We are not super

  I just got done "talking" on Facebook with a friend in Syria who I haven't talked to in ages, even in the online sense.  He recently had a brush with death thanks to a bomb that fell on his family's house, and he told me how glad he was to have had my prayers and to hear from me.  And finally, finally, it was enough to knock my at least a little ways out of my protective crouch where Syria is concerned.  I told him what I've been figuring out over the past months: that I haven't been talking to the people I care about in Syria for rather selfish reasons.

   First off, my Arabic is still not so good.  I still sound like an overly formal four-year-old.  My ego doesn't like this, especially when I can so easily compare my own language use with those of my peers on Facebook and in the classroom.  Why can't I finally just sound like a human, especially when my typed words are all I have to communicate with?

   Secondly, I keep feeling like my own life is silly and small next to the lives my friends are leading in Syria.  What can you say to someone who was wounded in a bombing on his rural village?  Surely I can't tell him how happy I am to be engaged, surely I can't complain about classes, surely I can't tell him about the three layers I need in order to venture outside of my apartment in this weather.  Because neither my joys nor my trials are as important as his, so how could I bring any of my life up in conversation without seeming petty?

   And that's where my friend's response caught me up short in the middle of this pity party.  I told him these reasons, and then some of these petty-seeming milestones...and he was-- and I quote/translate-- so so so so happy to hear my news.

   To hear my news?

   Because what I'd been forgetting in my ardent self-effacement was that it wasn't the grand politics of Syria that I fell in love with.  It was neither politicians not armies for whom I marched or prayed or wrote, it was specific people in all the everyday details of their lives and the silly little things that we had shared-- hugs or trips to the dentist or keyrings or music videos or green onions or whatever.  These were what made Syria worth all the hours I spent thinking about it, brooding over it, crying about it, singing about it.  They are what makes any place, any person, special and important.

   And if I am honest with myself in saying that these tiny details are what make life what it is, and carry all of its value, then I'm not being honest when I assume that people in Syria only care about bombs now.  I'm the one who was slipping into that, not them.

   I read an article recently about the bombings in Gaza which argued that the really truly important thing there was not geopolitical superpowers or tactical advances and retreats, but a little girl doing her homework by the single light of a neon lamp and wanting to go outside and play.  I think the author's onto something there.  Because if you cut out the tiny things that really matter to people, then you leave them not human anymore: either you craft them in your mind into an infallible superhero or a godforsaken super-villain, but either way, not a human being like whoever you are.  Which is really a bad choice, because I think eventually that humanity is all we have left to hold us one to another, and sometimes we forget what it looks like.

Whispering Ghosts

  I caught myself thinking over the past weeks how different my time in Morocco is from my time in Syria, how much more muted my experience here is, thinking maybe it was cultural or maybe it had to do with the lack of pending revolution here.  To me, Morocco felt a lot more like America or Europe, full of people who worry about dating or grocery shopping instead of whether the mukhabarat are listening at the door and plotting against their family because of the sins of the earlier generations.  I was comfortable.  When people asked whether my friends in Syria were well, I would say, "I think so."
  Last night I spoke with one of these friends from Syria, though, the young woman who came to my aid when I was sick, who taught me about her outlook on religion and dress and relationships, who covered up in public and danced to Michael Jackson in private. 
  She's now in Turkey with some members of her family, having fled her home, her studies, her teaching position, and all her possessions because of military incursions.  She fled a situation in which she feared for her life, with rumors of rape and memories of the destruction of her house snapping around her heels.  Her brothers joined the resistance and she will not return to the country until after the fall of the regime, fearing that she would be kidnapped by government forces or shabiha.



  I huddled over my laptop for about two hours, forcing my mind through the lines of Arabic text that appeared on my Skype window one after another.  "You've seen the videos on YouTube," she wrote, "but we live those videos, we see them with our eyes."


 
  And I am ashamed of it but I miss the cocoon of ignorance, of knowing what was going on but not connecting it to the faces and names I know.  Even now, I find myself grasping for wisps of it, trying to pull them back over myself to stay warm and sedated.  I'll listen to music, I'll watch happy YouTube videos, I'll do a crossword, anything to distract myself and anchor myself in the reality that is my compound in Morocco.  Anything to pretend that a short Skype conversation or Facebook thread every couple of months is communication enough for me to truthfully say, "I keep up with my friends in Syria and they're doing fine."  "Alhamdulilah," they always say, "God be praised."  It's the stock answer to, "How are you?"  Alhamdulillah.  I am alive, life continues.  It could and does mean anything/nothing.
  And with the bombings yesterday of major Syrian officials, I come once more face to face with the unyielding truth that I can see no future for my lovely adopted country that does not involve wading through blood.  Everything has changed there, and I find myself in a situation in which people cheer for death for some as the quickest way to life for others.  I find myself with fewer and fewer heroes.
   I should have known that the imprint of my time in Syria could not subside quietly into fond memories and kind notes sent sporadically over the Internet.  The ghosts come whispering about sorrow and panic and guilt once more as they did upon my initial return to the US, no matter how hard I try to cover my ears-- and I do try.

  I'm not sure what I'm driving at here.  I suppose I would just ask you all, if you have a moment, to think about my friend in Turkey, to think about how fragile our equilibrium is, to tear a strip off your own cocoon if you can.  All I could offer her when we spoke last night were my sympathy and tears...offer up what you can.

Itha kunta fi almaghreb...

    I've heard it from several people now: "Itha kunta fi almaghreb, fa la tastaghreb."  If you're in Morocco, don't be surprised by anything-- anything is possible.  It was an idea that we always expressed in Syria with "Ahlan bi Suria" ("Welcome to Syria") and honestly, it was a little more appropriate there than here.  Generally speaking, we have a schedule here according to which things happen.  There have been very few surprise holidays, trips, or guest speakers, and as I mentioned earlier, we live in the lap of comparative luxury, so there is little in the way of shocks in the way of living conditions.

    To give you some idea of how things go day to day here, maybe I'll just give you a brief tour.

    On the macro level, I am living and studying in Tangier (Tanja), at the northern edge of the African continent and the western edge of the Arabic/Islamic "world."  It seems to me that Tangier is more like the Casablanca of Hollywood than the real Casablanca is.  Back in its heyday, Tangier was the destination of choice for carousing Americans and Europeans seeking release from social norms.  Oddly enough, the international zone of Tangier, governed by a committee of representatives from European nations, provided a perfect place for that.  Today, you still see traces of British, Spanish, and French influence in Tangier.  Most signs and menus are in French (with perhaps Arabic underneath) and most Tanjawi people (Tangerines?) speak the local dialect of Arabic (darija), French and Spanish to varying degrees, and a smattering of English and even German.  The language of the Moroccan interior is much more "pure" Arabic, but Tangier's proximity to Spain and history of occupation makes it unique in its degree of integration of languages and cultures.  Besides the Moroccans who live here, you can find a sizable minority of West Africans who either are trying or have tried to get to Europe, as well as a fading representation of the older generation of Europeans who knew Tangier when.

    As I think I mentioned earlier, my center of operations is the ritzy-ish American School in Tangier, which is apparently very expensive to attend as a student.  We're somewhat of a compound a la Saudi Arabian oil companies, with green grass and palm trees surrounded by a gated wall beyond which is a residential neighborhood.  Last weekend, I went out exploring by myself for the first time in the city and am now proud of my ability to navigate at least some of the small streets and alleys in the neighborhood of the school.  Our neighborhood is called Ain Qatiyut ("Kitty Oasis," I think).  (I'm not joking about the translation.)  One of my favorite landmarks is the malbana nearby, which is something like a deli and at which a young man works who apparently has made friends with CLS students in the past and is eager to do so again.  Another favorite is a maktaba (bookstore) that reminds of Capitol Hill Books in DC: tomes line the walls up to the ceiling, and I very slowly and badly discussed my favorite Syrian poet with the shopkeeper.  I'm finding that the most famous Arabic-language poets are something like rock stars in the Middle East/North Africa-- everyone knows them and loves at least one.

    Anyway, that's probably more introduction to the city than you ever wanted, but the upshot is...itha kunta fi almaghreb...

There's no place like [insert place here]

     So, yes, I'm off on a voyage again!  This time, I'm in Tangier, Morocco, studying standard and Moroccan Arabic with the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) program of the State Department.  We're finally here and settled after a long and eventful journey that included an unexpected day and night spent in Casablanca, which someone told me is the largest and most quickly-growing city in Morocco.
    In our orientation, we were told that Tangier is known as "CLS Club Med," and with good reason: we are housed on the campus of the American School in Tangier, a green and grassy space complete with cafeteria, air conditioned dorms, computer room, palm trees, and, yes, chlorinated swimming pool.  A cool Mediterranean breeze whisks through campus all day.  It reminds me of southern France, with good reason-- we are located just on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea from Spain.
     But this is one of my blog posts, and so it can't contain too much information before I turn to introspection.  One of my major challenges right now is to get past bringing Syria into everything.  As obnoxious as I felt in school mentioning "But when I was studying in Syria...," it feels even worse but even more natural here.  My semester in Syria is really my only reference point for comparison to my time here in Tangier.  So as I wrestled my suitcases around the Casablanca public train system, I thought to myself that people in Syria would have helped me more.  As I try to get my bearings on how to navigate Tangier, I think that Aleppo was more pedestrian-friendly and laid out in more comprehensible neighborhoods.  On the other hand, as I amble into the cafeteria for my piping-hot nutritious lunch, I think about the many spaghetti-or-Ramen-meals I made in Syria with the malfunctioning stove and one dented pot.
     Because I am neither hungry nor grumpy at the moment, I think many of these differences can be traced to Aleppo and Tangier's different experiences with tourism and international exchange.  The University of Aleppo's housing was less luxurious because we were the first group of Americans, or indeed Westerners, to stay there en masse with our different standards.  It was easier to practice Arabic in Aleppo because, among other reasons, there was no major language intrusion upon the Arabic spoken-- no French, Spanish, or English.  I was an exotic source of excitement and welcome in Aleppo because there were very few Westerners there indeed and even fewer Americans, as opposed to Tangier, which is as close to Europe as I mentioned before and played host to swathes of bohemian Americans and Europeans in the past.
    So, resolved:  Tangier is not Aleppo.  I will try not to expect it to be Aleppo, and to temper my fond memories of Aleppo with a dose of realism.