Tea Spilling - Evan

Day 1- let the tea spilling begin.

My first experiences in Morocco...and what I learned!--Heather Jackson

Dear Reader,

After living in here in Morocco for approximately two weeks I would describe my experience thus far as being…exhilarating, overwhelming, intriguing, and probably most of all, a blessing.  But, before I tell you what I’ve learned here, I thought I’d give you a little background on myself.  

 I recently graduated from high school this past June and I come from a very suburban town in Virginia! I have a very close relationship with my family and I am a compulsive list maker.   You probably can’t imagine my level of excitement and anxiety during the weeks leading to my leaving the country.   To prepare myself for Morocco I must of read over a million travelers’ websites, skimmed multiple different blogs about Morocco, and scribbled hundreds of packing lists.  I wanted to be prepared, but I don’t think anything could prepare me or spoil my first impressions of this country!  So, I wanted to thank my family before I get to far ahead of myself for putting up with my frantic  behavior before my trip and the constant support they give me to pursue this opportunity for myself. 

As I mentioned earlier I am not a city girl!  So, going from good old Spotsylvania, Virginia to Marrakesh, Morocco was the first cultural difference that never crossed my mind when I was trying to imagine my new life here.  In the days following my arrival I learned how to take a TAXI ALL BY MYSELF.  Yes, this may sound elementary, but where I’m from there are no taxis.  In addition, I was directing taxi drivers in a language that I had very minimal experience in speaking.

The next overwhelming concept I encountered was learning how to use my right hand when eating.  I am naturally left handed and it never occurred to me that it would be considered insanitary in other cultures other than my own to eat with my left hand!  I continue to battle my brain to eat with my right hand to minimize any possible fo-pa that might occur during dinners with my family!  Although my host family is very understanding and sweet, so I don’t think they mind too much. 

It is no surprise that I have learned more about Moroccan culture and language from being here, but what I never expected to  learn was more about my own culture.  I always thought that I never had a “culture”.  I had this simple mindset that labeled myself as a patriotic “white” American girl .  Through all these little cultural interactions with my host family and some of my new Moroccan friends that I have come to realize (for the first time) that I do have a culture!  I am an American that loves to give hugs when I meet people, an American that drinks tea/coffee from a mug not a glass shot-like cup,  an American that eats sweets for dessert instead for a main course, and an American that loves to eat a classic pb&j sandwich instead of a dinner for lunch! I am exhilarated to experience new things, overwhelmed at times with speaking a new language, intrigued by Moroccan customs that Moroccan consider nothing, and blessed to have been chosen to wake up every morning and learn something new each day in this beautiful and new country for seven and a half months! 

With Love,

Heather

A few pictures from Morocco - Emilia Brahm

Here are a few pictures I have taken thus far of things that have become very familiar to our group.

Moroccan tea (Mint, green tea, and lots of sugar) is a huge part of life here. We have a tea break during Arabic class, anytime our group visits a place for more than 10 minutes we are offered tea, and most of our host families have been serving us tea as well!

The "Kutubia" is the beautiful minerat on the main mosque of Marrakesh. It is called the "Kutubia" because "Kutub" means books in Arabic, and booksellers used to congregate in front of the mosque. The "Kutubia" is visible from most parts of the medina.

Finally, there are countless cats roaming the streets of Marrakesh. They are generally friendly and adorable, like this one, and are happy to dispose of leftovers from lunch. No wonder there are no "doggy bags" in Morocco!

Hospitality - Rachel Sandman

After reading posts from the people who wrote before me, I believe a very important aspect of our trip has yet to be addressed: the Moroccan's amazing tolerance of cultures different than their own. It is no secret that the United States and the Middle East are not on the best terms, however, our amazing host families, teachers and students at the Center for Language and Culture (the school where our Arabic classes take place) and even most of the locals have welcomed us with open arms. Just the other day, my roommate and I were having trouble hailing a taxi, as it was rush hour in Marrakech. We were both on opposite edges of the sidewalk frantically trying to hail one of the tiny yellow taxis in the midst of a variety of motorized vehicles whose drivers were literally beeping their horns nonstop, yelling at each other in Darija, French and Arabic and sometimes going to extremes such as driving on the sidewalk in an attempt to get home. In the midst of this madness, I am sure my roommate and I looked especially foreign and unaware of how to conduct ourselves in that situation. Suddenly, I looked over my shoulder and saw that a man, who I am sure lived on the streets, was helping us. At first I was hesitant to accept his help, as he could be expecting us to give him money. However, after seeing him work for fifteen minutes, it was clear he was keeping to the cultural code of only talking to us when necessary and he only wanted to help. After a half hour, he finally hailed a taxi for us and we were on our way. The homeless man's help is only one example of the hospitality we have encountered from Moroccans. I am truly grateful for the people's willingness to help and extensive efforts to make us comfortable. I am glad that Moroccans are willing to look past political stereotypes and generalizations about Americans in an effort to make us feel welcome and at home. When I return to the States, I hope to take the initiative in welcoming foreigners to the United States with the same attitude of great hospitality I have encountered from Moroccans.

Islamic art and architecture - Cassie

One of the electives we are being offered is a class on Islamic art and architecture. I thought this would be good to take both because it sounded interesting and because I am going to be spending a lot of time learning wood carving while here, and I wanted to understand the symbolic implications of what I am carving. For our first class, we learned about five hugely prevalent characteristics of Islamic art: tessellations, complex star polygons, linear repeat patterns, arabesques, and Arabic calligraphy. Each has their own known symbolism. Tessellations imply infinity, complex star polygons are an abstract picture of the universe, linear repeat patterns symbolize our experience of rhythm and time, Arabesques symbolize the organic earth with its underlying structures, and it is through calligraphy that the Divine intention is expressed explicitly in Islamic art. We spent the first half of class looking at pictures of art and identifying these elements in them, looking at the different way they can be used and getting a feel for how they look and fit together.
            Each of the elements, while beautiful and artfully free flowing between one another, are entirely based on mathematics of angles and proportions. They also serve purposes other than beauty sometimes. For example, linear repeat patterns are used to stop a tessellation, keeping it for multiplying into infinity. After we learned about all of this we applied some knowledge by each making our own complex star polygons. Beginning with a circle and using highly precise angles and overlapping boxes we created an intricately beautiful and mathematic piece of art for the fridge of our host families. I tried to post a picture of mine but it did not work, I will post one soon hopefully. 

Basic Communication - Sarah Geselowitz

I’ve been exposed Darija--the language spoken in my homestay--for less than two weeks. Needless to say, basic communication is still very difficult. I try my hardest to learn, but it’s also a challenge for my Moroccan family and peers. Speaking to someone who knows so little of the language requires creativity and patience. Most people become frustrated when I don’t understand them, and give up after one or two tries. But I’ve noticed--here and elsewhere--that some people seem to have a gift for communicating with beginners in their native language.

I am very lucky to have a person like this in my Moroccan family. My 15-year-old host brother, “M,” often takes the time to sit and speak Darija and Arabic with me. He speaks slowly for me, and when I don’t understand, he is quick to explain in another way--whether with words, charades, and drawing. My notebook is filling up with records of our conversations--a sketch of a soccer field, a money conversion, a list of years, etc.

I feel incredibly fortunate to have a person like this in my house, and I try to learn basic communication skills from him. For example, my host mom is more difficult to communicate with. But when she seems to be giving up on expressing an idea to me, I’ve started handing her a notebook and asking her to draw. It works! Hopefully my Darija will improve soon, but until then, I’ll be working on my drawing... and my ability to interpret drawings.

Language - Melanie Bahti

As NSLI-Y students, our primary objective is to study the target language, which in our case is Modern Standard Arabic. However, this objective doesn’t come close to describing the language learning experiences we’ve had so far in Morocco. While our main goal is to improve our skills in MSA, its formality makes it difficult to use in our day-to-day communication with our host families and with other Moroccans we encounter. Since we’ll be living in this country for as many as seven months, we began our Arabic studies at the Center for Language & Culture with a week of Darija, the colloquial Moroccan dialect.

The teachers at the CLC are incredibly passionate about helping their students learn effectively, and we saw this passion from the first moments we spent in our Darija classes. We were taught almost exclusively in Darija, with the teachers only using English when they needed to convey a particularly difficult concept. As a result, we quickly began to recognize Darija words and phrases and understand them from their context, even if we didn’t have a complete idea of their meaning. In our week of lessons, we learned the language we would need to know for our day-to-day interactions with our host families, and the phrases we would need to communicate with taxi drivers, waiters, and shopkeepers. These phrases immediately became useful as we began commuting to and from the CLC on our own.

It’s a simultaneously humbling and frightening experience to be unable to communicate with other people. When you live in your own country and speak your native language on a daily basis, you take for granted how useful and efficient language is. Being let loose on the streets and markets of Marrakech with limited language skills made us all realize how important is it to be able to communicate with strangers. Our few phrases of Darija made a significant impact, however—even though I don’t know much more than a few landmarks and the words for left and right, I can hail a taxi and get home successfully. We have bargained in the souq in Darija, using only a handful of phrases (perhaps the most important being “I’m a student, not a tourist!”). Even the few things we can say and understand give us a greater degree of freedom and comfort. If I got lost, I could ask for directions or hail a cab with some degree of confidence.

Being unable to understand most of what we hear around us makes the moments of comprehension much sweeter. At the dinner table I listen to my host parents talking and savor the little jolts of understanding I get when I hear and understand a word, even if it’s only “school” or “air conditioning” or “bread.” Being unfamiliar with the Arabic alphabet is also a major hurdle that some of us are still trying to overcome. We have all been practicing. I don’t remember what it was like to learn to read and write in English, but it must have been just as challenging and painstaking as this. Despite the struggle, it’s very rewarding. It’s hugely satisfying to puzzle over a sign in Arabic for several seconds and find that it’s a word you know. And it always feels to me like an accomplishment when I tell someone something in Arabic and they understand. This morning my taxi driver managed to complain to me about the traffic, even though I only caught the word “very” in Darija and the French word for traffic.

For those of us in the group who speak French, our job is significantly easier, because most educated Moroccans speak good French and it’s common to see bilingual signs. Being about to fall back on French facilitates communication, but it also makes learning Arabic more difficult. I don’t have as much of an incentive to practice Darija because I know I can make myself understood much more easily without it. In addition, when I ask my host sisters for help with my Arabic homework, we have the conversation in French, which necessitates translating twice—once from Arabic to French, and then another time from French to English. I’ve found myself thinking more in French than English because of the immersion I experience in my host family; when I write in my journal I have to mentally translate from French to English, and my responses to people are reflexively in French.

Overall, I think we’ve all found our learning experience to be really immersive and enjoyable. We began our MSA classes this week and I can say that I’ve already learned a lot. Whether we’re studying grammar, or simple sentences, or struggling through the alphabet letter by letter, we are all making a lot of progress. I for one am relishing the small victories of an error-free sentence or a correctly pronounced word, and (despite the workload) I’m looking forward to the next thing we learn.