Monday, February 25, 2008

Pre Birthday Surprise

2-23-2008

I was having a quiet evening at home when the doorbell rang. It was quite late and I wasn’t sure who would be visiting me at this time. So I went downstairs, opened the door, and there wasn’t anyone there. Then I looked down and there was a liter of Pepsi, a box with cake inside, and a freshly cooked Moroccan Tagine. As I was basking in my confusion, five Moroccan guys from my youth center burst from around the corner and yelled “Happy Birthday!”

They had wanted to surprise me. And I WAS surprised because my birthday wasn’t for another three days. I thanked them, and filled them in on this information—I guess there was a translation error that I my BIRTHDAY was the 26th and I was TURNING 23. Not the other way around.

But it’s the thought that counts! So I got to have myself a little pre-gaming birthday party out in the middle of my street—which essentially involved eating. Gotta love Moroccan stomach-centered hospitality!

Hospital Visit

2-15-2008 HOSPITAL VISIT

No, not me... the food poisoning wasn’t THAT bad (not that it was great or anything, but I’ll spare the details for the next Peace Corps get together, cus I’ve found that tales of unique digestive feats are a favorite Volunteer past time). My host mom, however, had to go in for a minor procedure on her arm her arm, though I’m not exactly sure what the problem was. My Arabic medical terminology is rather underdeveloped....

Thankfully, the procedure went very well, and I also got to experience a Moroccan hospital. Perhaps surprisingly, it was a perfectly hospital-y hospital, nothing like the image one may have cultivated imagining “a hospital in Africa.” It was well staffed and very clean, that is, aside from the ubiquitous stray cats wandering in and out. But they skittered around relatively tolerated, and useful at that, picking stray food off the floor and generally lifting patients’ spirits—I think they may have been on payroll.

What surprised me though was the “communal culture” aspect of the recovery room. When I entered the room with my host brother and five other friends who were there to visit Mama, I was surprised to see three other beds with three other women recovering from various sicknesses and procedures. All of them—with no curtains or dividers—were just relaxing in the open room. That in itself wouldn’t have been astonishing—it saves room, and none of the women seemed severely ailed—but what perplexed me was that our group didn’t end up just visiting Mama. We visited everybody. As we entered the room, everyone immediately fanned out, sitting at the feet of the other women’s beds, asking how they were feeling, even checking the forehead of one woman’s toddler who was seated in her lap with an iv in his arm. I was baffled because these were complete strangers, and in the US, it would have been an annoying invasion of privacy to have a bunch of teenagers come into your recovery room, poking, prodding, and asking about your conditions. But it seemed perfectly normal, even expected, all around.

Somehow, when everyone else left to fetch some food for Mama, I ended up sticking around. I sat down at the foot of Mama’s bed—just me, Mama, and a bunch of veiled, middle aged Moroccan ladies in hospital beds (still accompanied by the cleaning-cats of course). Mama and I didn’t have much to talk about, mostly because my conversational Arabic runs out after a minute and a half with people who already know me because I can’t bank on my well practiced introductory phrases, though it was also because she was understandably tired. She looked quite discombobulated. After a few minutes, she got this far away look in her eye, like she was trying to remember if she had shut off the oven before she left home. Then she got a look of resolve as if she suddenly remembered what she needed to do. She proceeded to dig in a bag next to her bed, pull out a bag of cookies, hand them to me, and tell me to eat. I started to refuse, reminding her that SHE was the sick one. But then I recalled (from a lifetime of experience) that mothers—in times of uncertainty or crisis—have this wonderfully perplexing drive to care for OTHERS even if they’re the inflicted ones. I figured it was probably universal... and I was right. As I started to eat the cookies, Mama started to look much more settled.

After that, I just sat back and watched the recovery room dynamics. The women chatted across the room about their ailments, their children, and whether or not the others had seen how expensive the peas were at market this week. Then yet another patient meandered into the room, and everyone asked her about HER ailments. It all seemed like it would feel invasive and awkward to me, but for them it appeared to be a part of physical therapy. Plus there were none of those neat ceiling mounted TV’s in the room, so I guess one has to do something for entertainment.

Then of course, as it inevitably does, the entertainment shifted my direction. The women were understandably curious as to why there was a random foreigner visiting a sick Moroccan lady. Mama sleepily explained how I lived with her for a while, and that now I have a place by myself (cue the unanimous “By himself? Poor thing!” response). After that of course she had to tell them her favorite story of how I shouldn’t be living without her because when I tried to cook my first Moroccan “tagine,” I forgot to add oil. The room went into hooting hysterics (a long with more “Poor thing!” now partnered with “He needs to find a wife!”) It’s intriguing, because she never even has to FINISH the story and tell them about the charred smoking mess I ended up with. “And he forgot the oil!” is all the punch line she needs around other women. I was glad that my cooking ineptitude could at least serve to lift hospital spirits. In retrospect, it probably could have been even more effective if I would have wheeled Mama’s bed around from room to room as she shouted “And he forgot the oil!” through the entire hospital. We’d have had the whole place roaring.

Our crash comedy session was interrupted by the arrival of yet another hospital surprise. In strolled a quiet Asian man with glasses who was wearing a sweat shirt and slacks. He walked up to the woman with the baby, and with no words, just a few well rehearsed gestures, asked her if her child had eaten yet and if everything was going well. Turns out the hospital’s main doctor is from China, works for a Chinese sponsored doctor staffing program, and doesn’t speak a lick of Arabic. He speaks some French of course, though that won’t get far with older Moroccan women who probably didn’t have much schooling. He took an interest in me, as did I in him (I think we were both a bit perplexed to see another non-Moroccan in Ben Guerir). He tried to speak to me in French. I tried to reply that I don’t speak French, but of course I only know how to say that in Arabic, which he, of course, does not speak. Then we shared an odd moment of linguistic limbo. Both of us mentally flipped through the alternative languages we could attempt, tried to reconcile just why the other didn’t speak the language we’d expected, and simultaneously realized that there really wasn’t a lingo that was going to work out. Luckily, one of the patients spoke some French, so I talked to her in Arabic and she French-ed it to him and then Arabic-ed his responses back to me. This topped the hospital-visit cake—having a French speaking Chinese doctor talking to an Arabic speaking American English teacher through a Moroccan housewife who was in bed with an iv in her arm. What a fun little world microcosm!

Around this time, the others came back with Mama’s lunch and they, of course, had brought back enough for everybody. My host brother and company proceeded to walk about the room, delivering oranges and yogurt to each of the women bed by bed. It was received gratefully, yet casually, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

And as we left later on, every woman in the room was sure to remind me to use oil next time I make tagine....

Sunday, February 17, 2008

More Language Adventures

2-1-2008 LANGUAGE IS FUN

I never tire of locals’ surprise that I speak as much Arabic as I do. Albeit, that’s really not much, and the people I work with make sure I KNOW it’s still not enough, so I sometimes get caught up in what I DON’T know rather than what I DO.

That’s why I love to travel here. People who don’t know me and don’t know the Peace Corps are always quite impressed. The other day, I had to go into Marrakech and decided to try the bus instead of the train. I walked up to the bus where one of the assistants sold me a ticket, and I got on. The 15DH price seemed a bit high, but there was no posted price. I suspected I was getting the “foreigner tax” which is not, by the way, an actual tax. I asked the Moroccan guy next to me how much he had paid and he told me 10DH, so I thought “Oh HECK no.” When the ticket taker got onto the bus, I asked him how much the price REALLY was, and he told me there was not a problem and everybody on the bus had paid the same as me. I asked him if he wanted to hold up the bus while I asked them all how much they paid, or if he wanted to give me my 5DH back. He rolled his eyes and relented, and I gave him a good dose of “Shame upon you” and went back to my seat victorious. (You also know you’re being paid a Peace Corps salary when you will hold up a bus over 60 cents...).

The best part was, by the time we got to Marrakech, the ticket taker had struck up a conversation with me, found out we lived in the same town, and ended up giving me his phone number and told me to call if I ever needed transport anywhere.

Then on that same day, I was walking around Marrakech when an old-woman came up to me begging for some change. I didn’t have any, figured she’d be pissed, but just told her “May God make it easier for you” in Arabic.

And I swear, I kid you not... she gave me a huge smile and a thumbs up for my Arabic before hobbling away.

Are you praying?

1-20-2008 ARE YOU PRAYING?

I get a lot of questions about my religion—at least once a day or so. Ironically, never from people I actually know or work with. It’s always from complete strangers meeting me for the first time. Religion usually just gets thrown into introductory conversation before or after “What’s your name?” or “Where are you from?” Though it seems awkward and invasive, I honestly don’t think it’s meant to be an antagonizing question. I think people are honestly intrigued when they meet this white guy who speaks Arabic and isn’t shopping for oil lamps in Marrakech along with all the other white people. And just like any other religion, people LOVE meeting converts who were lost and discovered a deeper truth in their religion. I hear a lot of stories of “I met this other American, he spoke Arabic like you, but HE convert-ized to Islam.” (Insert inquiring look as to whether or not I have). And needless to say, Cat Stevens’s music is hard-core popular here.

I used to avoid the question altogether, pretending I didn’t understand the Arabic or something. I don’t really know why. I think I’m just conditioned to be afraid of that question, especially when I’m an obvious minority. But then, one day when I was working with another volunteer at her youth center, a bunch of kids ran up to her and were asking her the “standard questions.” When they asked her if she was Muslim, she simply said, “No, I’m a Christian. Is that OK?” And the kids were all like “Yeah! You are welcome here!” And went on to asking her if she had a husband yet...

I realized her simple answer, coupled with a little vulnerability, did miles more in the realm of intercultural dialogue than being hostile about it or straight up avoiding the question.

So after that, I just default to a new linguistically-playful answer: When someone asks me if I’m Muslim, it translates into “Are you Praying?” or “Do you pray?” So I say “Yes I pray, but I pray in a church instead of a mosque,” which I personally think is drop-dead witty, though others find it a bit confusing. Either way, it usually satisfies their question.

Generally, people are honestly very accepting of my “coming out.” Plus it’s not like it’s a surprise or anything. I AM a white foreign guy, which of course equates to me speaking French and being a Christian, and since they inherently get half of that equation wrong when it comes to me, it revives their faith in the cultural astuteness of stereotyping to get the other half right.

It usually follows a predictable pattern after that, whether I’m talking to a group of loud little boys, giggly teenage girls, or beefy dudes at the gym. For the sake of turning it into a literarily-interesting allegory, I’ll use the loud little boys as the model: I’m sitting around reading a book, and a bunch of little boys run up to me and whip out their best “What is your name” and all that good stuff, until they realize I can speak Arabic which is WAAAAAAY cool, so their questions will get deeper (and faster) until they throw out “Are you Muslim?” (with an implied “yet” at the end of the sentence). I’ll say, “No, I’m Christian, is that OK?” and they’ll all say “Ok!” and want to move on to my marital status or favorite Moroccan food, except for one kid. There’s always one little boy (or girl, or beefy gym guy) who makes a big show and with a frowny face makes sure I know it is NOT ok, that he sooooo does not approve of my non-Muslim-ness. The rest of his friends then start to hit him on the back of the head and tell him not to be a jerk face to the nice foreigner, or (if they happen to be quite learned 6 year olds) they’ll quote Koranic scriptures that the Jews and Christians are “people of the book” and Muslims are supposed to treat them with respect and kindness. The kid will relent, but continue to be all frowny and hostile while the others continue to get to know me.

But my favorite part—cus it always happens—is that every time I see the Mr. Frowny of the group after that, he is the first to shout out my name and run up to me with a huge smile to shake my hand and ask me how my day was.

My other favorite anecdote on this subject deals with my religion-question-avoidance days: It was always good to be walking around with one of my coworkers from the Youth Club, cus he could field the religion questions for me. I didn’t know Arabic that well yet, but I could hear the topic come up. A group would ask my “escort,” if I was a Muslim and he would say a few words and they’d drop the subject. I could recognize a few words (Christian, Muslim, God) so I figured he was telling them something like “No, he’s Christian. He’s not a Muslim yet, but God-willing, maybe someday.”

But a few weeks ago, we were walking around, ran into a gaggle of curious teenage girls (aren’t they always curious... and in gaggles for that matter?) and he got fielded the question again, and now that I know a few more verbs, I figured out he’d been saying all along, “He’s a Christian. We are Muslims. But there is only one God, and we all pray to the same God.”

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Sorry about the lull...

Sorry nothing has been posted here for a while. I'm in the middle of moving to my OWN PLACE and getting over food poisoning, both of which are hindering internet access. But all is well and I am surely alive, as is Morocco and all that good stuff. More to come!

~Chris