Campaign Season

The singing, drumming and clapping floats down to us through the courtyard. This isn't the singing we're accustomed to hearing. On Monday and Thursday evenings, we get two hours of chanting (recitations from the Koran) from the mosque next door. The voices are predonimantly male. Beautiful and soft, they emerge from behind closed doors. In the mornings, we often hear a chorus of small children's voices coming from the adjacent Koranic school. We imagine that it's an arabic counterpart to the ABCs song. But for the past few mornings, there's been periodic singing in the neighborhood, of the sort we occasionaly hear in the evening as we walk past a wedding feast. I venture outside and find a local political rally in progress. This one dominated by women and children.





We're in the midst of campaign season in Morocco. While the same is true in the US, the election there isn't for another 14 months. In Morocco, laws restrict campaigning to the two weeks prior to an election. This is a major election for the lower house of parliament, and it does have people on edge; it's expected that the Islamist party will dominate the election and send progressive politicians packing. The government has made moves to counter that, including one taken from the American electoral playbook: gerrymandering. Earlier this summer, the government redrew the district lines to dilute the concentration of Islamist supporters. Of course, Morocco has another political tool not available in the US: it's a monarchy. And not a European Monarchy with a ceremonial King, but a red-blooded one that wields power. It's quite likely that the Islamists will win the election; if that happens, it will be interesting to see how the King responds.

Numbered election boxes are drawn on walls throughout Morocco, and campaign posters are officially limited to these spaces. Many campaigns have iconic stencils that they spray paint on walls throughout the city - a set of scales, and on another, a rearing black stallion, whose promise is less obvious - but others clearly lack any real organization and we're surprised by how many of the boxes remain empty wherever we go.

This singing rally I've stumbled upon is interesting in that is nearly all women and children, and I remember reading that thirty seats are reserved for female politicians. Further, the sight of my camera, usually cause for modest retreat, is today greeted with smiles, drumbeats and campaign fliers.

Right now, there's a lot of excitement. On September 7th, we'll know the results.

Lulu Has Landed

One of the best things about our year in Marrakech has been the schedule of visits from friends and family. And while we expected people to take advantage of our being in Morocco to come for a visit, we little hoped that a near and dear would think about a more long-term stay. After a not-too-auspicous introduction to Marrakech over the holidays (in our unheated house!), however, Lulu decided to accept an offer to teach high school history at the American School. The notion of her coming seemed impossibly sweet, though remote, in February, but by the time summer rolled around and her ticket was booked, we took to counting the days to her arrival like giddy fools. And we were almost pleased when she did get here to find that her furnished apartment was bare, necessitating a stay at our house for a few days. She took to the city like an old pro and was soon careening through the medina on a bicycle and emailing us to suggest drinks at a bars of which we'd never heard. She's got a Moroccan cell, a Skype account, a roommate and small group of new acquaintances and already knows her way around the Mellah (fruit + vegetable market) and Bab El Khemis (flea market). Talk about zero to 60 in seconds! Let's hope we can hang on for some of her adventure here, too.

No Room at the Inn

Dar Noury is largely a barefoot house. Not out of any effort to keep it clean, as the pink dust of Marrakech blows in through the open courtyard layer upon layer, but more out of laziness and the pleasure of having smooth tiles underfoot. Someone else decided he liked the look of our courtyard, too, our tile stacks providing an ideal spot to sun and relax. Rearranging them this morning, the interloper was discovered, and scarily close to Samuel's fingers. Safely (for us, at least) pinched between two tiles, we were able to get off a quick shot before Hannan dealt a swift blow to him with her bubble gum pink flipflop. As with the opportunistic mice of late, we hope word gets out to the other ugly exotic insects: There's no room at Dar Noury!

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.

Bon Courage

Bystanders cheering, "Bon courage!" with arms raised in salute is the kind of reception you expect turning into Central Park at the end of the NYC Marathon, or perhaps laboring up a steep stage in the Pyrenees during the Tour de France. It is not, however, what you expect to encounter running through the medina early in the morning on a scorching July day. Running isn't something you see much of at all in Marrakech, and certainly not in the old walled city. Which is why Samuel has become a bit of a start-of-day curiosity bordering on celebrity in the Sidi Ben Slimane neighborhood. He's in training, readying himself for the imminent arrival of his sister Lulu, a promised running partner, in a month's time. Lulu is 26 to Sam's 35 and has been running with a NY club team for more than a year. So, in addition to the usual health and fitness motivations, I suspect there's a bit of good-natured sibling rivalry encouraging these jaunts.

Anyway, Sam's got a few more weeks and his medina fans to revel in. The guys at the local hanouk (corner store), women headed to the hammam or public bakery, kids on bikes or in small groups selling candy, even the cats picking away at last night's garbage, all raise their hands (and heads, in the case of the cats) as he jogs past. Oh yeah, and I'm his trusted trainer, following on my bike (and in shorts, no less, to further the 'this is serious training' element of our outing).

After taking a left out of the house past the tomb of Sidi Ben Slimane, and weaving through the medina for about 7 minutes, we hit the road headed to Bab El Khemis, our flea market haunt. In the early-morning hours, the stretch is bustling with guys wheeling carts piled high with whatever the season's fruit - now melons and some small round cacti. Mostly young and brash, these guys yell out "bon courage" with a bit of a snicker and several have tried to tag along, impeded by their carts and a distinct shoe disadvantage - flip flop versus Nike Zooms. They give chase for a few meters and inevitable run their carts into the curb, nearly sacrificing the day's produce for a moment of chauvinistic competition.

Besides the heat, which threatens to kill us every morning, and the stares and sniggers, running in Marrakech can be a dangerous sport. The other day, as we reached the halfway mark and made our turn home at the Afriquia gas station, a glassy-eyed glue-sniffer tossed a glass bottle at the curb just as Samuel passed, shards grazing his shins and arms. Fortunately, his trainer was there to make sure no harm had come to her prize athlete. "Faster, faster," I entreated. "Picture Lulu. Hear her pounding at your heels. Feel her breath on your neck. Faster, man, faster!!"