tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73725600580913919292024-02-19T16:20:17.576+01:00Moroccan Rollerduncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-80845103065382067122010-11-25T02:58:00.001+00:002010-11-25T03:08:02.944+00:00Re-Entry<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I gave myself three goals on returning to America. I swore that my first meal – the first food I ate period – would be a junkyard dog (with curly fries and a root beer) from Spike's. That probably sounds pretty easily accomplished, but you're forgetting that I landed in New York, and Spike's is strictly a Rhode Island franchise, and that's about four hours of hungry driving from one end to the other, but three Ramadans of training paid off, and at exactly ten o'clock at night, <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/8LQtzRXccJJuv_OdCVk3oA?feat=directlink">I had my hotdog</a>.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">My second goal was a promise that before the following weekend (when I went to Birmingham to see Salma) I'd take at least one shower every day. That one didn't work out quite as well, though I did get most of them. Obviously, it didn't bother me – it's the cleanest I've been in over two years – and nobody said anything about any smells, so I'm going to go out and say that the joke's on all of you for being stooges of the Shower-Industrial Complex.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">My last plan is to have all my doctoral applications finished by Thanksgiving, which isn't looking too good at the moment, but, you know, <i>inshallah</i>.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In the meantime I'm working on remember how to be an American without forgetting that I'm a Moroccan. I'd expected that I'd have the most trouble with touching my heart after shaking someone's hand (what people do in Morocco), but it turns out that American's don't really shake hands that much. Of course, the few times that I did shake someone's hand I did also touch my heart, but I'm pretty sure that that one's just going to go away on its own by virtue of the fact that I'm not shaking hands with everyone I meet every time I meet them. What's been dying a lot harder has been <i>Bismillah</i><span style="font-style: normal;">-ing everything. Here's your change, </span><i>bismillah</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. Time to eat, </span><i>bismillah</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. Start the car, </span><i>bismillah</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;">I don't usually say that one out loud, but I make up for that with </span><i>inshallah</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. In Morocco, everything is </span><i>inshallah</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, which makes talking about the future a lot easier than it is out here. Here, someone says something about what's going to happen or what they're planning to do and everyone just lets it go at that, and I don't know what to do about it because where I come from, if you don't </span><i>inshallah</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, how's anyone supposed to know if you're on board or not? “Let's meet again at six.” “</span><i>Inshallah</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.” Now you know that I know the plan. If I don't say anything, though, then anything could happen at six, so I've been </span><i>inshallah</i><span style="font-style: normal;">-ing as much as possible.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;">There's a handful of other Darijia words I've been throwing around, too. “</span><i>Yumkin</i><span style="font-style: normal;">” (maybe), “</span><i>wakha</i><span style="font-style: normal;">” (okay), “</span><i>ajjie</i><span style="font-style: normal;">” (come here), and “</span><i>enshof</i><span style="font-style: normal;">” (let me see) being some of the most frequent. It's not that I forget that I'm speaking English, or that I expect people to necessarily understand them, or that I just want to be that much more pretentiously obnoxious, it's just that these are the words that we (volunteers) tended to use with each other – and not just with our communities – which we obviously did, too. The English equivalents just don't exist for me anymore, which means that my family and friends get to enjoy that much more of Duncan-is-more-culturally-diverse-than-we-are.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Which, as it turns out, is probably going to be the Peace Corps legacy for me. I'm not going to be one of those RPCVs who goes around wearing jellabas (though I have already toured Birmingham, Alabama, in <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/FMYT4oL2EPIcXZWVG-eCFw?feat=directlink">my finest stamping-out G Star</a>). I'm not going to be calling myself Amin or listening to <span style="font-style: normal;">sha'abia music in my car, but I'm also not going to be able to blend back in with the normals. You're going to be able to tell that I was a Morocco volunteer. Inshallah.</span></p>duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-66529757292977382282010-11-13T12:30:00.002+00:002010-11-13T12:38:08.725+00:00Full (dis)Closure<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">My name is Duncan Palfrey de la Feld, and I was a Peace Corps youth development volunteer in Morocco. I served in the small village at the northern edge of the Middle Atlas Mountains called Immouzer Kandar, not Freedonia as I called it here (a simple anti-terrorism ploy that undoubtedly saved the lives of thousands). On November 20</span><sup><span style="font-weight: normal;">th</span></sup><span style="font-weight: normal;">, 2008, I swore into Peace Corps service in Fes at the Merinides Palace Hotel to the accompaniment of all the pomp and circumstance you'd expect from one of the most exclusive hotels in northern Morocco and the setting for Paul Bowles's </span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">The Spider's House</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, only without any reference whatsoever to either Paul Bowles or </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">The Spider's House</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">. I arrived in site on the 21</span></span><sup><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">st</span></span></sup><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, and served </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">until yesterday, November 12</span><sup><span style="font-weight: normal;">th</span></sup><span style="font-weight: normal;">, 2010, at around three o'clock in the afternoon (Greenwich Mean Time), when I stamped out of the Peace Corps amidst the fanfare one normally associates with an intermission during a PBS </span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Masterpiece Theatre</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> marathon.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"> And though I may no longer be receiving US government subsidized healthcare, I'll always be a volunteer – even if it's an RPCV (the “R” stands for “returned,” in case you didn't get that). When I enrolled I signed away the rest of my life to the Peace Corps's Third Goal: to educate all of you about the people and culture of Morocco. So that means that even if I'm no longer living overseas, you can still look forward to reading about culture, dialogue, and whatever other nonsense I think you need to know about, with the sole disclaimer that as I return to American society and achieve gainful employment, it may hopefully be happening with increasingly less frequency.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"> I hope you've enjoyed the ride so far, but either way I'd like to thank you for sticking with me as long as you have, and I hope that my journey has taught you something about the world outside of America's borders. It's certainly schooled me.</p>duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-73703016822879556332010-11-12T10:10:00.007+00:002010-11-12T11:17:59.382+00:00Some Things, Not Specifically 9 (in Fact, 16), That I've Learned, or Been Surprised By, or Have Changed about Me in the Course of Being a Volunteer<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I've been in Morocco for two years now. I've seen a lot of places, met a lot of people, and done a lot of things, and I've written about the better parts of it for your entertainment. What I've never talked about, though, is the coming. I didn't wake up here from a coma; I knew in advance and chose this destiny. I spent a lot of time before leaving telling myself not to have any preconceptions, but it turns out that I'm more like </span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent;">Ray S</span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">tantz than I'd realized, and try as I might, once in a while an idea or two would pop in there. Sometimes I pictured the Stay Puff'd Marshmallow Man. Other times I didn't. These are a few of those others:</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">1- We've talked about cats a lot, but I like cats, so we can always talk about them a little more. I've had a lot of cats in my life, and always felt like I had a pretty good relationship with them. At the very least, if you'd asked me what a cat is like, I would have felt confident in answering you. Not as much anymore. The cats here are different (the cats here, for all intents and purposes, are squirrels), and perhaps that's a convenient microcosm for the world of cultural anthropology. Neither the living environment nor the history of cat-human interactions is not the same between America and Morocco, and thus their societies have evolved in different directions and formed what we could very anthropomorphically call cultures (or, if this was a children's cartoon, “cat-tures”). Obviously, this is a gross oversimplification, but that's essentially how it works: culture is the by-product of the collected history of a certain group's stimuli and responses, which, over time, becomes an entity in itself. On the other hand, I could just be spending too much time with cats. One thing I know for certain, though, is that Amal knows more about sustainable development than I do, and she's always there to remind me. I like to pick up cats and pet them, but she doesn't, and she's happy to bite me if I forget. And that's important because development needs to be based on the needs of the local community, and not the desires of the developer. <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/iIM65DbAWH-LbwLyuB7dpQ?feat=directlink">She's a sharp cat.</a></span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">2- The stereotypical image of a Peace Corps volunteer is probably along the lines of dirty, long-haired hippie. A bleeding heart who's too concerned with saving the world to worry about how long it's been since he washed his 100% all-natural pants or had a decent shave. I would have taken exception to all this, but the reality is that you all might be closer to the truth than you think. My hair has certainly never been as long as it has while serving (in no small part due to the fact that I still haven't been able to convince any barber that it's full of cowlicks and physically cannot be styled in any way that Moroccan dudes like), nor have I ever had as high of a bearded to clean-shaven ratio in my life. More importantly, what would you answer if I asked how many days in a row have you worn the clothes you're in now? Probably not many, and that's what I would have said two and a half years ago, but now I take a shower every four or five days (at the best), and that's even including when I'm in Rabat for trainings and staying at fancy hotels. I've been riding this one pair of pants for about a week now, and I'm planning on taking them all the way through until I peace out of Freedonia. I'm not proud; I just don't really notice it anymore. As for hippie, well, we sure didn't sing K</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent;">umbaya</span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> on the plane ride over, but I'd also never put patches in my jeans before living in Morocco, so you be the judge.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;">3- It might not seem like it to people reading this, but I've usually got a lot I want to say. Unfortunately, for these past two years in Morocco, I've been largely on my own. It's one of the hardest parts of the Peace Corps to explain – and deal with – that you can be living with people but be by yourself. A big part of it is language, though culture plays a large part (sometimes you just want to talk about things that you're interested in, and small town Morocco and small city America just aren't always the same in those areas), and there's also the fact that every night I'm back at my house by myself. All volunteers deal with this loneliness in different ways. Some drink, some leave, some make new friends. Me? I just talk to myself. This is something I've been doing for a long time, actually. Whenever I want to think of a word in a different language or using a different pronunciation, I have to say it out loud, which is weird, so I don't. But I have to move my mouth in the shape of the words, which, in the end, is just about as weird. And so there I am, walking around Freedonia by myself, and moving my mouth around like I'm having a very serious conversation about whatever it is that I'm thinking about in my head. From time to time I'll catch myself doing this, which is very distressing, so I concentrate on keeping my mouth closed and before I know it I realize I've been having a silent conversation with myself about how ridiculous I must look to everyone walking past me in the street. This cycle plagued me for a good chunk of my service until I final hit on the perfect solution: chewing gum. Unfortunately, ever since I had braces in high school, I haven't (emotionally) been able to chew gum, but I figure you don't really need to actually be chewing anything if all you're trying to do is seem like you have a good reason to be moving your mouth, so I jut pretend like I'm the poster child for Big League Chew whenever I'm out of the house. At first I had to think about it, but steadily it became more and more natural until I'll frequently be out in the street chewing away without any knowledge of what's going on in my mouth. And that's started to become problematic, too, because now my jaw's working pretty much all day without any respect for my traditional control of its movements, and it hurts. I should probably just go back to talking to myself.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">4-</span><b> </b><span style="font-weight: normal;">During my Peace Corps application interview, they told me to be ready to have free time, so I came over ready to catch up on my hobbies. I planned on learning to play the guitar (or some local variety thereof) and finishing the zombie-themed role-playing game a friend and I had started ages ago. While in country I decided to construct a mosaic from broken pieces of tile and to design brilliantly hilarious shirts for the other members of my training group. I didn't do any of those things, and I can't really say that I filled that time with other more productive ventures. I did some writing, I learned to cook some local dishes, and I pursued a lot of nonsense for my fellow volunteers, but my number one pastime turned out to be watching illegally pirated films. I don't think I've ever been so up-to-date with American pop culture than when I wasn't even living in America. No matter the movie, or whether it's even been released yet, you can find a dude walking around the cafes selling a copy. And it's not just the blockbusters but also the classics (and completely nonexistent titles like </span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Titanic II</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">)</span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">. I found copies of </span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">A Fish Called Wanda</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> and </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Coming to America</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> at the local pirated movie shack, which is a great place to go shopping on a Friday night, as long as the guy will play a scene or two so you know it's got an English soundtrack. The Peace Corps is a great place for television shows, too. Although your internet tv doesn't work in Morocco, your torrent downloaders do, and any time volunteers get together it's like the floor of the NYSE, swapping season two of </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Lost</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> for the most recent episode of </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Community</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> and an </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent;">Uwe Boll</span></span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> film to be named later.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">5- My name is Duncan, which I'm hoping is coming as a great surprise to any of my more faithful readers. My full name is Duncan Palfrey de la Feld; you might not have known that. In either case, you know that in Morocco – aside from when I go to English language summer camp (and sometimes even then) – they call me Amin. I'm cool with this, too. Amin means a couple of things, but generally comes out as “trustworthy,” which is great defense when people don't believe the many things that I like to make up (“What's my name? That's right, you can trust me.”). There have been times, however, when I haven't been happy to be Amin, which is usually when, after introducing myself as Amin and a foreigner, someone asks me what my “real name” is. Obviously, I tell them Duncan (this is one of the few areas when I generally don't make things up), and it's usually settled at that or with a few attempts to pronounce it. But every once in a while I'll get someone who tells me that Amin is a great improvement. This makes Hulk mad. First of all, Duncan is an awesome name. It means “dark warrior” (</span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">to be fair, </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">“dark-</span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">skinned</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> warrior” – “swarthy warrior”), not pansy “trustworthy.” Boy scouts are trustworthy; dark warriors kick ass and take names. I'm happy to be Amin, especially if the best you can make of my real name is “Junkel,” but just so long as we all agree that Duncan is the most empirically bitching name available.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">6- I love to travel – I've been to twenty-four countries so far (some legally and some not) – and now I'm starting to worry that I'll never be able to travel again. Not because I won't have any money or time, but because I don't know if, after having been a volunteer, I'll have the ability to be a tourist. The most incredible part of living in Morocco has been living in Morocco. I see all these tourists (some of whom are friends of mine) and I think to myself, “They have no idea what this country is about.” It's not really their fault (unless you hold not joining the Peace Corps against them), and they probably don't think of their chance to be in Morocco as anything short of a lifetime opportunity, but from where I'm standing, a lot of them are just wasting their money. But by knowing this, I can now never take a trip to a new and interesting culture and not feel that I too am wasting my time, but at the same time I don't think I'll be able to be a Peace Corps volunteer everywhere. </span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent;"> I don't know, I don't know if I'll have enough time.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">7- During my interviews I was told that volunteers are given a stipend roughly equal to the salary of a local person doing the same work. That is entirely untrue. My closest parallel is a teacher, and being a teacher is a great profession in Morocco. From my experience, you can live in a big house, have a car, and raise a family on a teacher's salary, which I certainly could not do with my living allowance. The idea of the living allowance, though, is for us to live generally at the same level as the people in our communities, so it's better that we don't get very much (never mind the fact that almost no one would believe that my income is anything less than infinite, but that's a story for another day). If you want the luxuries usually enjoyed by expatriates – cooks, maids, microwaves, western-style toilets – you'll have to pay out of whatever funds you had before you got here, or whatever you can guilt your parents into sending you. Otherwise, it's a </span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent;">holiday in Cambodia </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">for you, which really isn't all that bad. Yes, there is poverty in Morocco, though not everywhere, and yes, there are people who live each day thinking about how they're going to eat tomorrow, and those aren't all beggars, but in general you can get what you need without having to struggle to find a way to pay for it (with the exclusion of medical care, though that too is a story for another day). Nevertheless, a lot of volunteers still ride their monthly allowances down to the end. A lot of that goes towards cheese, and alcohol, and recharging their phones, and it's taught me a very important lesson: I'm a wicked cheapskate. You can't get cheese in Freedonia, and I won't spend the exorbitant prices either for the cheese or the taxi rides to Fes and the grocery store. I've never been a drinker, but that too is partly because I was too cheap in college to get interested, and I can't remember the last time I made a phone call that wasn't absolutely necessary and couldn't be said in just a text message, and that I couldn't walk across town to say in person. I've learned to pinch centimes in ways that would make a </span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">mul souk</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> tip his hat, and not because I have to, either – I have mountains of dough in my Moroccan bank, enough to buy my ticket home entirely in cash – but because it's just my nature, and it's made me a better person. Not a better person than I was before, but a better person than you. I go so far as to save the laundry water to use for flushing the toilet, and that's environmental awareness you can take to the bank.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">8- I've talked a bit about fashion in Morocco, and don't think I'm bragging if I say I've become a bit of a </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">Peace Corps folk hero for my ability to wear incredible Moroccan G-Star clothing – it's just the truth. And like countless volunteers before me, as my bags get packed they're becoming more and more full of Moroccan clothes. However, there's a lot more Freshness than traditional with me than you usually find with the typical volunteer. And they ask me what I'm doing; I'm never going to wear that stuff in America. And they don't get it that G-Star isn't ironic for me anymore. I take a walk in the Rabat medina souk and honestly think how awesome it would be to walk around declaring “Lost for Life” on my chest, and I would, too, if only I wasn't such a cheapskate.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">9- I've faced a lot of obstacles in the Peace Corps, but the biggest is probably the realization that I don't think I really like youth. It's not a moral opposition, but more of an irrational fear that originated from the fight or flight choices I made back in high school. Let's face it: <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/TVD2QyLgagpELNHzYuuPAg?feat=directlink">youth are terrifying</a>. Of all the potentially dangerous areas in Freedonia, the only place I ever actively avoided was the one short stretch of road and small souk right in front of Mohammad the Sixth High. I would regularly – and happily – walk long out of the way if it meant I wouldn't be seen by the kids always hanging around outside of the gates, which in my town means literally scaling cliffs rather than face a sixteen-year-old. Regardless of all this, however, I've come to love youth development and the kids that I've worked with for two years. This has had no effect at all on my policy of hiding from them as much as possible, but it's nonetheless a genuine respect for them. Despite my emotional handicaps, however, we've managed to do some great activities, like the supercool </span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/0sLuLk5fzPWCo5YcIbpa3Q?feat=directlink">Rocket Bottles Project</a> I just did with Andrew and Zack of making and launching soda bottle rockets filled with water and air, and it's because of this that I feel I deserve my status as </span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/7h5Q3JODfINEFZvWZ_i9xQ?feat=directlink">Golden Child</a> of second year youth development. I mean, youth development volunteer that's afraid of youth? The heartwarming screenplay practically writes itself.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">10- I'm not an overly athletic person (that's really the domain of my younger brother), though I'm passable enough that I can feel shocked to be picked last, and can even sometimes be a sort of mutant superman to my nerdy, nonathletic friends. Coming here – especially as a youth development volunteer – I not only expected but genuinely looked forward to all the soccer games I was going to play. First of all, I could probably compensate for my American ability by being bigger than the kids, and, more importantly, there was no way I wasn't going to develop the necessary technique playing soccer everyday to not be able to come back and school my little brother. Even if I didn't have these lofty goals, there was no way I wasn't going to be playing, and so you can imagine my surprise as I recount to you that in my 27 months in Morocco, I have played exactly four games of soccer. One was a bit of after-tagine playing around out at the lake (I scored a goal), one was the if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-'em attempt to get some kids to play frisbee when they clearly weren't going to sit still and learn English (I scored a bunch of goals, but half the players were under ten years old), and one was a pick-up game in the town's central park after the US victory over Algeria in the World Cup (I scored another goal, but all anyone is going to remember is that I was still wearing the </span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/t9Z2nfdocr8CjMUfTs8UWQ?feat=directlink">patriotic face paint</a> I'd put on at the cafe). The last game was my one attempt at a pre-breakfast Ramadan game, which was a lot more like a two-hour fight, and it's arguable that I played in it. It was more like I huddled in a corner of the field and prayed for the call to prayer so desperately that I almost converted. I sure got to watch a lot of soccer, though (and I'm immensely proud to say that I never called it “football”), but I never got in to the Moroccan league, probably because no one seems to be really all that interested. There are only two teams that are of really great note, Raja and Wydad, and they're both from Casablanca, so who cares about them? Every once in a while we get some new graffiti for the Fes team (that's what Fatal Tigers means, if you recall from long ago; they wear yellow and black stripes on their jerseys and apparently have a somewhat indifferent outlook concerning their destinies), but there are only two teams anyone in Freedonia wants to hear about: Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. For my part, I couldn't care less about Spanish soccer, but I did finally find a Moroccan team I could believe in. Honoring the glorious history of Morocco's ocean renegades, the </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">Sal</span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;">é </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">team (Association Sportive de </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">Sal</span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;">é</span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">)has the simultaneously most awesome and most unfortunate name in all of soccer: <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/B6aMJHJuOr5SMTuazTn49Q?feat=directlink">ASS Pirates</a>. I bought a jersey. </span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">11- It could be that I spend all my time with youth, or it could be that the vast majority of my colleagues have just graduated from college, but whatever the reason, something about being a youth development volunteer has caused me to revert to the maturity level of a thirteen year old. Granted, it's a really witty thirteen year old – kind of the thirteen year old we all wish we could have been when we were thirteen years old – but to give you an example, the first thing my training group asked our language teacher how to say I Darija is “that's what she said” (“</span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">dak shi li galt</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,” for those of you interested). Then again, it's pretty entrenched in Peace Corps Morocco identity that each sector has a unique personality. Environmental education volunteers are your stereotypical mountain people that don't shave for months and actively seek to live in the remotest possible sites, small business volunteers are sophisticated and goal oriented and like to get together for cocktail parties and brunch, health volunteers may not actually exist – at least I've seen no conclusive evidence to that effect – and youth development is known for having training sessions on how to play games. During our Mid-Service Medicals and Miscellaneous Methodology Meeting, the small business volunteers were having a session on international marketing strategies while we were staging a flash mob to the Black Eyed Peas' “I Gotta [sic]* Feeling.” So it's probably not entirely our fault that we spend our free time laughing about farts and telling dirty jokes, and, in case you're wondering, one of the best resources for dirty jokes is Darija itself. Every year we get summer cam scholarships, which every kid and association in town wants a part of, so we get non-stop requests for “folders” for a month or two at the end of the school year. And how do you say folder in Arabic? “</span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Milf</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.” And, of course, hanging up the announcements about camp scholarships requires going out and purchasing </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">peneez</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> (thumbtacks). It's not limited to youth development volunteers or </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">dar shebab</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> activities, though; anyone can join in on the fun. Just do like I do every morning and tell the world “I woke up.” “</span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Foqt min na'ass</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.” I guarantee it'll brighten your day.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"> *As a matter of principle, allow me to state categorically that I am a full supporter of informal speech, as well as using said in writing, with the exception of using numbers in the place of words (“Got 2 go” is going to be the downfall of modern civilization). That being said, “gotta,” as in, “I Gotta Feeling,” is an unstressed truncation of “got to,” as opposed to “got a” (meaning “in possession of”), which would be written as “got a.” Thus, the song's title is best paraphrased as “I Have to Feeling.” Damn kids, with their music.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;">12- I've always thought of myself as somewhat of a gentleman, and, if popular superlative awards are any indicator, I've probably always been right. And part of my well-documented gentility is the lack of bad words in my vocabulary. It's not that I've been overly opposed to foul language, it's just that I've always liked to think of myself as smarter than you, and that I can think of a much more scathing and demoralizing comment than a simple curse. Over the course of my service, however, a change has occurred, and I now find myself putting Popeye to shame. I'm convinced that it's largely the result of my linguistic impotence – that no matter how good I've gotten with Darijia I could never really get into a passionate fight – and thus I compensate with foul language. The only problem is that despite spending every day with the youth of Morocco, I don't actually know any bad words in Arabic, and so I'm forced to do what every meat head jock I've ever made fun of did: swear. And I imagine it's from there that it's gotten into my regular English, though I can't make any guarantees. Whatever the cause, it's gotten to the point where I'll drop an F Bomb as soon as look at you, and I'm starting to worry that I might not be able to do that when I get back home.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;">13- The first thing my mother said when she came to visit last summer was “you need to take a bath.” It's gotten me thinking about what she's going to say when I land at JFK in mid-November, and what she's going to say when we're eating Thanksgiving dinner a week later. It's not a question of Moroccan manners vs American manners, it's going to boil down to living by myself vs being a member of a society. If I want to eat dinner straight out of the pot, there's no one who's going to know, and if I don't want to wash my clothes for a few months, there's no one who's going to say anything. Every now and then I catch myself closing the bathroom door and wonder what I'm doing – it must be some sort of vestigial reaction. Very soon, though, and I'll be back in America and mooching off my family, which means I'll have to remember all of the polite society that was drilled into me as a kid, but I don't wager it'll be an easy transition. I should probably just stick to pizza and Chinese food until I get my fork legs back. Then again, I imagine that when Tom Hanks got back from his castaway island, he fired away a good burp or two himself.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">14- Unlike some, I didn't join the Peace Corps looking for love, nor did I ever have need to change that goal during the course of my service. In fact, from what I've been told (and I know it's true for the youth development program), I'm the only volunteer that arrived in September 2008 in a relationship that will be leaving in November still involved with the same person (that's just a little shout out to the </span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byos2Tr5KrM">girl with long black wavy hair</a>). Still, they set us up to expect to be bombarded by proposals (because the Peace Corps volunteer mantle is a visible aura of charisma, and it's the easiest way to send your children to America), but even if they didn't, who's not going to want what I've got after they've seen me in my </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">G-Star G-Pants? In reality, there were a few girls who flirted pretty hard (though the chick from the dentist's office might honestly have been really excited about my teeth), but not a single proposal. Nor did any fathers come up and take a stab at me. It could be that, not having converted to Islam, I'm still off-limits (Muslim girls aren't supposed to marry non-Muslim men; they say it's because you can be sure that a true Muslim – being a God-fearing man – will necessarily protect and respect any woman, whether Muslim or not, but the real truth is that's it's just a matter of eliminating the potential for inheritance problems), but I honestly don't think that was the reason. They could easily just ask, “Why don't you convert and marry my daughter?” No, I think the real truth is that the </span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">dar shebab</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> gave Salma and I a wedding when she came, and say what you will about Morocco, there's apparently a “no home wrecking” rule in place. And it was just after Salma left that I noticed the pack of girls who hang out on the main street weren't whistling at me or calling me over to talk anymore, which is too bad because I secretly loved that they did that. For gender development reasons, not because my ego is that fragile that it needs to be stroked by lusty teenagers. I hung up the </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/DeJPqN7Rkd_38ESBjbxaUQ?feat=directlink">“will you marry me, Duncan”</a> poster the lady volunteers made for our summer camp boy band performance to take care of that. I turns out that's the only proposal I got. Then again, the other day I showed up to the </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">dar shebab</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> early, and the director's wife was hanging around outside with some of her friends, and, as I stood there awkwardly waiting for someone to unlock the front door, they got to talking about me. “Who's that?” “That's the American who teaches here.” “American? You should have him marry one of your daughters.” “He speaks Arabic” was all she said in reply, but maybe that's the key. Folks here might have been planning my married life ever since I set foot in country, I just wasn't listening.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;">15- I read a few books before coming to Morocco, all of which were written in the traditional, Orientalist style, and all of which loved to talk about Morocco's love of magic. Anywhere you look you'll find references to how Morocco is the only Islamic country that still believes in djinn, the spirit-like beings made of fire (as opposed to humans, who were made of clay). Although it's the route of the word, djinn are not genies; they're more of a parallel species living on an alternate plane of the same universe who generally ignore people, though sometimes they can be malevolent – especially when people invade their territory, such as uninhabited homes. They're servants of God, however, just like people, so they can be commanded by those with great knowledge of the Qur'an, and compelled to lead the faithful to hidden caches of ancient Berber treasure hidden in the mountains. Truth be told, though, I've heard absolutely nothing about magic from anyone in the country who wasn't a foreigner. In all my experience, no one puts food into their wells to keep them happy, no one uses the hands of the dead in their couscous for magical purposes, and no one is consulting village witches about their medical problems. Of course, there are people who do all of this I'm sure, but from what I've seen, it's a lot like voodoo in New Orleans, which is to say that everyone knows about it, and perhaps plays lip service just for good measure, but it's not something that happens with anywhere near the kind of frequency to call legitimate practice – certainly not on the scale of what's written about on the outside. Then again, maybe people just don't talk about it with me. Our G Star guy in Sefrou once wanted to give us his business card, so he did, and we immediately commented on how the picture on the card wasn't him, it was soccer megastar Ronaldo. He didn't seem to think that was all that strange, but, after about five minutes of ragging on him, he produced a second card, this one featuring himself standing in the entrance-way of his shop. That's a great card we said, but he was unconvinced. He explained that he didn't like to give out this card just in case it fell into the wrong hands – the “wrong hands” in this case being girls who might want to take his card to a magician and use it to put spells on him to do who knows what, so maybe there's more magic than I thought.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">16- It's getting to be a pretty old story: Morocco is a lot colder than everyone thinks. Yes, there is desert, and yes, the temperature in the desert will regularly break 120 degrees (Fahrenheit) in the summer, and yes, being assigned to a site in one of these places is the most horrible fate imaginable, but the surprise is still always the cold. And, if you're fortunate enough to be placed in a cold site, you will learn the meaning of ultimate suffering. You know about bone-itis (though maybe not that I was already getting flares of it before Halloween), but let me leave you with one final story of just how cold it is. Like all Peace Corps volunteers, I've got my share of psychological disorders, and one those is the inability to take off my pants while still wearing a shirt. Call me crazy, but I think it looks weird when dudes are both beshirted and pantsless; the proportions are just all wrong. Conveniently, I don't often have to remove only my pants, but when I'm getting dressed for bed (or undressed for work), I have to take off my shirt first, then my pants, then put on the new pants, and lastly the new shirt. That's just the way I do things, and I'm sure anyone can see the obvious benefits. Life in Freedonia has been a different matter. It's so cold that it is literally impossible to be naked – even in the house. I can't take a shower (whether hot water is involved or not), and I can't take off both my pants and shirts (obviously, by this point I'm wearing more than one) at the same time. How cold is it? It's so cold that it cures my neuroses (</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent;">Yakov Smirnoff</span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> said that), and when it's cold enough that you're making clinical breakthroughs, it's time to go home.</span></p>duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-15019109158123701732010-10-26T17:01:00.001+00:002010-10-26T17:05:26.652+00:009 Things That Duncan Forgot to Mention about Morocco<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;">In the course of our journey through my service in Morocco, we've talked about a lot of things. We've traveled from one corner of the country to the other, explored the culture of Morocco and the life of a Peace Corps volunteer, and come to understand the meaning of development. Our time, however, has been finite, and I've been busy, or lazy, and I haven't been able to write about everything I needed to. Fortunately, it turns out that there are only nine things that I neglected in all of Morocco. Here they are:</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">1. There's a book that was spreading around when I first joined called </span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Three Cups of Tea</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">. I never read it, but from what I understand it's about integrating into an Islamic society somewhere in Central Asia (Pakistan, maybe?) and drinking tea. I imagine that the appeal to Morocco volunteers is based on our own being required to drink copious amounts of tea, many times under duress. You, too, probably think that you can only drink two glasses of scaldingly hot tea hypersaturated with sugar at any given sitting, but, let me assure you, when your large Moroccan host mother is standing over you with a look composed of 63% dissapointment, 34% concern for your nutritional safety, and 3% sassy antagonism and refilling your cup in complete disregard to what you're saying, not saying, or say every time the issue comes up, you're going to drink it. Fortunately, there are a handful of varieties to choose from, though, unfortunately, tea is never served individually. Unless you're the world's biggest loser (and not the kind of big loser that's going to get us in trouble with the registered trademark police), you drink your tea from loose leaf form, in a large pot filled with one part boiling water and one part sugar, and everyone else drinks the same. Every family has special tea glasses used strictly for tea (and Coke, on special occasions), and the flavor (of the tea, not the Coke) depends on what time of year it is. The most popular is mint, though few realize that this is a summer (or warm weather) drink only. In the winter, we drink </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">sheeba</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> (wormwood-laced tea), and sit around pretending we're French Romantic-Era homeless people. And pretty much any other green, leafy herb can – and is – made into a special tea, too, though no other is as common. </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Louiza</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> (lemon verbena) is my personal favorite. There's also </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">z'aater</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> (oregano) to calm your stomach and </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">salmia</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> (sage) to calm your blood. Trendy stalls in the big city souks will market their own blends, which are usually made from just about anything mixed with everything else (usually really good). And if you're really lucky, you might find yourself with a steamy glass of </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">flio</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> (spearmint), which tastes exactly like what you'd expect if you drank a steamy glass of Double Mint Gum, which is to say, awful. On Eid Seghir (end of Ramadan) this year I made a running tally on my arm of how many glasses I drank during my four hours of visiting family and neighbors. I got up to somewhere between hyperglycemic shock and early onset diabetes (twelve glasses). I shortlisted </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Three Thousand Cups of Tea</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> as one of the possible titles for my Peace Corps memoirs until a friend and I did the math and realized we've had far more than that in our 26months. Then we stopped talking about that and started researching insulin supply companies in Morocco.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">2. </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">Islam recognizes Friday as the Sabbath, though in Morocco, that doesn't translate quite like what we do with Sundays in America. Sure, there's a big congregation at the midday prayer, and a lot of people who normally don't do any of their prayers might at least do this one, but in most ways it's just another ordinary day. Kids go to school; government offices are open. It's not even considered the weekend. Some people might close up shop early or in the afternoon, and one person once told me that no one is allowed to work on Friday, but it's basically a day like any other. Except for one thing: lunch. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day, and Friday lunch is the biggest lunch of the week. The whole family is gathered together (before the kids run back off to school at two and parents go back to work), which calls for something special, and that means couscous. Tagines may be the national dish, lamb and prunes may be the way to impress your guests, and chicken with onions, raisins, and euphoria-inducing amounts of LSD may be what's served at your wedding, but only couscous is good enough for Friday. The couscous making starts around ten in the morning (unless I plan on coming over to learn, in which case it always seems to start earlier), and lasts until around one, or until everyone who's coming home is back home. It's served in a massive bowl-plate called a </span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">ksa</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, and everyone gathers around and digs in the second it touches the table. And it's important to note that couscous is the only dish that is officially sanctioned to be eaten with a utensil (a giant spoon, to be precise, that's about the equivalent of a tablespoon and a half), although the truly hardcore will use their hands. Not bread in their hands, mind you, but go straight for it with their fingers. If you want to blow the socks of your Moroccan friends, the next time you go over for couscous, make a big display of refusing to eat with a spoon (it helps if you take the one offered you and throw it across the room), and plunge your hand (right hand) into the bowl. This works especially well when the couscous is supersaturated with </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">marqa'</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, the liquified butter cream sauce that fell from Heaven, and doesn't work at all when it isn't. Scoop it around for a moment and pull it back out with about a golf ball’s weight of couscous. Saut</span></span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: normal;">é</span></span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> this in your hand once or twice and then launch it into your mouth. It really only takes once to prove that you're the baddest couscous eater at the table, though you're welcome to go the whole meal to formally cement your superiority. When you're finished, you can demurely tap your hand clean on the side of the </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">ksa</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, or you can full-on lick it down. An important safety tip, however: the latter option is not as sexually enticing as it might sound. When you're finished, you can wash it all down with a tall glass of </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">lebin</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">. </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Lebin</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> is pretty much the same thing as buttermilk, though it translates more closely as “Satan's nightcap,” and drinking this with your couscous isn't so much hardcore as it is an exercise in gastrointestinal hubris. I'd recommend just a simple glass of water, though I wouldn't wait until the end of the meal before quenching my thirst. Don't forget, Morocco has space for individual tea (or soda) glasses, but there's only one cup of water on the table, and it's going to be hard to drink once everyone else's semolina grain backwash is floating in it, no matter how thirsty you are.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">3. </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">As in any other society, there are some things you can do in Morocco, and others you can't. For example, you can go to the bathroom, but you can't let anyone hear you (we've talked about this before). And, in those cases when you do something that you shouldn't, you're going to hear people telling you “</span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">hashuma</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.” “</span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Hashuma</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">” basically means “shame.” It also sounds a lot like “shame,” which is convenient for remembering. You can “hashumaed” for just about anything, too, in no small part due to how much fun it is to say. It can mean: “Act right!” as in, “</span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Hashuma</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, don't eat with your left hand!” “You know better than that!” as in, “Don't grab a girl's butt when she's walking through the souk, </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">hashuma</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">!” “Watch your mouth!” as in “</span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Hashuma</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, you said 'donkey,' 'toilet,' 'trash,' or one of a long list of other words without asking for pardon.” “This is the end of society as we know it,” as in “You were attacked by hoodlums? </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Hashuma</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.” (This one should be followed by “</span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">gaa'</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,” which translates most closely as “to an absolute degree, either negative or positive, with great emphasis,” and is my absolute favorite word to say, </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">gaa'</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.) It can be your response to seeing someone stumbling drunkenly down the street, or a weak attempt to save face when you've been bested in a verbal battle of wits. And you actually don't need to say it at all, as, like all Moroccan communication, it can be conveyed in a simple hand gesture form. It's a lot like our “I'm sad” gesture except instead of tracing a tear away from your eye, you pull the skin down from your eyeball to emphasize that someone is watching. Unfortunately, this can get you (or me) in trouble if you try to tell someone you're sad without saying it. Morocco doesn't have that gesture, and isn't going to get it. Trust me.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">4. </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">You might be surprised to know that the vast majority of people don't own cars, though you might also be surprised to know that far fewer have camels that they can use to get around with. No, a good 85% of Morocco lies in between, having only their wits (and the occasional bicycle) to get them to work in the morning. So what do they do? Well, most just walk. This is as true of city folks who walk a matter of blocks as it is of country folks who walk a matter of miles to get to school, usually uphill. But when money is available and time is not, people got with what they know: taxis. Within cities, these are called “little taxis,” which are usually a cute little Fiat and always a pain in the ass. Depending on the city, there's either a set rate to ride or a counter, though in either case you can count on having to argue over the price and probably being ripped off. Between cities you need a “big taxi,” though, and that's where the fun is. Big taxis are all old Mercedeses (Mercedi?) that were run to death in Germany before being sent to scrap, reassembled for Morocco as part of a development outreach, and currently held together by the collective faith of everyone riding on that particular day. And perhaps that's why these [debatably] five-seater vehicles are crammed with seven people: because no one knows just how many more rides are left in it. The front seat includes the driver, a passenger in two thirds of the passenger's seat, and another passenger in what's left plus straddling the stick shift, and the back is crammed with four people and whatever luggage can't fit in the trunk. Again, though, this is a Mercedes, so if you've got four small-to-medium-sized passengers, there's plenty of room to ride comfortably. Unfortunately, though women are more successful, both sexes aspire to huskier sizes, which can make for some tight riding conditions. Usually, one has to lean forward the whole ride, and that's usually the American (who's less comfortable with a lack of personal space). Of course, if you don't like taxis, and trust me, they can be next to unbearable in the summer, you could always take a bus. There are a few national bus lines that cater largely to tourists, but most are local lines or run specific routes, and it's not unheard of for someone to just run their own bus. Similar to big taxis, buses have set passenger limits, though unlike big taxis, this number is equal to the number of seats available in the bus. However, compliance with these set limits is much harder to verify, so what usually happens is that passengers are crammed into the bus until it is physically impossible to add any more, and everyone not sitting in a seat is commanded to hide whenever the bus enters town or passes a well-known traffic stop. Amazingly, though, it's only on the fancy national lines that you ever have any problems with seating. Despite there being as many or more seats than people riding, there's always some neurotic Westerner up in arms about having the seat number that's on their ticket, and you can count on your PCV getting in a fight about how if everyone would just sit down in an open space, we could already be halfway there by now.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;">5. Morocco's currency is the dirham, which during the course of my service, has fluctuated between eight and nine to the dollar. Of course, being more permanent residents, we don't usually worry too much about the exchange rate. Five dirham is a cup of coffee, one and a half is a wheel of bread, and it goes on from there. And you'll probably be surprised to hear that despite never having to exchange money, we're still constantly worry about conversions. Not between dollars and dirham, but between dirham and rials. I've heard a lot of stories about where rial come from. Some say they are the “old currency;” others that they're “Islamic” (the Saudi Arabian currency is also called the rial). The truth, however, is that they're entirely fictional – a figment of the collective imagination that's taken root in Morocco. A single rial is one twentieth of a dirham, or the equivalent of a Moroccan nickle. Of course, Morocco doesn't have nickles (or five-centime pieces) in its collection of legal tender. (Point of technicality: actualy, there is a five-centime piece, though its use is about as common as that of the two dollar bill in America, which is to say, nonexistent. I found one once, however, so I can prove they do exist, though I can't find it anymore – I certainly didn't spend it on anything – so perhaps it was just a souk-induced hallucination.) No, rials are a way of counting, not a currency. Basically, you take whatever amount of money you're concerned with, and multiply it by twenty (or the number of nickles involved in the transaction), so bread is actually thirty, and a cup of coffee will run you one hundred. At first we thought that people would try to give us prices in rials to take advantage of our gullibility, but in the end we've found it much more likely to meet someone who honestly does not comprehend prices in dirham. My host mother is one, and in the course of selling her my furniture, I had to convert all the prices. Fortunately, two years of practice has made me an expert at the 20s table. Up in the north they call rials “douro,” but they count in centimes instead,which they call “franks.” That means a carton of La Vache Qui Rit cheese will cost you one thousand up in the Rif Mountains or two hundred in Freedonia, but you only have to take ten dirham out of your wallet. But in all this, the thing that doesn't make any sense is what Morocco does with really large quantities of money, specifically for ten and hundred thousands of dirhams. You'd think that 10,000 would be called 200,000, but everyone – not just the north – goes for the pennies on this one and calls it 1,000,000. I recently heard that my dar shebab was going to be getting 16,000,000 this year for improvements, and almost fell out of my chair. 16,000,000 dirham (roughly 2,000,000 dollars) is enough to build a center four or five times the size of what we have now. Forget about cosmetic improvements, let's tear it down and start again from scratch. Of course, it turns out that we aren't getting 16,000,000 dirham, we're getting 16,000,000 franks, which is 160,000 dirham (about 20,000 dollars). That's still a lot of money, but not quite the same, though I suppose I only have myself to blame for getting so excited. My friend didn't say “dirham,” “franks,” or “rial,” he just said “16,000,000.” It makes me wonder though what would happen if we were getting that much in dirham. Would they have to say 1,600,000,000 to avoid confusion? The world may never know.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;">6. What would you consider a busy day? You get up before the sun so you can get to work or school on time, bust your rump finishing whatever project you need to get done in a few hours less than it's going to take to finish, blitz through all the errands necessary for living, and go spend the quality time with your parents or girlfriend just so that they don't walk out on you, despite being exhausted to the point where you almost wish they would if only just to simplify your life. At the end of it all, you fall asleep still wearing your clothes, which, conveniently turn out to be the pajamas you were wearing the night before and didn't have time to change out of this morning. That probably strikes you as pretty busy. To me, and the majority of Peace Corps volunteers that I know, that's more along the lines of a ludicrous impossibility. A busy day around here (and I should note that I'm speaking for volunteers here) is one when you have to pay your electric bill, buy groceries, and teach an hour and a half of class. Do all that, and you deserve a break. But that's not to say that there's nothing to do as a volunteer, nor I am necessarily calling us all pathologically lazy (though there are a few). The truth is that pretty much everything you have to do is exponentially harder to do hear than it is for all of you back in cushy America. And why is that? In the end, it boils down to culture, or, perhaps, a lack thereof. You have the luxury of buying stamps at the post office in English, and according to culturally enforced rituals that you've been acclimating to all your lives. We, however, have the relatively simple challenge of translating our words into Darijia or some variety of Tamazight and the great challenge of translating our modes of thinking and cultural touchstones into Moroccan before we can even begin to ask the clerk for a book of stamps. Even going over to your parents' house for lunch is exhausting, and that's before they start asking why you never call and what happened with that sweet girl who seemed so nice and why can't you just settle down and start making grandchildren? And that's why I exclude Moroccans from my definition of a busy day, because they, like you, are working in the system to which they were raised. Going to the souk isn't going to be use the day's energy, though I wouldn't be surprised if a Freedonian needed to take a nap after only a one hour expedition to Wal-Mart. So bear that in mind the next time you're feeling wiped from a “long day.” Over here, we're fighting against a lifetime of being indoctrinated into a different way of thinking of just about everything. All you need is a Red Bull.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">7. Morocco is know for many things, but television programming is not one of them. Every so often you'll read an article with some Moroccan railing against the two-dimensionality of Moroccan television characters or how they reinforce out-dated gender and cultural stereotypes, or with some American bemoaning how completely asinine – </span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size:100%;">à</span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> la “Full House” – they all are. It shouldn't come to you as a surprise, then, that the star of the Moroccan television screen is not Moroccan at all. Turkey stands tall with their hyperdramatic and well-mustachioed soap operas dubbed and transmitted via Syria, who throw in a few struggle-for-independence era dramas while they're at it. South Korea has a historical epic every once in a while, and India usually packs enough tension into a single half hour each day to induce seizures, but none of these can topple the megalith that is the Mexican </span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent;">telenovela</span></span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">. They aren't as frequent as the Middle Eastern shows, but somehow they've learned to capture the Moroccan attention in a way that probably hasn't been done since the first Arabs started showing up talking about Islam. The first reason is probably that these are dubbed into Darijia rather than Standard Arabic (for some reason, the Indian ones are, too), but I would wager that the short skirts and massive cleavage that you don't get from more conservative societies plays their part, too. Whatever the reason, the Mexican soap opera slot has achieved a level of sacredness bordering on a sixth call to prayer. Take “Margarita,” for instance, which isn't even the show's real name but just the name of the main character. This summer the souk featured t-shirts with her face and key chains with everyone else. And now it's “Diablo” – set in New York – that holds Morocco hostage every evening at around seven and preventing any sort of regular dar shebab English schedule from being put in place. And it's convinced us volunteers that if the Peace Corps is a cultural exchange program, then it's wasting its money. Forget about volunteers, our effectiveness could be increased twenty-fold if we just dubbed a cheap plot line into Darijia with lots of hair gel and leather jackets. And cleavage.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">8. </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">My grandfather is a man of routine, and he used to go to the same sandwich shop and order the same sandwich so often that they named it after him. The “Coddy special,” it's called (his name is Frederick, but prefers to go by “Coddy,” for his middle name, Codman), and you could go into whatever sandwich restaurant this was in New Orleans and order it off the menu, though it may not be there anymore, as the logical conclusion that it contains codfish (which I can attest it does not) can only have led to confusion. Peace Corps volunteers are similar (to my grandfather, not codfish) in that they too strive to be regulars everywhere they go, and for similar reasons. My grandfather couldn't hear, and was too curmudgeonly to want to talk if he could, and Peace Corps volunteers hate to explain why they're in Morocco. Obviously, a Darijia-speaking foreigner is an oddity around here, and encountering one inevitably leads one to wonder why, where are you from, what are you doing in Morocco, are you married, are you Muslim, do you like Morocco more than America, do you support Bush or Obama, did you know Michael Jackson converted to Islam right before he died, and all I really wanted was to grab a candy bar before going to class and not recite my life story and make empty promises to join your religion just so you'd stop talking to me. Of course, these are all great questions, and I'm happy to answer them, but I've answered them before, and Michael Jackson did not, in fact, convert, he merely produced a cd for Bahrain because they agreed to host him after he was kicked out of America for being an unproven child molester, which he never even delivered on, and I've been here for two years and haven't you all figured out what I'm here for already? And that's why we take every opportunity to be regulars wherever possible. We go to the same corner </span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">hanoot</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">, the same cyber, the same cafe, the same barber, the same popcorn guy in the souk, the same phone recharge vendor. Essentially, once you've “broken someone in,” you stick with them, and not the least reason for which is how much effort it takes to get to the point where you no longer have to read an autobiography just to buy a half liter of milk, and that's a beautiful thing. And, for the record, I too have a sandwich named after me. In a little town outside of Sefrou there's a guy named Sandwich Mohammad, and if you go to buy a Sandwich Mohammad sandwich (which I highly recommend as they are the best sandwiches in Morocco), you can ask him for “sandwich Amin,” and he'll know what you're talking about, and you'll know that I know what I'm talking about, too, because sandwich Amin is the best Sandwich Mohammad sandwich.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">9. </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">I love teaching English to </span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">dar shebab</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> students primarily because of the unmitigated joy it brings to their faces, secondarily because it's really easy for me to do, and tertiarily because it's desperately needed in Morocco. Students are given about four years of English and then expected to pass an exam that's a close second to the TOEFL as a certificate of fluency, which is obviously incredibly hard, but that's not even the real problem. The texts they are forced to use are not only written in British English – it's bad enough imagining that they're going to learn to speak like Hugh Grant – but they're written in incorrect British English. Ask a Moroccan English student their name, and I guarantee you'll hear this, word-for-word: “My name is [Mohammad] and my family name is [ben Mohammad]. I am from Morocco, exactly in [Fes].” It's a travesty that they do this to students who we can assume want nothing less than to sound absolutely ridiculous when they speak English. I mean, it makes sense why this would happen, especially since the Arabic word for “name” is “</span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">smiya</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,” which is uniquely distinct from their word for “last name,” “</span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">kinnaea</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,” but has really no one with any background in English ever read the textbook? The cake-taker, though, is the Moroccan English way of asking how you are. In Darijia, you would usually ask with “</span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">la bas</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">?” and answer with “</span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">la bas</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.” Of course, there are other exchanges you could use (such as “</span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">bekhair</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">?” and “</span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">bekhair</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">”), but they too tend to be the same word just inflected differently. It's not too surprising then that people are going to imagine that English behaves the same way, and thus the birth of “Are you fine?” Myself and almost fifty years of Peace Corps volunteers before me have fought to slay this demon, and I am here to say that we have failed. Rather than admit defeat, however, I propose that we adopt this formally into English, so that we can say that the English spoken by our </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">dar shebab</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> students in fully correct. So do your parts, people, and whenever you see someone, ask them “Fine? Are you fine?” They'll appreciate knowing you care, and I'll appreciate having a little bit of Morocco with me back in America.</span></span></p>duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-72934884956173431182010-10-09T15:58:00.001+00:002010-10-09T16:02:11.780+00:009 Ways That Duncan Blows Morocco's Mind<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: normal;">I have a policy that, no matter what else I have going on, the day isn't complete until I blow at least one Moroccan's mind. Of all the goals of the Peace Corps, that's probably the easiest, but if I'm ever having a hard time with it, here are a few I can always count on:</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">1. </span>It's lonely being in the Peace Corps. You probably suspected as much, but allow me to assure you that it's far more so than you think, and different volunteers deal with it in different ways. Some drink, some give up and go home, some focus their energy into their work. I got a cat. That's not news to you, either, but it definitely came as a shock to Morocco. Which isn't to say that there aren't animals in and around the homes of Moroccans, because there are. There was a cat that lived at my first home stay, a whole pride of them in the garden of my second home stay, and lots of dogs kept by people I know. The difference, though, is the relationship negotiated between the human and animal. Here, a house animal is generally just that, an animal. It isn't a pet. Very few are given names (the first cat's name was Kitten), and most are treated with a combination of tolerance and appeasement. The cats that live with my new family are fed mostly so that they won't bother people with their mewling. Dogs are a lot more common than cats, and they tend to get names, too (90% are either Rocky or Rex), but I've never seen one that wasn't tied to a tree, and that's because these dogs are around for purpose, not companionship. Most people are afraid of dogs (some of cats, too), but that's because the majority of dogs are feral and would bite you if given the chance. That I not only let an animal into my house, but treat it like a member of my family is a constant amusement for my neighbors and family. Little Mehdi who lives next door lives to chase the cat into some unattainable location, and some of my cousins' favorite pastime is to come over and look for her, and then run out of the house when she's found. They love to talk about how she has a name, and that it's a “people's name.” A few people (usually who know girls named Amal) have gotten upset that my cat has the same name, but not many. I thought about it beforehand, though, and made sure that Amal is neither a name of God or the Prophet, so it's not that. It's just the thought of an animal being called the same as you (or being called the same an as animal), that's shocking.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">2. The Peace Corps gives us bikes for getting around in our sites (and beyond, provided we have permission, of course), but they come with a few conditions. Obviously, we have to take care of them, and, unless we can trick an incoming volunteer into taking ours from us, we'll have to pay for any damages when we're finished. We're also, for insurance purposes, not allowed to let any non-PCVs use them, which ultimately means that we're forced to be seen as selfish jerks in our significantly-more-communal-than-America communities. That's not going to blow anyone's mind, though. It'll just give them a bad impression of the States. No, the amazement comes from the other condition: that we must, on pain of expulsion from the Peace Corps, at all times wear a bicycle helmet. Now, it's a good idea to wear one no matter what, and I hope that you're doing so back there at home (even if you're not going to lose your job if you don't), but I think you can appreciate how you might feel if you were the only one in town wearing bicycle headgear. Try as we might, there's just no way to put on a helmet that doesn't make you look like a dork, and that's in a society that accepts them as normal. Out here, I can only imagine it's like walking down Main Street, Anytown, in a spacesuit. Back during our staging (before we got on the plane to Morocco) they showed us a propaganda film starring the nerdiest volunteer ever and his plan to turn being a laughingstock into a bicycle safety awareness campaign. The video actually looked like it had been filmed in Morocco, which makes sense because thousands of American films are done here and because the kids he was talking with were obviously actors. In all my life as a Peace Corps volunteer, I've never met a group of <i>drairi</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> who'd rather learn about bicycle helmets than make fun of a foreigner, or who would receive any benefit from such knowledge. Whether we like it or not, bicycle helmets just aren't available in our communities, and this is one sector in which we can't just make a cheap substitute out of cardboard and empty soda bottles at the </span><i>dar shebab</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. A few kids have asked me for mine, and I could tell that at least one of them honestly intended to use it. I'd love to leave it behind when I go, too, if only I wasn't going to be fined out of my readjustment allowance for not returning all my equipment.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">3. </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">Our pre-staging materials came with a long list of suggested items to bring with us. As a good Boy Scout, I took it reasonably seriously. I didn't bring a Coleman camp shower. I did bring the duct tape, but I disbelieve in its omniusefulness. I've found myself looking for things to do just to get rid of it. I also brought the sticky tack, but the only thing keeping anything on my walls is superglue. And they recommended bringing some bandanas, so I threw in a few of those, too. Aside from an award-winning pirate costume I put together for Halloween every once in a while, I've never been a bandana-wearing kind of guy, but I figure there can't be a better place to start than in the Peace Corps. It turns out that I don't wear them very much in Morocco, either, aside from under my bicycle helmet, when I'm getting dressed up for the World Cup, and if my hair is just so incredibly funky that it would be a crime to inflict it upon people (I take my hats off when I go inside, thank you very much). And it's times like these when I'm usually – hopefully – on my way to the showers, which just happen to be attached to the downstairs of my host grandfather's house, and only a few doors away from basically everyone else in my family, including the house where I stayed, and I'll obviously see my family as well. Let me tell you, they didn't know what to think the first time they saw me put on a bandana. And why not? Because only women wear bandanas, which is funny because to me a bandana is like a turban as much as it is a headscarf, though I'll grant that there is a certain kind of bandanascarf that women wear, too. One of my little cousins even asked if I was a girl, which his mother very happily relayed to me (he didn't know how to speak Arabic yet), though also added that that was why he wasn't shy of me. I'm sure that's what prompted the Peace Corps to recommend packing them: instant youth integration.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">4. </span>One of the first things that we do when we arrive in country is begin learning Darija. Almost every other foreigner, however, does not, and thus (as we've discussed), your average Peace Corps volunteer is quite an anomaly in his or her daily conversation. And it's common enough that when you (or I, this is about me, after all) speak Darija, the host country interlocutor is so blown away that they may very well not hear a single word of what you say, or even reply that they're very sorry but don't understand English. Take for example, the case of the Roman ruins of Volubilis. I'm one of the closer volunteers to the ancient city, and so when one of my close friends from the South (of whom, I can assure you, there are many) come to visit, we'll often takea trip over. You may not know this, but I have an uncanny ability to read the guide book and then five minutes later present exactly what it said as the result of decades of my own personal research, and thus I've earned the title of Volubilis's Greatest Tour Guide. And on one occasion as such I was entertaining a group of PCVs with the Curious Case of the Acrobat's House. You see, there is a particular mosaic in the center of town of a naked man sitting facing backwards on a quadruped equine animal of some sort holding up something in his hand. As you can probably imagine, though, the tour guiding business wouldn't last very long peddling this sort of historical accuracy, and thus we have the invention of Theories. Allow me to take a moment and point out that no one – all of us to a man having been nowhere near Volubilis circa 217 AD – can make any great claim to Truth. Nevertheless, our guide book explains that this man is an athlete, engaging in the challenging and dangerous sport of desultor (jumping on and off of a horse in full gallop), and presenting his trophy to a crowd of adoring spectators (not pictured). As I was explaining all of this to my compatriots, a woman enjoying her afternoon in Volubilis decided that the day would be perfect if only she could tell some foreigner that he's wrong and, more importantly, doesn't know how to read the multilingual placard describing the mosaic of a jester riding his donkey backwards for the amusement of all. Well, sweetheart, let me tell you something: there's one thing you don't do, and that's contradict Duncan in front of the youth development volunteers. Forgive me my snobbery, but if your English was really that good, you'd have heard me say just that only moments ago as one of two available theories, but give me a second and I'll go over the whole lecture once more for you, your family, and everyone else who's gathered to enjoy the show. In Darija. Yes, that's right,I do have the linguistic ability to not only read this placard, but also explain the concept of historical debate. I don't know about you, but I'm more inclined to believe that if someone's going to immortalize their naked self in the floor, it would be for being a death-defying stuntman (I certainly plan on it), but far be it from me to judge the sick sense of humor of 3<sup>rd</sup> Century Roman colonials. I pause a moment for you to collect your shell-shocked minds, carpet-bombed with Original Duncan's Finest Logic. But it's not applause that I hear. It's some guy who's mind has been blown: “You can speak Arabic? That's <i>adorable</i><span style="font-style: normal;">!” If he'd been any closer, he would have pinched my cheek. It's probably best that he couldn't. I'd prefer to spare students of international conflict from learning about the Volubilis Incident until after I leave Morocco.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;">5. </span>You know what, though, sometimes I take advantage of your ignorance. I tell you how great I am, but don't leave you any options for independent verification, and you're left just taking my word for it. Don't get me wrong, I am awesome, but in the interests of Truth, let me tell you how sometimes I come off a little greater than I really am. For instance, I don't actually know how to speak Tamazight. A retiring volunteer once taught me, though, the secret to speaking Berber languages, which is to not be able to speak them at all. The trick is, whenever someone asks you if you do, just say, “of course, <i>etch agharome</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> [eat bread],” and then go back to speaking Darija. Two or three other words might help put icing on the cake, but nine times out of ten you've already floored your audience. Why? Well, though more than half of Morocco is Amazigh, I'd wager less than half can speak Tamazight (despite minimal preservational effort on the part of the government, it's a dying tradition), and it's a good sight fewer Americans who even bother to try. (A nationalistic aside: far more Americans learn Tamazight than Moroccan Arabs, and those are gross numbers, not percentages.) Nearly two years later, and – I'll admit it – there are those who are starting to doubt my linguistic ability, but I've still got some convinced, and those are the people I eat with. This is because I speak a very unique brand of indigenous language called Lunch Time Tashleuheit. I learned from my host family, who only speak Arabic when they're talking to me, and mostly only talk to me when I'm over to mooch lunch. I score advanced level proficiency on Anything Related to What We're Having for Dinner (with a minor in Elementary Kitchen Smalltalk and Gossip), but aside from a collection of Tashleuheit words that I made up, I failed my courses in Everything Else. It doesn't really matter, though, because no matter what I do in my remaining month and a half, Freedonia will forever remember me as either 100% Berber Duncan or That Foreigner Who Really Loved to Talk about Bread.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;">6. </span>Whenever I meet someone new, be it at a friend's house, in a taxi, at the corner store, or anywhere else, we tend to have to review the course of my entire service. That doesn't mean that I have to do a community map with them and establish their assets and vulnerabilities, but we start with speaking to me in French, asking if I like it here, and then on to Intro to Morocco 101. Naturally, the chronically proud Moroccan people want to educate their foreign guest about every aspect of their country – which is wonderful – it's just that after two years here, I've got a pretty good handle on Morocco myself. For example, did you know that Morocco was the first country to recognize America's independence? That there are three different families of Amazigh language? Yes, I did know that. I can also tell you about the subgroups of Tamazight and that our two countries first got together to hunt the Sal<span><span style="font-size:100%;">é</span></span> Rovers and Barbary pirates. This usually makes my Moroccans very happy to hear – though sometimes we get into arguments about the origins of Amazigh New Year (Yenayer) – but almost always catches them off guard. But I'm a teacher, too, and I know the feeling. It's not easy to go to class with a prepared lesson and then find out that your students are actually about seven chapters farther along. And it makes me wonder what kind of an ass I've been talking to foreigners in America. “Hey, Kyong Bo, did you know that Americans love to play baseball in the summer?” Really? No kidding.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">7. We take it for granted that a single, 27-year-old guy either lives by himself or is a major loser. Not so in Morocco, but we've talked about that before. It's shocking for its mass potential for inappropriate behavior, but it's mind-blowing for its mere possibility. How could a guy possibly function by himself without the assistance of women? He would have to cook, and clean, and wash his clothes, and these are clearly impossible (undoubtedly the basis for the belief that I do not, in fact, ever wash my clothes, and that I subsist on a complex diet of black magic and photosynthesis – a true challenge in rainy, cold, Freedonia). I spend a lot of time with my family, and, though I love them dearly, a lot of this time I'm bored out of my mind. This is because I'm expected to watch the United Arab Emirates' greatest gift to mediocre cinematography, MBC2. But you can only watch </span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Underworld: Evolution</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> so many times before you need to crush your skull with a meat tenderizer, and so I'm often left desperately looking for something better to do. When I'm smart, I'll bring a book with me. Sometimes, though, I'm not, and so I'm left with no choice but to make conversation with my family, who are usually in the kitchen cooking something or elsewhere in town being hoodlums, and so I go chat with my mom while she makes lunch. And it's times like this when I pick up one or two items hanging around in the sink, and blow my mother's and sisters' minds. “Amin!? Are you washing the </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">dishes</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">?” Sometimes, in moments of frustration, I tend to reply that American guys are just manifestly superior to Moroccans for our comprehension of the Four Fold Mysteries of (1) apply soap to sponge, (2) agitate sponge briskly over dishes, (3) extinguish sudsiness with fresh water, and (4) leave in a warm, airy place to dry. Once, in the course of teaching my women's association girls' English class about food, I brought in the ingredients for pumpkin bread and made it with them. I had never before seen such astoundedry. And it's because of this (and that I only have at best three more classes with them, and that I got bored and took out the pumpkin bread before it was entirely finished – I'm not really a baker), that any further studying is going to be dedicated to a combination of culinary cultural exchange and ruining any chances these girls have of domestic tranquility with their future entitlement-happy husbands.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">8. </span></span>Most of my mind-blowing makes me look awesome (or at the very least, unique), but sometimes it makes me come across as a square. For example, in Freedonia, we have a liquor store, which happens to be right below my apartment, where Freedonians exercise their right to be weak in their flesh. I, however, don't drink, and I don't mean that in the sense of how I live in a society where drinking is the Mark of Shame and just don't want to tell anyone – because I certainly do that with other things. No, I legitimately don't drink. I also don't care if people want to (provided they don't then endanger themselves or others, but this isn't that story). So you can imagine how my friends feel when they really want to go out and get drunk and Amin, the only one in town who's got a really rock-solid justification for drinking, turns out to be a teetotaler. I say that tea is enough for me, which almost never gets a laugh out of my audience, and always hurts me in my soul. (Incidentally, if I hear someone tell me about how tea is “Moroccan whiskey” just one more time, I'll probably murder everyone and their families.) Even more alarming is my complete inability to chase after girls. Morocco, as a Muslim country, wavers between a nominal and concerted effort to separate the genders, particularly the unmarried ones. I, however, get a special Navigate the Gender Divide Free card included in my Outsider Package. I still have to fight to get into a kitchen, of course, but it does allow girls – particularly my students – to talk to me in the street, which in turn allows everyone else in my community to convince themselves that I'm the Mac Daddiest of all time. The other day at the post office I was talking with my friend the security guard when a girl from the <i>dar shebab</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> waved and said hi. As she was sitting a bit off on the entryway steps, I called back a quick “how are you” and looked back to continue the conversation I was already having. My pal, though, quickly pulled me around the corner and wanted to know if this was my girlfriend, what my secret was, and how was I so successful with the ladies. In his defense, it's just about impossible to get a girl to play anything other than hard-to-get, but the truth is I'm really not in to the whole Lolita thing. I just teach English.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;">9. </span>I don't actually like to wear hats. At our recent Close of Service Conference (CoSCon) I made the same confession to the guys who came into the Peace Corps with me, and I'm fairly convinced that none of them believed me. That's because I've a baseball cap of some sort basically non-stop since September 6<sup>th</sup>, 2008 – which was similarly true of me in middle school – though it'd been almost exactly ten years since my first significant girlfriend made it plainly clear that she wasn't into hats (on me). And, like the people of Stockholm, I came to agree with her and soon realized that I too hate hats on me. I experimented in college with fedoras (my head is too skinny to pull it off properly), but ultimately spent a decade perfecting a way of not combing my hair and fooling people into thinking that I did. On the way to Morocco, however, I got this idea that I should go join the Peace Corps and be the token American, and that means a baseball cap. Now, I come from a land where you either wear a Yankees hat, a Red Sox hat, or nothing at all. The first was out of the question; it's all the evil of the Galactic Empire without the awesomeness of a lightsaber. The second, too, is problematic in that though they're the sworn enemies of injustice, I just can't feel like a unique individual wearing the same hat as everyone else. In the end, I went for the old Houston Astros logo because I have nothing against them and they're innocuous enough that enough people might think that I made up the hat's image myself. I put the hat on my head and went to Morocco, and soon learned that everyone here already wears one. But I didn't despair because I have one last resort of uniqueness: I wear mine backwards. This actually derives from my original dislike of hats – I don't want something (particularly a brim) blocking my view of what's going on. Ironically, though, it's precisely that that's gotten me the cross-cultural attention I craved. Crooked hats in Morocco are the badge of an awakening hip hop culture, which makes my hat by far the most street cred-securing article of clothing I've ever worn. Occasionally the youth will comment on my headgear and hit me up for my rhymes, so I bust a few until it's abundantly clear to everyone involved that I know nothing about hip hop music, but the true human interest story is my little cousin, Aziz, who now puts his on backwards. We're working on pounds and other greetings, but, as he doesn't yet really know how to speak Arabic, it's still a work in progress. I asked him to give me five, so he asked his dad for some money.</p>duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-34427942580541202682010-09-17T17:35:00.001+00:002010-09-17T18:24:18.277+00:00What's Wrong with the Rough GuideThere 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:<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.”<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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 <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Fr_LsYNwyysIrCOpq6w2Gw?feat=directlink">full-page photograph</a> – the caves' main attraction: “their strange sea window, shaped like a map of Africa.” It even includes Madagascar.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />That's perhaps a bit misleading. There is a strong resemblance; however, there is also a very key difference: it's shaped like a <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/lwmo68AybKfFf2uSXjrU-A?feat=directlink">backwards map of Africa</a>. 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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 href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/i5wo-3JG6FoSlhYm9PvTYQ?feat=directlink">a scrawny little fiberglass cheetah</a>, 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.<br /><br />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.”<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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?duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-39455119568471713332010-09-11T16:47:00.003+00:002010-09-11T18:29:37.461+00:00Fashion Sits Lowest<style type="text/css"> <!-- @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } --> </style> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">How many times do you think I can start my writing by telling you how Morocco is a “crossroads between cultures?” You'd be surprised; why don't you go back and count? And it's true, too. Then again, in this era of globalization, pretty much everywhere is a crossroads between cultures, but in Morocco, it's especially true. And, as in every other part of the world, it's a struggle between modernity and traditionalism, and it's literally tearing the country apart. It's the core of every major issue: if I should stay in school or drop out, if I should give my daughters the same freedoms as my sons, and if I should wear pants today.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Moroccan fashion falls squarely into these two categories, and it's usually a good measure for drawing all sorts of other snap judgments. Is this person old or young? Cosmopolitan or country-fried? Angst-ridden or comfortable in their personal awkwardness? Let's now take a little look at Moroccan fashion so that you, too, can tell the difference between modern and traditional as well as I can.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Traditional Moroccan clothing is epitomized in the <!-- Picture 151, fashion --><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/V72Qypcz4T0Aee9cKJ5hYg?feat=directlink">jellaba</a>. We've already talked about the jellaba's greatest contribution to human history – inspiring the Jedi robe – but there's more to it than that. In case you've been living under a rock these last two years, you know that a jellaba is a robe-like piece of clothing with a signature-style hood. It has two slits on the sides, which aren't pockets but allow for accessing any pockets you might be wearing underneath. Other than that, everything is variable. Fabric can be as simple as thick, monochromatic winter wool or as fantastic as pink and black velvet tiger stripes. Most have some embroidering along the cuffs and down the front made from a special kind of button (which can also be a popular jewelry item in itself), and a few luxury models come with a tassel that, in its spare time, doubles as a decoration for fancy curtain rods.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Jellabas a great for pretty much anything. Moroccan women – those who are more conservative, especially if they're married – won't be seen in the streets without one. My host mom and sister, even if they're just going down the street to the corner store, will either toss on a jellaba or tell one of my brothers to go. It's perfect for a quick run outside, though. It takes a moment to put one on, and it's guaranteed to look better than whatever you have on underneath. If college students ever found out about it, we'd have to call it the Jedi Academy.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And in the winter, a jellaba is big enough that you can always toss it on top of whatever you've already got on. That's particularly useful here in Freedonia, especially now that I've recently learned that I live only about 25 kilometers away from the lowest ever recorded temperature in Africa. Around here, folks like to toss on a second jellaba.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But as cool as a jellaba is, it's not really formal attire. I mean, I've certainly worn one as such, but, to be fair, it's really only business casual at best. When it's time to get dressed up, dudes who know go with <!-- 4207, eid seghir --><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/s50HB7MqrpzQ32yhifPzQw?feat=directlink">jabbadors</a>. A jabbador is pretty much just like what it sounds: an ornate, usually linen, long-sleeved shirt and embroidered pants of the same material. For really special occasions you can toss on a <!-- 4219, eid seghir --><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/xoBJi_kx-RcmPd9QsIEObg?feat=directlink">cloak-like outer layer</a>, and some people wear varieties of hats and turbans, though I've been told that's not necessary. The only required accessory is the <!-- 4227, fashion --><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/EkzhKjOG6Ws52Ak1lhk9Ug?feat=directlink">bilgha</a> (which are worn with jellabas, too).</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">To be honest, though, formal Moroccan wear is very much like formal American wear, which is to say that the guys tend to get the minimalist end of the stick. Sure, you can tell a fancy jabbador from a bargain basement model, but, at the party, no one's going to notice. Why not? Because, just like at your homecoming semi-formal, the subtle class of your vintage suspenders don't stand a chance in a room full of day-glo taffeta, that's why. I'm talking about <!-- Cherry festival 010 --><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/6mM7LoVBcNFF42Om_Ycc2g?feat=directlink">kaftans</a>, Morocco's nuclear response to the prom dress.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">There's no such thing as a subtle kaftan; they all range from “<!-- Cherry festival 050 --><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ywd6NXxWMMjg9VRHaZDolQ?feat=directlink">moderate</a>” to “<!-- Picture 112, fashion --><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/6zuoOHiw5KNiRNqpXZG0dg?feat=directlink">chiffon explosion</a>” (which usually aren't even kaftans, they're <!-- Brenda's marriage search, fashion --><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/zeFnKue_bBK3Asp885DlVw?feat=directlink">takshetas</a>, also called kaftans plus an extra aura-like layer of elaborate gauze). That's not a really great surprise, though, since they aren't worn except for <!-- Picture 175, bhalil wedding --><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/u7FivnSavnaLPXmZiSmXKg?feat=directlink">weddings</a> and other <!-- Cherry festival 105 --><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Vzz-maa6uZoSd7bicoW-YQ?feat=directlink">big events</a>. And it's not only the bride who wears one, and hers isn't even necessarily <!-- Picture 177, bhalil wedding --><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/rG91dk4FI2UFUf-qh9U3Iw?feat=directlink">the nicest there</a>. The difference, though, is that she doesn't have to wear only one, and will spend the whole night disappearing into the darkness only to reemerge in a <!-- Picture 185, bhalil wedding --><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/nEeWXwOgHK_peZRXxkk6OA?feat=directlink">colorful new gown</a> – like a butterfly, with many changes of clothes.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">There are other traditional styles of clothing in Morocco, too, generally unique to specific regions. For example, as you go south and deeper into the desert (and Africa) you'll find women wearing the very iconic <!-- Lizr, fashion --><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ll1OpMjZChXjVRTmlb4caw?feat=directlink">lizar</a>. “Lizar” means “sheet,” and that's pretty much what it is, a sheet that you wrap yourself in, which serves to both keep you cooler by creating a pocket of air around you, and to completely obscure any shapeliness you may or may not have. And in the northern Rif mountains – if you're lucky – you can find <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/7hmG__8HUYYtcIdId3JeFg?feat=directlink">the most incredible hat in the world</a><!-- Picture 200, tangier etc -->. It's uncertain whether the Rif hat was first modeled off a lampshade (or <!-- Picture 202, tangier etc --><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/2Cu7JUyaUDdoTnJs6Di7Wg?feat=directlink">vice versa</a>), but this tall, colorful headgear not only protects you from the harsh sun, but it's also an important safety measure, allowing mountain travelers to be seen from great distances. And there's a popular trend in wearing traditional clothes from the Middle East. These include the abaiya, a white gown worn (here) by particularly religious men, and the black robes made popular by Syrian and Saudi soap opera actresses and decorated with the pirated logos of Coco Chanel in metallic silver thread.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">None of these, however, are worn by the <!-- 12858, fashion --><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Tne1IRQKsn5RIzsk0rOekA?feat=directlink">S</a><span style="font-style: normal;"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Tne1IRQKsn5RIzsk0rOekA?feat=directlink">hebab</a>, the hip youth of Morocco. To really be down with the youth development, you have to know about the </span><!-- 4175, fashion --><span style="font-style: normal;">G Star. Before we go any further let me make it absolutely clear just what I mean by “G Star.” In this context it means not only the brand ,but also the lifestyle, which means that you could be – and often are – wearing Diesel, Armani, Versace, or Takeshy Kurosawa (whoever that is) brand clothing, and it would still be “G Star,” provided, of course, that it's raw enough to uphold the G Honor. Furthermore, it's possible to be wearing actual G Star line clothing that isn't actually G Enough. This is particularly true in America, where, I'm told, G Star has become a mainstream brand.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">So what is it that makes G Star “G Star,” and everything else just clothes? How do you describe the beauty of a rose, or the awesomeness of rocket blasting into space? Usually, you don't; you take a picture and let that do the talking for you. Fortunately, I've largely done that here, too, and, though it will be impossible for you to appreciate G Star without having a visceral and deeply religious experience with it of your own, but that shouldn't stop us from discussing its glories while you explore.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;">When you see G Star, the first thing that hits you – literally – is </span><!-- 46248, camp --><span style="font-style: normal;"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/XwGP-z88kdkjcLJL68VFtw?feat=directlink">color</a>. G Star is not afraid to declare that hot pink is the new pink, and that pink is the new everything else. Quality G Star should not only keep you hip on a warm summer night, it also should keep you safe when you have to walk home at the end. If it isn't lime green or imperial purple or neon pink (or </span><!-- 4183, fashion --><span style="font-style: normal;"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/oJuqgNiAgivDhIzspRRJ5A?feat=directlink">all of the above</a>), it isn't worth wearing.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;">But it's so much more than just a creative re-imagining of the color wheel. When we lived in America, we had this idea that pants were just that, pants. But the truth is, pants are a </span><!-- 4184, fashion --><span style="font-style: normal;"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/inYpCSwciAKDsw9yKwFBpQ?feat=directlink">tapestry</a>. You can hide your shame with denim, or you can hide your shame with denim, extraneous buttons and rivets, zippers that don't open onto anything, and the Wrath of Bedazzler. They shouldn't be worn, but painted on, and if you still need a belt, make sure it's big, shiny, and has something on it </span><!-- 4177, fashion --><span style="font-style: normal;">that <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/mZ44V94WSixjkErJXt1qgg?feat=directlink">spins</a>. The same goes for your shirts. Don't just make a shirt, give it a border of unnecessary thread. Put a picture on it, make it awesome, and then make it velvet. And whatever you need to say, it's always better when you say it with </span><!-- 4174, fashion --><span style="font-style: normal;"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/2SzzjL9AggEvyQtpE-sjDw?feat=directlink">rhinestones</a>. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;">The defining quality, however, as in all movements, is in the message, and G Star is a message from the future. Like the Qur'an, it includes verses that were never meant to be understood by man. Other times, quite the opposite. Consider the following passage from “</span><!-- 4173, fashion --><span style="font-style: normal;"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/IFsZWdAYBFDpeh-exqGX_w?feat=directlink">Freshness</a>:”</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.43in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"> The stare or quahty of being tresh. 2.New or clean, 3. Of produce, not from storage 4. Refreshing or cool. 5. Without salt (ospecially of water). 6. Rude, cheeky, cr inappropriate. 7. Very clean, and trendy looking graments, clothes, shoes, accessoires. 8. (Militsry) Rested and ready to engage with the enemy immediately</p> <p style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.43in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-left: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Whether it be subversive like “</span><!-- 4223, fashion --><span style="font-style: normal;"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/8EPXSY8qkoDGfRk4TiWZqA?feat=directlink">For Armani Those about to Rock</a>,” which has a secret message of “dont evver obey” hidden under sequins, or poetic to the tune of “Real Eyes / Real Lies / Real Lize,” there is no G Star that does not evoke a greater understanding of reality. “Cool Wheel Deals Ice Iceberg.” Think about it.</span></p> <p style="margin-left: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-left: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Unfortunately, however, it is in the pursuit of this message that so many would-be G Acolytes fall. The point, though, is not something </span><!-- P8, camp --><span style="font-style: normal;"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/_0fwXgxndwABsAG0Fcgrng?feat=directlink">hipsters</a> would wear ironically to some coffee shop where they talk about their feelings. G Star is something rockstars wear to meet their </span><!-- 31804, fashion --><span style="font-style: normal;"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/BR8qQUiqgt3VB8Zc3BUnKA?feat=directlink">commander in chief</a>. That should be the guiding rule. “Born to Dance” is not G Star; it's a bumper sticker – unless it's got one hell of an accessorization.</span></p> <p style="margin-left: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-left: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;">And when in doubt, just remember what G Star told you: “</span><!-- 4226, fashion --><span style="font-style: normal;"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/qwNRnIVdm9ELKxBASMjqgA?feat=directlink">On the waist, fashion sits lowest</a>.”</span></p>duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-42124957154579696922010-09-06T16:43:00.002+00:002010-09-06T17:45:24.661+00:00Something for the ReadersHave you ever sat and thought to yourself, "I love reading Duncan's work so much, I just wish there was a way I could do <span style="font-style: italic;">more</span>." Who hasn't, right?<br /><br />Well, we have good news for you. It turns out that Duncan has convinced himself that he should go off and study for a PhD in Cultural Anthropology so that one day he can sit in a classroom in some university somewhere and continue spreading his message of nonsense and cross-cultural communication to generations to come. It turns out that to get there, he's going to have to spend a little time filling in applications that ask for things like writing samples and whatall.<br /><br />And he's going to need your help. If you're really motivated, and can type at least eighty words per minute (send references and writing samples, please), you could do this for him. If you're only moderately interested, or don't have the necessary skills to contribute in more constructive ways, there's still work to be done. Fortunately, he's already written massive amounts of world-changing literature, and all you need to do is pick the one that's affected you the most.<br /><br />So, what are you waiting for? Get up and reread every post here, and when you're done, vote for your favorite in the handy poll aplet available on the main page. If you feel like recommending something not on the list, I'd really rather that you keep it to yourself, but if you insist, I guess you can post a comment, or use your imaginations.<br /><br />Thank you.<br /><br />- The Managementduncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-9347538399364999152010-08-19T16:10:00.002+00:002010-08-19T16:15:17.286+00:00On Development: Part VEvery year we get what's called a "site visit" from our programming staff. To be honest, it's pretty much exactly like what it sounds, in that the bosses come out to where we live to find out how we've been doing. The first year it's largely focused on our goals in site and how well we've integrated, and the second year it's much more concerned with whether or not we've been able to. <br /><br />My site visit this year was very much like any other. I introduced the program manager to the people I've been working with, talked about the Peace Corps Small Project Assistance grant I was working on with the high school, told him about the English Olympiad the other volunteers and I in the region wanted to hold between our dar shebabs, and let him doublecheck that I was still using my carbon monoxide detector in the house. All ordinary. There was just one thing though that snagged: I answered his question of whether or not I thought I should be replaced with a "no."<br /><br />Closing a site is always a tricky subject. A lot of sites get closed for bad reasons - there's no one willing to work with the volunteer, volunteers are getting sick, or volunteers are being harassed or worse - so it's no wonder that a recommendation for closure would be met with hesitation, but there's also one really good reason to close: sustainability. My boss didn't seem like he really agreed with me (though I did later get to see the preliminary list of sites for the coming stage, and my town wasn't included), but here, in our last "On Development" segment, I'd like to make the case for closing the file on Freedonia, and for why the world still needs the Peace Corps.<br /><br />I feel like you should be pretty hip to "sustainability" by now, especially if you've been following along from home, but just in case you've been sleeping all this time, we'll go over the standard parable once more. Let's say that one day not too long from now you meet a guy who's got nothing to eat, and, being the good person that you are, you want to help him out. So, you give him a fish, which we'll assume for the moment you happen to have readily available. Well, it's pretty safe to say this guy's going to eat it, and you'll have fed him for the day (provided it's a big one, a swordfish, maybe?). Good for you. Of course, once he's gotten over his Omega-3 coma, he's bound to get hungry again. Perhaps you've got another, or someone else will come along with some trout, but fish don't grow on trees and eventually he's not going to get anything to eat. How do you feel now, Mr or Ms Philanthropy? Not so well, I'd imagine.<br /><br />But don't give up yet! Where'd you get that fish? You didn't buy it, of course; no one buys fish anymore. You caught it, obviously, using your spear-fishing skills (or perhaps your bare hands?), so what's to stop you from getting another? A lot of things, most likely. You've probably got a job, a family, books to read, an upcoming Star Trek movie marathon. There's a lot on your plate, and you just don't have the time to go off and get this guy fish. I mean, what's his deal, anyway? Why doesn't he just learn how to do it himself? Bam! [Light bulb!] You could teach him - or, better yet - get him a self-help manual! That way he'll be able to go out on his own time and get the fish he needs, leaving you free to take care of your Civil War reenacting commitments. It's almost like you've fed this dude for his entire life, provided he's happy eating fish forever.<br /><br />Congratulations, my friend, you've successfully completed sustainable development. Why? Because you're no longer a part of the picture. We didn't join the Peace Corps for the glory; we're doing it for the chicks. And you should be especially proud of yourself because you've done so much more than just take care of this guy's daily nutritional needs. By teaching him, you've also transferred - whether explicitly or by example - the knowledge of how to teach, and turned this ordinary fisherman into the epicenter of fishing education for the whole neighborhood. And, if you're a true rockstar, you've instilled in him the same go-getter attitude that got you where you are today, which will empower him to lead his community through the ensuing fish depletion crisis without any further intervention.<br /><br />That's how I entered my town almost two years ago. Now I'm about to leave, and, like every other volunteer, I've got to ask myself just what kind of development I've been up to. Freedonia's had two volunteers preceding me as well as God-knows-how-many before them. More importantly, however, it has a handful of strong, active associations – and even more that are moderately involved. Over my two years I've found plenty of ways to keep myself busy. I've done English classes, played sports, and done other activities most days with the kids, and I've put on big shows like the Amateur Film Festival, the English Olympiad, and the Association Training Day. I worked on a grant with the high school to build an electronic library and participated in a few regional and national activities like AIDS education trainings and the Race An-Nasr. And there was always some kind of Peace Corps improvement activity going on; some committee for something or another.<br /><br />It sounds like a lot – and it was – but I also had plenty of free time. That's important, of course, for all those all parts of being a Peace Corps volunteer like learning about culture, traveling around the country and experiencing its variety, and writing America about it all. And it's useful to make sure that your clothes get washed and do your shopping, but I certainly could have been doing a lot more with myself. I didn't, though. This isn't meant to be an apology; I didn't do more on purpose. We're supposed to put together art clubs, theatre troupes, and hip-hop dance teams so that the kids have something to do other than running around in the streets sniffing glue and being undeveloped, but we're also supposed to give those activities over to our local counterparts. In fact, we're not supposed to start them at all if we don't already have someone we're working with who'll be in charge once we've transferred all the skills we know that they need. My predecessors did a great job in that area, and Freedonia is full of activity experts. I worked at a theatre summer camp for four years and know enough about it to at least fake my way through running a small town club, but there are also at least four guys I can think of from my dar shebab who're just as skilled as I am. It's not just unnecessary for me to put together a club, it's wrong. I'm here to sure up the areas that need assistance; not get in the way.<br /><br />Think about it. Sure, I could run a really banging theatre club, and I'd even go so far as to say it might even be better than what some of the other guys could put together, but what would I achieve in doing so? I'd steal all the fire from anyone else who might want to work in theatre, and, two years later, peace out. Then, if the town was lucky, they'd pick back up where they'd been before I stepped in, or, if they weren't lucky, anyone who might have been a theatre coach is now disillusioned or has moved on to something else. Either way, the result is either a zero or negative change. It was good for me, but not for my community. It's for the same reason that I'm not an English teacher: this country already has thousands of qualified English speakers without jobs for Peace Corps volunteers to come in and take away even more of them.<br /><br />That's really the hardest part of life out here: to actively choose to stay home and watch television (or read a book or learn a dialect of Tashleheit), to stay out off in the wings. Not only is it boring, but it can make us doubt our value. Where we come from we measure success through achievement, and so it's easy to look at other volunteers who're running great clubs and bringing hundreds of kids into their dar shebabs and think that we're wasting our time and your money. That's not to say that there aren't some seriously lazy-ass volunteers who're on a two-year vacation, or that every Super Volunteer is crippling the development potential of their site. Every community is different and needs to be treated differently. It's our job to find what's missing and work to fill it. In the case of Freedonia, this was mostly in the areas of association management and fund-raising. In other places it can as basic as attributing community value to youth and the idea of activities directed at their betterment. Either way, the strategy is the same: use your expertise, leave the knowledge, and get out.<br /><br />And that's where I am. I've done my part and shared my experience with the community, and, like it or not, it's time for me to go home. Could Freedonia benefit from another volunteer? I'm sure they'd think of things to do, and the Peace Corps is as much cultural exchange as it is development assistance, but I think both Morocco and the Peace Corps would be better served if they sent the new volunteers elsewhere. Freedonia's still growing, but it's got what it needs to take care of itself, and it's time for the foreigners to get out the way.duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-57265958265124859812010-06-13T16:42:00.004+01:002010-06-13T17:56:20.502+01:00Moroccan Gazetteer: Marrakesh<o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="City"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="PlaceName"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="PlaceType"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="country-region"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="place"></o:smarttagtype><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> 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margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">There is no Moroccan city of which Peace Corps volunteers have a stronger opinion.<span style=""> </span>Whether they love it or hate it, no one is indifferent.<span style=""> </span>It’s also – despite a brief infatuation with Casablanca – the most famous of the kingdom’s cities, so much so that nearly every language other than Arabic uses a derivation of Marrakesh as their word for “Morocco.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And why not?<span style=""> </span>Marrakesh was the seat of power for several dynasties in a time before the creation of the nation-state.<span style=""> </span>To say “The King of Marrakesh” was to say the king of basically everything over here, so it might as well come to mean “<st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Morocco</st1:place></st1:country-region>.”<span style=""> </span>Aside from when talking with your Persian friends, however, whose vocabulary makes no distinction whatsoever between <st1:city st="on">Marrakesh</st1:city> and <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Morocco</st1:place></st1:country-region>, this is entirely academic.<span style=""> </span>Let’s move to the much more exciting topic of The Peace Corps’s bipolar relationship with <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Marrakesh</st1:place></st1:city>, shall we?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’ve been told that <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Marrakesh</st1:place></st1:city> – of all Moroccan cities – has the lowest rate of return visits, and, without performing any quantitative research of any kind, I’m entirely prepared to support that statement.<span style=""> </span>The <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Red</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">City</st1:placetype></st1:place> (named such for the ubiquitous red brickwork, not its political leanings) is a pushy place.<span style=""> </span>The market vendors, fake Tuaregs, desert expeditionists, back-alley drug dealers, taxi drivers, beggars, and wannabe hustlers are merciless, sometimes beyond the capacity to be dived into or shrugged off.<span style=""> </span>Even before I’d ever arrived, I’d heard more horror stories of the hassles of <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Marrakesh</st1:place></st1:city> than anywhere else, and it take more than about three minutes for them to be validated.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Having <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/_MqQg63iZ5To9sIg6kDkjA?feat=directlink">just arrived</a> from Essaouira, we stepped off the bus and needed a taxi to get to the central square – the Djema’ al Fna’ – and I was struck by one of the best ideas I’ve had in the whole two years of my living in Morocco thus far: I should ask a local how much to expect for the taxi fare.<span style=""> </span>After about five minutes of incredibly belabored explanations with the bus counter girl, we finally arrived at it costing somewhere around fifteen dirham to get downtown.<span style=""> </span>Once outside, we were mobbed by would-be chauffeurs, each offering his services.<span style=""> </span>We countered by asking how much?<span style=""> </span>They responded with the reasonable sums of anywhere from sixty to a hundred.<span style=""> </span>We suggested they might enjoy sodomizing themselves.<span style=""> </span>They inquired as to what alternatives we had.<span style=""> </span>We swore to walk, regardless of how long or how far.<span style=""> </span>They laughed.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">That’s the problem with <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Marrakesh</st1:place></st1:city>.<span style=""> </span>Unlike <st1:place st="on">Fes</st1:place>, which is equally as pushy, the pushers don’t have to acquiesce in the end to your well-stuck to guns.<span style=""> </span>All they have to do is wait a few more minutes an even bigger chump will go walking by with “sucker me” written on his back.<span style=""> </span>I refused to play their game, and they couldn’t have cared less.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately for them, they didn’t realize just how wrathful a scorned PCV can be.<span style=""> </span>I showed them.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In our case, the “next guy” came along about twenty seconds later – a family of French tourists on their way out of <st1:country-region st="on">Morocco</st1:country-region> shortly and back in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Marrakesh</st1:place></st1:city> to see one last sight.<span style=""> </span>I saw them walk up to the same taxi driver that had scoffed at our hard ball only moments earlier, ask the price to the center of town, and reply, “Sixty?<span style=""> </span>Sounds good.”<span style=""> </span>Not on my watch, bucko.<span style=""> </span>In the best French I could muster I called over that he was being had, which he seemed none too pleased about.<span style=""> </span>I offered to get him an honest cabbie who’d actually turn on his meter (a lot less common than you’d expect).<span style=""> </span>I flagged down three or four, sent the majority packing, but finally landed a guy who said he’d take them wherever they wanted to go.<span style=""> </span>We waved goodbye and hoped – for the sake of the Peace Corps – that this guy wasn’t going to turn on one of his expensive presets and take this hapless couple to the <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Bahia</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Palace</st1:placetype></st1:place> by way of the cleaners.<span style=""> </span>Of course, we still didn’t have a cab of our own, but the fuming indignation of the would-be highway robber was reward enough.<span style=""> </span>I recompensed him with a smile and a quick wink; I’m sure he felt better.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s anecdotal, of course, but that pretty much sums up <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Marrakesh</st1:place></st1:city>.<span style=""> </span>It’s a concrete jungle.<span style=""> </span>Sink or swim, kill or be killed, fish or cut bait.<span style=""> </span>You have to constantly be on your guard, but, worse still, you’d do best not to expect even a moment’s respite.<span style=""> </span>That’s the image the city’s trying to sell: a whirlwind of exotic flavors, a thousand Arabian nights compacted into one, and the tourists eat that up with a spoon.<span style=""> </span>We, though, the poor Peace Corps volunteers, get tossed in with the rest.<span style=""> </span>In my lifetime, I’ve learned three surefire ways to start a fight: call a Scotsman “English,” call a Persian “Arab,” and call a PCV “tourist.”<span style=""> </span>There is nothing more painful to us than to be reduced to the level of the rest of you – and we’ve got good reason for that.<span style=""> </span>You didn’t have to fight through three months of training, two months of homestay, and the remainder of two years of trying to explain what you’re even doing here in <st1:country-region st="on">Morocco</st1:country-region>, so you’ll forgive us for getting on our high horses about <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Marrakesh</st1:place></st1:city>.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Marrakesh</st1:place></st1:city> does have one redeeming quality: it actually has a lot of cool things to do.<span style=""> </span>The center of it all is also the center of town, <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/JjBoPiza4G-MI7bGrvf8JQ?feat=directlink" style="">Djema’ al Fna’</a><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span style="font-size:8pt;"><!--[if !supportAnnotations]--><a class="msocomanchor" id="_anchor_2" onmouseover="msoCommentShow('_anchor_2','_com_2')" onmouseout="msoCommentHide('_com_2')" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7372560058091391929&postID=5726595826512485981#_msocom_2" language="JavaScript" name="_msoanchor_2"></a></span></span>.<span style=""> </span>This is the archetype of central squares, the Cadillac of grand places.<span style=""> </span>By day it’s filled with water sellers, orange juice and date stands, snake charmers and monkey trainers, guys selling traditional medicines, and ladies selling henna.<span style=""> </span>By night they’re still there, plus a small <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/86ZgCS3f7_GcXpi3Oj8HBg?feat=directlink" style="">shanty town</a><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span style="font-size:8pt;"><a class="msocomanchor" id="_anchor_3" onmouseover="msoCommentShow('_anchor_3','_com_3')" onmouseout="msoCommentHide('_com_3')" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7372560058091391929&postID=5726595826512485981#_msocom_3" language="JavaScript" name="_msoanchor_3"></a></span></span> of quick restaurants, storytellers and their throngs, and this one carnival game that involves a bottle of soda and a fishing pole that I don’t think I’ll ever understand.<span style=""> </span>A lot of detractors like to point out the campiness of it all, and it is touristy – those snake charmers wouldn’t be there if it didn’t fit with someone’s Orientalist vision of <i style="">Alladin</i>, and ladies certainly wouldn’t be pushing henna like heroin if it wasn’t for the crowds of Europeans who want to feel like they’ve “gone native” – but there’s another side, too.<span style=""> </span>All those stories are in Darija, and even with my two years of language, I have yet to understand anything they’ve been talking about.<span style=""> </span>I’m also pretty sure that those aren’t tourists crowding around the “traditional” dentists, either, to have their teeth pulled out sans insurance, sans board certification, and sans Novocain.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Of course, the northern side of the square is the entrance to the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/DgfICwuBpWVXn_NRun3fJQ?feat=directlink" style="">souks</a><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/DgfICwuBpWVXn_NRun3fJQ?feat=directlink"><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span style="font-size:8pt;"><!--[if !supportAnnotations]--></span></span></a><a class="msocomanchor" id="_anchor_4" onmouseover="msoCommentShow('_anchor_4','_com_4')" onmouseout="msoCommentHide('_com_4')" language="JavaScript" name="_msoanchor_4"></a>, which is not the sort of place that is for locals and tourists alike.<span style=""> </span>This one is an endless labyrinth of carpets, t shirts, and souvenir tagines, and is kryptonite for PCVs for the simple fact that no matter how good our language is, we can’t pretend to be locals – no local would be here who wasn’t just passing through to somewhere else (which is to say, Marrakeshis; there are plenty of Moroccan tourists to be found).<span style=""> </span>If you’re willing to get over yourself for just long enough, though, it can actually be a lot of fun, and haggling with the shopkeepers – even if you don’t actually want to buy anything – is a great way to pass the time and practice for your next language proficiency indicator exam.<span style=""> </span>It was here that I found out for the first time that I’ve got a country boy accent, like someone who, living amongst Imazighen who speak Tamazight first and Darija second, has picked up a Tamazight-accented Arabic with rustic overtones.<span style=""> </span>On that particular occasion it resulted in more discrimination than discount, but I’ve learned to work it since then.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">On the other side of the square is the majority of the history, beginning with the iconic minaret of the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/lBatbcR9qaVMGUrh9EpSZA?feat=directlink" style="">Koutoubia Mosque</a><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span style="font-size:8pt;"><!--[if !supportAnnotations]--><a class="msocomanchor" id="_anchor_5" onmouseover="msoCommentShow('_anchor_5','_com_5')" onmouseout="msoCommentHide('_com_5')" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7372560058091391929&postID=5726595826512485981#_msocom_5" language="JavaScript" name="_msoanchor_5"></a></span></span> that towers over the Djema’ al Fna’.<span style=""> </span>It and the Kasbah Mosque are pretty much the only way that I know of navigating my way around the old city of <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Marrakesh</st1:place></st1:city>.<span style=""> </span>And I usually come down this way on the first full of day in the city; there’s a lot to see, mostly palaces, and all pretty much exclusively the domain of tourist herds.<span style=""> </span>I started with the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/G65XeqTE1HvFWJfkp6QsJg?feat=directlink" style="">Sa’adian Tombs</a><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span style="font-size:8pt;"><!--[if !supportAnnotations]--><a class="msocomanchor" id="_anchor_6" onmouseover="msoCommentShow('_anchor_6','_com_6')" onmouseout="msoCommentHide('_com_6')" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7372560058091391929&postID=5726595826512485981#_msocom_6" language="JavaScript" name="_msoanchor_6"></a></span></span>, which makes sense, considering as how they’re the first thing you’re going to come to (if you come the way I did).<span style=""> </span>It’s not a really big place, but it’s jam-packed with color, <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/vDDCNz08Rr_mBwGXkRvFBA?feat=directlink" style="">intricacy</a><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span style="font-size:8pt;"><!--[if !supportAnnotations]--><a class="msocomanchor" id="_anchor_7" onmouseover="msoCommentShow('_anchor_7','_com_7')" onmouseout="msoCommentHide('_com_7')" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7372560058091391929&postID=5726595826512485981#_msocom_7" language="JavaScript" name="_msoanchor_7"></a></span></span>, and the tombs of princes and sultans of the Sa’adian Dynasty (and others).<span style=""> </span>Along with a small garden, it’s a good place to be dead.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s around this time that I’ll pass through the Tin-Worker’s Square and go to a real palace, the Badi.<span style=""> </span>It’s actually not a real palace – not anymore, anyway – but it’s big, it’s ancient, and it’s rarely crowded with tourists.<span style=""> </span>The <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Badi</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Palace</st1:placetype></st1:place> is, as guidebooks describe, more evocative than anything else, mostly because it’s <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/0HFfOD-ZrUloByLhWghHeQ?feat=directlink" style="">empty</a><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/0HFfOD-ZrUloByLhWghHeQ?feat=directlink"><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span style="font-size:8pt;"><!--[if !supportAnnotations]--></span></span></a><a class="msocomanchor" id="_anchor_8" onmouseover="msoCommentShow('_anchor_8','_com_8')" onmouseout="msoCommentHide('_com_8')" language="JavaScript" name="_msoanchor_8"></a>.<span style=""> </span>Not only does it command great open spaces and courts, but all but the tiniest stitches of tilework was <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/801dss4KG3DXCfS-KMJqPA?feat=directlink">stripped out</a> of the palace by the Sultan Moulay Smail for his building of Meknes.<span style=""> </span>You can still see the shape of everything, though.<span style=""> </span>Including the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/EQWT1nDRSL6ZepBhls11sQ?feat=directlink">pools and sunken gardens</a>, the rooms for courtiers and visiting diplomats, and the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ier219MvXkE6vyeSNbflpw?feat=directlink">dungeonous storage areas</a>. Interestingly, the Sa’adian Tombs were one of the few beauties left unransacked by Smail because he was afraid he’d be cursed if he ripped out the tiles there, though he did seal off all but the tiniest of entrances.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Around this time you’ll probably be getting hungry, so you should stop in the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/y6RM-oiZRzsPgMX5kU5jHQ?feat=directlink" style="">Tin-Worker’s Square</a><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span style="font-size:8pt;"><!--[if !supportAnnotations]--><a class="msocomanchor" id="_anchor_12" onmouseover="msoCommentShow('_anchor_12','_com_12')" onmouseout="msoCommentHide('_com_12')" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7372560058091391929&postID=5726595826512485981#_msocom_12" language="JavaScript" name="_msoanchor_12"></a></span></span> again for a reasonably cheap meal.<span style=""> </span>It’ll be even cheaper if you, like me, make friends with some of the merchants there while your visiting friends are shopping who will tell you what to tell the restaurants to give you for a price.<span style=""> </span>Afterwards, finish out the morning in the south district with a stop at the<span style=""><st1:placetype st="on"></st1:placetype></span> <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/7rVI7wyVWIDZBeVvIiCtsA?feat=directlink">Bahia Palace</a>. It’s a good deal smaller than the Badi, though it’s really more of a <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/u2GEI2v-t62UeebkYQuAIQ?feat=directlink" style="">mansion</a><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span style="font-size:8pt;"><!--[if !supportAnnotations]--><a class="msocomanchor" id="_anchor_14" onmouseover="msoCommentShow('_anchor_14','_com_14')" onmouseout="msoCommentHide('_com_14')" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7372560058091391929&postID=5726595826512485981#_msocom_14" language="JavaScript" name="_msoanchor_14"></a></span></span> than a palace, anyway.<span style=""> </span>It’s by far the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/9EUD28n0dB08gHQMzRFWHA?feat=directlink">most beautiful</a> <span class="MsoCommentReference"><span style="font-size:8pt;"><!--[if !supportAnnotations]--><a class="msocomanchor" id="_anchor_15" onmouseover="msoCommentShow('_anchor_15','_com_15')" onmouseout="msoCommentHide('_com_15')" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7372560058091391929&postID=5726595826512485981#_msocom_15" language="JavaScript" name="_msoanchor_15"></a></span></span>of all of them, though, so size doesn’t really matter.<span style=""> </span>Full of unmolested tiling, fantastically carved wood, and lush – almost jungle-like – <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/n7Hp5cRBNjQwEQ6kNQzdUw?feat=directlink">courtyard </a><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/n7Hp5cRBNjQwEQ6kNQzdUw?feat=directlink" style="">gardens</a><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span style="font-size:8pt;"><!--[if !supportAnnotations]--><a class="msocomanchor" id="_anchor_16" onmouseover="msoCommentShow('_anchor_16','_com_16')" onmouseout="msoCommentHide('_com_16')" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7372560058091391929&postID=5726595826512485981#_msocom_16" language="JavaScript" name="_msoanchor_16"></a></span></span>.<span style=""> </span>It’s a photographer’s paradise as long as the throngs of tourists will get out of your way long enough to take the shot.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">There are plenty of other touristy things to do in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Marrakesh</st1:place></st1:city>, but that’s where I usually stop.<span style=""> </span>I will make special note of the<span style=""><st1:placetype st="on"></st1:placetype></span> <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/pl1lGS27IvSiogKnXHce0A?feat=directlink">Majorelle Gardens</a>.<span style=""> </span>I don’t actually think that they’re overly exceptional; they are <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/3je1iDLyPFcyOpQmRDHH5Q?feat=directlink" style="">gorgeous</a><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span style="font-size:8pt;"><!--[if !supportAnnotations]--><a class="msocomanchor" id="_anchor_18" onmouseover="msoCommentShow('_anchor_18','_com_18')" onmouseout="msoCommentHide('_com_18')" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7372560058091391929&postID=5726595826512485981#_msocom_18" language="JavaScript" name="_msoanchor_18"></a></span></span>, of course, but too crowded to be the oasis of peace you’d want them to be.<span style=""> </span>For the most part, other than being the place where I let myself buy my souvenirs and tourguiding folks around the historical sights, I take advantage of Marrakesh as the major city where I can do so many of the things I can’t back in Freedonia.<span style=""> </span>For example, there’s a fantastic vegetarian restaurant near Djema’ al Fna’ and a coffee-shop style café (the only one I’ve seen in Morocco) in the Gueliz neighborhood that reminds me of the sort of places I can find around College Hill in Providence, and that you could find in whatever the bougie area of your home city is called.<span style=""> </span>Both are absurdly overpriced, but you don’t go there for the discount.<span style=""> </span>You go there because it’s like home <i style="">and</i> you can get away from the madhouse scene of <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Marrakesh</st1:place></st1:city>.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="City"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="country-region"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="place"></o:smarttagtype><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> 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mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> </p><p class="MsoNormal">I’m probably one of the rare volunteers who likes <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Marrakesh</st1:city></st1:place>, then again, I don’t really go there very often.<span style=""> </span>I’ll grant you that it’s exhausting, and I don’t think I could stay more than about three days without getting pretty sick of it, but it’s also taught me more about living in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Morocco</st1:place></st1:country-region> as a PCV than about anywhere else, too.<span style=""> </span>The number one lesson: don’t act like you don’t know what you’re doing.<span style=""> </span>If you want to be treated like a tourist, by all means, act like one.<span style=""> </span>But if you want people to treat you like the local you deserve to be treated like, don’t ask how much the fare is when you get in the taxi and don’t ask if he’ll turn on the meter.<span style=""> </span>Just get in, tell him where you want to go, and give him ten dirham when you get there.<span style=""> </span>A local wouldn’t ask how much, either.</p> <p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <!--[if !supportAnnotations]-->duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-91969183522040058582010-04-17T10:30:00.004+00:002010-09-06T16:39:35.991+00:00We Are the Campers<p class="MsoNormal">It’s that time of year again: spring.<span style=""> </span>And while young men’s fancies are lightly turning to thoughts of love, volunteers are getting heavily busy with Spring Camp, the Jewel in the Crown of Peace Corps Morocco.<span style=""> </span>Sure, Peace Corps does a lot of things in Morocco and we do a lot of camps outside of just the springtime, but Spring Camp is the centerpiece of inter-sectoral cooperation and without a doubt the one week of the year when more volunteers are working than any other.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Basically, the Ministry selects a scattering of resort cities and other metropoli, accepts several thousand youth to attend (1,700 this year, at 22 camp sites), and then invites the Peace Corps to find as many volunteers as possible to make them work.<span style=""> </span>Currently, there are slightly more than two hundred volunteers stationed in Morocco, which, given the reasonable policy goal of having one volunteer for every ten campers, means that pretty much everyone is needed.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, some volunteers have other work related their sector-specific project objectives to do (all youth development volunteers are required to go to camp for the same reason).<span style=""> </span>Others flat out don’t want to; or, more likely, only want to if they can get in to one of the “cool” camps.<span style=""> </span>Morocco, like any other modern nation-state, has easily more than 22 interesting and attractive cities; the problem is that, again, like any other modern nation-state, they aren’t all evenly dispersed across the country.<span style=""> </span>In fact, most of them are on the coast, which is exactly where all the volunteers want to work at camp.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">What follows is called the Scramble, and it is now that a certain, select group of youth development volunteers known as the “Coordinators” earn their fame.<span style=""> </span>The coordinator is in many ways the Cadillac of volunteers; he’s expensive, unnecessarily large, and in charge of making sure that everything works at camp or else assigning the blame when it doesn’t.<span style=""> </span>Being a coordinator is about the best job you can have.<span style=""> </span>(Trust me; I’ve done it twice now.)<span style=""> </span>Aside from making sure that you have enough volunteers to run your camp – which either pretty much happens by itself or isn’t meant to happen at all – and fielding some pre-camp emails and phone calls, you basically do the same thing that everyone else does, only with the added benefit of a paid three-day vacation in Rabat for the Coordinator’s Planning Ball and reaping significantly unproportional amounts of credit for the camp.<span style=""> </span>It really all depends on those unsung heroes: the volunteers.<span style=""> </span>Good volunteers can make a success of a bad camp.<span style=""> </span>A great coordinator, by himself, can’t.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Both of my camps have fallen into the former category.<span style=""> </span>My first was in Khemisset, a mostly uninteresting town near Meknes.<span style=""> </span>While there is little of note about the city itself (aside from its legendary carpet souk and socially progressive gay horses), the camp is easily one of the best in the country.<span style=""> </span>It’s been being run for about five years by excellent staff, and there is now almost no need for a volunteer coordinator whatsoever, which makes it even better.<span style=""> </span>That was last year, however, and rather than continue living in the past, we’re going to talk about this year’s camp: <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/7E_yeHsK3OH2p3WyvEOqeQ?feat=directlink">Laarache</a>.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Laarache is the sort of camp that volunteers dream about.<span style=""> </span>The city is located on the coast just a short ways south of Tangier and Asilah, but well enough off of the main track to still be quaint.<span style=""> </span>The town itself can easily be crossed in about a half hour but nonetheless manages to contain a <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/sCna5hndqnpkD_b79UqZ9Q?feat=directlink">town center</a>, old medina, port, and – most importantly – beaches.<span style=""> </span>Actually, a good amount of the ocean front is more of the rocky bluff variety, but, as it was still early spring when we had camp, the water was too cold to really want to be in it, anyway.<span style=""> </span>And it is precisely <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/k0KUhMAr1QQ-HTweq00Nqg?feat=directlink">there</a>, perched high above the ocean, that the camp center is located.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Laarache, being a small city and only in its second year of camphood, doesn’t have much of a camp apparatus.<span style=""> </span>Both the center and the number of campers are small, which, in my humble opinion, is about the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/p58w7DOiVHQfWejHLMpTMw?feat=directlink">best you can do</a>.<span style=""> </span>Not only is it so much easier to keep a small number of campers pacified and entertained for seven straight days, a small center means there are that many fewer places where they might have run off to make out, do drugs, or stage political revolutions.<span style=""> </span>Only fifty campers were invited, and there was never more than about 48 at any given time.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We might not have had a big camp, but we did have a big staff.<span style=""> </span>Aside from the camp director, we had the mudir of the local dar shebab, two animators-in-training, the center overseer and director and their staff of attendants, a rotating series of Spanish-inspired musicians, and the local athletic coaches, all of whom ranged from moderately to extremely insane.<span style=""> </span>Most notable were the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/dRWKRPFtiL7hn9sG5A5HEQ?feat=directlink">mudir</a>, center director, and three boys who served as general maintenance and other assistance, who were collectively and individually so far off their rockers that being at camp was akin to living in a Marx Brothers film.<span style=""> </span>And, Laarache being a sea-side resort, we had a full contingent of <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/BZ0A5QI6MV0AKUeP-goEOQ?feat=directlink">volunteers</a>.<span style=""> </span>We didn’t use our American names (to protect our identities and because half of them are bad words when said in Arabic), but my deepest gratitude goes to Yousef, Lahcen, Ayoub, and Fayza.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And now is about the time that you’re going to ask <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/_vcyElhHVX0yL1s8urI6ZQ?feat=directlink">what it is that we do</a> in camp.<span style=""> </span>Good question, though a better one might be what <i>don’t</i> we do.<span style=""> </span>We don’t operate heavy machinery.<span style=""> </span>Nor do we bale hay or reenact landmark Supreme Court cases.<span style=""> </span>Pretty much everything else is open game.<span style=""> </span>It’s technically an English immersion camp, so we try to speak as much of that as possible – to varying degrees of success – especially in class.<span style=""> </span>We (the volunteers) are also primarily responsible for the early afternoon club time when we try to inculcate the youth of Morocco with American developmental propaganda, most notably with <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/vqb6xCpxJ0mT2Jtd0af_tw?feat=directlink">teambuilding games</a>, <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/UQ5pg4bKpJTqeIOYure-lQ?feat=directlink">artistic entrepreneurship</a>, and <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/41UM_l94I68bCPrr0Ar9nw?feat=directlink">creative problem solving</a>.<span style=""> </span>There’s also sports time and workshops (another name for Moroccan staff-run clubs) that we either go to and participate in or sit back and enjoy, and every evening we have some kind of thematic soiree.<span style=""> </span>On movie night we watched about two thirds of <i>WALL-E</i>, which got shut down for refusing to be significantly more action-packed and about one third its length shorter, but we also had a flash mob turn into a full-on raving dance party and then a proxy war between religious conservative and secularist values.<span style=""> </span>You never really know what you’re going to get once dinner ends.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Throughout all that, we are programmed to auto-entertainment, be it teaching the kids how to toss a football, participating in completely incomprehensible card games, shocking the world with our ability to speak Darija, or teaching new songs.<span style=""> </span>“Day-O” was a bigger success than I’d expected, and they actually sang “We Are the Campers” on the walk to the sports center, but the <i>pièce de résistance</i> was, without a doubt, “Rise and Shine,” the Peace Corps morning tradition with “camp” substituted for anything religious.<span style=""> </span>Complete with hand gestures and claps, no one other than our Fayza is capable of singing it and maintaining any stitch of dignity, which is probably why it was so successful.<span style=""> </span>(As a side note, some kids at last year’s summer camp asked me to sing our national anthem for them, which I did.<span style=""> </span>I don’t want to brag, but I can sign “The Star-Spangled Banner” pretty well, so you can imagine how I felt when my rendition was met not by adulation but rather quizzical disappointment.<span style=""> </span>Because we always sang “Rise and Shine” after the requisite Moroccan national anthem, they were convinced that was what we do at the beginning of every baseball game.<span style=""> </span>I didn’t know how to let them down gently, so I said that “…We’re at camp another morning” was Francis Scott Key’s second choice.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I mean, that’s the point of camp.<span style=""> </span>Sure, they learn some English, but ten hours of class isn’t going to make talk show hosts out of them.<span style=""> </span>Don’t get me wrong, we have some incredible linguistic talent at the camp; in fact, one of my favorite things about going is being able to interact with higher level students when basically all of my dar shebab kids are low to high beginners.<span style=""> </span>If I have to teach the present progressive again I’ll probably brain myself to death with a tagine pot, so you can imagine my relief to be able to conduct a class entirely in English and wax theoretical about the various conditionals.<span style=""> </span>But camp, for all its focus on English, is ultimately about the exchange, not only between the volunteers and the campers, but also between the campers and each other.<span style=""> </span>They’re not all from Laarache.<span style=""> </span>And, though Laarache and Ksar Kebir (where most of the rest came from) are pretty close and similar, there’s also the fact that at camp they’re free to be away from their families and some of the more conservative elements of their society.<span style=""> </span>It’s not always easy in Morocco for boys and girls to interact in normal, healthy ways, but no one’s watching them at camp (demonstrated most clearly by the Headscarf Holocaust; every single one had come off by the second day of camp, though some came and went with the weather).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We didn’t have an official name or theme for our camp (some camps do that), but if we had, perhaps we could have called it Camp Discovery.<span style=""> </span>Of course, as soon as we did, no one would have been able to take it seriously ever again, but that was pretty much what we were there for.<span style=""> </span>We taught English in <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ErYzo_v9ccbcCaDq7uSI-g?feat=directlink">ways that they’d never been taught before</a> (aside from the ones who’d been at camp last year) with songs, games, and a giant Jeopardy competition at the end.<span style=""> </span>We made them re-evaluate the way they think by dropping eggs from the third floor and fording dangerous pools of hot lava, and forced them to express themselves in ways they don’t often get to in their normal schools.<span style=""> </span>We took them out to the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/llMohqWlReN1Bg024ivYnA?feat=directlink">ancient ruins</a> of <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/yqJIwxdXSMpA-fYeEQOIPQ?feat=directlink">Lixus</a> and showed them that they could <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/6bOAlz92eedaOOWG_KyWzg?feat=directlink">learn about the environment</a> while hunting each other through the brambled underbrush, and proved that all it takes is the desire to rock (certainly neither skill nor technology) and any five people can drop Van Morrison’s “Brown-Eyed Girl” like an atomic bomb on the 48 most stunned Moroccan youth in history.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the end, spring camp’s success – like everything else that we do here – can only be judged by the next generation’s statistical increase in Moroccan babies named Duncan, and, frankly, we just don’t have the time to wait and find out.<span style=""> </span>We’ll never know for certain, through either the public congratulations or the shivers of doubt in the dark solitude of night.<span style=""> </span>All I know is that if Saturday morning departure crying is any indicator, then I’d say we’re <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/4QXu31FjnXi9ePPRFk-oHA?feat=directlink">looking good</a>.</p>duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-33533153897206996152010-03-25T22:03:00.002+00:002010-09-06T16:42:47.343+00:009 More Things<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;">1- Everything we do is informed by our culture.<span style=""> </span>It’s not just the big issues like religion and work ethic, it goes all the way down to color preferences, how we sit, and the way we carry things.<span style=""> </span>In the States, we tend to put heavy burdens on our backs and shoulders.<span style=""> </span>I’m not saying it’s a corporate conspiracy of Big Schoolbag, but it’s a given with us that that’s where we’re going to hold what we can’t fit in our hands.<span style=""> </span>We’ve all seen the pictures of other cultures where they carry their parcels on their heads.<span style=""> </span>In Morocco, the default way to walk around with heavy items is to go tandem.<span style=""> </span>I’m used to strapping it all around my shoulders, so it’s one of the hardest culture shocks for me to deal with when someone grabs one side of a massive bag and expects me to lug the other.<span style=""> </span>And it makes me look even more incompetent in the eyes of my community that – never mind that I talk like a 5-year-old, that’s excusable – I don’t even know <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/U21GvY6G_ftXqJ_Pc3T2SQ?feat=directlink">how to carry a bag of vegetables</a> back from the souk.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;">2- Buying things is a very stressful process.<span style=""> </span>Not only because you have to haggle for just about everything (and still likely be well on your way to the cleaners), but also because of change.<span style=""> </span>Money comes in the form of completely insignificant cents, half dirham coins, one dirham coins, two dirham coins, five dirham coins, ten dirham coins, twenty dirham notes, fifty dirham notes, hundred dirham notes, and two hundred dirham notes.<span style=""> </span>Anything worth fifty or less probably isn’t going to get you into any trouble (though sometimes a fifty can be even too much for the vegetable souk), but your hundreds and two hundreds are hard to break.<span style=""> </span>Most hanoots (general stores) and boutiques just have a drawer where they put their money, and most souks and taxi stands are manned by a guy with a pocket full of change.<span style=""> </span>They like exact change.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, ATMs and banks like to give out one or two hundred dirham notes, so you find yourself very frequently having to excuse yourself for handing the guy a big note.<span style=""> </span>He usually either begrudgingly tosses you your change or happily has it ready and makes you feel ridiculous for even imagining it would be a problem, but on the occasion that he doesn’t, he gives you a run for your money.<span style=""> </span>Literally.<span style=""> </span>He takes your (generally) two hundred and just walks away, leaving you there wondering if you just got had.<span style=""> </span>Some five minutes later he’s back with change and everything turns out fine (he just had to go make change), but I can tell you it’s one of the most stressful parts of buying things, especially the first time.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;">3- One thing that always confuses (and entertains) me is the variety of street commerce.<span style=""> </span>A good chunk of our produce comes seasonally (as you’ll soon see), and a fair number of those are really cheap.<span style=""> </span>Particularly cactus pears, so it’s easy for venders to get their hands on them and put them on the market, and so a lot do.<span style=""> </span>You’ll find yourself walking down the street in summer, and everyone’s mother has a cartload of prickly pears for sale.<span style=""> </span>You can easily find them just meters from each other, especially if you’re at a taxi or bus stand. <span style=""> </span>And it’s not just cactus fruit; it’s orange juice, popcorn and sunflower seeds, beach coffee, and convenience stores.<span style=""> </span>The favorite economic model is “That’s working for him, so I’ll do it, too.”<span style=""> </span>Some people are disparaging of the why-don’t-you-diversify sort, but what they fail to realize is that everyone wants cactus pears.<span style=""> </span>It works.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;">4- It’s tricky sometimes speaking Arabic in Morocco, mostly because you aren’t really speaking “Arabic,” you’re speaking Darija (as we’ve discussed plenty), but they’re kind of mixed up, so you don’t always know if what you’re hearing standard or dialect. <span style=""> </span>We volunteers are taught a pure form of Darija, but most people here are so used to switching the languages around (they’re all Arabic, after all), that they can catch us off guard with some of their Fos-ha Arabic words.<span style=""> </span>One of those words is “maybe.”<span style=""> </span>In Darija we say “<i>yumkin</i>,” which everyone understands, but your occasionally careless host country national might toss around a few standard versions: “<i>robama</i>.”<span style=""> </span>I think you can see why this catches our attention.<span style=""> </span>He we are having an ordinary conversation, when the other guy all of a sudden wants to start talking about our President.<span style=""> </span>Again.<span style=""> </span>It was bad enough taking the heat for Bush when he was still in office (why don’t you try explaining how despite Obama being voted in, W was still in the Oval Office for a three more months), but now you’re bringing up our new guy just about every other sentence.<span style=""> </span>A friend of mine was running for local office in last year’s elections and I happened to be over at his house for dinner one night when he decided to make a campaign speech to the neighborhood.<span style=""> </span>When he was finished, I was convinced that his entire platform hinged on the President of the United States of America.<span style=""> </span>He must have invoked Obama about sixty times, and I was starting to worry that I might have to deliver something.<span style=""> </span>Of course, it wasn’t until some time later that I learned about <i>robama</i>.<span style=""> </span>Turns out that he was more of a politician than I’d realized.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;">5- The word for “head” in Darija is “<i>ras</i>.”<span style=""> </span>You could say “<i>kei darni rassi</i>” (“my head hurts”) or “<i>’andek ras kebir</i>” (“you have a big head”), for example, if you wanted to use that word.<span style=""> </span>But <i>ras</i> doesn’t only mean “head,” you can also use it for “self,” and around here, you will plenty.<span style=""> </span>You’ve got your “<i>talla fe rassek</i>” (“take care of yourself”) and “<i>kan tekelm ma’ rassi</i>” (“I’m talking to myself”), just to mention a couple.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately for our language comprehension (but fortunately for our sense of absurdity in everyday life), we learn about “head” before “self,” and so we’re ingrained with completely new expressions.<span style=""> </span>Now, when I’m sitting alone at home, I’m talking with my head, so it’s not crazy.<span style=""> </span>And one of our most successful jokes is to follow up “take care of yourself” with the hilarious “with shampoo.”<span style=""> </span>(Let it sink in.)<span style=""> </span>Yeah, brilliant.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;">6- Family is confusing.<span style=""> </span>It’s hard enough in America or with English, but out here families aren’t only huge, they’re all around.<span style=""> </span>You need to know who’s who, so there’s a different expression for each relationship.<span style=""> </span>There are four different words for each of our “aunt” and “uncle:” “my father’s brother/sister” (<i>‘ami/‘amti</i>), “my mother’s brother/sister” (<i>khali/khalti</i>), “my father’s brother’s/sister’s wife/husband” (<i>mrat ‘ami/rajel ‘amti</i>), and my mother’s brother’s/sister’s wife/husband” (<i>mrat khali/rajel khalti</i>).<span style=""> </span>Not to mention the eight different ways to say what we call “cousin:” the son or daughter of my father’s or mother’s brother or sister.<span style=""> </span>Eventually, people get used to it, and one way that helps is that the older will call the younger by the younger’s relationship to the older.<span style=""> </span>For example, I have some friends whose brother just had a baby, which would make them her uncles (they’re guys).<span style=""> </span>Instead of calling her “the daughter of their brother,” however, they call her “‘<i>amti</i>” – “aunt who is blood-related by my father.”<span style=""> </span>I know another guy who calls his daughter “baba” (“my dad”), so you don’t even really need to switch the gender if you don’t want to.<span style=""> </span>Not everyone does this (other times you just call all men “my father’s brother” and all women “my mother’s sister”), but this way, in my opinion, keeps things from getting impersonal.<span style=""> </span>I’m thinking about calling my new little nephew “uncle” when I get back to the States.<span style=""> </span>The problem I can see is that if I was married, she’d have to call him “wife of my father’s brother.”<span style=""> </span>It’d probably be best for her to just say “Gavin.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;">7- There are grocery stores in Morocco (they’re something of holy ground for volunteers), but they’re usually far removed from our sites (hence the pilgrimages).<span style=""> </span>We buy pretty much everything direct from the source, which isn’t only cheaper, it’s more fun; every time I go to the souk I laugh at how all the yuppies back home would be paying thousands of dollars for this kind of organic, locally grown, free-range food that I’m getting for mere rials.<span style=""> </span>The thing about the souk, though, is that you don’t get as much choice in what’s available, it pretty much all depends on the season.<span style=""> </span>We’ve got watermelon season, strawberry season, cherry season, date season, and just about everything else season when the produce is so fresh it’s ridiculous.<span style=""> </span>Of course, the downside is that you pretty much can’t get the seasonal fruits and vegetables when they aren’t in season, which can be hard, but also makes them even more delicious when they’re finally here.<span style=""> </span>It’s like the beginning of baseball season.<span style=""> </span>The only downside is right now (late winter) when the oranges and clementines are gone, and nothing else is in to take their place.<span style=""> </span>That kind of sucks.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;">8- One of my favorite things about living in Morocco is going over to people’s houses.<span style=""> </span>That probably seems fairly obvious, Morocco being so well known for its hospitality, and it’s usually pretty good, but that’s not the part that <i>always</i> makes me smile.<span style=""> </span>My favorite part is knocking on the door.<span style=""> </span>In Morocco, when you want to know who’s there, you ask, “<i>shkoon</i> (who)?”<span style=""> </span>And wait for their reply.<span style=""> </span>You aren’t waiting for their name, though, because the answer is always “<i>qreeb</i>,” meaning “nearby.”<span style=""> </span>The idea is that the person visiting is a neighbor, and thus by extension friendly, and their response gives the host a chance to recognize their voice.<span style=""> </span>No one ever seems to have any difficulty recognizing my voice, but it never works for me.<span style=""> </span>I just have to trust that they really are my neighbor.<span style=""> </span>These days, since I live on the other side of town from my host family, I like to respond with “<i>b’aid</i> (far).”<span style=""> </span>No one else thinks it’s as funny.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;">9- Another of my favorite things to do is to talk about what other people said.<span style=""> </span>It wasn’t always this way; actually, it was one of the most conceptually frustrating parts to start with.<span style=""> </span>I’d ask someone “What did the king just say?” and they’d always say “<i>Gal lik </i>…”<span style=""> </span>“<i>Gal lik</i>?”<span style=""> </span>“He told you (me)?” <span style=""> </span>I don’t think he was talking to me, though it’d be nice, I suppose to get a personal message from the king.<span style=""> </span>This went on for a good half year, with untold zany misadventures, until I figured out that you can’t say “He said”; you have to say “He told you” even if what he said has nothing to do with you and he doesn’t even know who you are.<span style=""> </span>I love it, almost as much as I love to tell people I have something to tell them.<span style=""> </span>To say that literally, you’d have to say “<i>’Andi shihaja li bghit ngoolek</i>,” but no one would listen because they’d be too busy perfecting a what-you-talking-’bout-Willis face.<span style=""> </span>You can’t say “I have something I want to say to you,” you say “<i>Aji ngoolek</i>.”<span style=""> </span>“Come here I’ll tell you.”<span style=""> </span>I’m trying to get my community to say “<i>Aji nsoulek</i>.”<span style=""> </span>“Come here I’ll ask you.”<span style=""> </span>We’re still working on it.</p>duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-15657819769108183022010-03-03T21:34:00.009+00:002010-03-07T00:51:22.211+00:00Moroccan Gazetteer: The Sahara<p class="MsoNormal">Sometimes, it’s important to remember that Morocco is mostly desert.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When I look around at the green and the rain in my town, it’s easy to think that I live in Oregon (or what I imagine Oregon to look like), and even easier to wish that I didn’t, which is why I took myself on a little vacation through the more overtly desert parts of Morocco.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The “Sahara” (put the emphasis on the “sa” and rush through the remaining “hara” to get a little closer to the Arabic pronunciation) is not quite as uniform as most souvenir postcards would lead us to believe.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My experience has led me to three different types, <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/pixvhF3uicgFsWoFCCH9Ew?feat=directlink">rocky desert</a>, <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/KcOjLvyQvQEkVVQcYNPMYg?feat=directlink">sandy desert</a>, and technically-but-not-fulfillingly desert, something along the lines of your xeric shrubland or shrub-steppe, which are beautiful in their own right, but not the subject of today’s story.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Concerning the rocks and sand, there are two famous routes (within the Peace Corps travel zone) that can meet all of your desert-seeking needs: from Erachidia to Merzouga and from Ourzazate to M’hamid.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">There is no real describing the feeling of crossing over the mountains and into the “desert.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The Ouarzazate route follows the Dra’a River through a series of stunning valleys.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/lG9dtRyzzJWDwbaqm3QhLQ?feat=directlink">Red and purple mountains</a> tower above the road, which hangs over a never-ending chain of deep green oases, a stark contrast between barren rock and jungle-like lushness.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Ancient kasbahs of red clay are scattered throughout – many long-abandoned and some still inhabited – and everything in between is filled with as many <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/jz4Pazz4qK2_l069Dc6-3w?feat=directlink">date palms</a> as physically possible.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I never made it all the way to the sandy desert at the end, but I got close enough to stage some <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/xUrPBTS9sh3iVryy6bM-Zw?feat=directlink">sand dune photographs</a> in Zagora.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I stayed in Tinzouline for the most part, and got to finally become Indiana Jones.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My group and I set out first thing in the morning heading directly west into the desert with only our determination and an unpaved road to guide us.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We’d been told that there were some ancient 3000-year-old rock carvings to be found beyond the stony wasteland about seven kilometers away.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There are, and we found them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It took about four hours of walking (there and back) and about ten bottles of water, but we reached the cliffs scattered with <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/_bhPFFeemfdztNQEJRusXw?feat=directlink">animal drawings</a>, <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/cX6dwN8QGLR19nj5BLN8NA?feat=directlink">Tiffinagh etchings</a>, and <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/FUgd8mRC8uH0F9djrlMOkA?feat=directlink">horse-mounted warriors</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Neither we nor the guide book could tell you exactly why they were there, but we weren’t too overly concerned.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The highlight was crossing the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/l6GkZ85Nl2iKKjyEHUX2bA?feat=directlink">burning desert</a> and discovering this place that had no guides, no gift shops – not even a fence to keep people off the artifacts – even if we did have to call a friend to tell us exactly where it was.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The sand came much later.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The road from Erachidia to Merzouga doesn’t have the same canyon-like feel of the<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/JMmDA9Tn_vocqNeQF5iCCw?feat=directlink"> Dra’a Valley</a> and there are long stretches that are nothing more than broad expanses of yellow.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s worth the journey, though, to make it all the way to Merzouga.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Unlike Tinzouline, Merzouga is one of the centerpieces of every Morocco tour.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The surrounding towns are packed with fake guides (and real ones) looking to take you out into the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/CxTiRCrd1gBV7C7pva86Vw?feat=directlink">dunes</a> and help themselves to your dirhams.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Fortunately, we have a volunteer friend who lives in the general area, so we gave him a call and he set us up with a guide that he knows and, more importantly, knows the Peace Corps.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He met us in Rissani, tossed us into his 4x4, and it wasn’t until we were well out off the road that he told us the plan: we were going to one of the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ILxuQWN6PyR8cXWQlcq-hQ?feat=directlink">desert’s edge hotels</a>, <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/srzQRWz1IzhsWZW5kTjfEA?feat=directlink">hoping a camel train out into the dunes</a>, <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/8mtldh1ii9FhgGxmCLm2FA?feat=directlink">watching the sunset</a> and eating dinner in <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/HjHjXSRZRntGUAkoKropCg?feat=directlink">traditional nomad tents</a>, sleeping, waking up ridiculously early, and trekking back in with the sunrise.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">That’s just what we did.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Don’t get me wrong, it’s about as touristy as you can get, but it also just one of those things you have to do.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Later, when we were back north, a sandwich master asked us if we ate out in the desert.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Of course we did,” we said, “but it was awful.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The tagine was about as bland as imaginable, the tea was burnt and weak, and – the greatest insult to our culinary sense of decency – they served it all with plates and silverware.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Our friend couldn’t believe it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The Saharawi are known for their cooking, and they’re pretty much the gold standard of Moroccan tea.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then again, the tourists don’t know that they’re getting slop, and the guides aren’t eating that.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>One of the benefits of being a volunteer and speaking the language is that we get to chill with the locals.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The tea we drank was excellent.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It also didn’t matter (to me at least) what our food tasted like by the time we’d reached camp.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We traveled with an Italian couple, their two young sons, and two other Spanish girls, which had the added benefit of making us leave later than we’d hoped.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>By the time we were up on the camels, the sun had pretty much already set, which was beautiful, but also allowed us to complete the hour-and-a-half journey by the light of the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/TdM7FGeGeg5OGa0BaZlIhw?feat=directlink">full moon</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Every so often someone who offer some observation or comment, but it was otherwise completely silent.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There was none of the heat and oppression of the desert sun like in Tinzouline; it was a sort of communion with nature interrupted only by the rhythmic plodding of the camels.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I have never felt so much in awe of the world.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Even the next morning’s <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/0geQyvRVUZKlAH2D_bisgg?feat=directlink">sunrise</a>, which was absolutely <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/y4rCoX7EiWtjVcWjBtzNNQ?feat=directlink">gorgeous</a>, could not possibly match the profundity of the desert at night.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Before you run off and join the caravanserai, though, let me tell you about the downside: <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/QT9j-NV5jlHkSm3tQeYeDg?feat=directlink">camels</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Camels are the foulest of nature’s monsters and living proof of a Vengeful God; the tragic reminder that survival of the fittest can as often as not be a pyrrhic victory.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They make sounds that only a Hollywood sound effects mixer could love and emit a stench to which it would be impossible to acclimate even during the 52-day journey to Timbuktu.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There’s a reason the guides walk in the front, and I don’t think it’s strictly so that they know where they’re going. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>It’s said that camels were once the most beautiful of <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/rY5pPSOYZjcqntMT3iY7AA?feat=directlink">single-celled proto-organisms</a> until they were cursed for a trillion years by Natural Selection for their vanity.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If you offered me the choice between riding a camel and participating in a ritual castration, I’d have to get back to you about it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Ultimately, though, you don’t really have a choice.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No matter that you won’t be able to walk for a few days, nor that you won’t want to for a few more after that, as a friend of mine said, it’s just one of those things you have to do in your life to make yourself a <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/BZmQvRtHg9fOYO5QwWpPpw?feat=directlink">badass</a>.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’ve been thinking about it now for a while, and I’m going to say that despite how much I loved being in the desert, I think I prefer living where I do. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s not that I need the trees and cold so desperately or that I’m so particularly worried about the scorpions (the only ones I’ve seen in Morocco have been less than five kilometers away from my house). <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s more that I’ve never before experienced that harsh majesty of nature in such an overwhelming way – the sun and the moon; the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/jR0NNrpKVnSs857yr0cOxA?feat=directlink">red, purple, blue, and green</a> – and I would hate to think that I could take such <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/u3IxsqqcUp8xAQxvp6_9Rg?feat=directlink">grandeur</a> for granted.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Of course, it was raining when I got home, so I might be tempted to risk it.</p>duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-50778593899289167382010-03-02T16:10:00.003+00:002010-03-04T09:48:33.021+00:00Speaking of God, a Response<p class="MsoNormal">Dear Readers,</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Thank you for reading, and commenting; I appreciate your thoughts.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That being said, let me tear them apart, and I’ll do so in a post rather than a comment because Blogger insists that my response violates the character limit, despite my strongest protestations. Please do not see this as an attempt to exercise a greater degree of power over you. Rather understand that I feel very strongly about this topic and want to continue to discuss the issue without limiting my reply, and I hope that you will continue to post your ideas and responses, particularly when they conflict with mine.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Actually, I whole-heartedly agree that (a) the religions are significantly enough different from each other that despite a shared origin, they have plenty to disagree about; (b) Peace Corps volunteers use language in far more complicated ways than the average "normal;" and (c) many uses of the word "Allah" are done with the intention of showing solidarity with the Islamic community.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">What I want to address, however, is what I think is a misunderstanding of my purpose in using so many different languages - "linguistic elitism."<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I'm not entirely sure what that even means, but I certainly never claimed that people shouldn't use their native languages to speak with others of different linguistic traditions.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Girls from a [nedi neswi] ("women's association" for non-volunteers) can - and should - greet foreign guests as "Hello my sister" or "bonjour ma soeur" or whatever.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I'm raising the issue that they should not say "Hello ma soeur."<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I don't really care, however, if people want to mix their language around in innocuous settings, such as concerning the word "sister," "house," or "director."<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I'm talking about significant political issues, such as God and religion.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My use of the Arabic alphabet is not to say that people need to read Arabic to speak it, but rather to show that the Arabic word that transliterates as [allah] is appropriately used in the context of speaking Arabic, not English.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I whole-heartedly encourage all volunteers to say [allah] as a part of the many Darija "God phrases" when greeting their Moroccan friends.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I certainly do, and I am neither Christian, Muslim, nor Jewish, either (in fact, I'm not even atheistic - I don't particularly care one way or another if there is or is not a supreme being).<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I'm speaking about the political baggage of the words "God" and "Allah" as they are manifested in English.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Christians and Muslims have vastly different beliefs of the desires of God, but so too do Catholics and Protestants.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Even Episcopalians, Catholicism's closest Protestant relatives, scoff at Transubstantiation, Original Sin, and the Pope.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We don't say "Catholic God Concept bless your heart."<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Judaism and Islam are greatly similar in many of their practices, such as dress and eating regulations (Christians have essentially none of these, excepting Fridays and Lent for some) to name a few.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The point I'm making is that we don't tell our Jewish friends "Allah will be pleased" they didn't eat that bacon cheeseburger even though Islamic theology similarly forbids pork.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We also don't use "Yahweh" when we speak with them, nor do the majority of English-speaking Jews.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I'm trying to point out the irregularity of accepting Judaism as "same" within in the Christian-majority English community while continuing to label Islam as "other."<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They're either both on the inside or both on the outside.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Nor do I intend to imply that volunteers should necessarily know about the interrelationship of the Abrahamic faiths.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I'm chastising my colleagues for encouraging the perception that the Islamic "God" is separate from that of Judeo-Christianity.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>A volunteer claiming that they use "Allah" rather than "God" as an English word because they appreciate the subtleties of the language makes me think of a parallel.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Supposing we had been Teaching for America in some inner city school instead?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We'd do what we could to integrate into our student community, including adopting their "language," and so when I speak with my fellow volunteers, I would tell them about the amusing anecdote provided in class by of my niggas.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Well, maybe I wouldn't.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s not that I don't wish we lived in a world where everyone understood that I was using the colloquial definition of "friend or compatriot;" it's just that we don't.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Until then I’m arguing it's best to include Muslims within our monotheistic community rather than exclude them, and that acknowledging our shared tradition with the same word for the same meaning is greater than hoping for others to appreciate my culturally-sensitive nuance.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Finally, a Darijian transliteration of "hope to see you after you cross the big pond" would be: "entemna enshofek fesh doozti addaya kebira.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>inshallah."</p>duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-91017129031195491012010-02-22T21:02:00.011+00:002010-03-03T21:33:34.826+00:00Speaking of GodWith your indulgence, I’m going to rant for a little bit.<div><br /> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Before I do, however, we need to have a short chat about the differences between translation, transliteration, and inter-linguistic borrowing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Translation is a way of explaining an idea expressed in a word or words of one language with a word or words of another language, transliteration is the expression of a word written in one alphabet as it would sound when written with a different alphabet, and inter-linguistic borrowing is taking the word or words for a foreign or new idea from the language in which it or they were created and using them (transliterated, if necessary) in the context of a different language.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I tell you this because my tirade intends to cross several languages and at times to harangue particularly on the evils of transliteration.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Unfortunately, however, not all of my audience is as multi-alphabetical as I am, and for their benefit, I will occasionally be forced to do that which I am about to condemn, and so I want to make it very clear from the beginning that this is done strictly for the ease of you, the reader.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That being said let us now establish a few necessary conventions.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>All translations will be done with quotations (though not all quotations will indicate translations – use your common sense), and all transliterations will be done in brackets, and they will have none of the other protocols of the English language, such as capitalization.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The transliterated alphabet will be one of my own creation and constructed in such a way as I feel will be the most beneficial to normal people who speak English and don’t care about the International Phonetic Alphabet.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Let us continue.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Islamic theology tells us that there are 99 names for God – though I’ve been told there may be more (99 being particularly pleasing from an aesthetic point of view) – but, for the moment, I’m only concerned with one: God.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In Arabic, this would be written as <span lang="AR-SA" dir="RTL" style="font-size:14.0pt;">الله</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-size:14.0pt;"><span dir="LTR"></span> </span>[allah].<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It is the combination of two “words” (one is really more of a prefix): <span lang="AR-SA" dir="RTL" style="font-size:14.0pt;">ال</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> [al], the definite article (“the”), and <span lang="AR-SA" dir="RTL" style="font-size:14.0pt;">الاه</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> [illeh], meaning “deity.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Islam was established largely as a reaction against the polytheistic religion of the Arabs, particularly as practiced in Mecca, and thus “the deity” is as much a word as it is a declaration of monotheistic belief.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This is because the Arabic alphabet (unlike that of the Romans) has no rules for capitalization.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In English, we can identify a proper noun by its beginning with a capital letter.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Take, for example, the city of New York.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We know it’s a unique entity by virtue of its capitalization.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If we wrote “new york,” we’d be left wondering (a) why is has no article (whether it’s <i>a</i> new one or <i>the</i> new one) and (b) what the hell a york even is.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There are times when we use the articles and capital letters, which have their own rules.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>How about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Obviously, this is a very special place, thus necessitating the capital letters, but we still need our definite article because we don’t want to be confused with other gardens, particularly other hanging gardens located elsewhere or other non-hanging gardens found in Babylon.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Arabic speakers don’t have the same luxury.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Instead, through a combined use of their definite article and contextual clues, they’ll know if they’re talking about the city of New York, or the most recent of yorks to enter the discussion.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And now that we have a clear understanding of what’s going on with the word <span lang="AR-SA" dir="RTL" style="font-size:14.0pt;">الله</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>, we can move on to the much more important matter at hand: there is no word “Allah.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I appreciate that this might be a little confusing of an assertion, so I’ll break it down. This: <span lang="AR-SA" dir="RTL" style="font-size:14.0pt;">الله</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="AR-SA"><span dir="LTR"></span> </span>is a word; this: “Allah” is not.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Why?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The first is probably the most important – certainly the most frequently used – word in the Arabic language.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The reason the second is not a word is because this would be an English (or other Roman alphabet-using language) word, and those languages already have a word for this. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In English, that word is “God.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But what does “God” mean?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s a question for the ages, and I will answer it right now.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“God,” by virtue of its being capitalized, is a proper noun, and – more importantly – because it is not preceded by an article, is therefore representative of a singular entity.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We could talk about “a god” (such as: “in summer I resemble a bronzed god”), or “the God” (such as: “Ra is the Sun God of Egyptian mythology).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The indefinite article (“a”) requires that the following word begin with a lower-cased letter, whereas the “g” of “the Sun God” is capitalized because there is only one Ra, but he resides amongst a company of deities.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But we’re talking about “God” in its unarticled form, which must necessarily mean the chief deity of a monotheistic religion.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Which religion?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Technically speaking, an adherent of any monotheistic religion, whether it be Christianity, Judaism, Islam, the Church of the Fonz, or any of a host of other real and imaginary religions should – when speaking English – use the word “God” to label his or her Supreme Being, unless, of course, they feel that such has a more feminine character, in which case they should use “Goddess.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Fortunately, however, languages are organic inventions rather than discoveries, and thus we can determine the meaning of “God” by noting that the development of the English language has been closely linked with the development of the Christian religion.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Therefore, “God” should be understood as “the deity of the Abrahamic monotheistic religion.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We make a point of saying “Abrahamic” because, despite English’s close historical ties with Christianity (or, perhaps I should say the close historical relationship between Christianity and the people who have spoken and developed the English language), we acknowledge that there are other faiths that claim the same origins.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Judaism is an excellent example.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We can see that “God” as a word (being an English word) was created to meet the needs of Christians in expressing the Over-Being of their religion, but as Christianity descends from the faith of the Jews (according to Christian dogma), the word has come to identify the Creator of the Universe as identified by Abraham, the wellspring from which proceed both these religions.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Which brings us back to the problem of “Allah.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We’ve already given it the translation of “the deity,” but as “the deity” could suggest many possible meanings, a more functional translation would be “the single omnipotent deity that created and controls the universe.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Islam is, after all, a monotheistic religion.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Most people take <span lang="AR-SA" dir="RTL" style="font-size:14.0pt;">الله</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>, transliterate it as [allah], and then install it in the English language through inter-linguistic borrowing as “Allah,” but that’s the problem because it doesn’t only mean “the Supreme Being of monotheistic religion.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Arabic is just as linked to the culture of its speakers as English is, and thus their deity concept is linked to the major religion of the Arabs: Islam.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Islam is a monotheistic religion, and, according to its doctrine, began when Abraham was instructed to proclaim his faith in one true god.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Therefore, when an Arabic-speaking Muslim says the word “<span lang="AR-SA" dir="RTL" style="font-size:14.0pt;">الله</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>,” what he means is “the deity of the Abrahamic monotheistic religion,” and, as we’ve seen, English already has a word for this: “God.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I hope you’ve enjoyed this lively little journey through academic linguistics as much as I have, because now we need to get serious.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I would like to propose that saying “Allah” in the context of English is not only linguistically incorrect, it is a socially-condoned hate crime.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Here’s the thing: why should you use one word as opposed to another?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Sometimes, this would be to avoid repetition in a piece of writing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We all know how boring it is when people write boring writing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Other times, it’s because we need to illustrate a difference.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Even such words as “huge” and “gargantuan,” though they’re grouped as synonyms, aren’t quite the same.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That’s often because of either differences in how frequently we use a word, or because we associate one or another with a certain idea or event.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So which is it?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Well, as for lexicological variation, that’s pretty much already taken care of.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We have “God,” “the Almighty,” “the Creator,” “Lord,” “the Eternal,” and a host of other superlatives for labeling the Supreme Being.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Conveniently, so too does Arabic.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>These are the 99 other names.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And, anyway, we tend to restrict our use of thesauri to common words.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Names and other proper nouns don’t get changed quite as much.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The majority of people would probably say that “Allah” is an English word as a result of inter-linguistic borrowing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Now, inter-linguistic borrowing is a wonderful thing, particularly as it allows us to simplify our expression of what would otherwise be very complicated ideas.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No one wants to say “traditional Moroccan earthenware cooking pots” when they have the option of using “tagines,” or “various assortments of raw fish and rice dishes native to Japanese cuisine” when they could simply say “sushi.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But inter-linguistic borrowing doesn’t work when the language already has the ability to express that idea.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We can’t take “<i>fromage</i>” from the French because we already have “cheese,” and we can’t transliterate and incorporate <span lang="AR-SA" dir="RTL" style="font-size:14.0pt;">من</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> [man] from Farsi because we already say “I.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Let’s belabor the point with another example.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>One of the great benefits of being an American is our close proximity to Mexico, and, by extension, burritos.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Burrito” is an English word as a result of inter-linguistic borrowing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Why?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Well, what is a burrito?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s a delicious center of meats, vegetables, sauces, or whatever else you might desire enveloped within a bread product that not only contains everything else, but also facilitates the burrito’s being eaten with the hands.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>English has a word that generally encompasses the same idea: a “sandwich.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Is a burrito a sandwich?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I don’t think so, and I don’t think you think so, either.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If they were the same, then, of course, we wouldn’t bother with “burrito” (never mind how much fun it is to roll your Rs), but they aren’t, and so, as with “huge” and “gargantuan,” we kindly thanked our Mexican friends and snatched their word.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">On the other hand, “<i>bandera</i>” is not an English word.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Why not?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We have flags.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We have flags for our countries, states, businesses, sports teams, holidays, and just about everything else.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Well, that’s the problem.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We already have them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>To say “bandera” would imply a minimum of some difference – some slightly new construction that isn’t quite captured by “flag” – but there just isn’t any.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The same applies to “Allah” and “God.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If they have the exact same meaning, then we can’t use different words, but we do anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Why?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This is an age of great closeness between peoples who in the past had little interaction between each other, and, now that globalization has thrust us upon each other, we see great differences between ourselves and these “new” societies.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The practice of Islam is quite different from the Judeo-Christianity that our culture is familiar with, therefore we naturally assume that the Islamic God concept is equally different.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>To say “Allah” is to say “the god of the Muslims” or “their god, not ours.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Despite the fact that when Muslims pray they do in fact invoke a name that is phonetically completely unlike that of either Christians or Jews, to say that they worship a separate deity is simply incorrect.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The problem with difference, is that it makes us treat each other differently, and it’s only when we see one another as similar that we put down the shields of fear and dislike.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Allah” encourages division and separateness between peoples who should – now more than ever – be doing everything they can to highlight their commonalities, and there is none more important than a shared belief in the same supreme power.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And that’s the offense, so now we must ask ourselves, who are the offenders?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As alluded to, there are a great many closed-minded fools making a mess of our world, but, perhaps even more tragically, there are far too many well-intentioned people essentially doing the same thing.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Let’s start to correct this evil with a grossly over-simplified example.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>First, allow me to prove that “God” is not, in fact, the universal name of God.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We need only look just south of the Rio Grande (or, in many cases, north of it), to hear the pious invoking the benediction of “<i>Dios</i>.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Is this some new religion, coincidentally practiced only in places that speak Spanish?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Is it a breakaway sect in Spain that, due to its Castilian lisp, demands that they direct their praise towards “Dioth?”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What of the French and their insistence on worshipping <i>Dieu</i>?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Have they not received the Word?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Granted, you might be a particularly bigoted Protestant, so let’s take a quick look at some of the predominately Protestant societies.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When the Germans and Danes go to church, they pray to <i>Gott</i> or <i>Gud</i> (respectively).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They’re probably just pronouncing it wrong.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Obviously, no.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Nor is this the case on the Islamic side.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>A faithful Persian will speak of <span lang="AR-SA" dir="RTL" style="font-size:14.0pt;">خدا</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> ([khoda]), just as an Arab would of <span lang="AR-SA" dir="RTL" style="font-size:14.0pt;">الله</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Which begs an even more important question: what of the Arab Christians?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Just as we’d expect to hear “<i>Dios</i>” at the local church’s services <i>en Español</i>, it’s only natural to assume that the 40% of Lebanon’s population who ascribe to Christianity (and the majority of the Lebanese Diaspora) would also use their native language in their own services.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“<span lang="AR-SA" dir="RTL" style="font-size:14.0pt;">الله اكبر</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>” ([allahu akbar]; “God is the greatest”).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Not even the thumpingest denizen of the Bible Belt could argue the point on dogmatic grounds.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So why do we so frequently insist on shifting languages when we talk of different religions?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And who are “we,” anyway?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Well, my first culprits are my fellow Peace Corps volunteers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s most likely a product of how we use God so much more when we’re speaking Darija than we ever dreamed of in the course of our English-speaking lives, but that’s no excuse for breeding ignorance.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Everything is fine with me today, <span lang="AR-SA" dir="RTL" style="font-size:14.0pt;">الحمد الله</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>” [alhamdullah] (“thank God”); “Please help me, <span lang="AR-SA" dir="RTL" style="font-size:14.0pt;">الله يرحم الوليدين</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>”<span style="font-size:14.0pt;"> </span>[allah i-erhem l-wellideen] (“God bless your parents”); “I’ll see you in class tomorrow, <span lang="AR-SA" dir="RTL" style="font-size:14.0pt;">ان شاء الله</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>” [inshallah] (“God willing”).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We invoke God on an almost constant basis, and, since our English is no longer free from the clutches of Moroccan Arabic, this continues in our discussions with each other.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Now, let’s not think that I’ve got anything against inter-linguistic borrowing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The God concept coming from the highly fatalistic Arab/Islamic society, doesn’t have the same connotations as the Western/Christian perception of a relatively <i>laissez-faire</i> monotheism (ie. God set the world turning and then sat back to enjoy the show), and so when we say “God willing,” it’s likely to imply “I hope the preceding occurs, though it will likely require an act of divine intervention.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“<span lang="AR-SA" dir="RTL" style="font-size:14.0pt;">ان شاء الله</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>,” by contrast, suggests that all events occur as written by God, therefore whether I see you tomorrow or not is a decision made by far higher powers than my own.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Depending on the implication I want to give, I can say either “God willing” or “<span lang="AR-SA" dir="RTL" style="font-size:14.0pt;">ان شاء الله</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“<span lang="AR-SA" dir="RTL" style="font-size:14.0pt;">الله</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="AR-SA"><span dir="LTR"></span> </span>willing” and “God <span lang="AR-SA" dir="RTL" style="font-size:14.0pt;">ان شاء</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span>,” however, are unacceptable translations.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When you borrow inter-linguistically, you borrow the whole phrase.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s not just Peace Corps volunteers, however, nor is it only Americans or Christians who are to blame.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_Yusuf">Sami Yusuf</a>, “Islam’s biggest rock star” according to <i>Time</i>, is another.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In his mega-hit “Hasbi Rabbi” Sami travels around the world to profess his faith and highlight the peacefulness of Islam.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He hits Britain, Turkey, India, and Egypt in his four verses, each of which is sung in the local language. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Thus the song begins in English, and his first words are:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">O Allah the Almighty<br />Protect me and guide me<br />To your love and mercy<br />Ya Allah don't deprive me<br />From beholding your beauty<br />O my Lord accept this plea</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">He gets his translating right at the end, and in the fourth line he switches languages for a quick shot of Arabic (“ya” is the Arabic expression for “I’m talking to you” or “O”), but that doesn’t really matter as he starts it off wrong right from the start (and proceeds to make the same mistake again throughout the rest of the song).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Of course, Sami’s intention is to express the profundity of his faith, and his music and lifework is an example for all of the harmony possible between members of different religions, but he nonetheless encourages the perpetuation of division between the faiths.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He, like Peace Corps volunteers, should know better.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Which is ultimately the crux of the matter. It's not just an issue of being politically correct; it's a question of being correct or incorrect. It's a matter of choosing our words in a way that encourages understanding, in a way that declares to the world in a unified voice that Christians, Jews, and Muslims have a shared heritage - whether they like it or not. I'm not here to question the existence of God or the relative merits of different religions. Those are questions for better or worse (respectively) minds than my own. I'm simply here to say that we need to stop telling our Spanish friends to "<i>vaya con</i> God," to stop yelling "<i>Dieu im Himmel</i>" when something startles us in Berlin, and to help our Persian friends when they tell us "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">خدا</span> be with you" when they say goodbye. "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">خدا حافظ</span>" [khoda hafez] is the appropriate expression.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">It’s time to learn how to speak your language, people.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p></div>duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-49387500300265546842010-01-28T22:53:00.003+00:002010-01-29T00:04:43.443+00:00On the Old Country<p class="MsoNormal">People say you can never go home.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This has, for some time, been somewhat worrisome of a thought for me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You see, despite how happy I may be with my decision to join the Peace Corps, I’ve always planned on my time here ending at the appointed 27-month mark (give-or-take a month of gallivanting about the continent), and then continuing along the natural course of my life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And so it was no small amount of sleep lost considering that this might be it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It appears, however, that these declarations are blatant lies, as I proved once and for all on December 24<sup>th</sup>, 2009, at some un-Godly hour of the night when I walked out the front door of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I never intended to come back to the States when I first joined with the Peace Corps.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It seemed to me like a waste of both money and vacation time, and I liked to joke to my friends here that I had no need to go back and see my family – they should come here and see Morocco.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Certain events transpired, though, that brought me home.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>First, no one wanted to come to Morocco, thus negating my very witty first policy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I looked next to taking a trip with Salma to Europe (the Mexico of Morocco), but, international time zones and the rotation of the earth being what they are, several days of very scant vacation time would have been lost in transit.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The same proved true of Central and South America (the Mexico of Mexico), and costs were simply far too high to justify the irrational desire to not be in America.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">By that time my brother was getting really close to having a <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/w7rvTAXoljYlfLPVLJidcA?feat=directlink">baby</a> and requested gently but firmly that I not add another stress to the house, and I didn’t really want to have to deal with the constant repetitions of “so, what I’ve been doing in Morocco.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(A note on telling my friends what I’ve been doing in Morocco: I’m sorry I didn’t call and chat; I honestly just didn’t want to talk about work.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If I may follow my apology with a subtle accusation, however, my preferred way of telling you what I’ve been doing would be to show you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You know what I mean.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But Salma saved Christmas at the last minute, saying that she needed to go to Birmingham and wouldn’t mind spending her vacation in Georgia.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My other brother, Gordon (henceforth referred to as “Gordo” to avoid any confusion with the many other Gordons of the US Peace Corps), trucked down as well, and it turned out that my old pal <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/_vRQU5lKI12zsexcJ7OQRw?feat=directlink">Bob</a> (see August 26<sup>th</sup>, 2009, <a href="http://moroccanroller.blogspot.com/2009/08/you-cant-spell-tunisia-without-word-tun.html">“You Can’t Spell ‘Tunisia’ without the Word ‘Tun’”</a>) was in Savannah.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And so I spent a relaxing five days in Atlanta, punctuated by a three day cruise through Birmingham and Savannah, and a final fufurah in Atlanta before going back where I came from.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Most of the details of which are largely uninteresting, and that’s not what I came here to talk about.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I came to tell you about how a lot of volunteers have warned me about going back to America.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Don’t do it,” they said.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“You don’t want to tempt yourself with all those things you missed before you finish with your service.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They worry about the freedom of driving, Mexican food, easy access to a wide variety of breakfast cereals, central air, and family Christmas parties, and, to be honest, they have reason to.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>These are some of our greatest advances our society has made in the last century, and there’s nothing like a 16-month stint away from home to prove it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But, in the end, they were wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Not about the great civilizational wonders of America – believe me, I ate as many asiago cheese bagels as a person physically can in twelve days – but about its uniqueness.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My latest discovery, and what I’d like to share with you now, is this: Morocco = America.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">One thing that drives me crazy about living in Morocco (probably not specific to Morocco, just a product of being someplace other than America) is when people – Moroccans – tell me how great everything is in the States.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Sure we’ve got it going on (though not without our own problems), but it’s the way they say this that gets my goat.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s always in the context of “America is great and things don’t work in Morocco.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This self-abuse drives me crazy, especially as it’s patently false.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It all began on the flight out.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>At the airport in Casablanca, I was given a final taste of the chaotic fire drill that is “queuing.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The airline wanted to call passengers according to their seat rows, the passengers wanted to cram into the gate like 13-year-old girls five minutes late to a Hannah Montana concert.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Somehow, the airline managed to enforce their order, which only really resulted in people whose turn it wasn’t standing there in the gate preventing the admittance of those passengers whose turn it was.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>A lot of frustration was voiced and a lot of knowing glances were exchanged.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Welcome to Morocco; we hope you enjoyed your stay.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I just read a book and waited for the end of the line to come around eventually.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Big deal, right?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You should have seen Paris, specifically, the insanity that occurred at gate 25E at around 6 PM on December 24<sup>th</sup>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I kid you not, not only did no one pay attention to what rows were being called (so much so that the flight crew eventually abandoned all hope of boarding passengers in any semblance of order), but I swear that I saw several people cut the ticket check completely and just walk on to the plane.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Another dude held up the entire process by trying to bribe the Delta sales representative to upgrade his ticket, and it took significantly longer for us to get on board than it did in Casablanca.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Of course, we could blame the French, but judging from people’s accents, I’d say that the vast majority were Americans. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Who else would want to go to Atlanta?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I can answer that question in part: three other people from Morocco.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In a coincidence of coincidences, this couple that I happened to notice waiting to check-in in Casablanca happened to be riding on my plane, and happened to ask if I would switch seats with one so they could sit together.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Of course, I replied yes, but, being the charmer that I am, I did in Arabic.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They were shocked, so we got to talking, and talking led to occasional advice on in-flight entertainment, and occasional advice on in-flight entertainment built the foundation for explanation of the customs form, which eventually brought on guiding them and their friend through immigration and being asked to step forward as a translator, all of which inevitably allowed me to feel as though I’d made the slightest of down payments on all the hospitality the Moroccan people have shown me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It also meant that I took about two hours coming out of the airport.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And now that I’d arrived, I couldn’t help but start making comparisons between my life and my other life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Gordo showed up in town the next day, and since I was driving (my car, the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/JmQ6d2YHHjMsuV2hS1MsYw?feat=directlink">Space Capsule</a>, was waiting for me in Atlanta), my brother necessarily wanted nothing to do with choice of radio.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Usually, this is a problem, as neither of us is really crazy about Georgia’s taste in music, but not this time.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He just powered up his phone, jacked it into the car stereo, logged onto Pandora, and we could listen to as much of the wuss rock garbage he loves as we wanted.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There have been so many times when I’ve wanted to tell you about how hilarious it is to see guys walking around in Morocco with their cell phones turned into mp3 players playing the latest <i>sha’abia</i> hits.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s just one of those things that catches you off guard and makes you smile (or, conversely, drives you nuts in a bus or train car or cyber café or restaurant); it’s the Moroccan ghetto blaster of the new millennium, and Gordo was doing the same thing.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Pretty soon into my stay it became apparent that my usual Peace Corps shabbiness wasn’t going to fly with the family, and I went to get my hair cut.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Of course, I had spent the whole day putting it off, so it was just about evening by the time we pulled up at the barbershop.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I opened the door; the guy looked up, and said they were closed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Gordo asked when they were open the next day (until six, like always), and I checked what time it was.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was 5:30.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Granted, there was only one guy working and he probably didn’t want to take on two heads a half hour before closing, but I wasn’t really thinking about that.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was thinking about how many times have I gone to the post office or police station or school or ministry office, been told that whoever I wanted to meet wasn’t there or some other reason why I’d have to come back another time, and had a Moroccan counterpart of mine start bemoaning the Kingdom’s “lack of work ethic.” <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And every time I try – unsuccessfully, for the most part – to argue “dude, this laziness is everywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Everyone’s trying to cut corners.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I only wish Ali had been there to see it.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">To be honest, though, it wasn’t until Salma came down to Georgia that I knew I was still in Morocco.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She’s on her way to residency in Birmingham, so she wanted to get to know the city.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Unfortunately, we only had a day in Alabama, so in making the most of our time, we made a stop at the Birmingham Tourist and Information Center.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s a good thing Salma’s already been to Morocco, or else she’d have been freaking out.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was business as usual for me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The guy was really cool and we ended up talking with him for probably an hour.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Sure, having endless conversations with complete strangers is pretty Moroccan, but that’s not where he showed his real Green and Red.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was when we were leaving and I had a few lapel pins I wanted to buy as gifts for friends back here.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He gave me this look as if to say “do you seriously think I’m going ring up less than four dollars worth of Birmingham-themed souvenirs?”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He then proceeded to say pretty much the same and I argued the point, but like every time that happens here, I didn’t end up winning.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Thank you,” was all I could say.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">That wasn’t good enough.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We looked like nice folks, he said, so he reached under the counter and pulled out what Salma and I still aren’t convinced wasn’t his lunch, and gave us each a roll of Life Savers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It couldn’t have been two weeks earlier that I had gone to visit my closest volunteer neighbor, and, seeing as how it was December, we decided to cook spaghetti.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But you need oregano for that, which – as we’ve discussed – isn’t as readily available in Morocco as you’d hope, so we had to do a little hunting.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Fortunately, there was a guy who has a store near his house that is undoubtedly a fence for stolen goods, and, mixed in among the stereo systems, woven reed handicrafts, and dates was a selection of uncommon spices.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He had oregano, but it was at his house.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He could get some, though, and when we asked when we could come back and get some, he replied by leaving the two of us in his shop for about twenty minutes and going home.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This was incredibly nice of him, but then he insisted that our money was no good, which was not only incredibly nice but also incredibly unnecessary.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We weren’t going to win the argument, but at least we could stay and chat and say things like “if we’re ever in the market for children’s car seats or microwave ovens, we’ll be back to see you.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He wanted to show us all the other irregular spices he had in stock, including various cure-alls from the desert and tea blends.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>By the time we were able to leave, we not only had more than enough oregano for a year’s worth of running an Italian restaurant, but also a bag of dates and an assortment of healing teas, hand-mixed by our new friend.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Obviously, this guy had been to Birmingham before.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m not sure if I’d ever been there before, though, but Birmingham has long been famous in my family for one reason and one reason only: the Golden Rule.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The Golden Rule barbeque is the gold standard for my family.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My grandfather, when he was still living in New Orleans, would drive the four or five hours out of the way to the Birmingham airport every time he flew just to have lunch at the Golden Rule.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Obviously, Salma and I went, and this is why I’m unconvinced I’ve ever eaten there before because I don’t expect to forget it any time soon.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And it was while we were eating that I realized unnecessarily far I’d traveled to be in the same place.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They didn’t even bring silverware to the table.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or if they did, we certainly didn’t use it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And then I remembered how the night before at my dad’s house he’d thrown a big seafood party for all of us being there with lobsters, crab legs, shrimp, and everything else you eat with your <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/gl0HLe_XoY-pJl_T96kbfA?feat=directlink">hands</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The only difference between what we were doing and what goes on in Morocco – as Salma put it – was that I was a lot better at keeping my hands clean than everyone else.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Right before I left, all my Moroccan friends were making fun of me because I’d have to remember how to eat with a knife and fork again in America.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And of course, it being the South, all I ever had to drink was sweet tea.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Clearly, my sixteen months in Morocco was the exact preparation I needed for two weeks with my family, but I did fail in one area.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Just like on my way out here the first time, I thought to myself, “Georgia?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Alabama?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Well, I definitely don’t need to pack my warm clothes.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You’d think that after all the cold and bone-itis (see December 31<sup>st</sup>, 2008, <a href="http://moroccanroller.blogspot.com/2008/12/bone-itis.html">“Bone-itis”</a>) of Morocco I’d know better than going anywhere without long underwear, but old habits die hard.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was freezing the whole time, and to make matters worse, I never ended up getting to take a decent shower at any of the places we stayed because the hot water was always gone by the time I got in.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I might as well have been taking a bucket shower.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And so why do I bother writing all this if America and Morocco really are <i>bhal bhal</i> (the same)?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’ll tell you why.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I know that a lot of volunteers are starting to get nervous about going back home.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They’re scared about reverse culture shock and forgetting their language (Arabic and English) and forgetting the names of their extended family members stateside, and I want to say, “Don’t be.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Sure, they have big supermarkets and early morning infomercials and unnecessarily complicated table manners, but don’t forget about your Peace Corps training.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Besides, if the southeastern United States is any indication of the rest of the country, you don’t need to worry about going home.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You’re already there.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-44645058450224598002009-12-21T00:44:00.004+00:002009-12-22T23:54:28.353+00:009 Everyday Things<p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal">There are a lot of things that I do everyday – that I also did everyday back in the States – that really aren’t the same.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I haven’t talked about them, though, because they’re ordinary to me now, and we don’t very often think to talk about the things we take for granted.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’ve had some guests come visit lately, and it’s made me realize just how different some of these things were to my American self when I too first got here.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Here’s a sample:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">1 – Traditionally, when I wanted to buy something, I would go to a store that I knew carried the product (possibly after having done some research into where such a place might be), locate the item in question, examine its quality, perform a sort of economic calculation of its price and the price of not purchasing it, and then act on that decision.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You probably do something similar, and, to be fair, a lot of that’s also the same here in Morocco – but not all of it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>At no point in all this is the step “spend 5-50 minutes bantering with the merchant about how although it’s beautiful (whatever it is), it’s just entirely impossible for me to buy it at that price, unless, God protect him, he can lower the price, most likely by two thirds or more.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Fortunately, however, you can usually find more of the same product in the generally immediate area.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Some people criticize the Moroccan marketplace for its tendency to lump all the rugs together, or the jelabas, or the hardware stores, but it makes shopping so much easier.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Since you’re likely to have to see three or four merchants of the same product to find one who’ll give you a reasonable price, it certainly helps if you don’t have to walk across town in the process.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">2 – I’d say that most Americans consider doing their laundry to be a “chore.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You have to collect the dirty clothes, sort them by color and fabric and washing process, take them to the washing machine, put them in the machine with the appropriate detergents, softeners, starches, and scents, turn on the machine, come back a half-hour later and put them into the dryer, add the necessary anti-static cling products or wooden paddles to beat the clothing into submission, wait another hour or so until it’s dry, and then fold.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s a complicated process with very little credit, and, if you’re unlucky enough, you might have to pay a machine for the privilege of doing all of the above.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Sr9AAwGc9u5pAK24G-QDLA?feat=directlink">Washing clothes</a> is a lot easier out here.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>All you need to do is grab a couple giant tubs capable of holding 5-10 gallons of liquid, fill them water, laundry detergent, and as much clothing as possible, and then (if you’re me) spend the next hour-and-a-half manhandling them aggressively and using Buddhist meditations to convince yourself that the stains are going to come out.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You have one basin for soapy water and another for rinsing, and you don’t have to worry about the dryer at all since there aren’t any – you just put everything up to air dry.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There are times, however, when I feel a little nostalgic for all the nonsense involved in American washing, particularly when I’m lugging a 70-pound tub of water from the bathroom to the living room or when I’m flaying my hands with granulated Tide detergent or the two straight months of winter when the sun doesn’t come out preventing me from drying clothes and thus being completely unable to wash at all.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s times like that when I feel like I could find the mental and physical strength to turn some dials and carry a laundry hamper to the basement and back again.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">3 – Social commentators in America like to tell us about how much time we spend waiting in lines, and there are those guys who’ll just start standing in a line on the street simply to get other more sheep-like people to fall in line behind them without even knowing what the wait’s for.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They probably have a point; Morocco would have a much harder time getting it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The streets of Morocco are lined with storefronts, and the economy is such that they attract pretty good traffic, but, unlike most storefronts back home, it’s the minority that you actually walk into in Morocco.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You’re standard convenience store is set up so that you walk right to the counter that opens on the street, tell the guy what you want, and then he gets it for you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s very efficient, and absolutely second nature once you get used to it, except for one thing: there are no cash register lanes to get into when you’re ready to go – there’s usually no cash register at all.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s just a counter, which doesn’t really have a “paying” or a “just browsing” end, and the owner is running around getting things for people, so there’s no way of really creating a “line.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This, I believe, is the origins of the informal “no lines policy” in Morocco.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It doesn’t matter who got there first, or who’s already talking to the salesman, or who’s trying to do something complicated or who’s just got a really simple transaction.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Everyone just goes up to the guy, tells him what they want, and let him figure out how to please all his customers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There are a few exceptions, of course, like the bank and the post office.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If it’s really busy, people have to “line up” by putting their business on the counter, usually in the form of their national identity card.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s hard enough for us newcomers to be defensive shoppers at a regular corner store; it’s terrifying to plop your passport down on the counter and be left only to pray it’s still there when you it’s your turn after being crowded away by another hundred people doing the same.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The irony, though, is that despite how frustrating it is to come from a society where you’re bred to patiently wait your turn and find yourself blocking off the old lady from getting her bread and eggs before you, you can’t really side with the people who joke about “Moroccan lines.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In reality, and once you figure out how to work in the system, the majority of time everyone’s being served.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The guy will be getting money from one person while finding cigarettes for another and planning the quickest way to the milk cooler to fill your order.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>All at the same time.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">4 – If you dig deep enough, almost everyone has some sort of special talent.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Some people can juggle or do bird calls, while others can actually solve a Rubik’s Cube without the use of magic markers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My skill is finding money on the ground.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s pretty much an innate ability; my grandfather was the same way.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’ve done a few parties and small charity events, and get the occasional emergency call about lost keys, and I can tell you that I have never in my life been in a place with so little lost change as Morocco.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In fact, in my sixteen months in this country I have found exactly two coins on the ground.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>One was a 5 centime coin, the only one I have ever seen, and the lowest denomination possible in the Kingdom.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And I can only count that on a technicality, as it has no practical monetary value at all.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There is no price tag in all of Morocco that has a value in the hundredth’s place after its decimal.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’ve talked about this change problem of mine with other volunteers, and I’ve heard surprisingly similar accounts from across the country.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No one has any plausible explanation, though there are theories.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Some claim that the atomic density of the Atlas limestone creates a reverse magnetic field which resists metallic change, others that Moroccans are generally more conscientious about their coins.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The debate will certainly not be resolved anytime soon.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">5 – There is no topic more discussed, nor event more feared by newly arrived trainees, than using the bathroom in Morocco.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Morocco is a meeting ground of cultures, and in no area is this more readily apparent than her toilets.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s certainly possible to find the Western sitting toilets that we’re so used to, but this is certainly not the norm.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Much more likely (practically guaranteed outside of tourist restaurants and hotels) are the Turkish style, the “Turk” or “Turkish Delight” in colloquial language.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/8vzVMKExZVvm7mdKEt3gfQ?feat=directlink">The Turkish toilet</a> is an incredibly efficient machine.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s merely a ceramic plate with two raised platforms to interface with the user’s feet and a sloped basin leading to the simplest plumbing imaginable: a hole.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There are no complicating levers or seat hinges, nor inscrutable floating devices in the back tank.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Flushing is as easy as pouring a bucket with water down the hole and letting the pipes dispose of the evidence, and since it’s shameful for people to hear what you’re doing in there, you can fill the bucket to cover the sound while you’re working.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s the Spartan ideal of toilet technology, though it does clash with our American bathroom hedonism.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Whereas we have whole department stores devoted solely to the beautification of the bath and specialists trained to maximize the toilet-tub-sink aesthetic, the Moroccan restroom is more closely related to a political prison.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We can agree on its importance in society, but that doesn’t mean we want to go there or talk about it, and we clean it only whenever we think someone from the outside might come by for a surprise inspection.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But that doesn’t happen very often, most likely because no one wants to deal with the embarrassment of asking someone else to use their bathroom.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In fact, a friend says the kids in her town don’t drink water specifically so that they won’t have to ask for the facilities while visiting a friend’s house.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And this could have something to do with the fact that my Turk is a lot more work than your Western.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There’s no where to sit, so you’ve got to squat the whole time, which is great for your calves, but not so good for instilling a sense of relaxing tranquility.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And you certainly can’t read the newspaper.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">6 – Did you ever find yourself needing to just run over to a friend’s house for a quick second to take care of some business or another?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Pop by to say hello while you’re on the way somewhere else?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I feel like that all the time; unfortunately, that’s pretty much impossible for me here.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I would say that Morocco has a pretty communal culture – particularly in comparison with what I’ve grown accustomed to in America – and visiting friends and relatives is a fairly important part of the social contract.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Especially during holidays.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Ironically, though, that’s when it becomes the biggest problem.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Let’s say that you’re an American Peace Corps volunteer living in a small Moroccan town on Eid Seghir (the “small holiday” – or Eid al-Fitr in standard Arabic – the end of Ramadan).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>On Eid Seghir there are two things you do: eat and visit.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But you’re connected all across your town, and have people everywhere who’ve helped you in innumerable ways throughout the year without asking for anything in return.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You pretty much have to visit them all, so you do, which isn’t a problem since they’re your friends and you like them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s just that you’re running on a really tight schedule because you’ve got about thirty key places, not to mention all the other stops you’ll be making that you forgot to write into your agenda, which leaves room for about a 10-15 minute visit with everyone.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Long enough to come in, shake hands with everyone, offer some congratulatory remarks, eat a few cookies with a glass of tea, and be on your way.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Three houses in, with ten glasses of tea and hundreds of cookies down, and two hours later, you’ll remember that this is impossible.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You can’t pop in and out; you need to drink tea, make small talk, eat whatever they give you, and then repeat until you’re basically begging for permission to leave.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And this isn’t just during holidays, this is all the time.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If I’m in a hurry, I’ll take every back road I can think of just to avoid major stops where I know I’ll get trapped by self-appointed surrogate mothers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Sometimes bicycling helps, but you pretty much just have to lay back and accept that you’re going to be late, or that you’re only going to doing half the things on your to-do list for the day.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then again, you could do worse than never-ending free lunches.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">7 – Mopping, in its most basic form, is pretty much the same no matter where you go.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You use some kind of long-handled device that has an attachment at one end for moving water about on the floor so as to remove grime and other filth.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In America we have several kinds of mop.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Most notable are the sponge mop with a built in water-wringing device and the yarn strand model that can also serve as a costume wig in community theatre and off-Broadway musicals.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Every floor I’ve seen in Morocco has been either tile or concrete, and, as there are no vacuums that I know of, the mop has a pretty solid monopoly on the floor-cleaning products market.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There are two very important things to know about Moroccan mops.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>First, they have a couple names.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We call them <i>karrata</i> up here, which is a very cool word, though others say <i>jafaffa</i>, which, as best as I can figure, translates literally as “droughter.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Even more excellent, however, is that no matter what you call it, it’s pretty much a <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/XY8IeSzy-jNiYl2kYZPlTA?feat=directlink">giant squeegee</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That’s awesome.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">8 – We’ve got a few different kinds of handshake in America.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There’s the standard, the two-hand shake, and the handshake with a hand on the arm, not to mention the thousands of informal pounds and high fives.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And when you meet someone in the States, unless you’re a politician or meeting for the first time, chances are you’re not actually going to “shake hands.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You could just as easily get by with a wave, head nod, or nothing at all.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Morocco, on the other hand, has pretty much only one handshake, the standard (though there are other types of greeting, used particularly for elders and other respected individuals, such as a hand or forehead kiss).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s not really all that interesting that Moroccans shake hands.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What is interesting is the frequency and ceremony involved.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When you first meet someone, obviously you should shake their hand, but what’s unusual for us is that out here, you’ll continue to shake their hand pretty much every time you run into them again in the future.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What’s more, if you shake one person’s hand in a group of people, you have to shake everyone’s.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This can be a real endeavor if, for example, you walk into a wedding or other massive social gathering, and there have been plenty of times when students have walked into class late and I’ve made the mistake of shaking their hand, which means that they then have to go down the lines shaking every other student’s hand in the process (some do that anyway because they think it’s funny).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But that’s not the end of the ritualization.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Moroccan culture, descending from Islamic tradition, exalts the right and frowns upon the left.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Not only do we shake with our right hand, but we shake hands with the group from right to left.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>A group of Americans will usually shake with whoever’s the most convenient at any particular moment until everyone’s shaken with everyone else.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This means that everyone once in a while, you might find yourself with your hand just sticking out there waiting for the guy coming, especially if, like us, you’re new to the whole circle of shaking. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But that’s better than not shaking; you can definitely get called out for failure to shake.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The only time you don’t is if the “shakee” in question is a conservative woman, in which case it’s best to wait for her to offer a hand and to just smile and be polite until – if – she does.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">9 – America is a milk country.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The “Does a Body Good” and “Got Milk” ads have been some of the most successful campaigns of all time, and “milk and cookies” and “cereal and milk” are two of the most essential staples of our diet.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Morocco is not.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It goes into coffee a lot, as well as the occasional glass of hot chocolate, and gets mixed into fruit juices in the summer, but I’ve never seen anyone sit down with just a glass of milk.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That’s not really that big a deal for me since I too don’t really ever sit down with just a glass of milk, whether I’m in Morocco or America.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What does matter, however, is that my milk, like any other red-blooded American, is cold (unless it’s hot chocolate).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You won’t find that here.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Any glass of milk you ask for is going to be heated as though you were about to add the chocolate in to it, and a request for a cold glass is likely to get you a funny look and the assumption that you’ve clearly mistaken in your language.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And a glass of warm milk.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p></p>duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-91914699887665721822009-11-09T22:20:00.004+00:002010-09-06T17:35:08.218+00:00On Development, Part IV<p class="MsoNormal">Eddie Levert, lead singer for the O’Jays, once said: “Money money money money, money.”<span style=""> </span>To this day, no one is quite certain exactly what it was he was talking about, so we’ll assume that he was trying to describe the life of a Peace Corps volunteer.</p><p class="MsoNormal">I swore into service in late November last year, and in the past year of being a volunteer (and the three months of training before that) I’ve had one prior expectation blown more than any other: that I’m really needed.<span style=""> </span>The Peace Corps volunteer’s role (among other things) is to bring knowledge and innovation to the community – to incubate the American “can-do” attitude in parts of the world where chronic under-development have entrenched a mentality of fatalism and inertia.<span style=""> </span>It’s the reason why the Peace Corps enlists volunteers right out of college; they may not have too much experience yet, but they’ve got the passion to transform the lives of others. <span style=""> </span>I’m a youth developer here, and I’d been an English teacher and led youth programs back in the States, so I felt pretty confident coming into the Peace Corps that I could shake things up in my community.</p><p class="MsoNormal">It took about two weeks to be absolutely convinced that my community shakes plenty on its own.<span style=""> </span>There are several youth associations working in the Dar Shebab and out, language programs and a fair number of English speakers qualified to give classes, and youth who take their own initiative to hold programs on issues relevant to their lives.<span style=""> </span>What they actually don’t have are resources – computers for technical training, cameras for film projects, soccer goals with nets in them, paints and pencils and sheets of paper – in short, what they don’t have is money.</p><p class="MsoNormal">This is a problem, not only for the youth groups trying to develop themselves, but also for me as a Peace Corps volunteer.<span style=""> </span>You see, most development organizations aren’t really doing development at all, they’re charities.<span style=""> </span>They show up in a community and ask the people what they need, and then they give it to them (or at least they give the money to go get it).<span style=""> </span>The Peace Corps is different.<span style=""> </span>We [ideally] ask the people what they have and what they want to do and what they need in order to do it, and then we spend two years trying to help them find it.<span style=""> </span>The difference is that the first style of “development” leaves the recipient without the knowledge of how to go get more things, or how to get replacement things if the things they’ve just been given break, other than to ask some other “development” group.<span style=""> </span>The second style makes the recipient invest his or her own time, sweat, and money in getting things, and makes sure they know how to do it themselves for the next time.<span style=""> </span>The first way’s a lot easier, though, and that’s what happens most of the time.</p><p class="MsoNormal">And so it’s a real struggle, not the least reason for which is that your community doesn’t always appreciate the difference between development and “development.”<span style=""> </span>Counterparts are constantly coming to you asking for money or equipment, and so you try to explain this idea of sustainability with as little condescension as possible, all the while fully aware that they aren’t likely to be able to put up their own money to get these things even if you do show them how.</p><p class="MsoNormal">But you have to choose one path or another.<span style=""> </span>Here are some of the ways I’ve dealt with this in my work in Freedonia, which will hopefully illustrate the complexity of the situation.<span style=""> </span>None is a perfect solution.</p><p class="MsoNormal">You could just say no.<span style=""> </span>As of yet, I haven’t completely done this as I’m still trying to push each request off into one of the other paths, but there’s undoubtedly going to be a handful that don’t get addressed by the time I’m finished.</p><p class="MsoNormal">You could just give it.<span style=""> </span>So far, I’m happy in knowing that I haven’t just given anything that was asked for, though I have been proactive in seeing holes and filling them without having them brought to me.<span style=""> </span>For example, there’s no art going on at the Dar Shebab, and the Peace Corps office ships out left over reams of paper and other items from time to time, so I’ve collected a handful and just gifted them over to a guy who I think will be able to take them and build something from them.<span style=""> </span>I also got some paints and other art supplies from another volunteer, so I included those as well.<span style=""> </span>And I’ve made a pretty thorough collection of baseball equipment – gloves, bats, and balls for baseball, softball, and whiffleball – and, though it’s still all in my house, I’ve made it available for the kids (and it will be going to them when I leave).<span style=""> </span>I consider that one to be “Goal 2” (increasing awareness of American culture on the part of the peoples served), however, rather than “capacity building,” so that’s a bit of a different story.</p><p class="MsoNormal">You could put together a grant.<span style=""> </span>The Peace Corps has two different models for this, though I haven’t actually done either one.<span style=""> </span>Yet.<span style=""> </span>They require the community to pay for 25% of the project themselves to ensure both that there is local ownership and that it truly meets a community-identified need.<span style=""> </span>I’m about to have a seminar with all the various youth-serving organizations in town to teach them about how grants work – those that come from the Peace Corps as well as from other organizations.<span style=""> </span>This is often the crucible for the organization.<span style=""> </span>There is so much of a culture of expectancy built from bad development that many aren’t interested in going through the hoops of all this process.<span style=""> </span>Part of that’s our fault.<span style=""> </span>The volunteer is usually the one who knows how to do this, and, as a result, is the one who usually does it.<span style=""> </span>A lot of people we work with expect or look to us to fill in all the blanks.<span style=""> </span>I’ll have to write later about the success or failure of my little workshop.</p><p class="MsoNormal">You could connect them with another source.<span style=""> </span>I suppose that this is very much like putting together a grant, but if you can put your group in contact with another organization that provides funds or resources, then they can pursue their goals independently.<span style=""> </span>Obviously, the Peace Corps isn’t opposed to communities securing funding for their projects, they just want to make sure that these funds are brought in by the community and don’t lead to a dependency on the Peace Corps.<span style=""> </span>I just finished one of these.<span style=""> </span>A counterpart of mine is the organizer of an annual film festival, and earlier this summer I convinced him to add an amateur youth film competition as a part of it.<span style=""> </span>He loved the idea, but had just one very legitimate concern: the festival budget just didn’t have the funds to bring film teams from all Morocco to Freedonia and provide them with food, lodging, prizes, workshops, and all the other accoutrements of a film competition.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Fortunately, I had earlier that year met some representatives of the US Embassy responsible for youth programming and outreach who had told me to let them know if I ever had any projects going on that they could be a part of (the Embassy loves working with volunteers because we’re plugged into the local communities and can give them a hand finding effective outlets for development funds).<span style=""> </span>I wrote them an email, we wrote them a grant proposal, and they just left town after having sponsored the entire youth amateur competition.<span style=""> </span>We had eleven youth film-makers from nine different communities (two of which had worked with other Peace Corps volunteers to make their films), an American film expert who held a workshop on film-making, a panel of professional directors, actors, and critics to judge the entries and give feedback on their work, and live screenings of all the films.</p><p class="MsoNormal">It was a <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/eXc7ZDy3wCMi8fo34ADUTg?feat=directlink">raging success</a>, and you probably think that I’m just going to keep bragging about how great a Peace Corps volunteer I am, but there’s a dark side even this which might turn out to be my biggest achievement in all my service.<span style=""> </span>To start with, both the Embassy and my counterpart expected me to play a much larger part securing and administering the grant than Peace Corps ideology prefers, and it might be the case that it falls apart next year.<span style=""> </span>I hope it doesn’t, but I can’t put my hands in it next year in good conscience.<span style=""> </span>I’ve provided the model, and it will be their turn to copy it.<span style=""> </span>I’ve also been inundated with requests from other counterparts for me to set them up with Embassy funds for their activities.<span style=""> </span>Some are great ideas and I hope that we can realize them, though for the most part I have to send them to my other counterpart to make their contacts.<span style=""> </span>Others are going to be disappointed, and there’s going to be resentment over perceived favoritism.<span style=""> </span>Hopefully I can direct them into one or more different paths to get the resources they need, but I won’t be able to help everyone.</p><p class="MsoNormal">I definitely built a bridge between the cinema club and the Embassy (though it remains to be seen how well it’s used), but in doing so I probably used up a lot of the support beams necessary in some of my other bridges.<span style=""> </span>That’s not entirely a bad thing, though it will make my work harder.<span style=""> </span>Then again, I’m the third consecutive volunteer in town, and that means that I have to take down the scaffolding crutches that my predecessors set up to start Freedonia’s self-development.<span style=""> </span>It’s not going to make me any friends, but I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to transform communities and make friends.<span style=""> </span>I still get to incubate the “can-do” spirit, only I have to do it by pushing people in the water.<span style=""> </span>I can point out the life preservers and shallow water, but they have to swim there on their own.<span style=""> </span>That’s development.</p>duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-49226863180460583582009-10-01T15:39:00.002+00:002009-10-07T20:00:36.598+00:009 Things That Shock Moroccans about Americans<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">We’ve talked about some of the things that shock us, but intercultural dialogue is a two-way street, and there are plenty of things that we Americans do that amaze and offend our hosts.<span style=""> </span>It’s easy for us to see the offense or shock in the things I described earlier that Moroccans do because they run contradictory to our culture.<span style=""> </span>Here I’ve tried to present what shock Moroccans in as offensive a way as possible to try and simulate the way many Moroccans would feel them.<span style=""> </span>I won’t be completely successful in that, but suffice it to say that they take every one of these as seriously as we do what shocks us.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">1 - In America, a man’s reproductive fitness is judged more minutely than his fitness to be a NASA pilot, and the first criteria is does he still live with his parents.<span style=""> </span>We tend to get out of the house as soon as possible, and our parents tend to echo the sentiment.<span style=""> </span>We often end up living with roommates until we find ourselves judged “fitting,” but Peace Corps volunteers are forbidden from living with each other – if that’s even an option (I, for one, don’t have a site mate).<span style=""> </span>Not so for Moroccans, who live at home until they’re married – unless forced by circumstances to move away – and then only for work, and they’ll do whatever they can to find family in the new location to live with.<span style=""> </span>Sometimes, if they’re men, they’ll stay after marriage.<span style=""> </span>If they’re women, they could very likely move to his parents’ home.<span style=""> </span>Because why would you want to live away from your family?<span style=""> </span>The only reasonable answer is that you want to do things that you can’t do in your family, namely be drunk all the time and have constant extra-marital sex.<span style=""> </span>I had to go through very lengthy explanations of why I felt the need to leave my host parents’ home, most of them centering on how I do in fact love them, despite how things may look.<span style=""> </span>One land lady, upon hearing that I would potentially be living in her rental apartment alone, refused to show it to me.<span style=""> </span>My friends had to explain that I didn’t want it “for that,” I just didn’t have any family.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">2 - You might not think to notice it, probably because it’s just so obvious to us, but one of our most sacred traditions is paying our own way (and you yours).<span style=""> </span>Sure we mooch off our parents and significant others, but when a group of friends get together they’d better all bring their wallets with them, or make plans to pay it back later.<span style=""> </span>This is absolute lunacy in Morocco.<span style=""> </span>When guys get together in the café, one of them buys.<span style=""> </span>When dudes accompany each other to the hammam, the first one pays for the rest.<span style=""> </span>They’ve got all sorts of games and jokes about figuring out who’s supposed to pay, aside from “pay for what you drank.”<span style=""> </span>The idea is that the others will pick up the tab next time, and everything will generally all even out.<span style=""> </span>This theory breaks down when you’re with an American, who almost never have to pay because, despite living for two years in Morocco, is still the guest.<span style=""> </span>Our money’s good for just about anything here, but not this.<span style=""> </span>Lately, I’ve taken to fighting back.<span style=""> </span>I once had to have another American friend pull a complicated wrestling move on our Moroccan associate just to have the time to get to the waiter and give him the money first.<span style=""> </span>It didn’t matter that he’d treated the two previous times, he was furious.<span style=""> </span>I still paid, though.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">3 - There are a handful of new Americans doing their training here in Freedonia, and before they came, their host families-to-be had pretty much only one question: do they eat meat?<span style=""> </span>These days, it’s not too hard to find a friend who’s a vegetarian; I’ve met only two Moroccans who don’t like to eat meat.<span style=""> </span>It’s just not done around here.<span style=""> </span>Perhaps it’s because a lot of the reasons why we choose vegetarianism aren’t present here.<span style=""> </span>We’ve talked about the general lack of animal camaraderie, so it’s not likely to be caused by having fish who are friends.<span style=""> </span>Maybe more significantly, there really aren’t industrial farms (sheep, goats, and chickens just roam freely through the town), nor is there any considerable use of growth hormones or genetic manipulation – it’s just too expensive.<span style=""> </span>And there’s little dietary health consciousness.<span style=""> </span>In fact, most people ascribe to the belief that the fatter you are, the healthier you are (those are the same word in Darija).<span style=""> </span>With no moral, social, or nutritional pressure, it’s not surprising that Moroccans tend towards carnivorism, or that they’re so shocked to meet someone who isn’t.<span style=""> </span>Moroccan dietary philosophy is that meat is good for you, and, being the most expensive part of the dish, it’s also a special treat.<span style=""> </span>Consequently, vegetarian volunteers often find themselves embroiled in a guerilla war with their host mothers, who do whatever they can to ninja meat into their American.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">4 - The Western handshake descends from the tradition of the Norse, who, being largely right-handed, shook with their right hands to represent that they bore no weapons, and, thus, no hostility.<span style=""> </span>The Boy Scouts of America have turned this on its head and shake hands with their left to represent that they trust each other.<span style=""> </span>Moroccans shake with their right because left hands are unclean.<span style=""> </span>It’s a product both of Islamic custom – the Prophet’s message discussed a very broad definition of morality, including public health – and the economic fact that toilet paper costs money that most people would rather spend elsewhere that lead Moroccans to use their hands to wipe.<span style=""> </span>Of course, you wouldn’t want to eat with that hand, especially in a society where your hands and food come in contact unmediated by utensils, so they’ve decided to designate one hand for public life and the other for the bathroom.<span style=""> </span>This becomes a problem when foreigners come and touch their food with their left hands, which is just gross, or touch other people with their left hands, which is gross and offensive.<span style=""> </span>The foreigners who know not to use their left spend all their time worrying about using it at the table or in polite society, terrified that they’ll forget and offend someone.<span style=""> </span>Trust me, though, once you’ve used your left hand to clean yourself just once, you’re going to remember.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">5 - People in the states go to great lengths to decorate their bathrooms.<span style=""> </span>We have whole stores, magazines, and expositions dedicated to just this.<span style=""> </span>We concern ourselves with the lighting, color coordination, ready availability of entertainment, and general homeliness of our bathrooms.<span style=""> </span>Heaven forbid we find ourselves in the bathroom with nothing to do but what nature intended.<span style=""> </span>Americans count the bathroom along with the other areas of the house, Moroccans tend to treat their bathrooms the same way people treat their insane aunt locked in the attic: everyone knows where it is, but pretend that it doesn’t exist.<span style=""> </span>This is most difficult, however, when someone’s in there, especially since there’s no insulation to prevent sound from travelling from one part of the house to another.<span style=""> </span>The sound of someone using the bathroom is one of the most shamefully embarrassing noises in Morocco, so they’ve set up a system of turning on a water faucet into a small bucket to cover it all up (we don’t need to debate the point that this sound is very similar to the majority of sounds it’s there to mask).<span style=""> </span>We run into other problems too, though, in that entering the bathroom is like entering a pocket in the fabric of the universe, and we should seem to temporarily fade out of this plane of existence.<span style=""> </span>Thus, it is very offensive to speak to someone while in the bathroom, even to respond to someone calling for us, nor should we even consider whistling or humming to ourselves.<span style=""> </span>There’s no singing in the shower in Morocco.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">6 - Morocco is a very strongly Muslim country, and, as in many other societies that have a single religion so blatantly dominant, there is little separation between the public and personal aspects of faith.<span style=""> </span>The majority of Moroccans has a similar concept of their religion and come to take many of its tenets and prohibitions for granted.<span style=""> </span>In the case of Islam, all aspects of life are divided into five categories: required, recommended, open to the individual, discouraged, and forbidden, or <i>haram</i> in Arabic.<span style=""> </span>Moroccans know what they’re not allowed to do, but, more importantly, they know that Christians (meaning “foreigners,” as the two are represented by the same word in Darija) do them.<span style=""> </span>And it’s not uncommon for to a local to conspiratorially inform you that Westerners are known to drink alcohol and eat pork.<span style=""> </span>You’ll find yourself in a café when someone will announce to you that Americans drink whiskey (whiskey and vodka, like “Hotel California” and “My Heart Will Go On” with English-language music, have a monopoly on the Moroccan knowledge of spirits), or a student will sidle up to you and discretely ask you if it’s true that Americans do, in fact, eat pork.<span style=""> </span>Some volunteers fear their community’s censure and deny these things, others try to explain that America is home to all faith systems and that there are some Americans who are forbidden from engaging in these activities.<span style=""> </span>I, and probably a minority of others, tell them that these things are true.<span style=""> </span>Almost all find ways to acquire alcohol in Morocco and could answer the question through example.<span style=""> </span>A few try to get permits to hunt the many wild boar and have a pig roast.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">7 - With so much Islam everywhere, it’s easy to imagine how it can be difficult for non-Muslims in Morocco.<span style=""> </span>The majority of volunteers are Christian, but even more than that many claim to be.<span style=""> </span>This is because Moroccans are used to foreigners being Christian, Christianity is within the Abrahamic family of religions, and it’s a lot easier than claiming any of the alternatives.<span style=""> </span>Judaism is similarly approved by the Qur’an, but current political situations have resulted in pretty whole-scale ignorance concerning Judaism, a void that has been filled with a general enmity.<span style=""> </span>There are enough Moroccans, however, who will gladly claim the Jewish people as part of their theological family.<span style=""> </span>The biggest problems come from people who dispute the central premise of Islam: there is no god but God.<span style=""> </span>One of the most powerful forces behind the create of Islam was a reaction against traditional polytheism, and thus visitors who believe in non-Abrahamic religions (Hindus, Buddhists, Wicca, etc) cause a bit of stir.<span style=""> </span>Similarly, and more common, is the conflict caused by being an atheist or agnostic in Morocco.<span style=""> </span>It’s bad enough that Christians and Jews don’t recognize Muhammad as being God’s messenger, but to believe that God isn’t God at all can be grounds for some serious debate to say the least.<span style=""> </span>And if there is one truism here, it’s that there’s no halfway compromise.<span style=""> </span>To argue for a general spiritualism is the same as saying that Islam is wrong, and very few are going to accept this from you.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">8 - Everyone sneezes, but what sets Americans and Moroccans apart is our much higher tendency to blow our noses.<span style=""> </span>Blowing your nose in Morocco not only requires tissues (a hedonistic luxury), but is also extremely offensive to polite society.<span style=""> </span>It’s the sort of thing that you have to excuse yourself to go do, like using the bathroom.<span style=""> </span>This is a constant source of tension between us, particularly when we first arrive and are bombarded by all the Moroccan illnesses.<span style=""> </span>To make matters worse, that’s the time when volunteers are living with host families.<span style=""> </span>The absolute pinnacle, however, of nose-blown rudeness, is when it is done while eating because now both your hands are befouled and you’re going to reach back into the collective plate.<span style=""> </span>It’s enough to make everyone else lose their appetite.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">9 - Moroccan girls and boys don’t really interact with each other as chums, and so it’s a little shocking when Moroccan boys and girls do.<span style=""> </span>For example, boys and girls shared the same floor at my university, which isn’t unheard of in this day and age, but in Morocco would mean only that we engaged in constant debauchery.<span style=""> </span>Boys are supposed to stay with boys, and girls with girls.<span style=""> </span>Not just in the dormitories, but everywhere.<span style=""> </span>Consequently, you see dudes hanging with each other on the street, and packs of girls walking by together.<span style=""> </span>Rarely do you see boys and girls teasing or hanging on each other; in fact, this only really happens when foreigners are in the room, in places such as youth development summer camp.<span style=""> </span>What’s really surprising for me, though, is that the guys I’ve been able to talk to about this don’t really want to be around girls, at least not in that sort of way.<span style=""> </span>A guy I know wasn’t going to his classes after Ramadan ended last year because he said that none of the other guys were back yet, it was just him and a bunch of ladies.<span style=""> </span>Normally, I would tell him to take advantage of the situation, and I did, but he replied that he can’t feel normal when girls are around.<span style=""> </span>He understands guys and they can just be themselves.<span style=""> </span>Girls are a confusing mystery.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, it’ll probably stay that way.</p>duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-83097231583969115132009-09-17T15:46:00.002+00:002009-09-17T16:28:38.766+00:00On Breakfast: Ramadan Revisited<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s now been a full year of living in Morocco, which means that we’re right back where we started: Ramadan. <span style=""> </span>I landed in Morocco on September 9<sup>th</sup>, 2008, and, coincidentally, my brother got married on September 6<sup>th</sup> of that same year (happy anniversary, by the way).<span style=""> </span>It’s gotten me thinking about my relationship with the Peace Corps.<span style=""> </span>I should have expected it, but it’s been a rollercoaster romance.<span style=""> </span>We’ve had passionate chemistry and lovers’ spats.<span style=""> </span>The honeymoon is probably over, but I think that’s good – I came here to engender understanding and develop opportunities of Moroccan youth, not for a vacation.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Last year, I wrote about the history and customs of Ramadan, but it was as much from my academic experience as it was from my observations.<span style=""> </span>A year later, I can see much more of the daily life, and understand even more of it.<span style=""> </span>That is how I would like to mark my anniversary, by reevaluating some initial impressions and looking for some kind of cultural growth.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I landed on around the fifth day of Ramadan last year, so I missed out on all the preparations and general run-up, as well as the opening ceremonies.<span style=""> </span>Getting ready for Ramadan involves pretty once one thing: going home.<span style=""> </span>Freedonia had been absolutely packed with tourists – almost all of them Moroccan – and they’re all gone.<span style=""> </span>In their place are all the college-aged sons and daughters and the family members who went away for work.<span style=""> </span>It’s not true that everything stops during Ramadan, but it is true that business hours are cut and many people take their annual vacation.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">As for “grand openings,” like so many other Moroccan holidays, there aren’t any.<span style=""> </span>This is partly because no one knows exactly when it will start.<span style=""> </span>Ramadan begins with the first sliver of crescent moon (the fast starts as soon as the sun rises), which modern astronomy could easily identify years in advance if it wanted, but modern Islamic society has retained the ancient astronomical tradition of relying on the visual sighting of the crescent by the scientific community.<span style=""> </span>This often means that different Islamic countries will have Ramadan beginning on different days – usually the eastern Muslim world starts a day or two before.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This means that everyone has a generally good idea when it will happen, but they never know exactly what day it’s going to be, but they can’t be sure, so they have to have everything ready a few days in advance.<span style=""> </span>“Everything” means tomatoes; “tomatoes” mean <i style="">harira</i>; “<i style="">harira</i>” means Ramadan.<span style=""> </span>People don’t celebrate the start of Ramadan with parades or fireworks or gatherings.<span style=""> </span>They go to the mosques, get together with their families, and – most importantly – they eat breakfast.<span style=""> </span>Breakfast is at sunset (around 6:45 - 7:00 this year) and every evening is like an all-you-can-eat buffet at the International House of Pancakes.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Different families and different regions have different traditions concerning <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/35ZrhbxNHqi-94EIkl8R1Q?feat=directlink">their breakfast spread</a>, but there are a few staples that are omnipresent in Morocco.<span style=""> </span>Islamic tradition calls for breaking the fast with dates and milk, and we stick to that, but with the addition of figs, which are in season now, and we also drink tea, which is a Moroccan civic duty.<span style=""> </span>And you’ve got an array of breakfast breads.<span style=""> </span>The most common is <i style="">millwi</i>, a type of fried, flaky pancake.<span style=""> </span>(“<i style="">Millwi</i>” is the Amazigh word; Arabs tend to call it <i style="">mismin</i> – or sometimes <i style="">millwi</i>.)<span style=""> </span>If your family really feels like going a little crazy you might have a <i style="">millwi</i> variant such as <i style="">rrghaif</i>, the “Moroccan pizza,” which is made with onions and peppers in the batter, or <i style="">khubs shahamah</i>, “fat bread,” which is fried with little pieces of fat that dissolve into greasy deliciousness.<span style=""> </span>You’ll likely also find, either as replacement or in concert, a plate stacked with <i style="">bagharreer</i>.<span style=""> </span>These incredible little pancakes are spongy on scale with Ethiopian <i style="">injeera</i> bread and are usually served cold, supersaturated with butter and honey.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Ramadan is about thirty days long, so you’ll have a few variations from day to day, but there will always be <i style="">harira</i>.<span style=""> </span><i style="">Harira</i> is a tomato-based soup with a selection of pieces of meat, small noodles, barley, small bits of fat, and chick peas, and always highly seasoned, most notably with cilantro.<span style=""> </span>Everyone is required to have several bowls of it, usually as the final course of their breakfast.<span style=""> </span>There’s also going to be a couple wheels of bread or lengths of baguette to go with it.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">All the while there’ll be a plate or two of <i style="">shebakiya</i>, the spiral dough pastry that tastes like fried honey, a handful of <span style="font-style: italic;">hard-boiled eggs</span>, eggs that have been submerged in boiling water, and a few saucers piled with a dry peanut and sugar paste called <i style="">zumeta</i> (the Arabs call it <i style="">sslou</i>).<span style=""> </span>Unlike everything else on the table, these only come out during Ramadan, though it’s hard to eat more than a teaspoon or two of <i style="">zumeta</i> at any one sitting, so this one lasts for a little while after the fast.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And no breakfast is complete without the entertainment: the world famous Ramadan television programming.<span style=""> </span>Ramadan is the season when the best actors from across Morocco get together to present a tour de force of nonsensical comedies, melodramatic soap operas, and inane hidden camera shorts.<span style=""> </span>These shows all air every night on the two major Moroccan stations, 2M and Al Maghribia, and only during Ramadan.<span style=""> </span>We didn’t appreciate the full extent of this last year, and took our favorites for granted until they were taken away from us.<span style=""> </span>This year (like all the rest of the country) we couldn’t contain our impatience waiting for the season debuts.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, it’s pretty unanimously agreed that this year’s offering is a record low, and I’ve even been told that Al Jazeera ran a segment on the poor quality of Morocco’s Ramadan programming.<span style=""> </span>Perhaps it has something to do with the much higher than usual incidence of random English words in the dialogue.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But they watch them anyway, and I hope that marketers have appreciated just how big this is.<span style=""> </span>I mean, every night for 30 days is as big as the Superbowl.<span style=""> </span>Literally everyone is at home, eating breakfast, and doing what every Moroccan loves to do: watching tv.<span style=""> </span>I didn’t quite realize the extent of this last year, but sometimes I’m late for breakfast, and I’ll find myself walking through town five minutes before the <i style="">a’adan</i> (call to prayer) and I won’t see anyone.<span style=""> </span>Once, I was travelling and happened to arrive in Fes right at sunset.<span style=""> </span>I had to walk across town (there weren’t any taxis) and it was incredible, I rolled my suitcase through the center of the busiest intersection in the city, and walked right down the middle of some of Fes’s biggest avenues.<span style=""> </span>There was no one to get out of the way for.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">During our initial entry to Morocco last year, we weren’t allowed out of the hotels and training centers at this time for security reasons, and it makes sense.<span style=""> </span>It may only be around 6:30 in the evening, but the streets are populated like its 3:30 in the morning.<span style=""> </span>Police have to have breakfast, too, you know, and, fortunately, so do criminals.<span style=""> </span>You still have to be careful, though.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The worst time, however, is from about 4:30 onwards, what is generally referred to by volunteers as “Unhappy Hour.”<span style=""> </span>This is when all the people who usually like to smoke or drink coffee and haven’t been able to for about twelve hours just can’t take it anymore.<span style=""> </span>Have you ever had a friend who tried to give up smoking and you had to tiptoe around him or her because of the nicotine withdrawal emotional swings?<span style=""> </span>Well, imagine that your friend is actually several thousand people, and that’s what it’s like in your town right before breakfast.<span style=""> </span>Particularly in places where people have to drive or pay for things, but I once went over to a friend’s house to watch the Moroccan national team play against Togo, and we got together with the rest of his extended family and neighbors to have a little soccer game of our own afterwards.<span style=""> </span>I have never seen so much fighting, arguing, and general bile in all my time in this country.<span style=""> </span>An hour later, though, and we were eating <i style="">baghareer</i> and joking like we’d just gone on a picnic.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s like that every day.</p>duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-56053351317550008832009-08-26T13:28:00.008+00:002009-08-27T02:31:11.959+00:00You Can't Spell "Tunisia" without the Word "Tun"<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">As you undoubtedly know, a tun (or tunne, as you sometimes see) is a large cask for holding liquids, especially wine, ale, or beer.<span style=""> </span>You might not think that there’s really much of a relationship between the two, but that’s where you’d be wrong.<span style=""> </span>Back in college I interned for a semester in the Office of Science and Technology Cooperation of the US Department of State.<span style=""> </span>In my first few days I had the honor of setting up my good friend and mentor, Bob, with some much needed translations before he left for meetings in the Grand Maghrib.<span style=""> </span>He then said something to me that was probably the supercoolest and most vexing thing I’ve ever heard: “If I’d know about you two weeks ago, you’d be on that plane with me.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">He brought me back a bottle of Tunisian wine – which is still sitting back home in the States – and thus began my lifelong ambition to go to Tunisia, the home of Carthage and Tataouine.<span style=""> </span>Five years later, my lifelong ambition was achieved.<span style=""> </span>The following is taken from my adventure journal, edited for time, content, and to fit your screen.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">11 August 2009</b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><b style=""><o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="">8:46 PM</i>.<span style=""> </span>Today I arrived in Tunisia, the twenty-third country I’ve been in – though it almost didn’t happen.<span style=""> </span>I got to Casablanca on Sunday, expecting to meet mom and Paulo that night to leave Monday (yesterday) morning.<span style=""> </span>They never came.<span style=""> </span>The reason for this is that they’d changed my flight reservation for Tuesday so as to take advantage properly of my vacation and weekend time.<span style=""> </span>We didn’t.<span style=""> </span>They went off to Jedida by themselves, I hung around in a hotel in Casablanca.<span style=""> </span>They showed up last night and we left this morning.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I still did my best to stuff it up.<span style=""> </span>On putting our bags in the taxi I realized that I didn’t have my carte de sejour. <span style=""> </span>Even so, I managed to get through every checkpoint at the airport but the last one without being noticed.<span style=""> </span>He asked me if I live in Morocco and where my carte was.<span style=""> </span>I told him that I do and that I forgot it.<span style=""> </span>He gave me a look that said, “Seriously, give me your carte.”<span style=""> </span>I gave him a look that said, “This is about as pathetic as I can be, I really don’t have it.”<span style=""> </span>The lesson here is that when you go to leave the country, make sure that you bring the documents showing that you are, in fact, a legal resident there.<span style=""> </span>After a little more talking and being pathetic, he asked me what my number is.<span style=""> </span>I didn’t know.<span style=""> </span>He tapped his keyboard a bit and then asked me a few questions to verify that the records he was reading were mine, I answered them, and he let me go.<span style=""> </span>The lesson there is that it’s possible to go through customs without your carte.<span style=""> </span>They’ve got your information.<span style=""> </span>It’s probably best to bring it anyway, unless you particularly fancy feeling like a maroon.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Our take off was delayed, and we had to wait forever to get our luggage, so I suggested that we just go straight to Kairouan and skip Carthage.<span style=""> </span>A lot of people would probably disagree with this, as Carthage is probably the most historically significant piece of Tunisia.<span style=""> </span>That’s true, but, first, I’ve never really cared that much about Roman history when compared to some of the other great histories of the world.<span style=""> </span>The coolest thing about Carthage was its total destruction and Rome’s message to the world that if you mess with the empire, you’ll be lost to the world for all time.<span style=""> </span>It’s strange then to go and see it, and disappointing even to learn the part left out of most history texts: shortly thereafter the Romans rebuilt and populated Carthage.<span style=""> </span>I prefer to think of Carthage as salted earth and a poor strategic use of elephants.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The country of <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/HT4rtVotKpC8CXtygsW5Pg?feat=directlink">Tunisia</a>, however, is quite pleasant.<span style=""> </span>We’ve seen mostly rocky scrubland, similar to that on the plains outside of Azrou and Khenifra, but greener.<span style=""> </span>In fact, as mom likes to say, it looks a lot like “Morocco with a <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ElbrPQpqIUv7vyZTBHMl3A?feat=directlink">fresh coat of paint</a>.”<span style=""> </span>And from what we could see of Tunis from the highway it was a big, clean, shiny city.<span style=""> </span>The little villages were similar to the ones just outside Fes, but they seemed brighter.<span style=""> </span>There was trash but not quite as noticeable.<span style=""> </span>The environment changes more quickly, however, and I expect it will be even more dramatic tomorrow.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The city of Kairouan reminds me a lot of Sefrou with a Chefchaouen paint job.<span style=""> </span>It’s got an old medina and a ville nouvelle, but neither is really all that interesting.<span style=""> <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/_7GiMejtX_yi0moAApHr6A?feat=directlink"> </a></span><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/_7GiMejtX_yi0moAApHr6A?feat=directlink">Cute</a>, though.<span style=""> </span>The shops all sell things only a little different from stuff you get in the Kingdom: leather, pottery, metal, soccer jerseys.<span style=""> </span>We wandered around looking for a restaurant that doesn’t exist and being taken to another that wouldn’t serve us (until later, they said), but we got to walk and stretch our legs.<span style=""> </span>The atmosphere is a lot like a coastal town – Jedida, or maybe Essaouira – without much noise or traffic.<span style=""> </span>We had a handful of people offer to be our guides, which I eventually convinced to go away.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Which is the last thing: language.<span style=""> </span>So far, it’s been a little rough, and I think I’m really indebted to the handful of Fos-ha words I’ve picked up.<span style=""> </span>I got along ok with the hotel clerk, and managed to make our self-appointed guides leave, all in Arabic (I should say, Darija).<span style=""> </span>But their accents are hard to understand, and one or more may have spoken the Moroccan dialect.<span style=""> </span>Mom’s right, though: it will be a serious test of my ability to put all I’ve learned to use outside of Morocco, and to see if I have something that might be of use in the future.<span style=""> </span>A lot of the time, though, I’m letting Paulo use his French so that he feels more in control of what’s going on.<span style=""> </span>We’ll see how that changes as we get down south and in the desert.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">12 August 2009</b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><b style=""><o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="">10:25 PM</i>.<span style=""> </span>Today I went from kind-of-desert to definitely-desert – though I’d expected to hit pinnacle-of-desert at the end.<span style=""> </span>Tozeur, however, is only assuredly-desert.<span style=""> </span>Perhaps tomorrow, but I get ahead of myself.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We began this morning with an awful breakfast (Tunisian quince jam is no mishmash, though maybe it’s just the high-class hotel), and went to the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ysL_Sb22M_biiS_4Ac8FLQ?feat=directlink">Grand Mosque of Kairouan</a>.<span style=""> </span>It’s allegedly the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/rcYt0VJ3RbuAtldDECyweg?feat=directlink">fourth holiest</a> Islamic city (after Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem).<span style=""> </span>That remains to be seen, but the mosque was <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/dgdVM8chPccwBi5rTAgWzQ?feat=directlink">incredible</a>.<span style=""> </span>It has <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/zNok85fo6lS7nK5OLKmnaQ?feat=directlink">spiral-ridged domes</a> that I’ve never seen before in Morocco, though are everywhere here.<span style=""> </span>As we travel, we’ve also noticed that some mosques have the three-ball crowning on their minarets, whereas others have a star and crescent.<span style=""> </span>Some have <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/gPEQPZADRbRoU8wcXD-K6g?feat=directlink">both</a>.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I also made some linguistic observations.<span style=""> </span>There is no <span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-size:16pt;">گ</span> in Tunisian Arabic, though there is a lot of the “g” sound.<span style=""> </span>They use this letter: <span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-size:16pt;">ڨ</span>, and don’t make “v” sounds (they just do <span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-size:16pt;">ف</span> like in Fos-ha).<span style=""> </span>I’ve learned a few new words, like <span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-size:16pt;">نزل</span> for “hotel.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And I’ve begun learning about Tunisian food.<span style=""> </span>At lunch in Gafsa we ate rice, <i style="">lubiya</i> (not as good as Middle Atlas), a dish of spiced beef called <i style="">kamounia</i> (with cumin, obviously), and an eggplant salad with oil and spices called <i style="">shlada meshwiya</i>.<span style=""> </span>For dinner I ate camel (not great) and tried some Tunisian tagine.<span style=""> </span>It’s like a big omelette, not as good as the Moroccan kind.<span style=""> </span>I did get to try the harrissa, whis is fantastic, and taste Tunisian olives, which are smaller than Moroccans and harder, but with an incredibly rich taste.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">That was all in Tozeur, where we got to drive through the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Mbqw3X19ZVY41uIB13nkdw?feat=directlink">palm oasis</a> and go out to watch the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/_4PQQsJvgUCphYLB3rFCHg?feat=directlink">sun set</a> over the shotte.<span style=""> </span>Perhaps we just couldn’t see enough of the shotte to appreciate it, or the experience was altered by the artificiality of the fabulous <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/j20qlHgGCpuPIq7-NapjZg?feat=directlink">Belvedere Rocks</a>.<span style=""> </span>We’ll get our fill of the Shotte El Jerid tomorrow as we drive over it for more than an hour.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I also bought my souvenir, which is certainly more than I should have paid, but precisely what I wanted: a turban just like the one Indiana Jones wears in <i style="">Raiders of the Lost Ark</i> (some of which was filmed here, I hear).<span style=""> </span>Now I can feel like I’ve been to a desert country.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Final thoughts: Tunisia is incredibly flat, aside from the measly ridges rising out of the kind-of-desert.<span style=""> </span>The rear wiper (not present) is broken on the car causing the mechanism to turn constantly and not be able to shut off.<span style=""> </span>The noise that the motor makes every ten seconds or so will drive me insane before this trip is finished.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">13 August 2009</b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><b style=""><o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="">9:46 PM</i>.<span style=""> </span>Today was the longest day of our Tunisian voyage so far (though tomorrow may prove to be longer), travelling from Tunisia’s almost western-most frontier to its almost eastern-most.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We left Tozeur after another pitiable breakfast, striking out from the palms and into the desert.<span style=""> </span>Almost immediately we entered the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/8FL8WWyHfo_f5Difk2C8xw?feat=directlink">Shotte El-Jerid</a>.<span style=""> </span>Here there was no vegetation – only <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/N2ulomOsgbaAVqsAtQ3bUg?feat=directlink">sand</a> and a burned out tour bus.<span style=""> </span>And salt.<span style=""> </span>The El-Jerid is a salt pan (or some similar geological term), as evinced by the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/nabf6mMvKK1Ft6lpCNudTA?feat=directlink">salt creek</a> bubbling alongside the causeway.<span style=""> </span>Salt crystals form wherever the water collects, often forming a crust over the water like a layer of <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ICGAS90Ch4mFxxuFnHVlaQ?feat=directlink">ice in the winter</a>.<span style=""> </span>And the water, for whatever reason, is red – ranging from a soft pink to a <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/f2HQe8tWKpIFsjNnbakgdw?feat=directlink">deep purple Kool-Aid color</a>.<span style=""> </span>And it was also here that Luke Skywalker brooded over <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/-2ZOR4Cw98ZSsx8c-JW7nw?feat=directlink">Tataouine’s two moons</a>, so we took plenty of angsty teenager photos.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We continued past the shotte, passing unattended grazing camels and sand/salt sculptures made to look like them until we reached the town of Douz.<span style=""> </span>Douz is home to Tunisia’s largest desert date palmery and borders on <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/id1QKoG7lley-UZstDT6Tg?feat=directlink">quintessential Sahara desert</a>.<span style=""> </span><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/B8JH1I7850H28WF8s__n_g?feat=directlink">Mom and I</a> took a little ride with <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/lYqbqRuyJlptuZYa2cNrNw?feat=directlink">Ali</a>, our guide, and <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/pxeCe7m11Ob5rNasA4VokA?feat=directlink">Ali Baba and Mohammad</a>, our camels (mine and hers, respectively), most likely so named as soon as I asked what their names were.<span style=""> </span>It was delightfully touristy, having men on horses and camels ride up and offer photograph opportunities, and men on mopeds offering coke, but they didn’t make us dress up like caravan herders like some Italians near us.<span style=""> </span>And I rode a camel in the dune sea of the Sahara Desert, even if it was only a half hour in the “coastal waters.”<span style=""> </span>It was pretty cool.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">From Douz we started heading into the mountains and to the highlighted part of today’s trip: Matmata, Luke Skywalker’s home.<span style=""> </span>The ground got at once more desert-like and more <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/AvBBAgW7TocUvLH0tFlKRw?feat=directlink">vegetated</a> – with little oases spotting the hills and the occasional grass.<span style=""> </span>We passed some troglodyte houses and finally arrived in Matmata.<span style=""> </span>After completely blowing through town, we were accosted by Mustafa, a self-appointing guide who took us first to his house (to see a Berber house, I guess), and then to the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/X-oGF2U1Sc5gG1VR6Y4j_A?feat=directlink">Sidi Driss Hotel</a>, where Luke lived with his aunt and uncle.<span style=""> </span>It was great to walk around and see all the doors and windows I recognized.<span style=""> </span>We stayed for lunch, but it never came.<span style=""> </span>They had nothing in the shops about Star Wars.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So we ate elsewhere, and were treated respectfully (rather than like livestock rolling off a tour bus) and ate a lovely meal al fresco.<span style=""> </span>We sampled brik, a kind of poached egg, parsley, and potatoes in an eggroll-fried crust, and Tunisia’s couscous, a bit courser than the Moroccan kind and with a spicy tomato base.<span style=""> </span>Very good, though I’m partial to what I get back home.<span style=""> </span>We left Star Wars country and headed on, glad to have seen it and completely ready to go.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Aside from mom being flagged over randomly by police and then sent on immediately upon being recognized as foreign, we had no incident on reaching the island of <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/wKLUYmR9sHlYvPieGZtMWQ?feat=directlink">Djerba</a> – supposedly the Land of the Lotus Eaters.<span style=""> </span>(I don’t care much about Rome, but the <i style="">Odyssey</i> is my bag.)<span style=""> </span>The ferry is a short fifteen minutes, and the island has a very Newport or Block Island feel.<span style=""> </span>We pulled up just after sunset and walked to the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/PxBgVJy2AauZ1TWNyzeKag?feat=directlink">port</a>, photographed the fake pirate boats, and ate dinner.<span style=""> </span>With dinner we tried ojja, another egg dish, this one of seafood with poached eggs in a tomato sauce, and had some crepes.<span style=""> </span>It was delicious.<span style=""> </span>We also discovered the most <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/QeyK2p0FFzhi__GoMOOhiQ?feat=directlink">poorly</a> <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/AmAZSTU3pQWTsvtAUSIUMQ?feat=directlink">translated</a> <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/MMr2cZvid2jHaWHN7_w-og?feat=directlink">menu</a> of all time.<span style=""> </span>I got one to take home.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Finally, I popped into a souvenir shop to get something for Salma and got into a fantastic conversation with Mohammad, the clerk.<span style=""> </span>We talked about tea services, rosewater sprinklers, horses and elephants, and almost everything else.<span style=""> </span>It was great because he definitely spoke Tunisian Arabic, but we understood each other really well.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And a final note of linguistic discovery: it may be that “g” and “k” sounds are nearly the same.<span style=""> </span>The towns of Gabes and Kebili were written on street signs as <span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-size:16pt;">ڨابس</span> and <span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-size:16pt;">ڨبلي</span> , both with the Tunisian <span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-size:16pt;">ڨ</span> .<span style=""> </span>The town of Kettana, however, starts with a <span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-size:16pt;">ك</span> .<span style=""> </span>And <span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-size:16pt;">ث</span> may be pronounced like an “s.”<span style=""> </span>An ice cream company, <span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-size:16pt;">ثلجة</span> , was written in French as “Selja.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Somehow, while trying to operate the windshield wiper fluid, mom unintentionally shut down my nemesis: the rear wiper, which by this time in its eternal struggle with an imaginary wiper against imaginary rain had taken on the tone of a very angry machine.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">14 August 2009</b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><b style=""><o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="">10:26 PM</i>.<span style=""> </span>Tonight is my last night in Tunisia – for this trip, at least.<span style=""> </span>I turned out to be right yesterday when I wrote that today would be the longest drive.<span style=""> </span>We went a good 400 kilometers (I think) from Houmt Souk to Nabeul, a little town part of the Hammamet touristopolis, almost all of it pretty uneventful.<span style=""> </span>We rode the ferry back across from Djerba and I was almost tempted into buying a GStar hat, we drove by endless miles of olive groves and tried to photograph the little <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ndYmZQE7GRcTa59CfUBjjA?feat=directlink">roadside gas stands</a>, and mom got pulled over again at a random inspection stop.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Our highlight for the day was El Jem, a tiny town with the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/atto795CE4jt8CkQsiy1xg?feat=directlink">largest Roman arena in Africa</a> (and in terms of its preservation, more glorious than the Coliseum in Rome).<span style=""> </span>Approaching the town, the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/rH3fqrv0u7xwk4_J96sDlg?feat=directlink">ruins</a> tower over everything else, much like a modern stadium would.<span style=""> </span>In fact, it was a lot like any other <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/sqCoxWwCRhfq5DWTbroUzQ?feat=directlink">arena</a> I’ve been in, aside from being 2000 years old and the site of <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/9WU2e1wUdvX7KxnOXn22YA?feat=directlink">violent ritual death</a>.<span style=""> </span>It was also absolutely amazing.<span style=""> </span>You could walk up into the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/l1-rZU6mYLDDRrldUx_jXw?feat=directlink">stands</a> and down into the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/R8TXw3ijzZBo20i1IT9KSw?feat=directlink">gladiator holding dungeons</a>.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And I finally found some of those guardians of the bey to get as presents for the Assekours and Seghirs – and one for myself.<span style=""> </span>I didn’t bargain any, but I got a free desert rose (I think for speaking Arabic and being Moroccan).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Finally, we drove the rest of the afternoon and into the evening to Hammamet.<span style=""> </span>It turns out that this is the vacation capital of Tunisia, and was more packed with tourists – both foreign and domestic – than I’ve ever seen here in Tunisia or elsewhere.<span style=""> </span>We also didn’t have a reservation anywhere, but they found a place in the sacred tour book.<span style=""> </span>We spent the next hour trying to find it, learning, at this time, that it was in Nabeul, or “North Hammamet.”<span style=""> </span>Eighteen kilometers later and there were more tourists, and no sign of the Hotel Alya.<span style=""> </span>In the end, we settled for a different place, from a different tour book, which required driving back across Nabeul to find.<span style=""> </span>We found it and had a lovely dinner on the beach.<span style=""> </span>No new foods, though.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">On the road, I noticed a sign for the town of Zrig, written as <span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-size:16pt;">زريق</span> .<span style=""> </span>I don’t know if it was just missing a dot over the final <span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-size:16pt;">ق</span> , but if it wasn’t, it’s strange to see that letter transliterated as a “g.”<span style=""> </span>I know that Kairouan is spelled <span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-size:16pt;">القيروان</span> .</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And the biggest shock has been here in the Greater Hammamet Area: humidity.<span style=""> </span>It feels like noontime in Atlanta in the middle of the night, an exaggeration only because I haven’t felt that ever while living in Morocco.<span style=""> </span>I don’t know if I’m going to miss East Coast summers or not.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">15 August 2009</b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><b style=""><o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="">12:14 PM</i>.<span style=""> </span>I’ve just taken my seat now on the Tunisair jet ready to take me back to Morocco.<span style=""> </span>Today has been spent almost entirely in the airport, but it’s given me a chance to reflect on this experience.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I also had a most amazing encounter sitting at a little café and meeting another American – a Peace Corps volunteer just CoSed from Mauritania – sitting next to me and having the same sandwich.<span style=""> </span>He’s on his way to Casablanca to see a bit of the country before returning to the States and whatever fortunes await an RPCV.<span style=""> </span>We might even meet in Fes.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And now I’m here thinking about all I’ve done and seen in Tunisia.<span style=""> </span>Mom made a good point last night when she said that it seemed like we’ve been doing a lot of <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Nvw3RL1GW-HpABGLU1mXNw?feat=directlink">driving</a>, and we did that, but we also saw a lot of the country.<span style=""> </span>And though we probably spent as much time each day in the car as we did out, that’s where we got to experience the desert, the mountains, the palmeries and olive groves, the little towns and homemade gas stations.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We pretty much did or saw only one thing in each city or town where we stopped, and there are plenty of places left where we never went, but I enjoyed what I saw and did.<span style=""> </span>The people were friendly, and it was fun to actually be a Moroccan.<span style=""> </span>I got by with Darija, which bodes well for a PC Moroccan’s chances after service when it comes to being a useful “Arabic” speaker.<span style=""> </span>Almost everyone I talked to thought I’m either full-on Moroccan or that at least one of my parents has to be (usually my father if they saw me with mom).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And so the question remains: am I glad to have come?<span style=""> </span>My answer is yes.<span style=""> </span>Not only is it a new place to add to my list, but I’m content with the way I saw all that I did.<span style=""> </span>I ate as many different Tunisian foods as possible, I spoke the closest form of the local language as I could, and I never bought anything without first learning about it.<span style=""> </span>The man taught me how to wear the desert turban, my friend went to great lengths about rosewater sprinklers (and everything else in his shop), and I forwent bargaining over <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/qdWSXXkuv5JQrzhChjhUbw?feat=directlink">guardians of the bey</a> in exchange for learning about their history.<span style=""> </span>I even demanded to know the harvest year before buying a box of dates.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Would I come back?<span style=""> </span>Tunisia won’t be at the top of my travel lists, but that’s because there are so many other places I still want to see.<span style=""> </span>If the opportunity presents itself, I’ll certainly take it.<span style=""> </span>I haven’t seen the deep desert or Cap Bon, Carthage or Tunis, and I’d like to spend more time in some of the places I did see, especially Kairouan and Djerba.<span style=""> </span>All that, however, will have to wait until the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/O1mcn5yfXEhLZs94ac-26Q?feat=directlink">next time</a>, inshallah.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-4191697607675696292009-08-24T11:08:00.001+00:002009-08-24T11:14:06.630+00:00On Language, Part IV: Berber<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">We need to start this with a brief talk about that word.<span style=""> </span>“Berber” comes from the Greek word <i style="">barbori</i>, meaning “someone who does not speak Greek.”<span style=""> </span>A lot of people will tell you that it comes from the word “barbarian,” though, if you think about this, that would be a little egotistical of us to think that it was English that define this ethnic group, especially as they’ve been on the world scene since long before anyone was speaking English.<span style=""> </span>No, the truth is that our “barbarian” comes from the same root.<span style=""> </span>This is a lot like the evolution debate.<span style=""> </span>Humans aren’t descendent from monkeys – no one wants to think that – we both come from the same place.<span style=""> </span>By the same token, Berbers aren’t barbarians.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Still, that hasn’t stopped a lot of people from believing that “Berber” is a derogatory term, a situation that isn’t helped by the way it’s been used in the past.<span style=""> </span>Rather than represent the complex and storied culture of the indigenous peoples of Northwestern Africa, it has come to suggest all the worst of Orientalist prejudice.<span style=""> </span>As a response, activists and progressives have proffered the word Amazigh, the Berber word for “Berber.”<span style=""> </span>The reasoning is simple: Berbers are backwards, uneducated peasants, Amazigh are proud mountain people.<span style=""> </span>Although we can disprove the origins of the word “Berber,” we can’t ignore the fact that it’s been used for the purposes of subjugating the collective consciousness of this people, and, despite the fact that the Amazigh word for “foreigner” literally means “Roman,” we can support their re-identification by using “Amazigh.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s beside the point, anyway, since we’re talking about language here, and there’s really no such thing as the Amazigh language.<span style=""> </span>It’s more like the scores of Amazigh languages, which is the biggest problem we have.<span style=""> </span>There are some universal words, like “bread,” “water,” and “foreigner,” but where you have one ethnic identity, you actually have at least five distinct languages.<span style=""> </span>In the north, most Amazigh speak Terrifite (taken from the Rif Mountains).<span style=""> </span>You’ve got Tassousite in the Souss Region of the Anti-Atlas, Tashleheit in the High Atlas, and Tamazight in the Middle Atlas.<span style=""> </span>Finally, there’s even a separate term for the language spoken by the Amazigh in the Sahara: Tasaharouite.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Even then you’re misleading yourself if you think that with only five languages, someone might be able to master all this.<span style=""> </span>The history of the Amazigh is one of mountain isolation, and, as a result, you can go thirty kilometers down the road and you’ll find Shleu (another Amazigh word meaning “Amazigh”) saying something completely different.<span style=""> </span>Some people claim that if you speak one Amazigh language natively, you can understand the gist of any, but I doubt that.<span style=""> </span>I’ve seen my host brothers (who speak Tamazight) watching a tv show in Tassousite, and they have about as much clue what’s going on as I do.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Imagine then, that you’re an American Peace Corps volunteer trying to figure all this out.<span style=""> </span>Youth development volunteers like myself all learn Darija, but a little more than half of the small business development, and the significant majority of health and environment volunteers I know learn to speak Amazigh.<span style=""> </span>This is because we have spring and summer camps with kids from all over the country, and they tend to live in much smaller communities (and stay there).<span style=""> </span>It can be a real problem, though, when they do travel.<span style=""> </span>Our spring camps include volunteers from all sectors, and we were fortunate enough to have two environment volunteers who spoke Tashleheit.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, not a single kid in camp could understand it.<span style=""> </span>Granted, it was an English immersion camp, but let’s not kid ourselves, they were left to the mercy of the other volunteers whenever they wanted to say just about anything.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The worst, though, is training.<span style=""> </span>You can’t go five miles without finding a new Amazigh dialect, so imagine what happens when you train in a town on one side of the country, and then find yourself serving on the other side of the mountains.<span style=""> </span>Most everything you just learned has to be unlearned and then replaced with something new.<span style=""> </span>This goes for grammar as well as vocabulary, since, being a proletarian household language, there aren’t really any “rules” – only generally accepted forms and structures.<span style=""> </span>Anything goes, really, as long as everyone else knows what you’re trying to say.<span style=""> </span>I know a guy near me who trained in the Azilal Province, and he couldn’t say anything to his host family when he showed up here, and, already three months into his Peace Corps service, he had to deal with his town asking him why he couldn’t speak.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But if it’s crippling on mobility, it makes up for it in spades when it comes to integration.<span style=""> </span>If you ever wanted to ruin someone else’s service, all you have to do is show up in their site and speak the local dialect.<span style=""> </span>Until that volunteer leaves, and probably longer, they’ll never hear the end of people in their site talking about that other volunteer, who came and visited for just a few hours, and how great he or she is for speaking Shleuha, more likely than not with the added “better than you.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t speak Tamazight, but I’ve learned, and Dr Peter Venkman would undoubtedly agree with me, that when someone asks you if you speak Shleuha, you say, “Yes.”<span style=""> </span>At first (and we’re talking within my first days in site), I would make the very reasonable response that I’d just gotten to Morocco, that youth development volunteers need to speak Darija, that I hope to learn the one and then the other but don’t want to mix them together by learning both at the same time.<span style=""> </span>“No,” they would reply.<span style=""> </span>“You need to learn Amazigh.”<span style=""> </span>Now, when someone asks me, I just say, “Sure, <i style="">etch agharom</i>” (“eat bread”).<span style=""> </span>If they press me, “<i style="">Su ahman</i>” (“drink water”).<span style=""> </span>It doesn’t matter if they just asked me if I think the weather is hot, if I want to go home to see my parents in America, if I’m on the way to the hammam, and they don’t seem to really care, either.<span style=""> </span>I’ll say everything else in Darija, including “I don’t know what you’re talking about” in response to anything said in Tamazight, and I’ve never once had a person tell me that I don’t know enough.<span style=""> </span>In fact, they tell their friends that I have supernatural abilities.<span style=""> </span>Even if I try to say that, in reality, I only know about twenty words, they have no desire to believe in anything other than my absolute fluency.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Which, unfortunately, isn’t likely to ever actually occur. <span style=""> </span>Despite the aesthetic and intellectual attraction of the Amazigh languages, they really can’t be called “essential.”<span style=""> </span>Granted, there are some people here you’ll meet who don’t speak a word of Arabic, but, on the whole, that’s a very small minority.<span style=""> </span>The truth is, that, being so community specific and informal, someone who speaks a dialect will invariably have to speak another language during their service.<span style=""> </span>And, to top it all, the Tamazight spoken here in Freedonia is so full of Arabic that I can pretty much understand the general idea of anything that my family is talking about, as they only speak when they’re talking to me.<span style=""> </span>And the few times that I’ve gone and learned something in Amazigh, I’ve come back to my host family and repeated it for them, only to be told that that’s not our Tamazight.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m glad I know what I do, especially when I can impress my friends here with a few words, but I don’t think I’m going to be an Amazigh scholar when all is said and done.<span style=""> </span>And I don’t think my community expects me to, either.<span style=""> </span>They probably won’t ever stop talking to me about how great Jawad (Josh) was for knowing how to speak Shleuha, but I think that all they really want to see is some validation of their culture.<span style=""> </span>They speak Darija the majority of the time, too.</p>duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-73834337226690809252009-08-22T18:59:00.002+00:002009-08-22T19:10:46.122+00:00On Language, Part III: French<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">I was talking to a friend the other day about what we would title the Peace Corps chapter of our memoirs.<span style=""> </span>I said mine would be “This Would All Work Perfectly If You Just Did Exactly What I Told You,” hers was “I Don’t Know, I Don’t Speak French.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">When I left to come here, I, like many others, was believed that the French language was the preferred means of communication in Morocco.<span style=""> </span>In a way, that’s true.<span style=""> </span>Tourist satisfaction is Morocco’s number one export, and, as French is the <i style="">lingua franca</i> of the tourism industry, which is the almost exclusively the only reason an American or other Westerner would find himself speaking to Moroccans, the vast majority of visitors can spend their entire stay in this country with nothing but <i style="">Larousse’s Pocket French Dictionary</i> to help them.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I must admit, I was pretty excited about this when I got here.<span style=""> </span>I started learning French in fourth grade, continued through my senior year of high school when they had to make a new French 6 level to accommodate me, used a semester in college to test out of all my graduation language requirements, spent two weeks in high school in France and three months in college in Belgium.<span style=""> </span>I have more trophies at my parents’ house for French competitions than I do for sports.<span style=""> </span>I became a Francophile before I knew what the word meant.<span style=""> </span>I even made my only password in French.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I hate French.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And I’m not the only one.<span style=""> </span>French is probably the most difficult part of the schizophrenic relationship that volunteers have with language.<span style=""> </span>The first reason is that although some of us know how to speak French, and so too do the merchants, guides, waiters, hotel clerks, and hustlers, the same is not always true off of the tourist track, and few volunteers work in towns big enough to attract many foreigners.<span style=""> </span>Obviously, there are plenty of people here who do speak French – it’s taught to all students from around the same time I started to learn it – and that’s part of the problem.<span style=""> </span>I went to great lengths to learn French, and I’m hardly fluent in it.<span style=""> </span>What about the people who don’t feel that there’s any real benefit to knowing an imperialistic language when the can just as easily speak something else with their family, friends, and corner store clerks?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I learned this the hard way.<span style=""> </span>My first day in my host family they brought over a neighbor who spoke French and we were able to talk to each other through her.<span style=""> </span>That should have been my first clue, but my host sister later tried to talk with me in French (they all knew I could speak it).<span style=""> </span>She asked me, “Am I tired?” or “Do I want to eat?”<span style=""> </span>I don’t know, are you?<span style=""> </span>Do you?<span style=""> </span>It took me several days of confusion to understand that she only knew how to conjugate in the first person singular, and until I left to convey to her that it was so much more understandable to speak with her in Arabic.<span style=""> </span>That way, at least, someone was speaking their first language.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But that’s a problem that goes away quickly.<span style=""> </span>Before long, your Darija outstrips your French (or, at least, that of your host sister), and you don’t have to worry about it.<span style=""> </span>In fact, almost everyone that you interact with on a daily basis will soon learn that everything works a lot easier when they speak to you in their local language.<span style=""> </span>That doesn’t help with people you’ve never met before, and certainly not when you’re travelling.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And that’s exactly the reason that French is so conflicting for us.<span style=""> </span>I find myself telling everyone, “I’m not French, please speak to me in Arabic.”<span style=""> </span>But why?<span style=""> </span>I’m not Arabic, either, and I know how to speak French.<span style=""> </span>In fact, I can probably speak French better than I can speak Arabic (if you ignore the fact that my instinct currently is to respond in Darija, and I have to think about French before speaking), and I can certainly read it better.<span style=""> </span>The obvious answer would be that I’m trying to learn Arabic, but that doesn’t account for the belligerence with which both I and my fellow volunteers respond to French.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’ve yelled plenty at café barkers and taxi drivers that I’m not French, are they French?<span style=""> </span>Why are they speaking to me in French if French isn’t there language?<span style=""> </span>I’ve experienced an unnaturally high percentage of bad words associated with being spoken to in French.<span style=""> </span>I really can’t explain it, but there’s little that causes more rage in the volunteer, except perhaps when, after responding in Darija to everything said in French, the other will say, “Tu parles bien l’arabe” (“You speak Arabic well,” in French).<span style=""> </span>That’s when you drift off a little and see yourself breaking his head open with the bottle of Fanta sitting conveniently on the table.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This makes a lot more sense for volunteers who don’t actually know how to speak French, and legitimately have to convince the other to change languages.<span style=""> </span>For others like myself, it’s probably just a product of daily hassle.<span style=""> </span>For Moroccans, it’s probably the opposite.<span style=""> </span>Foreigners who come here almost never speak Arabic, let alone Darija – they all just use their high school French (or, more likely, are French themselves).<span style=""> </span>Tourism is huge here, but expatriatism isn’t.<span style=""> </span>There’s little to no need to learn Arabic if you’re only coming for a short vacation, and experience has taught your average Moroccan guide that speaking French to the Western-looking people is a lot more successful.<span style=""> </span>It’s more likely to be a matter of the other trying to make things easier for you, which happens to find itself in the 1:1000000 situation where it has the exact opposite effect.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But eventually – usually – you can get the other to start speaking Arabic.<span style=""> </span>And this brings up the question of what he or she really thinks about these two languages.<span style=""> </span>It’s a widely accepted belief that when bargaining with Arabic, you can get much better prices than if you speak French.<span style=""> </span>That’s probably because they think you’re local and more likely know a good price from a bad one rather than being a sign of post-colonial consciousness, but the language is bigger than just the market.<span style=""> </span>French is the language of sophistication, and you can often see Moroccans speaking to each other in French, or throwing French words and expressions into their otherwise Arabic sentences.<span style=""> </span>Basically, what they’re saying is “I’ve got an education, and, presumably, lots of money and success.<span style=""> </span>Do you?”<span style=""> </span>There may be elements of this as well when they speak to us in French.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">It's a hard idea to explain because it really doesn't make any sense. All I can say with certainty is that if anyone ever made something - a hat, maybe - that effectively conveyed to someone seeing it that you spoke Arabic and not French, you'd set yourself up for like just selling it to the 205 Peace Corps Morocco volunteers. In my case, I face an extra challenge in that I was placed in this site because I do speak French. My predecessor was French (though American as well, obviously), and he spoke French very frequently. They wanted someone who could deal with that precedent. I got here and decided I didn't want to speak French at all. First, it doesn't always work, and I can safely say that only about a quarter of the people I interact with here really speak French well enough. Second, I don't want to seem any more imperialistic than I already do. To me, speaking Darija is a great way to validate the people of Freedonia, and I'm happy to learn a new language while I'm doing it.<br /></p>duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-42363849838521697992009-08-06T15:37:00.002+01:002009-08-06T15:44:58.545+01:00On Language, Part II: Arabic<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">Officially, Morocco is an Arab country.<span style=""> </span>Despite what many people believe, Arabic is the only official language of the country.<span style=""> </span>The news, whether broadcast or in print, is in Arabic.<span style=""> </span>Official proclamations are done in Arabic.<span style=""> </span>Speeches are given in Arabic.<span style=""> </span>Road signs and nutritional labels are written in Arabic.<span style=""> </span>That’s probably not very strange to you.<span style=""> </span>If you changed “Arabic” to “English,” and “Morocco” to “the United States,” you’d feel such a strong sense of “duh” that it might actually hurt.<span style=""> </span>I wouldn’t recommend trying.<span style=""> </span>The problem with Morocco is that pretty much no one speaks Arabic.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I should probably clarify.<span style=""> </span>When I say “Arabic,” I’m referring to Modern Standard Arabic, often called “Fos-ha.”<span style=""> </span>And despite the fact that many people do actually know how to speak it (it’s the language of school, as well as the language of almost all major Arabic television programs), it’s not the language of Morocco.<span style=""> </span>Moroccans speak their own version, <i style="">Darija Maghribia</i>, the “Moroccan Dialect.”<span style=""> </span>Everywhere you go, you hear Darija.<span style=""> </span>This can be really hard for volunteers (and other Americans) who speak Standard Arabic (henceforth, Arabic).<span style=""> </span>It can be hard for Arabs who come to visit the Kingdom.<span style=""> </span>Darija is the language of the street, of the souks, of the young, and of the old.<span style=""> </span>It’s not slang or street language or the result of poor education.<span style=""> </span>Darija is the language spoken by Morocco.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But that’s also part of the problem, it’s the <i style="">spoken</i> language.<span style=""> </span>Whenever anything gets written down, it’s back to Arabic.<span style=""> </span>Not only does this mess with the grammar, the two languages don’t always even use the same word.<span style=""> </span>Back in training we had a homework assignment to learn the names of a bunch of things in a picture.<span style=""> </span>One of them was a snake.<span style=""> </span>Now, I knew that “snake” is “<i style="">hensh</i>” in Darija, but there are two H-sounding letters in the Arabic alphabet, so I asked a boy how to write it.<span style=""> </span>He started writing, and when he’d finished I read a word that I’d never seen before: “<i style="">theu’baan</i>.”<span style=""> </span>I didn’t understand.<span style=""> </span>I asked him, “This is a <i style="">hensh</i>, right?”<span style=""> </span>“Yes,” he said.<span style=""> </span>“But you wrote “<i style="">theu’baan</i>,” I insisted.<span style=""> </span>“Yes,” he said.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It turns out that the Fos-ha word for “snake” is “<i style="">theu’baan</i>,” and, as we’ve mentioned, Darija is never written.<span style=""> </span>It’s just the way it is.<span style=""> </span>To this boy, it would have been as strange to him to write “<i style="">hensh</i>” as it was to me that he would write <i style="">“theu’baan</i>.”<span style=""> </span>He sees the one and thinks the other.<span style=""> </span>Never mind the fact that none of the three TH-sounding letters in the Arabic alphabet are used in Darija.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But it doesn’t always work out so well.<span style=""> </span>I was working with some kids to make a peer tutoring program for their junior high and we needed an informational brochure to give the teachers.<span style=""> </span>I don’t speak – let alone write – in Arabic, so I helped them come up with the words in Darija and let them do the translating.<span style=""> </span>We were able to figure out what we wanted to say in about ten minutes, but it took another thirty or more to switch it over to Fos-ha.<span style=""> </span>In fact, they may have had to take it home with them.<span style=""> </span>It amazed me that these boys, who are very eloquent in their own language, would have so much trouble trying to write.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And why is this?<span style=""> </span>Well, first, Arabic is an old language, and old languages often have very complicated grammar.<span style=""> </span>That’s not a rule, per say, but it’s definitely true in this case.<span style=""> </span>Just think of Latin, with all its genders and declensions and what have you.<span style=""> </span>The course of human progress has gotten rid of most of that nonsense, and Darija is a much more modern language.<span style=""> </span>It’s also been affected pretty seriously by interactions with Berber languages and French.<span style=""> </span>Most Moroccans, when they can’t think of the word they want to say in one of these languages, just use the same word from another.<span style=""> </span>A lot of these have caught on enough that a water faucet, for example, is a <i style="">robinet</i>.<span style=""> </span>No one knows how to say that in Arabic.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">A lot of Moroccans like to compare this to the relationship between British and American English, but the analogy falls short.<span style=""> </span>There are significant differences between the way we speak English that go beyond the standard deviation of a mere regional dialect.<span style=""> </span>I may have grown up hearing people talk about the “colah of youah apahtment,” but whether you’re from Providence, Dallas, or Vancouver, you’ll write it as the “color of your apartment.”<span style=""> </span>I don’t have a “favourite colour,” and I wouldn’t be caught dead in a “flat.”<span style=""> </span>These colors don’t run.<span style=""> </span>That’s something we just don’t understand about each other here.<span style=""> </span>We have our own English and use it for everything, they’ve got their language for speaking and another for writing.<span style=""> </span>I’ve never been able to get a good answer as to why they do that, nor have I been able to satisfactorily express why we do things our way.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So, how does all this affect your volunteer?<span style=""> </span>The worst is all those volunteers who wanted Morocco because they’d studied Arabic in college being crushed by the realization that they’re going to have to start from the beginning like all the rest of us.<span style=""> </span>I met a couple poor suckers who were doing two-month trainings at a university in Fes to learn Arabic, learning Arabic in class but then being spoken to in Darija whenever they leave.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Then there’s all those times when you get Fos-ha instead of Darija.<span style=""> </span>Whenever I tell someone I speak Arabic (which is usually a term for either Darija or Fos-ha), they start talking to me with all the complicated grammar and melodramatic inflection of Modern Standard.<span style=""> </span>And, we get a lot of Syrians here in Freedonia.<span style=""> </span>They come for the summer and, apparently, to dig wells.<span style=""> </span>I’ve started to take it as a compliment when people speak to me in Fos-ha because they think I’m from Syria.<span style=""> </span>It’s clear that my Darija isn’t my first language, but it sounds like I have at least some business speaking an Arabic-inspired dialect.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Just the other day I was having lunch with another volunteer who’d come to visit me in my site.<span style=""> </span>He’d ordered a salad with his kebabs; I don’t like the mayonnaise they put on salads here, so I just got the kebabs.<span style=""> </span>While we were waiting for our kebabs, he was eating the salad and we were talking.<span style=""> </span>Two guys sitting next to us were talking, too.<span style=""> </span>One of them leaned over and told me to eat my friend’s salad.<span style=""> </span>He said, “<i style="">Kool ta’am</i>,” which means “eat the couscous.”<span style=""> </span>I was a little confused because he was eating a salad, not couscous.<span style=""> </span>I was also a little confused because this guy was offering me some of someone else’s lunch.<span style=""> </span>I looked back and said the only thing I could think to say, “<i style="">Hadshi mashi ta’am</i>” (“This isn’t couscous”).<span style=""> </span>He gave me the strangest look I’ve ever seen, and said, “But you’re Syrian, aren’t you?”<span style=""> </span>I told him that no, I’m actually an American, we chatted for a few moments about where I live, and then we politely ignored each other for the rest of our lunches.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But it’s a very good example.<span style=""> </span>“<i style="">Ta’am</i>” is a common Moroccan word for couscous, but the actual Darija word for it is “<i style="">kus-ksu</i>,”<span style=""> </span>“<i style="">Ta’am</i>” is the Berber word for it, but it comes from Arabic originally, where it simply means “food.”<span style=""> </span>(That’s got to be an anthropologist’s dream.)<span style=""> </span>This guy was just telling me to eat the food, but how was I to know?<span style=""> </span>We say “<i style="">makla</i>.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We really don’t get too much Arabic, though.<span style=""> </span>Not spoken to us, anyway.<span style=""> </span>The hard part is the writing.<span style=""> </span>People say that not too long ago there used to be a newspaper in Darija.<span style=""> </span>They printed it for the foreign population who’ve learned how to speak the local dialect but don’t know anything about Fos-ha.<span style=""> </span>Granted, it was in the Arabic alphabet, but the spelling, grammar, and vocabulary were that of Darija.<span style=""> </span>All you had to know where the sounds of the letters.<span style=""> </span>It would be great if that was still around.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">As it stands, I’m functionally illiterate here, which has taught me the most important lesson of all this: illiteracy really sucks.<span style=""> </span>You take for granted just how much information reading gives us access to.<span style=""> </span>It’s not just the heavy, sacred tomes of <i style="">The Iliad</i>, <i style="">The Wealth of Nations</i>, and <i style="">Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance</i> that you’re missing out on.<span style=""> </span>You wouldn’t know what’s on television tonight or how much it costs to park your car.<span style=""> </span>You wouldn’t be able to say you read <i style="">Playboy</i> for the articles and your wife would give you a bunch of doodles instead of a grocery list.<span style=""> </span>You wouldn’t know if the aerosol can your toddler’s been sucking on is poisonous or what to do if it is.<span style=""> </span>You’d have gained nothing of my wisdom since I’m not there to read this for you.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">It is the ultimately humbling experience, and it makes you feel just how vulnerable you can be when you have to ask or figure everything out with only your best guesses to aid you. The only comfort is knowing that 47.7% of everyone else around you is in the same boat. On second thought, that's not very comforting at all. I guess that's why we're here in the Peace Corps.</p>duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7372560058091391929.post-17742154514511545872009-08-06T15:20:00.002+01:002009-08-06T15:44:06.963+01:00On Language, Part I: An Introduction<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">Probably the most important aspect of life in the Peace Corps is language, especially in Morocco.<span style=""> </span>Anyone you meet will gladly tell you that Morocco is a country full of languages.<span style=""> </span>There’s Arabic, Moroccan Arabic (Darija), French, Spanish, English, and five major indigenous language families (Berber).<span style=""> </span>Not to mention the thousands of local dialects.<span style=""> </span>Morocco is home to three distinct alphabets, and even among those there are variations.<span style=""> </span>Volunteers study at least one of these – often two or three – and will encounter all of them whether they want to or not.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while now – to try and make some sense for both you and me of all this.<span style=""> </span>Dealing with language is a daily struggle, in so many more ways than simply not knowing the word you’re trying to think of or someone is yelling at you.<span style=""> </span>It’s not just forgetting everything you’ve learned when it starts to get around 11 o’clock at night or after you’ve been spending a little more time than usual with other volunteers and English speakers.<span style=""> </span>It’s also just the shock of being in a place where people get around not all knowing the same language.<span style=""> </span>It’s trying to understand the frame of mind that grows from being surrounded by so many different ways of speaking.<span style=""> </span>It’s an incredible sight, and one that seems more and more foreign the more you think about it.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And now, please indulge me as I take you through a brief tour of your PCV and language.</p>duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02223920926666997402noreply@blogger.com0