M’s – Mix Master Mike, Missy, Music, Morocco. -’Manda

Last weekend was the Casablanca Music Festival. Four days of free music at four different venues all over the city sponsored by the King. A pretty exciting time. This is the fourth free music festival we have gone to since we have been in Morocco. Two in Casablanca, one in Rabat, and one in Fes.

Erik and I decided to go see Mix Master Mike on Saturday night and Missy Elliot on Sunday night.  I will try to channel the spirit of a friend of mine from Arcata (Miss J.B.  I know you read this blog). She pumped out amazing music reviews for the local newspaper and I thought of her when putting together my ideas for this blog.

Mix Master Mike was and possibly still is the DJ for the Beasty Boys. I hadn’t really heard anything else he had done other than his work with the Beasty Boys, but I was still really excited to see him. We arrived on Saturday evening about 10:30 pm, and he was scheduled to go on about 12:15 am. There were two bands, both from Casablanca, playing before him. First up was Ganga Vibes followed by Darga. Ganga Vibes was surprisingly entertaining and fun to dance to. Darga was also pretty cool, but seemed to drone on for a while. We waited and watched the crowd. Thousands of people milling around. Probably 80% of the crowd was male. Like the other shows we have seen, there were groups of men dancing together arm in arm. Unlike the other shows we have seen, there seem to be a good number of drunk people. I even got caught in the crossfire of a fight and was smacked in the back of the head by accident. There were people setting off small fireworks in the crowd and an annoying man who kept screeching loudly with his whistle. Army men and police meandered through the crowd, but didn’t seem to have any affect on people’s behavior.

However, once Mix Master Mike got on the stage all the waiting in the large crowd was worthwhile. Immediately there was a loud dance bass filling the huge area and Erik and I started dancing. A circle formed in front of where Erik and I were dancing, and a heated dance-off took shape. Mike turned out all sorts of great standards ranging from Bollywood to Tupac. What he didn’t seem to understand was that at least 70% of the crowd did not speak English. He kept yelling things like “put your hands in the air” and then looking completely surprised when absolutely no one reacted. At one point, when playing ACDC’s You Shook Me All Night Long he told everyone to finish the verse and turned the song down way low, but I think Erik and I were the only ones that followed his instructions. A look of pure frustration came over his face as silence came over the crowd. It should have been apparent that people were loving his show from the mass dancing and the football cheers that erupted from time to time, but singing in English was just not something this crowd was prepared to do. Needless to say, this was a very amusing show to witness.

The next night Erik and I were excited to return to the abandoned lot where the concert stage had been set up to see Missy Elliot. I had been humming Work It all day and was prepared to get my groove on. After sitting through the emotional French rapper who was the opening act, and a long wait before someone else came on the stage… a DJ finally emerged. He started bumping Missy really loudly and the crowd started getting excited. I was excited too, for the first 10 min of his DJ- ing. But as his time alone onstage approached 25 min I started to become a little curious as to whether Missy Elliot would ever show up. Finally, dancers started jumping all over the stage and a large box arrived in the middle of the stage with MISSY spelled in huge letters on the front, and there she was climbing out of the box. In oversized, sparkly, Adidas jumpsuit and impressively extreme A-line haircut she emerged onto the stage. I was excited… for all of 5 min or so until I realized she wasn’t singing… though her song was playing. Was she lip-syncing I wondered?

After that song, Missy spoke to the crowd (in English of course, she also did not seem to grasp the fact that not everybody understands her native tongue). “ I love y’all” she crooned over and over again. Finally she admitted that she loved us all so much she agreed to do this show even though she was sick. She had a fever the night before she told us… or she told the few English speaking people in the crowd. A few more of her songs were played and I realized that she wasn’t lip-syncing. She was just holding the microphone in front of her face and jumping around a bit, she did not try to give the illusion she was singing. I am not sure if that made the situation worse or better. Then she told us she loved us some more and introduced someone else to come and sign for a while. Then she came back and let her dancers do the work as another of her songs was played. In total, I think we heard 4 Missy Elliot songs played by her DJ while she was onstage. She told us she loved us some more and introduced her dancers to us, then disappeared through the same large box with her name written on it that she arrived in.

The show did have some redeeming qualities though. Redeeming quality #1: rhinestone encrusted microphone, #2 T-shirt with Michael Jackson adorning the front made out of rhinestones, #3 mass number of rhinestones in general, and #4 aforementioned A-line haircut. Despite the disappointing show, I have to admit, that gurl has style.

A brief catalogue of unique urban transportation traits of Casablanca – Erik

Taxis (“les petit taxis”)

~All are red

~Most are usually 4-speed hatchbacks, at least 10 years old

-often beat-up, jalopy-style

~All taxi drivers use an elaborate shorthand system with prospective fairs outside of taxis

-an extra-automobile communication system allows for the taxi driver (inside of the taxi) to communicate with prospective passengers on the curbside—occasionally though from street corners at greater distances.

>this system is required in the first place because of Casa’s (and perhaps all Morocco’s) unusual system of taxis accommodating as many as three separate fairs at the same time, taking each passenger to her or his respective location as long as they are each in the same direction, see Amanda’s blog post, “Tell me Something Dirty in Arabic”

*thus this system of taking separate fairs simultaneously developed out of necessity the ingenious hand-signal, spatial, inaudible shorthand.

~Many taxi drivers (and most regular drivers in Casa, for that matter) use fingered turn-signals waved out of the driver’s side window

~Most follow a complex yet (apparently) tacit law of the road, roughly equating to an expected aggressiveness from all other drivers on the road; this seems to cultivate a remarkable intuition and concomitant ability to react to unexpected obstacles and circumstances with extraordinary skill and speed. However, this tendency of driving behavior in Casa also seems to result in a high proportion of accidents.

-Moreover, such a tacit understanding seems also to be based on the fact that all manner of transportation occurs on the streets of Casa. Often simple foot traffic will prove a considerable hazard to drivers (or visa versa), though it’s often the least concern, amidst legions of scooters, mopeds and bicycles, as well as the occasional motorcycle. A periodic donkey- or horse-drawn cart adds to the hectic diversity of Casa traffic.

~Yet once one adapts to what seems to most Westerners a disagreeable chaos, one can observe a remarkable cohesive equilibrium that seems to be sustained in Casablancan traffic flows. This is undoubtedly due to the eager communication between drivers, or an inter-automobile communication, between all manner of vehicle on the roadways. Besides the aforementioned extra-auto communication system

-communication between drivers in different vehicles, or inter-automobile communication, is a common sight. This happens either when

>drivers have a confrontation while driving and then exchange words, remaining at odds, once coming to a stop at the next light, or more often, resolving their differences after explaining their behavior

>drivers pull alongside fellow drivers and their cars to ask directions while moving. Usually drivers will slow down and perhaps turn on their hazard lights when this happens to alert others on the road to their slower movement and inter-automobile dialogue

~communication between passenger and taxi driver, or inner-automobile communication, (also written on in Amanda’s “Tell me Something Dirty in Arabic”) is perhaps the most exceptional trait of all among the Casablancan taxi system. For example.

-On more than 5 separate occasions I have witnessed interactions between the front-seat (less often backseat) passenger with the driver that each stand out for no other reason than their uniform intimacy, rapport and sympathy displayed between the passenger and driver.

>Then the passenger arrives at her destination, pays the fair and departs with a “Choukran” (“thank you” in Arabic) as if it were habitual, only to leave me there with the driver asking how long they’ve known each other, expecting them to be long friends. Invariably he tells me, “We just met.”

The Wisdom of Mohammeds

∆            Of the countless times I’ve ridden in a petit taxi on daily errands, usually related to work, I’ve occasionally had the pleasure to be in the company of either a particularly patient Casablancan taxi driver who tolerates my elementary French enough to converse, or one who can speak English well enough to have a conversation.

The first of the Mohammeds (for they were each named Mohammed) picked up Amanda and I one night not long after we’d moved into our apartment. We’d been at a concert and needed to go to a bar downtown to meet a friend. He began asking us some questions in French: where were we from, what we did here, how long have we been here, etc.

Soon the conversation turned to the looming World Cup, as I had asked him if he’d followed the recent Morocco-wide regional football championship, which saw an underdog Casa team, Wyaad, beat the country’s favorite earlier that afternoon in the city. While he hadn’t watched the Moroccan match, he had much to say about the World Cup.

I struggled with my French to keep up with his observations and predictions and to continue to ask questions so as to not let this, my first true and longest conversation in French, slip out of reach. He humored me, being gracious by saying he did not fully know how to speak French either. We spoke animatedly with one another the whole twenty minute-long cab ride. Amanda smiled encouragement and surprise beside me. Before leaving the cab I thanked him profusely. He said it was nothing, “Tout a l’heure, mon ami” “Until next time, my friend.”

∆            Another instance of particularly interesting and intense immediate rapport with a Casa taxi driver was one afternoon when I needed to travel across town to the post office to pick up a package from my mother. I entered the cab in the backseat, as there was already a front-seat passenger.

I watched the driver and passenger eagerly talk with one another until I realized we weren’t traveling in the direction I needed to go. After I expressed this, the driver looked at me dismissively at first, and then assured me that we were not far off track and would not lose any time.

I acknowledged this gratefully and we shortly arrived at the passenger’s destination. They parted as old friends, yet due to the fact that he paid immediately and asked the driver’s name, I knew they were strangers.

As the driver turned the car around he looked at me with appraising eyes through the rear-view mirror and asked, “Engleesh? French?” No, I said, “de les Etats-Unis.” “Ahhh: Americain,” he responded, while nodding his head.

In the meantime I had been appraising him as well, judging his age to be late twenties; he yet seemed experienced, not only for his age, but in general. A sparse, yet full, beard belied his youth, and he wore a baggy t-shirt with a baseball cap.

He brought me out of my material assessment of him, however, by indirectly asking me: “Bush or Obama?” “Obama,” I quickly replied.

This sudden detour into politics was unexpected, but I could tell he relished the chance as much as I did, because although his English was rusty, he must have spent time somewhere learning it, it was not forced—like many of our students who only know formally taught English—and yet I could also tell he hadn’t much occasion to use it.

He proceeded to explain to me that Islam, unlike what we hear from Bush or much of the press in the US, is about peace, not war and violence. He presented this message to me as if it were of the utmost importance, and implored me to: “please, take this back to America and tell the people there what I tell you: that Islam is peace.”

I assured him that I would. And then he elaborated. He first went into how everyone in North Africa had big hopes for Obama when he was first elected. I told him we did in the US too. He said, however, that after watching some of Obama’s speeches—especially those concerning the Middle-East and Arab-Israeli relations—that he thinks Obama’s words sound the same as Bush’s. Even though they said different things, they still use words the same way, he said.

I could not help from thinking to myself that this was one of the most eloquent deconstructions of public political rhetoric I’d ever heard. And I also assured him that I agreed and that Obama’s uncritical support for whatever Israel does was not something I agreed with either (I believe he was here referring to Obama’s barely wrist slapping reaction to the ’08 ’09 war in the Gaza strip officially between Israel and Hamas).

When he eventually dropped me off we had come to a mutual understanding: that I would tell people in the US what he assured me Islam represented, contrary to how Islam is presented to most Americans in the mass media. I agreed on this charge, telling him I thought it would be beneficial for both of us, and our respective countries.

He left me with a two handed-clasp, introducing himself and wishing me safety and happiness. I thanked him in Arabic and said, “It’s been a pleasure, Mohammed,” leaving with my right hand over my heart, as is the custom.

∆            More recently, I met a third taxi driver who similarly helped me forget about my needless worries of the moment and truly celebrate the opportunity and event of cross-cultural interaction. Last week at work I had been having a frustrating morning when I realized I forgot something necessary at home.

I left in a huff, fuming over the transportation costs the cab would require, otherwise needless had I remembered to bring everything that morning. My temper was amplified after five minutes of unsuccessful searching for a cab (what is often a sign of certain uncanny moments when getting a cab in Casa can be a nightmare).

However, as my anger heated in the glare of an apexed midday sun, I hailed a cab and the driver efficiently pulled over, picked me up and sped away. We first discussed the usual about myself before he expressed to me with the giddiness of a schoolboy how much he enjoys speaking English.

I told him he spoke very well and asked where he learned. He responded that he received instruction in school, but after that just watched many movies in English and listened to music too. I admitted that I wished I would more intentionally learn French in such a manner and he dismissed this reassuringly by saying, “not as many people speak French, so you don’t need to learn it.”

I was definitely grateful of his assurance, while not being entirely convinced that I should simply abandon my already stunted attempt at making language (and thus cultural) instruction adhere to some semblance of reciprocity. But he did more to articulate his point by saying that English helps many different people around the world talk with and understand one another.

I acknowledged this, but had a hard time reconciling it with my adamant goal of not behaving toward non-Western people as if they needed (or wanted) my help and language instruction, let alone, culture. However, he ultimately persisted in illustrating to me the overall importance of cross-cultural understanding.

I remember him speaking about media in particular with the wisdom of a prophet, “newspapers are for consumption, not truth,” he insisted. “The way we create truth is by discussion. Discussions with different peoples create truth,” he said.

He shortly thereafter dropped me off and it was all I could do to not record his observation in my notebook right there and then. I told him my name, received his with gratitude, closed the door with care and walked off in contemplation, now extracted from my superfluous concerns of the previous moment that had recently dictated my consciousness. I thought to myself, “how remarkable is this wisdom of Mohammeds.”

Photos from Fes and Marrakech

Hello Hello Hello!

Here are some photos from Fes and Marrakech. Two amazing and amazingly different places. We still have to write about our adventure in Marrakech and the visit from my lovely friend Mia (who I hope will write something for the blog). This will give you a taste however. Lots of love! -Amanda

This is actually in Casablanca, but it is a really cool restaurant in the old Portuguese Fort

Butcher in the Medina in Fes

One of the oldest Universities in the world, in the old medina in Fes

Medina in Fes

It’s a game like- “where’s Waldo”, except it’s “where’s Amanda?”

doorways in little streets open into huge courtyards

Medieval architecture coupled with modern technology

The site of the Sacred Music Festival in Fes- we were there the night before when this space was filled with people

looking out from our room in our Riad onto the courtyard in Marrakech

beautiful Moroccan Lamp

Mia!!!! our wonderful friend who was visiting from Norway

A student of mine who is from Marrakech told me that the reason people in Marrakech are so happy is because there are so many colors. All the buildings are painted red, the plentiful foliage is green, and the sky is always blue. A pretty apt description, I think.

We were given an amazing private tour of an abandoned castle. A rather unexpected treat.

The big square turns from a market that sells things during the day to a crazy food market at night. The switch-over happens at sunset.

p.s. I was having trouble getting some of the photos to load (technology problems, shouldn’t surprise anyone)… there may be more to come!

“Tell me something dirty in Arabic” – Amanda

Yesterday, Erik and I were talking about people’s first reactions to us here in Morocco, our “first contact” with the Moroccan people, as one might say. I thought how over the last several years while traveling throughout Europe, and my brief residency in Italy, when people learned I am American I was mostly greeted with a haranguing about U.S. politics. I took it in stride, knowing there was and is still a lot to criticize. However, since being here, I have noticed that the reaction of Moroccans tends to be much different.

This reminded me of a podcast I listened to a few days prior. NPR’s “This American Life” titled First Contact, which included a segment about a couple that has had a phone friendship with three Iraqi brothers for the past seven years. One night the man of the couple was at a club when he got a call from his Iraqi friend. A female friend of his asked to speak to his friend in Iraq. Her only words were, “tell me something dirty in Arabic.” Needless to say, this was horribly offensive to the man on the other end of the phone.

Upon arriving in Morocco, another Islamic country, close to 90% of people’s first words to Erik and myself are, “Welcome. You are welcome!” What a vast difference from the first impression the Iraqi man got on the telephone. Traveling in an Arab country, one might imagine Americans to be greeted with more hostility. Instead people’s reactions fall more along the lines of “well, if you are here, then you must be different from the rest of Americans. As long as you are here, please pay attention and tell the rest of the Americans what we have to say.” Of course nobody has actually said that to me, but that is the sentiment of many conversations I have had. To adhere to this unofficial contract I have entered into, I thought the best way of presenting what life is like in an Arab or Islamic country would be to share some of my favorite stories from my life here and from my students.

My students are rad. I am developing a really good relationship with them, and now that I have quite a few, it is almost like I have friends here! I have one class of beginning students, all of whom I am proud of because they are making amazing progress, and many of whom I am especially fond of because of their amazing sense of humor, only enhanced by a limited vocabulary.

For example, one day my level one class and I were talking about clothing and accessories. I introduced the term “jewelry” and asked one of my students what jewelry she was wearing that day. She told me about her earrings and her watch…as well the rest of her body piercings! Moroccan culture is quite conservative; needless to say this shocked all of us and had us laughing uncontrollably.

The other day the same class took on the task of explaining to me how Morocco and Algeria gained their independence from France, as well as the very controversial issue of the Saharan territory, what is widely know in the U.S. as “Western Sahara.” It went something like this:

“Morocco first, we said to France ‘Go now please’ and France left, Wahoo- party! Then Algeria. So Morocco military went to Algeria and said to France ‘Go now please’ and France left. Wahoo, party! Now the people of Algeria and Morocco are friends but not the governments because Algeria helps the stupid Americans who are in the Sahara instead of Morocco, and the Sahara belongs to Morocco. But the people are friends.”

This was a collective effort with a lot of nodding and laughing. I am not sure I really understand the conflict about the Sahara any better, but that is ok. I love how simple things become with limited vocabulary.

I also have a great relationship with my level six class who have told me many interesting things. They are at such a high level that conversation is easy. We spent an entire class period talking about the Moroccan wedding, which is very complex. I learned that to merely be engaged is not enough of a commitment for the Moroccan people. Therefore when someone proposes to someone else, they get legally married immediately, but treat it like a Western engagement. They continue to live separately until their religious wedding ceremony.

Sometimes it all happens on the same day and sometimes there are years between the events. Most of the time it is a matter of months. Weddings are a three-day event. There are specific women’s parties, and men’s parties. Only at the end of the three days do the women and the men intermingle for a short amount of time. Women wear at least three dresses during their wedding, but it can be as many as six. Men usually change only once or twice. It is a very elaborate process.

Another good example is how Moroccans do not go see psychiatrists, or for that matter, even seem to have mental health issues. I have been told this is because Moroccans are traditionally very open and expressive with everyone. According to my students, people do not keep secrets, and moreover always seem to be talking and laughing with complete strangers as if they were old friends. The only people that ever get depressed, I was told, are the really rich people, because “they might have some secrets they have to keep.”

This seems especially true in Casablanca. It is known that Casablancan taxi drivers are incredibly friendly—more so than in Rabat, anyways. One of my students who grew up in Rabat told me this story about one of the first taxis that she took when she came to Casablanca.

(For this story to make sense, however, one needs to know a few things about taxis in Morocco. Taxi drivers take up to three passengers at a time, and these passengers do not have to be together as a group. If a taxi driver only has one person in their cab, and sees another person trying to hail a cab, he will stop to see where that person is going. If it is in the same direction that he is already traveling, then he will pick the other passenger up and drop off whoever is closest first. So a taxi driver can have three separate fares going at the same time. Each get charged separately. The taximeter has three settings on it.)

So this student was in a taxi and the taxi driver picked up another passenger and asked this lady where she would like to go. The other lady told the taxi driver that she needed to go to a specific bank, and the taxi driver asked her why—was everything ok? No, apparently the women’s son had been arrested and she had to go bail him out. My student was amazed that anyone would tell the taxi driver all of this, and that they could have such an in depth conversation in the five minutes the passenger was in the car. But occurrences like this are quite common.

I know I need not fall into the trap of assuming ignorance of all who live in the U.S.A. But if my musings on life in Morocco can help combat the somewhat skewed media representation of the Arab world, then I think I have done perhaps a little justice to all who have shown us immense kindness making us feel so welcome in such a drastically different environment.

U and your ass-mptions – Erik

There always seems to be another step in the process of adaptation, in transitioning from one pattern to another. When I was planning this move abroad a season or two ago (and daydreaming it over the preceding several years) I remember having the thought that if I were living in a specific place—a town or a city or a medina—for more than a month I’d be able to pretty much figure out its patterns and inner workings enough to not only get by, but to thrive.

I of course displayed the same level of hubris when considering language. I thought to myself that if I were living in a French-speaking country for longer than a month that my French would be magically catapulted to new realms of proficiency and sophistication.

However, both of these fantasies have become not only disappointing assumptions but, as a wise friend once told me (you know who you are), “they’ve made an ass out of ‘u’ and ‘mption,’ not me.” In other words, such fantasies, such assumptions have made until now everyone but myself see the silliness in not respecting the challenge of vastly and abruptly changing ones culture (and with it, language), not to mention lifestyle, habits and patterns. I think this is roughly what my friend meant with his twist on the phrase: feigning pretension for the punch line of humility.

At this point in our season-length adventure, after nearly a month and a half here in Casablanca of our now-definite three-month duration stay—in the noontime of our journey—I can honestly say that if I were to live in Casablanca, Morocco for three years or more, I would still be struggling to adapt and to learn the subtle patterns that regulate daily life here.

This reminds me of a joke I heard recently from my current online intellectual crush, David Harvey. As a keynote speaker at a talk discussing the socio-economic changes in China over the past few decades, he quipped that when academics visit a country for three weeks, they write a book. When they visit a country for three months, they write an essay. When they visit a country for three years, they don’t write anything. Kind of a take on “the more you see, the less you know” idiom. Or, even better, “the more you know, the more you know you don’t know” (one of the favorites of Amanda and I).

However you choose to put it, the end result seems to come out in a recurrent fashion, reaffirming the irreducibility of each and every place, time, culture and language, no matter how thoroughly they’ve been subjected to best-intentioned cultural-linguistic immersion planning, or historical analysis, or scientific study.

For after all, with the time we’ve spent here thus far, the most enduring moments without exception have been those during which we have been at our most vulnerable. The moments when we’ve been most touched by other people and ourselves are invariably those during which we’ve been adapting, in which we’ve been transitioning.

It is certainly revealing to admit and acknowledge that I had assumed a non-transition, an immediate turn of the page, from one lifestyle to another, as if finishing one chapter to begin the next without any time in between. I’m reminded of Bob Seeger’s legendary ballad, “Turn the Page” as he shares with his listeners how he’s going from the road to the stage to the song to the page, all in “the day’s last cigarette…”

Thus only now can I rehash the clichéd phrase (originally via Proust, I think, maybe Emerson), “it’s in the journey, not the destination,” in which one experiences true learning, with one slight difference: there’s ever another “mption” for “u” and your “ass” to journey to.

Msemin – Amanda

It has been a while since either of us has posted a blog entry, for which I apologize. I was going to post something the day my Dad sent me his, and his blog entry was such a treat I did not want to compete.

Also, we have been getting busier and busier. Next week I have 30 teaching units! This is pretty much full time for a Berlitz teacher, and we have to finish the summer camp curriculum. I am over halfway done, but will have quite a busy week nonetheless. The other reason I haven’t written for a while is that I was becoming rather discouraged with Casablanca for a short while. I had written a long post about it the other day, and couldn’t get the post to register on the blog. I am happy my complaining entry was spared from view. I will write about the frustrations of the ridiculous class divide as well as how ridiculously I get hassled by men when Erik is not around another time. Maybe when I am less angry… or more so.

All this being said there are the things that have calmed me down and made up for the frustrations. Fresh donuts and Msemin on the street are large contributors. Msemin is this wonderful fried yumminess that you can buy. It is super Moroccan. I can’t describe it very well, it is kinda like Naan but a different consistency. You can buy it stuffed with things… traditional Fez Msemin is DELICIOUS! It has stewed onions and spices inside. You will have to come to Morocco to try it. Also, there is usually someone selling roasted corn on the side of the road. They roast it right in front of you on charcoal and spray it with some mystery salt water stuff. AMAZING.

This weekend also has restored my excitement and enthusiasm for our stay in Morocco. Friday night we went to our “favorite” bar to watch the World Cup Football match. We drank beer and shared a sausage sandwich. It is an awesome dive bar where women are welcome. The bartender is even a woman! I use the term bartender loosely, they only serve beer, wine, and whiskey.  It was a wonderful Friday night.

Saturday morning we had our classes. It would be easy to be upset about having to work on Saturday mornings if I didn’t like my students so much. This week was especially rewarding as one of my students said to me “thank you for being how you are” upon leaving. She is a university professor and super awesome. It means a lot to me to know I mean something to my students.

We rushed home after class so I could buy some meat from the butcher before heading to the train station. We went to Fes! What an exciting exciting trip! When we got there, we stayed in the hotel to watch the England vs. US match, and then ventured out into the streets. We went to the old medina because there was a music festival going on. (the third free music festival we have gone to since being in Morocco). The old medina was crazy and alive with activity. We walked around a bit and then found a cool restaurant for dinner. We sat on a rooftop terrace to eat. Then we walked back to where the show was. The music festival was a festival of all types of spiritual music. Mostly Sufi and Arab music, but I know there were some southern Gospel singers performing sometime during the week as well as other types of spiritual music. We stumbled onto some super amazing men singing in Arabic with tons of people all around. Teenage boys dancing with each other and parents out with their kids. It was awesome.

The next morning we decided to sleep in until 9:30! A once a week treat for us before getting up and heading back to the old medina. I think the old medina may be the largest medieval town … in the Arab world? In Morocco…? I will let Erik fill you in on the specifics. Apart from getting slightly lost (which I did not get too annoyed with Erik about) we had a great time wandering about. We stopped at a little cafe to watch the Algeria vs. Slovenia game. It was slightly intimidating because we were the only non-Moroccans there and I was the only woman. But true to form, we could not have been more welcome. As long as Erik and I stick together, it seems both of us are welcome everywhere. It is pretty great.

We are on the train heading back now. We had to get an earlier train that we would have liked because we have dinner guests tomorrow. Some of our co-workers that we have become friends with are coming over for dinner. We went to their house and they made us an amazing Moroccan meal, so I promised to make them an Italian meal. Partly because I don’t have an oven and pasta can be made on the stove, and partly because Italian food is the only thing I can cook. I am rushing home to make it to the store in time so I get my Bolognese sauce on the stove and so we can clean.

All in all, a wonderful weekend in Fes and a much needed break. Now back to a different sort of craziness. The Casablancan craziness and the craziness of 45 hour work weeks and 10 hour days 5 days a week. If anyone has summer camp inspiration to send me… I could really use it! Ideas… Stories… Anything!

Lots and lots of love!

Thanks Dad – Amanda

I just wanted to say how wonderful it was to have my Dad here visiting and how excited I am that he agreed to write a blog entry! It was a wonderful weekend. I LOVE YOU DAD!

A Special Guest Blog Appearance from the One and Only MORTON CORDELL!!!!

Casablanca May 29^th – June 1^st 2010

3 Perfect Days

Firstly I must say how honored I am to be invited as the first guest Casablogger. I hope this post will live up to the high standards set by Amanda and Erik

I arrived from London on Saturday afternoon and was met by Amanda at the train station, after a train and taxi ride we arrived at the apartment. A really great apartment, very Moroccan in style and very comfortable.

Erik had made good use of his time while we traveled from the airport and went to the olive market! We sat down to a very nice early evening pre dinner ( or late lunch) selection of local food and olives washed down with a port I picked up in Lisbon on my way to Casablanca.

As I was reminded of my old adage that the only way to see a city is to walk it – Amanda and Erik walked me across town to a Jazz restaurant for dinner. Unfortunately they were not playing jazz that night so we went to the port to a Casablanca seafood restaurant. The place was packed even at 10: 30 and we had to wait for a table. The food was well worth the wait! A great assortment of seafood and good wine. A perfect start to my weekend in Casablanca!

I’m not sure what time we got back to the apartment but it was late. I had started my day at 4 AM so bed was very welcome.

We got up on Moroccan time, about 11 AM. I had been waiting to try the famous breakfast and the local diner since reading about it in the blog. It was worth the wait! Kilip and Eggs served in a tangine …..a weeks supply of calories but defiantly a must try when you visit.

After breakfast we went to the Grande Mosquee. The 3^rd largest in the world. An amazing site. Large enough for 25,000 to pray inside and 80,000 outside. It even has a sliding roof over the main prayer hall.

Next we went for a walk along the Corniche, definitely another side to Casablanca. Private beach clubs, expensive cars and night clubs. Casablanca is a city of extremes.

In keeping with the walking theme of the weekend we then walked back along the Corniche to El Hank to an Italian restaurant. A great place with a view across a small bay of the Mosquee, quite spectacular as it is floodlit at night.

More great food. Amanda had the best squid ink pasta I have ever seen, she was black for 24 hours.

My pasta was so full of muscles and clams that I could not get a fork into the pasta.

The pasta together with a bottle of wine was the perfect way to end my first full day in Casablanca.

Next day was a work day for Amanda and Erik. Up early and out of the apartment by 7:45. Even the cats were still sleeping.

I went to the Berlitz office and saw before taking myself off for the morning. The Jewish museum is close to Berlitz and good for an hour. I then went to the local flea market, an experience.

I met Amanda and Erik for lunch and we went back to the port to the central market.

We choose our seafood after tasting some fresh oysters and took it to one of the surrounding restaurants to have the fresh seafood prepared.

Erik had to go back to work but Amanda and a little extra time so we walked around the port area.

Amanda left at about 3:30 for her next class, we arranged to meet at Ricks café (made famous by the movie) at 6:30 so this left me with time to explore the old Medina.

After a little negotiating I found a guide to show me around. This was the true Casablanca. Narrow streets, the first mosque, the first synagogue food markets, clothing market. Local businesses and housing.

Ricks café was a short walk. We all met up for a cocktail, just like the movie (which was playing on a big screen TV)

We then walked to La Sqala a Moroccan restaurant built into the walls of the fort and backing on to the old Medina,

A very traditional restaurant great food, great company and a great end to my last day in Casablanca

Next morning I said goodbye to hosts and made my way to the airport.

Thank you Amanda and Erik for a wonderful weekend and sharing your adventure with me.

I will be back!

Soup Du Poisson

looking at highly technical things

something like 114 fountains for pre-prayer washing

Looking out through the screens onto the ocean

That’s my Dad!

a photo of us that we are not trying to take ourselves!

I’m not quite tall enough

My father takes the most flattering photos of me

Dad’s adventure in the Old Medina

Old Synagogue in the Old Medina

he looks just like Humphy Bogart

The door to the Old Synagogue in the Old Medina

We started and ended with food

Photo Installation- part 2

Hello!

Here are photos from some of our recent adventures, some of which we have not had time to write about yet. We also have some really cool videos we want to upload, but we have yet to figure out how to do that. We are not…. how do you say… technologically savvy? Oh well. Let me know what you think!

Love lOve loVe lovE – Amanda

There are photos of the king in almost every room you walk into.

The cool free concert we went to in Casablanca.

at the cool free concert we went to in Casablanca

We have some really cool photos of the exhibit, but we want to ask the artist if we can post the photos on our blog before doing so

We were amazed when we walked out of the train station in Rabat. You would never see an empty street in Casablanca.

Rabat

Soon, I will convince Erik to relinquish the camera to me, just for a little while. That way there wont be so many silly photos of me, and maybe a few more of him!

This is us getting ready to rock the Kasbah

That’s right, we rocked the Kasbah

Amazingly beautiful painted door in the Garden of the Kasbah, Rabat

Don’t worry, here in Rabat, you can still have the tastes of Detroit.

There was a king of Morocco who wanted to build the tallest minaret of any Mosque in the whole world. Unfortunately, he died during construction and the minaret was never finished. It has been this way, half completed, since 1195.

Capitalizing on Liminality – Erik

After four weeks now I feel like some progress has been made with our brief time here. Knowing more of our environment, getting to know some familiar faces in our neighborhood, settling in to the daily patterns and slowly learning more French—at least enough to have small exchange conversations with familiar faces at the bakery (Patisserie), in the taxis (les petits taxis), at the bookstores (les librairies) and at the grocery store (supermarché).

Last Wednesday, the 19^th, was our three-week mark in Morocco. Before we left, I had thought we might begin to teach English as soon as we arrived, as I knew we would need the income. However, it’s turned out that we’ve now done more in writing EFL (English as a “Foreign” Language, not “Second” because they already speak two languages) summer camp curriculum for our employer, Berlitz, than English instruction. Amanda and I both have had a few scheduled lessons canceled by our students, and this seems to be more and more of a regularity. Yet the lessons we have had have been marvelous.

My first lesson was with a “level 7,” as the Berlitz rating system considers her on their 1-10 scale of English speakers, 1 being true beginner and 10 being absolutely fluent. Which means that she is pretty much fluent. She is a regional manager with the pharmaceutical company Bayer, which has a major regional office in Casablanca. Bayer is also one of the primary multi-national clients of the Berlitz branch in Casablanca, and so it seemed like I’d been given a decent amount of responsibility for my very first ESL lesson. For a moment or two I wondered if they’d have done such a thing if they knew me better.

But it went well. My student had left off her previous lessons with the subject of transition, a major coincidence that (similar to our interactions with Muhammed) also made it difficult for me to not interpret as Jungian synchronicity (check it out;). Transition is exactly what’s preoccupied me for the past year, since first deciding to focus my statement of purpose for grad school applications on the anthropological concept of transition, “liminality.”

Anywho, initially my student and I discussed things mostly a far cry from anthropological liminality, as such. We kept returning to the recent George Clooney film, “Up in the Air,” as it coincided ideally with the lesson we were working on, dealing with “transition” in the workplace. You know: structural readjustment, downsizing, discontinuation, involuntary separation, etc. We also focused on the concept of the euphemism. Thus did we discuss, from several different angles, layoffs.

I soon couldn’t get beyond, however, how all of these things actually weren’t all that far a cry from the fancy-sounding notion of “liminality.” After all, I thought to myself, every life transition that one undergoes involves a major change, whether you get fired, or are ritualistically acknowledged by your social structure as an adult, or graduate from college, or move abroad to teach English as a second (or foreign) language, or what have you.

I left the Bayer Maghrebian HQ that evening with a special spring in my step. The lesson went well. I had taught my student a number of new vocab words and had suddenly found a perfectly good justification for that allegedly worthless BA in English Lit. that many—for example, my dad (in half-sarcastic manner)—have told me is useless.

“Useless?! Well, the Regional Supply Chain Manager of Bayer’s Maghreb HQ wouldn’t think so, now that she knows the words “redundant,” “severance,” “demote,” “condone,” “euphemism,” “discontinued” and “vocation,” would she!?” I triumphantly said to myself.

But more than such callow vindication, it was another step in the current process of transition that Amanda and I have undertaken. Even if our lessons are occurring at an achingly slow pace, we are getting them, if only gradually. Next week, Amanda has around five lessons. Two of them are supposed to be with a class. I will have three small group lessons, as well as two more of the one-on-one lesson that I had this last week. All of mine will be at Bayer.

The rest of our time, when not teaching English, Berlitz wants us to spend at their offices. Not including lunch breaks (an obligatory two extra hours per day) and the average amount of lessons per week that we’ve both had thus far (3-6), that’s about 35 hours a week, sitting behind the desk. They’ve got us working on overhauling the entire summer camp program, which gets underway this year in July and only goes for a month. And yet, in spite of the fact that it’s not like a summer camp in the states, as it’s focusing on EFL instruction, it still will accommodate kids from 4 to 15 (maybe 16), and we have to rewrite all the curriculum for each of the three different age groups—4-7, 8-12 and 12-15—four weeks for each. It has proven a fairly daunting task.

To risk polluting my patient readers’ stomachs with some sour gripes, I gotta confess that I did not expect Berlitz to hold us to the wage labor standards of the workaholic States. In most European (and Mediterranean) countries, an average workweek consists of no more than 35 hours per week, maximum. In some, “full-time” is considered as low as 25 hours per week. And after last summer’s employment at summer camp, often working 50 to 60-hour weeks, paid for 40 (while loving every instant), I was really hoping to be receiving the typical TEFL arrangement, which is between 20 to 30 hours in a given week.

This unforeseen element of our transition here in Morocco has also been interesting because I’d already resolved to read a book that I’ve always considered, but never really confronted: Marx’s Capital. This came about through a free online video course given by a world-renowned Geographer named David Harvey (check him out at davidharvey.org), who argues that Capital is more relevant now than it’s ever been, in light of 2008’s crash and the yet ensuing world-wide recession, most recently evident in the Greek crisis.

Now, before I risk alienating 80% of the potential readers of this particular blog post because of my mention of Marx, let me just say a thing or two. First of all, here are the facts: a third of the world’s population (2 billion people) lives in abject poverty, on less than $2/day; around 1% of the world’s population, at the other end of the spectrum, owns more than 40% of the global assets (according to a study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research). This gap is widening. What’s more is that such inequality is written into the capitalist system. It requires and indeed thrives on such a disparity between rich and poor, as can be seen in the still increasing and unchecked bonuses issued to top investors on Wall St., the very culprits of the crisis in the first place.

While this gaping void between the haves and the have-nots would seem to adequately illustrate the extent of humanity’s blind lust for wealth, it still does not confront the even-more-disheartening reality of post-industrial capitalism’s ever-more-urgent contingency: that such a society is utterly untenable to maintain for another handful of generations, maybe a century. This claim, contrasting many leftist critics of the unsustainability of Capital who believe it rather to rest on climate change and/or over-population, I argue is simply a matter of resources, or the lack thereof. Therefore, there are limits to growth.

It’s not that to make an omelet, post-industrial capitalism must break some eggs. But rather, the omelets that our society has made to (over-) feed itself will no longer be possible without the eggs with which to make them. Our golden-egg laying hen, as it were, otherwise known as the cheap energy boon of fossil fuels, has nearly lain her last, with peak oil having passed without so much as a wave of the hand by the main-stream press (even in covering its lingering controversy). Furthermore, we’ve grown so fat on golden eggs that we no longer know how to eat anything else, and we’re holding the rest of humanity to such an un-supportable appetite as well, through the hegemony of globalization.

Now I can already see several friends, whom I know have already read the blog and who will probably read this one as well, cringe as they get to a section on the same old argument that we’ve had countless times before, asking themselves moreover what living in Casablanca for the summer has to do with anything regarding Marx, post-industrial capitalism, broken golden eggs, the price of tea in China, etcetera. Well gentleman (I don’t think I have any rabid capital-defending lady-friends…hmmm curious?…), allow me to explain.

Being in what is nowadays labeled by the powers that be a “developing country”—meaning it lacks the industrial and social infrastructure of other long-developed capitalist-industrial economies, such as those of the USA and Western Europe—I have witnessed over the past four weeks the very transition that Morocco is going through en route to joining the rest of the complacent West in celebrating its “developed” status. Such “development” in this sense, must then be in reference to the slum cities that surround Casablanca; or perhaps to the nearly 10% unemployment rate since 2008; or maybe to the innumerable construction projects throughout the city that throw a six-storey building up in two months, for its “new” property value, rather than renovating or repairing the vacant and derelict building that sits right next to it; or maybe in preventing the homeless people in my neighborhood from squatting in those unused and derelict buildings.

While I believe it’s important to acknowledge the complex realities and contradictions of contemporary existence—whether in rural north California or southwest Michigan or the Bay Area or urban Morocco—I believe at the same time that it is becoming more and more difficult to pretend that one thing is not related to another. I guess, if you’re still reading this blog post, the point of such a flippant, unfocused rant is to acknowledge the disparate connections between teaching the increasingly common “business” English vernacular of layoffs, the fact that most of the “developing world” is forced to learn English to be more efficiently integrated into the capitalist world-system, and that Morocco’s “development” as such, will do very little to benefit Moroccans and much more to benefit Capital.