Hello all! Long time, no see. Things got very busy over here very quickly so the frequency of my blogs diminished quite a bit but I'm back and have plenty to talk about. My Birthweek was incredible and filled with many well wishes, lots of singing, cakes, and topped off with a trip to the desert, which I will talk about in detail in a bit. Classes are now in full swing and this week is actually the first week that we will be attending our direct enrollment classes. I will be attending a Social and Psycholinguistics class as well as a Semiotics class and will choose one to attend regularly. The college experience here as you can imagine is quite different from my personal experience at UMD. For one, there is essentially no interaction between the professors and the students during class. The professor shows up, lectures, and leaves. No discussion. No clickers. None of that. Additionally, the entirety of your grade is the final exam and as a result apparently some Moroccans don't really go to lectures. Ok, so maybe its not super different from some stereotypes of US college classes but it was a little shocking for me to hear.
I also finally have gotten my Community Service position up and running. I am working in a Community center essentially as a librarian for the time being. There are some PhD Linguistics students coming to the center in October to work on some sort of long term project for the semester so I am going to dialogue with them and determine if we can collaborate on a project. But until then, I will be categorizing the brand new library using the Dewey Decimal System and helping kids find books whenever they show up.
And finally, the desert. Without a doubt, it was one of the most breathtaking and surreal places I have ever visited. I didn't really know what to expect with regards to our accommodations but if you can imagine taking a pretty chic European hotel and plopping it in the middle of the Sahara desert (which literally means "desert" desert btw as "Sahara" means desert in Arabic) that's basically where I stayed. The first evening, I walked out back of the hotel which lets you out immediately to the Sahara and the dunes to do some stargazing until my wonderful Resident Director pointed me toward a dune far enough away that my view was not polluted by light if I laid down. It was simply incredible. The next day we went on a tour of the desert in 4x4s and that we took an obligatory uncomfortable camel ride to a camp in the desert. The next morning, some of us got up bright and early to climb an 800 meter dune to watch the sunrise over the Sahara. Many pictures can be found on Facebook and I highly recommend all of them. Sometimes, when I look at them it's hard to believe I was there. I would highly recommend Merzouga to any fellow Morocco travelers. It is well worth the fact that it is quite off the beaten path!
All for now,
Johnny M.
Monday, September 25, 2017
Sunday, September 3, 2017
Week 11: Eid al-Adha and the First Week of Fall Classes
Hello Everyone! Welcome back to another edition of John in Meknes! This week's adventures included getting used to new classes and eating sheep intestines. I'll leave it up to you to decide which was more exciting.
I had been hearing from many people that the Fall semester really kicks things up a notch, for obvious reasons. Our language abilities at this point are pretty advanced so sitting us down and having us memorize vocab lists from a textbook doesn't really cut it anymore. Therefore in addition to having the usual Formal Arabic class we also had a choice between Women in Arab Society and Arabic Literature content courses, both taught in Arabic. I chose Literature as I mentioned in previous posts and my literature teacher also happens to be my Egyptian Arabic teacher from the summer and my Formal Arabic teacher for the fall (and my Egyptian Arabic teacher for the Fall). Here's to hoping that Essam doesn't get tired of my puns and goofiness and want to end me come December. In all honesty, Essam's a wonderful person and a great teacher like all the teachers at the center and I anticipate a great semester ahead for us both. Our usual Formal Arabic class will also focus more on reading and listening to authentic Arabic texts, as we did in the summer, but with more of a focus on higher level analysis and discussion of these works and use of more complicated grammatical structures and phrases to push our speaking and writing to the professional level. Our Moroccan and Egyptian Arabic classes will focus more on specific social issues as opposed to learning vocab and phrases relevant to certain tasks or social situations. For our first Moroccan Arabic class we watched a video interviewing young Moroccans about how they have dealt with the job search post graduation (very easy to relate to) and discussed those issues in comparison with our experiences with the job search process in the US. I still have not started my community service or my direct enrollment class but I will be beginning my community service this week (direct enrollment won't start until the University classes begin).
In addition to acclimating to a new schedule, I was also able to experience Eid al-Adha for the first time in an Muslim country. For those who do not know, Eid al-Adha (or Eid al-Kibir) is the Muslim holiday based on the story of Ibrahim (Abraham) who was willing to sacrifice his son, Ismael, to Allah (God) as a demonstration of his faith. In the end, Allah allowed the sacrifice of a sheep instead of Ismael so each year Muslims around the world sacrifice a sheep, goat, cow, or camel. It is also tradition in many Muslim countries to give a part of the meat to the poor, a part to your neighbors and extended family, and keep the last part for yourself. After witnessing the sacrifice in the morning (not as bad as I thought it would be), we spent most of the day cleaning the roof where we sacrificed the sheep and prepared various parts and organs for cooking. For lunch we ate bulfaaf (liver wrapped in sheep fat), the heart, the lungs, and some chicken all barbecued on kebabs. It was all delicious but my personal favorite was the heart. For dinner we ate a stew with the stomach and intestines and other insides and I just could not get over the texture or the smell. When the butcher that helped with the slaughter was cleaning the sheep, he and my host father had to empty the stomach and intestines of all the poop and I could not rid my mind of that image or smell as I ate the stew. Yesterday, I ate the shoulder and leg and some other fantastic parts of the sheep and I would highly recommend those to any fans of tasty meaty treats out there. The brain is also pretty flavorful even if the texture is a little slimy. As always keep the questions coming and I'll be back next week!
All for now,
Johnny M.
I had been hearing from many people that the Fall semester really kicks things up a notch, for obvious reasons. Our language abilities at this point are pretty advanced so sitting us down and having us memorize vocab lists from a textbook doesn't really cut it anymore. Therefore in addition to having the usual Formal Arabic class we also had a choice between Women in Arab Society and Arabic Literature content courses, both taught in Arabic. I chose Literature as I mentioned in previous posts and my literature teacher also happens to be my Egyptian Arabic teacher from the summer and my Formal Arabic teacher for the fall (and my Egyptian Arabic teacher for the Fall). Here's to hoping that Essam doesn't get tired of my puns and goofiness and want to end me come December. In all honesty, Essam's a wonderful person and a great teacher like all the teachers at the center and I anticipate a great semester ahead for us both. Our usual Formal Arabic class will also focus more on reading and listening to authentic Arabic texts, as we did in the summer, but with more of a focus on higher level analysis and discussion of these works and use of more complicated grammatical structures and phrases to push our speaking and writing to the professional level. Our Moroccan and Egyptian Arabic classes will focus more on specific social issues as opposed to learning vocab and phrases relevant to certain tasks or social situations. For our first Moroccan Arabic class we watched a video interviewing young Moroccans about how they have dealt with the job search post graduation (very easy to relate to) and discussed those issues in comparison with our experiences with the job search process in the US. I still have not started my community service or my direct enrollment class but I will be beginning my community service this week (direct enrollment won't start until the University classes begin).
In addition to acclimating to a new schedule, I was also able to experience Eid al-Adha for the first time in an Muslim country. For those who do not know, Eid al-Adha (or Eid al-Kibir) is the Muslim holiday based on the story of Ibrahim (Abraham) who was willing to sacrifice his son, Ismael, to Allah (God) as a demonstration of his faith. In the end, Allah allowed the sacrifice of a sheep instead of Ismael so each year Muslims around the world sacrifice a sheep, goat, cow, or camel. It is also tradition in many Muslim countries to give a part of the meat to the poor, a part to your neighbors and extended family, and keep the last part for yourself. After witnessing the sacrifice in the morning (not as bad as I thought it would be), we spent most of the day cleaning the roof where we sacrificed the sheep and prepared various parts and organs for cooking. For lunch we ate bulfaaf (liver wrapped in sheep fat), the heart, the lungs, and some chicken all barbecued on kebabs. It was all delicious but my personal favorite was the heart. For dinner we ate a stew with the stomach and intestines and other insides and I just could not get over the texture or the smell. When the butcher that helped with the slaughter was cleaning the sheep, he and my host father had to empty the stomach and intestines of all the poop and I could not rid my mind of that image or smell as I ate the stew. Yesterday, I ate the shoulder and leg and some other fantastic parts of the sheep and I would highly recommend those to any fans of tasty meaty treats out there. The brain is also pretty flavorful even if the texture is a little slimy. As always keep the questions coming and I'll be back next week!
All for now,
Johnny M.
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