Daily Archives: February 22, 2017

Thirty Dollars a Month

Blog Post

As a varsity rower at Wellesley College, my daily schedule is structured around practices and workouts. I didn’t have many expectations prior to leaving for my semester abroad in Rabat, but I figured I could easily find a gym or establish a running routine. Within two weeks of my arrival, however, I learned that not only was my school schedule not conducive to working out, but that gym memberships in Morocco cost just as much as gym memberships in the US: around $30 to $40 a month. When I did finally get the time to go and look at a gym in my area, I was surprised by what I would get for $30 a month.

There were two separate rooms, both dimly lit and very narrow: one had a large open space for dance and aerobic classes, along with treadmills, ellipticals, and spin bikes, and the other was packed to the brim with strength equipment. My friend Emily and I found a changing room downstairs, but there was no guaranteed security in keeping our bags there, so we were advised to leave them with the attendant. Unfortunately, she was gone from her desk just as often as she was at it, so we came with as few valuables as possible and hoped for the best.

Then, to our chagrin, we discovered that the majority of the five spin bikes had no way for us to adjust the seat or handle height. Only two of the three treadmills worked, and one of the two ellipticals: cardio options were clearly very limited.

Why not go for a run? Rabat is not particularly hilly, and we were two blocks away from the ocean, where there is a wide sidewalk that extends the length of the city. Well, first because of personal preference: I like variety in my workouts, and I infinitely prefer spinning to running. The second reason was that within a month, I had already developed a hearty dislike of being out on the street for an extended period of time in Rabat.

As a white woman I clearly stood out anywhere I went in Rabat, a city not particularly appealing to tourists. As a tall woman, I stood out even more: I was regularly taller than most women by at least half a foot, most men by a few inches. All women are subject to street harassment in Morocco, the only difference being what your harassers say. By October, when Emily and I had decided that we had adjusted enough to our routine to add on going to the gym, I was sick of hearing “Ma reine” and “Beautiful, beautiful” whispered and crooned to me as I walked past cafes. I was even more tired of hearing hisses and words that I did not yet understand.

Exercise is a safe place for me, where my endorphins go up and I feel connected to a community. The street was the opposite, so I retreated to the gym.

While the cardio room was typically empty except for Emily and me trying to figure out which machine was working that day, the strength training room was always packed and hopping.

On any given day, at any given time, we would walk in to find six to ten men making the rounds on the equipment. This group included one tall, bald man instructing people on how to best use the machines and the proper technique for certain exercises. He was remarkable for several reasons: he reminded me of my own strength training coach back at Wellesley, an intimidating woman with a no-nonsense attitude; he was taller than me; and he treated everyone in the room with the same level of respect and patience, including the young Moroccan women we saw there.

There were two women who we noticed consistently during that month. These women were tough, motivated, and powerful. They moved from exercise to exercise methodically and with purpose, seemingly at home in an environment that often overwhelmed me. When Emily and I wanted to work on our bench press, but the piece of equipment we needed was occupied by a young man who showed no signs of leaving anytime soon, we asked one of these women for advice. She quickly reassured us that we had just as much right to use the equipment as the young man, and helped us find the vocabulary to address him.

Exercising in Morocco is a question of dedication and resources. The process of finding a gym or another place to exercise where we were comfortable was difficult, and once we found it, we had neither the time nor the money to exercise at a gym for more than a month. But during that month, I saw a phenomenon of Moroccan culture that I had noticed from time to time in separate parts of my daily life but hadn’t seen displayed so clearly and plainly: strong, modestly-dressed women approaching male-dominated spaces with poise, purpose, and confidence in their ability to command the respect they deserved. While I didn’t possess the skills and cultural knowledge of these women, I could admire their strength and learn from their example.

The Sound of Silence

Blog Post

It’s three o’clock in the afternoon.  I say shukran to my teacher and make my way out of the old International Studies building at the University of Jordan.  As I cross the parking lot, the call to prayer,  Athan, begins.  Allahu Akhbar.  God is Greatest.  I walk past chatting students, up the street, and through the north gate of the university.   Allahu Akhbar.  As more mosques take up the call to prayer and the cacophony of Athan grows, the noise of people and cars begins to decay.  Ash-hadu an-la ilaha illa allah.  I acknowledge that there is no god but Allah. I cross the street and the words fade into the background when the glass door of my go-to café closes behind me.  Lubna is sitting in the far corner, cigarette in hand, wearing a pink hijab in contrast to her long navy jilbaab.

Amman is a monochromatic city, the skyline blending together with the sky in tones of gray and dust.  The unremarkable square buildings stack on top of each other like building blocks that don’t fit together quite right, creating a rough but homogeneous texture.  For a city with so much uniformity, there never seems to be any method to the madness.  The roads wind up and around steep hills with no apparent logic.

I order an espresso and walk over to the couch where Lubna is sitting.  I wait patiently as she finishes whatever animated conversation she is in the middle of before getting up to hug me.  Lubna and I are both twenty years old and in our third year of college.  She studies Russian Literature at the University of Jordan.  She greets me with “What’s up, idiot?” before we launch into our standard afternoon backgammon marathon.  She is cheerful, animated, and strong-willed.  As we play, Lubna is always doing two things: smoking and talking.  We don’t discuss our personal lives much, although Lubna tells anyone who will listen about her hot Spanish girlfriend. Sometimes our conversation is about American politics or about the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict.  Whatever the topic, I rarely have strong opinions but Lubna always does.  She regularly catches me off guard, somehow managing to be both in touch and out of touch in the same moment.  One instant she is calling out a Jordanian classmate for using the n-word and in the next she dismisses the United States’ Supreme Court decisions as a hoax.  Lubna juxtaposes a level of socio-cultural awareness many of my American peers lack with a fundamental misunderstanding of governmental legitimacy in the United States.

Amman is a new city in an old place.  The land it sits on has been intermittently settled since 7250 BC.  However, the sprawling city there today is nascent in comparison.  Since the 1930’s, Amman’s population has exploded from 10,000 to 4 million.  The ruins of an ancient citadel sit high on one of Amman’s many hills, surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the city which has sprung up around it; a testament to the city’s long history and recent growth.

By our fifth game, my espresso is long gone and there are four cigarette butts in the ashtray at Lubna’s elbow.  We reluctantly agree that it is time to go and make our way across the street and through the north gate, following our footsteps from yesterday.  Our conversation continues, this time Lubna offering her thoughts on the United States: “It sucks.” Her opinion stems mainly from disapproval of US support of Israel. Not two sentences later she tells me that she wants to move to America after graduation because it is the best place ever.  Although I am confused, I don’t question Lubna.  Her strong conviction on both matters tells me that she sees no need to reconcile these judgments.

Amman is monotonous and unpredictable, ancient and contemporary.  At first glance, the city itself seems to be a nexus of contradiction. From my point of view, Lubna is no different. Somehow, she manages to occupy both ends of every extreme at once, no matter the topic.  When I first met her I was confounded by how she might reconcile her opinions and ideas.  The longer I knew her, the better I came to understand that these convictions were not contradictions but coexisting pieces of the whole.

We walk through the University as the sun sets.  Allahu Akhbar. The call to prayer rings out.  Allahu Akhbar. We finally fall silent as we listen to the sound of hundreds of mosques, the calls overlapping, out of sync.  Ash-hadu an-la ilaha illa allah. The noise of the street dies down, and it strikes me that this is a sound that brings silence. Lubna and I reach the main gate, say a quiet goodbye, and part ways.

Metzoke Dragot

Blog Post

Today, like every day since I’ve moved here, I wake up in a daze. I say a daze, because I still have trouble believing I am in Tel Aviv. October, verging on November, and it’s still 25 degrees centigrade out. I make my way to class along with thousands of others, blending into the crowd, a part of the campus and the city.

This weekend, Dani and I have decided to do something out of the ordinary: we’re going on a yoga retreat. It is out of the ordinary because most twenty-year-olds in Tel Aviv spend their weekends partying through the night and nursing their hangovers through the day. This time, we thought we’d leave all that behind and head for the shores of the Dead Sea with a group of strangers.

“Time to escape the world!” Dani and I high-five as we jump into a Gett, the Israeli equivalent of an Uber, to get to the  meeting point.

The chaos of this past week, my friends in Boston constantly reporting the ugliness spreading after the 2016 election – after everything that has happened, a peaceful retreat is the perfect distraction.

We arrive at Metzoke Dragot, our hotel on top of a hill. The sight before us is overwhelming. We all stand, transfixed, staring at the view, incapable of looking away. The Dead Sea lies still below us and beyond are the Jordanian shores. I tell the receptionist I’m here to escape reality. “Or maybe explore a different reality,” she corrects me, smiling. She’s right; this may seem like a dream to me, but this place is her reality.

Our little group is as particular as it is perfect: a sweet young couple, an Israeli and a Dane, together for nearly ten years with a baby on the way. An Australian girl who’d fallen in love with Israel and had moved here not two years ago. A seventy year-old woman, who’d been a hippie throughout the sixties and had written a book on her work as a welder, fighting for feminism. Everyone is here for one reason or another, and in no time we begin talking about our lives outside of the retreat, becoming friends and promising to meet again in Tel Aviv.

I cannot help thinking “only in Israel,” as my roommate Gili, would put it. Something about this country makes those who visit it feel instantly intimate with those around them.

Only in Israel could eight people, completely different from one another, strangers only hours before, spend an impromptu weekend together and have time slip by without even noticing.

A couple of couches had been placed on the peak of the hill, right on the edge, facing the view. Any time we aren’t doing yoga or walking through the desert, I sit here and read with Dani for hours in comfortable silence. Sometimes I feel the need to stop reading, or chatting with my new friends, and look across the view before me, from the silent sea to the rolling hills of Jordan. I still have trouble realizing just how close the two countries are. “I could swim there” I joke with one of the group members, “and yet these countries are thousands of miles apart.” He understands me: the wars that happen and don’t happen between Israel and its surrounding countries, the bad blood that has existed in this region for over sixty years. I think to myself, “It feels so unreal that, in spite of the beauty we see around us, we are in a territory plagued by the constantly looming threat of war.”

I think back to our drive here, while crammed in a car filled with supplies for the weekend. As we made our way along the winding desert roads towards the sea, we passed a checkpoint of armed guards a few miles before our final destination. A month ago my pulse would have been racing; today, as I watched the soldiers clutching their firearms, I think of Dov, of Jonathan, and the other friends I’ve made who are serving in the military. Knowing them eases my anxiety, and I feel safer knowing they’re out there protecting us.

The peculiar bipolarity of this country is striking to all of us, and we carry on chatting about our individual relationships with the place we’ve chosen to call home, for however long.

The weekend has had its desired effect: Dani and I have gotten to experience a different part of Israel, and have finally started making sense of the country we’ve come to love.

“Back to normal,” I say to myself, once we’ve returned to Tel Aviv, staring at an entirely different sea. The wind propels the waves of the Mediterranean rapturously onto the shore, and I already miss the retreat, the friends I made, the things I saw.