A Yankee Comes Home

Well, after a fantastic couple of weeks in Spain traveling with fellow RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers) I’m back in the States, for real this time. Bizarre doesn’t even begin to describe it. I’m happy to be home, of course, and to see friends and family, but I left a big part of me in Morocco. To wit, I spent this morning going through my replacement’s blog posts, and everything from photos of my town to stories about people I know there made me wish I could just hop a souq bus back across the Atlantic. Which is ridiculous. The bus would sink.

As it turns out, readjusting to America might be the very hardest part of Peace Corps. Actually, it totally isn’t, but how’s that for a topic sentence? No one’s asking me to eat sheep brain here, though I do get to keep people riveted with stories of things I’ve eaten, places I’ve been, and challenges I’ve seen. Which is pretty cool. At least on occasion it lets me go back to being the center of attention like I was for the last two years in my town. That being said, it’s really nice to not be the center of attention every time I go outside. Sometimes.

So, I’ll give a quick overview of things I’ve noticed coming back to America. I’ll start with a few general observations, and then move into some more personal anecdotes. Firstly, and most importantly, American suburbs are really weird. Globally speaking, that is. That big yard between houses, as if each and every suburbanite were a member of some kind of minor European nobility. No one does that. Except Canadians, I think. Maybe Australians? However, in Spain I noticed all the small outlying towns were cramped and medieval, just like Morocco and the English countryside. Only nobility (and farmers, but they live in a different setting) ever have large private yards. We really are a strange country. Never thought I’d come to a huge realization about American culture vs. the world’s driving through suburban Jersey.

Another strange thing is public performance and practice of the arts. While New York obviously has plenty of touts and professionals performing in the streets and parks for cash just like Marrakech’s Djmaa El Fna, it also has tons of people just going out to practice or play for fun. The other day I passed by a gospel choir performing in Central Park, no hat out or anything, just performing. People are out painting, writing, playing music, whatever, just for the pleasure of doing it outside. In my town, and really most places I went in Morocco, I was the only person who did that. Here it’s normal, and changes the landscape quite a bit. The same goes for public exercise. I’m just not used to joggers anymore.

Every RPCV I’ve ever talked to has a version of the following story. On Memorial Day I was out with my grandparents and parents having lunch at a diner. I opened the menu, a 5 or 6-page affair, and found myself completely and utterly overwhelmed by the options. Do I get a gyro or do I get a salad? Omelets look good. My God, there are eight varieties of hamburger. Just another 50 cents for onion rings. I couldn’t make a decision. I had heard stories of RPCVs suffering nervous breakdowns in supermarkets (haven’t risked one yet), or utterly unable to choose deodorant from the endless options, but I’d thought it wouldn’t affect me. Totally wrong. America, the land of overwhelming choice.

On another day I set myself a list of five chores to do regarding coming back and preparing for grad school. They would easily have filled a normal day in Morocco. I got four of them done in an hour. Admittedly, the fifth took several days and made me jump through enough bureaucratic hoops to feel like I was back in Morocco, but still 4/5 is pretty good. That being said, that last chore did teach me that my constant refrain, “this would be so much easier in America,” isn’t always true.

Lastly, I just can’t get over using and thinking in Arabic. I’ll hang out with my friends from home, and I just can’t help but drop words. I even think that since they’re my friends they must understand Arabic. Isn’t that what my friends do? I miss it, though to be honest I hear it all over. I’ve made a game of trying to guess which dialect I’m hearing as I pass by. Still haven’t heard any Moroccan Darija, but I’m sure it’ll come with time.

I wish I had some powerful closing remarks that could sum up the last two years of my life, but of course I don’t, as that’s basically impossible, so I’ll close out with a Joha story my dad made up when I came home. I think it fits the spirit of the tales very well.

            One day, Joha returned from a long trip. His friend asked him how it felt to be home. “Coming home is the best feeling in the world,” Joha replied. A few days later the friend saw Joha atop his donkey, heading out of town.

            “Joha,” said the friend, “Why are you leaving? I thought you said coming home was the best feeling in the world.”

            “It is,” Joha replied, “I’m leaving so I can come home again.”

As Moroccans say, take care of your heads. Go with peace.

- Ted Rizzo

Assumptions

            I haven’t written a post on the vagaries of Arabic in some time, but this last week I made a discovery so mindboggling I can’t help but write about it. A few weeks ago I played “Blackbird” for my sophomores as a listening exercise. Since we’d been talking about metaphors in previous classes I was very happy that they quickly realized that the song is not about a bird. They got pretty close, actually, saying it was about some person who didn’t have freedom or opportunity before but now had a chance for it. This led us to talking a little bit about the Civil Rights Movement (my 30-minute spiel in simple English with Darija clarifications on the Civil Rights Movement still needs work), which they knew absolutely nothing about. This has put us on a kick talking about social issues in Morocco and on racism. Keep in mind that at the beginning of the year these kids couldn’t say “hello” and still only have a tenuous grasp on the past tense, though they kill in the present and present progressive, so we’re not talking high theory here.

            Keeping on this topic, last week I said an English word they’d never heard before. Assumption. “Younes,” they asked, “what does ‘assumption’ mean.” Realizing that I actually didn’t know it in Arabic, I defined assumption as something you believe without having a reason to believe it. Then I asked them how to say it in Arabic. They thought for awhile. Then they thought some more. Their eventual conclusion was that there simply wasn’t a word for it in Arabic. I found that a little hard to believe, but we moved on and they used it correctly for the rest of class. Since their first language is Tamazight, I decided I’d ask one of my English-speaking friends whose first language is Arabic what “assumption” is.

            He’d never heard the word before. So I explained it to him the same way I’d explained it before, giving examples of bad assumptions (an American who has never lived in an Arab country or met any Arabs might think all Arabs are terrorists, or boys in Morocco often assume girls who dress “loosely” are asking to be harassed) and good assumptions (if the next town in one direction is the same distance away as the next town in the other we can assume that it takes the same amount of time to drive to one or the other, but even this can be wrong because one might be uphill and the other down). He said that this was an entirely new concept to him, but that good assumptions could be covered by a certain word, however as we talked more about that word it seemed like the better translation was “conjecture.”

            Still unsatisfied I took to the Internet. On Facebook, Peace Corps Morocco has a group where PCVs can ask each other and various LCFs, tutors, and other English speaking Moroccans language questions. I explained that the word had come up in class and how I’d defined it. The first response from one PCV was this: “ ‘something you believe without reasons’ is oftentimes ‘fact’ here.” Rather flip, but sadly often rather accurate as well, which is part of the reason I want to talk about assumptions with my kids. Another enterprising PCV got an answer from Google translate, but we wanted confirmation. Another PCV suggested that since there isn’t much of a cultural context here for it just to go with “beliefs” or “opinions,” but I still wanted an answer. Eventually one of the Moroccan group members chimed in. His response was laughter. So as far as I know, there is no word for assumption in Arabic (any Arabic speaker reading this please comment and let me know if I’m missing something here).

            Now, this might be assuming too much (yeah, I groaned as well, but it was too easy), but I wonder if part of the problem the first volunteer brought up, that things you believe without reason are oftentimes “facts” here is because they don’t have a word for assumption. There is a lot of distance between fact, not fact, and outright false, and assumption is an important concept bridging that distance. Maybe I’m reading too much into the limits of language, reading Orwell too much at an early age will do that to you.

            In other news, a couple of weeks ago I was in Rabat for my Close of Service Conference. There isn’t really too much to write about it here, but it was an interesting and reflective time. Really highlights how close to the end I am. In fact, I realized, I have no more than 6 sessions left with any one class at this point. Less with some of them. Hopefully, most of those sessions won’t be solely mine anymore either, providing the bus system follows through the volunteer who is to replace me in site should be arriving later today!

            To finish up I’ll put in a Joha story since I haven’t in awhile. This is one of the ones I’ve used in play form in class, in this case with my freshmen to follow-up on their lesson on clothing:

            One day, Joha went to a shop that sold clothing. There he saw a beautiful pair of pants that he wanted to buy. After haggling for a good price the shopkeeper started to wrap up Joha’s purchase.

            “Wait,” said Joha, “I actually think I like that coat better, how much is it?”

            “For you,” said the shopkeeper, “I’ll say the same price as the pants.” Joha thanked him and took the coat. “Wait,” cried the shopkeeper, “Joha, you haven’t paid me.”

            “I’ve left you the pants,” replied Joha.

            “You didn’t pay for those either,” said the shopkeeper.

            “Of course not,” said Joha, “why would I pay for something I didn’t buy?”

Attempts at Redemption

            This is a hard post to write. Morocco has a serious issue with the behavior of its men and boys. While I’ve written before about sexual harassment and gender inequality and their effects on the country’s young men and women, in this post I want to explore this issue from another angle, the standard cultural response to people who cause problems.

            Before I start I need to say two things. Firstly, while this is a major issue I don’t want to leave the impression that this applies to all, or even a majority, of the country’s men and boys. It is a hugely prevalent issue, and one all us volunteers face, but we have allies among the men here. Secondly, just to be clear, I’m not using “culture” as a euphemism for “Islam.” While I’ve heard plenty of “Islamic” justifications for the separation of the sexes (and that ever awful response to sexual harassment, blaming the girl since she was dressed “immodestly, i.e. without a headscarf, i.e. without something that is never specifically encouraged in the Quran), those same people turn right around and make “Islamic” arguments about why boys shouldn’t harass women or be brats. I’ve also heard Islamic arguments saying the exact opposite. An American Muslim friend of mine recently posted a reminder on Facebook, that the prophet Mohammed cooked, cleaned, and took out the trash, so using Islam as a justification for treating women as household slaves is just wrong. The issue is cultural, and while it is a problem across the Islamic world, Islam is not the problem. What preachers need to do is make it part of the solution.

Moving to the issue at hand, I’ve time and time again heard people who act badly described as crazy, or as a brat, or a bully. The crux of it is that they don’t try to deal with the behavioral problem, they explain it away, and they don’t confront the person. I might be over analyzing, but I think this is a direct result of my hobbyhorse pet peeve, corporal punishment of children. Since beating is the most common form of discipline, boys never get used to feeling shame as a punishment. As such, they never learn how to cope with being shamed, and get very upset, sometimes even violent, if you shame them as an adult. When adult men behave badly then you can either try to shame them, which might end in a shouting match or even a fight, or you can go to the old standby and just hit them, which ends in a fight. No one wants to end up in a fight over something stupid, so men and boys who misbehave get away with acting terribly, and get used to it. As such a large group of “men” never really become adults; they’re just larger boys.

I have friends and counterparts who recommend that I buy into this element of the culture, and try to work sideways around intransigent and awful people, the way they do. The good Moroccan men have a knack for getting what they need from the bad ones, without ever calling them out or shaming them in any way. I haven’t learned this tactful skill. I think that not calling people out for their misbehavior creates a culture where they feel comfortable to misbehave. Acting like everything’s fine when it isn’t is a piece of Moroccan theatrics I won’t hold to. As a PCV I’m expected to adopt my host country’s culture as much as possible, but this is a place, as with child beating, that I draw my line.

In site, I’ve tried to deal with misbehaving boys in any number of ways that don’t involve beating. Some I’ve reformed by dangling something ahead of them (you can’t join class today, but if you behave you can come tomorrow). Some I’ve dealt with by giving them trust (you weren’t behaving well, but I’ll trust you’ll do better now). With those boys it can be wonders to give them responsibility (alright, I’m going to teach these girls how to throw the Frisbee, can you work with the younger boys?). Some I just have to punish (you’re not welcome in the Dar Chabab this week). A couple I’ve gone to their parents’ house with them, and then at the last moment seemed to give in to their pleas not to report on them (of course I’m never actually going to tell on them, child beating parents are the problem, but this bit of psychological warfare works occasionally). Some, despite all my methods, just will not improve, and they’ve frustrated me a lot lately.

The impetus for this post was my class the other day where that group of boys kept throwing rocks and dirt clods at the window and through the door of the classroom (again showing how awesome the girls are as they stuck at it despite the problems). The impetus for this post was the other week when walking the girls to my classroom those boys started hooting and hollering at them. I wasn’t paying attention to what they were saying, but one girl responded with a loud and clear “go **** yourselves” in Arabic. The impetus for this post was when they learned “**** you” in English and chanted it after me everywhere I go.

The only way Morocco is going to deal with the problem that is its men is if it confronts the problem head on. Letting bad behavior slide by and maintaining the status quo are easy, but it means almost half of Morocco’s work force will be disempowered while a huge chunk of the other half is incompetent with a superiority complex. I’m approaching the last few months of my service, and to wrap it up I think I can do no better thing than working in this troubling and difficult area. I’m confident enough in my integration that my mudir and I are planning an event to get people talking about the problem of sexual harassment in our town (with a cool resource that I’ll write about when we use it, stay tuned!). At the next school break I’ll be helping another volunteer with his plan to run a camp where boys think about the gender divide in a serious way, while also learning the skills to be functional adults. Lastly, I’m going to keep plugging away with those worst boys, because as this last week proved they aren’t irredeemable, and maybe in these last few months I can reach one or two more of them. Wouldn’t that be something?

Addendum: I can’t even comprehend how much better this last week has been. Additionally, my classes are have gotten back up to their usual numbers, so all kinds of positive motion in the latter part of this week. So I’ll end with a Joha story. This one I actually learned last summer when an older kid presented it as an English play (written by his teacher) at the Khenifra summer camp. Some of my students had just studied food and ordering at a restaurant, so I rewrote a simpler version of the play for them to put on in class. Apparently it’s a classic, because they all recognized it early on. Here is a non-dramatized version of the story:

One day, Joha went to a restaurant. He ordered himself a big meal, with roasted chicken, and rice, and all sorts of treats. At the last moment he asked for some soup. After bringing Joha the food the host went to relax, when suddenly Joha started to shout. “Ugh, what is this?!? This is disgusting!”

The host approached and asked what was wrong.

“There is a bug in my soup!” cried Joha. The host apologized and gave him the meal for free. Joha smiled and thanked the host, but while the host wasn’t looking Joha took the bug out of the soup.

Later, Joha ran into a friend. Joha asked him, “Do you want to eat a large, delicious meal for free?”

“Yes,” said the friend, so Joha brought him close and told him what to do. The friend went to the restaurant, but when he ordered his meal he was told there was no soup.

“Where can I put this bug then?” asked the friend, taking out the insect Joha had given him.

“So it was you!” cried the host, who chased Joha’s friend from the restaurant.

Drop by Drop the River Floods

            This has been a full week of Moroccan holidays.  Early on in the week was the anniversary of the Green March, which commemorates Morocco’s occupation of the formerly Spanish controlled mandates which in America we call the Western Sahara.  Normally I don’t shy away from touchy topics, but our relative positions on the legitimacy of this are one of the few disagreements I let lie with Moroccans, though as with many things I have heard a few people in the younger generation question the legitimacy of this past action.  The other holiday was the Muslim New Year.  Happy 1435.

            On the night of the New Year—like Jewish holidays, Muslim ones generally start at sundown, so calling it New Year’s Eve would be a misnomer—I was invited to a party at a local acquaintance’s house.  I met this guy once when we both had to take early morning buses and sat together at the station waiting for our late transportation in opposite directions.  He is the president of the local veterans’ association, and many of the people at the party were former military men, along with a couple of young men my age.  There was also a women’s party, though as usual that happened in another room so I have no idea what the make-up of it was.

            In the men’s room, topics ranged from the Arab Spring to the new highway that apparently was recently announced to connect Beni Mellal and Fes.  This highway would completely change life in this part of the country, though the men disagreed as to how.  Some believe that towns like ours, which essentially lies on the Route 66 that this highway would replace, will lose much of their raison d’etre as entry points for farmers to the main road and suffer.  They believe the new highway will destroy the countryside lifestyle.  Others believe the highway, which would have three exits all within 30 kilometers of the town, will provide new economic opportunities for the region.

            Regarding the Arab Spring, they talked at length about the political situations in Libya and Syria, which led to rebellion, and the situation here, which led to reform.  For me, it was interesting to listen to older, former soldiers perspectives on this issue, because usually I only hear from youth, whose take on the reforms the king made in the wake of the Arab Spring in Morocco—called the February 20^th Movement, for its start date—is quite different from the older take.  While many young people say they don’t think the reforms went far enough, the older men think the new Constitution is very good, though they still acknowledge the reforms were necessary for the entrenched powers to stay entrenched.

            From talking about the political situation the conversation soon shifted to talk about Morocco in general, and they wanted to know my opinion as a foreigner.  I gave my usual answer about things I like in the country, but since they obviously wanted a fuller answer I also talked about the gender disparity which frequent readers know I believe to be one of Morocco’s biggest challenges.  As I was talking about developing cultural attitudes towards women’s equality one of the party’s few young men asked me why it is always non-Western countries that have to change their culture.  In short I was accused of being a cultural imperialist.

I’ve thought a lot about culture, both American and Moroccan, the last 19 months I’ve lived here.  When I first arrived I was something of a cultural relativist, and though I didn’t buy completely into the idea that cultures can only be judged by their own rubrics I certainly tended that way.  Over time I shed this view entirely and started to think in more absolutist terms that, while I didn’t like thinking those thoughts, I couldn’t shake.  Although America was far from perfect in this new view on culture of mine it is only in Morocco that I’ve ever seriously felt proud to be an American.  Even before this October shook that pride, my thoughts had already shifted again.  Central to my erstwhile American jingoism was the belief that what made American culture great was its diversity and fluidity.  Around a shared set of central tenets, there are uncountable different ways of being an American.  What I came to realize, and what I realize now was always my problem with cultural relativism, is that this is true of all cultures.  Cultural relativistic ideas, at least as I’d been exposed to them, always seem to function on the assumption that cultures aren’t themselves changing and transforming over time.  Cultural Relativists are right in that Cultural Imperialists have no right to dictate how another culture acts or develops, but treating culture statically doesn’t allow for the natural growth that will happen in all cultures.  Just as a society of individuals inspires humane tendencies in individuals so the world’s society of cultures ought to inspire the growth of human liberty, equality, and dignity in all cultures, each in their own manner.  Which I guess is probably a pretty common belief, and certainly what I believed coming in, but I had no idea how to articulate it even in my own language.

Now, my Arabic has gotten pretty good, but it is in no way good enough to explain that monster of a paragraph in a way that wouldn’t raise a whole bunch of confused eyebrows around the tagine, so instead I replied with a more metaphorical version.  I said first that American culture does change; we talk about our cultures of the 60s, 70s, and 80s as different both from each other and from now.  Culture, I said, is not a stone, but a river, and drop by drop the river floods.  The last phrase is a bit of Moroccan folk wisdom, and I don’t know whether it was the metaphor, the appropriation, or the idea itself, but the older men nodded in agreement after.  We then talked for a little bit about how attitudes towards women and women’s freedoms have changed in their lifetimes, and how they think the trend will continue with time.

Since I haven’t told a Joha joke in awhile here are two:

One day Joha was sitting by a lake watching several ducks swimming nearby.  He decided that he could catch one of the ducks and have a fine dinner.  He quietly went into the water and swam up behind the ducks, but just as he approached the ducks flew away.

Back on shore, and now feeling very hungry, Joha took out a piece of bread and dipped it in the water.  A fisherman saw him do this and asked what he was doing.  “I’m eating duck soup,” replied Joha.

There was a new barber in town, but he was not very experienced.  Joha decided to give him some business, so he to went to have his head shaved.  The barber’s razor was not sharp, and he was very careless.  Several times he cut Joha, who was losing patience.

Suddenly there was a loud scream from the shop next door.  “What was that?” cried Joha.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” said the barber, “There’s a blacksmith next door and he was just nailing new shoes on a horse.”

“Oh, I see,” said Joha, “I thought they were giving it a shave.”