Ta Da!

All right everybody. That's it for this blog!

I arrived back in the US safely, completely wowed and grateful for all the Peace Corps and Morocco have given me. I saw incredible sights, met amazing folks, found deeper aspects to myself, and almost managed to convincingly pronounce that elusive "ghhhh" gargling letter in the Arabic alphabet.

For anyone who hasn't heard, I will indeed be starting a new adventure soon. Shortly, I will be leaving for South Korea, where I will spend a year teaching English with my lovely partner, Noemi Lopez.

We'll be keeping a blog at "www.cbnlkorea.blogspot.com" so be sure to drop by the site to visit!

Thanks to everyone who kept up with this blog. I hope you enjoyed it. Take care, and we'll see you on the Korea page!

Bslamma!

Chris Bacon

ASCENT TO THE TOP OF NORTH AFRICA! An Independence-Day Adventure

4-7-2008

I took it upon myself to “top off” my time in Morocco by celebrating my last week here with the ultimate Moroccan hiking trip. Just outside of Marrakech, in the High Atlas Mountains, lies Mt. Toubkal, the highest mountain in all of North Africa—how could one leave this place before taming that beast!

At 4,167m, Toubkal is only about half the size of Mt. Everest, and though the peak is covered with snow most of the year, almost all of it melts for the summer—so no ice picks, cords, or boots were needed. Since the mountain trail is described as a “hike” (no straight vertical climbs), I figured I’d just head out there with my tennis shoes and a sweatshirt to see what happened. Besides, my plan for the 3-day hike would put me at the peak on July 4^th—what a way to celebrate Independence Day!

The first day was a relatively straightforward hike into the mountain range from a nearby village. It took about 5-6 hours to reach the refuge “hut” (which is actually a pretty posh cabin that holds a few hundred) at the foot of Toubkal, where people spend the night to rest up and get used to the altitude change. At the refuge, there were expeditions of climbers from Spain, France, England, and Germany, all with Moroccan guides and trusty mules for supplies. I was the lone American, so most people didn’t talk to me, having assumed (rightly) that I was never educated in any of their languages, as it tends to go with Americans. But I had a lot of fun flooring them by walking past their little groups and hamming it up with their Moroccan guides in seemingly fluent Arabic. Score one for the homeland!

The next morning, I followed the advice I got from my new Moroccan-guide buddies and woke up dark-and-early at 5:30 to set out at first light. This is when most of the big groups set out and I had been advised to follow them up, as this is the part of the climb where, without a guide, one can end up in one of Toubkal’s infamous fields of “scree” (a bunch of loose gravel) that simply slides out from under your feet, talking you with it. So I caught up with a group of Brits who had set out before me (and weren’t afraid of being linguistically incompatible with an American) and followed them up.

The climb was steep and the view breathtaking as we slowly neared the top of the mountain range to see it all from above. The other peaks around Toubkal, however, were still so high that we couldn’t see exactly what we were climbing towards, but we traversed on. Then a little further up, the wind kicked in. No one really mentions wind when advising mountain climbers. They’ll talk about the cold, or the slippery scree (tripping my way up the rock-slide, though I was glad to be following a guided group, I couldn’t imagine the scree being that much worse off of this so called “path”), but never about the wind. Already tottering on loose gravel, we’d all duck down and brace ourselves as a big gust smacked into us, wait until it died down, scurry up a few more steps, then brace for the next gust.

The wind let up towards the top and we could finally see the far off peak of Toubkal marked with a big metal pyramid. Here, the group I’d been following stopped for a break, but as we were so close to the top (little did I know it was still 55 minutes… tricky mountains!), I didn’t want to break my hiking-rhythm. So I broke of from the Brits to go-it alone (didn’t realize the July 4^th symbolism until later).

I caught up with a French couple who helped me up the rest of the way (again with the 1776 symbolism) and together we made it to the top of North Africa! Emerging into the panoramic view, the wind figured it was appropriate to die down for dramatic effect as the mountain range spread below us. Aside from the anthem-singing, flag-waving Spanish group who had come up a few minutes before, it was quite peaceful. From the top, one can see the entire High Atlas range and even some of the tiny villages way down below (“What? It took me two days to come from THERE? It looks like I could just roll down and be there in 20 minutes…). The altitude had made my hands swell up to arthritic proportions, but I still managed to take some pictures of the French couple. By that time, the British group hade made it up and—I kid you not—sat down for tea and biscuits.

I sat and chatted with one of the Moroccan guides I hadn’t yet met and he introduced me to a Swiss woman who had hired him (the mountain beginning to feel like a UN meeting). After they found out I had come up alone, they invited me to come down with them. I figured it’d be savfer with a guide, so I quickly agreed. “Although,” said the friendly lady said with a mischievous Swiss-German accent, “we’re going back a different way than we came up. I hope that’s all right.”

Apparently, in her dialect, “different” translates from “death defying.” Well known fact that I should have remembered: The Swiss are bad-to-the-bone mountain climbers, blonde, and bred with a sixth-sense drawing them up, up, and away. The “different” path we took down had a steep, spectacular view of the abyss one would certainly sprawl into upon a single misstep—missteps being a certainty since we were then on steep-scree that functioned like a giant gravel slip-&-slide. In light of that, I spent an inordinate amount of time tumbling to my backside banana-peel-sketch style (as falling backwards is much preferred to falling forward where there is nothing, nothing to stop you), but the Swiss lady and her guide were patient with me until I found my scree-legs (sorry, bad pun).

One would think that going up a mountain would be the tough part, and physically, it is. But gravity is like the mafia—it’s straightforward enough when you know you’re working against it, but when you attempt to work with it, that’s when you have to be constantly vigilant of it whacking you out of the blue.

Mountain descents like this are surely where the term “steep learning curve” came from. Though, oddly enough, certain death was far less of a motivator than my mother’s worry-confirmed “I told you so.” Either way, after a few hours, my butt got a break as I started to figure things out.

We hiked (Well, they hiked. I slid.) past a field of wreckage from a military plane that had crashed in the mountains some twenty-odd years ago (Our guide explained this by picking up a hunk of the engine and miming, with airplane sounds, it tumbling down. Then he threw it into a rock with exploding mouth-spitting effects). I suddenly realized that I had read about this wreckage somewhere before. Then it hit me—it had been a passage from my Rough Guide Morocco book. We were on the highly scenic, highly high, back-route. It’s the one the book had advised, “Climbers looking for a challenge may choose this path for the ascent, but we advise that even advanced climbers shouldn’t descend from this path.” Oh boy, now my mother’s REALLY gonna re-kill me when they find my body…

Luckily, fate let this one by, and we made it back to the refuge. I went straight to bed to sleep off an altitude-hangover, then spent the rest of the evening entertaining Moroccan guides by teaching them all the English catch-phrases they could handle (should anyone hike in the High Atlas and hear “The early bird catches the worm,” that’s totally my legacy). I even managed to get a discount from the manager on my room bill for the English lessons.

The next day, I hiked back out of the valley with sore legs, but “Proud to be an American” to the max. I had taken on the mountain, capped off my Moroccan adventure, and learned valuable lessons: A) Never go mountain climbing with the Swiss unless you want to get the scree beat out of you, and B) Nothing, yes, absolutely nothing gets in the way of a proper English tea time.

Mt. Toubkal Pics

Here are some pictures of the ascent, the top, and my borrowed-guide Brahim showing off plane wreckage...

2 Mococco Poems

I got mad when the kids threw rocks at me—by Chris Bacon

I got mad when the kids
threw rocks at me
until I stopped seeing
through victim eyes

Finally looking, saw
the donkey cart guy
they bombarded him too
and cars, dogs,
shepherds, trains
basically any
thing that moved

My inclusion
true integration

Thank you rock-chuckers
For playing with me
in your game

Foreigner Tax—by Chris Bacon

You complained
cus he overcharged you by half

Then went home
to vote for the guy
who said the rich weren’t taxed enough

Forwarded an article
that foreign aid rarely
reaches the people

And paid $4.58
for a latte
with cinnamon undertones

AIDS Candlelight Memorial

Last month, the Youth Club I work with organized their second annual Candlelight Memorial for the victims of AIDS (SIDA in French). Activities included making T-shirts and a large plaster SIDA ribbon, an open youth-issues discussion forum between regional Peace Corps volunteers and youth, speeches from local leaders, and two theatre pieces—one in English (oh they make a teacher so darn proud!) and another trippy piece set to music in which a freaky AIDS monster came out and consumed characters engaging in at-risk behaviors. We were a hit! Enjoy the pictures...

Daylight Savings Time Annulled

6-5-2008

No matter what anybody says, let it be known that I single-handedly brought daylight savings time to Morocco.

About a month ago, I taught an English lesson on telling time and had a few minutes left at the end of class. I decided to do a bit of cultural exchange and teach them about Daylight Savings Time, which Morocco did not have. One would think it would be fairly straightforward to explain, but it kind of comes out as “So in the spring, everyone sets all of their clocks to the wrong time, causing mass confusion, but we purportedly save electricity and allow small children to play longer. Then, in the fall, we set the clocks back to the original time, which is now the wrong time cus we got used to it the other way.” It should be pointed out that the preceding explanation doesn’t translate well into Arabic.

Therefore, I ended up with a room full of baffled Moroccan students, which is how I like to leave them, as it makes me feel I am doing my duty as a teacher and instilling in them the desire to figure out what the heck I was talking about, causing them to go home to pursue the knowledge for themselves. Oh, the gift of learning! I asked the students what they though about the DST, and they unanimously agreed that it was a really weird idea, and that it would never happen in Morocco.

Lo and behold, no less than three weeks later, an announcement came out from the Ministry (I’m not sure which one, possibly the Ministry of Time and Clock Setting), that Morocco would officially go on daylight savings time the following month. Now let’s put the pieces together:

1. Chris does a lesson on daylight savings time.

2. General confusion ensues, causing people all over town to gossip about this strange phenomenon.

3. A few days later, the King of Morocco comes on a visit to the town to meet with citizens and local officials (See previous blog entry).

4. All of the sudden Morocco—without warning—decides to go on daylight savings time!

The evidence is indisputable!

The day came, watches were reset, and a young Peace Corps Volunteer swelled with hubris (obviously nonsensical and undeserved, but don’t ruin his day). The most interesting part of the transition, however, was that I never in my life expected to see daylight savings have no impact whatsoever. Nothing changed, therefore everything changed. The rhythm of life went on, unconcerned about what time the clock said it ways, everything just got pushed an hour later.

In small cities in Morocco the non-business sectors of life (anything that’s not governmentally controlled or a western-model company), the day is measured by the 5-a-day prayer calls, which are solar based. Folks know it’s about time to get up with the first call, time for lunch following the afternoon call, time to close up shops after the evening call, and time for kids to stop playing in the streets at the sunset call. Therefore, all of these events went unfazed by DST, and (if one measures by clock-time) every single part of the day happened an hour later, which REALLY throws off those of us watch-wearers who are used to a bit of regularity.

Instead of the whole town adjusting to the clock for daylight savings time, the town forced the clock-time of everything to adjust. This essentially nullified the all-consuming power of daylight savings time. Imagine the chaos in the US if, when we went on DST, everything just happened an hour later: The standard workday went from 10:00am-6:00pm, lunch was served at 1:00pm, your favorite show was now on at 8:00pm instead of 7:00pm, the kids, who were formerly in bed at 9:00pm are still running around at 10:00pm. We’d go insane!

Maybe this is why my students thought DST would be a bad idea. Maybe I should have been a little bit less inspiring with my immensely impactful English lesson. Or maybe I just need to realize that time really is relative, Einstein must have vacationed in Morocco, that my English lesson’s proximity to the announcement was probably coincidental, and that I really need to get over wearing a watch.

THE ROYAL SECRET TO COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

5-15-2008

Crowd. Cheer. Chanting.

Crowd. Not like they’ll tell you when he’s actually going to arrive...

Wait. Crowd. Cheer. Cheer. Crowd. Ow my foot. Hot.

Don’t know how to swear in Arabic.

Remind self to ask tutor.

Ow. Tall crowd. Hot. Foot. Cheer. Cheer. Crowd.

Proceed to antici-wait.

Not like I’ll be able to see him over all this, right?

“We could to a community clean up--at the park or something!” Oh, silly Peace Corps volunteer with your eager ideas that from time to time come into fruition, but usually get stuck in seedling form, buried too deep in the dirt of “you can’t want they project more than they do.” Thank you pre-service training.

I can see the lack of appeal to the project. Within a day and a half of picking up discarded plastic bags, dusty bottles, and cigarette butts, it will look exactly the same as before. But the point is sensitization, right? It’s the hope that having spent a free weekend picking up crud in the hot sun, participants think twice about chucking that chip bag next time. That’s the important part, isn’t it?

Maybe even plant some trees, paint the walls, brighten things up a bit! Hmm... who would pay you say? Understandable. Yes I’ll look into it. Yes we can once again “ich’allah” the idea into next month.

No go. Lukewarm reception. Let’s move onto ideas people will actually do (Ping-Pong tournament anyone?).

Then, one day out of the blue, it happened. “It” should be italicized or put in bold, capital letters, because this is no normal “it.” IT is the single announcement that suddenly made city beautification not only a likeable idea, but a matter of pride and patriotism for the residents and job-security for every official in town.

The king is coming to visit.

I had always thought there was exaggeration in the Moroccan joke that if you want to clean up the town, just spread a rumor that the king is coming, and watch the magic unfold. But as soon as I saw every single shop and home owner take to the streets with a bag, broom, and a bucket of paint, I became a believer. I single handedly witnessed the transformation as that main road which was in the rebuilding process for two months suddenly re-opend, complete, in four days. Someone filled the holes in the streets. Murals popped up on walls overnight with no trace of an artist. Johnny Appleseed must be heading international and diversifying into the palm tree business, because all of the sudden, the once-barren streets were lined with them. I watched in awe as my youth club donned donated caps and shirts, filled 30 garbage bags, swept out a donkey-parking-lot, and painted the curbs a patriotic red and white. Flags flew over doors, out windows, across buildings, and above streets, as if everyone in town keeps at least six stored up in their attics. Funding? What funding? No problem. It was as if everything materialized through royal magic (supplies as well as unwavering motivation).

Even returning to my own street (a part of town unlikely to receive a royal drive-through) I witnessed the fervor. The whole neighborhood was out sweeping, or slapping paint onto curbs and houses. I walked under my neighbor who was up a ladder, rolling a new brown over the identical old brown wall color, and considered jovially asking him if he’d like to hop over a few feet and paint my house too. I reconsidered though, because knowing Moroccan gregariousness, I was afraid he actually would have.

When the day came, I didn’t even recognize my dusty little town. It had turned into a jewel of patriotism and hastily-readied care. Some grumbled about the process, stating that people will care for the city for a few days and then everything will go back to normal (I have to admit, I was a little afraid that as soon as the day was over, someone would come to uproot the trees and bring them to the next royal visit site). But seeing the cheering crowds coming out to witness the new king’s first visit to their city, coupled with all of the pride and excitement that preceded it was even worth it for the grumblers. The national pride was contagious. As I ran into a 6-year old girl from my youth center on the big day, she turned to me with an orange popsicle stained face, held her little Moroccan flag up in the air, and proceeded to brag that she had heard that MY king was being replaced soon, but HER king was going to stay with Morocco for his whole life.

I have to admit, I was a bit star-struck when the moment came. I just sort of happened to be at the right place at the right time. No one knew exactly when he would be arriving, so I had gone home in the afternoon for lunch, but soon after arriving, I felt the odd beams of excitement (or eeriness) as my entire neighborhood had become a ghost town since everyone was leaving for the middle of town. So I left the dishes in the sink, and caught up with the crowds.

By the time I got there, the crowds were impenetrable, and everyone was still excited, but had become hot, parched, and tired of standing. The situation reminded me of New Year’s Eve on Times Square—on TV, you get to see the actual moment and the 5 minutes of flag waving excitement, but when you’re THERE, you must bear the dreary, endless waiting while barricaded by crowd control. The differences in Morocco were that A) the police were more polite and B) the neighboring cafes weren’t charging $13 for a hamburger like the evil Times Square McDonalds does on New Years.

The crowd was grew louder, and beginning the royal chant, and I could feel everyone surge forward. He must be near. Since I couldn’t see over the heads, I resigned myself to jumping as high as I could at strategic intervals, hoping for a glimpse, but then I caught the eye of one of my students. He and a friend had propped a bicycle up against a wall behind me and were precariously balanced, standing straight up on the seat and handlebars. The waved me over, and hoisted me up so I could stand on the tire (yes, stand up on the incredibly stable rolling thing Chris). As we clung to the wall, balancing like circus bears on a unicycle, the royal precession arrived. First came a parade of royal guards shining in French-style military uniforms, but holding onto tradition by topping off with turbans. Then traditional white jallaba-clad holy men came through, making a jostling sea of red fezzes. Finally, strolling out in between stressed out guards in black suits and ear pieces, there was King Mohammad IV, head of state and leader of the faithful, looking suave as usual in a suit, tie, and stylish sunglasses giving us all the royal wave. I had an amazing view of him greeting the crowds for about 45 seconds, and that’s about the time our bike toppled over.

The rest of the day I ran around with the crowds playing “where will he pass next,” a game in which we all bolt in different directions hoping that his motorcade will pass by so we can him waving out of the sunroof. I managed three king-sightings, which I though was pretty good, but some of my students got four or five, so I lost. But I still felt like a champ. Partially because I had just achieved multiple royalty-sightings in one day, but mostly because, on that day, I was the volunteer who had the cleanest, most environmentally conscious site in the Peace Corps--and all it took was a stop-off on the royal itinerary.

(The King of Morocco)

Spring Trip

4-15-2007 A LETTER FROM GEORGE WASHINGTON?

After camp, I took a few days off to do some traveling. I had a conversation at camp with another volunteer about how unbelievably lucky we are to have ended up in Morocco, a country with such varied beauty and culture that we could never hope to take in everything even in the two years we’re stationed here. With deserts in the south, beaches in the west, snow capped peaks in the middle, winding hills and Spanish villages up north, not to mention the mixing of Arab, Berber, French, and Spanish culture running together like watercolor everywhere you go, the country offers ceaseless opportunity. The other day, I met this absolute hippy-stereotype who had been in Morocco for a month with his wife and daughter, and he had the audacity to coolly tell me that he was “already getting bored,” and that he’d “spent a few days in each of these cities and didn’t find anything new.” All I could do was just smile, nod, and think “You jaded, ignorant, travel-moron. You’re a walking cliché of the types that zip around a country, checking off names of cities they’ve ‘been to’ after they’ve hit the bus station and main street. Then they leave, going to look for ‘uncharted territory,’ some new unattainable authenticity they think they can get cus they played guitar and laughed with some Berber guys in a tent, but left not having learned a single thing about their real lives.” But this guy was a lot bigger than me and had scary tattoos, so I kept my mouth shut and was comforted realizing that he would live a miserable, unsatisfied, “too cool” life in which he missed anything of beauty or importance the world was begging to offer him.

Off the tangent but and back to my vacation... I traveled to Chefchauen, “the prettiest little town in Morocco,” nestled into the hills, known for its ubiquitous light blue painted buildings. Though it’s built around tourism now, it was once a “forbidden city.” Chefchauen, apparently not having received the memo on Moroccan hospitality, had only been seen by 3 foreigners before the Spanish came in 1937—one had been poisoned, the other chased out, and the other made it in and out cus he apparently disguised himself as a Rabbi and that worked out for him. Fortunately, I did not get poisoned or chased out and had a great time, but UNfortunately, it would have been fun if I would have had to dress as a Rabbi to get out alive.

After that, I headed to the international port city of Tangir where apparently you can sit on the beach and see Spain on a clear day, of which I unfortunately did not have a single one. But it’s an absolutely entrancing city, especially when you get into the literary gossip and visit the places where many great writers of the early 20^th century lived, wrote, and occasionally worked as spies during WWII. I even got to see the cafe where Tennessee Williams wrote his first draft of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” even though it’s been turned into a sort of beach-disco club these days. It would, however, be interesting to have seen how the play would have been different had the cafe been a dance-club while Williams was writing. But “A Disco Musical Named Desire” may not have been as meaningful a production, and I don’t know if Marlon Brando can sing...

The other intriguing part of the city was my visit to “The American Legation,” which is the only American historical site that exists outside of the US. The building was a gift from the Moroccan Sultan and was the first American ambassadorial building. Morocco was the first country to officially recognize the US as an independent nation, and inside the Legation, there is a letter of correspondence between George Washington and Sultan Moulay Ben Abdallah. In the letter, Washington very cordially invites the Sultan to recognize and trade with the fledgling nation, even though, as he stated, the US had no gold or silver mines and agriculture had been limited by the recent war, so they had nothing to offer but hoped that the US could someday be somehow useful to its friends. Oh how times change! It was so intriguing to read into the tone of the letter as the leader of a rebellion essentially begged a powerful monarch to side with his impoverished rouge nation that had nothing to offer but hope and good will. The world’s come a long way.

Also housed in the Legation was a copy of a hilarious correspondence from one of the Ambassadors housed there in its early years attempting to explain that, even though he was strictly ordered to receive no gifts, a parade from the Sultan had showed up at his door with a magnificent lion and lioness as a gift to the government and people of America. In the letter, the ambassador explained how he did absolutely everything in his power to refuse the gift, but the people were impossibly insistent and would not leave. At the time the letter was written, the lions were being housed inside a room at the Legation and the ambassador was hoping for a swift reply from the US indicating how he should deal with them. It was good to see that Moroccan gift giving to foreigners has not changed in the last few hundred years, not in the scope of its generosity or in the absolute futility of a polite refusal to receive it!

Pics From Spring Trip

1. Me in Chefchauen
2. Church in Tangir (that's the lords prayer in Arabic bordering the alter area)
3. Reviving some Roman ruins outside of Fez
4. Letter from George Washington to Sultan of Morocco
5. Beach time at Asilah

Spring Camp

4-6-2007 CAMP

I’ve spent the last week working at an “English Immersion Camp” in Al Hociema, a city up north on the Mediterranean 3 trains, 2 busses, and 3 cabs away from my site. The camp is organized each year between the Peace Corps and the Moroccan Ministry of Youth for kids ages 13-17. For a week, three other volunteers and I worked with some amazingly motivated Moroccan staff members to entertain, control, and from time to time educate fifty eager Moroccan middle schoolers.

I was in charge of teaching the intermediate English class, and also running a “music club” which mostly involved me playing songs from the greats of western music that I decided were essential to the students’ development—The Beatles, Elvis, Bob Dylan... Justin Timberlake—it was great fun! However, the biggest ended up being “Bingo” which I would use to warm them up. Yes, I’m talking about the “B-I-N-G-O” song and the tricky “instead of a letter, you CLAP” trick. I can’t explain how strange it is to be unwinding in your room when you hear six too-cool teenage guys pass in the hall rocking out and chanting “There was a farmer, had a dog...”

Otherwise, it was just like any other summer camp I’d seen in the US—lots of singing, camp games, skits, counselors playing tricks on each other, yelling at kids to go to bed and then doing the same thing to wake them up in the morning. The kids were great, almost TOO well behaved. I mean, they did kid stuff, but even the “bad kids” were nothing compared to what I’ve seen elsewhere. A lot of them were first timers, as these sorts of camps are fairly new in the country, and I think the kids recognize it as more of a privilege then just “Summer camp, of COURSE I get to do this every summer.”

Probably the biggest surprise came at the end of the camp when all of the students were saying goodbye. Older volunteers had warned us about what was to come, but we still didn’t really believe it: Apparently, without fail, at the end of every camp, all of the students start weeping and holding each other, not wanting to leave their new found friends and the joys of camp. I was skeptical. Most of the participants were teenage guys, and teenage guys are WAY too cool to cry in front of each other. And besides, these kids had been together for like six days. How much of a bond could they have?

But when the day came, an experience I’m now familiar with in morocco... I was wrong. Once the kids got their bags outside of the center, they all (the cool guys even MORE than the girls) started openly weeping and hugged every single camp member and counselor. A few of the heaviest weeping dudes somehow ended up on my shoulder and I had no clue what to do, mostly because I hadn’t realized how culturally-conditioned I am to feel that public expression of male emotion is inherently awkward, but also because the only Arabic consolation phrase I know is what you’re supposed to say when someone had died, and I figured that would only make things worse. So I just held onto them and let them cry. It was so touching to see these guys, on the verge of adulthood, openly expressing emotion and how much the camp meant to them. I think a lot of it was that, unlike in the US, weeping over the departure of your guy friends is actually a masculine thing to do, as if it indicates that you were part of the club, and that you had such a close experience with this brotherhood. But I think it also was an indicator of what these kids were going home to. Not that I have any knowledge of their particular situations, but I just know that this week of games, songs, and field trips wasn’t just “entertain me” time for them. Though I’m not sure they learned a ton of English, and they’ll probably forget Bob Dylan (and go home singing “Bingo”), something about this time of free interaction with kids their age in a supportive atmosphere touched them enough to merit tears—tears that no one criticized, because they all understood and felt the same way.

More Theatre Workshop Pictures (see below)

Pictures From the "World Famous" Theatre Workshop (see entry below)

World Famous Theatre Workshop

3-15-2008 WORLD FAMOUS THEATRE WORKSHOP

Well, I don’t know if I’d call it "world famous," but that’s how my translator introduced the workshop, because I had told him I’d worked with groups who had used these techniques in the US and India—now we’ll add Africa to the list!

Knowing that I was a Theatre major, the students at my youth center have been eager for me to do theatre lessons since I got here, but the language barrier has made it nearly impossible. I mean, people keep encouraging me by telling me that one doesn’t need language to do theatre and that we can work through mime techniques, but honestly, who likes mimes? Besides, the kind of theatre I like to work with is a lot more discussion based. It’s not about doing funny skits and reading prepackaged plays like the students are used to. The theatre I’ve learned to work with deals with participants creating their own material and using theatre to discuss social problems (Side note of thanks to Dr. Amy Seham, the cast of “I Am We Are,” The Thambo Project, and of course Augusto Boal for familiarizing me with all of this).

I finally gave in to doing a Saturday workshop, as long as I would have a translator present. Saturday is a massive day at the youth center. Students don’t have school in the afternoon, and we often have upwards of 40 people show up to see what’s going on. I was a bit intimidated by the sheer mass of participants I knew would be present, but I figured if you’re gonna go for it, you might as well go big!

We started out with some warm up games, made discussion groups, and then the participants made “tableaus” representing issues dealt with by Moroccan youth. About a half hour into the workshop, I spotted my translator standing in the corner and realized I hadn’t yet used him once in this workshop. This threw me off for a moment... What language had I been speaking? The workshop was running smoothly and productively and people seemed to understand what was going on. Had I been speaking English? No... about 4 of the 40 people in this room understand higher levels of English. Good lord, had I been... no.... had I been conducting a functional workshop in Arabic?

It was true. The flaming tongues had descended. My cup of linguistic communicability runnith over. I mean, most of the workshops functionality was due to the participants’ good natured patience with sentences that must have sounded like “Now putting hands on his head you are—like a photograph I must be, I mean, you must be, without speaking like statue she are.” But it’s miraculous how unnecessary grammar really can be when you just let go.

Though things got a little crazy, as tends to happen with 40 students in a large room, the participants managed to create some profound tableaus dealing with issues ranging from drug use, to street violence, to trying to illegally immigrate to Spain. Plus everyone had a good time, and was able to use art as a medium to discuss the issues Moroccan youth deal with day to day.

If there’s anything “world famous” about the workshop, it’s that in every situation I’ve seen it used—across countries, languages, and age groups—people immediately connect with the idea of creating theatrical representations of their daily struggles. None of them are artists, or “theatre people,” but they create with a power of honesty that one rarely even finds on a professional stage. And in that workshop, 40 people became artists, actors, and sculptors who used theatre to critique the society in which they live.

Cus i just HAD to...

Birthday Trip

Another volunteer and I took a birthday trip this past weekend to the "Cascades'd Ouzoud," which we had heard were the the most beautiful waterfalls in Morocco. I must say, having grown up in good ol' Sioux Falls SD, a city named for this phenomenon of water meeting gravity, I feel I have the right to judge the awesomeness of waterfalls with reasonable authority--and the falls at Ouzoud were spectacular!

We had quite the weekend of hiking adventures in the area, and aside from sharing a cab with some fun polish guys along with an Iranian-Lebanese American and his Irish girlfriend, here were some of the highlights in pictures:

1. Pretty Falls

2. Crossing a "Bridge"

3. Finding a stray donkey (only in Morocco...)

4. Yes, that's a Bob Marley themed campground

5. On our way back, the ferry guy who had taken us across was on gone on lunch break. After seeing this bridge, we realized why there was a ferry guy in the first place. Unfortunately, he was gone and we needed to cross somehow... I will, however, refrain from revealing how that was accomplished because it will help my mother sleep better at night.

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 26^th 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....

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.”

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

We're Famous!

I have no idea how this has slipped past my attention for almost 2 months, but apparently my quaint little city of Ben Guerir is famous because of the nearby air force base which was also used as an alternative site for US space shuttle landings--supporting 83 shuttle missions. Cool!

Check it out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Guerir

This also reminds me of a little known fact I discovered while teaching a lesson on Morocco's independence day. In comparing the day with America's independence day, it was brought to my attention that the first country to EVER officially recognize the United States as an independent nation after the declaration of independence was, in fact, Morocco. And they haven't forgotten that fact around here.

So here's kudos to Morocco on it's independence day for helping us out with ours!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Hey Everyone, Happy 2008 and best wishes for an awesome New Year from the Ben Guerir youth crew in Morocco!

Dr. Dre visits the classroom

12-30-2007

Nothing brightens my day like when a student shows up to my youth center and doesn’t understand a word of English, can’t even ask me my name, but then pulls out a guitar and plays me a smashing rendition of “Hotel California” pronounced in perfect English. Pop music is the best educational tool I’ve found so far, because people love American music and are often overjoyed (though sometimes shocked) to find out what the heck the songs they’ve been singing in the shower actually mean.

So needless to say, my favorite quote of the entire Moroccan experience so far is, “Chris, explain to me the lyrics of Dr. Dre and what is it meaning ‘Crib of gangsta rap?’”

This particular student came up to me after class and pulled out an online printout of the entire “2001” album and asked me to help him understand the colloquialisms. What proceeded was a hilariously entertaining educational session involving an awkward white boy from South Dakota, delicately trying to explain the poetic subtleties of Compton’s notorious Grand Daddy of Rap, including craftily edited explanations (“It means, ‘These immoral women are only after the money of a streetwise African American man.’”), and who is and is not allowed to use the N-word (“But Chris, I live in Morocco. I am African, so I get to say it, yes?” “Umm…I don’t think so.”). And then came an even more awkward conversation involving “So if a person says in his song that has killed many men, I think he is lying, because he then would be in prison, yes?” followed by me trying to explain tough-guy image and survival in the “hood.” Let me repeat—ME trying to explain tough-guy image and survival in the “HOOD.”

They say that when you travel, you often become a representative of things for which you never considered yourself a representative. Before it was American foreign policy, and I thought THAT was tough. But now that I—Chris Bacon—am the baddest motha’ on the block and the be-all and end-all source of knowledge on “the crib of gangsta rap,” I see the truth of that statement more than ever.

Cultural ambassador oh yes I am!

Linguistic Hipness

12-28-2007

One of the most unique things here, at least having come from a fairly mono-linguistic part of America, is the daily hodgepodge of languages I find here. It’s a totally new concept to me that people who speak different languages don’t just ignore each other. Rather, everyone usually knows at least enough of each others’ languages to go about their business and communicate general ideas (which I’ve found, from experience, takes surprisingly little vocabulary, evidenced by the way I’ve somehow managed to survive here). It’s like everyone here keeps a handful of greetings, numbers, and “who, what, where, when” phrases of each language in their back pocket to pull out whenever they’re needed.

First off, a little Morocco-lingo info that I’ll try to make short and un-boring:

I came here with the idea that Moroccans speak Arabic—yes and no. Moroccans speak a DIALECT of Arabic called Darija (which literally means “dialect”), which uses the same alphabet as Arabic, and most of the same sounds, but a good amount of the vocab and grammer are quite different from “Standard Arabic.” Pretty much all of the Arabic speaking countries have dialects that diverge more and more the farther you get from Saudi Arabia, and we’re pretty far out here. I’d compare it to the difference between English and Latin. Plus, Darija soaks up words from the French and the indigenous Berber dialects as desired. Moroccans do study Standard Arabic in school because they need it to read newspapers, for religious reasons, and to watch Egyptian films. Plus, all written documents are in Standard Arabic because Darija is technically not a “written language” which has quite possibly been the most confusing thing in my life for the past four months.

Which brings me to more confusing things—the other few languages floating around Morocco. French is the second language of the country and most people speak quite a bit since it’s required in school, official documents, and in yelling pick up lines at foreign women. Also, outside of big cities, people still use the indigenous Berber dialects, which are quite unrelated to Arabic, and of which there are at least three or four distinct dialects. The Berber language is all over the place and people often, even if they also speak Darija, take great pride in their native language. For example, when an American volunteer enters your town and impresses you with the fact that he can speak a little Arabic, it’s immediately required that you ask him if he speaks your Berber dialect too, and if he does not, you are obliged not to let him leave until you teach him at least four words, even if he tells you his brain is about to burst from trying to learn ONE language, which you think is funny so you up it to five words.

So what you end up getting are kids whose moms yell at them (in Berber) because their (French) teacher says they’ve been talking in class (in Darija) and passing notes (written in Standard Arabic), but they can’t hear mom yell cus they’re busy listening to loud heavy metal (in English).

What blows my mind here is that a language is not just a way to communicate the words themselves. Rather, the language you use also expresses different things about your background, your level of education/sophistication, and what sort of idea you want to get across. Here, it’s like a language is a fashion statement. If you’re feeling trendy and hip, you use English. If you want to come off pious, or keen on Math and Science, you use Standard Arabic. If you want to come of as posh (and slightly snoody), you break out the French. And if you really want to get a good deal in the market, you whip out some Berber phrases. It’s odd to see a language as such an expression here. I mean, I suppose language is ALWAYS about expressing oneself, but I’d never realized that the language itself can convey just as much meaning as the words being said.

And oh are there words to be said! Not only does one have to write down at least four versions of the vocabulary word one is learning (“Oh, that bird? Well, it’s called X in Darija, though the real name in Standard Arabic is Y, but everybody just calls it the French word—Z. Oh, and do you want to know the PLURAL of that?”), but one also has to have the ability to switch back and forth at a moments notice to banter, take the dominant role in conversation, or crack a joke. It’s like playing a game of tennis where you have to switch rackets after every volley.

My favorite part about the whole business though, is the times you realize you’ve used five different languages in a five second conversation.

A: Hello Chris, how are you?
[Hello Chris, how are you? (ENGLISH)]

B: Salaam Karim, labas?
[Hi Karim, what’s up? (DARIJA)]

A: Ca va bien?
[Things are good? (FRENCH)]

B: Humdo’illah. kulchi bekheer?
[Thanks be to God. (STANDARD ARABIC), Everything’s good? (Back to DARIJA)]

A: Yeah!
[Affirmative! (This one kind of crosses linguistic boundaries…)]

B: Tinintsy Ween!
[Good night! (BERBER)]

Another racket-swapping linguistic tennis match in the bag (or "sac" or "paeta" or whatever other words exist for it around here these days)!