Town Mouse, Country Mouse: The Other Side of Life

Perhaps the most original and extreme part of the SIT study abroad experience, the rural stay is also the most intimidating and terrifying—at least to the common, language-limited, introverted American girl. Leading up to the trip, our academic directors had very little detail to offer aside from informing us to be prepared to abandon hopes of running water. After a 3 or 4 hour bus ride, we stopped to meet with some local human development organizations in the town nearest our rural village. Another half hour down the road, we arrived at our new home for the week. Armed with a roll of toilet paper, flashlight, and two water bottles, I disembarked the bus, ready for an experience.

When I came around the otherside of the bus, I met Somaa, my homestay mother and female chief-of-household. For this latter reason, I was paired with another student to provide the family with more money (as they are paid for hosting us). Our house was about a ten minute walk from the central meeting point, which could hardly be considered center since the homes were spread out at varying degrees and distances from the road. Entering into the homestead, I first saw the open courtyard area with a pomegranate tree at the center. To the right was the main room, in which I met my homestay brother’s wife and child, Nadia and Amir. I was surprised to hear the sounds of a television upon entering the room. Apparently, my family was of the wealthier in the community (of course, this depends upon your personal determination of wealth, but here I assume a more Western approach for point). Not only were they among the families selected to have an installed solar panel for electricity (supported by the government), but they also had a television and DVD player. Anyways, my fellow student, Charles, and I met our new family, and while we awaited the arrival of our host brother, Mohammad, for dinner, we played with the baby and rested a bit. No one in our family spoke any language other than Darija, and the dialect itself was more of what our academic director referred to as ‘hillbilly Darija.’ (He can say this because he grew up in this village, and his father, whom we called by his honorary title of Hajj since he has made the pilgrimage, acted as our rural guide). So together, Charles and I managed to slaughter our Fus’ha training in hopes of communication. Our family was quite patient when asking us questions, and though I rarely understood exactly what was said, I was surprised at how much I did comprehend from context clues and other forms of communication. To say the least, this trip was the ultimate test of my language adaptability.

Though I would venture to say the visionaries that came up with the idea of sticking a bunch of American college students in the middle of conservative rural Morocco were not exactly in their right minds, I cannot say it was a terrible idea as far as learning a different lifestyle. These people lived in a self-sustaining, little-to-no-income community and for the most part seemed to be okay with their daily lives. I say okay because we got very different responses from the men and women of the communities when we participated in mediated discussions with each. On our second night in the village, we met at Hajj’s home to have a discussion with the village men. From politics to homelife, both sides of the conversation were quite intrigued by the other. Overall, the people had a surprisingly positive view of America and its lowly inhabitants, though considering the available resources (or lack thereof), this is not entirely surprising. What did prove to be intriguing was how little these people knew of American cultures. Though most of the men could recite a dozen American cities and seemed to be in the know with Bush’s actions, few knew anything about the lifestyles that we take for granted. Question after question compared village life to that which we knew, from religious practices to dating and marriage processes to family values. Do we stay with our family after we marry? Do we pray? Do we take care of our parents when they grow old? Do we pay for our education or do our parents? Do we have development organizations? And what caught me off-guard more than their reactions, was the realization that we had the same answer for every question – it differs. Through anecdotes and personal accounts, we managed to demonstrate most clearly that the American way of life is individualistic and cannot possibly be lumped into one category. For the people in the village, everyone was Muslim, everyone got water from a well, women always moved in with their husband’s family, and families lived together. All in all, the men indicated that they liked village life – they appreciated the forests and clear skies and with the exception of the frustrations of not generating income, seemed pleased with self-sustenance.

On the following day, we departed our families for the day to hike to another community a dozen kilometers away. After lunch there, we met with the women of that village to hear their point of view. Though not as inquisitive as the men, the women showed a profound interest in our lives, as well as a profound disinterest in their own. The picture painted by these women’s words was far more bleak than the idealistic scenery we heard from the men. Most of the responsibility in this type of society lies on the women, as the house is the central focus. From raising the children to cooking all of the meals to looking after the animals, the women kept the community going. Though a few men were able to provide minimal income from the nearby city and some tended to the fields, the women were doing the day-to-day toils. When asked if given the chance to leave the rural life, would they, every woman in the room replied most vehemently ‘yes.’ After returning from this discussion, I had a greater appreciation for my host mother and sister-in-law, for they truly did do all the work while my host brother wandered about.

On the days when we did not have a scheduled activity, Charles and I quickly fell into a routine. Just after sunrise, we ourselves would awake from our beds of mats on the floor of the main room, where Charles, Mohammad, Nadia, Amir, and I all slept. After folding the many blankets and returning them to the floor-to-ceiling stack on the far wall, Somaa would bring in the table from her room, and we would gather for breakfast. On one morning, I arose early to help bake the bread, but I proved quite useless as the dough was already prepared and all that was to be done was shaping the dough and putting it on the skillet. For our morning meal, we would have a large stack of what appeared to be giant pancakes, though they were actually honey and butter-soaked loaves of flat bread. Though appetizing at first, after a loaf or two of this sugary food, I was usually ready to be ill. This is the point where the language barrier would become irritating. According to custom, the guest has to eat and to refuse food when offered is a huge insult. So if you are full and your host offers you more food, you have to take it. Luckily (or so I thought), I had been equipped with a list of words to indicate “I am full.” Among them, ‘barracka’ (meaning blessing), ‘shbet,’(‘full’) and ‘sofee’ (‘finished’). None of these worked with my family. Somaa was the master of guilt trip, and by the end of the week, I knew how much I had to eat to please her (which was about a meal and a half more than I wanted). Because I was a guest in her household, I could not be aggressive about it, and eventually, I adapted (though my extra stomach I now flaunt would beg to differ). After breakfast, we joined Mohammad and our goat-herd neighbors in the fields with the goats. Usually, the guys would just hang out by a few trees while the goats ate the hay they provided. A few times, we walked the goats into the valleys, and we would wander up the hills to explore. Lunch was usually a tagine, with again far too much food for me. After lunch, the family generally just sat around. Most of the chores for the women were finished in the morning. Apparently my family was also one of the less active, as I compared with fellow students later and they seemed to be kept far too busy with fieldwork and craftwork. By the end of the week, Charles and I grew stir crazy and learned how to escape on our own (which was more difficult of a task than I had expected since they followed us everywhere and independence was not easily translated culturally.) Dinner came around sunset and sleep shortly thereafter. For an entire week, I woke and slept according to the sun and for the first time in my stay here in Morocco, I felt well rested – even with sleeping on mats on the ground.

Aside from learning what it is like to live away from society in a homestead with no running water and limited electricity, I found a new sense of beauty, away from the city. Though I was frustrated most of my stay due to cultural boundaries dictated to the women of the area, I thoroughly enjoyed living amidst nature and in cooperation with the earth. Most of all, I returned to Rabat with a new sense of appreciation for my life there, where my family understands me despite language boundaries, where I have some sense of freedom, where I am no longer a guest, where I have begun to feel at home.

Escape to Paradise

We’ve quite a bit of catching up to do. In fact, it has been so long since I composed a thorough entry, I have to reference my journal to remember just where all I have been. I shall start on the 23^rd of October, when I was on the train home from a weekend of escape with friends. To follow that adventure was the end of Ramadan and a little school before it was time to embark upon the most extreme experience to date – a week in a rural village (which is to be covered in the next post for simplicity)

After the fantastic and relaxing weekend in Essaouira with my friends, we decided to take advantage of the first part of our 5-day weekend (for the end of Ramadan) and travel again. To ensure a good time, we went to Asilah, where one of us had already been once before. We crashed at an auberge by the sea that was run by a very friendly gentleman and his family. For just 30Dh a person (roughly 4 USD), we shared a room with couch-like beds. Though not the epitomy of comfort, the auberge was perfectly situated by the sea and far enough away from the medina to be comfortable. Our first night, we broke ftor at a restaurant then went in search of entertainment, which we found in the form of climbing the kasbah walls and enjoying live music in a sketchy café. The next morning, we woke at our leisure then embarked on a several kilometer hike to Paradise Beach. Along the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic, we wandered from paved road to dirt road to meandering footpath and wound up at a vacant stretch of clean beach (or so it appeared from the high slope). When we arrived, we found it not as deserted or clean as we had hoped, but after walking a little ways, we found ourselves a personal sand dune with no trash. After only one nuisance offering to be our guide, we were left to ourselves to play in the sand, practice yoga, and take a chilling dip in the Atlantic – which brings me to a brief tangent –

Everytime I mention the Atlantic, I am certain that most of you are thinking of the quiet seashores of North and South Carolina (perhaps even of Florida), where the waves of about 5 feet (at most) crash on the sandy beaches; however, this Atlantic is far different than the African Atlantic. In parts of Morocco, including the shoreline we hiked to arrive in Paradise, sheer cliffs of several meters drop into the Atlantic, with no beach present at all, while at other parts, the oceans waves roll up to a clear sandbank (such as Paradise), but the waters are far different. The abundance of shells which I always associated with the beach are not present, and the waves at this particular beach broke several meters out. Proportionately, I was swimming in the same part of the surf that was the few inches I floundered in as a small child, but on this side of this vast ocean, the water was 3 to 4 feet several meters away from the actual break of the waves. So point of the tangent: the Atlantic is way cooler here than at home!

For the way home, we tried to hitch a ride with a donkey and cart, but it was full. Eventually we made it to a road where we caught a taxi and went for dinner. The next morning, we again woke to our leisure and eventually headed home as the end of Ramadan was predicted to come soon!

The evening I returned home was my final Ftor, as ‘Aid al-Fitr was the next day. On Tuesday, we all woke around 9:30am and was disappointed to see everyone changing out of their pajamas, as I had hoped for a Christmas-like approach to a festive morning (involving a slow meal in comfy clothes). Instead, everyone adorned their kaftans and traditional wear to receive family in the home. In Fes and Rabat, the women stay inside on the first day of celebration to receive family visitors, while the men make the rounds of the homes of cousins, uncles, brothers, sisters, etc. Because my homestay father is too ill to travel around, we had many family members come throughout the day – which meant LOTS of tea and cookies for me. In general, ‘Aid al-Fitr here in Morocco was less of a celebration than I had expected and what I had heard of from Oman; however, it was a restful and cheerful end to a month of challenge.

After ‘Aid, we returned to school on Thursday and Friday for two more days of class before the rural stay; however, I did not actually make it on Friday due to the worst of illness I have had here. I know I have not kept up on daily basics with most of you, but I have had a general trend of unceasing illness during my entire stay. Contrary to logical thought, I have not had many stomach-related issues, but rather a plague of head colds. On this particular Friday, I was unable to rise out of bed before 1 in the afternoon, at which I managed hitch a taxi to the doctor, which of course was an experience in itself. Aside from worry about an enlarged thyroid (which proved to be okay on the echogram), I was sent home with a few meds and an order to rest. Unfortunately, the next day I had to board a bus for several hours of driving to my rural stay. I did get well (enough).

Dated October 20th

Yesterday morning at 6am, I arrived back in Rabat after taking the “Red-Eye” bus from Essaouira. Our weeklong excursion throughout Southern Morocco took us from last Saturday until Friday morning, after which a few of my friends and I opted to stay in the lovely fishing town of Essaouira for a few extra days. From journeying through the Middle and High Atlas mountains and eating lunch with Barbary Apes to riding a camel into the Sahara desert at sunset to navigating the winding souqs of Marrakesh, this week brought me full circle in the Moroccan experience and could not possibly be recounted in anything less than a small novel – a novella, if you will. Since I have neither the time nor space to attempt such a feat, I challenge you to take me out to coffee when I’m back in the States and ask me about the Southern Excursion. For now, you will have to wait until I can find some decent way of posting photos. I will put a brief outline of what I did, but be forewarned it does not begin to touch on the experience itself.

On Saturday, we boarded our attrociously large tour bus and headed East toward the Atlas Mountains. After about 6 hours in the bus, we arrived in Rissani, a quaint little mountain town in the Middle Atlas Mountains (think Blue Ridge with less trees). While there I actually saw the first deciduous tree in Morocco, which by the by was changing colors and for the first time it felt like Fall. Even in this high elevation, the temperatures were still more like late August in Chapel Hill. We went just outside of Rissani to the cedar forest for lunch, where we were interrupted by some curious Barbary apes. They put on quite a show for us, and provided mild entertainment throughout the afternoon. After a brief rock-climbing exploit to watch the sunset, we rested up for the next day.

According to the schedule, Sunday was to be the big day. After the longest drive of the week (8 full hours), we began to catch sight of sand dunes. We had climbed in elevation into the High Atlas Mountains (according to my south-west friends, it looked very similar to Nevada) and ended up in the Sahara! After checking out the irrigation system (yes, I am still technically ‘in school’), we headed to the auberge where we would be staying the night. On the edge of the desert, our little kasbah (Berber-style architecture made of clay and straw and constructed very similarly to a classic castle style, only smaller) was the perfect resting spot for all 30 of us. As soon as we arrived, we jumped onto camels and marched off to the dunes to see sunset. I RODE A CAMEL IN THE SAHARA DESERT! So that happened. Then we returned for dinner and had the evening free to explore the dunes, which I did, a lot.

The next morning, we said goodbye to our desert home and left for Ouarzazate, the hollywood of Morocco. Such films as the Last Temptation of Christ, The Hills Have Eyes, have been filmed here. Aside from the swanky hotel in which we stayed (with the most amazing shower in Morocco...they are very limited here), I did not see much of the city thanks to typical traveling illness.

On Tuesday, we headed for Marrakesh. The ‘must-see’ tourist spot of Morocco, this hustle bustle city is known for it’s shopping. With specialized souqs for fruits and nuts, leather-working, slippers, bag-making, black-smithing, jewelry, and carpets, the hundreds of hanoots (shops) in the souqs provided prime entertainment and money-spending opportunities. After wandering the souqs for a bit, we began some buying sprees with intense haggling experiences. On Wednesday, we toured a few museums and gardens then wandered the souqs some more to kill time until sunset. After Ftor, we went back out to where musicians, story-tellers, and mystic healers gather crowds and fill the main square with performance circles. To those of you familiar with the Carolina experience, the square was very similar to post-Duke-victory Franklin Street (substituting sober Moroccans for the crazy drunk college students and lanterns for bon-fires, but with similar enthusiasm and of course, the infamous drum circle!). By Thursday morning, I was ready for a rest.

It was love at first sight. Walking into the medina of Essaouira, one cannot avoid noticing the laidback atmosphere as completely opposite of the hectic life in Marrakesh. Throughout the lazy seaside fishing town, the reminders of previous ex-patriate communities lie in the prevalent cafes and galleries. Because of the relatively high rate of tourism in this small town, the local Moroccans hardly gave notice to our presence as we wandered about the white-washed medina. At the port, we watched dozens of blue-painted fishing boats come in from the sea just in time for the fish auction. On the first night there, the group played football (soccer, for you crazy Americans) on the beach until sunset. Though the group was scheduled to leave Friday morning, a few friends and I lingered in the town for a few extra days. We wandered the streets and galleries for all of Friday. At the highest part of the fortified wall, we watched the sun set over the Atlantic. On Saturday, we lounged around from café to café, then ended up on the beach for a nap before sunset. At 10pm, we caught a red-eye bus back to Rabat and on Sunday at 6am, our vacation was over.

A whirlwind tour of all things Morocco led me to my favorite spot in the country (thus far!)

**Addition November 7th, 2006: Sorry to post this so late. I've had it written but have had limited internet access until now. A more recent post to come soon!