Le Weekend!

It’s Friday and I am getting ready to spend my first weekend with my host family in Rabat. Orientation week was so exciting! Every day I pushed the boundaries of my experiences, from learning how to bargain in the medina, no less with someone whose language I don’t speak, to meeting my host family. Rabat is a beautiful city, although many locals say it is one of the less beautiful cities in Morocco.

The first thing we learned during Orientation was how to bargain in the Medina, which was super helpful. Then we got a lecture on how to navigate sexual harassment and how to deal with our host families, since family life is very different. We also got an introduction to the program and our class schedule. The CCCL has two annexes, one inside the Medina and one outside the Medina. One is the library, which is small but very comfortable. 

Most of this week has been spent in the Medina and around the Hotel Majestic, but now I am ready to explore the city after our Academic Director gave us a bus tour. Rabat has a rich history of Empire and is still growing everyday.  The population of Rabat and Salé, the sister cities separated by the Bouregregg River, had a population of 500,000 in the 1950s and now the metropolitan area boasts over one million people. Abdelhey, our AD, describes the city as having 4 distinct periods of development: the pre-colonial, the colonial, post-colonial, and post-modern. Pre-colonial Rabat was inhabited by the Roman Empire. They built ramparts separate from those around the Ancient Medina, and today it serves as a cemetery for kings and their wives overlooking the Bouregregg Valley. The Oudaya is the original site of Rabat, built in the 9^th century. Many people live in the Oudaya and the palace from this time still stands inside the walls. The Ancient Medina is part of the pre-Colonial development also. There are two walls that partially surround the Medina, the 12^th century wall and the 17^th century wall. The 12^th century wall was built by the al-Mohades Dynasty. The king wanted to build the largest mosque in the world, but died before construction was finished leaving only a wall and a half-finished minaret. During the 17^th century when the Andalusians were expelled from Spain, the population of Rabat grew again. Jews, Muslims, and a few Christians populated the city now. They built another wall along the Eastern side of the Medina. Morocco’s demographics today are Muslim 98.7%, Christian 1.1%, Jewish 0.2%. Since 1949 most of the Jews have gone to Israel. Now only a few thousand remain in all of Morocco. There aren’t many Christians either, but there is a Roman Catholic Diocese, and Evangelical Church of Rabat, and the Rabat International Church. The first Andalusians to come to Morocco during the expulsion came to Salé, which became a center for piracy against the Christian and Spanish persecutors throughout the 17^th century. There are still some Colonial period buildings, such as the head of the Colonial administration which now serves as something else but I don’t know what. These buildings are extravagant white marble with large front lawns. The Parliament is built to resemble the colonial style. During the post-colonial period, the buildings were designed to incorporate Colonial and Andalusian architectural styles. Then, in the 1980’s and 90’s, “New York” style glass and concrete buildings were erected. Today’s post-modern architecture is a return to the Andalusian style.

The most recent development is suburbs that grow daily. Twenty years ago it was Morocco’s most fertile land, and now houses stand on it. There are other signs of urbanization such as the historic Tramway being built. It is scheduled to begin taking passengers in March. Some people are worried about it because Moroccan traffic is notorious for ignoring street signs and stop lights, and even pedestrians (this stereotype was only reinforced by my first cab ride yesterday). There is a concern that cars wouldn’t stop for it or that pedestrians would block the path. I think people will be able to get accustomed to paying attention to it, or at least I hope this will be the case.

The weather is improving. The first few days were rainy and one day it even hailed. Now it is still cool but sunny. Most houses here aren’t heated and there is an open courtyard in the middle so it is very cold at night. The door to each room in this house is a blanket and a half-door, but I slept under two comforters and I was very warm last night, actually much warmer than I was even at Hotel Majestic. I’m thinking about venturing out to the beach as soon as I figure out how to get out to the main street of the Medina.

I think this experience is too new for me to be experiencing any real culture shock yet, but I have noticed some major differences in the daily practices of Moroccans. There is trash everywhere: Trash on the beach, trash on the streets, piles of trash on the sidewalk. Walking through the Medina on the first day I noticed one man unwrap something and throw the wrapper on the ground right without stopping. I was appalled. Throughout the week I’ve noticed that there are no trashcans in public. In fact, the only places I’ve seen trashcans so far are in the kitchen and in bathrooms. And it definitely causes an odor. There are also stray animals everywhere. They don’t really bother you, but as a lifelong pet owner it was weird to see so many stray animals everywhere with no one paying any attention to them.

It’s funny, our Academic Director Abdelhey talked to us today about how it is impossible to recreate the traditional experience of study abroad, which is going to a new country and having total isolation from your home culture and being forced to be immersed in your new one. He encouraged us not to spend all our time tied to computers and phones, staying tied to our home culture. However, I’m finding that technology inextricably blurs the boundaries between cultures. I’m sitting here in my host house, listening to an American song that my host sister is playing. Last night I watched with my other sister an incredibly stupid American show called Hellcats, which I didn’t know existed until I came halfway around the world. I’ve heard television described multiple times as a member of the family by our orientation leaders at the CCCL. 75% of Moroccan homes have satellite. My house doesn’t have Internet, but it is fairly easily accessible if I went to an Internet café or bought a modem, which costs 200 MAD (Moroccan dirham) or about $25. Even Lahcen, our other Academic Director, updates his Twitter account from his smart phone all the time to see what else it can tell him about what’s going on in Egypt. Where does the “traditional” experience fit in to the reality of modern technology?

I’m really excited for the coming weeks, especially to get more acquainted with the Medina and be able to find my way around, and also to start classes on Monday. Today we had our first Darija (Moroccan Arabic) lesson so I was able to have a 30 second conversation with my host mother. Next week we continue with Darija and start our first module about the Politics of Human Rights in the Sahara. Then at the end of the week we have the Four Dynasties trip, our first excursion of the program. I can’t wait!!