Long Time Coming
Trip Start
Oct 23, 2009
1
16
18
Trip End
Nov 21, 2009
Rabat, Morocco
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Apparently the largest demographic of people reading my blog are from England. This means two things. The first being that I need more family members and the second being that I feel a bit better about having only four stars. The Brits are giving me poor star power, not my family.
THURSDAY: This time, instead of summarizing the works of David Sedaris, I will give unto ye an excerpt:
For this to work, you must change: Sang Lee, Mea Lee, Indri, and Claude into Stewart, Miki-Sensei into Hafeetha, and you must also change David into Hannah
Not really children and possible not Dutch
.“It’s not just that I am the worst student in the class, it’s that I’m clearly the worst student in the class, miles behind that former dope, Sang Lee. What makes it that much harder to bear is the teacher’s kindness, which has come to feel like pity. “You can keep your book open,” Miki-sensei told me…
…After dictation we opened our books and read out loud. Mae Lee breezed right along, as did Indri and Claude. Then came my turn. “Who…whose…book…is…”
“This,” Sang Lee whispered.
“Whose book is this?” I continued.
“Good,” the teacher said. “Try the next line.”
I could hear the rest of the class groan…
This is public, and it hurts everyone around me
McDonald's
. Don’t call on David-san, don’t call on David-san, I can hear my classmates thinking.”Welcome to my world. Unfortunately, I find Stewart hard to loathe as he seems to be quite a nice chap making this all the more frustrating. I would like to have Stewart be the enemy and me, the poor, helpless, Arabic disabled student.
There is this grammar concept which seems to be out of my grasp and I clearly do not understand it. Stewart buzzed right on through it and then made sentences after digging into his wealth of knowledge. Hafeetha kept asking me for sentences. Since I didn’t understand whatever it was, it proved as difficult as one could imagine. That was the second time I cried in class. I just get so frustrated and the tears start coming. I managed to keep my tears to a minimum and the sniffling to a dull roar but after class, I wandered far into the garden and had myself a good old-fashioned sob.
In retrospect, I find it a queer thing that I was able to be so sorrowful on that day. I was lying under a lemon tree. I never thought I would ever lie under a lemon tree not to mention the sun had been out
Nancy Ajram
. It seems to be sacrilegious, this sobbing. It is snubbing the sun and challenging that glowing globe of glory to sink behind the clouds for eternity. For middle school students just learning writing terminology, that juicy lil’ tidbit you just read is called “alliteration.” I gave you power and now you must go put it to good use. Use this new found elucidation to elicit exaggerated esteem from your friends and family.
Unfortunately this will raise their expectations for you. When I think more in depth on this topic, I suppose it is better to turn your head from this enticingly embellished enlightenment and to modestly practice monotonous mediocrity like the rest of us. I am pretentious.
Here is a short section on food:
I bought this horrible ananas juice (which has become my favorite juice after banana, “ananas” being pineapple). I suppose I really should have known better than to buy something with the name brand “Joos” but it was so enticingly strange like most of Morocco. Not to mention “Cool” totally rocks and it is along the same vein.
When I was at Label Vie and I picked up some beautiful grapes. They are gloriously round globes of genuine goodness. They were totally worth 14Dh. Foreigners are given a list of what is good and what is not good to eat in Morocco. I have not had street ice cream, but I hope grapes are a-okay
House above some stalls in the souq
. I bit into the first one and there was the unexpected crunch. Seeds. I was totally okay with this. I have done it before. But what struck me a few seconds later is that I am convinced ALL grapes in Morocco have seeds. When a person is here they are not eating modified, mutant produce. Can you imagine? Grapes have seeds. That is how they propagate. Epic. Think on it. When I was buying afore mentioned grapes (and pomegranates, too) a Christmas song came on. In November. In Morocco. It was that song about the holy infant so tender and mild. I am fairly sure it was a horrible rendition by Shania Twain. People here LOVE her. It is so strange the music that is played here. Black Eyed Peas, Shania Twain, reggae, Jason Mraz, and so much other American music. Actually the first two are Canadian so I will simply say music in English.
FRIDAY:
Well it looks like one of the other students here is taking the same flight to Paris that I am. If I understand the internet correctly, if we check in online at practically the same time, we will sit next to each other. It would be nice to have company on the flight.
Some peeps at school
Stewart did not come again. It is really nice to have one-on-one time with Hafeetha even if it gets frustrating occasionally because he is not there to save me by answering when I do not know. It was a good day though. She and I talked about religion and history and I actually understood 85% of it. I was able to respond and ask questions. It was truly amazing. A small victory on my ongoing battle with the large army of Arabic.
I am getting much better at speaking, Zineb understands me and I can explain most of the things I want to say in Arabic. Poor Zineb has to listen to me fumble through Arabic. She is very supportive. I need to ask her if I sound horrible accent-wise. I realize that I have an American accent but hopefully not a such a strong accent that it makes my Arabic hard to decipher. I have heard people speak the equivalent of “grassy-ass” Arabic style. It was mortifying thinking we hail from the same country. “Shoo kraan.”
Then again one of the men in the souq understands me. We are friends. I buy camels from him. I think I will buy a different kind today. I have metal and wood. I am moving on to leather with saddles.
Any way
My second favorite dog
. Mathilda, Bernardo (he is from Brazil), and I went to a book store. It was glorious. I bought some Moroccan cookbooks in English (!). But on a stranger note, I bought a karate book (in Arabic) because inexplicably it had Chuck Norris on the front cover (and Bruce Lee in the back). I also bought an Arabic Agatha Christie in case I ever get good enough to read it. I can find the equivalent in English and stress my mind. I picked one because of the title, “Qta Wast Alhamam.” I thought, because of my limited, functioning Arabic, it could not mean what I thought it did. It does. I was totally right. Zineb translated for me. It means, “The Female Cat in the Middle of the Bathroom.” Maybe to people who have read every Agatha book this will not come as a surprise…but REALLY? I was totally right.
After the bookstore we went the market and then we sauntered over to McDonald's. It was amazing! There are two stories in this one (I think the one in Agdal has three stories), Arabic music videos, and it is super clean. It sounds stupid, but I just wanted some “white-bread” food.
I actually got a cheeseburger (is it strange to anyone that “cheeseburger” has become one word?) but I did not feel as bad as I would in the states. From what I understand, in Morocco, they do give cows a few hormones but the cows are not filled with them. Zineb informed me that the cows are a lot skinnier looking but they are normal. Cows here also are not force fed corn. ALSO, I think all the beef in McDonald's is halal. So my burger was killed humanely. (Killed and humanely… it is like friendly fire.)
After some research, it seems like Morocco is a semi peripheral country (in simplest terms, equal to a second world country). The U.S. is a core country. We are getting dominated in regards to food. Yeah, and Moroccan farmers actually make enough money that they do not have to be subsidized by the government. What is grown is used not tossed. Political commentary. I will refrain after this little blurb ( I just looked up “blurb“ and apparently I am using it wrong so to all ye nay-sayers… I know. Suck it up).
SATURDAY:
Zineb and I met at 12 noon in her room and we headed towards Bab Alahad. I needed to take a stop there in order to find an ATM (or “guiche” as they are called in French”) with a VISA logo so I could make sure my card was returned after I put it in. The first let me check my balance but not take out money. I thought that was quite peculiar considering that I could check my balance over an ocean and a whole continent almost instantaneously but it would not give me dirhams. The second was more obliging and gave forth unto me 1000Dh.
My goal was to take 1000Dh and spend it in a weekend. It was going to be 2000 but that seemed to be too large an amount to dispense of. 1000Dh in this time (maybe in the future this will completely date my blog) is roughly $150. I am happy Zineb was there to help me pick things. Everyone else always says, “Wait, we can find it somewhere else,” or “Are you sure you really want to buy that?” Zineb points to something and asks if I like it and if I nod my head, she begins to haggle ferociously and gets me an amazing price. She helped me dispense of a great amount of currency. (“You are aware that you will be paying for this trip with currency, yes?”)
We spend that chunk of cash in 2 ½ hours. My favorite purchases are a pair of pants and a pretty purse. We bought our stuff and headed home.
I talked to Miss Kayci on Skype. And of course she spilled the beans and told me that she was coming for “Eid Al Shukr.” (“Thanksgiving”) Sniffle. So excited.
RANDOM NOTES:
New sheets: I have clean sheets. I think it is weird that they change my sheets and no one else’s. But to be sure, I am quite grateful. I have learned that the Qalam student’s rooms are cleaned better. Part of me finds this uncomfortable but most of me would prefer to never return home. People wash my sheets for heaven’s sake.
Sam- you’ve got a lot of learning to do before I come back. I have high expectations. You can foresee folding my clothes as well. Then again, I’ll have to re-fold them because I am a little OCD and must have every thing folded the same. But at least you will have washed them.
Alfa Romeo: I am going to dwell a bit more on cars. I have seen many more Alfas. It makes my mind burn a little when I think of the blazing glory that is this car company. They have a quasi-station wagon thing that is really unfortunately though. But one of the guys on Top Gear likes the MiTo so maybe it is awesome. Everyone on Top Gear apparently like Alfas. I was super excited to find out that my favorite people on TV like my favorite car.
I had a taxi driver smile when I pointed one out to Mathilda in passing. Maybe he appreciates fine-tuned, shiny machinery as much as I do. Maybe he mourns his old petit-taxi-blue Fiat and dreams of grey-er (as in Alfa grey) pastures. I think that pure love has a color and that color is the shining grey of amazingly engineered magnificence. But Alfa Romeo is part of the Fiat Group. So is Ferrari.
Old cars: simply a “note-to-self.” This is a Moroccan concept to discuss with my father.
Adjectives: I use an exceedingly large amount of descriptors in my amazingly awesome pieces on non-fiction.
Writing: In the arena of writing, I need to be less hard on myself. Apparently there is one thing in Arabic I excel at. I wish that my best facet of Arabic was speaking but I suppose I could be truly awful and not just self-deprecating. Being so self-deprecating I suppose I will never settle. Every poor character trait has an upside I suppose. (P.S. a reviewer described Sedaris as self-deprecating. True, platonic love.)
2Pac: If anyone wants a 2Pac shirt as a Moroccan souvenir, you should probably let me know as time is running short.
Mama: MOROCCANS HAVE NECK WRINKLES!
Google Chrome: Almost everyone in Morocco uses Chrome. They have taste.
Notebooks: I stop people in the middle of conversations, “Whoa, hold up. That was funny! I need to write it down so I can put it in my blog…” It can get awkward.
EXAMPLES (these are not roommate approved, if you do not have a penchant for the mildly inappropriate you should skip over this section):
Bernardo, “Nancy Ajram looks like a Brazilian transsexual! What? In some parts of Brazil there are a lot of transsexuals and she looks just like them.” Not verbatim but it is close.
Me to Mathilda, “Well, I will be going to F with you. Wow. That sounded horrible!” I was referring to Bloc F where both Mathilda and Zineb live.
Zineb: I stopped her when she told me you can get aspirin in three forms in Morocco. There is an aspirin you can swallow and the woman at the “seyeeladia” (“pharmacy”) must have not understood. There is the effervescent and then there is an aspiring that you can stick up your bum. WHY?!?!?!?! Apparently they use it for babies mostly but some adults take it too. Some adults prefer it. It is the size of a dollar coin! How could that EVER be preferable? There are so many more horrible things that can be said about these but I will refrain from writing them down for my sake. I would be embarrassed to talk about it in such a public forum.
Signing off,Hannah
CORRECTIONS:
The hero of our tale’s book is called, “When You Are Engulfed in Flames” not “When Engulfed in Flames.” I was just trying to make the title shorter, and therefore easier to remember. To be sure, it was easier for me to remember.
Alas, I have found out that Stuart is a Stewart. I creepishly asked just for you, my loyal readers. It is almost as epically sad as finding out that the dude you have been ogling is a lady. This has impacted my life a little.
SHOUT-OUTS:
Zineb: HAPPY 21ST BIRTHDAY!! And thanks for coming to the souq with me. I know that you are not such a big fan.
Did you say you had a maid? Actually did you say “one of the maids?” That just sunk in.
Stewart: Sorry I called you Stuart. At least I was not calling you Steve. There are worse things than Stuart.
Comments
I sense an break through on your Arabic. I too, cried in private after a French lession. I gave a responce to a question. She asked for more. I had given all that I had! The dead space waiting for me to elaborate was horrible. By the way I'm Kelsey's mom.
I never cried in French because I didn't like it. I didn't care. I like Arabic and I just wished it liked me. Love-hate. Mostly hate.
sometimes I cry whether or not it's a subject I like, just because I don't like being bad at stuff...
I took French at CWU. We learned how to ask the waiter for beer. That is probably one of the few classes I didn't care if I was bad at (and I was). Beer. And wine.
That dude in the blue shirt in your peeps-picture...creepishly wholesome looking. You should tell him that. Tell him "Don't smile like a church camp poster boy, you look like an ax murderer!"
And yes, almost every Moroccan I've spoken to has at least one maid. Labor is so cheap here that it's not worth doing your own cooking and cleaning, when you can just hire someone from the southern poverty-stricken areas to do it for you.
P.S. I will send you the name of the strip mall as soon as I can get ahold of Layla.
I second Kelsey *sorry if blue shirt dude is reading this* but its true.
Hannah, you're funny. I barely manage to do my own laundry now and this quarter is considerably easier than next quarter will be :( I actually don't mind doing your laundry if you'll take out the garbage and junk.. I hate that poo *the big kid word was censored.. fascist web site...mutter*
He doesn't quite look like that normally. It seems to be a freak accident.
I disagree, I don't think he looks like an axe murderer. I think he looks like a very zealous, cheesy missionary, which may or may not be worse. Don't let him read this, he'll think you have horrible catty friends.
Sam, you clean the kitchen (cause I hate that), and sweep (cause I hate that too), and spiffy the living room. I'll take out the trash and recycling, clean the bathroom, and vacuum.