7/3 "Man is beyond criticism."

Grammar day at school today, and we also reviewed for the midterm tomorrow. Our test tomorrow will cover Sun v. Moon letters, counting up to ten, vocabulary from every chapter, adjectives, possessives, nationalities, verb conjugation, prepositions, gender agreements, and plurals. At break I talked to Matt about H-town things, like missing the ‘House of Pies.’ He exclaims that he loves having someone who understands Houston here, and I must say I agree.

Another mid-day surfing lesson today, but before going I had lunch with the family. I know it’s a bad idea to eat before swimming, but there were two very nervous highschoolers at the house and I wanted to help them out like I was. The CCCL has brought a group of highschoolers to Morocco, to both experience the country, as well as do community service. Today was the day they ate with families, and so the program just used families already hosting college students. Adam and Marea (I’m sure I misspelled it), were shyly sitting in the living room when I walked in, and it both somewhat mirrored my first few days as well as showed me how far I’ve come here. I help them feel more at home as we share tea and cookies, and we have a conversation with the family about what everyone is doing (3 cheers for French translations!) They didn’t even know about the right-hand-3-fingers rule, so I decided to stay for a quick bite to show them the ropes. They basically follow my lead as we eat salad (carrots, pasta, & beats), and a veggie-meat dish with bread. I pick up my hobz (bread), rip off a piece, and dig right in, and I’m sure they appreciated someone to imitate. They were both very polite and Marea wants to be a premed, so I give them advice on both Morocco and college life before running off to another 1:30 lesson.

I got the snot beat out of me by the ocean today. Baby beach showed up in full force, along with a current that kept us paddling the entire time. We finally got some real waves, but after being tossed like a puppy’s favorite ragdoll I only had the energy to get up on a couple. I also learn the method to go under a crashing wave which you don’t want to ride. While facing the wave you pump your arms down to get your board into the water of the wave. You then dive under the wave and use your knees to help you pump the board back up. That’s all great in theory, but unfortunately these rental boards are mainly a heavy foam, which prevents it from diving under. Thus, “diving through a wave” only succeeds in preventing me from washing up on shore, and instead each wave only knocks me back 10 feet or so. But I somehow made it out there for some nice rides (and even more nice tries), including one that I rode on my knees, as my arms were giving out. Shafi complemented my style though, noting that these waves were much harder than any we had ever faced so far. The kicking right before a wave comes definitely helps for the speed, and I can somewhat make up for my tired pushups by throwing my body into doing the worm to help get up on the wave. We walked back that day very tired, but very pleased.

Afternoon lecture was on the Representation of Women in the Media. You can probably guess how most of the lecture went, we talked of the paradox of Moroccan feminist glossies claiming to be different from the West, yet posing Western fashion in ways that emphasized women’s submissiveness. A good term for it is the promotion of a patriarchal male gaze, objectifying women in the very fashion they seek to curtail. The speaker points out that education concerning the media is much lower here than in America, so women actually belief that a behavior of submissive sexual promiscuity is a promotion of freedom. We briefly touch upon modeling styles of Pygmalion and Lolita which have extended to Morocco as well, and interestingly mention how 1 copy purchased is shared between maybe 100 people, so readership can’t be evaluated accurately. I ask what he would view as an appropriate representation of women, but he only gives me a political answer of how it shouldn’t be. This and other questions were answered blandly but then we moved to talk about harassment. We ended up talking on harassment for 30 minutes longer than the lecture was scheduled, covering how it can both stem from sexual frustration, as well as the culture local guys grow up in. Apparently there is a saying in Morocco that roughly translates as “Man is beyond criticism.” While women are heavily demanded to be in fashion, a man’s appearance and actions can’t be questioned by her. I find the same unequal push against women in the States, but no where near as bad as he was talking. Further, the perverted narcissism of harassment unfairly takes away the choice of any relationship possibilities from the objectified women, continuing an institution of submissiveness. Though the speaker wasn’t on the same par as we might view one pushing for equality in the states (for instance, he interrupted several of the girls in his presentation), it was nice to see some at least trying to take steps in the right direction. He also has a book coming out in English “A Moroccan in New York.”

Home consisted of studying my butt off; praise God for Coca Cola.