Christmas in Morocco in September??

I am sitting in a cafe in Casa and for the last 30 minutes they have been playing Christmas Music. I keep finding myself laughing outloud as classics like "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" are on the playlist. This is strange. Really strange.

A long line of amazing leaders

Things in Morocco are great! So much to tell, but so little time because I am mega-busy these days with meetings .

But I just wanted to note one little funny fact. In a 24 hour period from Thursday to Friday I saw 5 Presidents of AIESEC Morocco.... in order from oldest to newest :) Achraf, Issam, Sanaa, Reda, and Naoufl!! It was great seeing all of you!!!

Oh, and one more funny fact for the day. If you are blonde and speak Arabic you don't have to pay for taxis! Two different drivers this week have told me that they don't want me to pay them because they were just so happy to meet a random american who speaks Arabic! Ha.ha.. those arabic lessons are paying off a few dirhams at a time :)

Casablanca aka Dar el baeda aka Casa

I arrived in Casablanca last night. I am having an AMAZING time so far. Simply AMAZING!!

Its funny how differently you look at a city when you are thinking about living in it for a while. You find yourself paying attention to completely different things.. like where you will be hanging out regularly once you are here, where you can buy lightbulbs, how parking works, etc.

I already found my favorite cafe in the whole city and I am sure that i will be spending a LOT of time here next year. It's called ChillOut cafe and comes complete with free wireless internet access (hence, this posting is brought to you courtesy of ChillOut Cafe.)

Saturday I am speaking at a conference here which is being organized by the Moroccan Fulbright Alumni Association. The conference title is " Turning Brain Drain into Brain Gain for Morocco." The conference will be attended by several top Government Ministers, the US Ambassador, and a lot of other very important people. Thank goodness for AIESEC and all those last-minute presentation skills I learned!!

Meltdown

It happened on Wednesday...my hard drive died a sudden and painful death. I don't know how to explain what the last 3 days have been like. Of course it happened right before I was leaving the country...and right when I had forgotten to back-up my drive for 4 months...and right as I finished my BEAUTIFUL fulbright draft proposal. Yep, timing is everything.

50 hours and $500 later I have a computer with half of my data (the most important stuff NOT included), a computer that doesn't have Microsoft Office on it, and one less 512 MB Sony Memory Stick (because some tech guy at Geek Squad Repair Services decided to pocket it and assures me that it was never in the computer because he never saw it.)

I was ready to give up...until Dody gave me a ray of hope. Proof that unlike the scumsucking crappy memory-stick stealers at Geek Squad there are still some super-great geeks out there.

Please, everyone reading this, go back up your hard drive NOW !! NOW!!! NOW!!! Believe me this is not a pleasant experience. .......

Remembering...

I found this EMAIL today. 4 years ago I sent this out to the world to describe what myself and my team in AIESEC were going through. Tonight, it served to remind me of what I felt like when I wrote it. It also reminded me of how much those events 4 years ago touched my life.

Each year since 2001, Sept. 11th has marked a milestone in my life. Sept. 11th 2002 I was at IC in Canada, talking to Dody about the conversation he and Youssef had started about AIESEC forming something called the "Salaam Program" to build exchange between the US and the Middle East. Sept. 11th 2003 I was sitting in an internet cafe in Serbia with Oussama and Youssef, and I received an email confirming that AIESEC was receiving a grant from the US. Dept. of State ECA to launch the Salaam Program. Sept. 11th 2004 I was in New York, with the first Salaam trainees.

This morning, on September 11th 2005, I just completed the first draft of my Fulbright Research Grant Application. I want to spend next year in Morocco doing research through the Fulbright Program. If all goes well, I will fulfill my goal of becoming fluent in Arabic, living in an Arab country, and be given an opportunity to really impact societal issues that are very important to me.

As I was writing my notes tonight, I was drawing up a model of how business generation leads to employment, which leads to lowered povery, and how poverty is the real cause behind social problems like child prositution, street children, drug trafficking, and recruitment into terrorism......and then I remembered it was September 11th.

On Sept. 11th 2001 I wrote:
" One of the questions a reporter asked us today was "Does what happened this week shake your idealism?" We didn't think about it for more than a second without saying "NO!!!"."

They say only time will tell. As I put the finishing touches on a proposal to work on skill-building for global business integration in Morocco I realize, 4 years later, that I was right.

My Mantra

I was reading my friend Mike's Blog today and I noticed a quote that made me smile. Mike is the first AIESEC trainee in Afghanistan, and one of those "fellow travelers" that I always seem to bump into in some corner of the world.

The quote was from Rumi, the famous 13th century sufi poet, and when I read it, I had the feeling that I may not be as crazy as everyone else thinks.

“Travelers, it is late. Life’s sun is going to set. During these brief days that you have strength, be quick and spare no effort of your wings.”

Another Funny T-Shirt

Today I passed a guy on the street wearing a T-Shirt which said:

"WELCOME TO THE US... NOW SPEAK ENGLISH!!"

This T-shirt wouldn't have been so funny(maybe even offensive) except that the guy who was wearing it was speaking loudly in Spanish as he walked down the street.

I sure hope that he picked out the shirt because of the irony and not because he didn't understand its meaning.

Cultural Scenarios Courtesy of the Peace Corps

I am using the "Peace Corps Manual to Moroccan Arabic" as a tool for learning Moroccan. It is a great text and I find it very helpful, except today I stumbled on something quite interesting.

The last chapter of the book is full of situational conversations. These are examples of "typical conversations" that you might experience as an American working in Morocco.

The conversations included:
1) An American girl being stalked and sexually harassed by a Moroccan man and having to call the police
2) A guy getting his bike stolen on the street
3) A Moroccan trying to convince an American to smoke hash
4) An American being accused of personally killing Iraqis and yelled at in a cafe by a mob of men.

I am sure that if I hadn't been to Morocco several times before reading these conversations, I might be scared out of ever going.

Maybe I am just one of the lucky few, but I have spent over 1 month in Morocco on multiple trips and I never had any experiences quite like this. They seem a little extreme.

Of course, I have heard the words "zwina" and "gazella" more than any other two words in Arabic (they both mean beautiful and it seems almost a reflexive action for Moroccan men to say this when a blonde girl walks down the street) ...but a guy following you home every night in his car?? That's a little different. And no foreigner has made it 1 hour walking in Tangier without being offered hash..but a simple "la shukran" (no thanks) is always enough for me..I've never had anyone try to convince me why I should start smoking Hash. And, yes, there are debates about politics...but I have never felt like anyone blamed me personally for the US government policy.

I wonder how many peace corps volunteers read this before leaving and ended up putting up a barrier and being always on the defensive around Moroccans...and never really experienced the culture as a result.