---

Despite the fact that I should probably feel safer with the new airport security measures in place, I'm actually still quite freaked out.  And angry.  Really angry.  Angry at how the media is treating the incident, angry at the lack of evidence in convicting some of the alleged perpetrators, but especially angry at the fact that a group of people would do something like this (whomever they are or are backed by).  And I can't help thinking how mise en scene this whole thing is, as Hamza so aptly put it.

In case you're feeling left out, I'm flying through Heathrow on my way to New York this coming Wednesday.  Casablanca - Heathrow, Heathrow - JFK.  All but the first make me nervous.

Things here have changed a little.  More students are claiming they'd die for Palestine, more people are acting rudely toward me on the streets; I was spit on last night, three days ago near the train station had some nasty things about white people yelled at me, and last month called a "fucking American Jew."  As I just mentioned elsewhere, I still feel perfectly safe all the time, but my general morale ain't so high anymore.  More than anything, I'm just sick of my life here.  When I stay home with Hamza, I have the time of my life, but not venturing out of the house all that often begins to get to me.  Granted, I spent a beautiful week last week up north receiving hardly any attention at all since we were in a resort town and most of the Moroccans were summer vacances, but Meknes seems to be regressing.

But Wednesday - I'm being extra careful.  Packing in my laptop, iPod, not bringing any toiletries and perhaps even abandoning here the bottle of wine I'd planned to smuggle (well, not really, it's legal) home (Massinissa, for anyone who's curious), and bringing on only my book and jewelry box if I can stand it.  Apparently the less to carry on, the faster they toss you through customs, so I'll wing it.  I was only planning to bring a large purse anyway, I travel light.

I just wrote a lengthy reply elsewhere regarding food politics.  Remind me sometime to get into that.  I'm out.

I'm absolutely exhausted - I took a couple of days off from watching the news (although I did indulge in the Euro edition of Time Magazine today, only to discover that it, too, is disgustingly biased - not to mention their transliteration of "Hezbollah" is shameful...Stupid Limeys) but I'm tired anyway.  I'm sure it's the result of too much sticky brown/staying up late/playing with Nus-Nus/pistachio ice cream/insert equally absurd whatever here.  Or teaching.  I'm currently teaching two classes, which is actually only 5 total hours of my day, but feels more like 10.  Check this hellious schedule:

Wake up at 7:30, go to work at 9:00 to start teaching at 9:30, go home at 12:00 (usually after checking email and whatnot), eat lunch and chillax, go back to work at 3:30 to start at 4:00, and generally finish around 6:30, though two nights a week I have other obligations at the center, so I'm there until nowish, or 9:00/9:30 if you prefer.  I have no life.

But fortunately, I'm down to about two weeks until takeoff.  I feel like wandering around in miniskirts and drinking heavily and eating disgustingly fattening foods I haven't touched in a year like calzones and Chicago-style pizza.

Seriously, though - I joke but I know it's going to be a little tough for me to face all of these freedoms that once seemed so implicit to me.  To your average American, the idea of walking down the street without being stared at or talked to isn't a luxury - it's the norm, and if anyone bothers you, they'll get smacked (or at least the finger or some unkind words).  Here, it's a daily assault of eyes on my body, or ridiculous words thrown at me like tomatoes.  Sometimes I think that if I have to hear one more person in that hideous typical Arab accent yell "Hello, how are you?" at me for absolutely no reason (they certainly don't know me), I'll scream.  Then I relax and realize that it's just hospitality, but then I think a little more and realize that if it really were hospitality, then women would say the same thing.  Dammit.

There are days like that, and there are those which aren't.  With H, I'm happy, but there are nights I don't even want to go outside alone because I just don't feel like being looked at that way.

I was talking with a fellow female American about this the other day, and I said something along the lines of "Most American men wouldn't stare at a woman's breasts if she were wearing a simple t-shirt."  Which may or may not be true, depending on the location, the man, and most of all, the breasts, but generally speaking, we have the right to turn our sexuality off in the U.S.  Here it's always on.  Unless you cover your head in hijab perhaps, but the idea of covering my hair only to wear skintight clothes like so many Moroccan girls do seems so insanely hypocritical.  Because hair, you know, is sexual.

I should stop before I go insulting the whole of Islam or Moroccan culture which, mind you, is not my goal.  I'll just be happy to land on solid ground again after so many months of running just above the pavement.

You've got to be kidding...

Over what amounts to a 95 cent pastry and cappucino this morning, I burst into tears.

CBS Morning News informed me that 11 Israeli soldiers had been killed.  And then it informed me that 48% of Americans support Israel's actions.

Who, exactly, are these Americans?  We cannot blame this on Jews (as many here are wont to do), as they make up nowhere near of 48% of the population of the U.S. and plenty of them do NOT support Israel.  I tend to blame everything on the Deep South, but I doubt they're even the ones being polled.  I don't know.  Perhaps Americans are so brainwashed by the mainstream media that they can't even think for themselves anymore.

11 Israeli soldiers.  Nice of you to mention the over 200 Lebanese children, CBS.  Thanks a lot.

a·part·heid (-pärtht, -ht)
n.

1. An official policy of racial segregation formerly practiced in the Republic of South Africa, involving political, legal, and economic discrimination against nonwhites.
2. A policy or practice of separating or segregating groups.
3. The condition of being separated from others; segregation.

The official definition of apartheid does not include the following, however, for my purposes I will adapt the word, as I can't seem to find one better. One ethnic minority ruling over another, hostile, ethnic majority. Such as it occurred in South Africa, the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere.

After the horrifying events of the Holocaust, it makes sense as to why so much of the West supported the creation of a Jewish (Israeli) state as well, but after the creation of Israel, the Israelis simply pushed out the Palestinian people with no compensation and no hope of return.  

Mahmoud Darwish has referred to the conflict as "a struggle between two memories."  Both sides have historic wrongs to be righted, and both have resorted to absurd tactics - how does killing children or denying people food help to protect the religious icons and places so meaningful to Christians, Jews and Muslims?

Here is where I now stand:

3.9 million Palestinians are registered as U.N. refugees.  The concern of Israelis is that letting these refugees into the country would overwhelm the "Jewishness" of Israel and present a security problem.  For the latter, they could be right.  But as for the former - how soon they forget that Israel is a land for all of us?  The Dome of the Rock, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Western Wall, etc etc etc.  What will it take for the people of Israel to drop their violent nationalism and consider the lives of the Palestinian people?  Now don't get me wrong - I am as against Hamas as any other peace-loving American and I do not support any "terrorist" efforts - but who's to say that Hamas is more of a terrorist than Israel?

26% of Palestinians are unemployed.  Most make less than $2,000 a year, while the majority of Israelis make around $30,000. Almost 50% of Palestinians live below the poverty rate (there considered about $2USD/day). Israel's poverty rate?  0%.

Regardless of what's been done to Jews in the past (which, I admit, is horrifying and unwarranted), it's as if no one ever told the people of Israel that two wrongs don't make a right.

More horrifying is America's unwavering support of Israel.  I've said it before and I'll say it again - we have no business with them.  We claim that we don't deal with terrorists, but as the definition of terrorism is...

ter·ror·ism   (tr-rzm)
n.

The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

...then how can we possibly not describe Israel's actions as terrorism?

 

Things I Try To Avoid Speaking About in Class But Usually Fail and Other Lists...

1. Israel and Palestine

2. The fact that the American minimum wage is still $5.15

3. King Mohammed VI is cute!

4. My deep hatred of the French language

5. My boyfriend

6. How much I love kefta even though it might contain...lawyers

7. That I'm a total nerd

8. Coca-Cola

9. Moroccan men on the street and the ways they make me angry

10. Wet hair

Things I Miss About the U.S. Right Now

1. Wearing miniskirts

2. The availability of sushi

3. Public drunkeness

4. My wardrobe and the walk-in that contains it

5. Comfortable stylish shoes (nonexistent in Morocco)

6. Orange Julius!

7. Chicago-style pizza or hell, any pizza that doesn't suck

8. Free speech

9. Availability of English-language books

10. Political discussions that don't result in me being called a traitor/stupid/crazy/hypocritical

Meats I Never Thought I'd Eat But Have

1. Camel

2. Sheep

3. Goat

4. Donkey, apparently and unfortunately AND accidentally

5. Pigeon

6. BRAINS!

7. Liver

8. Heart

 

 

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