Morocco Miscellanea

Some random goings-on and Morocco observations:

* Apparently no one in Morocco got the memo about Thanksgiving, because everyone had to work. However, we did an evening dinner with our neighbor Katie, which was appropriately gut-busting AND entertaining to boot. There were ten or eleven people. Sam and I were in charge of sweet potatoes ... I could find nothing that looked like sweet potatoes at the marche, so I asked one of the guys if "he knew of a potato with the flavor of sugar". He got excited, nodded and said to come back the next day and he'd have two kilos for me. I came back the next day, and he had a bag of sweet potatoes beneath his counter. Who knows where he found them - they may have been stolen. Our friend Ali (who lives in San Francisco but is from Morocco) was in charge of turkey. He tried to get the turkey a little late from some guy on the road to Azrou, and when the guy showed him the skinny birds he had to offer, Ali got three of them and then had his maid cook them. They looked more like small chickens than turkeys when they arrived (and their bodies were outstretched, not tucked like a cat, as in the States), but what meat there was was really tasty. Hope everyone reading had an awesome holiday!

* The "6th annual Moroccan Film Days" event was held last week from Monday to Wednesday. Each night they screened two shorts and a longer film, and the directors and cast were there for a discussion afterward. Right up Sam's and my alley. E-mail queries to the coordinators of said fete could get no concrete answer as to whether or not the films had English subtitles. So on Wednesday, Sam and I went over to the presentation hall, found some students there who we thought might have something to do with the show, and we asked them. They assured us that there were English subtitles. So, we grabbed some dinner up town, made our way back to campus, plopped down in the theater and waited the obligatory 45 minutes past the published starting time for the films to actually start.

The first film was about a boxer. That's all I can really tell you because the film was in Arabic, the subtitles were in French AND the subtitles only appeared sporadically, even though no French was spoken in the movie. Not that either of us could really have followed French subtitles, but it would have at least given us somewhere to start. There were apparently some funny parts surrounding some blonde lady in red. There was supposed to be another short, but for whatever reason, this was skipped, and we shot directly into the feature film ... all in Arabic, no subtitles. We walked out and headed home. (To make up for this, we got a pirated copy of Superbad and The Lookout online and watched at home).

* Yet another three hour cooking endeavor to report: last week I made some flour tortillas and some chili rellenos, and they were pretty damn good. Never made tortillas before, so they were way too thick ... hard to fold but tasty nontheless. This is the third time I've made chile rellenos, and each of the other times I vowed that I would never make them again. This time, I think I may have finally gotten it right (though I'm still not sure I'll take the time again). There is a plethora of traditional Moroccan fare in the Ifrane restaurants, but we can't find a chile relleno burrito anywhere.

* Water has a very central role in Moroccan culture. Each medina has a series of elaborately decorated fountains (pictured) which at one time were the source of water for the city's inhabitants and where people still fill water bottles. A rule that we were told is that if someone asks for water, it is considered rude to deny the request (he told us this when suggesting we keep our Nalgenes inside our backpacks). Water is scarce and precious, especially toward the desert, and is considered a shared resource. Some consequences: there is often one glass cup in bathrooms that everyone uses to drink water (uhh, nasty). Likewise, in most cities one sees colorfully dressed men with bladders of water on their back, serving it in a communal cup from a spigot. Sam and I were eating on the patio of a restaurant in Fes and had a large bottle of water. At one point a group of three girls came by, stopped, came over and asked if they could have some water. We had an empty glass with "napkins" in it on our table (napkins here are ripped up sheets of paper ... quite absorbant), so we were able to adhere to this desert rule. I have also on a few occasions seen people walk into a restaurant, walk to the water jug, pour a glass of water, drink it and walk out.

* Second in importance only to water in Morocco is that sport that most of the world calls football, but we in the US have taken upon ourselves to call soccer. Why we had to call American football "football" and call what the rest of the world knows as football "soccer" must have stemmed from the same juvenile decision to be different that caused the multi-holed shaker to be salt in the US, but pepper in England. Or that resulted in England and its historical colonies driving on the opposite side of the car AND of the road as the States. How often do the foot and ball actually interact in "American" football? As much as in "The Rest of the World" football? Maybe there's something more to it, but I refuse to Wikipedia it. Any which way, everywhere we go here, there are people playing football. They create a goal from any two objects they can find (shoes, bricks, mounds of sand) and play all day long. Almost every day and every where we've traveled here, we've seen at least one game of football being played. On a trip to El Jadida on the coast this past weekend (more on this in a later post), there were kids playing inside the ramparts of the old Portuguese fort (with one goal up against the gate leading out to the ocean), just outside the ramparts (pictured) and at multiple places on the beach until fairly late at night (the beach was lit).

The Cedar Gouraud, Barbary apes and Azrou

As mentioned in the last posting, two weekends ago we postponed our day hike in the nearby cedar forest and opted to go to Volubilis instead. This past weekend, however, worked out much better for the day hike anyway, since the weather was gorgeous, and our friend Julia (who has a car) wanted to go.

The "day hike" became more a of a "day wander". We first made our way to the Cedar Gouraud, a gigantic cedar tree surrounded by trinket shops at the end of a dirt road between Ifrane and Azrou. I have a brochure from the tourist office in Ifrane, which claims that the tree is the oldest Atlantic Cedar in the world. Of course, the brochure is in French, so my translation may be off. And it wouldn't surprise me if this was something the tourist office thought would be cool to put in the brochure, true or not. "Gouraud" is not a French word, but it was the name of a French general, Henri Gouraud, who was stationed in Fez and put in command of all French troops in Western Morocco in 1914 (thanks Wikipedia), so I'm guessing that's how the tree got its name. A little piece of water resources irony: around five years ago, water was diverted in the watershed for agriculture and this pillar of Middle Atlas tourism died. There are many other huge cedars in the area, so someday soon, one of them will replace the Cedar Gouraud as the largest Atlantic Cedar ... and I'm going to do everything I can in our last month here to have that tree named Cedar Shaub.

We didn't focus too much attention on the giant, dead tree, however, because there were monkeys all over the place! They're called "Barbary apes", but they are actually monkeys, a mistake which is accredited to their ape-like lack of a tail. So, picture a visitor to the US who's never seen a squirrel spending multiple hours in Central Park pointing at every squirrel that ran by, laughing, gasping and taking pictures ... that is exactly what we were like to the trinket shop owners. One of these shop owners picked up a rock and menaced some pesky monkeys away that were hanging around his shop. The monkeys are all over in the woods, but some brilliant soul decided it was a good idea to start selling peanuts to feed them, so they now congregate around the trinket shops during the day. And idiots actually buy peanuts and hand them to the monkeys, pretending they are cute, tame house pets, helping them overcome their aversion of humans and kindling a hankering for human food. (I'm picturing the sign at Yellowstone showing a bison goring someone who got too close.) Unfortunately, Sam, Julia and I could not help but join the ranks of such idiots. It must be something in the tap water. (We've heard tales of the zoo in Rabat where people can feed the monkeys AND the bears, lions, etc.) These little buggers would take peanuts from you and one even grabbed ahold of and drank from my water bottle, but they were still pretty skittish and ran off if you moved quickly.

After hanging with the monkeys for a while, we had a picnic on a bench a little ways away from them, and amazingly, not one monkey came and tried to eat our food. However, a couple wild dogs hung around for a while and got the remains of Sam's veggie burger (home made by Julia). At some point, a group of Moroccans materialized at a nearby picnic table, making quite a bit of noise and taking rides on the decorated horses and donkeys that some locals bring to the area for tourists. Gotta say it was both sad and hilarious to see two grown men being slowly led around on tiny donkeys ... one guy was talking on his phone and nearly got bucked.

Perhaps the coolest part of the outing was the walk we took after lunch. There really weren't any clear trails, so we just walked back in the woods and paid attention to landmarks. At one point, we got to the top of a good sized hill and got a decent panorama of the area, which is really pretty beautiful. As we were heading back, we ran into a large group of monkeys playing around, so we hung out amongst them for a bit. They didn't seem to mind our presence in the slightest, and every so often one would walk over and pull on our pant leg for a peanut. Julia and I both had monkeys climb up us for peanuts we were holding in our hand, which was a bit bizarre. We think that it was monkey mating season, because of the swollen, inflamed rumps of the females, the several territorial fights we saw between the males and the couple of free, XXX peep shows we stumbled upon. But what do we know about monkeys?

Our day was capped with a trip to the nearby Berber village of Azrou. We hit one of the shops there for a little bit so that Julia could buy a hookah, then we grabbed some tea and coffee at a cafe before heading back to Ifrane for dinner. Really a pretty chilled out day ... check out the pictures: Barbary apes.

Moulay Idriss and Volubilis

This past weekend we were planning on doing a day hike in the famed Middle Atlas cedar forests around Azrou, about ten minutes south of Ifrane. The hikes are said to be quite beautiful AND there is a good chance of bumping into groups of barbary apes foraging about. Who wouldn't want to see apes foraging? I've been e-mailing a guide in Azrou, but his prices for an overnight trek (staying with "nomads") was a little spendy, so we were considering just wandering for a day on our own. So, since he works for a Guide Association in Azrou and wants to advertise the region, I mailed him again for some dayhike information, and he sent me some details. However, he also recommended we watch out for shepherd dogs ... not sure what that meant, but, coupled with the idea of taking a grand taxi to Azrou and trying to find a trail head, our excitement waned slightly. And our friends Misty and Julia were over for dinner Friday, and Julia recommended we go the next weekend (i.e. tomorrow) IN HER CAR to a cool trail in the forest that SHE'S ALREADY WALKED, so we scrapped our dayhike fantasies.

The plans promptly changed to a trip to the nearby Roman (yes, the ones from Italy) ruins of Volubilis and the pilgrimage town of Moulay Idriss just north of Meknes. Lilting French was put into play to reserve a room in Moulay Idriss, then Sam, Misty and I caught a grand taxi to Meknes. Next was a harrowing twenty minute grand taxi ride to Moulay Idriss and a very confusing search amongst the VERY narrow streets (donkeys and pedestrians only) to find our maison, essentially a house converted to a hotel. We actually ended up asking a young man for help, and he took us on a circuitous path we could never repeat right to the place. The hotel was really cool and tranquil, there was only one other person staying there and the owner was soft-spoken and friendly. We ended up having a tagine dinner that night at an intimate table outside our room, sat and chatted there with mint tea until late, and had breakfast there as well, successfully avoiding too much evening interaction in Manville. (Moulay Idriss is a small town and is thus a little more traditional = lots of men out at night, not many women). Our hotelier was not around when we wanted a coffee, so I walked to a cafe in the center, asked for three coffees and the dude gave me three glasses and a tray and asked me to bring them back when I was done!

Moulay Idriss was a very picturesque town built on a steep hillside and surrounded by mountains. The buildings were white washed and reminded us a bit of the Greek island of Santorini. The town is home to the mausoleum of Moulay Idriss, one of the first great rulers of Morocco. This mausoleum is a holy pilgrimage site, and supposedly five trips here is equal to one haj to Mecca for Muslims. The entrance and courtyard of the mausoleum were visible on our walk uphill to our hotel, but non-Muslims were not allowed past the front gate. I WAS able to get a picture of the green tile roof of the mausoleum by standing precariously on a wall on the roof of our hotel.

Right after we checked into our hotel, we went back to the grand taxi lot and caught a ride to the Volubilis ruins about 4 km down the road. The place was really cool, out in the middle of the gorgeous countryside. Views back to Moulay Idriss were very nice as well. There was a tour group or two when we first got there, but the place was big enough to feel like we had it to ourselves to some degree. That is, except for the shepherds and sheep wandering amongst the ruins ... can you imagine the number of gates and guards around a similar site in Europe or the States? We had a couple of hours to wander and got to see sunset from Volubilis.

Many people who have been to Volubilis from Ifrane get there by renting a grand taxi all the way from Ifrane and then having the driver wait around for them, a fairly costly endeavor, plus you have someone limiting the amount of time you can spend at the site. So, our approach was nice in that we had until closing to hang out. However, we had not arranged transport back to Moulay Idriss and planned on walking if there were no taxis around. There were no taxis or any other type of transport (car, bus, donkey) around when we left after dark. So, we had a nice hour walk back with dusky views of the mountains, punctuated by a couple dives from the road to avoid the insane drivers on the curvy road. But, we made it back safe and sound for our scheduled tagine. Check out the pictures: Moulay Idriss and Volubilis.

Our scientifically advanced alarm clock

At some point in the past ten years, I was either given or went and purchased the Oregon Scientific alarm clock pictured to the right. It's a pretty cool contraption in that it converses with satellites and makes sure that the time is always spot on (if this REALLY matters or not is beyond the scope of this post). There is a button on the back that allows the user to change between the four time zones found in the United States.

This picture was taken at 11:08 a.m. When we first arrived, I manually set the clock to Moroccan time, and it was fine for a few days (enough time to re-establish communication with its satellite friends). Then one morning, the alarm didn't go off, and the clock said that it was 4:00 a.m. rather than 8:00 a.m. I searched through an online user guide and did some Google searches, but apparently this clock works as designed only in the US. There is a "Lock" switch on the back that fixes the time and deactivates all of the buttons, but this would be pretty annoying when the alarm is buzzing in the morning and can't be turned off without "unlocking" it.

So, we put the clock in Eastern Standard Time mode, set the alarm for 3:30 a.m. and added four hours to the time whenever we consulted the clock. This approach burned us in Barcelona, since they are actually five hours ahead of EST. We had plans of buying large quantities of tofu, maple syrup, oatmeal and other delicacies that we can't find here, but I set the alarm incorrectly, and we ended up rushing around and grabbing a taxi to the bus station just to make our flight. And just as we were getting used to things, along comes Daylight Savings Time, which is not celebrated in Morocco. Amazingly, two mornings ago I woke up with the feeling that something was off, checked my watch and found out that it was 7:30 even though our alarm clock said 2:30. Crisis averted.

Green March in Barcelona

Last weekend was Green March holiday in Morocco, which celebrates an historic march in the 70's organized by King Hassan II that resulted in the Spanish relinquishing their colonialist holding of Spanish Sahara in the south of the country. Sam and I celebrated this event by flying to the land of the former oppressor and cavorting for a few days in Barcelona. (A hot piece of local news: Spanish king Juan Carlos caused a national uproar when he visited Melilla and Ceuta, Spanish cities in the north of Morocco, during the Green March holiday. Moroccan ambassadors to Spain were called home.)

Our trip brought no local ire that I've found out about, and it was an incredibly refreshing change for both of us. I can speak and understand Spanish a hundred times better than French, and Sam can understand quite a bit of Spanish as well, so it was nice to be able to communicate effectively for the first time in a while. The phalli growing out of our foreheads must have shrunk due to the climate because the incessant staring stopped. There was a plethora of great food cooked by people from all over the world. And the wine was exceptional and sulfite (headache) free. Paying in euro when earning Moroccan dirhams was a little harsh (take for instance the $55 breakfast we had on Sunday morning), but we did quite a bit of walking around, hit the free admission day to the Picasso museum and ate some pretty cheap noodle bowls and falafel sandwiches.

I recently thought a bit about how some peeps might find it pretty funny that I always detail the modes of transportation used in getting from point A to point B. But, to quote Townes Van Zandt: "Where you've been is good and gone, all you take's the getting there". I always find it interesting to see what it takes to get around a country, and there's an exceptional feeling when you start to understand a country's transportation system to some degree. Plus, sometimes the stories of getting around are ten times crazier than the time at the destination. So, please bear with me.

We hit the marche early Saturday morning and secured ourselves some seats in a grand taxi to Fez. We only had to wait ten minutes or so until the six passenger spots in the car were taken ... four in the back and two (plus the driver) up front. This was the first time we tried out a fully loaded grand taxi, and it wasn't half as bad as we thought it would be. Plus, each seat cost 21 D ($2.50). One thing that we have learned about grand taxi travel is that if you stick to a normal route, the price is fairly fixed, but the minute you ask to be taken somewhere off the route, the bargaining begins and usually starts pretty high. For instance, I talked with a guy at the marche about going to the train station in Meknes, which is a five minute drive from the grand taxi lot, and the price went from the standard 150 D to 300 D, whereas a petit taxi from the grand taxi lot to the train station is around 14 D. Another fun fact about grand taxi travel is that not a single seat belt functions and the drivers are insane, as are most Moroccan drivers. Also, the window crank has been removed on all windows, but the driver has one up front that he'll hand you if you ask ... I've never really figured out why this is so.

Once in Fez, we grabbed some pizza and coffee, then tried to catch a petit taxi to the airport, which is about 20 minutes outside of town. A friendly woman at the lot told us that no petits would go there, that we could either take the #16 bus or grab a grand taxi. Pressed for time, we bought a whole grand taxi for 120 D to the airport. (On our return, we jumped on the #16 at the airport for 7 D which took us right downtown). Then it was just a quick 1 hour 45 minute flight to Barcelona Girona airport and a 1 hour 15 minute bus ride downtown. The name "Barcelona" Girona is almost as mysterious as "Frankfurt" Hahn, since both airports are fairly far from the cities they are named after.

So, Barcelona. We stayed in the Barri Gotic, the medieval portion of the city with narrow, winding alleys much like the medinas in Morocco, but missing quite a bit of the madness. The area is punctuated by a winding street with a pedestrian area in the middle called Las Ramblas. The street was lined with bars and restaurants, and the center was filled with shops, performers (one couple was fox trotting for an audience), buskers (those people who get all painted up and stand really still for a tip), drunks and pickpockets. We found the wine bars and restaurants tucked into the medina alleys to be much more intimate and cool, so we didn't spend much time hanging out on Las Ramblas, though we walked it end to end. A place called Wok to Walk deserves special mention: this was a tiny joint tucked in an alley that whipped up huge noodle dishes that you could eat inside if you managed to grab one of the ten seats or could take to go and eat outside. Oh, we also had some kick-ass Indian food. Yum.

As mentioned earlier, we hit the Picasso museum on Sunday which was in a beautiful building in the Barri Gotic. We also wandered down to the waterfront on the Mediterranean. Had some crepes, had some bagels, saw a movie. Essentially stocked up on some of the things we haven't done for a while here. (As an aside: we have managed to find ways to download good quality movies and watch them on the laptop with our souk-bought speakers hooked up. Latest viewings include Die Hard and American Gangster, the latter of which I believe is still in the theaters. Hmmm.)

We also spent quite a bit of time wandering amongst the Catalan Moderniste marvels of the city. I'm sure many of you have seen pictures of the moderniste architect Antoni Gaudi's Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia (if you knew that was what is was called or not). Catalan Modernisme was an artistic movement similar to Art Nouveau centered around Barcelona between 1888 and 1911. Many (crazy) buildings designed by Gaudi and other modernistes can be found throughout the city, and there is a huge park north of the city that was designed by Gaudi to be a utopian community, a dream that never quite came to fruition. As with our posts on Xilitla in Mexico, this one is better in pictures, so have a look: Barcelona.

And Now for Something Completely Different . . .

Many people have asked me why I haven’t written more on the blog. No, Nate does not have me tied up in the closet, BTW. Some of you know I been having a very difficult time here, for others it may be a total surprise. I haven’t felt much like writing because I believed I would either just complain or have to lie about my experiences – so I opted to not write (also, I have been crazy busy, but I think I would have found time if I was really digging it). Truth is, I’m not digging it. I’m frustrated, isolated and unhappy. I really thought I went into this with eyes wide open, but now I see I was perhaps naïve about just how difficult it would be to work in a culture so radically different from what I am used to. Working somewhere gives me an entirely different perspective about the place. And working ALONE, literally alone, is not my bag. If you know me at all, you know I’m a people person. And this is especially true for counseling – you need colleagues and supervisors and people in your life who you can debrief with. I realize I see a clinical population; however, I get to hear about all sorts of less pleasant aspects of the culture – which doesn’t help matters. Counselors often serve as a “container” of sorts for people’s unhappiness. My container is full at this point.

Here’s a list of my various grievances, ranging in severity:

Major:

• Total professional isolation (see above).

• No mental health safety net/infrastructure. I am it for mental health help for the community besides a psychiatrist that comes on Friday afternoons and spends ten minutes with each person to prescribe medications. A student with severe clinical depression was taken to a spiritual leader and told a “demon” was causing all her problems. I also see faculty – which is just weird.

• Women have no power here. Yes, they may be working toward their Master’s degree, but their fathers can take their passport away and LITERALLY imprison them in their home if they have shamed the family (I’ve been told about this more than once). I will return to shame later . . . Keeping women down is all about maintaining power. Laws have recently been passed to give woman more economic power. For example, a husband must now have his first wife’s permission to marry more wives, whereas before he did not. Blaming Islam is like blaming Christianity for the freaks who, in the name of God, kill doctors that perform abortions. Although the Quran does allow for beating your wife if she disobeys, I’m sure there’s plenty I’d find fault with written in the Bible, so it becomes a matter of interpretation and culture.

-One of my students, thinking her friends were following behind her, was surrounded by several men and harassed in broad daylight, on the main road, for having the audacity to be in public by herself. She was terrified and ran as fast as she could until she made it back to campus.

-I had a brother email me as his sister’s “guardian” to tell me he has a right to know what she discusses in counseling because he allowed her in the first place to even see me. He got a very civil F-off.

-An incident of clear sexual harassment by a professor that resulted in the president of the university asking the victim, “Are you sure you want to make trouble for him? He’s married and has children.”

• The groping incident. For the first time in my life, I feel afraid and uncomfortable in public. I am so tired of being stared at any time I leave university grounds.

• Shame, or hshuma in Arabic, permeates everything. We all know how great shame can be for mental health. Also, with such a huge focus on family and community, there is no room for difference. Different is shameful.

Minor:

• My office is freezing. Like wear gloves, see your breath cold.

• Every day chaos. One person, who has been here for a while, told me to act like it’s a circus and be amused instead of frustrated. Some days that is easier than others.

So, what did I expect, you ask? I don’t know. I expected to have difficulties in regards to women’s issues and thought being alone would be hard, but I never expected to feel so isolated. I never expected to feel so afraid in public without Nate beside me. I never expected to feel like I was loosing my mind because I felt so paranoid. I never expected this feeling of powerlessness because I can’t advocate for my students. I realize now that I am a better counselor with regular supervision and consultation. I realize I need support and space to debrief after I’ve listened to heart-breaking stories of oppression, abuse and shame.

What have I learned? I’ve learned a lot about Islam and a lot about culturally appropriate counseling. I’ve learned how to communicate and listen when there are huge language barriers. I’ve learned a new appreciation for my home and my freedom (not in a creepy, flag-waving way). I’ve learned to feel an even greater passion in regards to our civil liberties, the separation of church and state and women’s rights – we can not be complacent about their erosion! I’ve also learned (as if there were any doubt) that I have the most supportive friends anyone could ever ask for – thank you for all of your reassurances, that I am, in fact, not crazy.

Quick Update from Ifrane

There's been quite a bit of silence from our end ... to quell all fears, we were not carted away by Berbers and forced into manual labor. However, we've both been battling various Moroccan bugs intent on destroying our intestines ever since our trip to Marrakech. Some of you may want to blame the sheep's head, but Sam was sick as well. The DAY after we got back from Marrakech, I got a nice head cold complete with a comforting fever that lasted for a few days. Just as I was feeling better the next week, both of us suddenly had gut issues and extended our marital support to the task of keeping the toilet seat warm.

Both of us have now recovered (more or less). Some pretty big decisions have been made over the past two weeks, the biggest of which involves us leaving Morocco and heading back to the States in December ... however, Sam is going to write more about that topic.

We're heading for Barcelona tomorrow until next Tuesday, so there should be another posting late next week. Here are some stupid pictures I took of some food stuffs that are staples in our Moroccan household.


Yogurt from our Meknes medina yogurt maker
OR
tiny Yawmy containers



Uh, white girl who loves strawberry jelly and speaks Arabic


not a bag of turds ... Tunisian dates


bulk olives with preserved lemon and hot sauce ... you eat the lemon rind as well!


the ever-so-elusive can of oatmeal - it is impossible to find larger quantities of oatmeal, say, in bulk. I don't think anyone here eats oatmeal, so it is imported for foreigners.


liter of sterilized milk, pretty spendy but damn, we're addicted to cereal.