Rabat

Our final plane ride

After 13 hours of travelling and over 20 hours of waiting around in airports, we finally flew into Morocco. Upon arrival, we made the journey from Casablanca to Rabat and stayed in a hotel for the night. They brought us Moroccan Dominos which had cool specialties like cheese pizza with chunks of goat cheese. Welcome to Morocco, I guess. But really, that pizza was fantastic. The goat cheese really pulled the ensemble together.

The next day, after various seminars, we met our host families. My host family lives in Agdal, one of the community segments of Rabat. Their apartment is very spacious and has gorgeous decorating. I have two host sisters, Wiam and Manal, and my host parents are Ali and Saida. I’m also living with two girls from the NSLI-Y program: Catherine and Elizabeth, both from Tennessee. There is a bit of a language barrier around the house. Manal is very good at English and does a lot of the translating for us. Her parents, fluent in both French and Arabic, speak mainly French around the home. Both parents are working on their English and are very cute when they find the word they’re looking for. They’re also eager to help us with our Arabic, which is a nice way to study outside of the classroom.

When we arrived at the house, the family relayed that they hadn't found out until recently that they would have 3 girls rather than 2. Because I was the last one up on the elevator, they asked me to stay in their study room. Most homes in Morocco have extra couches all over that can act as beds. It’s so multiple family  members can come over and have a place to sleep. I love staying in the study, it’s nice take a breather from the interaction all day. They also have an interesting book collection (half French half Arabic) and a neat window that looks right onto an  incredibly active street. I'll admit  that the street noise took some getting used to. I usually proclaim to have a hard time sleeping with noise, but when you have little choice, it just happens. Moroccans drive in a very aggressive manner and I've heard more horns in the past 4 days than I've heard my entire life in Des Moines. Of course, all of this horn blaring happens right outside my window, as well as the blasting of music from car radios. It's just something the citizens here are used to, and I'm trying to get to that point as well. But I'll get to the driving later.

Anyway, as soon as we arrived I noted the language barrier, and tried to find something to do with the sisters. The study had a couple of board games stacked on a shelf, and I thought that’d be a good way to hang out. The only game I saw that was in English was Monopoly. I've only ever tried to play Monopoly once and I’m really not all that familiar with the set-up. I had no idea what I was getting into as Catherine, Elizabeth, and I sat down to play with Wiam and Manal.

We finished 2.5 hours later by just seeing who had the most money. It was Wiam. They were far too polite to tell us that the game was incredibly boring, but I apologized for it multiple times during game play. I asked Manal later, and she said that her uncle had given it to her as a present and that was the first time she’d played the actual game. Normally, they make up the rules and it becomes a lot more interesting and fun. Whoops. Since then we've channeled time into more interesting activities, like the World Cup. Everyone is really into soccer and the World Cup and they're cheering on their neighbor, Algeria. My host family watches the games with German commentators and German subtitles on, and I think it's the funniest thing because no one speaks a lick of German in their family. They just turn them on. I don't get it at all. They're just adorable. Anyway.

Breakfast has quite a bit of bread

The final activity of the day was dinner. Cuisine was not the first thing that came to mind when I justified wanting to go to Morocco. However, in PDO everyone mentioned how excited they were so I went into this first meal with positive expectations. I was not disappointed.

The food our host mom makes is fantastic. The first night we had some kind of greenish soup and green beans with beef, every kind of bread imaginable, fresh fruit, mint tea, orange juice, and pastries. My two housemates are vegetarians, so when my host mom put the green beans and beef dish on the table she told me, “It’s all up to you.” I tried to clarify what some of these dishes are called, but no one really understands the specifics I’m looking for. (“What is this?” “Soup.” “What kind of soup?” “It’s just soup. There is no meat.” “No, no, I’m not the vegetarian, I was just wondering what’s in this.” “I don’t understand, it’s just soup” and so on.)

Every night since then it’s been some kind of new dish that always tastes excellent. Bread is a holy food in Morocco, and every meal here is very bread-intensive. I don't know what half of the rolls are called, but I'm not complaining. I've yet to taste a food I didn't like.

The most surprising thing I've tasted was the cantaloupe. I hate cantaloupe in the States. It’s hard and bitter and has a watery taste. In Morocco, it more follows the consistency of a pear and is much sweeter. I had 5 pieces, and told my host mom that my mother would never believe I had touched a cantaloupe, let alone had 5 pieces. I was also told Coca-Cola was better overseas than in the US. Sadly, this is not the case. I thought I would magically enjoy it, like the cantaloupe situation. It just wasn't meant to be. However, I did discover that I love mint tea.

In Moroccan culture, mint tea is served all the time, everywhere. We have it for breakfast and dinner, and throughout the evenings. Mint tea is everywhere in Morocco. It’s symbolic of welcoming guests and friendship. I didn't expect it would be as popular as it was, and went in with negative conceptions about tea. When I was told I’d be served tea all the time every day, I was going through strategies in my head to make it look like I was drinking it without consuming anything. That would've been a mistake. Mint tea is fantastic. I am determined to learn how to make it before I go.

The streets of the Kasbah

Our Arabic classes began the next day, and started with Arabic 101 reviewing the alphabet and the numbers. Our teacher goes through every letter very carefully with us, as she believes pronunciation is vital in Arabic. It’s funny though, after we go through this very specific pronunciation, she has us sing this song that blunders all of the specifics, but is catchy nonetheless.(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xYy3D6zYgY). It easily gets stuck in your head, so be careful.

Roommates at the Chellah gardens

It was very short first day as we cut class short to have a briefing from a man from the Moroccan Consulate who warned against things we’d already been told not to do. After that, a group when down to visit the Chellah gardens and wandered through the Kasbah of the Udayas. The Kasbah has these half white and half blue residences that are quite well known. They’re very different from the tone of the rest of the city, and are quite beautiful in a distinct way. We also went down and touched the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. It was funny to go to a beach and see no one swimming. I was told it had something to do with the fish.

Overlooking the Kesbah into Agdal

The next day we continued with class and went over short vowels and long vowels and listening activities where we write the full form of words we hear. After 4 hours of morning class, we get an hour break for lunch. We went to a small sandwich shop and I ordered completely in French. Yes, this program is supposed to teach Arabic, but I love the idea of having to pick up all these different languages to get by in day to day life here.

After lunch, we have Darija class. In Morocco, everyone understands MSA for religious reasons, business reasons, and communication across regional boundaries. But everyone here actually speaks to each other in Darija. Rather, everyone speaks a strange combination of Darija, Fusa (MSA), and French. Darija class has kids from each level of Arabic classes thrown together, and this teacher gives rapid-fire vocab.

After class, we went on a scavenger hunt around Rabat, called the “Rabat City Challenge.” We started in the Medina, the “old town” of Rabat that has these traditional shops. Our first assignment was to find a Hand of Fatima key chain, which is an Islamic symbolic of protection. As everyone on this program is currently learning Arabic but is not necessarily ready to accurately communicate with locals in that language, the most valuable skill to have is proficiency in French. In our group, we had only one member with any knowledge of French, and it was very minimal. We looked for anyone who had an idea where to find the hand of Fatima, but no one understood the word “keychain” in English, and we didn’t know the French translation.

A sight on the Rabat Challenge

Eventually we ran into some shopkeepers who really wanted to help us, but couldn’t understand a word we were saying. One of them asked “Espanol?” Absolutely relieved that I had finally found some way to communicate, I yelled, perhaps too loudly, “Donde esta la mano de Fatima!?” and he began walking quickly the other direction, signaling us to follow. We trailed him halfway around the Medina until we arrived at a shop with the cook serving out sausages. The Spanish-speaking Moroccan beamed and pointed and said “Fatima!” I was confused, until Fatima waved and said “Fatima!” I realized this guy had taken us all the way around the Medina to find the one person here named “Fatima." We shook our heads and eventually got pointed in the direction of someone who spoke English. He then sent us through the center of the Medina, until we found someone else who spoke English, who helped us find the keychain. Our success was definitely a group effort, thanks to the wonderful English-speaking shop owners in the Medina.

Later that night, I went back to the Medina with some girls from the program with the goal of finding Jellabas (traditional Moroccan hooded dresses) and Balghas (traditional Moroccan slippers). The Medina gets increasingly crowded at night. Swarms of people come to shop, as it is Moroccan tradition to buy only what you need for each day on that day. I’ve seen my host parents go buy food for dinner around 6 o’clock multiple times, come back and cook it, and be ready by 9. This means that around 7:00 in the Medina, it’s very packed.

One entrance to the Medina

Jellaba shopping is much more complicated than I thought. Apparently, if the starting price is less than 200 dirhams, then it isn’t a good Jellaba and the price is meant to trap the tourists. I eventually found a Jellaba that I liked and had Paris, a girl in the program who is fluent in French, argue the price down. It was a very intense bargaining situation. After they wouldn’t take the price down more than 50 dirhams, Paris had me take off the Jellaba and told them we were leaving. They then asked what price she wanted, so she typed the our price in a calculator. They shook their heads so we began to leave. Then, they grabbed her arm and entered a lower number in the calculator. She accepted, and I gave them 2 bills and needed 40 dirhams in change. They only gave me 20. Paris told them they needed to give me the correct change. One shook his head and told her that they agreed on a price 20 dirhams higher than what he had typed in the calculator. She then told him to give me my money back and we would return the Jellaba. The other store clerk slapped another 20 dirhams in my hand and they shooed us out of the store. And that’s the Medina.

Unfortunately on the Balghas side, size 9 is too large for any girl shoe in the Medina, so I’m going to have to order them. Oh well.

Today after class, we met our language partners. The language partner is a recently graduated Moroccan student who will help you say whatever you want to know or will help with your homework. Mine is named Nora and she was incredibly positive and friendly. Which is a polar opposite from how people drive.

Moroccan stop sign

            This is my one major problem with this city. Everyone drives like a crazy person. They tell you that pedestrians don't have the right of way, but what they mean is no one ever truly has the right of way. There are no lanes. Many stoplights are taken as suggestions. You can drive in whatever part of the road you want, and it is more common to park on the sidewalks than in the street. I've ridden in quite a few taxis, and it's very difficult to find a seat belt . Worst of all, everyone honks all the time. They honk when the light doesn't turn green as fast as they want. They honk when someone is driving too slowly. They honk when someone gets into their hypothetical lane. I've never heard so much car noise. I'm also terrified of getting run over. Des Moines gives the ultimate right of way to pedestrians. I've had two lanes of traffic stop to let a person cross the street even when they're not at a crosswalk. Here, you could have the green signal to walk and still not be able to cross the street. A popular way to get around this is to walk in the middle of the street, stand on the lane divider, and wait for the other lane to clear before walking the rest of the way. I've tried it, it's terrifying, I'm going to get hit. I am not a fan of this traffic.

Ramadan is coming up soon, and you can tell how excited everyone is getting. During Ramadan you reunite with your family, share in big celebrations after dark, sleep in late and work less hours. I've decided to fast at least a part of Ramadan (when in Rome…) because this may be my only chance to experience this practice which is someone else's livelong reality. When I told my host mother, she broke into the widest grin. We were told in a lecture that Muslims love Ramadan, or at least the idea of it. They said that people get pretty grumpy in the middle of the fasting, but the practice Ramadan is near and dear to their hearts and essential to their religion. But that's a topic for another day.

So that’s where I’m at in Morocco right now. More things, I’m sure, to come.

By the way, if you’re having a bad day, at least you didn't accidentally ask your host sister if the call to prayer was the sound of a Moroccan fire engine siren. 

The Handbook

EDIT: Now that the location has changed to Morocco, parts of this handbook are no longer applicable. However, many parts do apply to both regions so I've decided to leave it up, if only to educate future Oman students. I'm also leaving it up because it took forever to write. So you are more than welcome to skip this, but if you have a fascination with Oman, feel free to keep reading.

As part of the preparations for this summer, AMIDEAST sent out a 44-page handbook detailing information about Oman and the summer we would be having. I found this information interesting and relevant to this experience, so I thought I'd include some of it here. The following post in its entirety will probably only be interesting to me and future NSLI-Yers, so if you don't fall under these two categories, I understand if you skim or don't read the following post. My feelings will not be hurt. Everyone who is going to read this, get strapped in because I have a feeling this will take a while.

Here we go.

The first section deals with statistics about Oman. I noticed that Oman has a population of around 3.09 million people. This is very close to the population of my home state, Iowa, who has around 3.07 million people. The population is 75% Ibadhi Muslim, and 25% other religions. There is an 81.4% literacy rate, and there is universal adult suffrage, which is always nice.

The next section deals with staying and adapting to a host family. After being a member of a host family to 3 different ladies since the 8th grade, it's fun to see the kind of preparation they give about what your host family would be like. They warn you that you might not have the "private time, personal space, or independence" that you are used to, but just to roll with it. I wonder how many of our host students were like "I don't want to hang out with them right now, but I will because I was told to." It's just so weird to see this other side of the experience.They say there is also a chance that the family you stay with will be of Zanzibari descent. For the sake of the Billy Joel song "Zanzibar," I hope this happens. Although I'm fairly certain he wasn't singing about this region that is now part of Tanzania, but I'm keeping my hopes up.

The handbook then dives into the academics of this whole thing. All of the girls have been notified of our duty to learn the alphabet and some common phrases before we leave. They also mention a "Language Pledge" which I believe means that we are only allowed to speak Arabic for certain periods of time. After reading this, I am so glad that Sr. Van Der Meer would require us to do this all the time in Spanish 3- it lets you know what words you really need to learn. The handbook also talks about the classes, the extension element with an Omani peer, and the pre and post test we'll be taking. The final part of the academics section is the extension beyond the classroom, including the extracurricular activities and community service. I actually couldn't be more excited about this- the extracurriculars include "discussion groups, Arabic cinema & TV, Arabic karaoke, calligraphy, and relaxed 'majli chats' over coffee & dates with Omani students."

The next portion is about methods of contact. We'll be provided a cell phone, international service is expensive if you bring your own, Skype has been blocked (this by the way, is not the greatest news ever but I can handle it. Google chat all the way?), we'll have WiFi although it may be slow, and they gave some addresses where we can be sent stuff, which I might put on here closer to the date or if anyone other than me gets access to this blog who might want to write something.

Climate-wise, it's hot. Very hot. There's also a wind called "the Shamal" that blows from March until August and can cause sandstorms. You don't get a sandstorm every day in Iowa, so I'm hoping to see at least one.

Then the next section is one what to wear. This was very worrying to me in the time between when I had been accepted and when I got this handbook, so to prevent this from happening to future students, I will try to be detailed.

In regards to bottoms, acceptable forms of dress are jeans, khakis, linen pants, longs skirts, and capris when it isn't Ramadan (It's Ramadan most of while we're there, so capris probably won't be much of a thing considering how economic you have to be with suitcase space). Acceptable tops are long sleeves, 3/4 length sleeves, and short sleeves when it isn't Ramadan. This clothing should not be revealing around the bust, stomach, back, shoulders, or legs. Skirts shouldn't come above the knee, shirts can't be sleeveless. They say that sandals are the most common type of shoe worn, but also to bring sneakers for excursions and flip flops to wear around the house. This guide also advises to bring a formal outfit for occasions your family may invite you to, such as weddings. Finally, they advise bringing a hat  to keep the sun off of your head, or wearing a scarf in accordance with the local fashion.

The electricity sockets are of the three-pronged British variety or the two-pronged European variety. So what that means is I'm going to be buying a transformer pretty much as soon as I get there.

Then the packet has a very well-written description of Oman's history that I won't include here because that would require a lot more writing and we've still got quite a bit of handbook to go.

The next section focuses on social relations. Apparently, same-sex relationships are pretty intimate in Oman. The handbook says that this is not indicative of homosexual behavior, just a reinforcement of friendship. So intense eye contact, touching, kissing on the cheek, long handshakes, and holding hands or walking arm in arm are normal for two friends. They state that some international students say it is hard to make friends with Omani students. This could be attributed to "cultural misunderstandings, different perceptions or friendship, or language difficulties." They also warn of those who wish to be friends for financial gain or sexual reasons, but also note that this is not true of the majority. Some Omanis enjoy foreign friends for social class reasons or to learn about the foreign culture that you come from. These friends apparently form quickly and are quite intense. Apparently, in accordance with Omani culture, friendship means different rights and duties, and those you friend won't hesitate to call in favors or converse daily. If a friend goes ignored for a few days, this is taken as an insult. There is a rapid response to requests, and an expectation that it will be reciprocated. So I suppose that means I can't keep forgetting to text people back like I do now. In fact, I just remembered someone I have to call. Not like that's anything new for me.

In regards to mixed gender relationships, the handbook says that these are often distant and seem impersonal. It also states that if a foreign woman initiates a conversation with an Omani male, this may be interpreted as "openness to a sexual advance or romantic interest." It says that foreign women should wait for the Omani male to initiate a handshake. There are other small tips, such as when "Adhan" (Call to prayer) is announced, it is best not to speak loudly, dance or play music. Modest dress is required to enter a mosque. Always ask permission to enter a mosque. The Omani people are very happy to help with directions. Check to see if there was a service charge before you give a tip. US dollars are not accepted in local markets.

I'm going to leave out women's issues for now, as it states that we'll be covering it in great detail at PDO, and I believe I will be more informed after that meeting to be able to elaborate on what is a large issue in this region.

But now on to my favorite subject- food. First, being invited into someone's house means either kahwa- a strong, bitter drink, or halwa- a sweet and sticky substance. Lokhemat is another accompaniment to coffee- it's balls of flour and yeast. Rice is the main ingredient at meals, along with meat. Fish is frequently used, the kingfish in particular. There is rukhal bread, mishakik, and squid. So pumped for squid. Oman pulls from Yemen, East Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East, which builds my excitement for this food. In regards to etiquette though, there is some necessary adherence to customs. I would say an important pattern I see throughout the tips is always trying whatever they give you, and never declining food when offered. So even if you're stuffed, you need to try the food you are offered. Eat with your right hand. If someone gives you a choice piece of meat, it's because they feel like you aren't getting the best. Just thank them for it, whether you wanted it or not. The host of the meal will continually place food in front of you in very large portions and ask you about the food and if you want more. There will be leftovers. Running out of food makes the host look stingy, so don't try to finish anything. Especially because those who prepare the meal eat what is left by the guests. So it's actually incredibly inconsiderate to finish your meal, especially since you don't know how many are waiting in the kitchen for the leftovers. Your host is going to push you to eat- you need to decline multiple times. Observe how much those around you are eating and use that information to guide your own eating habits. Make sure to remove your shoes if others do, and wash before dinner.

We are nearing the end of the handbook. The final portion describes the stages of culture shock: The Honeymoon Stage, the Hostility Stage, the Integration/Acceptance stage, and the Home stage. They finally tell you not come in with any expectations and to remain open-minded. They then say to maintain your sense of humor, and remember that this is going to be a unique experience and you should embrace that.

They then include this packing list, which I am going to have way too much fun stressing over in the coming months. There's also some additional resources about Oman, and then a lengthy "Personal Conduct" section about behavior and penalties and such.

So now, I feel as though I've written down a large gist of what the handbook said. I made this post because this was all I wanted to see when I was reading blogs of former students who did this program, so at least now I know this is out there. I hope you've enjoyed reading this lengthy post, and I hope we speak again soon.