Photos from Fez

This week is incredibly busy academically, and there's a post saved for further edits before publishing, so for now, here are some photos from our weekend trip to Fez.

 A beautiful gated entrance to the King's palace in Fez.

 A view of Fez (or roughly 3/5 of it) from one of the bordering hills.

 Bird!

 An interior view of the dome in one of Fez's mosques, this one in the heart of the old medina.

 The world's oldest water clock!

 The qiblah wall in the madrassa in the Fez medina.

 Mosaic tilework, a Quranic verse divider, and carved plasterwork in a madrassa in Fez's medina.

 Kitty in the Fez madrassa.

 A caravanasserie-turned-woodworking museum in Fez.

 Roman tile-work in Volubilis.

 Roman ruins at Volubilis.

 A ceiling-less ancient stable in Meknes.

Arched doorways in a riat-turned-museum in Meknes.

Mrhaba!

Coming to Morocco, as a female, I was unsure of what to expect. Everywhere I read to be careful on the streets, always travel in groups and with males whenever possible, and to expect lots of harassment. I was never extremely concerned as I go to school in the heart of Boston and know to be street smart, but with warnings in every guide to Morocco, the worry was definitely present.


On the other hand, I also heard quite often of Moroccan hospitality. We were told by our program to expect invitations to peoples' homes for tea and couscous, and to accept if we felt it was well-intended. They told us that many Moroccans would be excited to have us here, in their country, learning (or attempting to learn) their languages.

Now that I'm here it's strange to realize both are often true. We do generally attract attention- our clothes are western, my roommate has long blonde hair, and we speak another language. Women generally return a smile if you catch them staring and the men call things. Their comments are nothing worse than those at home, and though more frequent, they're also more amusing. People tend to hear our English and shout out whatever English words they know ("Yes! Of course, of course!"; "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh!"), but many times it's a good-natured "Oh! Are you tourist or students? Welcome to Morocco! Morocco welcomes you!" In very crowded places like the suq men will grab or touch, in response to which retaliation (an elbow or a curse) is expected. If the harassment is obvious, bystanders will chastise for you.

I was struck by just how welcoming and kind people are everywhere here. I expected my host family to be, but they had chosen to have Americans in their house, so hospitality was not a strange presumption. It really hit me today when I took a taxi home from school- usually I'd take a bus, but I didn't want to be late for couscous. I got in with a friend on the program who speaks French, so she communicated to him where she was going and I (in a mangled French/Darija combo) told him where I needed to go. She got out first and paid, then the taxi driver took me to the church (cathédrale, anyone?) near my house. Up till then I'd been fine, but when it came time to pay, I had no idea what he was telling me. I asked how much in Darija, he responded first in French (which I didn't understand) and then in Darija (which I also didn't understand, though should have). After not being able to communicate by holding up fingers, I just held out a palm full of 5 and 1 dirham coins. He realized what I was doing, took a 5 and three 1 dirham coins, smiled, and repeated the Darija word for 8. I thanked him in Darija and French, got out, and realized I would never have done that in a cab at home.

Welcome to the Jungle,

We got your tv.


Morocco is a satellite jungle. It struck me as amusing on our drive into Rabat that every apartment building and house has at least 4 satellite dishes on top, and that they're all at least 4 feet in diameter. It didn't really hit me until we drove past a lot of cardboard and tin shacks that everyone here has a television and a satellite dish, even those who live in a one-room shack.

The available programs are varied and amusing: Moroccan news and Al-Jazeera, random sports matches (plenty of soccer), unsuccessful American movies like Cellular and Robocop 3 with which my host sister Fatima taught herself to speak English, and the ever-popular soap operas. We've seen Berber, Mexican dubbed into Darija, Egyptian, Turkish dubbed in Darija, and Moroccan soap operas so far, with the promise of more to come. Reality contests also seem to be popular, from Arab-Idol to a particular So You Think You Can Dance episode that brought us closer to our host mom when my roommate Brittany voiced a very appropriate Hshuma! (Shame!) after a cross-dressing food-covered stripper's performance. (Our host mom laughed for 5 minutes at least, I don't think she expected us to know colloquial Darija yet.) Our host mom and sister also sat through a Darija Fairy Barbie Adventures episode solely for our benefit, as kids shows are much more understandable for someone learning a language than regular programming ever is. Tonight, who knows what the television holds!

p.s. Happy birthday Mom!

WEEK Two?!

I've already been here a week! It feels like I’ve been here forever and that I just arrived yesterday, and unfortunately I can’t explain it more intelligibly than that. (And apologies for the lateness in posting, I’ve been busy and just got a hold of internet.)

Wednesday I moved in with my host family and they are absolutely wonderful. The apartment is large and airy and much cooler than the rest of Rabat thanks to its proximity to the ocean. All of the food here has been so so much better than in any of the restaurants we ate in during the first three days. By far the best thing I’ve eaten here is a chicken tagine with green beans and onions, and on the first day our host “sister” taught us how to make traditional Moroccan mint tea. 

The apartment is a short walk to the medina and souk, the Kasbahs, and within walking distance of all of Rabat (which is a much smaller city than I originally thought). We’re right down the street from a ­­­­حمّام (Hammam), or bath house, as well as a beautiful mosque. I’m slowly becoming more used to the calls to prayer (not so much the ones at 4 a.m., but that'll come. I hope.)

My past week has been full of “survival Moroccan Arabic” lessons, taught by our amazingly spirited teacher, Tulia, in the Amideast program building. So far learning Darija has been an interesting process, as it seems to me that the Moroccans took Modern Standard Arabic, removed as many vowels as possible, and pushed all the consonants together. Case in point: the word for “Nice to meet you,” in Darija as متشفين, is an eight letter word with one vowel: Mtshrfin. I assume I’ll get a quick handle on it though, as my host mom (and one of my host sisters) doesn’t speak English. Side note: everyone here speaks at least two languages, and speaking 4 is not uncommon. Makes me feel lazy.

Tomorrow regular classes start. I'll be continuing Darija and adding in Modern Standard for my Arabic classes, and taking three humanities courses. I'm in Islamic Reform & Islamism, the Arab Spring, and Gender, Islam, & Society. The Arab Spring course should be especially interesting, as we'll be connected with a classroom in Jordan and a teacher in Egypt via Skype every day.
 

Yesterday a whole pack of the students studying here with Amideast (myself included) travelled to the beach with someone’s host sister, which was beautiful and not too crowded. Picture courtesy of Brittany Dawson :)

p.s. Pillows here are hard. Ouch.

Day Two!

So today was slightly more normal time-wise; waking up at a normal Moroccan time wasn't too difficult. Today was a day of orientation, and I certainly do feel more oriented.

We went to the program center today to do a safety/regular orientation session, then got lunch and went on a bus tour. The tour was really very interesting, and we got on and off quite a few times. The first location we stopped at was the clay market in Sale, Rabat's sister city across the Bou Regreg. It was full of beautiful pieces by well-know clay artists (which made them pretty expensive), traditional as well as modern. Next we stopped at Chellah to explore. Chellah is the site of ancient Roman ruins that were one of the first places in Rabat to be inhabited by Arabs, who built on top of or added on to the Roman ruins. There are so many cats all over Rabat, but especially quite a few at Chellah. And I was warned against it, but I petted a kitten anyways. It was clean!

The last stop was at the kasbahs at the Atlantic shore. I was henna-attacked by a woman in the kasbahs, but it was inexpensive and inevitable so I don't mind too much. The ocean air was very refreshing :)

Onwards!

Greetings from Logan International Airport. In an hour and a half, I officially begin my journey. Here we go!