The end of the ninth month

With the Muslim ninth month of Ramadan drawing to a close, the excitement is almost palpable. Restaurants and cafes that have been closed since before I arrived are finally opening up. Workman are scrubbing floors, accepting shipments of food, and cleaning in preparation for the post-Ramadan opening in a few short days. The grocery store was selling couscous again (a non-Ramadan food), and it looked like they were trying to move the last of the holiday cookies as a close-out.

This year, the Muslim calendar almost exactly lines up with the Gregorian one. Ramadan will give way to the tenth month of the year on or around October 1. There will be a two-day celebration, and classes will, I am ASSURED, begin in earnest the following week.

Today is Monday and I didn't have any students. Yet again. Tomorrow classes won't meet because there *may* be a holiday on Wednesday. The newly acquired day off tomorrow actually gives me the opportunity to change out the butagaz tank in the kitchen (the one connected to my "Bunsen burners"), which gave up the ghost this morning right before my coffee boiled. At least I had the warm milk to drink.

A day off tomorrow also gives me time to digest some of the specifications about the Muslim calendar that I learned today. For example, in Morocco they don't designate a religious holiday beforehand (Muslims in France do, mind you) -- they wait to see what the moon will do, and then let the leaders decide. In my year-long class, I may have 15 sessions with students during the first semester, but then again, I may have 14. I'll have 13 sessions the second semester, if not less. We don't make up time lost due to religious holidays but I will be able to make up time if I can’t be around for a class.

In short, if my butane tank goes dead this time next month, I'll be able to leave my apartment and get a coffee at any number of cafes in the street down below; they’re all closed right now, of course. But, I’ve seen the signs… and it’s looking good!

Multi-tasking on the job

Today was a big day for me, as I managed to submit all of the paperwork for the carte de séjour, get my boxes of teaching materials from the Fulbright office, take the boxes of teaching materials to my ESI office, and get a load of useful appliances and groceries from the Super Walmart-type store on the outskirts of town.

I like to think that I'm a bit of a multi-tasker, but some of the folks I ran into today really took the whole idea to a new level, for better and for worse.

Customer service: I stopped by the post office in center city to mail some letters, took a number, and waited my turn. While I was waiting, customers wandered in, wandered up to the counters without bothering to get a number, talked to the agents, did business, and went away. I sat. Then, when I was actually called, my agent felt obliged to stop and sell stamps to at least three other customers. It was hot and there was no air-conditioning. It was better than being outside, and probably quicker than an American post office (honestly), but there definitely was the notion that "customer service" and "waiting one's turn" have a different meaning in Morocco.

Taxis: The stand this morning (across the street from my house) was full of people, so when a few taxis came up, I resigned myself to wait, letting my neighbors vie for a spot. With one passanger in his cab already, a driver asked where I was going. I told him, he said he'd take me, and I climbed in. Taking more than one passanger isn't rare if the passangers are going in the same direction. The other guy got out before I did. In the past, I'd still been charged full fare, but this cabbie took it easy on me, and reduced my fare by the amount that my co-rider had already paid. That's good multi-tasking, from my point of view, anyway.

The cabbie also regularly took out his newspaper at red lights and read through it as if he were in his own salon marocain at home. I guess when the story's good and when multi-tasking is a way of life, it's just too tempting not to multi-task as much as possible when on the job.

My right-hand man?

Since no students showed up yesterday, I was free then to organize a capital day today. Luckily, I've gotten a lot done, too. One of my tasks was getting my office in order. The fellows who have the keys to the supply room are often absent, and I finally caught them today. Laden with things like trash baskets and pens, I needed the security guard's help to get my new treasures up to my second floor office.

I reached for my keys and opened the door. The security guard was aghast. "You know, Madame, that here we prefer to be right-handed, because right-handed people are favored by God. Left-handed people like yourself.... they go the other direction."

I knew that it was very bad manners to reach into a communal dish with one's left hand, and that the left hand is reserved for things that are unclean, but I've also seen women freely using both hands while cooking! Surely, opening a door with one's left hand isn't worse than cooking with both hands... or is it?

The poor security guard -- I don't think he believed me when I explained that I really am right-handed and that I used the least encumbered hand to open the door because my arms were full. From now on, I'm really going to have to pay attention to the messages I send, unconsciously, through the use of my left hand. The last thing I want to do is offend, especially when folks are kind enough to help me!

Butagaz

It turns out that my hot-water woes weren't due to an outed pilot light, but instead to an empty butane tank. The plumber was very gracious about the mix-up, explaining that folks have gone as far as replacing the entire water-heater before realizing that the butane tank was empty.

We grabbed the reserve tank out of the kitchen for last night's shower, but that tank is also just about out. The concierge for my building is out now getting me a replacement tank (50 Dh with tip, or about $6.5 dollars).

Luckily my kitchen tank is still going strong for the moment. In fact, the flames have been higher than usual in the past two days and I'm wondering if I've somehow bumped something. My morning beverage of choice is cafe au lait, which I prepare using espresso and warmed whole milk. The photo here doesn't capture the extent of the blue flame as it licks up past the handles and over the tops of the containers. There's at least six inches of blue flame that's not showing in this photo, which is too bad, actually.

After the concierge returns, I'm off to school. We'll see who shows up today

The mystery of the missing students: All about money?

As predicted, the students didn't show today for classes. Technically it's only the second years who are supposed to haze the first years, but 1) it must be so much fun to haze the newbies and 2) the format for classes is yielding enough that none of my students decided to make it today. One of the profs suggested that it's because the Moroccan system doesn't force them to pay tuition, so students don't feel invested like they do in the United States, for example.
Class meeting times are modified during Ramadan (we start later in the day, and move up afternoon classes since there's no lunch break to take). Neither the 3rd years scheduled to meet me at 9:00 nor the 2nd years scheduled to meet at 1:00 made it. Out of roughly 100 students on the lists, not one showed up.
My 1:00 class will meet again tomorrow, so I'll try it again then. I don't have any other classes the rest of the week, and the following week is a holiday for all. In short, if we don't go tomorrow, I won't have any chances of meeting any students before October 6.
As a high point to the day, my phone came back on, my landlady called to say hello, and promptly called the plumber when I told her about my water heater. Hassan the plumber is due at my apartment tonight at 7:30 to show me how to light the pilot light (and I'm going to see if he can work on the toilet while he's at it, insh'Allah).

Reality check

Today is a rainy and warm Sunday, a perfect time to pull together everything that I'll need for the start of classes tomorrow. Indeed, the students know that they need to be back tomorrow, and the professors are geared up to meet them. However, it's widely acknowledged that the students *may* choose not to show up and that no real learning will take place tomorrow. We won't meet at all the following week for the religous holiday, so the first time I'll distribute the syllabus and begin teaching in earnest will be the week of October 6.

I'm extremely excited about my classes and confess to having high hopes for this semester and the next. The professors that I'll be working with are just as fired up as me, and it looks like we're all ready to try new things. Interestingly, ESI has a dual charge of being a place of teaching and of scholarship, but the positive approach to student learning seems to resonate more closely with the Community College approach that we have in the United States. It's very different indeed from the Research I approach, but the group of students is also different.

The "Schools" in Morocco are of a higher caliber than the universities -- they have entrance exams limiting attendance to the best students, are funded by individual ministries and don't take from the "university" pot of money, and have better resources and facilities all around. I still can't imagine that ESI students hold a candle to the students we have at Rutgers in SCILS, but perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised. I have every intention of pushing them as far as I can this year, and given the suppleness of the semesters here, I expect things will self-adjust as we go.

As for the rest of the reality check: the winds last night blew out the pilot light on my new water heater (in the middle of a bath, actually). In all honesty, the water heater only heats the water going to the tub using the butane tank pictured at left; none of the other faucets in the house can get hot water at all. But, I'm back in a situation of not having bath/shower water. I'd try to call someone, but the screen on my cellphone died this morning, so I can't read my address book. The phone was old (it's the one I bought when I moved to NJ and got unlocked when I came here) so it's not a huge surprise that it chose to die. However, with stores closed today, I don't have much occasion to hope to get any of this fixed until Tuesday at the earliest due to classes all day on Monday.

Moral of the story, despite the stellar school where I'll be teaching, the great digs I landed, and the wealth of people who are ready to help me out, I'm still in what is technically considered a developing country and there are just going to be occasional bumps in the road that reflect this reality. For example, my landlady promises me a new stovetop apparatus next month, but for the moment, I'm using a camping-style stove for my stovetop cooking. The new stovetop will also use butane tanks, but it will likely be its own piece of furniture. Like the water heater, it will be different and new, but basically the same as the current model.

It takes a village

To get set up in a Moroccan apartment, I'm convinced that it really does take a village. As of today, I'm finally in, and my hot water is on (I just took a bath) and my landlady has returned to Tangier.
"Villagers" in the mix: The plumber who came to install the new butagaz-powered heating unit (featured to the left); a family friend of the land lady who was on-hand to help. Two cleaning ladies contributed to the good state of the place, and the concierge put us in contact with my landlady. My neighbor, Aicha, was the "agent" who put me in touch with the group, so she earned the "finder's fee" of 1/4 month's rent (go Aicha!). Of course, a friend of mine put me in touch with Aicha (don't know if he gets a "finder's fee" or not). Lastly, my co-instructor for cataloging at l'ESI has helped with everything from taking me grocery shopping to showing me around my neighborhood, to helping me work through the fact that I'm not able to get Internet via cellphone-tower-enabled modem after all.
My new water heater has been lovingly installed right above the toilet. Other photos of my new 4th floor apartment include the "salon marocain" and the tv room. There's also the "chambre d'amis", the dining room, and the kitchen. My room is huge, and there's a balcony overlooking the new national library, among other things. All in all, a fabulous find, and executed in less than a fortnight. If Moroccans are really less efficient than usual during Ramadan, then I'm going to be in for a wild ride once Ramadan is over.

The First Reunion des Professeurs of the year

Yesterday (September 15, 2008) was the first official Reunion des profs of the year at the Ecole des Sciences de l'Information (ESI) -- everyone on the permanent teaching staff assembled for a three hour meeting that quite frankly reminded me of every other faculty meeting I'd ever seen. I guess that professors everywhere are the same, and there's a certain amount of comfort in that.

It was particularly pleasant to be welcomed on an individual basis by each and every professor either before and after the meeting. It was also quite an honor to be acknowledged by Dr. Benjelloun, Director of the School, in his opening remarks at the start of the meeting.

There were about 20 professors present for this first official meeting of the year. Twenty professors, howevers is a fraction of the total teaching staff. ESI, like many schools in other countries, depends adjuncts (or vacataires) to teach some of the classes. Most of the meeting was in French. Some of the comments were in Arabic, especially when emotional reactions to the governtment's education reforms were being articulated. The last time the government had similar reforms was in 1996, before that, in 1986. There was glowing talk of changes put through during the last batch of reforms, so change is not admonished by any stretch of the imagination -- instead, the reforms seem to be a good opportunity, one to be used to its fullest advantage both for the future success of the school and for the students.

La Bibliothèque Nationale du Royaume du Maroc

Although I have been doing a lot of eating since my arrival, I've also had a chance to find out a little about the library situation in Morocco. The new king, Mohammad VI, is a strong proponent of libraries; these are the institutions that support knowledge, after all. The proof? A new national library has just been constructed in Rabat. The tall tower with blue decorations at the top is visible from this 4th floor apartment building in the Agdal neighborhood.

As it stands, the National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco is one of four Moroccan OCLC member libraries whose holdings appear in WorldCat. The other OCLC member libraries are at the Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, at the Ecole des Sciences de l'Information where I'll be teaching in Rabat, and at the Foundation Al-Saoud in Casablanca. The grand opening of the new Rabat library facility is in the near future, and I hope very much to be able to attend.

Ramadan cookies

This morning, the cookie factory's been in full production mode. Aicha has promised her famous cookies to both her sister and a friend, and needs to make several kilos by the time the iftar begins this evening at sundown.

Aicha is amazingly adept at cookie-making. I got to try my hand at it, too -- it's never as easy as it looks. Yes, my cookie (held below by Aicha) is by far the fattest and most lumpy, and yes, it took two tries to get the dough rolled out properly. But, due to the high quality of the dough, and the care with which it was cooked (first in oil, then coated in honey and orange flower water), it might just end up tasting alright.

Aicha's kitchen

This morning I left l'hotel Majliss for Aicha's house. While waiting to find the perfect apartment, I'm going to be staying with Aicha and her husband. Despite the fact that she's fasting during the day, Aicha made me at least two meals along with two pots of Moroccan mint tea; she also hand-made at least 500 cookies for tonight's iftar at her sister's house.

Aicha is a French professor by profession. She's been able to take early retirement as part of a program that was put into practice a few years ago meant to reduce the number of state employees in higher education.

Aicha's kitchen is a wonderful place -- chirps from the canaries, the far-away sound of traffic from below, and the crackle of frying dough, along with charming conversation, make it the most comfortable place in all of Rabat! It's going to be difficult to be truly motivated to go apartment-hunting in earnest tomorrow. However, now that I've learned a few tricks about cooking in Morocco, I admit to being eager to move into my own apartment and trying some Moroccan cooking of my own.

Orientation, MACECE-style

Greetings from Rabat, where this year's cohort of Fulbrighters (scholars and students) were treated to the first day of orientation at MACECE. Our fleet of small blue taxis ("petits taxis" or short-haul taxis in Rabat are a distinctive blue color) rolled up to the stately mansion-cum-headquarters in a swanky suburb of the Moroccan capital city in time for orientation to start at 10:00.

Highlights of the day included presentations by local scholars on topics such as literature, Islam, civil society, and economics of Morocco. The morning included presentations by American Embassy officials, including the Ambassador Thomas Riley!

We ended the first day of orientation with a traditional iftar. The iftar allows those who were fasting during the day to "break fast." There were all kinds of sweet and savory pastries, a tagine of brains, and one of liver. There was the traditional soup along with a Chinese soup. No one left hungry, and all Fulbrighters enjoyed a leisurely back to the hotel Majliss. Looking forward to Day Two of orientation, starting tomorrow morning at 9:30 sharp!