Algeria

Right now I’m sitting in Dulles Airport in Washington DC, having just gotten through treacherous US customs only to find out my suitcase is chillin in Paris. I don’t care though, happy to be back in America after my 2 month long study abroad in Morocco and 2 week long visit to Algeria. My last blog post came towards the end of my study abroad in Maghreb and I intend to do some final thoughts on that experience but for now Algeria is fresh on the mind.

--- over 2 months later

Haha I suck. I remember beginning to write this post in the airport and being really excited to come home and see my friends and family. I had full intention on completing this post and continuing my blog but I decided to eat wendy’s and take a nap instead. That plane ended up being delayed 4 hours and I arrived in Austin at 1 in the morning, the most tired man in the world. My bag actually took a trip to Abu Dhabi and didn’t come home until a good week later. I hope it had fun.

Well now I’ve been back for a while, and I’ve had plenty of time to settle back into my comfortable malaise here in my beloved hometown. But I wanted to write about Algeria, what I saw, who I talked to, where I went, the emotions I felt.  So I’ll try my hardest to remember all those things… hopefully time hasn’t fabricated them too much.

After spending 2 months away from my comfort zone it was admittedly very hard for me to just go a couple hundred miles East instead of a couple thousand West, especially when most of the kids on the program were getting to go back home. I was ashamed that I wasn’t more excited to go and see my family whom I’ve only seen a handful of times. So the plane ride from Paris to Algiers was a little strange, wavering back and forth between anxiousness and calm sadness. To add to that, when we were taking off there was a young Algerian man who was talking on his phone and when the (some kind of Slavic) flight attendant told him to turn it off he started yelling at her in mixed Arabic and French, neither of which she spoke. Since I was sitting across the aisle from him and I was the only one around who spoke English and Arabic I played translator. The conversation went something like this:

Flight Attendant: “You need to turn off your phone”

Algerian Man: continues talking on phone

FA (this time with me translating): “Hey you need to turn off your phone, it’s dangerous”

AM: “What do you mean dangerous?”

FA: “For reception between the pilot and the ground”

AM: Continues talking on the phone

FA: “Sir, please turn off your phone, it’s dangerous”

AM: “Fuck you. Go away and leave me alone”

Me: “Bro turn off your phone”

AM to me: “Okay, fuck, it’s off. What kind of flight attendant gets on Air Algerie and doesn’t know French or Arabic?”

Great. Not even in Algeria yet and I’m already dealing with this angry unreasonable bullshit.  For the rest of the time he kept making fake small talk with her and then when she left he would make some face at me, which I interpreted as “haha, what a bitch”. Dude was a sack. Anyway I just wanted to relay that story because I thought it was an interesting way to start the trip, especially because of the weird mindset I was in. I’ll get to the trip now… sorry.

I spent about half of my time in Algiers, the capital, and the other half in Biskra where most of my family is. I had very different experiences in both places. The capital is very similar to Paris in architecture. It’s on the Mediterranean and it’s gorgeous. We took a trip to the heights where you can see the whole city beneath you, gleaming white in the sun and fading into the sea. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. But when you look at your feet and along the ground down the mountain everything is covered in garbage.

Algiers from the top

***

Biskra is a little different. It’s on the edge of the Sahara, which is moving North every year, slowly swallowing the city. It has the highest crime rate in the country and the electricity cuts out every couple of minutes. A short drive away from the city is the small town of Sidi Okba, where my father was born. The biggest and most revered Mosque in the region is there, housing the body of Uqba bin Nafi, who led the Umayyad conquest of North Africa. The town is ancient and you can see people walking along the dust roads heading towards the Mosque at any given time during the day. It was Ramadan, so everybody had this daze about them, and everything was hazy from the heat and the hunger. 

Another short drive away is the even smaller farming town of El Horaya, populated by just a couple hundred of people. This is where my grandmother lives and where a lot of my cousins grew up. As we drive in I see a well and my mind is flooded with these little 2-second memories of splashing around in the water with my sister and cousins. I was 4 years old the last time I was here. We arrive to my grandmother’s house; behind the gate my Aunt emerges and greets us. We walk into the courtyard and the memories bombard me again. I can almost see ghostly outlines of myself running around this courtyard and climbing the date trees. When I walk into the house the furniture and bookcases to my right look so familiar and after what seems like a long walk we get to the room where my grandmother is resting. I approach her and get on my knees to get level with her face. She can’t see me. I tell her in Arabic

“Umma, it’s Tarek. I came from America to see you. I learned Arabic so I can talk to you.”

I know it’s hard for her to remember. She puts her hand out and touches my face and brings me in to kiss me tell me how much she’s missed me. I feel like my heart is going to burst and tears are streaming down my face. It’s a mixture of extreme elation and sorrow.

I spent the next couple of days visiting family and friends. Spent the whole time hanging out with my wonderful cousin Nadjib the whole time, who speaks English and is one of the most beautiful people in the world. I visited my Uncle’s farm where he grows figs, pears, grapes, and pomegranates. I saw a plot of land in Sidi Okba that belongs to my dad, where one day we’ll hopefully build something. I read a letter that my dad wrote to my uncle the day my sister was born written in beautiful formal Arabic. I talked in my Syrian-Egyptian-American accent to my relatives who couldn’t help but feel a little humored by it, but all the same proud that I’d attempted to learn the language. It was amazing. The wonder wore off, as I got more and more ready to go home and see my mom and sister and all my friends.

 My dad picking dates in the courtyard

My last couple of days in the country I spent in Algiers. Took a couple of drives along the coast to some beautiful beach towns. One was called Dellys. This city is literally half on the beach and half in the clouds in the mountains behind. We ate fresh fish and went to the boardwalk at night to drink coffee at our family friends’ restaurant. I watched the police officers stand along the boardwalk at about 10 yard intervals, rifles in hand. Then on the 18^th of August I said goodbye to Algeria and came home.

Perhaps I haven’t developed this thought very much, but there are plenty of things in Algeria that were off-putting. The angry man on the plane, the trash along the mountain atop the most beautiful view in the world, the crime in Biskra, the poverty, the high concentration of security police. It’s easy to forget about all these things when you’re standing in the clouds looking at a shining white city. But they’re there, down below. Throughout the summer I couldn’t help but feeling that the Arab Spring had failed to reach Morocco. I learned at the end of the summer that it didn’t get to Algiers either. The people in Morocco and Algeria are similarly quiet about it, almost apathetic.

But what I did find in Algeria was family and tradition and home. People who loved me just because I was there.  Inside the heat and the sand there was an energy pulsating. I’m not sure how, but I think when that energy is somehow awakened Algeria will also face their issues and revolt in the spirit of their neighbors. And the next time I return I hope I’ll get to see it. But it’s good to be home right now.

P.S. As I was writing this, I wasn’t concerned with structure. It’s just what came to my head. Sorry it’s all over the place, but I kind of prefer it that way.

Ramadan Mubarak and dat Muslim Guilt

Hello angry-lings. My sister gave me a good idea for my next post, as over the last couple of days Ramadan began. Kul sena wa antum b'kheer y'all. I say the "last couple of days" because different countries/sects/even individual families start the month according to one of two different philosophies. Because the moon cycle is different across the globe, according to where it's positioned in relation to the sun (bear with me while I get my science on), some people believe that you should begin the month according to the new moon in your specific area. On the other hand, there's a large group of Muslims that follow the status of the moon in Mecca. Seemingly, Morocco follows the former philosophy. However I know my family back home follows the latter. I personally don't think one single shit should be given which method you subscribe to and that it is yet another thing that only divides people. I've witnessed pretty inflammatory debates revolving around this extremely...EXTREMELY marginal issue. So my advice, get over it and try to think about what this month is supposed to be about.

AnYWaY the month kicked off yesterday for the maghreb and as I was walking to take a final exam (on the first day of fasting, I know) I noted a change in the city. Everything was quieter, the people on the streets were calm, I even felt like people were talking to each other in a softer tone. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ANGER?!!? No just kidding, calm down. This subtle transformation made me think about the changes that Ramadan brought about to my house growing up, namely the sudden need to circumvent. Those who have fasted before will agree with me that just by the sheer practice of fasting you get 10 times hungrier than you normally would. On a normal, non-Ramadan, day I probably don't really eat until noon or 1 in the afternoon and I'm all good. However during Ramadan for some reason I'm fuckin BUGGIN OUT by 11 AM, and when you're an 11 year old kid that psychological conflict is amplified. Therefore, growing up all Ramadan meant to me was sneaking into the kitchen and swallowing a couple cookies whole or pretending to use the bathroom while I hold my face under the faucet for 20 seconds. I like to call it "Ramadan for a kid that was never quite convinced". If you read this Pops, I'm sorry that I lied, but sometimes you just gotta eat a bag of doritos to survive the day.

The funny thing is that this made me SO guilty. I honestly really wanted to fast. So bad that I'd tell my teachers in middle school that I'm fasting and that I wanted to stay in a classroom during lunch so I wouldn't be tempted. That usually lasted about a day, 2 max. I remember one time on the first or second day of Ramadan I was in a classroom attempting to do some homework while all of my peers were feasting on assorted terribly unhealthy but delicious deerpark middle school cafeteria food, and I saw a mostly eaten bag of Lays potato chips. I'm not sure why it was left there, unfinished and not in a garbage can, but I must have stared at it for 10 minutes before I creeped over there and ate the remaining 4 chips. I ruined a whole day of solidarity with a billion people over 4 potato chips. And those chips ate at me much more than I ate at them.

I still ask myself why I got that Muslim guilt. Is it Allah and the angels on my shoulders pounding that feeling into me? Nah, never been a fan of that explanation. I'd like to think it's a combination of two things. On the one hand, I've always liked the idea of this month. It's a very spiritual time where a large group of people undertake a simple burden and get to feel, to a certain degree, a taste of what it would be like to be less fortunate. Of course, there are many people who not only engorge themselves once the sun sets but they also become nocturnal. Sleeping during the day and staying up all night so they feel little to no discomfort. This is not only terrible for your health, but missing the point all together and is JUST as bad as me sneaking into the kitchen and eating during the day (imo). On the other hand, the guilt comes from wanting to stand in solidarity with other people that are like me, and especially my father cause I got some mad love for my dad.

So yes, I actually did fast yesterday and it's 9:00 AM today and I'm going pretty strong I guess. As a sort of catharsis I'm going to try and fast until I get back to the states in two weeks. Maybe that'll take away some of that guilt that still lingers from my gluttonous childhood. Or maybe after two days I'll revert back  to that 11 year old boy who's just GOTTA get his dorito on.

If you're reading this I probably miss you a lot, and I'll see you soon.


P.S. Since we never take couple-y pictures I thought this one was reason to celebrate. Because that's the measure of a good relationship right? Couple-y pictures? Right.

This was in Chefchaouen, definitely the most beautiful place I saw in Morocco.

الرجال والنساء

What up scrubs. So I started this post 2 weeks ago and then forgot about it. But yeah, here it is.

Here's a short interjection before I begin - I really like to point out the bad aspects of a culture because it's a lot easier and more interesting to be a critic than just talk about how pretty the mountains are. There's some really shitty things about male/female interactions in the US and western world at large, and I don't want to sound like some kind of socio-centrist but I'm in a different culture right now and that's what I'm commenting on. So bear with me while I attempt to tear apart Arab society, keeping in mind that I'm an Arab myself and proud of it.

One of the things that interests me the most about the the Arab world is women. But even more than that, men. Arab men. And women. But mostly men. Shit.

All that aside, I was really excited to come to Morocco to see how women and men interact with each other here and to ask one sex about the other and vice versa. It's also been a really interesting experience to be in a relationship over here and see people's reaction to that, which overall haven't been out of the ordinary, barring one or two honks from angry old men who apparently don't like seeing a man and a woman holding hands. Especially FRENCH TOURISTS (what we appear to be to everyone). Anyway, since this was one of the subjects I wanted to explore the most I feel like I can dedicate a post or two about it. And because a lot of the things I really really really want to talk about I'm going to have to save for when I get home.

I think my earliest memories of probing at gender relations here was in the classroom. Me and some of my colleagues (yeah, not peers, colleagues) made a pretty big point of asking our female Moroccan teachers about the status of women in Moroccan society, and why the public sphere seems to be monopolized by men sitting silently in coffee shops. Almost as if "how to answer this question" was the focal point of their pre-program orientation they would all answer the same exact way:

"It's because the Moroccan woman is always working. Most of us have careers to pursue during the day and directly after our work day we have to go home and clean the house and feed the family. There's no time for coffee."

This answer would usually be surrounded by talk about how the Maghribi woman (Moroccan/Algerian/Tunisian) has much more opportunity and independence than most of the Arab world, which I think has some validity to it. From what I've seen Moroccan women are very mobile and have an amazing work ethic, whereas Moroccan men (broadly speaking as there are of course many exceptions) are very...immobile. Literally every third building here has a coffee shop on the bottom floor that is filled with men staring and smoking. Then they go home and eat something, and come back to the cafe and stare/smoke some more. I'm not going to comment on this right now, because it's a whole different subject but here is a really fantastic article that will give you some insight into the completely emasculated Maghrebi male:

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=QwQ8fJwqgNoC&oi=fnd&pg=PA109&dq=maghrebi+youth+between+alienation+and+integration&ots=0lwIHL6it5&sig=Lbo8R-fU9bezTRyz8Gc1qJzOYrk#v=onepage&q=maghrebi%20youth%20between%20alienation%20and%20integration&f=false

I should however mention that I've met a lot of people here who work 14 hour days. It's interesting how there doesn't seem to be much of a middle ground.

Yeah I'm trailing off, here's another experience I had towards the first half of the program. Me and my friend, who is a female, were walking to the store to buy some assorted cookies/sub-par potato chips and 2 guys that were leaning real hard on the side of a house decided it would be real cool to look right at me and say something along the lines of "VERY BEAUTIFUL WOMAN, EH?", talking about the girl I was walking with. If I remember correctly I told him "congratulations bro" in Arabic and kept walking. On our way back we passed by them again and started asking us how we knew Arabic and instead of ignoring them and returning back to the hotel to feast on our leader chips we stayed and had a conversation with them. As I told them that cat calling women is a generally frowned upon in the US and that was the reason I had such a displeased reaction to it, they proceeded to argue that they were merely forwarding a compliment. Here's the exact words they said; "It's like if I said this is a very beautiful tree, or street!" Come on maaaaan. Way to compare a woman to a tree. At least it would be a cool tree I guess.

From that experience I found that the young men here actually think that they are doing women a service by being greasy assholes, so it's hard to blame them. I actually saw one of those guys multiple times after that encounter and hung out with him, including a very strange experience with his drugged out uncle. Also there's the idea that foreign women are especially willing to spread em, and the intense sexual repression that they are forced to endure definitely doesn't help. And it's not only with the men. One time, when I was hanging out and walking around with the guy who sexually harassed my friend (haha), somehow the subject of my girlfriend came up. He said "oh so that girl that you were with the other day is your girlfriend, right?" And when I explained that she wasn't he could not comprehend how I could walk with another girl without my girlfriend going absolutely iNsAnE with jealousy. He said any Moroccan girl would NOT be okay with that. Sounds like a lack of emotional maturity and a whole lot of insecurity to me? Those are emotions that shouldn't plague a 25 year old college educated woman or man to that degree.

And other day my friend was telling me a story from his home-stay in which he tried to help his host mom clean up after dinner and his host dad forbade him saying "in Morocco, women do all the work in the house and the men relax because we bring home the (kosher) bacon" (extreme paraphrasing). And that's definitely not the first time I've heard a story about that... Unforgivable.

Earlier I talked a little bit about the coffee shop culture, and I want to close this post talking about the public sphere overall. Although I said you rarely see a Moroccan woman just chillin in a cafe or restaurant, walking around the city and the markets, woman are present and definitely a part of every day public interaction. But there's still a wall of separation between the sexes that manifests itself most noticeably through the hijaab (head scarf). Not every woman is covered, actually it might be as much as 50/50 from what I can see, but it's still a very widespread religious practice and a lot of women make the choice to cover themselves. Which is cool you know, I'm down with it if you make that personal decision...I just think it's unwise and you're disrespecting yourself and your sex if you do. In Arabic there's an expression that I've seen and heard many times in different contexts:

المرأة عورة

Don't try to google translate it because it'll probably come out "Woman is genitals" or something like that. But in so many words it basically means "The woman is a thing to be ashamed of and covered". At least that's how it was explained to me and I take it to mean, especially because of the contexts I've read it in. This saying isn't Quranically supported and is an archaic way of thinking that unfortunately holds a lot of ground today in Arab culture, and it's most obviously seen in hijaab culture.


The Arab world has a long way to go when it comes to relationships between the men and women, as it's apparent that women are still considered the inferior sex in most spheres of life and treated as so. But I think especially in North Africa it's getting better. The current generation seems to have a strong focus on education and hopefully that will help, depending on the kind of education they get...Next topic? Sorry this post was just a bunch of random experiences and ramblings, I still have no idea what I'm doing.

Comfort Zone

I've always wanted to be one of those people that can just pick up and leave the place they're at, whether it be to go move somewhere else or just go travel for months at a time. You know, like go to Costa Rica for 2 months and come back with a beard and a cane (shout out, Alex)? But every time I go somewhere, maybe South Padre Island for 3 days or Morocco for 2 months, there inevitably comes a point where I just want to go back to Austin and be with my friends and family. I've never left a vacation or an extended trip "sad to come home", and that disappoints me a little bit.

Over the last 21 years I have built this intense comfort zone in that city. Nearly every single person that I care about is there, I know the city and what it has to offer, and almost every memory I have from my life was created there. It's gotten to the point where I have a real anxiety about ever being far away from the place for an extended period of time. It's amazing how much meaning is attached to some geographic space because of the relationships formed there and experiences had. How the streets and sidewalks, shops, buildings, trees, food, language, sounds etc. are so comforting just by virtue of being the forum for human interaction. And now I'm in this place that's so radically different than Austin, in so many kinds of ways, and has a wealth of new perspectives and ideas, and it's taken me weeks to be able to attach some kind personal value to it. Not to mention this is essentially the culture of my father and half of my family (although there ARE clear distinctions between Moroccan and Algerian society).

Now I've got these couple of weeks left here and then 9-12 months back in my comfort zone before I come back to the Middle East for a year. And after that probably grad school, and if all goes to plan it won't be in Austin. It's difficult for me to imagine dealing with all that. This summer has been a kind of preparation for that and it hasn't been bad at all, but I've had a really good support system of friends to keep my comfort level at a sustainable level.

I don't know, I'm going to Costa Rica in January for 10 days. Maybe that'll be enough time to grow a nice beard and some courage.

Here's a picture of the old city in Fez. Amazing.

Angry People

We Arabs are a frustrated bunch. I've been here in Morocco for about 6 weeks and I've already been screamed at plenty of times and done my fair share of yelling, and I probably get my sass on about 3-4 times a day. What does getting my sass on mean, you may ask?  Usually a sarcastic and provocative remark or gesture that aims to piss somebody off who's done something that I find distasteful. And I honestly do feel the need to do this nearly every time somebody says “bonjour madame” to my girlfriend or friend, or when a taxi driver says that his “meter is broken”.

Right when I arrived here I made a conscious decision to not let people take advantage of me just because I’m a foreigner, ESPECIALLY because I’m Algerian. What I’ve noticed is that what one lacks in Moroccan-ness has to made up for in either an above-average tolerance for bullshit, or an assertiveness that rivals the likes of your Moroccan counter-parts. And since I’m sure the only people who are reading this are the ones who know me quite well, you’re all aware of my patience level, especially when somebody tries to screw me or someone I care about over. The idea here is that if you want something, you have to demand it. Moroccans don’t wait in line at the train station or to buy their single cigarette at the hanoot (shop), they don’t have a single problem telling you a plate costs 6 times as much as it would normally cost, and they don’t break when you cross the street (in fact most of the time they seem to speed up). Therefore you’re going to have to throw 6 dirhams at the shopkeeper for your bottle of water and walk away, and then tell the plate-seller that you aren’t an idiot and that he is, in fact, the idiot for assuming your idiocy. I wouldn’t however suggest stopping in the middle of the street to advocate defensive driving, although I have been known to slap the window of a passing taxi that almost killed me. Of course you could always just walk away and go about your day… but shrugging things off was never my strong point.

What’s important is to remember that Moroccans/Arabs and I don’t act this way because we’re from a civilization plagued with rage-inducing radical Islam (I suppose I can’t make excuses for myself because I’m from the good ol’ US of A, but go with it nonetheless), or because we’re just so damned hot all the time. There’s a simple reason for it, and it’s the oppressive and corrupt leadership and near inhumane living conditions that have cloaked and silenced women and completely emasculated men, over the last century especially. I’m ecstatic that people all over the Arab world have come realize this and begin to stand up and demand a better life, however things are still largely the same and situations have become even worse in many countries.

Like the July 1st “98.5%” victory for the constitutional referendum here in Morocco... Does that sound like a democratic election to you? Especially because polls closed at 10 PM and they had the results ready at midnight. And yes they were, in fact, paper ballots counted by hand. What the FUCK, bro? That isn’t a comfortable way to start off a new and improved free and democratic Maghreb.

See? I’m already frustrated. Not to mention it’s probably not a smart idea for me to be espousing those opinions while I’m still here, and I hesitated a long time before actually typing it out because of the advice I’ve gotten from teachers and Moroccans themselves. What does that apprehension say about the true state of freedoms here?

Yeah, we’re a frustrated bunch.