I came home from Morocco fifteen months ago. This seems a bit of a bookend to me because I also spent about fifteen months before Morocco in the period of my application and preparation to undertake my inquiry project and life adventure. I cannot say that my Fulbright experience ended in June 2017, because it affects so many of the things that I do currently, so many of the ways that I perceive the world. I have a wider perspective today, Morocco having shown me so many things about education, society, people, history, culture, religion, and the beauty of the world. I have grown in my personal capabilities, my comfort with doing things alone, speaking to large audiences, and saying “yes” to possibility. My thinking is richer and deeper, and the doctoral program I began on return, concentrating on second-language literacy, is progressing well. I continue to have wonderful friendships with a number of people that I met in Morocco that have truly enriched me. When I began this blog, I felt I was “on the cusp of an adventure, not at all sure how this will work out, but confident it will be something special”, and I invited readers to come along with me as I documented “whatever Morocco brings me”. I shot over 9000 photographs, and I bet I could tell a story with nearly each and every one of them. Here then— in no particular order— are a dozen impressions that stick with me from my Moroccan adventure. 1. Great Teachers: I initially used my Fulbright network to meet teachers in various cities in Morocco and secure invitations to visit a lot of schools. Those connections in turn introduced me to a number of other teachers and administrators, and all together, I logged about 70 hours of classroom observation in twelve different middle and high schools, plus ten university courses. I spent many hours of additional conversation with a number of teachers who really, really impressed me with their dedication, creativity, concern, and professionalism. I attended a conference of Moroccan Association of Teachers of English and was struck by— even though the educational system is vastly different from that of the US— how many concerns we share concerning the changes that technology and the internet are creating in the processes of reading, writing, teaching, and evaluating learning. Adil, Madiha, Ghislane, Hicham— you were all really inspirational! So hard-working, creative, connected with and to your students— I am honored to have spent time with you and learned from the magic that you create! 2. HAMMAMS: Hammams are public baths, separated of course by gender, where you can get cleaner than you can imagine. You can also go to private hammams, and you can hire a person who works there to scrub you clean. They are a vital historical and present day part of Moroccan life. There is one on the basement floor of the huge modern mosque in Casablanca (pictured above). While I was never confident enough to go to a public hammam, I did treat myself to several as part of a “spa” day when I went to a salon for hair care and massage. The feeling of totally-clean, totally-exfoliated, baby-soft skin was just magical! It’s partly even a religious experience; I went once during Lent on Maundy Thursday, when Christians celebrate Jesus’ washing of the his disciples feet, and the rough scouring and power of ritual and physical cleansing was actually very moving. You may remember that I had quite a difficult time getting hot water in my apartment for much of my stay; particularly in the winter, the hammam was a delightful treat of plentiful hot water! I bought some “ghasouhl,” a rough bathing glove, and some other products to try to recreate the experience here at home, but sadly it just isn’t the same. 3. Meeting Mr. Right: Here’s a story that I find myself telling to somewhat astonished students in the US: I know two wonderful, independent, beautiful professional women in Morocco who each met the man she married when she was riding on a train. Both women had had multiple opportunities for marriage beforehand, but met a wonderful man while on a train, got to know him over a period of just a few weeks through serious conversation, and then were married in very short order. And I also know a very happy couple who were married because their families arranged it, and they didn’t really get to know one another until after the ceremony. The Islamic traditions that preclude “dating” in the sense that Americans do it were interesting to me, and I was grateful that these women shared their love stories with me! 4. Music: There was a lot of music that I didn’t expect and really enjoyed. The Mohammed V Theater, sometimes in conjunction with many of the embassies in Rabat, featured some wonderful musicians, and the ticket prices were incredibly reasonable. I heard great jazz, Spanish flamenco and zarzuela, and a French vocalist there; in the desert, I heard the music of the Black Moroccans of the Group Zaid, Les Pigeons de Sable; there was contemporary Berber music first encountered on the CD of our Fez/El Rachida/Marrakesh driver; the Mazawine festival brought all kinds of world musicians to Rabat for two weeks of free concerts, where we saw African hip-hop and Spanish jazz (American stars come too— could have seen Bruno Mars if I’d been there this past summer!). 5. Inshallah: Inshallah means “God willing” in Arabic. People say it to mean a number of things. First, it could actually mean: this will happen if Allah permits it, as in “We will see each other again soon”/ “Inshallah!” Often times though, it can mean “possibly” as in, “I will meet you here tomorrow at 2 pm.”/“Inshallah” and you really don’t know if that person is going to show up or not. Sometimes it’s kind of discouraging: “This situation is only going to get better when….”/“Inshallah”. Finally, this is the language teacher joke that I made up, and it actually got a good many Moroccan laughs: How do you form the future tense in Arabic? Take any sentence and add “inshallah” at the end. 6. Learning Arabic: I did not go to Morocco intending to learn Arabic. I honestly thought I was going to get along pretty well in French. I quickly learned that everyone, no matter how many languages they can use fluently, speaks Moroccan Arabic as their default language. I realized that if I wanted to participate in normal everyday situations I’d have to learn Darija (Moroccan Arabic). I had a great private tutor. We spent hours weekly. I made ridiculously little progress. My throat and tongue muscles just had the hardest time with many of the sounds. Once Adil told me that the vowel was exactly the sound that a sheep makes, and I told him that sheep don’t make that sound in the US! Darija isn’t a written language (except that people sure have figured out how to text and participate in social media using it!!), and so I also tried to learn the standard Arabic alphabet. Each letter in Arabic is written in cursive, but has three forms (word-initial, word-medial, and word-end), and vowels are often unwritten. Here is a measure of how badly I did with that: one day I asked Adil when we were going to finish the alphabet, get to the other letters. He looked at me as if I were a bit daft and told me that we had already completed them. But when I looked at signs written in Arabic, I could not decipher any letters that I actually knew. It was surely a humbling and important lesson for a veteran language teacher to learn. 7. Speaking of languages, French: One of the first things that I marveled about was when I heard students speaking in French— their accents were terrific, and their French in many cases was more proficient than mine. I struggled some, particularly in the beginning, with saying everything I needed or wanted to say in French, and I looked forward to improving my own French proficiency and accent while there. I did two things in particular: I purchased a new satelite dish for my apartment building rooftop that could be aimed in the direction of Europe— the original dish was pointed in the direction of the Middle East and received 650 stations broadcasting in Arabic. Sadly, I know this because I counted one day. It was a party-dish though, so I couldn’t have it adjusted. Once I bought the new one though, I filled the afternoons and evenings I was home with French broadcasts— game shows, news/talk shows in the run-up to the French Presidential election. I liked Emmanuel Macron for no other reason that when he spoke, he made an effort to use both the masculine and feminine forms of as many nouns as he could: “Français et Françaises,” “citoyens et citoyennes,””travailleurs et travailleuses”. I also contracted the services of Rita, a French woman who splits her time between Strasbourg and Rabat, and who spent time with me discussing the artistic community in Morocco and current events and sociocultural and educational trends in France and Morocco. Sometimes we chatted over a meal. It was always both a challenge and a pleasure for me, and she gave me some wonderful tips on executing a more French manner of speech. Also, she gave me a nice jacket that is perfect in Maryland fall weather! 8.Henna: I always felt special and welcomed when people offered to henna my hands! The first time was when we stopped at the home of our driver Mohammed in a desert town, and his mother invited us in for tea. Though she and I could not speak the same language, she offered to henna my hands in a traditional Berber design (above, on the left) and I was happy to have her do it (though I absolutely did not understand how long I was supposed to keep the henna on my skin to get the desired effect!). I also witnessed bridal henna— full hands and feet, and my wonderful friend Hanane treated me to a beautiful design on my hand just before my departure so that I would have a physical reminder of Morocco for weeks after my return. 9. Celebrating Passover: I know. Weird, right?: I was invited by another Fulbrighter, Rachel, to come with her to the Protestant church community she had found. Morocco is Islamic, of course, and I was told that converting to Christianity is illegal in Morocco, apparently a possible prison sentence. There are Catholic churches remnant from the time of the French Protectorate that serve Catholics from Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa who now live in Morocco. But the Protestant church was “underground” and met in what appeared to have been a single family home in a well-to-do neighborhood. There was an eclectic group of worshippers: missionaries from the US, diplomatic families, Kenyan protestants now living in Rabat, even a few native Moroccans. I went several times, but the most interesting visit was on Maundy Thursday. This is a day during Holy Week when Christians celebrate the night that Jesus and his disciples celebrated a seder Passover meal just before his execution. So, in the basement of a house in Rabat, this congregation celebrated a full seder meal, with all the appropriate kosher foods, prayers for each course said in Hebrew, and kosher wine at various ritual points in the seder celebration. That was the thing that really got me-- check out the label on the bottle in the photo above on the left! Christians celebrating a Jewish holy day, drinking a Kosher wine produced in an Islamic country where alcohol is forbidden. 10.Electronics Shopping in the Medina: One day I saw an awesome cover for a laptop at a meeting that I was attending, a fantastic geometric Islamic print. I really wanted one for my own MacBook, so I to the place where one would find them— the medina. The medina is the neighborhood within the 13th century walls of the city, narrow streets lined with shops open to the street. There is one particular street where all the electronics and electronic supplies are sold. You can find absolutely anything that you want there. It’s the Amazon of Morocco. The irony of searching for paraphenalia for my brand new American laptop in the stalls of the ancient medina did not escape me. I found a great one, a Moroccan design in a Moroccan shop, to differentiate the laptop that accompanied me everywhere in Morocco! 11. Unexpected blessing: There were only two times in my whole séjour in Morocco that I felt lonely: the rainy night of the very challenging day when I moved into own apartment, and the first weekend that I travelled to Tangier, not to work on my project, but simply as a tourist. In Tangier, I decided that in the future I would try to schedule my purely travel time for when I had someone to share it with me, and so I came to have three absolutely wonderful travel experiences with my children. Separately, each one of them came to Morocco for their 10-day spring break, and each got to visit Rabat. Additionally, each one of them got to tour some different part of Morocco with me. Alex got Fez, the Sahara and the High Atlas; Mara got Tangier and the Rif Mountains along with Casablanca; and Eric got the Atlantic beaches and coastal towns of Agadir and Essaouira, and Marrakesh. The unexpected blessing for me was that I got to have 10 days with each of my children, separately, just one-on-one. They are all such wonderful young adults, and I was delighted to find that time with them. I don’t know that it will ever happen again, and I am grateful beyond measure for those special times! 12. And last but definitely not least: How kind people are:
I was so grateful for the kindness of so many people. Whether it is a part of Islamic culture or Moroccan culture I am not sure, but I was welcomed warmly by dozens of people. I visited in many people’s homes— they showed me how to cook, or simply served me mint tea and shared their lives with me. I was invited to meet the wives and children of teachers that I met. One teacher, Hicham, was the friend of another Moroccan teacher I knew. Hicham lives in Marrakesh, and when he learned that I was looking for a school to visit, he contacted me. Eventually, I ended up staying in his family’s apartment with them for over a week, where I got to sleep in his daughter’s bunk bed and see first hand how complicated their family life with a pre-teen, an infant, one car, and a dad who teaches in three different schools in the course of a week can be. Bless his wonderful wife, also, who accepted me warmly as a guest, even though I am 100% certain that I made their complicated life even more complicated! These are photos of some of the people who shared their lives with me while I was in Morocco. They are all special gifts to me!
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Marcie StutzmanTeacher, Researcher, Adventurer, Explorer; Maybe crazy; Possibly too old for this Archives
October 2018
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