A Very Long Product of Too Much People Watching Time

I’ll start off this time with the boring business stuff. My dad has been having trouble getting letters to me; they keep being returned labeled “incomplete address”. After much sleuthery he deduced that the problem was that the US Post Office doesn’t speak French so they don’t know Maroc, you need to write “Morocco”.
Now on to the interesting stuff; this will be a slightly too sympathetic-to-be-objective-anthropological-view of my site.
Remember when I boasted about being at a third year level with language skills? Funny story, that’s in the dialect of the language I studied... not the dialect from my irgham (new word for douar) That being the case I spend a lot of time sitting and listening with the hope that I will eventually know what they’re all saying. This is further complicated by the fascinating anthropology of my site.
First, let me outline the way languages work in Morocco- specifically out in the bled (Arabic for douar and implies (accurately) areas super isolated from major cities, with low/no educated ppl and few if any amenities. This is more than a little complex so hold onto your scholars cap and I’m sorry if I confuse you. The primary language spoken throughout Morocco is Moroccan Arabic, the English word for it is Darija, my tribal dialect calls it tarapt. The next major language spoken by all educated people, city people, and most shop keepers, is French. (In my site there are a handful of French speakers). After French comes the tribal languages; there are, for our purposes, three of these. I can only remember the names of two of them b/c the third one is not spoken in any of the areas we have PCV so we don’t learn it or focus on it. The two I know of are Tamazirt – tam- a- zeert (technically what I speak), and Tashlahate- tash-la-haat (practically what I speak) *Enter our descent into the madness that is language in my site*
Waxxa, not only are there three tribal languages but there are about a dozen dialects of each language depending on what tribe you are from. Add regional accents to that and you get a linguistics dream world and a PCVs nightmare. So the reason I said I quasi speak both languages is b/c the area I am in is the gateway region between the Tam speaking tribes and the Tash tribes. Therefore I speak a dialect that uses Tamazirt verbs, Tashlahate nouns, and Arabic adjectives just to be ornery. Further confusion ensues, I speak tam but we call it tash, until I meet a tash proper speaker; then I have to telapathetically (oh the ways in which I am) know that they speak tash proper so I amend it saying I speak tam but call it tash. Thank God ppl here know their languages are baffling so when I say that they know I speak the hybrid of the two and have more patience with me then they might have with someone who spoke tam or tash proper. (Yes there is a “proper” form of these-there is even a tam TV station, no I can’t understand it)
Is tfaHmt? (Do you understand?) Good. Now it gets better. My site has a funny quirk, it was started by one very large family and is now made up of only one family. The way they avoid incest is quite ingenius. All the women in the irgham are educated as highly as they can reach-I’ll expand on that shortly- then are married out of the site; basically they have MRS educations b/c the higher their education the wealthier the men they marry. On the flip side, the men are educated as highly as they can be and either grow up and move away flat out, or else have a wife and family here and work in another city and send money home. I’m sure you’re wondering from whence these wives come if all the women in site are family. An excellent question for which I have two words Arranged Marriage. *More on that anon* The reason this quirk is pertinent to my piece on language is b/c all of these blushing brides come from different regions; that means, you guessed it, there are a lot of different dialects here. Phew!
About a fourth of the women in my site speak only Arabic (some regions are like that I guess). The rest of the women speak dialects of tash (tam) from all over Morocco. This is a real problem because if you understand one dialect of tash you can basically get them all (so long as you know what you’re listening too) but if you’re trying to LEARN tash here it suck b/c everyone wants to help you... so everyone tells you THEIR word for something. At the end of the day you will have been told eight or nine words for the same thing and you won’t remember any of them. BTW The only reason I know the bit about the regions is b/c one of the sons of the irgham who permanently moved away came to visit his mother and he explained all of this to me in French (I am so glad i studied that in University)- This guy is a professor at the University of Meknes so he speak French with a French accent, otherwise I might not have gotten this much info. The Moroccan French accent is way slurred (rather like the way we slur y’all and a’ight). For example “un hour” becomes “unur”. Have I mentioned oy vay yet? Just in case... OY VAY!
I’m really glad Brahim came home to visit and explained that to me b/c I thought I was going insane. Before I asked a couple girls here the same questions to see what answers I got. The questions I asked were things I sort of knew the answer too anyway this was just to get a cross section. First, “we speak tam but call it tash? Pahalpahal?” G1: “La (no) machi pahalpahal (not the same) there are three berber dialects and you are speaking a mix of two.” Me: “So it’s OK I can’t understand the TV tam?”G1: “Very OK you don’t speak that dialect.” Same questions. G2: “Kifkif.” (here dialect for same) “The TV speaks what we speak, you’ll get there little by little. Have patience.” I had thought I knew what was going on until I got two answers (I understand everything G1 says all the time and only half what G2 says BTW) When Brahim came by I asked him what was going on and he explained everything.
On the up side, all these languages make my listening skills amazing! Really, on the whole I love my site and my understanding skills are miles ahead of other PCVs who came with me to Morocco. It’s just my speaking skills that aren’t going anywhere, I still talk like Yoda with the vocab of a three year old. “Go, I must. Food I have. Dieing from hunger I am me.” (that’s what they say instead of I’m hungry it’s my hunger is killing me) This cultural bit reminds me. One of the biggest hang-ups I have with understanding is that I lack the culture to understand the question. I understand the words, but I can’t find the question within the words. Does that make sense? For example. There are rarely questions we ask each other that haven’t been asked before. What’s your name? Where are you from? Etc. When someone asks a question out of thin air and in an unfamiliar way we get lost: “Peanuts come from the ground, almonds from trees, walnuts from trees too yeah?” This is just something I find interesting that I wanted to share.
Two things that really help me are that ppl here know I’m learning a trillion dialects so they’re eternally patient. Also, and this is probably buying me more time than other ppl might get, I am the walking definition of knock out in Morocco. Cultural difference, in the States anyone can be beautiful as long as they rock what they have properly; therefore in the States I’m pretty but so are a lot of other ppl so I’m taken for granted ;) j/k. Here (and this is all Morocco) they have a list of what is pretty and the more checks you have on the list the prettier you are. No jealousy or competition (only as far as looks go, don’t get me wrong. There’s jealousy and competition) Would you like to know the list? Tall, light skin, fine hair, dark brown eyes, thick (curvy, not stupid lol), and (the cherry on top) a facial mole. Who does that sound like? ME! That buys me so much patience it’s hilarious. Don’t think this is going to give me a big head. There is nothing like living in a new country, with new cultures, new languages, and lacking skills the natives think are as natural as can be so they laugh when you get excited about drawing water from a well or think you’re handicapped b/c you can’t clean your clothes properly to keep you humble.
I wasn’t lying about the lack of jealousy of looks. Ppl just seem to feel you’re born pretty or you aren’t. Literally the first thing women say (few men, it’s Hachuma for men to talk about it in public with women) when they meet me is “you’re pretty.” “Thank you.” “No, you’re really pretty.” One of my sisters was so excited to tell me I’m pretty she said “you’re pretty and I love to look at you. You fill my heart to the fullest to look at you.” (This intra-gender affection is very normal)
This leads into my piece about arranged marriages. Yes my friends, they are alive and well here in Morocco. At first I was mortified, some women see their husbands for the first time on the wedding night. (Actually this is usually the case so most would be more appropriate than some). The more time I spend here seeing this culture the more I realize it works well and I can see why they think we’re scandalous for (le gasp) DATEING! It’s a simple matter of misunderstanding, like weird questions. In this culture men and women never interact. They men are at the cafe or the store all day (my site is special b/c the men work most sites the men do next to nothing). The women are in the fields or cleaning the house all day. At social functions the men are in one room and the women are in another. Husbands and wives rarely even vacation together. The only time a husband and wife are together is when they are eating dinner or in bed. That being the case an arranged marriage works for the culture. I am not saying it’s great. Lord knows I would never take it for myself, nor defend it; I’m just saying it isn’t the crime against humanity I (and I’m sure I’m not alone) once thought it to be. With this situation multiple wives also make sense b/c it’s like having a sister to help with chores (and fully share jokes about this stranger you’ve both married). So much time spent w/o the opposite gender means a lot of time spent w/ your own. This means there is a great deal of affection that is shared w/o being afraid of seeming homosexual. Also, homosexuality is such a profane idea here they don’t even consider it as a possible event. Thus men hold hands no worries. And so my sister can say poetic things like looking at you fills my heart with all the love in the world w/o fear of seeming weird.
On the flip side, Moroccans can’t imagine a world in which men and women works and play together so they think the only reason we date is for perverse indulgence. I love to tell women and (on one occasion under classroom circumstances and therefore not Hachuma) a small group of guys that in the States husbands and wives spend a lot of time together, and we don’t have the constant community that they have here, so it’s a lot of time spent together alone. I enjoy explaining the need to date in our culture so we can see if we can stand spending that much time together. It always has a mind boggling effect on the women here. They always say they couldn’t spend that much time w/ their husbands. (This is a much more complex idea then the cruel idea it seems on the surface. Maybe I’ll be able to explain it one day.)
Alright friends, I have rambles quite a bit and probably bored many of you. I’ll attempt to explain the Moroccan education system to you next time but it’s a bit complicated as well. Don’t worry, not like the language bit, that’s almost cruel enough to warrant attention from the Geneva Convention ;)