Similarities and Differences

Arabic is getting easier! Notice I said “easier,” not “easy.” Its still hard. Boo. I learned my numbers 1-10, now I just have to learn how to write them. (I can write my name though: سنئسئ) I am getting better at recognizing random letters in words, say, as we drive (but generally i’m focusing on what the cars around us are doing. More on driving at a later date–hopefully with a video to follow). The big news with Arabic is that tonight for homework I am writing sentences. Actual sentences! Hopefully I can wrap my brain around the grammar and agreements and stuff and write even MORE sentences in the future!

What else is there to report? I’m trying to keep this away from a daily “I did this and this and then this” because that’s really just fluff at this point.

Oh, here’s a deep thought… today in class we talked about “Orientalism” which you may be familiar with if you’ve taken an University humanities class in the past 10 years… anyway, its basically a really complicated way of saying that Westerners put “others” into stereotyped categories, showcasing how different the “others” are in quaint and antiquated ways… I hope that my blog doesn’t do this, and if I do, I’m sorry. Really, there are more similarities than there are differences here. Obviously I’m on the internet daily, and the apartment I’m staying in is spacious, and people here can speak two or three languages–they definitely have most Americans beat on that subject… Everyone has cell phones… Maybe this would have been different ten or even 5 years ago but Morocco isn’t as different as I expected it would be. I don’t really feel like I’m in Africa. Physically I am on the continent but the city and society I’m in doesn’t fall into the thought most Americans have of “Africa” as this mysterious, mystical place of civil wars, voodoo and naked children. There’s more to the country than that!!! That’s all the deep thoughts I’ve got for now I think.

Tomorrow: expect a little info about my experience at a  turkish bath!