Tangier was awesome!

I absolutely loved Tangier, although it's hard to explain why. Instead of trying to explain exactly why I liked it so much in one post, I'll probably just try and post a number of smaller things that I did and liked.

We spent about an hour at the American Legation Museum and it was awesome. Morocco was the first country to officially recognize the U.S. as a country, and we got to see the first official recognition of the U.S.! Cool stuff. After taking this picture I was told I couldn't take any more pictures (but he didn't make me delete this one), but we also saw an original George Washington letter to the Sultan of Morocco. He (Washington) had really nice handwriting. Also, we saw a hilarious letter from some Department of State employee who was responsible for telling the Moroccans that George Washington could not accept a gift of two lions. It was a 3 or 4 page letter detailing to his boss how hard he tried to tell the Moroccans that the President could not accept a gift of lions. Then his Moroccan counterpart wanted to give the lions to Congress, but again he said no. Then his Moroccan counterpart asked him who founded the government, to which the guy said "The People," so the Moroccan said, "Well let us give the Sultans [i.e. the people] of America this gift," so I guess they just let these two lions loose on the streets. I was sort of unclear on how the story actually ended, but this guy detailing his plight was hilarious.

Then at the end we talked to the director, an American, with whom we had a nice conversation.

The horizontal shower

http://www.archello.com/en/product/horizontal-shower

In other news, Moroccan showers are the worst. In general bathrooms are very small and so when you take a shower the whole bathroom gets soaked. Luckily this isn't really the case in our house, where the bathroom is big enough and is mostly just a shower room. But the thing is, I've been to enough bathrooms to know that shower curtains would make a really big difference in keeping bathrooms from not getting soaked, but they're just not a thing here. It's so odd. 

Going to Tangier this weekend, Insha'Allah!

So I might not blog much. Also, one problem with Morocco is that lots of things that aren't good for you are really cheap, so I've been eating chocolate for the last hour. 

When the king comes...

All of last week, we noticed a subtle change around Bab Chellah, which is on the way some of us go to/from school -- there seemed to be more police, and there was also some construction going on. It turns out the king was planning on coming to celebrate a holiday, the birth of the prophet Muhammad (not commonly celebrated in the Islamic world because you don't want to worship Muhammad too much or it makes him out to be a Jesus-like God figure, which he explicitly is not). On the day of the holiday, we learned that the king was coming at 7:00 to Bab Chellah, but unfortunately we already had plans.

Some people in our group, however, did see him and said it was amazing (they were about 10ft from the king! Pretty cool). According to them, the whole thing was oddly emotional given that they have no actual connection to the king; but just being around all of these people who are in love with him and who were screaming for him caused them to get caught up in the emotional fervor. Or something. 

Anyway; the whole thing got me thinking. They paved an entire street for the king's coming. Does this always happen? Anytime he goes anywhere, they pave the streets for him? Aside from being hilarious (instead of a red carpet wherever you go, they literally pave the streets for you) I also wonder if the king has serious problems seeing what Morocco is actually like. I doubt it, but it's possible that he thinks that Morocco is in better infrastructural shape than it actually is.

By the way, what I was doing instead was watching Carnage, which was in English. I had wanted to see what Moroccan theaters were like for a long time but didn't want to sit through a movie in French or Arabic, which I would be unable to understand. I was worried this would be dubbed over in French and so still be a waste of money, but it was subtitled in French instead, so that was awesome. Also, the movie is hilarious. As for Moroccan theaters, they're like American but smaller (there was one screen/room), they don't sell popcorn/candy etc, and tickets cost about a dollar.

Languages

For those who don't know, there is a formal arabic (MSA) and a regional dialect for basically everywhere in the Arabic-speaking world. The dialect here is darija and it is one of the farthest removed from MSA. A Moroccan and a Saudian talking to each other would not be able to understand each other. Incidentally, linguists define the difference between languages and dialects as follows: If there is mutual comprehension, then you're speaking two dialects of the same language. If not, then you're speaking two different languages. Obviously the definition of vague, but regardless, I think it's clear that darija is a distinct language from Arabic. One could probably say the same about the Egyptian, Syrian, Saudian dialects as well. The reason they aren't called distinct languages is almost certainly to preserve pan-Arab unity.

One thing that surprised me is how little people know MSA. MSA is essentially the language of the Qur'an as well as of the media and administration, so I assumed that generally people knew it but if you spoke it, you sounded like a pedantic ass. In fact, plenty of people just won't understand you because they don't understand the Qur'an or the media or the elites. Other people will sort of understand but definitely can't speak it. From what I understand, this is vastly different than 20 or 30 years ago when very, very few people understood it at all. So perhaps if I return in ten years, most people will understand MSA.

On the other hand, a lot of people think MSA might generally be on its way out and certain colloquials (especially Egyptian) might kind of take over, as mass media begins to be used more in colloquial and also to reach more people. Social medias are all going to be colloquial dominated, but if people from different regions want to communicate with each other, it's a reasonable guess that one colloquial will end up dominating and Egyptian seems poised to take that role (many people can understand it because so many films, TV shows etc come from Egypt -- although maybe economic decline will change this?). But nobody really has any idea what will happen.

Lastly, ~50% of the population speaks a Berber language as a first language (although they almost all speak darija as a second). The population is far, far more ethnically Berber (Amazigh = "noble people") than one might think given the dominance of Arab culture. Recently there has been a bit of an Amazigh identity movement which stems from colonialism. Long story short: During colonialism, the French adopted a number of policies designed to divide the Berbers (Amazigh) and the Arabs in order to prevent a unified opposition. In many ways, this created the concept of an Amazigh identity, which hadn't really existed before. After independence, Arab elites fought to remove this concept of an Amazigh identity, for example by banning Berber from schools, contriving a convoluted history of the Amazigh that said they were from Yemen and lived primitive lives until they saw the light of Islam, claimed that Berber and Arabic were linguistically related (they're not), and jailed people for issuing Amazigh pride publications.
Recently (last ~5 years) this policy has been reversed and now schools can even be taught in Berber languages, and an Amazigh culture movement is growing.

But the point is that in an already fairly interesting linguistic situation where you have everyone speaking darija, MSA and French both used in media/government/among elites (and MSA also practically identical to Qur'anic Arabic), tons of people code-switching between all three languages, and the further complication of international communication, pan-Arab identity, etc, you also have this other element that nobody really likes to talk about which is that most of your population is Amazigh.

Surprisingly amazing

Orange slices powdered with cinnamon.
(You want the oranges to be really sweet, so if they aren't naturally sweet enough you can probably add powdered sugar as well)

On a run

At one moment, a little boy, around 7 years old, started running with me, saying "rriada! rriada! rriada!" incessantly, which as far as I can tell means "sports! sports! sports!" but maybe it means something different in darija or he was saying something slightly different, because although I suppose that sort of makes sense it doesn't make much of it.

During the same run, I passed by someone who said "biSaHa waraHa" which is something that I've only heard after meals and means "To your health" (it's also used after people take showers and after, and apparently during, exercise).

Just interesting to me because of the universal stuff (little kids running after you during runs) and the different stuff (to your health, saying 'sports, sports')