroccan glory, are essentially safe havens for Western tourists in the midst of the overwhelming medina. You feel like you’re getting an “authentic” Moroccan experience while experiencing as little of Morocco as possible. It’s hard for me not to condemn riads as a mild form of Orientalism; people see what they want to see of a country without truly opening their eyes to the amazing, complex world around them, filled with flaws but also with incredible beauty. In this way, it seems like riads will continue to thrive well into the future, since their guests (by and large) aren’t seeking out a particular character of the medina but instead are looking for an experience that can be created with or without the actual medina intact.

Westerns who make their home in the medina are also creating an interesting dynamic here. A Fulbrighter from last year (a graduate student in film) bought a house in the medina; she plans to turn it into a film school for Moroccans. She’s developed a symbiotic relationship with the medina, and it’s a really cool thing to see. But I also witness some less than positive attitudes from ex-pats; one homeowner memorably responded, after I asked him if he planned to stay in Morocco indefinitely, “Of course not. But it will be so great to tell my grandchildren that my first house was in Morocco.” I was blown away by the selfishness of this statement, and I think about it a lot as I examine my own place in the Fes medina and in Morocco.

As much as I like to pat myself on the back for avoiding some of the common tourist/ex-pat pitfalls, I’m definitely not above criticism. As a clearly non-Moroccan woman, it’s nice to sometimes go places where I don’t feel like I’m constantly on display, and I find myself frequenting cafes and restaurants geared towards Westerners. I'm renting a house that belonged to a Moroccan family just a few years ago. And, of course, I travel, fueling the tourism industry that I'm so quick to criticize. It’s easy to get bogged down with guilt about my role in the larger changes in the medina.

But I’ve come to realize in the past six weeks that massive amounts of guilt does absolutely nothing- It’s crippling, not constructive. I’m only one person, and I can only take responsibility for so much. I’m reading a really wonderful novel right now: The Map of Love, by Ahdaf Soueif. The story revolves around a British woman’s journey to Egypt in the early 20th century. She reflects in her journal that, “It must be so hard to come to a country so different, a people so different, to take control and insist that everything be done your way. To believe that everything can only be done your way.” (70) I try really hard not to embody this idea, and I find myself succeeding, shuyyah bi shuyyah (little by little). While Marjane and Asima, Moroccan superstores, once held a comforting allure, I now look forward to grocery shopping in the medina, and only head to Asima for the few things I can’t find in the street markets (peanut butter, sliced turkey, skim milk).

I’ll never be Moroccan, and, if I aspired to be, I'd be losing aspects of my identity that I'm proud of, that I've worked hard for. My job isn't to become Moroccan anyway, it's to explore, learn, and represent the United States as best as I can. And, most importantly, I don't want to be selfish with my experience. My roommate, the one who's studying riads, has been tossing around the idea of writing something about sustainable tourism and pitching it to guidebooks. I'd like to do something like that; it seems so silly to have this amazing opportunity and keep it all to myself. But I have no idea what form I want my final product to take. Oh, well. I have plenty of time to figure it out.

dar dyalii zween bizaaf (my house is very beautiful)

2008-10-19T10:07:00.000-07:00

This is one of our two salons. Perfect for entertaining large groups of students who need a night away from their host families.

Traditional Moroccan homes have internal windows and courtyards. Even the most opulent Moroccan homes aren't very fancy on the outside; inside is where all the beauty is.

The is the view from our roof. One the left, you can see the Kairaouine mosque, a landmark of the Fes medina and part of the oldest university in the world, founded in 859 AD.

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Our living room. See if you can find the cat in the photo.

My room. It looks out into the internal courtyard.

Anyway, this is our house. I'm still in love with it a month into my stay here; our landlord is amazing, the location is perfect, and, of course, the house is beautiful.

That's not a tattoo.

2008-10-09T16:31:00.000-07:00

Everyone has a breaking point. Mine came when a friend asked me if I had a tattoo on my ankle.

I do not have a tattoo on my ankle.

What appeared to be a tattoo was actually a large circle of dirt and dust that refused to be scrubbed away in the shower, despite numerous, vigorous attempts on my part to make it disappear.

While I’m used to getting a little dirty in the United States, it’s easy to make myself as good as new with a hot shower. Here, the dirt permeates my entire being; it’s difficult to distinguish my feet from my tan sandals and a layer of dust covers exposed skin almost immediately after venturing outside. Attacking this level of filth with a regular shower is completely and utterly futile.

This is where hammams enter the picture. Hammams are communal saunas, and they are a staple of Moroccan life. While I didn’t go to the hammam when I studied abroad here two years ago, this time around it’s completely necessary. Maybe it’s because Fes’s climate is more arid, or maybe it’s because I’m doing more walking this time around, but I’m way dirtier here that I ever was in Rabat. Whatever the reason, it was more than necessary for me to hit the hammam.

The hammam is a social activity as well as a hygienic one, so I made my first trip with my friends Megan and Stephanie. Armed with our hammam gear (a large plastic bucket, small plastic bowl, loofah, shampoo, and a change of clothes), we walked down Talaa Kaber, one of the main arteries of the Fes medina, to our chosen hammam.

18th and 19th century European art is fascinated with the Middle East; more often than not, this art depicts life in the Muslim world as exotic and sensual. This exotic lens is especially noticeable when these artists show women-only settings, such as bath houses and harems. In the eyes of these artists, Middle Eastern women are sensual, passive, and sexually uninhibited.

Of course, I’d always assumed that this depiction was ridiculous, a product of Orientalism and patriarchal times. My theory was proved correct immediately after I entered the hammam, and, by the time I left the building more than an hour later, I couldn’t help but think of this art as completely disconnected from reality.

So, here’s how the hammam works: The first room is essentially a women-only locker room, where women of various shapes, sizes, and ages walk around in nothing but their underwear. My friends and I had opted to pay extra for a personal massage, so this was where we first met our masseuse, Chadija, a fifty-something woman with extremely hairy legs.

After we got undressed, Chadija lead us commandingly into the second room, a large, tiled steam room, where hammam-goers sat on the floor (on their mats) surrounded by buckets of water. We sat cross-legged on our mats. After a few minutes of chatting and sweating profusely, Chadija returned and sat on the floor next to me. At this point I should mention that, while this was my first time at the hammam, it was not the first time for Stephanie and Megan. And so, when Chadija yanked me over to her (I slid across the wet floor) and began to wash my hair, I was a little disgruntled that I couldn’t watch the whole experience happen to someone else before I experienced it myself.

The real fun began after Chadija washed my hair. She grabbed a loofah and aggressively scrubbed down my entire body. Dead skin was literally rolling off of me. At one point, she told me to “Shuuf!” (Look!) at a particularly disgusting hunk of grime; you know it’s bad when you’re impressing a professional with how dirty you are. After Megan and Stephanie were scrubbed off, Chadija left us again, and when she returned she gave us each an equally vigorous full-body massage. Of course, I went first again. Then, Chadija ushered us into the third and final room, where she unceremoniously dumped large buckets of water over our heads and then brought us back to the locker room, where we changed and emerged onto the street a much cleaner group of women.

I had survived my first hammam experience.

What struck me the most about my experience was how completely uninhibited the women were with each other. In the United States, women are conditioned to hate their bodies from an early age- We’re not thin enough, tall enough, our hair is too frizzy, our pores are too big, etc., etc. We’re constantly in competition with our peers to be the most “beautiful.” At the hammam, there’s no competition, no insecurity; it’s simply women enjoying an hour or two in the steam room with their friends and family. Which is why it’s completely ridiculous that artists sexualize the hammam- It’s an experience that couldn’t be less about men.

Without delving into the topic of gender roles in Morocco (I’ll save that for another day), I will say that, while the Western media loves to condemn Muslim countries for what they perceive to be oppression of women, nowhere in the United States can women feel as comfortable with each other as Moroccan women do in hammams. And maybe that speaks volumes about our own culture treats women. Just a thought.

Huzzah for harira!

2008-09-26T03:31:00.000-07:00

If you travel to Morocco with the hopes of stuffing your face with couscous, the most famous of Moroccan dishes, you will be sorely disappointed during the month of Ramadan. Since I’ve been here, I’ve dined on couscous exactly twice, both times in restaurants that cater to tourists.

For those of us who are used to Near East’s three minute boxed couscous (a noble variety), it’s hard to fathom how labor-intensive the dish truly is. Moroccan couscous, traditionally served on Friday, can easily take three hours to prepare: The couscous is stewed in broth and then served with vegetables and/or meat. While I have a soft spot for the boxed variety, to compare the two dishes is truly an insult to the latter.

Anyway, couscous isn’t eaten during Ramadan because the fast is usually broken with other dishes, and, once an afternoon has been devoted to preparing a special Ramadan meal, the last thing people want to do is hunker down and make couscous.

So, what do Moroccans eat during Ramadan? Traditionally, the fast is broken with a sip of water or juice and a date. Harira, a delicious flour-based soup with lentils and spices, is served at every meal, as are hard-boiled eggs (accompanied by cumin and salt). Bread is a must, from plain wheels of white bread to delicious baghrir, the Moroccan equivalent of crepes, which are served with jam and happy cow cheese. Sweets of every shape and kind are ubiquitous – I’ve yet to develop a taste for super-sugary pastries, but maybe it will come with time. Of course, strong coffee and mint tea conclude the meal.

Even though I’m not living with a host family, I’ve still had several chances to break the fast with Moroccan families and take advantage of the famous Moroccan hospitality. Our landlord invited us to his apartment for Iftar, which resulted in a hilarious conversation with his mother about 1980s hair; a fellow Fulbrighter’s host family had the whole gang over for Iftar; and, in perhaps one of my most random experiences in Morocco to date, my housemates and I were invited to Iftar at the home of a nice young man who may or may not want to marry one of us as part of a plan to expand his business to the United States. In Morocco, it’s not strange at all to invite nearly perfect strangers home for Iftar. In fact, it’s rude not to.

I’m always grateful for any opportunity to get out of the house and have a home-cooked (free!) meal, and breaking the fast with Moroccan families inevitably leads to some interesting cross-cultural interactions. To many Moroccans, overfeeding their guests to the point of discomfort is a point of pride. Maneuvering this situation is difficult enough when it’s not Ramadan, but during Ramadan it’s even more difficult to get out of that second or third bowl of harira, since families assume that I’m as hungry as they are. Which I’m not, since I’ve eaten regular meals all day. But, by explaining that I don’t fast, I’m opening up a whole new can of worms. If I’m not Muslim, what am I? (One memorable interaction with a cabbie: Him- “Are you fasting?” Me- “No.” Him- “You are Christian?” Me, emphatically- “Yes!”) Maybe, they suggest without a hint of judgment, I should try fasting. Just to see how it is.

Maybe I should. Everything in Fes seems to run on Ramadan time- The city is eerily quiet when I head to school at 8:30 am, frantic when I leave school at 5 pm, and chaotically exuberant when I try to sleep at midnight. But then again, our class schedule shows little consideration for Ramadan time, and the thought of fasting through 6 hours of class is daunting at best.

And so I sneak snacks at school, continue to furtively drink water, and count down the days until eid al-kabeer, the end of Ramadan, when the city will come alive during the day again. And, in sha allah, I'll be able to get some halfway decent internet again.

Don't take this the wrong way, but...

2008-09-19T08:58:00.000-07:00

There’s something oddly satisfying about taking your pants off in the comfort of your own home. Wait, wait. Hear me out. I’m not a nudist or anything, but there’s no denying the moment you peel off a pair of grimy jeans is pure bliss. After a full day of Arabic in a city where nearly everything is challenging for me, being able to walk into my room and change into shorts and a t-shirt is no small thing. Because my room is my space- I don’t have to worry about offending a my neighbors, entertaining a host family, or deal with the inevitable friction that comes with sharing a dorm room. I can just be myself, with or without pants.

I’ve spent a lot of the past two weeks attempting to get settled, to strike a balance between my former and current lives. I, like many Fulbrighters, find comfort in the oddest places. Finding Ramen noodles at Marjane (the Moroccan equivalent of Wal-Mart) was perhaps the highlight of my day yesterday. Drinking NesCafe (powdered) with milk (it comes in a box) in the mornings is nice. And, of course, our cat Marley is pretty much the cutest cat ever.

How did this glorious cat come into our lives? Roz, one of my two housemates, arrived in Morocco fully prepared to be a responsible pet owner, with a flea collar, cat nip rug, and a book on cat parenting. One of our first days here, we took a walk over to a quieter part of the medina, where we spotted a group of kittens pitifully huddled in a door frame. Marley approached us immediately, which, according to Roz, is one of the best traits in a potential cat. After a trip to Marjane, where Roz bought kitty litter, a litter box, a bed, cat food (wet and dry), and a carrying case, she brought him home the next day. Is this girl together or what?

Marley is, in a word, adorable. He purrs all the time (human contact of any kind will set him off), learned how to use the litter box immediately, and kills cockroaches with glee. The world is his playground. He’s a very welcome addition to my life, even though he’s starting to learn the power of his claws, which is not such a fun developmental stage.

One of the best parts about living in Fes is the bizarre, wonderful coincidences that I seem to experience on a daily basis here. Case in point: Last weekend, a few friends and I were trying to catch a cab at a crowded medina gate. We waited futilely for close to 15 minutes, barely even having the time to move towards cabs before they were snagged by Moroccans far more adept at cab-catching than us. And then- A cab came in our general vicinity! Alas, we were outrun again by a Moroccan family. Again. But luck wasn’t on the family's side, because the cabbie was none other than our landlord, Mustafa, who kicked the family out of the cab and took us instead. Ahh, serendipity.

It’s hard not to get discouraged with myself on a daily basis here: I’m an educated young woman who speaks Darija like a 5-year-old. Consequently, I’ve started treating myself like a 5-year-old. I pat myself on the back for even the smallest accomplishments: successfully using my Arabic to purchase fruits and vegetables in the packed street market near my house. Not peeing my pants in terror when I ride to class on my roommate’s motorcycle. Successfully outrunning Moroccans for cabs. It's all part of making myself feel at home here.

And, if all of that fails, I can always take off my pants.

"230 years of friendship... Let's keep it that way."

2008-09-15T06:34:00.000-07:00

After one three-hour bus ride, two and a half days of orientation, five nights spent in two different hotels, thirteen and a half hours of Arabic class, and countless furtive sips of water during daylight hours, I am officially settled in the city of Fes, where I am the proud tenant in an honest-to-goodness Moroccan house in the city's medina (old city). How much is the rent for this glorious three story-plus-terrace house? 5500 dirhams per month, split between three people, which means I’ll be paying around $275 a month.

The roof is by far my favorite place. From it, you can see the whole of the medina, the mountains, and a lot of the new city.

Originally, my roommate and I were a little worried about finding a place to live, since finding a house or apartment in Morocco usually involves going to cafés where simsars (real estate agents) hang out. But, since it’s Ramadan, there isn’t much hanging out at cafes during the day. Amazingly, when we arrived to our Language Institute, we were conveniently provided with a list of available housing throughout city. No simsar needed!

After a few unsuccessful phone calls to landlords, we were in touch with Mustafa, who picked us up 15 minutes later to take us to the available house. It’s a few minutes walk from Batha, one of the main gates of Fes’s medina, but it’s not so far into the city walls that we’ll feel unsafe if we’re walking at night alone (Fes is know as the city of 9,000 alleys, and is notoriously difficult to manage if you’re new to the area).

Once we navigated our four alleys and entered the house, we were greeted immediately with the beautiful interior courtyard I’ve come to know and love in Morocco. As Mustafa showed us around, my roommate and I kept looking at each other in disbelief- What’s the catch? What’s getting lost in translation? Do we have to baby-sit his kids every afternoon? Where’s the shower?

Well, I haven’t found the catch yet. Objectively, it’s not a perfect place to live (It’s the type of place that will never be truly clean, cockroaches, freezing in the winter, etc.), but it’s the perfect place for me to live for the next four months: spacious, in a great location, and cheap. And there’s a private roof!

Now that the stress of finding a place to live has been eliminated, I have the time to focus on studying Arabic and throwing myself into medina life. Arabic classes started on Wednesday after two very long days of Fulbright orientation. We’re talking lectures about every facet of Morocco from 9-5 here, people. I love Morocco, but I think I reached my saturation point somewhere around lunch on day one. The highlight of orientation was perhaps a grizzled, wizened State Department Regional Security Officer, who began his talk with the statement, “Morocco and America: 230 years of friendship… Let’s keep it that way.” (Morocco is proud of the fact that they were the first country to recognize the United States in 1977.) Err, I hope I can do my part to not destroy bi-national relationships, at the very least. I guess it’s important to set realistic goals.

After the Fulbright orientation ended, most of the Fulbrighters made our way from Rabat to Fes to begin our language grant at the Arabic Language Institute in Fes, located in a beautiful building in the nouvelle ville.

I’d decided originally to take mostly Modern Standard Arabic classes, with a few hours a week of Darija, Moroccan Colloquial Arabic. But after a few pathetic days of ineptly interacting with Moroccans, I decided I should commit myself to learning Darija. So now I have 20 hours a week of Darija class and 5 hours a week of MSA tutoring. After two days of class, I can confidently say that I am in for a lot of hard work (my tutor told me to photocopy a verb chart and sleep with it under my pillow), but I’m committed to learning and, perhaps more importantly, excited about learning the language for the first time in a long time.

Fes is a maddening, beautiful, confusing, wonderful city. If you get beyond the throngs of European tourists in capri pants and halter tops, the history is overwhelming- there are signs up right now that promote the 1200th anniversary of Fes. 1200 years! That’s ridiculous! It’s incredibly daunting to live here, especially in the medina; I feel like as hard as I try, I’ll never learn enough about the city in just four months. But, as I meet more Moroccans, improve my Darija, and get to know the immense markets better, I feel like I'm always getting a little bit closer to figuring it all out.

My new life!

2008-09-07T10:47:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm in Morocco! Rabat, to be exact. After a long day of travel filled with the usual ups and downs magnified by the struggles of Ramadan, I'm sitting in an Internet cafe, eying a bottle of water (I don't want to be cruel to the Muslims who are fasting) and counting down the hours until sunset. Sunset= the break fast. Break fast= fun times. We have the afternoon/evening free; I've spent it getting minutes for my cell phone, changing money (the exchange rate = 7.67 dirhams to the dollar), and purchasing wonderful Moroccan peaches and "ghraif," an amazing fried Moroccan bread-type thing that you slather with honey or jam or cheese.

It occurred to me that some of you may not know what I'm doing over here. In May, after months of work and even more months of waiting, I found out I got a Fulbright grant to Morocco! Which was pretty freaking amazing, considering I had no life plans if this didn't work out. For my grant, I'm starting in the city of Fez for four months, studying Arabic intensively as part of Fulbright's Critical Language Grant. Then I move to Rabat to start my research on Morocco's new family laws and how they impact single mothers. I'll be doing field research and working with a professor at a local university as well. All in all, I'll be gone for 13 months.

I've spent time here before (summer 2006, SIT, woo woo!), but 13 months is a lot longer than seven weeks, and I'm anticipating (hoping?) that this experience will be much different. As wonderful as my last stay in Morocco was, it was very, very temporary, almost a prelude to my semester in Cairo. I was also way less driven and focused in what I wanted to learn and gain from the experience. This time around, I want to explore the country I fell in love with two years ago, answer some of the questions I had at the end of my last stay here, and, of course, stuff my face with wonderful Moroccan food!

Before I left, I was asked constantly if I was nervous about leaving. My response was always, "I just need to get on the plane." Because at the end of day, there's no way to prepare for making a foreign country your home for 13 months; all you can do is ride the roller coaster. And when I got on the plane, buckled my seat belt, and listened to the French and Arabic overhead announcement (understanding only about 50% of the announcement), I knew that one of the hardest parts was over. Even though I'm currently homeless, the only thing that worries me is carting my 80-pound suitcase around until I find an apartment in Fez. In my defense, it gets really cold here in the winter! I needed to pack winter clothes!

And on that shallow note, it's time to return to the frenzy of the pre-sunset hours. Here are some ways to contact me before I leave (please do!):

Skype: elizabeth.hague

Phone: 049002094

Mail:
Elizabeth Hague, Fulbrighter
c/o MACECE
7 Rue d'Agadir
Rabat, Morocco 10000

Disclaimer

2008-09-05T17:10:00.000-07:00

The nice folks at the State Department have told us it would be best to put a disclaimer on our blogs, so here goes:
This blog is not associated with the Fulbright grant or program, and the content of this blog is not reflective of the Fulbright program's opinions. The content is mine, and is meant as a way to share my experiences informally.

Testing

2008-09-05T12:39:00.000-07:00

"Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair." - Kahlil Gibran