This is a recount of my life in Rabat that I wrote before my last weekend. My next and last post will talk about my last few days in Morocco.
I’m writing from the train on the way to Marrakesh after a
lovely last few days in Rabat. I started this blog post late in the ride, since
I’ve been pressed up against the windows watching the villages and fields on
this now-familiar journey whip past. I know I’ll come back to Morocco at some
point, but I’m not sure when that will be. For now, I’m just trying to savor my
last few days in this beautiful place. The sun just set, and I stared at the horizon
from across the wide, flat expanse of dried fields that lie between the forests
of Rabat and the desert of Marrakesh. I’m always amazed at how big the sky is
here. The terrain is so flat that I feel like I’m watching the sunset over the
edge of the ocean.
Reflecting on my summer, I’m really happy with my experience
at Morocco World News, all the adventures I had, and the bonds I made with my
host family and coworkers in Rabat. I’ve written about the adventures that I’ve
had around Morocco all summer, but my weekday routine and experience in Rabat
have been equally as valuable.
Over the past eight weeks at Morocco World News, I’ve
written 64 articles about topics ranging from the specific scientific details
of the Noor solar plant to the history of the global waste trade to girls’
education reform in the Kingdom. Every day, I walk the mile and a half from my
house to the Morocco World News office in the Hassan district of Rabat, which
is conveniently located next to an incredible bakery, supermarket, and the
beautiful Hassan II mausoleum and minaret.
 |
| My walk to school |
After arriving at work at ten, I read the news in English, Arabic, and
Spanish for an hour to update myself on world events and work on my language
skills. Then, I either select a relevant topic to report on myself or cover an
event that Adnane or Samir, my two bosses, assign me. Morocco World News tries
to fill in the English coverage gap of events in Morocco, so we often draw upon
stories published by Morocco’s many French and Arabic online papers. A lot of
the work I did this summer was finding stories and basic facts about Moroccan
politics from these sites, translating and paraphrasing relevant information
(and linking back to the original source), and following leads I got from those
websites to do additional research. I also always tried to do background
research to contextualize the event. At first, it was really hard to read
articles in Arabic and search in Arabic for relevant terms in Google to find
the text of laws and official statements. However, as the summer went on, I
became fairly comfortable conducting research in Arabic and very comfortable
researching in Spanish. I’ve also gotten
to write articles based on solely on my research, press releases, and interviews. Some of my favorite articles that I wrote
this summer include one about bias in American political reporting, one about Morocco’s entrance to the African Union (which received 4.8 thousand likes
on Facebook!), and a summary of an interview I was lucky enough to
conduct with Morocco’s Minister of Tourism. For a list of the articles I wrote
in the second half of the summer, see here.
 |
| Me interviewing the Minister of Tourism |
Every day, I also edit about four articles written by
Moroccans. Unfortunately, many of Morocco World News’s contributors do not have
a high level of English and are not trained writers. Many of these stories
require very heavy editing for veracity of facts, organization, overall depth
of content, and grammar. For simpler stories, I am often able to just fix a few
grammar mistakes, but for the vast majority of stories that I am assigned to, I
need to reorganize them and check the author’s sources to add additional
details. Through editing these articles and doing the research to correct and strengthen
them, I’ve learned so much about topics and events that would have never been
on my radar. It’s also been interesting to edit opinion pieces for the
newspaper, since they are often strongly anti-American and based on pure emotion,
not facts. It’s been difficult for me to phrase my edits correctly when asking
a writer to check their facts on an opinion piece and not just sound like I am
defending my home country. Editing these pieces has certainly made me more
aware of the dangers of using absolute words and not double-checking historical
facts when writing pieces. The editing process, although often frustrating, has
probably been the most engaging and challenging part of my time at Morocco
World News since it forced me to pay close attention to detail, word choice,
and tone. It also gave me a lot of practice reorganizing poorly-crafted stories
and opinion pieces.
 |
| The Minister of Tourism, my boss, and I (L to R) |
In addition to helping my writing skills, I also really
enjoyed helping many of Morocco World News’s younger female writers find their
voices in English throughout this process. Many of the older contributors, who are
often male academics, have had a hard time taking edits on their opinion and
news pieces from an American girl who just finished her freshman year of
college. It was frustrating to see my bosses publish stories that contained
sentences that were factually or grammatically incorrect, even after I had
returned piece to its author correcting those sections. However, probably
largely due to gender norms and a more positive age dynamic, two of MWN’s
younger writers and I had great exchanges over email when I edited their
articles. One is a high school girl studying at the American School in
Marrakesh, and she always accepted my edits and discussed her work with me.
When I noticed that she kept ending her articles with a subjective, sensational
conclusion that tried to place the story in the context of global events, I
told her to make her endings less sensational. Sure enough, all of her stories
the next week ended perfectly. Her topic sentences and titles improved, and she
made fewer grammatical errors. Helping this girl improve her English and find
her voice for Morocco World News, if nothing else, made this summer worth it.
I knew going into the summer that despite its relatively high
readership, Morocco World News is not the most professional of organizations.
Many of the articles they publish are not high-quality writing or reporting,
and a lot of the content is very sensationalized. My bosses have poured all
their financial and mental resources into the paper over the five years since
it was founded, which I really respect. However, sometimes, since they are
overworked and honestly need the ad revenue click-bait titles generate, they
publish pieces that simply are not factually correct, have poor grammar and
organization, and are very sensationalized or non-substantive.
Additionally, the dynamic between the bosses and the interns
can be slightly frustrating. The two bosses, although I think that they do
genuinely try to respect us and teach us good journalistic practices, are
sometimes slightly incompetent and a little bit misogynistic. For example, one
time after I edited an academic’s article who had written a summary of Iraq’s
history that was just blatantly factually incorrect, one of them began telling
me about “what really happens” in Iraq. He told me all these things that I’m
pretty sure weren’t true, but I wasn’t going to argue until he told me that the
United States had created ISIS because Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been in jail in
Guantanamo and the United States had released him. I’d be perfectly happy to
listen to a sound, factually-based analysis of why America created ISIS, but
al-Baghdadi was just never in Guantanamo. Although I had listened to my boss’s
whole talk without intervening, I asked him if he was sure about the Guantanamo
incident and he became very offended that I – maybe since I am a young,
American girl – was questioning his knowledge about this subject. Little
interactions like that, where the Moroccan men in charge at MWN have tried to
ram opinions that are not backed up by factual evidence down my throat and
won’t listen to any dissenting opinion I might have, bother me. My fears about
the two of them were confirmed after I reached out to a journalist on Twitter
for a quote, who told me that she refused to interact with MWN because of the
editor-in-chief’s misogyny. You can read and judge what happened for yourself here. The other young man who was in charge of the interns did not have a good command
of English and generally was not competent either – he could never figure out
how to do research on his own, would ask me to edit his articles for him, and
then would disregard edits that I gave him and publish them with factual and
grammatical errors.
The most frustrated I became with my bosses this summer was
when Michelle Obama came to Morocco. There was an interview with Michelle Obama
and Meryl Streep that press were welcome at so long as they were credentialed.
I asked my boss to get me a credential, providing him with the precise steps to
get the credential from the U.S. Embassy, and he promised me that he would
email his contact at the embassy to get me one so I could meet the First Lady
and cover the event. I could have reached out to the embassy myself to get the
credentials, but I assumed that he, as the boss, would be the proper person to
do so. He told me he had emailed his friend, and then didn’t tell me anything
for a couple weeks. I assumed that the credentials were being processed, since
I had given him all the instructions. A few days before the event, I asked him
if my credentials had arrived, and he was shifty when he answered. I called the
embassy, and it turned out that he had actually never requested the
credentials. I would have loved the chance to see my First Lady speak about
girls’ education, a topic that I am passionate about, and I could have made
that happen if I had emailed the embassy myself. My boss’s flakiness and
dishonesty about the situation stopped me from doing so; that was incredibly
frustrating, because that was probably a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Despite all these problems, I do believe that my bosses are
genuinely good people trying to do their part to make the world a little
better. I had a good relationship with both of them and feel that I got
everything I wanted out of my time working there. I came into the summer hoping
to work on my English skills, Arabic and Spanish reading and translation
ability, and get some hands-on experience in a newsroom. In a more professional
paper, I might have just been getting coffee for writers. Here, despite Morocco
World News’s many problems, I got a great deal of writing and translation
experience, have compiled a great portfolio for a freshman in college, and
reaffirmed my interest in internationally-focused journalism. Additionally, the
low-pressure, often-unprofessional environment meant I could wear whatever I
wanted to work and “write from home” (i.e. travel) every Friday, allowing me to
explore Morocco far more than I would have been able to if I had been at work
five days a week.
Additionally, I liked my fellow interns. All the people
working at Morocco World News when I started have cycled out, but many new
faces have entered the office over the past two months. One of the girls I
started working with, Myriam, is a really cool Moroccan girl who speaks
impeccable English and is interested in improving gender relations in Morocco.
I feel like there’s no cultural barrier between us, probably because she went
to an American-style high school and university and studied in Canada for two
years. It was really great having a Moroccan friend that I felt totally
comfortable around, and hearing her perspective, as a very liberal and fairly
Westernized girl who takes pride in her Berber and Moroccan identity, has been
very interesting. Outside of serious conversations, she’s also just really fun.
Some of my favorite memories this summer were riding to Marrakesh in her car
with her, jamming out to bad pop music from our childhoods with the windows
down, talking about our universities and boys and work.
I was also pleasantly surprised by another intern who just
arrived this week. A boy walked into the office on Monday, and we instantly both
did a double-take. “Bryn?” he asked. I realized he was a guy who had worked at
the same non-profit as my friend Seth last year when I was in Marrakesh. I had
seen him many times last year, and it was awesome to have another American with
a similar personality, level of Arabic, and Moroccan cultural competency
working at the office.
Shockingly, none of the other current interns speak any
level besides extremely basic (if that) of Modern Standard Arabic, and none of
them know any darija (dialectal
Arabic). Additionally, none of them have been to Morocco before. I’m often
frustrated by their incompetency that comes with their lack of language
proficiency. Although I can sympathize with not speaking the language in a
foreign country, it’s weird to me that some of these people came to Morocco
attempting to do a journalism internship and don’t make any effort to learn the
language. Additionally, some of the other foreign interns just say things that
demonstrate a basic lack of understanding – and worse, lack of desire to
understand – Morocco. I’m used to being here with a group of high-quality
students selected because of their motivation to understand Moroccan culture,
explore, and learn the language. It’s been very odd and sometimes disheartening
to be with other foreigners who just don’t respect the culture here, and who
don’t always seem to think about the implications of making sweeping
generalizations, whether that be about Morocco or America. A couple of times,
I’ve just left the workroom under the guise of making some coffee because the
conversations occurring were just so shockingly off-base and I didn’t think I
could sit there without calling someone out.
With that begin said, it has been really cool to have some
conversations with the other foreign interns, Moroccan interns, and my bosses
about current events in the world today and our own takes on them as people of
many races, nationalities, backgrounds, sexualities, and ages.
Outside of the workroom, I’ve been similarly disheartened by
many foreign tourists that I’ve met here. To give just two examples, one time
when I was in Djemma al-Fna sitting on a long bench lined with old beggar men,
a French tourist carrying a big camera came up beside me and started snapping
pictures of the old men sitting there. She was treating them the same way a
photographer would treat an inanimate subject in a zoo, not bothering to ask
their permission or thinking about the fact that her trying to capture poor
people for her family travel album was hugely insensitive. As the men sitting
there glared at her, two white people walked into her shot. She waited for them
to move, laughingly telling them, “Yeah, you know, you don’t quite fit the
picture.” Her complete lack of awareness of what was culturally and humanely
appropriate here, as well as her inability to gauge the situation and realize
that all these men were really uncomfortable, captured everything I don’t like
about tourists’ attitudes here. The second incident occurred on the train on
the way to Marrakesh. Two young backpackers, who clearly were culturally
competent and well-traveled, were sitting next to me on the train. The woman
was sitting next to an elderly Moroccan man who looked very respectable. She
must have known that this was inappropriate – there’s no way she could not have
--, but she took out a grinder, a bag of weed, and papers and started rolling a
joint on the table right in front of this old man. I was watching this happen
out of the corner of my eye, and the old man looked visibly uncomfortable.
These were two people who had told me that their goal was to travel the world
and learn about other cultures and meet locals. Why would you roll a joint in
front of an old Moroccan man on a public train if that was the case?!?
Interactions like this have been beyond frustrating for me
(although I am, admittedly, sometimes a little too uptight about being cultural
offensive), to watch. Partially because of this, I’ve found it hard to connect
with many other foreigners in Morocco. I don’t know why – maybe its because of
the large gender imbalance that makes the pool of boys to be friends with very
small, maybe it’s the personality types attracted to study here, or maybe it’s
just the stress of living in a country so different from my own. Whatever the
case, I just haven’t made many real friends. Especially because of that, I was
really lucky this summer to meet Myriam and a couple other Moroccans that I did
click with, as well as reconnect with some old friends from Marrakesh.
 |
| Me with Hiba (middle) and her friend at our ftour in Kenitra |
My friend Hiba, who I got to hang out with earlier this
summer in Marrakesh, was in Kenitra, a town 30 minutes north of Rabat, one week
earlier this summer. She invited me to come make ftour with her and her friends there after work one night, and it
was awesome being in her friend’s apartment to cook an amazing Ramadan
breakfast together, hearing about their lives, and exploring Kenitra. I’m
hoping to say goodbye to her in Marrakesh this weekend.
My night going to Kenitra was an exception in my normal
post-work routine. During Ramadan, I generally walked home, ignoring the
rumbling in my stomach, and went for a short run to clear my system before
sitting down and enjoying an amazing breakfast meal with the Cherkaouis. I
fasted the majority of days that I spent with them and some of my days with the
Ibarkis, totaling 15 days observing Ramadan. It was a great experience,
although I’m very happy it’s over. My favorite ftour in Rabat, after my meal with Hiba and her friends, was the night
that Chaimae invited her friends from work over. We piled heaps of fried savory
pastries, cakes, and assorted slow-cooked meats on the table, spending almost
three hours sitting and eating and talking.
 |
| First Ramadan breakfast at the Cherkaouis |
After Ramadan finished, my schedule in the evenings was far
more relaxed, since I didn’t have to be ready to eat at sunset. The clocks also
switched an hour, giving me extra time at night before the sun went down. I
generally stayed late at work, finishing up some stories and edits, and walked
home at around 6:30. I’d try to take different routes home to explore Rabat,
sometimes walking through the windy streets of the medina. Although the old
city here is far smaller than Marrakesh’s, the markets are vibrant and
colorful.
 |
| View from my roof |
My exploration on the way home was usually one of the highlights
of my day, with one exception. One day a couple weeks ago, I was walking
through the medina when I heard an
explosion in the street in front of me. Fire spilled out of the alleyway, and a
policeman ran from around the corner. Everyone started screaming and running,
grabbing their children by the hand. It’s really only a matter of time before
Morocco gets hit by an attack, and we all thought this was it. I started
running in the opposite direction, having flashbacks in my head to a similar
day three years ago in Boston when my friends and I speed-walked away from the
marathon finish line. People were shouting behind me, and everyone started to
slow. I realized they were yelling “Bota,
bota,” the Arabic word for gas. It had just been a small gas explosion, and
no one was hurt. However, I was weak in the knees and shaky. It was a small and
unfortunate reminder of how susceptible Morocco really is to this kind of
attack, and in that moment, I was terrified.
However, on that day, like every day, I made it home safe.
Rabat is a very comfortable and secure city, and I feel far safer here walking
at night and walking on the streets than I do in Marrakesh. Although there’s a
group of boys on the corner near my work that always yell at me and the boys at
the beach are awful, I rarely feel uncomfortable here. Once I got home, I’d either go for a run by
the ocean or work out on the roof of my house, breathing in the ocean air and
taking in the glimmering coast in the sunset.
 |
| My running route in Rabat |
 |
| The Rabat beach |
After my last lesson yesterday, Nabil invited us to go to
his house with him. He lives deep in the winding street of the Oudaya, the
ancient fortress of Rabat built into the cliff side. The Oudaya is a maze of
windy streets too narrow for cars, in which much of Morocco’s traditional
neighborhood culture is preserved. The buildings are all white-washed with a
blue trim on the bottom reminiscent of Greece.
Nabil’s family was amazing. His mom and sisters were loud
and friendly, cracking jokes and plying food on us, and his little brother,
Nabil’s spitting image, followed him around adoringly. His mom told us that we
were the first customers Nabil had ever invited home, so I felt very lucky.
After we chatted with his family, Nabil took us to the terrace overlooking
Rabat. The spot closes to the public before sundown, but Nabil knows the guard,
so he let us in. We were the only three on a terrace that is normally packed
with tourists and locals. The ocean stretched out before us, the lights of my
neighborhood appearing to the left and the minarets of the town across the
river rising silhouetted in the dusk. Behind the Oudaya, I could see the
brightly-lit monuments of Rabat – the ornate Hassan II mausoleum and the
unfinished minaret of the the mosque – rising above the river valley. Standing
there with Alex and Nabil, I realized how much I’m going to miss this city.
In addition to the beach and the lovely views, I’m really
going to miss my host family here. When I first arrived in Rabat, I didn’t now
what to expect from them, and I was probably always unfairly comparing them to
the Ibarkis subconsciously. The Cherkaouis aren’t the Ibarkis, but they’re
different in an interesting and wonderful way. During Ramadan, both my host parents
worked long hours and were always tired. The combination of Ramadan ending and
them getting used to me being in the house made both of them warm up to me
quite a bit. Although I don’t think I really got close with either of them, we
had some good evenings together. After dinner, my host dad and Latifa and Rehab,
the two younger girls, would play dominoes or cards. My host dad is very
religious and conservative about gender relations, but by the time that I left
he was no longer stiff around me. He called me “binti” (my daughter -- a pretty common term for parents to use
with their daughters’ friends), and greeted and said goodbye to me not with a
handshake, but with the two kisses conservative men use only with female family
members or other women they’re close to.
He has an interesting personality. He and his two brothers
married my host mom and her two sisters – and they are all first cousins. In
the house, shoulders and knees must be covered at all times, and when his
brothers are at home my host mom will wear the veil. During Ramadan, I initially
misjudged him. I saw the little girls in his family wearing the veil and how he
ordered around the women in his family, and was initially very thrown off. However,
after Ramadan, I began to notice all the little things he did to help out his
wife. One day, I came home to see him doing the dishes in the kitchen. My
initial impression of his was far too harsh, and I’m glad I got to spend a
little more time with him in August.
I spent every evening with the Cherkaouis, having ftour with them in Ramadan and eating
dinner and hanging out at home or walking around with Chaimae after the holy
month ended. A few nights, we changed up the routine by going to the seaside or
to an event. Once in June, we went to Lellat al-Rouad (The Night of the Pioneers), a concert in the royal
theater featuring traditional musicians from across Morocco.
 |
| An Andalusian music performance at Lellat al-Rouad |
The language barrier between the Cherkaouis and I, coupled
with the fact that I spent every weekend in Marrakesh with the Ibarkis,
definitely made it harder for me to get close to them. However, I spent a great
two months with them and will always remember my time with their family fondly.
Last night was my last night in Rabat. After I got back from
Nabil’s house, Chaimae and I walked the streets chatting and enjoying the cool
night air. I didn’t realize until now how close we had become in the last few
weeks -- I feel so comfortable around her now, and conversation is effortless,
even with the communication barrier. She has been such a good “big sister”
throughout this experience, always helping me out, making sure I cross the
(crazy!) Moroccan streets carefully, and chatting with me in the evenings.
Chaimae and I spent a lot of time just hanging out in her home doing different
things, but hanging out in the same room listening to the same music as we did
our separate activities. Somewhere along the line, all those minutes spent
together produced a great relationship. I went into this summer assuming that
Chaimae and I wouldn’t get very close, since the language barrier is huge and
mostly just because she isn’t Zineb or Oumaima, and I am so happy I was wrong.
I’m going to miss her a lot.
 |
| Chaimae and I |
We stopped at the Cherkaoui’s favorite restaurant, which
serves delicious Syrian food, and I got us all chawarma and hummus and falafel as a thank-you meal. I also found a
cake with macaroons (Chaimae’s favorite sweet) on it and had the bakery write
“Thank you, Cherkaoui Family” on it in chocolate drizzle. We ate dinner
together one last time around the table in the living room, savoring the
chawarma. It was a great night full of laughter and delicious food. At the end,
when I served them the cake with candles in it, I almost cried. I actually did
cry right after, though, when my two little host sisters handed me three
packages. Inside one, there was a blue leather wallet. The other held a beautiful
red Moroccan formal dress, and the last contained the nicest present of all: a
pair of handmade leather sandals that my host dad, who worked in a leather
shop, had made for me. It was so touching that they decided to give me gifts.
It took me a little while to feel totally comfortable in their house, and I
always worried that my host parents didn’t really want to be hosting. However,
their kindness and generosity last night really made me realize and fully
appreciate how great they’ve been to me over this entire summer.
 |
| The last night with the Cherkaouis |
I said goodbye to all of them this morning. My last day with
them really crept up on me – I am going to miss them and the quiet, easy rhythm
of their household a lot.
 |
| Saying goodbye to Rihab and Latifa |
Now, I’m headed to Marrakesh for my last four nights in
Morocco. I’m sitting next to a man from Saudi Arabia who told me that he didn’t
like my ripped jeans, but showed me tons of pictures of his hometown and baby
girl. He also gave me Wifi in exchange for some Marrakesh travel tips (update:
He turned out to not be very nice and tried to touch my hair and bothered me. I
moved seats. I will definitely not miss this about being in Morocco). Tomorrow,
I’m going to a non-profit neuro-rehab facility near my house to interview the
doctor who founded it. I’m really excited about this story, and think it will
be a great last article for me to write. After that, I’m going to enjoy one
last couscous Friday and one last wonderful weekend with the Ibarkis before I
return to America on Tuesday.
No comments:
Post a Comment