Adventures in Paris and Morocco

Sunday, July 25, 2010

My Moroccan family

So I never really finished blogging while I was in Morocco. The weak internet, crazy, busy days during our three weeks of research (ISP), and the usual Moroccan days, filled with street harassment often left me too exhausted to blog and try and even upload pictures. But I realized that I never posted pictures of my Moroccan host family! How could I have never shown pictures of my home and family? That's definitely something worth blogging about.. Voila!

عائلتي:

My host brother, host mother, host father, friend Jessie, and I on our last day in Morocco :(

My host mother, Fatima, and I. Towards the end of the trip, I felt really close to her, even though she only spoke Arabic and we couldn't understand each other most of the time. On that last night, I couldn't help but feel really sad and sentimental.. I was going to miss all those unhealthy, oil egg sandwiches she so happily made me for breakfast every morning and all her other acts of kindness and generosity.. the gold bracelet I'm wearing on my left wrist was actually my host mother's but she took if off and insisted I take it when I came for my last visit. On a lighter note, you can see how my hair is oily and how I've definitely gained weight-- showering minimally, eating unhealthy food, and being cooped up all day long, a true Moroccan experience!

My host dad coming home from work. I didn't learn until my last day there that he was in his eighties.. !!

My host sister Kawtar, in pink, and Sophia, my host grand-niece.

Sophia and I! She had the cutest smile :)

Ihsane, Sophia's mother, in the center. This was a few weeks after I moved in with my host family. We had a lot of extended family members over for the funeral, and Ihsane, Sophia's mother, stayed the longest. I really bonded with her-- she was about a year or two older than me, but already married and had a child! Through her Spanish and few words of French and my French, we were able to share things going on in our lives.

my room and lumpy bed

There are a few more key things that I feel like I need to blog about, even though I've been back home in the US for almost three months now, but I'll try to get to those and accompany them with photos.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Mental activity: zero

After living in Morocco for two and a half months, I still don't feel like I've adjusted to the country. Perhaps one of the hardest things for me to get used to and not be affected by is the inactivity of the people. I'm not sure if all of Morocco is like this, or if it's just because I live in the medina where probably over 80% of the people have not graduated from high school or gone on to higher education, or if it's because of what I've seen from my host family, but I sometimes honestly feel like people here don't care about anything.

My host brother could probably care less for what goes on in world, he probably doesn't even know about the recent volcano eruption in Iceland and if he did, it would probably only pass as a brief moment of surprise. All he ever does or wants to do is watch TV or play on his PSP, I kid you not. I have never seen him do homework or study, even though he is retaking his last year of high school because he did not score well enough on the Bac last year (an exam taken in order to continue higher education). He doesn't seem to care about anything- he is one of the most inactive people I have ever met. He doesn't hang out with friends, is not involved in any activities or groups (the only thing he does outside of the house is Aikido at a gym), doesn't think about his future or what he wants to do. He isn't interested in politics or health or the environment or anything at all! Once in a while, he uses his brain and attempts to think or make observations about something, but he never acts on his thoughts or wants to find out more. Simply put, he is not motivated at all. Nor curious enough about anything to do something or step out of his comfort zone. He's never eaten food off the streets, probably hasn't been to a concert before, and has not tried any kind of ethnic food, which isn't very hard to get in Rabat.

My host sister is similar, though I think she's entering that girly age where she's getting interested in boys and relationships. One time, she invited me to go "running" with her along the beach. Literally, she ran for 15 seconds, stopped, and said she didn't want to run but wanted to walk. Instead of walking along the sidewalk, she took me off the path and onto a part of the beach where there were couples all over the place, kissing and holding each other. It was SO awkward. We walked along and she kept shyly sneaking peaks at couples and bursting out laughing at couples passionately engaged kissing. After I came back from a long run yesterday, she invited me to go "running" with her today. I guess she at least has dreams and put some thought into her life, though I'm not sure how far she'll get in becoming a famous actress in Turkey.

The men on the streets are still incredibly annoying and bothersome. Last week or the week before, some guy talked to me and followed me for a while. I kept ignoring him, but he grabbed my arm! Though I shook him off and kept walking, but he did it again! This time, I glared at him, shoved him off harder, and yelled at him, "Get off!" Luckily, a friend of my was nearby and came over to rescue me. I am so disgusted by most the men in Morocco. Young men, middle aged men, even old men have cat-called at me. Sometimes I wonder what Morocco's future looks like, if it has the potential to grow as a whole. Most of the Moroccan youth I have spoken with don't have the capacity to think critically or challenge fundamental ideas they've been raised with.

I guess I'm frustrated and questioning my sanity because of these vast differences that define who I am and the things I'm interested in. It's really hard not to get bogged down in a country where the majority of the people you encounter aren't active, physically or mentally, most of the time. It's sometimes really depressing being bored because there's literally nothing to do here except maybe shop in the streets, go to a café to eat something, or watch TV. My mind is rotting.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Casablanca with Michael

Two weekends ago, I got a visitor from the North Pole-- Santa Claus! Hahaha, okay, maybe not quite Santa, but Michael is living in Sweden right now, which is practically the North Pole. I'm sure he enjoyed the nice beachy weather and soaked up the sun during his visit! Though Michael doesn't quite resemble Santa Claus in any way, he did bring me presents! I've been a very good girl so far this year :) I got some more hand sanitizer, krisprolls (Swedish fiberous deliciousness packed into a small bread toast), milk tea, and cayenne pepper to make my food here deliciously spicy! In the 4 days Michael was here, I got to skip some boring lectures (they really were useless, according to my friends), spend a day in Casablanca, and explore Rabat.

Friday afternoon, after class, Michael and I hopped on a train to Casablanca, one of the major tourist destinations. We were originally planning on visiting Chefchaouen, a cute, small town in Morocco, but the unpleasant weather and long transportation there was not ideal for a weekend visit.

Through a series of miscommunication, Michael and I ended up staying in Ain Diab, a nice, ritzy area of Casablanca for a night. We were originally planning on staying there for two nights, but the hotel cost a lot more than we thought it did, so we made sure to enjoy the nice beachy area as much as we could. Unfortunately, the first night there was somewhat stressful. I had forgotten to bring my passport because I didn't think I would need it and I didn't want to risk losing it, but the nice hotel we stayed at required you to have your passport. I guess there's a specific number/stamp that hotels need, and the hotel wouldn't let me stay there unless I had it.. soo I had to make a trip to Le Grand Commissariat, where I was able to get the stamped number on my passport officially written and signed by an authority. With most of our evening eaten up, we didn't really get to do much in Casablanca that night, like go out to a movie or go exploring. We had a quick dinner at a restaurant near our hotel and went back and slept soundly.

Ain Diab's fancy hotel rooms

The next day, Michael and I decided we would walk around Ain Diab and enjoy the beautiful weather and beach before checking out of the hotel and finding another hotel closer to the medina and train station. We spent the morning walking around Ain Diab and on the beach.

We had a lovely lunch at a seafood restaurant right next to the beach. It was the first time I've had salmon since coming to Morocco and it was SO good. I've mentally made a list of foods that I want to eat when I come back to the states, and my mom's salmon is definitely on the top of the list!

After a nice, leisure lunch, we found a hotel in the medina and took a taxi there. Unfortunately, I encountered the same passport issue with the hotel and I was told to return to Le Grand Commissariat. We put our luggage down in a room first and sat there thinking about what to do. I really didn't want to go back to the Commissariat, mainly because it was just so inconvenient, so Michael and I decided to return to Rabat. We were only in the room for about half an hour before we decided to leave, but when we told the receptionist we didn't want to stay, he made a scene and told us that since he had already written down Michael's passport information, he had to pay for that night! We were both furious and thought the receptionist was being ridiculous. We had not stayed the night at the hotel and we didn't understand why the receptionist couldn't just cross Michael's information out. Since Michael had already signed registration papers, he decided to pay the 100 dirhams, which wasn't much, but nonetheless, we were not happy with the guy. It was late Saturday afternoon when we got back to Rabat and by the time we found a different hotel, it was around dinner time.

The next two days in Rabat weren't too eventful. We had a nice, traditional Moroccan meal one night, definitely one of the highlights of Michael's visit! The traditional Moroccan salad was amazing, I'm hoping I might be able to learn how to make it from my host mom before I leave.. At the restaurant, we ordered a dish of chicken tagine and couscous. The full course included bread and olives, the Moroccan salad, our main dishes, fruit (oranges & dates), mint tea, and pastries. There was also live traditional music, which was neat to see and hear.

Traditional Moroccan salad!

chicken tagine

While in Rabat, we did some sight seeing. Rabat isn't really a tourist destination, but it still had some memorable sights to visit.

out in the Kasbah

in the Kasbah, overlooking Salé, Rabat's sister city

dessert!

Hassan Tower

Mohammed V Mausoleum

Indian food in Agdal! It didn't taste like Indian food :( but was still tasty

the end of a happy weekend :)

Attempt at conversion?

I know I have two other posts preceding this one (I'm almost finished with one of them! Pictured posts take a long time..) but I had a really interesting encounter last night. Late into the evening, around 9:30pm, my host sister walked into my room and said one of the girls upstairs wanted to talk to me. To give a little background, my Moroccan family is quite well-off and I live in a three-story house. The third floor is reserved for the people that live with us but aren't part of the family. In Morocco, it is very common for a family in the city to host the daughters or sons of family friends or relatives that are studying in the city and are looking for a place to live. Our third floor houses a lot of women and I think I've met at least 5 or 6. These women eat separately from us, the main family, and I hardly ever see them because there are two entrances into the house. Well, last night, when my sister said that one of the women wanted to talk to me, I was kind of surprised and not sure why someone upstairs would want to talk to me. I had fifteen minutes before I had to skype with my mom, so I figured that I had some time and I might as well go up and see what was up. I went up to the third floor terrace and saw three women sitting outside, one was reading the Koran. I was introduced to them and exchanged hellos. Shortly after, the woman sitting with the Koran started to speak in broken French with me. She basically asked me if I was learning Arabic and told me that she was learning French. She said she wanted to know if I would be interested in helping each other learn Arabic and French (since I speak French), like a language exchange, and I thought that sounded pretty cool. I would get a chance to practice my Fus'ha Arabic outside of class, forcing me to regurgitate the things I had learned in class. Because of our language differences, communicating definitely took a while and we also kept going back and forth between Arabic and French. By the time we had communicated and agreed on doing a language exchange, I mentioned to them that I should probably go because my mom was waiting to skype with me. The woman said, "Ahh!" and started asking me about my family, whether I had any brothers or sisters. She asked me in French and had me respond to her in Arabic and then I asked her in Arabic if she had siblings and she responded in French.

After this process, which also lasted a while, I again tried to wiggle my way out of there and said that I should go talk to my mom and that we could talk again tomorrow. I think the woman was about to say something, but someone else came over and they started talking and somehow the conversation drifted to the woman asking me if I knew/had heard the Koran. At first, I said I hadn't, but quickly realized that I had heard classmates recites a little they had learned from their textbook, and I had also practically heard the whole thing the first day I arrived at my host family's home during the funeral "festivities." They kept talking, and words kept being thrown back and forth, translated to French, Arabic, and sometimes English. The woman started telling me that how wonderful the Koran was. She said that when someone was sad, it was a good book to read, that it would make you feel at ease.. before I knew it, the woman asked me if I wanted to hear some of the Koran and at this point, I decided to make my exit. I was definitely late to talk to my mom, and I was beginning to wonder if this woman was really interested in "exchanging languages" or if she had pulled me up there to try and convert me to Islam. I had never seen or met this woman in the two months that I've been here, and I found it strange, if not coincidental, that she seemed to be "selling" the Koran to me.

Our house is not sound proof at all, I can hear things my family says on the first floor when I'm sitting on my bed in the second floor, and I'm sure the people on the third floor can hear me when I skype, especially if I happen to get into an argument and cry, which is exactly what happened a couple of days ago, no big deal. I was beginning to wonder if perhaps they had overheard me the other night and this woman saw me as a potential subject to try converting.

I know I'm probably over-analyzing/over-thinking things, which is what I'm best at, and I might be going into a rant, but I personally am not a fan of the door-to-door style of evangelizing. I'm sure there are people out there who are truly interested in sharing their faith, beliefs, or religion with you, but it's hard for me to believe that a lot of the people coming up to complete strangers with whom they have no ties or connections with are really concerned about their spiritual well-being. This kind of "sharing" seems so impersonal and superficial; I feel like if someone really was interested in my well-being and respected who I was, they would want to get to know me because they are interested in me and not get to know me with the intention or goal of converting me. If the opportunity eventually came up for them to share their faith or beliefs with me, they would do so but not in a forceful or suggestive/pressured way, which was the feeling I was starting to get last night. I would be open to learning how to read the Koran and learning what it says, studying it like a text book, but I do not appreciate someone being interested in me solely to convert me. Furthermore, I've grown up with a strong Christian foundation and am deeply rooted in my faith, so I'm definitely not the ideal candidate/subject for conversion. But anyhow, long story short, last night's encounter definitely made me feel a bit uneasy. I'm not sure if I still want to have a language exchange tonight, but maybe I'll just play it by ear and see how it turns out.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Back in Civilization!

I'm homeeeee! Well, home in Rabat. After a crazy week in a rural village in Morocco, where we had no toilets or showers, I survived and came back yesterday! I shared a delicious lunch with my family before I went to the hamam for 2 hours and scrubbed myself nice and clean. Mmm, there are certain things in cities that I certainly enjoy and being clean is one of them :) I'll blog more about my time in the village soon, but I should first finish blogging a previous post!