Archive for category: Rabat

Invader Jinn

Invader Jinn

Sto­ries and myths are woven into this Jewish-Berber rug.

I really like whistling. It’s easy to do, males have a con­sid­er­ably higher range than singing, and it’s a per­fect sub­sti­tute if you don’t know the words to the song. This is par­tic­u­larly help­ful here, as when you ask some­one how to say some­thing in Ara­bic, he’ll say the word as fast as humanly pos­si­ble and then when you ask him to repeat it he’ll say it twice as fast as that. Need­less to say, my lyri­cal knowl­edge of the Ara­bic songs I hear on the radio needs work.

But I digress. The point of this brief anec­dote is that there are lit­tle cul­tural things here that remind me that I’m Some­where Else just when I’m start­ing to get com­fort­able. At first, they were weird and strange, but now, they’re endear­ing. My friend Kyle study­ing abroad in Seville men­tioned how a buxom sect of Span­ish babes whis­tled to him across a road. I replied by telling him how I am repeat­edly rep­ri­manded for whistling in the house because my dad tells me I’m sum­mon­ing the jinn.

March 1, 2012 0 comments Read More
Men In Briefs: The Series

Men In Briefs: The Series


Morocco’s been more or less the same since I last checked in. Dar­ija has been get­ting slightly eas­ier; I keep thank­ing my lucky stars that sim­ple pop songs like “Gimme More” exist so my friends and I here can keep prac­tic­ing the new words we learn (“Oh na na, wesh smitee?”).

I’ll start off and dif­fuse any tit­u­lar mys­tery: I went to the ham­mam this past week­end. For those who aren’t famil­iar, the ham­mam is a sort of a bathhouse/spa that is incred­i­bly impor­tant to Arab and Turk­ish cul­ture. Eliot’s and my host brother, Mar­wane took us there this past Sunday.

But first we went to get Marwane’s hair cut. The process took about two hours in a tiny room filled with men chat­ting. Though a mun­dane detail, I thought it sort of sym­bol­ized most of Moroc­can life: sched­ules are less impor­tant, things take more time; instead of stress­ing, peo­ple go some­where and relax and enjoy their com­pany. Mar­wane left pink and zween from his beard being threaded, but lit­tle did I know how zween we were actu­ally about to be.

February 2, 2012 0 comments Read More
“A” Ventura: Rabat Detective">“A” Ventura: Rabat Detective

“A” Ventura: Rabat Detective">“A” Ventura: Rabat Detective

I acci­den­tally told my mom she was an incred­i­ble kitchen instead of an incred­i­ble cook.

Everything’s been going well here. Except for the fact that it gets really cold at night (the build­ings are designed to keep the cold in which appar­ently is a bless­ing dur­ing the sum­mer). Thank­fully, I have a ques­tion­ably sheep­skin blan­ket and tra­di­tional Moroc­can slip­pers called babouche that are embla­zoned with two sabres. Day to day, I’ve been get­ting into my groove, doing Ara­bic and Eng­lish tongue twisters with Lat­ifa, and teach­ing my fam­ily about crockpots.

And in accor­dance with this article’s aspired accom­plish­ments as well as to assure this assignment’s avid and ardent analy­sis with an adept, arranged, and allo­cated ambiance all while avoid­ing appear­ing abecedar­ian, I have adjudged that this assay will abide as an amal­ga­ma­tion of affi­late affairs alone (and ancil­lary adden­dum), all ante­ceded by an A.

January 25, 2012 2 comments Read More
Hey Agdal!

Hey Agdal!

At last. Time to sit down and write. The past week I’ve been in Morocco has been non-stop sen­sory over­load. I’m talk­ing thing-after-thing-after-bread-after-thing-after-exhaustion-after-Arabic-after-being-touristy-after thing. There’s a lot to write about and a lot to tell you all, but there’s not a lot of inter­net nor is there a lot of time, so let’s see how this goes.

Like a brothel but with more women!

Arrival

This was my least favorite part of the trip so far. I arrived at the air­port, disheveled and filled with Swiss egg­plant parme­san, to find another stu­dent on my pro­gram named Sarah who is very funny and reminds me of my friend Rena. That was com­fort­ing, but after being dri­ven by a man bear­ing only a sign read­ing AMIDEAST and speak­ing in what I can only describe as parsel­tongue, we were deposited at a hotel. And I don’t mean just dropped off. I mean straight up deposited. As in no com­mu­ni­ca­tion with any­one save our room­mates until pro­gram­ming the next day… pro­gram­ming which took place at AMIDEAST’s loca­tion in Agdal, which we had to get to our­selves. Some­how. After this cul­ture shock and fend­ing for our­selves, I slowly began meet­ing every­one (all twenty!) and begin­ning ori­en­ta­tion week. I could describe the lat­ter more in detail, but most of it was exhaust­ing and exhaus­tive pro­gram­ming. Let’s just say I’m excited for classes to start. But more on that later.

January 21, 2012 2 comments Read More