Learning Arabic

It's a rather interesting experience to try and learn Arabic in Morocco. To understand why, you must first understand that all Arabic is not the same. There is Media Arabic (called Modern Standard Arabic or Fus-Ha), there is classic Arabic for religious and literary stuff and then there are numerous dialects, called Dareeja. Confused? Good, because so am I.

Essentially I am here learning a language that most people can read, most can understand, but nobody speaks. The closest analogy I can think of is if you imagined someone coming up to you in the US and speaking in Biblical or Shakespearian English. So I'm learning FusHa but everyone here speaks Dareeja and/or French. And while some words are similar, many are not. For example, the word 'crazy' is "maazshnoon" in FusHa but "aHmak" in Dareeja.

But luckily the people here are very nice and most are willing to help you learn new words and can usually understand what I'm saying in FusHa. After three weeks I've learned the alphabet but my vocabulary is still very limited. So it's kind of fun because it's usually just like a big game of charades for me over here. Except for one place. There is a market nearby with a lot of fruit/vegetable and meat vendors where you can get pretty much everything you need. But my favorite is the chicken guy. He is one of the nicest people I've met over here and for some reason I have mad Arabic skills when I'm at his shop. It started one day when I was waiting in line and there was a young child in front of me with his mother. I had just learned a new phrase a couple days ago but had yet found a place to use it. The phrase is "Tbaark Allah" which basically just means may God protect you/him/her and is usually used for precious things and babies. So I practiced it a few times in my head then turned to the mother and said "Tbaark Allah" and you would have thought I had recited half the Koran. I guess they weren't used to seeing bald headed westerners speaking Arabic. Unfortunately this was pretty much all I knew how to say. But between that and my hello and thank you (which I had also just practiced) they thought I could speak Arabic very well. haha....if only they knew. But it paid off because every time I go there he smiles and says some things in Arabic to which I usually reply with whatever I can think of off the top of my head.

So my goal is that by the time I leave here I'd like to be able to say something other than hello and nisf kilo dajezj (1/2 kilo of chicken). In sha Allah.

Moroccan Honey

Not much going on today but it is a beautiful day so we thought we would set out for the Medina in search of honey. I read an article in the New York Times a while ago about a honey dealer that was supposed to be quite good (you can read the article here).

And just for the record, in case anyone reads this and decides to try and find it, the directions in the NYT article were a little off. But it is still very easy to find. Just take a taxi to Bab Boujlod and enter from there. Once you enter the Medina, take the first left then your first right and you will be on Talaa Kbira. You will go past some rather interesting shops on this street. The first section has a lot of butchers where you can get meat and see some interesting things. For instance, we passed by one shop that had a camel head hanging right out front.



Keep going down Talaa Kbira until you get to Ain Zliten square on your left. Then 50 to 100 meters past that on your left will be an archway that leads to Fondouk Kaat Smen and the first honey dealer you come to is the one mentioned in the article.

Once there he let us sample some of the varieties of honey he had available. In the back room there were blue vats of honey that we were able to try. We tried lavender, orange, rosemary, fig and eucalyptus honey but my favorite was lavender.



Then getting the honey was fairly simple, but perhaps a bit unsanitary. The shop owner just took a pan, scooped it out of the vat, wiped the pan off with his hand, then poured it into a container for weighing.





As you can see, Kara was pretty happy about getting her honey :)



And that's about it. It was very easy to find and was a pretty quick trip. Oh, and the honey is delicious too.

Big Brother Maroc

I must admit that I totally feel like I'm on Big Brother living here. I live in a building with 11 other students. There are 6 males and 6 females. We all share the same kitchen and a common living area. The only thing we are missing is the token gay guy and a hot tub in the back. Right now we are all a big happy family where everyone gets along and helps each other out. For instance tonight I was waiting for Nolen to finish washing his dishes so I could wash mine but he went ahead and washed mine for me. Then Kara steamed some artichoke and was eating that while Kyle and I were helping her out (sort of....she really likes her artichoke so we didn't get too much...lol). So this is just like the first few days of any season of Big Brother. I'm just waiting to see what happens over the next couple of months. But since we don't get to vote anyone out of the house and we actually get to leave and go do things I think it will turn out just fine. It's really a lot of fun but almost uncanny....I keep looking around for the CBS cameras everywhere.

Morocco

Well, I made it to Morocco and so far it has been fairly interesting and fun. I posted a link on the right side of this blog where I will post all my pictures over the next 7 months. I really need to get to bed since I have class in the morning but I wanted to share a couple of random thoughts about my first 2 days in country.

1. It is a lot colder here than I thought it would be. I have no idea what the temperature is outside but according the various web sites it gets down to the lower 40's to upper 30's at night and up into the 60's during the day. Granted that doesn't sound cold but the buildings over here aren't insulated and don't have heaters. Now ALIF (the Arabic Language Institute in Fez) does have heaters in the rooms where I am staying but they are small radiators and are just kind of warm, not hot. And they don't do much to warm up the rooms. So at night it gets pretty chilly in here.

2. Shopping carts. OMG, how are you supposed to steer these things? We went to a supermarket today to pick up some food and other things so we got a cart. But these carts are more like hovercrafts because all 4 wheels turn independently of each other. So you can go straight, sideways, diagonal, whatever you want (or don't want in our case). Then to top that off the floors were slick so steering was next to impossible after the cart got heavier. It was quite comical and frustrating at the same time.

3. Moroccans definitely have a sweet tooth. When you order coffee it's not quite like we have in the States. I think it is just espresso and then they add steamed milk to your cup after they bring it to your table. But then they also give you a ton of sugar to put into it. When I was on the train there was a guy who ordered a coffee and it couldn't have been more than 4oz of coffee but he added this giant packet a sugar and then drank it. Then you can order this mint tea which is apparently quite popular here. I must admit that it is quite good though. It comes in a scalding hot teapot with crushed mint in the pot. You open this thing up and that's all you can see. But it's very sweet and very good.

4. I haven't met very many Moroccans yet but the people here in the dorms (called the Villa) are all very nice. There are only maybe 10 of us here but I think it will be a fun 6 or 7 months with this group.

That's all for now. Hopefully my next post will be more organized and coherent after I get some sleep :)