Tag: ahblackwell

By ahblackwell

I'm leaving Morocco, today. I'm in the airport now, and my friend Netta just left for her flight. We traveled together from Rabat to the airport in Casablanca by a Grand-Taxi that picked us up at five in the morning. I only slept for about two hours, if even. After one last couscous lunch with my host family, one last Uno game with my little host brother, and one last long afternoon at the beach with friends, we finished packing and got a slice of pizza in the medina before all gathering in one of our rooms to spend a last bit of time, together. At three in the morning we woke up to finish getting ready, and then I went downstairs to send off a large group of people heading for the Rabat airport. It was a sad goodbye. Those of us who remained waved farewell as the van, full of our friends' tired and sullen faces, pulled away. I decided to travel to Casablanca with Netta to get her flight early in the morning, despite the fact that my flight won't leave until around noon. When we got to the airport, we watched the Moroccan sun rise from the parking lot before heading inside checking her in for her flight and grabbing a café au lait. Now I am just people-watching and waiting to be able to check in for mine. ...continue reading "B’salaama"

By ahblackwell

For the past month, I have been conducting primary and secondary research on the effects of social attitudes towards female premarital sexuality on adolescent reproductive health in Morocco. In order to obtain my research, I interviewed several young Moroccan women about relationship practices and sexual norms among Moroccan youth, I met with representatives of two sexual health-centered NGOs, and I met with an Islamic scholar who specializes in sexuality in Islam. My project advisor, Dr. Abdessamad Dialmy, is also the premier scholar on Islam and Sexuality in Morocco. The project itself was eye-opening, but I think the part of the project that I learned from the most was collecting primary research in Morocco. This morning, I submitted my 37-page document to my program coordinator, and on Tuesday I will give a 20-minute presentation on my project to our academic directors, my project advisor, and about half of my classmates. I feel relieved that the project is over, but also incredibly proud of myself for accomplishing such an academic feat. Who knew, when I talked to college admissions counselors in my senior year of high school about my desire to study Arabic, go to the Middle East, and work with women on matters of women's health, that I would actually be able to accomplish such a task. I have truly accomplished a life goal, and I plan to do a lot more in my future regarding similar research and service. ...continue reading "Female Premarital Sexuality in Morocco: Social Stigmatization and Sexual Health"

By ahblackwell

Two weeks ago I packed up my bags and said goodbye to my host family and move out... and into an apartment only a few blocks away with five of my best friends in my program. All SIT programs end with a month of working on an independent study, and during the independent study time - deemed, “ISP time” - SIT recommends that students do not live in the comfort of their homestays, but that they spend their independent studies living on their own. Several of my friends and I decided to stay in Rabat to work on our research, and with the help of a Moroccan friend, we found a beautiful flat in the old medina that we decided to rent. Our flat is on the first floor of a medina house that has been renovated into a separate apartment with traditional Andalusian carvings and tiles on the ceiling and the walls. It is complete with a wide-open courtyard that stretches, roofless, to the sky. We have two bedrooms (ringed with traditional Moroccan wall-couches that act as beds), a bathroom with a real shower and hot water, and a kitchen that has a stove, a huge sink, a refrigerator, and beautiful stained-glass windows that let in the sun and the sounds of children playing “football” on our street. Our upstairs neighbors can be heard when they do laundry or watch late-night Moroccan television, but otherwise the space is incredibly private and cozy. ...continue reading "Living Like a Moroccan"

By ahblackwell

Completing primary research and writing a thirty-page paper for an independent study would be difficult in any location. However, Morocco’s disorganization presents an extra challenge that I did not expect. Our classes ended on April 5th, and on April 14th we moved out of our homestays and I moved into a flat in the old Medina with five of my closest friends in the program. Our last three weeks in Morocco will be devoted to our independent studies. The goal of my independent study is to observe the social attitudes and norms that affect the sexual health of Moroccan women, which is below average compared to other middle-income countries, and to find the origins of these attitudes. ...continue reading "Mayhem in Morocco: Research and Independent Study"

By ahblackwell

I am currently riding the train back to Rabat from Marrakech, which is a five-hour process that will get us home at about two in the morning. Even though it’s late and I am more physically exhausted than I have been in a while, having a whole two seats on the train to stretch my legs and doze off is more than I could ask for. This weekend, a small and very wonderful group of students from our program decided to go to Marrakech in order to get in some good hiking and exploration in Ourika Valley, which is about an hour outside of the city. On Friday evening we boarded the train to Marrakech, and were very unpleasantly surprised by the crowd that we found on the inside. For the first half of the train ride, we stood in the hallway or sat on our backbags on the train floor because we weren’t able to find any seats. I had been looking forward to spending the time reading and writing postcards and was disappointed that we had to stand, but the packed cars seemed appropriate for a train going to Marrakech. We stood completely still, trying not to sweat in the humid and crowded aisles, while young Moroccans who were eager to practice their English talked to us about the places we had been within the country. Eventually, a group of young men returning home from the police academy in Rabat who had started talking and joking with us offered to give up their seats. At the end of the ride, they even helped us get our bags down from the overhead compartments and made sure we knew where we were going once we got off in Marrakech. I am continually amazed by the helpful nature of Moroccans (last week a boy and his sister got on a bus that they weren’t waiting for in order to ensure that we got to the destination we had asked them about... what?!). I have encountered so many incredibly friendly and helpful people who are willing to go far out of their way to ensure my safety and security. It is truly astounding. ...continue reading "Train Rides and Rock Climbing"

By ahblackwell

The Friday couscous tradition is one of my favorite food traditions here in Morocco, but I was especially excited for it this week because Friday was a particularly cold and rainy day. I walked home in the rain after I finished my Arabic final, attempting to avoid the puddles and land mines - the hidden pockets of water under loose tiles that explode with mud and “medina juice” when you step on them - and the smell of the couscous and the heat of the kitchen when I entered my family’s house were a wonderful relief. I cuddled up under a blanket on the couch in between my host-dad and little sister as my mom brought in the heaping pile of couscous and vegetables steaming on the huge tagine. My host-dad, my brother and I each picked up an oversized spoon and began to dig into the couscous and chickpeas (“hummus” in Darija - no, not what we think of as hummus) in our “zones” while my host-mother and sister went right in with their hands. In Morocco, many traditional meals are cooked in tagines, which are large conical clay cooking pots that allow steam from the meal to condense and drip back down into the base. The meals are brought to the table in the tagine base, and each family member is expected to only eat the food in their “zone,” or the pie-slice of the circular plate that is closest to them. Tagine meals are often eaten without using utensils. Most of the time, bread serves as a utensil, and each bite is achieved using a small piece of “khubs” as a scooper. Couscous, however, is traditionally only eaten with your hands by scooping some couscous and some vegetables into your hand, forming a ball with it, and popping the ball into your mouth. Luckily, the modern habit of using a spoon for couscous has become more common, and I am not subjected to the difficulty of forming couscous balls by hand. Although Moroccan couscous is a cultural staple, it is only eaten for lunch on Fridays. Friday is the most important day of the week, for Muslims, and almost all Moroccans head home from work or school for the afternoon prayer and to eat family couscous before returning back to their normal activities. ...continue reading "Fourth Meal: Eating and Eating and Eating in Morocco"

By ahblackwell

During orientation week, Doha, the homestay coordinator for the Center for Cross Cultural Learning, dedicated an entire portion of her session to bathrooms in our homestays. Squatting low with her elbows on her knees for support, Doha demonstrated how to use a “Turkish toilet,” while the picture of the porcelain hole-in-the-ground illuminated on the TV screen behind her. If only I had truly known the project that the toilet in Morocco would become during our pre-homestay orientation session. Perhaps it is good that I did not. ...continue reading "The Dirty Details"

By ahblackwell

As I ducked to slide under the rusted barbed wire that Ahmed held taut a few feet above the ground, my boot slipped in the mud, soft from rain, and I felt the nylon of my backpack catch on one of the reddish-brown barbs. He pulled me free, and I continued to follow my new host father over fields and brooks and several other fences until we reached our new home. Ahmed, tall and slender with tanned smiling cheeks, which peeked out from behind a bushy beard and a green wool cap, called out to Zahra and Miriam as we approached the grey concrete house that stood on a bouldery landscape surrounded by gardens and grazing animals. Zahra, our host mother, emerged from the house first, her head scarf tied up behind her ears, revealing her face and neck which were soft and brown from years of work and wear in the sun. She pulled me in to an embrace and gave me the customary kiss on each cheek to say hello. Miriam repeated the gesture and immediately made it clear that, as our eighteen-year-old host sister, we would be spending the majority of our week with her. After a brief lunch full of small-talk in Darija (the Moroccan dialect of Arabic) and some French - Ahmed, after only completing an eighth-grade education, can speak perfect French - Miriam took us on a tour of the house and its surrounding grounds. Their house - “daar,” in Darija - consists of four enclosed rooms, a kitchen, a bathroom (complete with Turkish toilet), and a courtyard area that connects each of the sections of the house. It is surrounded by a beautiful fenced-in back yard where the chickens are free to roam, several enclosed fields for the cows and sheep to graze, a fairy-tale garden, and rolling hills and babbling brooks that descend into the valley, below. The family lives on the outskirts of Ait-Ouahi, a rural Amazigh village that settled as a tribe about 30 kilometers from modern-day Oulmes, a very small town in the Middle Atlas Mountains. Julia, Alex, and I lived with the family for the week and enjoyed their home and hospitality while we experienced village life in Morocco with our classmates. ...continue reading "The Tribe in the Valley"

By ahblackwell

Over the course of the past few weeks, I have traveled across Morocco on several different excursions. Throughout my excursions, I learned that the country’s landscape is not only beautiful, it is incredibly diverse. My first big trip with my program was our southern excursion. We left the big-city coast of Rabat and headed southeast for Azrou, a small city that sits at the base of the Middle Atlas Mountains. The mountains are one of three main mountain ranges in Morocco, stretching throughout the middle and low-eastern portion of the country. After lunch in Azrou, a delicious and huge lunch (as usual) in a swanky restaurant surrounded by rolling green hills and fresh crisp air, we headed for Midelt, a very small town situated in a valley in the Middle Atlas. We reached Midelt around 5:00pm and used the rest of our available sunlight to explore the area surrounding our hotel, which consisted of a muddy plain that stretched flat and expansive until it jutted straight upward into a dark and snowcapped mountain. We walked out into the plain and watched the sun set standing next to a mud-and-grass farm with donkeys and a friendly puppy named “Rosa” as our companions. ...continue reading "Morocco of Many Faces"

By ahblackwell

This past week, our focus in class was on religion. Our discussions were predominantly centered around women and their position in Islam, but topics also included Sharia’ Law and some Islamic history. We had one of our most productive and interesting sessions of the semester, so far, on Thursday when about ten or so students from Mohammad V University joined us. Normally our class is so big that it is difficult to approach any kind of conclusion or main point during group discussions. We also usually hold our discussion amongst ourselves (all American students) and our professors, without including much of a true Moroccan perspective. For our discussion on Thursday, which was focused on secularism and religion in each of our own countries, we were broken into much smaller groups, each of which included several of the Moroccan students who had joined us. ...continue reading "Secularism and Sufis"