Toot-ta-la Fruit and the New Year

My New Years resolution is to stop being Joey Tribbiani. 

Morocco has a very extensive history, which has created a cultural melting pot with influences from Europe, the Middle East, and all throughout Africa.  You can see the influence of its vast history in its many languages.  From my research I learned that the most common language is Arabic, with Darija being the local vernacular, French in second, and depending on location English or Spanish as third.  I knew that I could not solely rely on English so I opted to learn French.  I was too intimidated to learn Arabic with its completely different alphabet.  Plus, I already knew the most important word in French - fromage (cheese)!  I purchased Rosetta Stone and spent time everyday practicing my vocabulary and covered the house in French words on Post-It Notes.  I felt really good about my progress and was confident that I’d be able to speak with the locals.  Silly me.

On my first day of work I smashed headfirst to the conclusion that my practiced French would need some adjusting.  Trying to ask where the bathroom was (something I made sure to know by heart) was a struggle.  I started to wonder if it was my pronunciation of French that was causing the problem.  Was I Joey Tribbiani?!

In case the video doesn’t work here is the YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7G-LSN9vCs

I had already suffered the embarrassment of trying to learn a few lines in Spanish for my friend Rocio’s wedding to say to her family from Argentina.  After saying my rehearsed lines I was met with blank stares and heads tilted to the side as to say, “was she trying to speak Spanish?”  

I spent the next week reviewing my Rosetta Stone at home and brought my flash cards and books (thanks Jaxon!) to work to keep up the practice.  My coworker from Congo, where French is their main language, helped me out too.  

Turns out that Moroccan French is not the same as Parisian French.  My coworker explained that there are some differences in words and pronunciations that everyday Moroccans use.  To give you a comparison, it’s like our English in America compared to that of the UK.  From London to Scotland you will find a variety of English vernacular.  For another example, watch Outlander on Starz.  They are speaking English the majority of the time but you wouldn’t know it.  Mostly you should just watch Outlander to stare longingly at Jamie. 

Understanding this difference in French saved my confidence that I was not totally a Joey Trubbiani.  Now I’m learning how to speak in Moroccan French and feel more like this guy.

In case the video doesn’t work here is the YouTube link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HStZ9G6SVrM

At the same time I am picking up on some Darija from work and my host family.  My host dad loves to teach me Arabic words for the foods we are eating or the things on the TV.  He laughs everyday at my sad attempts to pronounce them.  Still working on the rolling R’s.  Then I teach him the word in English.  He really likes the word “tractor” and chuckles every time we see one on TV. 

I like to think I’m making progress in both Arabic and French.   People often ask if I’m from Spain, Italy, or England and I attribute this to sounding less like an American.  My goal for the New Year is to have someone ask if I’m from France.  Here’s to continuing to learn new things in 2015!

I hope everyone has a safe and Happy New Year! Bonne Année!  

      

My Christmas in the 1 Percent

What?  Did Caity win the lottery and is now a member of the 1 percent?!?!  HA – I wish.  I am instead a part of a different 1 percent.  According to the all trusting and powerful Internet, I am now apart of the 1 percent of Morocco that is not Muslim.  And only a fraction of that 1 percent is Christian.  It goes without saying that Christmas would be very different for me this year.  

“Me and my Moroccan family on Christmas”

In fact, Christmas this year was very absent from my mind as the streets were not covered in lights, the store window displaces were missing themes of Winter Wonder Land, the TV was not telling me all the presents I needed to by for my loved ones, and the radio was not playing the familiar Christmas songs.  This lack of Christmas culture explosion made it easier for me to forget how much I missed my family and friends this Holiday season.  Here is recap of how I spent my Christmas as a 1 percenter.

Christmas Eve: I went to the one and only English speaking church in the Rabat area to attend the night service and eat cookies.  I brought a gift to give to the kids (a soccer ball, water bottle, and MSU hat) and enjoyed the service, lighting of candles, and music. 

 “Can I keep the fire?”

To be honest with you Internet, I felt the loneliest at church.  It was then that it hit me that I would not get to spend the night at home in my Christmas pajamas and awake to take part in my family traditions and presents.  I was pulled out of my glum mood by the kindness of two British women who talked to me and offered me a ride home after church.  I wanted to share this because it was that one small act of kindness that meant the world to me when I was feeling so alone.  I only hope to pay it forward one day. 

Christmas Eve Tradition:  As I mentioned above, I was going to be missing out on some of the Blake family traditions while away.  However, there were something’s that I could still manage to do while abroad.  Every year we get one present to open on Christmas Eve and every year that gift is pajamas.  This is one of my favorite things so I insisted on going out and getting a pair of my own to wear.  I came across these leggings that were fuzzy on the inside and had reindeer on the outside.  Can you say perfect?!

"Notice how the light shines down on my majestic leggings?" 

"Notice the extra roll of fat I have because of all the bread I’m eating? I will call it the Bread Roll!” 

*laughs then cries at self

The other tradition I made sure to uphold was waking up my parents with screams of “IT’S CHRISTMAS!! WAKE UP WAKE UP!! IT’S CHRISTMAS!!” which I did via text message at 6:45am their time.  I’m such a good daughter.

Christmas Service: I told my boss that I’d be a little late to work Thursday because I wanted to go to the Christmas service at the church close to my house (this is the same church from my previous story).  I knew the service would be in French but thought I’d be able to understand about half of it.  Oh how wrong I was.  My Rosetta Stone failed to teach me Church French and I understood only the hand gestures they did.  Regardless, I enjoyed the small service with only 12 other people in attendance and looked fondly at the tree I helped decorate.

"Update: Baby Jesus was returned to the manger”

Christmas Work:  From church it was a short walk to the hospital where I meet my boss on Thursdays to do HIV/AIDS education and testing for pregnant women.  We were done with work by noon and I thought we’d head back to the office like we had done previously.  Instead, my boss said we should take the rest of the day off.  Normally, a person with an unexpected day off would be happy, but not me, not on this day.  I was panicked at having to spend the whole day alone until my Moroccan family got home and I cooked dinner.  I think my boss saw my eyes bug out and so she suggested we take the afternoon to go shopping.  We spent the next several hours walking around the medina looking for presents.  I got a keychain that I’m going to turn into a Christmas ornament.

“Look I DIY something!”

Christmas Tea:  When my boss took off for home I went to one of my favorite places, the gardens inside the old fort next to the bay.  It’s a great place to have a cup of tea, watch the water, smell the flowers, and pet the stray cats (then use hand sanitizer).  This can be a bit touristy of a spot so I knew the risk of having a half dozen henna artists approach me trying to paint my skin.  I figured that I was not going to get out of Morocco without getting henna at least once, so I figured why not on Christmas. 

"I’m trying to be all artsy fartsy with this photo"

Christmas Walk: On my way home from the garden I stopped by the post office, mostly because I could, and mailed off a few more postcards.  Walking down the Rabat version of 5^th Avenue, I did a double take as I saw a single store displaying a Christmas tree with presents of shoes underneath.  I was so happy at seeing it I took my backpack off to get my phone to take a photo.  As I did, a little girl ran up to me pushing a pack of tissues into my hand.  I have been working on writing about this issue of children being used to sell products on the streets and will talk in more detail about it in a later post.  For now I will just say that it made my heart go from excited at seeing a Christmas tree to sad and angry about this girls situation.  I crouched down and took out my phone to take a photo along with a chocolate candy.  I told her "no" to purchasing the pack of tissues she held out and instead handed her the candy.  She took it slowly looking unsure at what it was, so I pulled out a second piece of candy, unwrapped it, showed her it was chocolate, and then popped it into my mouth.  Seeing what it was, she took the candy, plopped down right in front of me, unwrap it and popped the whole treat into her mouth.  I couldn’t help but smile as it was way too big for her to eat in one bite, but she did it anyway and then smiled up at me.  I looked around for her mother, spotting her close by watching me.  I nodded to her, got up, and left the little girl to her treat in front of the Christmas tree.

Christmas Dinner:  I decided that it would be a nice treat to make my host family a traditional Christmas dinner.  Too bad I don’t know how to cook any of those meals.  So I opted for a traditional Caity meal instead.  The menu will not surprise anyone who knows me; tri-colored pasta with cooked vegetables (cherry tomatoes, red onion, and zucchini) with a cheese sauce (I think it was alfredo?), topped with goat cheese and chives.  I could hear my dad in my head saying, “where is the protein?” so I added chicken breasts with special seasoning I brought from MN.  And of course bread as a side, as it is required to be always eating bread (the gluten free kick has not come to Morocco).  For dessert I bought three little cakes for us all to split.  All rejoiced and devoured the delicious Caity food!  

 

“Sticking with green and red foods” 

“Finding a store that sold goat cheese was a Christmas miracle!”

Christmas Skype: Thanks to technology and the mysterious workings of the interwebs, I was able to Skype in with my family.  It was fantastic to be able to watch my family open their presents and to talk to my family in Tennessee.  I also got a Christmas miracle with my previously broken computer magically fixed itself.  It was amazing to see my family in their normal color and in a crazy red and blue hue.

"Hi family!"

Christmas Present:  Whenever I went off to camp my parents would slip a note and little gift in my bag to find once I was there.  It was great surprise every time that made me smile and feel closer to home.  To my surprise my parents kept up this practice, slipping 4 cards into my bag on the way to the airport.  They were labeled; open on Thanksgiving, Christmas, your birthday, and when you need a hug.  I was touched and very excited to open up my cards on the set dates.  My Christmas card had an extra bonus inside of a little snowflake charm.  Snowflakes are one of my favorite things and something I was surly missing here in Morocco.  I attached the charm onto my necklace my brother gave me, and all day I would reach up to touch it when I wanted to feel close to home. 

I know this is a bit late, but Merry Christmas everyone!

The Work

Alright, enough with all this fun stuff I’m doing, on to the reason why I’m here – the work! I started writing this blog post about where I work and what I do but I soon realized that it was about three times as long as any previous post and I wasn’t finished.  I’ve decided to break it up into three different posts so you all won’t become overwhelmed with my epically long blog post (how Peter Jackson of me to break one story up into three).  This first post will be about where I work.

I work at the Pan-African Organization to Combat AIDS, that goes by OPALS Maroc.   OPALS is a non-profit organization with its headquarters located in Rabat, Morocco (this is where I live in case you forgot).  Attached to their headquarters is a woman’s clinic that offers HIV testing, gynecological services, physical therapy and a general physician.  OPALS is one of the most active organizations in Morocco working to stem the tide of AIDS.  It operates 17 drop-in clinics that provide health services, access to condoms and HIV screening. Representatives from OPALS even go door to door in remote areas to offer HIV-screening and spread the word about the risks of HIV. 

OPALS main targets for their educational programs and testing are young people, sex workers (the word prostitute is not used here), immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa, and people in hard-to-reach locations.  The other part of the population that they reach out to is married women.  This surprised me as I thought the risk of HIV infection would be low for this group.  What I learned is that there are many reasons, both cultural and otherwise, that married women are especially vulnerable to getting infected. 

One example I heard was of a married woman who suspected her husband of having relations with a sex worker and was therefore worried about getting infected.  She brought this up to her husband and asked him to wear a condom.  He refused and denied any extra marital relations.  Because condoms are mostly associated with sex workers, it is hard for woman to insist in his wearing a condom as it is considered to “undermine the trust of the relationship”.  There is some legal protection for woman with the law that grants woman the right to divorce her husband if he is HIV-positive.  If threatening divorce doesn’t help thought, she can end the marriage by other means.  However, there are a whole host of other taboos and controversies that come from getting a divorce and make it harder for a woman. 

One of the biggest issues is the stigma attached to condoms and sex education.  The main obstacles to condom use in Morocco are cultural, psychological and financial, since condoms usually are not free and are not readily available in public settings.  If a woman went into a pharmacy to get condoms they would assume she was a sex worker.  Talking about sex with ones partner or in school is taboo for woman and young girls are made to believe that it is a “dirty” topic. 

The stigma attached to AIDS is such a great barrier in Morocco that people will not visit a clinic that openly offers only AIDS treatment and prevention, such as giving away free condoms. OPALS therefore provides general medical services as well as AIDS-related services in its centers as to not stigmatized them.  They don’t even advertise that the clinic offers treatment and testing for AIDS.  This makes for a safe space for people to come and ask questions about their health and get male and female condoms for free.

OPALS is working to change these attitudes through awareness-raising and public information campaigns.  OPALS has a mobile testing van that travels around to offer up information about safe sex and free rapid HIV testing.  They also partner with local hospitals and international research organizations to do studies on the use of contraception with sex workers and the statistics of how many people are getting tested each year.   

That’s all I got for now about this interesting and multifaceted organization.  I will write again about the work I’ve been doing and the observations I have on the work OPALS does.  Stay tuned!

An Unexpected Christmas

After a crazy day of work I like to stop on my way home by the old church to relax and reflect. They have beautiful stained glass windows and I usually have the place all to myself.

Today however there was someone else there. A single man, that I recognize as the maintenance guy, was at the front of the church decorating a lopsided Christmas tree. Normally I think of decoration a Christmas tree with family and friends filled with music and laughter. When I realized that this man was all alone in his decorating venture, I set my bag down and went to help. We didn't speak the same language but we managed just fine with smiles and pointing. There was limited supplies to work with that weren't broken, but tinsel will cover all sorts of issues. When we were finished he went back to work cleaning up the church. I didn't expect to trim the tree this year as the majority of Moroccans don't celebrate Christmas. I'm sure glad I was wrong. This will be a tree I won't forget.

Merry Christmas Everyone!