Sounds of Morocco - Melanie

Morocco is different from the United States in many respects, but what I have been most aware of recently are the sounds. At home in the States I’m used to hearing frogs in the pond, coyotes howling, and maybe the occasional noise from a neighbor’s house. Here, the noises are completely different, which has taken some getting used to. These are a few of the things by which I’ve been most struck.

The call to prayer: Five times a day, from every mosque in the city, the call to prayer sounds through loudspeakers on the minaret. It’s definitely something you have to hear to really understand the experience, which is something I realized this past weekend when we were in the Atlas Mountains. The gîte in which we were staying was only a few yards down the street from the village masjid, so the call to prayer was much louder than I’m used to hearing it back home in Marrakesh. It wasn’t the most pleasant thing at 3 and 5 am, but I still find the call to prayer really nice to hear. One night some of us were lying on the roof of the gîte stargazing, and the call to prayer sounded from the masjid. It felt really surreal to be looking at the crisp, brilliant stars of the mountain night and to hear the muezzin calling from across the street. At the masjid in the mountains, the call to prayer was actually a live person using a loudspeaker (something we realized when he cleared his throat into the microphone one morning), but in the city it’s often recorded. In addition, some of the mosques aren’t quite synchronized in their timing. From my house I hear the call to prayer almost in a round from the two closest mosques, and it has become very comforting to hear the sound in stereo as I’m walking home or in the middle of the night.

Car horns: In the States, at least among the people I know, using your horn to beep at another driver is a last resort if no other means of communication will work. Here, it’s the opposite—the horn is the first way to attract another driver (or motorcyclist)’s attention, warn them of something, chastise them for cutting you off or getting in your way, or just to say hello. My taxi ride to school every morning is punctuated by frequent blasts on the horn from the driver, and responses from the other people on the road. The streets are so busy that it’s often necessary to use one’s horn (as well as an arm out the window) to supplement a turn signal when changing lanes, because the three or four mopeds squeezed between you and the next car won’t necessarily be able to see your taillights. Today, on the bus home from school, the driver leaned on his horn for a solid 30 seconds (no exaggeration) because a woman on her moped was taking up a little more of the lane than he wanted. Even though some of the horns are indistinguishable from a donkey’s bray, they do serve an important purpose, because despite the insanity of Marrakeshi traffic I’ve only seen one traffic accident (and only between mopeds, not cars).

Greetings: One of the hallmarks of a conversation with a Moroccan (at least in my experience) is a drawn-out greeting and questioning about one’s family. The teacher whose English class I visited the first week stops me every time he sees me at the CLC, always with questions about my family. (“Salam ualeikum.” “Waleikum salam. Labess?” “Labess, alhamdulillah. Wa nta?” “Alhamdulillah. How’s your family? How’s your mom? Are they doing well?”) There’s a genuine level of concern inherent in these conversations, too. I get the feeling that people really want to know how my mom is doing, or how my dad is. It’s the same with my host family, too. They’ve only met a few other people in the group, but they routinely ask about them at dinner or when we get home. And whenever they hear that someone was sick, they inquire about their wellbeing as soon as we get home. I’ve come to appreciate these conversations a lot more recently, because it’s nice to know that people are concerned. I’m hoping that eventually I’ll be able to continue in Arabic after saying “How are you?” but for now I’ll have to rely on English.