no longer the new kid on the block

A little over halfway through my internship and stay here in Morocco, I can honestly call Rabat Home Sweet Home... even if home itself is, in all seriousness, a hotel named after Berlin (though it has no linkage - through its management or its clientele - to its German namesake). My room, for all its worth (20 USD/night, to be exact), has become my peaceful abode. A bed, a tiny bathroom, and a clothes rack that took ages to find hangers for make up my living situation. Before arriving to Morocco, I tried to Google Hotel Berlin with the hopes of finding some tidbit of information that would help paint a clearer picture of what was awaiting me. The only review of Hotel Berlin that I could find alluded to the possibility of the establishment serving as a double for a brothel. Whether or not it engages in shady business, I have the luxury of having my bed made every day for me and I have the safety of knowing that the main doors are barricaded shut with steel chain and bolt after 12:30pm. On late nights out, I ring a buzzer and say "c'est Stéphanie!" to have one of two brothers, either Hischam or Hassan, come barreling down the main stairwell to let me back into the homestead.

I'm on rather good terms with all of the staff here at Hotel Berlin. The cleaning lady gets a kick out of the high-pitched way I say goodbye in Arabic. The brothers enjoy confusing me (which isn't hard to do). And from Day One, the owner insisted that I address him using the informal French pronoun "tu" instead of the more formal "vous" because I was to consider him as a brother, if ever I needed help.

Home finds itself on one of Rabat's main streets in Centre-Ville, avenue Mohammed V. I am just a 2-minute hop, skip, and jump away from the walled-off portion of the city, referred to as the Medina. This is known as the âme de la ville, the soul of the city. Infused with colour, smells of roasting meat, stalls overflowing with fresh fruit, and vendors haggling passerby, the medina offers a taste of tradition. The further one ventures outside of of its walls, the more modern the neighbourhoods become. I'm sort of smack in the middle between Rabat's dual character, a short walk away from either of its surroundings.

I've been here long enough to have a favourite of everything. A favourite café, a favourite stall to buy yoghurt, a favourite burger joint, a favourite jazz bar... I know the times that strikes march past my hotel (see photo), and I even noticed that a member of the gym I go to who I had never said a word to recently got a new hair cut.

The point is, I'm comfortable here now. And I'm about to share thic city and all that it has to offer with one of my best guy friends, Chris, from Toronto who will be landing at the Rabat Airport any minute now. I scored him an internship at a language lab herefor the remainder of the summer, and on a whim he decided to pack up his belongings and re-settle here in Morocco for two months. This city just got a whole ton better!

Miss Communication 101

Miss Communication on Avoiding Moroccan Miscommunication

1. My good friend Sophia, the lovely girl who helped make my transition here in Morocco a memorable one, once told me to give out my cell phone number sparingly (good advice for anywhere in this world, I guess!). Morocco in particular revolves around a huge cell phone culture, to the point where many of my Moroccan friends own two phones - one from each of the major telephone companies - so that they can take advantage of both brands' promotions, and so that they can cheaply call their friends according to their phone alliances. Moroccans also have a tendency to call or SMS often. So I followed Sophia's counsel and thought twice before dishing out the digits. That is, until I had a conversation with my manicurist about her arranged marriage to an older Iraqi man who has a daughter her age. She finished up the tips of my French manicure with a "let's exchange numbers". I couldn't really object, especially given that she was in a very powerful position as she hovered over my hands with nail polish brush armed and ready to execute the final touches. BAD IDEA. Later that night I had already received 2 text messages from her and a few days later, she was having me passed around like a hot potato to everyone in her family. Akward. Next time, I'll keep my numbers to myself.

2. When walking around, avoid eye contact...unless you're hoping to leave Morocco with a husband as a souvenir.

3. However impressed you might be by the multi-lingual talent of passerby who can say "You're beautiful" or "Such pretty eyes" in 5 different languages, do not respond. Of course their observations are no word of a lie (ha!), but if you don't play deaf, you will risk being followed -- not quite what your mom wanted you to bring home from the market.

4. When greeting someone, you must follow the following steps (in the local Arabic dialect, of course): Ask how they are, ask how their family is, ask how their kids are, ask how their health is, and top it all off with a "Hamdillah" (thanks to God). Do not leave a step or a person out.

5. Greetings must also be accompanied by a kiss on both cheeks. Moroccans tend to add in a third kiss, but since you are a foreigner, they will assume that you will only kiss twice. There are exceptions, however, and this can lead to some awkward lips-hanging-in-the-air moments when you're about to throw in that extra smoocheroo and the other person has already backed away. My advice: YOU lead the puckering-up session by diving in for the third kiss as fast you can. A little extra love never hurt anyone, did it?

6. Learn 10 words in Dirija, the local Arabic dialect, and the Moroccans you meet with be highly impressed (...they might even assume you're fluent). Use the 10 words you know as frequently as you can. My current vocabulary successfully rests on the following words: nothing, a lot, a little, tired, hot, crazy, and of course- really crazy (refer to the next point for more details).

7. The best phrase to learn, I have discovered, is "You are crazy". In addition to scaring off predators by raising the topic of their legitimate insanity, it is also a great line to use jokingly with people - friends and strangers alike - to help break the ice. Wins over kids too, I have found. Last but not least, it's usually quite true: we're all a little crazy.. especially in Morocco.

8. When you see the word "ASS" on a billboard or a street sign, note that it does not refer to one's derrière. In fact, it is a shortened version of "Association", but it sure sounds funny to say that you are a member of a gym titled ASS CENTRAL (which, in my case, is actually true!).

9. English is idolized here, at least on T-shirts. One of the huge fashion fads right now is to wear shirts with English sayings on them, most of which make absolutely no sense whatsoever, as they are usually just a mix of random words and poor grammar. I'm often tempted to take my English lessons to the street by propping myself on a corner with a thick black marker in hand, so that I could re-write these pathetic attempts of T-shirts and put an end to the butchering of my language.

10. Last, but surely not the least: When in doubt, smile and nod (while acting blind and mute, of course). Then start twitching your head right to left, followed by some arm punches. Looking a little out of place?? You should.. that's Moroccan (Mis)Communication 101 for ya.

NOTE: There are, of course, exceptions to each of the aforementioned points. I am sure that not all manicurists are stalkers, nor are all signs with the word "ass" on it totally unrelated to that body part... regardless, this guide will prove to be highly accurate.

no photo identification, no cry

When there’s a will, there’s gotta be a way, even if it means waking up at 4 in the morning to take a 6 hour train ride that stalls due to mechanical reasons, followed by a 3 hour cab ride through desert terrain squishing 7 people into a 5 person vehicle (…without air conditioning).

The Festivale musique de gnaoua à Essaouira was the driving force and it was well worth the trouble that it took to get there. Even the decrepit train toilet with the flaking seat and the broken flush seemed alright, knowing the most renowned music festival in Morocco awaited us. Every year, the festival draws in tens of thousands of people from across the country and from all over the world. It features fusion, folk, and world beats, scattered over 7 stages throughout a town that is known for little more than this one annual celebration of music.

Our day began with a meltdown on Kellye’s part over fears that her unceasing cough might evolve into a nasty, rotting death on a train cabin in Middle of Nowhere Morocco. Not even my expired First Aid certification (which, FYI, took me 3 tries until I eventually passed) could ease her concerns. Luckily, she toughed it out and we eventually arrived to Marrakech safe and sound, lungs and excitement in tact.

From there, we organized a group of fellow festival-goers and bargained for a cheap ride to take us to Essaouira. Little did we know, however, that we had been swept up into some shady unlicensed taxi service – which explains why we were able to bargain for such a cheap price. Before we could get the wheels-a-rollin’, a mob of police officers and (very angry, licensed) taxi divers surrounded our van, telling us that we had to use one of their legitimate cab services, which translates to Moroccan as having to pay more only to ride in a cramped car with no AC for 3 hours.

Needless to say, by the time we arrived in Essaouira, we were not in any mood to crash on the floor of our friend’s flat as was originally planned. Tired, sweaty, etc. (no need to give details), we opted to invest in a hotel for the night. In order to do so, however, we both needed to have photo ID on hand. Being the genius that I am (really), I had left all forms of photo ID in Rabat, thinking that if anyone dared to steal my purse, they wouldn’t get their scheming hands on my unflattering passport photo. Brilliant, right? Not when you are dying to get rid of your bags and aching to rest on a real bed, not when you desperately need to take a shower in order to wash off the smelly Moroccan sweat (yours and the other dozen people you’ve rubbed elbows with) that has accumulated on your skin over the past 12 hours. Only the amenities of a hotel could lift me up out of the grubby state I was in.

I figured that since this country has its fair share of corruption, the hotel manager would have to budge and let me stay in her hotel. After all, she’d be making a profit off of my business! But for some odd reason - maybe I had found one of the few law-abiding citizens of Morocco - there was no way she would let us stay there unless I presented her my photo ID.

So off we went to the nearest cyber café, where I frantically searched my Gmail archives, sent emails, and even checked Facebook for a scanned piece of ID that I may have, in sensible days gone by, scanned and uploaded for situations such as this one. But alas, I couldn’t find anything…

...EXCEPT for an idea, one of the most brilliant ones I’ve ever had…

One thing that Morocco is not is technologically backward. Using Adobe Photoshop, a Google search engine, a Facebook photo, and lots of cropping & copying & pasting, I became Stephanie Brown with a Columbia University Student ID that was supposedly faxed from home.

(NOTE: This is the moment when I would like to thank my mom for passing on to me her awesome graphic design skills). After weaving in and out of the crowds in the medina all day, after having dinner with the Brits and the Bostonians we met en route to Essaouira, and after listening to one of Bob Marley’s (accounted for) sons perform his father’s classic hits, that hotel bed that took so long and so much work to get to was heaven served on a pillow.