Morocco

At the end of a long week, I have finally found some time to do some non-required writing! As promised, here is what happened to me yesterday:

I went down (altitude-wise, since it's actually north of here) to Fes with five other folks: a VMI keydet (Eddie), another American exchange student (Kelsi), a French exchange student (Camille), and two Moroccan students. We left here around 10ish, and we took a grand taxi to Fes and got there around 11:30. Upon arrival, we decided to head over to Marjane, the Moroccan hypermart chain, located on the outskirts of town.

Now, you might a fairly decent idea of what a hypermart is like. I don't. But the best comparison I can make is halfway between a Wal-Mart Supercenter and a full-fledged shopping mall. After all, how many Wal-Marts do you know of which have Lacoste and Swatch boutiques within their doors? Not many, at least from my experience!

Well, in any case, one of the main reasons why I needed to go to Marjane was to purchase a jacket. Being the genius that I am, I had managed to pack everything except for a cold weather jacket. Since Ifrane's temperature fluctuates around 25 to 30 degrees Celsius over the course of a day, this has become a rather serious problem for me! In any case, my family had briefly investigated the cost of shipping the coat and other items to Morocco, but the cost of shipping (around $150-250, depending on the carrier) was to the point that it would be more economical to purchase a nice coat over here.

So, being a bit foolish, I decided to drop into the boutiques first. I think that I realized how bad this idea was when Eddie and I dropped into Lacoste. Indeed, upon asking for the price (in Moroccan derija, no less), we received the price (in French) in euro: a coat for only 300 euro! I decided to check out what was in Marjane proper. Fortunately, they had very nice, simple Italian black wool jackets on sale for around 400 dirhams, or about $50. Even more fortunately, they had them in my size! After getting some other items (mostly food; shopping while fasting is another very, very bad idea), we went on to check out.

Just to throw the very familiar shopping style of Marjane and the ville nouvelle into relief, we then moved onward to a place I had promised myself I would never return: the market in the medina qadima (old city in Arabic). As Fes receives a large number of tourists year-round, the medina is very much built around the tourist industry, meaning that shopkeepers are usually more aggressive (and prices therefore higher) than in cities on the road less traveled. That being said, I would still say that the Fes souk (market) is less aggressive than its counterpart in Marrakech!

Fortunately for me, I had wrapped up all of my planned purchases, meaning that I was not looking for anything in the medina. Unlike shopping in (most of) the fixed-price shops in the ville, one of the centerpieces of shopping in the medina is the ancient and noble art of haggling. It is a game of sorts played by both seller and buyer, and it certainly has many stages. The start is when the seller gets the potential buyer into his (most shopkeepers are male, so political correctness be damned!) shop. Often sellers of high-dollar items, like rugs, may offer his guest some mint tea, the Moroccan national drink, as the buyer looks at various items for sale. Once the buyer sees something he or she likes (many times the owners are very good at figuring out what the buyer wants the most, even if he or she feigns interest), then the next stage - that of negotiation - begins.

The price first given by the seller is never the price at which he intends to sell; most sellers are in fact insulted if the buyer doesn't negotiate the price down, as it doesn't follow the rules of the game. Frequent tactics by sellers include lowering price "because you're a student/American/whatever I want to get you to buy this," commenting on the quality of the product, the good cop/bad cop approach (the second seller is unwilling to drop the price, while the first and more senior seller "forces" a lower price), and preparing the product as if the sale has been completed. Conversely, tactics for the buyer include praising the seller and his goods, claiming a lack of funds (one good method is hiding funds in other pockets or areas, so as to show a lack of money: the poor student act!), and breaking off negotiations/walking, which (if timed correctly) can get a further drop in price.

However, once there is a handshake on a price, it is obligatory for the buyer to purchase; this is yet another rule of the game. The actions of the seller post-sale are a sign of how the buyer has done in the negotiations; if the seller is extremely angry at the buyer, then he or she has gotten a good price, while kindness from the seller probably means that the buyer has overpaid. Then the process begins with new buyers and sellers!

After going through this for what seemed like an eternity, we finally decided to escape the sweltering labyrinth of the Fes medina in order to prepare for ftour at a most unusual place: McDonald's, transcribed into Arabic as "MaakDounaalds." Incredibly, ol' Mickey D's has done a very good job of localizing in Morocco, as they were serving traditional ftour food in addition to their usual menu. Never before have I seen a McDonald's sell harira, dates, and bread alongside Big Macs and the "Royale Cheese" ("You mean they don't call it a Quarter Pounder with Cheese?")! After not eating or drinking for the day and walking several kilometers in the medina, I had a veritable feast. One "Maxi Best of..." (think like a large-size value menu) Royale Cheese (which they refused to make plain for some strange reason...), a bottle of strawberry-flavored water, and a Kit-Kat McFlurry. Never before (except for possibly one particular McDonald's in Stephen City, VA, where my dad and I stopped while moving my sister to New York) had McDonald's tasted so incredibly amazing.

After leaving the McDonald's crafted by the hands of Allah, we finally made our way back to Ifrane by grand taxi, tired but happy.

As always, I love getting comments or topic requests, so if you've got any for me, please feel free to email me at golladayp@gmail.com, and I'll see what I can do.

(Unfortunately) Back to the salt mines of academia,
Phillip

As promised, I am giving you an additional update this weekend. Who knew that I would actually keep my word on this one?

In any case, the month of Ramadan is upon us, so I wish you a “Ramadan mubarak sa'id,” or what amounts to “Happy Ramadan.” For those of you are unfamiliar, Ramadan is a month in the Islamic lunar calendar during which the Prophet Mohammed received the Qur’an (or Koran; the Islamic holy book) from Allah. What this entails for a Muslim is that he or she must abstain from many activities permitted by Allah from the first prayer call of the day (fajr, which is right before sunrise) until the next to last prayer call (maghrib, which is right after sunset). For example, here in Ifrane the current times for beginning and ending is from around 4:30 AM until 6:30 PM, although these times are getting closer together, since the days are shortening. During these hours, people are supposed to abstain from any sort of eating, drinking (even water), smoking, and sexual activity.

Now that I’ve given you the encyclopedic definition of Ramadan, I’d like to let you know what it’s like to be in a Muslim country during Ramadan. Even though Morocco is a fairly liberal country in its interpretation of Islam, Ramadan is a very serious event here; one way of putting it is that their strict adherence to the fast makes up for their lack of adherence to the other four pillars of Islam! Seriously, though, life in Morocco changes completely during Ramadan. Even on our campus, which is home to a large number of non-Muslim students, many campus services close around 3:30 in the afternoon and don’t reopen until after ftour, or the breaking of the fast. This doesn’t apply to places on campus alone; while in Fes last weekend, I was at Marjane (think something resembling a Wal-Mart Supercenter) when we were asked to go and check out, because the store was about to close. At 6 PM! That – combined with the fact that the alcohol section of the store was completely closed off – was one of the more surprising things I saw there.

So, with no food and nothing to drink, what is a person supposed to do? Well, most people rest for as long as possible during Ramadan, in large part because during fasting, one’s blood-sugar level is near zero! Unfortunately for the average college student (or professor), classes are not optional, so frequently sitting through class becomes an exercise in self-torture, especially if a class is right before the end of the fast. Not surprisingly people become a little more high-strung during Ramadan, and sometimes tempers can be on the short side.
However, this is all made up when it comes to the time for ftour. A traditional Moroccan ftour usually resembles something like this: the first food to traditionally break the fast is the date. Usually after eating one or two dates (the first one I ate at the first ftour was possibly the sweetest thing I’ve ever eaten!), the next thing to be consumed is a bowl of harira, which is a tomato-based soup with chickpeas, pasta, cilantro, and (occasionally) meat. Other items include milawi, or a grilled flatbread, shebekia, which are honey-covered pastries, and various juices, milk, and water.

The process of eating continues long into the night, until right before the beginning of the fast. At this point, most people are quite tired, so to no one’s surprise most people sleep as late as possible the next morning. Then the whole fasting process begins once again!

Well, that about sums up a brief explanation of Ramadan here in Morocco. Once again, I love to get feedback on the column, so feel free to send me a message at golladayp@gmail.com, and I’ll try to address it in future columns!

Signing off from Ifrane,
Phillip

FES – It is now around 8:30 PM local time here in Fes, and I am only just now getting a chance to review what has happened over the past twenty-eight and a half hours. They started fairly in-noccous enough when I parted ways with my father at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport. Unlike my flight over back in May, though, this trip was going to be slightly trickier. First off, instead of taking Royal Air Maroc’s (RAM’s) daily flight from JFK to Casablanca, which would have required taking a domestic flight from Casa to Fes (something which I have heard needs to be avoided if possible), I instead flew from Charlotte to Philadelphia, from which I departed to Charles de Gaulle in Paris and then finally on to Fes. Additionally, this trip was somewhat com-plicated by the fact that as soon as I got on the ground I needed to make my way to my hotel, which I will discuss later. On top of all of this, this was my first time in Philadelphia’s, Paris’s, and Fes’s airports, which exacerbated the fact that I was doing all of this on my own for the very first time! Needless to say, it was a bit daunting for he who is with very little solo travel expe-rience.
Keeping in mind these potential problems, I had decided to set up my flights in such a way that I had enough layover time to account for potential delays, so I wouldn’t need to worry about po-tentially missing a flight. The inevitable outcome of this travel schedule was that if my flights ran on time, I was going to have a marathon day involving close to 24 straight hours of flight and layovers until arriving in Fes. True to form, there were indeed no delays. My first flight – a 1:25 PM flight to Philly – was only about ninety minutes long, meaning that I had about three hours before my connector to Paris. Fortunately I still had cell phone service, so I spent most of the time talking to family and friends. After getting a last bite to eat in America (appropriately enough, a burger and fries from good ol’ MacDo’s), I got on the plane bound for France, which departed around 6:45 PM local time.

This was only my third overnight flight, and this flight gave me a chance to compare and contrast with my previous two on Delta/Alitalia and RAM/Delta (the first airline was the operator of the plane, in case you were wondering). The first thing I noticed was that the flight was not very full: in fact, yours truly got a three seat middle row all to himself! The obvious upshot to this was that I got a lot more legroom than usual, crucial to how well the flight goes for me. Another difference with US Airways was their entertainment system for the A330, which is what we flew over. Even though I was in coach (4 rows from the back of the plane, in fact), we received an on-demand entertainment system, complete with movies, TV, and even CDs. Given this new-found freedom, I decided to keep myself entertained. After reading this week’s Economist dur-ing takeoff, I decided to start a massive Sudoku book to the sounds of the Scissor Sisters’ Ta-Dah! Incidentally that was the only album of music I had with me after I was forced to reformat my computer during the summer, so the album which kept me sane while in Morocco also relaxed me during my return. Over dinner (an interesting barbecued beef dish with – among other things – a packet of organic white chocolate lemon cookies from Flat Rock, NC) I got to watch a fascinating show highlighting the rivalry between Hershey and Mars, the two largest candy man-ufacturers in the US. Finally, I decided to watch the film Breach, which is based on the opera-tion which entrapped Robert Hanssen, possibly the most damaging mole in American intelligence history. I highly recommend the movie. Finally, I tried to get a few hours of shuteye, but the next thing I remembered was them serving breakfast. Then I started thinking about jetlag over breakfast, and I realized something very funny: I don’t think that I’ve ever experienced jetlag. What I have experienced has been the extreme fatigue of running what amounts to an all-nighter and then getting to have another stress-filled day on top of that. If that’s what jetlag is, then I’ve had it; I’ve just never thought of it like that.

Finally we got on the ground in Paris at around 8:00 AM local time, which gave me a very slim window of almost eight hours in which to sit around with my bags, since I was switching air-lines! The reason why is because Charles de Gaulle (CDG) is like most major airports in that its terminals physically separate. In other words, we flew into Terminal 1, home to long-range in-ternational flights. Terminal 2 is where mainly Air France and its affiliates fly, while most short-range international flights and charters go through Terminal 3. After spending nearly three hours in Terminal 1, waiting for when I could find the check-in counter, I found out that I needed to go to Terminal 3. No big deal, though, as a quick ride on the fully-automated shuttle train gets you there, albeit with an additional five minute walk attached to it. After arriving in the terminal, I quickly learned something: As it deals with small carriers and charters, Terminal 3 doesn’t have much in the way of permanent check-in counters; instead, they are shared by the airlines as they are needed. The short of this is that I got to sit for an additional two and a half hours in the terminal with my bags at my side. Oh, yeah, there’s another problem with traveling solo: if you need to do important things like, say, go to the restroom, it’s not really possible until after you’ve checked baggage. Five and a half hours of torture later, I at long last earned a reprieve. The other problem is that focusing on not having baggage stolen for that long really numbs the mind, especially when you’re running on maybe ninety minutes of sleep (in large part my fault, I know) and when your reading is A Political History of Zambia (again, my choice; the book is really quite interesting, just a little thick at times).

After getting the baggage checked again and going through passport control again, I got to wait for another two and a half hours to get on my final flight, which was on Atlas Blue, RAM’s dis-count carrier (how a developing country’s national airline has a “budget carrier,” I really don’t understand), and it went straight to Fes. The flight was quick and straightforward; dinner and service were very good, as it has been for me on RAM. When we touched down and I walked down the staircase to see one of the peaks of the Middle Atlas, a massive smile came across my face. It was akin to returning home to me (well, kind of like a second home in my heart). Another passport control and customs check, and I was finally back in Morocco. A grand taxi (French for “large taxi” and not necessarily a grand ride!) ride into Fes took me to my hotel for the night: the Sofitel Palais Jamaï. The reason it is for only one night is twofold: first, nearly every hotel except for the Sofitel were booked up for tonight (again, my error); secondly – and more importantly – it is prohibitively expensive (my room’s going rate is close to US$300 per night, though I got it for significantly less). However, upon getting here, it has been truly one-of-a-kind. After checking in to a pot of mint tea to consume as I overlooked the medina at my own leisure (and having a talk with the concierge and general manager of the hotel!), I was taken up to my room, where a table had been laid out complete with roses and carnations, fresh bananas and peaches, bottles of spring water (a necessity here, for reasons stated in previous entries), and a box of Moroccan cookies, including a type of thin biscotti with dried fruit in it, a sesame seed roll, an oatmeal and almond cookie with a peanut “thumbprint,” a coconut and almond con-coction covered in confectioners’ sugar, an almond cookie that simply melts in your mouth, and a cookie that has a delicious almond filling (see a common theme here?). As if that wasn’t enough, the bed was turned down, complete with two espresso truffles! The hotel (and its incredible service) has been the perfect end to what has been an obscenely long day for yours truly.

I’ve certainly gone on a lot longer than I had anticipated, and as I haven’t had a full night’s sleep in…well, I’m not completely sure how long!...I suppose that I will wrap things up here. I will definitely try to get in the habit of publishing an entry once or twice a week, although unlike the summer, I will try to make each entry more of a column on a particular issue. That’s where you – my loyal readers – can come in to help. Think that my topics are mundane? Hear too much (or not enough, for that matter) about food? By all means, let me know what you think! Just drop me a line at golladayp@gmail.com, and I’ll be happy to read your comments, praise, and even *gasp* criticism! Also, if you have any column topics you want me to address – from Moroccan tea culture to Islam in Morocco and everywhere in between – just send me an email at the same address, and I’ll try my best to answer your questions. After all, one of the biggest benefits of studying abroad is the ability to dispel rumors and stereotypes of the host country! Many people I have talked to were indeed surprised that the average Moroccan street does not resemble its Saudi counterpart. I’m just trying to give you what I’m seeing from my perspective.

Farewell from Fes for now.
Phillip

Monday, June 18, 2007
Playing the Poor Student

Well, classes began once again, after an extremely short break for us. While the bulk of the school's students went out to the desert, our group went to Rabat, the capital of Morocco, and the nearby town of Kenitra, where there is an extremely nice beach on the Atlantic. The trip itself was extremely short, as we left from Fes early on Saturday morning. We arrived in Rabat a little after noon, where we checked into our hotel, the Hotel Majlis. The hotel was almost like walking into a completely different country: I had left the, for lack of a better term, Moroccan feel of the Medina in Fes for the European comforts of the hotel, which is beside the train station in the French-designed Ville Nouvelle ("New City" in French; almost every major Moroccan city has this quarter). The afternoon was somewhat open, as we all had the choice of going to the beach in Rabat or going to the souk. Knowing that we were going to the beach the next day, I (with a couple other people) opted for the latter option. As a result, we had a wonderful time. One of the cadets, Daniel, was leaving Morocco on Monday, and he was looking for some various items to take home. This was the point where we both decided to have a little bit of fun with regards to our identities and conduct a little experiment: Daniel and I decided to "become" English and Dutch students respectively and see whether there would be any effect on our ability to bargain. After a bit of fun, we had managed to purchase 3 pairs of Moroccan shoes and a Moroccan tea set. Our ability to bargain was somewhat hampered by several factors:

First of all, it is extremely important to not have all of your money in your wallet. By placing the bulk of your money in another pocket, you give the appearance of having less money with which to work.
Another problem was knowing when to leave during bargaining. If you walk too early, then it is possible that the owner won't try to bring you back, as you do not appear to be very interested. At the same time, waiting too long to leave can mean that you will not get as good of a deal as you could have.
Finally, it is extremely difficult to shop around for good prices, as the bargaining process means that the price you are given is good only as long as you are at the stand. As a result, several better deals were missed on our part.

After returning to the hotel, Daniel and I decided to ask a couple of people if they wanted to - this is great - walk back over to the souk. I changed my clothes, since it was getting colder out, and we went for a bit of a walk. The evening was a lot of fun, and we eventually wound up at a little restaurant across from McDonald's, where I had a chwarma, which is shaved meat on bread. Mine was beef, and it is truly the closest thing I have had to barbecue while over here. Finally, after chatting with some folks in the hotel lobby (I thought that my quasi-insomnia had passed), I went up to my room, where I quickly fell asleep.

The next morning saw a rather hurried breakfast on my part, since I had gotten up a little on the late side. The hotel's breakfast was quite French, with my meal consisting of several pastries and glasses of orange juice. After packing, we made our way over to the Hassan Tower/Mohammed V Mausoleum, which is the burial site of the two former kings of Morocco (Mohammed V and Hassan II). The site is truly incredible, and unfortunately my camera malfunctioned inside the mausoleum, which meant that I was not able to take pictures of the tombs. Oh well, perhaps it was a sign...

We then got on the road to Keneitra, where we spent the greater part of the afternoon. While most of the folks went swimming, I was not overly thrilled with the ideas of a 240 km/150 mi bus ride before I had access to a shower, so I decided to have a relaxed lunch and walk along the beach. It was a beautiful day, and perhaps the biggest problem was that we had to leave around 4:15 in order to get back to Fes at a reasonable time. After a brief stop at a gas station on the motorway, we soon returned to Fes. A lovely surprise was that the bus was dropping us off in the Medina, which saved me the cost of a bus or taxi ride. After getting back to the room, I got to doing some of my homework, and then I quickly got ready for bed.

Unfortunately, Monday meant that it was a return to the routine of classes. 7 AM always comes way too early for me, especially since sunrise is around 5:30 AM here (no Daylight Saving Time here). Add to it that I have four hours of language instruction each day (in addition to any sort of homework and/or leisure activities) and time quickly adds up. I got back my second quiz; it was a 39/40, which is about a 97.5%. Needless to say, I was extremely pleased. After going home for lunch, I came back to school for the afternoon session, and after that (and some socializing/email checking in the garden) I finally made my way home. More work; always more, it seems. Toujours les devoirs; Da'imaan ouaajib (French and Arabic respectively). But I really do think that I'm finally getting in the language groove.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Henna

Classes were as per usual; lots of work, lots of progress. I'm finding that the grammatical constructs of Arabic have parallels in some of the other languages I have studied; as a result, picking up the grammar is not as difficult as I had thought. Vocabulary, on the other hand, is a bit of a different beast; for the most part, there are not many similarities, so memorization is a little tougher. Since today was Tuesday, I got to go to Khadija's (one of our program directors) apartment for our culture and history course. We had a henna artist as our guest lecturer, who also did henna for us (it's apparently an important Moroccan tradition). As it was voluntary, I decided to not have henna done. I'm certainly not regretting that decision!

Since I had a bit of work to do before the afternoon class today (our afternoon class is bumped up 2 hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays), I decided to skip lunch, and I am not completely unhappy with the result. I was able to get my work done, and I thoroughly enjoyed my later meals. Sometimes I do wonder if the homestay was a good idea, although it is certainly not because of my family. In fact, I suppose that it is indeed me at times; I'm thrown for a loop with certain things, such as the meal situation or the language/communications issues. Each time I think that, though, I realize that I'm probably just having a bad day. Oh, well. Not every day is bad, and hopefully tomorrow will be a little better.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Murphy's Law Strikes!

More work. Big surprise! It's really incredible how much work is being shoved into this course. Over the past week and a half, we have completed three full chapters in this textbook, and we've started the fourth today. To give you an idea of the pace, most schools go through about eight chapters a year. Needless to say, this has been a little short of torture, and I chose to do this! As if that wasn't enough, I've also been dealing with some other various problems, not least of which has been the slow and painful demise of my computer. The 30-45 minutes needed to turn on the computer due to repeated crashing was tolerable, and I had planned to reformat the hard drive once I had returned to the States, but a new problem has popped up: every 2 hours or so, the computer randomly locks up, meaning that I get to - yes, you guessed it! - restart the whole process! I obviously need to speed up my plans. I began to back up all the files I had not previously taken care of, but I have run into a problem: I'm still about half of a gigabyte short in terms of needed memory. Sounds like I need to go to Marjane, which is like a massive Wal-Mart. I'll do that at the end of the week. Until then, I've got other things with which to deal.

Thursday, June 21, 2007
Murphy's Law Strikes! Again!

AARGH! I woke up this morning to a sore throat. The problem is that it has not gone away. Goody, a cold! This should be a lot of fun! In addition, tomorrow is our weekly quiz, and I still have not completely figured out the plural in Arabic, which is perhaps even more confusing than the plural in English. There seems to be very little pattern to the whole thing, and it's the sort of thing that makes you want to tear your hair out. If I can make it to the weekend, that would really be wonderful, as we are going to the Middle Atlas, where I will be in the fall. We'll also get to see monkeys. Yay!

We had our culture class today, and we talked about the succession crisis following the death of Mohammed in AD 632 and the establishment of the caliphate, as well as the Sunni-Shi'a schism. I know that sounds like dry stuff, but the repercussions of these events are being felt even to this day; one needs only to look at the sectarian violence in Iraq to see that. I submitted my research paper topic today: the history of the Western Sahara conflict following the withdrawl of the Spanish in 1975. This topic, which I will address in later posts, is a crucial aspect of contemporary Moroccan politics. After all, the Moroccans left the OAU, a kind of African UN, because it decided to give recognition to the Polisario movement, which has fought against Morocco for an independent Western Sahara. It's rather important.

Hopefully, this is all just allergies, though, and this sore throat will be gone tomorrow.

Friday, June 22, 2007
I was wrong. But there are good things too.

Nope, it wasn't allergies. Sore throat today, but now there's nasal congestion too! As soon as the day was done, I wanted to be out like a light. Unfortunately, there was a bit of work to complete, including a quiz. While preparing for the quiz, I finally got the hang of plurals, which couldn't have come soon enough. The quiz went well, although it was a lot of work. In addition to providing the plurals, there was a reading passage complete with questions, a vocabulary section, subject/predicate identification, sentence tranlations, and a short essay! I was even more exhausted after finishing that, although my instructor told me that I did very well on it. That really made my day.

After class, I went with Megan, one of the people in my group, to Marjane, in order to get the flash drive for my computer as well as some other items. After a rather hectic trek across the store, we finally checked out and got in a taxi. The driver was very friendly to us, and he asked us where we were from. I decided to try my Dutch routime out. Big mistake, as it turns out that the driver had lived in Einhoven for three years! Once he started speaking in Dutch to me, I made up a little story about how I left when I was very young and moved to England. Meanwhile, Megan was sitting behind me laughing her head off. Finally we got to our destination, and I went back to the institute for a couple minutes of email and socializing.

After wrapping that up, I went over to the apartment of a few cadets who had invited me over for a bit of a get-together. After chatting with some folks for a few hours, I decided that I might want to get home. But there were a couple problems with that, not least of which was that I didn't have a key to the building. Additionally, I didn't have my host family's phone number, so I had no way of contacting them. Faced with the prospect of going into the Medina in the dark without knowing whether I could get inside, I decided to play it safe and stay at the apartment. After all, my roommate had seen me earlier, so he knew of my plight.

Unfortunately, I couldn't sleep, so I decided to work on my computer. I finished up the backup, and I started the reformat. It worked perfectly. Finally, around 3 AM or so, I drifted off to sleep.

Saturday, June 23, 2007
Monkeys, Mountains, Musicians, and Medications

7:30 AM came way too early for me, especially since I was not able to get any of my medicine, which was sitting in the Medina. Fortunately, one of the cadets is a medic at VMI, so he had some packets of Sudafed on him, which saved me a lot of trouble. After seeing my host father and explaining what had happened, I got into Dr. Taifi's car, which is a Mercedes E-Class Diesel. I learned some interesting facts about this car, as it had previously been in the motorpool of the palace in Fes. Since license plates are kept with a car after it has been sold in Morocco, this car still has royal tags. As a result, there were several instances of police officers saluting the car as we drove along. It was a lot of fun.

We made our way through Ifrane, which is home to Al Akhawayn University, where I will be attending classes this fall. The campus appears to be extremely beautiful. Unfortunately I was not able to take any pictures, since we went through town merely to get to other destinations, the first of which was a forest with monkeys. They were extremely friendly and (almost) disgustingly cute. Not as cute as some of the little kittens here in the Medina, but very cute nonetheless.

Our next stop was Azrou, which is the administrative capital for the region. We visited an artisanal center, which is a government-funded and regulated shop. I was tempted to get some things, but alas, I didn't have the funds on me. Oh, well. After Azrou we drove up to a mountain spring, and this is where the day gets extremely hazy for me, as I was forced to change medications to something that made me very drowsy. The next thing I know is that it's three or four hours later, and I had fallen asleep along the banks of the spring, which is also the source of a major river, and we were driving back towards Fes. After a stop at our driver's mother's house for some tea (a very neat experience), we again stopped in Azrou, where a couple of friends and I sat in a cafe until we were ready to go. After returning to Fes, Zac and I got back to the house, where an American Idol-style show was on. The difference was that there were a lot of musical guests, including a French singer named Helene Segara, who Zac (and I) think is possibly the most beautiful woman in the world, and a Moroccan "international folk rock" group called Hoba Hoba Spirit. Finally I crashed, and I got in bed, not caring when I awoke.

Sunday, June 24, 2007
Rest!

I was lucky to sleep until around 9 AM, when I finally got up. I've had two communications problems (other than lacking the ability to speak) since I've gotten this cold. First of all, my host father remains convinced that the cold was caused by the window being open during the night, which would be difficult when the low gets to around, oh, 50 degrees F or so. This has led to some headbutting, particularly when I feel like I have a permanent fever. The second concerns - shock! - food. When I get sick, I typically do not want to eat, a concept my host family fails to grasp. Oh well, I'm compensating by eating more slowly.

After lunch, I decided to take advantage of my free time and watch The Last King of Scotland, starring Forest Whittaker as the late Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. While the film was extremely graphic, it was an extremely good movie, and I gladly recommend it as such. After the movie, I decided to make some phone calls Stateside and then get to some homework. After slipping into yet another nap, I had dinner, took a shower, and got in bed.

Monday, June 25, 2007
Back to the salt mines.

Well, it feels like I went a good five steps or so backwards, or at least I feel that way. Today I did get a little bit of good news: I got a 98 on my test from Friday. Unfortunately, the rest of the day was extremely infuriating. While the work has been going rather well, I have been having my share of problems with loneliness and the like. I feel that at times I am completely unable to fit in with the other folks here. Needless to say, I am finding this a bit difficult, and my happiness from work has been eroded as a result.

My health has improved, at least more so than yesterday. That much is good, although I would like to be completely healthy by this upcoming weekend. I need to get to knocking out my paper on the Western Sahara. As for my work, I suppose that somehow it will manage to work itself out.

The funniest thing is that the problems I am experiencing are all personal; that is, none of them have any sort of cultural issues. How strange. Perhaps tomorrow will be better.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007
...like the Sword of Damocles.

For some reason I am still extremely upset; I can't seem to shake off this feeling. As the title suggests, it's hanging over me.... But I do still feel like progress is being made on the language. It really is hard to believe that in three weeks I will be returning to the States, and only two more weeks of classes. It truly is incredible how quickly time flies.

It's been one of those days where I simply cannot get into the rhythm of things. Although I have a massive amount of work, I can't seem to focus on it. The simplest nuisances are infuriating me more than I could imagine. I really hope that it's illness, which is continuing to improve, rather than me that is causing this. The culture class is coming up soon, and I am not really sure whether I am completely here at the moment. I suppose we'll see in the next hour or so.

And that's all I have time for right now. If there are any questions or comments you want to direct at me, feel free to email me at golladayp@gmail.com, and I'll see what I can do. Until later, good afternoon from Fes.

Phillip

Apologies for not posting recently; unfortunately, my workload seems to only increase as I stay in Morocco. However, this post is obligatory, and not only because it is a journal entry for a course I am taking here! Since my most recent bit of writing, I have taken two different excursions: to the Roman ruins at Volubilis and the city of Meknes, and a weekend trip to Rabat, the capital of Morocco. As both trips certainly deserve an article each in their own right, I will come back to those trips in future updates.
Before that, though, I would like to take a little bit of time to talk about the phenomenon known as “culture shock,” or the reaction of people when they are in places unfamiliar to themselves (paraphrase of Stephen Bochner, as are parts of the following). Essentially, the idea is that there are predominately two major groups among foreign travelers: sojourners and settlers. While settlers are coming to an area for a permanent stay, sojourners (as their name suggests) are merely in an area for a temporary period. As a result, settlers tend to become active participants in their new cultures, while sojourners confine themselves to an observer status. The sojourner instead looks towards that which is familiar to him or her and subsequently determines that things not familiar are thus not as good as his or her own customs. This mainly comes from four so-called “push” factors – uncertainty coming from the unfamiliarity of the new culture, helplessness and self-doubt, confusion about one’s role, and revulsion at unfamiliar and controversial customs – and two “pull” factors: loss of status and homesickness.
Now that we’ve got a simple definition from which to work, I’d like to recap my past (almost) three weeks in the Kingdom of Morocco. First of all, I will state up front that I suffered an acute case of “culture shock;” however, my overwhelming fear of the country was caused in great part as I read Orin Hargraves’s book Culture Shock: Morocco, and I began to wonder if it really was a good idea to go to a country where I would be starting an unknown language from scratch. However, by the time I landed in Casablanca, I had finally wrapped my head around the idea that my French would provide a useful crutch until I had some Arabic under my belt. Indeed, perhaps the most surprising thing that has happened over the course of my stay has been the assumptions towards me on the part of Moroccans. While most Americans would expect to hear English spoken towards them (even in foreign countries), it came as a bit of a surprise that I – a foreigner – was being treated as if I was French, since the natural assumption is that any European-looking person is French or at least speaks French. In fact, the only times I have been addressed in English have been moments when I have been speaking to another person in English.
On the topic of English, one thing I have taken into account from the cultural prereading has been the way that Americans are viewed in Morocco. While the United States and Morocco have had a long and meaningful relationship spanning over two centuries, the image of the American – especially the American student – certainly conjures certain images, especially since (in the words of a school administrator) “[some Moroccans] think that you’re in the medina because it’s got the best kif and hashish in the world.” As a result, I have conducted a little experiment of my own. In certain situations, I have put on a Dutch accent and pretended to be, well, Dutch. This has occurred on two separate occasions, both of which occurred this weekend. The first time was in the souk in Rabat, where another student and I – in an effort to look less wealthy – decided to pretend to be poor students, which was in part true. As a result, I believe that we were seen by the merchants in a slightly different light than had we been American tourists looking to spend money, and we were able to have a better situation during price haggling. The second situation occurred yesterday after classes, when Zac and I were walking back home. We were approached by a Moroccan contemporary, who introduced himself to us. The conversation also moved to such things as drug use, particularly hashish. Being in a Dutch guise (the irony of which I realized soon after the encounter) made me more able to reject his advances, as we were able to get away from the situation.
Language and nationality has not been the only surprises I have encountered while in Morocco. As pointed out in my previous post (see it for more details), there have also been differences in dining here as well. Additional topics, which I shall address in future updates, include religion, gender relations, and whatever else any of you want me to look at. Feel free to send me an email at golladayp@gmail.com, and I’ll be happy to give whatever you send me a look.

Au revoir from Maroc.

Phillip