Home with the Roommate

Hello Again...It's been awhile.

Last week was another one of work...woo hoo. Can you tell I only have 2 more weeks of classes and that I'm jealous that my friends at Valpo are already in their last week of classes and can see the finish line? Ah well, 17 more days after today so I probably shouldn't complain, especially after my fantastic weekend.

My roommate Narjisse had invited me home awhile ago, but this was the first weekend we could make it work. And it was just lovely. We headed out Friday about noon via grande taxi to Meknes where we caught the train to Rabat (about a 2 1/2 hour ride). She lives in Kinetra which is about 20 minutes by train south of Rabat, but we first met up with her sister Khawla (prounced Khoula) who lives in Rabat and works for the Central Bank of Morocco (sort of like our Federal Reserve).

We had a bit of an adventure upon our arrival. I had meant to grab cash from an ATM in Ifrane, but we left in a rush so as to not miss our train and so I didn't. So, as soon as we got in and were walking towards our meet up place I saw an ATM and I was like perfect! [It always makes me nervous to be traveling without very much cash, just in case!] So, I went over to the ATM, a boy probably about 15 or 16 was sitting a little ways away from the ATM on the ground, but I didn't really think much of it as its pretty common to see people on the streets of Rabat begging or just sitting...so I punch in all my numbers as my roommate chats away and as I'm putting my 1000 dirhams in my purse all the sudden the boy lunges up and grabs my money! I was still holding on to the other end but was so surprised! He was holding on fiercely as my roommate started yelling at him to let go...all three of us were now holding on tightly to my money as we formed this little triangle of holding on to stuff, the money, and yelling at him to get away...as this was going on, another man on the street came up and grabbed the boy and started kicking and hitting him to let go (during this time the boy never responded...my roommate said he was probably high and so was in a bit of an obstinate daze)...he motioned for my roommate and I to let go of the money and soon the boy was on the ground being kicked but still holding tightly to my money has the other man began to pry his fingers off...finally he let go, though not without already having ripped most of the bills and we were all able to step back as he just flopped out on the ground still in his daze. We went into the bank and they taped up my money and off we went leaving the man to talk to the police....it was quite the experience. Luckily, both Narjisse and I were unhurt and I left with all of the money I had withdrawn. Narjisse said the boy was probably Sengalese...its a big problem in Morocco that large numbers of Africans come up through Morocco trying to get to Europe but end up getting stuck and begging in the streets.

Narjisse with my taped up 200 dirhams...

So that was my "almost getting robbed" story...luckily it did not have a lasting effect on the weekend. We met up with Khawla and went around Rabat a bit...seeing this cool old wall/gate, walking through the old kasbah taking pictures and being slightly touristy as Narjisse hadn't been to these places either. It was really nice 1) to be going everywhere by car because you see a place really differently instead of coming in by taxi and just walking to places you know from a guidebook, etc... 2) being with Narjisse and Khawla and being semi-local. I could see the other tourists from Spain, France, England or eslewhere and see them just standing out so much and I could blend in a bit more by being with them. Plus, it was nice to see that my touristy experiences haven't been too out of the ordinary...the grande taxi driver still tried to rip us off, we still took tons of picutres and asked for directions, the guys still made comments at us...this time I had two people with me though that could translate and we could all laugh together! :-)

After awhile in Rabat, we drove towards Kinetra on the freeway and arrived at our home just in time for a lovely dinner with her other sister Abir and her parents. They of course stuffed me and while weren't too pushy about filling my plate again and again, clearly wanted to make their hospitality known. Her parents don't speak English, but even they could understand some of what I was saying. Khawla and Narjisse speak really good English and even her sister Abir could communicate with me well, so I was pretty spoiled for the weekend. Narjisse acted as an amazing translator...I'm so proud of her with her English!

Her sister and I hung out a bit that evening and then went to sleep...got up the next morning by her mother's orders to come down to breakfast where there was a delicious spread awaiting. Then, Narjisse, Abir, Khawla and I headed out to see a bit of Kinetra. We saw this really cool old castle that protected Kinetra centuries ago...Narjisse and I have a plan now to marry rich husbands who will renovate it so we can live in it someday. :-) It was very cool and had an amazing view of the beach and the water...ah, the Atlantic. We explored a bit as our guide took us around, again with the girls translating for me. Then we went down to the beach, felt the sand in our toes and the cold water of the ocean, then dropped by the supermarket near their house (very much like a Walmart Superstore with grocery included) picked up a cake for the family and then headed back for lunch.

Lunch was a huge meal with her family and her aunt and uncle and their two girls. It was in this formal dining room which was beautiful...we started out with artichokes and melon, then they brought out bread and vegetables and salad, and then a HUGE platter with a fish surrounded by lots of yummy vegetables (the vegetables at AUI suck, so I love any occasion where I get healthy food). I was stuffed by the end and then they brought out this amazing cake her aunt made and fruit. Followed by coffeee! Oy! It was delicious.

Narjisse, Me and her family (and aunts and uncles) after lunch...my camera took to long to take the picture so i look slightly bizarre. Oh well.

Everyone hung out a while and then her father took Abir, Narjisse, I and one of Narjisse' friends Ichraq to the nature reserve in Kinetra called the Centre National D'Education Environmentale...basically where all of these birds migrate from Europe and make a rest stop in Kinetra before heading down to sub Saharan Africa. Pretty cool, eh? It was very beautiful and reminded me a bit of home with the lush trees and lake and such. Narjisse's father got us in to see the center even though it was closed ("She came from America to see!") and it was cool to see the exhibits they had set up for visitng school kids and such and then to see the birds.

Back for a snack, her mom/their maid made harsha just for me (my favorite breakfast food, sort of like cornbread except not) which was delicious. Then we ran some errands, came back for a quick supper of spaghetti and chilled for the evening. When I went up for bed that night I found a beautiful kaftan waiting for me...one of the traditional dresses here in Morocco. I was so touched, her family was so utterly sweet to me!

Narjisse and I got up the next morning and jumped on the train to Rabat, again met up with her sister and saw a few more of the sights. We saw Hassan Tower (a mosque that was never finished but would have been HUGE) and the Masueloeum of Mohammad V and grabbed some lunch at the mall before jumping back on the train for our trek home. Blah. I think the worst part of traveling is coming back home...train to taxi to Ifrane. Neither Narjisse and I were particularly happy to be back to cold Ifrane after sunny beatuiful Rabat and Kinetra...but alas.

So it was a wonderful weekend, though if anything I was perhaps a tinge more homesick as it was so nice to be in a family house again and to be welcomed so hospitably. As soon as we got back I rushed off to go be a part of the student-led service for church which was somewhat scattered as is the nature of those things, but turned out pretty well overall. We made these little books with our favorite scriptures and quotes that went along with the lectionary's theme of God the Good Shepherd and the whole congregation absolutely loved them! So that was exciting.

Now, I'm sort of back in the grind of things. Tomorrow is Moroccan Labor Day so we have a pretty broken up week, which is lovely because that means I only have 3 days of class...but today has been pretty blah. I'm ready to go home and all my classes have reached that frustrating point of no one wanting to be there. Yesterday in Middle East Politics we debated the Arab-Israeli conflict for about a half in hour which is sort of hopeless...as well I'm getting kind of tired of the dynamics between teh international students here. They're lovely people, but I think we're reaching the end of the rope so to speak...I almost hurled one of them through the window yesterday, so I've taken most of the evening to just chill by myself. Narjisse and I watched Cheaper by the Dozen on tv so that was fun! :-)

But now only 17 more days...2 papers, 1 presentation (this Thursday in Arabic so keep me in your prayers), 3 finals, and one huge packing ordeal to go. This weekend is the beach retreat with church which should be lovely and then after that, we may have one last intl. student hoorah before we go, but we'll see. I may just study and get ready to come home!

Until then....God's peace.

A taste of Fez

Want a taste of what Fez is like?

http://travel.nytimes.com//2007/04/08/travel/08Fez.html

April in Indiana...I mean Morocco

So, it's been a while since my last post...

The past two weeks have been largely like April back home. I've finished two 10+ papers (on How International Law affects Truth Commissions and the Effect of Globalization on Sub-Saharan Africa, if you care), a position paper for a UN Conference Simulation on how to deal with the current Iraq Crisis, a draft of my final Arabic presentation, and rushed around getting my homework done. Additionally, it has seemed very familiar as every day it seems we wake up to more rain and fog...one aspect of Val-pour-rain-and-snow that I was hoping to leave behind for a spring.

Not a whole lot else to report...I made one last trip to Fez last weekend which was enjoyable. It's a very cool city. And now looking at 3.5 more weeks here in Morocco...I'm looking forward to being home but also thankful for the last couple weeks here and the experiences they hold. Although, I could do without the 3 more papers, Arabic presentation, regular homework, and 3 finals...

My thoughts are with all the students and faculty at Virginia Tech and the families and friends of those killed on Monday...

Easter Sunday

Sunrise on Easter Sunday in Ifrane.

He is Risen Indeed! Halleluia!

Beautiful Easter Day here in Morocco...complete with a sunrise service and yummy breakfast with the AUI Christian community and then back home to change into our Easter skirts and dresses for a lovely Easter Service, lunch, and fun hiding the Easter eggs with the other international students for the church kids!

I hope your Easter day was blessed wherever you were!

Be Aware

Hey...a few things that have caught my attention in recent days:

"Even as Africa Hungers, Policy Slows Delivery of U.S. Food Aid"
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/07/world/africa/07zambia.html?hp
I think its time for some letters to Congress people...

Also, in reading up for a paper on economic development in Africa, I again became aware of the issue of blood diamonds and multi-national companies effect on the developing world. This is a really great article from Dollars and Sense magazine: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Africa/Continent_Crisis.html

For more info, watch the movie that came out last fall Blood Diamonds, or check out these links: http://pcrproject.com/blog/2007/03/03/the-war-over-diamonds/
http://www.time.com/time/2007/diamond/

Peace!

Maunday Thursday

I realized recently in one of my e-mail correspondences that I've been in a different place every year for Lent, Holy Week and Easter (ah, the love of a student) for much of my recent past.

Three years ago I was a senior in high school celebrating Holy Walk with my family at home in Indianapolis...two years ago I was in Valpo in the beautiful Chapel of the Resurrection for Easter morning complete with balloons...last year I was in DC going to Resurrection Lutheran with dear Karen Kunze...and now I'm in Morocco. It makes for a somewhat jumbled sense of tradition for Lent, as the past four years have brough at lot of different experiences during this season (dealing with senioritis and worrying about college, being a freshman at VU, interning and living in DC) and a lot of different traditions for celebrating Holy Week depending on which community I've been in. However, though sometimes I feel like I haven't really learned to really celebrate Lent as well as I should, there is a sense of beauty of having bits and pieces of all those places, communities, and traditions with me as we enter the weekend of Maunday Thursday, Good Friday, and finally Easter.

This evening, the AUI Christian community gathered for a lovely Seder meal and footwashing service that really brought back into the present in terms of experiencing the end of this Lenten season and moving toward Easter.

There's a real beauty in celebrating a Seder meal on Maunday Thursday because it reinvokes the Jewish tradition of celebrating passover and allows us as Christians to sort of reexperience the Last Supper in a way we usually can't because we've lost the knowledge and traditions of Judaism. But tonight I just found it very powerful to hear the passover story through the tastes and textures of the wine, bitter herbs, matzah, and egg...and powerfully startling to be reminded how shocking Jesus' words and actions would have been that night so long ago...pronouncing the bread of affliction as the bread of life, the last cup of wine as the cup of the new covenant, and then getting down on the floor to wash his disciples feet...

This was an especially powerful moment for me; after our Pastor Karen had just finished talking about how shocking it would have been for the disciples to have their master kneel before them to wash their feet, how it simply was not done (which has special resonance for me here in Morocco because i'm much more aware here than I am at home, of the actions and words that are simply not cultural acceptable or even thought of)...which was a real reminder of how powerful that action was, and how much that simple action has really affected our tradition. So, it was even more beautiful a few moments later when I watched as Amy, a cute 5-year old with bright blonde ringlets, excitedly knelt on the floor to wash her mother's feet, beaming with delight. To her it was most certainly not a faux pas, but a natural and fun thing to do! For Amy, there were no boundaries and certainly no wariness about taking off her shoes and having someone else wash her feet.

That dichotomy was just really cool to think about, how Jesus' washing of his disciples feet was really the highest service and honor and yet showing love in a natural, childlike way. It's like when we wash each other's feet we cannot but realize each other's humanity and vulnerability, we cannot act without some love and compassion...at least I'd like to think so.

The whole evening was just a very hospitable, warm service with the Seder meal in the middle and certainly a beautiful collection of random wanderers amidst Morocco...African students visiting for an intervarsity conference...AUI professors and students and their families...workers at the local Christian orphanages...outside the warm little room few people even know that its Holy Week here (which seems a far cry from growing up as a PK during which it seemed like spring break always seemed to revolved around church and holy week) and few know the tradition of Easter. And certainly, even the traditions of celebrating Holy Week differ a lot within our little ecumenical community (complete with Catholics, non-denominational Christians, Methodists, Mennonites, Baptists, Orthodox..), although luckily for me feels very much like home...a jumble of traditions, songs, and people (just like the past few years) but with the same base of scripture, reverence for God, and an earnest attempt at finding the meaning within our traditions.

God is very much in this place.

Exotic Touristy Marrakech

Virtually since we arrived in Morocco people (Moroccans and non-Moroccans alike) have always asked us, "Have you been to Marrakech, yet?"

It's basically like the Florida or LA of Morocco. Warm, full of tourists -Moroccan and foreign alike-, plenty of shopping, hotels, clubs, etc.

So, in honor of Mohammad's 147th birthday (aka in honor of having a 3 day weekend to endure the 7+ hour train ride both ways) a bunch of us headed south...well first north to Casablanca on the train and then south (don't try to figure out the logic of Moroccan trains, it just won't be pretty) to Marrakech this past weekend!

We arrived after a stifling train ride (7 hours in a 2nd class train with little air flow at every stop...just not fun) and got checked into our hotel, the Ibis Moussafir which was basically the Ritz in our eyes. The rooms were clean, the tv worked and even had BBC World in English, the bathroom was downright SPARKLING with little shampoo/conditioner packets on the sink, and some of the rooms even had (wait for it, wait for it) an extra toilet paper roll! Now granted, it was about on par with your basic Holiday Inn room in the states, but it for us students...AMAZING! We stay at the cheap, basic hotels (a bit above the Motel 6 types in the states) around Morocco...and well, they work but you certainly leave feeling a bit dirty. Often because you don't dare go in the showers! Needless to say, waking up to a clean roomy shower was the most amazing way to start Saturday!

Saturday we then checked out of our Ritz...post-Spring break we're all eager to save our dirhams and so we found a different hotel that cost us less than our one night at the Ibis for our two remaining nights! Granted even the Ibis was the equivalent of about $30 per night...lol.

Saturday, we explored the famous square of Jemaa El-Fna where there were women doing henna, guys carrying around snakes with their mouths superglued shut, men selling AMAZING fresh orange juice for 3 dirhams per class (about 25 cents), and plenty of beggars or people wanting to sell you one thing or another. El-Fna opens up into the souks... which are a tourist and merchants paradise...tourists get a taste of all the fun Moroccan medina stuff - the bedazzled shoes, tea sets, rugs, baskets, jewelry, touristy t-shirts, scarves, jalabas, etc. The merchants get to charge insanely high prices for the unknowing tourists who 1) may not know to bargain or 2) may not know what to bargain down too. Thus they weren't too happy when we students come in and scoff at their prices after being here a few months, say we live in Ifrane and study at Al Akhawayn, and bargain like Berbers. Ha ha...I went down a whole row of scarf shops before I got 5 scarves for 120 dirhams! It was a fun time...

Beyond shopping, the rest of the weekend included going to the biggest night club in Africa! Saturday night with the girls, going to the Menara gardens (where it is said that the Almohad sultans would come to the Menara pavilion for their illicit affairs and then would throw their concubines into the lakes the morning after), eating at Pizza Hut (yay for Supreme pizza with fake-but-yummy pepporoni), playing spoons in our sketchy hotel, and seeing the King!

As we were making our way to Pizza Hut from our hotel Sunday afternoon we notice that there were crowds of people out on the sidewalks behind gates and were like "Shnoo?" (What in Arabic)...we slowly figured out we might have a king sighting (since he was in Marrakech for the holiday), so we took up shop right across from the koutobia (famous mosque in Marrakech)...and waited...and waited. We watched the military police come out and choose random posts around the crowds and walk seemingly aimlessly around. The rolled out carpets in preparation...it started raining so they rerolled them. Janiters came out to brush the rain out of the gutters that the king would step over. And still we waited. Out came a bunch of men in red uniforms with cream colored jalaba capes and blue hats...men in suits kept walking around and greeting one another...security men talked on their walkie talkies...streets were blocked off. And still we waited. Finally more military police came whizzing down the street and soon we had our own police officer who came over and nonchalantly talked to us (he knew English surprisingly) about Marrakech and the coming arrival of the king. And still we waited. He assured us that the King would come soon.

And then...it happened! Down came a fancy smancy car with the king standing up through the sun roough in a white jalaba and red fez type hat (without the tassle) waving to the crowds. Surrounding his car and behind for about 200 feet were cars upon cars upon cars in his entourage! It was crazy! All arriving at the koutabia for afternoon prayer and some type of ceremony I believe.

It was really great. And totally made my day...okay I lied, it totally made my trip to Morocco...to see King Mohammad VI (or M6 as we affectionately call him) in person just across the street! Sadly, no one was allowed to take pictures as it is illegal. Silly security state. But it was very cool nonetheless. And we were excited that we randomly came out just in time as when he was in Ifrane a month or so ago he didn't make any public appearances so we didn't get to see him.

Ah, good times had by all in Marrakech.

And then we endured the 7+ hour train ride home, no less painful. Grabbed a taxi from Meknes and back again to Ifrane. To the ever-awaiting homework and Holy Week.

Henna Night

My friend Cassie and I from Henna night...pretty sweet, eh?