It is time to say goodbye

It is FINALS times!!!
This weekend we went to Azrou. A major Peace Corps city south of Ifrane. Azrou means rock in Amazigh, which is what Azrou was built on. One big rock. It also supposedly is related to the fact that Azrou will always stand like a rock.
We mostly came here to buy souvenirs. We bought shoes, hands of Fatima, prayer beads, knives, everything Moroccan. It was amazing. The last time that I used my Arabic in full conversations. It felt great. At AUI it was hard from time to times to employ the newly learned knowledge mostly because many did not speak Modern Standard, and I did not speak enough derija. For some weird reason most of Azrou's people understood me, and I understood them. Great!
Sadly I need to return to my studies, two more finals left for freedom.
I will write one or two more posts recapping my experience, once I have been away from it long enough. Right now it feels like one of the best times of my life.

Best regards from the Middle-Atlas,

Diogo

A little piece of heaven

السلام عليكم،
this weekend I did my last major trip. It was the May 1st weekend, Hannah, one of my great friends from Germany, visited, and we thought the beach would be a great place to go. First we all headed to Marrakesh for a day in order to enjoy the greatest juice, and the lovely Djma al-Fnaa. Since our end-station was Essaouira, we had to go through Marrakesh anyway. There we explored the modern side of the city. We hung out in the Ville Nouvelle, Gueliz, and tried to get into some clubs. Problem were my shorts and flip flops, here if you want to go to a club you need:
-gelled hair,
-slick shoes/kicks,
-pants/dark jeans, and
-sunglasses,
as you can see, I probably had neither. Well, nonetheless we had a good time. I even bought something in a store, in which Sarkozy shopped. High class I know.
Anyway, on Friday we bolted fro Essaouira. What a gorgeous place!
As you can see, beautiful. We were in this tiny nice hotel called Hotel Cap Sim, and the lady there, was a typical Moroccan woman. She was friendly and helpful, always ready to poke fun at some of us, and she was correcting my Arabic (ma ahla).
A little bit about Essaouira, it is amazing. It is a small town at the beach, which back in the days was an important trade port. Occupied by the Spanish for a time, who built the fortifications seen on the left, around the old city.
The charm of this city is that it is a lot like Chefchaouen, but it has an upside. It has a beach right there. The people there are very relaxed, laid back, and do not try to harass you just for walking past their store. That is topped by the fact that it seems like everyone in that town a) loves music, b) is having a great life, and c) hope you love the town as much as they do.
As every hippie place, there is always this one funky restaurant/cafe to go to. We found our Essaouira version in a back alley. They offered funky juices, great organic dishes. I had sweet rice, with dates, raisins, and almonds. The dish was accompanied by a lemon, garlic, carrot juice... yum! After that experience we went to the beach, and I got to eat something I have not had in a long time, SUGAR CANE! I used to drink its juice in Brazil, found it here again, and this guy told me to peel it, and chew around on it. That was just perfect, sitting at the beach with sugar cane. I even got to share it with some little Moroccan kids. It was interesting to see that they actually had a sharing system. I cut it in four pieces for the four little boys. Suddenly a fifth one showed up, a friend I assume, and the biggest of them told all of the others to share a little with the fifth boy, so that everyone can have some. So much for the Western conviction that the Arabs, or the Middle East and North Africa is irrational and primitive.
Essaouira is also known for its silver works. The jewelry rocks, if you like very alternative things. Another thing Essaouira used to be known for was its Jewish community. The city still has a giant Jewish cemetery, with a very nice woman working as caretaker.
On our way back we crashed at this awful hotel in front of the Casa Voyageurs train station.

That was my weekend.
مع سلاما من المغرب

I am an invalid

Hi everyone,
let me keep this short. Some Moroccans do not know how to play Rugby. I do not know how to either.
This week my eardrum was punctured after someone slapped me on the ear during practice. I am miserable and in pain. Glad that the Mimouna days are coming up.

The only good thing that this brought, is an insight into the medical system of the country. It is pretty decent, if one has sufficient money. I have a feeeling that otherwise, one is pretty much doomed to still die from leprosy.

Nursing my battlewounds,

Diogo

A Moroccan Passover

Greetings from the land of the sun and oranges,
this past weekend in order to properly celebrate Passover, I went down, or up depending from your point of view, to Fes. The very kind Mamane family hosted my friend Payne and I for a Moroccan Seder. It was quite an experience.

For those of you that do not know, most of Moroccan Jewry lives peacefully among other Moroccans. Since the beginning of the past century Arabs and Jews lived next to each other, considering themselves to be Moroccans in the first place. Many of the remaining are of French or Spanish decent. Thus French is quite common among all Jews. They still constitute some form of elite in many areas, the most prominent among them being His Majesty's adviser Andre Azoulay.

Another aspect of Moroccan Jewry is their following of Sephardic customs. These are extremely visible during Passover. Mdm. Mamane served various delicious dishes which included fava beans, rice, lentils, and nuts. Most Ashkenazi Jews would keep their fingers far away from all that stuff. The Seder was beautiful. It was chaotic, it was loud, it was funny, and above all it was festive. After becoming the religious authority of the house, Mr. Mamane and I moved steadily towards the food part, it was an extremely fast Seder. Yet it was interesting nonetheless. The Harosset was not the usual apple and wine mixture, but instead was made out of dates and other local ingredients. The counting of the plagues was not done by using the pinkie, but instead by mixing wine and water in a large bowl, and last but not least, Mr. Mamane, for some inexplicable reason went around with a plate, held it above our heads, put it down, and it was eating time.

Many of the traditions they could not even explain, but they seem to be distinctively Moroccan. The most famous one though are the Mimouna Days. Right after Passover, people open their houses for their family, friends, and neighbors and put a myriad of sweets on the table. These are shared among everyone, it reminded me a little bit of trick-or-treating. It is a form of celebrating the end of the yeast feast, which I will gladly joined.

It was interesting to see how much they defended their Moroccan identity. Especially when I mentioned Israel. Many Jews from here left the country after WWII, yet the Mamane's swear that most of them still maintain strong roots, and a strong identity in the country. Moroccan Jews compared to those of other countries' see Judaism to be something extremely different from Zionism, due to the long period of peace between the different population groups.

The last little thing that I want to mention is that there even used to be some Berber Jews living in the country. Most of them emigrated to Israel, where they maintain their Berber culture through this day.

Chag Sameach m'magrib va shalom,
Diogo

BEH

هذا الاسبوع بقيت في جامعة لان ليست كان عندي شيء فعل. الطقس خيب في اليوم، وما زال طوال نهاية الاسبوع.

Yes kids this is Arabic. Nothing to report, except for THESE PROFESSORS CAN BE STRICT.

Marrakech wa Riad wa zuin

السلام عليكم،
after our amazing Spring Break trip, we decided to head to Marrakesh for the weekend. That, my friends, was a great choice. We ended up staying in a Riad, owned by some French people. Riad's are traditional "villas" in the medinas of Morocco, and can be found everywhere. They basically are atrium constructions, and go over two, three floors. Many times there is some form of water body in it to help control the temperature, since Marrakesh can get quite hot over the summer.
As it is "custom" in Morocco, most rich families will have a caretaker as well. The lady who was taking care of the Riad, was a rather interesting person. She did not seem to appreciate the help we were offering her, and clearly did not enjoy non-Moroccan men in her kitchen. Something I thought to be rather interesting.
Back to the topic of Marrakesh. Morocco received its name from the city, only speaking about European languages. It is the fashion capital of the country, it is also the city of the young people. There is a certain "arrogance" throughout the city, a feeling of being better than everyone else. But the pulse of the city is the Djma al Fnaa. That square seems to not have changed at all over the past years. It is full of life, and useless things. Yet these useless things are so fascinating, they give the whole place a character of its own. People with Cobras, monkeys, and other random things. Orange and dried fruit stand vendors, fight for customers, although everyone has the same goods. At night time food stands pop out of nowhere, and yet again, basically the same stuff everywhere, yet they advertise them as the very best of Marrakesh. The rest of the medina has various different souqs, anything your heart desires, can be found here. The freaky part was the voodoo section. Supposedly voodoo was brought from sub-Saharan Africa, and mixed with Islam somehow. I did not really understand, and ran out of the area after a while, because I actually am scared of the stuff. Alessandro did not understand that, the Moroccans did.
Another interesting thing of Marrakesh is the Koutubia. A mosque that was once completely destroyed, because the kiblah was facing the wrong direction. Once they've rebuilt it though, the kiblah was still facing the wrong direction. Mumtaztic. It was completely restored a few years ago, so the pink bricks can actually be seen. It is not just a pretty building, but it also provides some sort of backbone to the chaotic Djema al Fnaa.

In my next one I will talk about the Majorelle Garden. It's late wa ana taba3an.

مع سلامة من المغرب،
ديوگو

SPRING BREAK Y'ALL!!!

Finally the week of Spring Break arrived. It was over the same time as Miami's, which means I missed no important news. Well we decided to head South. It seemed to be the best time for such a trip due to the countries size. Morocco has an area comparable to the state of California. We went from Ifrane to Casablanca to pick up my friend Alessandro from the airport. There we visited the Hassan II mosque. By pure coincidence I also met Wynona and her husband Richard there, quite pleasant I have to say. That mosques is "ginormous", and completely out of proportions to reality. I mean, it is the third largest mosque in the world, it has the tallest minaret in the world, with all the bells and whistles, every Moroccan paid money for the mosque, and people even died building it. Instead of giving it a name that is synonymous to the people and the country, it was named after the King Hassan II. I assume that this is how Morocco works, if you have the money you get everything that you want.

The next day we started our journey due South. We left Casablanca and traveled towards Marrakesh, where we stayed for one night. The next day we left for the coast. We arrived in Agadir around 4ish, and instead of continuing towards Mirleft, we decided to go North and stop in a small town named Taghazout. We decided to do that, since Agadir is a giant luxury construction site.... YUK! In Taghazout we stayed at the beach, had fish 4 times, and Andrew tried to surf. From there we finally made our journey to Mirleft, yes we went to a small Berber fishing village.

Once we got into Mirleft, it became clear that it might just be one of the most deserted places I've ever put my feet in. One road, that was basically it. The beach was beautiful, cliffs all around, nice waves, fine sand. Except for some trash and a tourist trap cave, it was a very different experience. Most people there spoke better English and Berber than Arabic I felt. The place we stayed in was original Moroccan to a certain extent. A nice atrium style house with an original squatter toilet!!!!! It was quite an experience, be ready for it if you come to these parts of the world. The rest of the week was dominated by relaxation and random shenanigans. On Friday we headed back, the trip was marred by some disagreements, but all in all, we were a pretty fun crowd to travel with.

WOW CHAOUEN

So we end up rolling to Chefchaouen two weeks ago, OOOOOOOWWWWEEEEEE!!! That city is blue. Well I guess it makes sense, since it is called the blue city. The city of Chefchaouen is located in the North East of Morocco, in the Rif area. This city is known for one thing, sorry for mentioning this dear Miami Administration, hash! They sell it left and right there, they'll take you to plantations, shady houses where they make the stuff etc. But once any of you arrives in Morocco it will be the third thing Moroccans will tell you.
Anyway, let us turn to the historic aspect of the city. The city was painted blue by the Jewish immigrants that came from Spain during the Inquisition. Most Jews at the time settled in Tetouan, which is North of Chefchaouen. Once they arrived they painted everything that was green over in blue, a traditional Jewish color. There is only one problem with this theory, almost every city at the Atlantic in Morocco is blue... Oh well.
Except for a new appreciation for the color blue, there really is not a lot in that city. I mean there is a old destroyed mosque, which overlooks the city from a mountain. There is also a kasbah, which I swear we rocked like Sharif don't like it (thank you The Clash).
During my wandering s of the Holy City, as it is called sometimes, I was pulled into a carpet store. There after an hour long negotiation, the owner invited me to his house for a meal and meet his daughter buy a carpet and while I am at it maybe even marry his daughter. I did not join in this form of Moroccan hospitality and gladly declined. I bolted and was ready to leave.
We soon realized that there is not a lot to do, my friends got baked, while I took random urban living pictures. Yes, for the record so no one asks I do not smoke anything. But everyone else in this city does not resist the temptation i assume. I've never seen so many hippies :P.

We left, our cab understood what Godspeed meant. A trip that lasted almost 7 hours one way, took us 4 hours back, due to the driver's desire to get rid of us crazy Americans.

This is all from Chaouen.
Ma Salama min al Maghreb

It's been long time...

Hello everyone,
sorry for the long absence. I will try to cover some things I have been up to in the past weeks. Three weeks ago we went to Fes, relatively early to be honest, so I could go to services. Let's put it this way Sephardic, semi-orthodox, French-Moroccan services are different from what we have back home. Holla to the Miami Hillel!! The people there were mostly older men. I assume that only maybe 3 or 4 were below their mid thirties. This probably has to do with the fact that being Jewish is not the big thing anywhere anymore, except to miss class, got to summer camp, or in Israel where it is forced upon you. Another reason for an aging Jewish population, at least in Fes, is that everyone left. They all bolted for Israel...
After services I was kindly invited to a congregant's house along with the Rabbi to have dinner. I was expecting to speak Arabic, but no, they only spoke Hebrew and French. Turns out that many of the remaining Jews here are French people that moved down here during colonial times. This family in particular is originally from Strasbourg, and lives between there and Fes. The dinner was typically Moroccan Jewish though, a delicious 4 course meal. It consisted of some cold vegetables as appetizers, followed by fish and chickpeas, the third course was a delicious beef kind of stew. The taste of the two main courses was out of this world. I mean since fish is always tasty, I will not elaborate on it any longer. The beef though... OY GEVALT that was good. I think the lady cooked it either with figs or dates. Along with the meat we had sliced string beans, which she cut individually, they seem to have been steamed. That course was just flat out amazing. The desert were strawberries that have been left for a day sitting in sugar. Yummy and 100% kosher, yes.
They explained to me during dinner that Moroccan Jewry is very moderate, and while one might perceive them to be orthodox this is not the case. Towards the end of the service two women were sitting along with the men, and no one cared. It was perfectly normal for the Rabbi to show me to the Taxi, or that lights were turned on in the apartment. This fascinated me, the sad thing was that I could not discuss this in more detail since I do not speak French anymore, and my Arabic is not proficient enough either.
This is the first entry of what has happened around here during my absence. More to follow.

Have a great Spring Break MIAMI.

Ma Salaama min Al-Maghrib,

Diogo

P.s. I am obsessed with these doors.

Couscous has many facets

On Thursday I went to a Couscous dinner organized by the student group SIFE. First of all, thank you SIFE it was magnificent. It was a three course 5-6 hour event, with music, and very well dressed people.
We thought we were going to be late, so we arrived at 8:15. Instead we were the early birds. The presentation just started at 9:15, the music went from then until 10:30 when the food finally arrived. It was a gigantic platter with a lot of couscous, some meat, and vegetables. I know that this will outrage my meat eating companions as much as it outraged me, but therefore the meat was tenderlicious (yes, I am making up words). The dessert was even greater. We had couscous with almonds, powdered sugar, and cinnamon. It was warm, it was sweet, it was extremely satisfying. I did not let the waiter take the platter away, because I was eating it the whole time. In between the second and third course. The singer came around and made my American comrades dance. He thought I was Moroccan (SCORE!), and did not count Vya as American. The rest of the group was basically forced to put up a very weak performance of line dancing. I believe he gave up on us being as alive as Moroccans, and just left.
Then it was time for the last round of food. Bread, amazing butter, and date-almond jam. We bolted immediately afterwards, in fear of having to perform again.
The musical quality at the even was great. We had a quite famous singer and his band performing. I did not really understand diddly, but it sounded beautiful. Right before the food came out, a traditional Moroccan group performed. They had trumpets that were at least some 3 meters long, a lot of tambourines, and some other percussion instruments. The leader of the group was this old man, who was only skipping around, I assume that he was dancing. Then they brought the women in to do the world famous Arabic screaming. They were so good at it.
One thing this dinner showed me was that there are three things Moroccans like. They like music and everything that comes with it, they like to dress up (gosh they were looking great), and they L.O.V.E. food. I might have to consider changing nationalities, because I love the same stuff. Anyway, it supposedly was almost like a wedding, which I have yet to witness.

Ma Salama from Maghrib,

Diogo

Aiwa is Jordanian as well.....

،بسم الله
another week has gone by. There weren't too many interesting things going on this week. I opted to pass on a trip to Chefchaouen. A city known for three things, it is the holy city, the blue city, and the hash capital of the world. Instead I went to Azrou, a city that has many members of the Peace Corps there. While I was there with my friend Mounir, he told my quite some things about Morocco.
This country is split in two like most countries. On the one hand side you have the beautiful and rich big cities like Rabat, Casablanca, and Marrakech; but on the other side there is the country side, which many times still needs a lot of work. These areas are the places, where one might not find running water, or high literacy rates. But to my surprise there is another problem that cuts through society here. Only the minority actually speaks classical Arabic here. Most of the Moroccans speak derija, and only the educated elite knows how to express themselves in MSA. More people possess a high degree of French knowledge. Clearly to be associated with French colonialism. What baffled me was that the newspapers and eveyrhting in print is in Modern Standard Arabic nonetheless.
Another thing this country inherited from the French, is a law that prohibits non-Muslims to enter Mosques. The French enforced this law in order to prevent its soldiers from converting to Islam. But somehow this law infiltrated the consciousness of the people, which now believes that the Qur'an says that non-Muslims are not allowed in Mosques. A quite interesting phenomenon.

This weekend will be amazing though. I will be going to either Tangier, Chefchaouen, or Rabat.

Ma Salama

YOGA YOGI DEH!!

Salaam Aleikum,
so I started to do yoga. I am in pain. The sun salutation is amazing at first but painful in its aftermath. Anyway today is Valentine's Day, and guess what folks, Moroccan girls love it as much as Americans. Flowers raining from everywhere, dried flowers, chocolate, and cake. I did not participate, I was an even bigger ass and left the posse behind being an old man. Damn age....

Otherwise today was quite interesting, I had a lengthy conversation with my roommate about different cultures. It is rude to keep your distance from people when talking to them. One might see it as saying the person smells bad. Another that he informed me off is that here you always need to watch what is coming behind you in the medinas. You might have an awkward encounter with donkeys, mules, or horses.

In the past days I have learned a lot about the Israel-Palestinian conflict. It is not necessarily that all Palestinians hate Jews. The reality is that they hate the Israeli government. They hate the fact that for them Israel, no matter why or how, is "occupying" their land Palestine. Palestinian hatred is geared at Jews partially because Israel itself defines itself as Jewish state. Obviously this not the whole explanation of the problem but it covers a part of it.

This weekend I might actually try to read the Qur'an to see what is in it.

Tallah!

Volubilis and more

On Saturday we visited Volubilis. The city is located in the area between Meknes and Moulay Idriss. The city used to be Roman and was inhabited until the 4th century AD. It is located close to some beautiful olive fields and wheat farms. In general that area was quite different from the relatively barren lands surrounding Ifrane and Fes. Volubilis (or ulili in Arabic) is located in gorgeous green hills, in a very rural area mostly untouched by tourism. The constructions are very well preserved, and quite imposing when one thinks of its age.
After Volubilis, we engaged in some real young Moroccan entertainment. It is the same as in the USA. It differs from American juvenile entertainment, because here it is not the majority that drinks it is more split down evenly in the middle. Well I guess compared to Oxford, alcoholic beverages are not ready available. The deeply rooted Muslim culture is seen in this. Even though alcoholic beverages are legal here, they are mostly sold in the bigger cities or large supermarkets (Marjen Moroccan Wal-Mart).
Most of the people I talked about the reasons for their lifestyle choices make it a point that Islam did not dictate their choices, but they admit that due to its characteristic of some sort of foundation, it influences their choices.

Interesting day!

Maa Salama' min Maghrib

Diogo

Oy va voy

In this world there's probably only one thing that can make me miserable, and that is food poisoning. I got it WOOOOOOHHHOOOOOOO I joined this selective club of misery. Basically it forces me to be disgusted by meat, and have absolutely no desire to eat anything. I believe I got it from the ice cream I ate the margen. Since there's nothing else that is really interesting to tell, I will stop here.

Love you all!

Mek~snorrrrr~Nes

Hello Everyone,
Today we went to Meknes. We were extremely hyped, excited and ready to go. But once we got there and decided to not use a map, we got lost. In the midst of our unguided lost tour, one guy tried to force a carpet down my throat for 500 Dirhams (50€). I somehow feel somewhat abused by them. They, on the other hand side, felt completely assed because I shook hands on the deal and just walked out. Then we landed in some extremely suspicious areas, out which we got out with a lot of nice help by some Amazighs (Berbers), thank God. Amazigh women especially are quite cool, they have tattoos over their faces, not the whole face covered but some on the forehead, cheeks, and chin.
The real disappointment came when we realized that there's not really anything to do in Meknes. SUPRISE every Moroccan will say. We kept on going on our journey, trying to find the Mausoleum of Moulay Ismail. At alst we found it. After a quite tasty, filling, and bit dangerous lunch, we decided to go to that mausoleum. We didn't find it. On we go to walk in circles, while the sky was clearing up, we delve even deeper into this culture finding nice police officers, random sheep, a fluffy donkey, and a giant picture of King Mohammed VI, may Allah give him strengths.
At some point we realized that the mausoleum is next to the restaurant, damn! A beautiful place full of marble, carpets, gorgeous tile work, bright, and a cool dude that guided us around and explained a lot about the place. We left the mausoleum, walked around, and I almost got arrested!! At least that's what I thought, but the police officer was just pulling a prank, it still was quite an experience. We asked another cop where the Jewish Quarter is, and it turns out that we land in the ghetto again (awesome, explorers).
We left Meknes in the afternoon with this driver named Nasser. Nasser was so kind to invite us to his mother's house to eat real couscous. He even gave me his phone number.

I think the word of the day was shady!! This trip was pure shady mcshades.

Ma Salama min al Maghrib

First Post

Here it is my first blog, and post. Today I had my first Rugby practice, I bet reading this is making my dad freak out right now (sorry pops). I survived my second week. I am starting to learn to actually speak and understand Arabic (elhamdulilleh bbc phi 'arabi). After surviving the tanneries,w e are now thinking about going to Meknes this weekend.
What I am starting to really appreciate his how the people here all seem very willing to help us foreigners out. Be it guiding us through cities, helping us with the prices, or
just introducing us to this new culture.

Well it is 22:00 and I need to go to sleep.
Till next time.