Life is Good! Kulshe bikheer...elhumdullilah!!

Most of you know that I am generally a very happy person. Even during my "bad weeks" I tend to out-smile most people during their "best weeks." But the last two weeks have been especially great...khsnee ngul elhumdullilah!! (I have to say thanks to god!!)

I will abide by my "no personal stuff" on the blog rule and stick to the professional side of my happiness. First, I participated this week in the 17th Annual Maghrebi Studies Forum which was organized by the Fulbright commission here in Morocco for the current Fulbright grantees to present their research projects. It was a great experience and I was interviewed on both of the major Moroccan Television channels about my research. For three or four days after the presentation, everywhere I went people would say "Hey I saw you in television!". It was an interesting glimpse into stardom :)

I was also asked to speak at the official celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Fulbright Commission (MACECE) in Morocco about my experience here. I am used to speaking in front of large groups, but I have to say that this was a rather intimidating crowd (US ambassador and all the embassy staff, head of two major Moroccan universities, and lots of Moroccan business and political leaders.) I am happy to say I pulled off the speech without embarrasing myself too much. I even managed to give part of my speech in Moroccan Arabic, although I did make one little mistake..instead of saying "Drop by drop the river rises", I switched two letters and said "Drop by drop the river dreams" You say kayhml, I say kayhlm but since its an old moroccan proverb everyone understand and I quickly corrected myself. aiwa...dakshi li kayn :)

Lastly, I was able to participate this week in AIESEC's MENA Leadership Development Seminar which took place in Bouznika, just a little ways outside of Rabat. I spent Monday with 250 students from over 20 countries in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas facilitating sessions about the perceived divide between the East and the West. It was a very rewarding experience and I think I learned more from talking to these bright young students than I could have possibly taught them.

So, the last two weeks have been CRAZY (hence the lack of blogging) but life is GOOD, very GOOD....elhumdullilah!!!

And the feeling comes back...

About an hour after arriving in Casablanca from Rabat this morning, I found out about yesterday's bombing in Casablanca. A man walked into a cyber-cafe and started browsing through radical websites. When the owner of the cafe noticed and asked the man to leave, the two began fighting and the fight set off the explosives which the man had strapped to himself. The "word on the street" is that he was trying to receive instructions about where to go to set off the bomb.

I can't really explain what I felt when I heard this. Its funny how all those old buried emotions from NY to Sharm el Sheikh come back in a wave and give you that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. You can't live your life always thinking about it. But when it happens again it surfaces all those old feelings of disgust and fear. Its been a long time since I have been faced with that, but this morning it came back. As someone who was in NY for 9/11 and in Sharm El Sheikh the week of the bombings there in 2004, I have seen the effects of terrorism first hand. I won't accept to live my life in fear, but when those feelings come back its hard to suppress them again. Hopefuly this will be an isolated occurance and life here will go back to normal soon. For now, Casablanca is full of police and I find myself looking with extra suspicion.

Monday Morning Zen

Tanga
Originally uploaded by suzannemo.

It's a hazy Monday morning and I am sitting in a smokey cafe in Casablanca so I have wifi internet access. But if I had my choice I would be here...I took this picture in Tanger two months ago.

Here's to all the beautiful places we could be instead of at work this morning!!

A taste of "home"

This week is my 5 month mark in Morocco- 7 more months to go. For the first time since I have been here I did something unthinkable. I had 30 minutes between meetings and I hadn't eaten lunch. I had accepted the harsh reality that I wasn't going to get lunch because in Morocco even the fastest restaurants take at least an hour. And then I saw them..the golden arches. I don't eat McDonalds in the US, but I had no choice so I joined the 100s of well-dressed upper-class Moroccans enjoying a little bite of America. I can't say that the food was particularly worth the $4 that I spent on it, but I guess its the experience of "being in America" while you are still in Morocco that everyone spends the money on.

As for my experience, I ordered McDonalds in Arabic for the first time in my life. And of course, the cashier responded in English because people here somehow can't quite get it in to their head that I ACTUALLY speak Moroccan Arabic :) Well, I guess I can't blame her too much...my guess is that most American's that eat at McDonalds while they are in Morocco don't speak Arabic :P

A little social research

So here is an interesting little social research that I did this week. 35 of the 42 women I have seen on the bus from Rabat to Sale this week were veiled. 3 of the 35 women I saw in Megamall (the big western shopping center) in Rabat this week were veiled. To explain the difference in these numbers it requires a much further discourse on the social, class, and religion identity crisis that Morocco is facing. I will leave that for another day when I am not so swamped with work.

However, in the meantime it is proof of how easy it is to have a bias in your research. As I set out on my research project here it is a good learning to keep in mind.

Happy New Years!!

For those of you who think I am 22 days too late, I will remind you that yesterday was the first day of 1428 (the current year in the Islamic calendar) so Happy New Years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Unlike 2007, 1428 will start with me making a commitment to blog again.

It is normal for people to make New Year's resolutions, but this year My Blog has decided to make its own New Year's resolutions. Here they are....

Suzanne's Blog's 2007/1428 New Year's Resolutions

#1- To truly capture the experience of my remaining 7.5 months in Morocco and to communicate to all of you through pictures and words what life here is really like.

#2- To become multi-lingual. Now that I have mastered the Arabic keyboard, look forward to Arabic and French commentary to be added to the site.

#3- To stay out of my personal life. For all my friends who want my personal gossip, I will start sending more personal email updates. For all my fellow bloggers, don't forget that anyone in the world can see your site and the people most likely to google-stalk you are the people you least want to find you.

#4- To be consistent....I know, I always say that. But I really want to try to post more often so that I don't have to get all the "Why haven't you blogged emails, voicemails, and comments on the street."

#5- To get a pretty new design and some new links. I've been looking at this orange stuff for
years now..and I need to make some nice new links to my pics and stuff.

Looking forward to the great year to come.....for me and my blog!!

October in Morocco

The month of October flew by in a whirlwind. My brain has been overloaded the last few weeks due to intensive arabic immersion, dealing with the logistics of becoming a Moroccan resident, and constant travel. To summarize, the themes of the month for October were:
1) TRAVEL 2) LANGUAGE 3) CARTE DE SEJOUR

TRAVEL: I have travelled about 25,000 Kilometers in the last month. I somehow made it back to the US only 1.5 months after arriving in Morocco, not to mention my heavy travel schedule here in Morocco. In the last 5 days alone I have been in Fes, Casablanca, Rabat, Sale, and Marrakesh. With Dana coming this weekend to visit, the travel schedule isn't going to ease up anytime soon :)

LANGUAGE: I would be a great guineau pig for a language acquisition research project. Every day here I speak four languages. My Moroccan Arabic is getting REALLY good...I went a whole day yesterday without using any other language! This was my goal for month four here and I hit it at only 2 months..elhamdullilah!! Unfortunately, I am now unable to speak Classical Arabic (Fus-ha) without using Moroccan words and I realized this week that in my Fus-ha class I am now THINKING in Moroccan and translating to Fus-ha instead of thinking in English to Fus-ha. My French also gets better every day and my English, well, it keeps getting worse. Pretty soon I am going to start writing these posts in another language.

CARTE DE SEJOUR: After 6 trips to the police station, hours of hassle/paperwork/photocopies/notarization, SUZANNE MAYER is officially a resident of Morocco. My god...can you imagine my face when I saw that on my carte de sejour which I worked so hard to get had the wrong name on it? I'm going back tomorrow and inshallah it will be fixed in about a month :)

That was my October in Morocco! An exciting, amazingly intense, and rewarding month!