Introducing Language and Culture

What We've Been Doing
So, it's been a blast so far! We've mainly been getting adjusted to life in Casablanca, learning about cultural distinctives of this part of the world, and trying to navigate our way through the complicated byways and highways of the Arabic language. We didn't expect to focus too much on language, but several folks who live here stressed that it is necessary for making friends and 'surviving' in the city (i.e., getting a taxi, eating at restaurants, and (my favorite) ordering coffee). As it turns out, learning Arabic has been a lot of fun, albeit challenging. We're learning Moroccan Arabic, which is a dialect of Classical Arrabic and only a spoken language. As a result, we've been learning the language phonetically, and so we basically only know how to say, "I have one pen" and "She is my wife." The first picture featured in this blog is one of our teachers, who is a lot of fun. Her name is Aziza and she works at a local school, but (I think) she also works part-time at the tutoring center/school where we go most days. The second picture is me (obviously) at the language school...you can tell that my mind is fried from the onslaught of a foreign language. We feel like little babies, but it gives us much needed confidence in interacting with folks because we know that (if/when we have to) we can go into a local Hanut (small suppermarket in most neighborhoods) and say, "I want cheese, please." And that's always a good feeling.

A Few Thoughts
We had no context for knowing what life in Casablanca would be like. The city is surprisingly modern (not just in the sense that it has been influenced by globalization and Western culture). There are several neighborhoods or parts of the city where the houses, stores, and streets are very nice. Of course, there are shanty towns in many outlying parts of the city (and a few pockets throughout), and these areas are extremely poor. There are also economic and social situations in between these two extremes.

Moroccans, as a general rule, are friendly and warm. Everyone we have met so far has been so kind and excited that we're trying to learn their language and want to know about their culture. Casablanca is, in many ways, one of the less expensive vacation cities of Europe, so there is a lot of negative things associated with Westerners. So far we're in a kind of 'waiting room' because we're trying to learn the language, so we have not had a whole lot of interaction with Moroccans (just small conversations at cafes, having coffee, and with our teachers). However, in about a week we'll be living with a Moroccan family for two weeks (which we're a little nervous about). We're really hoping that we don't offend them inadvertently, but this will nonetheless be a great and challenging time!

We'd love to hear from you all, so feel free to email us. (Of course, we don't have a whole lot of time to respond because of all the language and school work we're doing, but it's great to hear from folks back home.) Thanks, again, for caring about us and keeping up with what's going on in our lives. Love you all!!!