Day 11: Ouarzazate (the Hollywood of Morocco)

     Today I find myself in Ouarzate, a rural town in middle-of-nowhere-Morocco. It would be unremarkable, if not for the fact that many Hollywood blockbusters and classics have been filmed here, including Inception, Lawrence of Arabia, and Gladiator, just to name a few.

    However, I am not writing today mainly to talk about Ouarzate. I want to type up an entry I handwrote a few days ago when I was in the middle of the Sahara Desert, where I didn't have great wifi:

Day 8: Sahara Desert

...yes, you read that title correctly. The Sahara is one of those places Americans always hear about but never dream that they will visit. In fact, it's a placeholder for the faraway and the exotic, like the African city Timbuktu (which is is not that far from here!). Today, I took a swim in a pool in my Saharan oasis hotel, drank tea in a Berber tent, and rode a camel. The Berbers are the indigenous, nomadic peoples of the North Africa region. Some photos for your enjoyment: 

A baby camel

View of the sand dunes of the Sahara from our bedroom window

Our little oasis in the midst of the Sahara--the hotel pool

Drinking tea in a Berber tent

Looking out over the sand dunes

Me riding a camel

 

    Now for a goodie: I have another linguistic puzzle for you. Can anyone tell me why a Fez hat is called a Fez, even though it didn't originate in the city of Fes (Fez and Fes are two different romanizations of the same city name)? I will have the answer in the next blog entry. In the meantime, an important tip when out in the field practicing a foreign language:

💥💥💥DON'T BE AFRAID TO SPEAK IT!💥💥💥

That's the most fundamental fear language students have to get over to master a foreign language. If someone doesn't think your language is good enough and switches to English, there's no shame in that, and at least you tried. Best-case scenario, you snag yourself a moment to get some language practice in. Case in point:

The Case of the Pizzaless Pizza Restaurant

    Before the Sahara, we spent a day in Fés, the ancient intellectual and cultural capital of Morocco. At dinner the other day, we sat down at a little café off of Avenue Hassan II, the main boulevard of the Ville Nouvelle section of the city. The clientele of these street-side cafés generally consists entirely of Moroccan men, sipping coffees and smoking at little tables out in front. Suffice it to say, four white women and a white man pushing two tables together and sitting down in the middle of this attracted some stares. 

    In a bizarro moment, the waiter came over and dropped two food menus on the table, then came back and told us that in fact there was no food, only drinks. We got up to leave. When the waiter saw that he might lose clientele over the no-food issue, he asked us what we wanted, which was pizza, and promised to get it from the next restaurant over--whatever arrangement they have between them I couldn't tell you. In any case, we decided to stay. Mind you, this restaurant we sat down at had a huge sign in front advertising "pizza." Go figure.

    We all sat around puzzled for a hot second. Then the man among us decided he would ask the waiter why they had no food, but the waiter didn't quite understand what he was saying.

    This was my chance. I broke out into French. It was broken and disjointed, sure, but it got the job done. Through the French, I found out that they are not serving their touristy food right now because there still aren't that many tourists in Morocco, due to COVID. 

    This is true. Our experience so far has been all the more incredible because everywhere we go is nearly empty. The usual tourist hotspots are ghost towns. It is paradise, and I am trying to treasure every moment of it before my next bout of summer travel, when the tourist hordes will likely once more be out in full force.

    In another pleasant language moment, our driver said to me in French that he had overheard that I speak a little. Because of the perceived language barrier, he hadn't spoken a word to us the whole trip, so it was pleasant to have a conversation with him finally. He said that he is from Marrakesh, told me French is more useful than English in North Africa, and reiterated how devoid the country is of tourists right now. He recalled our group's lone van parked in the otherwise empty parking lot of some ancient Roman ruins we visited recently (the oldest in the world, at Volubilis), and told me that it is packed with tourist buses most of the time. He also agreed that there are similarities between Moroccan and some aspects of Asian cultures I have observed.

    tldr: seize the moments for practice when they come. At worst, you tried, and you'll do better next time because you learn from the mistakes you made. At best, you come a little closer to proficiency in the language and to understanding the culture behind the language, which is equally important.

 

    So concludes my fable. For your satisfaction, one linguistic trivia tidbit: did you know that the Berber and Greek writing systems are both descended from the Phoenician alphabet? So they are distantly related, in case you are ever wondering why you feel like you see the specter of the Greek alphabet in Berber script.

Greek alphabet 

Berber alphabet