Back in Morocco

Week One:
Salam Alaykum Yet Again
Six weeks after packing up my new Berber blanket, Marrakechi kebab skewers and Al-Kitaab Arabic books to head back state-side, I am once again back in the land of mint tea and multilingualism. That feeling of eager anticipation before such an adventure never gets old. Waiting at the gate at JFK, I conjured up images of dessert dunes, steaming chicken tajines, and bustling medina souks. I knew to an extent what was awaiting me- in the previous four months in Morocco I had traveled much, eaten well, and befriended many. However, no matter how many stamps happen to be marked in my passport, I doubt I will ever feel anything but exhilarated at the prospect of travel and the possibility of people, places, cultures and experiences ahead of me.
Rabat is a welcome change from the small Middle Atlas mountain town of Ifrane where I spent last semester. For starters, Rabat and its twin city Salé tip the scales at 1.6 million inhabitants. Rabat is also coastal, buzzing with diplomats, and a far better fit for a cultural junkie like myself. I have decided that, after life in D.C., city life is certainly my cup of tea. I will be living inside the medina (old city) walls with my host family, which is not exactly Greenwich Village or DuPont Circle. However, I think the busy markets and twisting streets full of soccer balls and motor bikes, among other items, will keep me entertained and on my toes. I am also hoping my family entrusts me with the tasks of shopping at the corner bakery and grocer so that I can learn my way through this maze and get chummy with the neighbors!
Our “school” is called the Cross Cultural Center for Learning It is an Andulusian house built in 1875. A few of the narrow and intricately tiled apartments turned classrooms were built to house one of the wives of the house’s owner and her children. In the Center’s annex building down the street, one of these similar small classrooms-approximately the size of a horse stall- is my Arabic classroom. Including me, there are only two students in my class, which takes the student-teacher ratio to a new extreme! Also, if I may blow my own horn for a moment, I would like to point out that my classmate is Sudanese and grew up speaking Sudanese Arabic. That I tested into this class makes me simultaneously a little bit proud and a little bit scared out of my mind for three and a half hours daily of mile-a-minute native speaker Arabic. I am, however, incredibly excited for the benefits of this cozy educational experience.
On the third and fourth floor terraces of the Center you get a bird’s eye view of the medina’s rooftops and are in perfect earshot of the five daily calls to prayer. The prayer callers at the different minarets each have their own rhythm and style of singing that weave together in a not quite harmonious melody but still beautiful combination of sounds. There is always one guy who is late and is wrapping up his call nearly three minutes after the rest of them! Perhaps it is inappropriate of us (“haram” in this neck of the woods) but we can’t help but laugh at his lack of punctuality.
The first week is wrapping up and tomorrow I leave the safety of forty other students, orientation leaders and a hotel to go live with my new family. The real challenges and leaps forward with linguistic and cultural understanding I am sure are about to sky-rocket.
Here are a few fun facts I’ve learned in my first week:
* The highest building in Rabat is 19 stories.
I saw university graduates demonstrating on the main avenue of Mohammed V protesting the government’s failure to find them jobs. Unemployment is a huge social epidemic here.
* The McDonald’s in Rabat opened up at the sight of the former Soviet Cultural center- yet another victory for capitalism?
* Each Muslim country in the world is allotted a certain number of visas by the Saudi embassy each year for the Hajj. Apparently, the lines at the Saudi embassy in Rabat get pretty long come Hajj time.
* There is a high school inside the palace gates for children of royal officers. And, we got to drive through the gates and around the palace.
* In a pretty unsuccessful effort to seem less intrusive, the French colonial regime passed a law forbidding non-Muslims from entering Moroccan mosques. Prior to that, mosques had been a safe-haven for victims of all faith seeking refuge, such as persecuted Jews.
* Although the Algerian-Moroccan border is supposed to be closed, industrious low-profile merchants in border towns train their donkeys to travel over the border with smuggled goods and return home to reload. Those are some smart…donkeys!

Drop-off:
On the early morning of the second day of our program, I sat aboard a bus with forty nervous American students, tracing and retracing in their heads the bus’s meandering route from our hotel. “Jillian Slutzker,” the ominous call came from the front of the bus. I took a deep breath, stepped forward, and took the twenty dirhams from our academic director’s hands. “Are you ready?” He asked. “Got your walking shoes on?”

Armed with twenty dirhams in emergency cab fair and the sole instructions of “observe clothing and make sure to find your way back to the Cross-Cultural Center in two hours”, I stepped off the bus. As thirty of my peers and my life-line of group leaders pulled away, my feelings of sheer panic abated and my super powers kicked in. “I can do this,” I told myself. “I can’t be more than three miles away from the Center. I have a functional, if not first-rate, sense of direction. And, I love people and clothes!” Given that I was alone, essentially lost or bound to be, and wearing-as I discovered two blisters later- pretty shoddy walking shoes, I was absolutely ready. I was ready to be the best observer of Moroccan clothing that I could be and ready to turn on my internal GPS and find my way around Rabat!

The observation itself didn’t take long. ‘Note to self-some women cover their hair. They also wear jellabas (long robes). There are business men in suits, children in Western kid’s clothes, and old men in small white caps.’ No huge surprises there. Thus, after thirty minutes of wandering, I gave myself a new mission-find the ocean.

It took a good half an hour, but alas I succeeded! Like a just-hatched baby turtle on a Discovery Channel documentary, I sniffed out the sea like it was my job! I walked atop the hill above the sea, taking in the hillside Graveyard of Martyrs (from the war for independence),which was washed by the tide, and the panorama of Rabat sprawling behind me. The walled old city, or the pre-colonial medina, contrasted to the taller and ornate buildings of the Ville Nouvelle, .built between 1912 and 1956 by the French. Across the river branching off from the ocean stood the city-scape of Salé, the twin city of Rabat.
I stopped to watch the mammoth waves crash down on the rocky inlet, thinking to myself that surfers (surfers in general and particularly those in Rabat) must have a death wish. These waves would make Malibu’s best, brightest and most bodacious of surfer dudes tremble in their trunks. You should, however, probably take this comment with a very very large grain of salt. I am, after all, a girl whose boogey boarding repertoire is limited to hip-deep water! But, suffice it to say, Rabat waves can be pretty colossal!

My second thought as I stared out at the waves was this: if I ever really got homesick and could somehow make it past those killer waves, I could theoretically swim back to somewhere in Georgia. One of my academic directors had actually pointed out this fact- the geography that is. I don’t think he would really advocate the swimming. I really don’t count on executing this contingency plan though so please don’t worry. I loved Morocco last semester and am just as excited for this one. However, it is a slight comfort to know that, although I am a couple thousand miles east and a few cultures removed, home is just across the water.

Finally, after my two hour trek of people/clothing watching and strolling above the beachscape, I safely returned to the Center. I was weathered and blistered but also much more confident in my ability to navigate the city that will become my home these next few months. What is more, I still had the 20 dirhams in emergency cab money in tact! (That’s a good two cups of mint tea.)
Aside from my earth-shattering observations of Moroccan clothing, I came to this conclusion on my drop-off. I think everyone should, at one time in their life, be dropped off by a bus in the middle of a foreign city with the simple task of observing and wandering. You might be surprised what a little confusion and alone time can do for your comfort, confidence, understanding, and practical sense of direction. I know now that if I get lost again (highly likely), I can always find my bearings!