Barak allah ofeek!

Derija (Moroccan amiyya or dialect) is hard. It’s a combination of Arabic, French and a little bit of Spanish. I’ve never taken French so when everyone else oohs and ahhs in delight at the Derija word for pen “stilou” which is also apparently French, it’s a little frustrating! Somehow I managed to get placed into Intermediate 202 for fusha (Modern Standard Arabic), so we’ll see how that goes.

The only reason I can remember the above Derija phrase (“Barak allah ofeek”= God’s grace upon you or thank you) is because of Barack Obama! I’ll be sad to miss the inauguration but they said they would let us watch it at the AMIDEAST building on Tuesday.

However sad I may be to miss the inauguration and the NDN party that Simon Rosenberg invited the Tisch Scholars to, I’m excited to be in an Arab country when Obama takes office. I know I’ll have some interesting interactions, like when we met Mid.

I was walking with a few friends through the medina (walled part of the city), exploring the souks (markets) when Mid and his friend Braheen started catcalling us. We were with a friend Stefan, who has a surprising amount of Derija and can have full conversations with Moroccans, so he stopped and went to talk to the two men.

It turns out that Mid was absolutely wasted (after two bottles of vodka) but this made him very expressive. He told us about his ladies pajama shop (“I tell old women I am closed but I tell young girls to ‘Come in little babies!’”), how he lives alone and his girlfriend in America (he can’t remember her name exactly).

Then he went on to say, “I am a Muslim living here and you are from Amreeka, so I should hate you. But I don’t! I don’t care what you do, because you are like me, you have friends, you go to school, you work, I work, I have friends. I don’t care about the politics. They lie.”

Political Islam has lately been making inroads with the young population because of the lack of jobs. It was my first encounter with someone who had apparently been touched by this ideology but rejected it.

On our way back, Mohammed V street was clogged with protesters—supporters of the Palestinians in Gaza. I’ll refrain from a discussion of the conflict here (although we are constantly having good discussions on it with people in the program) because there’s no way I could come up with a comprehensive statement on my views (nor would I want to on Ullmans on the Road!) Suffice to say they told us to avoid crowds even though the protests are nonviolent. Being an American still has some significant stereotypes here.

The next day we went to the beach! The view from the Kasbah Oudaya is amazing; there are sea walls with waves crashing over them and hundreds of couples crowding the sand and the walls. When you get closer, however, it’s a little sketchy. The sand is full of trash and it’s clear that no one takes care of it. We were talking about a beach cleanup as a community service project when we stumbled upon two dead dogs lying in the sand. That put an end to that conversation pretty quickly.

Once we were safely on the sea wall, it was magical. The waves were so huge and as they crashed against the wall, water would drench anyone not on the far side of the path. As I watched the waves, all I could think about was how much Ben would have loved to go surfing here.

Love,

Sarah