UCLA Fulbright-Hays GPA in Morocco

Sub-Saharan Migration

2011-08-06T23:25:00.000-07:00

While in Rabat, I met a young Senegalese teen that was selling hand made wooden items on the street near the medina. Having bought a small mask the day before from him, I came back to see if there was another item that I would be interested in buying.I talked with this young man for nearly 30 minutes and learned alot about how he came to be in Mocorro. He said that he was from Senegal, and that

Art in Rabat

2011-08-06T12:21:00.000-07:00

I am back in Rabat for the second half of Arabic lessons. I had the opportunity to visit an artist's row next the park which had a rap concert going on. In speaking with the artists, they informed me that this area was designed only for visual artists. This give artists an opportunity to showcase, sell their paintings and interact with the community. What amazed me was the quality of

Impact of tourism

2011-08-04T11:15:00.000-07:00

Tourism is an important source of income and employment in Morocco, but it comes with a number of challenges. For example:Water is a scarce resource in Morocco, and tourists use a lot of it when they stay in hotels and swim in pools--and especially when they go golfing. A single 18-hole golf course requires 3500 m/day of water, which is 3.5 times as much as the average Moroccan consumes in a

Phosphates

2011-08-04T01:48:00.000-07:00

In Safi, we saw a giant phosphate industrial facility beside the sea. It wasn't lovely, but it interested me because my students have been monitoring phosphate levels since 2003 for the King County Small Lakes Program in Washington state. Agricultural use in fertilizers is the main source of phosphate water pollution, but phosphates are also used in a long list of other products including some

Water stories

2011-08-02T15:27:00.000-07:00

In my classroom, I use cultural stories about water to establish the importance of learning about water issues. I've developed integrated science/social studies units on water for different parts of the world, most recently the Tigris-Euphrates region in greater Mesopotamia (including parts of Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Iran) and the Yellow River watershed in China. I want to do the same

Runaway Tram Adventure

2011-08-02T01:44:00.000-07:00

I enjoy walking through the city of Rabat, and I have had some long distance walks. However, because of time restraints, many times it was necessary just to use a tram. I have had interesting incidents occur either right before I was about to use the tram, or when I was on the tram. Below are just a few of those incidents. I was waiting for the tram near the African Studies Center

Medina vs. Mega Mall

2011-08-02T01:34:00.000-07:00

Malls are never fun as they seem. Void of any characters, they are concrete structures with cookie-cutter stores and pretentious sale persons. If you have seen one mall, you have seen them all!!! Same shoe stores, same clothing shops, same food court, and the same consumers trying to fill their emotional void with materialistic and superficial things.During my last weekend in Rabat, Moroccan

Essaouira Dreams

2011-08-02T01:15:00.000-07:00

Throughout my travels to many countries and hundreds of cities, it is rare that I find a town that I want to settle down at. I have been to many cities in Morocco during this fellowship and none compare to Essaouira, a charming town with unique characteristics located off the coast of north-west Africa. This is the second time I have been here to this coastal town of about 30,000 people.

Henna

2011-08-01T04:55:00.000-07:00

One day we visited a farm near Rabat, and a wedding procession passed by. The wedding tent was across a field fenced by prickly pear, a cactus native to North America which reportedly made its way to Morocco during the sixteenth century. (The fruits of this plant are ripe now and sold from food carts in the medina and buckets beside rural roadways.) A gap in this green fence was closed by a

Donkeys 2

2011-08-01T04:42:00.000-07:00

For another story about the importance of the humble donkey, read the section on the collapse of the sultan's authority in precolonial Morocco, pages 131-133 in the book Morocco: From Empire to Independence, by C.R. Pennell. The author suggests that the most serious rebellion during that time was led by Jilal bin Idris, a former government functionary who was briefly imprisoned for forgery. In

Diversity in the Desert

2011-07-21T00:06:00.000-07:00

As we journeyed through this great land, one of my friends commented that the geography is similar to that of California and that she was amazed by the bio-diversity of this country. This is true of the land and it is also true of its people. I noticed that there is no definite classification of a typical Moroccan, just like Californian. Moroccans comes in different shapes, sizes, and

Bargain Prices

2011-07-19T14:04:00.000-07:00