Crazy

I learned the word for “crazy” in Arabic last week. Because I don’t want people to think I am stupid or to stop talking to me in Arabic (I need all the exposure I can get), I have implemented the same rule I used when I was learning Spanish. I only allow myself to ask that something be repeated three times. And only ever three times if I really want to know what is going on. Usually twice is the limit. So when a girl that lives in the neighborhood was over at the house getting tutored by my host sister Nadia (schoolteacher by day and resident neighborhood tutor by night) on her Koranic recitations, I introduced myself and tried to catch her name. Three times. No dice. I smiled, nodded, feigned comprehension, extended my open hand and said in my sorry Arabic, “Nice to meet you, I’m Rob.”

The fact that I didn’t catch her name could be due to any number of legitimate reasons. Perhaps because my ear for Arabic is not particularly good; perhaps because she is only about eleven years old and still talks with her mouth full (and she was chewing on something at just this moment); perhaps because her parents named her something incomprehensible to the majority of even Moroccans (a developing trend among U.S. parents these days); perhaps it’s because she is overtly autistic and breaks her words in odd places, or not at all.

Another of my hosts, Hicham, who is a full-grown man, seemed to think it was definitely the latter reason. He smiled at me and shook his head emphatically, as if to say ‘don’t worry, it’s not your Arabic for once, we don’t understand her either.’ He stuck out his tongue, crossed his eyes and made little circles with his index finger over his temple and bobbled his head back and forth. Then he said in English, “She crazy.” I guess I looked awkward. “Amaq’ha mean crazy in Arabic. She amaq’ha.” He pointed at her for clarity.

The other kids imitated Hicham’s gestures and facial expressions. She – I still don’t know her name so let’s call her “Jane” – imitated them, in turn, and a small pillow fight eventually ensued. All laughed, including Jane, and she went back to howling her Koranic recitations in a manner that was apparently, based on Nadia’s comparative pronunciation, completely wrong.

Anyway, in other places I have been, and especially in my native U.S., the whole bit about making absurd and lunatic facial expressions for “crazy” and pointing at a girl with some mental handicaps – even describing a mental condition as “crazy” – wouldn’t be socially acceptable. Certainly not “PC.” So I had had a little dose of culture shock and went in my room to process.

A few minutes later, another kid, who is about the same age (but unlike Jane in that he isn’t autistic), messed up his recitations and the contingent of kids over at the house doing homework made fun of him and threw pillows at him. Everyone laughed and then things went back to normal, everyone doing their homework while Jane continued to practice the recitations aloud (emphasis on the “loud”).

With that, I had a strange thought. Maybe they had just been treating Jane like every other kid. I seem to remember being made fun of in school, I thought. Might it be that everyone was actually transcending my own frame of “politically correct” by treating her as they would anyone else? She went to a public school; she had to learn her Koranic recitations just like all the other kids; she needed help from Nadia just like everyone else over at the house to do their homework.

Still, I can’t help but be a bit of a cultural chauvinist so I thought about all of the innovative and fantastic (if quite costly) services the U.S. might offer Jane and I was glad I could think of a few. Indeed, in Morocco, she does not get as much help as she would in the U.S. She wasn’t heavily medicated; separated; pitied or explicitly protected as she would have been in the U.S. No prescription drugs to help her focus; no special school; no hush-hush around those ‘poor parents’ who must be so crushed that their daughter has this problem. No pretense.

For a society that is so obsessed with the concept of individualism, it seems that my U.S. hardly takes all of its individuals as they are -- which seems to be at the core of appreciating and celebrating individuality. Sure, there are plenty of services that would make Jane’s life in the United States easier but I am not sure that they would add up to a life as fulfilling for her or for those that know her.

I got back to studying my own Arabic in my room but with the door open to the family room where the kids kept drilling their Koranic recitations; their incomprehensible words reduced to a messy murmur that allowed me to tune it out. Generally, I was focused on my homework and put the kids out of my mind. Occasionally, Nadia’s more even-keeled voice would break the murmur to correct an error and some fragmented thoughts would drift into my conscious mind. Funny how thoughts drift.... Some verse I heard stateside about “all God’s children;” and a memory from early elementary school when I went to the North Carolina State Fair and saw a fieldtrip of severely handicapped teenagers that led to a strange and unforgettable revelation that there must be tons of disabled people that I never saw; that probably rarely left their homes. I wondered what their lives were like; they seemed so foreign to me.

All of a sudden the kids were quiet. I poked my head out and Jane stood on the sofa. She cranked up the volume of her voice and managed to get through whatever verses they were that she was trying to get through with only a couple of words that Nadia filled in. Everyone clapped and she took a bow and hopped off the sofa. I gave her a thumbs-up. Then, beaming, she stuck out her tongue and bobbled her head back and forth and pointed at herself; gave me a thumbs-up and walked out the front door. I guess that’s Jane for ya.

Morocco Gaza Articles

Early this week I wrote an article on the Moroccan response to last month's war in Gaza but was just now able to successfully get it online. The article is available here: http://blogalviews.wordpress.com/2009/02/13/gaza-abroad-reflections-from-morocco/

The good news that came of the delay in getting it online is that an excellent and very related column was written in the middle of the week, it's text is here: http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/90457

An Almost-Kick of Reality

If I was beginning to feel disconnected from the rest of the world, it came to a sharp halt on Tuesday. In fact, I almost tripped over it. There is a particularly lovely and bustling part of an open-air market that I had my eyes fixed upon as I headed down the hill from the institute where I am studying to the hotel where I am staying this week. I was thinking it was strange that I hadn’t read the news or exchanged emails since arriving. I wondered how the rest of the world was doing but I was detachedly reflective, anticipating the entirely foreign surrender that the market still offers my unaccustomed senses. Mildly bemused by the thought of my known, displaced world but excited about the new world I would once again find in the market, I almost stumbled.

I about tripped over the naked half-foot of the napping beggar leaned up against the wall of a store selling grains, which had an open front and cloth awning that faced the alley. As I hopped out of the way to avoid kicking him in step, I looked down. The beggar’s foot ended at the arch and had pieces of both deep red and bright white flesh stretched across it awkwardly, as if the skin itself was trying to imitate a tightly wrapped Ace bandage but changing colors – red to white – at each new layer. Flies hovered to buzz about where the toes should have been; inches above where the abrupt stub was. A film of grayish street grime that was clearly not being absorbed into the wound gave his injury a matured appearance but the vibrancy of the scarlet tissue and the flies gave the conflicting impression that it was recent, or maybe infected. A short strip of what I can only describe (without any medical expertise) as exposed muscle connected his heel to his outstretched, snoozing calf. And then I was four yards ahead, just then actually processing the flash image that I had instinctively reacted to; dodged, as if it had been a cat or a dead squirrel or a tennis ball that had rolled across my path in the street.

As I descended on the market, the vendors calling out in a language I did not understand to purchase a meat I did not recognize by sight or by smell with the dirhams (Moroccan currency) I am still slow to count, I remembered something I might have forgotten: poverty is poverty, everywhere. It has a reductive simplicity.

I don’t want to say that that baseness of poverty is something reassuring but there is certainly something fundamentally human about what it evokes and this feeling necessarily transcends both time and place in its intimate familiarity. For me, when so abject as to be physically flaunted, poverty delivers a punch of intense emptiness to the gut and then the mind, which feels more blank than empty. Then my head gets a little dizzy and my stomach a little nauseous.

It is a feeling of deep grief that has no outlet, perhaps because it cannot cast directed blame for the observed condition that should not be, but this feeling knows that what it is reacting to must be somehow unforgivable. At its essence, it is tragedy. And the feeling snaps me back to a market in Metapan, El Salvador where an old woman with no hands or feet crawls around with a can tied to her wrist for pedestrians to drop change into; to the industrial streets of Xela, Guatemala where orphaned Mayan children extend filthy hands and beg for “un Quetzal, solo un Quetzal;” to the squatter’s village of Hugo II in Puerto Rico where men lie passed out drunk with a cardboard sign and a plastic bag atop their bellies asking for kindness and assuring blessings for it; from Panama City’s coastal sidewalk to the mountain town of Chiapas in Mexico and now in Rabat, Morocco two blocks from where I type, poverty sickens me in the same way. Poverty is poverty, everywhere. Simple as hell.

There is something tragically human about its prevalence but inspiringly human in what it seems to cause inside of those who process it (out of shock or as a conscious choice); that this is how it should NOT be. And because poverty is poverty everywhere, maybe the world and people are the world and people everywhere.

Sliding between the Moroccan market crowd, I saw a local couple in traditional dress link arms. When I inhaled, I noticed that the smoking meat on the market’s fires smelled less like the exotic spices in which it had been marinated and more simply like meat grilling above a charcoal fire.

First Impressions

Hope everyone is well. I have been in Rabat, Morocco for just five days now. Here are some first impressions of things I have been paying a little bit of attention to and hope to explore in more depth (in no particular order):

WOMEN This is one of the cultural differences that I had anticipated being most intrigued by prior to coming and I am extremely interested in their place and function in the local culture and how women perceive this situation themselves. I am sure I will make this a theme in thought and writings, extending that to this blog. The bottom line for my first impression of women in society here is simply that it is more complex than I had thought. I don’t know enough about this yet so I’ll just relate what I have observed on the surface: Women seem to dress in a wide range of clothing. I can detect no set pattern; those that look more black-African (Sudanese, for example), more French-white or more Arab all seem to be equally likely to dawn a hijab (head scarf) or wear stylish Western garb or a full face covering, for that matter (although in the case of the full face covering I’d say that this is only about 1 or 2 in 10 women that I’ve seen; more in the old city wear it; more Arab-Spanish looking; usually 40+ in age). These inconsistencies also transcend generation. There’s no set pattern. All women, however, do absolutely seem to be making some kind of a statement with their dress choices. But wearing a hijab could be a conservative statement or a radically independent statement; political, social or religious, it seems; or just a fashion statement, as I saw one chick wearing hot pink shoes and a matching hot pink hijab. Briefings on current events and politics this week have focused more than I had anticipated on an Islamist Awakening throughout universities in the country and this seems to have some bearing on women’s dress. Many young people are aspiring to a pan-Arab-Islamic identity that extends to all facets of life (political, social, economic alliances) strong enough to offer an alternative to the “democracy” offered by the West that is seen here as imperialistic in the Middle East and surrounding regions. A return to Islamic values and the hope for a more pan-Islamic identity also addresses the search and need for a political system that will transcend the corruption of national politics that defined the second half of the twentieth century here under King Hassan II. In this way, young, educated, often pro-feminist women often wear the hijab, it seems, as a way of identifying with all or some of the ideals of this Islamist Awakening, which can and often does include an element of nationalism.

POLITICS I had not realized the totality of the power of the monarchy until coming. But Mohammed VI, 36 years old and king since 1999, seems determined to be a people’s king and to move away from the corruption and egoism of his father, Hassan II, who made Morocco famous for its human rights abuses throughout his four decade reign. Mohammed VI has been seen kissing children in the street and visits the sick and elderly in hospitals yet rarely makes a public speech. He loves to Jet Ski and we saw the Jet Ski club he sponsored the construction of along the river in Rabat. It is nice! He has done a lot to liberalize trade with the West, especially the U.S. and some speculate he has aspirations of bringing Morocco to a place where it might eventually have a shot at membership in the EU. At the same time, he is dependent on many Islamic countries, namely the United Arab Emirates and the Saudis for much economic aid and political solidarity. He needs to please both Europe and the Middle East while modernizing without losing tradition; the popular cultural hopes of his people (which I think could be oversimplified to be: modernize without losing tradition), over 75% of whom have a satellite dish and over 90% of whom are Muslim. He is infinitely more supported and loved than his father (it could be said his father was a Machiavellian and that he is not) and Mo VI has done much to try to balance this modernity/traditional thing. In 2003, for example, he changed the family code section of the law to grant many more freedoms to women. His approach was essentially to have scholars read the religious texts and if anything was explicit, keep it as law; if it was open to interpretation, secularize/liberalize it. This was extremely popular in many cities and in educated circles and among women and in Rabat 500,000 demonstrated support by celebrating in the streets. Islamists in Casablanca, alternatively, organized a demonstration in protest of more than a million strong on the same day and denounced it. The King has a very tough job, both as Commander of the Faithful (a lineage traceable back to the Prophet) and as ultimate political authority. In a sense, his challenge and the challenge of Morocco is as I expected and largely why I came here: Morocco can be seen as a microcosmic example of the socio-political clash between “the West” and the “Arab-Muslim world;” it must reconcile modernity and tradition to be at peace with its citizens and its international partners, broadly defined. Simultaneously, this question is emerging on the world stage: how will the world reconcile the two identities that seem to be at odds; East/West, Modern/Traditional? The balancing act is certainly interesting to watch and hopefully there are lessons to be learned here for how to walk a line that fosters mutual-enhancement for both sides. We’ll see.

RELIGIOUS LIFE Religious life is not as “crazy” (noticeably permeating, fanatical, total) as I had expected but I expected madness by this definition. The call to prayer five times a day is rather neat – megaphones throughout the city ring with the very guttural Arabic prayer notes sung out. Many people clear the streets and go into Mosques. It’s rather beautiful. It would be hard to be here for long without believing in some sort of supernatural force; the people commit to a faith so completely and totally that their experience of finding truth in it would be impossible, at least for me, to deny. This truth, framed as supernatural, must then be supernatural… or something. Naming it is not as important to me but in recognizing that it exists for them, I find some truth in the existence of that force here: their rituals and worship are very powerful. Local traditions reflect the Islamic religion but I am not so familiar with the Koran or Haddith as to pick up on it always; for example how people wash their hands and when (very well and frequently but it is ritualized…). I think this sort of deeper observation will come with time and study. What little I know of the language is totally inseparable from its religious context. Nearly everything seems to end, one way or another, one form or another, with “praise be to God.” The two most common male names are Mohammed (the Prophet’s name) and Abdul-something. I recently learned that Ab means “servant” and del means “of” and then the “something” is nearly always one of the 99 names for God. For example, the director of the CCCL (institute where I am studying) is Abdelhay; Servant of the Living. I will explore the topic of religious life extensively this semester; the first impression is just that it is not as in-your-face as I had expected but more subtly total in its permeation, which is, again, total, extending to all facets of social, political, economic life.

HOT TOPICS IN MOROCCO/RABAT
-Internationally: Last month’s events in Gaza have been a hot topic here. Hundreds of thousands demonstrated support and solidarity for the people of Gaza. The King has focused on it most as a humanitarian crisis and has made no comment but did send aid and received 100 or so victims in Rabat’s military hospital. Two shops on the way to my school that sell flags are thickly adorned with layers of the Moroccan and Palestinian flags; no others in sight. I was asked to write an article on Moroccan perceptions of what has been going on in Gaza for a Macalester publication and am capitalizing on it as an opportunity to find out more. I’ll post a link and perhaps a copy of the article on this blog early next week.

-Nationally: Recent university grads have taken to the streets self-advocating for government jobs. Although government jobs don’t pay as well, the benefits and securities provided by such work is in high demand, particularly and Western economies go down, and the young and educated want to participate in public service, it seems. Demonstrations that hope to inspire more hiring of this recent-grad demographic are happening several times a month and range in size but are often overwhelming and broken up by police, who, as my prof. said, “really try to discourage them from coming back…” by beating the crap out of them. We’ll see how things plays out.

-Locally: The Bouregreg Project is a project along the Bouregreg River, which cuts through Rabat. Billboarded walls along the river hide the development of a major construction project but show in photographs what the King and developers hope will be the final result: a Riviera-esque atmosphere attracting the region’s wealthiest. Developers from Dubai head the project and the King took a major active roll in attracting this foreign investment. Public feelings about this step towards “modernity” are mixed.

PROGRAM/PERSONAL The program is great. Pretty much exactly what I wanted. The students studying with me are bright, interesting and interested. Much like those who surround me at Macalester. The host institute for my SIT (School for International Training) program is called the Center for Cross-Cultural Learning and is housed in a four-story gorgeous mid-1800’s Andalucian home in the heart of the medina (old city; alleys, etc. Google Image Search: “Rabat Medina” and you’ll get the idea!). Professors are, so far, phenomenal; all have PhDs from U.S. universities so know the American culture and language well which seems also to well position them to translate Moroccan culture and society to this audience. The primary seminar I am taking is an overview called “Culture and Society” and is team taught by two professors; a political scientist (founder of the institute, head of this program for 17 years, member of Moroccan Human Rights Commission) and a cultural studies specialist (also excellent but know him less well so far). This seminar will be composed of 21 lectures; 10 of which will be by guest specialists (embassies speaking on relations, women on women, religious authorities, etc). We also have four conferences (human rights, politics, etc) and a number of excursions to different places, ranging from the highly cultural to the more “fun” (“to show internal diversity of Morocco” which extends to stuff like riding camels for a day in the Sahara). I am journaling regularly so will include more information in blog form about what I am up to as it happens. For an overview of my program, check out: (LINK) The other major component of my program is 3 hours of intensive Arabic (Modern Standard rather than the local dialect, darija) each day, five days a week.

… well, those are some first impressions/thoughts. Be in touch if you wish.