Rabat (Re)Visited

Pulling into the Rabat train station after a few days in Fez, I was so thrilled to be back and to get to show people around this beautiful city. Nina, Jeff and Ella termed themselves "the advance team" because they're my first visit from family of the year. My parents will arrive on Christmas, and my sister and brother-in-law a few days later. I really do consider these weeks leading up to Christmas the most wonderful time of the year, and although I'm missing having a tree, shopping on a snowy Church Street, and my grandmother's handmade advent calendar, it's a cliched truth that it is the people I'm surrounded by who make up this holiday anyway, and I'm so glad to get to have visitors at this point during my year away.


Although I may be mourning the loss of a white Christmas, it's hard to complain when December looks like this:

(Have I mentioned that I love this city?)

To the Advance Team: Thanks for the exploration, conversations, fantastic meals, and most of all, for bringing me American peanut butter.

By some weird genetic happenstance, Ella and I look way more alike than my sister and I do. Evidence shows we always have...

Family in Fez

My Swarthmore friend’s brief Thanksgiving visit coupled with the upcoming holidays has made me long for some familiar faces. Luckily, my wish was answered and I’ve spent the last week with my second set of visitors of the year. The last few days have been filled with long walks, exploration, delicious food, catching up, and (especially) enjoying my new online subscription to the New York Times crossword puzzle (thanks Chris!).

Hailing from Washington DC, these three are very dear to my heart especially after I lived with them for a few months before my junior year at Swarthmore. My cousin, Ella, is a sophomore at Carleton and her family decided to take advantage of the genius Carleton trimester system (yay for no school between Thanksgiving and Christmas!) to come visit me in Morocco (armed with my requests from home: peanut butter and bobby pins). I feel so lucky to have this time with them; not only do I love them all dearly, but after months of solo travel, being able to share in new things with others feels like such a gift.

Ella in the medina.

I’ll write more once my visitors depart this weekend, but for now, I thought I’d post a few pictures of our three days in Fez. Fez is one of Morocco’s four imperial cities and is supposedly the spiritual and cultural center of the country. It was founded in 859, right after the Arabs arrived in North Africa. One of its universities claims to be the world’s first (as the Lonely Planet points out, it would have been centuries older than Oxford and Cambridge, for example). The Moroccan independence movement was born here, and the entire medina was named a World Heritage site by the U.N. Fez is second only to Casablanca in terms of size.

Medina Gate (Bab Boujiloud)

Streets of Fez (outside the medina).

Motorcycle/Horse conversation

Breakfast at the Riad

We stayed at a Riad (traditional Moroccan home converted into a guesthouse) in the thick of the iconic medina, and spent a few days getting happily lost through the winding streets and shops. It's a pretty bustling and chaotic place and at times it felt to me like it was closer to India than to Rabat. From Fez, we were also able to go on a tour throughout the Middle Atlas region of Morocco which is said to be a microcosm of the entire country because of its has mountain ranges, desert areas, and tiny Berber villages. In other words, at various points of the drive we all felt like we were in Arizona, Vermont, Switzerland, and Egypt…often at the same time. We drove through the small towns/villages of Ifrane, Azrou, Ain Sefra, and Mahfouz.

Peanuts for the monkeys.

We’re back in Rabat now, and I’m enjoying the realization that I know this place well enough to act as a guide. I’m off to watch the Kate Winslet movie “Hideous Kinky” (supposedly it takes place in Morocco) with Ella before getting some sleep in preparation for Christmas present bargaining in the Rabat medina tomorrow. More to come….

Name Post: The Question of Belonging

Headscarf mannequins.

In the summer of 2010, the New York Times published an article about the reception of Turkish soap operas in the Arab World (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/arts/18abroad.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1322751825-u9OznGF+tb4G2T2Qjg3GDA).

What the Turkish entertainment industry did, which was so genius from a marketing perspective, was create common (dare I say cliché?) story lines acted out by Muslim characters. (In other words, the characters have scandalous affairs and drink alcohol openly, but they also celebrate Ramadan and have arranged marriages). These shows have had tremendous success internationally (last year 85 million viewers from Syria to Morocco watched the season finale of the popular soap, Noor).

When these shows are on, most Moroccans remain glued to their TV screens. A friend who has been living here for a while told me that when a beloved Turkish soap opera character died, tons of businesses and offices closed in Rabat, mourning this fictional character’s life. There are now apparently strict laws about how long a season of one of these soaps can be on for, lest people get too attached to the characters.

Unsurprisingly, the names of these Turkish soap opera stars have taken off in Morocco. Noor and Mohannad (the two leads of the popular show “Gumus”) are remarkably popular names here, despite the fact that the names themselves are “imports.”

Over the past week I’ve had the pleasure of meeting with a few friends of friends who shared their opinions on Moroccan names over coffee (and, okay, maybe a Moroccan pastry…or four). I’ve come across a dramatic variety of opinions on the Moroccan government’s regulation of names. What’s become clear in all of these conversations, however, is that in Morocco, names are at the heart of something that I’m calling the question of belonging.

In almost all societies, names help to place people. When you’re in the U.S. and you hear a name like “Mei Zhang”, you would probably assume that this person is of Chinese origin or has relatives of Chinese origin. When you hear a name like “Jesus Lopez”, you would probably assume that this person is Hispanic or has relatives who are Hispanic. (Obviously, this can be a dangerous business because there's a good chance Mei Zhang is not Chinese and Jesus Lopez is not Hispanic). The same need we seem to have to place people is also what might cause discomfort when families wonder about names that cross cultures. For example, is it “okay” or “ethical” for an American family of a European background to use the popular Indian boys name “Akash” for their son if they have no connection to India?

The Moroccan government has decided that it IS important to be able to place people based on names. And, as I’ve discussed previously, they are taking the liberty to define what a “Moroccan name” is. I’m fascinated in how these rules have changed over time, however. It is interesting to me that the "imported" names of Turkish soap opera characters are now permitted in Morocco (perhaps an indication by the government that these Turkish soaps have indeed become a part of Moroccan lives and therefore, part of a “Moroccan identity”), but Amazigh (Berber) names have not been included. Even some Hebrew names have exceptions made for them, and many “western names” have also become popular (the name “Ryan/Rayan”, for example, is common). By controlling the names that people can use for the next generation of Moroccan citizens, essentially, the government is controlling just what they consider a Moroccan identity to look like in the future (and perhaps, more tellingly, what is excluded from this identity).

Different societies handle this question of belonging differently. In Bali, names reflect not belonging to that island in particular, or even belonging to the country of Indonesia, but to a family. When a child is called “Wayan” or “Ketut” or “Komang”, their position in relationship to the rest of their family becomes evident. In India, using popular names of gods and goddesses is a way for names to reflect religious beliefs and show belonging to a Hindu community (and often caste). In Morocco, because names are regulated by the government, they reflect belonging to a specific country. However, it's becoming clearer and clearer, that with this comes the (flawed) assumption that people who belong to this country have a specific and shared ethnic background, religion and language.

One new friend told me the other day, "you know, names aren’t really at all related to the person who has the name, they’re related to the person who chooses it.” I’m becoming increasingly interested in how we prioritize questions of belonging in the names we choose, and how countries, families, and parents are letting people know just what kind of belonging matters in the names they choose to pass on.

I also learned only yesterday that, similar to in Bali and India, there is traditionally a naming ceremony in Morocco (and in most other Muslim communities). Seven days after the baby’s birth the parents invite friends and family to a big party. After eating, a baby-washing ceremony takes place, Koran verses are read, prayers are made, and then a sheep is slaughtered. It is thought that the sheep is slaughtered in order to give the baby a name. It is at this moment that the baby’s name is officially announced.

The number of sheep that are slaughtered depends on the wealth of the family, but it’s required that at least one is slaughtered for each name. The friend who told me about this joked that if one kid teases another about his name, he can respond, “It’s not a bad name! My father slaughtered TWO sheep for this name.”

In other words, he knows he belongs.