I went to the protests in front of Parliament on February 20 in Rabat with Toure, Arielle, Song, and Olivia, but if you saw any violence surrounding the protests on TV, it most definitely was not in Rabat. Basically it was like a block party. People were holding signs and stuff against the government, but there were performance artists, people selling candy, and friendly crowds hanging out. The crowd was big enough to block off the streets in front of Parliament, maybe 1000 people. There were police in the area but they weren’t armed, which is significant for two reasons. The first is that 15 years ago this would not have been possible here. The people would have been beaten by violent and corrupt armed security. But now, even though it was in front of an important government building, the police were unarmed and giving the crowd enough space. King Mohammad VI has made important progress in free speech, and allowing the people to protest is a major aspect of free speech. Even though Morocco’s government is set up to disadvantage the majority in terms of political participation, these people feel in this moment like their voices are being heard. I don’t think this is a particularly sustainable way to pacify the masses, but it’s working right now. We talked last week about reforming government and whether authoritarian regimes can be reformed from within or if it’s necessary to reform externally (meaning revolution). In Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia the latter was necessary, but since the current king ascended to the throne here, he’s been attempting internal reformations in an effort to avoid a revolution in Morocco.
When we were there a few people wanted to take pictures with us at the protest because we looked really out of place among crowds of Moroccans. We were only there to observe and not to participate, but they were still excited. One guy came up to us to show us his vacation pictures in Jacksonville, Florida. We ended up getting him to explain to us the purpose of the protest. Mostly people are unhappy with the government and the Constitution, but no one wants to topple the monarchy. There were people flying a Berber flag (which is the prettiest flag ever, btw) and also people flying Moroccan flags because everyone is unhappy for different reasons. Eventually it was lunchtime so we decided to leave the protests and go get some crepes.
Then on Feb. 24th I had my first bellydancing lesson! One of the other girl’s host sisters is a professional bellydancer so she is giving us lessons. It's so fun! I also want to start surfing lessons, but I haven't yet because the timing hasn't been right, but I do go to the beach all the time and watch the waves crash against the breakers (the beach is only two minutes from my house).
Southern Excursion
On Friday the 25th we left on our Southern Excursion. The first day we drove through the biggest Atlas Cedar Forest in the world. In this forest there are barbary macaques, whose only predator (the lion) was hunted to extinction in this area a long time ago, so their population has exploded! We saw some hanging out near where our bus was stopped so we took pictures with them. I went right up to one, sat down next to it and took a picture. It was awesome. And I didn’t even get rabies! So then we drove to the desert (think Arizona) and stayed the night in a hotel where we had live music, which we had at pretty much every meal on this trip. Saturday we drove to Rissani, a town near the Merzouga Dunes, and switched to Land Rovers because our hotel wasn't close to any paved roads. When we got to the dunes we visited and NGO that helps women with literacy and also helps them earn money for their families if they've been divorced or widowed. We also visited an irrigation system for date palm groves that doubles as a freshwater service to the entire community.
Then the highlight of the entire trip: we rode camels! My camel was pure white and really tall and I did in fact name him Jorge. We took the camels out to the middle of the dunes and watched the sunset, then we came back for dinner. I fell asleep in the lounge after dinner, and when I woke up there was a performance of Gnawan music. Gnawan music was the music of Berber slaves back in the day when they were being transported from the south to the north. Some teachers and students were hanging out but most of them were gone. Two of the teachers grabbed some instruments lying around and started to play with them. There was another drum not being used so I grabbed it and started playing with them. The rest of the girls in the room started dancing! After the performers taught us a traditional dance. After they were done I wasn't ready to go to bed so I went outside and sat on the dunes and looked at the stars. There was zero light pollution except from this hotel (which wasn't very much) so I could see everything!! The Milky Way, other galaxies, all the constellations were bright in the sky (from a different angle of course). Then we happened upon some random Berber guys who worked at the hotel and we talked about the stars and our different names for them. Then one of them offers three camels for Alia's hand in marriage. When she said no, I accidentally agreed to marriage… whoops! I guess you should never shake hands with someone who is speaking a language you don’t understand. So I will be returning to the desert at the end of this trip for a little celebration ;)
The next morning we got up at 5 am and walked 40 minutes into the dunes to see the sunrise. It was beautiful! We could see a plateau in the distance and Lahcen, our professor on the trip, told us that on the other side was the border with Algeria, about 20 km away from where we were sitting. When we got back a breakfast buffet had been set out outside next to a small bonfire with a typical Moroccan breakfast of bread, butter, jam, honey, olive oil, croissants, and hard-boiled egg; and of course orange juice, hot chocolate, mint tea, and coffee. That day we left the desert and went to a town called Ouarzzazate, where a lot of movies are filmed (like The Mummy). That night we stayed at a girls’ dormitory called Dar Taliba (in Arabic, “Students’ House”). Dar Taliba allows rural girls to attend vocational schools and universities in urban areas. For $150 they live there year-round and are fed. After dinner the girls taught us more dances using only a tambourine and their voices. We danced for an hour and then the girls wanted to learn an American traditional dance. After careful consideration we decided on the Cha Cha Slide (imagine trying to recreate that with only a tambourine). They were so excited! Finally I snuck off to bed, but I could still hear them playing and dancing until 11:30.
On Monday we went to Marrakech and had two free days in the city. The first night I went to a sushi restaurant called Katsura with some friends, and after we hit up the Moroccan club scene, which consisted of a nearly empty dance floor except for a few creepy men (what else is new in Morocco) and awful techno music. We also visited Djemma el Fna, the main market in the medina of Marrakech. There were people competing to make the best food, storytellers, acrobats, fortune tellers, henna artists, people with monkeys, and snake charmers who would run after you and try to throw their snake across your shoulders to force you to pay them! It was crowded, but probably more with tourists than with actual Moroccans.
On the last day we spent the night in Essaouira and ate sardines for lunch. Essaouira has a beautiful beach, but it’s too windy to enjoy it unless you want to get sandblasted, so instead we walked around the medina.
Also on this trip we crossed three mountain ranges, the Middle Atlas, the High Atlas, and the Anti (Ante?) Atlas. The mountain passes are called tizis, and they are way too windy and narrow for a bus to cross, but somehow we managed to cheat death several times. At one point Lahcen was anticipating such a difficult time that he bought Dramamine and passed it out to anyone who thought they might get motion sickness. On this tizi there were steep drop-offs on either side of the road and we could see 5 levels of hairpin turns on top of each other. It was scary but we made it out alive!
Poetry Slam
On Friday we went to a poetry slam put on by Olivia’s friend who is in Morocco doing a Watson Fellowship. She held workshops for university and high school students and this performance was their final product. Although English is most people’s 4th language, these women were able to express themselves through their spoken word better than I think I could. I was totally in awe. They talked about taboo subjects like the veil and sexual harassment. It was moving to hear personal testimonies about such a politically charged piece of cloth. At one point there were seven women on stage and each would step forward in turn and give a personal reason for either veiling or not veiling. The women that don’t felt like they were considered “loose” or unfaithful, and the women who did felt like it was protection against harassers, and a gesture of patriotism and also of faith. They had been told when they were younger they would be more respected for wearing the veil, but all of them find that the reality is that job recruiters discriminate against women who veil even in an Islamic country. Some talked about patriotism as well, but what I found the most compelling was the women who spoke about sexual harassment. It doesn’t just happen to foreigners, and even though I’ve been having a really hard time (as well as fellow students) with it, I can’t imagine living with it my entire life. In Morocco, all public space is a man’s space, and even when they don’t actively harass women, they certainly make them feel unwelcome. And these girls stood up before a crowd of both men and women and spoke passionately against their harassers. That’s why at the end of the night when random men, young and old, from the crowd started to get up and speak in front of the microphone uninvited, I was infuriated. Even though their language was of “respect” and “admiration” towards women, their actions were undermining the hard work and courage of these women who had spent so much time preparing for this night and baring their feelings. They were turning what had been built up as a space of feminine power into their space, a man’s space. If they were really moved by this performance, they could have easily kept their mouths shut and changed their actions in daily life, but instead they decided to get up and take another thing away from these women, the pride of their accomplishments of the evening. And I don’t doubt it had something to do with American girls being in the audience, which was confirmed at the end when I saw one of these guys walk up to another student and ask for her information. And when these guys started standing up it wasn’t even at the end of the show. There was one final performance that was supposed to include all of the women saying why they write, and they were all standing their while these guys came up one by one, just letting it happen. Finally another American student stood up and pointed out that the performance was about the women, not the men, and so they shouldn’t be up there. Then the show was able to resume and the girls performed their final act, but it made me wonder what had really been accomplished that night. Afterwards, we talked with the girls about their performances. They loved that we loved it, and also were excited to talk about the mythical land called “America"
