This past weekend was the birthday of one of my fellow volunteers, and he wanted to go to Fes to celebrate. So, mindful of our five-person rule, that’s exactly what he, I, and three others did.
Now, for those of you who don’t know anything about Fes (also written as Fez, occasionally), it’s one of the oldest cities in Morocco, and, in fact, the world. At one time it was considered the third most important city in the Arab Empire, and referred to as the “Baghdad of the West.” It was at one of Fes’s universities that Pope Sylvester II learned the Arab mathematics that he introduced to Europe, and it was here that several of Morocco’s dynasties held court. Today, however, though Fes has lost most – if not all – of its international status, it remains one of the best preserved examples of medieval Arab life, and boasts the largest urban area in the world within which it is impossible to drive a car: the ancient medina.
Most of this, however, was secondary to our excitement at being able to see each other again (we all arrived here from Philadelphia together) and compare the adventures we’ve had since swearing in and moving to our respective communities. It would seem that we’ve all had completely different experiences so far in the Peace Corps, though some things are just universal, I guess. And we did do a handful of touristic sightseeing, the whole time, however, insisting that we weren’t tourists. I told every boutique owner I met that I was from Freedonia, and we shocked them all by speaking functional Darija whenever they implored us eat their delicious food, buy their beautiful souvenirs, or follow their expert guidance around the ancient medina. But we did manage to sneak in a trip to view the immaculate architecture of the Madrassa Bou Inania, the golden splendor of the Royal Palace gates, the monolithic stature of the crumbling Merinid Tombs, and the mysterious beauty of the ancient city walls by night.
I tended to be the tour guide of our group, mostly because I had had the tour book and the foresight to bring it with me. As a result, as we walked along in our wanderings (which is more or less what we did every day rather than having any set plan), I would offer my small wisdom and commentary on whatever it was I thought we were experiencing. However, you have the luxury of just hopping on to Wikipedia, where, after spending approximately five minutes, you’ll be about as knowledgeable about the history of Fes as I am, so if that’s what you’re looking for, go look somewhere else. I’m going to devote the rest of this to the particular adventures I had there, which you can only get here.
So we’ll start with the hotel. Called Erraha (meaning “relax”), it’s right next to the majestic Bab Boujloud, one of the major entrances into the ancient medina. Apparently it’s a favorite of Peace Corps volunteers, undoubtedly because it’s really easy to find and incredibly cheap (only 50 dirhams a night, the equivalent of about 8 dollars). And it's pretty much a youth hostel with just an S missing from its name, but it has a cute atmosphere, comfortable-enough rooms, and no visible signs of infestation. Not the place to take your in-laws, but once we found the good bathroom we had no complaints. Besides, on a cold night like that one, you want to have to share a bed with someone else, especially if that someone happens to be a man-bear like Tim, and you have his massive orangutan arms to keep you warm.
And because this was a birthday party we obviously had to go out to eat dinner, so, at the request of the birthday boy, we went for pizza in the Ville Nouvelle (the fancy “new” French section of town). The pizza was good, though not quite what you can get back in the states, but more important than the food itself was the experience it came with. First, although we couldn’t eat “authentic” pizza, they did have authentic hot sauce. I couldn’t believe it, but every table was equipped with Louisiana Hot Sauce (not just hot sauce from Louisiana, but specifically the brand Louisiana Hot Sauce). This is particularly incredible because my father requests only this brand, so, in many ways, this is the stuff I grew up on.
Almost as unexpected as the hot sauce was the surprise we had in the taxi. On the way to the Ville Nouvelle, we hailed two cabs and I ended up sitting in the front. I generally don’t like to be in the cab and speaking only English, though, so I chatted a little with the cabby. We mostly went through standard greetings and pleasantries, but then he asked me what we were doing in Morocco. I explained to him the Peace Corps and a little about our work in youth development, and he went to on tell me about an organization he has dedicated to helping homeless people get skills training. This was pretty cool, until he started to ask me about my thoughts on the current violence in Gaza. As Peace Corps volunteers, we’re not really supposed to get into discussions on politics, particularly when the policies of our country are contradictory to those of Morocco and the Arab world. Most ordinary people don’t really understand or respect an explanation to that effect, however, so I’ve taken to just explaining that I am against all war as a principle. The cabby agreed with me completely on this point, and went on to declare that Arabs (and Muslims in general) need to make peace with Israel, comparing that situation to the relationship between Arabs and Berbers here in Morocco and the peace that exists between them.
Obviously, we had completely parallel viewpoints, but this was interesting because of the way he expressed his: by yelling (which a lot of the people I’ve seen here do when they get excited about a topic, whether in a positive or negative way). Consequently, the guys in the back seat who hadn’t really been paying attention heard only shouting and the words “Gaza” and “Israel” and were convinced that this guy was condemning America and our relationship. In the end, though, we got out of the cab as brothers (I explained what he had really been saying), and ate the pizza. Unbelievably, he drove by again right as we were getting out of the restaurant, and we got to ride back with him. This time talking about English and listening to the cool sounds of Jermaine Jackson on the radio.
Which gets to the reason why I love Fes so much. Every time I’m there, I can get into these conversations like this and just go crazy with the Darija. For some reason I always feel several levels higher in my language in Fes than I do in Freedonia, most likely because I get to speak with the people in Darija rather than having to wade through the combination of Darija and Berber that I usually get here. And it’s so easy to get into a conversation. There are the taxis to start with, but the best are the people looking for you: the tour guides. All you have to do is stand at the entrance to any hotel or any of the main entrances into the ancient city and look foreign, and you’ll soon be swamped with guides. They appear out of nowhere and, in a flurry of broken English, profess to be the most trustworthy, to know the best touristic sites, and to know the fairest shops, and they’re all crooks. Most of them won’t take your wallet, but they’ll all take you to the shops of their friends and take a commission off the top of the already overpriced merchandise. What I like to do is to count how many will proposition me in a day. I suppose that at some point I can use it as a measure of integration if they stop, but I really don’t think they ever will.
But even better than the guides are the salesmen themselves. They jump out at you if you show even the slightest of passing interest in what they have in their shops, swearing upon the souls of their dead grandmothers that they sell only for the Moroccan price. The friend’s price. I love it. I don’t have any intention of buying anything, and I don’t have anything better to do than to argue with the salesman about why I don’t have any intention to buy anything, and you can usually learn a little while you’re at it. For example, eventually I went looking for something called “bilgha” for my hostmom, and, knowing only that they are some kind of footwear, decided to just ask a guy selling footwear which ones were the bilgha. Here’s a rough translation of our conversation:
(Salesman senses a tremor in the Force, determines it to be passing interest in what he has in his shop.) “Hello, friend, [in English] you want buying something for Morocco?” “Hello, friend, [in Darija] I’d like to know what bilgha are.” “Men’s or women’s?” “No. I don’t want to buy any. I want to know what they are.” “Come inside. What size do you want?” “I don’t want any. I’m learning to speak Darija and I want to understand the word ‘bilgha.’” “Yes, we have many bilgha. How much do you want to pay? We have only friend’s price.” “You don’t understand me. These [picking up footwear], are these bigha?” “Those are a very good choice. They look very good for you.” “But are they bilgha? What are bilgha? Are those bilgha? Are those others bilgha?” “Yes, all are bilgha. How many do you want?” “Thank you. Goodbye.” “Come back! I’m an honest salesman! I’ll give you the friend’s price!”
That’s how I learned that bilgha are just a style of shoe that Fes is known for making. I had experiences with other traditional crafts, all of them fantastically similar to this one. For some reason this seems to bother the other volunteers, but I think it’s as much a part of the ancient city as seeing the tanneries, which was another great story. Fes is famous for leather work, and it still maintains its original tanneries operating unchanged since medieval times. We accidentally found ourselves very close to the tanneries, and, since a photo of them is on the second page of the guidebook, reasoned that it would be completely unacceptable to not see them. And, while we contemplated this point, a woman came up to us and in perfect French that only I of the four of us understood bade us follow her to the optimal tannery viewing station. For free. Now, none of us believed her when she said free, but all of us knew we had the language skill to deal with undoubted betrayal, and besides, what could be more James Bond-like than following a strange woman down dark, twisting alleys in an ancient city for no reason better than the fact that she just walked up and told us to? And isn’t James Bond the real point of the Peace Corps?
When we arrived at our final destination, a three-story leather emporium, the lady vanished and we were left with a mob of leathergoods salesmen. Unfazed, however, we walked over and introduced ourselves and started speaking Darija with them. They were a little surprised and responded for some reason by asking if we knew any Berber. One of us gave him the Berber translation and we got to introducing our names. I went last, and it turned out that one of them was also named Amin. He immediately declared us brothers and insisted that I and my friends accompany him to the roof to view the tanneries. Up we went, and I must say that despite the smell (which will haunt my worst nightmares for the rest of my life), the tanneries are pretty cool. He gave us some short explanations about the tanning process and the animals used (they make camel leather!), misunderstood the majority of our questions, and mostly just stood there while we enjoyed the sun and view of the city. Well, eventually Amin got tired of standing there and dropped the bomb on us: “So, you want to buy something?” “No,” I replied. “We’re using today to just walk around and see the sights.” After a few more tries, we explained that it was time to go and everyone went back downstairs. We said our thank yous and goodbyes, and avowed that we had never seen a tannery more interesting than this one, and started to go. And, walking through the door, as expected, Amin requested 5 dirhams from me for each of us. I told him that Mystery Lady had said “free,” and I think he told me to get lost. Which we did.
Finally, Fes is a place where we can go to have a short return to something similar to the life we were used to back in the states, which is funny, since so many Americans go there to experience a different world. At the pizzeria, we ran into a handful of college students from LA who had just arrived in Fes to do a few weeks of studying Islam. After recognizing each other’s accents, we started chatting a bit about what we were doing there, which was awesome. First, they were so cute. They had questions about everything, and seemed like such children – just how we had been in our first weeks here. They wanted to know about everything from language to culture to safety to where to get the best food, and we got to feel supercool to answer all their questions with authority, despite the fact that we are only now in our fourth month of twenty-seven here in Morocco. But even better than their big-brother-ification of us was their validation of our work and choice to join the Peace Corps. Maybe because it’s just what we do that makes us not really think about it so much, but when you meet someone else and say you’re a Volunteer, they get this look that’s part awe, part envy, and all reverence. It’s like the light shines off us a little brighter (which, when you consider the relative frequency with which we take showers, is not entirely a poetic self-aggrandizement). And when I make the list of things that make me feel unnaturally good over here, it’s a three-way tie between packages from home, hot showers, and impressing the pants off of American tourists.
I like to tell people here in my town that I now have two cultures – American and Moroccan – and meeting tourists validates this as more than just a clever way to be able to clean the table (as a man) without protestations from my host family. Towards the end of our stay, we ran into a couple taking a month-long tour of the country, and, as with the kids at the pizzeria, we chatted about being in the Peace Corps, our work in youth development, and various little bits of culture that we knew how to explain to them. And they were incredibly cool. Although they were tourists, and going from Tangiers to Fes to Marrakesh like every other tourist, they didn’t want to stay in the tourist holes; they wanted the “real” Morocco. For example, they wanted to know about the hammam, and we had no shortage of exciting tales to tell them about. And when we talked about the places where we lived, they were so excited about the idea of meeting the Berbers and getting a slice of everyday life. So, since of all of us I live the closest to Fes, I invited them to Freedonia for lunch some day. First, it’s our job to educate Americans about Moroccan culture. For example, you would have to be an incredible anthropologist and lucky guesser to be able to tell the difference between a Berber and an Arab, but a lot of foreigners have this image of old world indigenous people when they hear the word “Berber.” And second, it’s just the Moroccan thing to do. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve just met someone and they invite me to their house. The taxi driver told me to come to his village some time, and a jelaba salesman we chatted with for only about 15 minutes said that the next time we’re in Fes we need to come over for lunch. And so I invited this couple to grab a taxi and come visit my mountain, and I did it without really thinking about how strange it would have been for me to say something like that back in America. In the end, they never came, which isn’t really surprising, but I gave them the address to this blog, so, if you guys are reading, I hope the rest of your trip was exciting.
The remainder of my trip consisted of only a hike over to the bus station and a short ride home. It was actually my first time riding in a bus in Morocco, and turned out to be as full of excitement as anything else. Like true Americans, the three remaining of us got on board about ten minutes before the scheduled loading time, about a half hour before the scheduled departure. There weren’t many others on board at that time, and I think I now know why. For the following hour we were assaulted by an endless stream of walking convenience stores: kids with stacks of cookies, guys with cigarettes and crappy bling necklaces, peanut and sunflower seed salesmen, beggars, and a guy who walked in and started blasting CDs of Qur’anic recitations from a boombox. And some of them came on board more than once. I’m positive that no one on the bus bought anything from any of them (though a few beggars did succeed in getting change). But the best thing was the realization that no one would have expected this bus to have any tourists on it, and the vendors treated us like everyone else there. The beggars made no bigger deal about us than anyone else, nor did the guys selling socks and bilgha (I could have just waited, I guess). Guidebooks will tend to give you the impression that you’ve got the word “foreigner” stamped on your forehead, and condition you to have a defensive, combative stance to everyone who approaches you, but the real truth is that street entrepreneurship and begging are just a part of life over here, and everyone (though there is some disproportionality thrown our direction) has to live with it.
It was comical in the seeming randomness (from an American perspective) of their products, it was enlightening in my journey of cultural understanding, it was empowering in giving me a sense of integration, and it was the perfect way to end a fantastic weekend.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
9 More Things
1 - Tom and Jerry. Yes, the cat and mouse, respectively. I’m fairly sure that we all know who these two characters are; we all delighted to their antics as children and appreciated the morbid pleasure of their remanifestations as Itchy and Scratchy. Nevertheless, we can’t even begin to compare our love for two of Hanna and Barbara’s finest creations to the devoted following they have here in Morocco. Firstly, their adventures are aired nightly in prime time. Second, unlike The King of Queens, people actually watch it. Everyone. Young and old, boys and girls, no one with a telecommand (the fantastic Darija word for remote control) in their hands has ever in my experience changed the channel away from Tom and Jerry, despite the fact that even I in my very short time here in Morocco have already seen many of the episodes more than once. Finally, the illustrious Cat and Mouse have such a cult of personality that I have on several occasions had concepts explained to me using Tom and Jerry as an example.
2 - In my travels around the world I've experienced what I believe to be a very unproportional amount of difficulty with people pronouncing my name. Perhaps I’m being elitist or culturally insensitive, but I’ve never really considered "Duncan" to be all that difficult to say. In Honduras I was "Junkle," in Namibia "Tangeni" (don’t ask me how that one got there), and almost everyone who reads my name opts for "Dooncan." Not to mention the struggles I’ve had with the spelling in the Northeast of America. (Damn you, doughnut maker!) My first day in homestay in Morocco, however, my host family decided to eschew this hazardous name by renaming me Amin. I must say, I rather like it, but it has also convinced me that I will never find satisfaction with my name. You see, I’ve always written "Amin" thusly, but this is apparently not the way the French (to whom the Moroccans defer to in all questions of spelling in the Roman alphabet) do things. It seems that they like to add an "e" to the end, making it "Amine." I don’t know why I seem to care, but the final "e" just makes me feel like the name is incredibly effeminate. It just doesn’t pacify my raging testosterone the way "Duncan" – meaning "Dark Warrior" – truly represents my masculinity.
3 - Morocco has a fairly well-developed film and television industry, which, though it probably doesn’t export much of its work, is very respected domestically. Local programming is regularly competitive with American and Indian films, Lebanese serials, and Turkish and Mexican soap operas. Nevertheless, despite all these successes, there seems to be one flaw: actors. In all of my time watching television here (which, as we’ve discussed earlier, is almost a national duty), I’ve probably seen only around 20 different actors and actresses who just seem to cycle around through all the different films, serials, and programs. This is surprising to me, though; not only because Morocco has a fairly large population and should be able to field a larger pool of screen talent, but also because my experiences the youth has led me to the conclusions that (1) Moroccans really enjoy acting, and (2) despite the fact that they seem to get little training or opportunity to perform, when they are acting they do so with very little of the trepidation or reservations that you often find with American youth. Perhaps this is just a signal of a different cultural perception of shame and embarrassment, but whatever the reason, it makes it very hard to understand why they can’t get any more actors onto the tv, and why the ones they’ve got are so melodramatic and farcical with so much natural talent just lying around.
4 - You don’t often expect to have culture shock in this area, but, surprisingly, Americans and Moroccans don’t clap their hands the same way. We generally clap with our two hands perpendicular to each other, as though we were shaking hands with ourselves. The majority of Moroccans I’ve seen, however, clap with their hands in parallel symmetry. Imagine that you’re bowing like a traditional Buddhist. Bring your hands together, but before you lower your head, start banging them together in a rhythmic fashion. Now you’re clapping Moroccan style.
5 - As you know, meals in Morocco are generally eaten from a single, communal plate in the center of the table. This is a lot of fun, but it does pose a problem for what to do with all the bones, peels, seeds, pits, and other refuse you accumulate while eating. In the states, of course, you would just use the edge of your plate and then forget about them until the time comes to clean up. In Morocco, though, you don’t have your own personal plate to decorate with all these undesirables, and it would be quite unsavory – even from a Western perspective, I think – to return your just-chewed-upon debris to the communal plate, regardless of it being in your own personal section. Fortunately, however, most Moroccan families are significantly larger than those in America, requiring them to eat from tables a good deal larger than the central plate. This leaves a fair amount of unoccupied space, into which Moroccans have collectively decided to discard everything they don’t want to eat. "But what," you ask, "about said table?" A good question, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel strange about adding my share at first, but Morocco comes complete with a solution to this problem as well. All tables are equipped with a special plastic, much like what you find covering all the furniture in your grandmother’s house. This plastic serves a very useful purpose, however, rather than just being a terrible fashion decision made some time around 1974. All you need to do is take a moist cloth and wipe everything away into the now emptied plate at the end of the meal, and you have a pristine dinning table ready to be used again. Which it will be, and a lot sooner than you expect.
6 - Morocco also has a rich and vibrant musical heritage. Wherever you go, you can hear traditional music and modern – Moroccan – artists’ work. In fact, one of the most popular television programs is a weekly musical "variety hour" (hosted, in rotation, by one of the 20 actors). The vast majority of cell phones seem to be equipped with a lifetime supply of Moroccan MP3s. Of course, as every country, Morocco has not been able to escape from the tentacles of globalization, and so you can find your fair share of American music here as well. But it’s not quite the way you’d expect it. Rather than the vacuous Top 40 that Casey Casem has been brainwashing the youth back home into spending all their parents’ money on for the last 136 years, you find some of the most obscure American hits. Of course, you get some immortals like Bob Marley and Michael Jackson, but Moroccans also seem to have an unnatural appreciation for Cat Stevens (understandable since his becoming a Muslim and renaming as Yussuf Islam), Bryan Adams, Celine Dion, Akon, and the Eagle’s classic "Hotel California." Don’t ask me how these lucky few have made such an impression on the citizens of the kingdom while so many others have failed. I’m still working on converting them to Queen and Jamiroquai.
7 - Although I haven’t posted any of them here, I’ve taken my fair share of photos here in Morocco, and this has exposed one of the biggest differences between American and Moroccan culture: Moroccans don’t smile. In pictures, that is. They smile all the time in their daily lives, just like any other group of people I’ve ever come across. But in pictures, you get only straight faces. This, from an American perspective, is kind of funny. You have a lot of people who look incredibly serious all the time, reminiscent of those old photos you see in history textbooks of frontier life in the 1800s (especially since there are so many mustaches). But, ironically, this goes both ways. The Moroccans I’ve met tend to think that smiling in a photo is ridiculous. In fact, while taking some pictures of my family, I happened to catch my cousin while he must have had a spontaneous burst of laughter and was, as a result, smiling. I thought it was a great picture. My family, however, thought it was absolutely preposterous to see his big toothy grin, and insisted that I should erase such an outlandish photo. In fact, it turned out to be the only one from the entire photo shoot that they didn’t want to get a copy of.
8 - With the cold weather we’ve been having, you find that people generally wear gloves around here. This isn’t really surprising or remarkable in any way; people tend to wear gloves the world over when it’s cold. What is interesting, however, is the way gloves get in the way of greetings. In Morocco we pretty much always just use the standard handshake, but apparently this is not done while wearing gloves. What happens, is when you show up somewhere and begin the greetings, you find everyone quickly taking off their right glove, while at the same time telling everyone else not to worry about it and just keep their glove on.
9 - There are dogs and cats all over the place here in Freedonia, and, from my experience, most every town and village in Morocco. The question I have is where they all came from. You see, people (with only a few exceptions) don’t keep pets, so all of these animals are just street roamers. You’ll occasionally find a few that live in or around someone’s house – usually cats – but the family will generally tolerate them the same way you would tolerate a bird that decides to make its nest on your porch; you let it do what it wants until it gets in the way, and then you chase it off until it comes back and you ignore it again. While living in Truck Stop Number 9 we had a cat like this. He was given free roam of the house, but whenever the family saw him they would chase him away. I think the most astonishing thing they ever saw was when I let him sleep in my room at night. I enjoyed the company, as well as the warmth he provided at night, but they just thought this was completely ridiculous.
2 - In my travels around the world I've experienced what I believe to be a very unproportional amount of difficulty with people pronouncing my name. Perhaps I’m being elitist or culturally insensitive, but I’ve never really considered "Duncan" to be all that difficult to say. In Honduras I was "Junkle," in Namibia "Tangeni" (don’t ask me how that one got there), and almost everyone who reads my name opts for "Dooncan." Not to mention the struggles I’ve had with the spelling in the Northeast of America. (Damn you, doughnut maker!) My first day in homestay in Morocco, however, my host family decided to eschew this hazardous name by renaming me Amin. I must say, I rather like it, but it has also convinced me that I will never find satisfaction with my name. You see, I’ve always written "Amin" thusly, but this is apparently not the way the French (to whom the Moroccans defer to in all questions of spelling in the Roman alphabet) do things. It seems that they like to add an "e" to the end, making it "Amine." I don’t know why I seem to care, but the final "e" just makes me feel like the name is incredibly effeminate. It just doesn’t pacify my raging testosterone the way "Duncan" – meaning "Dark Warrior" – truly represents my masculinity.
3 - Morocco has a fairly well-developed film and television industry, which, though it probably doesn’t export much of its work, is very respected domestically. Local programming is regularly competitive with American and Indian films, Lebanese serials, and Turkish and Mexican soap operas. Nevertheless, despite all these successes, there seems to be one flaw: actors. In all of my time watching television here (which, as we’ve discussed earlier, is almost a national duty), I’ve probably seen only around 20 different actors and actresses who just seem to cycle around through all the different films, serials, and programs. This is surprising to me, though; not only because Morocco has a fairly large population and should be able to field a larger pool of screen talent, but also because my experiences the youth has led me to the conclusions that (1) Moroccans really enjoy acting, and (2) despite the fact that they seem to get little training or opportunity to perform, when they are acting they do so with very little of the trepidation or reservations that you often find with American youth. Perhaps this is just a signal of a different cultural perception of shame and embarrassment, but whatever the reason, it makes it very hard to understand why they can’t get any more actors onto the tv, and why the ones they’ve got are so melodramatic and farcical with so much natural talent just lying around.
4 - You don’t often expect to have culture shock in this area, but, surprisingly, Americans and Moroccans don’t clap their hands the same way. We generally clap with our two hands perpendicular to each other, as though we were shaking hands with ourselves. The majority of Moroccans I’ve seen, however, clap with their hands in parallel symmetry. Imagine that you’re bowing like a traditional Buddhist. Bring your hands together, but before you lower your head, start banging them together in a rhythmic fashion. Now you’re clapping Moroccan style.
5 - As you know, meals in Morocco are generally eaten from a single, communal plate in the center of the table. This is a lot of fun, but it does pose a problem for what to do with all the bones, peels, seeds, pits, and other refuse you accumulate while eating. In the states, of course, you would just use the edge of your plate and then forget about them until the time comes to clean up. In Morocco, though, you don’t have your own personal plate to decorate with all these undesirables, and it would be quite unsavory – even from a Western perspective, I think – to return your just-chewed-upon debris to the communal plate, regardless of it being in your own personal section. Fortunately, however, most Moroccan families are significantly larger than those in America, requiring them to eat from tables a good deal larger than the central plate. This leaves a fair amount of unoccupied space, into which Moroccans have collectively decided to discard everything they don’t want to eat. "But what," you ask, "about said table?" A good question, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel strange about adding my share at first, but Morocco comes complete with a solution to this problem as well. All tables are equipped with a special plastic, much like what you find covering all the furniture in your grandmother’s house. This plastic serves a very useful purpose, however, rather than just being a terrible fashion decision made some time around 1974. All you need to do is take a moist cloth and wipe everything away into the now emptied plate at the end of the meal, and you have a pristine dinning table ready to be used again. Which it will be, and a lot sooner than you expect.
6 - Morocco also has a rich and vibrant musical heritage. Wherever you go, you can hear traditional music and modern – Moroccan – artists’ work. In fact, one of the most popular television programs is a weekly musical "variety hour" (hosted, in rotation, by one of the 20 actors). The vast majority of cell phones seem to be equipped with a lifetime supply of Moroccan MP3s. Of course, as every country, Morocco has not been able to escape from the tentacles of globalization, and so you can find your fair share of American music here as well. But it’s not quite the way you’d expect it. Rather than the vacuous Top 40 that Casey Casem has been brainwashing the youth back home into spending all their parents’ money on for the last 136 years, you find some of the most obscure American hits. Of course, you get some immortals like Bob Marley and Michael Jackson, but Moroccans also seem to have an unnatural appreciation for Cat Stevens (understandable since his becoming a Muslim and renaming as Yussuf Islam), Bryan Adams, Celine Dion, Akon, and the Eagle’s classic "Hotel California." Don’t ask me how these lucky few have made such an impression on the citizens of the kingdom while so many others have failed. I’m still working on converting them to Queen and Jamiroquai.
7 - Although I haven’t posted any of them here, I’ve taken my fair share of photos here in Morocco, and this has exposed one of the biggest differences between American and Moroccan culture: Moroccans don’t smile. In pictures, that is. They smile all the time in their daily lives, just like any other group of people I’ve ever come across. But in pictures, you get only straight faces. This, from an American perspective, is kind of funny. You have a lot of people who look incredibly serious all the time, reminiscent of those old photos you see in history textbooks of frontier life in the 1800s (especially since there are so many mustaches). But, ironically, this goes both ways. The Moroccans I’ve met tend to think that smiling in a photo is ridiculous. In fact, while taking some pictures of my family, I happened to catch my cousin while he must have had a spontaneous burst of laughter and was, as a result, smiling. I thought it was a great picture. My family, however, thought it was absolutely preposterous to see his big toothy grin, and insisted that I should erase such an outlandish photo. In fact, it turned out to be the only one from the entire photo shoot that they didn’t want to get a copy of.
8 - With the cold weather we’ve been having, you find that people generally wear gloves around here. This isn’t really surprising or remarkable in any way; people tend to wear gloves the world over when it’s cold. What is interesting, however, is the way gloves get in the way of greetings. In Morocco we pretty much always just use the standard handshake, but apparently this is not done while wearing gloves. What happens, is when you show up somewhere and begin the greetings, you find everyone quickly taking off their right glove, while at the same time telling everyone else not to worry about it and just keep their glove on.
9 - There are dogs and cats all over the place here in Freedonia, and, from my experience, most every town and village in Morocco. The question I have is where they all came from. You see, people (with only a few exceptions) don’t keep pets, so all of these animals are just street roamers. You’ll occasionally find a few that live in or around someone’s house – usually cats – but the family will generally tolerate them the same way you would tolerate a bird that decides to make its nest on your porch; you let it do what it wants until it gets in the way, and then you chase it off until it comes back and you ignore it again. While living in Truck Stop Number 9 we had a cat like this. He was given free roam of the house, but whenever the family saw him they would chase him away. I think the most astonishing thing they ever saw was when I let him sleep in my room at night. I enjoyed the company, as well as the warmth he provided at night, but they just thought this was completely ridiculous.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
On Development, Part II
Now that I’ve been here in Freedonia for a little over a month, I’d like to stop and take stock of what I’ve done so far and how I’ve lived and worked. So far, I’ve mostly only given classes in English, met people who I’ll hopefully be working with in the coming years, and tagged along with the other clubs and associations working out of the Dar Shebab. This last has probably been the most surprising, and, at times, the most developmentally frustrating.
You see, when I showed up here in town, it wasn’t as though I’d walked out of a vacuum and into a new world of development work. I’d studied international relations for 5 years, discussing and analyzing the various theories and techniques of development, and done a nearly 3-month long pre-service training preparing me for the specific needs and challenges of working in Morocco. Despite all this, however, I’ve found myself largely sitting on the sidelines in Freedonia, caught between my desire to initiate projects and the restriction that projects initiated by me are contrary to the ideology of development, as I am not a sustainable resource. Normally, we have to seek out parties interesting in taking part in the development of their community and work with them to build their capacity to do so. In my case, however, they’re already doing that without me.
At first, I took this as a sign that the powers that be in the Peace Corps had made a mistake in assigning me (or anyone) to Freedonia. Obviously, this was a place that was not at all in need of a volunteer, but rather a medal for initiative. And I think I’ve come to realize why I felt this way. My pre-service training, as all pre-service trainings, was done in a different community. Although it was a town fairly close to Freedonia, no two sites are in equal states of development, and my initial impressions and experiences there gave me a certain impression of what I would be doing in my final site. Unfortunately, because there is still a volunteer working in that town, a fact that will be unavoidable considering what I’m going to write about it, I can’t use it’s true name, either. Instead, I’ll refer to it as Truck Stop Number 9.
Truck Stop Number 9 is, as the name implies, more-or-less just a stopping place for people going to larger, more important cities on the other side. People in the town will tell you that one of its neighborhoods is known for being the second best place in Morocco for getting prostitutes, but, as I’ve learned since leaving, they may be making a mountain out of what is really a licentious molehill, and are only the fourth best place for prostitution, tops. And similar to its ranking for pleasurable company is the Dar Shebab, which is about as active as Disco Night in a retirement community. As a result, because there were really no associations working in the town, my five training mates and I were able to roll up into town and become local celebrities with the youth almost immediately, and, by the time we left we had gotten two clubs going that are hopefully still active, as well as reviving the English language learning for the current volunteer.
And it was from this mindset that I moved into Freedonia. I expected youth to flock to my classes and then stay around eager to become part of the new movement to put the town on the map for something other than an exaggerated sex trade. In reality, what happened was I got a lot of kids showing up for my classes, and then moving over to the clubs and associations for their activities once I finished teaching them. In fact, we have so many clubs working in the Dar Shebab that they fight over room space and time, and I tend to find myself sitting on the side of room watching as they lead the youth in their activities.
And don’t get me wrong, it’s great to see this kind of involvement in town, it’s just that it’s caused me to have to rethink my earlier preconceptions of Peace Corps volunteer work. But I think I’ve begun to figure out how to deal with Freedonia and its particular level of development. Firstly, the Peace Corps spent a good deal of time telling us to just take things easy at first, reminding us that many volunteers are really only teaching classes until the end of their first full year. I don’t know if I’ll really wait as long as that, but I can see much of the wisdom of their advice now. Until the end of January, I’ll be living with a host family, which is wonderful, but is somewhat restrictive of my time. For example, if I have a meeting of some kind, and it’s anywhere near the time appointed for eating, then my family will insist that I simply reschedule. As an American, of course, I would tend to just eat that which I had time to eat, or delay the meal entirely, but this is not a luxury I have while I share my schedule with that of the family. It makes good sense in this context to keep a mostly empty calendar and just go with the flow, especially since I’m still meeting the people who work and live here, anyway.
Secondly, I’ve come to realize that it’s great that there are so many activities already going on with the Dar Shebab. The more the merrier. I mean, after all, the idea is to help create a self-sufficient community, and Freedonia is well on its way to achieving this. But there is also plenty of work to be done, and plenty of activities and associations that are still missing before Freedonia can be considered a closed site. For example, there’s no coordination to speak of between the various clubs already present, a problem I am attempting to resolve with the development of a Dar Shebab Majlis (parliament), which I’m sure I’ll write about more in the future. I’m also working on a small inter-elementary school soccer league to address the lack of organized sports here in town, as well as an environment club. And there is a healthy demand for information technology training all over the town. Hopefully, these are things that will become part of the fabric of the community, and if I’m successful, there will be a structure in place to deal with new needs as they arise.
So, that’s the story of four months of volunteer life. It’s mostly a matter of just taking each day one at a time and doing whatever shows up, all while trying to get a general feel for everything that’s happening around you. I get the occasional remark that I’m not doing as much work as the volunteers who’ve come before me, but that’s easy enough to shrug away, and it keeps me motivated to make as much of a difference here as I can.
You see, when I showed up here in town, it wasn’t as though I’d walked out of a vacuum and into a new world of development work. I’d studied international relations for 5 years, discussing and analyzing the various theories and techniques of development, and done a nearly 3-month long pre-service training preparing me for the specific needs and challenges of working in Morocco. Despite all this, however, I’ve found myself largely sitting on the sidelines in Freedonia, caught between my desire to initiate projects and the restriction that projects initiated by me are contrary to the ideology of development, as I am not a sustainable resource. Normally, we have to seek out parties interesting in taking part in the development of their community and work with them to build their capacity to do so. In my case, however, they’re already doing that without me.
At first, I took this as a sign that the powers that be in the Peace Corps had made a mistake in assigning me (or anyone) to Freedonia. Obviously, this was a place that was not at all in need of a volunteer, but rather a medal for initiative. And I think I’ve come to realize why I felt this way. My pre-service training, as all pre-service trainings, was done in a different community. Although it was a town fairly close to Freedonia, no two sites are in equal states of development, and my initial impressions and experiences there gave me a certain impression of what I would be doing in my final site. Unfortunately, because there is still a volunteer working in that town, a fact that will be unavoidable considering what I’m going to write about it, I can’t use it’s true name, either. Instead, I’ll refer to it as Truck Stop Number 9.
Truck Stop Number 9 is, as the name implies, more-or-less just a stopping place for people going to larger, more important cities on the other side. People in the town will tell you that one of its neighborhoods is known for being the second best place in Morocco for getting prostitutes, but, as I’ve learned since leaving, they may be making a mountain out of what is really a licentious molehill, and are only the fourth best place for prostitution, tops. And similar to its ranking for pleasurable company is the Dar Shebab, which is about as active as Disco Night in a retirement community. As a result, because there were really no associations working in the town, my five training mates and I were able to roll up into town and become local celebrities with the youth almost immediately, and, by the time we left we had gotten two clubs going that are hopefully still active, as well as reviving the English language learning for the current volunteer.
And it was from this mindset that I moved into Freedonia. I expected youth to flock to my classes and then stay around eager to become part of the new movement to put the town on the map for something other than an exaggerated sex trade. In reality, what happened was I got a lot of kids showing up for my classes, and then moving over to the clubs and associations for their activities once I finished teaching them. In fact, we have so many clubs working in the Dar Shebab that they fight over room space and time, and I tend to find myself sitting on the side of room watching as they lead the youth in their activities.
And don’t get me wrong, it’s great to see this kind of involvement in town, it’s just that it’s caused me to have to rethink my earlier preconceptions of Peace Corps volunteer work. But I think I’ve begun to figure out how to deal with Freedonia and its particular level of development. Firstly, the Peace Corps spent a good deal of time telling us to just take things easy at first, reminding us that many volunteers are really only teaching classes until the end of their first full year. I don’t know if I’ll really wait as long as that, but I can see much of the wisdom of their advice now. Until the end of January, I’ll be living with a host family, which is wonderful, but is somewhat restrictive of my time. For example, if I have a meeting of some kind, and it’s anywhere near the time appointed for eating, then my family will insist that I simply reschedule. As an American, of course, I would tend to just eat that which I had time to eat, or delay the meal entirely, but this is not a luxury I have while I share my schedule with that of the family. It makes good sense in this context to keep a mostly empty calendar and just go with the flow, especially since I’m still meeting the people who work and live here, anyway.
Secondly, I’ve come to realize that it’s great that there are so many activities already going on with the Dar Shebab. The more the merrier. I mean, after all, the idea is to help create a self-sufficient community, and Freedonia is well on its way to achieving this. But there is also plenty of work to be done, and plenty of activities and associations that are still missing before Freedonia can be considered a closed site. For example, there’s no coordination to speak of between the various clubs already present, a problem I am attempting to resolve with the development of a Dar Shebab Majlis (parliament), which I’m sure I’ll write about more in the future. I’m also working on a small inter-elementary school soccer league to address the lack of organized sports here in town, as well as an environment club. And there is a healthy demand for information technology training all over the town. Hopefully, these are things that will become part of the fabric of the community, and if I’m successful, there will be a structure in place to deal with new needs as they arise.
So, that’s the story of four months of volunteer life. It’s mostly a matter of just taking each day one at a time and doing whatever shows up, all while trying to get a general feel for everything that’s happening around you. I get the occasional remark that I’m not doing as much work as the volunteers who’ve come before me, but that’s easy enough to shrug away, and it keeps me motivated to make as much of a difference here as I can.
Friday, January 2, 2009
The Hajj
This past week my grandfather returned from the Hajj, and so I think this is an excellent opportunity to talk about one of the most important aspects of life in a Muslim country.
First, some of you may not know what the Hajj is. The Hajj, or pilgrimage, is one of the Five Pillars of the Islamic religion. The other four are the Shahada (testament of faith), Salah (daily prayer), Zakat (alms-giving), and Saum (fasting during the month of Ramadan). Every year, during the month of Zul-Hijjah, the final month of the Islamic lunar calendar, thousands of Muslims travel to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, to perform the rites prescribed by the Prophet Muhammad. Every Muslim is supposed to undertake the Hajj at least once during his or her lifetime if physically and financially able.
I don’t intend to talk about the actual performance of the Hajj, however. First, I think that they are fairly well documented by scholars better informed than I on the subject, and rather than blunder my way through a most likely incomplete explanation, you should probably read their work if you’re really interested. Second, this blog is about my experiences in Morocco, and so I would prefer to write about the smaller and less well known cultural aspects of the Hajj present here.
To start with, anyone who has performed the Hajj is given a new name/title. Men are called “al Hajj” and women are “Hajja.” This is particularly interesting, though, because we generally call all elderly men and women “al Hajj” or “Hajja,” respectively. It’s just a general term of respect, despite the fact that many of them have most likely not undertaken the pilgrimage. The reason for this is that it is incredibly expensive. Before going to Mecca, you need the money for transportation, lodging, taking care of all the expenses your family will incur during your several weeks of absence, and, most importantly, you need to bring back a lot of things with you.
Which gets us to the experience I’ve had with the Hajj. At the beginning, about a month ago, al Hajj, my grandfather, was taken to the airport to begin his pilgrimage. Before his flight, however, he was given a hero’s farewell. All the friends and family with the ability to come were at the house dressed in their finest, and because I had a camera with me, everyone sat to have their picture taken with him. They sang him out to the car, and then stuffed as many people as possible into the other car to continue the fanfare at the airport. This didn’t include me, however, so I can’t say what happened there.
About one lunar month later we did it all over again. Al Hajj’s airplane didn’t land until about midnight, but we were all of us ready again in the house by about six, cooking, sleeping, or playing cards until we got the word that the car was approaching the house. We all went out again and sang and cheered as he came back inside, then feasted on another slaughtered ram (since we’d all been waiting since about six to eat) while al Hajj told stories of what he’d just done. At least, I think that’s what he was saying. Unfortunately, my family doesn’t really speak Darija (Moroccan Arabic) with each other. Instead they speak a Berber dialect that I have no comprehension of. But I caught a few key words like “Arafat,” the name of the mountain where pilgrims throw stones at a representation of Satan, so I’m fairly sure that’s what he was talking about.
For the next week I proceeded to eat my lunch, dinner, and occasional breakfast at al Hajj’s house, almost exclusively of slaughtered ram and prune tagine. This is because it is customary for people to visit a pilgrim just returned from the Hajj to congratulate him or her and to ask for their blessing. And when you have guests in Morocco, you serve what is considered the finest of tagines: slaughtered ram and prunes. It’s very good, though it can be straining to eat it twice a day for a week. Of course, every tagine was followed by couscous. Sometimes “dessert couscous” (plain couscous with sugar and cinnamon), sometimes regular meal couscous with all the vegetables and chicken you’d expect.
It was in observing these visits that I learned some of the less-well documented aspects of the Hajj. For example, the returned pilgrim is responsible for passing on some of his or her newly attained holiness to the community. This is not only by blessing the visitors but also by giving them gifts brought back from Mecca, particularly prayer beads and traditional Muslim hats, especially to their family members. They also bring back certain items from Mecca, which, though they can be procured here as well, are particularly desirable for their connection with the holy city. The most sought after in my experience is bkhor, a sort of incense used in religious ceremonies and for purifying the house.
The most important, though, is the Water of Zim Zim. Perhaps because it can only be found in Mecca, perhaps because it is miraculous rather than merely sacred, but whatever the reason, when people hear that someone has just returned from the Hajj they immediately inquire after the Zim Zim. Here’s the origins as best as I could ascertain from my inquiries. According to the Qur’an, Mary and Jesus (while still a young child) were walking through the desert between two mountains and were very thirsty. Mary went to the two mountains in search of water but was unable to find any. Jesus, being very thirsty, began to cry and while crying, scratched the ground with his foot. Water began to bubble up from the ground where Jesus touched it, and it has remained a natural spring to this day. Pilgrims to the Hajj now take the time to visit the spring, pray, and return home with as much of the water as they can carry. Anyone who requests some is supposed to receive it, and they recite a short prayer before and after drinking. Due to its sacredness, it is said to have medicinal and general purifying properties.
Finally, though this is a Moroccan rather than Hajj-specific tradition, when al Hajj returned to the house, actually, before he had done anything other than step out of the car, he was presented with a bowl of milk and a plate of dates, both of which were ceremoniously fed to him. Apparently, this is a Moroccan custom for the welcoming – or welcoming home – of someone with the highest of honor. This is supposedly what the king does to welcome state visitors. I haven’t gotten it anywhere yet, though I hope to some day, despite the fact that it will probably make me feel really self-conscious at the time.
First, some of you may not know what the Hajj is. The Hajj, or pilgrimage, is one of the Five Pillars of the Islamic religion. The other four are the Shahada (testament of faith), Salah (daily prayer), Zakat (alms-giving), and Saum (fasting during the month of Ramadan). Every year, during the month of Zul-Hijjah, the final month of the Islamic lunar calendar, thousands of Muslims travel to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, to perform the rites prescribed by the Prophet Muhammad. Every Muslim is supposed to undertake the Hajj at least once during his or her lifetime if physically and financially able.
I don’t intend to talk about the actual performance of the Hajj, however. First, I think that they are fairly well documented by scholars better informed than I on the subject, and rather than blunder my way through a most likely incomplete explanation, you should probably read their work if you’re really interested. Second, this blog is about my experiences in Morocco, and so I would prefer to write about the smaller and less well known cultural aspects of the Hajj present here.
To start with, anyone who has performed the Hajj is given a new name/title. Men are called “al Hajj” and women are “Hajja.” This is particularly interesting, though, because we generally call all elderly men and women “al Hajj” or “Hajja,” respectively. It’s just a general term of respect, despite the fact that many of them have most likely not undertaken the pilgrimage. The reason for this is that it is incredibly expensive. Before going to Mecca, you need the money for transportation, lodging, taking care of all the expenses your family will incur during your several weeks of absence, and, most importantly, you need to bring back a lot of things with you.
Which gets us to the experience I’ve had with the Hajj. At the beginning, about a month ago, al Hajj, my grandfather, was taken to the airport to begin his pilgrimage. Before his flight, however, he was given a hero’s farewell. All the friends and family with the ability to come were at the house dressed in their finest, and because I had a camera with me, everyone sat to have their picture taken with him. They sang him out to the car, and then stuffed as many people as possible into the other car to continue the fanfare at the airport. This didn’t include me, however, so I can’t say what happened there.
About one lunar month later we did it all over again. Al Hajj’s airplane didn’t land until about midnight, but we were all of us ready again in the house by about six, cooking, sleeping, or playing cards until we got the word that the car was approaching the house. We all went out again and sang and cheered as he came back inside, then feasted on another slaughtered ram (since we’d all been waiting since about six to eat) while al Hajj told stories of what he’d just done. At least, I think that’s what he was saying. Unfortunately, my family doesn’t really speak Darija (Moroccan Arabic) with each other. Instead they speak a Berber dialect that I have no comprehension of. But I caught a few key words like “Arafat,” the name of the mountain where pilgrims throw stones at a representation of Satan, so I’m fairly sure that’s what he was talking about.
For the next week I proceeded to eat my lunch, dinner, and occasional breakfast at al Hajj’s house, almost exclusively of slaughtered ram and prune tagine. This is because it is customary for people to visit a pilgrim just returned from the Hajj to congratulate him or her and to ask for their blessing. And when you have guests in Morocco, you serve what is considered the finest of tagines: slaughtered ram and prunes. It’s very good, though it can be straining to eat it twice a day for a week. Of course, every tagine was followed by couscous. Sometimes “dessert couscous” (plain couscous with sugar and cinnamon), sometimes regular meal couscous with all the vegetables and chicken you’d expect.
It was in observing these visits that I learned some of the less-well documented aspects of the Hajj. For example, the returned pilgrim is responsible for passing on some of his or her newly attained holiness to the community. This is not only by blessing the visitors but also by giving them gifts brought back from Mecca, particularly prayer beads and traditional Muslim hats, especially to their family members. They also bring back certain items from Mecca, which, though they can be procured here as well, are particularly desirable for their connection with the holy city. The most sought after in my experience is bkhor, a sort of incense used in religious ceremonies and for purifying the house.
The most important, though, is the Water of Zim Zim. Perhaps because it can only be found in Mecca, perhaps because it is miraculous rather than merely sacred, but whatever the reason, when people hear that someone has just returned from the Hajj they immediately inquire after the Zim Zim. Here’s the origins as best as I could ascertain from my inquiries. According to the Qur’an, Mary and Jesus (while still a young child) were walking through the desert between two mountains and were very thirsty. Mary went to the two mountains in search of water but was unable to find any. Jesus, being very thirsty, began to cry and while crying, scratched the ground with his foot. Water began to bubble up from the ground where Jesus touched it, and it has remained a natural spring to this day. Pilgrims to the Hajj now take the time to visit the spring, pray, and return home with as much of the water as they can carry. Anyone who requests some is supposed to receive it, and they recite a short prayer before and after drinking. Due to its sacredness, it is said to have medicinal and general purifying properties.
Finally, though this is a Moroccan rather than Hajj-specific tradition, when al Hajj returned to the house, actually, before he had done anything other than step out of the car, he was presented with a bowl of milk and a plate of dates, both of which were ceremoniously fed to him. Apparently, this is a Moroccan custom for the welcoming – or welcoming home – of someone with the highest of honor. This is supposedly what the king does to welcome state visitors. I haven’t gotten it anywhere yet, though I hope to some day, despite the fact that it will probably make me feel really self-conscious at the time.
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