Islam is a ubiquitous presence in Morocco.  Wherever you are, the skyline is dotted with the minarets of mosques and the day is punctuated by the call to prayer, Azan.   For many Americans “Islam” is a loaded word, one that carries many connotations and emotions.   One of the reasons I was excited to come to Morocco was that I would have an opportunity to experience a Muslim culture.  I have to say that the experience has been entirely positive.
     Islam is the glue that binds Moroccan culture.  It is a common thread that ties 95% of the population.  We don’t really have anything like that in America, something of which we can say, “we are all …”  In America we value our differences, but they are often divisive.

     As an example consider poverty.  There are many places in America where the people living in an impoverished area predominantly belong to a minority ethnicity or language group.  This is a perfect breeding ground for stereotyping.  However in Morocco, while there is definitely poverty, it is not distinguished by ethnicity or language and, “we are all Muslims.”   Islam turns the “them” into the “us” thereby changing the social dynamic.
        There are also many components of Islam that have a positive social influence.  One example is a strong emphasis on the family.  You are much more likely to hear a Moroccan say, “we” than our favorite American pronoun, “I.”   More generally, Moroccans seem to have a stronger sense of community.  Of course there is the other edge of the sword: you don’t see as much individuality or cultural independence.

     Muslim’s do not proselytize, I had a lot of good conversations about Islam with students and teachers, and while people would often ask me about my faith, they never expressed the sort of religious superiority for which some other religions are infamous.  No one wanted to convert me, but they were eager to counter what they perceived as a negative American bias.  I think I heard the phrase, “Islam is a peaceful religion,” about 20 times.

     One of my most memorable conversations was with, Himmi, the head teacher at the school I visited.  I remarked on the sort of stark beauty of the dawn Azan .  He said,  “Picture the earth as it is turning.  It is always dawn somewhere, and there are Muslims in every country of the world.  As the rays of the sun travel across the earth there is always someone singing the call to prayer, and it has been so for hundreds of years.”   That’s a pretty powerful image.
    Click on the link to listen to a call to prayer.

Today was the last day in Casablanca.  I went to the high school with Mohammed in the morning and was able to observe a couple more classes.  The first was an English class.  It’s amazing what I don’t know about my own language.  The lesson was about past tense.  Left to my own devices I might have figured the easy part on my own: you add –ed.   I talked, I walked, etc.  Just as I was thinking how easy English verbs are to conjugate (the past tense is apparently independent of subject), I began to stumble: We eat-ed?  We go-ed?  I am-ed?  I bring-ed?   Argh, everywhere you look, irregular verbs!  The teacher was making the same point.  He was telling the class that they would need to memorize a list of 75 common irregular English verbs – “just learn five every day.”  A girl gave me a mean look. 
            My next thought was that it is a wonder that anyone becomes fluent in a second language.  I guess I was rationalizing my poor French (which nonetheless has served me well these last two weeks  - thank you Madame Bowman).  But after class I asked some students to do brief video interviews.  I gave them a choice of languages.  Once again I was blown away by their skills.  Some chose Spanish, some English, some French.  The best was a girl who spoke amazingly fluent English with an American accent.  When I asked her where she learned she said, “Oh I haven’t taken any lessons, but I like to watch American movies.”  That’s it, just watch some movies, no problem.

Then I attended a math class where students were doing more calculus. (Feel free to skip this paragraph if you haven’t suffered through precalc BC yet).  I was holding my own until the teacher put what was, admittedly, a pretty tough integration problem on the board.  In case you care, it was the integral of cos(x)^3.  I tried one method, and then another, but was not making much headway.  The teacher looked at my scribbles, took pity on me, and suggested representing cos(x) as ½(e^ix + e^-ix).  Distant memories stirred of doing this when I was taking graduate level math classes, but definitely not in high school.  I love complex exponents!
            That being said, I have observed that this same class does not do as well when given out-of-the-blue questions, which are my favorite.  There is a lot more memorization in Moroccan education, but less emphasis on problem solving and synthesizing ideas.  You need both skills really.  If you could blend the best of American and Moroccan education you’d have some pretty formidable students.
           

After morning classes I took the train from Casablanca to Rabat. Total cost $3, but for an extra $2 I upgraded to first class.  Probably the only chance I’ll ever have.  Along the way the lyrics “Take the train from Casablanca go in style…” floated through my mind.  (A reference that may escape those of you under 40).  Somehow the train covered a 3-hour bus trip in under an hour, or at least the first class did. 
            And now I am in Rabat awaiting the arrival of my American colleagues.   It is time to find a café for some serious relaxation.  Until tomorrow…

 

    Another day another feast.  I have not bothered to detail every fantastic meal I've had this week, for example the rabbit tajine I had in Marrakesh, or the platter of seven types of fresh seafood I had Mohammedia...  However today, at the midday school break, we retired to a teacher's house to enjoy Rfissa, a special plate reserved for holidays and overfed Americans. 
    Proper meal etiquette is to remove shoes when entering the house and recline on pillows.  Done.  I was politely informed that utensils are for foreigners.  This was announced apologetically as fork and knife were laid before all.  Moroccans eat with their hands from a central platter.  I was all for it, so our host brought out a basin and a pitcher of warm water so we could all wash our hands.  Then we jettisoned the utensils and dove in.  Right hands only, by the way.  This was followed by a course of fresh fruit and then, of course, tea.  Of many outstanding meals this might have been the best.

    The good news is that teachers generally teach either the first or second half of the day, but not both.  After our feast we all, except for one unhappy teacher, had the afternoon off, so we moved on to a cafe in my favorite area of Casablanca, H'Abous.  Proper cafe sitting is an art that requires extensive practice.  Your typical American is not so good at it.  That's because you're supposed to do as little as possible.  No laptops, no texting, no listening to your ipod.  Just sit and watch the world go by.  Conversation is allowed, but not required.  It is important to have a cup of coffee at hand or else, of course, tea.  Ideally you make this beverage last for an hour or so.  You don't want to fall asleep, you are searching for something just a notch above that.  I am a novice but demonstrate promising skills.  A huge meal helps.

    After a difficult day it is time to go home.  Driving in Morocco is a unique experience, and Casablanca is the pinnacle.  The mathematician in me keeps searching for the rules but there don't seem to be any.  Everyone gently but firmly forces their way.  It doesn't seem like it should work, and often that's the case.  If you can't read the sign in the photo it's okay because apparently no one in Morocco can.   I keep trying to capture the experience on a video, the problem is part of the fun is the element of surprise, for which I am (by definition) never prepared.  Still I believe the attached video comes close.  Listen carefully in the beginning and you will hear the call to prayer in the background, incongruous and yet appropriate.  VIDEO

    Sorry folks.  The hotel server crashed last night just as I was dotting my i's on this.

    Yesterday two of the classes prepared cultural presentations.  The students came dressed in traditional clothes and talked about local customs, food, and historical sites (all in English, by the way), and sang traditional songs.  It was pretty amazing, especially since they put it together on their own initiative and on their own time.
    As I was watching I kept trying, and failing, to imagine American students doing something similar.  It's not that American students lack volition or hospitality, what stumped me was our lack of common culture.  The closest I could envision was a presentation on different ethnic origins, but that kind of begs the question since that would entail other country's cultures.
    What is American culture?  As a nation we can be quite self-righteous, but as a country we are very young with nothing like Morocco's thousands of years of history.  We don't really have regional costumes or even a national cuisine (grilled hamburgers?).
    As a nation we are diverse, but I wonder if the down-side of the melting pot is a certain cultural homogeneity.  And Morocco, which I originally thought of as a sort of mono-culture,  continuously reveals layers of richness and diversity of which Moroccan's are very proud.
    Here's a clip, see what you think we have to offer in comparison.
                                                    VIDEO

    Today I followed a class through the morning.  I should mention that, unlike American schools, students here are grouped by major.  The class I was with was a physics class.  That means that they are destined to major in a physics-related topic at a university once they finish this year.  The entire class follows the same schedule throughout the day.  Altogether they take 8 different courses, but their schedule varies depending on the day of the week.  Today I sat in on a French class, a math class, and an English class. 
    The French class was not so different from what I've experienced in IHS, except this was the students' 6th year of French and they speak it every day, so they're pretty fluent.  Today they were studying a Moliere Play, "Le Bourgeois Gentil Homme."  The teacher showed a video of one particular scene and the students were discussing the use of humor.  (Side note: the school has exactly one computer projector; the teacher had to schedule its use well in advance.)
    The math class was taught in Arabic.  The good news is that I understood the math portion, which was integration by parts.  It was brought home to me that most of the world, including us, uses Arabic numerals (shhh, don't tell homeland security), so that part was easy.  The students were extremely competent.  They don't have calculators so they're pretty fast with their calculations (is that a paradox?).  For most of the class the teacher called students to the board and then, as far as I could tell, yelled at them in Arabic while they did really hard math.  It looked like a lot of fun.  Arabic is a really cool language, I just want to say.  It's written from right to left, so that means that as the students move from one class to another they alternate from writing right to left, to left to right.  I'm convinced that has to be good for your brain.
    The English class was amazing.  They never actually got to the lesson, which was infinitives vs, gerunds -- just as well, I was terrified of being called upon to explain the difference.  Instead they started with a discussion of drugs (bad).  Then they said that someone who uses drugs wouldn't go to heaven.  Then they wondered about people who aren't Muslims: do they not go to heaven if they use drugs?  Do they go to heaven even if they don't use drugs?  This lead to a discussion of sin, and whether only Muslims have sins or whether there are universal sins.  This road carried us to sex (of course, drugs and sex, the ubiquitous adolescent topics).  A discussion of adultery versus prostitution ensued (which is worse? and what about male prostitution?), and finally, is it okay to take pleasure from sex? 
    I kept waiting for class to break down into snickers and giggles, but amazingly they just kept going.  The teacher, my host, Mohammed, occasionally asked for clarification, but mostly he just facilitated.  I guess what most amazed me -- in addition to the fact that this conversation was going on in English, their 3rd language -- was their open-mindedness and maturity.   Their perspective was: these things are forbidden for Muslims, but are they inherently bad?
    Anyhow, it was a pretty humbling day.  I would have had a hard time competing in any of these classes.  They don't have a lot of technology here, but they definitely have the discipline and the brains.  Here's a link to a very brief VIDEO clip.  Unfortunately I was so entranced by the English discussion I failed to record it.  You just get French and math.

   Saturday we traveled 300 km inland to Marrakesh, Morocco's most "intoxicating" city.  Along the way the scenery changes from the fertile coastal lands to increasingly arid and rocky soil.  Marrakesh is just east of the Atlas mountains, and on the other side is the Sahara. 
  

     For over a thousand years Marrakesh has been a crossroads for trading, with caravans arriving from Timbuktu and other exotic places.  It was purposely built with narrow twisting streets and blind alleys to discourage would be invaders.  When we arrived my host, Mohammed, pointed to a large mosque and said, "We meet here at night fall if you get lost.  Good luck."

    In addition to the winding alleys there is a constant cacophony of hawkers, music, horns, and motorbikes zooming through the streets.  As soon as you stop moving purposefully, merchants, beggars and "official guides" zero in on you like the helpless prey that you are.  It's pretty impossible to maintain your orientation for long under the circumstances.  I lasted for about 3 minutes.

    Once you abandon yourself to your fate it gets easier.  You can stop trying to remember where (or who) you are and just take in the sights.  There are snake charmers, acrobats, belly dancers, healers, vendors of every imaginable food, service, or item (eg. sheep's heads, tooth pulling, and supppposedly magic lamps).

    Finally, guided by the call to evening prayers. I made my way to the D'Jamaa el Fna, which is the central square.  On the periphery was a cafe where I took a seat and nursed a bottle of water for three hours. Amazingly I managed to spot my host, who looked no less dazed than I.  More and more people entered the square as dusk fell.  The whole place took on a carnival like air.  I'm not sure I'd want to do it every day, but it was definitely a day I'll remember.

    Here's a video I made once I reached the relative calm of the square.  It starts with the call to prayer.    Click here! --->  MARRAKESH.  (If you're fast you'll see the sheep's heads being served, and the clip of the hennayat is for my French classmates.)

    It's too late to write tonight.  We traveled to Marrakesh today, which is home to a thousand year old market place.  Amazing, but exhausting.  Description to follow in the near future when my brain resumes normal functioning.
    Meanwhile I wanted to share the images below.  There is a stunning amount of intricate symmetrical detail in Moroccan art.  Actually, it's not just "Art".  You see it in public fountains, doors, plates, floors, etc. 
    To confirm your worst suspicions: yes, I look at these things and think, "rotational symmetry group," or, "constructable polygon."  But sometimes I just look.

    So part of the point of this journey is for me to interact with my Moroccan teacher counterparts.  I have been hosted by Mohammed, a teacher in Casablanca, and  today we visited his school and observed some classes.
    In some ways the Moroccan education system is similar to that of the U.S., but there are also some striking differences.  Students here attend classes 6 days of the week.  School goes from 8:00 to noon, then has a two hour break for lunch, and afterwards reconvenes from 2:00 to 6:00.  The system here is based on the European model; there are national exams in every subject at the end of each year, culminating in baccalaureate exams, which determine whether a student will get into a university.
    Classes are about the same size as IHS, but the school has far fewer resources.  There are no honors classes, however students are separated according to subject emphasis.  So some students are in the science track, some are in the humanities track, etc.  Once you are in a designated track your classes are pretty much prescribed and you travel with the same peers all day.  Everyone takes classes in Arabic (the language of instruction), English and French, as well as Islamic studies, sciences, "maths" as it called social studies and technology.  As you might expect, students are unfailingly polite.  Everyone is well dressed and attentive.  Students sit in pairs and it is common for them to greet each other upon entering the classroom by kissing both cheeks, ie. boys kiss boys, and girls kiss girls.  Picture that in IHS.
    One of Morocco's greatest educational challenges is that many students (45%) drop out before they finish high school.  In contrast to "No Child Left Behind" America, Morocco has more of a Sink or Swim attitude.  Although I observed several excellent teachers today, I noticed that none of them called on students by name, but rather relied upon volunteers.  At no point did I see a student ask a question on their own initiative.  Students sit where they wish, so in the back of every classroom there is a collection of students who do little work, don't really understand what's going on, don't get called on, and are not encouraged to ask for help.  These are next year's drop outs. 
    At the front of the room are the best and brightest, and they are extremely bright.  Today I heard discussions on human rights, the role of the United Nations, and the pros and cons of global education.  In one particularly poignant exchange a girl discussed her desire to study medicine in France, but said it was important to her to be allowed to wear a headscarf.  (I have not seen any full burqas, but about half the girls do wear head scarves, known as hijabs.  These are now banned in France.)  She made a pretty strong case, citing right to education, freedom of movement, freedom of expression and religious freedom.
   
   

    Moroccans pride themselves on their rich cultural heritage.  The area that is now Morocco has long been a crossroads between Europe, sub-saharan Africa, and the Middle East.  The Amazigh are probably descended from Phoenicians around 1000 BC.  The Phoenicians were conquered by the Carthaginians, who were conquered by the Romans.  The Romans were here for about 3 centuries (146 BC to 253 AD - there are still Roman ruins here) until they were chased out by the Vandals.  The Vandals fell to the Byzantines, who in turn were overrun by the Arabs (bearing Islam) around 680 AD. 
    At this point the Amazigh embraced Islam and invaded Spain (around 711 AD) under Moussa Ibn Nusair.  There is still a lot of Arab (or Moorish) architectural evidence in Spain.  Around 1400 Spain got tired of being occupied by Arabs and chased them back into Morocco.  Many Jews moved from Spain to Morocco at this time since the Inquisition was in full swing and not so fun for Jews (or anyone, really).  There is still a large Jewish population in Morocco to this day.  In 1666 the sultanate was united by the Alaouite Dynasty who have since been the ruling house of Morocco.  They consolidated power and chased out the Spanish and Portuguese.
    I have only been here a week and have heard at least 20 times that Morocco was the FIRST country to recognize the fledgling United States in 1777.  In 1787 the U.S. ratified a formal treaty of Peace and Friendship with Morocco, which is still in effect and is our oldest, unbroken treaty relationship.  (There were older ones, but we broke them).  Basically the Sultan, Muhamed III, took pity on our puny country because our ships were getting trashed by the Barbary pirates.  He said we would be protected in his harbors.
    In 1912 France decided to "protect" Morocco, which is a nice way of saying "colonize."  We turned a blind eye and Muhamed V was sent packing to exile in Madagascar (another French colony at a convenient remove).  If you've seen the movie, "Casablanca," it takes place in early World War II when Morocco was governed by the Vichy French (the ultimate insult).   After almost 50 years, and a lot of agitation, the Moroccans regained their independence from France, and here we are today.  The current monarch is Mohamed VI, the grandson of the deposed monarch.
    Moroccans, despite the fact that we ditched them in their hour of need, love Americans.  There are not many Muslim countries that fall into this category.  In fact Moroccans seem to like just about everyone and have even forgiven the French.  I think that's what happens when your country is thousands of years old and has survived dozens of conquests.  Each receding wave of vanquished conquerors has simply added another layer of cultural complexity to the country.  It's like a game for them.
    As evidence, here's a picture whose components span a thousand years and several cultures:

    Okay, it has to be admitted, I've been eating incredibly well.  First of all, there are loads of fresh fruit: apricots, pineapples, mangoes, papaya, oranges, etc.  Also dates and figs.  Not to mention almonds, olives, and really good, fresh baked bread (French influence?).  Then, since we are on the coast, there is an abundance of fresh fish, as well as the traditional lamb and chicken.  Moroccan cooking uses many spices: cilantro, cumin, saffron, cinnamon, and a million others I can't identify.
    The traditional meal lasts for 2-3 hours.  It might begin with olives, bread and baba ghanouj.  Then a tray of side dishes.  Today's lunch (see photos) had hummus, something with tomatoes, cilantro and onions, a dish of octopus, potatoes, unidentified green stuff (very good), chick peas in sauce, and several other things.  A tossed salad dish follows.  Then a main course, perhaps tajine (which is a sort of stew) or couscous (which is not like anything we make with couscous in the U.S.).  Then there is dessert: a pastry or fruit salad.  Finally the ubiquitous mint tea which, custom dictates, must be poured from a pot held at an absurd height (see photo).
    You see why it takes hours.  I have not yet determined how one is supposed to eat all this, but I am making my efforts here, on your behalf.
PS. Tomorrow I leave Rabat for Casablanca where I will begin sitting in on classes.