to be Modern?

A couple of weeks ago, while on a date, I was just sipping through the foam of my latte when the Turkish friend across from me asked my opinion: "So, is Turkey a modern country?" Finishing my sip, I rested my cup on the table and took a moment's pause. It wasn't the first time I had fielded that one. Come to think of it, I had spent the good part of an entire semester battling the question of modernity inside and out of sociology and Middle East Studies classes - what does it mean to "be modern"? Who judges? Who applies for admission into the "club"? Does the concept hold weight? Is it even useful? Or simply degrading?

Over the past few months here, too, the many young, Turkish people I have talked politics with are genuinely concerned that they have to convince me of just how "modern" Turkey is - of its merits, its civility, its humanity, of all the factors that, in their eyes, makes Turkey fit in with the ranks of the uber-"modern" (and uber-idealized): the Western Europeans and (although less so, increasingly) Americans.

As an American, I'm supposed to (to my surprise) know a thing or two about "being modern". I become, at first introduction and without consent, a legitimate authority in regards to the question of Turkey's modernity.

Whenever posed with the modernity conundrum in casual conversation, however, I always throw it back into the face of the inquirer: "Well, what does it mean to be modern?"

In this instance, however, we were speaking in Turkish and I, thus, found myself a bit less eloquent and a bit more unnecessarily existential. My question came out more like, "What does 'modern' mean?" To which my otherwise well-spoken date stuttered a bit and took a minute before coming up with some criteria. "It's when people are polite to each other. They speak nicely to each other. And they are clean."
"In that case," I noted, smiling over the tip of my coffee, "most of Turkey is probably modern, but the city of New York is definitely not."

hypotheses:

so I have decided that I am so sick because...
a. I am spit and snotted on (generally not purposefully) daily by 3+4 year old who are too cute to not hug and smooch,
b. my cat, mr. boncuk patlican tinkles, is a filthy little being who revels in crawling around on the wet bathroom floor (and especially behind the toilet - UUUUGH!) and then jumping into my bed,
OR
c. because almost everyone here smokes and my body has staged a revolt.

maybe this super-neat, Japanese anti-smoking advert would change hearts and minds....

oops - did i forget to mention that my roomate was deported?

Okay, okay, so the feds didn't knock down our door and stick her on the next flight to the US of A.... BUT it went something like this:

Expired visa, employers not helpful AT ALL in getting proper legal paperwork (contrary to what they had promised contractually....more proof that contracts don't really mean much in Turkey), trips to various government offices, special paper saying she can stay, some saying she needed to exit-re-enter from Bulgaria, some saying she needed to leave for a month, some saying three months....
Well, after a brief "vacay" in Bulgaria and numerous fruitless trips to the (clueless) Turkish consulate in Sofia, the truth comes spewing out that a new law is in effect this year for American citizens. It requires that US citizens with 15+ days expired tourist visas leave Turkish soil for 3 months (less than 15 days leave for one month), so Sarah, my roommate and conspirator in all things absurd and ex-patriotic, has flown the coop for the languid shores of Maryland, where she awaits her luminous return to Istanbul (read: hangs out with her family and friends, stocks up on good books and American snack foods to bring back here, and annoys the heck out of the DC Turkish Embassy...)

Bytheby, read about her adventures here.

But now her paperwork is in line and only one more month of living alone with a cat like a 40-something spinster (inşallah!).

mr. boncuk patlıcan tinkles playing like a fiend in my dirty laundry

sick in bed, reconnecting with the blog...

home again from work today... in bed, slurping oatmeal (breakfast of the past four days) and trying to avoid the springy advances of my overly jovial (read: psychotic) cat. my throat still hurts (day 5) like swallowing glass, but I think the antibiotics have helped ameliorate the sinus congestion. if this is strep, it's really nasty and moving to my ears...i have had fevers every night, a head cold (maybe it was a sinus infection - one of only three possible illness options in turkey, it seems...), nasty runny nose, and big white patches growing in the back of my throat. yes, really really disgusting; i am half fascinated and half repulsed whenever i open my mouth in front of the mirror. they're like big white craters, or maybe lichens, just growing there, keeping my uvula company. and making it so that i can't swallow without incredible pain. which all makes me sound, incidentally, like the elephant man. "my name...*wheeze wheeze*...is john...merrick...*wheeze*..."

last night i dreamt that my boss was trying to sneakily fire me and i went into school to find her showing my replacement - a leggy, gorgeous woman, most probably of the Argentinian variety - around, telling her "...and English is spoken here all of the time...there are English-speaking teachers in every classroom...and we have an international student-body..." Dream-Hazel laughed pretty hard at all the lines. But this morning when I confirmed by sms that I would be staying in bed because I'm still in a lot of pain, she cutely and grammatically incorrectly replied with, "take a good care of you!" So I don't think I'm in the fire yet. Although if she fired me, I don't think I would really be too heartbroken to be honest... It would be kind of a relief, actually, and an excuse to jump-start what I really want to be doing here (just wait, more info to come...).

So, I (I just remembered how much my mother hates it when I use improper punctuation. Sorry, Mum.) should probably back up a bit, considering that I have been an inconsistent and selfish blogger over the past four months... Amongst other slow-moving, procedural routes that have led towards living in (somewhat) normalcy (like getting hot water, a functioning cell phone, furniture, a fridge, a bank account, a home phone line, permits to be here legally - YAY!), I have humbly welcomed the internet into my home. which means, that I will (hopefully) not be such a blog-lackey in the future. I'm hoping that this post helps rekindle my "writerly fire," since I, frankly, haven't found the words to say just what I want to of late. The Turkish-English linguistic limbo has shaken things up, I think.

Some life updates:
I have spent the last 3.5 months working as a preschool teacher at a Bilingual International Preschool in a ritzy, glitzy gated community in the northern Anatolian side of Istanbul. The kids are great (although, much to my shock in our first week of school, none speak English and almost all are Turkish..which makes communicating an interesting endeavor, to say the least.), but the school is owned by a greater network of schools and its upper management and businessy end of things is, bluntly, awful. Generally speaking, the Turkish teachers are treated unfairly - given much lesser salaries (around 700YTL per month) than foreign teachers (around 2200YTL per month) and expected to do more work. And then there's the fact that the Office broke my contract to essentially result in my demotion without telling me (What's the point of a contract, again?). At the same time, the Office tries to hyper-control the curriculum, sending out weekly programs (that don't make sense and have really unrealistic expectations - this week's four-year-old lesson plan theme, for example, is "Canada"...not ideal for a bunch of kids who don't even know - in Turkish OR English - which city in the world they are living in!) in English and constantly changing things through the network of higher-ups (coordinators, principals, other teachers, and on down the giant game of "telephone") to completely ignore predetermined plans and make way for new commands (On the morning of:"Oops, it's the anniversary of Ataturk's death, everyone clear your agendas, scrap your plans, and center the day around the founding of the republic - make flags, make remembrance wreaths, make more flags and remembrance wreaths...!!!"). It's not the plans that annoy me (although we have decorated enough Turkish flags to line the walls of my entire house, I think), it's the inconsistency, the change without concern for the fact that YES, we are legitimate teachers with legitimate plans and YES we put thought into our work. It's really the disrespect that gets me.

Okay, so a bit more complaining about work, and then on to new topics... My brain has been in a constant state of frenzy, since, as of about a month ago, I work with two teachers (lovely as they are) who only speak Turkish. Now, my Turkish is improving (yavas, yavas...slowly, slowly..) BUT I have become the official translator of not only our weekly newsletters home to parents (90% of whom don't understand English themselves) but, more crucially, our weekly lesson plans! Which is frustrating, since, without a full understanding of what the Office tells us the week's plan should be, my lovely co-teachers can't mold and morph their lessons to fit what our kids need. I worry that our students are getting a very strange sort of education that brushes the surface of many, complex ideas (in two languages), but never touches down to the solid root of a foundation.
ALSO I have found that when the kids overhear me speaking in Turkish with the other teachers (and they always hear, no matter how sneaky and covert I try to be!), they undo the English practice I have been trying to instill and revert to talking with me in Turkish. So then when I try to respond to my co-teachers only in English (as my job description requires, remember) a) they have no clue what I'm saying and b) they get passive-aggressively annoyed with me for replying in English when they know I have the ability to respond in Turkish. Whoosh! More on language: For two months we had two Spanish cousins attending our school. They were inseparable, adorable, hated rules, and only spoke Spanish. So, they were placed in my class and thought of, essentially, as "Hazel's students"... so to add to the general mania of our crazy little school , trying desperately to get up on its feet (see next paragraph), my brain, for two months, was working daily 7am to 7pm in Spanish (with the two boys), Turkish (with my co-teachers), and English (the only language I'm contractually supposed to be speaking!).
To top all of this confusion off, our school, I realized quickly after signing my contract, is a bit of an emergency case. The majority of last year's students were pulled and sent elsewhere because of the nightmare that was last year. The lack of organization and solid curriculum turned many parents off. So now we're left to clean up in the wake of our last principal, who left very abruptly this year. New principal, new teachers, one teacher left, new students coming, old students leaving, new servis (van with driver) plan bringing kids to and fro, old security guard fired, new security guard hired, pay cuts, pay cuts, more students leaving... It's constant. And tiresome. So enough blubbering about work.

Some cute photos of (the good parts of!) my job:

art project - making giant anthropomorphic veggies with the 4-year-olds

halloween party - many spidermen were in attendance...

halloween again - with a cute makeshift cat-princess. (the turkish teachers thought i was crazy for painting my face with the kids!)

a very serious fruit-salad lesson...

Going for my morning dose of antibiotics. More later, inshallah.

On setting up shop

We have had a long, sometimes frustrating, sometimes thrilling, sometimes depressing, sometimes hilarous time of finding and settling into our new Istanbul apartment. We spent one night, for example, almost homeless, saved by the love and kindness of a friend's family, who showered us with affections, incredible home-cooking, and freshly made beds. For the first week after finally moving in here we slept on the floor on makeshift beds of bunched up clothing and two rugs generously gifted to us by our old landlord, whose room we rented for three weeks. He has a nack for finding superb goodies amidst other people's trash and, because of his talents we now have, amongst other found accessories, a big, cushy couch in our salon. By the grace of used appliance stores, the kindness of incredibly generous friends and coworkers, and the sweet deals at a place called "Maxi" (my new favorite hangout), we have been able to scrap together a fully functioning kitchen. When we finally bought a mattress (during an epic journey to Ikea - miles away in an oversized shoppingmall/parking lot akin to my ignorant mental-image of Texas) we carried it home, rolled up and vacuum-packed, on our shoulders from the downtown bus stop, to the hilarity of onlookers. That was only topped by the night I found two remarkably clean overstuffed armchairs by a dumpster a few blocks away. We walked them home, one each, slung upside-down over our heads like gigantic white, square hats. With Sarah walking in front of me, a box with little legs, I couldn't stop laughing. It's remarkable how often people going in the opposite direction offer help when they see you carrying extremely awkward-looking things (one man, seeing us by the dumpster deliberating the best way to carry the chairs home stopped and asked, "Can I help you move your trash?"). One teenager on a bicycle followed us for a block, earnestly trying to get us to let him help. We, being the two stubbornest people in all of Kadikoy (especially when together), of course would not concede.

Things are slowly, slowly coming together for us. Eventually, we'll upholster our furniture so it matches and will swap real curtains for the sarongs hanging in the window. We're sleeping in remarkably comfortable beds (with pillows, down comforters, and all), eating yummy and healthy home-cooked foods (I just made tabouli for us tonight, actually...and picked up fresh mint and peaches from the Tuesday market in our neighborhood. Goodbye, 2YTL durum sandwich from a street vendor!), and there's a hammock on loan from a friend swinging in our living room. Our next challenge, though, will be succeeding in turning on the natural gas so we can finally stop taking cold showers. Brrr.

On being understood.

Istanbul is, like Boston, a city in which people seldom pronounce the "r"s at the ends of their words. Being only a beginning student of Turkish, it has taken time and many instances of sounding like an idiot to recognize verb conjugations where I thought there were nouns, to begin discovering the accents and linguistic nuances of Istanbul. Most of the time, I feel confused and the understanding is always delayed (like a badly dubbed movie), if it comes along at all. In every interaction I have moments in which I just want to, like the two-year-old grunters at our preschool, point towards something and make whiny noises. I think that my Turkish is improving, though - the other day I was surprised to find myself infinately more confident and capable in talking with a friend who I hadn't seen for the past three weeks (although I can't belive I have been here long enough to not have seen a friend for three weeks!). He speaks perfect English but, out of what I have identified as anti-imperialist resistance, only will speak to me in Turkish. Which I will most likely be thanking him for later. Our conversation moved with ease, from work to home to films to military requirements to when I need to pay my rent to needing a vacation... It was so refreshing and rejuvinating to feel that I could both understand and be fluidly understood. Moments like that have been few and far-between since I came to Turkey. I'll have to pay him back with English practice someday. He also wants me to teach him Spanish, though, which I have been trying to explain was once in itself an imperial language. But maybe I will do a better job of explaining in another three weeks...

pop icons from afar

thoughts from 20 August 2008 (copied from my little blue journal):

I finally saw the new Batman film last night, which was, in a nutshell, well worth the wait and exciting to watch. Sarah, my new partner in all crimes, and I saw in the theater like giddy six-year-olds, chit-chatting and giggling while the all-Turkish audience around us sat, all business, around us, not saying a word.
As a loud critic of American policy and facets of "American culture" (a problematic concept in itself -- fodder for another blog post probably, so I'll leave it alone for now), I'm always shocked by my occasional upwellings of emotional response to uber-American things - to pop-culture references from the US, or a sense of solidarity with other American foreigners, excitement at hearing SOFT-SPOKEN English in the street, etc... The Dark Knight, I guess, is just one of those references that strikes a chord - Batman being a symbol of my childhood, of the specifically American comic legacy, the creativity of American productive capabilities, the freakishness of the American collective unconscious...
The film as a work in and of itself, I should add, was very well-done - acting well-thought out (for the most part anyway- I did inevitably feel a few cheese-factor moments), shots artistically configured, moral dilemmas presented - the twisted mind of the joker, the struggle of good over evil and the easy slippages between the two all complexly converged. I had to scoff a little bit at the moment on the ferry boat when the "upstanding citizens" decided to take things to a vote - as if the simple, uncomplicated, and severely flawed American fall-back of "one person, one vote" could fix even the most complicated of moral dilemmas.

settling in...

so, having decided (somewhat whimsically) to stay in istanbul after finding a job teaching (bilingual international) preschool, sar and i have set up shop, found an apartment (entirely sarah's doing), wandered the neighborhood (we even have "our vegetable man" who sells us wonderfully cheap and delicious cucumbers and tomatoes, always throwing in a little extra sweet pepper or parsley - or both!), and things are slowly, slowly falling into place.

it still feels sometimes as if this all is a hallucination - especially when moving across bridges over the bosphorous, taking the ferry to the european side, wandering during late nights in taksim, walking (and watching) up bahariye street on the way home from work, reflecting on the call to prayer...

little things.

inspired by the sight of bubbles flying around outside the window of my apartment... couldn't find their source, but enjoyed their flight. i suppose it's more mysterious that way.

istanbuldayim...

L, S, and me goofing around in Sultanahmet

made it to istanbul last week. siiigh... happy to be here!

bootlegs!

It seems that the thing to do here is buy crappy bootleg movies from teenage boys in the souq. Unfortunately, sometimes they're just in French, not English. This is especially the case with the newest ones (we were disappointed on popping in Kung-fu Panda, The Happening, and Saw IV...although I'm not sure that we missed out on much...) - bad French dub-jobs that are literally filmed on home video recorders in the theater (you can hear people laughing and breathing in the audience!). They keep the cameras miraculously still, though - still not sure how it's done. Superbad (which is really funny, it turns out) was even in Russian, but we figured out how to get the English version to play. That was well worth the 10dh ($1.40).

Ignoring the advice of a friend, I jumped the gun on the Dark Knight, the new batman movie, and now I have a copy with stupid French dubbing. No original versions out in the medina yet, unfortunately. I was told that I should wait to get the theater effect; I guess I got what was coming to me for being impatient.

harassment or not? being a single woman...

One thing that people from home always ask me is how I feel as a single woman traveling around here. It's a question I'd rather not have to field, and often times feel like, if people are going to ask me what it's like in Turkey, Lebanon, or Morocco, they should ask me what its been like in DC too. BUT, it is an interesting question... so I suppose I'll try, in a very round-about way, to field it.

Tonight I hopped on the 30 bus downtown, headed to the train station to go to Casablanca, which didn't actually happen because I missed the two trains I could have possibly gotten on because I got sidetracked writing, writing, writing. So I figured I would wander around the medina (the very busy, crowded "old city") and downtown and eventually try to meet up with some other friends who were heading to a west African music club.

Walking towards the medina and along the wall: constant smooching noises, men saying "Bon soire," "hola," "hey baby," saying things in Moroccan Arabic that I couldn't understand. It was like a swarm. And I, in the middle of the annoyances, just kept walking, face forward, not looking at anyone, not turning to acknowledge it, just keep on moving, as I tend to do. I have found in the past that turning to acknowledge the attention just makes it worse. Usually I can deal with the unwanted attention - I figure out a way to diffuse it, to avoid it... it's usually not that bad, actually (and never bad when I'm walking with a male friend), but that night, I was just NOT in the mood. I was annoyed. And then I was angry.

The most annoying thing is if you end up changing your path to avoid someone, having to take a different route than the one you anticipated. The funniest thing is when a guy comes right up next to you, walks beside you, and starts making conversation. There's always the few minutes of figuring out which language to try, establishing which languages I speak, which I'm native in (that is, if I acknowledge at all). Much of the time I completely ignore the guy (I'm rather good at that, actually - I probably should feel worse about completely and utterly ignoring people, but I don't. Not when I'm treated like meat.). The funny part is that, if you choose to ignore him, he starts getting hurt, like "Why won't you answer my question?" feeling bad that you aren't speaking back at him, getting personally offended, like suddenly its your fault that you are the undesiring victim who just wants to be left alone and not talk back. His voice begins to blame you, to make you feel guilty for not responding, to feel bad for being rude. But the thing is, from what I have observed, most Moroccan women don't get this treatment. And if I were walking with a man I would never, ever, get this treatment. Nope, when I walk with guy friends, no one bothers me, unless they're trying to sell me something or ask for money, and even then they generally ask the guy and not me.

Tonight I was in one of those moods where I didn't want to get bothered, I just wanted to be left alone, to walk around anonymously, to just hang out, wander, watch, and not have to talk to anyone. Usually I'm better at dealing with the annoyances, I can figure out what to say to make the guy just leave me alone. Sometimes the whole game is counter-intuitive. Sometimes if you're really nice and respond, just respectfully, proving yourself as a respectable woman, you can easily wiggle out of the conversation. Sometimes its impossible to wiggle out - you just get sucked back in, and then you have to be a little more forceful.

An American friend who has spent a long time living in Morocco and I had a long talk about whether or not this kind of interaction is actually "harassment." His point was that the word (in the American conception) places more weight on the actions than in a Moroccan context, that it's not so bad as to merit being called harassment. I think it's an unwanted bother, that, yes it's not as if people are coming up to me and grabbing me (although tonight a guy selling roses stuck his roses in front of my face as I walked by and grabbed onto my arm. I had to shake his hand off and give him a "back off you worthless scum, you should be ashamed of yourself" death glare.), but their actions are certainly not desired or enticed, that they bother me without me approaching them, that their actions are based entirely on my gender, on the way I look, that they make me feel uncomfortable in situations where I otherwise would be fine, they sometimes restrict my movement and impact my choices, cause me to miss out on some things (because I want to avoid them), and they make me so angry that sometimes I just want them go to hell (pardon the crudeness). I think it's pretty clearly harassment.

I have even been approached standing right next to a family, right next to a group of old ladies wearing hijab (head scarves), right next to a bunch of little kids in the park. It's such a sneaky, sleazy encounter, too - sometimes guys whisper in creepy voices, sometimes they just holler out as they walk by, sometimes they're standing and make kissing sounds as you walk by. I don't know what they're expecting. I'm sure their tactics don't impress anyone.

In al-Jadida (a beach town down the coast from Casablanca) there was this man who spent about 20 or 30 minutes staring at us intently from across the sidewalk - literally staring at us from ten feet away with a piercing gaze while people walked through, while Adrienne and I just stood there waiting for some Moroccan friends. Neither of us looked at the guy, because every time we nearly caught his eye, he would start gesturing slightly to us. I have no idea what he was hoping would happen. The whole thing got very uncomfortable. And then he started pacing around, circling around the sidewalk in front of us. And mind you the whole sidewalk was lined with people standing alongside it, we were by no means the only ones there. Finally the guy walked away. We were relieved that he didn't stay to follow us. Is this not harassment?

What if I wore a hijab? Or a djelaba (a loose-fitting robe that women sometimes wear over their clothes on the street)? What if I covered myself up more, tried to blend in more? I'm not sure that it would even matter, I think I'd be annoyed just the same. I think single women just get attention. Single men and groups of men can walk around, but women get called out. The hypocrisy is frustrating. It makes me militant. It puts me in man-hating mode (sorry, guys). It makes me unnecessarily unhappy.

allo, rabat

I have been in Rabat for exactly a week now, although I feel somewhat bewildered as I write that; it feels like I have been here for much, much longer. I haven't been scant on the posting for lack of things to say, that's for sure, but for lack of constant internet access. To be honest, I wasn't so keen on this city when I first arrived, having heard so many negative things about it from excitement-seeking friends, but now that I have seen more of Rabat, I'm getting to love it.

As I write this, I'm sitting on the living room floor of my friend's apartment in Hay al-Fath (which, as one Moroccan friend aptly noted, "That's not really Rabat!"), just a 20 minute bus ride outside the city center, listening to evening call to prayer in the background of the nightly futbol game going on in the cement pitch next to the apartment building. Since Austan just moved here, we spent much of the past week figuring out how to get back and forth from the place - I can now say with confidence that I'm a master of the bus system to and from Hay al-Fath. At 4dh each way (a little more than 50 cents), the bus ride beats a taxi (32dh!) full stop. The bus is much more fun than the taxi, too. And not so crowded. Although the seats must have been installed by someone with very short thighs, since its sometimes a squeeze to sit down and often my knees get banged up in the process.

It took me all week to find a cafe here with wireless internet (which makes getting work done + the job search much easier!), which was an occasion that I rejoiced heartily with a steamy cafe creme and the New York Times online. The cafe is in the Agdal neighborhood, called Bert's (in case anyone reading this ever needs wireless in Rabat!), and has really delicious coffee drinks and pretty decent paninis (although it's a little steep - but in exchange for sitting around for way longer than any coffee shop in the states would tolerate, I don't mind). Although it's a little disconcerting sitting next to 13-year-old boys smoking cigarettes like chimneys. Well, I guess that's not unique to cafes with wireless..

On Thursday I leave for Turkey, to spend much of the month of August in Istanbul. When I booked my flight, I was certain that I had my fill of Morocco, that I was ready to move on. Now, having a place to come back to every day, a bit more of a schedule, and interesting people to hang out with, I'm not so sure. I'll be ready to move on to Istanbul when the time comes (Istanbul cok ozliyorum, canim!) - I think I'll always be down for a jaunt to Istanbul - but there's definitely much more to see in this incredibly diverse country! And I certainly don't have Moroccan Arabic down pat. Not even a little bit. In fact, over the past five weeks I think my French might have improved more than my Moroccan darrija has...

leaving ifrane --

for who knows where!
....well, that's kind of true. headed to al-jadida (beach town on the atlantic coast) for the weekend, then rabat (and casablanca, too, inshallah) until august 7, when i fly to ISTANBUL! (just don't ask me about september yet..)

(ps. officially graduated now, and it feels good!)

marrakech = home to the best orange juice i've ever had.

fresh-squeezed from a stand in jm'a al-fna (a main square), ice-cold, and only 3dh (about 40 cents) a glass - B'Saha!

fiesta moroccan style...

Last weekend, I had the exciting privilege of attending the Sab3a ("Seventh Day") party for the infant nephew of a friend's extended family in Rabat. The party is traditionally the announcement of the baby, where s/he is named, her/his parents are celebrated and congratulated, and, basically, as I understand it, everyone has a grand excuse to party! Logistical reasons (ie: relatives coming in from Tunisia) required that this particular party wait until the baby was three months old - generally, it is held on the seventh day (hence, the name) after the baby is born (so this little guy was already named - Melik, which means "king"), but it was no less cause for celebration!

the little man of the night

The party stretched from 7pm to late into the night and, from what Zaynab told me, was reminiscent of a Moroccan wedding, but on a smaller scale. (Generally, depending on the family's means, hundreds of people - upwards of five hundred, even - are invited to Moroccan weddings! And they often last until 5 or 6am.) The backyard was beautiful, with white tablecloths, tents, carpets on the ground, and a live band. As were all the guests very beautiful in their intricate gowns (even the little girls!) and suits (some of the ladies shoes were particularly spectacular). Z loaned me one of her family's beautiful gold gowns to wear, and I was introduced to many smiling faces as her "friend from America" (although I caught Z's Mom and the baby's mother remarking at how Moroccan I looked! I was, of course, flattered.)

dancing to the live music in traditional gowns - i'm on the far left and zaynab is next to me


z's sister being hoisted in the air!

As the night ran on, women and children were hoisted, one by one, starting with the mother of the baby, into the air in a gold chariot-throne for good luck, accompanied by loud and lively music. And, as the party continued, some unlucky guests (and exuberant children) were thrown (fancy clothes and all) into the pool! Needless to say, everyone laughed a lot... even the sopping wet adults...

kids enjoy the pool (and, later, the cake)

yummy.

anyone who knows me (and my famiglia) well will realize that it's not too weird that i keep focusing with such intensity on food...

a tagine with vegetables (unfortunately for me, i forgot to specify "...and without meat" - buuut I ate every bit [well, friends helped too], allowing no animal to go to waste on my account. and also, it was incredibly delicious.) note the delicious bowls of olives in the background!
culinary note: tagines are common fare in morocco - essentially stews of any number of ingredients - with or without meat (chicken, lamb, beef), with or without vegetables (carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, beans, etc) - slow-cooked over a burner/fire in a wide-bottomed clay pot with a conical lid on top to keep all the yummy flavors in.

a new take on the chicken tagine - fries on top! (and don't forget the artfully placed olives)
the restaurant also serves laadis, a really great hot lentil dish - and loubi, a stew of green beans and tomatoes (a little different than the lebanese way, though!)

we have found (with the guidance of another friend on campus) a delicious little dinner spot down in the marche. this lovely little spot serves a multitude of purposes - helping us avoid eating in the caf (which has, counter-intuitively, been the food that makes people ill), filling up otherwise dull campus evenings with laughter and moroccan arabic translation malfunctions, practice ordering in arabic, exploring new and ever-interesting cuisines (and creative combinations!), an excuse to go for a walk or a cause for funny in-taxi conversations, an excuse to stop for roasted sunflower seeds on the way home, a way to find new ways to get lost in the town going someplace we should know by heart by now.... etc

adventures in chefchaouen...

three of us decided to spend our one free, unplanned weekend in chefchaouen, a beautiful little town in the north, which required a 4.5hour grand taxi drive through the mountains, passing lots of livestock (like the above), small and busy towns, an occasional field full of giant spools of wire (no idea), tractors that acted like buses for local women, and lots of police stops. our hypothesis about the police checks (which were more often than usual) was that the king was spending the weekend in tetouan or someplace. it's interesting that, once we declared our affiliation to al-akhawayn university, we were always free to go without question. apparently, it helps to be affiliated with the king.
chefchaouen is a city on a hill, almost entirely awash in shades of blue. not sure why this is, but it made for some pretty photos. we also enjoyed a prevalence of terrace-restaurants, lending an incredible view of the city!


walking through the windy streets of the old medina, we couldn't stop reaching for our cameras. something interesting around every corner - a little shop, a fruit stand, boys playing with a balloon, someone leading a donkey cart, a hidden courtyard full of flowers, a tiny kitten... finally, i think, we got used to the overwhelming beauty and the "grab the camera" guttural reaction backed off.


there were so many incredible doorways. this is only one of many, many doorway shots i took over the course of the weekend. (i later found a "doorways of chefchaouen" poster while at an artist's cooperative in rabat!)

one of the reasons we chose chefchaouen was for the awesome (and diverse!) music festival that was going on that weekend. younes not only graciously provided us with vip concert access, but also brought us to the after party, at a beautiful riad outside of town, with an incredible backyard, full of couches and alight with candelabras. with musicians and artists everywhere (a fervent drum circle in one corner of the yard, ongoing jazz improv inside...), i was perfectly content to stay until 6:30am (which we did, since our hotel didn't reopen until 7!)


this was right before hoba hoba spirit, one of morocco's most popular indigenous rock-pop-fusion groups came on - aka before the crazy jumping up and down/dancing around/avoiding the falling body-surfers and people riding shoulders

day two we took a grand taxi to akshur for a hike, which was worth it for the ride alone!

the path we took followed and then rose up above a stream, leading to a waterfall...

we encountered quite a few goats on the way...


and made some friends trying to drink tea while avoiding bees at a little tea stop at the bottom. the man at the right was literally scooping bees into his mouth to show us not to be afraid of them. we looked like complete idiots running from the bees that were invading our tea (i should mention that moroccan tea is prepared with LOTS of sugar - fresh mint, dried green tea, water, and SUGAR), but I finally struck up a conversation with these gents and they didn't think we were so weird... i think.

wandering meknes...

...

a black beetle (are there scarabs in morocco?) the size of a ping-pong ball just flew in through my screenless window, flitted around noisily for a few minutes, and knocked itself out against the wall. after which, i gently returned it to its home outside the window...


indeed, it looked just like these... only bigger...

desert reflections... and camel qualms.

on our last day in the oasis, we rose before dawn for a 4am trip to merzouga, at the edge of the sahara, along the border with algeria. we traveled off-road to the desert in the cool darkness, fantasizing that we were part of a u.n. special convoy while our driver sped a little crazier and faster than he would ever be allowed to at home. i sat shotgun, arm hanging out the open window, watching brush and rocks go by through a fuzzy haze of pre-dawn sleepiness mixed with childish excitement. the ride was kind of like being inside a video game or, rather, watching your big brother play recklessly for hours and wanting to take over the controller.

the whole adventure was a little self-mocking, overall. first-off, visiting the desert might be the single-handed most touristy activity - every foreigner keeps that orientalist desert fantasy someplace locked inside (some of us deeper than others), and most jump on the opportunity to live it out. secondly, the kind of tourism that the desert brings about is not the nicest - it seems that the drivers and guides we interacted with were used to dealing with all sorts of unpleasant foreigners and, thus, i felt a little less human (and a little more like a soulless source of cash money) in their hands. it was a very different experience from the touring we had done in the tafilalt oasis the day before - visiting a very welcoming sufi lodge, touring a small village madrassa and social center, walking through rural villages of the oasis (where we made lots of young , curious friends!) to explore new and old irrigation technologies, and wandering in ruins (which i'll post about soon!).


the silliest thing about our sunrise desert adventure? camels. it took a lot of thought, inner struggle, and debate to get me on a camel. my reservations were complicated, and my apprehension along the lines of not wanting to perpetuate the damaging orientalist fantasy that all too easily collapses culture in this part of the world. being a naturalist at heart, to me it's one thing to visit the desert in the glorious early morning (i was taken by the startling red-orange color of saharan sand, for example)... and quite another to call on stereotyped notions of what being in the desert means, needlessly employing a camel (well, 13 camels and about 16 guides in our case) for a 1km trek, just to feel like you're lawrence of arabia.
....like i said, complicated.

but, in the end, my friends convinced me to let go a little, realize that this was probably the only time i would ever have the experience, and hop aboard. (to be honest, i think "sunrise over algeria" was the thing that got me -- and was well-worth it.) will i ever ride a camel again? not unless i need to actually cross a desert (it's actually not a totally pleasant experience - camels smell really bad, poop a lot, make scary grunting noises, and really hurt your butt to ride). so check that off my list.

views from the edge of the sahara...

a day-trip to fes

Since the entire medina (old city neighborhood) of Fes is an official UNESCO World Heritage Site, motorized transportation inside the gates is prohibited. Hence, donkey, mule, horse, and push-cart courier services abound throughout the windy, narrow streets of the medina. Plastic mats, cases of Coca-Cola, bags of cement, construction materials - you name it - all clomp by on the backs of pack animals. Which makes the general lack of instances of collision miraculous!

I feel overwhelmed with reflection after such a packed day in what was our first big-city experience here in Morocco. Throughout the day, the city’s vibrancy, its beauty and historical importance, and its overwhelming poverty struck me. As we wandered the souqs, we saw evidence of the 45% city-wide unemployment rate – men and women with children squatting and sitting in the narrow streets with their palms up, looking for change; young men trying their best to assert their importance as guides or helpers; others trying to lure us towards their shops, hotels, or restaurants; and children, always seemingly away from direct adult supervision, running alongside asking for a few dirham.

we tourists wander the souq (marketplace)

Wandering as a group of twelve, donning foreign clothing, backpacks, and expensive cameras around our necks, we were clear targets of “western wealth” and I couldn’t really blame any of the people who approached us. I am always interested in the way people approach groups of tourists and the tactics they try. Linguistically, we heard strings of “bonjour, salut, hello, hola,” and even, sometimes, “konichiwa!” While there was little gender-based harassment, I heard a man sitting with a friend at a café call out “eh, spice girl!” in my direction, which was an annoying (yet nostalgic) reminder of the way shopkeepers often approached Western women in Turkey (which happened a lot, traveling around in a group of ten females). It’s interesting that foreigners, despite the individualities of their appearance, resonate with culturally conflated themes (ie: I look nothing like any of the spice girls, nor do my Singaporean friends on the trip have any Japonese heritage). More depressing evidence that people have a tendency to generalize.

scarves hanging in the souq, along a rare uncrowded patch

fes is a city well-known for its pottery

While most people in the souq kept their physical distance and shoulder-brushing happened rarely despite the cramped quarters of the narrow streets, a few men grabbed an arm of someone in the group and some attention tactics superseded the usual following and verged on verbal harassment. Our professor had a merchant following him, asking (in English) if he needed a guide for about twenty minutes until he finally ended up having to pay him off in order to get him to leave. Some of us asked people if we could take photos of them, or paid a few dirham in exchange – especially in the case of children. This brought on what I imagine is a common ethical dilemma....

Touristic photography is something I have mixed feelings about. Many of us felt the urge to constantly snap photos throughout the day – of buildings, trinkets, people, signs, streets, animals, entryways, anything and everything we came across. This urge seems normal and human to me, but at the same time I can’t help but question what exactly it is about a situation that makes me want to photograph it. Is it the assurance that, with a visual reminder, I will remember it later (I do have an awful memory)? The promise of a cultural catalogue of the many places I visit? The allure of situations I have not been in before and the desire to capture them on film? Or is it simply the desire to monumentalize the beauty that I see? A friend on the trip mentioned that most American amateur photographers set out and, in urban settings, end up taking countless photographs of the homeless people they encounter. He attributed this partly to the allure of the “other,” the perception that there is “depth” in poverty, and the simple fact that, often times, people living on the street are surrounded by interesting colors and textures that entice an artistically-inclined eye. This can be compared, I think, to the tourist-photographer.

The danger of photography, to me, is its invasiveness. When done thoughtfully, photography can be an inspirational and aesthetic mode of sharing an intimate experience. When done unthinkingly, it can be an unkind, invasive, and otherizing practice. So my unease continues....

Moral dilemma: to take or not take the photo? These children were studying (they were all singing a song when we saw them) at a very small Quranic primary school in the middle of the souq (Literally no bigger than a standard, American walk-in closet, with three desks, six students, two female teachers, a chalk board full of Quranic verses, a couple religious posters, and "Ahlan bikum" (Welcome) written on the concrete wall under a bright yellow painting of the Disney character Goofy). Teachers encourage tourists to peek in, take photos, and leave money in exchange (one of the ways the school is funded, I'm sure). The circumstances + the incredible smile on the little girl(in the center - who I had been waving to and smiling at throughout my entire "peek")'s face at the sight of my camera convinced me to take this one photo. Even so, after snapping, I felt like I had lost a piece of my soul...

A man sells sweets outside the Sufi shrine of Moulay Idris II, which are meant to bring sanctity and prosperity to the recipient who consumes them. Idris II was Idrisid king from 803-828 CE and his shrine was constructed many years later, upon the accidental encounter (during reconstructions/renovations), it is told, of his fully preserved body. People still venerate the shrine of the once-king and salah (pious person who has "befriended God," which is often evidenced even posthumously, as in cases of the body being found intact).

Our trip to Fes was colored primarily by its markets (souqs) and the bustle that enveloped us throughout the city. A group of us had the opportunity to visit the “new city,” the Madinat al-Jedida, which developed in the 13^th century. An important part of this side of town is the milleh, what was once a flourishing Jewish neighborhood. Much of Fes’ once-large and fully integrated Jewish community left after the 1967 Israeli war, after Jewish-Muslim tensions heightened and many families no longer felt comfortable in the country. The AUI professor guiding us emphasized that the Moroccan government had never upheld a persecution or expulsion policy (Judaism had been prevalent and incorporated throughout distant regional history), but that as the religio-political climate shifted, Jewish families opted to move elsewhere (many to Canada and, later, Israel). Today, the government stresses its history of “tolerance”, citing especially the policy of embracing large numbers of Jews (and Muslims) who had been expelled from Spain in the late 15^th century. Dr. S (our professor-guide) mentioned that some of his students collected research on empirical sentiment towards Jews and found that it was aligned generationally – those who were old enough to remember living amongst Jewish communities spoke of them with warmth, and those youngest generations (with very little direct contact to Jewish communities) spoke with disdain and often hate towards Moroccan Jews. He mentioned that these younger perspectives were colored by sentiment towards Israel and Israeli policy more than any deep understanding of Judaism or Moroccan jewishness.

remnants of the milleh - the French-inspired homes of Jewish families, most of them distinguishable by their outside, open balconies -- apparently, the Jewish neighborhood was once marked by the distinctive light blue paint everywhere - on shutters around windows, walls, etc..

the view of the synagogue's interior from the women's prayer balcony

The caretaker of the small, restored Orthodox Synagogue Aben Danen greeted us warmly upon entry, seeing us into the space through a slightly mismatched door. It was clear that he had been sleeping on a bench nearby, a small pillow for his head and a light blanket covering the wooden surface. While we wandered and toured the space with Dr. S, he stood nearby, listening and occasionally chiming in with welcoming bits as he saw fit – “come, sit sit,” “watch your head,” “torah here” – trying to, I assumed, enhance our understanding and enjoyment of the space. The synagogue has been recently (1993, I think) renovated per private initiative and it is rarely used, since the community has shrunk so significantly (only about 100 Jewish families still live in Fes, and the total national community is about 5,000 families), except as a historical site and museum. Inside, there is a beautiful torah, a women’s gallery, an underground space for the traditional bathing of the bride before wedding ceremonies, and a series of framed, modern photographs of sites of Jewish religious importance around Morocco.

posing on the roof of the synagogue

On the roof of the synagogue we found a spectacular view of the Jewish cemetery below and different parts of Fes. Above the cemetery is the so-called “Sanitary Zone,” planted by the French colonizers as a way to physically separate the older, autochthonous Moroccan city spaces from the new, “civilized” French-initiated spaces. Looking at it, I wondered why it still stands – a reminder of French colonial perceived-superiority – empty except for scattered trees, instead of having been destroyed or developed. It is still militarized, a government zone, and an interesting historical symbol.

view on the roof - the "Sanitary Zone" above and Jewish cemetery, with its distinctive graves, in the foreground

Our day in Fes, overall, continued in me a curiosity in the politics of space – the way it is organized, compartmentalized, occupied and re-occupied, and the many symbols (intentional and unintentional) within.

Coca-Cola delivery might seem a little out of place here in the old city...

One of the many "Taxi Sghir" whizzing around the city. In Morocco, each city has its own Petit Taxi color scheme. We took one back up to meet the group at the end of the day - our driver was extremely nice and told me all about the Fesi weather patterns (very hot in the summer, but not too much humidity - when it's humid, you feel disgusting, like you're bathing in sweat and can't get clean. The heat, unusually, took a while to set in and just started in early June this year.)

I posted many of my photos (and more explanation!) on my Flickr site (the link is to the left), and will continue to do so - feel free to explore...