Random February News

So Noah is now living in Rabat which raises the Asian demographic of
Rabat from 0 to 1. And boy are people un-PC here. He is basically
considered to be Jackie Chan. Children in the street come up to him
and karate chop. Sometimes for good measure they switch to Jet Lee
(which he prefers since Jet Lee is more attractive). He's a good
sport about it and I even think it works to our advantage as one of my
Moroccan friends explained to me when he walked her home late at night
"no one will bother us because they know he does martial arts" not
'they think' but 'they know' because apparently she knew too. And
then the kicker "I think it's because of all the rice, that makes them
good at fighting". Yeah… you never know how to respond to something
like that. And it is not just her, in fact, there is a product we
have been calling 'racist rice'. It's a company who puts out these
ads with the most stereotypically portrayed Asian imaginable. But
don't worry, they don't stop there, there is also an Indian and
Mexican character they use to sell their product. In Casa there is a
massive billboard with all three racist rice characters that I'm dying
to take a picture of but never quite get the guts to get a cab to pull
over and let me out to snap a photo.

In other news, I can never return to my favorite café. It is the one
place in Morocco that has brownies, and I am now banned (though it is
self imposed out of sheer embarrassment). I tend to have people meet
me there for interviews if I don't know them well enough to have over
to my apartment. So that's where I met a doctor who works with the
Red Crescent and had a quite memorable interview. As soon as I told
him I was interested in women's health, he started explaining things
to me, and my gyno-French lacks a little something to be desired so
silly me, asked him to clarify a few terms. At first it was only
mildly awkward as he drew a diagram of a pap smear on my napkin… but
then, he was actually the first person willing to admit to me that
there is a huge market for virginity testing (which I personally think
is a hoax) and so I made the mistake of asking him about it. He
proceeded to demonstrate with gestures at the table. Let's first set
the scene by saying it's 6pm, snack time, so the café is teeming with
people. Also, all the tables are really close together so you can
always hear everyone else's conversations. Lastly, I'M IN MOROCCO!
All things sexual are SO taboo! So with this in mind, we continue. He
holds up his hand and makes an O with his fingers and starts poking
the pointer finger of his other hand through it as he simulates
penetration. This is when I lower my head as to not be recognized.
Then, he takes a napkin, and puts it over the hole he's made and
starts poking his finger through it as he says in French (so everyone
can understand) "You see, sometimes the hymen is supple and does not
break when the penis hits is". And this is when I learned that in the
future all interviews should be done in my apartment where obscene
gestures are socially acceptable. And now I can never taste Moroccan
brownies again.

So we've started this association of Moroccan and American students
and we meet almost every week. Last week, people were hanging out at
my apartment for a really long time as we waited for the food so for
entertainment, someone decided to put on some comedy. And chose Ali
G. We picked what we thought was an innocent episode with humor that
would translate. It was when Borat does wine tasting. Most of the
humor was physical and therefore cross-culturally appreciated. It was
actually going pretty well until the first little 'commercial break'
scene came on of Ali G grinding with four scantily clad obese women.
But thankfully that was only a second long and then the skit with
Borat continued. Unfortunately, we forgot that there was a part at
the end when he shows naked pictures of 'his sister' and all the
Americans in the room wanted to die! It was so incredibly
inappropriate for the situation… eek, makes me want to cry just
thinking bout it. So next time you all are in a really conservative
culture in mixed company ALI G IS NOT THE APPROPRIATE ENTERTAINMENT.

One of our friends here is really into clubbing and he's convinced me
to come out three times now and here's what I can tell you.
1) the ratio is an unwavering 9:1 males to females
2) there is no social stigma against men grinding with each other
3) "Tempted to Touch" is always played, frequently twice in the same night
4) All Tracy Chapman songs are remixed to a techno beat here. Yeah
that's right, Tracy Chapman who sings slow mellow songs. That's the
one. "The Promise" remix. "Fast Car" Remix. "Gimme One Reason"
Remix.

Lastly, I have somehow become involved in organizing charity events
with the American Embassy and last week we did a celebration for
Ashura. Ashura is an interesting holiday because no one here seems to
know what it is celebrating. I asked a lot of people because I was
confused as to why a Sunni country would celebrate it since it's for
the death of Ali who they weren't that into… So here, it's celebrated
by banging on drums and dumping buckets of water on people's heads.
So this time, to avoid the disaster of the Orphan Eid event, there
were sponsors. Yup, good old Coke and McDonalds saved the day by
providing good old nutritious food to growing children. Direct quote
"You should put away the bottle of Sidi Ali water, Pepsi owns that and
we're trying to brand the kids". Aw, good old charity. So again
there were twice as many kids as there were supposed to be so half as
much food as we needed. SO that was fun to deal with.
I blew up 250 McDonalds balloons to give out and put them in a corner
to be handed out post eating. Riiiiight. I come back an hour later
and see one of the cleaning ladies backed into the balloon corner with
a stick, swatting at kids as they try to jump in and grab one. It
looked like something off of Animal Planet when the group of predators
surround their prey and take turns trying to lunge at it. Then, all
of a sudden, they rushed her and there was this flurry of activity and
they POPPED HALF THE BALLOONS! Kids grabbed dozens each of the ones
that were left and started to run. I've never been so angry in my
life! Then they started swarming the back room where they we being
blown up and tried to invade. There are some great pictures you can
check out on my blog.

So like usual, the little kids all ask for your phone number- not sure
why, but it's something they always do. I never give it out b/c I've
learned that lesson but my dearest roommate Alex gave hers to some
little girls thinking "they have no way of calling me, what's the
harm?" My instant reaction was 'oh no! they probably have older
brothers' and it's like I'm psychic (or at least my Morocco sense is
finely tuned) because within 24 hours, Alex started receiving love
text messages from the uncle of the little girl who she gave her
number to. So now Alex also has a DO NOT ANSWER in her phone.

Alright team- that's all for now.