6/23 Sidi Ifni

Today’s morning class featured the first use of Al-Kitaab. I know it’s slower than Molly’s class has been, but I think the extra focus on oral will really pay off. Today was mainly about conjugations for verbs and possessives of nouns, which will definitely come in handy. Unfortunately our oral presentation is this Wednesday, and though I can conjugate, I only know three verbs. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Lunch was at the Center again. No offense to my family’s cooking, which is AMAZING, but the Center has Brahim, whose even better. A cook whose work, though always basically the same meal, gets me every time. Something about cinnamon raisins perfects the entire day. Our afternoon lecture was on Politics in Morocco, and we focused more on the current situations and movements. Obviously the King lies at the top of the sphere, but the prime minister and his cabinet complete the rest of the executive. The legislative branch consists of a Parliament of two houses, the lower chamber elected by the people, and the upper chamber elected by city councils. Currently the judiciary is simply one of the cabinet positions under the prime minister, but apparently it will separate soon. You could tell our lecturer was a professor, because he kept asking us of an analytical view of the situation, always the positives and negatives. Curiously enough, three of the king’s pet projects were about to be moved under the cabinet. You could tell the group was biased against monarchies, because everyone favored such a movement towards “self-stabilized government,” however, the best light of the situation was how the projects moving was negative. The professor explained that now the Human Rights Campaign, Imam Council, and Berber movement (the king's projects), will have to be subject to the politics, which are currently very convoluted, and way more corrupt compared to the palace. Lastly we spoke of Sidi Ifni, a city whose riots two weeks ago closed down the port. Original reports from the fight that followed, declared widespread rape with police brutality leading to 8 deaths. However, current reports list neither deaths nor rape, as the original response was partially fabricated. We spoke of corruption in the media, which are mainly sensationalist writers, to show why not everyone is for freedom of the press (including the head of the Religious Affairs which spoke to us the 20^th). Furthermore, the tv news never even reported Sidi Ifni. This led us to speak one of the main unspoken issues here – how the ruling “class” of elite in power mistrusts the masses, which are often too easily swayed. To add to it all, this political culture of participation is still new to Moroccans. So what is the fix? The professor encouraged us to ask Moroccans “How they feel about their future? And what obstacles lie in the way?”

The only time I’ve been scared since I got here was when I went to go change to go to the beach. I ran up to my room to find Ameena asleep on the couch. One of the biggest things we were warned about by Farah (as well as friends back home) was not to be alone in a closed room with a girl (by closed I mean even drapes drawn). Not that anything would happen, but people would assume such, and there have been previous incidents when a guy and girl from the program were watching a movie together alone behind a closed door. When I got to my room the curtains were all drawn, so I took a deep breath, tried to kind of open up the “door” curtain, and ran in to get my suit and sunscreen. After a quick change in the restroom I managed to drop off my clothes back in the room and slip out unnoticed. I don’t think I took a full breath the entire episode.

Afterwards, Sam and I went to meet up with Shafi to go surfing, as the club was closed. We met up with him, and watched him take some waves by the rocks, but he was too scared we might break his board there. The baby-beach was too flat, so Sam and I watched him for a while, and then split. Today was my internet day, so I sent off a couple “Dear John, I’m doing great…” emails, before updating my blog enough to publicize it on facebook. I met up with Rachel and Kacey at the Internet Café, where we spoke of our experiences, including why we were in this program, etc. I had a lot of posts to catch up on, and was talking with Jess online after Rachel and Kacey left, so ended up staying at the café until 9:45. In the 3 hours I was there I had a tea, cake, and banana juice (expensive but awesome – I’m pretty sure they use malted sugar) ran 26 DH (plus I’m pretty sure he added it wrong, but I used enough free internet to not want to fuss over it). At home I glanced at the meat being prepared; maybe that wasn’t a good idea. Always wait to look at what you ate until after you’ve eaten it. O well, I can manage.

Lastly, before retiring I came one step closer to meeting my goal of telling a joke in Arabic. At the beginning the director asked us what our goals were, and I could only come up with the basic response of learn enough to understand and engage in basic conversation. However, after thinking about it I’ve definitely made telling a joke my ambition. Already I’ve used slapstick/gag humor, as well as told jokes in French. I’ve realized the implicit hilarity behind people speaking to a guy and using feminine forms of the possessive and vice-versa, but today I told my first half Arabic joke. When asked whether I wanted a nas (nap), I replied ‘I wish (in French), but now I had to go do homework (Arabic). Always homework (both).’