Dutch Party

DUTCH PARTY.

Tanneries in Fez

Yesterday I went to Fez with two other trainees. It was a very cool city, and it was nice to see for a number of reasons. First if it hadn’t been for the Russian Invasion of the CZ in 1968, my mom and her family would have lived there—for anyone who knows my mom, you can only imagine what a stretch that would be. Secondly because the research project on the Jews of medieval Spain I did last year made me aware of the connections the Jews of Spain had to the Jews of North Africa. Crazy. But, onto the real point of this blog. We saw leather tanneries and they were really cool. We had a 10-15 year old guide who took us through the huge and winding medina to the largest tannery in Morocco. Animal hides are treated in all kinds of nasty solutions (Lonely Planet names pigeon poo and urine among them…) then they are processed and dried and soaked in all kinds of dyes. We got to see it all.

CIRCUS

The other night we went to see a circus in Old Sale which is right outside of Rabat on the other side of the river. When I was in Morocco a few years ago I was told it is poorer than Rabat, more conservative, and pretty shadey. We were walking around during the intermission, getting food, checking things out, when we got ambushed by a group of kids. They just wanted to talk with us, so we chilled with them a while, took some pictures, etc. One crazy blond kid—older, 18 apparently, clearly leading the group—had been following behind us for some time, and he and a few other kids started pushing the smaller kids away, kicking them, being generally violent. We started to leave so as to not cause more commotion (not to mention any more injured eight year-olds), but this kid followed us. He started off nice enough, flirting, inviting us to his house, asking questions, trying to be helpful. We showed him a flyer of the circus to show him where we were going (aka not to his house), and he turned around and ripped it up. He tried to talk to us, and it was pretty clear he was a little off. “Please. I want love with big name. No big name. I artist. I want California. I have girlfriend. She….he….he was take away…I love him. Avril Lavigne.” After this creepy dude mentioned Avril, we decided to walk away. We were nice enough, but he wanted us to take him to the US to see her. OKAAAAY. Anyway, he got really upset. He made a shooting motion at us and followed us with his hand in his pocket looking pretty scary and violent. He followed us for like 45 minutes total! One of the guys I was with spoke Arabic so he was trying to talk to him a bit, but this kid was not particularly receptive to talking. What a weirdo! We got into a cab and didn’t see the rest of the circus. That kid was enough of a freak show.

Essaouira

This weekend everyone in Morocco went to a little city in the south called Essaouira for a gnawa music festival. Gnawa music is uniquely from the Maghreb (northwest Africa-- Western Sahara, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya). It’s a mix between Arabic rhythms and more central African beats. The festival was a mix of hippies from all over the world, and I don’t know where all the Moroccans with dreads hibernate when they are not at the festival. I don’t think I have seen one until I went. We went in a minibus with 17 people, and it was quite the time. When we weren’t listening to gnawa music, we were driving in the bus to Katy’s metal clappy instruments and “Mr. Lover.” Maybe you had to be there, but I think we all got a lot closer. Here’s a site with some music on it. http://music.calabashmusic.com/world/Gnawa . I recommend the second artist.

SURFING

I went surfing!!! I went to the surf club in Rabat with two other trainees. It was awesome. Definitely going again. The hardest part (besides carrying this crazy-big board) was paddling/ wading out there. I got up a couple times. It was really really fun!

70's Porn

Last weekend we went to Marakesh. It was beautiful. There were snake charmers, souqs, mosques, gardens, the works. The hostle we stayed at had these kinda funky patterns on the walls that reminded everyone a little of bad 70's porn. While I have never seen any, I think they are probably right. (I know the title made this post a little anticlimactic, if you will, but it caught your eye, didn't it?)

UAE Influence

Before I came here, I was a little confused about what exactly the UAE did with all the money it has. I was just thinking that they didnt know what to do with so much cash, so they built big gold hotels (okay, so they did that) and indoor ski hills (that too), but now that I am here, I see the intense amounts of money the UAE pours into all kinds of projects. Half the commercials on TV are list opportunities at UAE companies, and the UAE comes up in conversation all the time for having sponsored this or that (world cup, Fly Emirates, anyone?). One of the main changes I am seeing almost every day is the huge project the king and the UAE are working on. There is a river between Sale and Rabat, and it is being filled in. They are moving a beach! This project will hopefully facilitate more partnerships between the cities, create bus and train routes, and most importantly generate tons of jobs.

Shabbat in Rabat

The service itself was really tough to follow. It's a Sephardic community, and I have only been to one other Sephardic service (before the Lubabitchers came, I imagine it was considerably more chaotic, knowing what I know about Morocco), and everything was a little different. Different words, rhythms, motions, orders of events. My favorite part was the melodies. The way they read from the Siddur was really uniquely Moroccan, lots of fluctuation of the voice on a particular note. It was lovely.
Afterwards I was invited to dinner with a family. I went and had a great time. The man who invited me is from here but living in Andorra with his mom and dad now. He was back here for a wedding and was staying with his grandmother for the week. It was so cool to see how a Jewish family here has Shabbat. We ate a spinach dish, spicey eggplant, a Moroccan fish dish, palm hearts, beets, fruit and this interesting spicy challa-like bread. It was great. I got to speak in Spanish with the grandmother bc she only spoke Spanish and Arabic. I talked to him a lot about the Jewish community in Morocco and he was really insightful. He is really sad that everyone is moving away. They have seen several synagogues close down. He also talked about how attached the Moroccan Jews are to Morocco. All the kings of Morocco have alway been really good to the Jews--protecting them from the Nazis, condemning terrorism, etc (currently one of the kings most important advisors is Jewish) but that Jews here have to worry about uneducated people damaging their shops or making comments or discriminating. He says that is why people are moving, because in other places that just doesn't have to be a daily concern.

I attached a few photos from the Jewish Museum in Casablanca.

MY BIRTHDAY

JUST SO EVERYONE REMEMBERS, ITS MY BIRTHDAY NEXT THURSDAY JUNE 15.

Chasing after a temple

In most places synagogues are pretty inconspicuous. You’ll rarely find a big Cathedral of a place. In my experience synagogues outside of the US have been kind of tough to get into: “show me your passport,” “why do you want to come here?” “are you jewish?” “read this in Hebrew,” “say the Shema,” --that kind of weeding out process. Though it is daunting, I understand why it is like this: because of bomb threats and other nasty problems associated with anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiments. I wanted to go to service this Friday night, so I thought it would be beneficial to go to the synagogue first, introduce myself, and get all that weeding-out crap out of the way.

So I have been looking for synagogues in Rabat for a while on the internet but with no real luck with addresses. I asked one of my Moroccan roommates and he drew me a diagram and told me he thought one was located. So I get in the cab and prepare my little schpiel in broken French on the back of my dictionary (“hi, do you speak English? My name is Lindsey Blank; I am Jewish. I am from the United States. I am here for the summer. Do you have Friday services? Would it be possible for me to come? What time?” etc). So I get a cab. The driver and I talk in French, Arabic, and signs. He pulls up to a Greek Orthodox Church. Nope. I got out and walked a bit, but then decided to head back to the apartment and try again later. I get into a new cab, and tell him to go to my apartment. He was kinda chatty, so I decided to ask him if he knew where any synagogues were. He didn’t know the word, so we acted out “je sui juif.” I tell him I want to go to "a place of Jews" and he starts fake praying. "je islam" and he does a bowing motion; "vous juif" and he does a little swaying in front of a book motion; "Yes!" I think, "he gets it!" so anyway three churches later, I tell him to take me home. Clearly he doesn’t know any temples... He’s like, "no, no, I know where it is," okaaaay, I agree. He goes right back to where he picked me up: the Greek Orthodox church. FUN.

Another friend of mine knew where one was located, about 4 blocks from my apartment, and he took me there. He helped me talk with someone at the desk. She was great. My new friend was wonderful too. Later we got to talking about religion and what it means to him. We talked about the similarities between Islam, Judaism and Christianity and especially between Islam and Judaism. It was really interesting to hear his views on sex (somewhat hypocritically conservative), dating out of your religion (very open), marrying out of your religion (not particularly open). We also got to talking about Israel and Palestine. We shared a lot of the same views, and I was surprised at how rewarding the conversation was. I thought that he was really hearing what I had to say, and I was definitely in tuned to the problems he was describing. We were really on the same page with most things.

Cats

The cats here are super dirty. They are like the dogs of Latin America. One of my roomates was bit by a cat here and didn't tell anyone for over a week. Not advisable.

Hammam

So yesterday I went to the Hammam (the sauna-like turkish baths in many arab/muslim countries in middle east and n. africa) with Michel and one of our coworkers, Fatimazarah. Fati took us there with two huge buckets with potions and plastic mats and rubber shoes. We got into this kinda dirty looking place, stripped down, and went into the inner rooms. One was hotter than the next, and we finally stopped in the innermost room. I was sweating already- though partly because I was naked in front of total strangers, completely at the mercy of someone whose language I don't speak. We then sat down on plastic mats and proceeded to scrub ourselves. And scrub and scrub and scrub. Every part of my body was exfolited, peeled, lathered, rubbed, soaped, salved, resoaped, rescrubbed and rinsed. I was embarassed because about an hour into it, I didn't know what else to clean, and I think everyone there was thinking, "dirtly little American, she doesn't even know how to wash herself," and by their standards I didn't! We stayed there for over 2 hours. It was CRAZY! BUT, I seriously have never been so clean. It was exhausting. I was a little skeptical at first, but it was pretty cool. I glow.

iPOD

I am technically challenged. I haven't added new music to my ipod since I put the original songs on it. Today I tried, and all my songs are gone. ALL of them. Very very sad. New beginnings, I guess. It's fine, but it helps me realize how dependent we are on technology. I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry :)

First Impressions

I arrived in Rabat on Sunday and have been getting settled in. I can already tell that I will love it. In all my correspondence with my family and friends I have been going on and on about how wonderful everone is. This will probably be no exception. The AIESECers here are fantastic. Everyone I have met has just been incredibly warm and welcoming. I definitely feel like this summer is gonna be great. Mostly I have visited Rabat, gotten used to the feel of things a little. We have been to the Medina, Le Tour Hassan, the Kasbah and at various locations in town. Our apartment is in a really nice area and I can't help but think how different the life I will be living here is from when I was here before and we stayed with a family in the Medina (Turkish toilettes, no English, etc). Things here are beautiful, the architecture, the people, the ocean, the history. I enjoy living in the US, but in other countries I feel like people are somehow closer to life. They have real traditions that aren't watered down the same way. Things aren't so sanitary all the time. The wealthy still see the poor. I love getting a glipse at life in this way.