F'tour with Khadija

Last week, Tony's friend Khadija had a baby boy. The traditional Moroccan baby-naming ceremony was this week, which I attended with Tony. It was quite an adventure since the only language anybody spoke was Darija (except me and Tony; thank God for Tony!!)


We arrived in the Medina in the morning, and Tony introduced me to the family and all of their adorable children. I love Moroccan kids - the cultural norm is to pat and kiss children all the time, no matter who you are or how well you know them, so most Moroccan kids are super-affectionate. The youngest son was riding on the sacrificial ram. The men wrestled the ram down the street and up to the roof. We women sat in the salon and chatted for an appropriately long time, then joined the men on the roof for the sacrifice. The women (about 15 were present) started a cry, which was answered by Khadija, the baby's mother. The men slit the throat of the ram. To my understanding, the ram is sacrificed in the baby's stead, to protect the child from bad spirits... but my Arabic still needs a lot of work, so forgive me if I am slightly off in this explanation. Actually, please post a correction!
Khadija then dipped her finger in the blood of the ram and put a dot on the baby's forhead, and he was christened Yaasir.

Because of Ramadan, there was no feast, but the party continued all day. Tony and I had errands to attend (like taking care of Eduardo's cat!!) but we promised to return later.

We returned to Khadija's around 5h30 for F'tour, and encountered a room full of women to greet with kisses and children to be tickled and cuddled. It was very active. We took F'tour together, which was a delicious red soup with meat from the ram, dates, shebekia (delicious pastry that actually doesn't have almonds!), and milk mixed with ground strawberries. The women F'tour together in one salon with the children, and the men in another. I fell in love with an adorable curly-haired girl who was scared of my blond hair, but came around to sit in my lap eventually.

We sat in the salon for some time, talking, and just sitting. We Americans are the point where we can follow conversations in Arabic, but aren't really able to form the sentences to respond. It's an interestingly irritating experience to sit with such kind people, and feel so close to them because of the stories they share, but to be essentially mute.

Around 10, the chilren took us up to the roof to look out over the nighttime Medina, lit up with old-fasioned lights that glowed yellow interpersed with the newer bulbs of whiteish-blue light... there's really no way to describe how beautiful it was, like looking over the ruins of a city come back to life. One little girl told a very long and animated story about the wedding of some of her stuffed animals - it reminded me of Rachel and I and our beanie-babies. It's nice to know some of those kid things transcend cultures and hemispheres.


Around midnight, the party for Yaasir began. We all got dressed up - many women went to the salon, and every djellaba had either sequens or extensive beadwork or both, in layers and layers of bright silks. About 70 women were at the party downstairs (the men were upstairs reciting the Qar'ran over the baby) sitting in three salons. After greeting everyone, we sat, and everyone stayed sitting for the rest of the night. I sat next to a student named Salma, who (YAY!) spoke French! I felt such relief at being able to communicate fluently with someone! We talked about growing up Muslim, and her experience in fasting, and the strengths and weaknesses of the Moroccan public school system... she was wonderful.

Around 1am, we all ate again, about 20 women to a plate. There was soooo MUCH food! Eventually Tony and I escaped, since she left for Rabat on the 6am train. The party was such an experience in hospitality. I hope to stay in contact with this family as my Darija improves.

hitting a car

Suzanne said I should blog about this.

Feel free to laugh at my expense.


I have passed yet another milestone of someone living in my city. Traffic is crazy though we have yet to see any accidents. Really, everyone just has really good control and depth perception... the number of lanes on any given street is questionable, plus/minus 2 in both directions, and street signs are just suggestions as to who has right-of-way. Foot traffic crosses streets anywhere possible, and often it´s necessary to go one lane at a time.

You are truely local when you´re not afraid to get your feet under the bumper of car. As I was on my way home before F´tour time, I crossed, judging how fast the car in front of me was going so I could walk behind it. I then looked right to make sure no other car would zoom past and kill me.

Meanwhile, because I´m blond, or maybe just because I was there, the car in front of me stopped to call out to me with the three English words they knew. And I walked right into the back of the car.

I hit a car today. On foot. I think I showed that car who was boss.



On another note, Suzanne and I saw a car out the window today that was less than ten years old and clean enough that the paint colour was visible. We were impressed.

YYAAAYY SCHEDULE!

I now have a teaching schedule, that has changed, I think, insha`allah, for the last time.

I´ll be teaching maths 6, 7, and 8, and science 6 and 7.

And and and... The sixth grade science lessons are longer, for whatever reason, since sixth graders can´t sit still even for 45 minutes, so every Friday we get to spend half the class doing ecology, which has a separate kinda curriculum, and will basically be like a break in their normal science lessons. So we get to study cool African birds for the first half of the year, and vines for the second half. AND. We have all these COOL vines here. Bunches of the American flowering shrubs, over here, grow as VINES!! We´re going on nature walks. I don´t know where... I´m excited.

Cockroach

~


Just killed my first African cockroach.
Freakin' huge.


~

Ramadan and Medina

Yesterday we went down to the Medina, the old city, for a tour. Our tour guide led us through the gates, past the old University, where the river was redirected (when the river was there) and past the four essentials for an old Medina town: a Qar'ranic school, a mosque, a public fountain for water source, and a public bakery, where people could bring their pastries to bake in the public oven. Nowadays, the public bakery also has workers who bake bread and pastries to sell, since most people have ovens in their own houses.


This is the apothecary in the Medina, where we bought some tasty cooking spices. He also offered soaps, fragrances for any use, and herbs and spices he said would cure a variety of maladies.


The city is the artisans' capital of the country. Handicrafts of all kinds can be found around every corner, with each street lined with hand-painted pottery, hand-stitched embroidered cloth, hand-sewn clothing, hand-punched bronze, and hand-dyed leather. Our tour guide told us that this is the city of over 50 different types of handicrafts. It's easy to believe.

The craft stores are interspersed with shops selling foods. Burlap bags overflow with beans, dates, and exotic dried fruits. Boys push rickety carts of prickly pears, whole animals hang from meat-hooks, fresh vegetables hang in cords like Christmas garlands, strung together on reeds. Through all this sun-kissed hubbub thread women in brightly dyed djellaba robes and beautiful silk headscarves - usually not matching in the American sense - like the jewels on a golden ring.

Eventually I'll get used to this. I have about 300 pictures to my name already.

La, ma-andHum'sh khobz.

We had 3 days of Arabic lessons on arrival, and now those are over. We have enough language to read the street signs, if there were any, shop and the hanout, the corner grocery stores which have enough room in them for 3 people and the shopkeeper, and are stacked floor to ceiling with goodies of everyday varieties. We can do some basic bartering, which is done for everything here, including groceries at the hanout! It's a way of showing that you value your time with them, that you would bargain for a good price instead of just paying so you could leave quickly.

Yesterday we visited the Medina, the old city, for the first time. Most of the city is still from the seventh century, some even older. This was actually the first town founded in the whole country - I don't know why, since it's not a coastal town, but it used to have a nice big river and lots of little tributaries that made the soil very good.

So I don't illustrate the wrong picture here: I am in a city. The sun-kissed land does not mean I'm in the African bush, there is traffic and bustle and (often) toilet paper. It's a very different city than anything in America, though, and the Medina is the extreme example. There are no cars within the downtown Medina streets, and the streets are only a couple feet wide. There are awnings built over it all to keep out the strong sunlight, and every square foot lining the street is filled with a different kind of merchandise. Vendors holler about their wares of exotic fruits, hand-embroidered tableclothes, pottery, etched brass, whole animals for meat... It's all so colourful and bustling and noisy.

For breakfast I had mango juice and peach-grape yougurt. Everyone loves Danon here! Ramadan starts tomorrow.

Golden Land

The trip to northern Africa was long but uneventful.  I left Friday night and arrived Sunday afternoon, losing a lot of time in layovers, and even more in time zone migration.

The land is beautiful.  Flying in, it reminded me more of my Mee-my's town in Illinois than anywhere else in America, with wide spaces of land sectioned by a loose grid of small roads.  Unlike Illinois, where there is usually at least one house per large farm area, Africa just has a lot of space.  There were miles of road and flat land with no development at all.  The buildings were clustered in groups of 3-10 houses, with a low wall around them.  There are short walls everywhere here; maybe more walls than houses. 

The most beautiful part about the land is the light that shines from everywhere.  The palette of colors defines new shades of gold - the trees (all of which are 15 feet tall or shorter) are dark green-gold; there are endless fields of white-gold grasses; even the roads are dusted with enough sand to make them dusky gold.

It's beautiful.

Supplies, Skunks, and Slushies

We went downtown today to the 'teacher store.' Mostly it was for the elementary teachers, but it was amazing to learn how much we have to bring to our classrooms. I got a couple posters, a gradebook, and some little science gadgets, but the elementary ladies were left grabbing tons of English flashcards, word charts, calendars, name tags, paper, stamps, stickers... I think my students will be making a lot of posters this year.

The other night, while sitting outside the internet cafe, I felt something brush my foot. I looked down and saw the BIGGEST, freakin' huge, giganTOR skunk ever. He wuffled loudly at my feet for a few minutes, then bounded off toward the nearest trashcan. Guess I know how he got so big.

This is for you, mom: Candace and I stopped at the gas station to get cool drinks on our walk home. I got a mango-coconut slushie. She got something with kiwi and... pomagranate? Every gas station here has at least four exotic slushie flavors. Yay California, where it's always slushie weather.

Wearing Hijab - a culture lesson summary

A few of the teachers heading to my school and I decided to wear the hijab, the headscarf, this past week, as a test in cultural sensitivity. We all want to respect the Muslim sense of modesty, although, as foreigners, we will not be expected to wear hijab on a daily basis overseas.

The rest of the teachers here knew our intentions, but those who did not immediately changed their demeanor when we had our heads covered. I received stares ranging from curious to hostile, and several comments. One woman went so far as to catch my arm in passing and stop me to inform me that it was tragic how “my women” were forced to hide themselves in such a way. Even as a Christian woman, I must admit I took offense.

In the short time that I have studied Islamic culture, I have come to have great respect for the people I will be teaching in the coming year, and I wanted everyone supporting me back home to understand the culture I am entering with my eyes.

Islamic behaviors are based upon the respect of God (in Arabic, Allah) and preserving the honor of their family. Men and women are careful to betray “not even a hint of immorality,” because any rumors would affect not only the individual, but also the family that raised him. This results in the conservative dress and the careful relationships between men and women. Men and women are never left alone together, and truthfully rarely build friendships with single members of the opposite gender, because it would lead to temptation or shame. The Muslim dress arises from this desire for purity, and many Muslims find it freeing to be able to be themselves without worrying how they look in the latest fashions. They see American dress as constraining, because it boxes women into selling their attractiveness or sexuality, like lining them up in a shop for men to browse.

The Arabic word ‘Muslim’ means ‘one who is surrendered to God,’ though it is conventionally used to describe followers of the Islamic faith. Islam teaches the respect and profession of the one true God, regular prayers, giving of alms, fasting, and a pilgrimage to Mecca. They believe primarily in the one true God, with the Qur’an as the written word of God revealed to the prophet Muhammad. They also believe that every land has had a prophet – including Jesus, whom they admire as a man of God. The phrase “Son of God” turns them away because they often interpret it too literally.

For all this information, I have to give a shout-out to Louisa, who has done a fantastic, informative, and culturally sensitive job telling us about Arabic culture, the difficulties we may encounter, and the ways that we can rise to the occasion and reveal ourselves to react in a way that is ‘delightfully different.’