“Do you speak Arabic? Inchallah !”

As part of my program here in Marseille, we went to Fez, Morocco this past week to experience first hand some of the cultural, political, and religious differences of North Africa and of course to try to use the little bit of Arabic that we’ve learned this semester! Throughout the week, we had a few conferences with professors at the university in Fez (to talk about the cultural and political situations of Fez) and with Muslim women who wear the veil to discuss how the practice of Islam affects their daily life. Each day we also went on various tours to see the Medina (the older part of the city where all of the markets are), the Volubilis (Roman Ruins), and a monkey infested forrest in the highlands of Morocco! :) 

During the week, I stayed with a host family that was wonderful and very welcoming! (We were each paired with a “correspondent” student studying French at the university in Fez and their family was our host family.) My correspondent, Atika, lives with her parents, her 4 brothers and 2 sisters…needless to say there was always a lot going on at their home! Atika, her dad, and one of her sisters spoke French fairly well so I was able to communicate pretty easily with them, but the rest of the family spoke Arabic so I learned some useful Arabic words and phrases :) but there was also a lot of “charades” to understand each other. Here are some words that are used ALL the time in Morocco:

-          Chukran (“Thanks”)

-          Inchallah (“If god wants it” or “god-willing”)

-          Asalamoualieekoum (For “hello”, literally “peace with you”) and the response is alieekoumousalama (That's not confusing, right? :))

-          Kol (“Eat!”)

-          Khubz (“Bread”)

Part of the welcoming nature of the Moroccans is that they want to feed you everything (hence the phrase “kol”…I heard that a lot throughout the week!)…I’m pretty sure that I’ve never eaten more bread and drank more thé à la menthe (mint tea) in my whole life than I did the past week in Morocco! But my host mom was a great cook and throughout the week I had some delicious couscous and tangine!

It was great to be in a host family because I got to do some interesting and “traditional” things with my family. One day I went to the neighborhood hamam (Turkish baths) with my host mom and we were there for two hours! (The Moroccans know how to do baths :)) Another day, my host sisters and I did traditional henna on our hands (see pictures!). Also, my host dad was a photo journalist so he invited me along to the events that he was attending throughout the week. We went to a concert of Soufie (sacred music)…the sofies are the traditional dancers with the big white skirts that twirl around in a circle for like 15-20 minutes and then when the music stops then stop all of the sudden and just walk off the stage normally…they aren’t dizzy at all! It’s quite amazing! We also went to a ‘community’ wedding with 25 couples! Since marriages are quite a big deal - there 3 days of celebration and it can get quite expensive – if a couple can’t afford their own celebration, the city of Fez offers ‘all-inclusive weddings’ :) where they provide the catering, music, dresses, everything for the couple. It was cool to see how there are different traditions than occidental weddings, for example the brides are carried into the room in a palankeen (see photos!) but there are other traditions that are exactly the same like cutting the wedding cake and the first dance :)

Here are some pictures from my week in Fez: http://picasaweb.google.com/erichards20/Morocco?authkey=Gv1sRgCJmB24bCs8uoew&feat=directlink