Means it is raining (“there is rain”). Yes, for the first time in months, there is precipitation (albeit delicate) in Fes! And yes, that really is how you say rain. Though still hot and sunny during the day, Morocco is cooling down. Instead of 100 degree days, we’ve settled at a mild 82. Mornings and evenings feel cool. A British friend left his host family in shorts and a t-shirt, to the astonishment of his host mother. He told her that the weather — about 65 and cloudy — was [...]

Means leather. Which is something the people of Fes know better than anyone in Morocco. Better, perhaps, than anyone in the world. Before I wax eloquent on leather: today. An excellent day. Music. After yesterday’s musical rhapsodizing came the long-awaited September 25th, otherwise known as the release date of Mumford & Sons album, “Babel.” Began the day moved to tears by “Hopeless Wanderer,” “Not with Haste,” “The Boxer,” and, well, all the other songs on the album. Bits of home. A barrage of messages from friends and family. I also wore [...]

Means music. As far as music goes, Moroccans really like Shakira. Wilde wrote, in The Picture of Dorian Gray: “No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. Thought and language are to the artist instruments of art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician.” In Morocco, derija, the mother tongue of the majority of the population, is not considered a language. Imagine: the language in which one comforts one’s child, fights in the street, woos a lover, [...]

Means I have. I have more than enough. Enough. I did not encounter some new, impoverished quarter of Fes today. I did not stop to buy streetside meals that cost less than a dollar. I simply feel thankful today. Quickly, one realizes that the only way to truly have adventure is to sacrifice one’s fears. This morning I woke up to a message from a friend. Not even personal. I’m almost ashamed to say this, but he tweeted it. The twenty-five word (or so) message led me back to the core [...]

Means maybe. As in: maybe I’ll take another route. Going an unfamiliar way in Fes isn’t always a good idea, especially if it will be dark soon, for instance, or there are constraints on your time. But if, like I did today, one has six hours until they need to be anywhere, the best thing is to get lost. The worst that happens: grab an (obscenely inexpensive taxi) and say “Batha” or, if there aren’t any taxis (there are no cars in the old Medina) ask someone where the nearest [...]

Means I sleep. Which people do a lot here. For a place with absolutely zero nightlife, people in Fes stay up awfully late. Parents, grandparents, two-year-olds: bedtime is about one a.m. And then there are just a lot of naps, vaguely scheduled around the calls to prayer. As a student, it’s a little hard to get used to going to bed so late when wakeup is at 6:45. So you take a nap when you can, maybe 2 o’clock, maybe 6 o’clock, maybe 9 o’clock. Because dinner is at ten [...]

Means to listen to. New hardest word ever to pronounce… especially when conjugated. Polyglossia. Bakhtin wrote of heteroglossia: that the meaning of a work of art must be transmitted through one language. Morocco, however, is a country of polyglossia: the fuctioning of many varieties of language, originating from one common root, that take on different societal uses. Increasingly, the gloss of choice changes from one language to a linguistically “lower” language; new modes of communication, also, pop up in different circles. Case study: television. My host family (and all other Moroccan families, [...]

Means “I want.” Also, like some kind of conspiracy, the most difficult word I have ever tried to pronounce. Bghreet the used collected poems of Boris Pasternak, for sale in the ALIF bookstore. The bookstore carries an eclectic mix of books: books on Morocco and the Maghrib, of course, but also books about America and English-language classics, often for steeply discounted prices. In fact, the bookstore operates at a loss because it tries to provide English-language books to its many Moroccan students– an effort I wish one could see at, say, [...]

Means brother. Abdellah and Mohammed: the little brothers I never got to have. Four and two years old, with shrill shrieks and tempers. They always play together, always fight with each other, and have no fear of hitting one another (in fact, they do this often, with sharp metal objects, shoes, and their father’s leather belt). It is difficult to understand a mother’s rage when you are not one, and because I spent my childhood pleasing my parents at all costs, it is hard to hear the yelling I hate so [...]

Means “I’m full,” and it is definitely a useful expression. Moroccans, or at least my host family, have a talent for bringing mounds of delicious meat, bread, and vegetables, then encouraging you to eat as you protest “shbet.” Then, Omar, my host father, brings out a huge bowl of grapes, a big yellow melon, and three of the best white peaches on planet earth. “Shbet” no longer. All this while I trade funny faces with my little host brothers, Abdullah (4) and Mohammed (2), who are absolutely the cutest children [...]

After a sleepless “night” crossing half of America and the Atlantic Ocean, waking up to a beautiful sunrise over Ireland that looked like this: and sleeping through an entire plane ride to Rabat, I’m in Morocco. It is unbelievable. I’m absorbed, completely, by jetlag, but here are a few brief highlights so far. Arid. There are trees and green things here, but for the most part, everything really is dirt-colored. The three-hour drive from Rabat to Fez took us through Meknes, but otherwise we saw lots of small subsistence farms [...]

So the smell of Jasmine is EVERYWHERE in the Medina these days, and it has made me come to realize that it is now spring here in Fes. Its April already, I’m not sure how that happened….but, as the changing weather and tree blossoms might be hinting, time never does stop or slow down. Since my last post, I’ve had the most amazing experiences, with a few really rough days scattered in between. I guess, even when you are “living the dream” you can’t expect every day to be absolutely [...]

So somehow over the course of my first month here, Fes has become “home.” It has those aspects of certain familiarity that, upon returning after weekend away, just make me feel like I’m coming home. Its also everything I associate with my day-to-day routine, including the ever-stressful and ovewrwhelming class schedule. I know my medina streets, at least in and out of my little neighborhood, the rest of the medina is still a mystery, but the woman who owns the corner shop down the street from my house nods hellos [...]

So, I am pretty much back to my normal life. I am sleeping in pretty much every single day (not the best habit to get into before school starts). I am cooking stuff that I am used to eating, and most of all, I am living with people who can understand what I am speaking. (I’m also thankful for the working shower). I have so many people to thank for supporting me throughout my 10 weeks of studying abroad. Without them, I don’t think I would have made it. First [...]

Today we talked about music in our Moroccan Society & Culture class. Not traditional music, but rap music. Personally not a fan of rap, I found it interesting that rap is actually quite popular in Morocco. We were introduced to Don Bigg  (we watched a video about him), pioneer of Moroccan rap. A very politically active man, even though not associated with any political parties, Don Bigg raps about problems in Morocco in Moroccan Arabic—the first to do so. Like him, many Moroccan rappers use rap as a medium to [...]