Here’s the Morocco’s Modern Life slightly less chic, entirely mobile edition. Let’s start off with a quick list of things I love that Morocco has destroyed in my final days there:

• Computer
• Debit card
• Dignity
• Wallet
• Earbuds
• Camera
• 3 pairs of pants
• Kindle
• 2 pair of shoes

And via backpacking I’ve gone through a material cleansing process of stuff that just wouldn’t fit on Ryanair. In the end I can say I’m pretty cleansed indeed. I’m just really hoping I can fix the camera and the computer when I get home at least to stave off entire unfabulousness.

But it makes sense. I wrote some of this in Imlil, Morocco having just climbed Mt. Toubkal, exhausted, dirty beyond belief, and still cold. But let me start from the beginning. I went from Asilah–a beautiful quaint beach town in the north of Morocco–to Seville, somehow squeezing my backpack through the Ryanair Destroyers of Hope. This is the beginning of my second adventure.

I’ll start with Seville which I can safely describe as a place that makes me want to learn Spanish just so I can live there. It’s clean (clean!!!), beautiful (fountains galore!!), European (shopping and androgyny and pork!). It’s also historic–one day Kyle and I went to Alkizer, a beautiful castle/garden/maze complex which is a combination of Muslim, Roman, and Alice in Wonderland architecture and decoration. It was easily one of the most incredible structures I’ve ever seen.

In Seville, I stayed with Kyle’s host family. His host dad is a fantastic cook, giving me chicken and rabbit and making sure I was full though I barely knew him. Kyle’s host mom, Pocky, is a force too. In my terrified cultural collisional stupor I smacked her glasses during the left right kiss greeting. First impressions! Kyle’s host sister too was hilarious, asking him how my voice was so low if my face was so young and then answering her own question by showing us a thirty minute video of her parakeet saying “Que rico!”

I also got an opportunity to meet up with some of Kyle’s friends from his program at a tapas bar. Tapas are the best way to eat a lot of different food while drinking a lot of different drinks. I am a fan. Some of tapas featured eggplant and honey, this incredible fluffy cheese chunk plate, and… ham.

Yes. Pork. Pigs. My cultural abstention has ended with a force–in the two days I was in Seville, I’d say I had eaten at least forty strips of pig parts for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I know Allah probably wants to smite me now, but hey–I was in heaven.

From there, Kyle and I took a bus to Tarifa and a ferry to Tangier on which I was sure Kyle and I and our overpacked hiking bags were going overboard since the ride was so rickety. After a quick harassed intro to Morocco, we started our crazy long train journey… Long story short the train we needed, even after 6 hours of travel through which Kyle almost lost his passport, was broken. We had to take a really expensive 10-hour cab from Kenitra to Merzouga, the desert. Right before leaving, our driver called his pregnant wife, telling her in Darija, “Honey, get ready, we’re going to Merzouga tonight! — What? — Just throw on a djellaba. I’ll pick you up in two.”

The desert was, in a word, otherworldly. Beautiful. Fantastic. But over everything, it was hot. After complaining all Seville, Kyle and I found ourselves in a place where it felt like someone just left us in the oven. And we were cookies. Miserable cookies.

After 5 PM, the guides gave into our chants of “Sahara! Sahara!” and finally strapped us on our camels for our first hour-long ass-splintering ride into the sandy void. And we had another companion! A goofy Moroccan named Jamal who was from Tangier and was traveling all around Morocco alone. His English was pretty good, and he provided us with many laughs, translations (“Jamal how do you say desolation in Arabic”), and lip pops.

It was crazy for us three–four with our guide Mustafa–to be alone in the desert, watching the sun sink and the dunes fade away. The Sahara is beautiful, full of pristine, impossible right angles, ample soul searching, and sand. RIP camera.

And the stars! As Jamal tried to tell us about an 80s African American pop duo called Nana famous for the song, “Lonely”, I looked up and saw the most vivid, illustrious starts covering every inch of the sky. Unreal. Though an enormous trek, you must try to go to the desert at some point. Even for just one day.

And after endless hours of mind-numbing travel, working our way into the High Atlas mountains in a snaking, topsy-turvy bus ride, we arrived in Imlil. The purpose? To hike Mt. Toubkal, the tallest mountain in North Africa.

The climb was, in a word, hard. Other words one could use to describe it would be deceiving, beautiful, and frost bite. The way it works is you leave your Imlil riad and walk 30 minutes away to a mountain base from which you begin your ascent. You get tea and try on turbans at a few shops and five hours later you’re at the Toubkal refuge! There’s great food, a lot of Spanish speakers, and no blankets. Nope. You have to bring your own blankets. Shit.

The next day is the summit day. This is when Kyle and I began to realize people had Northface jacket armor and walking sticks and gloves and, well, they even had hiking shoes! Toubkal so far had been exciting and sweat-inducing but not nearly as arduous as giving birth. But this was all about to change.

4000m up was the coldest I’ve ever been. For some reason this day on the mountain was exceptionally freezing and windy. Still, Kyle and I had sped past hikers only to continue up terrifying and treacherous inclines. It was like a more life-threatening geometry class. If only we hadn’t been so obtuse.

As Kyle slowly developed frost bite and as the biting winds turned my lips purple, the voice of my mother echoed in my altitude-bashed cranium. “What were you thinking?!?” the ever-wise mental manifestation of Norma Lerner screamed. “If you die on this mountain, I will kill you!!!”

100m from the summit, I looked out and saw one of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve ever witnessed. There, Kyle and I entered adulthood in the most mature of realizations: we needed to get back to the refuge or we very well may lose a finger or two. The anxiety of being alone, unassisted, unprepared, and very, very mortal was overwhelming. Kyle and I booked it back to the refuge in record time, eventually gained feeling and color in our extremities, scarfed down an omelette, and made it back to Imlil in faster than you can say “Hussein Bolt”. Climbing Mt. Toubkal is one of the coolest and most dangerous things I’ve done. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. This time with a hat and gloves.

Our last night in Morocco was spent with a Couchsurfer. A lot of my friends from AMIDEAST had had experience couchsurfing, but this was my first time. Kyle and I stayed with Abdo, a totally chill University of Agadir Berber bro who made us dinner and hung out with us and his friends until two in the morning. It was such a rewarding experience, couchsurfing–there was the social aspect of hostels but on a more personal and cultural level. I highly suggest it.

And then we left for the beginning of our Eurotrip. Our end in Morocco had been almost as unfabulously awesome as the twelve-year-old girls who loved the Nick drama of the same name. But hey, that’s what Morocco is for–looking relatively homeless, thriving in the absence of personal electronics and deodorant, and wearing hiking shoes and pale jeans.

By David from Morocco's Modern Life

You can’t make me leave!!

Somehow, my time here is coming to an end. My backpack is packed, my flights are booked, and tomorrow I start adventure #2. From Rabat, I go to Asilah and then to Seville to pick up Kyle and hang out in Spain. Then, we’re going to the Sahara desert, climbing the tallest mountain in North Africa, and heading to Agadir for one day of beaching before hitting up Europe. There, we plan to go to Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, and Barcelona, and after that, I’ll be heading to India for about a month doing a research/intern position with an organization called Groupshot.

Things are going to be a little different on this blog; in fact, in a culminating slideshow my program put together to highlight our semester’s mishaps, my computer exploded in a burst of unzweeness and, well, hasn’t turned on since. So I’ll be updating this from wherever I can, meaning no pictures until I get back in the States and hopefully figure out my computer’s situation in 1.5 months. Oops. But enough about anger. Let’s reflect.

This has been an incredible semester. It was entirely different than I had expected it would be; it was challenging, thought-provoking, endearing, illuminating. It was at times so uncomfortable and at others the shlumpiest bout of relaxation (alhamdiulah).

The only sensible way to measure how much my Arabic improved would be to liken it to the amount of carbs I ate: a million loaves. I can conversations with most anyone now, talk about most anyone, and still can only speak really uncomfortably formal Arabic when I’m stressed (“Hast thou felt as bad as thou must feel upon this time? /  Aren’t thou affected in the brain with feelings of anger and shame?”) In fact, I think AMIDEAST’s program was the perfect amount of Arabic for me–one hour to three hours every day and with the host family, but besides that I had control over how much Arabic I wanted to use.

I had an incredible host family. A host mom who was a phenomenal cook and actually just today whipped out a secret weapon: rghifseya, which is basically the best breakfast food, rghif, combined with the best tajine food, chicken, in an incredible delicious concoction from which I still feel bloated. I had brothers with whom I hung out and experienced and understood Moroccan culture and a sister whom I got to take care of and make sock puppets with and pick up in the air when she was being a matisha. I had Moroccan friends who bought me coffee, showed me their workplaces, and were so excited to “talk shop” about English idioms.

The program itself was unbelievable. I made so many friends here, and I’m certain that we’ll keep in touch, especially since many of them live in DC and Boston. We have gotten into trouble together, being kicked out of almost every bar in Rabat, but we have also braved terrifyingly stinky train compartments. We have gotten invited to tea at stranger’s homes and gone and loved it, and we have also hitchhiked when there’s been literally no other alternative (sorry, Mom).  We’ve gone to “competitive” sporting events and begun to understand why every Moroccan loves Barcelona’s soccer team so much. We’ve traveled together, watched musilsils together, fallen, gotten up, thrived, you know.

It will be hard to see how much I’ve changed until I get back to the States, but even now I feel like so much better of a person. I am matured but not just older–I am cultured and seasoned similar to the Yawmi yogurt and cumin that I literally eat every day. I am a study abroad veteran, suddenly. I have fostered a genuine love for the Arabic language and am deeply interested in its roots system. I know I will come back to this part of the world, some day. I have taught people about America, about Judaism, about not harassing ladies on the street or in clubs. I have survived, bowels intact, bile in stomach, and I am stronger.

And while I am so sad to go and leave Morocco, I think it’s time. I’m ready for what’s next.

Adventure #2? Begin. Morocco’s Modern Life continues.

By David from Morocco's Modern Life

The Hajja, momma, real momma, andrew, Marwane, Eliot, Sufian, me, Latifah, baba

For my 21st birthday, my mom (Norma Lerner, pediatric hematologist oncologist, redhead) and my brother (Andrew Schwartz, New York City-based studio assistant and artist, reddish-colored beard) had planned to come visit me in Morocco. I organized a whole trip that would go to Rabat; Essaouira and Agadir, two really awesome beach-towns in Morocco; Marrakech, and Ourika, a Berber village about an hour’s drive away from there.

This trip was a culmination of my entrance into official adulthood and an official ability to do everything within the law that my parents’ can do, the longest vacation my brother has taken since graduating college, and a week of relaxation for mom, who’s turning 35 on May 10, being pedestalized by Mother’s Day on May 13, and is currently in the process of moving to her new job at the National Institute of Health in Washington, D.C.

Needless to say, it was so exciting to have them here, and all the while, as the title suggests, my mom, through my sand-covered iPod Touch, was selling her Philadelphia home.

My mom, brother, and I in front of the mosque near Hassan’s Monument.

They started off in Casablanca and met me in Rabat on the day before my birthday. That day mostly consisted with getting them to a hotel and conquering their jet lag. The next day, I picked them up and we started doing all the touristy things one can do in Rabat–mainly, Hassan’s Tower and Mohammed V’s Tomb. But you’ve heard about all of these already, as beautiful as they are. It was refreshing, however, to hear my mom and brother’s opinions of these marvels as they are very artistically-inclined (both the marvels and my mom and brother).

Following this, we went to the house of my Arabic professor, Touria. We met her sister, saw the pictures of her family, and ate homemade sweet pastilla. Now, at this point in Morocco, while I still love the food, especially because my host mom does a great job at mixing it up (“Food without variety,” she tells me in Arabic, “is not good at all. If you have the same thing every day, nothing will taste good!”), I was definitely not in the best condition to console my family who had been quickly overwhelmed by Morocco’s sweet cuisine (sugar in tea, sugar in pastilla, sugar in the tagine, sugar for breakfast, ila akhira).

Hassan’s Tower!

Now this is the day of my birth, and I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate than with my birth mother and my Moroccan mother, so the families coalesced in a cultural collision at my house. The Hajja came over but unfortunately the new crazy French neighbor lady was nowhere to be found. Marwane charmed my mother and brother while my host dad showed off all the furniture he’d built for the house. My host mother continued to tell my family how beautiful and nice they were while handing us homemade tea and cake and sweets (sugar).

I don’t know how many of you know this, but for some time the Moroccan men of my family have become obsessed with my cologne which honestly I got for $25 off Amazon on a whim. They all requested that my mother bring it to them from America and literally reminded me every single day until she came. She did, they sublimated in a puff of musky-smelling smoke, and ever since the house smells like a more cumin-scented projection of myself.

Never having a sister, I was hard-pressed to suggest a gift for my mom to bring Latifa, 11-years-old. She pulled through, bringing her pastels (budding artist), stickers (budding woman), and a make-your-own-sock-puppet-kit (BUDDING BRILLIANCE!). The entire instruction manual was in English and featured a pig, so Latifa and I sat down one day to make a rabbit out of a sock. Unfortunately, I forgot that 11-year-olds don’t have any patience (I still practically don’t) and that I’m horrible at sewing. Needless to say, our Frankenhare turned out so badly (mainly Latifa’s fault if I can be mature about this) that Latifa told me, “I won’t even sleep with it.”

I had luckily previously utilized the 3-hour window of Morocco selling alcohol and bought a bottle of champagne and a bottle of wine to share with my mom and brother back at their hotel room for my first alcoholic drink ever!!!!!! (Note: facts may have been altered to protect the innocent.) Macaroon-cake-antics ensued (sugar).

“Hi, Norma. Just wanted to get in touch with you–we have a potential buyer for the house… can you give me a call?”

The following day we left for Essaouira, riding first class in the train because we’re zween like that, and I’m 21 and DESERVE IT. After hours and hours of traveling, we eventually reached it and had what I can only describe as the worst night ever. As soon as we got out of the cab, marked with our luggage and deer-in-headlights-look and pasty (blaq) skin, a thousand and one Moroccans came out of hiding to offer us “free” directions to our hotel. I tried to ward them off, but much like the movie I Am Legend there were simply too many  Vampires and Will Smith and his mother and brother were lost in the medina and actually couldn’t find their hotel because it’s impossible for white people to do this. Oh wait.

The Essaouira beach.

“I will take you to your hotel, just follow me, it’s easy,” one of them told me in Arabic for the fifteenth time, never leaving us and literally running after us.

“You did not leave, but I asked you to leave. You can walk with us, but I won’t pay you. I am a student, and I am broke, and I can do this alone,” I told him hilariously in stressed Fusha (this is like a British aristocrat answering your “What’s up, dude?!” with “I am simply so well, thank you so very much for asking, would you like some tea?”).

Stress-relieving baby camel interlude.

Long story short is he semi-leads us there and then demands money, of course. I give him what I told him I had on the way, 10 dirham, and then he asked for more. I go off on a diatribe about how he wouldn’t leave us alone and how I had originally told him I wouldn’t pay him but now I was giving him all I had and he told me, “Hashuma.” (“Shame on you!/You are so rude!”) HASHUMA? Are you kidding little man?! You are the rude one! If I get my hands on you or could express my anger in Arabic… oh I’d–

Karma erupted in a night-terror of Essaouira-rain-tsunami-storming and literally the worst meal I’ve ever had in Morocco at a restaurant playing Katy Perry way too loudly.

The following day was beautiful and featured the official purchase of my Moroccan rug, general souking, chilling on the beach, better consumption, and better conversations in Arabic. That night, we night, we departed for Agadir on a semi-sketchy transportation company that literally was transporting someone’s sacrificial lamb on a different bus.

Rug shoppin’.

“Norma–please read below about the price and closing date the buyers are suggesting. If you want to call me, I’ll be in the office until 6PM, but I’m obviously not getting the hint that you’re not calling me because you’re in Morocco and are e-mailing me on David’s iTouch.”

Agadir is the second most popular destination behind Marrakech because of its beach. We stayed most of the day there, getting overcome by incredible winds that have left me sandy and scrubbed like a beach hammam. It is important to note at this point in the journey that I had had a revelation to read the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman which includes The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. I started when this vacation began, and on this beach I finished the second book. I am disgusted with my 700-paged-and-counting digestion of teenage fantasy.

Agadir beach. Morocco’s motto, God, the country, the king, visible all Hollywood-like.

We only had a night in Agadir before heading off to Marrakech for the night. The next morning we spent most of our time in the souk and reading The Amber Spyglass by the pool and adventuring to non-Moroccan tasting restaurants (I had a steak. Bismillah.). I’m not the biggest fan of Marrakech, so my favorite part (and my mom and brother’s too) was our trek the next day to Ourika, a Berber village in the mountains. We got pulled into oil-selling tourist traps, walked down a dirt path, and somehow my mother continued to look at jewelry.

Eureka!

“Hey Norma–it’s sold!! Congratulations!! I’m not even going to suggest that we turn this story into a hit blockbuster based on the hilarious success of your communication via touch technology. I’ll be in the office until 6 today. Call me when you can!”

The trip was wonderful. It was refreshing to see really familiar faces (we’re talking nostalgia-provoking) and show them Marrakech. Of course, it was exhausting (though they were troopers and didn’t complain even when things were dirty and bidets were everywhere). And I somehow had two finals the day I returned that I didn’t study for. But all in all it was totally worth it, a great way to celebrate my day of birth, and overall, the best way to sell a house.

Tune in a few days from now for some sentimental thoughts on leaving Morocco, Lifetime-quality writing about what I’ve learned here, and details on my 3 week traveling stint with Kyle and the following 3 week research/internship opportunity with Groupshot in India!

Brothas.

A conclusion camel.

By David from Morocco's Modern Life

Conquering Le Cascades.

This past weekend, I impromptu decided to explore my more mystical and mountaineery side by venturing to a far-off village for some mountain hiking, or al-tasalaq (literally: climbing). Along with three friends from my program, Sonja, Grace, and Tamar, I traveled to Marrakech on a four-hour train ride and then to Imlil via a two-hour, terrifying car ride through a twisted mountain pass. Imlil is known for its hiking, however; in fact, the second-highest mountain in Africa, Toubkal, is located there in the High Atlas Mountain Range.

Getting to Imlil, in hindsight, was relatively easy save a few altercations in Marrakech, a city that, I must admit, I am slowly warming up to. Both literally and figuratively. Landlocked and mountain-bordered, Marrakech is privy to a hot sun and incredibly weather. It was a blessing in comparison to the recent relative coolness of Rabat. The driver of our taxi kabir ended up not only being reckless, but he was also quite possibly involved in some sort of drug trade. He kept stopping along the road, talking to people and exchanging the 200 dirhams we had paid him. What’s more is he kept asking us if we knew “Alex.” (“Yes, we know an Alex, but there are a lot of Alexes in the world,” we explained.) Time would tell that it was not strange to hear this from the mouth of this Imlil-native, however. We were victims to the secret world of Alex Mac, now.

Upon exiting the taxi, the four of us were promptly swarmed by Moroccans begging us to stay at their hotels for jacked-up American-only prices. One businessman explained the procedure, “You see, the tourism? It has not been good. Not many people have been coming to the mountains to do the hiking and the seeing. Few people have stayed in this hotel! That is true.” Seeing an opportunity to tip the scales of sales in our favor, we asked for a lower price. His response? “I can tell you are from America. Now, I’m not saying you are rich, but because you are from America you are richer than me. I know that Americans are able to pay more, and so I ask you to pay–”

His failure to falter was met with our swift exit with his parting words of, “I meant you are rich and can pay with the goodness in your heart!”

Tamar, Grace, Sonja, and I at our riad with free breakfast!

The winding mountain path between Imlil and Armed.

Eventually, one Moroccan led us on a 20-minute walk to his hotel. Now, this is long after dark, and after a while, the four of us (two of whom have very recently watched The Human Centipede II) began to concoct possible murder mystery plots. Now, nothing on this trip was as strange as turning into a giant blob of mercury after being drenched by chemical GC-161, but it had its oddities: no one was in this hotel. In fact, the guest book was empty. The rajul and his band of two helpers didn’t seem excited to explain the Psycho–rivaling vacancy, either.

The hotel ended up being great, equipped with all the tea we could drink, free breakfast, and a very large but very bland chicken tajine and harira, a traditional Moroccan soup. With four beds to one room, we briefly discussed our hiking plans for the next day and fell asleep.

The town of Armed at the base of Toubkal.

Morocco loves its doors.

Now when I describe this hiking group, one word that does not come into my head is: prepared. Three of us were in improper footwear (I can now proudly say I’ve climbed two mountains, Masada in Israel and Le Cascades in Morocco, in my Vans). We forgot to go to the hanoot to get food. We didn’t even have all that much water. Oh, and we were kind of out of shape. But no matter. Something our group did have was perfectly unplanned and unsynchronized second-winds and an incredible goal-mindedness that ended up forcing us to get to our arbitrarily-selected destination.

Our hike took us began via a long, mountainous road through the town of Armed after which I can say I was already tired. But no matter. After a quick bout of playing in the creek, the four of us began to ascend one of the mountains, selecting one of the peaks to summit, inshallah. The journey involved a lot of trailblazing, goat-herding, and stopping. Luckily, we were all on the same page of adventure and took the time to pause our hike to investigate strange Stonehenge-like monuments that manifested all over the mountain (perhaps as payback for my failure to visit Stonehenge when I was in the area during spring break?).

Slowly getting sunburned, we eventually stumbled upon a pair of Berber men (named Omar and Omar) eating lunch on a rock. I don’t even know how high up this was. They invited us to eat with them, handing us hot, sweet Moroccan tea and making us dip bread in their egg salad (note: not a metaphor). In return, we offered them corn nuts (my program is obsessed with them) and trail mix from the US and bid adieu, but not actually because my French is still le horribe.

Trailblazing.

The clouds roll in.

Eventually we saw a waterfall in the distance–so far away that it actually appeared stagnant–and decided that’s where we should aim to go. It took a while. It took climbing over rocks and these huge prickly plants. It took chasing goats and imitating their adorable yet omnipresent and therefore annoying waah noises. It took a lot of almost twisted ankles and Lord of the Rings quoting. But we made it. And it was beautiful.

Above the cloud layer, we were surrounded by mist and were actually able to have a snowball fight. We washed our faces ceremoniously in the waterfall basin and then proceeded to take a thousand pictures. Out of breath, we sat, suddenly burdened with the realization that we had to descend the mountain and get all the way back to our hotel in Imlil. Before dark, too. Oh no. The plot of this soon-to-be-murder-mystery or maybe-just-a-Nickelodeon-teen-drama thickened.

Going down ended up being a lot quicker–the four of us ran into the nice Berber men again (named Omar and Omar) and they instructed us to use the goat path. While bizurba, this path was incredibly dangerous, wide enough for only tiny goat feet and nimble sheep herders. Finally, we made it back into Armed before sunset just in time to play with some baby goats that we discovered.

The best surprise!

Lone goat.

One last goat picture I swear.

Our experience in Imlil was a little bit of a different story. After arriving in Armed, we had another trek back up and down that aforementioned mountainous road that feels like a hike in itself. Once there, we, starving and broke, only wanted to eat for extremely cheap. However, the tourist drought demanded that this was mamnu’aa. We eventually secured delicious sandwiches for a reasonable price with free extra french fries (“Um, Sir? Um, yeah. Maybe you will add more fries for us. Okay?”) and then returned to our hotel which was now abuzz with a mysterious Moroccan family who made us tea and snickerdoodles and whose kids demanded I play various Miniclip games with them on the family Vaio.

An incredibly action-packed weekend was bookended quite nicely. Though our long, long train ride back to Rabat featured two men who smelled like Fritos and an infant who promptly shat himself in a hellhole of un-aerated train compartment, one of the men in Imlil asked us before we left, “Do you know Alex?” We were stunned.

Who knows. He may be a graduated Peace Corps member. He may be a mountaineering legend. Or then again, he might just be a girl with magical powers who starred in a series that my brother and I still make fun of today. Either way, his secret world was entirely, incredibly awesome. If you’re ever in Morocco, make sure you make a trip down to the High Atlas Mountains for some tasalaqing. The mountains are literally breathtaking… and in more ways than one.

Elysium Fields. Or something.

A pretty zween day, hmm?

By David from Morocco's Modern Life

Kutubia and old friends.

This past Pink Friday, AMIDEAST took us on our last official trip to the incredibly touristy and land-locked Marrakech. The journey, thankfully, was enriched by the schizoid, wigged-out, and ludicrous lyrics of our dearest Nicki Minaj and her newest album, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded. On the first listen, I felt as if my brain had been scooped out and sat on by the rumpus-causing rump of the rapper herself (to be fair, this is all logged in a live-tweet session I did about the album instead of doing any homework). But the more I listened to the intoxicating album perfectly-manicured-based-on-algorithms-of-popular-music-which-generally-disregard-artistic-intent, I realized that my Marrakech trip resembled Nicki’s own year-long effort with her sophomore album. In fact, with my new skills at comprehension, the majority of Moroccans with whom I interacted actually were quoting her! Unfortunately, I understand Darija better than Nicki’s rap lyrics, so there were many misconceptions. This, my friends, is Marrakech, the hit new musisil brought to you by Nickilodeon.

Roman Holiday

It sometimes feels as if all of our trips are mere Roman holidays; the teachers who travel with us watch us squirm and get harassed and enjoy Moroccan culture by fumbling through it. It must please them, or something. Especially since resident British professor Peyrone routinely invites us to wine tasting adventures that either don’t exist or will never exist. What is this sadism?

You need to know your station, Roman
Some alterations on your clothes and your brain.

How right is Nicki in her first track, which is obviously a plea to all the tourists who infiltrate Marrakech with their hashuma booty-shorts and their picture-taking of monkeys without paying the owners.

In Marrakech though, I finally felt like anyone but Roman. In fact, I met up with my friends from Tufts, Val, Jess, and John, and I was their cultural liaison. I was mistaken for Egyptian three times, and I ran into my host mom in the middle of Marrakech and got to meet the rest of my family on her side. It felt like I was really starting to fit in as a Moroccan (or at least an Egyptian…). In contrast to the white, embarrassing, French-butchering tourists, my disguise of dirtiness, Arabic, and a patchy beard rendered me a little bit closer to this country I’ve called home for almost four months.

Another zween hotel. Nice job, AMIDEAST!

I Am Your Leader

After defecting from the larger group to meet up with Val, Jess, and John, we discussed our plans over a pot of Moroccan tea. Now, everything I did was new and exciting and needed to be explained. I found myself as the cultural liaison, the person who caused problems with the people who wanted us to buy things, the person who needed to tell people how poor and thrifty we were, the person who understood when people were making fun of us. It was awesome.

Street fighter bitches, / this is the up-cutter.

One could say I got into a close-to-physical altercation with a Moroccan in Marrakech. With Nicki’s words of promise ringing in my ear, I addressed a Moroccan in a tapas bar who had been harassing my friends (as the majority of my program is female and 100% of females get harassed). The girls had been complaining about how the harassment was getting unbearable, and with the added comments to Val and Jess, I decided enough was enough.

Bridging worlds of friends!

With almost as much swag as Nicki, I told the harasser in Arabic, “Excuse me, my brother! You are telling these girls things that are not good, and they do not like it! You need to stop right now.”

He looked at me and rattled off something in Darija, probably, “My name you cannot slander / at all girl, watch your manners.”

So naturally, I replied, “You need to go right now. You need to leave us.”

At which point he began to get physical, yelling, “And yes, I bloody bitches / go get the bandages!”

His friends were holding him back, so I decided this was where I should lay my hook.

“My brother, these girls,” I explained, “they hear the words that are not nice every day! Every day! From the cars, from the train, from the bus! Do you think they like it? No, they do not–this is your answer–they do not. You need to respect the woman, my brother! The respect is the way to the heart of the woman! Without the respect, you will get nothing. You must use respect to acquire the love! Okay? You need to stop, and you need to tell your friends to respect all of the women.”

After which he conceded, nodded, and shook my hand post-conferring with his ikhowa. All in the day of the Cultural Liaison.

Nicki’s lyrics about camels are too graphic for this blog.

Right By My Side

The main area of Marrakech, Jamaa El-Fna (Executioner’s Square), an action-packed, pick-pocket-packed, knicknack-packed souk, was getting to be… well, a lot. So it was time to escape to the gardens (hadaa’eq) of Marrakech.

You know the one, right around the block
From the nice place, that you love to shop
Can you get away? Girl, just sit down, let’s talk it out,
One on one, without a crowd.

The Majorelle Garden of Marrakech are an exclusive exotic forest that, after Nicki-blinking, suggest you are in either Arizona or Florida or some place dry and flat and with plants in the US. In fact, everything about Marrakech suggested I was in Florida, well, except for the influx of Arabs and infrequency of white, ancient Jews. The garden was awesome, beautiful, and relaxing.

The beautiful Majorelle Garden.

The Menara Garden, on the other hand, can only be described as a giant plot of land where you’d expect crops to grow but instead there’re only shrubs. And trash. And people between the shrubs and trash picnicking in the harsh Marrakechi sun.

This area also features an enormous brown pool that I suspect used to have some fertility-inducing qualities and is filled with enormous, ravenous fish that will eat everything, trash included. And to assist Moroccans in witnessing the place where the entire cast of Spongebob (or Bob Le Sponge as he’s called here) has probably mutated into existence are long rows of unoccupied bleachers. What?!

And it goes without saying that Val, Jess, John, and I were chased by Moroccan children who wanted to hang out and call us “Strawberry!”

Two pretty things I found in Marrakech.

Starships

There’s something about the land-locked, mountain-bound qualities of Marrakech that make it hot. And it was sunny. And, as Hemingway would say, it was good. But we’re talking about today’s Hemingway, which is oh-so-earnest Nicki, would probably say,

RedOne. / Uh! Let’s go to the beach, each / Let’s go get a wave. 

This is brilliant for very few reasons. This is notable for two.

1. RedOne is an incredibly famous Moroccan producer who produces a lot of Pitbull, J. Lo, and Lady Gaga stuff. Moroccans are so proud of him that it is pointless to say it’s getting old! (It’s getting old.)

2. Our hotel had a pool, and this is close enough to a beach in Marrakech. And yes, we did “kech” some waves–we swam! It was absolutely freezing, but Linette aka Lint aka Resident Siren loves the water and coerced us all to cannonball in. And because we were at an international hotel, I could hashuma and go in my underwear as I didn’t bring a bathing suit.

Our program frequently indulges in “cuddle puddles” once the stress of Morocco gets to be too much and we just coalesce and clump. This even happened in the pool, making our first literal cuddle puddle as we cuddled in a really, really big puddle. The only time cuddle puddles don’t happen, I’ve found, is one week a month when all 14 synced-up girls are menstruating and can’t be bothered to cuddle/engage in small-talk/do anything but watch Gossip Girl.

FLORIDA?!!

Pound The Alarm

Marrakech is known for its nightlife. There are apparently Real Clubs as opposed to the Kinda Clubs that exist in Rabat (there is one Real Club known as Amnesia, but we’re saving that for our finale). One night, after the tapas bar, we did some hopping around to get a smattering of Marrakechi nightlife.

Oh, oh, oh, come fill my glass up a little more
We ’bout to get up and burn this floor
You know we getting hotter and hotter
Sexy and hotter, let’s shut it down.

Much like how Nicki’s lyrics enlighten us on an element of nightlife we’ve never understood before and about a drinking culture that seemed improbable until she, via autotune, explained it to us, Morocco enlightened me as well.

My favorite place due to hilarity was this one Lebanese club which was bumpin’ with entirely Middle Eastern music! People were dancing ME-style, girls in white, skimpy sikhat–wear were dancing on tables, and different women were invited to give runs that rivaled the Moroccan semi-finalist on Arab Idol (which my family and I had watched religiously until the devastating conclusion after which my host mom may or may not have thrown a tissue box in anger).

This place preceded John’s unfortunate fall. While his Brasilian co-travelers were ready for a night of adventure (especially since they had been privately hammamed earlier in the day), John had taken an anti-allergen and imbibed, singing, “Bottle, sip. Bottle, guzzle. I’m a bad bitch, no muzzle. What?” (Those are real lyrics, I swear.) Indeed, he didn’t have a muzzle because he didn’t need one. He fell asleep at the table. Miskeen!

Nope, not Florida.

Whip It

At the end of Saturday night, the drama in the air rivaled the Turkish musisil Sultaan or the scandals described in “Beautiful Sinner” or “Fire Burns.” After all, Elana’s Moroccan friend told her that he loved her and wanted to marry her (after two dates–where’s your rule of threes, man?).

Feeling frustrated, we bid adieu to John, Val, and Jess. The harassment from cars driving by didn’t ease our pain.

Hey, you! Jump in this ride / It’s real nice and slippery inside.
Rise, guy, come get this pie, / Ri-ri-ri-ride it in style.

But one car persisted. A kilometer later (lawl just kidding I have no conception of how long that is), it stopped again and its inhabitants got out.

The leader told us, “Hey, stranger over there / I’m really liking the way / You whip it, whip it.”

The men quickly befriended me, Elana, and Grace after I explained that we had been mad because we had been having a “complicated night of adventure.” which is why we had refused their request to drive us from earlier, as we had thought it had been a manifestation of harassment.

The leader asked, “Na na na na, we go?”

The three of us discussed for a moment and decided, why not? And that is the story of how we ended up in three strange Moroccans’ car, all of whom turned out to be incredibly friendly. We drove around and saw more of Marrakech before they dropped us back at our hotel where we exchanged numbers. And one of them looked exactly like Adam Lambert.

Loungin’ by the poo’.

Marilyn Monroe

Marrakech, filled with beautiful gems like Kutubiya and palm trees stolen from Florida, was definitely beautiful. My favorite view was of the mountains you can make out in the distance that border the city.

But this trip was a beauty, too, in that it was a lesson, a confirmation, if you will. I would try to explain, but I’ll just defer to the allusion of Wordsmith Minaj to Beauty herself.

Truth is we mess up / Till we get it right / I don’t want to end up losing my soul.
I can get low, I can get low / Don’t know which way is up.
Yeah, I can get high, I can get high, / Like I could never come down.

Doors galore.

A last programmed trip calls for reflection, much like how Nicki languishes over how Marilyn Monroe must have felt in her lifetime. Morocco is all about the cyclical nature of feeling welcomed, of being harassed; of being cleaned, of feeling dirty; of feeling satisfied, of feeling hungry. I’ve been stumbling along, and in the process, I’ve been getting so much better at Arabic (“You only learn from mistakes,” my Arabic teacher tells in constantly in Darija; “You are now a first class speaker,” my mom told me today). I’ve gotten better at accepting cultural norms, at letting go, at going with the flow.

There are low points–like not being able to eat bread because of Passover though it is literally integral to every single meal and therefore be technically starving for an entire week. And, of course–there are high points–traveling over an incredibly diverse country, meeting so many Moroccan men that I have to ask myself if it’s Mohammed or Ahmed calling me when an unfamiliar voice says, “Daood! We met at the public restroom. Do you remember me?”

I don’t. But I’ll remember Morocco. Maybe Nicki isn’t describing me as Marilyn Monroe; perhaps she’s describing Marilyn Monrocco–a place which has great things and bad things, a place which both succeeds and fails, a place which both sleeps with presidents and overdoses on barbiturates.

Call it a curse / or just call me blessed.
If you can’t handle my worst / You ain’t gettin’ my best.
Is this how Marilyn Monroe felt?

Probably not, but it’s kind of how I feel!

By David from Morocco's Modern Life

Get the shot.

Similarly to one of the best television shows ever created, I had one of the best spring breaks ever. You could think about this awtla as being equally joyous as watching “A Rugrats Passover” or as equally necessary as Tommy’s surreptitious stashing of a screwdriver in his diaper. I departed Morocco from Casablanca with Julia and flew to London where we stayed for about a week. After that, we jetted off to Dublin to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day for two days and then returned on a day composed entirely of traveling. Traveling alone, being independent, and surviving Ryan Air? You might as well call me all grown up.

We knew that spring break was off to a good start when we, after eating a hash brown (literally just one) from McDonald’s, in partnership with our friend Shane, realized that our $70 flight served free wine and the stewardesses were relatively forgetful. Following this came another moment of illumination: you use the lifts in London to ascend from the subway, not the stairs. 350 stairs later with all my stuff, the lesson was learned.

A “goodenough” surprise!

He prefers to go by Benjamin.

I was planning on meeting my friends Nick and Val from Tufts and Emily from high school at the tube station. My good friend Tom, studying abroad in France, secretly took a bus to London to surprise me and hang out all weekend. It was the best. It was so fun to be united with good friends, most of whom I haven’t seen in a while.

Julia and I stayed at my friend Rachel’s house. Rachel is the other junior in Cheap Sox with me, is awesome, and has been abroad all year. Her digs were nice but happened to be located in–I kid you not–the only Arab neighborhood in London. Signs were in Arabic, the name of one of the supermarkets was Al-Mustafa and it sold all Arab delicacies, and Julia got harassed on the street in Arab whispers of “Gazelle!” and “Leave your boyfriend!” (“Ba’ad minee!” I shouted (literally, make yourself far from me) and they looked at me straight up dumbstruck.) Just like home!!

Not famous, but cool picture.

The Millenium Bridge.

One of the weirdest things about London was being able to understand people. The lady in line for coffee knew when I was openly insulting her for wasting everybody’s time. The trendy Asian couple looked at us oddly when we were commenting about their beanies publicly. Perhaps one of the more beneficial revelations was when we found we could also ask people things. Like, “How do I get to this tourist attraction?” or “Is this restaurant good?” There were no on-the-spot translations like “On which avenue do I walk in order to find this place of tourism?” nor censorship because of an inability to access vocabulary.

Yet the second weirdest thing quickly followed which was being unable to understand people. For the love of Allah in Londietown, I understand Darija of all things more than I understand a garbled British accent chomping away on a scone and Starbucks. Sometimes someone would rattle an answer back at me and, dumbstruck, I’d think, “Shnoo?!” Eavesdropping on the tube effectively turned my brain to mush because it knew I should know what people were saying but couldn’t. In a way, it was like listening to the Sims. But in real life.

The British Museum!

We drank wine in this really underground place… a cave!

Londietown festivities involved a pub crawl in Camden, which is essentially the coolest and most pretentious while not-trying-too-hard place in all of London; free museum after free museum after free museum (the V&A being my favorite) (thanks Eliza), a cave wine bar, sightseeing all the sights, marketplaces galore, shopping without aggressive salespeople, karaoke bars, and ethnic food.

Julia jokingly hates on me for saying ethnic food because “all food is ethnic” but damnit we ate ethnic food. The ethnicities of foods that my body broke down in its bile include but are not limited to: Thai (take-in), Chinese (buffet in China Town), Japanese (ramen), Mexican (5-pound tacos), Indian (all of it), McDonald’s (wait…),  Fishnchips, Italian, and basically anything but Moroccan food. We avoided shawarma and kebabs like they were the plague. I absolutely love Moroccan food, but an awtla is an awtla, and I’m legally required to not indulge in anything remotely Arab. I’m sorry; it’s the law.

(That being said, I did technically get my hair cut in Arabic. It was super zween and super rakhees and the barber was from Algeria and it was awesome. It honestly felt a little more natural to talk to a rajul in Arabic than it did talking to a bloke in Inglahsh.)

All of London basically looks like this.

It kind of… followed us.

Harrods was a big deal to Julia.

After Harrodsing to appease Julia, photoshooting in front of Big Ben to appease myself, and seeing each and every cathedral, it was time to move on. Just like how the Rugrats went from being rugrats to all growed up to all grown up, Julia and I knew we had to book our night-train-ferry to Dublin to start latent part jooj of the adventure. My friends had been so welcoming, hospitable, and generally awesome in London, but it was time to say goodbye because St. Patrick’s Day was coming ever nearer.

I joked with my friend Emily that the night-train would stop at all of the stops listed on the ticket. It actually did. Then Jules and I got on this ferry which I can only describe as a “big room” that looked like an empty cafeteria. It was dark outside, as it was 2AM, and thus the entire “ferry” concept felt unreal. I thought we were stationary waiting to board the actual ferry in a weird eat-before-you-sail room until two hours later waking up and realizing that this was the ferry. Julia vomited while I almost got a free truckers’ breakfast and soon enough we docked in Dublin at 7AM.

Free samples galore!

This is where our shenanigans continued. Julia and I met up with our friend Elana who unfortunately slept in past our designated meeting time due to a dream that an iPad told her we were reuniting later in the day. She eventually found us snoozing homeless-status in the train station and our day began.

We three then found Grace, who is also from my program with AMIDEAST, and her friend from home Courtney. Our first task on the agenda was to obviously drink a Guinness and eat breakfast, which we found was possible at any of the thousand pubs in the area. We had English breakfasts (which consist of beans, “puddings”, “bacon”, sausage, eggs, a tomato, and mushrooms) and a large, industrial speaker almost fell on Elana, nearly killing her.

Dreariness and Guinness. Sounds like a weekend.

A view of Dublin.

Soon after this, we found a place to stay for the night–an apartment, no less–which was a sign from Saint Patrick himself that he wanted us to have a good time because literally every hostel and hotel and couchsurfer in the area had been booked for the last two months.

The Spire.

Dreary, dank Dublin features a spire conveniently called The Spire which, spike-like, spears through apocalyptic clouds, probably poking St. Patrick in the face or something. Anyway, we used this as our main meeting point as everyone knows where it is, it’s literally impossible to not see, and it illuminates at night.

Also, if I thought the English accent was bad, I still have not had one understandable conversation with an Irishman.

Our first day mainly involved attempting to get to and then waiting in line for and then finally going through the Guinness Factory. It was pretty cool, and by the end of the tour, you’re actually convinced that you like Guinness at this place called the Gravity Bar which has one of the best views of Dublin.

In the Gravity Bar of the Guinness Factory.

I suppose I should cut to the chase, and by chase I mean parade. The best way to describe actual St. Patrick’s Day is to say “green” but that is problematic because, contrary to popular belief, the river actually wasn’t dyed green.

The second best way to describe actual St. Patrick’s Day is to say “intoxicated” because I’m pretty sure everyone was. To the point that there were actual human feces in an alleyway due to somebody’s drunken disintegration of social norms.

The third best way to describe actual St. Patrick’s Day is to say “witching hour” because everything was entirely unclear and entirely unreal. For example, Elana ate literally a foot and a half of sub at Subway in maybe 20 minutes. I ran into a famous British rapper named Tinie Tempah in the middle of this random Dublin club. Julia and I accidentally walked into the oldest pub in the world. Et cetera.

I ran into British rapper Tinie Tempah.

The entire day was so fun. It was a mix of us searching for Bono, Irish women singing at us to buy their “hats, whistles, or tiny trinkets,” and people dressed up as leprechauns. After the parade, we found live music, awesome mash-up bands, Subway, oh, and we got interviewed for the news and may or may not be featured on a famous Irish newspaper’s website.

Some native Irishmen.

Parade life.

There came a time when we eventually needed to sleep, and our only option was to sleep at the airport and wait for our flight. Finding the shuttle to the airport was even less clear than getting to the Hassan Monument in Rabat, so we took a cab, fell asleep in the cab, entered the airport, and slept next to McDonald’s.

Sometimes it seems like my life is bookended by McD’s, and I’m kind of okay with that. For now. I ate a hash brown (just one), found our plane, ate Burger King (don’t hate me), flew Ryan Air to Barcelona, ate McDonald’s (I’m a disgusting human being), flew Ryan Air to Fez, ate cookies (How is it possible that I’m still alive?), stood on a delayed train all the way to Rabat, peed in an alleyway while security guards watched, and walked back to my house without a single inch of nutrients.

Spring break? Success. Grown up? Not quite.

Airport at 1AM. Oops.

By David from Morocco's Modern Life

Chefchaouen.

To be fair, I never saw this Nick show, but the title was perfect. I’m headed off to England tomorrow to see some good friends with Julia but first wanted to keep you all updated on my trip to Tangier and Chefchaouen before leaving. I could ramble on using puns to hint at my slight frustration at being in such touristy areas (“Arabic?” one shop-owner asked me, “Just speak in English, please.”) or I could detail my ever-growing problem of purchasing sneakers here (Moroccans have really small feet), but I decided that pictures, in this situation, tell a thousand words. And so do afterthought captions.

The adventure begun with a 4-hour bus ride to Tangier. My program fit everyone on one big bus this time which was really fun except for the fact that most people slept the entire time or snacked or talked about their menstrual cycles.

Tangier is in the north of Morocco, super-touristy, super-Spanish, and pretty cool. It was a breath of fresh air (literally–the air there was so nice) not to have people stare at us and come up and talk to us because we were just like all the other Stupid American-Or-French-Or-Spanish Tourists! In all honestly, Tangier resembled Rabat in a lot of ways–urban yet close to a beautiful shoreline with zween people roaming the streets, lines of restaurants surrounding mosques–yet it also felt busier and more European.

If you know how much I love olives…

A fire-breather at this entirely hilarious club called LOFT.

After Tangier, we took a sickening bus ride to Chefchaouen, our bus crawling up spindly, rocky paths into the mountains. Not that I’d know, because I was asleep the entire time. I only woke up for our quick stop for two of the girls to vomit into a man’s filfila farm. But bile was not shed in vain because not long after that we arrived in…

The beautiful Chefchaouen!

Perfect weather there.

Some houses farther away.

Me and the view from our hotel.

And then we hiked up to a mosque on a mountain.

Graffiti wall? Okay.

Mid-hike. Hi Chef-chateau!

Best ghoto-op I’ve ever taken.

Chefchaouen is known for its blue– and white-painted houses.

Doors are a huge deal here.

And so is leather that reeks of camels.

These pictures were too beautiful to leave on my computer only.

And now time for a quick family update: Latifah is being sent to “le aerobics” once a week suddenly, and when I asked my mom why she told me, “I don’t want Latifa to become big.” She’s 11. And skinny. Meanwhile, I told Sufian that I’d buy him cologne while out of the country, which led to us browsing the Dublin airport’s duty free website for two hours and him selecting Burberry Touch thanks to the kind words of the random-perfume-connoisseur-pregnant-family-member-from-Los-Vegas-staying-with-us who was vomiting in between quips of “Go for Gucci!”. For the next two days, whenever I passed him in the house, he would remind me, “Burberry Touch!!” And finally, Marwane may or may not be moving to the states to follow his True Love (what?!).

So now, sniffling and sore-throated (all sicknesses here are blamed on either the weather or cold floor tiles), I bid you all and Morocco’s Modern Life adieu for 10 days after which I will at length discuss my extravagant adventures in England and beyond.

By David from Morocco's Modern Life

Stories and myths are woven into this Jewish-Berber rug.

I really like whistling. It’s easy to do, males have a considerably higher range than singing, and it’s a perfect substitute if you don’t know the words to the song. This is particularly helpful here, as when you ask someone how to say something in Arabic, he’ll say the word as fast as humanly possible and then when you ask him to repeat it he’ll say it twice as fast as that. Needless to say, my lyrical knowledge of the Arabic songs I hear on the radio needs work.

But I digress. The point of this brief anecdote is that there are little cultural things here that remind me that I’m Somewhere Else just when I’m starting to get comfortable. At first, they were weird and strange, but now, they’re endearing. My friend Kyle studying abroad in Seville mentioned how a buxom sect of Spanish babes whistled to him across a road. I replied by telling him how I am repeatedly reprimanded for whistling in the house because my dad tells me I’m summoning the jinn.

The jinn (singular: jinni or the francized genie) are spirits described in the Quran that run rampant in the Islamic world. You can’t see them, and they’re not all bad, but you don’t want to welcome the jinn into your home. Jinn are free-willed spirits who will be judged on Judgement Day just like everyone else and will either be sent to paradise or hell, which not coincidentally come from the same root as jinn which means to hide or something that cannot be seen.

Jinn can cloud your days, can screw up your luck, can interfere with your life. Take my friend Christelle, for example. She’s lived in Morocco before, and her French and Arabic are excellent, so surely the jinn must have started taking a liking to her. When she was having a rough couple of days, it was clear she was under the influence of a jinni. She’s been here long enough, right?

Orange season has come to an end. And yeah, I tried eating these.

I had been whistling the song “Ya Chefchaouen,” which my Arabic and Darija teacher Touria has been trying to teach our class for the last two weeks in preparation for our program trip there this weekend. Because she doesn’t speak any English and loves singing, Touria just keeps repeating lines of “Ya Chefchaouen”, leading to our tonal knowledge of the tune but a failed understanding of any of the words (yet I conducted a scientific study by muting Adele while Latifa was in mid-belt and realize that the same thing happens from English to Arabic, too).

There’s a part in “Ya Chefchaouen” where all of the music stops, and for whatever reason you have to say in as goofy a tone of voice as possible, “Awl hubb, wa ana shooftu fe al-harrrrra.” My Arabic student translation of this is “First love, and I saw in the spicy” which makes a lot less sense than the real translation which is “I saw my first love in the neighborhood”. What?

The actual basis for a lot of the sayings here in Arabic are pretty funny. A few days ago Christelle and I were teaching English to our intermediate class at Dar Somethingorother and decided to teach about English idiomatic expressions. Needless to say, the exact same thing is true in English.

Calligraphy I designed of a Moroccan expression.

This is one Arabic expression, reading “Le fat mat” which is not talking about a French, obese rug but instead literally says “The past is dead,” implying the past is past, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

There’re other things. Instead of saying “Ohibuki” (I like/love you) when you are in love with someone, you tell her in Darija “Kanmut a’lik” which literally says “I would die for you.” When someone walks in on you talking about him, you don’t say, “Speak of the Devil!” Instead, you tell him that God will make him live for a long time. And instead of the promise of nuptials upon catching the bouquet at a wedding, you’re destined for marriage if you get the last pour from a teapot.

But Christelle wasn’t annoyed because of the jinn, it turned out. She was fed up (explain this expression, please!) because her Moroccan boyfriend hadn’t been answering his phone on their usual times and she was getting worried. She was staying up late to talk to him, it was screwing up her groove, and it felt like he didn’t care about her… or worse, cared more about someone else.

Momma and the Tajine.

In Darija class, we were taught an arsenal of God phrases, or expressions that begin with “Allah” and end with “verb + you.” These are used to tell someone you’re deeply sorry, that God will protect them, that things will be alright. What’s better is that this Swiss Army knife of knowledge allows us to reply to anything we don’t wan’t to talk about anymore and still leave with good karma. For example, if your mom says, “My stomach’s been feeling weird, as if I–”, all you need to tell her is “Allahyashafik” (God heal you). If your dad is trying to tell you about how he almost cut his finger making your dinner just whip out the good ole’ “Allahyatewlmrik” (God prolong your life (literally God lengthen your age)). And I have even been heretical enough to try using these with humor, telling my host brother “Allahyanurik” (God illuminate you) when he broke my flashlight.

While fumbling to find the proper phrase to whisper to Christelle, the story found its truth. Ameen called her on the phone and explained why he had been so flakey and unreachable. “I talked to my friend because I didn’t know how to explain this in English to you. We think,” he said, stammering, “we think there may be a… a… jinni in my friend’s house. We’ve been staying up late every night in an attempt to get rid of it. In an attempt to… exorcise it.” A jinni? You don’t say! Christelle’s jinni had been Ameen’s jinni had been his friend’s. Allahyaoonhu!

The story was a favorite of the family’s. And instead of telling me not to whistle last night, my dad and I talked about how much he loves the movie The Exorcist.

By David from Morocco's Modern Life

Schwartzes meet Seddikis.

This past weekend, two members of the Schwartz family visited Al-Maghreb: Dr. George Schwartz (role: father) and Ms. Marilyn Schwartz (role: grandmother, general familial figurehead). They arrived Friday morning, beat jet lag, and together we had an exciting nihayat alisbua’ah of Rabatian tourism and Fezian travels. And thankfully, unlike the hit show of my childhood, no one’s boxers got hoisted up on any flagpoles because that would be hashooma now wouldn’t it?

Marwane had mentioned that the hotel in which my family was staying was very zween–he even, via SMS addendum, wrote, “its [sic] five-start wonderful!!” I had been meanwhile casually swatting away his ghali bizaf!s and his lilghna’a!s.

I told you it was zween.

But Marwane was telling all of the truth. It was single-handedly the most beautiful hotel I have ever seen, and that includes more beautiful than the Plaza Hotel in NYC, the halls of which my brother and I rollerskated down to emulate the heroine from that awesome book series, Eloise. This hotel was straight-up azwan, or literally the zweeniest (the most sparkly/beautiful/five-star-wonderful). It had a Ralph Lauren inside of it, a swimming pool that blended in with the floor, and 25-dollar salads. Needless to say, it felt like anything but Morocco.

No matter. The first thing I did as tour guide was lead the Schwartzes on a tiring walk past the King’s palace into the center of the medina. Since it was Friday, we sat down at the first restaurant we found (“We haven’t eaten since 7am,” my dad explained) for couscous! And beer. Flag Speciale is both the cheapest and lightest beer here. It’s okay. After a nice lunch and photo-ops, we Schwartzes made moves to the souk. We walked past store after store, and I tried my best to explain the hamsa and why it manifested itself in every single shop. After not too long, we ran into a Man Who Offered To Help (MWOTH). Based on my last experiences with men like these, I definitely decided his free help was needed.

“Will it be a problem to help us?” I asked him in Arabic after the Man Who Offered To Help offered to help.

View from the palace.

“No, not a problem, not a problem; I will help you.” he told me.

The MWOTH led us to a totally zween, totally locked-up, totally off-the-grid palace where people get married for 3 million D’s (dirhams, not dollars). I was told I can’t put photos of it on Facebook because then the man who guards the palace will lose his job. So consider this more incentive to visit me because this palace was beautiful. But it seemed a little bit uglier when the MWOTH cornered us and demanded 200 dhs. Oh well.

Hello Schwartzes!

Following this, we checked out the Kasbah, drank tea by the sea, and ate sweets while we watched tourists thinking, Bah, tourists! only to look at ourselves and realize we were just as bad if not worse because we didn’t have zween French accents nor British haircuts. General sightseeing led us to Chellah, a site of Roman ruins in Rabat, and while the main attractions are the necropolis and the eel-fertility-well, I think we really just were there for the storks. Which. Were. Everywhere.

Talk about a storklift.

My Arabic teacher (for both Fus’ha and Darija) had offered to host my family for snacks which happen promptly at 6pm if you are having guests over in Morocco. Now, Touria speaks no English. Translator David to the rescue? We will see.

Touria lives in Hay Riad (literally the neighborhood of riads (which are a style of house that I have had the pleasure of staying in before)), a zween new suburb outside of Rabat. After our seventh taxi of the day, we arrive to the nicest home I’ve seen since being in Rabat. Discounting the King’s since I technically haven’t seen the inside of the Palace.

The next hour progressed nicely–there was tea. Then there were kefta eggrolls (“I make them using soy sauce, and then I add salt,” Touria explained) and pastillas, delicious cinnamon-and-sugar treats filled with chicken and almonds. Then there were cookies. All through the process, I translated to my family about Touria’s family (picture-shows included with frantic gesticulations), figured out the mystery behind her lemon tree, and successfully acquired the recipe for the kefta eggrolls for my grandma thanks to my translation of “stroodle dough”.

We then returned to the hotel, exhausted (they understandably from jet lag and not sleeping and I understandably for translating words like “stroodle dough”), ate really expensive salads, and then went to bed.

The next day was equally action-packed with a spontaneous trip to Fez. There, as fate would have it (or kuteba, it was written), on the last stretch of our train ride, we sat next to a rajul who works for the Fez Ministry of Tourism. His name was, guess!, Mohammed. Now, it’s entirely unclear if Mohammed was legit or not–his English was awesome, and his tour was really good, yet we technically never saw his work nor a real business card and the car we were driving around with was anything but official. But that’s sort of a good example about how I feel about everything in Morocco. Be it the language barrier or the threat of You Might Get Parasites, I’m never really sure about… well… anything. Yeah!!

The elder Schwartzes and our guide, Mohammed!

Fez is the cultural capital of Morocco and the epicenter of artisan crafts. There, we saw a thousand different art centers, or as Mohammed called them, the blood of the city (dom al-medina). While we walked from mosaic makers to djellaba crafters to lamb pita cookers, my dad and grandma gawked at the sights while I chatted with Mohammed in Fus’ha, grateful for another opportunity to improve my Arabic with a patient person. (As opposed to at my work… where I didn’t even finish my opening sentence of kulshaybikheer before I was told I wasn’t pronouncing my l’s strongly enough.)

The Pattern Police’s nightmare, but I don’t care.

Our Fez trip concluded with the tannery which technically my grandma requested to see but soon found that the tannery is the literally the worst smelling place we’ve ever been to. The Schwartzes traipsed over slimy stones covered with animal juices until descending back down to the street to find our driver. Needless to say, Grandma probably regretted her decision.

In which Grandma makes us go to the tannery.

Stacks on stacks on stacks.

After a night of delicious tajines and heaven beds (which were a wonderful improvement from the diaper beds of my last hotel), I awoke and took a Warm, Long, Pressurized Shower and didn’t even have to worry about the water shutting off when someone turned on the sink. After using maybe half of the Moroccan Water Reservoir, I went down to complementary breakfast and ate arguably everything. And befriended the chef. And we may or may not be hanging out this weekend. (He’s supposed to call me.) (Because I technically never got his number, so I can’t call him to check.) (Maybe he was just being kind in asking me for it?) (Maybe he doesn’t actually want to hang out with me?) (Maybe he’s laughing about me to his friends??) … (But who will make me omelettes?!)

Entrance of King Mohammed V’s tomb.

That Sunday, we took a cab to the Hassan Monument and the Royal Mausoleum. The former was an attempt to make an enormous mosque, but it was abandoned and now the tower and columns surrounding it stand for tourists to take pictures. It’s located adjacent to the Royal Mausoleum which is where King Mohammed V is buried. The architecture is beautiful, there’s a man who sits next to the tomb all day reading the Quran, and the incredibly expensive-looking, intricate, costly building dedicated to a single man while godlike powers bears the inscription on every single wall, There is no god but God. Lawl.

Exactly as I described it, right?

Madrasa #12332.

The final thing on the agenda before the Schwartzes had to catch a train to Marrakesh was to meet my Moroccan family. They had brought gifts (an umbrella and mug bearing the University of Rochester’s insignia, chocolate, and whey protein for Marwane) (My dad also did an incredible job by bringing me a care package materials, the highlights of which included two pounds of Sour Patch Kids and three bags of Rolos). The families met though my quick translations in which I was quick to scan for cultural insensitivities but probably didn’t scan well enough and am assuming at least a few people were insulted. Dad and Grandma met the Hajja who lives next door and is the host mom of my friend Tamar and spent fifteen minutes in every single purple room of her house, including her bathroom. Following this was tea, a cake my host mom had made, more baked goods, and a photo session in which I finally took the role of Familial Self-Timer Button Clicker. Alhamdilulah.

The Chellah ruins!

It was wonderful to see my real, American family for the weekend. I enjoyed playing tourist, but I also enjoyed playing tour guide. Showing my family my school, my Arabic teacher, and my Moroccan family felt great–it was warming to see cultures meet over a rushed coffee cake, each learning about the other. Some things are different between us (Grandma you absolutely have to wear these slippers I know you can’t walk in them but they are demanding you wear the slippers and I am sorry but you simply have to), but a lot is the same too (the basis of the Evil Eye, especially for my grandma’s generation). And besides seeing familiar faces that I love very much, I loved seeing how much I’ve grown already. Just after a single month here.

Man, do I salute my Schwartzes.

This is a metaphor for eyes opening to different cultures.

By David from Morocco's Modern Life

Do Azrou please.

These past two weekends have been a whirlwind of travel, so apologies for the lack of updates. I have pictures and stories for you from Casablanca, Fez, Meknes, Azrou, and Ifrane, all of which are very, very different areas in Morocco. In fact, it was remarkable how I could go from having a snowball fight to playing with monkeys to sitting on Roman ruins all in one day. But that’s Morocco for you.

About ten days ago, I went to Casablanca with a large group of friends from my program on an unofficial adventure. We took the train there–it’s only an hour away and only thirty dirhams, so the whole process is pretty easy. We did the first logical thing to do once we arrived, which was to go to Pizza Hut. I would describe the cheese-filled crust and the ceremonious conclusion of my pepperoni abstemiousness in detail, but you would probably be _____________. (Off-screen, David the Explorer shouts, Disturbed! Disgusted! Ashamed! in Spanish.)

AMIDEAST has been pretty awesome by providing a lot of opportunities for us. Furthermore, our coordinator, Doha, will straight up book us hotels in a specific price range all over Morocco for us to make sure we’re safe (though of course each hotel still rips us off because we’re White). So after P-Hutt, we walked a thousand miles to our Casablancan hotel which featured faked ferns, pink toilet paper, and beds which were made of a material I can only describe as diaper.

Once we got settled, we did the next thing to totally seize the opportunity of the fact that we were in Casablanca: we took a nice, two-hour nap. I mean, I didn’t take the train all this way to stay awake and see Casablanca, am I right? After waking, thinking we were wearing Depends, but then realizing it was in fact just the consistency of the bed, it was time to do The Main Thing On The Agenda. Now, being in a program that is 85% female, I think it is clear what The Main Thing On The Agenda was. Shopping.

I really wasn’t lying about the statues.

The Morocco Mall is the largest mall in Africa, christened by the likes of J. Lo and a thousand different flower statues of mundane things like sunglasses and high heels. It’s a little outside of Casa, so the cab ride provided ample opportunity for me to get to know the kind soul of the cab driver. In Arabic, I learned about his home town and his favorite places in Morocco. He seemed ecstatic that I was studying Arabic here. So ecstatic, in fact, that he demanded we pay ten times the price of the cab ride, to which we replied, “La.”

Words I’d use to describe Moroccan Mall: Consumerism, large, Burger King. I’m still hard-pressed to find a crunchwrap supreme in al-Maghreb, though. I toured around with Julia and Eliot for a while before getting lost without cell phone minutes in a Zara that I was positive was a Zara Women but was actually a Zara Men but I still don’t believe those signs because I’m pretty sure I saw a straight up dress.

Our night in Casablanca was equally hilarious, involving a club called Le Squat, a bride-to-be, and a midget.

Masjid Hassan II. Maybe the most marvelous mosque in the world.

Quick interlude about the minutiae of daily life here. Things are good. My Arabic is getting better and better, insha’allah, and most of my classes sometimes talk about interesting subject matter. While I love learning about revolution theory and the penetrative power of the Moroccan satellite system, I miss my English classes. Last night, Marwane, Eliot, Tamar, and I watched The Descent, and all I wanted to do was dissect its horror parables and analyze how the descent in The Descent is actually a descent from decency… and law and humanity. But that didn’t stop me from maybe thinking the cave people were in the bathroom.

I love my host family. Sometimes it gets a little tiring having to deal with Latifa (“You in the hospital of le crazy, Daood!” “Eliot, you top crazy!”) but sometimes it’s so rewarding (“I get sweets before dinner so we eat quickly because my momma she will be mad if she know”). My mom is still a phenomenal cook, our dad still loves teaching us, Marwane still loves hanging out. Eliot recently witnessed a car accident around 3AM one night and, in scared stupor, asked, “Kul shay b’kher?” which, according to our host family is the funniest thing in the world since you just… don’t say that. (Imagine seeing a woman who just got in a car accident, blood streaming down her face, and asking her, “Hey girlie, is everything dandy?” Keef keef.) Anyway, literally everything is kulshaybkher? now and then laughslaughslaughs and I am curious to see how long inside jokes go for in Morocco and if there is anything called Beating A Dead Horse because it looks like there isn’t.

The following weekend, AMIDEAST took the whole group to four different places: Fez, Ifrane, Azrou, and Meknes. It was an awesome trip. We traveled by minibus, half the group in each, and Eliot brought an iPod radio adaptor and walkie talkies so we could listen to Got 2 Luv U by Sean Paul on repeat for hours.

Hello, ladies!

Fez is the oldest city in Morocco. Once we settled into our hotel (named Hotel Splendid, so things had to be good. Yes, it had a swimming pool, and, yes, it was 45-degrees farenheit outside–talk about summer!), the group decided that shawarma was needed to be had. We traveled around for a little while, only finding a restaurant named The Mona Lisa instead of a shawarma shack. As the designated Talk To This Man To Find Out Where We Are person, I Talked To This Man To Find Out Where We Were.

“Hello, Mister! We would like to eat at the best shawarma restaurant in all of the city Fez. Do you know where I am able to find this restaurant?”

“Yes, brother, [garbledwords] shawarma [uncleardialogue]. I will walk you [he’stalkingreallyquickly].”

The man proceeded to abort his original mission to walk us ten minutes to the second best shawarma place in town named Puerto Rico (wait what?) because Grace got too hungry to wait for the best one. On the walk, he gave me a wonderful lesson on Islam (what else is new), told me all about Fez and where he lives and his work, and in the end, explained,

“Many people, they do this for money. For example, they walk [pleaseslowdownsir] and then they say, ‘Please give me money!’ But me, [wasthataclicklanguage?] and I do it because Islam says it is important to help a friend. You are my friend. Good luck and [itslikeyouretryingtospeaksignlanguage].”

The Madrasa’s walls.

So naturally, I gave one of my Hallmark goodbyes: “Thank you very much, my brother. Hopefully in the near future I will see you again around this city that is named Fez and then we will talk because your help was very important and I would not have not have been able to find Puerto Rico the Second Best Shawarma Place in Fez alone.” And then, an addendum, “Also please excuse my hungry friends who did not want to walk to the best shawarma place in Fez. This is good enough for us, and they are tired.”

Sight-seeing galore.

And then, just as quickly as we found him, he disappeared into the Fezian afternoon.

The Fez Medina was beautiful. We did a lot of sight-seeing within it with a knowledgeable professor, taking pictures at a madrasa (religious school) and a place where people once traded things (there were scales). Then, we had time to do, what else. Shopping. The girls got earrings and the girls got scarves and the girls even got soap this time which was surprising because I thought they just kept wanting to buy earrings and scarves because who doesn’t need seventy pairs of those accessories?

Camel burger!

Highlights of Fez were seeing a camel’s decapitated head on the side of a souk that we quickly named Herb (the camel, not the head), and then actually consuming camel burgers at the beautiful Cafe Clock. It was pretty tasty.

Snowkay!

Ifrane was so so cold. In fact, there was snow. And snow ball fights. Lessons I learned include that it is really easy to destroy Moroccans in snow ball fights because they simply have no idea. Rochester, Land of Snow and Lake Effect Misery, trained me for this day, I told myself.

Following ice-cold beauty were monkeys galore and Berber/Amazigh shops where the girls did the unthinkable. Shopping. And yes, they bought earrings. Again. But luckily I had monkeys to keep me company, and unlike in India, these monkeys weren’t inclined to rip my face off at the jaw line and instead were very ecstatic to take my bread and excrete off trees in front of me.

We stayed the night in Azrou where we explored the souks and ate good food and made Dumb Lawn jokes. (I think I’m getting weirder by the day.)

Monkey see, monkey do.

There, we slept in Hotel Panorama which had a beautiful view but unfortunately ran out of electricity and double unfortunately looked exactly like a murder mystery castle and a thousand unfortunately had thus no heat and so in conclusion it was the coldest. And darkest.

While taking the bus back, we stopped in Meknes to eat and explore the souk there, too, and then paraded around Roman ruins taking pictures of everyone in their drug rugs (those burlapy sweatshirt things) pretending to be gnomes.

It is so cool that Morocco has this much variety within it. Traveling on the weekends is a breath of fresh air. Yet, certain things, like when we accidentally walked into the epicenter of the prostitution ring of Fez, made me excited to come back to Rabat which is altogether a little more put together than these other places. It’s homey, now. It’s a homebase.

Hotel Panorama’s panoramic view.

Getting my zen on at the Roman ruins in Morocco.

So kul shay is in fact bkheer here. I’m currently at my internship, where I’m about to draft a proposal for an Ibn Rochd think tank that will complement Morocco’s democratization efforts by putting pressure on policy reform with research and dialogue among high-profile stakeholders. I’m pretty sure I have to write it in English and Arabic, so don’t get too excited about the success of this project.

AMIDEAST also organized a fake Moroccan wedding at my (host)aunt’s house where everyone got dressed up in djellabas and Eliot and Elana got fake married. It was a lot of dancing with our language partners, singing with my Arabic teacher, and a lot of fun even though none of us had any idea what was going on. What was even more fun was walking around Rabat in a djellaba and a fes trying to get a taxi and being openly laughed at by all.

Us with Doha at the wedding!

This weekend, my dad and grandma are coming. I’m excited to show them around Rabat and do all of the touristy things. It will also be nice to see some family, but I am not looking forward to shaving.

In conclusion, always remember: Swiper, no swiping! Especially no swiping earrings ’cause you have enough of those by now!!

Oh, I also rode a fast, fast horse. It was painful.

By David from Morocco's Modern Life