tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22615861132908225272024-02-19T05:56:50.528+01:00Ayaam al-MaghrebRobinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09179342235739853148noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2261586113290822527.post-27147546439130723852011-04-08T08:53:00.000+01:002011-04-08T08:53:38.546+01:00Return to Tangier<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span dir="LTR">The second half of my Spring Break was far less interesting, exploit-wise, than the first half. Suffice it to say that beach chair rental was only 20 dhs for the whole day. </span><br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span dir="LTR">Besides, I’ve been meaning to catch you up on more recent events. For instance, two weekends ago AMIDEAST took us all on an official excursion to Tangier and Chefchaoen.</span></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span dir="LTR">As some of you may remember, I’ve been to Tangier before, having traveled there with some friends on one of the first weekends of the semester. I was excited to go back, since it remains one of my favorite cities in Morocco. Luckily for you, this time I had a functional camera.</span></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
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</div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span dir="LTR">We stopped for lunch at the Caves of Hercules, in which the mythical hero once allegedly slept. Morocco is supposed to be the setting of Hercules’ famous labors, so he pops up in lots of local folklore. For instance, he is supposed to have created the Strait of Gibraltar by pushing Europe and Africa apart with his bare hands. Unfortunately my camera was under the bus at this point, but the famous Africa-shaped hole which is the caves’ main attraction has been more than sufficiently documented without my help. As you might expect, the caves are quite the tourist trap. In any case, it was a lovely spot to eat lunch overlooking the sea.</span></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span dir="LTR">After checking into our hotel in Tangier and having a few hours of free time (during which I napped, having gotten up much earlier than I’d have liked in order to make the bus on time) we headed en masse to the American Legation Museum. The American Legation in Tangier is the only United States Historic Landmark </span><br />
<span dir="LTR"> which is located in a foreign country. It has been U.S. property since the early 19<sup>th</sup> century<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[1]</span></span></span></a>. It has served a variety of purposes over the years, including as a Peace Corps training site, but now is primarily a museum and research center.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[2]</span></span></span></a> There are some lovely portraits and an entire room dedicated to Paul Bowles and the other members of the Beat Generation who made Tangier their home in the fifties and sixties. The real star, though, is the building itself, which is really lovely and a fascinating mix of Moroccan and American.</span><br />
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</div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span dir="LTR">The next morning my friends and I wandered up into the Kasbah to look at the view towards Spain. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t quite as clear this time as it had been on my first visit, so we couldn’t see all the way to the Iberian coast. It was still definitely worth the trek, though.</span><br />
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</div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span dir="LTR">After lunch, we climbed back into the bus and headed for the small but gorgeous mountain city of Chefchaoen.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[3]</span></span></span></a> The winding and sometimes death-defying route to Chaoen was a little harrowing, but well worth it. The town is known for its white and blue houses<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[4]</span></span></span></a>, and is often used as a sort of base camp for hiking in the Rif Mountains. After a pleasant and leisurely stroll through the medina, a group of us hiked up to the mosque overlooking the town.</span><br />
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</div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The next morning our professors took us on another walk through town, ending at the Kasbah.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[5]</span></span></span></a></span> <br />
<div><br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div id="ftn1"><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[1]</span></span></span></a> Morocco was the first foreign nation to recognize U.S. sovereignty. The Legation and the land on which it is located were a gift from the Sultan to commemorate this special relationship.</div></div><div id="ftn2"><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[2]</span></span></span></a> Graduate students from the US and from other Maghreb nations can apply to do social science research projects at the center. Out came my career advancement antennae.</div></div><div id="ftn3"><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[3]</span></span></span></a> In a very Moroccan mixture of Amazigh and Arabic, Chefchaoen’s name means “look at the peaks,” or, alternatively, “look at the horns.”</div></div><div id="ftn4"><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[4]</span></span></span></a> This may have something to do with repelling mosquitoes, reducing glare, the town’s formerly significant Jewish population, or some combination of these.</div></div><div id="ftn5"><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[5]</span></span></span></a> Fortress. Sort of like the burgh or keep in a medieval European city.</div></div></div></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09179342235739853148noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2261586113290822527.post-14343460636798315052011-03-30T16:31:00.000+00:002011-03-30T16:31:10.917+00:00Spring Break, part 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">So, where was I? Right, climbing onto camels and riding off into the Sahara. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpORBW7DzDXAlhmysLMNsscz3bynaoCrUsgI2OWoj5t6KDVj2O_fEw4e2qX5_k33VEsGRIPI9NPQJqkAhgdzADMxeWnh1VtB5HOxmdoNiG2d-7VZTdbVwux9OuAD_vOf5Jj9PH-8aR8SA0/s1600/197489_10150114467576476_593381475_6591649_3124771_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpORBW7DzDXAlhmysLMNsscz3bynaoCrUsgI2OWoj5t6KDVj2O_fEw4e2qX5_k33VEsGRIPI9NPQJqkAhgdzADMxeWnh1VtB5HOxmdoNiG2d-7VZTdbVwux9OuAD_vOf5Jj9PH-8aR8SA0/s320/197489_10150114467576476_593381475_6591649_3124771_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The three nights in the desert are by far the most rugged camping experience I’ve ever had. This is not to say that our trek was difficult per se, but rather that I’ve never gone nearly so long without seeing a toilet. I also did not change my shirt between the time we left Auberge Les Roches on Saturday afternoon and the time we returned there early on Tuesday morning. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWQ05VQRp5SJHCsoxzavm-nkHG5mEbN46iov22j5jOiZUCE6KXIAjZsL29TdnZi8t2cQAA2Qw5lPjCYZOHpP0XBBm-7QnvPe-6yfSoTdJWk7WAU76nd7ZW62nqtax_ii6DCQ2NqVlKB9hi/s1600/200562_10150114464831476_593381475_6591608_4939670_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWQ05VQRp5SJHCsoxzavm-nkHG5mEbN46iov22j5jOiZUCE6KXIAjZsL29TdnZi8t2cQAA2Qw5lPjCYZOHpP0XBBm-7QnvPe-6yfSoTdJWk7WAU76nd7ZW62nqtax_ii6DCQ2NqVlKB9hi/s320/200562_10150114464831476_593381475_6591608_4939670_n.jpg" width="180" /></a></div><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Perhaps our dirtiness played a part in making us feel, as we did by the time we returned to civilization, that we had totally lost our minds. On the other hand, the desert itself doesn’t need much help to make one feel that way. They are just so large and so far outside the realm of what the normal human brain is willing to accept. Terrain, one’s cerebral cortex insists, just does not look like this. The analogy which sprang to mind was that of an ant in a sandbox. </div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s easy to imagine getting hopelessly lost in the seemingly-endless landscape of orange dunes, all of which look essentially the same. Luckily for us, we were accompanied by our fabulous guides, Moustapha and Ahmed; one of the best parts of our trip was getting to hang out with these awesome locals<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[1]</span></span></span></a>. They told us some of the silliest jokes I’ve ever heard. The one currently making the rounds all over Morocco is about Qaddafi’s accent. Some of you may be aware of a horrible speech Qaddafi made in which he declared his intention to massacre every single rebel “street to street, house to house, room to room, person to person.” The Arabic word for street is zankat, but Qaddafi has a funny accent, so he said “zanga zanga” instead of “zankat zankat.” Hilarious, right? No? What if it was dubbed over Shakira? Still not funny? Well, you clearly haven’t been to the desert.</div><div class="MsoNormal">We camped in the dunes the first and third nights, at a small campsite consisting of two sleeping tents and a sort of small tin house where we ate dinner, a delicious tajine with chicken and vegetables. The guardian of a nearby gite showed up after dinner and they all serenaded us with bongo drums and a guitar that was short one key. Each of us was forced to play the drums a bit, and they asked us to sing American songs for them to play along to. The only songs we could adequately remember which were suitable for gnawa-like bongo rhythms were Shakira’s “Waka Waka”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[2]</span></span></span></a> and K’Naan’s “Waving Flag.” Moustapha, as it turns out, is in an African Blues band.</div><div class="MsoNormal">The next day we made our leisurely way towards a nomad-style house near the Algerian border, which is marked by a very sheer and dramatic-looking cliff at the edge of a rocky, barren plain. On the way, we stopped for a tasty fish salad lunch<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[3]</span></span></span></a> which Ahmed somehow produced out of nowhere. We lay in the sun singing pop songs we remember from our ‘90s childhoods. Amelia had a fake karate battle against Moustapha. When we got to the nomad village, there wasn’t much to do besides sit in a tent, stare out at the landscape, and sip shockingly sweet glasses of tea<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[4]</span></span></span></a> which our guides brought to us on a tray.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUAEUn-6ulHIRgtQiKvvsk8_IrIdkzOv2r4zIr4rKyLPxOy9yRQXJOVPSQCWqc3J8GFjr6m0rt1rOWjC8wfRXt3z3f0k52gxVeSeJrFFpKCdzXDC1Y2wz2l71WTWAYP1Uw-HSFa5HDAKnQ/s1600/199776_1609948574906_1421970156_31306557_7983396_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUAEUn-6ulHIRgtQiKvvsk8_IrIdkzOv2r4zIr4rKyLPxOy9yRQXJOVPSQCWqc3J8GFjr6m0rt1rOWjC8wfRXt3z3f0k52gxVeSeJrFFpKCdzXDC1Y2wz2l71WTWAYP1Uw-HSFa5HDAKnQ/s320/199776_1609948574906_1421970156_31306557_7983396_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
We had delicious, delicious couscous for dinner and, after asking us for paper, our guides demonstrated remarkable artistic ability by drawing us lots of pictures of camels, palm trees, and the six of us trekking across the desert.</div><div class="MsoNormal">We had to wake up painfully early on Tuesday morning, around 4:30, in order to pack up and trek back to the hotel in time to catch our 8 AM bus for Ouarzazate. Mackenzie was deathly ill, but demonstrated commendable self-control and got on her camel anyway. It was incredibly cold, and camels should never be ridden in the dark because they’re actually not the most stable of mounts. On the other hand, there probably aren’t very many people in the world who can say that they’ve watched the sun rise from camelback while riding out of the Sahara.</div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We got back to the inn at about 6:30, where they fed us another great breakfast and we all had barely enough time to sort of jump into the shower, hose ourselves off, and jump out before Mackenzie, Amelia and I had to get in a cab for the bus station. Hila headed back north to Meknes to meet up with some of our other friends</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">, but the rest of us were beach bound!</span> <br />
<div><br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div id="ftn1"><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[1]</span></span></span></a> Moustapha, in addition to speaking excellent English, also spoke Derrija, fus-ha, at least one Amazigh language, French, Spanish, German, and a few words of Japanese. He has only had six years of formal schooling.</div></div><div id="ftn2"><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[2]</span></span></span></a> Which all Moroccans know because 1)they love Shakira because she’s part Arab and 2)the song is about Africa.</div></div><div id="ftn3"><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[3]</span></span></span></a> I had no idea that canned mackerel was so delicious. Adding that to my shopping list.</div></div><div id="ftn4"><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[4]</span></span></span></a> Have I written about Moroccan tea? If I were a better blogger, I would have done a whole post just on things like food and tea. Moroccans love mint tea, which they drink several times a day. It’s green tea with large quantities of mint leaves and about as much sugar as water. That’s not really much of an exaggeration. It’s sort of like southern sweet tea, actually.</div></div></div></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09179342235739853148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2261586113290822527.post-13883684639565954222011-03-25T00:12:00.001+00:002011-03-28T12:01:46.862+00:00Spring Break Stories, part 1<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">It’s long past time for another blog post, and my fantastic Spring Break might be just the motivation I need. All photo credits go to my lovely traveling companions Mackenizie, Amelia and Hila, as I left my camera’s memory card in Rabat. Luckily, through the magic of Facebook, it’s easy to share, and I took lots of mental photos.</div><div class="MsoNormal">We left Rabat by train on Friday, March 11. We somehow squeezed our bodies onto the most crowed train this side of the Nile. After briefly considering the possibility that we would all run out of oxygen and die before we ever got to Meknès, we had the good luck to find ourselves next to a couple of seats at the moment they happened to be vacated. These seats happened to be located in a compartment full of friendly Moroccans having an animated discussion about the price of living in various cities in Morocco, which I was very excited to be able to understand. Everyone passed around the food they had brought, because that’s just how public transportation is done in Morocco. Our fellow travelers turned out to be animal lovers, and pulled out their smart phones to show us pictures of their pets. I was the only member of our party who spoke French, so I had to serve as an intermediary for most of the conversation.</div><div class="MsoNormal">After we arrived in Meknes, we ran to the bus depot adjoining the train station and caught a bus south to Merzuga just moments before it started rolling. If you’ve never taken a night bus, there’s probably no way to truly put into words what it is like. I had never taken a night bus before, and somehow I had imagined that there would be something special about the bus that would make it more bearable at night. Perhaps I should chalk this up to the Night Bus scene from <i>Harry Potter</i>, in which Harry accidentally hails a bus with a second floor full of beds. As it turns out, however, a night bus is just a normal bus that runs at night because, I suppose, its route is so long that everyone would rather sleep through it. The problem with this theory is that buses are incredibly uncomfortable to sleep on, particularly if you are on your way to the desert and packed accordingly but your route takes you through mountainous terrain where there is actually snow on the ground. At least we had almost the entire bus to ourselves.</div><div class="MsoNormal">We had a rest stop at about 2 AM. My friends and I piled out of the bus to stock up on snack foods. Because it was 2 AM and we were eating convenience store potato chips and cookies on a freezing cold bus in the middle of the mountains in Morocco, everything seemed hysterically funny at this point. At some point we noticed that one of the covered older women sitting at the front of the bus was gesturing at us. We decided that she was pointing to the bottle of water in the overhead compartment across the aisle from her seat. I decided to go get the bottle down for her and offer her a cookie from the bag I had just opened (because that’s how it’s done in Morocco, see: people on the train). When I held out the bag to offer her a cookie, however, she seized hold of the entire bag! Before I knew what was happening, the bag was out of my grasp and all the way on the other side of her seat. The old lady smiled at me victoriously. I made a vague attempt to give her the bottle of water, but she stopped me and waved me back to my seat. I retreated to the back of the bus.</div><div class="MsoNormal">We arrived in the tiny village of Merzuga at a little before 7 in the morning. It was barely light outside, but we could tell that nothing was open. “Oh, no,” I thought. “How are we ever going to find the hotel?” My mood did not improve when I got to the top of the bus’s stairs and saw two men in djellabas waiting just outside. “Here we go again,” I grumbled internally. “They’re undoubtedly going to offer me a 1,000 Dh taxi ride or try to direct me to the wrong hotel, and that’s assuming they’re not just here to heckle some American girls for their own amusement. Better get my game face on.” Sure enough, as I stepped off the bus, the djellaba-clad Moroccan men pushed forwards. I started to assume my “no” posture when suddenly one of the men held out a piece of paper that read “HILA,” which is the name of one of my traveling companions.</div><div class="MsoNormal">He was a taxi driver sent by the Auberge Les Roches, which I highly recommend if you ever happen to be in Merzuga. Half-asleep and half-crazed, we were ushered into a carpeted salon where the owner of the auberge introduced himself, explained that we would be given a room where we could rest until it was time to start our trek, and brought us breakfast. After feasting on a delicious Moroccan-style breakfast, we spent a few hours trying to recover from the night bus. None of us got much sleep, though – maybe it had been too strange a day already. By around noon we wandered outside into the auberge’s lovely little court yard, where we discovered a staircase up to a rooftop terrace. It was only at this moment that I really, truly grasped that we were at the edge of the Sahara<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[1]</span></span></span></a> The view was literally breathtaking, as views in Morocco so often are.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-wJu_misnLoTwePL2oECtz3YoxGmIKEAQFxo6vi_uNhyphenhyphenzO2rWPvoKZNL57oHNKX-zXPKFxlDA6bnx3rhg85yNP6SUUHTjLPRi3f7b3HuSiB-nVlIqsMXfz98pFXPDdYXuWxquXKJtpGEM/s1600/196053_1609903373776_1421970156_31306489_4806656_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-wJu_misnLoTwePL2oECtz3YoxGmIKEAQFxo6vi_uNhyphenhyphenzO2rWPvoKZNL57oHNKX-zXPKFxlDA6bnx3rhg85yNP6SUUHTjLPRi3f7b3HuSiB-nVlIqsMXfz98pFXPDdYXuWxquXKJtpGEM/s320/196053_1609903373776_1421970156_31306489_4806656_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lunch on the terrace. Notice the epic dunes in the background.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
The terrain changes from unremarkable, flat, rocky plain to mountain-sized orange sand dunes with no transition whatsoever. One of the auberge’s many employees called up to ask if we’d like to eat lunch on the terrace, which of course we would; lunch turned out to be a fabulous tagine with eggs and tomato sauce.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[2]</span></span></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">After lunch we explored the little town, which was eerily empty. I wondered if people weren’t taking a long lunch-and-siesta, which they often do here<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[3]</span></span></span></a>. We bought nine liters of water, as well as several rolls of toilet paper, to take with us into the desert, and Hila acquired a scarf from a man who was very happy to see us for the chance to practice his English. He and I had an animated conversation in French about whether English is a better language than French, and he showed us how to tie a scarf in the traditional Berber way.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjURRFlDnCys99RzhWEc6UgTndev04dzwoa_EPZeL_PYFBVdhfj83xgoTkX8Fig4SdE1wDZF5CCfNmsubi48Bqxx2gMioHGHH-Jk7xGlUpj2w7DErhClfZUWS8I5ORIye78thOww6-d5vCZ/s1600/189955_1609982975766_1421970156_31306648_6353494_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjURRFlDnCys99RzhWEc6UgTndev04dzwoa_EPZeL_PYFBVdhfj83xgoTkX8Fig4SdE1wDZF5CCfNmsubi48Bqxx2gMioHGHH-Jk7xGlUpj2w7DErhClfZUWS8I5ORIye78thOww6-d5vCZ/s320/189955_1609982975766_1421970156_31306648_6353494_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes, that's me in the lower left-hand corner. Observe Berber-style scarf.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
We walked back to the auberge, and soon enough it was time to pack our bags and head out to where the camels were waiting….</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">TO BE CONTINUED, because it took me a week to write this much and it’s so long I think it might take you a week to read it! There’s a program excursion to Tangier and Chefchaouen this weekend, but I should be back by Sunday so maybe I can write a little more then</span> <br />
<div><br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div id="ftn1"><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[1]</span></span></span></a> Did you know that “sahara” just means “desert” in Arabic?</div></div><div id="ftn2"><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[2]</span></span></span></a> Moroccans use eggs in ways I’d never have thought of, but it almost always turns out well.</div></div><div id="ftn3"><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[3]</span></span></span></a> Also, Moroccan lunch time is usually closer to 1:30 or 2:00 than to noon.</div></div></div></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09179342235739853148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2261586113290822527.post-30278250425732365742011-02-15T12:39:00.001+00:002011-02-15T13:08:19.995+00:00Pictures from the Weekend: The Middle Atlas, Fes and Volubilis<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIsBdk73CbN5l-5u6D0_N0jonmDBEboEKEYTBoB5JBU__jYkdfWqGyfGUPWB6eNd8M_HhC6EldNTXvzudCd4dvSQJaWcL8UiAoChsGE7tlmjjrsAEsQ3FEw7tHXDZ1EQpWBI8sTI2qZ4kH/s1600/atlas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIsBdk73CbN5l-5u6D0_N0jonmDBEboEKEYTBoB5JBU__jYkdfWqGyfGUPWB6eNd8M_HhC6EldNTXvzudCd4dvSQJaWcL8UiAoChsGE7tlmjjrsAEsQ3FEw7tHXDZ1EQpWBI8sTI2qZ4kH/s320/atlas.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_3CgJ0NxqRMg7VVV9Sr-1tX2GNQNV3-iNAmvdPhJ8xfSRten7fwOLFZe2c966xjRLoiFgi29cUgOv0ZATNbw68mTPyJ5n9YxqQJ5xRx5diUFu_-1i3owitzDlULLDdPIzYJabKqIyKx9C/s1600/auberge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_3CgJ0NxqRMg7VVV9Sr-1tX2GNQNV3-iNAmvdPhJ8xfSRten7fwOLFZe2c966xjRLoiFgi29cUgOv0ZATNbw68mTPyJ5n9YxqQJ5xRx5diUFu_-1i3owitzDlULLDdPIzYJabKqIyKx9C/s320/auberge.jpg" width="237" /></a></div><br />
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</div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09179342235739853148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2261586113290822527.post-62856705807635858712011-02-10T09:50:00.003+00:002011-02-10T10:49:26.063+00:00Newcomers, les droits de l'Homme, Tangier and Apple Pie<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Blogging. Right. As some of you have noticed, it’s been over a week since I posted anything. Ironically, the only excuse I can offer is that I’ve been really busy doing interesting things which would have made for fabulous blog posts. I’ll just have to try to make up for it now.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Where to begin? The last post I wrote contained what was then the news fresh from Tunis, but as I’m sure you’re all aware, the Tunisian revolution has since been a bit overshadowed by Egypt exploding. Inshallah, the Egyptians will soon be rid of that parasite who’s been pretending to govern them for thirty years. I’m curious to hear from you if you’re seeing gas prices skyrocket in the U.S. as I’ve been told they would. The head of AMIDEAST Morocco told us that prices in Morocco will actually be less affected because the Moroccan government exercises some control over that sort of thing – which, given what happened recently down the street, as it were, is probably a wise policy. Nothing brings people out onto the street quite like a sudden inability to buy bread. One way in which I am being affected by the events in Egypt, however, is the sudden arrival of about twelve students from AMIDEAST’s Cairo office and American University in Cairo. Through some clever maneuvering on the part of their program director, our Cairene counterparts managed to catch a flight to Athens around the time the American embassy sent their families home. They were given the option to come to Rabat or to go to Jordan, and about half of them decided to join us in al-Maghreb. It seems like by far the wiser choice to me, given that Jordan is having its own troubles with unrest at the moment. It makes for kind of a drastic change on our end in that it almost doubled the size of our program. As it happens, one of my new classmates in Rabat is a Grinnellian anthropology major who was in my Ethnographic Research Methods class last semester, which is bizarre in a my-worlds-are-colliding kind of way.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Something I haven’t mentioned yet is that in addition to my classes and, you know, living in Morocco, I’m also doing an internship. I didn’t know this was going to be an option until shortly before I left, but the more I thought about it the more it seemed like a good idea. After translating my resume into French, I was placed (through the auspices of Doha, program manager and miracle worker) with Association Adala,<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[i]</span></span></span></a> a tiny<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[ii]</span></span></span></a> NGO advocating for reform of Morocco’s judicial system. Adala, in cooperation with nine other Moroccan human rights organizations, has written a “Memorandum on the Reform of Justice in Morocco” which it will be my chief responsibility to translate from French and Arabic into English. I can’t tell you anything more about it, however, because the memorandum’s contents are confidential until they’re released in an upcoming press conference. Most of my interactions with my co-workers take place in French, although one of them speaks a smattering of English<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[iii]</span></span></span></a> and they sometimes speak Arabic to me which I pretend to understand. The exciting moments of the internship are when interesting people come into the office, as seems to happen often while I’m there. Yesterday, for instance, we were visited by someone from the Moroccan office of the American Bar Association, which I found out sometime after he had come in. I’m awkwardly the first person anyone sees upon entering the office<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_edn4" name="_ednref4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[iv]</span></span></span></a>, so when he came in I stood up and introduced myself, in French, as an intern working on translation. At some point they mentioned that I was American and he came back out and said: “Now I can properly introduce myself.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_edn5" name="_ednref5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[v]</span></span></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In other news, I’ve been doing some fun weekend things. The weekend before last, several of my classmates and I took a trip to Tangier, which I ADORED. First of all, it is a hilly city, and I love hilly cities, even if my calf muscles do not. It is also beautiful. My favorite moment was standing on this cliff near the Kasbah Museum, which is to say near the highest point of the city, overlooking the Strait of Gibraltar. The water was an incredible turquoise color, the city behind and to the side of us was bright, blazing white against the bright blue sky, and Spain looked almost close enough that you could swim from one shore to the other.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_edn6" name="_ednref6" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[vi]</span></span></span></a> Tangier is a larger city than Rabat, and while it has a lovely and ancient medina it also has skyscrapers the likes of which I hadn’t yet seen in Morocco. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We came by train<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_edn7" name="_ednref7" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[vii]</span></span></span></a>, leaving Rabat at about quarter to five on Friday afternoon and arriving at our frighteningly-located<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_edn8" name="_ednref8" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[viii]</span></span></span></a> but affordable hotel at around 9. Saturday was spent wandering through the medina and the Kasbah and down to the beach, while the weather alternated rapidly between bright sunshine and sudden downpour.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_edn9" name="_ednref9" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[ix]</span></span></span></a> We had calamari sandwiches for lunch at a little place near the beach, and stopped at an incredible gelateria for dessert. I opted, largely out of curiosity, to buy a first class ticket for the trip back, which entitled me to a large, comfortable, assigned seat in a small compartment with a sliding door.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_edn10" name="_ednref10" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[x]</span></span></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">This past Sunday nearly all of my original classmates and I had a sleepover at AMIDEAST so that we could stream the Super Bowl over the internet when it aired starting at about midnight Morocco time. This is ironic in my case as I couldn’t care less about the Super Bowl, but it was fun to hang out with friends even though I woke up sore and cold on the floor about twenty minutes before class. We all made American foods to bring, and my contribution was an apple pie. I made one for my Moroccan host family, too, but I don’t think they appreciated it quite as much as my compatriots. This is probably because Moroccans don’t think anything is sweet enough unless it’s about fifty percent sugar, and if that’s an exaggeration it isn’t much of one. In any case, I made a valuable discovery about the utility of chilling pie dough overnight, so I consider it a good experience.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I can’t believe so much time has passed so quickly! I’ve already been here a month. This weekend, our first official excursion, to Fes, Meknes, and the High Atlas Mountains.</div><div><br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div id="edn1"><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[i]</span></span></span></a> Meaning “justice” in Arabic</div></div><div id="edn2"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[ii]</span></span></span></a> I am employee number five.</div></div><div id="edn3"><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[iii]</span></span></span></a> They’re also excited for me to help her practice.</div></div><div id="edn4"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[iv]</span></span></span></a> Adala is located in a sort of pleasant residential area, about a fifteen minute walk from the AMIDEAST building and in the immediate neighborhood of the Mohammedia, an elite engineering school (“Our own little MIT,” said Hassan, who works for AMIDEAST, when he walked me to work on my first day) and also of several government buildings, like the Ministry of the Environment.</div></div><div id="edn5"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ednref5" name="_edn5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[v]</span></span></span></a> I’m a little vain about the fact that Moroccans rarely pinpoint me as American right away. Actually, my host brother Yassin has begun habitually teasing me about how I look French and not American. I wish I could chalk this up to my aura of grace and impressive sense of fashion, but I think it has more to do with my complexion relative to, for instance, my blonde and freckled roommate, Sarah.</div></div><div id="edn6"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ednref6" name="_edn6" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[vi]</span></span></span></a> Come to think of it, if people have swum the Channel, I’m sure someone has swum the Strait. I’d recommend the ferry, though, which my friend Julianne took with her parents some time last fall and which, according to her, takes about 35 minutes.</div></div><div id="edn7"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ednref7" name="_edn7" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[vii]</span></span></span></a> On the train, we met an incredibly nice young woman named Lubna who not only helped us find seats but then befriended us and eventually invited us to visit her in her hometown of Suq al-Arb3. She spoke perfect English and is apparently some kind of rock star who has toured in the US. No surprises in Morocco, as my friend Carson says on a daily basis.</div></div><div id="edn8"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ednref8" name="_edn8" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[viii]</span></span></span></a> Perfectly fine except that it was in maybe the sketchiest alley I’ve ever dared to venture down. I guess one shouldn’t always trust Lonely Planet.</div></div><div id="edn9"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ednref9" name="_edn9" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[ix]</span></span></span></a> I got caught in incredibly heavy rain while wearing the new dark jeans I acquired in the Rabat medina, and consequently my legs were dyed blue for about a week until I could go to the hammam and really scrub them.</div></div><div id="edn10"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2261586113290822527#_ednref10" name="_edn10" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[x]</span></span></span></a> A la Hogwarts Express. I was thrilled.</div></div></div></div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09179342235739853148noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2261586113290822527.post-12083777288446384892011-01-24T13:55:00.000+00:002011-01-24T13:55:36.799+00:00The news from Tunis, and etc."<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Last week in the first session of my history class (The Islamic World and the West), we had a surprise guest speaker. Tom DeGeorges, a historian and former student of our professor who heads the <a href="http://www.cematmaghrib.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1">Centre d'Etudes Maghrebines</a>* in Tunis, had only a day or two before caught an evacuation flight from Tunis to Rabat. Professor Schaar invited him to come tell us about his experiences in the past week or so and explain the situation in Tunisia. DeGeorges turned out to be an excellent speaker, and his explanation was pretty illuminating.<br />
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First he explained the relationship between Tunisia's wealthy coastal cities and the relatively impoverished rural interior. As some of you may know already, the current uprising originated in small rural villages in the interior of the country, which have been largely neglected by the government in terms of both infrastructure (rail lines, etc.) and media coverage, which is state-controlled and based solely in Tunis. DeGeorges argued that the global financial crisis is also a major contributor to the unrest, as it has affected Tunisians both directly and through a decrease in income from Europe (tourism, investment, remittances, etc.). He also argued that the movement was made possible largely by new social networking technologies like facebook and smart phones; protesters used these technologies much as their Iranian counterparts did last summer to organize and inform each other in defiance of government attempts to silence and contain resistance.<br />
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When regional police proved ineffective at quelling riots in the rural villages (DeGeorges noted that it would be hard to convince New York City police officers to fire on other New Yorkers - and I can't help but think it would be even more true in a tiny rural village where everyone knows each other), the now-deposed president, Ben Ali, asked the army to intervene. The rumor, DeGeorges said, is that the army generals then refused to do this, possibly led by a general named Rachid Ammar. Meanwhile, media from the cities started covering the rural uprising in graphic detail. This had a dramatic affect on city-dwellers, many of whom still have strong ties to their villages of origin. Eventually, Ben Ali attempted to appease protesters by announcing that he did not intend to run for president again in 2014; according to DeGeorges, this was a huge mistake because upon this announcement he lost all authority and found himself on a slippery slope towards his eventual evacuation.<br />
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A few notes on random things about daily life in Morocco. First, cats. There are cats EVERYWHERE. Actually, some of my classmates have a <a href="http://moroccomeow.tumblr.com/">tumblr of cats they see around Rabat.</a><br />
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I would feel sorry for them, except they all look pretty healthy, so they're not so much strays by American standards as collective municipal pets who are regularly fed by Rabat's residents. One of the cats at Chellah actually climbed into my room mate's lap when we visited, but mostly they don't want you to come too close. Dogs are much rarer, but there are a few that we see regularly on our walk to school. One morning we saw one of the dogs cross the street and had to admit he was a little better at it than we were.<br />
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Another issue I want to address a little bit is street harassment. Actually, my room mate Sarah, the journalism major, just wrote <a href="http://littlestbarista.wordpress.com/">an excellent blog post</a> on the subject. Street harassment takes lots of forms. The funniest, in my opinion, is a sort of drive (or run, or bike) - by shouting of the one English phrase that some dude happens to know, such as "I am fine!" or "Nice people!" There's a lot of "Bonjour!" too, plus plenty of Arabic we don't understand. One thing I didn't notice until our program manager mentioned it was the constant kissing noises that follow us down the street like theme music. The scariest is when some guy walking past leans in close and sort of whispers in your ear. Luckily those ones are usually too creepy to know much French or English, so I'm not as affected as I might be if I knew what they were saying. The other day I was pointing at some fancy Moroccan dresses (called kaftans, often worn at weddings) in a shop window and some dude walking by shouted "Le mariage!" It's mostly tolerable, but sometimes it feels like walking a gauntlet just getting from point A to point B.<br />
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*A center for American researchers working in Tunisia. <br />
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</div>Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09179342235739853148noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2261586113290822527.post-12075115000832501432011-01-18T15:33:00.000+00:002011-01-18T15:33:10.746+00:00The plague, boyfriends, and public nudityI had a weekend of fairly high highs and very low lows. Friday as we were leaving AMIDEAST some of the English teachers (American and British) invited us to come with them to the local bar - which is to say, the bar down the street frequented only by foreigners and the most frenchified of the frenchified elite. It was sort of a bizarre experience because it felt like being in the states for an hour or so.<br />
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Saturday was terrible because I woke up deathly ill at about 5 o'clock in the morning. I had been expecting something like this because they told us that at least some of us would get sick due to water differences and such. I guess I went first. I am extremely lucky in my room mate, Sarah, who took AMAZING care of me. My host sister, Rehab, went with us to the clinic AMIDEAST types are supposed to use, which involved the worst taxi ride of my life. The doctor diagnosed an intestinal infection and they made me lie in the hospital room with an IV in my arm for what felt like an eternity. After a while, they sent me home with a list of about six different prescriptions. Don't worry, I'm pretty sure this is all just overkill because after about twenty-four hours of lying as still as possible and not eating, I woke up the next day relatively refreshed.<br />
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Sunday afternoon our host sister borrowed her father's car, an ancient BMW, to drive us first to AMIDEAST (to show us another route we could walk, and so we could use the internet), then to the mausoleum where Mohammed V and Hassan II are interred, and then all around the city FOR HOURS to visit her boyfriends, and yes, that is a plural boyfriendS. She has two boyfriends in Rabat, one of whom is a 32-year-old police officer and the other of whom is a 28-year-old...guy with slicked back hair and wearing a track suit. Somewhere in the picture is a 45-year-old Saudi man who's supposed to come to visit this Spring. Rehab also got lost like 15 times and kept turning around and backing up and essentially driving as though her goal were to incite car sickness in her unfortunate passengers. Anyway, we didn't get back to the apartment until 4 pm, by which time the couscous Rachida had made for lunch was fairly luke warm. Sunday night was much better. Sarah and I met some of our classmates at the train station downtown and walked to a movie theater, where we saw Pegasus, which is an excellent Moroccan film that I think I'd read about it before. Miracle of miracles, there were English subtitles!<br />
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The most eventful part of Monday was our trip to the hammam, or public bath, with Rehab, who we are beginning to understand is slightly insane. Since Moroccans don't shower much, they all go to the hammam a few times a week where you can get all the hot water you want for 10 dh (a little more than a dollar). They usually wash themselves with a special kind of black soap and then scrub themselves all over with a sort of exfoliating mitt which gets rid of the dead skin. Or at least, that's what I think you're supposed to do because Rehab didn't really explain what we were supposed to do. It was also pretty shocking to American sensibilities in that everyone just strips down to their panties and starts pouring water over themselves. Anyway, it was nice to be clean. I also discovered that this girl I know from Grinnell had the same host family that I do because as we were getting dressed Rehab's friend pulled on a Grinnell t-shirt.Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09179342235739853148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2261586113290822527.post-30384522376506877792011-01-13T17:22:00.007+00:002011-01-16T14:05:19.655+00:00Host families, the medina, and urban rovingsDay Six! We met our host families for the first time yesterday, which was both exciting and terrifying. We're placed in families as pairs; my room mate, Sarah, is from New Hampshire and goes to American University in D.C. We were REALLY EXCITED to discover that we are both post-structuralists. Given my life at Grinnell, this made me feel totally at home.<br />
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Anyway, after a morning session on the subject of street harassment (don't dress provocatively, ignore verbal harassment, ask shopkeepers and taxi drivers for help, etc.) and our second "Survival Moroccan Arabic Class"* (my name is, thank you, give me, coffee, tea, water, here, there, etc.) we all gathered nervously in one of the classrooms and waited for the host families to arrive. After a few minutes, the host mothers started coming in and, soon enough, Sarah and I were introduced to our host mother, Rachida. The first few moments were slightly painful, as we had been strictly instructed that we should speak Derrija with our host families and try to avoid French so that our families didn't get into the habit of speaking French with us. Unfortunately, coffee, tea and directions were not particularly relevant to the context. After a few minutes, though, as we wrestled our luggage outside, we started speaking French and fs-haa, which is what I've been studying for three semesters. Rachida told us that her family comes from the southern city of Essaouira, but that they all live in Rabat now.<br />
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Our host brother Yassin came in the car to pick us up. As it turned out, there wasn't enough room for Sarah and me and our luggage and Rachida in the car, so we climbed in to ride with Yassin and Rachida took a taxi.** Yassin is 23 and a university student studying politics. After a thrilling ride,*** we arrived at the apartment in Rue de la Resistance. The apartment is fairly large, but has relatively few rooms compared to an American residence. Sarah and I are staying in the guest room, which is to say the fancy room where you spend time with guests. There's one bedroom, where the host parents, Rachida and Hamid, sleep, and where much of the family keep their clothes. I think our host sister, Rehab, sleeps in the big living room with the television. Many Moroccans eat in these room on couches, but we always eat in the kitchen.<br />
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When we arrived, the neighbor from across the hall, who Rachida said is like a sister, was over at the apartment. Her family has also hosted AMIDEAST students in the past, so we talked a lot about their previous students while we ate a delicious lunch of what seemed to be leftover <a href="http://www.traiteur-bahija.com/tagine3.jpg">tagine</a> with chicken, rice, and, for some reason, french fries, which seem to have been absorbed as a fairly ubiquitous part of Moroccan cuisine. In Morocco, it's normal to eat with your hands, and all from a common dish. This is one reason why the ritual of hand-washing before a meal is so important. There's also a constant stream of tea, which is served in <a href="http://www.lebazaar.com/images/productimages/gifts/gift-teaglasses.jpg">little tea glasses</a> with mint and a formidable quantity of sugar.<br />
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After lunch, our host mother suggested that we lie down a little. Later that afternoon, she said, she would show us the route we should take to school. When I woke up, however, I was surprised to see that the sun was setting. It was nearly six o'clock and the apartment was empty.**** Soon, however, he heard someone unlocking the front door, and after struggling with the locks for a moment (I've noticed that difficult locks seem to be a bit of a trend in Morocco) our host sister, Rehab, appeared. Rachida and our neighbor had described Rehab as "crazy" and "always dancing," so Sarah and I weren't sure what to expect, but Rehab turned out to be perfectly nice, if consistently overenthusiastic. Rehab had a friend with her and didn't seem overeager to entertain us, so Sarah and I started asking if we could go for a walk just at the moment that Rachida came back. We'd probably rather have stayed with Rachida, but it seemed we were past the point of no return, so we ended up following Rehab and her friend towards the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medina_quarter">medina</a>. Not to the medina, but towards it, because when we came in view of the medina they were like, "Ok, there it is! See you later!"<br />
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We ended up wandering through the dark and twisting streets of the medina, glancing at street vendors' wares and trying not to make eye contact - but, you know, in a good way. We came back for dinner at 9 or 10, and then fell asleep pretty much immediately.<br />
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(Note: This took me forever to write because there's no internet at the apartment. In the future I'll have to be less detailed or long-winded or something.)<br />
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*Morocco is by far the most multilingual place I have ever been. Derrija, the Moroccon dialect of Arabic, is what people learn from birth. Then everyone (or at least most people) learns fs-haa or formal Arabic (Modern Standard Arabic, in the language of American course catalogs) as well as French in school. AMIDEAST is an American organization, so everyone in our building speaks English, and most highly educated people or people whose businesses sometimes attract tourists (waiters, street vendor) speak at least a few phrases. For instance, in addition to their mother tongue of Derrija, all members of my host family are fluent (or near enough that I can't tell the difference) in both French and fs-haa. My host father, Hamid, and host brother, Yassin, also speak excellent English, and my host sister Rehab knows some English phrases. Our neighbor seems to know a fair amount of English, too. She says she understands everything, but has more trouble speaking, which suggests to me that she may have learned from American television and movies.<br />
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**Or more accurately, said that she would take a taxi but later told me that she hadn't been able to and had had to walk. It's about a 35-40 minute walk from AMIDEAST, which is in a district called Agdal, to our apartment, which is in l'Ocean. That's a walk we intend to do once in each direction every day. Also, taxis are actually really inexpensive here. Today we took one from downtown to the AMIDEAST building for 10 dirhams, which is a little more than a dollar.<br />
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***There aren't really traffic laws in Morocco, which is to say that such laws technically exist but in practice it's every pedestrian or motor vehicle for hirself. Traffic lights and lanes are sort of fluid concepts, and we were warned always to look both ways, even on one-way streets.<br />
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****I think our host mother was probably with the neighbors. It's very common for Moroccan housewives to spend lots of time in neighbors' homes; socializing is their chief means of entertainment.Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09179342235739853148noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2261586113290822527.post-19168399052181177942011-01-10T14:39:00.000+00:002011-01-10T14:39:55.503+00:00Flying, Arriving, Exploring (reposted from an e-mail to family)So despite having booked the shuttle to take me from the hotel to Orly (which, thanks to e-mailed receipts, I know that I did) I was actually taken to Charles DeGaulle, which I embarassingly didn't realize until I asked a nice lady at an information desk to help me find my airline. Then I stupidly thought the train would be faster than the bus and, despite the efforts of multiple kind French women to help me do things like get off at the right stop, I missed my flight. Jet4You was not particularly helpful, as their next flight was going to cost about 300 euros or almost half of the total amount I had in the bank. After panicking, spending about 10 euros trying to call all the AMIDEAST numbers in my possession and/or Mom (I eventually managed to talk to one person at the AMIDEAST emergency number for about two minutes until I got cut off and was out of coins) I found an internet console and paid more money to try to get online and figure out if there were any flights. I found an easyjet flight out of CDG for a little over 100 euros and took the bus. It took me about half an hour of walking back, forth, up and down through CDG before I even found the easyjet ticket counter, at which point it was too late to buy tickets. I found a starbucks, paid yet again to access wifi, got back on the internet. Another Jet4You flight was leaving Orly at about 11 PM, which I knew I could make. (This is when I sent the first e-mail.) I got back on the train. When I got to Orly, there was no longer anyone at the Jet4You ticket counter. I walked around looking at the check-in places until I found a flight going to Casablanca, which happened to be Royal Air Maroc. I ran up to the Royal Air Maroc ticket counter. A little less than 200 euros. Possible. Of course, Chase was freaking out and would only let me do some things with my debit card and not others, so I had to pay for my ticket in cash. I was incredibly relieved that something had finally worked out, although still nervous that no one at AMIDEAST would know where I was or when to come pick me up. I sent the second e-mail while waiting to board the plane. I finally landed in Casablanca at about 12:30 AM local time, and was already trying to think about how I was going to call someone when I saw a man in the baggage claim holding an AMIDEAST sign. What a relief! I got to the hotel around 2 AM. I have an entire, very large room (most hotels in the US would call this a suite because there's an area with a couch and a TV) all to myself because I was the last to arrive.<br />
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I had to be up fairly early the next day for the start of orientation. I met most of my classmates at breakfast in the hotel. There will be 16 of us total, but that includes three who were here last semester as well and are therefore skipping orientation. All thirteen of the new students are women. We spent yesterday morning in meetings about AMIDEAST as an organization, schedules for the program, how not to get mugged, etc., etc. In the afternoon we all climbed into a van and Mohammed, who is in charge of AMIDEAST Rabat's academic programs, took us on a tour of some of Rabat's important sights. First was Chellah, which was originally a Roman outpost called Sala. It later became a military encampment for soldiers on their way from Marrakesh to Spain. I think it might be the most beautiful place in the world. There is a fabulous view towards the river, Bou Regreg, and Sale on the other side.The area around the ruins is basically a beautiful garden. Storks roost on top of some of the structures, including the remnants of a mosque which lost its minaret in an earthquake around 1600. They make a sort of clicking sound, which Mohammed described as a "love song." Storks, he said, are monogamous and this is the sound the single ones make in order to attract a mate. We also went to some of the potters' shops in Sale, and to les Oudaias, the Kasbah (fortress) of Rabat. Les Oudaias reminded me of Le Mont St-Michel in Normandie - winding, uphill streets and interconnected buildings like a honeycomb. At the top there's another lovely view of the beach. The water is very cold for swimming, but there were lots of surfers. (Rabat's first surfing club was established by the king,Mohammed VI.) <br />
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Today we're taking Arabic placement tests.Slightly stressful, but not too bad. I'm remembering more than I thought I would. Surprisingly, some of the other students have neither French nor Arabic. I'm not sure I would have been brave enough to come!<br />
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No pictures because my camera was out of batteries, but there are some nice ones <a href="http://www.rabat-maroc.net/chellah/chellah.htm">here</a> and <a href="http://www.toutrabat.com/necropole-chellah-rabat.php">here</a>.Robinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09179342235739853148noreply@blogger.com0