On Friday morning, I had to say b'salaama (goodbye) to Najat and her family, and head off onto my own. I was a little sad about this prospect, because I have enjoyed being with their family, and having someone to talk to, and someone to practice my Darija with and give me advice about how and where and what to do in Rabat. But their spaces are rented for the spring, and I found an apartment of my own, so I packed up my suitcases and left in the rain. My apartment agent Driss came to help with the move. After a while (thankfully my suitcases can take the rain) , we found a taxi that was large enough to carry my three suitcases and us, and it brought us to the new place. There were some disappointments. Since I had given a deposit on the apartment a week ago, and it was not previously rented, I expected that it would be cleaned, non-working things repaired, and the missing items supplied. This was not the case. There was additionally the question of getting Wi-Fi installed, and so we had to head over to Maroc Telecom to get that business taken care of. At this point, Driss had to leave; it was Friday, and he needed to go to the mosque. (As a side note, it surprises me that life goes on pretty much normally on Fridays, even though that is the day that everyone has a big couscous dinner, and you are supposed to go to mosque, but businesses remain open. Oddly, it seems like more things are closed down so people can be home on Sundays. But maybe I just don't know enough about that yet.) Anyhow, the Maroc Telecom agent wanted me to sign a 12-month contract because my landlady refused to sign the contract... well, it was all a bit crazy and maddening. Here is a thing that I did not realize about Morocco before I got here, though people probably told me and I didn't get it: LOTS of people here don't speak French. At all. Or poorly. Including my landlady. So, let's just say that the moving experience was not going well, and I was supposed to be at a couscous luncheon being hosted for all the Fulbrighters at MACECE. Where I showed up a little late, on the absolute edge of tears. Plus I was having an exceedingly bad hair day. So dear Ahlam and Mustapha (who went with me to get my telephone) snapped to attention, called Driss and the landlady over to MACECE, and after the couscous, we had a big powwow. There are many more steps to this process, but I will end it now by saying that I am posting this from my apartment, where there is now wifi, along with hot water, a kitchen table, a pot and tea kettle to heat water on the little stove, a working washing machine, a functional television, bulbs in most sockets, and an excellent supply of polar fleece sheets and blankets that I purchased to keep warm. Let me totally conclude this episode by saying that I have met the most kind and wonderful and helpful people here, especially in the persons mentioned above. There was a bit of a rocky jumping off point, but if I didn't have any kind of cultural correction to make, how would I know I'm in a different culture? It's why living somewhere is different from vacationing there. Kitchen eating area Kitchen cooking area, and that's the hot water heater on the wall. Polar-tek bedroom #1 Second bedroom, with access to a small balcony, where I will enjoy my morning coffee as soon as it warms up and dries out a bit. Bathtub/shower and washing machine in the "salle de bains", Living room by night My street.
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Najat hosted a dinner for a group of Americans who were, as it turned out, a group of skiers from Chicago who having finished skiing in Zermatt, made a side trip to Morocco on the way home. I gotta say, that is my kind of ski club! Najat and Rashida (and truly, the whole family) worked for two days to make a tajine meal for about 30 of them, and turned on the party lights in the downstairs "salons", and did up a Moroccan tea ceremony, and otherwise provided a lovely night for them. Here are some photos of the evening. Alternating colors for a party effect! The photos on the wall are from Najat's late husband, who was a professional photographer. Incense was burning . Actual plates and silverware for the guests! And the dessert fruit plates are ready to go. These are the cookies that were baked the day before. They go with the tea, which was served before the main course. Hamza waiting for the guests to arrive-- and yes, the TV stayed on the whole time. A soccer match was on. The sugar for the tea. It comes in giant chunks. pouring with a flourish And the main course. The red stuff in the middle may be my favorite thing of all so far in Moroccan cuisine. It's hot peppers, cooked, crushed up, and served in a lemon shell. The flavor is both piquant and lemony. Great garnish for the chicken.
Today I finally made my way over to the Hassan Tower complex. It's one of Rabat's biggest landmarks, and truly, I can see the tower from the roof of the riad in the medina and from other high points in the city. So finding it wasn't hard. I just kept walking in the general direction, and then, suddenly, there it was, just down the street. It was built in the 13th century, and the tower was meant to be one third higher than it is, and would have been the second largest mosque in the world at that time. But the king died, and and construction was halted, and later an earthquake did some damage to it. On the grounds, though, there is the mausoleum of King Mohammed V, the grandfather of the current king, who was apparently a wise and effective leader as Morocco emerged from being a French protectorate in the 1950s and into the Kingdom that it is today. So here are some photos from the afternoon. And by the way, I am reducing the quality of the photos that I'm putting on the blog. The previous uploads were taking about 5 minutes per photo, and today they aren't loading at all. So I apologize for the lesser quality of photo, but you will still get the idea, and I can get the blog completed!! The tower from the entrance park. Guards on horseback by the entrance to the plaza. (Everyone wants a photo with them, and they are happy to do it!) Mausoleum, looking from the main plaza. Not sure what these are, but they are on the corners of the Mausoleum site. Guards at the entrances of the tomb-- and everyone wants a photo here, too. An almost solitary guard. Plaza fountain, though I guess because it's winter, none of the fountains were working. I think these were the foundations of the complex that was never built. It would have been ginormous. People were climbing and standing on these columns, and some were trying to make photos of the Tower like when people look like they are "holding up" the Leaning Tower of Pisa. These cute girls were happy to have me snap their picture. I will head back in sunnier, hotter weather to catch the fountains in action. They are beautiful! The architecture is lovely; this is part of the mausoleum complex. I recognize this feeling: I had it in Guatemala frequently. It's when my head has been working hard in some unfamiliar language for a long time, and really, what I need to do is study; what I'm ready to do just to relax into some English. So, tonight I am anxious to write my blog, or watch Netflix. Blog wins while I still have a bit of energy. I had my second Darija (Moroccan Arabic) lesson today. I wish that I had thought to bring card stock with me to make flashcards so I could follow my own oft-cited advice, but I didn't. I'll make them with notebook paper though because flashcards are THE BOMB! I'm learning conversational phrases and some vocabulary, and some basic grammar. So far, it's going OK, except that there are some sounds that are hard for me to make, and that are especially hard to put into the middle of a word! After a 90-minute class this morning, I found my way to the university on my own for the first time, and hunted down my advisor, who then handed me off to another professor who was teaching a class in "Management of Sports Enterprises". This is a masters' level course. It was taught in French and they discussed two short pieces of literature (one a Native American story about two wolves, and one a 19th century French literary account of a dream.) How these were connected to Sports Management, or why this course is part of the school of education, I am not entirely sure, but it was interesting at least and I could follow the French. Then we finished the class with a 15-minute meditation (again, a surprising element of the class) but it was lovely and relaxing. The professor explained to me that she thinks it's important to teach some elements of relaxation and self-care because we all lead such stressful lives, and I understood that! I got a name and a phone number from one of the students who lives in southern Morocco and works for a business that does desert treks and "camel bivouacs." One way or another, I want to do a camel trek while I'm here. I again found my professor, who was going to take me to her class on "Theater in Enterprises" (again, absolutely no idea how this fits in to anything) but I begged off until tomorrow's class for the French teaching license, and came back to the riad. It is a one-hour commute using the tram and walking through the medina. I am really hungry since the schedule today hasn't allowed for any food since breakfast (which is just coffee and some bread with orange jam), and Nejat is making a big feast tonight for a some kind of an international delegation who are coming here to eat. She's been working on it for a couple of days, so I wanted to make sure that I'm back for it! (Tajine--which is a kind of stew-- Moroccan salad, and a baked something that looks very much like the Russian teacakes we bake in my family at Christmas.) But in the meantime, walking through the medina, I was really hungry and all the street food looked great, and I thought-- oh! this is how you can get in trouble! So I practiced self-control until I finally found a small stand to buy a packaged cookie (10 cents), and that has staved off the hunger for awhile. Here are some photos of the Université Mohammed V. (I saw the abbreviation UM5 today, so I'm going to use that from now on.) English graffiti! classroom building
On Friday February third, the waves were exceptionally high for some reason. I could hear the surf from the rooftop terrace at the riad, and when I first saw the waves breaking on the beach, they were spectacular! Sadly, I was traveling light and only had my new phone with me-- so here are three pictures taken at sunset on the phone. To appreciate the height of the crashing waves, look at the people standing to the far left above the rocks in the first photo. With the constant mist in the air, and the dispersed glow of the sunset, it was all a little exotic I thought.
This morning I took a leisurely stroll through the Medina, starting nearby in the rug area, slipping into the leather and jewelry, and ending up in the cheap knock-off stuff imported from China or India. Throughout, there are people selling prepared food and spices, veggies and meats that I don't recognize, and oh, I don't know, live turtles and chickens. I was trying to surreptitiously take photos, since some people really don't like it. So here are a few highlights: tiled fountain at the top of Rue des Consuls They're all figs! No! They are dates! I will learn to tell the difference! Lamp shades and home décor It's February, and it's colder than you might imagine-- 40s at night, mid sixties by day, and coats are selling! The olive bar... Get your live chickens! (or some greens) I can identify garlic, ginger root, and home hair coloring... These are desserts, and they are delish. I must admit that I was a little worried the first time that I saw one sitting on my plate, but they are made of pastry and and honey and deep fried. So no strange insect desserts here! Fresh orange delivery! Common style of door in the Medina-- I think it's beautiful.
I am feeling a bit proud of my self this evening. I was able to navigate myself to two different appointments today in two different parts of the city! This involved some walking in the rain, a taxi, and a very long walk home that allowed me to stop in a grocery store to check out prices and buy and the most delicious 10-cent orange, and to take photos along the way. The first meeting was with a man named Adil who was recommended to me as a tutor for Darija. He is pretty experienced at it, working for a number of American universities and private language schools, but he really sold me when he told me that he has been teaching Arabic for the Defense Language Institute of Monterrey-- really the gold standard of world language instruction in the US. So we are going to begin in earnest on Monday, three days a week, and see how it goes. This is essentially the way that I learned Spanish, and it was very effective for me, but Darija is so different from English that I think I may have a tougher time with it. My second appointment was with Driss, an apartment broker, and it was a bit like HGTV's House Hunters International, except that I haven't already chosen one of the apartments! I toured two apartments today in a neighborhood called L'Océane, because--- it's along the beach. Neither of the apartments actually has a view of the water, unless maybe you could access a rooftop terrace, which I didn't in either case. Here are a few shots from the neighborhood: Tomorrow I will see one that actually does have a water view, but of course it is both smaller and more expensive. This neighborhood has restaurants and grocery stores and pharmacies and is a nice urban neighborhood, accessible to the university by tram, while also pretty close to the medina. I have also had repeated suggestions to search for apartments in a neighborhood called Agdal, which is nearer the university, but also more expensive. Hopefully, I will have a few to check out there as well. The third option is to stay here in the medina in a room in another riad. Look at the oranges hanging in bags next door to the party supplies! Also note the smooth, wet sidewalk. It was awful trying to walk quickly today because all the streets and sidewalks were slick and slippery due to the rain. I had on shoes with what I thought was a non-slip sole, but I was mistaken! View from Driss' apartment that is NOT for rent, but it shows the possible view, and also you can see the tram station. This neighborhood would require a 20-30 minute tram commute to the university. This amused me probably more than it should have: in the grocery store where I bought the fantastic 10-cent orange and a box of tissues, I saw this very colorful stack of name-brand SHAM-WOWs! Do you remember when they used to sell these at state and county fairs with a hawker? I love them.
One more photo: do you recognize this place? It's the cover page of my site moroccofulbright. I couldn't get exactly the same angle because the Blood Mobile was in the way. Really. Today is the official first day of my Fulbright project, and I arrived on the campus of Mohammed V University of Rabat at the college of sciences, school of education. It's the largest university in Morocco with nearly 80,000 students. Good thing I have some campus experience at Ohio State! I went to a class that my advisor will be teaching this semester that concerns the teaching of French to secondary students. There were about 48 would-be teachers sitting in the classroom when I arrived, every seat in the first six rows taken, no one at the back of the room. The professor introduced me, the students applauded politely, and several minutes later she dismissed the class. This was surprise #1 of the day. Apparently, since this is the first day after vacation, many students were still gone, and so she cancelled the first class until next week, advising them that they may be here till the end of July. But none of the students seemed shocked by this, and all left amiably. Afterwards, we spent a lot of time discussing my goals and the ideas that she has for how she might connect me with both university students and schools in which to observe, and she described for me the crazy, complex system of education in Morocco that has public and private strands, multiple languages of instruction, universities that are public, private, and international, and in which the language of instruction is dictated by the discipline-- but now that is changing, and there are (for example) two law schools at the university, one with instruction entirely in Arabic and one instructed entirely in French. I think that getting my head around this system will be one of the big challenges of my research here, but I will post further thoughts about it on one another page of this site. So then she took me on a tour of the buildings and offices of the department and told me that I may make myself at home in one of the offices where I can use the computer, office supplies, library, and whatever else I need. I found that generous and I plan to take her up on it. She is enormously busy-- teacher, chair of the school, involved in organizing university-wide events (I'm invited to my first gala next week, the awarding of academic prizes). OK, remember about the cats? They are everywhere. There are university cats, too. And daily surprise #2 is that my advisor keeps a large supply of cat food and water in the trunk of her car, and every day she puts out food at two different locations for about two dozen of the cats on campus! So I accompanied her on those rounds today, and then she drove me around the campus to get oriented. Not content with feeding just the university cats, she took me to a Moroccan restaurant where we had both friendly conversation and an incredible feast of soups and tangines and dates and salads and pastries, all of which were delicious. I know I am going to have to walk 20,000 steps a day just to make up for the food I'm going to eat. And, truth be told, I had already eaten a feast before I left for the university! My hostess here at the house in the medina told me yesterday that she would be preparing a lunch for 28 American students, and so she did -- a beautiful couscous that was super tasty. And it was a fortuitous luncheon for me. The students who came were Americans just arrived in Morocco for their study abroad semester learning Arabic. I ate lunch with them, and the director of their program and one of their teachers sitting at the table with me are also Fulbrighters. I came away from the table with a full stomach and two important contacts in the ministry of education and at a progressive private school that teaches English, and an invitation to visit. Wahoo! I feel so happy to be making contacts early in the process! The scariest thing about this project for me is the necessity of meeting contacts and getting invitations to visit schools to observe. So I am beyond grateful for the brotherhood of Fulbrighters and the generous nature of those who work with them! Couscous with the American college kids Moroccan mint tea! Check out the height of this pour!
January 31 -- Today I had a very informative meeting with Dr Jim Miller, the director of the Moroccan-American Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange (MACECE), which is the Fulbright host organization. I am amazed at the linguistic complexity of this country, and I am excited to learn more about which languages people speak and why, and I wonder just what exactly I'm likely to see happening in schools. I also met the rest of the MACECE staff, and Moustafah accompanied me to purchase a cell phone. The most challenging part of the day was when I had to hail a cab and ask the driver to bring me back to my neighborhood in the medina. I memorized how to pronounce it in Darija, and surprisingly, I got here! I am really convinced that I need to learn Darija ( Moroccan Arabic) as quickly as possible. My host family has been helping, but tomorrow I'm set up to start some real tutoring. In the afternoon, I ventured out to explore the "quartier" or neighborhood. Simply put, once I walk the one block to exit the medina, I am one more block from the Kasbah (the word for a fortification), which sits at the mouth of a river and right on the Atlantic coast. The photo above shows the Kasbah Ouyada (not sure what that means yet) from the protected beach below it. From street side, it looks like a giant fort. I walked out on a stone jetty into the ocean and took this picture of the beach and lighthouse just south. Then I climbed the path up to the kasbah and wandered a bit. The fortress was built in the mid-twelfth century, and there are houses where people live now that have their dates from the 1300s carved above their doors. The oldest mosque in Rabat is there, and a castle with a lovely garden where the orange trees are in full fruit. There are cats everywhere: cats on the jetty, cats in the kasbah, cats on the river promenade waiting for the maquerel or sardines or whatever to come in on the fishing boats. Perhaps one day I will devote a day to a photo montage to the Cats of Rabat. They are everywhere. (By the way, "cat" is the second word I learned to say in Darija.) After the kasbah, I strolled along the quai beside the Bouregreg River, and watched kids riding small cars, flying kites, and eating cotton candy. The fishermen were coming in for the day, so I saw many cartons full of their catch. There is a restaurant on a corsair anchored at the quai that celebrates the Pirate Past of Rabat-- apparently there were centuries in which Rabat's primary economic engine was piratry, and ransom money from the countries that could afford to buy back their sailors. So now you can go enjoy a lovely mint tea or "plat de fruit de mer" on the deck. My favorite sign of the day though is for a french fry stand, which advertises pick-up and home-delivery. Wow. Home-delivered fries. I'll document this sign on the For My Students page.
Sunday January 29, my church gave me a warm and lovely sendoff, with prayers at every service for safety and excitement in Morocco, and then just a few hours later, an errant corkscrew set off a full body and carry-on luggage search at Dulles. I wasn't expecting the excitement would start so soon! ( I think my TSA agent was new, because the others were kind of humoring him: "Now you've contaminated the wand, so you have to...") Then, their worries about me apparently satisfied, I boarded the plane and took off. My next surprise was when we landed in Paris at 7:30 in the morning, local time, and it was still dark. Really dark. I have previously enjoyed the summer solstice in France and watched the sun set at 10:30, but I have never been there in the winter and didn't realize that the latitude would make for long nights. How I would hate teaching a first block class in Paris! (hahaha-- those of you who know me from school know that I really don't like much of anything at 7:30 in the morning!) The next flight was about 3 hours to Rabat. I can't tell you what we flew over, because the clouds were thick below and I couldn't see anything out my window. I fell asleep. But when I woke up, this is what I saw: The Coast of Africa, and Clear Blue Skies!!! Then I saw mountains with snow on them, and then the land flattened out, and we landed at Rabat. Where my phone announced to me: "Welcome to Morocco! No service." Well, at least it still works as a camera, and I can still play Two Dots. So don't text me! Tomorrow I am getting a Moroccan phone, and I'll install WhatsApp on it, so if you have WhatsApp, you can reach me that way. Ahlam and Saïd from MACECE (the Fulbright-sponsoring organization here) met me at the airport ( I was the absolute last person through customs, where there was a good deal of discussion regarding the entry card I filled out--- did they know about the corkscrew incident??) and brought me to a lovely riad in the medina. I will spend my first 10 days here while I look for an appartment and get my two feet firmly on the ground. It's a wonderful traditional place. It's on a winding little path in from the main street, it has many floors and about 20 foot ceilings on each floor, and about four little terraces and rooftops from which you can look out and see: the river that separates Salé from Rabat and is bordered by a wide and sunny promenade; the rooftops of all the rest of the city and the minarets; and framed by palm trees, I can see the Atlantic. I will start doing some walking and photographing tomorrow. The inside of this home has beautiful ceramic tile everywhere, and some very cool architectural "fretting" (though I just made that up, and I'm sure there is a real term for it-- I'll have to research that); thick plastered walls; long sofas that line the walls of many rooms and make inviting places to have tea, or talk, or sleep, or write blog entries. My hostess, Nezed speaks French and her son Hamza, who is a newly minted travel agent, speaks wonderful English. I don't think I am the only foreigner that they are hosting at the moment, but I haven't met anyone else yet-- except Nezed's sister, who only speaks Darija, which is what everybody speaks here. It's the Moroccan version of Arabic. I've learned to say something like "choucroute" , which is Thank You, but in French it's Sauerkraut. Darija lessons are high on the priority list! Nezed and her sister made a delicious lunch. Here is it is: It was a tomato salad, and some meatballs in a delicious savory sauce. Using our hands, we ate it with bread. (though Nezed kindly put out a small spoon for me if I wanted it, since my technique in using bread-as-utensil is quite poor at this point.) But it was a delicious meal followed by sweet tangerines, which are in season right now, long with strawberries, raspberries, and all citrus. Yum!
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Marcie StutzmanTeacher, Researcher, Adventurer, Explorer; Maybe crazy; Possibly too old for this Archives
October 2018
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