9/8/10 English is my native tongue. I mean my mother tongue. I mean ... wait ... my first language?

"Why does that not surprise me?" I typed in a quick message to a friend.

And then I looked at it.

Something was off.

I didn't know what, quite, but definitely something.

I said it again, in my head.

One more time.

I shook it off and tried to regenerate the sentiment.

"Why am I not surprised?" floated into my head.

Aaaa-HA!

Nailed it.

I erased my first fumble and wrote in the correct American idiom.

You know, I worked really hard not to lose my English.

I blogged most days. I watched American-made movies and TV shows on my laptop. I talked to my fellow PCVs.

And yet.

Yesterday, in my job as a cub reporter, I was rewriting somebody else's headline. The point of the story was that life is hard in Vegas, and people are moving out in droves. I toyed with some variation on "Leaving Las Vegas" and then thought of the phrase "Las Vegas goes bust."

And then I stared at it.

Goes bust?

Things go BOOM when they explode. But do they go bust?

I knew I was thinking of that expression from that card game where you lose when you go over 21. Was that 'going bust'? No. Yes. No.

I gave up.

I turned to the cubicle next to mine and interrupted my long-suffering co-worker (long-suffering, 'cause I interrupt him a lot) to ask, "You know how when you're playing that game, with the, um, Blackjack!, when you're playing Blackjack and you keep hitting and you go over 21?" He nodded. "Is that called 'going bust'?" He nodded again. "Are you sure?" I persisted. He nodded a third time.

I thanked him, and then felt compelled to explain that the idioms are just hard. My vocabulary is mostly intact, though I still grope for esoteric words sometimes, but idioms... Idioms are all about turns of phrase, and my phrases tend to twist and writhe, these days. They never sound right, whether I've caught the American expression or not.

And to be honest, it's not just the esoteric words. It's all the ones that don't get used commonly. Today, not three hours ago, I spent a few seconds trying to come up with the word germ. I was describing Lord Jeffrey Amherst's use of smallpox as an agent of biological warfare, so the word was necessary, and I just ... couldn't ... find it. Instead, gene kept coming in its place. I knew the words looked similar, had the same general shape, but no... And of course, the right word arrived.

Which idioms still sometimes don't do.

Am I the only one who finds that odd?

Or, I mean, who thinks it's weird?

Bloody American English. ::sigh::

9/7/10 On dwindling Arabic

A moment ago, I sneezed and an acquaintance who happened to be passing by said, "Gesundheit."

I thanked him, and then murmured to myself, "Rhummikallah...humdullah."

Which are, of course, the Arabic phrases for sneezes.

I'm not even sure of the literal translation of the first one, because people only ever use it after someone sneezes. It would be like a Martian visiting America and concluding that "God bless you" means "Oh, hey, you sneezed."

Rhummikallah what somebody else should say when you sneeze. You, post-sneeze, should say humdullah, to express your gratitude for ... I don't know, still being alive or something.

(I didn't say I actually *understood* the God-phrases, I just know how and when to *use* them.)

On the whole, though, moments of involuntary Arabic have steadily dwindled.

Last night, half asleep and on the phone, I murmured, "Mashi mushkil" when I meant "It's all good." They mean the same thing, and in my somnolence, the wrong one floated to my lips.

But other than those - the sneezes and the sleepies - I don't think I've spoken Arabic (let alone Tamazight) in a few days. Well, OK, last night at dinner I was telling a friend about some Moroccan history, and referred to the Amazighn and their language Tamazight. Which gave me a chance to roll my throat a little, which it likes.

Who knew I would miss the physical experience of speaking my crazy language?? The tongue rolls and throat rolls and throat flexures and such things that simply aren't used when speaking English.

Yesterday, I said, "Guten nacht" (and yes, it fit in the context of the conversation, but it would take too long to explain how), and realized that for the first time in a lifetime of (very sporadic) attempts, I can say it correctly. I had a sudden impulse to start singing "Silent night" in German, just so I could keep using that ch-ch-ch sound.

I can't wait to start wishing people Happy Channukah. Maybe I'll start baking challah and offering it to friends at work.

Maybe it's time to find an Arabic class around here after all.

8/21/10 Welcome to Boston

Tonight, I went to a "Games Night" at a friend's house. After several hours of Metro and Apples2Apples and Rock Band, those of us taking public transportation said goodnight, and headed back into the city.

We peeled apart, to our separate destinations, and I found myself alone on Boston's T. (For non-Bostonians: formally known as the MBTA, or Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority, the public transportation system is informally known as "the bus" for the bus and "the T" for the subway/elevated rail system.)

A few stops down the line, a group of girls in little black dresses and strappy sandals clambered on. They'd been at a bachelorette party, and were now headed back to their hotel. Some hijinx ensued, and after they got off, those of us still on the T had a rare spirit of conviviality. I got off with several of them, and said a cheery goodnight as they headed to the buses and I started walking back to my apartment.

I'd checked the route repeatedly on the map, but there was one critical decision I needed to make. I needed to walk west, NOT east, ie in the direction of Massachusetts Avenue. So when I got out onto the street, I took a minute to figure out the compass points, and then head west. But I wasn't 100% sure of my process, so asked the first car I passed (driving in the other direction on a divided road, so as to ensure that he couldn't possibly follow me afterwards - City Living 101) "Is this the way to Mass Ave?" He confirmed that it was, so I continued briskly down the road.

A few intersections later, I saw a car pulled over to the side of the road. A beefy fellow - a textbook example of a Joe Sixpack - said, "Mumblemumble Mass Ave?"

I pointed the direction I was walking. "Mass Ave is this way," I announced with confidence.

"Ih day toe ya kah?" he continued.

I stared at him. Why was Joe Sixpack suddenly speaking Japanese? As though he expected me to understand it??

But I still wanted to be helpful, and the last thing I'd understood was "Mass Ave?", so I reiterated, "Mass Ave is up that way."

He tried again, with all the tolerant patience of the village women who had needed to repeat themselves for their poor pale friend. "I easkt," and suddenly I heard the thick Boston accent, and began calibrating my ear for it, "Did day toe ya kah?" And this time I understood him. Did they tow your car?

Turns out the same skills that helped me decipher the mumbled language of my illiterate neighbors are helping me here in Beantown.

I smiled and shook my head. "I'm walking from the subway," I said, gesturing back towards the T stop, now several blocks away.

"OK, well, bee kayuhful, sweedaat," he said. Be careful, sweetheart.

I smiled and thanked him and continued on my way, with a prayer of thanksgiving in my heart for all kind-hearted souls. I made it the next few blocks peacefully, exchanging greetings with the other folks still out on the sidewalks ("Weyah's the paaty?" "There's no party,"), and then let myself in through my wrought iron gate, suddenly so reminiscent of the steel door I'd lived behind during my years in Morocco.

I pulled it locked behind me with the same sweet comfort of knowing that I was home - for however long or short this apartment remains my home.

At no point in the half-mile walk had I ever felt unsafe, despite the hour, the setting, or the presence or absence of others on the street. Instead, I'd received help when I needed it, kind words from a stranger, and friendly conversation with some folks who'd blown their tire across the street.

Welcome to your first Saturday night in Boston, little Volunteer!

8/20/10 The "Real Arabic"

I'm settling into a new neighborhood, and therefore still learning my way around, learning the local amenities, etc.

The other day, in my first walk-about, I saw a sign saying "INTERNATIONAL FOODS". At first I walked by, since I was making a beeline for a major chain grocery story I'd heard was just up the road, but I glanced in as I strode by.

It took a couple seconds to register what I'd seen: two women in head scarves.

I stopped, turned around, and retraced my steps. The two women - apparently a mother and daughter, based on resemblance and interactions - seemed relieved and thrilled to have a customer.

I started shopping, and the overeager daughter (whose English is the best in the family, and so takes on the bulk of the customer relations) followed me around the store, chattering nervously. I stocked up in the spice section, because everything was so cheap! (Americans spend waaaaay too much on spices. 4 to 8 dollars for a small jar?? Go to any international foods store and get a small plastic bag with at least as much volume - and usually more - for a DOLLAR. It's still more than spices cost me when I bought them in souq, when this amount would have set me back 2 dirhams, or about 25 cents.)

When I went to check out, the mom and daughter started squabbling about the prices. I think the mom wanted to give me a discount so I'd come back again, but the daughter wanted to drive a harder bargain now.

I didn't catch every word (but then, I never really did in Morocco, either), but I did understand the numbers.

When they said, "Tlat", meaning 3, I echoed it. The daughter looked up at me. The mom had already turned to go into the back of the store, and I don't think she heard.

"I speak a little Arabic," I said. The daughter's eyes grew wider. "Shweeya, mashi bzzef," I added. A little, not much.

"That's Moroccan," she said flatly.

"Yes, I lived in Morocco for the past two years."

"I speak the real Arabic. I can't understand Moroccan."

I admit, I was put off by her high-handedness, but smiled and said, "Yes, Darija is different from Classical Arabic. But at least you recognized it. You understand some."

She seemed to find such an implication insulting, and went back to calculating my tab. I started asking a few questions. Turns out the shop is owned by an Iraqi family who have been in America for two years. The daughter's accent is the lightest Arabic accent I've ever heard. I had to listen carefully to even realize that there *is* one, because I'm so used to listening through much thicker Arabic accents.

By the time I was done, the mom had come back to the front of the store. As I left, I said to her, "Shukran jazillan." Thank you very much.

Her daughter tossed off a careless, "Afwan." You're welcome.

But the mom's face lit up in a way I haven't seen since Morocco, with the incredulous joy of finding a fellow language-speaker. It's a widening of the eyes and a dropping of the jaw and a radiance that suffuses the features. I hadn't realized till I saw it just how much I've missed it. How much I loved surprising people by treating them as members of a shared community, when they expected the condescension of the high-handed tourist to the local peasant (or, in this case, of the citizen to the immigrant).

As I walked out the door, the mom rushed forward a few steps to call, "Salaam-u alaykum!" Peace be upon you! With a big smile, I called back, "Wa alaykum as-salaam." And also with you.

Welcome to the neighborhood, Kauthar. :D

7/2/10 One Step Forward...

Two steps back.

Or at least it kinda feels like that.

Last night, I hung out with some RPCV friends. Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, with whom I'd shared a year or more of my service.

When we set up our plans for the evening, my friend happened to say, "Marhaba!" - one of my favorite Moroccan words.

And I felt a pang. I felt nostalgic and homesick and relieved and excited and grateful, all at once. Because I was finally talking to somebody who understands my crazy language.

When we all got together tonight, I felt a muscle unclench. Not a physical muscle, but a mental one. The tight rein I've been holding over my reflexive use of Tam and Arabic...got relaxed. Released. Freed.

I could drop phrases like, "Aynna trit," As you like / Whatever, or "Msh irra Rrrbi" If God wants, or even "Tnghayi taghufi l-Moghreb." I miss Morocco.

And as I used these expressions, and my friends understood them, I realized how hard I've been clenching this mental muscle.

It's like when you step into a jacuzzi and feel yourself relaxing body parts you hadn't even realized you'd been tensing. That same feeling of unexpected restfulness and ... peace.

I've been trying to act like a "regular American". Like I think in English all the time. Like I find cars and billboards and central A/C perfectly normal.

And I like to imagine that I've been pretty convincing at it.

But I do miss speaking my crazy language. I miss using those muscles in my tongue and throat. I miss hearing others speak it. I miss having people around who share my memories of crowding into a taxi, or battling miscellaneous transportation struggles, or haggling in the souq. Who understand what a blessed miracle hot running water is.

I understand now why RPCVs tend to gravitate towards each other.

Which is why now, this morning, I'm off to see them again. :)

6/13/10 10 Words I'll Miss

Earlier, I handled a honeydew melon, and murmured, "Aftiikh...just one of the many words that I'll probably never use again."

I spent two years trying to learn a language that's not used outside of Morocco, and not understood by most of the folks there, either.

And while I don't mind letting go of shpulel (snail) or abkhosh (black), there are a few words that are just SO HANDY that I'm going to miss them. Or maybe stubbornly insist on using them, despite the confusion and communication FAIL that results...

1. Marhaba. Usually translated as welcome, marhaba means a wealth of things. Make yourself at home. What's mine is yours. Help yourself. Be my guest. Do what you will.

"Hey, can I get the last cupcake?"
"Marhaba."

"I'll be in your town next weekend."
"Marhaba!"

"Is this seat taken?"
"Marhaba."

2. Safi. This one short word (almost rhymes with "coffee", but the vowel is more of an ah than an aw) means enough, I'm all through, that's that, I'm done, that's all she wrote, etc.

"No more couchsurfing for me. Safi."

To a vicious pest (whether beggar child, harassing male, or overzealous clerk): "Safi! Safi-safi-safi."

"Hey, did you ever get that massive project finished?"
"Safi!"

3. Yalla. It's used in all the ways that "Let's go" is in English. We're leaving now. Hurry up. Hey, c'mon already. In Iron Man, the bad guy uses it with his minions, when they're not working fast enough to please him.

"Yalla-yalla-yalla!"

4. Kif-kif. Same thing. Same deal. Same difference. It's all the same. Whatever. I don't care.

"Do you want ice in your water, or not?"
"Kif-kif."

"Are you on Team Edward or Team Jacob?"
"Kif-kif."

5. Maashi kif-kif. NOT the same.

"Folks keep saying, 'Ooh, yes, I've been to Morocco. It's just so Westernized!' And I have to explain that the tourist cities and the rural villages are maashi kif-kif."

"When I left for Morocco, phones had *numbers* on them. Now they're shiny blank plastic things. It's not a phone anymore, it's a Star Trek tricorder-communicator thing. Phone. Computer. MAASHI KIF-KIF."

6. Zween. Fancy. Pretty. Chic. Attractive. Deluxe. Elaborate.

"Ooh, check you out! You're all zween!"

"The public areas are full of zween features like 2-foot-tall cushions and store-bought rugs, but the family rooms have one-inch cushions and (imho, prettier) hand-made rugs."

7. Shweeya. A little bit. Also used in the expression "shweeya b shweeya", meaning "a little at a time" or "bit by bit" or "step by step".

"Are you readjusting to life in America?"
"Shweeya b shweeya."

"Do you want some more cake?"
"Shweeya, thanks."

"All the grass and trees growing everywhere make the air so oxygen-laden that I feel shweeya loopy half the time."

8. Inshallah. If God wills. As God wills. Idiomatically, hopefully. In Arabic and Tam, you can't talk about the future without adding the specific caveat that all plans are subject to the will of God. After 27 months, I can't make absolute statements about the future anymore. In English, I use hedges like, "I'm planning to..." or "I hope to..." or "Hopefully..."

"See you tomorrow!"
"Inshallah!"

"Will you be in the Bay Area all summer?"
"Through August, inshallah."

"So Kauthar, you're going to go to America, find a man, and then bring your man back to Berberville so we can through you a big Berber wedding, right?"
"Inshallah."

9. Lhumdullah and al-humdulillah. Both meaning Thank God or Praise God, the former the more common, more informal version, the latter the more correct and more emphatic form.

"My father's cancer is in total remission!"
"Al-humdulillah!!"

"I found that thumb drive I borrowed from you."
"Oh, lhumdullah, that's great."

"How've you been?"
"Lhumdullah." [Shorthand for "Fine, thanks to God.]

10. Bismillah. Technically, In the name of God, but idiomatically, it's more, OK, let's begin. When you start anything - a meal, a car engine, a journey, a new book - you invoke God's name, to establish that every action you take is done for God.

Climbing into a car: "Bismillah."
Taking the first bite of a meal: "Bismillah."
Taking the first bite of a really fabulous looking dessert: "Bis-miiiii-laaah!"

It's no coincidence that several of these are "God phrases". I *like* the God phrases, even more than most other PCVs. In America, at least in the major metropolitan centers where I've spent the past weeks, God's name isn't part of the educated white vernacular. In English, I feel like I'm taking God's name in vain if I say, "Oh, thank God!" or "God willing" or a half-dozen other expressions that I can routinely use in Arabic. And I *like* thanking God for all good things, and acknowledging that I'm submitting my will to God's, and all the other things that I can do in Arabic without a second thought, but can't do in English without feeling like I'm coming across as a "Bible-thumping Jesus freak," as one friend would say. (Yeah, you know who you are.)

Part of me wants to keep using these ten words/expressions, because they're just so handy...but the point of words, handy or cumbersome, is communication. And if nobody understands me, I'm not communicating anything.

Safi.

5/30/10 Cross-Cultural Moments

Some RPCVs have told me that re-entry to America is the hardest (or at least *one* of the hardest) part(s) of their service.

So far, my return has been smooth, but maybe it'll get harder as I get more settled in a routine so different from anything I've lived for two years. For now, I still feel like I'm on vacation. I've lived out of two backpacks for the past three weeks, and have traveled at least once every 2-3 days.

A few things surprise me - these plastic flat things y'all call phones (dude, what happened to the buttons!), the speed of cars on the roads, the willingness of folks to drink alcohol *in*public* - but I know those will seem normal soon enough.

But I do keep having moments of cross-cultural ... surprise? disorientation? confusion?

Little things, only lasting a split second.

Like when I hear a voice 5-10 feet away, speaking in American-accented English, and my head snaps up in excitement. ("Ooh, somebody I can talk to! From **America**!") And then I remember that oh, yeah, that's not extraordinary anymore. I'm *in* America.

Or when I see some long-inaccessible treat, like root beer, and get all excited, and feel that I have to buy it immediately. The other day, I wasn't hungry or thirsty, but I felt like I didn't buy the a can and stash it in my bag, I might not see another can of root beer for months or years. And once I'd convinced myself that yes, I can buy root beer *whenever*I*want*to*, I felt a little overwhelmed by the sheer availability of everything.

Or when I was halfway to the coffee shop where I'd said I'd meet a friend, and thought, "Oh, no, I didn't bring any tissues with me!" ...and then realized, Oh, wait, they'll *have* toilet paper in their bathrooms.

Or when I talk about the Moroccan city you know as "Marrakesh", and it takes me three tries to come up with the American-accented version of the name. (My Peace Corps buddies and I call it Kesh, which is how I think of it, but if I'm talking to a non-PCV, it's MarrrROKsh, and here I have to remember that it's MARE-uh-kesh.)

Let alone all the times I drop Arabic and Tam words into conversation, and then can't figure out how to translate them. For two years, everyone I've spoken English to can understand these handy little words, and now I get blank stares. Safi. Baraka. Inshallah. Marhaba. These words are *useful*, precisely because they don't have a direct translation. Their idiomatic connotation is the thing I mean to express...and I end up communicating nothing. Sigh.

So, yeah, there are a few bumps upon re-entry. But so far, I'm mostly just thrilled to get to see so many friends and loved ones again. :)

4/16/10 Travel Conversations

Whenever I travel, I strike up the most interesting conversations. We might talk about dance, books, my marital status... Here are a few snippets from conversations I haven't recorded before:

"So why are you here in Morocco?"

"I'm a Volunteer with the Peace Corps."
"So what do you do?"

"I'm an environmental educator. I talk to children and adults about the environment."

"Oh, teaching is good. You should be a full-time teacher. You could teach everything!"

"Yes, I could, but for now I'm working for the Peace Corps."

"But you could teach Hsb, arabiya, aud lbiya..."

"Yes, but I'm not a math teacher or Arabic teacher."

"But you could be!"

"Inshallah."

Another time, the jumper made me grin with a linguistic juxtaposition:

"Montez-vous parlez francais?"

At first I was saying "Montez-vous. Parlez francais.", which is French for Get into the transit already. Speak French. And that didn't make huge amounts of sense.

But then I realized that he'd said, "Montez!", ie Get in, followed by "Vous parlez francais?" Do you speak French?

'Cause if, unlike 90% of the foreigners he's ever seen, I don't speak French, I clearly won't have understood the first thing he said. Which makes it a better question to ask before, rather than after, he's ordering me around in that language...but better late than never, I guess.

Of course, I denied all knowledge of the language, as I do most of the time, so he repeated the instruction in Tam - "Alli!" - and I promptly climbed aboard.

Another time, when in a bigger city, a taxi driver began speaking to me in Arabic. I'd greeted him in Arabic - the greetings are the same as in Tam - so when I protested that I don't speak the language, he gave me a funny look. In my survival Darija, I said, "I only speak Tamazight. Do you know Tamazight?" He laughed and said no, then gave me a look and said, "Voluntaire de la paix?" I laughed, too, and nodded. Volunteer of Peace? Not my official title, but I like it. Clearly, he's driven around PCVs before, and remembered that the only foreigners who speak the language so little-known that even he and most of his fellow countrymen don't speak it...are us. Les Volontaires de la Corps de la Paix. Aka Peace Volunteers. :)

3/29/10 Nature Walkin'

At the Spring Camp in Emerald City, Zifi and I led an Environment Club. Over three days, we took the three groups of students on a walk through the neighborhood park adjoining the camp.

We'd prepared index cards with various activities, which we placed at strategic points throughout the park:

• Look up. How many different colors of green do you see?

We placed this one just a few minutes into the park, to introduce to the students the idea of careful observation. Most kids responded with 3 or 4, until we pointed out that even the same leaf could have multiple shades of green, in the dappled light.

• Look at the litter. How long do you think it takes these items to decompose?

Decompose was a new word for the kids, in English at least, but most of them were familiar with the concept. We put this card near a huge pile of trash - close to the size of a football field - and pointed out various pieces of garbage while giving the kids these decomposition statistics: disposable diaper 10-20 years, orange or banana peel 3-5 weeks, cigarette butts 2-5 years, plastic six pack holder 450 years, piece of paper 2-4 weeks, plastic bag 10-20 years, Aluminum can 250-350 years, wool sock 2-4 years, Styrofoam never, glass never.

We asked them if they planned to bring their kids to this park someday - we didn't bother asking if they planned to have kids, since that's a given in this culture - and pointed out that, unless somebody stepped up with a massive cleanup effort, most of this trashpile would be waiting for their children.

The amount of litter in the otherwise lovely park depressed me. In fact, litter is the wrong word. It implies left behind detritus. This trash looked to have been deliberately dumped. In fact, the park was full of narrow mounds, mostly grown over with grass, that looked for all the world like a garbage truck had backed up, dropped a full load of trash, and driven off. Does Emerald City not have a town dump? Or is it cheaper to drop trash in the park than to pay some sort of town-dump-fee? Zifi and I speculated, and even asked the kids, but never got an answer.

• Stop. Can you feel the warmth of the sun?

This one sat in an open area in the mostly-shaded park, and gave us a chance to bask in the sunlight (since it was chilly most of the week) and to talk about photosynthesis. Virtually none of the kids knew the word "photosynthesis" in English before we gave it to them, but most had learned about la photosynthèse in Science class (which is usually conducted in French, as are half the classes by junior high and high school). They were relieved to find it a cognate (as are oxygen and carbon dioxide, for that matter. Let's hear it for the universality of science!).

• Hug a tree.

The kids found this one goofy, but did it anyway. We talked about photosynthesis and the role trees play in giving us oxygen, as well as absorbing our carbon dioxide exhalations, let alone providing wood, paper, kindling, etc.

• Make a rubbing of bark.

The word bark was new, as was the concept of doing a rubbing. After the first group mostly just drew on their papers while holding them against a tree, we were careful to emphasize with the second and third groups to only use the side of their crayon. The trees in question had a really gnarly bark, so the rubbings came out well. :)

• Using only your senses of touch, smell, or taste, become familiar with one tree. You should be able to identify your tree later on.

This was a fun one. We'd blindfold a few volunteers, assign them buddies (since the ground was uneven at best, and liberally sprinkled with thorn bushes), and then have each buddy walk each blindfolded volunteer to a tree. The blinded kid would grope around at the tree, exploring the texture of the bark, feeling for low branches, sniffing it, licking it, and generally memorizing "their" tree. Then the buddy led the still-blindfolded camper back to the group, at which point we'd spin the poor blind thing in circles till they were dizzy, and then remove the blindfold and ask them to find their tree again.

We did this with about 15 of the 50 kids in camp, and every single one of them correctly identified their tree. Undoubtedly, a few were assisted by unscrupulous (or just overly-helpful) buddies, but most had simply learned so many characteristics of their tree - a knot just at knee height, or a branch at shoulder height, or a gap in the bark just there if you reached around - that no imitation, substitution, or alteration would do. We couldn't fool 'em.

• Look down. How many different colors of green do you see?

Usually, by the time we'd gotten here, the kids were observing more carefully, and we got much higher numbers than the first time.

• Look closely. How many living things do you see? Make a list in your notebook.

This card we placed in a relatively open spot, with a view of a stream that usually hosted a few egrets, as well as near some bushes that played home to snails. Most of the students learned the English words for ant and grass and insect here. (This is an English-language immersion camp, after all, they're supposed to be learning new words.) Some kids got really into it, and found all sorts of beetles and spiders and other creepy-crawlies.

That reminds me - once, a student asked me to translate le ver. Thinking she'd said le vert, the grass/greenery, I gave them grass. But as I heard them passing the word to each other, I realized they meant worm, and suddenly remembered the tongue-twister from French class, Le ver vert travers la vert vers la verre vert. The green worm crosses the the grass towards the green glass. And all the words are homonyms (or nearly, for travers). OK, sorry, end tangent.

• Close your eyes. Listen. What do you hear? Make a list in your notebook.

Most of the students discerned the nearby flowing stream, the wind through the eucalyptus leaves, crickets, frogs, and a few birds. A few snarky kids pointed out that they could hear their not-so-silent friends, too.

• Imagine - what did this park look like 100 years ago? Draw in your notebook.

We placed this card in one of the most picturesque sections of the park, far from the dump sites and the toxic sludge growing in the pond. By this point in the walk, we were usually running late, so sometimes we had the kids draw, and other times, we just talked about what we saw. Most of the kids knew that the eucalyptus trees in this area were all non-native, introduced from Australia fairly recently. The Water and Forestry Department loves planting eucalyptus trees. Kalaytus, as they're known here, grow ridiculously quickly, so tree-planting projects look successful within a matter of years. Unfortunately, they also poison the soil, so there's never much (if any) undergrowth.

• Make a rubbing of a leaf.

By the time we got here, we never had any time, so we skipped this activity all three days. Sorry, leaves. You'll get love another time.

• Imagine – what will this park look like in 100 years?
  

We placed this card on top of a garbage pile that someone had dumped right smack in the middle of the road. They hadn't even pulled into the trees, like the rest of the trash dumpers. We gave the kids the chance to speculate whether the park would be cleaned up or would turn into a multi-acre trash heap. Most kids went with a middle ground, anticipating that it would be a housing development. Given how rapidly this Casablanca suburb is growing, they're probably right.

At this point, we walked the kids back to camp, thanked them for joining us on a nature walk, and sent them off to their afternoon activity.

PS: Of the three groups we took out, we never once had a kid wander off (helped by having either Zifi or me walk sweep), but we did occasionally have extra kids join in. I'm not sure where they wandered in from, but as long as everyone who we'd left with, came back, I figured we'd done our jobs.

3/28/10 The Insurance Samaritan

As loyal readers may recall, I worked as a counselor at a Spring Camp last year, too. Despite the rant I wrote on the first day, camp was a success. The kids had a good time, I met lots of great folks, had fun with my PCV buddies, and got to explore a part of the country that was new to me. Oh, and the students learned some English, too. :)

Even though this year's camp was on the opposite end of the country from last year's, with a 100% different staff (well, except for me), I expected things to be similar. I'm good at making predictions based on past events. It's one of those critical thinking skills the American educational system excels at giving its students.

And broadly speaking, yes, this year's Camp resembled last year's. Similar daily schedule, similar hopes on the part of the students/campers and staff, even a similar menu. (Though this year we got *meat* at every lunch and dinner, which indicates that our mudir - the Moroccan in charge - spent every penny of the food budget on food.)

But a few logistical things were different.

Instead of being housed in a dorm with the students, we PCVs were in a separate building, with a separate entrance. While there were a few computers available for our use, whereas last year there was only one, the printer didn't show up till the second day, and it never worked. Last year we had free use of a printer and photocopier, which made many things easier. (For one, I spent about half of each English class reviewing environmentally-themed songs, which meant the students needed printouts of the lyrics.)

Solution to the printer-less problem? We walked into town, where we found lots of cybercafes.

Interestingly, though, cybercafes in Emerald City don't have printers.

Huh.

We went into a couple, and they all seemed to think it ludicrous that one might wish to print out that which one could see perfectly well on-screen.

The only printer in the whole town, apparently, lived in a teleboutique about a 20 minute walk from the camp.

So that's where we printed stuff the first night.

The second day, though, we tried to do our printing during the mid-day siesta break.

And the teleboutique was closed.

When we discovered this, Sprinks and I brainstormed possible solutions. (Another of those nifty critical thinking skills.) First we tried the mktaba (office supply store) where we'd gotten cardstock and permanent markers and other tools of the camp counselor trade.

Photocopier, yes. Printer, no.

Next, we brought our trusty thumb drives (aka USB drives, aka flash drives) to a photography studio. They print photos off of USBs all the time, so it stands to reason they have printers and computers, right?

Turns out they have photo printers only.

Or so Mr. Printer Man told me, when I politely asked for his help. (In French, since Emerald City is an Arabic-speaking town, with no more than a scant handful of Tam speakers.)

Then he hesitated.

"How many copies do you need? Like, 10ish?"

"No, like 5." I glanced over at Sprinks for confirmation. In English, I quickly asked her how many she needed. She needed two pages, I needed three. "Yes, just five pages," I confirmed to Mr. Printer Man.

"Well, the machines here only work for photos...theoretically. Hang on a sec."

Sprinks and I exchanged glances. I translated the conversation for her, and we prepared to wait. This being Morocco, "a sec" could be anything from thirty seconds to 2 hours. We'd given ourselves a big time window - about an hour and a half - to print out our five pages, but we both knew that time here flows differently than it does in America.

About 5 minutes later, Mr. Printer Man closed up his side of the shop and headed to the door. Sprinks and I exchanged glances again. "Should we follow him?"

Just then, he looked back. "Come on," he said, in one of the few Arabic phrases I know. (Of course, Sprinks's Arabic is awesome, so I'd planned to rely on her, but it's always nice to know first-hand what's going on.)

We followed him into the street, exchanging further dubious glances. He led us up the block.

"Do you think he's taking us back to the mktaba?" Sprinks asked, in the usual PCV linguistic soup.

"I dunno, imkin," I answered. (It's possible.)

But we walked past the office supply shop and kept going. We continued to the edge of the business district. We followed, not sure what else to do, both wondering if he was taking us to his house?!

Confused but cautiously hopeful, we kept after him. And then Mr. Printer Man walked up to an insurance office, closed and locked for siesta.

He pulled out a keychain.

Did he live above the office? Did he own the office?

He unlocked the door and walked through. We followed him in. He walked back to the farthest desk, and began powering up the computer on it. He motioned us into the seats across from him. It felt - and must have looked, to someone looking in through the glass doors from the street - like we'd come to buy insurance.

He offered us his card. It turns out that Mr. Printer Man is only a part-time photo printer, and a part-time insurance salesman. This was his desk, in his office, where he could help us out.

When the computer had booted up, he reached for our thumb drives. We handed them over, one by one, pointing out the documents we needed. He printed us one copy of each (and asked if we wanted more, but we refused).

"Should we pay him?" Sprinks murmured.

"I dunno; I'm trying to think how to ask without offending him," I whispered back.

As we stood up to leave, heaping profuse thanks and blessings upon him and his parents, I seized upon an excessively formal French construction that allowed me to ask if one could possibly pay for this? He refused instantly and profusely, as I'd expected, so I reiterated the thanks and blessings, shook his hand, and turned to go.

The photocopy place was only half a block away, and we quickly got all the copies we needed. The whole thing had taken something like half an hour, leaving us plenty of time to join our friends over at the cafe before returning to camp.

So the camp didn't have a functioning printer. So the only pay-per-page printer in all of Emerald City was closed for lunch. The insurance samaritan had gone way, way out of his way to take care of us - two people he'd never seen before and would likely never see again.

I really love this country.

3/21/10 Tree Planting!

For the second year in a row, I helped plant hundreds of trees on the Spring Equinox. :) I think this annual tradition should continue after my return to the US. Who's in?

Again, the International Day of Trees isn't officially related to the Arbor Day Foundation, but it certainly has the Arbor Day spirit. :)

To celebrate it, the SouqTown English Club partnered with the Water and Forestry Department and a few other NGOs and GOs to hold a day-long environmental day. The centerpiece was the planting of several hundred trees. :)

To draw attention and provide a base of operations, they erected a tent on a hillside east of SouqTown.

The banner on the left reads, "Trees = Oxygen = Life". (And I was way more excited than I probably should have been that I managed to (1) sound out the words, Sesame-Street-style, and (2) understand what those sounded-out words actually mean. My Arabic is mostly non-existent, so when it actually works for me, I get ridiculously happy.)

Soon, our fearless leaders appeared:

The man on the left is one of the leaders of the SouqTown English Club. The man on the right is the director of our park, aka my counterpart. Together, they organized the activities of The International Day of Trees.

...which started, naturally enough, with saplings:

These tiny, plastic-wrapped micro-trees will grow (inshallah!) into a towering pine forest. Using only water, sunlight, and carbon dioxide.

Yeah, trees definitely deserve to have their own day. :D

So after some paperwork and other organizational things, we got down to the business of the day:

See that snazzy neon vest? All 11 PCVs, plus most of the Water and Forestry staffers, and several of the more senior members of the SouqTown English Club, were given these dayglow vests to wear. Here, two other PCVs are sporting theirs:

The joy and pride that tree-planting always brings...there's nothing quite like it. :)

So after a few hours of tree-planting (and tree-encircling with rocks, since the tiny saplings are far too easy to step on if they're not marked in obvious ways), we washed up at the water tanker and headed off to the next activity of the day:

This vital beastie holds thousands of liters of water, which were used to water the newly planted saplings. The nearest public water source is half a kilometer away, so if we'd needed to carry buckets of water back and forth, the tiny trees might have been doomed. Thanks to the foresight of the Water and Forestry Department, though, this need, too, was met.

So, our grand total? 400 forestry trees planted on the hillsides east of town. This coming weekend, several hundred more will be planted near the schools (inshallah).

Happy Tree Day!

1/16 Teatalk

So I'd finished bathing in Berberville's public hammam. I came out into the changing area and began toweling off.

"Oh, it's a tarumit..."

"Did you see the tarumit..."

"Have you talked to the tarumit..."

The voices swirled around me. I grinned to myself, too shy to strike up a conversation with one of these curious ladies while still en deshabille.

Until one of them said, "...yes, she understands Tamazight." I looked over and grinned at a friend I hadn't seen in a while - who I hadn't noticed yet because I was focusing only on putting on my many layers of clothes.

Catching my eye, her neighbor asked, "Really? You speak Tam?" and I answered, smiling, "Yes, I do."

"How long have you been here?" she asked.

It surprised me to hear that anyone in town didn't know about me. "About two years," I answered.

"Where are you from? France?"

"No, America." That brought on a new wave of chatter. Ooh, America...

"Where do you live? Rabat? Marrakesh?"

If I lived in a major city, what are the odds I'd speak her dialect? I asked myself wryly. Of course, she's never traveled any more than 200km from her home in her entire life - may well have never even left the village. How would she know how rapidly her unwritten language changes with geography? Or how few cityfolk speak it at all? Aloud, I answered, "No, I live here." I mentioned the name of my landlord and nearest neighbors.

"Do you live alone?" was the immediate follow-up.

"Yes."

"So where's your husband? Back in America?"

With a sideways smile, I replied, "I don't have a husband."

"You're not married?!?!" was the incredulous reply.

"Nope. Not yet. Maybe someday, if God wills," I finished my stock reply.

I finished putting on my clothes and accepted one of the proffered tea invitations, from an older woman who'd been resting on one of the benches in the changing room since I'd walked out of the hammam.

On the way to her house, the interrogation continued. "So you really don't have a husband?"

Do you think the answer will be different because we're in private? Why yes, I do, but I'm keeping him a secret because life is so much easier if people think I'm unprotected and alone. Yeah. "Really. I don't have a husband."

"But you have a boyfriend, right?"

Since the word can also mean friend-who-happens-to-be-a-boy, I want to answer yes, I have lots...but that'll open a whole icky can of worms, so I let it go. "No, no boyfriend."

"You're alone??"

"Yup, I'm alone." The same word is used for alone and lonely, and I've never figured out how to distinguish the two concepts - I'm single but not lonely. I live alone but don't feel isolated. It works easily enough in English, but in Tamazight? The concepts are too closely intertwined. To be alone is to be lonely. These folks, for whom family is the central aspect of identity, home life, life planning, and life in general, have no way of conceiving solitude as anything other than sad isolation.

We get to her house. I step in, scrape the mud off my boots, set down my bucket and bag full of hammam things (soap, loofah, kis scrubby brush, shampoo, etc, in the bucket, and all the layers of clothes I'd taken off, before scrubbing, in the bag). She shows me into the main room. On the wall she's hung pictures. She immediately explains them to me. "This one is my oldest boy. He's living in Grenada. This is my next boy - he lives in Marrakesh. This one died. My youngest is at school in Marrakesh, living with his brother and his brother's wife." I don't see a picture of her husband. Before I can ask, she volunteers, "He died a long time ago. We lived in Marrakesh when we were married, but after he died, I came back to Berberville."

I murmur the condolence phrase, and then ask, "So this is *your* village?" I'm just trying to keep up.

"Yes, this is where I grew up," she clarifies. She looks back at the photographs. "Aren't my boys handsome?"

"Oh, yes, of course, they're very handsome," I quickly say, feeling, as I so often do, that I'm picking my way through a social minefield. If I'd volunteered the statement, unprompted, it might made me look flirtatious and therefore inappropriate. But the fact that she asked for it makes me feel like I was rude in not complimenting her children immediately.

"And my oldest is in Grenada," she repeats. I nod. "He's a good boy," she says, touching his photo briefly. "Is Grenada nice?"

I've never been there, but I say, "Yes, it's very nice."

"You should marry him," she concludes, triumphantly.

My smile freezes. I should have seen this coming.

I so should have seen this coming.

Before I can demur, she jumps back in with, "Well, you want to get married, right?"

Aha - here's my out. "No, actually, I don't. Men suck." [That's the most idiomatic translation of the phrase I used - Ixxan iryzan. It could also be translated as "Men are bad", "Men are ugly", "Men are useless"...it's kind of an all-purpose-insult word, which is what makes it so handy in cases like this, where I don't want to be all that specific.]

She bursts out laughing. "Men suck?"

I nod and say it again. "Yeah, I don't want a man," I continue. "I like my life as it is. And I don't need a man." This has her in gales of laughter. I'm laughing, too, in acknowledgement of how ludicrous such a sentiment must sound.

She stokes the fire, brings out bread and oil and tea, and we continue chatting.

As I always do, I murmur, "Bismillah," before eating anything. It translates as "In the name of God," and it's the phrase that devout Muslims always use before beginning any endeavor, from eating to taking a trip to speaking in public. It implies that whatever action you undertake is done for God, and under the protection of God. I have no theological objections to any of that, so I say it often - more often than many of my not-terribly-devout friends and neighbors.

She hears me, and perks up. "Are you Muslim?" she asks excitedly.

"No," I explain, "I'm Christian." She doesn't understand the word I use - messaHiyan. It's from Classical Arabic, and therefore unknown to most illiterate folks, like this dear little old lady. Women didn't get educated around here until this generation, so women over the age of 30 or so are invariably illiterate; even between the ages of 15 and 30, it's hit and miss.

I try a Berber-ized version of the word: "I'm tamessaHiyanit." I'm a female who's a Christian.

Still getting blank stares.

I pull out the cross I wear around my neck. Today, like usual, it's buried under lots of layers of clothing. She sees it, but has no idea what it means. "I follow Jesus," I try. She recognizes the name of one of Islam's chief prophets, and nods. She probably thinks that Christianity is some Jesus-intensive sect of Islam, but that's fine. I'm just trying to answer her question, not start a theological discussion.

She moves onto more concrete territory. "Do you pray?"

"Yes, I pray."

She beams. Anybody who prays is clearly a good person, regardless of this messaHiyan nonsense. I'm definitely good for her son.

"Do you fast?"

"Yes, I fast during Ramadan, here in Morocco."

She opts not to comment on my slight qualification. (I do fast in Morocco; I didn't fast when I was in the US for part of Ramadan. I'm a terrible liar, so I tell the truth as often as possible. Or maybe I'm a terrible liar because I get so little practice at it - I try to tell the truth, even if I have to "tell it slant", as Emily Dickinson would say.)

Around that time, some other women come in - her sisters, sisters-in-law, and neices, as she later explains - and we go over all of this again. These women, too, find it hiLARious that I don't want to get married immediately. And they love the "men suck" line, and the "I don't want a man/she doesn't want a man" line. They repeat it, I repeat it, they repeat it...and it's always good for a hearty laugh.

One of the sisters-in-law begins telling me about her husband. Her ex-husband, she clarifies. He abandoned her with young children. He's a bad man, she says clearly. All men are bad, she adds.

I've given up on defending men, as I usually do, because for the purposes of this conversation, and avoiding my hostess's marital schemes, I'm sticking to my happy singleton story. "Yes!" I say, guesturing to her emphatically, "This is why I don't want a man."

She blinks at me, clearly at a loss. She'd been arguing with me earlier, and now realizes that she has supported my side of the argument, and she has no idea how to get out of the corner she painted herself into. She's happy to bash men, but still thinks that all women should marry. She opens and closes her mouth a few times, but doesn't say anything.

Fortunately, she's saved by the bell. (Well, by a knock at the door - nobody but the most pretentious have actual doorbells, in this community.)

More women come in; more of the conversation is rehashed; more tea is drunk; more laughter is shared.

Eventually, I say goodbye, promising to return for more tea and bread. And laughter. :)

1/12/10 Home again

I made it back to Berberville a few days ago, actually, but have been catching up on things - from social obligations like tea visits to responding to emails - till now.

I'm sorry I left some of you with the impression that I was ETing (or had already). I was angry about a few things, to be sure, but not enough to quit Peace Corps. My blog absence over the past couple weeks has been for a much happier reason: I've been on vacation!

Some friends and I wandered around Europe for the holidays. I'll be posting pictures and stories for quite a while to come, I suspect.

But now, I'm back in my village, drinking lots of tea and chatting in Tamazight for the first time in a while. My Tam is rusty - not surprisingly - but it has come back readily, to my delight. In SouqTown, which I had to pass through on my way home from the airport, I chatted about my vacation to several friends (ie my favorite veggie saleslady and my favorite sandwich guy), answered their questions, and successfully ran all my SouqTown errands.

At the sandwich shop, after the round of greetings and oh-where-have-you-beens:

Sandwich Dude: So, what would you like?

Me: I'll have a sandwich of makoda [[potato latke-like things]] and eggs. Wait, do you have makoda today?

SD: Over here [pointing to the other side of his display case]. Two eggs?

Me: Yup, two eggs and two makodas.

SD's assistant: Soup?

Me: [frozen]

He'd offered me harira, which sounds a lot like hrra, which is hot sauce. And for a second, I couldn't remember whether harira was soup or hot sauce. Because soup sounded like a fabulous idea, but I'm not a big fan of heavily spiced food.

SD's assistant: La soupe [in French]

SD: [laughing] She knows what "soup" is.

Me: [laughing, to SD, indicating SD's assistant with my head] He thinks I don't know anything. Hahaha...

So, still a few bumps in the road.

Like "donut". Morocco has great donuts, usually only available on souq days. I was thinking about those Moroccan donuts as I rode home from the airport, and realized that I couldn't remember the word for them. Sss...sh... I was pretty sure it started with a sh... I visualized the donuts, sh'd inside my head...nothing. It was gone.

And then when we pulled through a town having their souq (which lines the main road, as well as extending into a big open space), I saw a guy carrying a string of sfinj and the word was just *there*.

So, yeah, I'm still knocking the rust off my Tamazight vocab, but it's comforting to know that I haven't actually forgotten it, despite not using it for the better part of a month. The words are there when I need them. :)

Welcome back to Berberville, Kauthar!

11/6 I will zayd...

Today's Quote Of The Day:

"I will zayd and return."

(Tip: zayd is the Arabic and Tamazight word for add, and like most Tam words, has broad idiomatic meanings beyond its obvious literal one.)

It was said by a buddy of mine as he stood up to leave. A group of us had been hanging out for quite a while, and my buddy had drunk everything he'd brought to drink, and now wanted to return to his nearby accomodations and pick up a refill.

It's common enough for us (PCVs) to drop words of Arabic and Tam into our English conversation. We mostly hang out with Volunteers from our own regions, who are therefore likely to understand the words we use. When I was a newbie, I found it helpful, actually, because it gave me a context for learning new vocab words.

So it's common for one Volunteer to say to another, "Yeah, I do that mrra mrra," (sometimes), or, "Hey, can you nuqs the volume a little?" (reduce, lower, subtract), or "It's so cold riding afla the transit!" (on top of), etc.

But this time, the speaker caught himself, and realized that not only had he swapped out an English word for an Arabic one, but that he'd actually used Arabic syntax.

"'I will zayd and return'??" he echoed to himself, as dismayed as Baby's echoing her own, "'I carried a watermelon'?!?"

"Whoa... I not only can't speak English anymore, I can't even use English structures in my sentences," he muttered to himself.

I thought about it. How would most Americans say what he'd meant? Something like I'm going to grab a refill and be back, maybe, or I'll go bring more, a little more formally. But his structure made perfect sense to my ear. Ad-dugh ad-zaydgh. Ad-3aydgh is how I'd express it in Tam: "I will go. I will add more. I will return." Three future-tense verbs, lined up and conjugated in neat parallelism. "I'll go get more and return" is a more idiomatic translation, but it loses the tidy construction of the Tamazight.

But "I will zayd and return," though it falls easily from Arabic-speaking lips, lands oddly on American ears.

Ever since this conversation - and I'm typing this up over a month after the fact - I've been more conscious of the way my speaking patterns have changed since coming here. I read enough English and talk enough to other PCVs that the changes are minor, but they're real. My habit of sprinkling my conversation with Tam and Arabic words is one of the most obvious. (I can't even tell you how many times I've stopped myself from peppering my blog with them.)

But in five months, I'll end my service here in Morocco, inshallah [oh, yeah, that's another one - I can't make declarative statements about the future without saying inshallah], and move to a community where Tamazight is not the dominant language.

Walayni, dghi, makain l-mushkil. Iwa, ur nni ad iqim digi. But it's not a problem now, so I won't worry about it. (Literally: But now, there's no problem. Therefore, I won't let it sit in me. <--See, Tam is fun!)

11/8/09 Kitties

I'm cat-sitting.

I did it a year ago, and it worked out well; maybe I'm making it an annual tradition.

One is my site-mate's cat, Sheba. The other cat belonged to a friend who recently left. She bequeathed it to another neighbor, Mina, who is currently out of town. That one was originally named Moha, a common man's name around here...but it turned out to be a girl, so we've been calling her Tamohat.

(As you may recall, in Tamazight, almost any word can be rendered feminine by adding t's to its beginning and ending. T+Moha+t = Tamohat. Unfortunately, while Moha is perfectly common, Tamohat just sounds kinda ridiculous to me. I've been trying to come up with a better name for her, but haven't found one yet. Short-term favorites were Marmot and Catshepsut, but I wasn't happy with either.)

Mina has acknowledged that she has no deep love for Tamohat, and I'm a bit of a cat person, so this cat-sitting is also kind of a test run. If she and I hit it off, I may take the kitty off Mina's hands. But if she keeps knocking over my trash can, breaking into my food, and clawing me, she may go back to Mina. We shall see.

In the meantime, my small apartment is home to two kitties. They hated each other on sight, but lhumdullah, they've come to terms. They still get into the odd hissing match, but they're generally willing to spend hours in the same room, regally ignoring each other. Occasionally, they'll even play a lightning-round of catch-me-if-you-can.

As I type this, sitting cross-legged on a living-room ponj, Tamohat sprawls across my lap. She had been spiraled into a tiny, tight lump, but as the room has warmed (thanks to my invaluable little buta heater), she has loosened and loosened; now she's draped along the length of my right leg, her head on my knee and her front paws splayed in front of her like she's reaching for a hug.

Trash can habits aside, she's an awfully cute little thing...but will she be mine?

Time will tell.

11/11/09 "So What Do You *Dislike* about Morocco?"

In my recent travels, I struck up a conversation with a young Moroccan who lives in Germany, where he works as a nurse, and where he recently married a young German woman. His family lives near Merzouga, in southeastern Morocco, and our travel paths overlapped briefly.

We talked about all kinds of things, from Secretary Clinton's imminent visit to the weather similarities between Hamburg and the High Atlas Mountains. Oh, and we met when he startled me into spilling my soda all over myself and my lap. After a "meet cute" like that, we were destined by all the laws of cheezy movies to become friends. :)

At one point, he asked me, "So what do you dislike about Morocco?"

I mis-heard him (or maybe misunderstood him - his Tam is somewhat different from mine), and thought he'd asked what I *like* about Morocco, and answered, "The people."

His eyebrows went up. "The people!?"

Nodding, I repeated, "Definitely the people. And the mountains - I love the landscape here." He looked puzzled. "Yeah, the people are so friendly, the mountains are great--"

He cut me off. "No, I asked what you *dislike* about Morocco."

I laughingly apologized, "Definitely not the people! Sorry!" He laughed, too, while I searched for an answer that could be honest without hurting his pride in his mother country.

After a minute, I said, "Well, I like tagine, but having it day after day, meal after meal...it's too much."

He agreed. "I love tagine, I love couscous," he began, "but there are other foods out there, people! That are better for you!"

We swapped food stories for a bit, and then I turned it around on him. "What do *you* dislike about our country?"

He promptly answered, "Relationships between men and women. I hate it that men and women can't be *friends* in Morocco."

I chimed in so enthusiastically, I might have actually shouted. "I know! Exactly! It makes me crazy! I have so many friends-who-are-men (amdukal), but even to use the word is to make people assume that they're my boyfriends!"

We riffed on this for quite a while.

I shared this story, which I don't think I put on my blog before:

While I was in homestay, a male friend came to visit me. I spent the week before his visit explaining to my host mom, host sister, host cousin, and all female friends that he was a ***friend***, not a boyfriend. I even insisted on using the Arabic word sadiq, in hopes that it had a more platonic connotation than the Tamazight asmun or amdakul.

I don't think they believed me, but they agreed to refer to him as my sadiq.

And then he arrived, my host mom locked me in for the night.

See, in homestay, I lived in a semi-detached part of my host family's house. The guest house, more or less. But ain't no way I could stay semi-detached from my family with a man under the same roof. So my sadiq stayed in another house they own, on the far side of town. And for the first time since I stayed with them, my host mom locked the door to my part of the house.

She literally locked me in.

(But she forgot about the back door to the "guesthouse", which leads out to an enclosed courtyard with its own easily-unlatched door. So I slipped out to join my buddy for breakfast.)

Additionally, Moroccans aren't fans of cross-gendered public displays of affection. Contact between men or between women is always fine, but men and women shouldn't even hold hands when walking down a street, let alone hug in public. So I may well travel 14 hours to visit a guy friend, and when I get there, I run up to him and ... shake his hand.

Unless I'm in a big enough city that I can assume some cosmopolitan westernism, in which case I go ahead and hug my buddy. :)

...So with these and other stories to share, I cheerfully passed a several-hour conversation with my new friend. My new male Moroccan friend. Guess it's time to dust sadiq off and bring it back into my daily conversation...

10/23 The Dumma

A month or two ago, during our period of heavy rains, I found myself walking across town, swinging my umbrella on its short looped cord. A little boy came up to me.

"Dumma!" he said, pointing to the umbrella.

I'd never learned the word for "umbrella", and was happy to rectify that. I hunkered down to his level. "This is a 'dumma'?" I asked, for clarification. He just pointed again, and repeated the word.

"In English, it's an 'umbrella'," I explained, continuing to swing it between us. "In Tamazight, it's a 'dumma', and in French it's a 'parapluie'," I said, the word floating up to me from the depths of middle school French class.

He reached for it. "Dumma!" he said, this time almost angrily.

I repeated my short language lesson.

And he repeated himself one more time, this time speaking slowly: "Dunn-ma."

And then I got it.

He wasn't giving me the word for umbrella. This wasn't a language moment. He was saying - mis-pronouncing - "Donne-moi," the French equivalent to "Gimme." I suppose my middle school French teacher would have pointed out that he'd left out the definite article: "Give it to me" should be "Donne-le-moi." But we have gimme and apparently, in Moroccan French, they have donnemoi.

I laughed, scolded him gently, pointed out that it was *my* umbrella, not *his*, and that I intended for it to stay that way, and then stood back up and continued on my way across town.

So there, friends, is an illustration of begging in Morocco. There's no associated shame, as some middle-class Americans might imagine. Just an expectation that anyone with fair skin has more than they need, and should cheerfully hand it off whenever requested.

It's very different from American materialism. Americans always want more things, it sometimes seems, but it's never enough. Americans have created an entire consumer culture out of the idea that if you buy enough things, you'll achieve ... peace. Nirvana. Happiness. Contentment. And so there's marketing, and advertising, and suggesting, all to create the illusion that if you buy *this* thing, it'll satisfy your inner craving. And yet it never does. It never can, really, because what we crave isn't anything material.

Here in Morocco, or more accurately, here in Berberville, I don't see that inner craving. That anxiety so familiar in America, the desperate need to do more, buy more, try more, in hopes of achieving ... whatever it is you want.

Some foreigners see the cheerful begging - the constant stream of "Give me a dirham!" or "Give me candy!" that children babble in butchered French - and conclude that Moroccans are greedy.

I disagree. There's an innocence to the desire that reminds me of crows reaching for car keys. Sure, it's shiny, it'd be nice to have. Can I have it? It bears no resemblance to the driving American acquisitiveness that feels like greed to me.

PS: Later that day, I told my sitemate the story. I didn't get far before she said, "No, wait, the word for umbrella isn't dumma, it's mddla." I grinned and told her the punchline was coming. But at least now I know what to ask for if I'm caught out in the next round of fall rains...or are we heading straight for late fall snows?

9/29/09 Conversation and Changes

It's amazing what a difference a conversation can make. Even a short conversation.

This afternoon, I had two brief chats with two of my favorite Berberville folks, Ali my hanut guy and Ama. I'll leave out the greeting ritual.

Ali: Hey! You feeling better?
Kauthar: Yeah, bit by bit, I'm getting better, thanks be to God.
Ali: Thanks be to God. So what can I get for you today?
Kauthar: I'd like some eggs and butter.
Ali: How much?
Kauthar: Small butter - the one in paper [[as opposed to the plastic tub]]. And four eggs.
Ali: [gathers them, brings them back to the counter] Want a bag?
Kauthar: No, just put them in this one [offering the sack full of freshly purchased veggies].
Ali: You don't think the eggs will break?
Kauthar: No. I mean, it's possible, but I doubt it.
Ali: You doubt it?
Kauthar: Yeah, I doubt it.
Ali: That's it, you pass.
Kauthar: What?
Ali: You officially know Tamazight. 'I doubt it.' Ha!
Kauthar (laughing): Come on, 'I doubt it' isn't even Tam, it's Arabic.
Ali: Doesn't matter. You get your diploma.
Kauthar: OK, thanks a lot. :D

I walk off with a giant grin on my face. There's still waaaay more that I can't say than that I can, but I like knowing that conversations like this one have become effortless. And dude, who doesn't like compliments?

A hundred yards later, I see Baba's truck pulling in front of my door. I start to walk to the driver's side, to greet him, but then I notice Ama in the passenger seat, so I walk to that window. Again, I'll skip the greetings.

Kauthar: Where did you go?
Ama: Down to [big city down south].
Kauthar: Oh, right, you wanted to visit the doctor there.
Ama: Yes, I visited the doctor.
Kauthar: So how did it go? Are you OK?
Ama: He found a problem. I have a [disease I don't recognize the name of].
Kauthar: May God give you health.
Ama: Amen. He says I need an operation.
Kauthar (looking at Baba, switching to French): Surgery??
Baba: Yes, surgery.
Kauthar (looking at Ama, back in Tam): May God grant you health.
Ama: Amen.
Kauthar: When? When will you get the operation? [Literally: When will he cut?]
Ama: Not for a while.
Baba (overlapping): Later.
Ama: And it'll be in Springfield, at the big hospital. You should come over tomorrow, OK? Come for lunch.
Kauthar: OK, yeah, of course. See you tomorrow.
Ama: Until tomorrow, inshallah.
Kauthar: Inshallah.

They drive off, and I turn to open my door. The grin had wiped off my face as soon as I heard the word "problem", and now I walked up the stairs with a heavy step.

Two short conversations.

Two mood swings.

Welcome to the life of a PCV.

8/28/09 Unexpected Ramadan Host

Tonight, a friend and I ate l-fdor [the breaking-of-the-fast sunset meal] at the PCV Hotel in SouqTown. We picked an empty table at random, not knowing that the mikka [plastic] sack on the next table meant that the owner of the hotel had claimed that as his own.

Most of the tables had mikka sacks on them; the hotel restaurant provides tea, coffee, harira [the traditional l-fdor soup – think Campbell’s Tomato Soup with pieces of spaghetti, lentils, chickpeas, and chunks of melting fat], and orange juice, but if you want anything else, you have to bring it yourself. Since l-fdor often features dates, hard-boiled eggs, shebbekia [think: miniature funnel cakes, dipped in corn syrup and allowed to dry], and various types of bread, most folks had acquired one or all of these in stores around SouqTown and brought them to the meal. BYOside-dishes.

Buotel [literally, the owner of the hotel] sat down and immediately struck up a conversation with us.

“Do you speak Spanish?”

It took me a minute to dredge up, “Mui poqito.” [And I learned Spanish on the street, so I have absolutely no idea how to spell anything. Don’t mock my spelling.]

He launched into a Spanish-French-Arabic blend, explaining that he’d grown up on the northernmost tip of Morocco, so was bilingual in Spanish and Arabic. My friend speaks a little Arabic, and I speak even less, but we did our best to follow along.

Over the next ten minutes, the harried waiters brought us, at widely spaced intervals: a large bottle of water; a water glass; another water glass (totally unlike the first); two more glasses; a pot of coffee, which he poured into the glasses over my protest [I don’t drink coffee]; two bowls of soup; a plate of buttered bread. At different intervals, Buotel gave us a plate of figs, two more glasses, and a bag of milk [which we successfully prevented him from pouring into the new glasses, but which we allowed him to pour into the coffee glasses, topping them off].

Note on coffee: Ramadan coffee bears no resemblance to actual coffee. It’s pretty much milk that’s been startled by a coffee bean. It’s a pale, highly sugared, spiced glass of milk that sort of faintly smells like coffee. I’ve seen wedding dresses that were a darker shade of ivory than this so-called “coffee”. In my opinion, this is all to the good. I don’t drink coffee, and therefore have never acquired the “acquired taste”. I find it … pretty gross, really.

But with all the gifting of figs and the pouring of beverages, it had become clear that Buotel considered us his guests. And while you can wave off offerings from your host, with repeated protests, you can’t refuse them once served without being mortally offensive. So once he got it in our cups, I knew I’d have to drink it. (Shudder.) That’s why I let him add the milk – anything to further dilute the already super-weak coffee was All To The Good in my book.

The restaurant also has a giant flat-screen TV, which was showing a soccer match. My friend, riveted by the giant display, absently reached for her coffee cup. No sooner had it touched her lip than Buotel reached past me to stop her. “They haven’t called the moghreb yet!” he exclaimed.

Sure enough, all the food on our table – and everyone else’s – remained untouched. The sunset call to prayer hadn’t yet echoed across SouqTown, so we were all still (officially) fasting.

My friend blinked, apologized profusely, and told me sotto voce that she’d genuinely forgotten. Our food and drink remained pristine for a few minutes more, and then the moghreb wafted through the window.

As we ate, our host continued his tireless stream of chatter, by now almost entirely in Arabic. I followed a little of it – enough words have been borrowed by Tam that I recognized a lot of what he said, plus he spoke slowly and used expressive hand gestures – but I still had to admit, “Mafhmsh” (Arabic for “I don’t understand”) every couple minutes. We understood enough to answer some of his basic questions, like which villages we worked in, and that no, we don’t live together. He asked if we were staying in his hotel. I answered that I was, because I was bound for the Big Airport-Having City in the morning, but that my friend wasn’t, because she lives nearby. That was all in Arabic, so it was ungrammatical to the extreme, but I was still proud I could communicate even that much. I’d explained that I don’t know Arabic, and my friend had assured him that she knew very little – she’s a Tam speaker, but has been picking up Arabic – so eventually he stopped trying to impress us with his credentials (which we couldn’t understand, but which he pulled out of his wallet nonetheless) and decided to launch into an Arabic lesson. “Water. Coffee. Bread. Soup,” he repeated slowly, pointing to each object. “Figs.” At this point, he ran out of items on the table (though he didn’t mention “plate” or “bowl” or “spoon” – I guess they’re just background and therefore invisible) and began naming other fruits. I recognized most of the names, since Tam borrowed them, but he used a couple that neither my friend nor I knew…and since we had no exemplars of them, the lesson proved … fruitless. (Sorry.)

Eventually, we extricated ourselves from Buotel’s extravagant hospitality, and set out into the post-l-fdor SouqTown. Many folks must still have been home eating, because the street still had the empty, shuttered feeling I remembered from last week. We walked around town for a bit, then circled back to a street that was drowsily returning to normal. Since neither the cyber nor my favorite corner shop had yet opened, I went back into the hotel to work on my trusty laptop (and type this up!). It’s now 10pm…let’s see if SouqTown has stirred...

8/2/09 tbillclintont

Not long ago, I discovered that the American Secretary of State is known in Morocco not as Hillary Clinton, not as Secretary Clinton, not as Senator Clinton, not even as Mrs. Clinton.

Nope, this powerful woman is instead known as tbillclintont. [[For a truly excellent post on the subject, read my friend's blog about this - just scroll down a bit to find the relevant piece.]]

Faithful readers will recall that nearly any Tamazight word can be made feminine by adding t's to the beginning and end of it. A Berber man is an amazigh and his wife is a tamazight. A bull is an afunass and a cow is a tafunasst.

Tam speakers also tend to adopt Arabic words and render them Tam words by bookending them with t's. An Arab may wear a jelabba, known to the western world as "those hooded cloaks worn by Jedi knights and Jawas", but an Amazigh will wear a tejlabbit. If an Arab wants to dig a well, he gets a group together to dig an anu. His Berber neighbors will put their muscle into digging a tanut. This morning, I asked a shop owner for a mshtH to brush my hair with. He shook his head and said, "That's Arabic! But here, have a tamshtHit."

Etcetera.

So when the Secretary of State is rendered tbillclintont, I wonder to myself if they're simply feminizing her more-famous husband's name, or also claiming her as Berber. I've been told each of the following at least twice - that she (1) is herself Berber, (2) was born in "Springfield" [the capital of my Berber-dominated province], (3) has a Berber brother-in-law, (4) has a Berber sister-in-law, and (5) will definitely come to Morocco to give a speech next week/month/year. No, seriously, she is/does/will.

No, seriously. Seriously!