Cous Cous Friday!

First order of business, we got the word in the middle of class that Mubarak has resigned! We had a guest lecture yesterday by the SIT academic directors of the Egypt and Tunisia programs who talked about their personal experiences witnessing the outbreaks of the revolutions, and they were excited about the passion of the youth who lead the efforts and didn’t back down in the face of opposition. The Tunisia program is scheduled to return to the country in a few weeks if the new government is successful and can settle down. These revolutions are unique in North Africa because they are Western-style civil revolutions rather than Islamic Revivals or corrupt coup d’etats to correct the previous corrupt system. Even though we see demonstrations of people demanding social improvements (especially recent college graduates who can’t find work) one seems to think that Morocco is next, because the government is making efforts to improve democratic institutions. I’ve heard more talk of people looking to Yemen or Syria for the next upheaval, but at the same time this won’t necessarily have a domino effect on the entire Middle East.

Onto less global matters, my family is awesome! Transitioning into this living situation was difficult at first, but after one week I feel more comfortable here and I have been able to develop a friendly relationship with my family. It’s weird not being able to fully communicate with everyone in the household. For example, my host sisters speak a little French and when we are together we can speak to each other, but the older members, like the father and the extended family that lives downstairs, can’t speak French, so at meal times I usually sit and listen to them speak to each other in Arabic. Sometimes the father eats with us, but other times he eats in his room. My host parents don’t sleep in the same room, which is pretty common for Moroccan families. My host dad also might sleep in the living room. I’ve never been in there, but it’s decorated like a living room from what I’ve seen of other people’s houses and there is a tv in there. Whenever I watch tv with my host sisters we watch the tv in the dining room/casual living room. This is also where the kitchen is, and the bathroom is off the kitchen. At my house there is a Western toilet, but it drains into a Turkish toilet that sits next to it. For me, this means two chances to drop a phone in the toilet, which I happened to do today! My host dad and Fatima Zahra are trying to fix it now. Also, we don’t have a shower at home, so I’ve been to hammam two times and I’ve washed from a bucket a couple of times. We do have a wash machine, but it’s different from the kind you might find in the United States. And we dry our clothes on clotheslines on the roof.

The first week of classes went really well. Every morning from 8:30 until 11:45 we learned Darija, or Moroccan Arabic. The classes are all divided into small groups of different skill level. My class has 6 people, so we are able to get a lot of individual attention. Every night when I’m at home my host sisters help me with pronunciation and spelling. This morning we had a presentation in front of the entire group to show off our Arabic skills, then it’s up to us to cultivate our Darija independently. From now on we are learning Fusha, which is modern standard Arabic. Different versions of Arabic are spoken in different parts of the world, which means that Fusha isn’t really going to be useful on the street, which is kind of frustrating, but it will force us to be more creative. We did learn the basics, like bargaining, how to order in a café, clothing, colors, numbers, family terms and a few other key things. People are definitely more friendly when they find out you can speak Darija. People will offer you better deals in the medina or just generally be more friendly.

Since the weather has been improving, we’ve been able to eat lunch on the CCCL’s terrace. There is a great view of the city and it’s a great opportunity for sunbathing. Every Friday is cous cous Friday, so instead of eating lunch at the CCCL we get to go home and eat with our families then come back later for more class. Kids who live in the medina get the same afternoon break, so the whole family comes together to enjoy a giant delicious lunch.

After being here for two weeks and spending time with my family I’m noticing more and more about the city. The call to prayer happens 5 times per day starting at 5:30 am, and I wake up every morning to it. It’s actually really cool to hear all the time. Sometimes guys will stand on the street corner near a mosque and do the call themselves instead of over a loudspeaker, which is more common these days.

Over the weekend I went to Agdal, the French quarter of Rabat. It’s a whole different world there, much more like Europe than Morocco. I met a Moroccan woman who studied in New York for five years and has since returned to live here. She was horrified to know about my house in the Medina, which to me really isn’t that bad. She really wanted me to let everyone know when I tell the story about being in Morocco that not everywhere here is the same. She doesn’t even go to a hammam anymore and only showers at home. I guess it is important to note that there are some people in Morocco that are more wealthy than my family and some that are much much poorer. The Medina is considered a middle class neighborhood.

On Monday I went to Marjane, which is the Moroccan equivalent of a Target. On Wednesday I went shopping with friends in the souks, and Wednesday night I went to see a play at a local theater. It was put on by a French cultural society so it was in French. I understood most of it through body language, and I was able to pick up on a little bit of dialogue; just enough to know it was not that interesting. It was 90 minutes and there was no intermission! It was a play on Oedipes, but it was about a broken father/son relationship after the death of the mother. It was called Oedipiades. On Thursday afternoon I sat on the beach at Café Snack, an outdoor café on the beach below the Oudaya. We had a break before our last lecture so we walked 5 minutes to this awesome part of the beach. There are people running, playing soccer, reading, surfing, anything you can think of. People seem to be more relaxed socially there, probably because it’s the beach, and the beach is awesome. The waves were huge on one side of the pier and they kept crashing over it, and on the other side there were swimmers and surfers. This is where I hope to find myself today.

So far I’ve seen a lot of the highlights of Rabat. I went to the mausoleum of the previous kings with Olivia and Kawtar, her host sister. I also went to the Oudaya with friends. There were women sitting outside of it with henna who tried to grab at our hands and force it on us. Beware of people saying it’s free, because it’s not true! They will start a design, then continue it all the way up your arm and charge you after. These women and the people in the medina are very intense salesmen and very good at their profession, which is why I’m glad we were taught bargaining skills at the very beginning.

This week’s lecture series is about Western Sahara and is led by Lahcen, one of our professors. We talked about the history of the region, human rights issues, and human development since 1975 when Morocco acquired Western Sahara from Spain. Western Sahara comprises 60% of all the land area in Morocco. The Sahrawi people aren’t culturally similar to Morocco, but there has been integration over the years and the populations are friendly to each other. Morocco invested significantly in human development in the region, and now the “human development index” is much closer to that of Northern Morocco. There is still major disparity between urban and rural areas, but the same can be said for most places in the kingdom. Morocco doesn’t want to give independence to Western Sahara but Polisario, and miliant separatist group that claims to represent the interests of all Sahrawis, has violently fought for independence with the aid of Algeria. In recent years a ceasefire has been agreed upon, but Polisario still operates and fights for independence. The United Nations has attempted to mediate a resolution to the conflict to no avail. Morocco agreed to organize a referendum, but just registering people who could vote was contentious and the referendum never happened. So no one really knows what the vast majority of Sahrawis want. The most likely plan to happen if anything at this point seems to be semi-autonomy under the ultimate jurisdiction of the state, but this won’t happen until people are counted and registered to vote.

Lahcen warned us of his bias in the beginning, but it was very clear from a lecture we had on Thursday about the dismantling of Gdim Izyk that he is pro-Moroccan. I went away from the lecture feeling that what wasn’t said was more significant than what was said. I didn’t feel like we had been given the full objective picture on what had happened.When people asked very legitimate questions about contradictions in the story we were given, the answer was indirect and sometimes created more contradiction than before. It did spark private discussions about what we thought was the importance of the event, and today’s guest lecture by the former UNDP representative to Morocco brought a little light to the situation.

The dismantling of Gdim Izyk happened in 2008. Some people in Western Sahara, mainly Laayoune, were unhappy with the way they were being treated by the local government. It’s important to know that all Sahrawis are supported by the government, so there is less initiative to go out and find jobs. The government has invested heavily in the contested territory which has not encouraged development in the private sector. This creates a lack of jobs. People were also angry because the wealth given by the government to the region was not being distributed to everyone in the area. So they decided to protest by creating an illegal camp 15 km outside the city. People from all around joined in the protest and it eventually grew to an (estimated) 20,000 tents. The leaders of the camp were making social demands, but at some point the Polisario became involved and took over the camp. The Polisario is a separatist group in Western Sahara that is closely involved with Algeria, and has been in violent opposition to the Kingdom of Morocco in the past. Anyway, they started making political demands and the government decided to intervene and dismantle the camp. They came early in the morning with firetrucks and security officials to break it down. Polisario retaliated violently against the unarmed police officers. The result was chaos. People died and there were riots in Laayoune. To make things worse the Spanish media misreported the whole event and used false pictures to back up their own version of the story, which was then reported around the world. The EU issued a report based on this information that wasn’t favorable to Morocco and there was a giant protest in the streets of Casablanca, of which Lahcen was a part.

Mostly I wish during this lecture we could have talked a little more about political and historical development that led up to Gdim Izyk, because it didn’t really make sense with other things we have been learning about. I feel like we talked too much about who is to blame for the Sahara question and surrounding problems. I did enjoy a guest lecture by a Sahrawi woman who works in human development in her area. In 1996 she started an NGO that helps women become entrepreneurs and integrate into civil society. She was moved to do this after seeing family members whose husbands were forcibly taken to the Tindouf camp in Algeria in the 1970’s. These women never remarried but still had to take care of their children. She wanted to give women the means to support themselves and their families, because women and children are the first victims of political violence and there weren’t services in the past to help them. She also started the first private school for girls in Western Sahara, which gave an amazing opportunity for education to families. In 1985, 78% of the heads of household in Western Sahara had no formal education. Now the education level is on par with or ahead of the rest of the country. Sahrawis have a high level of respect for the women of their culture, so when Morocco corrected the problem of access to education, Sahrawis had no problem putting their young daughters into schools.

Now I’m going to the beach!! It’s sunny and beautiful and the temperature keeps rising. Moroccans are surprised to see Americans wear sandals and short sleeves because it’s still winter weather for them, but for me it feels like perfect summer weather. This weekend there is a chance for rain when we are in Fez, but Moroccans don’t really talk about the weather, so Nawal (our CCCL leader) told us to expect anything and we should be fine.

Correction from last update: I found out that what I called the “al-Mohades” dynasty is actually something more like “almoravid”, I think. I saw it written for the first time the other day J