Lessons

Oh, it's embarrassing, our lack of Arabic. After a year, we've got a paltry 20 words . . . maybe. Outside of a taxi ride and visit to the local hanouk for water, eggs and milk, we're hopeless. But it seems our days of illiteracy and ignorance are over, thanks to Touria, our Arabic teacher. Embracing a methodology known as language acquisition, she's pushed us not only into the water, but into the deep end head first. All Arabic, all the time. After a lovely first meeting (conducted in English), talking about Touria's time spent in the States as a Fulbright Scholar and as an Arabic teacher at Marlboro College, she made the switch to Arabic and shows mirth not mercy at our bewildered looks. Twice a week for an hour-and-a-half, we delve into this language of consonants, spitting out words like you might a lemon seed that's snuck into a Pimm's Cup. But it's fun, let me tell you. The acquisition thing is good stuff. Our brains are fried midway through each lesson, but we can actually form a few sentences. Why we waited so long to embrace the tongue of our adopted city, I cannot explain. But it feels like a new world opening up, pre-empting any chance of a sophomore slump in our Morocco adventure.

Touria is a language teacher like we'd never experienced. I mean if we got them this good in school we might have become language majors. Though she wears a hijab and lives at home with her mother and sister, she is very modern and hip and terriffically positive. She likes to high five when we manage to answer one of her questions correctly and her favorite word is "mumtaz," which means "super," despite there being little about our performance that merits such praise. The other day, we learned two Marrakchi slang phrases from our web designers: "libitibitu," which means "what's good for you is good for me" and "ashaobitu," which is "what do you want." We surprised Touria with our new lingo this morning to pleased hand clapping. "You guys will be speaking Arabic better than I do," she gushed. Never has false praise felt better.

In addition to being incredibly enthusiastic about Arabic, she's also a real fan of the States and loves to talk about her time there and her appreciation for certain things, like cheese and maple syrup (which she has locked in a drawer in her desk at home). She decided not to hold back but to try everything new she came across while in the US, a philosophy which broadened her mind, but also her waist. She gained 53 pounds in one year! And when she flew back to Marrakech, her sister, who was a the airport to collect her, didn't recognize her. "She said, 'who's that fat girl that looks like my mothe?' and then she realized it was me," Touria laughed.

She also suprised us by explaining that she found it easier to practice Islam in the laissez-faire religious culture of the States, something her Moroccan friends and family did not enjoy hearing. And she confirmed that the near-constant heckling of women on the streets of Marrakech is not reserved for tourists. Touria bemoaned not even being free to sit in a park to read a book because she's hassled so ferociously. For three months upon her return, she refused to go outside her house and the first time she did, the culture shock and unwanted attention reduced her to tears.

As always, we're learning more than we'd bargained for with our Arabic lessons.