Morocco, Part 1

I’m a gal of many words (and this blog tends to prove that), but really, there are few words that I can use to describe my experience in Morocco.  Amazing. Incredible. Eye-Opening…..these are the sentiments that come to mind.  I’m still reflecting on my time spent in the country, but I wanted to start sharing with all of you some of the experiences and thoughts I had during the trip.  Most of this I wrote while I was in Morocco, but upon rereading certain parts, I’ve done a bit of editing, plus, I’ve added bits and pieces….fun times.

A quick word on the trip itself before I get started witht the reflections.  Morocco is a new hotbed for tourism.  The Moroccan government, like many countries in the developing world…especially the Arab world, is putting a lot of money into tourism.  Morocco right now has 1.5 million tourists and their goal is to have upwards of 10 million in the next 10 years…or something like that.  Anyway, this trip was not really a tourists trip.  In fact, not at all…maybe for an hour here and there we did actual touristy stuff, but beyond that, not so much.  My study abroad program has had a partnership with a program called Morocco Exchange which runs programs for American students studying in Spain (for the most part).  The trips are all based on the idea of cultural exploration.  The idea is basically to show Americans the spectrum of life in Morocco by allowing students to speak with all different types of people who come from different backgrounds.  My trip absoultely filled this promise- every person we spoke with taught our group something different about Morocco, living life in the developed world, stereotypes of Muslims, and more.

November 14: The Strait, Tangier, Rabat

There’s fortunate….and then there’s fortunate.  Today, I have been the latter.  IES Granada has been taking students to Morocco for som years and today was finally my turn.  The Morocco trip was definitely one of the things that drew me to the Granada program in the first place- everyone knows I would have liked to study in the Middle East but the language barrier (specifically, my need to be proficient in Spanish) prevented that from occuring.  So I’ve been in Granada itching to hit up the Middle East since September, and today it happend.  I couldn’t be happier or more thankful that I’ve been afforded the opportunity to travel on such a unique program to visit amazing places and meet incredible people.  This isn’t a touristy trip and that was made very clear from the beginning.  But really, I don’t need touristy to fall in love with a country- I fell in love with Israel and maybe saw one or two touristy sites.  Afterall, my first time in Israel was so untouristy that it took until round two to hit some of the big sites….and I still haven’t climbed Masada.  ANYWAY.

We spent the morning crossing the Strait of Gibralter, and after, we hung out for awhile in Tangier at a women’s center called DARNA.  They help women by teaching them skills (sewing, cooking, computers, language, etc) so that they can get jobs.  Really cool place that has already helped tons of women.

• The Market: Dead animals everywhere.  I mean, we’re talking, the head was just cut off and the dude behind the counter is plucking feathers.  But lots of pretty produce/grain stands.  Makes me wish we still did that in the US.  Grocery stores, though so much fun, are boring in comparison to markets.

• Chatting with Moroccans, #1:  We’re apparently spending a majority of this trip talking to Moroccans about the ins and outs of their life.  I’m really excited for that because I really think the best way to understand a country is to talk to the people.  So the first group we spoke with were three 20-somethings who are all studying English at the university.  We spent a lot of time talking about the Hijab, the headcovering the Muslim women wear.  The two women who were there gave different reasons for wearing the Hijab, but both stressed that it was a personal decision.  I found it interesting that one explicitly talked about religious reasons, while the other steered clear and said things like, “I saw my female friends not being discriminated against when they looked for jobs”.  The latter was not what I expected.  The guy who we talked with, though, said one of the main things he looked for in a suitable wife was that she wore a Hijab.  Interesting.  Also, thoughout our conversation, it was crazy to see how much they all knew about American pop culture (the reasons for which we later discovered: Satelite TV…no joke).  We’re talking, the guy was wearing a Nike track suit and the girl could not stop talking about Chris Brown and Kelly Clarkson.

• Lunch: Yum!! I happen to have had multiple couscous experiences, but for a lot of my friends in my group, this was their virginal experience.  We had traditional Moroccan style chicken couscous which included roasted chicken sitting on a bed of couscous cooked with some delicious spices and covered in steamed vegetables.  So good.  Not so out of the ordinary for me, but oh so yummy…plus a nice change in pace to the mass amounts of garbanzo beans I eat in Granada.

• The Bathroom: There are two types of toilets in Morocco, Western and Turkish.  We all huddled together as we walked to the bathroom to the first time, praying it was Western…and it was, sorta.  When I say Western (and this goes for the folling posts unless otherwise noted), I mean, sans TP and often times sans soap.  I thus, need to mention that Moroccans only eat with their right hands.  Sucks to be a lefty….a lot.  Think hard and you’ll get the picture.  Anyway, the bathroom situation was a little nerve wracking for the whole trip.  You just never could be sure….

I asked an interesting question to the girls who were were chatting with- “would you like to travel to the US”- which I didn’t think would be as interesting as a question as it turned out to be.  Their answer was, “yes, well, of course…but it really won’t happen.”  Alan, our guide from Morocco Exchange then started explaining to me the reason behind their answer.  Basically, travel outside Morocco is impossible.  If you are Moroccan, you have to have a sponsor in the country you are traveling to with a guaruntee that said sponsor has enough money to provide for you and that you will not need gov’t assitance at any point.  They also want to know that you’ll come back to Morocco (aka they don’t want to lose their entire population to a better life in Spain or the US).  So it’s tough…really, really tough.  Traveling is such a luxury that you have to be very wealthy to do so even outside your own city.  It was a moment where it hit me that no longer was I in the developed world, rather, I was in the developing world, where things that seem so common to me are above and beyond what others can imagine/dream of.

We then did drive #1…and stopped along the way to ride camels.  Fun, I guess?  It was up and down the beach…and the surprise was ruined by the other 60 people in my program having FB profile pictures of camels.  Oh well, no biggie.  We rode the camels up and down the shore line for maybe 3 minutes each.  It was kinda like a ride at Disney World only, no singing anamated characters.

In he afternoon, we hit up Ashila, a resort town, more or less, on the Med coast.  We walked through the old town a bit and then hunt out on this lookout point over the med.  Pretty.  The town itself was blue and white and there were these really pretty murals everywhere.  Apparently, the town whitewashes the walls during an annual festival and they bring in mural painters from around the globe.  It was neat to see international artists on such a local stage.

Then came drive #2 to Rabat.  MAD LONG in our TINY BUS.  Seriously uncomfortable.  Our bus seats 20, though very uncomfortably.  There are 18 of us from IES plus Alan, our guide, so that leaves one tiny seat between Alan and the driver up front open.  It’s considered a big bus b/c it holds a lot of people, but we were all convinced it was made for gnomes or something.  However, with the African sun beating through the window, we all passed out for the beginning of the ride.  I woke up because i was cramped in this little tiny seat and watched the sun set over the Med.  Strangely, it became very obvious how Europeans thought the world was flat, because seriously, there was nothing beyond the horizon.  Kinda crazy to think about.  Anyway, I tried taking a picture of the end of the world, but my camera just isn’t good enough for that….plus I was in a moving vehicle and moving vehicle + photography never equals anything pretty.

Easily the most amazing part of my day was meeting my host family and being welcomed into their home.  Our host mom met our whole group at this one house and then took us back to her apartment which was maybe 10 minutes towards the center of the Medina, the old city of Rabat.  As we walked back, everyone was watching us.  It’s a big thing to have visitors, and we were obviously a group of American students, so that made the visit even more special.  My host family (the Ben-Adin family) lives in a small apartment building.  Their apartment had three rooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom area-ish.  Moroccan homes are beautiful with lots of geometric designs traditional to Isamic art.  Instead of traditional beds, the familes have what can best be described as couches lining the walls of each room where people sleep.  Each room, this means, is multi-functional and can quickly transform from bedroom to social room to eating room in a matter of moments.  I’m thinking this is a briliant way to save on space and may or may not consider implimenting this style in a future house.  How cool would that be?  Anyway, I’m staying with two other girls from my program, and there are 3 other girls from my program in the apartment a floor above us.  Our host mom (whose name I’m not quite sure of….Ashina, perhaps…Alan didn’t know it, which was kinda frustrating, and she said it quickly and none of us caught it) was the “English speaker” in our house.  I put the term in quotes, because she’s been learning English through a British program for about a month.  A MONTH.  But really, her English was quite good for only a month of learning.  (Again, the television was a big reason why, but more on that in another post.)  She is also fluent in the Moroccan dialect of Arabic, possibly Modern Standard Arabic, and French.  Her husband did not know English, so that was a bit of a barrier.  Also in the house was my host mom’s brother-in-law….which would make this guy our host dad’s brother, but the two look nothing alike.  Oh well.  Also, my host family has a 4 year old son named Sharaf-Din…but he likes to call himself Omar.  He was at his aunt’s house when we first “came home” and so we ate dinner without him.  Dinner was good- lots of (what I guess are) traditional Moroccan pastries and a yummy soup.  Oh, and of course we had tea!  Moroccan tea is amazing.  It’s green tea with lots of sugar and mint added at the end, which was seriously so good.

My two friends and I chatted with our host mom for awhile before going to bed.  Between her knowledge of English and some broken French (oh hey! remember those four years I took french- quite helpful!  One of the other girls I stayed with also had high school french under her belt so that was helpful, too), we had a really nice conversation.  We talked about learning languages, studying in America and Spain, different Americna influecnes in Morocco, and of course, the election and Obama.  I was actually surprised it came up as late as it did, seeing as everyone around the world wants to hear about Obama.  But still, it was interesting hearing my host mom’s thoughts about the election.  She made comments about wanting peace in the world and no more wars.  Obama’s rhetoric really made it aorund the world…she kept using phrases like, “the change we need” or “change we can belive in”…plus the word hope.  Nice job, team Obama, on that one.  So yeah, it was so wonderful to be welcomed into a home where a true cultural exchange was taking place.  I quickly realized how similar the US and Spain are, despite their awkward differences (that 3pm lunch, wtf) and of course the language barrier.  We learned in my int’l affairs class that the “border” beween Spain and Morocco is that of the greatest difference in GDP (yes, even than between the US and Mexico, which I found interesting).  While Spain has a GDP of 30+k/year, Morocco is something just below 3k/year.  That could be totally wrong, but, well, the sentiment is there.  Life is SO different in Morocco than anywhere else I’ve been, but at the same time, the warmth and hospitality was just amazing and so very little felt different.

Oh, and the bathroom situation at the apartment:  Western, baby!  We were really concerned….but thankfully all was ok.  I should note that “showering” isn’t really a big thing in Morocco, as the water is expensive.  The shower was more or less a showerhead attached to a faucet with a drain on the floor.  We opted not to shower, in part to respect the family, but in part because it would just be SO difficult.

That’s all for now– back tomorrow with details about my day in Rabat!  xoxo

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