Thoughts about coming back from Spain

It's interesting, Spring Break didn't revitalize us as much as make us more homesick. I think it was seeing somewhere that although not like home, was so much more like home than Rabat that it felt like home. It was nice not having to worry about street harassment or picking an expensive enough restaurant that it wouldn't be awkward just being a few girls. It was nice being able to be out late and not have to deal with parental figures. It was nice seeing couples on the street and being able to wear a tank top. So coming back was hard--we had to readjust to the cultural differences all over again, and it was harder, knowing just how different they were not just for not being America, but for not being Western. It makes me so much more amazed how immigrants adjust. It's harder than I thought it would be. I suppose most of the places I had traveled before I had been in a Western setting, or at least in a tourist enclave. I think that's why I missed home more than I expected...

A Rabat Church

One of my friends here is pretty religious, and has been going to church every Sunday. I thought it would be interesting to see how Church was conducted in a mostly Muslim country, so I went along with her. The first thing I noticed when I walked in was that everyone was talking in English. This was really strange to me... in Morocco, if people aren't speaking Arabic they're speaking French. That's just how its been. But here we were greeted with a Good Morning and everyone was speaking English. I guess it was the choice of service we were going to. It is called "Rabat International Church" and considered itself "Multi-denominational" and "Multi-ethnic." When I look around, I see the most white people I have seen in Rabat, with almost the same number of Black Africans and then quite a few Asians. I did not see a single Moroccan. I think that's mostly because there are so few Moroccan Christians, but also because the service was in English. I also think that the fact that it was not majority Black African is due to the fact that it was in English, French services seem to be mostly Black African here. It was different than other services I've gone to, since we only sang one hymn and the rest were just Christian songs (very upbeat) and instead of an organ we had a guitar player, that just gives a different feel to a service. It was also interesting what the pastor chose to preach about. He took a part of Matthew and explained how it's more important to make sure you truly believe in your heart than performing the actions of Christianity. It was really interesting to me because Islam (and for that matter Judiasm) is very different in that way: a lot of religion has to do with doing the right actions and doing the actions is then supposed to lead to the right mental state. Christianity seems to encourage religion to go the other way. It made me think of a piece we read about Islamic women where a woman was trying to learn to be modest and how she became modest at heart by first acting modest. It was especially interesting because the part of Matthew that the pastor preached about is when Jesus tells a certain group that they don't need to wash their hands before a meal and how Jesus says its not what you eat that makes you unclean but what you say. This struck me as interesting since ritual washing is so important to Islam, and eating clean food is so important to both Islam and Judaism. Overall it was a very nice service, partly because it was so laid back. Afterwards I went with a group to have brunch at a restaurant and I got to find out their stories. It was interesting to see why people had come to Morocco, from working with organizations that helped handicapped children to learning Arabic to simply wanting to live abroad. I think the most interesting thing was when my friend and I both talked about our love of the hammam. I guess that all of the people I'd gone hammaming with had been so open to it and ok with being naked that I had forgotten how strange it is to Western culture. They were a little shocked that I wanted to take my mom with me. Overall, it was nice to meet other English speakers actually living in Rabat. Sometimes we kind of get in a little bubble around our lives at the center and with our families.

Thoughts about history

It's interesting, I feel like what WWII was for the West, wars for independence are to the rest of the world, or at least to the Middle East. Right now there is a music video that talks about having a loved one far away because of war and the music video shows the singer and her lover who's in the underground and her working for the rich colonialists undercover at a fancy hotel. At first I thought it was about WWII because the clothes are obviously from the 40s/50s, but then I realized that no, those aren't Germans, those are colonialists. It's interesting how the Algerians who were fighting the French had a very similar experience in some ways to the French that had underground resistance against the Germans. Maybe the Germans were really only taking colonialism to it's ultimate level, as well as the ethnocentrism of the West. Maybe the French and British didn't persecute people living in their countries or take over their European neighbors, but they did persecute those people they didn't think of as civilized and France did colonize its next door neighbor. Of course, then Germany systematically killed people...

A Moroccan Concert

So I arrived back to Morocco just in time to see my host dad's concert (he plays the rabab in an Andalusian music group). It was interesting because throughout the whole thing people kept on talking and even talked on their cell phones throughout it. But they got really into it when the band started playing a song (called sunset) that everyone knew. It was really cool to see every age group enjoy it and sing along, from teenagers to 10 year olds to pretty old people. It was so much fun watching my dad play his instrument and trying to hear when he was playing. It was also interesting because all the Andalusian groups on TV have only men, but this group had a woman lute player as well as women singers (that are sometimes present on TV). After the Andalusian group, there was a type of music that comes from Meknes that was mostly drums and a lead singer and when they played, everyone got up and danced and sang along and a woman who said she was my neighbor came and got me to dance with her and it was so much fun. I had seen a lot of other performances, but they were performances for tourists... this was for Moroccans, and it was so cool... for the first time I felt really really Moroccan. The coolest thing was this couple that I could swear were not Moroccan originally (i.e. they were caucausians) but they were singing along the most and the woman was wearing a hijab and they really seemed liked they belonged. I hope I could ever feel that comfortable in a culture that is not originally my own. It also was a great way to bond with my dad and see what he was so passionate about. It was especially fun because I got to see people I know from the center there enjoying the music too, dancing and singing.

Toledo, a picnic, and a day wandering Madrid

On Wednesday we went to Toledo. It was beautiful, but started off rocky. My friend's guide book told us that we were supposed to go to one station, but we were supposed to go to another, and all this hecticness was made worse because I was still not feeling healthy. We finally get to Toledo which is cool because it's a little bit of Arab like Morocco mixed in with a whole lot of Spanish. We first went to the museum, and saw a bunch of El Greco which is beautiful, but a little too much religion for me. You can only take so much Jesus on the Cross. We then go to the Jewish museum which is pretty, the Synagogue is a very nice old building with a lot of Jewish artifacts. My favorite was the Jewish wedding costume that really reminded me of Moroccan clothes and realized that it was clothing from North Africa... so was it really "Jewish" or was it just the Jews assimilating with the North African culture around them? After we wrote in the book of the museum in as many languages as possible we left and had our picnic of cheese, bread, fruit, cookies, and a bottle of wine. It was so amazing... two dollar brie, one dollar wine, and it was all so good. After that we saw Alcazar (which was unfortunately closed to go in because of construction) and a beautiful look down to the river. I love mountain towns, they give such amazing views and a workout. We came home, took a siesta, and had a quick dinner.
The last day my friends went off early, and I decided to take my time and walk around the city alone. I pretty much managed to see the entirety of the central area, starting with the National Library (with its exhibit on Malaria) the Archaeological museum (which was a little disappointing, it's pretty small), and I tried to see the History museum but that was closed. I went down to a flea market, which was cool, but similar to any flea market (I like souks better, they are less antiquey and more real). It was interesting how as you got away from the touristy central, things were less nice, there was more grafitti and Spanish families. I felt like I got to see more of "real Spain." After another siesta, I went first to the Botanical Gardens (which was boring at this time of year, the park was a hundred times better) and then to the Prado again, and saw their exhibition on the pre-Raphelites... I really really like Edward Burne-Jones. He might not be the most complicated, but he's the type of art that is pretty and you'd like to have around your house. I also saw Jan Brueghel the Elder allegories of the senses which I thought were really cool.
That night I met up with my friend and went to another Kebab place (I love Kebab) and we met this really nice guy from Iraq who we compared Arabics with. He was talking to his Tunisian and Lebanese friends, and it was really cool listening to them and half understanding, but hearing the differences in dialects. I very much enjoyed Spain to visit. It has tons of art--I feel like Italy gets too much credit for being the place to study Art History, Madrid has tons of stuff. I also very much loved the park, I realize that that is one of the problems with Atlanta, there are no real public parks that you can walk to. Even Boston doesn't have cafes that you just hang out in in the sun. Maybe its not parks I miss, but plazas. Morocco does have all these outdoor places to eat, but unfortunately, too often they are men's havens and it's strange for women to be there. I also realize that no architecture is going to impress me quite as much as that of Prague. All of the buildings in Madrid were beautiful, but they didn't catch my attention as much as that of Prague, after a while they were just one nice building after another. It was also strange returning to a place I visited when I was younger, I knew I visited some places, but didn't know if the memories all really happened...

Madrid: The Palace, Modern Art Museum, Retina Park, Prado

So we arrive Sunday night too tired to do much but walk around and eat dinner. The traveling had been long... to get out of Morocco you first have to go through security to get in the airport, then you have to go through ticketing and it's not worth trying to take on a big carry on because they won't let you, and then through passport control (which takes a long time even though its on the way out!) and then through real airport security and then on the plane.
So Monday morning we go to the Royal Palace that consists of an old pharmacy (not that exciting), an armory (which shows how fat many of the kings were) and the actual palace. Maybe I'm jaded, but overall, it was mostly just overly decorated rooms. I think I've learned to like the geometrical designs of Arab culture. We also went to the new Cathedral that was just recently built and it also seemed to gaudy for me. There was too much gold, too much flashiness. After that, I was feeling sick, so I split up with my friends and went for a siesta. After that I walked to the Retina park which is gorgeous. It has lost of flowers and then a pond with lots of boats and then statues and then a building made of glass with a fountain in front of it which was gorgeous as the sunset. Then I went to the Modern Art Museum (which has another name but I forgot it) which had a really cool exhibit by a guy named Paul Thek and lots of Picasso and Dali. It was interesting seeing the Guernica in person, it wasn't as exciting as I expected, although I loved Picasso's paintings of crying women. The more modern stuff was really not that exciting (other than Paul Thek). If something is going to be weird, I want it to be really really weird, and this stuff was too tame for me. That night we went out to eat at a Kebab place (pretty much the European version of Kebab, which I love). The next day I slept in a bit because my cold was still bothering me and me and my friend just went to see the Cervantes square and walked around. After a nice Indian meal (you have no idea how exciting ethnic food is after being in Morocco) we went to the Prado which was huge, but my favorite was by far Heronymous Bosche. We didn't even see all of it when the Museum closed at 8. For dinner we went to Chinese, which was also exciting to have even though there are Chinese places in Morocco. I have learned that I love tea after being in Morocco, and was really excited to have it at both the Indian and Chinese place.

Eid al Mulad

Eid al Mulad, or the Prophet's Birthday is the only holiday that I'm in Morocco for. It isn't as important as Ramadan or Eid al-Kabir (where they sacrifice rams), but it is relatively a big deal. We got two days off of school for it (in Morocco, for any religious holiday you usually get two days off and one day off for a national holiday like the King's birthday). It reminds me a lot of Easter. There are a lot of prayers to go along with it, but mostly it is a time to dress up in your best clothes and visit family and eat sweets. Lots and lots of sweets. Yesterday, I went to Sale where they have a big parade for the holiday. It was like any big parade, with a lot of waiting for it to start and when it actually started not being able to see what was going on. There was lots of singing and dancing and then a procession of candles in big colorful boxes. Unfortunately, it was actually easier to see it when I came home and watched it on TV. Today I got pancakes for breakfast for the first time. They were covered with honey and very good, however, it was really really really sweet. Thus I couldn't drink my tea that also happened to be really really sweet. The rest of the day I spent studying, but I watched the people out in the street. Mostly today was just an extra day off. A time to go out with your family when you normally didn't have time to.

Casablanca, revisited

So I went to Casablanca again this weekend, and it was so much better than last time. First of all, I didn't ever get ripped off, which made things happier. Second of all, I actually saw a lot more of it.
I went with two of my friends to Casablanca because my friend's deaf friends from the US happened to be vacationing in Morocco and wanted to meet up with her. After a lot of confused emails, we finally did and met Friday night and had a great dinner. The next morning we woke up, had breakfast, and then headed over to the Hassan II Mosque which we hung out around until the tour started, enjoying the waves at the beach. The Mosque from the inside was amazing. It is huge (it can have 20,000 men and 5,000 women). They hide loudspeakers into the architecture and have an opening roof. In the basement, there are huge fountains for people to perform absolutions, although they are only turned on on Fridays and during Ramadan. We then when to see the Turkish Hammam which was near by (it's a huge really heated swimming pool) that has never been used because of "administrative problems." After that we tried to get directions to what I called the "New Medina" because that was what my guide book had said. It took a really long time to get our point accross because they all thought I was talking about El Jadida, a city nearby. Finally we figured it out and took a taxi there. When me and one of my friends arrived (we had to take two taxis), we couldn't find our friends, and were worried we had lost them entirely because we saw them get in a taxi right behind us. Finally we saw them in a taxi--their first one had broke down and it took them a while to get another one.
We walked around and found the best restaurant ever with a really really nice proprietress, good food, good juice, and good desserts. After a nice, relaxed lunch we walked through the "new medina" which did not look at all like a real medina because the roads were actually big enough for two cars to pass each other and it was all planned out with a big circle in the middle. Then we decided we would try walking towards our hotel. We ended up getting on one of the big streets of Casablanca during rush hour. There were so many people (i would guess in the thousands) who were all trying to buy stuff along the street while beside us the traffic moved very slowly. So we walked and walked and then realized we had to take a taxi and it ended up that we were at least 15 minutes by car from where we were trying to get. Then it was time for us to go and we took the train back. It was such a nice trip, plus I learned some ASL and had some interesting conversations about the nature of deaf people learning how to read.

Top Five Reasons You Gain Weight in Morocco

5) Sweet dinners: you can get rice with butter and sugar and milk for dinner... it's good but is more like a desert
4) $0.10 for a doughnut half again the size of a normal doughnut: The doughnut man knows what we want when me and my friends show up.
3) )$0.15 for a pack of cookies, or a small candy bar: Why say no when it's so cheap?
2) Moroccan tea: In Morocco they don't have sugar cubes, they have sugar rectangles. And you put in a rectangle and a half in a really small teapot.
1) Bread: We have bread with every single meal. And a lot of it. At least at my house it's whole wheat.

The Known in an Unknown way

Saturday afternoon I decided to go to Marjane, or the Supermarket, with my friends. It was an exciting experience, because we had been doing all our shopping in the little souk stores around the Medina and we wanted to see how it was different. Marjane is probably more like a Super Target or Walmart than a simple Supermarket. It had clothes, it had books, but even so, it was mostly food. It was interesting to see what we were most excited by: getting cheetos, seeing American candy (they have imitation american candy everywhere, but it's not the same), yogurt, but most of all, cheese. You can get Happy Cow (a soft white cheese) everywhere in the souks, and sometimes even edam, but at the supermarket there was everything, camabert, bleu cheese, goat cheese, everything. Edam is also significantly cheaper than in the US, a huge ball being only $20 rather than the $40. Whole sides of aisles were dedicated to jam. It kind of reminded me of Sweden just in that the prices looked similar (although a bit lower). It felt like a normal supermarket in someways, in other ways totally unfamiliar.
The Marjane is also one of the only places you can buy alcohol. It was interesting looking in that area, since technically Muslims aren't supposed to drink alcohol. However, everyone in that area, except for me and my friends, were Moroccan men (not a single woman).
When I talked to my parents about what they buy in the supermarket vs. in the souk, it was interesting. I first thought that they would buy most of their non-perishibles at the supermarket and their fresh goods at the souk, which was partly the case. However, they usually bought meat at the supermarket as well as things that were on sale. I think that tomatoes are cheaper at the supermarket at well, although avocados were cheaper in the souk. They also said that some things, like diapers, were actually cheaper to buy at little specialty shops. In my own experience, you really couldn't tell what would be cheaper in the souk or not. Some candies were significantly cheaper at the supermarket, other were not... it might be that imported stuff is cheaper at supermarkets....

A Moroccan Synagogue

I had wanted to go to a Moroccan Synagogue for a while, so when my friend told me she was going, I jumped at the opportunity. First a little bit about my friend, Kim. Her grandparents on her mother's side are from Iraq but had immigrated to Israel. Her mother spent most of her time in Israel, however, her dad is American Jewish and Kim spent most of her time in the US (except for a year of high school in Israel). She is Sephardic Jewish, and pretty conservative... the whole time she's been here she's been eating vegetarian so that she stays kosher (even though all meat here is hilal so they're killed in a kosher way if not blessed in a kosher way...). She actually managed to get her boyfriend to come to Morocco too on the SIT program (which is also at the same center we're studying at). So we head to the synagogue on Friday night and arrive at the unmarked, big building. We start to head inside and a guy (the [I assume] Muslim building's keeper) comes up to us asking if we're Israeli. Kim is so she said yes, and he took us up to a door and tells Kim's boyfriend to go in, he says for us to go in another door. We go in to a pretty large prayer room that has lace curtains between us and the main prayer room. There are no other women there, but the men are already in the middle of prayer. The room is beautiful, with big chandlers, pictures of old Jewish men on the walls, gilded Hebrew everywhere. I look at the prayer books and they're all in just Hebrew, with a few french sentences here and there (unlike the ones in the US that have translations). Kim finds the place that we are in the prayer book and she reads along. It was interesting, being separated from the main group, trying to see in at the mostly over 60 group of men, some wearing yamacas, some just wearing hats, who said most of the prayer and sang some songs and then, when the Sabbath prayers were over, left. No sermon, they didn't even take out the Torah, it was just prayers. It was very different than my other experiences of synagogues, but Kim said it wasn't that different than her experiences in Israel.
It's a strange relationship that Moroccans have with Jews. There are many famous Jewish Moroccans, including one of the counselors to the king. My host dad even talks about how good the Jews have been at preserving Moroccan music. In the village we went to in the desert, the Berbers had learned their silver making from the Jews who had chosen to leave. In fact, most of the time you hear a certain nostalgia for the Moroccan Jews who left. The ones who stayed seem to be a pretty old population, the majority of which are in Casablanca. However, many Israeli Moroccan Jews return for pilgrimages to the shrines of Jewish saints... in fact there's one next weekend.