Study Abroad: Part 14 [Morocco in Bits and Pieces]

You know that information packet that you get during orientation week? Or the lectures that people give you about safety?  Well, they almost always say that you'll get sick, be careful drinking the water, watch out for the raw fruits and veggies until your stomach gets used to the local bacteria.  I probably should have listened, but to be honest, I think I got sick from eating meat in Morocco.  My host family used their home remedies to look after me: lemon slices and vinegar in a towel on my hair to get rid of my temperature, a magic powder pill known by the medical name Doliprane to help with cramps and pains, and peeled apples to settle my stomach.

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She pours water into the teapot, a tall, elegant and steely teapot.  Four scoops of black tea, two blocks of sugar.  Sometimes fresh mint leaves.  Boil.  It's some sort of weird, bizarre recipe she knows from touch.  And habit.  The teapot goes inside the wooden counter, the gallon container of sugar under the tiled sink, and the black tea beside the plastic container of tumeric, but on the left of the ground ginger.

 

The key to lighting the gas stove is to turn on the gas, touch the lighter to the metal ring, and FLICK, right before YANKING your hand away.  She's quick, but sometimes, she'll grimace because her skin's a little too red from being a little too slow.

 

My host cousin makes good mint tea, but my host mama makes damn good mint tea.

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The first time I wake up on the couch/bed/sofa, I want to giggle.  Not because it's a soft, comfortable king bed.  Not because my back isn't sore (yet).  Not because I'm able to completely stretch out, but because it's irrefutable proof that I'm actually doing this crazy study-abroad-in-Morocco. 

 

Yes, I've been here for a week, and yes, I'm pretty sure that if this were a dream, the time I've spent in this dream would be proof that I'm probably lying in a coma somewhere.  But, point being, I'm accepting that I'm in Morocco, after orientation, and somehow enjoying this weird couch/bed/sofa.

 

Until a week later, when my back finally cracks in face-grimacing-but-it-feels-so-good-agony once I stand up.

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The funny thing the call to prayer is how used I've gotten to it.  At first, I was excited to hear it, because there's almost something... magical? mystical? about religious summons, like church bells or the steady clack of prayer beads. 

 

And then it became routine.  And it's a little irritating when I wake up around 5am, to the sound of "Allah ahkbar" streaming through my window.  Still, it's comforting in a way.

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I finally crack.  Three, nearly four weeks in, I want a grilled cheese.  Or mac and cheese.  Even the words Starbucks and Americano sound like heaven.  I want my crappy TV screen, or at least, high-speed working internet.  I want to go back to my apartment, go back to being a vegetarian and, most importantly, go back to seeing my friends daily.

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It's official.  I have no idea what I'm doing.  I'm sitting with the other students in my program, about to pair up with a Moroccan journalism student for our independent study project.  We're sitting in a circle, introducing ourselves and our ideas for projects.  We're halfway through, and I'm grasping at straws, when it's my turn.  I mumble, ramble and somehow finish on "Um, so yeah... That's it."  What has happened to my eloquence? To my ability to at least sound somewhat organized?  Oh, that's right... I kinda left it in the States, along with my ability to stop gawking.

 

And then, I'm smiling at Imane, who likes my idea, but it's not quite what she wants to do, and I like her idea, but it's not quite what I want to do.  And we start talking about economics, mental health, Halloween masquerades.  Even if we don't end up as partners, I'd love to stay friends with her.

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I stare as she wraps once, twice and three times.  It never ceases to amaze me how my host cousin's head scarf can LITERALLY change who she is.  It's not that I look at her with her head scarf and suddenly see 'Muslim Woman' like it's a label across her head.  It's that she somehow becomes something more awe-inspiring.

 

She's funny and silly and I absolutely adore her.  When she has her short ponytail uncovered, she seems to just...bounce around.  She never stops being in motion, but she never rushes.  She just is in one spot, and then another.

 

But when she wraps once, twice and three times, she changes.  She steadily pins her scarf, but sometimes, she'll still prick herself with the pins.  She outlines her eyes in kohl without looking at a mirror because she knows how to do it exactly from touch. 

 

And when she looks at me, she seems so stately, elegant and poised, that I feel like I need to look back. 

 

 

Study Abroad: Part 3

I'm unusual, not simply because I live in the United States, or because I am a woman attending a college institution.  I am unusual, because I am Chinese and in Morocco.

Prior to arriving, I was worried.  I had been advised, warned, and generally frightened with anecdotes, that as a woman visiting an Arabic country, I would have to be careful about my safety.  I was warned that showing an inch of skin would be seen as an invitation to be harassed, that leaving my thick hair uncovered would draw attention.  I came to the conclusion that I would carry the words "Canadian-American" stamped across my forehead, a visible sign to anyone that I was not a local, and a sign that I was one of those "easy" girls.

I sat on a plane, next to a Caucasian girl, and an African-American guy.  I landed on the tarmac of Rabat-Sale.  I arrived in Morocco. While other people walked through customs, I was forced to wait, while the guards asked "Jackie Chan" repeatedly, and had my belongings checked.

From the first day, I drew looks, heard catcalls and was followed.  I could not understand why, until my program coordinator explained that there is an extreme fascination with the Asian culture.  Television broadcasts Hollywood films and videos, there are plenty of Caucasians in the medina (the vacationing French, an occasional German), but there is little interaction with Asians.

A friend mentioned, "Walking with you is another experience!"  And it's true.  Despite being with two All-American blonde and beautiful girls, I was, and am, repeatedly singled out.  Usually, it's benign: a guy saying that I'm beautiful and charming.  Once, it even resulted in a marriage proposal.

To be honest though, this outpouring of verbal taunts or admiration is highly cultural.  In Morocco, most couples will not interact: girls tend to stay with girls and guys with guys.  Additionally, there is still a highly traditional view that a woman's place is in the home (harkening back to kinder, kirchen, kurchen, or children, kitchen, church), while the man's world is everywhere else. As a result, when a woman enters the man's world, there is a cultural view that the woman is disrupting the man's order.

But before you freak out and start thinking that you need to mail me pepper spray, or send a stun gun by express, let me say something: the verbal never becomes physical.  In the United States, I am probably more likely to be in danger.  A man can just attack me after verbally harassing me, or even without that warning.  In Morocco, though, it's different.  If the man follows me, but I continue to ignore him, he'll stop.  He will NEVER cross that physical line.  And in the worst case scenario, I'll find an old woman, or a group of women, who will come together to scream Schouma at him (think of it as getting scolded by your grandmother, but far worse, since your honor is being called into question).

I won't say that getting harassed is fantastic, but there is something comforting about this.  I KNOW that a man CANNOT cross that physical line, and since the verbal wooing isn't crass, it isn't something that I take to heart.  It is, after all, cultural.

 

Shudder

There is something

S (upernatural)
A (ttractive)
T (empting)
I (nsistent)
S (tupefying)
F (ascinating)
Y (earnful)
I (nviting)
N (onsensical)
G (ratifying and overwhelming)
about gliding
one
finger down to
watch
the ripples spread,
like series of waves that CRASH
over you,
make you feel
like
drowning.
Twist your head slightly,
O-o-open
your mouth,
only to let your skin
vibrate
as skin rubs
against
skin.
He whispers
to you
"Let go."
And you can only let
the waves
rise up
and
capsize both of you,
dragging you down
in some siren-song,
curled up in a desperate embrace.
It is
S (udden)
U (nbelievable)
B (reathtaking)
L (iberating)
I (ntense)
M (agical)
E (verything he can give you for right now).

"The Kiss" by Gustav Klimt

Sepia Tones

I bought a box the other day. Not just any box, but a faded cardboard box covered in modge-podge and lace, a modge-podge covered box filled with photographs, photographs faded and done-up in old black-and-white, contrasting shades mellowed out by sepia tones.

I don't quite remember why I bought it, or who I bought it for. I do remember looking through it, pausing at this bundle of glossy paper. There was one that just made me stop and stare. It was a woman, dressed up, standing in front of a microphone. Thin hands for a figure that fills the picture are loosely wrapped around the stand. Her lips are dark black in the color, parted as if she's just finished a line in a song, and her eyes are drawn upward and off, towards a person who isn't in the photograph. She's wearing sensible heels, sturdy soles and thick clasps.

Somehow, I feel a strong connection to this woman who I don't even know. I want to know her story, want to know where she was, why the back of the photo says "Ruth. December", who she's thinking of and why she's in ten other photographs, looking sadder and sadder as I flip through. Who was this dark-haired woman, what is this proof that one Christmas season so many years ago, she sang a song for a man who wasn't even there?

The last picture makes my heart clench and my eyes tear a little. She's in the background, watching a couple dancing. The couple is both strikingly beautiful, the type of All-American look that comes from being born with it. The man's wearing a hat, suspenders and long black-blue-maybe-charcoal pants. His shoes are far too clean, scuff marks all dressed up and only the gleam of the camera's flash let's you know that he was wearing shoes. The woman's eyes are staring at his and she's laughing, her skirt flying back, kicked up as he seems to pull her up out of a dip. Her hair's longer, pulled up in a ponytail, with a scarf hanging off the end.

And suddenly, I understand. Ruth's the one on the outside, wanting in. She fell in love with this man: James, Eric, Andrew, whoever. But he fell in love with this girl: Susie, Elle, Kathy. Her name's far too bright, new, fast-paced and her character's even shinier than Ruth can keep up with. Ruth's tradition, formal dresses, glasses of wine and perfect etiquette. This other girl, she's fast cars, cigarettes, the new glamour of Hollywood and neon lights.

Image courtesy of Liverpool Museum