What's Wrong with the Rough Guide

There are three books in every Moroccan Peace Corps volunteer's house: the most sacred of Peace Corps texts, Where There Is No Doctor; a journal, which only half actually use and only half of those use regularly; and The Rough Guide to Morocco. The Rough Guide is by far the most frequently read book in a PCV's life, but there's never been a volunteer who constantly used it and didn't also constantly complain about it. Of course, there's never been anything that volunteers do that they don't also complain about, but, in this case, they may have a point (beyond the simple nitpicking of grammar and spelling that any schmo with too much time and education can do). The Rough Guide is invaluable, and it is not my intention to pillory the book, but there are a few edits that really need to be made, and who better to make them than me? Here they are:

I would say that the most important aspect of traveling to a foreign culture is language. It's hard to find all the beautiful sights or interact with the interesting people if you can't communicate, and Morocco's language schizophrenia only complicates matters. Most visitors plan on speaking French, and they tend to stay in the parts of Morocco where in some ways it's easier to speak French than Arabic. That's fortunate for them, because if they came armed only with the Rough Guide's Moroccan Arabic glossary, they'd be in for a few surprises.

Granted, the word “Arabic” itself is about as useful in today's world as the word “computer.” Is it a desktop or laptop? Mac? PC? Other? Is it for work or home or both? We understand the idea, but we also need a good deal more explanation. “Arabic” is obviously the language spoken by Arabs, but is it the U'rdania spoken in Jordanian-dubbed Turkish soap operas or the Misria of inane Egyptian comedies? Is it the Modern Standard Arabic of news reports or the Classical Arabic of the Qur'an? And in Morocco, we've got not only the Modern Standard of the classroom, but also the Darija of the streets.

The Rough Guide tackles this issue straight on from sentence one: “Moroccan Arabic, the country's official language, is substantially different from classical Arabic, or from the modern Arabic spoken in Egypt and the Gulf States.” This is not only incorrect, it's the exact opposite of the truth. Moroccan Arabic (known as Darija, meaning “dialect”) is not the official language of Morocco. In fact, the same modern Arabic (called Fos-ha, meaning “pure”) spoken in the east is used here as the official language (which there, too, is generally not the same language as what you'll hear spoken in the streets), though you aren't going to find it spoken anywhere other than in interviews or street signs. They go on to say that most Moroccans can understand the eastern dialects through media exposure and that they'll adapt their speech if you speak to them with one. The former is absolutely true; the latter is rather doubtful. My only experience observing someone speaking to Moroccans in Jordanian Arabic was met with laughter and the exact opposite of paying her any heed.

Ultimately, however, though this is false information, it's largely forgivable. No one's trip to Morocco is going to be ruined because they thought they could get by with Modern Standard. The real problem is in the pages that follow, wherein they proceed to spread misinformation with it's English-Arabic-French glossary. Now, this was not so malevolently constructed as Monty Python's infamous English-Hungarian Phrasebook, but, with a lack of clear premeditation comes the more critical question of how. How could the editors, who clearly have spent some time in Morocco and (presumably) would have had to use some of these phrases in order to learn them in the first place, have allowed this to happen? Despite their lengthy – albeit misleading – explanations as to the difference between Moroccan Arabic and the Arabics of the east, the glossary is filled with Fos-ha.

I'm not going to go into too great of detail as to the specifics of the inconsistencies between Fos-ha and Darija. Firstly, that would be boring, and second, my good friend and stagemate Mike Turner has already done it. I would, however, like to point out just a few examples. There are major differences between the dialects, and they begin at the beginning: with subject pronouns. I, you (masculine, feminine, and plural), he, and she are all the same. (Being a gendered language, there is no “it” as you or I would conceptualize it.) Both Fos-ha and the Rough Guide will go on offer nehnoo for “we” and hoom for “they.” Unfortunately, Darija prefers hooma (pretty close) for the latter and hna for the former.

My favorite, though, is given for “go away:” imshee. This was one of the words I knew before coming, as it's yelled with great frequency by Salah, Indiana Jones's Egyptian pal, particularly on the many occasions upon which he steals camels from both Nazis and their stooges. How I wished I could yell imshee with the same gusto, but it is not to be, as Moroccans say seer instead. The root of imshee is used for every other conjugation of the word expect for imperative. It's too bad that's the only form the user of this glossary is offered.

And there are more, but they don't need to delved into now (if you have time, and know about these languages, check out the list of numbers). There are also other translations that I can't be sure if they come from Fos-ha or somewhere else. These include, but are not limited to, the following [in the form of “English,” Moroccan Arabic, and (Rough Guide Moroccan Arabic)]: “there,” tma (hinak); “hospital,” sbitar (el mostashfa); “jam,” confitur (marmelad); and “yoghurt,” dannon (rayeb). To be honest, after reading through this glossary, I was convinced that the editorial staff just decided to copy/paste terms from some other Arabic phrasebook of theirs.

That was until I re-read their numbers. When I first came to Morocco, I was a little worried about how I'd only taken two semesters of Arabic in college, and particularly how I hadn't really paid that much attention in either of them. I learned to relax, however, once I learned to count to two. Modern Standard gives us wahhed for one and ithnain for two. Darija is hip to wahhed, but prefers djooj for two. This actually comes from the Arabic word for “couple” (zouwj is “marriage”), and – amazingly – this is accurately documented by the Rough Guide. Moroccan Arabic, however, returns to its Standard roots for nearly every other instance of two (twelve, twenty-two, etc) except for those in which in English we would say “...and two” (such as “one hundred and two”). This means that twelve is tinash (not “entnashar,” which as given by the Rough Guide is Fosh-ha ), and twenty-two is tnain o 'ashreen (Fos-ha would call for ithnain wa 'ashroon, which is pretty close). Our Rough Guide, however, recommends “jooj wa ashreen,” which you would think is really funny, too, if you realized that saying as much is – literally – like walking into your favorite deli and asking for “two and twenty bagels.”

But the Rough Guide is so much more than glossaries. In fact, only eleven pages are given to the entire language section, including one that simply says “Language,” a second that lists the contents of the remaining nine pages, and a final page index other (and presumably better) language resources. No, the meat of the Rough Guide is concerned with what to do and see in Morocco, and, though I haven't seen enough of the country to offer comment on much of the book, I've been to a good deal, and I want to talk about one of the country's most incredible natural sights: the Caves of Hercules.

The caves are located outside of Tangier, and get their name – supposedly – from the legendary founding of the city by Sophax, the son of Hercules, who named it after his mom, Tingis. The Rough Guide is skeptical of this story, and offers a countertheory that tingis is an Amazigh word meaning “marsh,” of which there are many. Believe what you will, the Rough Guide offers some very interesting perspective on the connection between Herculean mythology and Morocco (Lixus is allegedly the site of the Garden of the Hesperides, the home of the Golden Apples and object of one of Hercules's labors). It also makes it abundantly obvious – in a nearly full-page photograph – the caves' main attraction: “their strange sea window, shaped like a map of Africa.” It even includes Madagascar.

The greatest mistake I've made in my service was to completely dismiss the caves the first time I went to Tangier, and, when I finally returned, I nearly made the second greatest mistake of my service: to take a taxi directly there. Fortunately, however, either our driver didn't quite understand us, or he simply knew better, and he deposited us on a beach some four kilometers from the caves. The walk is absolutely breathtaking, and of the caliber of experiences that can literally leave you indifferent – and contentedly so – to any other disappointment. That worked out in our favor, as, upon descending the depths of the caves, we discovered that the sea window is not, in fact, shaped like a map of Africa.

That's perhaps a bit misleading. There is a strong resemblance; however, there is also a very key difference: it's shaped like a backwards map of Africa. I suppose that if you were of the sort with such a powerful imagination that upon seeing this shape your already distorted sense of reality would simply tell you that this is what Africa looks like, you wouldn't have any problems with this. Alternatively, you could simply stand in the ocean after tossing the sun into the caves, thus allowing it to create an accurately Africa-shaped silhouette. Either of these solutions is preferable to the thought that the Rough Guide would peddle such blatant – and so easily debunkable – falsehoods. I mean, you'd expect that they'd simply advise you to enjoy the “strange sea window, shaped like an inverted map of Africa,” or “a map of South America.” It's enough to make you wonder if perhaps Tangier really is the namesake of a mythological queen.

Perhaps the problem stems from there being just so much to do and see in Morocco. The Rough Guide tries to help, though, by offering 35 Things Not to Miss. To date, I've seen 29 of them and in general, I'd say it's a pretty solid list. There are a few, of course, that I don't think were really all that worth it. Windsurfing in Essaouira (number 5), though fun (like windsurfing pretty much anywhere), is really nothing to write home about, and the Bab Oudaia in Rabat (31) is probably one of the least interesting features of that city. Certainly the Shellah – or even the mausoleums of Mohammad V and Hassan II – are both far more attractive and historically significant. There are others that I haven't seen that I'd really love to, and in the case of the Glaoui Kasbah (1) and Tin Mal Mosque (18) I've certainly tried. I'm a little more skeptical of a few others like the big blue painted rocks (6) in the Tafraoute dessert and the skiing at Oukaimeden (10), but in the end, I'll probably just never see those.

All in all, though – like I said – it's a pretty good list, except, perhaps, for one: number 23, Berber transport. It's probably quite racist – definitely Orientalist – but even more, I'm not really sure what to do with this one. I mean, do I have to get in a truck with Berbers? Or see one? Or merely be aware that they're out there? And once in, how important is it that I make sure my co-passengers are Berber? I've seen the transport trucks before (riding in an open air vehicle is “illegal” for Peace Corps volunteers, so clearly I've never done that), and I know that some of the people I've seen in them were Arab. Does that not count? Also, it doesn't specifically say that it has to be a truck. My family is Amazigh, and I once rode in my uncle's car. I think that counts.

To be fair, though, it isn't always the Rough Guide's fault for spreading misinformation,and for this, now turn to Freedonia herself. It's always been a point of pride for me that Freedonia gets a good page and a half – not the most for a volunteer, but more than any of my immediate friends. For obvious reasons, though, I don't really need to read it very often, and so it wasn't until much later that I read this sentence: “A small Monday souk is held just off the central square within the ruined kasbah, location for music and dance events during a Fête des Pommes festival in August.” Freedonia really is famous for her apples, but in my two years, I'd never seen an apple festival, nor heard anyone speaking about it.

Until recently. There are several topics of conversation that are disproportionately popular in Morocco (whether Morocco or America is best is a big one), and one of those topics in Freedonia is how impossibly corrupt our last mayor was. I learned about this right from the beginning, when I was introduced to the town mascot, a cheetah named “Tiger.” You may not know this, but neither cheetahs nor tigers have much of a history in Morocco, and, as I quickly learned, they don't have much history in Freedonia, either.

The national animal of Morocco is the lion (Atlas lion, to be specific, of which there are no more in Morocco), and – allegedly – we used to have a giant stone lion statue to display our patriotism right in the center of town. The mayor, however, in an obvious appeal to popular sentiment, declared that we could do better, and had the statue removed to make way for the future: a scrawny little fiberglass cheetah, affectionately referred to around here as “the cat,” which only ever gets a new coat of paint when an unnamed concerned citizen goes out and does it himself. That may not sound all that corrupt until you hear what he did with the lion. Certainly, there aren't a lot of ways to dispose of a massive stone statue – and I'm sure he was motivated exclusively by civic pride – and he had no choice but to send the old lion down to live out its days guarding his ranch in the valley.

To be honest, I hadn't heard a story like that since they took Carmen Sandiego off the air, but it turns out that our mayor did more than just steal the town mascot. There's a little pond right near the cat where nowadays kids like to go swimming in the algae, but in the past folks would come and try to catch the fresh mountain fish. The mayor sold them all, and I'd always wondered why so many of our hotels and cafes and restaurants were named “something something trout.”

And as if it wasn't enough to steal the town monument or sell all the fish in the sea, he apparently sold off the festival to another town. Despite the fact that Freedonia is well enough known for its fruit that my programming staff have during visits here spent as much time buying apples as they have in talking to me about my work, the Apple Festival now lives in Midelt, for which it does receive credit in the Rough Guide.

Which brings me to my last issue: the general “roughness” of the guide. I'd always imagined that we were talking along the lines of rough-and-ready, “rude or unpolished in nature, method, or manner but effective in action or use” – what Indiana Jones would turn to if Short Round was on vacation. The more I read it, though, the less I'm convinced it's intended for really that much of an adventurous spirit. Taken in aggregate, it's the tourist track that outbid the road less traveled. The little towns get billed as places with nothing to see, fancy dining trumps street fare, and the Majorelle Gardens got listed as number 3 in the 35 Things Not to Miss. It turns out that it's a lot more Ginger than Mary Ann.

Not that there's necessarily that much economy to be made from marketing to Peace Corps volunteers – who are too cheap to buy anything, anyway – and the people who want to be like them, but if it isn't that kind of rough, just what kind of guide is it?