Thursday, November 27, 2008

Chefchouan--Arcata's Real Sister City and Fes--36 Square Kilometers of Medina

Things are winding rapidly to a close here in Morocco, and most of us are trying to get in all the traveling we can before we head back to a world where insulated buildings and fixed price stores await. During the last couple weekends, I traveled to Chefchouan (pronounced Shefshowan), the imperial city of Fes, and the port city of Tangiers.

To get to Chefchouan, Janet, Jesse and I traveled by overcrowded bus through the Rif Mountains and around hairpin corners which took our breath away. Just so we are clear, when i say overcrowded, i mean overcrowded. Absolutely no ventilation, men pressing onto me on all sides (one was sitting against my knees on the floor), and no room to even wiggle my tush out of its perpetually numb state from sitting on the bus. Being that i am mildly claustrophobic, this really didnt sit well with me. I simply turned on my ipod to the most soothing thing i could think of (Dawn Upshaw, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, and Rachmaninoff Vespers were all employed), and pretend that i was anywhere but on that bus. It worked and we arrived in Chefchouan with no hitches.


Chefchouan should really be Arcata's sister city. It is surrounded on all sides by fields of marijuana and the constant offers of hashish were reminiscent of home. Well...and all the traveling Spanish hippies didnt help my homesickness. The more interesting thing about Chefchouan is that the enitre town is painted light blue. It is very picturesque and is nestled right against the stunningly craggy Rif mountains. Chefchouan, aside from being known for hash, is also known for wool. This was a happy coincidence because it was EXTREMELY cold. We spent most of our time wandering through the medina looking for the perfect pair of mittens and hats. Basically we spent a lot of time drinking coffee and chatting with the very friendly locals as well. During the Sunday morning, we went on a small hike up to an abandoned Spanish mosque on the top of a hill overlooking the valley. On our way up, we saw a man with a string of freshly made, hot donuts. We followed our noses to a tiny shop selling only these fresh donuts. We promptly bought a string and continued on the hike. These were the best things i have ever tasted. They werent sweet, but they were still just as tasty. If you havent eaten freshly made donuts on a crisp fall morning, i highly recommend it. As the mosque was abandoned we were able to climb to the top of the minaret and practice our call to prayers (though timidly) on the surrounding valley. We hurried back down to the town to buy more donuts, but the illusive donut maker had already closed for the day. Grabbing all our baggage, we hiked down to the bus station in the nouvelle ville (a hill even more steep than Diamond Drive!) and drove to Tangiers. This time, we were wise enough to buy tickets on the bus that doesnt oversell seats.


After a short detour to the coastal town of Martil (Janet had never seen the Mediterranean sea), we rolled into Tangiers late at night. The next morning we awoke to clear blue skies (a change from the stormy weather weve been having here), and walked around the nouvelle ville and looked at the ocean and Spain across the water. There isnt a whole lot to do in Tangiers, but it is a pretty city with a modern feel and friendly people. We went to a perfumier that has been in business for 500 years! These days, they mainly make exact copies of current perfumes, but it was quite fun anyways. We all left smelling better (or worse in my case--i accidentally asked for the wrong sample number and ended up smelling nauseatingly sweet for the rest of the day) and spent the rest of the day at Cafe Halfa. Cafe Halfa was and still is a popular Beat hangout in TAngiers. It is terraced and looks over the the water. It happened to be Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsburgh, and Mick Jagger's favorite spot to take in the views. Cafe Halfa isnt very touristy as it is very difficult to reach. You must be dropped off at the beginning of the medina (there isnt room for cars) and you must walk through very narrow alleyways towards who-knows-what and then you are usually grabbed by the proprietor who knows you are looking for Cafe Halfa (there really isnt much else going on in that area of the medina). Quite the little adventure. That night, we took the night train back to Rabat and arrived at 4:00 am after watchng the new James Bond in French. I was exhausted!

Last week, we celebrated Thanksgiving. There was a little mix-up on the actual date of Thanksgiving (not thanks to yours truly insisting that thanksgiving is always the 3rd thursday of november.....whoops). We were cooked a marvelous dinner by the staff of our local TGIFridays. Now, i have never been to a TGIFridays in the US but i can tell you, there is nothng that helps homesickness like boneless wings from Fridays! It has been quite the lifesaver for CIEEers. Fridays cooked us turkey, stuffing, potatoes, gravy, green beans, and PUMPKIN PIE! It was a wonderful night for all, and i am extremely grateful that we were able to celebrate my favorite holiday while in Rabat.

The day after Thanksgiving, we went to Fes. That evening, we watched a movie about Moroccan and American students traveling and living together, discussing rather emotional and intense topics (AMerica's role in the middle east, Islam, christianity, judaism, stereotypes etc). We were with a group of Moroccan students and afterwards we discussed the movie with them. It was interesting to watch Moroccan students react to the Moroccans in the movie. In particular, there was one young man in the movie who expressed some very liberal ideas about Islam. Islam is not generally criticized here (mostly because of the image that has been portrayed of Islam by the media, Arab culture, understandably, is extremely touchy when it comes to even the most innocent of questions). When this young man was expressing his non-mainstream Islamic ideas, many Moroccan students were infuriated and one turned around to me and told me that that man issued a fatwa (basically an order of a religious nature, or an opinion that is followed by many--only a few very important religious scholars are allowed to issue these). I replied that, no, actually he was voicing an opinion, not a fatwa, and we argued for about 5 minutes until he agreed that, okay, maybe the man wasnt expecting people to follow his opinion. There is a very fine line here between expressing your opinion and being sacrilegious. We also discussed the role of English and the "inferior" and "superior" languages. Some of the Moroccan students were upset by the fact that everyone was speaking English in the film and not Arabic. They felt that they were being put on a lower pedestal (it was in their country, and therefore their language should be spoken kind of thing). We responded that the American school system is seriously lacking languages, especially Arabic, and that speaking multiple languages (like most Moroccans) was a HUGE advantage, and that in fact, we were extremely jealous of this ability. The discussion was fascinating and gave a real look into the Moroccan classroom (wow--you really have to be on your toes and ready for debate).

The next day we took a run-of-the-mill tour of the Fes Medina (over 36 square kilometers of it), where we saw pottery workshops (Fes is known for its blue and white pottery), the tanneries (the biggest in the world), and the oldest university in the world (founded 859). This year Fes is celebrating its 1200th anniversary so there were big signs all over the place. EVerythng in Fes is way way way overpriced, so shopping wasnt really an option. To be honest, i prefer the Rabat medina, but that is probably because i know my way around. Fes is a gorgeous city, but with no maps for the entire 36 square kilometers of the medina, it s a little intimidating.

Well, three weeks to go! Happy real Thanksgiving!

Love and Peace

Magpie

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Omar Ammor--Father Extrodinaire

I thought i would do a little profile about my host father because i find him infinitely amusing.

Omar used to work at the Royal Library in RAbat, translating ancient arabic texts. He recently retired and now his week goes like this:

7:00 a.m. wake up and shave
7:20 a.m. warm up the car--im not sure if his car is just really old or what, but he usually wiggles the shift thingy for about a minute before he thinks the car can turn on.
7:30 tell maggee that we are going to be late to school (Omar is the only person in morocco not on moroccan time...he must be 10 minutes early at all times, even though everyone else in the country is 30 minutes late very regularly...even professors)
7:30-7:50 ask maggee once again whether or not she knows the way to the bus stop and whether she will call when she gets on the bus. Omar does not seem to think that i am capable of finding the same bus that i have taken every day for the last three months each morning. he says, are you sure? you know where the bus is? what if it rains? do you remember the covered route i showed you to the bus stop? bus 57? youre taking bus 57? the same bus as yesterday? bus 57? will you call? so when you get on bus 57 you willl call me? do you know where to get off the bus 57? class ends at 5? and then you will take bus 57? bus 57? okay, c'est bon. bonne courage. bonne journee.
From 8:00 until 5:00 i am not exactly sure, but on mondays i dont have class until the afternoons and im usually not traveling, so i have a good idea. it consists of watching a lot of sports. handball (which until morocco i didnt know was an actual competitive sport), soccer, tennis, volleyball...pretty much anything that is on one of the sports channels. Then around noon, he goes into the kitchen where mouna (his wife) has left a large amount of food for lunch. he then proceeds to heat all of it up and usually he grills chicken or sausage skewers. AFter lunch he takes all the food back into the kitchen and leaves the cleanup for mouna. Then he gets in the car and (after warming it up of course) goes to Temara to see his family or visit friends. About once a week he goes on a 10 km walk with his sister Cediya (sp?) and on fridays he and his brothers visit the grave of their father.

Of note on fridays, Omar also likes to question maggee about her travel plans. where are you going? Who is going with you? what are you going to see? what train will you be taking? do you have tickets yet? what train will you take to return? oh, a man is going with you? oh good, i have more confidence in you. (then he winks because he knows it pisses me off)

Generally Omar and i are like a real father and daughter. We get in political discussions. we complain, we get in heated arguments. the usual. Omar also likes to pull practical jokes. Especially if i am contentedly reading on the couch. It usually consists of him yelling loudly and then laughing when i jump. it is actually kind of funny when he does it to other people.

Fun Omar Facts:

He is not allowed to play sports with the rest of the family because he is too competitive

He loves to talk loudly at me. Sometimes others mistake it for a yell, but i know that he thinks that if he talks more loudly in slurred french, i will understand better.

He is convinced i am lying to him about having previously tasted some suspect food until he sees me put it in my mouth. until then it is just goute! goute! goute! koul! koul! (just so we are all clear, i taste everything, but sour rotten milk is really not my thing)

He is kind of frightening when he helps me with Arabic (he talks really really loudly when he is explaining ARabic)

he does not understand why i am not jsut using arabic verbs more often (i have been in an Arabic class every morning for 2 hours and i can barely read)

He loves to check in on everyone in the family. Madiha and STeve purposely did not get an appartment near Omar because a cousin warned them that Omar would be checking in with them at least once a day. When questioned about this accusation, omar answered, yes, i will.

He prays, but i am pretty sure he hates every moment of it. he doesnt perform ablutions, and he does it in the living room so he can listen to the sports channel

he love love loves freecell on the computer. I have seen him play it for 2 hours at a time before. granted i am playing solitaire at the same time on my ipod but still.

he has the most amazing eye roll. he uses it on me when i tell him that really, i have no idea where im going this weekend, but im going somewhere. and he uses it a lot with selma, his daughter, for various reasons

he is almost always in a blue tracksuit, or pjs.

this gives a pretty good basica description of my host dad. But to be honest, you kind of have to meet him to believe it.

love and peace.
mags
p.s. i am working very hard on my impression of Omar, so im sure you all willsee it

Monday, November 10, 2008

Midnight Chupacabra Attacks--Fall Break 2008

First off, just wanted to tell everyone im sorry it has been so long since my last post. As the semester comes to an end, i am finding that i a) have work b) am traveling as much as possible c) dont have enough hours in the day to complete everything...ie blogs.

Fall break started off with an overnight busride from Meknes to Rissani. We drove all night though the High Atlas mountains around hairpin turns that I literally did not think were possible to make. While other slept peacefully through this treacherous journey, my nausea kept me awake. At the time, i was extremely ill (and thinking of returning to Rabat to seek medical attention of some sort). My ridiculously bad nausea has lasted over 24 hours at this point and i didnt see an end in sight. When we arrived in Rissani at 7:00 a.m. the next morning, we took a harrowing journey via really old, broken grand taxi (you know things are bad when you are sitting in the back seat and you can feel the wind through the cracks in the seat cushion) to Merzouga. The first thing you notice about Merzouga is that there really arent any roads. It is basically a flat desolate place where you can really drive wherever you please. In the background however are 300 foot high sand dunes the color of ground ginger (but more red and less brown). It is quite stunning to say the least. Once in Merzouga, we rested for the day at Chez Francoise. It used to be this giant, gorgeous complex run by Francoise herself (she is known for her excellent cooking), but in 2006, the entire area flooded terribly and everything fell down or was severely damaged, because all the building are made out of mud and straw. As soon as we arrived at Chez Francoise, I retired to my room for the duration of the afternoon. The other girls felt just fine and went out into the dune to make sand angels and write their names in arabic in the sand and things of this nature.

Francoise's Berber workmen took pity on my weakened and miserable condition and applied some Berber medicine to my nausea. I was feeling so ill by this point, i said, what the hell, it cant make it any worse...and it will be a good story to tell. He massaged the meat between my thumb and my index finer and it was very tender and sore and so he layed me down on the couch and proceeded to massage different parts of my body, which are apparently all related in Berber traditions. These included my thumb, elbow, foot and calf. Then he squeezed upwards from my thumb to my elbow and then tied a tournaquit(sp??) around my arm. He then placed the rapidly purpling arm behind my head and put me on my side (the positioning was very important because everytime i tried to move, he sighed and moved me back to the original and very uncomfortable position) with my leg bent backwards. I lay like this for five minutes and then he came vback and removed it and told me i was better. Well, i felt better for about 30 minutes. Whether that was due to the special nausea position or the massive amount of adrenalin coursing through my body as a result of the tournquit, who am i to say. By this point, I had realized that i hadnt had anything ot drink for about 24 hours and so i decided i needed some sprite or olives, or something with electrolytes (i had been chugging water at an advanced pace for about and hour and didnt want to pull a "howard stauffer" in a place where the nearest basic pharmacy was 4o minutes drive away). I told the workman that i needed salt and he agreed. We had very different ideas as to the use as you will see. He layed me down again and proceeded with the thumb and forearm massage and then gave me a large handful of salf to hold. Not exactly what i meant, but whatever. THen he massaged me with vegetable oil and salt. Quite interesting. After that, he put another tourniquit on my arm and left me in the special position for 10 minutes. After this ordeal, he informed me that the djin (demon in arabic) was ouf of my thumb and that my nausea would go away. This time, the cure lasted several hours (mostly due to the 7 up in my opinion). This got me through the three hour camel ride into the desert.

During the evening and sunset, we trekked on camels with Hassan the camel guide. Romantic? yes....for about five minutes. My tush was incredibly sore. Worse than any horse one could possible imagine (it didnt help that i had teh youngest and most uppity...hassan called mine the 4X4 of camels...ha ha ha). The downhill was way worse than the uphill. We trekked to a Berber tent in a small oasis. Then Hassan made us a delicious tajine, but as i was extremely nauseated once again, i didnt partake. I went to sleep for a couple house on Janet's lap while Hassan told us stories about actually living in the desert and raising camels for a living.

That night, we were peacefully sleeping in our cozy Berber tent when a snarling animal ran over our heads and scratched my arm to pieces and nicked my head. Then a giant German Shepherd came gnashing its teeth and barking at the Chupacabra turned cat. For some reason, the moment the cat had run over my head, both Kristina and i turned to each other and shouted, holy shit, chupacabra (for those of you who dont know, a chupacabra is a mythical animal that lives in the southwestern united states and looks like a goat/dog/alien thing and eats cows). Im not sure why we both thought of it, but it was quite funny in the end. We promptly removed ourselves from our tent. It turned out that the Spanish tourists next tend over had brought their dog, who was attacking Mox, the camp cat. REgardless, the chupacabra attack was a highlight of our trek.

The next morning, I woke up feeling very refreshed (having slept 12 hours straight) and was feeling somewhat better. On the way out of the desert, we were caught in an absolutely astounding rainstorm (that would set the tone for the weather on the rest of the trip). We left Merzouga soaked to the bone and set out for Tinerhir.

Once in Tinerhir we discovered, to our dismay, that the Todras gorge was closed due to flooding and that harassment in Tinerhir is definitely the worst. As a result of these two, we stayed in our hotel room and ate at tthe charming hotel restaurant. The food was marvelous and the waiter liked us so much that he came down to our room to pick us up for dinner at 8 pm sharp! (unfortunately due to the amount of harassment one receives in Morocco, we are never really sure whether men are being very kind or very creepy...kind in this instance...though he did ask for our MSN names). Of note is that he changed into a vest and wore a lot of cologne. He gave us free tea and cookies and we talked with an interesting Berber drug dealer who spoke a lot of differnt languages and a really coked out Basque kid who spoke spanish to me because i was the only one who could understand him. Unfortunately, my spanish skills have diminished so though i could understand, I couldnt speack back. Frustrating.

The next day we Grand Taxied it to Ouarzazate. We went to the Kasbah Ait Benhaddou by driving through the gorgeous Anti-Atlas Mountains. The geography and geological aspects of Morocco are incredible. I wish i knew anything about geology so I could figure out why the Atlas mountains look the way they do. Once at Ait Benhaddou (very picturesque mud kasbah on a hillside), we took a donkey a piece, and explored and h iked up to the highest part of the kasbah. Some of the floors were sagging and I kind of felt like i was going to fall through the floor. The top of the Kasbah gave a 360 degree view of the surrounding area. It was like a weird combinations of Mars, the southwest, the badlands, and the prairie.

That same day, we Grand Taxied it to the small, sleepy , saffron town of TAliouine. We stayed at this fantastic little Auberge Souktana. We were greated by this old drunk man who was wearing a blue turban and Bob Marley trackpants. He immediately served us saffron tea. It was dark orange. It smelled and tasted strongly of saffron and warmed us up on the rather chilly day. We were served a delicious lunch with the best potatoes of all time. So good. We hung out at the Auberge with short intermittant walks to the old Galoui Kasbah and to the actual town (Souktana was on the outskirts). We talked a lot with the younger man who lived and worked at the AUberge. That night we celebrated Kristina's birthday with the owners over a bottle of wine and a small cake. We talked about racism in the U.S. and the older man liked to ask us lots of rhetorical questions in very slurred, difficult-to-understand french. The next day, we went on a rather long and winding hike through several valleys back to Auberge Souktana. WE got lost a bunch of times, and wandered through the budding saffron and alfalfa fields (saffron harvest was 10 days after we left...bummer we missed it but oh well). We were helped along by lovely Berber women who didnt speak French, but really helped us anyway. We all laughed a lot and i think we made a good impression on them. AFter three house, we finally made it bakc to the Auberge in time for lunch, more saffron tea and saffron purchasing before moving on to Taroudannt.

Taroudannt is a small, bustling market twon about 1.5 hours outside Agadir. We wandered around a little bit and essentially relaxed in kind of a gross hotel. Janet and i went on a mission to the optomitrist's to find Kristina a contact case. It was fun. We found this "guide" who got us the really cheap hotel and also found us a good place to eat. It was funny because when we got to the restaurant (hours after we left our guide), the waiter told us he had been expecting us. The next day we went to the local tanneries. Kind of gross (due to the large amount of cow urine and pigeon feces used). Kind of neat. WE had tea and the propriater told us that he had seen us at the restaurant the night before. Again, the border between friendly and creeptastic is quite fine.

That afternoon we went to AGadir which was lovely and resort-like by the ocean. There were a lot of Norwegians there. It is very westernized, and i even saw some topless sunbathers (a site quite shocking after my experiences in Morocco)!! We stayed in this amazing hotel with a kitchen and stayed 8 people (the boys met us after their rather uneventful trip south). We went out to the clubs after making dinner and proceeded to lay around on the beach for two days. It was just wonderful after all the traveling. After doing nothing, most of the boys left for RAbat, but Jesse stayed behind with us girls. We went to the silver town Tiznit. Not fun. We got ripped off and conned into a ridiculously priced lunch and the silver was way not as cool as the other towns. We essentially sat around until the bus tooik us back up to Agadir.

After staying overnight in Agadir, we grabbed a bus north to Essouria. We spent another day on the hippy-relaxed beach and wandered through the cedar-wood-smelling Medina. It was lovely but i didnt get enough time there and so i intend to go back. The next day we spent traveling back to Rabat.

All-in-all, a very eventful and very wonderful fall break.

Sorry this is so long
Mags

p.s. Election night was one of the proudest moments of my life! and I am totally happy i stayed up till five am to see the entirety of Obama's speach!

pps really sorry about spelling mistakes. for some reason spell check isnt working and so now you get to see what california spelling standards have created...not a pretty site i know.