A baby, a desert, and umm....Let's give thanks!

The biggest recent event in Morocco was the birth of Narjis, the first child of my dear friends Abdessamad and his wife Fatima. Narjis was born the 24th of November, the day before Thanksgiving.  She weighed 2.8 kilograms and was completely healthy. I got to see her on her 3rd day after seeing the light and she was gorgeous, had her mothers' eyes. Here are some pictures.

Here's daddy admiring his creation. I hope to have that same goofy grin on my face one day. 

On the left is Abdessamad's sister-in-law, Hessna, who came over for the day to help with household chores while Abdessamad's wife Fatima rested and took care of baby.

I've got a new challenge ahead of me: learning Arabic before the Narjis does. I think I can manage that. I'm just glad I got a 3 month head start.

In other news, last weekend I went on a trip to the Sahara desert with a group from the school where I'm studying now. Oh yeah, did I mention that I'm now taking 20 hours/week of Arabic classes at a language institution? It's a terrific program with a class pace that suits me well: FAST! Anyway, on this trip we visited a city called Erfoud in the Sahara Desert in Eastern Morocco (the Sahara also extends into the southern part of Morocco.) After visiting a mausoleum with some old dead people, we headed to a very poor neighborhood that was a historic neighborhood of the region, built hundreds of years ago. We entered this place and toured around, looking at all the "historic" stuff and observing the conditions these poor people lived in. Our tour guide took us through the winding paths between all the houses and took us to all the "hot" spots that a tourist must see in this historic, destitute quarter. As soon as we entered the neighborhood I felt my conscience start burning and I was immediately aware that we were intruding on these incredibly poor peoples' living space to see what harsh conditions they lived in and take pictures to show our rich friends back home. Essentially we were treating those people and their circumstances as exploitable means to have a nice vacation and see the "real" Morocco. To me, that is not seeing the real Morocco. Seeing the real Morocco means interacting with the commoners without exploiting them or viewing them as simple peasants of the "third world." Sit down and have a Moroccan tea with them over a conversation and you'll see more of the "real" Morocco than you ever will going around taking pictures of all the "exotic, strange, crazy" customs and architecture. Aw crap, I'm getting opinionated again...

Saturday night we went to meet another tour guide who had camels waiting for us to ride to our campsite nestled in the sand dunes. We arrived just before the sun set, so for the first 30 minutes of our ride into the desert dunes, behind us was a sky of the most vibrant shades of orange, yellow, red, and pink. We arrived to already set-up camps, so we decided to go climb the dunes and have fun in the sand. We ate dinner together in a community tent and talked about everything from world politics to local cuisine. After dinner we made a fire and told jokes, stories, sang, and had a dance competition (in which I was the only one who participated...but at least I won!) After everyone had gone to bed, an adventurous Romanian guy and I grabbed a snowboard that was behind one of the tents and we headed up the tallest, steepest sand dune around to slide down. We found this to be harder than we imagined, and we found it possible to slide only on very steep slopes, but we were able to find a couple of good spots and slide about 50 feet before slowly coming to a halt. I've never snowboarded or skied before, and that was a blast! I'm ready to try to real thing now.

The next day we got up at 5:30am and headed out to reach the ideal spot on top of a dune to see the sunrise. This wasn't as impressive as the sunset the previous night, but it was still pretty special to witness over the Sahara dunes.

Here are some pictures from the trip to give visual representation to my shanty English depiction.

A gate to somewhere. I took a picture because this is a typical, ancient, Moroccan city entrance. 

This is the door that opens to a Mausoleum. It shows typical, intricate Moroccan artwork.

These are two perhaps not-so-typical Italians girls who study Arabic with me and who also went on the trip. They were a blast!

This is the sight we encountered before entering the dunes.

The shadow to the right is me on a camel taking a picture of me on a camel taking a picture...got it?

There's our guide leading us into the desolate nothingness.

Relax F.B.I.! These things really do help when the wind is kicking up sand and beating you with it constantly.

This is what fell behind us as we wound around and climbed over dunes entering the desert.

This was the sunrise the following morning. The colors don't show here, but I think the fact that we were cold does.

"God, King, Country" painted on the hillside in Arabic, a site often seen on the hills in this region.

A great place to get lost without water, right?

To celebrate Thanksgiving this past Thursday a proper meal complete with turkey, ham, mashed 'taters, green beans, cranberry relish, dressing, and pecan pie was prepared at the American Club in Rabat for a group of us from the school. Fewer than half of us were Americans, but we all came together to enjoy an American meal on an American Holiday and enjoy each other. We Americans did our best to explain the origin of the holiday, but most of our conversation circled around culture and the silly things we have in each culture. Here are a few pictures of the meal we ate:

I can't say I was expecting a terrific Thanksgiving meal overseas, but I have to say I was quite impressed. It couldn't hold a flame to my mom's cookin', but it was delicious nonetheless. And check out the big mug of sweet iced tea! That's how I kept the meal Southern.

And voila the group of international students who decided to partake in the Thanksgiving meal.

A Bloody Great Festival!

By dinnertime yesterday I'd helped slaughter two sheep and skin and gut three. I'd also prepared and ate "shwa" -barbecue - with the liver, lungs, and fat of the sheep we slaughtered. Is the title of this blog entry starting to make sense?

Jiull Ian (my Romanian roommate) and I headed to Temara Tuesday night to participate in the Eid al-Adha preparations with my Moroccan family. We went out and bought all the utensils for the slaughtering, skinning, gutting, butchering, and cooking of the sheep, including: knives, skewers, grill racks, cutting boards, spices, and an axe. It seemed the whole town had the same idea, and the streets were full of vendors with all the essentials for the Eid and shoppers with all the essentials for buying these essentials. When we had bought all we needed, we headed home to eat dinner. The intense night activity reminded me of Ramadan when everybody was out socializing and feasting until 4am because of daytime fasting. I was beginning to see the importance of Eid al-Adha for Muslims, but its significance was hammered home when Khalid, one of my brothers in my Moroccan family, refused to eat very much dinner so as to have as much room as possible for the feast the next day. I laughed when he explained why he had stopped eating, but I quickly realized he was serious. Wow, I was anxious for the ceremony to begin.

My Moroccan family and Jull Ian (bottom right) eating tajine Tuesday night before Eid. Everyone scrunched around a little table...what a way to share a meal! Khalid is the one putting food into his mouth. This was probably his last bite before leaving the table to save the maximum amount of room for the next day.

As we approached the family's house, this is the scene we encountered. Everybody was burning the heads of the sheep they had just slaughtered.

Jull Ian and I went back with Abdessamad to his house and were up until 3:30am, goofing off and generally enjoying the feeling of anticipation before the huge event. Because of this, we overslept and missed the slaughtering of the first sheep, so we arrived to a bloody, headless mess. In good-ole Moroccan fashion I jumped right in with a knife and started hacking away at the skin of the beast (actually I was watched carefully and criticized often for bad or unnecessary cuts, but I sure learned fast!).

And this is the scene I walked in on when I arrived to my family's house after waking up late at Abdessamad's.

So I joined right in!

Khalid and a friend taking off the horns.

After slaughtering and cleaning the family's sheep, we went to Abdessamad's to slaughter his two sheep. Voici les photos:

Abdessamad's sheep.

Haziza (Abdessamad's sister-in-law) and her husband Mbark horsing around on the sheep.

A man with special religious significance (and talent with a knife) came to do the actual slaughtering. He came, we held down the sheep, he cut the throat, and he left, quite literally that fast.

You eat meat? Well here's the first step in it arriving to your plate!

Hassan, Abdessamad's brother, began gutting the sheep, taking out first the fat that would be used for barbecue and other dishes, then the stomach, liver, kidneys, intestines, and lungs. We ate all of that, by the way, except the intestines. And I liked all of it! Maybe it was the delicious fat and spices that made these new foods so tasty, but I think the fact that I took part in the entire process of the food arriving on my plate had a lot to do with it as well. (Oh yeah, look at all the blood splattered on the wall in the background. That is due to the sheep kicking out the last of its life and kicking with this all the blood that had been liberated from its imprisoning veins.)

The experience of eating food for which I personally partook in all the processes for preparing was immensely more meaningful than when I have bought meat from the store and cooked it. To know exactly where my meal came from was to be completely responsible for how I treat my body and how I treat the animals that supply the nutrition my body demands. In Spanish and French there are two verbs for the English "to know." One is used when referring to the recollection of information or knowledge of skills. The other is used for things you are familiar with from personal experience. It is this connotation I wish to use when I refer to knowing where my food came from. I knew the sheep, I helped kill, skin, gut, butcher, skewer, and cook its meat, and when I ate it I felt all the work, effort, and emotion that had gone into that bite of delicious energy. I'm no writer, and I'm certainly no wordsmith, but am I conveying how divine this experience was for someone who has grown up so far removed from his food?

The day of the Eid (Wednesday) I spent mostly killing, skinning and gutting sheep. I helped prepare the lungs and liver, which we wrapped in fat and barbecued to perfection, and this was our lunch (at about 3pm, our first meal of the day.) We devoured it, and afterwards Mbark and I took a little nap. Killin' aint easy, and we needed rest. We sat around with the family relaxing and chatting, and later we had a special dinner that consisted of the head of the sheep. Let me tell you, the tongue is especially delicious! The cheek and nose aren't bad, either. (Please forgive me for not posting any more pictures of the best part, the food. I haven't yet found batteries that work for more than about 15 pictures in my camera, but Mbark did get a lot of pictures of the rest of the event, so as soon as I get those from him I'll post them!)

The next day (today) I spent 75% of the waking hours eating, or stuffing my face as they say here. I ate three meals first with my Moroccan family before going to visit their other family members and eating more. I don't even remember now how many times I ate - I just know it was more than I've ever eaten in one day in my life. Moroccans sure have a way of treating guests, especially foreigners. Every house I visited I was offered food and drink. In fact, it's almost unheard of for a guest to come over and not be served at least tea (even if it's close family.) You'd think the least healthy people in Morocco would be those with the most friends, or at least those who visit their friends the most. Darn these good looks! (or more like "darn these people's loving character and hospitality for foreigners!")

Much of the last 2.5 days I spent away from Abdessamad and Jull Ian, who stayed at Abdessamad's house while I was with the family at their house. Therefore I either spoke in Arabic or just shut up and listened, because only two people in the family speak French. However, the fact that a lot of my time was spent just sitting and listening and not partaking or even knowing what was going on or being said doesn't mean I didn't thoroughly enjoy myself. In fact, it's the most comfortable and content I've felt yet in Morocco. That can't make since to a normal person, but maybe that's why it makes so much since to me - I reckon I aren't normal! When I'm with this family, I know I'm with people who love me, who accept me as a family member, and whom I can trust with my life - So who needs verbal communication to be at ease and comfortable amidst such folks? We did often engage each other in conversation, however, but, as always, it was so rough that we mostly ended up laughing at my confusion and forgetting the original purpose of the conversation. This is the kind of language practice I need. This is the cultural experience I hunger for. What an awesome two and a half days!

Preparations for Eid al-Adha

For those who don't know, one of the most important events for Muslims will happen tomorrow: a festival called Eid al-Adha. It's a celebration in which Muslim families slaughter a sheep to commemorate Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son in obedience to God. Before Abraham went through with this act God gave him a sheep instead to sacrifice, and so Muslims now sacrifice a sheep to signify this obedience to God. Traditionally the family keeps a share of the meat for itself and distributes the rest to extended family and the poor who cannot afford to buy a sheep. Today, however, this tradition isn't followed much in Morocco because almost every family buys a sheep, either by saving up specifically for the event, doing extra work, or taking out loans (there are signs everywhere here advertising loans for sheep.)

I'll be celebrating Eid al-Adha with Abdessamad and his family. I'm so fortunate to be able to spend it with such an awesome, traditional, Moroccan family. I'll post pictures of the event as soon as I can. For now, here's a couple of the sheep staying at Abdessamad's family's house. The family is keeping the sheep on the patio until tomorrow. Most families get their sheep a few days before the ceremony and keep it/them tied up somewhere around the house.

Khalid, Abdessamad's brother-in-law.

A look at Casablanca and Fes

Here's a visual representation of trips I took with friends to Casablanca (business Capital and largest city of Morocco) and Fes (first city and cultural Capital of Morocco.)

Mosque Hassan II, the biggest Mosque in Africa. It is in Casablanca and rests right on the ocean.

This is a Catholic Cathedral in Casablanca. It's probably not the biggest Cathedral in Africa, but it's impressive nonetheless.

These kids snuck past the security railing and were jumping off this wall into the ocean below. A security guard came over and tried to get them to come down and return the the pedestrian area, but they mocked him and jumped off all the same.

If you look hard you can see all the local boys speckled throughout the giant rocks. What a fun swimming hole to hop in for the local boys (and probably year-round.)

My roommate Jull Iann and I eating snails. So hot but so delicious.

This is where the boys landed when they jumped off the Mosque 'patio.'

A view of Bab Bou Jloud, the main entrance to the Medina (old city) in Fes. This Medina is an awesome labyrinth of twisting, windy roads that pass by all kinds of shops.

A cemetery right outside the Medina in Fes. Not too different from cemeteries in the Unites States, huh?

An open area in the Medina where people come to people watch, relax, or play soccer, like these kids in the picture. One female member of our group decided to go play with the kids after a few minutes of watching them. She plays soccer in College in the states,  so she was quite talented and showed those kids a thing or two about the game. She drew some attention (whether it was because she was a foreign girl out-playing local kids or because she was a woman playing soccer in Morocco), but people enjoyed the event and cheered when she returned to our group.

An Overdue Update

Hey again! Please forgive me for not having posted in so long, but I'll give an update of what's been going on in the last couple of weeks.

A couple of weekends ago I was invited to another Moroccan wedding, but this time as a performer. It's great to have friends in fun places. A couple of friends of mine who live in Temara are musicians who play in weddings each weekend. They invited me to attend one with them, so I met them at their house a couple of hours before the wedding. They dressed me up in a typical outfit for Moroccan wedding musicians, and we crammed into the back of a van and headed across town, drumming with our hands on our thighs, singing and dancing the whole way. Fortunately we weren't the main musicians for the wedding, so we were only required to make two entrances, play for about 10 minutes each time, and exit. So instead of performing until 7am like the main musical group, we got to experience the wedding, play music, sing, dance, and go home, all in about 2 hours. I didn't know the words to the songs nor how to play an instrument, so I was responsible for carrying a flag and dancing, which I had no qualms about. I love the Moroccan music rhythm, and I fulfilled my duties to the utmost of my ability, moving and grooving in place while my partners sang and played their instruments. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the actual performance, but I did get one of one of the other members and me before entering the wedding ceremony.

Holding a flag is something I can do! The uniform was very comfortable! It included some Aladdin-like pants that only reached slightly past the knees but were baggy enough to hide an elephant in. I think I'm gonna get some to wear even outside of weddings. I would just have to be careful not to get blown aware by strong gusts of wind...

This man was truly a unique character. he played a Moroccan flute in my friends' group, and he spoke absolutely no French, or any other language I speak. But this didn't stop him from talking my ear off the entire night I was with the group. When I didn't understand his Arabic (which was about 98.5% of the time) he would get closer and talk louder. He did this to the point of being within two inches of my face and kindly showering me with saliva as he tried to make me understand what he was telling me. Oh the things I do to learn Arabic...

I'm still not officially enrolled in the University here, but I'm in a Portuguese and Arabic class at the University. The teachers are very kind and have welcomed me whether I ever get enrolled or not. I am immensely enjoying the classes and I am meeting all kinds of awesome students in my classes. The University atmosphere is definitely where I will best be able to meet new people and find "my crowd." Once I get officially enrolled I'm hoping to move into a residence hall on campus. I think that would be the best way to get integrated into Moroccan University student life and learn the language.

I have, however, finally moved out of the hotel where I stayed for over a month waiting on University housing. Through Annemarie, a fellow Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar in Rabat who is from Chicago, I met a German girl and Romanian guy, Jette and Iulian, who are living in an apartment in the oldest neighborhood in Rabat, called L'oudaya, which is located right on the coast. They invited me to stay with them for as long as I needed to before getting University housing, and I gladly accepted. I've now been with them for about 10 days and I'm loving every minute of it. Jette and Iulian are great people, and the apartment is terrifically simple, old, and with an awesome rooftop terrace that overlooks the city and ocean. I will send pics soon, but I am currently without batteries that work for my camera. I haven't yet been able to find batteries here that work with my camera = (

From Right: Dina (Russia), Annemarie (Chicago), Iulian (Romania)

The girl next to me is Jette (Germany).

A Moroccan toad (for you animals freaks like me!) It was so much more colorful in person. It even ribboted differently...had an Arabic accent.

Something Musical

This past Friday I was invited to eat couscous again with the Moroccan family from Temara who has adopted me. In a way, this invitation came as a surprise to me and was passed along out of sheer grace. I say this because of my doings after eating couscous with the family the previous week. When the meal was over, I wanted to thank Mater, the mother of the household who cooked the meal. In Arabic there is "shukran" for a normal "thank you," and there is "lla y-khlf" for an extra-special "thank you" after someone has graciously provided for you. Literally lla y-khlf means "may God reward you". However, I was still new to using this word, so when I tried, it came out as "lla y-khlk," a very slight variation that drastically changes the meaning. I told my wonderfully kind host, "may God take you away." Of course Mater knew what I meant, so she smiled and said, "bssHHa" - to your health, the proper response to lla y-khlf. Au contraire, the rest of the family, when they heard me tell God to take Mater away, busted out into uncontrollable laughter. They explained to me what I had said and then Mater and I both joined in on the laughter. Ever since it has been a joke between Mater and I when she serves me food or tea. I make sure to emphasize the F instead of a K.

Here's a picture of the tea Mater served after couscous. It's typical to hang around a while after a meal and talk. Moroccans will often have tea a short while after lunch and sit around a while longer enjoying the tea and conversing with each other. The lunch "hour" here is from about 12pm to 2pm. They take their time to enjoy a meal with family.

The always smiling "Mater" serving mint tea in the typical Moroccan way. She heated the water up on a butane tank and then asked me to make the tea. This is a very specific, ordered process. First I put the tea pellets in the kettle and Mater poured into this a cup-full of boiling water. I shook it around and poured the liquid into a cup. Then mater filled up the tea kettle with the rest of the boiling water. To this I added the mint leaves and sugar (lots of it.) I poured in the kettle the cup of concentrated tea I poured earlier, and then I repeated a couple of times this process of pouring out a glass and putting it back in (to stir the tea, essentially.) Then I poured out a little bit to taste. It was already too sweet for me, but not nearly sweet enough for Moroccans, so I added another chunk of sugar. When it tasted like tea-flavored kool-aid, I knew it was suitable for the family. I poured each glass, raising the kettle high as I poured in order to create bubbles (Moroccans jokingly complain if there aren't bubbles in their tea. They say they make the tea taste better.) I then passed out the glasses starting on my right and saying bismillah -in the name of God- to each person I served. And voila! The Moroccan way to serve tea.

Now, I am by no means a musician, but I'm convinced my DNA is replete with musical notes and rhythm that were never encoded for production. So I can't make good music, but when I hear it my souls starts a groovin' and I can't help but move to the beat. When I'm around fun music, I feel a connection to the divine. And this particular day I got a pleasant musical surprise. After tea Khalid told me he had a surprise for me. He went to his room and came back with a guitar-like instrument. This instrument, which is very traditional in Morocco, has a wood frame, which is hollowed out by hand. It has a sheep-skin covering the base, and the strings are made of sheep intestine. It is played a bit differently than the guitar in that the middle, ring, and pinky finger drum the sheep-skin covering of the instrument while the index finger strokes the strings. In this way the person playing can play percussion and guitar simultaneously. Khalid was pretty good at doing this, and he and Abdessamad began singing traditional Moroccan songs. They handed the instrument to me, as if I knew what to do with it, and I made a little bit of noise before handing it back to the professionals to make some good sound.

Abdessamad, left, and Khalid, right, playing around and singing traditional songs.

Khalid was very excited about showing me how to play. It's definitely an instrument I could get in to. It has the guitar sounds and drum all in one instrument. Pretty cool.

Khalid went and got a traditional garb to wear and pose for a picture. As I was taking the picture he said, "if you have any single American female friends in the US, show them this picture," and laughed. What do ya say, ladies?

A special Couscous

Today is Wednesday, but as is the Moroccan way, a family I met for the first time on Monday invited me for couscous on Wednesday (today.) How could I turn that down?! Moroccans eat couscous every Friday, but not other days as well, so this was a special occasion specifically for me.

I want to point out that even though this couscous was a meal prepared especially for me, the mother and sister of the family - who cooked the meal - never joined us men (the two sons, Abdessamad, and myself) to eat. These women had especially prepared a meal for me that they would not share in consuming. That's perty derned nice if ya ask me!

The pre-meal tea. This is peppermint tea with a lot of sugar and always served on a tray like this.

Couscous. And you can even see the steam rising off of it!

I'm using the "lugma" technique, palm down, scooping up the goods.

The resulting ball is ready for launch.

Abdessamad showing the proper form. It's so rewarding to eat with your hands!

I love a country where licking your fingers is the proper way to clean up! Sorry for all the grievances mom - I was just living in the wrong culture.

On the way to the bus tonight, I came across a very common sight on Moroccan roads - an open sewer entrance in the street. I love the Moroccan method of protecting motorists - surround the hole with big rocks visible from a distance. This hole was about two feet long by two feet wide.

Poor countries have poor ways...that work!