National Lampoon’s European…and African…and Arab Vacation

 

Last week’s pilot blog post was chock full of the thrills of travel, the anticipation of new adventure, the fulfillment of cultural enlightenment, and the peace of a satisfying vacation. This week’s chapter will highlight the drudgery of secondary education, the sadistic nature of university professors, the despair of victimized college students, and the frustration with a city that seems hell-bent on preventing the installation of AC units in any structure. Seriously, HVAC technicians must have one of the highest rates of unemployment in this place—second only to urban planners. Okay, so it’s actually not that bad. Seriously. Rabat’s a pretty cool place, but, like any good casualty of colonialism, it isn’t without its quirks, and I’m sure my twelve days of residency here have been more than satisfactory for me to get a complete and accurate understanding of this place—one that definitely isn’t loaded with ignorance and biases I’ve been spoon-fed by American media outlets and movies. No, I think I’ve got it all just about figured out, so allow me to lay it down for you. Oh, and I’ll also explain what exactly I actually do here because I know that all seven of my readers are dying to know. Read on for fun, stop for sanity—this may or may not be proofread.

Rabat’s a strange place. I don’t mean that in a negative way, but it is certainly unlike anywhere I’ve ever visited before. The city, as the title suggests, is a remarkable river of European, African, and Arab culture, but it is a river that ebbs and flows in curious whirlpools and deltas—flowing unexpectedly, and sometimes harshly, from one adopted region to another and back again. In Rabat, the newer neighborhoods, such as the one where the institute (sanitarium) I study at is located, are decidedly European in flavor. The streets and roundabouts are well-paved and striped, the sidewalks are wide, and awninged cafes with neatly uniformed waitstaff are ubiquitous. Nearby, in expensive residential neighborhoods, large homes sit in walled compounds with private gates. Still, even with these European accents, there are subtle giveaways that this is not Paris or London. In some places, the paving stones haven’t been cut quite right, and so they don’t sit plumb with their neighbors. There are curious sinkholes in the sidewalks, and many of the street trees look like they were manicured by an arborist with cataracts. Venture further from the newer neighborhoods, and Rabat begins to take on a significantly less gilded feel. The sidewalks become narrower and narrower—sometimes to the point where it’s necessary to walk single file. The striping on the roads becomes less pronounced (not that it matters since everyone in this city drives like their wife is in labor), and the cute cafes with polished employees are replaced by much uglier cafes with chain-smoking proprietors. Instead of supermarkets, vendors hawk their goods from small, one-room structures with no facades. The gated, residential homes are nowhere in sight, and in their stead are blocks of architecturally uninspired, slightly ramshackle stucco buildings with seemingly mandatory cupolas—reminiscent of what one imagines they might find in Baghdad or Damascus. And then, suddenly, you turn a corner, and there is a giant roundabout with perfectly tended flora, and you’re left wondering if you’re in the rich or poor part of town. There is no rhyme or reason to why the paved sidewalks turn to dirt or why the narrow alleys suddenly morph into boulevards with landscape lighting. Certainly, it’s confusing to realize that if this was Orange County, the house I’m living in would be worth tens of millions of dollars because it is 200 yards from the beach, and yet here it is inhabited by a decidedly middle-class couple. However, despite its oddities, I wouldn’t change a thing about this place. Rabat is wonderful because it’s a city that is uniquely its own, not in spite of what it borrows from other places, but because of them.

One thing that’s contiguous across all of Rabat is the transportation. In the city, there are three methods of travel that we students can rely on to get around: walking, the tram, and taxis. Walking is a lovely way to get out in the fresh air and learn the city intimately, but Rabat suffers from something I’ve termed the “Morocco Mile,” wherein everything looks close but is actually surprisingly far. This, coupled with the humidity, means that walking is a great way to generate revenue for shop owners who stock deodorant. The second method is the tram. The tram is one of the few places in the city with reliable air conditioning. It also was built relatively recently, is clean, and has comfortable seating, but it’s slow, and its circuitous routes mean it isn’t very efficient. By far the best way to travel around Rabat is in the taxis. These little blue cars, called petit taxis, are everywhere and can take you just about anywhere you need to go within the limits of Rabat. These cabs are in high demand and often are already carrying passengers. Fortunately, as long as the driver is already going in the direction you want, he’ll probably let you hop in. I have discovered that drivers are a little shy about picking up white people with backpacks, but as long as you’re persistent, you’ll eventually get a seat. The taxis are efficient and economical, but by far the best thing about them are the drivers. I have never seen so many people who can reliably and consistently drive stick, work the meter, tune the radio, honk the horn, and talk with both hands all while steering through a city with no apparent traffic laws. Rabat has other quirks and charms too, like the fact that it is loaded with stray cats, or that the produce you can buy from the back of a mini-truck parked on the curb is the best produce you’ve ever had. I’ll share more of these as I discover them, but now let me just briefly explain the intensive Arabic portion of the study abroad—since that’s why I’m here after all.

Each day begins with a tutoring session at 9:00. My tutor, Salma, is about my age and studying primary school education at the local university. She’s really nice and very patient with my dismal Arabic. She speaks hardly any English, which is nice for my immersion, but makes her explaining assignments a little tricky. Anyway, each tutoring session alternates between me presenting a written homework sample or doing an oral presentation, after which I receive feedback and am expected to come to the next session with an improved performance. After my 20 minutes of tutoring, I attend a class taught by my professor who traveled to Morocco with us. This class is comprised of all members of our cohort and is taught in a mix of English and Arabic. Much of the time is used for grammar principles, but some of it is designed to provide us with a cultural education too. After this two-hour class there is a short break for lunch, before we split into smaller groups of eight or nine students and head to our “issues class.” This class, taught entirely in Arabic by local professors, gives us the chance to discuss various issues with our professor and each other. The homework for this class is unique, in that we receive a list of questions about the topic we discussed that day, which we are assigned to go out and ask the local population. In class the next day, we spend some time reporting on our findings before beginning that day’s lesson. These questions are also designed to be something of a jumping-off point for our biggest homework assignment, which is to talk to natives for two hours daily in our target language. To help with this, the program provides us each with a “speaking partner” (a local university student) with whom we must talk for a minimum of 30 minutes daily. My partner’s name is Youssef. He seems very committed to helping me learn Arabic, but he’s also pretty good at English, so he has a tendency to slip into that a fair bit. We’re working on it. Any extra time we spend with this partner also counts towards our two hours, but if we don’t reach that threshold, then we have to find other ways to fill our quota. This comes on top of the other assignments, readings, and presentations that we’re assigned. These things, combined with mandatory meals with our host family, mean that there’s not a lot of leisure time M-F. Fortunately, the weekends are all ours, and the program has been refined to this point over many years—meaning that it’s nothing if not effective. Despite the struggles I’m feeling with the language in general, I do feel like my Arabic right now is probably the best it’s ever been, so I think things are working, albeit slowly. 

Unfortunately, I think it’s time to wrap this week up. There were so many things I wanted to talk about in this post, but I guess that’ll come later. Actually, I was hoping to talk a bit about the culture, but maybe it’s better I wait a little while for that—it’s slightly more complicated than analyzing the geographical layout of the city. Also, I’m hoping the coming blogs will be comprised of less analysis and more of what I actually did during the week, like visiting the Roman ruins in the title photo, but I did think this was important to share. Anyway, feel free to send me an email if you have any questions or just want to say hi and let me know what’s going on with you. Take care and have a good week!