If I Hear "Candy Shop" One More Time...

Since we have a break in the AIESEC conference here, I thought I'd talk a little bit more about the Sports Club. One of the most obnoxious things was the constant, blasting pop music. Gwen Stefani, 50 Cent, Usher, all being played at ear-splitting decibels by these ridiculously loud speakers at an otherwise calm pool. While I'll be the first to admit the merits of hearing "Get Low" when I was down 1-3 in my tennis game there, all the recycled music is too much.

As far as 50 Cent is concerned, all the kids love him here. Seriously. Also, Celine Dion enjoys a status here that one might have found in the states circa Titanic. I can't go into the fucking internet cafe without hearing "My Heart Will Go On." To follow that, here it's perfectly masculine and normal for a man to name Celine Dion as his favorite singer. Hard rock also semi-represents - while Metallica is popular, watered-down posers like Linkin Park are also occasionally heard. Anyways, it's probably time for some AIESEC dances here :/ so I'll get rolling. Cheers.

Le Sport Club

Up to this point, my experience in Morocco has revolved around two polar opposites - working in a quartier populaire such as Akkari, or doing the high class thang with more privileged members of Moroccan society.

Yesterday, for example, I spent a day, at the invite of Youssef, VP of Reseau Maillage, at the Bank al-Maghrib (=Maghreb, the collective term for North Africa) Sports Club. Played some rusty tennis on nice clay courts, lounged by the pool, worked on my, ahem, "jump shot," and ate plenty of burgers and fries - plus the obligatory "Whiskey Marocain," otherwise known as Mint Tea or The a la Menthe.

It was a good time, I got to spend some chummy time with Youssef talk about his plans to travel and buy a Mercedes SLK in Germany next year, etc. What makes these experiences valuable, besides getting both ends of the spectrum of life in Morocco, is that the people here that I've met, who are more upper-class, are genuinely concerned with the people in Morocco and their greater community. Of course, I dislike amking blanket statements - and this is also a byproduct of me meeting people that are in contact with the NGO I work with, but it's definitely reassuring to see.

Anyways, I'm revisiting Casablanca for the day - I'm in a lab in a school here right now. We're working with the new Casa chapter of AIESEC, so we'll get to play some AIESEC Orientation games, etc... should be a good time. The unfortunate part is, I definitely still dislike Casa - wipe all romanticized Humphrey Bogart images from your head. This is a thrid-world metropolis founded by the French in the early 20th Century - it has very little culture and identity that I can see, and is definitely just too much for my tastes. Cheers for now.

So Much For a Day Off...

My favorite thing about being here is the unceasing, and genuine hospitality of the Moroccan people. If you reciprocate with warmth (stop laughing, I've somehow managed to turn on the charm), it pays dividends, since there are so many amazing people here. Take for example what's just happened within the last few days... Today for example, before walking into class, I mentioned to one of the guys who works at reseau, Badre, that I hadn't been getting much sleep lately (partly due to Drama in the Real World: Rabat house - although nothing directly involving me, thankfully). Before the end of the day, everybody at the office had asked me how I was doing, etc, if I needed a break or whatnot.
One of my students also walked in today after my last class got out at 4pm, with a friend, who had a very firm grip when I shook her hand. Turns out that the reason why was that this girl's friend did Henna - a type of impermanent tattoo. So, got some free Henna on my arm, a very masculine and understated, ahem, floral design (at least it's not pink...).
Friday I'm going to go to a local sports club to play tennis with one of the VPs of the Reseau Maillage Organization, a great guy named Youssef. After that, got a hot date ;)
Saturday, I'm going fishing with a bunch of the guys from one of my classes. On a sidenote, squeamishness definitely has a shelf life in Morocco, I've become a lot more accustomed to fish/really gross animal carcasses hanging out of boucheries.
Oh, and this is the part that I still get a huge kick out of. I don't think I've mentioned it before, but two of my students are world-class thai boxers who live in Akkari. The bigger one, Ahmed, is this muscular and lean mass of a guy who's the Moroccan kickbxing champion. The other, and slightly smaller one, Anouar, is the world champion in his weight class. Next weekend, I'm invited to Casablanca for a gala to celebrate him... won't miss it for the world...

Can I Help You With That?

Now that I'm about as settled as can be (and without gushing, having an absolutely amazing time here in so many different ways), I thought I'd talk a little bit more about my initial reactions to Morocco.

Firstly, my reactions were pretty much grouped into three categories:
The first was," Oh, that's reallly amazing/exotic/different (in a good way). The second was, "jesus christ! Is that guy really trying to cross a six-lane highway with his 3 year old son!" Otherwise known as the "I can't believe they just did that" reaction. The third type was more of a humorous reaction, either at the sheer ridiculousness of what was happening, or the perceived humor of the situation.

For example, with the third one, it's common here in Morocco to see people carrying duffel bags or beach bags around. However, this is not a one-person job, in Morocco, it's one person, one handle. It's pretty normal to see people walking down the street, carrying a duffel between them, or even shopping bags and smaller things.

For another example, liquor in Morocco is really only supposed to be sold to foreigners, but in practice, there will typically be large number of moroccans in the liquor section of our local supermarche. For example, we were making some Gin and Tonics at the apartment last saturday night. Having quickly ran out of Gin, Gabe foudn himself making a run back to the supermarche. At the supermarket, he encountered literally a swarm of inexperienced Moroccans in the liquor section. While Gabe went in to buy one bottle of Gin, two different Moroccans managed to drop two bottles of wine on the ground at separate times, leaving shattered glass and wine all over the floor... this only added to the chaos (as people really don't like to hang out in a liquor store in the first place here), as people rushed for the exit. So... for us Americans, it seemed pretty damn funny (maybe you had to be there) to see all of these crazy, inexperienced Moroccans swarming a liquor store on saturday night, knocking over bottles and freaking out.

A Minor Altercation...

Just got back from Lunch with Kamal and Elizabeth - we ate at this place that served skewers and fried fish. On the way back, we ran into a friend of Kamal's, who was by two other guys, one of whom appeared pretty damn drunk. As Kamal was talking to his friend, the guy who had clearly been drinking, after three attempts, managed to slur out "comment-t'appele tu?" I said my name back... three times, before he managed to get some idea of what I was saying. Then, he started asking me about my nationality and started to move towards me, Kamal grabbed him by the arm as he started yelling at me, before I started becoming visibly mad. Kamal dragged the guy back over to the stoop where he was sitting and delivered a few harsh open-faced slaps at the guy, and he managed to be quiet for long enough to say our goodbyes... First time I've been in a situation where I've actually felt the threat of bodily harm (not including crossing the street, driving in cars, etc...).

Pictures From Essaouira

My buddy Naoufel has some pictures up on his blog from our trip to Essaouira for the world music festival. His address is: http://naoufel.nomadlife.org/
Enjoy

German in Morocco

Yesterday marked my first German class in Morocco. In said class, I found out that I have zero clue how to pronounce the German language, so we'll see where this whole flight of fancy thing goes.
The one thing that seems nice about German is that there are some clear phonetic similarities in the language - since English came from German - and the grammatical system does not seem ridiculously hard. I think I'll stick it out for another few classes so I can talk to Ben in German when I get back to GWU.

The Stray Cat Flophouse

Without having this post descend into overly infantile animal sex jokes, I just want everyone to know that I sleep no more than 15ft away from what can accurately be described as a seedy stray cat, pay-by-the-hour motel. Last night, these cats were at it until 2:30am, sans cesse. For those of you who haven't experienced the copulation noises of a female cat in heat, let me put it this way, it doesn't sound like an altogether pleasant time for the female. Basically, it's this constant screeching, followed by one huge yowl after a few minutes. Admittedly, some of us found it funny at first, in a whole, "dude! those cats are totally having sex!" kind of way. However, you'd be surprised at how fast the noises get irritating.

Speaking of noises, as we were leaving the apartment sunday morning, we were beset by two Moroccan men outside of our apartment who played some rather obnoxiously loud music for us on their drum and metal hand clappers. After giving them a dirham to leave us alone, we were left wondering aloud why that type of a tourist trap would find its way into a residential neighborhood in Rabat at 9:00am on a Sunday. Turns out... that these guys make their living by playing their obnoxiously loud instruments outside peoples' apartments until the residents throw down a few dirhams to make them leave.

Recapping the Project

As I've already stated, my project over here is rather large, and if anybody knows anybody in the sports/sportswear industry, I'd love to talk to them. It's a great cause, and any contacts in the US or elsewhere would be greatly appreciated.
Here's some info:
There are two teams of thirty (already with a coach and all the players chosen, ie: they have everything but the materiel) who need jerseys, shorts, and shoes (and possibly warmup suits, although that's of tertiary consideration). Additionally, the team needs some money, around USD 1000 for transportation of the players, since they will be in a real national league.
These two teams are all made up of local kids in Akkari, a local neighborhood I work in. These kids are not affluent, or even middle class, and are unable to finance the uniforms etc.
Also, they have a "terrain" for a soccer field, although it needs to be leveled, etc, even goals put in. To put it in perspective, the only open land they have is a thin stretch between a busy motorway they have to cross and the rocky beach of the Atlantic.

Score One for Me

Totally stared down a pickpocketer today as he was edging toward Elizabeth's bag. Feels nice to be aware, not a neck-craning tourist.

Weekender Edition®

Since this was such an amazing weekend - so amazing that I literally didn't have time to get on this blogger thing since last thursday, I figured I'd do a quick wrap-up.

Friday started off with couscous, ridiculously good couscous made at the office by one of the guys with more culinary experience (by the way, everybody who works in reseau is a guy, as far as I know, despite the fact that my classes are 50% women). Contrary to popular notion, Moroccans ONLY eat couscous on friday, so it's pretty normal to be invited over for couscous by people you meet - sometimes you have to choose between multiple invites. After the couscous, we got down to talking about my big project here in Rabat (besides teaching english and doing cultural stuff at the center). And, suffice to say, it's pretty big, but I think it'll be manageable. To sum it up succintly, the local reseau office that I work in - Nouvelle Rencontre - is starting two soccer teams with all the best players from Akkari that'll be in a national league, in total, 60 kids. These kids, aged 12-14 and 14-16 are going to need shorts, shoes, jerseys, money for transportation to away games (around USD 1500). In addition, they have a piece of land that they want to turn into a soccer field (read: an arid peace of dusty and incredibly uneven land by the ocean). So, I'm going to be getting into contact with the US and German embassy to talk about funding - I am going to contact various sports companies, Nike, Adidas, Umbro, etc also. If anyone has any hints or leads, don't hesitate at all to drop me an email or leave a comment here.

On saturday, we made burgers. Big fat juicy american hamburgers grilled by moi for the Moroccan AIESECers at the apartment to celebrate an early July 4th. Later, we went out to, get this, "El Ranchero," to party (I never thought I'd be in a tex-mex dance place in Morocco...). I rolled with my Johnny Walker Black, and even partook in some dancing, definitely an amazing night, one of those days where you can't wipe that stupid grin off your face.

Today was on par with yesterday, as we went to the Moroccan version of a beach-side barbeque. We swam, made merry, ate fish (the same type as in my previous fish entry) and ate these amazing fish tajines. It was held by my local chapter of reseau, so I got to see a lot of my students - who quickly found out (and exploited) the fact that I am terrified of crabs and little octopi (as another side note, these are the "jumpy" crabs, so you never know what the hell they'll do next). I watched in shame as everybody played soccer ten times better than me, worked on the ol' farmer's tan (still there...) and talked with some amazing people.

Last Time I Make Fun of the German Language (this week)

I was in a cafe with Tima and Nathalie on friday when for some reason Nathalie referenced her gums (ie that stuff by the teeth). However, instead of saying "gums," she said "teeth meat." Turns out, that in German, the word for gums is literally "teeth meat."
On a related note, I start German classes tomorrow - Nathalie's teaching them 2x a week at our location in Akkari, so I'm just going to stick around after project time (more on that later) and take some intro German... why not?