Morning class was extremely productive, as we now know more verbs than just “I am”, which actually doesn’t exist (*in the Arabic language 'be' verbs are implied in the subject if there are no other verbs). Unfortunately we then came back from our coffee break and just wrote for an hour and a half with a dictionary. I hate wasting time on such things we can do at home, and whenever I write using a translation dictionary I only end up trying to go to far and getting over my head. This was, in fact, what happened, and thus in my rewrite I’ll stick more to the basics.
We got our surfing lesson moved to 1:30 today. The workers normally eat at this time, and they were extremely packed today, but Shafi said he’d teach us anyway because we are his friends. Man, I love having a local in your corner. We went to the baby beach, which was in high tide. Walking over the concrete soccer pitches and roasting sand (which turns all our feet a not so pleasant shade of red) we notice two things. First of all, the waves are crashing right at the edge of the beach, if you could call them waves. Second of all, I think all the fish, anemones, sharks, oysters, crabs, and other sea creatures must have had the flu today because the beach looks like they all threw up at once. The beach is littered with trash (including used contraceptives), and is a shade of khaki that would make even desert-squad soldiers cry. We stretched out regretting our decision to come. But we underestimated the ocean. Not the garbage day part, we all got slimed and had to walk over questionable materials, but the first part. Despite the fact that the waves were breaking so close to shore, high tide was creating an interesting type of wave, which was higher than any we’ve had on the baby beach so far. As one wave receded another would crash on top, so riding the high wave both made for a slower break (good for learning) as well as kept us high enough to not catch our fins in the sand. I even caught a few perfect rides today! But coming back we definitely scrubbed as hard as we could in the showers.
Afternoon lecture was about Art & Traditional Spaces in Morocco. An architecture professor talked to us about the buildings and artwork we’ve been seeing throughout our stay here. She said you couldn’t define it as Islamic, Arabic, or even Moroccan art exactly (which sounds to me like a cop-out way to “sophisticate” things without any substantiation), but she had a good point focusing on the local influence to each of the former categories. The basic foundation throughout is “control.” The medina gates and streets keep things safe, the ghetto style of historical districts controlled prices, the neighborhoods control visitors, and even the “L” shaped entrances to houses controls privacy. As per other interesting points, apparently the densely packed community seen today was a result of colonialization, as the medina was once only 1/3 built, the other 2/3 being for space and parks/gardens. Also, before building a new household would have to ask the existing neighbor if they could “Lend them their wall.” Though a supporting new wall was actually built by the neighbor, this was a symbolic gesture which showed homage to the existing community (though the neighbor could indeed “take his wall back.”.) Lastly, she also mentioned how the gender segregation we have talked about was more a social segregation, as women could leave the household, it just meant they were poor or a slave. To women of the time, this indoor “prison” was seen instead as a “privilege.” I’ve noticed a lot of the speakers overlapping points recently, which makes me feel more confident in my current understanding of Morocco.
Back home is Shae and Kassie’s last night. We talk about our best times and say goodnight and goodbye. Kassie suggests I visit more museums before I go, as that was her biggest regret. I don’t know if I’ll take her up on it though, I enjoy living like a local more than a tourist.
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