Peer, thine name is Ravenous
Yesterday afternoon we had one-on-one reviews with our professors. I was the third of the four students in my class to go in. The other two had taken a good long time, almost ten minutes each. I sat down, and Hanane, my professor, told me that I had no problems whatsoever and that my Arabic is very good; however, I should try to think more in Arabic because I keep using French sentence structure when I speak. Fair enough. I was in and out in a minute flat. Mid terms are next week, and I am thoroughly put out by the lack of libraries here because I must do all of my studying while sitting on my bed at home and thus be very prone to lying onto my side and falling asleep.
Susanna, the oldest member of the BU student group, has decided to stay here in Morocco for the better part of a year and has a job interview at the American Language Center later this afternoon. She bought a bike yesterday and says that the only difficult thing about riding a bike in Rabat is the Moroccan sense of space is so greatly less than that in America. Cyclists ride side by side so that their knees knock as they pedal, and this is considered normal.
The rain has finally stopped. I was in such a fanciful mood this morning to see the sun and dry streets that I splurged on some goat cheese from Brahim's secret spot for cheese in the medina. I asked for 30dhm worth; the shabb, after much effort and exertion, cut up a hunk worth 50dhm and just shook his head and took the 30dhm for it. I was more than happy to share this enormous bounty of cheese with my fellow students but my generosity took a turn when I left for two minutes to go ask a question downstairs and came back to find that almost two-thirds of the block was gone. The bread I had bought to eat it with was gone as well, so I will take care in the future to avoid such situations.
Amanda G, who has been teaching me ASL, has a deaf friend from the US visiting Casablanca now, and she and I plan to go visit him today. I am quite anxious about meeting a deaf person and speaking to him, to be honest. My family kind of laughs at me when I practice my ASL; they cannot grasp the concept that it is a full language instead of just a sort of code. Signed languages are learned and evolve just as other languages do. People sign in their sleep and dream in sign. Babies will babble in spoken languages and signed languages alike. Signed languages are not universal. LSQ (langage signée québequois) is not understood by ASL speakers and vice versa. I said all of this and more to my family, but still they just started pantomiming, and I went back to my business.
Today I was absolutely devastated to realize that half of the things I had wanted to do in Madrid will not be possible because I arrive at 5.30pm Sunday afternoon and leave Friday. Football games, bullfights, and some of the best open-air markets are on Sundays only and take place early in the day. Still, there are enough museums, parks, cafés, and flamenco bars that I surely can manage without these things in particular.
Last night there was a lecture on the problems of spoken vs. written Arabic. FusHa (standard) Arabic is limited to school and international policy, darija (Moroccan dialect) is the mother tongue of most urban people, median Arabic (between FusHa and darija) is used in local government and on TV, Berber (oldest extant language in Africa) is spoken in most of the rural areas, and only in the past fifteen years have the latter three been written down. The lecturer is a professor of linguistics at l'Université Mohammed V here in Rabat and he kept slipping in and out of French, darija, and English. I had a thoroughly wonderful time understanding every single word that he said.
Could one of y'all comment on whether the links for the photo albums work or not? I put them up and then hear nothing, so I don't know if people are getting to see any of Morocco.
Lastly, and very importantly, tomorrow a nation-wide change in phone numbers is going down. My cell phone is now: (from US 212) 6 52 39 62 56. I look forward to hearing some voices, either there or on Skype.
Susanna, the oldest member of the BU student group, has decided to stay here in Morocco for the better part of a year and has a job interview at the American Language Center later this afternoon. She bought a bike yesterday and says that the only difficult thing about riding a bike in Rabat is the Moroccan sense of space is so greatly less than that in America. Cyclists ride side by side so that their knees knock as they pedal, and this is considered normal.
The rain has finally stopped. I was in such a fanciful mood this morning to see the sun and dry streets that I splurged on some goat cheese from Brahim's secret spot for cheese in the medina. I asked for 30dhm worth; the shabb, after much effort and exertion, cut up a hunk worth 50dhm and just shook his head and took the 30dhm for it. I was more than happy to share this enormous bounty of cheese with my fellow students but my generosity took a turn when I left for two minutes to go ask a question downstairs and came back to find that almost two-thirds of the block was gone. The bread I had bought to eat it with was gone as well, so I will take care in the future to avoid such situations.
Amanda G, who has been teaching me ASL, has a deaf friend from the US visiting Casablanca now, and she and I plan to go visit him today. I am quite anxious about meeting a deaf person and speaking to him, to be honest. My family kind of laughs at me when I practice my ASL; they cannot grasp the concept that it is a full language instead of just a sort of code. Signed languages are learned and evolve just as other languages do. People sign in their sleep and dream in sign. Babies will babble in spoken languages and signed languages alike. Signed languages are not universal. LSQ (langage signée québequois) is not understood by ASL speakers and vice versa. I said all of this and more to my family, but still they just started pantomiming, and I went back to my business.
Today I was absolutely devastated to realize that half of the things I had wanted to do in Madrid will not be possible because I arrive at 5.30pm Sunday afternoon and leave Friday. Football games, bullfights, and some of the best open-air markets are on Sundays only and take place early in the day. Still, there are enough museums, parks, cafés, and flamenco bars that I surely can manage without these things in particular.
Last night there was a lecture on the problems of spoken vs. written Arabic. FusHa (standard) Arabic is limited to school and international policy, darija (Moroccan dialect) is the mother tongue of most urban people, median Arabic (between FusHa and darija) is used in local government and on TV, Berber (oldest extant language in Africa) is spoken in most of the rural areas, and only in the past fifteen years have the latter three been written down. The lecturer is a professor of linguistics at l'Université Mohammed V here in Rabat and he kept slipping in and out of French, darija, and English. I had a thoroughly wonderful time understanding every single word that he said.
Could one of y'all comment on whether the links for the photo albums work or not? I put them up and then hear nothing, so I don't know if people are getting to see any of Morocco.
Lastly, and very importantly, tomorrow a nation-wide change in phone numbers is going down. My cell phone is now: (from US 212) 6 52 39 62 56. I look forward to hearing some voices, either there or on Skype.
posted by Athena | 12:27 PM
4 Comments:
Yes my dear, your photo links are working just fine. I love your pictures. I ordered a couple to put in a frame. Love you!
ahh pictures are awesome!
your pictures are awesome!!! I wish I could have been at the market... it looked so great!
Yah. Pics look great. So glad you're having so much fun and getting to do such cool things. It's cool you're gonna do Peace Corps after graduation and then get to go do your Master's right after that. Life is good for you!
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home