ISJ What?

I haven't really kept you lovely readers updated on my ISJ. And since procrastination is already a major theme of my ISJ experience, why stop now? My story is about El Habib Louai. He is 28 years old and lives in the small village of Tamri, which is in the south of Morocco. He loves the Beat Generation writers and is currently working on a translation of Ginsberg's poetry into Arabic. This has never been done before and really, when you think about it, is pretty wild. Ginsberg, the homosexual counterculture hero of contemporary American poetry being translated into a language for Moroccans to read. Even with all the images of drugs, sex, violence, protest, etc. Louai believes it's important to make it available in his country. Even if it doesn't get published, even if it means trouble with the law, even if not a single Moroccan picks up a copy, he is trying. Along with the profile of Louai, I discuss the history of the Beats in Morocco and why Beat literature is practically absent from the country today. It has been amazing getting the chance to speak to professors, writers (I interviewed Anne Waldman!) and other experts about the Beat Generation and this country. 

Let me also say that having an editor is pretty freakin' awesome. My editor's name is Marla Kinney (you can just click on her name for a short bio! Pretty high tech stuff) and she has been brilliant. As you know from reading this blog, I'm a huge fan of ranting. I can rant with the best of them when I write. It's not really a bad problem to have, better to have too much than too little. It didn't take long for Marla to learn this about me and my writing. In the revisions she sent me yesterday she cut 1000 words from my piece. 1000 words! That's 2 pages of blabber that she slashed through to find just the essentials. She is a master at breathing life into the article and I'm constantly in awe of the ideas she has.

It's due on Sunday. I'll have it done, I'm very close now. Until next time. 

An undisclosed trip and two new friends (photos)

Hi.

I took a trip last weekend out of Rabat. I can’t say where I went because I may have broken a rule of my program by going. I’ll say that it was a wonderful time with beautiful people.

Instead, I’m going to talk about two of my best friends from the program. Their names are Sadia and Ella. I guess the friendship technically started week two in the Sahara desert. After a group dance party and a guitar circle on the dunes, the three of us didn’t want to go back to our tents. So Sadia went and fetched blankets and we slept under the stars. UFOs visited us in the middle of the night, that isn’t a joke.

It really became a bond the first week of ISJ though, when Ella and Sadia came to meet my Moroccan partner and I in the south. Ella met us in Mirleft, Sadia met us 2 days later in Agadir. We all went to Essaouira and Marrakech together. We found similarities: a love of literature and writing, we nodded in agreement more often than not and let Ella choose the movies. We spend a lot of time watching movies. Sadia and I watched a film called Samsara last night. It was awesome. It was shot on a 70mm camera which “is unheard of in movie making” according to my film/camera-expert friend JP. It’s basically Planet Earth about humanity and there’s no narration. It’s wild.

Now I’ll tell you about them.

Sadia wants you to be happy, comfortable. I called her during the first night of ISJ. I was angry and frustrated about how things were going and I called her because it just made sense. She’s short and clumsy (she’ll be the first to admit). She finds the good in everything and everyone. People call her when they want to be invited. I think Sadia may have embraced Morocco more than anyone on our program. She didn’t look around for homely comfort or force the country to adapt to her but let her self grow into it. She has made Moroccan friends, good ones, meaningful ones because that’s the type of girl she is, one that people want to know and one that wants to know people. What I think impresses me the most is how well she knows what must be taken seriously and her understanding that so many of our everyday worries and concerns are meshi muskil (no problem) at all. She’s so good at this though that people are always turning to her and she’s so nice that she rarely turns them away so they keep coming back and I think she sometimes forgets about herself. That’s not to say she isn’t in pursuit of her own hopes and dreams, believe me she is. But she is so willing and happy to say yes to others that she starts saying no to herself. 

Ella knows what she wants, she isn’t afraid to share it, she doesn’t always do so kindly. She is complicated (she’ll be the first to admit) but it fits her well. A lot of things fit her well. She is someone who can literally try on any piece of clothing, no matter how wild or elegant, simple or intricate, and stun. I don’t think it’s her beauty (although she is beautiful, both of my Morocco friends are), I think it’s something she got while growing up around the world. She was born in Chicago, she has lived in Haiti and Poland and North Carolina, she got a tattoo in Barcelona and don’t get her started on how much she loves South Africa. She speaks French, English, Polish, some Spanish and shuuuuiiiiiyyya Arabia. Everything she does seems effortless, she pulls everything off. She’s well-read, writes wonderfully, does interesting things and tells you the story, she’ll party or chill better than you can. And the craziest part is that she gives so little effort pulling all this off (and pulling it off well) that she doesn’t even know she has it. Ella: a young woman so naturally amazing, she doesn’t realize it at all.      

It’s funny how that happens. How sometimes our greatest attributes become detriments. It happens to everyone I think. It absolutely happens to me. I see the big picture well. I find myself taking leadership roles, it comes naturally to me. I can move people through things because they listen to me (for whatever reason) and it doesn’t bother me that they do. I like the attention, I like being listened to. I like seeing the end goal and coming up with a plan to get there. I am a camp counselor. But, sometimes I spend so much time looking and thinking big picture, I forget entirely about the small one. I spend hours thinking about what’s going to happen, what could happen, what if this happens? or that? Then what will I do? and then those hours are lost and I’m left in the same place and position I was in. I’ve wasted weeks of my life worrying. Morocco has changed this quite a bit. I still worry, but it’s different, it’s good worrying, healthy worrying. And now, when I feel concern creeping, I’ll see Sadia’s right eyebrow drop behind the frame of her glasses, her face scrunch like what the hell?, I’ll see her shoulder shrug and she’ll ask if it’s really worth it. I’ll remember the joy Ella got when she learned the dress she was trying on could be worn three different ways or her fits of laughter when the 3L Mega Mojito was delivered to our table. I’ll remember how much she loves these little everyday occurrences and know that she’s right for aren’t these what we live for?

Sadia goes home tomorrow. I don’t think I mentioned it earlier but she is Pakistani, from Karachi, and wasn’t able to get a visa for more than three months. It will be a sad goodbye. Ella and I will go through withdrawal. I’ll try to keep count of the times we say “dude, I wish Sadia was here” or “Sadia would love this” or “screw this man, let’s go to Karachi.”    

Open a second tab on the internet. Play this song: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKHiDT_dzYY

Wait for the beat to come. Seriously wait for it. Okay, now tap your foot. Bob your head. This is a lot like our friendship. We go with it. We bob our heads too, like river rock beat dull, I shouldn’t say dull, we are anything but. We do this thing sometimes together. We open a fresh page, we have one pen, it takes turns with us. We write what we want, what we feel, a man is sitting outside a train station, and you just have to roll with it. Whatever punch or kiss or emotion the person before you left on the page, you let it take you somewhere and you write that place down. Like a river rock beat crazy. Sharp peaks and valleys and snow. Maybe that’s why we get along. We let each other. With a ballpoint pen and a worn white page. We like the way it feels, bobbing your head, tapping your foot, you can’t stop it, you have no control, you have to say yes to what’s on that page, it makes having no control feel kind of good.

I guess I should thank them but it feels strange to because none of us really did much to deserve thanks. It just sort of happened. Sadia made sure we were happy; Ella kept us cool, interesting, mysterious; I knew the plan, what time the train left, how we would make it happen. Our friendship grew from this, how unforced it all felt. I was happy. I think Sadia and Ella were too. I wish them both all the best, seriously, they've done more for me than they'll ever know. And so my dear friends, thanks for not trying too hard, thanks for just letting it happen, rolling with it, bobbing your heads and tapping your toe and teaching me how nice a feeling that is. Until next time.

Sadia (left) and Ella in Marrakech. Photo credit: yours truly

Sadia and I on a bus. Photo credit: Mark Minton

Cassie and Ben come to Morocco (photos!)

I know that Ben and Cassie were nervous, hell I had done it before, walked dead straight into a Moroccan home, and it makes you pretty nervous. But they didn’t know Mama Fatima and I did so I wasn’t worried when I marched them in. She opened her arms to Cassie and pulled her in for a hug, a big one, and kisses before Ben got the same treatment and calls of “Weladi! Weladi! Salaam! (My son! My son! Hello!)” Nerves fear Mama Fatima.

I met Ben and Cassie the day before, in Marrakech, a miraculous discovery in a Souk store an hour before the intended meeting time. Lunch at a restaurant terrace (how soon they’d learn the joy) where we decide we should leave Marrakech that night and take the train up to Rabat. Note: Ben and Cassie had taken the train to Brussels the night before, slept in the Brussels airport before flying to Marrakech that morning, they were tired, as anyone would be. But, the show must go on, we had our task: to see as much of Marrakech as we could in a single afternoon.

After lunch, we walked through the Souk and Jemma el-Fnna, kept straight to the other side of the medina where we caught a petit taxi (in my last post, I spelled petit incorrectly, it doesn’t conclude with an “e”) back to where we met, Badi Palace. We saw the palace grounds and the photo exhibit that I mentioned in the last post before walking back to Jemma el-Fnna where we found another terrace café, from which we could watch the sunset and drink tea. After sunset, we took pictures with snakes before walking to the Mosque right by the square, which strolled around and admired. We enjoyed a dinner Moroccan style in the middle of Jemma el-Fnna. Moroccan soup (Harira), sausages, salsa (chopped tomatoes) and, of course, bread. A bit longer searching dessert the square and it was time to head to the train station.

We got beers across the street from the station (my first with Mr. Faustine since August 15^th). Our train left at 2100h. and was SUPPOSED to be 4 hours long but it ended up taking over 5 hours and we didn’t get back to the Rabat until past 0200h. My roommates had been excited to meet the newcomers so they stayed up and we made food and hung out so poor Ben and Cassie (they are troupers) didn’t get to bed until 0330h.

We slept in a bit before getting up, had breakfast Moroccan style (bread, jelly, peanut butter, Nutella, cheese and butter) and made the short walk to the Medina. I showed them my school building and gave a brief tour of the Medina while we made our way to the homestay.   

After introductions, Mama Fatima immediately told us to come back for lunch at 1400h. (I had a feeling if we went over at noon, we would get said invite…I know, kind of shuma but I did it for my friends!) so we walked around through the souk, along the Bouregreg river up to the Kasbah, sun and a glass of tea above the water, to the Atlantic, group photos there, back to the souk to get soda for lunch, and, 2 hours later, we’re sitting in the living room.

The homestay didn’t disappoint. Mama Fatima prepared an amazing lamb dish with green beans and pears, there were potatoes and tomatoes and olives and eggplant dip, there was my whole homestay family and my two good friends and there were smiles and laughs and bread. After lunch and post-lunch fruit, Mama Fatima let me show Ben and Cassie how to make tea and we brought it to the terrace, enjoying it with an assortment of nuts.

There’s something extraordinary when two of your worlds collide. When the family that you spent 8 weeks living with meets friends (one silver, one gold) from your other home (USA). You watch them melt together, it all makes so much more sense, why did Granger keep signing off Facebook to eat and spend time with his homestay family? and why does that kid keep Facebook chatting with his friends from home? are they each that great? And I got to show the answer, it doesn’t always happen that way. And when Cassie said –that was amazing, I’m glad we came to Rabat just because we got to do that- and Ben agreed. They thanked me but I really have to thank them. They went with the flow, obeyed Mama Fatima’s orders to eat! eat more! it was them who made it the experience it was.

We said goodbyes and walked to my favorite bar in Rabat. It’s on an alley a block from the train station. 16 MAD beers ($2), frosted windows, a waiter who shakes my hand, asking how I’m doing when I walk in. We stayed until nightfall, when we walked to the store to buy a few more drinks to enjoy back at the house. We sat, talked, listened to music and ate Moroccan Ramen. Ben and I played poker (I lost…a lot but Ben let me off the hook) until we decided that it was time to hit the town. It was raining out and waiting for a taxi turned into hitching a ride to a club, which we were unsure of it’s whereabouts. The guys who gave us a ride were patient though and enjoyed hanging out. Our search was successful and the night was spent dancing at Le Cabana Boom Boom.

Cassie woke me to shake my hand goodbye in the morning, Ben left a little note and just as quickly as they had came they were gone. It was a weekend to remember. I often fail to look back on my first days in Morocco and remember just how new it all was. How nervous everything made me. This country is a lot. But I walk with something new here now, something I didn’t walk with when I arrived. Even Ben saw it. He said -You’ve changed man, I’m really proud of you for doing this, you needed it  - And he’s right, his brotherly intuition is right, I feel it. 

I know I don't post enough photos. So here are a few. 

Laughing outside the Kasbah, Rabat

Smiling above the Atlantic Ocean, Rabat

Ben in a staring contest with a cat, Marrakech

Alright! A blog post. Let’s do it.

The people are nicer in the south of Morocco, they don’t take things so seriously. I told a girl that I am studying in Rabat and she gave me a sarcastic salute and stern-voiced: Rrrr’bat before falling back in drunken fits of laughter. My Moroccan journalism partner and I took an overnight bus from Rabat to Agadir, I don’t sleep well on moving vehicles.

The party in Agadir: My first night of ISJ was spent at a beautiful house in Agadir surrounded by nations. Morocco, France, Belgium, America, Western (Moroccan) Sahara, Great Britain and Australia. The two other Americans were from California. One was a Fulbright who never left and the other a surfer. You automatically had 10 minutes of easy conversation just trying to figure out what the heck everyone was doing there. It was a pleasant night, nothing more, nothing less.  

Taxis in Morocco: The day after the party, I met M’hmmed in Agadir and we caught a grand taxi to Mirleft. This was my first time in a grand taxi so I thought I’d give some background on the taxi situation in Morocco. There are two types of taxis: grand and petite. A petite taxi has a meter and takes one, two or three people to the destination of their choosing (they are strict about this maximum). It’s quite fun riding in them due to the madness that is driving in Morocco. The lane lines are essentially street art, there’s an on-going crisis over whether cars or people have the right of way, you’ll get shuma’d (Shuma means “shame on you” in Darija) if you reach for a seatbelt (not that they work) and the cars have dents in the doors and rear from collisions past. I haven’t had any issues aboard one yet so I have to give a shout out to the drivers…really it’s impressive to witness.

Then there are the grand taxis. While a petite taxi won’t leave the city or town it’s in, the grand taxis are used for longer distances. They work like this:

1)    Go to the taxi station (a parking lot FILLED with white and blue and green Mercedes Benz sedans).

2)    Find the line of taxis that travel to your intended destination.

3)    Wait until 5 other people show up to go to the same destination, which can really take some time. It’s great to be passenger number 6 because everyone is happy that you showed up and you don’t have to wait for others.

4)    Pack (pile, squeeze, shove) into the vehicle (4 passengers in the back, two passengers and the driver in the front).

5)    Pay a flat rate (the seat from Agadir to Mirleft cost 60 MAD).

6)    Hit the road.

Mirleft: We arrived to midday fog and the drizzles of an orange being peeled. We got a house on the beach ($25 a night) that was big enough for 8. The town itself is quiet; it’s about the size of 4 square city blocks. The tourists had dreadlocks; the Moroccans were dark from sunshine and sandy beach. Our three days here weren’t spent in any rush. We woke up late, moved slowly, sipped tea. I can’t say too much work got done, but everyone needs a vacation from time to time.

Essaouira: We took a grand taxi back to Agadir and from there, the bus to Essaouira. We arrived late but found someone who had an apartment for rent. The city is reminiscent of Southern California: long beaches, outdoor restaurants serving seafood and loose fitting clothes. A failed search for alcohol turned into a taxi ride. We had to get out to watch. A block of white we sat on the sandy pavement; fishing boats, their burning outlines like cookie-cutters on the setting sun and a body of water in endless buckets of salty tide. We spent two nights like this.

Marrakech: We took yet another bus from Essaouira to Marrakech. Again we got in late at night but sure enough someone offered a place to stay. The first night we didn’t do much but sit and eat. The second day, I interviewed a photographer and attended a photo exhibition. We had a vegan lunch, mad searches for English bookstores non-existent, café banana juice always with milk. We walked through the Jemma el Fnaa square. Monkeys danced on shoulders and so did snakes (this costs paper please, not coins). They all wanted us and we laughed to ourselves and lived like kings.

Rabat: Our fun had to end. We must return. We took the evening train that left late and got us in past midnight. In Rabat, I’m staying with friends in a small house in the Oudaya. The neighborhood is beautiful and we haven’t killed each other yet. In other news, I will see Ben Faustine and Cassie Redlingshafer later today, it should really be wild. I’ll report back soon. Until then. 

An apology and an article

I know, I know, I'm sorry. It's been a while. But I've been gone. You see, I went down to the south of the country. In a blur: Overnight bus ride, another bus, met a poet, went to a very international party, surf-bum town Mirleft, grand taxis (crammed, won't use the sardine simile), bus ride, surfer-bum city Essaouira, pizza and fish and fish on pizza, bus, lights of Marrakech, monkeys of Marrakech, snake around my neck and photos being snapped (paper please, not coins), movies, met a photographer, met another and a long train ride home. I will write a blog post (it's already in the works) about the trip that will be long and detailed but until then (and mostly so I post before Ben Faustine who has also been lacking), here's an article I wrote about something I went to Marrakech. M'sslama.

-Granger  

MMP+Magnum Photos Celebrate Inaugural Exhibit “A Portrait of Marrakech”

Granger Tripp

Words: 507

MARRAKECH, MOROCCO – This past weekend, the recently-opened Marakech Museum for Photography and Visual Arts celebrated their inaugural exhibit, “A Portrait of Marrakech,” which is on display at the Badi Palace. The exhibit includes work from 5 Magnum photographers: Abbas Attar, Jim Goldberg, Susan Meiselas, Mark Power and Mikhael Subotsky. They were given under a week to shoot and none had been to Morocco before.

“Finding themselves lost in translation, the photographers, instead of avoiding barriers, embraced and overcame them, both visually and intellectually,” explains Simon Njami, the exhibits curator.

The 5 photographers chosen for this project attacked it from all different angles. Mikhael Subotsky shot videos of the city from the back of a motorcycle, using a small camera on a stick like how one might shoot a ski video.

“I was vulnerable, by now you’ve seen how people drive in Marrakech,” Subotsky jokes. “And also, I was safe. I didn’t have to interact. It was a way of mediating between myself and the world.”

Susan Meiselas, took a different approach, setting up a small photo-booth in Jemma el-Fnaa square where she paid women to let her take portraits of them.

“It was tough,” Susan Meiselas says. “I’m completely uncomfortable as a tourist. For the first few days, I couldn’t find a window, an entry place, I really struggled with it.”

The result of her struggle may be the most powerful of the exhibit. Her portraits are made even stronger by the 20 MAD bills taped to the walls where portraits used to hang but were taken down at the request of the woman or one of her family members.

“One of the woman who I photographed came to the exhibit with her sister and when she saw it, she said it was shameful for her to have let her photograph be taken,” Meiselas says. “You can see the social mentality of the women when they see their photograph on the wall.” 

The only consistency of the exhibit is inconsistency, the differences of experience from one photographer to the next shines through in every picture.

“War is coherent place to work, you have a defined role, you know your role,” Meiselas explains. “Here, I had to find my role as an image maker, we all had to find it, and you see that in work.”

The Marrakech Museum for Photography and Visual Arts hopes that this is the first of many successful exhibitions. The hope is to create a space where the rich culture of Marrakech can be seen by all, tourists and locals.

“I worry that there is no cultural place here [in Marrakech] and culture is being lost because of it,” explains David Knaus, the managing director of the museum. “We wanted to create a new cultural place, one that the people of Marrakech can take ownership of.”

The exhibition is on display at the Badi Palace (Palais El Badii) in Marrakech. There’s a 10 MAD entry fee into the palace grounds but the exhibit itself is free. It is open daily from 9:00am – 4:00pm. 

  

A Man, a bus, a border

Our last assignment was to write a reporter's journal about an experience we had with someone or something. I wrote this while the group was on our Northern excursion. Enjoy.

A Man, a Bus, a Border

Granger Tripp

FNIDEQ, MOROCCO – He stumbles towards my resting spot in the bus’ cool shade and asks in spit-slurred Spanish:

-       Where are you from?

-       We are a group of American students who are studying in Rabat.

-       How many students are there?

-       I don’t know. 40 maybe.

It’s nice to converse (albeit poorly) with someone in a foreign language. He walks slowly to the bus’ open door and looks inside before turning his fuzzy gaze back to me.

-       Where’s the ------?

-       What?

-       -------?

-       I don’t understand.

He pretends to turn an oversized steering wheel while making deathly engine noises like a key in a vacuum.

-       Ah…he’s [the driver] on the bus.

He staggers back to the door and takes a longer look in.

-       No! He’s not! He’s not! He’s not there! Look! Come ------! The driver isn’t here!

I don’t know why he’s yelling, where his dying urge to find the bus driver comes from but since I know he’s right, I remain still, confused and worried and afraid of his intentions.

-             Yes. On the bus. Yes he is.

-             No he’s not! Come here and look!

I don’t respond and the next minute is spent in silence, his screaming black pupil directed at the driver’s empty seat and mine towards him. What does he want? Money? A ride to Casablanca? Student hostages for negotiation with the American government? Sutton comes outside and Ella does too and I can’t help but notice her outfit, which is a deep and windy blue like the Spanish coast. The man continues talking drunken gibberish.

-       Where’s the driver? Where are you going? ------- Spain? ---- France?

We stand silent and stare and don’t answer because there isn’t one. I call Badrdine, our Moroccan program coordinator, over. He speaks to the man with a forgiving softness, like he is some confused child. Although the man refuses to leave, Badr can’t stay so he gives me the signal to keep an eye on him. Sutton tries to tell him off too.

-       No, thank you. Enough. No.

-       Shut your mouth. ----------- me. You ------- ------ me. You don’t know what ----------. Don’t say anything to me. All I want ----------. I’m the son ----------- of this town, I ------------ do ---------- you. I’m his son! You faggot. You little ---------, shut your mouth. You are a bitch, you -------.

I don’t understand everything he yells. Sutton can but he knows he can’t punch so he stares, straightens his back and crosses his arms for protection against the slew of insults soaring. The man begins flapping his arms like a bird with slow and sticky wings, turning the normally elegant motion into something rigid and stiff. Why is he so desperate? What is he trying to fly away from? How did his eyes learn that dialectic dance, soaring then crashing, in hope and then despair? Noel, the other program coordinator, watches for a minute before coming over:

-       He’s crazy, please get back on the bus.

We leave the man with a look, something between pity and fear, and take our seats. When everyone is aboard and the door is closed and the wheels moving, Badrdine walks to me and I ask him:

-       What did he want?

-       He thought we were going to Spain and then to France. For work maybe or maybe he had a brother there, I’m not sure. I told him we weren’t going to France, that we’re going back to Rabat but I guess he thought I was lying. He was crazy, drunk. But, yeah, he wanted us to sneak him into France.

A flashback to earlier in the day. 40 American students crossing into Morocco from Ceuta, Spain; red faced, noisy and drunk from the two hours they spent there. They proudly hand their passports to the border guards and the loud stamp like welcome back (anytime). It’s strange how differently people can see the same thing. To us, that fateful fence, which we could see as we talked to the man outside the bus, appeared as some open gate to paradise, while all he could see was a prison wall and the bus his ticket out.

Eid al-Adha: An Experience (photos)

It’s 4:30PM on Wednesday, October 16^th, 2013 and the scene in Rabat’s Medina can be best described as apocalyptic. Skulls roasting on the bonfires that run the length of Avenue Mohammad V, tangles of blood-stained fur lining the deserted streets and men with knives for arms walking home in shirts covered with the entrails of the slaughtered.

Eid al-Adha or the Feast of the Sacrifice honors the prophet Ibrahim’s obedience to God when asked to sacrifice his son, Isma’il. Just as he is about to sacrifice the boy, Allah came and gave him a sheep to sacrifice instead, a thank you to Ibrahim for his devout faith.

The preparations became noticeable a little over a week ago; the nail-on-chalkboard screech of knives being sharpened, fire starter being sold in the market for BBQ and the cries of sheep as they were wildly carted around the Medina. And at around 10:00AM on the 16^th, families began retreating into their homes for the sacrifice. 

It’s a lengthy process that takes the manpower of at least two or three. The sheep is held down and its throat is cut, releasing a strong stream of blood that seems to always find its way onto somebody. After the sheep dies, the head is removed and set aside while the rest of the body is hung up and skinned. The difference between a skinned and un-skinned sheep is dramatic. What once had a powerful presence and was large and horned and was the off-white color of a dirty polar bear becomes something half its size, sticky and pink and exposed. 

Once the sheep is naked, the innards can be removed, washed and saved. Many families choose to eat these parts of the animal for lunch later in the day. The rest of the carcass is left hanging overnight. It is taken down and butchered the next morning. 

It might seem archaic but one must consider the religious and cultural implications of the holiday. The slaughter is a tradition that is past down through generations and is symbolic of the Muslim’s deep devotion to their religion. They don’t waste any edible part of the animal; it is either consumed by the family or donated to the poor (it’s expected that every family donate at least a part of the animal they sacrifice so families that can’t afford a sheep can still participate). In this sense, the holiday is a chance for Moroccans to reach out to people, any people, and interact with them in a way that isn’t always possible during the repetitive grind of everyday life.  

It’s also important to note the immense joy this holiday brings about among people. Talk of Eid al-Adha begins weeks ahead of time, growing louder as the day nears. When the sheep arrives at the house it's an occasion, the children go out to feed it during it's final days on the terrace and the sacrifice itself feels more a celebration of life, love and religion than it does anything else.

By the time the sacrifice is over, preparations for lunch have began. Bread, dips and vegetables are set out while the sheep intestine, heart, liver and lungs are cooked. Loud chatter and laughs from surrounding terraces replace the cries of the sheep. And beneath the swinging carcass, the family comes together, gives thanks to what brought them there and digs in.

There are photos below but please know that they are very gruesome. Please, if you don’t like blood or decapitated heads or counted sheep as a child and still sometimes, on nights when you can’t fall asleep, picture those large and fluffy creatures hopping over a white picket fence, basking in what’s more a green and grassy sea than just a mere field, not harming anything or anyone, just waiting patiently for their turn to get to the other side of that fateful fence and soaring when it is, don’t look at them! Note the length of this warning. Also, ensure there aren’t any small children around. I’m going to put a lot of space between this paragraph and the next so you have time to decide.

You’ll note that the sheep in the first picture isn’t the sheep being slaughtered in the photos. This is because the photos are from the slaughter of another family’s sheep, which my family attended. After this sacrifice, we returned home to slaughter our own sheep.

I think it's good "journalism ethics" to point out that the knife was placed here purposefully by Mama Fatima (who has a keen eye for photography) for the sake of the photo.

Finally, my friend Sutton, who is a film maker, made this short documentary about Eid al-Adha and I narrated/wrote it (you will notice some striking similarities between what is written above and what is narrated in the film). Check it out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF3R8PVPRDA

Two articles and a story pitch

Hi Guys,
Below I've posted two of the articles I've written during my time here along with the first draft of my independent study pitch! I'll have an Eid post soon!

Sugar in Moroccan Diet Causing Major Health Concerns

by Granger Tripp

Words: 395

Four oversized sugar cubes sit atop the mint leaves resting at the bottom of Fatima Hasson’s tin teapot. The taste is tough to beat – the cool refreshment of mint combined with the sugar’s sappy sweetness.

But, the excessive sugar consumption in the Moroccan diet comes at a price. The rate of diabetes is high in the country and is expected to double by 2030, according to the World Health Organization.

“About one and a half million people suffer from diabetes in our country,” said Dr. Jamal Belkhadir, President of the Moroccan League for the Fight Against Diabetes, in an article he published earlier this year.

“The latest national estimates now reach nine percent for those older than 20 years,” he said. “And if we consider the age beyond 50 years, the prevalence exceeds 14 percent.”

On top of this, Dr. Belkhadir approximates that almost 50 percent of diabetics don’t know they suffer from the disease due to lack of awareness and proper screening.

“The diagnosis of diabetes is usually made on the occasion of suggestive symptoms,” he said. This means the disease often progresses before it’s treated causing other complications such as hypertension, infection and blindness.

For breakfast, Fatima offers her family sweetened tea or coffee, a baguette with butter and apricot jelly spread on top. As a side, five or six crème-filled cookies lay in a pile on the tray. It’s not her intention to serve a breakfast that lacks nutritious value, for her it’s simply what makes sense.

After 53.4 billion dirhams, about $6.5 billion, in government subsidies, sugar, flour and oil have been made cheaply available to Moroccan families.

Dr. Belkhadir believes the answer lies in educating the Moroccan public about their eating habits and the consequences those choices have on their health.

“Education should be considered, and rightly, as one of the most important pillars for the treatment and care of diabetes,” he said.

However, it may not be that simple, considering that less than 70 percent of Moroccans are literate, a percentage that drops even lower among women and in rural populations.

Creating a public that is well informed on the food choices it makes and the health consequences will take time, energy and money. With the focus of the government turned to issues like unemployment, education and health care, a food revolution doesn’t appear to be on the horizon. 

Rural Moroccan Farmers Would Benefit From Insurance Coverage

by Granger Tripp

Word count: 466

Rachid Lazaar, 26, needs only a steady flow of water and a small hoe to flood his entire field before the next crop is planted. He carves countless narrow valleys into the barren land to funnel the water exactly where he needs to go, it seems more a work of art than fieldwork.     

With the hottest and driest part of the year over, watering his land like this is a relief for Lazaar. Drought is a dangerous reality for small, rural farmers in Morocco and it appears he has escaped it, at least this year.

“I’m lucky,” Lazaar says. “The region where I work doesn’t suffer too much from drought, it’s very rich agricultural land.”

During a drought season, farmers get little to no yield from their land, drastically reducing or eliminating revenue. With less money in their pockets, farmers are forced to cut back on spending the next growing season, starting a vicious cycle.

Drought also has consequences beyond just the farmer’s lives in the fields. It also means less money for their families to spend on food, clothes and supplies.

To supplement his farming, Lazaar has a second job as a metal worker. Although the income he gets from this job is less, it is steadier than what he makes doing farm work. This allows Lazaar some breathing room when he doesn’t reach his desired yield.

The volatility of the rural economy could be drastically reduced for small farmers, like Lazaar, if they were able to purchase insurance coverage for their land. However, these farmers are often overlooked by insurance companies who concentrate on insuring the country’s largest landowners.

“The service I can afford doesn’t guarantee full coverage of what I’ve lost,” Lazaar says,  highlighting the disconnect between what coverage rural farmers need and what insurance companies offer them.    

Studies show that the implantation of rain-based insurance for small, rural farmers in Morocco could combat the instability within the agricultural sector of the economy. One such study, done in 2001 by The World Bank, found that these programs “could have potentially significant benefits” for farmers and could go even further by “increasing the potential interest of international re-insurers and capital markets in investing.”

This seems as though it would be quite appealing to the Moroccan government as it strives to accomplish “Plan Maroc Vert (The Plan for a Green Morocco).” This initiative aims to double the value of the country’s agricultural sector, which currently sits at 19% of the GDP, while adding 1.5 million jobs to it by the year 2020.

However, until small farmers, like Lazaar, can find a way to protect themselves from the volatile economy they work within, “Plan Maroc Vert” will be merely relying on good growing seasons rather than the farmers who give life to the country’s agricultural sector.  

Granger Tripp

ISJ Pitch: Draft 1

William S. Burroughs shooting heroine and writing his masterpiece, Naked Lunch, in the city of Tangier, Jimi Hendrix conceiving the guitar riffs that brought him such fame in the town of Mirleft, and the Living Theater perfecting their experimental fusion of art and performance in Essaouira. While it’s an often-overlooked part of the Morocco’s history, American counterculture runs deep in the veins of the country and is still present today.

What made Morocco so appealing? An Islamic country, with strict rules and harsh punishments for the sex, drugs and liberal lifestyle these counterculture icons are so known for seems like the last place they would want to go. How did the country affect their work? And how did they affect the country?

By interviewing counterculture experts, seeing the places these artists spent time, and searching for those who fell so in love with the country that they never left, this story will tell a muted history of Morocco and the hub it once was for the freethinkers of America’s past.  

The Village Stay (Saturday, October 5th – Friday, October 11th)

Immediate celebrity status, the children from the village stared in awe at the bus full of new faces. They swarmed and laughed and shook our hands and begged to be photographed. We went inside the school building and were served lunch before being picked up by our village homestay families.

Rachid came early to pick up Sutton and I. He had eyes that seemed to always be longing for something and a lanky frame in rolled up blue jeans. His smile was friendly, small teeth and big gums and eyes that would squint when he laughed. Although we couldn’t really understand what he said, he was both stern and soft-spoken, quickly moving from a friendly laugh to a firm command. What we didn’t know when we first shook his hand (which was strong and stiff and well-callused from working on his farm) was that he would be with us at all times for the next 144 hours of our lives.

Rachid took us back to his house, which consisted of a courtyard with 6 rooms surrounding it, a barn, a chicken coup, and maybe an acre of land where the cows, dog, and mule spent their free time. He lives there with his mom, dad, grandmother, grandfather, brother, nephew, and two or three other women whose relation to him is still unclear. Rachid is 26 years old but looks closer to 30. 

Sutton and I were led into a 14x12 ft. room with a small futon against each wall, a 14-inch television, and a small table in the middle. Rachid, Sutton, and I would eat every meal, sleep, and spend all our in-door time together in this room. We walked around the property for a bit, helping Rachid water his olive trees and enjoying milk straight from a cows utter before leaving to go spend the early evening working in the field. On this evening we picked onions, packed them into crates, and loaded these onto the mule-drawn carriage. We hopped on too and rode (setting sun burning brilliant orange-red-yellow-blue behind mountains, miles of field lying flat between mountains and us, body sore and the sweet sweaty smell of onion stuck beneath dirty finger nails) back to the house. We dropped off the mule and walked to the café where we sat and drank Fanta and watched soccer on the TV, Real Madrid against another team that I forget (not Barcelona). Real Madrid won. The night ended back at home with a delicious dinner, some star gazing, and sleep.

The next day we woke up and went back to the schoolhouse where we spent the morning painting and planting trees. It was hot and the work was exhaustive but we left the place looking better than it was when we got there. Sutton, Rachid and I went back to our house and took our afternoon siesta (it’s too hot to really spend time outside midday). In the evening, we went back out to the fields and pulled dead squash plants from the ground. The plants aren’t tough to pull but they do sting, like nettle, and cut your hands and leave a burning irritation in your palms that doesn’t leave until you fall asleep hours later. Rachid laughed when we complained, holding his cemented palms up for us to see, saying “meshi mushki” which means no problem. It’s still unclear what emotional reaction he was going for from Sutton and I. We left the fields after a few hours and walked around the village for a bit before returning home for dinner, star gazing, and sleep (a nightly pattern that would become known as DSS between Sutton and I).

On Sunday, we woke up early to go back to work. This morning, our friends JP and Ishan decided to join us for the fun and so we rode the mule to their house to pick them up before heading out to the fields. One of the real joys of being in a place where no one speaks your language is the fact that you can say anything you want while knowing that you won’t offend anyone. As you can imagine, this was quite helpful when, after finishing a row of pulling dead squash (which you would always hope was the last for the day) Rachid would look at us and ask “wahid (1)?” and do the rotating finger thing like he was ordering another round from us at a bar. Our responses were uniform: "ah waha (yes, okay)," a smile and a thump sticking straight up. At the halfway point of any given row, we would begin to play the game “what would I rather do than pick squash for another hour in the burning midday sun.” Although I won’t get too specific, popular answers normally included bringing about pain onto oneself in the most horrifically gruesome way you could imagine (often involving the amputation of ones own genitalia) or the oral consumption of various forms of human bodily fluid. 

Looking back on our complaints now and sitting inside writing this and thinking about how, at this moment, Rachid is probably out there picking squash or onions or weeds, it's interesting to think about why we complained and what we accomplished by doing it. I think that we complained because the work was miserable – back breaking, knee bending, pain inducing repetition of boring and simple physical movements – and we were in search of the world’s pity. We complained because the work we did with Rachid was some nightmarish vacation, something that we wanted recognition for but knew we only had finite time to get it. There's no point in complaining if nothing's going to change. Simply put, the four of us complained because we could.

After work that evening, we went back to the café and hung out with Rachid’s friends while they taught us inappropriate things to say in Darija. After this, we walked home and DSS’d. 

On Monday, the group met and rode the bus to the Basma center for mentally and physically disabled boys. All the boys who went there were from the Commune the village was located in. We got a tour of the center before they arrived and, when they did, we broke up into groups and played games and sang songs with them before having a massive dance party. (There will be more on this experience in the non-play-by-play post, it was really pretty amazing). We said sad goodbyes and went back to the village for lunch, nap time, an afternoon in the fields (we picked weeds), an evening at the café, and then DSS.

On Tuesday, Sutton and I worked in the morning before we were taken to a town near the village called Moulay Yacoub. The town is known for their sulfur spring baths, in which we all got the chance to bathe for the first time since getting to the village. We got to walk around the town for a while afterwards and watched the sunset from a beautiful, grassy hill. Back at home, the evening was simple: DSS.  

Wednesday was another full day with Rachid. Sutton and I worked the morning and evening shift (which canceled out any hygienic progress made the day before) and then went to the café before that night's DSS.

Thursday was our last day in the village, Sutton and I woke up and worked before lunch, the walk home on this day was especially sweet since we knew it was our last. In the afternoon we went to a local soccer field where we played against the villagers, one game for the boys another for the girls (the Moroccans won both of them). We didn’t get home until well after nightfall so it was a quick DSS that night. The next day we woke up and met the bus. We were given the option to spend Friday night in Fez if we wanted. 4 friends and I accepted. We spent the afternoon walking around the medina and hanging out on the hostel’s terrace, which had a stunning view of the city. We were all pretty exhausted so we took it easy that night. On Saturday we explored the Royal Palace and the surrounding neighborhood before taking an early afternoon train back to Rabat.

There are some photos on Mark's blog of us working in the field. Below you will find a link to the photos that JP took of Rachid working. I will also post the article I wrote about him and the challenges of rural farming once it has been edited. Lastly, there’s a non-play-by-play blog post in the works that will include descriptions of the sheep slaughter tomorrow so stay tuned! Until next time.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpkeenan/sets/72157636511329393/

 

The next week!

Sorry I've been gone for the past week...well more than a week I guess. I was doing a village stay with my group and internet was inaccessible. I will have a blog post about that trip for you in the next few days. Until then, you can go back and look at Mark's blog (Beyond the Palisades) where you will find a number of wonderful photos from the trip.

Back in Rabat, the house is abuzz because on Wednesday the Muslim holiday Eid will begin. The family has purchased a sheep to be slaughtered (the poor guy is living on the terrace of the house for his final few days) and are constantly reminding me of the special occasion with a quick smile, a "BAAAA" (in the style of a sheep), a hand gesture of slitting a neck, bending their head to the side, closing their eyes, sticking there tongue out, and of course ending the impression with another excited smile. I will write a blog post about this experience too and will also make sure you all get to see some photographs from the day. Supposedly, the Medina streets run red with sheep blood and guts and carcases (because every family slaughters a sheep on this day) and there are butcher's walking around covered in blood with their knives in hand going from house to house cutting up the meat for the family to enjoy...it's going to be a sight! But I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Check back soon. Until next time.

Some photos from the southern excursion (and a couple others)

The Medina of Fez

 

 

Pouring milk for lunch. On Friday we had cous cous!

My Camel and I in the desert

Taken in the Middle Atlas Mountains

Mama Fatima showing me how to make Riffa, a fried Moroccan bread.

The sun beginning to set in the desert

Lots of sand!

So much sand!

The skinny streets of Fez's Medina

Did I mention the sand?