هذا الاسبوع (This Week)

For the most part, this week was pretty normal, with a few interesting experiences (which I will highlight).

On Tuesday, I was studying in the library when a girl from the student activities council came up and begged me to be in the AUI welcome video that will be shown to new students in the fall. There ended up being about 10 of us Americans, plus several Moroccans participating. We filmed in two locations, had to lounge casually and move our hands to "look natural" and say in unison "مرحبا بكم في جامعة الاخوين", "Welcome to AUI", and "Enjoy your time at AUI."

The next day, Sebastien, Osahon, and I went for dinner again at Pizza Diafa at the marche (I don't think they actually serve pizza, so it's a bit of a misnomer), since we hadn't been in a few weeks. When we returned, the "traditional music" concert was just getting underway in front of the mat'am. The school had hired several different lively groups, mostly in white djellabas and wielding drums and long horns -- however, there was also a Gnaoua group with the telltale metal castanets. Many students, including Moroccans, came out for the occasion, and while I left at 11, I heard the concert was still going strong at 2am.

Then, on Thursday, I found out at the last minute that the Rev. Karen Smith, a really friendly American who has been at AUI for 13 years and coordinates the Christian community on campus, was driving a few people to the squatter village of Tarmilat. So I decided to come along. Tarmilat is only about an 8 minute drive from Ifrane, but is a completely different kind of place. The village consists of several low huts of stone, plastic tarps, and tin cans built onto a barren hillside. I couldn't tell how large the community was -- not more than a couple hundred, possibly much smaller, and it seemed to be made up of both Arabs and Berbers. Since the residents are just squatters, they are not allowed to build any permanent structures: although, at Rev. Smith's urging, the government recently built a one-room schoolhouse nearby so that some of the children could begin attending school. The men of village are shepherds, but the women, working with students from AUI's high school (in fact, my roommate's sister was the founder of the program!) have developed their weaving, a skill that was going unused until very recently, into a business. They now make beautiful rugs, bags, and pillowcases, although I think they are quite dependent on AUI (and especially Karen Smith) to distribute them -- I don't see how anyone would be able to stumble upon the village (or possibly even find it with directions, since the road wasn't marked). One of the first things that the more successful weavers are starting to buy are solar panels, so there is now some limited electricity available. For each item sold, the proceeds go directly to the woman who made it. And AUI has helped them make cards in English with each woman's story, but getting to meet them ourselves made our purchases that much more meaningful. Here is the story of Zohra Amawi:
"Zohra Amawi is in her thirties. She was born and raised near Sefrou before marrying and moving to Tarmilat. Because she can't afford the 20dh [about $2.50] for the taxi, she sees her family only once a year. She has 4 daughters and a son. The three oldest girls go to high school in Ifrane; the youngest daughter will start at Tarmilat school in 2008. Her eldest daughter, Hanane, wants to work in the military. In 2008, Zohra found out she has diabetes. Her only dream is to see her children have a better life."
Even with the occasional medical care that the villagers are able to receive as a result of the weaving income, tragedies are not uncommon. When we arrived, more than a dozen women were gathered at the home of an 18-year-old boy who had died two days earlier after falling off a nearby barrage and drowning. Even the youngest women look far older than they are.
As we were looking at the rugs, several large cows walked out of the shed, followed by a bunch of chickens. They just go free... one calf actually followed a bunch of toddlers into the hut where they do the weaving and began urinating next to the loom. The children at Tarmilat were great -- except for one dangerous little tot who ran around with a vicious grin hitting everyone in her path with a big metal pipe that she had picked up off the ground!

After seeing all the rugs, we were invited into the home of the deceased boy for a meal. We took off our shoes at the entrance and sat, along with women and children (no men were in sight) on carpets around the perimeter of the hut. Rev. Smith told them we had no time for food, but within 5 minutes we were brought a steaming beef tajine and heaps of bread. As is customary, although a little awkward at first, we as guests ate alone while everyone else watched. Next, we were brought a heaping platter of couscous, which would normally be eaten only on Fridays, but was made for the funeral of the boy. Finally, we had a round of tea (of course!). Before we left, we had another round of kisses with each of the women, from 5 to perhaps 85, sitting in the hut, and they sent us off with the remainder of the couscous.


Our Contemporary Issues lecture, given by an Armenian professor who grew up in Sudan, centered on Islamist terrorist groups inside Morocco. We were a little worried that, as had happened during Prof. Kalpakian's previous lecture, the Q&A might descend into mudslinging between the professor and Fabio, an Algerian student from the Diplomatic Academy of London (an institution for which Dr. Shoup has no respect at all) who paradoxically supports the far right Le Pen in France. Fortunately it did not, and the lecture was extremely interesting. One of his main points was that poverty is not really a factor in driving individuals to join terrorist groups in Morocco -- that in fact, most recruits tend to be reasonably successful small businessmen, juice vendors in the medinas, salesclerks, etc.

Last night, many of us were invited to a party that some of Osahon's friends, 3 African French guys who are regular students at AUI but don't like it too much, were throwing at a rented vacation home in Ifrane. I was a little apprehensive because of what I'd heard about these wild "apartment parties", but I was with a large number of Americans and in fact the party turned out to be very laid-back. The decor of the apartment was probably the most interesting thing: there was a traditional Moroccan living room with long couches, but the ceiling was cork, there was a creepy sepia portrait of a random woman on the mantle, and in the basement was a bizarre tapestry of white-tailed deer like something you'd probably find in an American hunting lodge.