Les Classes

My first week of classes was exhausting. I am taking five classes and gallivanting with friends at night. I know that after this week, I will make some adjustments to my schedule, but it was a entertaining week nonetheless.

Monday morning, I had my first Modern Standard Arabic class. It feels like a review for me at this point, but the work will catch up with me. I am still learning arbitrary phrases for my Darija class. I can ask questions but I won’t understand any of the answers. I like the irony. On Tuesday, I had my Islam, Gender and Society class. I am in love with it already. It will probably feed the ideas of this blog because I don’t want to keep summarizing my days here.
I also switched French classes during the week, since at first I was taking an “advanced” course, but it felt like I was in high school again. Now I am taking a French literature class and learning about Moroccan history and culture through novels. And the grand finale for the week is my three hour long Islam and the West history course. It’s going to be a fantastic semester. I promise I’m not being sarcastic.

Both my history and women’s studies professors are kind of famous and know every well-known person in Morocco you can think of. My history professor is an established academic and he’s lived in Tunisia, Morocco and spent time in other places around North Africa and the Arab world. He reminds me of my high school history teacher because he is just as witty, sincere, and good at telling stories.

He told us that water is more expensive than oil here because a Spanish company controls the water and electricity. That’s why some of our families limited our shower time to two or three times a week. I once asked my host mom permission to take a shower and she told me that this is my home and I shouldn’t have to ask to take a shower. Then I mentioned how Amideast advised me to be conscientious and courteous when it comes to shower taking. She then laughed and told me not to worry about it, that there are some families who make a big deal out of banal things. I still ask anyway, just in case.

We spent the whole class telling stories. One of my friends told us about this one day when she was carrying around her host brother’s baby during a family outing and people on the street kept touching the baby and kissing it. Apparently that’s very normal. People like physical contact as a form of communication. Every time I come home, we all exchange kisses and hugs. Jihan and Fatine do the same with their friends and even with people they don’t know, but so does everyone.

Most young people smoke and speak French, because it’s the cool thing to do. They also rave about House music and American Hip Hop. My host sisters listen to Usher, Aaliyah, and TLC. Sadly, the American students who learned FusHa (Egyptian Arabic) can’t use it here because hardly anyone understands it. French is necessary here.

I can’t remember which events happened on what days, so I’ll ramble a bit about this past week (I know, I already started doing that). My Moroccan mom keeps insisting I invite my friends over for ftour one day. I told her that I have 28 American friends here and everyone in the room gasped. “Maybe you can invite 10 the first day, 10 the next, and then 8 more,” she said. Of course, I’m going to try to make it as easy as possible for her, but I’m just grateful for her sweetness. She even thinks the hair on my arms is cute. I definitely think I have the best situation possible.

Another interesting thing about family time is that there often seems to be about eight boisterous women and one uncomfortable man sitting in our living room for ftour. My family is very social and constantly has guests over. The guests are fascinated with me too. They try to figure out where I’m from and keep saying “Zweena! Zweena!” the word for pretty.

There’s also this man Berja who has a symbiotic relationship with my host mom. He cleans her car and watches over it at night, and she feeds him and gives him money every morning for his help. He always has a huge grin on his face and remembered my name right away. When we’re trying to find a parking spot on their street, he comes running over to remove the little gate that marks our spot.

Since their apartment sits over a restaurant in the city, we have to walk past the costumers of Monsieur Brochette when we come home each night. They’re all middle-aged men interested in watching the street life and talking. Moroccans like to stare in general.

(Some completely unrelated side note: I keep seeing the same lanky Moroccan man with glasses everywhere. All he needs is a red and white striped shirt and a hat. I’m very intrigued by this.)

One day I decided that it would be best to take a taxi instead of asking Jihane to drive me around. They kept insisting I do that, but I don’t want them to think they have to wait on me. And some really good stories come from taxi experiences. I got to the taxi corner and asked if someone could take me to “Macdonald’s, Adgal,” if I told them I needed to go to Amideast, they wouldn't know what I was talking about and if I gave them a street name, they'd be even more lost. So I told them the nearest landmark, which I hadn't stepped foot in yet. The taxi drivers sitting on the corner just smiled and told me to take one of their cars. They seemed to get a kick out of my confusion. “Monte!” He opened the door on the driver’s side for me. I kept telling him, no I can't drive, I don't have an international license. Finally he gave up on teasing me, and took me to school.

It seems we go out almost every night with Fatine and Jihane’s friends. We hop around from café to café, but one night they took me somewhere completely different. They took me to MacDonald’s. “Do you like MacDonald’s?” They asked me in their thick French accents. I told them that in the United States, it’s mostly fat people that frequent MacDonald’s and that I wasn’t the biggest fan of their food. But of course, MacDonald’s has its own flavour everywhere. Morocco is the only place in the world that sells the McArabia. I have yet to try this exotic and mysterious sandwich. Even its name makes it sound luscious.

When we got to MacDonald’s, I was hit by a flashback of all the nights I went to MacDonald’s in Pakistan. Yes, people dress up to go out to MacDonald’s here. In fact, they even attend wedding parties at MacDonald’s. We strolled up to the entrance of the restaurant and there was a traditional wedding swing sitting outside and a band playing funky music. We had to wait for an hour it seemed, just to order some food. And people were sitting with their significant others as if it was some fine dining experience, but it looks like a regular old McDonald's. "La classe maximum," as they say here.

On Thursday night, we celebrated Afshan’s birthday at T.G.I.F’s. She’s a close friend of mine from outside Philadelphia and we always speak in Indian accents to each other. This time we actually got to try American food and boy, were we homesick for it. Moroccan food is amazing, but the thing is we have a lot of the same things every night for ftour. It was nice to have some variety and the waitresses at T.G.I.F. were incredibly nice.

I told my family that T.G.I.F. means Thank God It’s Friday, but I explained it to them in French and they repeated over and over in English and Darija. They were in cahoots over it. My host sister even made it her status on Facebook. I guess they had a hard time believing it’s an all-American restaurant because Friday is the holy day for Muslims and they asked me if it’s a Muslim restaurant, but I explained to them Friday is just the day our weekend starts.

That night we also had a dance séance because my sister refuses to go out with her friends without me. First we went out to get some escargot from a vendor on the street. Little kids were gathered around ooing and ahing at the buckets of snails on the table. We got back home and Jihane switched on some Hip Hop. She showed me some sweet moves then her aunt and mom slipped in and danced their bellies off. We’re planning to have a bigger séance next time with some of my friends too.

The late nights and early mornings sort of blur for me because I usually go to bed late and wake up early to eat sahour. I discovered that there’s actually a cannon that shoots off each morning to wake people up for sahour. I was startled by it one night and Jihane burst out laughing then explained it to me. Another night, Jihane was standing over me laughing hysterically because I was talking in my sleep. I woke up, but I couldn’t figure out what was going on. She told me the next day that I was gurgling and mumbling random things. I never knew I was that crazy. Now I guess it’s confirmed.

Friday was a day of firsts. After school, my host family took me to the hammam, or the traditional Moroccan bath. It was simultaneously the coolest and strangest experience I think I’ve ever had. It was like we were packing to go to the beach for the day. We brought towels, extra clothing, sandals, and a “slip” (underwear) to wear at the hammam.

Many Moroccans feel that the best place to get clean is the hammam, so they go there at least once a week. There is a very specific process to taking a bath at a hammam too. First you soap up, then a woman comes over and scrubs your body with a rough glove (she peels a whole layer of your skin off) next you soap up again and go through some of the steps several times. The bath is like a sauna, so I had to leave it several times to breathe in some cool air. I was told not to get a massage there. Apparently they pounce on your back because that feels best.
My experience was interesting, to say the least. We were there for two hours, just until ftour and I couldn’t understand anything anyone was saying because most of the time women were speaking to me in Darija and the room echoed.

Friday was also the first day I had authentic Moroccan couscous from a tagine. That meal was made for a king and unfortunately I had this intense cankersore on my mouth, otherwise I would’ve eaten a lot more than I actually did. Early this week, their cousin in Los Angeles told me that grandma was complaining about me eating so little. She asked me if I would like them to make some biryani or some extremely spicy food. I just told her that I’ve been eating more than I do at home and maybe it’s not as much as most Moroccans during Ramadan.

That night Jihane’s friends were occupied with other people for the first time. So I called some of my friends and we all had a good time together playing pool and foosball. The hot chocolate soothed our tender throats and calmed us down after a long week. I also got another marriage proposal, but I told him I was already married to some other Moroccan.