Taxi!

The past few weekends I've traveled to Europe, and it got me thinking about quite a few of the differences between Morocco and Europe/the US. One of those is taxis, and I don't think I've ever really gone into depth about them here.

There are two kinds of taxis in Morocco: gran taxi/taxi kabiir, and petit taxi/taxi saghrir. Gran taxis are white, everywhere, and are usually old giant mercedes or other large, old, vaguely boat-shaped cars. It's not uncommon for them to have a bench seat in the front as well as the back. For some godforsaken reason, the gran taxis take 6 (SIX!) passengers in addition to the driver. It's always uncomfortable, even among friends. They go from one set destination to another, generally across or between towns and cities. You pay a flat rate for every seat, negotiated before the journey starts and paid upon arrival. If you're a group of 4 and don't feel like waiting for two more passengers (or becoming very close, very quickly with two strangers), you pay for the empty seats.

The petit taxis have their own color in every Moroccan city- here in Rabat they're bright blue, in Fez they're red, in Tangier they're pale blue. They're generally small sedans, Fiats are common, and take 3 passengers in addition to the driver. The petit taxis pull over when you hail them (sometimes) if they have room, and you tell the driver what neighborhood you're going to. If it's the same one as the other passenger(s), you hop in and pay the fare from where the meter is when you get in to what it reads when you get out. Some days it seems like none of them stop, even when there's an ancient Moroccan lady waving her cane at them, some days the unofficial but rather permanent petit taxi stands are full and waiting for passengers. If you're a single female (or two females) the driver might not pick you up if he already has a male passenger; he might not pick up any lone male passengers while you are in the taxi. On the other hand (this happened to a friend), he might try to feel you up if you are alone and sit in the front seat.

Don't sit in the front seat.

Do bring a friend who's not afraid to yell at an overcharging gran taxi stand manager, if you're not yourself.

And don't worry, he won't actually crash.

"Foreign Language"

Or, Gretchenspeak.

I've created a new language all my own. In the semester of Arabic I took at Northeastern before coming to Morocco, we all amused our teacher with the random sputterings of foreign languages that we'd toss out into conversation, in our desperate attempts to not speak English. These interjections were usually in the languages we'd studied in high school- Spanish, in my case, often French, a little bit of German, etc. We laughed, our teacher was in turn bemused and frustrated, and we moved on.

For some reason, I wasn't expecting this non-English-language-mixup to continue.

I realized it was going to stay with me when I started speaking Spanish with one of the security guards in the program's academic building and said و as opposed to y (both meaning and). Forgetting the phrase for "bless you" in Arabic, I started using salu- bless you in Italian. Forgetting "excuse me," I started using pardon... which sorta works in French? Then I spoke to a Swiss couple at the Toubkal Refuge who echoed my sentiments- they both spoke 4 languages at varying degrees of fluency, and ensured me that their brains, outside of their native tongues, were blended messes of language.

I spent the past long weekend in one of my friends' grandparent's apartments in Madrid with a group of girls from the program. It was an incredible weekend; we all had so much fun and ate so much bacon. I also spent the entire weekend inserting the odd Arabic word or phrase into my Spanish.

I guess I've come full circle.

Random Musings, Take Two (or: Eat sheep, and study.)

Sheep smell.
Wet sheep smell worse.

I'm now expertly skilled at clothes-pinning underwear for maximum drying potential.
Expert hanging skills can't fight rain.

Dozens of buckets are useful for cleaning the room in which you slaughter a sheep and a goat.

65 degrees=depths of winter. Moroccans everywhere dove head first into their winter wardrobe on the first under-70 day here. My host sister left for class this morning in a fur-hood-lined puffy jacket, wool socks, and heavy boots, and when home wears heavy knit wool leggings under pajama pants.

Sheep: It's what's for dinner. And lunch.
A sheep part a day keeps the doctor away!
Sheep: The other red meat. (Goat: The other other red meat.)

If I were half as good at doing my Arabic homework as I am at avoiding it, I'd be fluent by now.
Speaking of which...

p.s. Hello to readers from Russia! I have no idea why you're here, but I like it.

Laughing Cow, laugh no more.

Here's a side story, venturing back before 'Eid:

At the midnight stop on our bus ride from Risani to Meknes, I believe I managed to find the singular hanut in Morocco that doesn't sell Laughing Cow cheese. On the way across the street to another hanut, I managed to forget how to say cheese in both French and Arabic, so when I got to the two men loading sodas into drink fridges in their hanut, our conversation went something along the lines of:

Me: "Uhh.... Salaam..."

Hanut Man 1: "Salaam."

Hanut Man 2: "Salaam"

Me: "Salaam...uhh... uh... cheese?"

Hanut Man 1: "...Chips?"

Me: "Laa (no), urmm..."

Hanut Man 2: "Urhh..." (gestures for me to look into the shop)

Me: "Ah!" (pointing at the cheese I see on a shelf) "Hadtha!" (this!)

Hanut Man 1: (points at the tuna next to the cheese) "Hadtha?"

Me: "Laa..." (pointing more to the right of the tuna)

Hanut Man 1: "Hadtha?" (pointing at the can opener next to the tuna)

Me: "Ah... laa..."

Hanut Man 2: (gestures for me to come behind the counter)

Me: (Picking up cheese, but only wanting one wedge, not the whole package) "Ahh... Wehd?" (one?)

Hanut Man 1: "Tetakelem al Aarabiyya?" (You speak Arabic?)

Me: (thinking he was trying to teach me how to say cheese in Arabic) "Bil Aarabiyya?" (In Arabic?)

Hanut Man 2: "Tetakelem al Aarabiyya?"

Me: "Ah! Shweeya!" (A little)

Me: (seeing the entire clear plastic container of singular Laughing Cow cheese wedges sitting right in front of me on the counter) "Ah. Hadtha."

The streets are alive with the sound of sheep,
with Maa-AAAH they have bleated for a thousand years.
Our tables will be blessed with the taste of sheep,
and they'll Maa-AAAH no more.

Happy 'Eid, everyone.

Mmm, meat.

Had chunks of red meat on top of spaghetti for dinner last night. Definitely wasn't beef, and that's all I know.

On the other hand, preparations are starting here for Eid al-Adha, a holiday commemorating the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael by sacrificing a sheep (as God gave to Abraham to sacrifice instead of Ishmael). The sheep are bought a few days in advance, and I've been well forewarned by my host sisters as to the quality of sleep I'll get in a neighborhood of balconies and bathrooms full of sheep. I've also been warned (by a still semi-traumatized host sister) to not get too friendly with the sheep in the days preceding the Eid, like she did a few years ago.

Our wonderful program director/fairy godmother's email about Eid advises against watching or participating if we have a weak stomach as "the process is very bloody and messy." The sheep is slaughtered, gutted, and skinned on the balcony, then butchered to be eaten over the next month or so. Each family brings a portion of their sheep (or cow/multiple sheep, for large families) to be distributed to families unable to buy their own sheep. The day of the slaughter we'll eat the liver and head, then the day after lunch will be stomach, entrails, and chopped lung. Hooves are served with couscous, then the next few days are barbeque-sheep-filled.

Somewhat surprisingly, I'm not nervous for the slaughter and I'm actually excited for the food. After 5 years of vegetarianism (halted for this trip), I figure if I wouldn't kill something myself, I shouldn't eat it. This is the first chance I've had to actually kill something and eat it (though my host dad will probably do most of it), so we'll see if I do as well as I hope (or potentially have a complete breakdown). I've watched enough Anthony Bourdain to be excited for not-so-normal food, especially considering how well my host family cooks. With the unfortunate exception of my younger host sister, whose culinary skills we sampled a few days ago-- over-cooked macaroni salad with grated canned lunch meat and olives, anyone?

I'll keep you posted...

A Whirlwind Week

My week of travel through Morocco's High Atlas mountains and the Sahara desert was incredible, wonderful, and generally amusing. I went with three friends from my program, and we had a great time.

Saturday morning we hopped on a train to Marrakech (... and now you have Marrakech Express stuck in your head) and took a gran taxi to Imlil, a small mountain village that serves as a stepping-off point for many hikers in the High Atlas. My travel-mate Caitlin had yet another (serious) question as to whether she had any marriage prospects back in Alabama, this time from Abdu, our guide/host at the Imlil refuge. So of course, for the rest of the trip, we imagined Caitlin as a crazy American gone native in the High Atlas, married to Abdu with a hostel and a backyard full of baby goats.

Sunday morning we set out for the Toubkal Refuge, at the base of Jebel Toubkal, North Africa's highest peak. We planned to make the 5-6 hour hike to Toubkal, spend Sunday night at the base, hike Toubkal on Monday, and head back to Imlil Tuesday night. We left Imlil at 9:30 am and early into our hike we met a friendly British man who asked us if we had rubbers: "...what? -Rubbers? You know, waterproofs? For your feet. There's a meter of snow at the top, and 20 centimeters at the refuge!" Ah well, we figured, maybe it'll melt. On we marched.

En route we discussed what would be the perfect captions to our travels:

"All paths lead to Toubkal." 

"Goddamnit Gretchen, why are you so good at Yahtzee?!"

"The path to Toubkal is paved in donkey poop." 

"You need the nutrients."

8 hours later, we plodded into the Toubkal Refuge, wet and freezing. It started to rain about half way through, and the altitude hit just after that. Then I remembered that I'd only ever gone on a few day hikes before, all at least 6 years ago, and started to ask myself why I thought that trudging up the side of a mountain would be "fun." Nevertheless, there wasn't anywhere between Imlil and Toubkal except for a few poorly stocked shops (which always had Snickers, thankfully) and a mosque, so we kept going. We got to the snow an hour and a half before we got to the Refuge, and by that point I had already decided that I would most certainly not be attempting to climb the summit.

The Refuge was over-priced and freezing cold inside and out (45 degrees in our room by 10pm), so Monday morning Zach and Caitlin (the best in shape and better equipped out of the four of us) hiked around the Refuge for a few hours, probably 1/3 of the way up the mountain, took some pictures, and at noon or so we headed back down to Imlil. The return journey took 6 hours or so, and through the course of those two days I decided that I didn't need to worry about not having exercised since getting to Morocco, because I had done more than enough in 34 hours to account for two months of laziness.

Tuesday morning we headed back to Marrakech, where I had the best Kefta a la Oeuf tagine I've had here (don't tell my host mom), spent the night in a youth hostel, and set off Wednesday morning for Ouarzazate.

In typical Moroccan fashion, our bus to Ouarzazate left the station an hour and a half late, drove into the middle of Marrakech, picked up 4 more people than there were seats for, drove back to the station, deposited some very angry and very vocal passengers at the station to wait for the next bus, and finally headed out for Ouarzazate. Ouarzazate was a very interesting city- it's home to one of the oldest kasbahs in Morocco, which set the scene for many a desert/arabian movie (Prince of Persia, Lawrence of Arabia, Gladiator), but wasn't a city before the French arrived. The French army built a barracks there to support their presence in the western portion of Morocco, and constructed a small city around the barracks. There are no French left, but the giant central square and wide boulevards lined in lamp posts attests to their presence. We also had a frustrating 1 hour search for ice cream, after being disappointed to learn that the bakery with a flashing ice cream cone sign hanging outside did not, in fact, serve ice cream. (Which may have been because it's now November, and the majority of Moroccans are regularly wearing heavy winter jackets, despite the fact that it's 73 degrees outside.)

From Ouarzazate we haggled our way through three gran taxis to get us to Risani, the town from which we departed for Merzouga, part of Morocco's Sahara. We were picked up by the desert tour guys, met with two friends, given a few hours in a local riad/hotel, and set forth into the Sahara atop a four wheel drive SUV (no really, on top of it, it was great). The tour guys dropped us off at the edge of our dunes, where a Bedouin guide and camels awaited us. We rode our camels into the bright orange sunset-lit desert and spent that night in tents, where it rained miserably. Our tent was covered in 'plastico' to prevent us from being wet in addition to coated in sand- I say plastico because our Bedouin guide spoke Berber, a little bit of Darija, a little bit of English, some Japanese, and Spanish almost fluently, so for the second time this semester myself and Ana did all of the communicating.

The next day we rode our camels to have tea with a Berber family (which normal Moroccans do all the time, it totally wasn't just for tourists), where I made friends with another Sahara cat. They all had dark amber eyes with black lids and rims to protect from the sun, and were incredibly friendly. Our guide explained that further in the desert they follow caravans and eat scorpions and other undesirable creatures, while where we were (closer to the edges) they eat birds, lizards, and tourists' food. That night we headed to an "oasis" (again, totally natural, definitely not just for tourists), played some Gnawa music, and took showers(!!!).

Friday morning we headed back into Risani for a tour of the city and mini-lesson on the different ethnic groups who've traded, moved, and settled through Risani over the years. Friday night we boarded a bus (same company) to take us to Meknes, where we'd get a train back to Rabat. After some seat-haggling with an angry old Moroccan woman, we were on our way. We stopped for a bit at a tiny town, where there were bathrooms and food, and kept trucking. We got into Meknes at 2 am, I fell out of the bus, we hopped on a train, and got into Rabat at 6 am.

It was a crazy crazy week, and I enjoyed all of it (eventually).