On Tuesday evening, I conducted my first interview.
Actually, it was more of a consultation than a real interview and we spoke mostly about my research project, leaving no time to discuss the list of questions I had brought with me. Still, it felt good. It felt like a milestone, or better said a breaking of ground.
My application for a research permit, as well as my submission for the ethics committee, are temporarily on hold. July and August are slow months in Morocco, and the people and institutions upon whom I depend for these applications are on vacation or recess until September. This means that my project itself, too, is necessarily on hold. I’m starting to feel quite useless – not to mention restless. I’ve been in Morocco for about nine months now, and still haven’t managed to get my project started. First there were grants to wait for, then the American IRB; now it’s the Moroccan authorities. I know that these months have been valuable time that I’ve definitely needed for preparation – the participant-observation and language training I’ve done will certainly help me hit the ground running once I do get started. But still, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m idly sitting here, twiddling my thumbs and wasting grant money, while there is so much that needs to be done.
And so, in my most recent state of restlessness, I came up with the idea of setting up meetings around Rabat with ‘consultants’: professionals in the field of mental healthcare who will not necessarily act as informants, but whose expertise will nevertheless help me to get a better sense of the infrastructure of care around here. I don’t need a permit to consult with a practitioner, and so this is something I could get started with now. For me, it serves a threefold purpose. First, I hope to consult these people about my own research project. I’d not only like to see what kinds of discussions are prompted by my research questions, but I’d also like some input and perhaps advice on the practical aspects of carrying out this project.
Second, I hope to ask each consultant some questions about the practice of their discipline in Morocco. This will broaden my perspective of what kinds of mental healthcare are available in Morocco and how they all relate to each other, and it will (perhaps, hopefully) elicit a greater spectrum of thoughts on why people believe the things they do about mental illness, and why they do the things they do to deal with it.
And finally, it’s a way both to prove to myself that my French is in good enough shape to conduct an interview, and to keep working on improving it. My cours de communication has proven that what my communicative competence mostly needs is practice, practice, and practice. But rather than hold off on interviewing until my French is ‘good enough’, I think that maybe there’s no better arena for that practice than these interviews themselves.
To make a long story short, this is how I found myself in a stylish and air-conditioned waiting room on a hot Tuesday afternoon at 6 PM, about to be seen by one of Morocco’s most prominent psychoanalysts. The Friday before, I had gathered my courage, picked up the phone, and made an original appointment for Monday at noon. That Monday at eleven, the psychoanalyst had called to reschedule – and so on Tuesday afternoon, I left my French class early and ran across town to the analyst’s office in Centre Ville. I arrived in a bit of a flustered and sweaty state, and was happy to sit down for a few minutes and peruse the available selection of magazines – all of them periodicals in which this psychoanalyst is occasionally featured. After fifteen minutes, the secretary led me in to see the analyst.
We spoke for about thirty minutes, mostly about my project. My four research questions prompted quite a bit of discussion on his part, and I mostly let him speak, trying frantically to write down whatever I could remember without losing my focus on what he was telling me. I wondered for a moment if I should take more control of the interaction, intervene, and make sure we get to all the questions I wanted to ask. This is something I’m uncomfortable with; I know from other interviews I’ve conducted that I wield that power of the interviewer very uneasily. In that sense I lend myself much too easily, perhaps, to the monologue format that so many discussions with Moroccan academics and professionals tend to take, and find it extra difficult to break out of that format.* But I decided it might actually be a good idea to let him talk and get some Moroccan-expert-input on my research questions – and that I could save my questionnaire for another meeting, after all.
And so he brainstormed about my research questions. He had some thoughts about re-phrasing a few of them, perhaps even splitting one into two separate questions. And ‘clients’ at the site of traditional healing? I should just call them ‘patients’, he said; ‘clients’ sounds a bit too commercial.
It is important, he also said, that we do not oppose ‘psychiatry’ and ‘traditional healing’. They are two completely different things, he explained, and in that sense they are not each other’s competitors. A patient seeks completely different things from a traditional healer; he doesn’t come to a psychiatrist with the same questions or the same expectations for treatment. I found this an interesting statement and wanted to ask him to elaborate – because so many psychiatrists do seem to feel the competition from traditional healing. What exactly was the difference between them then, I wanted to ask, and why is it that so many people do see these two forms of healing as competitors? But I didn’t ask those questions – by the time I had noted down the keywords of what he said, he’d moved on to a different subject and I felt it wouldn’t be useful to rewind the monologue.
Getting down to more methodological issues, he asked me if I’d been to my chosen site for traditional healing yet. No, I said, feeling a bit sheepish. But, I assured him, I was planning to very soon. Upon which he smiled, and a bit sarcastically asked me if I’d given any thought yet to how I’d get access to the place. According to him, the site has been “récupéré par la religion,” reclaimed by religion. This means not only that its new, more orthodox, framework has narrowed the site’s offer of traditional treatments and thus led its renown and reputation as a site for healing into decline, but also that I, as an (assumed) non-Muslim, will never be allowed to enter. I’d have to don a headscarf and prove myself by reciting the shahada** or fatiha,*** he said, suggesting its hopeless impossibility with the tone of his voice. A day later, a new friend said exactly the same things, though in a very different tone of voice. “Why not?” she encouraged, “We’ll try, and we’ll see what happens.” She’s right, and I guess I’m overdue for a visit to this site, but I do think I need to think about the possibility that I may need to find another site for my research. First of all, I don’t know that I want to fake being a Muslim to get in somewhere that I am not allowed to go, regardless of whether I agree with that rule (in Morocco, non-Muslims are not allowed inside mosques. The Hassan II mosque in Casablanca is the only exception). It brings up a lot of personal and research-related ethics-questions that might be better to avoid. And secondly, if this new recuperation by religion really has narrowed its offer of treatments, it may not be as good of a fit for my project, anyway.
As the psychoanalyst commented on my methodology and research questions and I frantically tried to write down what he said, I found myself a little resistant to the changes he suggested making. It’s not that he uttered any criticism – but I realize at these moments that I get a little resistant to any thoughts of changing my project. I’ve worked so hard on polishing and molding the proposal into its current shape, that the idea of deconstructing it again and putting it back together in a different way scares me a little. I know that projects are fluid and intangible things, even if proposals aren’t, and I know that most likely I’ll leave Morocco in two years with a very different project than the one I describe in my proposal. But still. Right now, the proposal is all I’ve got, and I don’t want to let it go just yet.
Nevertheless, I’m going to swallow that resistance. Input from Moroccan experts is exactly what I need – and none of the suggestions so far have been all that radical. And looking back on the interaction as a whole, I think I’m satisfied. Before I left I asked him if he’d be open to an actual interview about psychoanalysis at a later date, to which he assented – and assured me that he’d be more than happy to suspend his usual monologue format and just sit and answer questions (and thus assuaged all my frustration about not having asked follow-up questions; I’ll have my chance to revisit all those subjects, with the help of a tape recorder). Some explanations went better in French than others (explaining the point of person-centered interviews took some work. I hardly know how to explain that in English), but I think I made myself mostly understood.
But mostly? Mostly I was just proud that I had done this. That I had finally managed to do something research-related, and that I pulled it off.
* I was kind of surprised that even this man engaged in that kind of monologue. Aren’t psychoanalysts supposed to listen, rather than speak? But then again, this is a psychoanalyst who writes books and blogs about his viewpoints…
** the shahada is the profession of faith: “I attest that there is no God but Allah and that Mohammed is His Prophet.” Conversion to Islam consists of reciting this phrase three times in the presence of a witness. The shahada is also the concent of the five-times-daily call to prayer, and is recited at particular moments throughout life, though I do not know exactly when.
*** the fatiha is the first verse of the Qur’an.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
National Pride
The workshop at the Clinic that I went to a few weeks ago – that methodological workshop organized by three psychologists from the University of Amsterdam – started off with a bit of a misunderstanding. Justifying their reasons for seeking to construct a questionnaire that was multiculturally valid, the trio recounted the problems they often encounter with young patients of Moroccan origin. Not only do Moroccan families often have a different way of dealing with problematic children than Dutch families do, they explained, but most questionnaires aiming at diagnosis are very much based on Dutch cultural assumptions that are not relevant to their context.
A psychiatric resident, clearly bothered, immediately reacted: it was incorrect to claim that youth of Moroccan origin were more susceptible to psychological problems than their Dutch peers.
It took a few minutes of apologies and explanations by the Dutch psychologists to convince the residents that they had not meant to imply any such thing – that of course, psychological problems are just as common among Dutch adolescents, and that the clinical issue is simply the fact that Dutch practitioners are not trained to deal with anyone whose cultural context is something other than purely Dutch.
Then, an hour later, the residents struck a completely different tone.
The Dutch psychologists asked the Clinic’s residents to compile a list of typical aspects of Moroccan parent behavior. The residents took 15 minutes to brainstorm over coffee and sweets, and came back with a page full of items. I’ve already described the residents’ spontaneous division of these aspects into those of ‘traditional’ parents, and those of the ‘modern’ generation; but there was something else that I thought was interesting. Nearly all items on the list of ‘traditional’ characteristics were phrased as negatives. While the question had been neutral (in asking for “typical aspects”), the responses were given as “too much of X,” and “too little of Y.”
It is not only the negativity (this freely offered, unprompted negativity) of the residents’ list that struck me, but also its seeming contrast to the offense that the resident had taken earlier on, when she was under the impression that the Dutch presenters had insulted the psychological health of the Moroccan-Dutch. It is a contradiction that I notice often.
The Moroccans we foreigners meet seem highly concerned with giving us a positive portrayal of their country. They tell us of its wealth in resources, its seamless mix of a ‘thousand-and-one-nights’ exoticism with ‘modern’ development, its rich traditions and its great openness toward the western world. We are pressed upon to take note of the multiculturalism and ethnic diversity that characterizes Moroccan society, its tolerance and its hospitality. Islam solves all problems, everyone is nobly religious, and the King is a great innovator. Correspondingly, these people are quickly offended at any suggestion that we Westerners may harbor any negative stereotypes about their part of the world, and will confront such prejudice. There seems to be a particular sensitivity about any suggestions of Orientalist stereotyping and prejudice. Rightly so, perhaps – there are enough instances of ignorant bias that throw Morocco on a single heap with all ‘Arab’ and ‘Muslim’ countries – but sometimes the sensitivity feels a bit disproportionate, and I find myself walking on egg shells trying to make sure I don’t offend.*
But theirs is not a nonstop pride. There are moments of self-expressed negativity that intersperse these exaltations, their unexpected bleakness leaving a bitter aftertaste. These are moments of self-effacing, dejected criticism at Morocco’s inefficiency, inequality, poverty, corruption, and ‘backwardness’. And it always catches me off guard.
My co-worker Choumissa likened it to a Moroccan expression her mother was wont to use: nderrbek ou ma nkhalli had yderrbek – “I’ll hit you, but I won’t let anyone else hit you.” Just as a parent will discipline her children but will not tolerate anyone else who tries to touch her offspring, Moroccans like to be self-critical, but do not accept any negativism from outsiders. This is something we all have in common, I think. We all like to gripe about what doesn’t work well in our respective societies. We all wish for change, and we’re all quick to denounce things we have issues with. But we are also sensitive to our country’s image in the eyes of foreigners. We all want the positive to prevail, and we all want visitors to come away with a sense of “wow, what a great country. When can I come back?” I remember how upset I used to get when Dutch classmates characterized the United States as a “cruel country.” How desperate I felt when I shyly mentioned to the offender that America also had a few redeeming qualities, and he responded by saying “yeah, sure. But overall, it’s still a cruel country.”
What surprises me most about Moroccan negativity, though, is not necessarily the fact that they criticize their country – we all do,** on occasion – but the fact that they do so in my presence. Perhaps I’m so used to being given an image edited to leave out the negative, that these sudden critiques stand out in stark contrast. How do you respond, when you praise Morocco’s people and natural beauty to a stranger who has been kind enough to invite you to their home, and they shoot back that “this society sucks, it’s going to hell. We’ve lost our norms and values”? Obviously, agreeing with this criticism wouldn’t be the right thing to do, but would an insistence on Morocco’s positive assets make such a person feel invalidated in their suffering?
What is this criticism ultimately about, I wonder? In the workshop at the Clinic, the negativity was directed toward characteristics of ‘traditional’ parenting. Was this a ‘performance of modernity’? An effort to downplay (through denunciation) ‘backward’ traditions and thus turn our gaze toward Morocco’s development and modernization? We were in a psychiatric facility after all – a bastion of ‘modernity’ and illustration of globalization. If this is it, if this is simply another way to edit particular things out of the image presented of Morocco, we might almost think of this as the flipside of the coin of propaganda in a country that seems to struggle with the question of how to combine tradition and modernity.
But then again, so much of that unprompted criticism doesn’t seem to be about tradition at all. It is societal – people lament the lack of efficiency, or the inequality, corruption, and other vices that halt Morocco’s development. Is it an apology, perhaps? Is it a judgment of their own country through what they think is my frame of reference? Is it an effort at translation?
Is it all, then, part of that same effort that encourages people to indulge us westerners in the façade of desert exoticism and other fantasy images of Morocco? Is it simply about catering to what they think is our frame of reference?
… and do we thus find ourselves at an impasse of images and stereotypes, in which we alternately struggle to break through them, and ultimately resort back to their familiarity in an effort to facilitate communication?
* And it makes me sad sometimes that, despite my best intentions to exude an openness, to remain aware that Morocco and every Moroccan are unique entities unto themselves, and to refrain from passing judgment, there is the occasional person who expects the worst because I am, after all, a Westerner, and something I say about Qur’anic interpretation will still be branded as ‘Orientalist’. I am aware of the fact that I may not always succeed in being as open as I’d like to be. I know that there are moments when my level of tolerance lies slightly lower than I’d like it to, and I give in to frustration. Also, I guess expressed sensitivity to prejudice helps to remind me of the importance of that openness. But still, I feel a bit defeated sometimes when I try to express an openmindedness and I am received as a ‘Westerner’ who, perhaps despite herself, will ultimately resort to generalization.
** Criticize our own country, I mean – not Morocco…
A psychiatric resident, clearly bothered, immediately reacted: it was incorrect to claim that youth of Moroccan origin were more susceptible to psychological problems than their Dutch peers.
It took a few minutes of apologies and explanations by the Dutch psychologists to convince the residents that they had not meant to imply any such thing – that of course, psychological problems are just as common among Dutch adolescents, and that the clinical issue is simply the fact that Dutch practitioners are not trained to deal with anyone whose cultural context is something other than purely Dutch.
Then, an hour later, the residents struck a completely different tone.
The Dutch psychologists asked the Clinic’s residents to compile a list of typical aspects of Moroccan parent behavior. The residents took 15 minutes to brainstorm over coffee and sweets, and came back with a page full of items. I’ve already described the residents’ spontaneous division of these aspects into those of ‘traditional’ parents, and those of the ‘modern’ generation; but there was something else that I thought was interesting. Nearly all items on the list of ‘traditional’ characteristics were phrased as negatives. While the question had been neutral (in asking for “typical aspects”), the responses were given as “too much of X,” and “too little of Y.”
It is not only the negativity (this freely offered, unprompted negativity) of the residents’ list that struck me, but also its seeming contrast to the offense that the resident had taken earlier on, when she was under the impression that the Dutch presenters had insulted the psychological health of the Moroccan-Dutch. It is a contradiction that I notice often.
The Moroccans we foreigners meet seem highly concerned with giving us a positive portrayal of their country. They tell us of its wealth in resources, its seamless mix of a ‘thousand-and-one-nights’ exoticism with ‘modern’ development, its rich traditions and its great openness toward the western world. We are pressed upon to take note of the multiculturalism and ethnic diversity that characterizes Moroccan society, its tolerance and its hospitality. Islam solves all problems, everyone is nobly religious, and the King is a great innovator. Correspondingly, these people are quickly offended at any suggestion that we Westerners may harbor any negative stereotypes about their part of the world, and will confront such prejudice. There seems to be a particular sensitivity about any suggestions of Orientalist stereotyping and prejudice. Rightly so, perhaps – there are enough instances of ignorant bias that throw Morocco on a single heap with all ‘Arab’ and ‘Muslim’ countries – but sometimes the sensitivity feels a bit disproportionate, and I find myself walking on egg shells trying to make sure I don’t offend.*
But theirs is not a nonstop pride. There are moments of self-expressed negativity that intersperse these exaltations, their unexpected bleakness leaving a bitter aftertaste. These are moments of self-effacing, dejected criticism at Morocco’s inefficiency, inequality, poverty, corruption, and ‘backwardness’. And it always catches me off guard.
My co-worker Choumissa likened it to a Moroccan expression her mother was wont to use: nderrbek ou ma nkhalli had yderrbek – “I’ll hit you, but I won’t let anyone else hit you.” Just as a parent will discipline her children but will not tolerate anyone else who tries to touch her offspring, Moroccans like to be self-critical, but do not accept any negativism from outsiders. This is something we all have in common, I think. We all like to gripe about what doesn’t work well in our respective societies. We all wish for change, and we’re all quick to denounce things we have issues with. But we are also sensitive to our country’s image in the eyes of foreigners. We all want the positive to prevail, and we all want visitors to come away with a sense of “wow, what a great country. When can I come back?” I remember how upset I used to get when Dutch classmates characterized the United States as a “cruel country.” How desperate I felt when I shyly mentioned to the offender that America also had a few redeeming qualities, and he responded by saying “yeah, sure. But overall, it’s still a cruel country.”
What surprises me most about Moroccan negativity, though, is not necessarily the fact that they criticize their country – we all do,** on occasion – but the fact that they do so in my presence. Perhaps I’m so used to being given an image edited to leave out the negative, that these sudden critiques stand out in stark contrast. How do you respond, when you praise Morocco’s people and natural beauty to a stranger who has been kind enough to invite you to their home, and they shoot back that “this society sucks, it’s going to hell. We’ve lost our norms and values”? Obviously, agreeing with this criticism wouldn’t be the right thing to do, but would an insistence on Morocco’s positive assets make such a person feel invalidated in their suffering?
What is this criticism ultimately about, I wonder? In the workshop at the Clinic, the negativity was directed toward characteristics of ‘traditional’ parenting. Was this a ‘performance of modernity’? An effort to downplay (through denunciation) ‘backward’ traditions and thus turn our gaze toward Morocco’s development and modernization? We were in a psychiatric facility after all – a bastion of ‘modernity’ and illustration of globalization. If this is it, if this is simply another way to edit particular things out of the image presented of Morocco, we might almost think of this as the flipside of the coin of propaganda in a country that seems to struggle with the question of how to combine tradition and modernity.
But then again, so much of that unprompted criticism doesn’t seem to be about tradition at all. It is societal – people lament the lack of efficiency, or the inequality, corruption, and other vices that halt Morocco’s development. Is it an apology, perhaps? Is it a judgment of their own country through what they think is my frame of reference? Is it an effort at translation?
Is it all, then, part of that same effort that encourages people to indulge us westerners in the façade of desert exoticism and other fantasy images of Morocco? Is it simply about catering to what they think is our frame of reference?
… and do we thus find ourselves at an impasse of images and stereotypes, in which we alternately struggle to break through them, and ultimately resort back to their familiarity in an effort to facilitate communication?
* And it makes me sad sometimes that, despite my best intentions to exude an openness, to remain aware that Morocco and every Moroccan are unique entities unto themselves, and to refrain from passing judgment, there is the occasional person who expects the worst because I am, after all, a Westerner, and something I say about Qur’anic interpretation will still be branded as ‘Orientalist’. I am aware of the fact that I may not always succeed in being as open as I’d like to be. I know that there are moments when my level of tolerance lies slightly lower than I’d like it to, and I give in to frustration. Also, I guess expressed sensitivity to prejudice helps to remind me of the importance of that openness. But still, I feel a bit defeated sometimes when I try to express an openmindedness and I am received as a ‘Westerner’ who, perhaps despite herself, will ultimately resort to generalization.
** Criticize our own country, I mean – not Morocco…
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Participant-Observation Reconsidered
I want to pick up on the thought I ended my last blog post with: where does the research end, and where does my life begin?
This question has come up in my blog posts before. I struggled with it when I returned to Morocco this past January, and found that I was now personally part of the daily life I tended to write about. It blurred the lines between observation and participation,* and I found that I had to re-think the tone and purpose of this blog. Months later I am much more comfortably settled here, but the issue remains; the question still sits there in the back of my mind, pressing ever so subtly against my brain’s centers for speech and reflection.
A friend of mine recently questioned the possibility of balancing work and private life in one of her blog posts. Sharing both her own experiences and those of some she knows, she wrote about the importance (and difficulty) of setting limits and making sure that work does not swallow up your private life. She emphasized how crucial it is that you guard the time you have for relaxation, for rejuvenation, and all other things that sustain your mind and body – but how easy it is to forget about these necessities when a deadline approaches. Her story made me think about my own situation in a new way, and I wondered if my ‘issue’ might simply be solved by being a better guard at the border between ‘work’ and ‘private life’.
The thing is, I’ve never thought of my research as ‘work’. In San Diego, ‘work’ was my teaching job. The development of my research proposal and everything that involved, that was me. Sure, it was difficult at times, there were externally imposed deadlines to keep, and I had moments of utter frustration – but that project was my creation, constructed through a smelting together of the questions, ideas, and geographical regions that I have had a passion for as long as I can remember. Developing that research project felt as much like work as playing the piano, or writing in my journals. And it still feels that way – perhaps even more so, now that I am ‘in the field’, as anthropologists are wont to say. I ‘work’ at the NIMAR, but my research? That’s me.
In reality, of course, that research is my work – it’s the foundation for my career, I’m being paid to do it, and it’s what I (hopefully) will be making my money from for a long time to come. And I am utterly fine with the fact that in that sense, the border between my ‘work’ and my ‘private life’ is a large and undefined gray zone. This is the nature of academia, where people personally identify with the research they do to such an extent that it becomes an inseparable part of them (sometimes to an unhealthy extent, perhaps), and it suits me. I’m a workaholic by nature. This may or may not always be good for my health, but at least I have a ‘job’ where I set the hours as well as the pace – and where I can thus take a break for an hour at any time I choose, to eat a healthy meal, go running, relax with a book or movie… or buy furniture for a new Moroccan apartment.
So my issue isn’t this. It is not the porosity of the border between work and personal life that bothers me. I don’t mind the fact that I sit behind my desk at home working on ideas for my project until late at night, or that an hour’s relaxation at a café in the city suddenly becomes fodder for observation when I engage in an interesting conversation with a Moroccan friend.**
What I do mind – and this is what the issue comes down to – is that the gray zone of work/personal life creates a constant sense of role confusion. The question that I began this post with (where does the research end and my life begin?) ultimately comes down to this more fundamental question: am I, and is my personality, an involved part of my daily life and the relationships I build, or not?
We’ve accepted the fact that one cannot ever be fully ‘objective’, and that all anthropologists observe and interpret from their own personally and culturally constructed vantage point. We even refer to our primary method of data collection as ‘participant observation’, the idea being that you cannot truly come to ‘know’ how something works unless you yourself participate in the act. But despite all this acceptance of subjectivity, the goal remains to preserve at least a kind of neutrality in your engagement with the field. This neutrality is necessary, I think, to ensure that informants will feel free to share their personal opinions with you, a stranger, without concern for judgment – but it still sets the participating and subjective anthropologist apart from members of the community in which he or she is conducting research.
In other words, an anthropologist behaves differently than an ordinary ‘participant’. And being in Morocco full-time, where any situation can turn into an opportunity for data collection, I am confused sometimes as to whether I should act as the anthropologist, or as a ‘person’. Let me illustrate.
Earlier this week I had a brief exchange with another student during our French class. Having just heard me mention that I did research on psychiatry, the young man asked me what I thought were the main differences between psychiatry in Morocco, and that in France or the United States. I responded by telling him that that was exactly what I intended to find out. He took this as cue to share with me his own opinion on the matter. The difference was, he explained to me, that there is no market for psychiatry in Morocco, because individual sufferers are able to solve their problems within and by virtue of their familial support network. Westerners on the other hand, who live individual lives cut off from any form of social support, will need a professional to help them solve their problems.
I reacted as an anthropologist. I told him that was an ‘interesting viewpoint’ and would have asked him how exactly that “soulagement” (relief) within the family circle worked, had monsieur Aziz not changed the subject and reminded us that we were in a class with twenty other students.
But the exchange left me frustrated. As monsieur Aziz talked, I reflected: had I not felt the need to react in an anthropologically correct manner, had I decided to engage as a regular student in the class (which I am, after all), I would have responded so differently. I would have reminded him to bear in mind that the ‘western world’ is not so radically different from Morocco on this count: we are not as extremely individualistic as some like to think, and for that matter, I don’t think the average Moroccan network of family support is as soft and springy as it is sometimes made to seem. Plus, what about the other side of collectivism: that sometimes suffocating form of social control, the fact that people are judged on the basis of their behavior, the fact that people are afraid that one black sheep will taint the entire family’s reputation? Couldn’t those issues lead to a whole new range of psychological troubles from which we lone cowboys of the West are blissfully spared?
When I act as an anthropologist, I leave myself and my opinions out of the interaction. My goal is to learn what Moroccans think, and any clearly voiced disagreement on my part would certainly not encourage them to freely share their thoughts with me. However, personal relationships are impossible to build on this kind of mental distance – you can’t forge a personal relationship (not a satisfying one, at least), if your personality is completely left out of the equation.
At my primary research site, it is clear what kind of situation I am in, and which role I am to play. But what confuses and sometimes frustrates me are these other contexts of social interaction. As I’ve said, any situation is potentially an opportunity for data collection. But does that mean that I am always supposed to be the (subjectively) neutral anthropologist? If I take a French class in Morocco, am I supposed to behave like an ethnographer and swallow my personal disagreements because I happen to be in Morocco? Or do I let myself be just-another-student – and if so, what do I do when a topic of interest to my project comes up?
For that matter, who am I supposed to be when I interact with the Moroccans I meet at the NIMAR? Like that female researcher working on gender issues. Do I try to be her friend, and hope to finally establish my first real friendship with a Moroccan woman, or is she someone who could help me in my research?
Then again, establishing a ‘real’ friendship with a Moroccan woman – the kind of friendship based on personal connections and openness – may not be as easy as I’d like it to be anyway. I’ve written before about the issues many of us foreign women have in connecting to our Moroccan counterparts. We seek personal connections, only to find out that there often isn’t a lot of room for our personalities in these relationships. Pleasant exchanges and meetings for tea go a long way in keeping loneliness at bay, but the true sense of mutual understanding that I sometimes crave is hard to find.
Seeing as there is no point trying to change this situation, perhaps the best thing to do is see this as an answer to my issue of confusion. To consider the guarding of certain opinions as my standard modus operandi, and thus free myself from worry about overstepping boundaries, falling out of character, and misjudging situations.
If there are any anthropologists among the few who read this blog, I’d love to know whether you’ve felt this same issue – and if so, how you dealt with it.
* I’ll get into the notion of ‘participant-observation’ a little later on, so hold that thought.
** My project concerns the institution of mental healthcare, but that does not mean that my ‘work’ ends at the hospital doors. Since I am interested in how these practices of mental healthcare relate to and are affected by larger socio-economic dynamics that dominate Moroccan society, any given setting or conversation provides me with data, in a sense.
This question has come up in my blog posts before. I struggled with it when I returned to Morocco this past January, and found that I was now personally part of the daily life I tended to write about. It blurred the lines between observation and participation,* and I found that I had to re-think the tone and purpose of this blog. Months later I am much more comfortably settled here, but the issue remains; the question still sits there in the back of my mind, pressing ever so subtly against my brain’s centers for speech and reflection.
A friend of mine recently questioned the possibility of balancing work and private life in one of her blog posts. Sharing both her own experiences and those of some she knows, she wrote about the importance (and difficulty) of setting limits and making sure that work does not swallow up your private life. She emphasized how crucial it is that you guard the time you have for relaxation, for rejuvenation, and all other things that sustain your mind and body – but how easy it is to forget about these necessities when a deadline approaches. Her story made me think about my own situation in a new way, and I wondered if my ‘issue’ might simply be solved by being a better guard at the border between ‘work’ and ‘private life’.
The thing is, I’ve never thought of my research as ‘work’. In San Diego, ‘work’ was my teaching job. The development of my research proposal and everything that involved, that was me. Sure, it was difficult at times, there were externally imposed deadlines to keep, and I had moments of utter frustration – but that project was my creation, constructed through a smelting together of the questions, ideas, and geographical regions that I have had a passion for as long as I can remember. Developing that research project felt as much like work as playing the piano, or writing in my journals. And it still feels that way – perhaps even more so, now that I am ‘in the field’, as anthropologists are wont to say. I ‘work’ at the NIMAR, but my research? That’s me.
In reality, of course, that research is my work – it’s the foundation for my career, I’m being paid to do it, and it’s what I (hopefully) will be making my money from for a long time to come. And I am utterly fine with the fact that in that sense, the border between my ‘work’ and my ‘private life’ is a large and undefined gray zone. This is the nature of academia, where people personally identify with the research they do to such an extent that it becomes an inseparable part of them (sometimes to an unhealthy extent, perhaps), and it suits me. I’m a workaholic by nature. This may or may not always be good for my health, but at least I have a ‘job’ where I set the hours as well as the pace – and where I can thus take a break for an hour at any time I choose, to eat a healthy meal, go running, relax with a book or movie… or buy furniture for a new Moroccan apartment.
So my issue isn’t this. It is not the porosity of the border between work and personal life that bothers me. I don’t mind the fact that I sit behind my desk at home working on ideas for my project until late at night, or that an hour’s relaxation at a café in the city suddenly becomes fodder for observation when I engage in an interesting conversation with a Moroccan friend.**
What I do mind – and this is what the issue comes down to – is that the gray zone of work/personal life creates a constant sense of role confusion. The question that I began this post with (where does the research end and my life begin?) ultimately comes down to this more fundamental question: am I, and is my personality, an involved part of my daily life and the relationships I build, or not?
We’ve accepted the fact that one cannot ever be fully ‘objective’, and that all anthropologists observe and interpret from their own personally and culturally constructed vantage point. We even refer to our primary method of data collection as ‘participant observation’, the idea being that you cannot truly come to ‘know’ how something works unless you yourself participate in the act. But despite all this acceptance of subjectivity, the goal remains to preserve at least a kind of neutrality in your engagement with the field. This neutrality is necessary, I think, to ensure that informants will feel free to share their personal opinions with you, a stranger, without concern for judgment – but it still sets the participating and subjective anthropologist apart from members of the community in which he or she is conducting research.
In other words, an anthropologist behaves differently than an ordinary ‘participant’. And being in Morocco full-time, where any situation can turn into an opportunity for data collection, I am confused sometimes as to whether I should act as the anthropologist, or as a ‘person’. Let me illustrate.
Earlier this week I had a brief exchange with another student during our French class. Having just heard me mention that I did research on psychiatry, the young man asked me what I thought were the main differences between psychiatry in Morocco, and that in France or the United States. I responded by telling him that that was exactly what I intended to find out. He took this as cue to share with me his own opinion on the matter. The difference was, he explained to me, that there is no market for psychiatry in Morocco, because individual sufferers are able to solve their problems within and by virtue of their familial support network. Westerners on the other hand, who live individual lives cut off from any form of social support, will need a professional to help them solve their problems.
I reacted as an anthropologist. I told him that was an ‘interesting viewpoint’ and would have asked him how exactly that “soulagement” (relief) within the family circle worked, had monsieur Aziz not changed the subject and reminded us that we were in a class with twenty other students.
But the exchange left me frustrated. As monsieur Aziz talked, I reflected: had I not felt the need to react in an anthropologically correct manner, had I decided to engage as a regular student in the class (which I am, after all), I would have responded so differently. I would have reminded him to bear in mind that the ‘western world’ is not so radically different from Morocco on this count: we are not as extremely individualistic as some like to think, and for that matter, I don’t think the average Moroccan network of family support is as soft and springy as it is sometimes made to seem. Plus, what about the other side of collectivism: that sometimes suffocating form of social control, the fact that people are judged on the basis of their behavior, the fact that people are afraid that one black sheep will taint the entire family’s reputation? Couldn’t those issues lead to a whole new range of psychological troubles from which we lone cowboys of the West are blissfully spared?
When I act as an anthropologist, I leave myself and my opinions out of the interaction. My goal is to learn what Moroccans think, and any clearly voiced disagreement on my part would certainly not encourage them to freely share their thoughts with me. However, personal relationships are impossible to build on this kind of mental distance – you can’t forge a personal relationship (not a satisfying one, at least), if your personality is completely left out of the equation.
At my primary research site, it is clear what kind of situation I am in, and which role I am to play. But what confuses and sometimes frustrates me are these other contexts of social interaction. As I’ve said, any situation is potentially an opportunity for data collection. But does that mean that I am always supposed to be the (subjectively) neutral anthropologist? If I take a French class in Morocco, am I supposed to behave like an ethnographer and swallow my personal disagreements because I happen to be in Morocco? Or do I let myself be just-another-student – and if so, what do I do when a topic of interest to my project comes up?
For that matter, who am I supposed to be when I interact with the Moroccans I meet at the NIMAR? Like that female researcher working on gender issues. Do I try to be her friend, and hope to finally establish my first real friendship with a Moroccan woman, or is she someone who could help me in my research?
Then again, establishing a ‘real’ friendship with a Moroccan woman – the kind of friendship based on personal connections and openness – may not be as easy as I’d like it to be anyway. I’ve written before about the issues many of us foreign women have in connecting to our Moroccan counterparts. We seek personal connections, only to find out that there often isn’t a lot of room for our personalities in these relationships. Pleasant exchanges and meetings for tea go a long way in keeping loneliness at bay, but the true sense of mutual understanding that I sometimes crave is hard to find.
Seeing as there is no point trying to change this situation, perhaps the best thing to do is see this as an answer to my issue of confusion. To consider the guarding of certain opinions as my standard modus operandi, and thus free myself from worry about overstepping boundaries, falling out of character, and misjudging situations.
If there are any anthropologists among the few who read this blog, I’d love to know whether you’ve felt this same issue – and if so, how you dealt with it.
* I’ll get into the notion of ‘participant-observation’ a little later on, so hold that thought.
** My project concerns the institution of mental healthcare, but that does not mean that my ‘work’ ends at the hospital doors. Since I am interested in how these practices of mental healthcare relate to and are affected by larger socio-economic dynamics that dominate Moroccan society, any given setting or conversation provides me with data, in a sense.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Communication Francophone
Two weeks ago, I started a month-long French class. Every Monday to Friday at four PM, I now head over to a language school across from Jour et Nuit (a coffee house and well-known landmark on this side of the medina’s Bab Chellah) for a two hour cours de communication. My teacher, monsieur Aziz, is a self-proclaimed thespian in his fifties who loves Molière and Hugo. Every afternoon he attempts to animate his weary students with larger-than-life gestures and facial expressions, walking back and forth across the front of the classroom as though it is a stage from which he attempts to enthrall a difficult audience.* Occasionally he coaxes us out of our seats for some creative play of our own, in which we awkwardly participate, as he reminds us that games are not about winning, but about sharing – and communicating, of course.
I had decided long ago that it was time for a class to ignite the francophone cells in my brain (I know they’re there! I’m just too nervous to ignite them on my own, not knowing for sure that they’ll work the way they’re supposed to), and three weeks ago I took a placement test at this school. As the consultant grading my test remarked that I seemed to have all the grammar down, I explained that I just wanted to learn how to speak sans devoir réfléchir – without having to think about it – and that it wouldn’t hurt to expand my vocabulary. The consultant seemed to know exactly what I was looking for, and enrolled me in this course.
I must admit that it is a different kind of cours de communication than I had expected. Focused less on linguistic barriers than psychological ones, we work on things like learning how to speak without getting flustered by attention from others, discerning the purpose or intent behind a communicative message (the acte illocutoire), and evaluating each other’s efficiency in getting a message across. The goal of this course is, in monsieur Aziz’s words, nothing less than a change in our sense of self, and the elimination of certains sentiments négatives.
This is not precisely what I had had in mind; this course is not so much about learning how to speak sans réfléchir, but rather about how to effectively turn what you want to say into an actual expressed message. But in the end, I figure, communication is communication – does it really matter what the nature is of the barriers that keep you from living up to your potential? What I needed is a push in the back, an environment where I was forced to speak up – and that’s essentially what I’ve gotten. And I do notice some difference. I seem less worried about just speaking, and am discovering that I can make myself perfectly understood in almost any situation. The only barrier I have left is the intimidation I feel around my very adeptly francophone co-workers…
My fellow students are, for the most part, timid high school graduates stuck in that liminal phase between puberty and adulthood, where you suddenly realize that your decisions not only matter, but can affect the entire course of your life. As we went around on day one to introduce ourselves, they all very un-timidly attested to a desire to overcome their shyness, and I imagine that, faced with the weighty decision of what-to-do-next, these young adults are perhaps attempting with this course to turn themselves into direct and fearless go-getters. Timidity is a theme they repeatedly bring up themselves. As we subjectively evaluate each others’ efforts at communication,** students constantly remark that the speaker’s main problem seems to be shyness. “Is this a problem you often encounter?” they’ll ask in therapeutic voices. “Do you have the same trouble when you speak Arabic?”
There is an intimate atmosphere, a sense of we’re-all-in-this-together, that seems to put everyone at ease and invites everyone to speak. However, this intimacy gets disturbed once in a while by my presence. I am clearly an outsider, being the only non-Moroccan in the room, the only one who seems to already be familiar with the communicative theories monsieur Aziz enlightens us on (he even gave us a basic tutorial on semiology – I had an instant déjà-vu of my days as a first-year anthropology grad student…), and the only one who seems to be here for linguistic improvement. Monsieur Aziz takes advantage of this sometimes, and uses me as a kind of stick behind the door to remind everyone to do his or her best.
“If you don’t speak up and share a story,” he will say, “what will Charlotte here think about Moroccans and their ability to communicate? Do you want to give her the impression that Moroccans cannot express themselves about this particular subject?”
The students will then smile, they’ll look at me, their timidity will re-emerge, and I’ll feel as though I’ve become part of the ‘other side’, an onlooker and observer, rather than a fellow student.
This happens at other moments here and there, too – like when we’re asked to prepare a presentation as a group, and the other members in my circle begin to speak the Arabic they’re ultimately more comfortable with. There’s always a moment where they’ll suddenly stop in their tracks, look at me, and begin apologizing. I’ll then tell them that it’s ok, mashi moushkil (no problem), that I understand what they’re saying – and they’ll smile a bit at my budding knowledge of Arabic and continue, but the intimacy is gone and I can see that their self-consciousness is back.
And I do it myself, too. There are moments, when monsieur Aziz explains a theory I’m already familiar with, for example, when I step back and transform from participant to observer. I’ll look at the ways in which our teacher interacts with the students, and the way they react to him. I’ll notice how students’ comments seem very crafted, full of buzz-words they know are important in this class (like “timide”), very catered toward what they think the teacher wants to hear. I’ll remark how very few people seem just to say what they think – very few apart from the teacher, that is, and I’ll notice how the students get a little flustered when monsieur Aziz brings up topics that are not commonly discussed in public. Like how you met your first boyfriend, or how it’s possible to be an atheist.
And so I put myself on the outside, trying to be the ethnographer, hoping to get an insider’s view of a Moroccan classroom. I will go quiet, waiting to see how others respond to a question thrown into the room by monsieur Aziz, smiling at his expectant expression. Until I realize that I am thereby thwarting my own success as a student in this class – which is ultimately the role I signed on (and paid) to play.
But I’m enjoying myself – I like the class, I observe with interest as the tone of the session shifts between ‘intimate’ and ‘performative’, and I’m even a little intrigued at how I myself morph from participant into observer, and back. It’s a new kind of hybridity that I’m feeling constantly as I set up my own life here in Rabat – as I try to figure out which parts of my experiences here are research, and which are just that, life.
* there is an argument to be made for the idea that teaching is a kind of performance, of course… and vice versa, that performance is a kind of teaching?
** it took the teacher at least twenty minutes to explain what he meant by such subjective evaluation, and how it worked. The students seemed to have a very difficult time understanding that there is not simply one correct way, and one wrong way, to communicate. That it is ok, and sometimes better, to evaluate without passing a definitive judgment. That there may be no such thing as a completely accurate and objective judgment in the first place.
I had decided long ago that it was time for a class to ignite the francophone cells in my brain (I know they’re there! I’m just too nervous to ignite them on my own, not knowing for sure that they’ll work the way they’re supposed to), and three weeks ago I took a placement test at this school. As the consultant grading my test remarked that I seemed to have all the grammar down, I explained that I just wanted to learn how to speak sans devoir réfléchir – without having to think about it – and that it wouldn’t hurt to expand my vocabulary. The consultant seemed to know exactly what I was looking for, and enrolled me in this course.
I must admit that it is a different kind of cours de communication than I had expected. Focused less on linguistic barriers than psychological ones, we work on things like learning how to speak without getting flustered by attention from others, discerning the purpose or intent behind a communicative message (the acte illocutoire), and evaluating each other’s efficiency in getting a message across. The goal of this course is, in monsieur Aziz’s words, nothing less than a change in our sense of self, and the elimination of certains sentiments négatives.
This is not precisely what I had had in mind; this course is not so much about learning how to speak sans réfléchir, but rather about how to effectively turn what you want to say into an actual expressed message. But in the end, I figure, communication is communication – does it really matter what the nature is of the barriers that keep you from living up to your potential? What I needed is a push in the back, an environment where I was forced to speak up – and that’s essentially what I’ve gotten. And I do notice some difference. I seem less worried about just speaking, and am discovering that I can make myself perfectly understood in almost any situation. The only barrier I have left is the intimidation I feel around my very adeptly francophone co-workers…
My fellow students are, for the most part, timid high school graduates stuck in that liminal phase between puberty and adulthood, where you suddenly realize that your decisions not only matter, but can affect the entire course of your life. As we went around on day one to introduce ourselves, they all very un-timidly attested to a desire to overcome their shyness, and I imagine that, faced with the weighty decision of what-to-do-next, these young adults are perhaps attempting with this course to turn themselves into direct and fearless go-getters. Timidity is a theme they repeatedly bring up themselves. As we subjectively evaluate each others’ efforts at communication,** students constantly remark that the speaker’s main problem seems to be shyness. “Is this a problem you often encounter?” they’ll ask in therapeutic voices. “Do you have the same trouble when you speak Arabic?”
There is an intimate atmosphere, a sense of we’re-all-in-this-together, that seems to put everyone at ease and invites everyone to speak. However, this intimacy gets disturbed once in a while by my presence. I am clearly an outsider, being the only non-Moroccan in the room, the only one who seems to already be familiar with the communicative theories monsieur Aziz enlightens us on (he even gave us a basic tutorial on semiology – I had an instant déjà-vu of my days as a first-year anthropology grad student…), and the only one who seems to be here for linguistic improvement. Monsieur Aziz takes advantage of this sometimes, and uses me as a kind of stick behind the door to remind everyone to do his or her best.
“If you don’t speak up and share a story,” he will say, “what will Charlotte here think about Moroccans and their ability to communicate? Do you want to give her the impression that Moroccans cannot express themselves about this particular subject?”
The students will then smile, they’ll look at me, their timidity will re-emerge, and I’ll feel as though I’ve become part of the ‘other side’, an onlooker and observer, rather than a fellow student.
This happens at other moments here and there, too – like when we’re asked to prepare a presentation as a group, and the other members in my circle begin to speak the Arabic they’re ultimately more comfortable with. There’s always a moment where they’ll suddenly stop in their tracks, look at me, and begin apologizing. I’ll then tell them that it’s ok, mashi moushkil (no problem), that I understand what they’re saying – and they’ll smile a bit at my budding knowledge of Arabic and continue, but the intimacy is gone and I can see that their self-consciousness is back.
And I do it myself, too. There are moments, when monsieur Aziz explains a theory I’m already familiar with, for example, when I step back and transform from participant to observer. I’ll look at the ways in which our teacher interacts with the students, and the way they react to him. I’ll notice how students’ comments seem very crafted, full of buzz-words they know are important in this class (like “timide”), very catered toward what they think the teacher wants to hear. I’ll remark how very few people seem just to say what they think – very few apart from the teacher, that is, and I’ll notice how the students get a little flustered when monsieur Aziz brings up topics that are not commonly discussed in public. Like how you met your first boyfriend, or how it’s possible to be an atheist.
And so I put myself on the outside, trying to be the ethnographer, hoping to get an insider’s view of a Moroccan classroom. I will go quiet, waiting to see how others respond to a question thrown into the room by monsieur Aziz, smiling at his expectant expression. Until I realize that I am thereby thwarting my own success as a student in this class – which is ultimately the role I signed on (and paid) to play.
But I’m enjoying myself – I like the class, I observe with interest as the tone of the session shifts between ‘intimate’ and ‘performative’, and I’m even a little intrigued at how I myself morph from participant into observer, and back. It’s a new kind of hybridity that I’m feeling constantly as I set up my own life here in Rabat – as I try to figure out which parts of my experiences here are research, and which are just that, life.
* there is an argument to be made for the idea that teaching is a kind of performance, of course… and vice versa, that performance is a kind of teaching?
** it took the teacher at least twenty minutes to explain what he meant by such subjective evaluation, and how it worked. The students seemed to have a very difficult time understanding that there is not simply one correct way, and one wrong way, to communicate. That it is ok, and sometimes better, to evaluate without passing a definitive judgment. That there may be no such thing as a completely accurate and objective judgment in the first place.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Update
One week later, both samsars have been paid (yes, I paid samsar number one a small fee as well), as has been my security deposit and rent. I have an official lease, and have signed up with the local utilities company for water and electricity. I have scrubbed my new apartment from top to bottom, have fallen even more in love with it, and have made various trips to Marjane for household necessities (such as sheets, plates, trash cans, pillows). I am now the proud owner of a small fridge and TV (although neither is in my possession yet; I am awaiting delivery tomorrow), and plan to make an order for basic furnishings toward the middle of this week.
These various expenses mean that I am a bit strapped for daily cash, and my old apartment is in a bit of disarray as I have begun to transfer items to the new place – but none of that matters.
I’m so excited!
These various expenses mean that I am a bit strapped for daily cash, and my old apartment is in a bit of disarray as I have begun to transfer items to the new place – but none of that matters.
I’m so excited!
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Nukat* Maghribia - poking fun
As Americans have their Canadians, and the Dutch (and French?) have their Belgians, so the Moroccans have their Berkanis. Every society likes to have a neighbor to make fun of, another group they can have an innocent laugh at without concern for political correctness.
Unlike that of the US or Holland, Morocco’s butt of jokes is not a foreign neighbor; there’s nothing funny about Morocco’s relationship with Algeria, I guess… Instead, all Moroccans laugh about Berkane (pron. ber-CAN), a small town in the Northeast of Morocco.
By now it’s happened so often that I’ve found myself surrounded by Moroccans rolling on the floor in laughter at a new Berkani joke, that I’ve decided to translate and share a few of them with you. It’s often said that humor is very culture-bound, but I think we can all recognize a little of the fun-poking in these jokes. What do you think? Are these funny to you?
War
Oujda is at war with Berkane. After months of intensive fighting, the two armies have literally dug themselves into a stalemate. The soldiers spend their days laying low in parallel trenches, just hoping the enemy will emerge on the surface in an offensive attempt – so they can shoot them down.
Then, one day, an Oujdi general comes up with a plan. “I’ve got an idea,” he announces. All Berkani’s are called ‘Mimoun’, right? Well, we’re going to use that. Get ready, and wait for my instructions.”
So that morning, the Oujdi soldiers line up in their trench. They listen as the Berkanis do the same in theirs; once they hear that they’ve settled, the Oujdi general gives the signal that this is it. He rises up, and calls out: “Mimoun?” “Yes?” the Berkanis collectively respond, and rise up – upon which the Oujdi’s shoot them all down.
Obviously, the Berkani’s want revenge. The Oujdi’s cannot just get away with this. “Aren’t all Oujdi’s called Bekkay?” the Berkani general rants. “Well, we can do exactly what they did!”
And indeed, the next morning, after all soldiers line up and get ready for another day of stalemate waiting, the Berkani general raises his head out above the trenches and calls out, “Bekkay?” – and waits for the Oujdi soldiers to respond in unison. Instead, he only hears the Oujdi general’s voice: “who’s asking?”
Upon which all Berkani’s rise up, and call out, “we are!”
Accident
A guy from Berkane is driving into town. As he approaches the central square, he suddenly realizes his brakes have been severed and he cannot stop the car. Panicked, he calls a friend of his and explains the situation. “What do I do??” he cries out in utter desperation.
His friend is a bit more level headed. “OK,” he reasons. “What do you see in front of you?”
The driver scans the horizon. “I see a market on the left, a mosque on the right, and three people walking on the road in front of me.”
“OK. This is what you’re going to do. You’re going to go in the direction where you’ll hurt the least amount of people,” the friend on the phone advises. So where are you going to go?
“I’m going to head for the three people,” the driver cries.
Later that day, the driver’s friend turns on the television to watch the news. He’s shocked at the main story: a large accident at the market in town, eighty people dead, and massive destruction. On the left end of the screen, he suddenly sees his friend’s car, upside down on the ground. What on earth happened, he wonders? He calls his driver friend.
“What happened? He cries. “I thought you were going to head for the three people on the road?”
“I was,” the driver sobs. “But those three people turned left to head to the market!”
Hole in the road
A major pothole had fallen into a busy road in Berkane. People were constantly falling in, and this was becoming a problem: before anyone noticed what had happened and called an ambulance, the sad victim was already dead. This hole was racking up too many casualties, and it was time to do something about the problem.
All smart people in Berkane got together to talk about possible solutions. It took all day, and lots of bad ideas were proposed, but finally, they came up with a good idea. From now on, they’d station an ambulance next to the hole, so no time would be lost calling the emergency number and waiting for the paramedics to arrive.
The next morning, an ambulance was stationed next to the hole, and every time someone fell in, paramedics would immediately hoist the victim out, load him into the van, and rush him to the hospital.
Yet the new situation wasn’t perfect. Victims were still dying on their way to the hospital. Another solution had to be found, and so all the smarties of Berkane once again convened. They talked, and talked, and it took all day. But finally, someone proposed a real solution. It was a real smart guy, someone who’d gone to school in Europe. We’re going to close up that hole, he said…
… And then we’ll re-dig it right in front of the hospital…
Just one more non-Berkani joke, just for fun:
Once upon a time, a young couple had their first baby. This was clearly an extraordinary child with great intelligence. He spoke his first word at six months of age: “aunt,” he said. His parents found this a bit disconcerting. Shouldn’t his first word be ‘mommy’, or ‘daddy’? Why is he talking about his aunt? The next day, the phone rang. A family member on the other line informed the couple that the baby’s aunt had passed away.
The baby’s next word was “grandpa.” And the same thing happened: only hours after the baby spoke, the couple received a phone call that the baby’s grandpa had passed away.
The parents began to worry about this dark power their baby seemed to have. The pattern continued: every time the baby spoke, he’d mention a person – and a short while after, this person would suddenly and inexplicably die. It was starting to get worrisome.
Then, one day, the baby finally spoke one of the words his parents had so badly wanted to hear: “daddy.” They freaked out – this was it. The baby’s father was paralyzed with fear of his impending death. But the parents’ frantic clamoring was suddenly interrupted by the door bell.
It was their downstairs neighbor, clearly distressed. “Come quick and help!” he cried. “The janitor just dropped dead!”
* Nukat is the plural of nukta, which means 'joke'.
Unlike that of the US or Holland, Morocco’s butt of jokes is not a foreign neighbor; there’s nothing funny about Morocco’s relationship with Algeria, I guess… Instead, all Moroccans laugh about Berkane (pron. ber-CAN), a small town in the Northeast of Morocco.
By now it’s happened so often that I’ve found myself surrounded by Moroccans rolling on the floor in laughter at a new Berkani joke, that I’ve decided to translate and share a few of them with you. It’s often said that humor is very culture-bound, but I think we can all recognize a little of the fun-poking in these jokes. What do you think? Are these funny to you?
War
Oujda is at war with Berkane. After months of intensive fighting, the two armies have literally dug themselves into a stalemate. The soldiers spend their days laying low in parallel trenches, just hoping the enemy will emerge on the surface in an offensive attempt – so they can shoot them down.
Then, one day, an Oujdi general comes up with a plan. “I’ve got an idea,” he announces. All Berkani’s are called ‘Mimoun’, right? Well, we’re going to use that. Get ready, and wait for my instructions.”
So that morning, the Oujdi soldiers line up in their trench. They listen as the Berkanis do the same in theirs; once they hear that they’ve settled, the Oujdi general gives the signal that this is it. He rises up, and calls out: “Mimoun?” “Yes?” the Berkanis collectively respond, and rise up – upon which the Oujdi’s shoot them all down.
Obviously, the Berkani’s want revenge. The Oujdi’s cannot just get away with this. “Aren’t all Oujdi’s called Bekkay?” the Berkani general rants. “Well, we can do exactly what they did!”
And indeed, the next morning, after all soldiers line up and get ready for another day of stalemate waiting, the Berkani general raises his head out above the trenches and calls out, “Bekkay?” – and waits for the Oujdi soldiers to respond in unison. Instead, he only hears the Oujdi general’s voice: “who’s asking?”
Upon which all Berkani’s rise up, and call out, “we are!”
Accident
A guy from Berkane is driving into town. As he approaches the central square, he suddenly realizes his brakes have been severed and he cannot stop the car. Panicked, he calls a friend of his and explains the situation. “What do I do??” he cries out in utter desperation.
His friend is a bit more level headed. “OK,” he reasons. “What do you see in front of you?”
The driver scans the horizon. “I see a market on the left, a mosque on the right, and three people walking on the road in front of me.”
“OK. This is what you’re going to do. You’re going to go in the direction where you’ll hurt the least amount of people,” the friend on the phone advises. So where are you going to go?
“I’m going to head for the three people,” the driver cries.
Later that day, the driver’s friend turns on the television to watch the news. He’s shocked at the main story: a large accident at the market in town, eighty people dead, and massive destruction. On the left end of the screen, he suddenly sees his friend’s car, upside down on the ground. What on earth happened, he wonders? He calls his driver friend.
“What happened? He cries. “I thought you were going to head for the three people on the road?”
“I was,” the driver sobs. “But those three people turned left to head to the market!”
Hole in the road
A major pothole had fallen into a busy road in Berkane. People were constantly falling in, and this was becoming a problem: before anyone noticed what had happened and called an ambulance, the sad victim was already dead. This hole was racking up too many casualties, and it was time to do something about the problem.
All smart people in Berkane got together to talk about possible solutions. It took all day, and lots of bad ideas were proposed, but finally, they came up with a good idea. From now on, they’d station an ambulance next to the hole, so no time would be lost calling the emergency number and waiting for the paramedics to arrive.
The next morning, an ambulance was stationed next to the hole, and every time someone fell in, paramedics would immediately hoist the victim out, load him into the van, and rush him to the hospital.
Yet the new situation wasn’t perfect. Victims were still dying on their way to the hospital. Another solution had to be found, and so all the smarties of Berkane once again convened. They talked, and talked, and it took all day. But finally, someone proposed a real solution. It was a real smart guy, someone who’d gone to school in Europe. We’re going to close up that hole, he said…
… And then we’ll re-dig it right in front of the hospital…
Just one more non-Berkani joke, just for fun:
Once upon a time, a young couple had their first baby. This was clearly an extraordinary child with great intelligence. He spoke his first word at six months of age: “aunt,” he said. His parents found this a bit disconcerting. Shouldn’t his first word be ‘mommy’, or ‘daddy’? Why is he talking about his aunt? The next day, the phone rang. A family member on the other line informed the couple that the baby’s aunt had passed away.
The baby’s next word was “grandpa.” And the same thing happened: only hours after the baby spoke, the couple received a phone call that the baby’s grandpa had passed away.
The parents began to worry about this dark power their baby seemed to have. The pattern continued: every time the baby spoke, he’d mention a person – and a short while after, this person would suddenly and inexplicably die. It was starting to get worrisome.
Then, one day, the baby finally spoke one of the words his parents had so badly wanted to hear: “daddy.” They freaked out – this was it. The baby’s father was paralyzed with fear of his impending death. But the parents’ frantic clamoring was suddenly interrupted by the door bell.
It was their downstairs neighbor, clearly distressed. “Come quick and help!” he cried. “The janitor just dropped dead!”
* Nukat is the plural of nukta, which means 'joke'.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Postscript: Cheating on your Samsar
Yesterday afternoon, I ran into samsar number one at a neighborhood grocery store. After a friendly exchange of ça va’s he asked me, had I found a place yet? I nodded.
“I found a great place,” I told him, “I’m very satisfied, and thanks for all your help showing me all those other places.”
He smiled politely. “That’s great,” he responded. “Where is it?”
As it happens, the apartment I found is located in a building that this samsar had also mentioned to me once. He knew of an apartment on the first floor; what I actually saw with another samsar and took, was a unit on the second floor. But as soon as I explained to samsar number one where the apartment was, I became a bit uncomfortable with the suspicion that he might conclude I had rented the same apartment he had first mentioned to me. I was right.
He was hurt. It had been him who had first alerted me to that unit, he lamented. I responded by reminding him that he’d mentioned a first floor place and I was now renting on the second floor, but this made him angrier. First floor, second floor, it was the same place! How was he supposed to remember exactly on which floor the apartment was?
I tried to reason with him by reminding him of other facts – that he’d offered to show me that place, that I’d nodded in agreement, but that he had never taken me back there to see it.
He did not want to hear it. He was hurt, and he wanted a commission. He insisted I have Farid call him to discuss money.
Before I even had a chance to share this story with Farid, the latter’s phone rang. I could hear the samsar’s protests about my two-timing on the other side of the line, as Farid listened with a smirk on his face.
Farid isn’t worried. So what if he’s mad? He says. He doesn’t deserve a commission, and he won’t get one.
He’s right. But I can’t help being a little worried. I never like the idea of people being mad at me, and I definitely don’t like the idea of a Moroccan samsar being mad at me. I don’t want an enemy in the neighborhood. I also don’t want to give him money, though. I hope I don’t run into him any time soon. If I do, I kind of hope that calm reasoning will make him understand.
But that’s probably wishful thinking…
“I found a great place,” I told him, “I’m very satisfied, and thanks for all your help showing me all those other places.”
He smiled politely. “That’s great,” he responded. “Where is it?”
As it happens, the apartment I found is located in a building that this samsar had also mentioned to me once. He knew of an apartment on the first floor; what I actually saw with another samsar and took, was a unit on the second floor. But as soon as I explained to samsar number one where the apartment was, I became a bit uncomfortable with the suspicion that he might conclude I had rented the same apartment he had first mentioned to me. I was right.
He was hurt. It had been him who had first alerted me to that unit, he lamented. I responded by reminding him that he’d mentioned a first floor place and I was now renting on the second floor, but this made him angrier. First floor, second floor, it was the same place! How was he supposed to remember exactly on which floor the apartment was?
I tried to reason with him by reminding him of other facts – that he’d offered to show me that place, that I’d nodded in agreement, but that he had never taken me back there to see it.
He did not want to hear it. He was hurt, and he wanted a commission. He insisted I have Farid call him to discuss money.
Before I even had a chance to share this story with Farid, the latter’s phone rang. I could hear the samsar’s protests about my two-timing on the other side of the line, as Farid listened with a smirk on his face.
Farid isn’t worried. So what if he’s mad? He says. He doesn’t deserve a commission, and he won’t get one.
He’s right. But I can’t help being a little worried. I never like the idea of people being mad at me, and I definitely don’t like the idea of a Moroccan samsar being mad at me. I don’t want an enemy in the neighborhood. I also don’t want to give him money, though. I hope I don’t run into him any time soon. If I do, I kind of hope that calm reasoning will make him understand.
But that’s probably wishful thinking…
Monday, July 13, 2009
Apartment Hunting
One Saturday afternoon in early July, Farid and I strolled down the streets of Hay Hassan, my neighborhood of residence. Here and there, we’d spot a gardien walking up and down the streets, directing drivers as they maneuvered their cars in and out of parking spots along the curb. Recognizable by their deep blue lab coats, gardiens are, as their name suggests, guardians of a sort. Their most direct task is to oversee the parking in their street, and it is for this that they are paid. But by spending their days outside walking up and down the road, they often become ultimate experts on the goings-on in the neighborhood. They know the security guards, shopkeepers, and apartment building supers (likewise men who spend their days outside on the sidewalks). They know what businesses are doing well, and which are struggling. They know how late you came home last night and who your father is. They know who lives in their neighborhood, and where one might find a vacant apartment.
Whenever we spotted a gardien, Farid would approach the man. Every conversation was preceded by a shake of hands, a “salam aleikoum” and the usual “labas? Bikheir? Sahha labas? Barak llahoufik” (“how are you? How’s it going? How’s your health? Thanks so much”) that Moroccans exchange not only with friends, but any person they greet.
Preliminaries done, Farid would get to the point:
“So, I was wondering, do you know if there are any vacant apartments around here?”
As the gardiens ran through their mental files, Farid would point to me.
“It’s for this seyyida nasraniyya,* she’s looking for an unfurnished place for a year and a half.”
With this last sentence, Farid immediately placed our trump cards on the table.
“You’re in a good position,” Farid had assured me on our walk. “Landlords love renting to foreigners.”
“Why is that?” I wondered out loud.
“Because they always leave again at some point. He never has to worry about getting stuck with you in his apartment when he wants to raise the rent. A year and a half is perfect – not so short that he’s going to need to look for someone new in a few months, but not so long that he’s going to worry about you never leaving.”
In a very prosaic and politically incorrect sense, this seemed completely logical. A sad sign of Morocco’s ambiguous national pride – and more about that in a later blog post – but I could see how this made sense from a landlord’s perspective.
“But you’d better let me do the talking,” Farid cautioned. “They’d give you a really hard time, because they’re going to want to charge you a lot in rent.”
“Why?” I responded with confusion. “If they want to rent to a foreigner so badly, shouldn’t they charge us less, as a kind of incentive?”
Farid shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way,” he explained, with a smile. “Try convincing a landlord that a foreigner doesn’t have a lot of money. He wants a piece of your fortune.”
And so began my search for an apartment in Rabat. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had decided to exchange my tiny and furnished studio for slightly larger quarters that I’d furnish with my own purchases. I had taken action soon after writing that post by browsing the internet, with Google’s help, but without much luck. Apartment hunting in Morocco is not that straight forward – something I, a child of the Craig’s List era, found a bit frustrating. Like many other things, apartment hunting in Morocco can be very simple, but only if you know how it works, where to go, and what to say. In order to avoid paying high fees to a realtor or management company, the idea is to network a little with people in the ‘know’, such as gardiens, and to simply ask around.
A gardien is likely to refer you to a samsar. Another type of man who spends his days patrolling the sidewalks, samsars are, in Cynthia’s words, ‘realtors of the street’. They work independently, simply know of vacant units in the area, and have the numbers of landlords and supers programmed into their phones. Armed with these resources, they act as intermediaries between seekers of apartments, and seekers of tenants. In return, they’ll ask both you and the landlord for a small commission once you’ve been satisfactorily matched.
Apparently, samsars also simply know who’s looking for apartments. The day after viewing a unit with a samsar that Farid himself had called, another showed up at the NIMAR doorstep, asking for me. Too bad that apartment you looked at yesterday didn’t work out, he told me in Moroccan-accented French. But, he assured me, he had a few other apartments I might be interested in. One bedroom, right? Later that day, he promised, he’d show me two beautiful units.
Out with this new samsar later that evening, we ran into samsar number one. The two men greeted each other cordially, but I soon sensed a bit of tension. In a tone of slightly hurt pride the first samsar asked me, was this guy going to show me apartments? With the dawning sensation creeping up on me that I was somehow cheating on my first samsar, I tried to sugar coat the truth and said, “he might know of a few options, but I haven’t seen anything yet. Do you have any new places for me?” He nodded, leaned in toward me and whispered that he might know of something opening up very close to the NIMAR. He’d let me know more tomorrow.
With that, we said goodbye, and samsar number two and I continued on our way. We walked in a large circle, only to end up at an apartment building located right next to the spot where we’d run into samsar number one. Number two confessed: we’d taken a detour. “I don’t want the other guy to see my marchandise, you know.” Of course – no samsar has any claims to any of the vacant apartments. They simply know what’s empty, and the first one to match landlord with new tenant pockets the commission.
Farid, who was himself out of town and unavailable to accompany me on these viewings, had told me not to discuss prices. I was simply to look, to tell samsar and landlord I’d think about it, and leave the bargaining up to Farid: he’d have a much better chance of convincing landlords to lower their rent, he explained. Ok, I’d agreed, anything for a chance at a lower rent. But in practice, it was impossible not to talk money. At every single viewing, I hardly had a chance to get in the door before the samsar would initiate that conversation by naming a price. Looking around the apartments and realizing that either I’d have to lower my standards or increase my maximum price, I’d explain every time that I found that rent rather high for a place where I’d have to paint, to install a water heater, or to glue tiles back to the kitchen wall.
This seemed to be cue for samsar and landlord to delve into their collection of sales strategies.
“This is a beautiful apartment,” they’d say, “you won’t find better at this price. It’s quiet, it’s safe, and it’s big.”
Or they’d ask, “what do you need to time to think for? You don’t need a second opinion, it’s you who needs to decide.”
“Other people are interested,” they’d then warn, “so if you wait until tomorrow, the place may be gone. You could, of course, give us an avance (an advance) now, and then we’ll give you the keys immediately. Come on! This is a great apartment, you won’t find anything better!”
The thing is that these strategies tend to work on me. I’m always sold on artificial inflation of a commodity. Someone else is interested? I’d better say yes now, because what if I really don’t find any better?
I felt torn: the apartments I’d seen hadn’t been perfect. I’d needed to convince myself that I could live there – if I painted that wall, perhaps, and maybe the kitchen would look better once I cleaned a little and fixed that cabinet. Were they right, would I never find anything better for the price I’d indicated as my maximum? Maybe my expectations were the problem, rather than the state of these apartments. I’d never looked for a place in Morocco before; maybe my expectations were unrealistic. But in the end, I stuck with my doubts and resisted the pressure. Restlessly but surely, I stuck to my guns and made clear I’d need time to think. If the apartment was gone by the time I’d decided, too bad. I’d move on to the next vacant unit. There would always be another one, I reasoned, and I was in no hurry.
I saw about eight units in this way. All were dirty, and all needed some work. A paint job, a water heater, a new lock on the door. Some places were better than others, but none felt right. I began to notice, too, that Moroccan one-bedrooms are not what I had had in mind. One-bedroom apartments in this city are not meant for single individuals. They are meant for families who sleep in the living room, as my host family had done. Such an apartment may thus have only two rooms, a chambre and a salon, but that salon is always huge. Often, it is divided in two by a low wall: the idea is to create one formal, and one informal living room. For a family of four in no need of privacy, this works. My host sister in Salé and her family lived just fine in an apartment with this layout. But for a single tenant, it’s inefficient. What would I do with two living rooms? I’d drown in that sea of space.
Curiously enough, 2-bedroom apartments seem to come with a much more proportional living room. You get the same amount of space as in a 1-bedroom, but conveniently walled off. This works better for my single tenant status. First of all, portioning out the space in smaller pieces means the dearth of stuff that I will have, even after I buy furniture, won’t be as noticeable. And secondly, an additional chambre gives me the possibility of renting out that second room if I ever decide that I do want a roommate.
And so it is with a 2-bedroom apartment that I ended up. It was the last place I saw (shown to me by samsar number three), and that feeling I’d missed with all the other units came to me as soon as I stepped inside the door. It was in good condition. It was clean. Nothing needs fixing. And I felt comfortable there. It is light and airy. I have a balcony off the living room, a beautiful and functional bathroom, and lots of closet space. Best of all: the house comes with a satellite dish already installed, and the kitchen is already outfitted with a stove (this is not a given in Morocco – a stove and all other appliances are generally the tenant’s responsibility to purchase. I will, therefore, be buying a fridge…). I raised my maximum price in order to get this apartment and will thus be paying more in rent than I do now, but I’ve concluded that it’s worth it, to have an apartment where I truly feel comfortable. A home base within a world that still tends to get a little strange at times.
I’m already looking forward to having space to walk around and store my things, to long baths in that new tub, and quiet evenings with a book and glass of wine on my balcony.
* “seyyida nasraniyya,” literally, means ‘Christian lady’. But, much like we often think ‘Arab’ and ‘Muslim’ world are the same thing, ‘nasraniyya’ means ‘Western’ as much as it does ‘Christian’.
Whenever we spotted a gardien, Farid would approach the man. Every conversation was preceded by a shake of hands, a “salam aleikoum” and the usual “labas? Bikheir? Sahha labas? Barak llahoufik” (“how are you? How’s it going? How’s your health? Thanks so much”) that Moroccans exchange not only with friends, but any person they greet.
Preliminaries done, Farid would get to the point:
“So, I was wondering, do you know if there are any vacant apartments around here?”
As the gardiens ran through their mental files, Farid would point to me.
“It’s for this seyyida nasraniyya,* she’s looking for an unfurnished place for a year and a half.”
With this last sentence, Farid immediately placed our trump cards on the table.
“You’re in a good position,” Farid had assured me on our walk. “Landlords love renting to foreigners.”
“Why is that?” I wondered out loud.
“Because they always leave again at some point. He never has to worry about getting stuck with you in his apartment when he wants to raise the rent. A year and a half is perfect – not so short that he’s going to need to look for someone new in a few months, but not so long that he’s going to worry about you never leaving.”
In a very prosaic and politically incorrect sense, this seemed completely logical. A sad sign of Morocco’s ambiguous national pride – and more about that in a later blog post – but I could see how this made sense from a landlord’s perspective.
“But you’d better let me do the talking,” Farid cautioned. “They’d give you a really hard time, because they’re going to want to charge you a lot in rent.”
“Why?” I responded with confusion. “If they want to rent to a foreigner so badly, shouldn’t they charge us less, as a kind of incentive?”
Farid shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way,” he explained, with a smile. “Try convincing a landlord that a foreigner doesn’t have a lot of money. He wants a piece of your fortune.”
And so began my search for an apartment in Rabat. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had decided to exchange my tiny and furnished studio for slightly larger quarters that I’d furnish with my own purchases. I had taken action soon after writing that post by browsing the internet, with Google’s help, but without much luck. Apartment hunting in Morocco is not that straight forward – something I, a child of the Craig’s List era, found a bit frustrating. Like many other things, apartment hunting in Morocco can be very simple, but only if you know how it works, where to go, and what to say. In order to avoid paying high fees to a realtor or management company, the idea is to network a little with people in the ‘know’, such as gardiens, and to simply ask around.
A gardien is likely to refer you to a samsar. Another type of man who spends his days patrolling the sidewalks, samsars are, in Cynthia’s words, ‘realtors of the street’. They work independently, simply know of vacant units in the area, and have the numbers of landlords and supers programmed into their phones. Armed with these resources, they act as intermediaries between seekers of apartments, and seekers of tenants. In return, they’ll ask both you and the landlord for a small commission once you’ve been satisfactorily matched.
Apparently, samsars also simply know who’s looking for apartments. The day after viewing a unit with a samsar that Farid himself had called, another showed up at the NIMAR doorstep, asking for me. Too bad that apartment you looked at yesterday didn’t work out, he told me in Moroccan-accented French. But, he assured me, he had a few other apartments I might be interested in. One bedroom, right? Later that day, he promised, he’d show me two beautiful units.
Out with this new samsar later that evening, we ran into samsar number one. The two men greeted each other cordially, but I soon sensed a bit of tension. In a tone of slightly hurt pride the first samsar asked me, was this guy going to show me apartments? With the dawning sensation creeping up on me that I was somehow cheating on my first samsar, I tried to sugar coat the truth and said, “he might know of a few options, but I haven’t seen anything yet. Do you have any new places for me?” He nodded, leaned in toward me and whispered that he might know of something opening up very close to the NIMAR. He’d let me know more tomorrow.
With that, we said goodbye, and samsar number two and I continued on our way. We walked in a large circle, only to end up at an apartment building located right next to the spot where we’d run into samsar number one. Number two confessed: we’d taken a detour. “I don’t want the other guy to see my marchandise, you know.” Of course – no samsar has any claims to any of the vacant apartments. They simply know what’s empty, and the first one to match landlord with new tenant pockets the commission.
Farid, who was himself out of town and unavailable to accompany me on these viewings, had told me not to discuss prices. I was simply to look, to tell samsar and landlord I’d think about it, and leave the bargaining up to Farid: he’d have a much better chance of convincing landlords to lower their rent, he explained. Ok, I’d agreed, anything for a chance at a lower rent. But in practice, it was impossible not to talk money. At every single viewing, I hardly had a chance to get in the door before the samsar would initiate that conversation by naming a price. Looking around the apartments and realizing that either I’d have to lower my standards or increase my maximum price, I’d explain every time that I found that rent rather high for a place where I’d have to paint, to install a water heater, or to glue tiles back to the kitchen wall.
This seemed to be cue for samsar and landlord to delve into their collection of sales strategies.
“This is a beautiful apartment,” they’d say, “you won’t find better at this price. It’s quiet, it’s safe, and it’s big.”
Or they’d ask, “what do you need to time to think for? You don’t need a second opinion, it’s you who needs to decide.”
“Other people are interested,” they’d then warn, “so if you wait until tomorrow, the place may be gone. You could, of course, give us an avance (an advance) now, and then we’ll give you the keys immediately. Come on! This is a great apartment, you won’t find anything better!”
The thing is that these strategies tend to work on me. I’m always sold on artificial inflation of a commodity. Someone else is interested? I’d better say yes now, because what if I really don’t find any better?
I felt torn: the apartments I’d seen hadn’t been perfect. I’d needed to convince myself that I could live there – if I painted that wall, perhaps, and maybe the kitchen would look better once I cleaned a little and fixed that cabinet. Were they right, would I never find anything better for the price I’d indicated as my maximum? Maybe my expectations were the problem, rather than the state of these apartments. I’d never looked for a place in Morocco before; maybe my expectations were unrealistic. But in the end, I stuck with my doubts and resisted the pressure. Restlessly but surely, I stuck to my guns and made clear I’d need time to think. If the apartment was gone by the time I’d decided, too bad. I’d move on to the next vacant unit. There would always be another one, I reasoned, and I was in no hurry.
I saw about eight units in this way. All were dirty, and all needed some work. A paint job, a water heater, a new lock on the door. Some places were better than others, but none felt right. I began to notice, too, that Moroccan one-bedrooms are not what I had had in mind. One-bedroom apartments in this city are not meant for single individuals. They are meant for families who sleep in the living room, as my host family had done. Such an apartment may thus have only two rooms, a chambre and a salon, but that salon is always huge. Often, it is divided in two by a low wall: the idea is to create one formal, and one informal living room. For a family of four in no need of privacy, this works. My host sister in Salé and her family lived just fine in an apartment with this layout. But for a single tenant, it’s inefficient. What would I do with two living rooms? I’d drown in that sea of space.
Curiously enough, 2-bedroom apartments seem to come with a much more proportional living room. You get the same amount of space as in a 1-bedroom, but conveniently walled off. This works better for my single tenant status. First of all, portioning out the space in smaller pieces means the dearth of stuff that I will have, even after I buy furniture, won’t be as noticeable. And secondly, an additional chambre gives me the possibility of renting out that second room if I ever decide that I do want a roommate.
And so it is with a 2-bedroom apartment that I ended up. It was the last place I saw (shown to me by samsar number three), and that feeling I’d missed with all the other units came to me as soon as I stepped inside the door. It was in good condition. It was clean. Nothing needs fixing. And I felt comfortable there. It is light and airy. I have a balcony off the living room, a beautiful and functional bathroom, and lots of closet space. Best of all: the house comes with a satellite dish already installed, and the kitchen is already outfitted with a stove (this is not a given in Morocco – a stove and all other appliances are generally the tenant’s responsibility to purchase. I will, therefore, be buying a fridge…). I raised my maximum price in order to get this apartment and will thus be paying more in rent than I do now, but I’ve concluded that it’s worth it, to have an apartment where I truly feel comfortable. A home base within a world that still tends to get a little strange at times.
I’m already looking forward to having space to walk around and store my things, to long baths in that new tub, and quiet evenings with a book and glass of wine on my balcony.
* “seyyida nasraniyya,” literally, means ‘Christian lady’. But, much like we often think ‘Arab’ and ‘Muslim’ world are the same thing, ‘nasraniyya’ means ‘Western’ as much as it does ‘Christian’.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Knowledge and Education
One of the tasks that have befallen me in my new position as official NIMAR staff member is the development of a semester program in social sciences. It’s the latest addition to the in-house study abroad programs we offer to Dutch students (currently we have only programs in Arabic), and its inaugural run is to start this fall.
In its most basic set-up, this semester consists of a five-month program, divided up into four phases of about four weeks each. The third of these phases is an independent research project, for which the students will spend the first two phases preparing – by way of lectures on all aspects of Moroccan society, Arabic classes, and workshops on research methods and other matters of practical concern. The idea is to have these various classes taught by Moroccan researchers and professors, as a way to truly submerge our students into the Moroccan world of social science.
Since the research project is to be independently designed and carried out by the student, it’s mostly the first two phases of the program that my co-developer Cynthia and I have been working on. Now that it has been a year since I last taught my undergrads in San Diego, I’m apparently brimming with ideas. I’m dreaming of intimate seminars à la the University of Chicago, democratic debates, field trips to relevant Moroccan institutions, and exchanges with local students. I want to design a curriculum that’s heavy on student participation and casts the teacher more in the role of a guide than that of a lecturer.
Except where I’m the dreamer, Cynthia is the realist. At first I found it a little frustrating that she’d often put the brakes on a new idea I had – but I soon realized she’s right. After ten years in Morocco, she knows the resources and tools we have to work with in a way that I don’t. She knows that it’s all very nice to dream of democratically run seminars and teachers-as-guides, but in the end, the Moroccan educational system just isn’t ready for it.
Basically, Moroccan professors are lecturers. They teach by presenting material to a group of students, who write it all down and then attempt to reproduce it on a test. There is no culture of debate, no habit of questioning.
I think this is why. It is always true (in my opinion) that knowledge equals power and authority. But sometimes, that power exercised by virtue of knowledge makes it seem as though this is the only knowledge that is valid. Knowledge thus becomes synonymous with ‘truth’. Translating this to a classroom setting, this means that ‘truth’ is possessed by the teacher, and that his or her relationship to the student is skewed along a very steep power differential. There is no room for discussion in the classroom, because truth is not to be questioned. Learning, then, is simply a matter of receiving and absorbing. It is never about exchange and sharing.
I get the sense that it is a general tendency in this country to equate ‘knowledge’ with ‘truth’. I notice the imprint of this idea on a lot of people I meet – who see knowledge as something either to be transmitted or absorbed, rather than something to be shared. I feel it with the university students I have befriended, who never seem to really get what I mean when I talk about plans for an exchange of ideas between Dutch and Moroccan students – why didn’t I like their idea of inviting a professor who could really teach our Dutch students everything they wanted to know? I notice this tendency also with the researchers I’ve met, who have real trouble confidently presenting their research project and findings to others. On paper, they seem like wonderfully ambitious people with equally lofty research questions – but once asked to present their plans in public, they explain what they do in soft mumbles and stutters and it is as though their work instantly dissolves into a pile of ashes in the palms of our hands.
I notice it, too, among the holders of PhDs who have teaching positions at a university – and whose idea of a discussion seems to be a monologue. They have completed the transformation from student to teacher, and now possess all the authoritativeness of the more powerful knowledge-giver. Once they hear that I am an anthropology student, even the linguists and political scientists insist on explaining to me everything I need to know about anthropology.*
And finally, I notice it in the comments I pick up from other foreigners here. In the laments, for instance, about how difficult it is to really connect to Moroccan women. Not only because their lives are so different but also because it’s so hard to have a discussion with them – either they indicate that they don’t know enough about a topic to discuss it, or they cannot accept your view on something when they’ve learned something else as being true. I’m reminded also of a comment made by the University of Amsterdam psychologists who were here for the workshop at the Clinic. They’d been so relieved at the psychiatric residents’ active participation, because when the researchers had tried to conduct a workshop here before they’d all been completely mute. The difference, we all realized, was this: Dr. Chikri (the Clinic’s director) had attended this first workshop. He had answered every single one of their questions, and his residents had remained demurely silent in their seats. During this most recent workshop, the residents had been liberated from their subordinate positions by a budget meeting that claimed Dr. Chikri’s presence – as a result, they had been free to participate, and eagerly did so.
Basically, it seems as though there is no middle ground here between ‘knowledge’ and ‘ignorance’. There is only one version of the truth, and in every ‘exchange’ of thought there is always one person who possesses it, and one person who does not. This makes any plans for democratic seminars and discussions a little unrealistic.
An additional problem is the state of social science as a discipline. Departments of sociology and political science are hard to come by (anthropology being entirely nonexistent), and often hide deep within the recesses of a larger ‘faculté des lettres et des sciences humaines’ (the actual ‘sciences sociales’ here mostly refers to the disciplines of law and economics). To give you an example: Cynthia and I recently paid a visit to a research laboratory for psychopathology. It was a single room with a few empty desks, where a sole professor shared his coffee with us as he explained that there are but two departments of psychology in the country (one here in Rabat, and one in Fes) and no more than fifteen psychologists. Fifteen. The problem, he explained, was that anyone with any ambition packs up and leaves the country in search of greener academic pastures. The talented people pursue an education abroad, and once they’ve tasted academia there, Morocco is “like a cold shower,” as he put it.
A Dutch demographer, in Rabat for the conference on labor migration that Cynthia and I organized, complained of the state of research. “There is so much data!” She exclaimed to us in desperation, “but no one’s doing anything with it!” She herself had begged to be allowed to use this data, stored at a national demographic institute – and after countless letters and official stamps, her permission had been granted. She was hoping to set up a collaborative project with local researchers, but found it very heard to motivate her Moroccan colleagues.
It’s possible (likely, even?) that this underdeveloped state of the social sciences has something to do with the view of knowledge that I described above (and perhaps a little also with the limitations on political freedom?). Without a tradition of questioning, it’s difficult to really do any social scientific research – and it’s no surprise that the talented researchers wish to do their work elsewhere.
In any case, this dearth of academic individuals makes it difficult for us to recruit any potential teachers for our program. Add to this, as a third limiting factor, a language barrier. As much as I do think Morocco is beginning to realize the necessity of English for the realization of its global ambitions, the language of academia in Morocco still and stubbornly remains French. Unfortunately, this is not a language most Dutch students speak, but there is no more than a handful of faculty in Rabat who speak sufficient English to lecture in this language. Cynthia and I discovered during our meetings with other foreign educational institutions in Rabat that, likewise faced with this barrier of communication, they often partner with the same few Moroccan professors we often collaborate with. No wonder they are always so strapped for time…
The thing is – education is not unimportant in Morocco. To the contrary: I think both the public and the government realize that education is the key to development and to a better future. Both make investments in education. But the problem is that this investment is made pragmatically – in the areas with the highest rate of return. People and funds flow not toward universities, but toward private institutes of higher education, all with acronymed names like ILCS, IIHEM, HEC, or ENCG, that teach management, IT, and marketing. It becomes a vicious cycle from here, of course – more money means better teaching methods, which improves education, which attracts more students, which in turn brings in more money. It leaves very little for the universities, that are part of the public education system that the government offers to its citizens at no charge, and that, suffering from a lack of funding, have no choice but to stick with outdated teaching methods and a dearth of resources.**
So what to do? It certainly has to do with money – universities will never be able to stimulate the development of research if there are no funds to do so. But it’s also about changing the definition of ‘knowledge’ – about democratizing it, making it available to everyone and recognizing the fact that it’s within everyone’s reach (money is one way in which to ensure that availability, of course). And finally, I think institutes like the NIMAR have a responsibility here, too. Because the vestiges of imperialism are also implicated in the underdevelopment of academic research in former colonies like Morocco. After all, imperialism used the knowledge-as-truth concept in support of its mission: it used the power of scientific research to validate its subjugation of other peoples, and cast colonies in the role of subjects, of knowledge absorbers (knowledge about ‘civilization’, in this case) and never knowledge producers. Perhaps it is our responsibility, then, to make a concerted investment in the development of ‘indigenous’ research in these countries (to use a very colonial word). By initiating and stimulating collaborative projects between Moroccan and European or American researchers, for instance. As that Dutch demographer suggested, and as we realize given the limitations of Moroccan social science, this may be difficult. But it must be done, and in order to do so, we have to meet it halfway.
* It has made me realize, though, that I need to stop introducing myself as a student. I do this because in the US I am called a PhD student. In most other countries, however, you are considered a researcher in this stage of your academic training. I’m trying to get used to presenting myself as such. It still always feels a little bit like fraud, because I haven’t actually started my research yet…
** This in many ways maintains the divide between rich and poor, since only the former can afford the superior education of private institutions, and thus only those who already have money have access to the better and higher paying jobs.
In its most basic set-up, this semester consists of a five-month program, divided up into four phases of about four weeks each. The third of these phases is an independent research project, for which the students will spend the first two phases preparing – by way of lectures on all aspects of Moroccan society, Arabic classes, and workshops on research methods and other matters of practical concern. The idea is to have these various classes taught by Moroccan researchers and professors, as a way to truly submerge our students into the Moroccan world of social science.
Since the research project is to be independently designed and carried out by the student, it’s mostly the first two phases of the program that my co-developer Cynthia and I have been working on. Now that it has been a year since I last taught my undergrads in San Diego, I’m apparently brimming with ideas. I’m dreaming of intimate seminars à la the University of Chicago, democratic debates, field trips to relevant Moroccan institutions, and exchanges with local students. I want to design a curriculum that’s heavy on student participation and casts the teacher more in the role of a guide than that of a lecturer.
Except where I’m the dreamer, Cynthia is the realist. At first I found it a little frustrating that she’d often put the brakes on a new idea I had – but I soon realized she’s right. After ten years in Morocco, she knows the resources and tools we have to work with in a way that I don’t. She knows that it’s all very nice to dream of democratically run seminars and teachers-as-guides, but in the end, the Moroccan educational system just isn’t ready for it.
Basically, Moroccan professors are lecturers. They teach by presenting material to a group of students, who write it all down and then attempt to reproduce it on a test. There is no culture of debate, no habit of questioning.
I think this is why. It is always true (in my opinion) that knowledge equals power and authority. But sometimes, that power exercised by virtue of knowledge makes it seem as though this is the only knowledge that is valid. Knowledge thus becomes synonymous with ‘truth’. Translating this to a classroom setting, this means that ‘truth’ is possessed by the teacher, and that his or her relationship to the student is skewed along a very steep power differential. There is no room for discussion in the classroom, because truth is not to be questioned. Learning, then, is simply a matter of receiving and absorbing. It is never about exchange and sharing.
I get the sense that it is a general tendency in this country to equate ‘knowledge’ with ‘truth’. I notice the imprint of this idea on a lot of people I meet – who see knowledge as something either to be transmitted or absorbed, rather than something to be shared. I feel it with the university students I have befriended, who never seem to really get what I mean when I talk about plans for an exchange of ideas between Dutch and Moroccan students – why didn’t I like their idea of inviting a professor who could really teach our Dutch students everything they wanted to know? I notice this tendency also with the researchers I’ve met, who have real trouble confidently presenting their research project and findings to others. On paper, they seem like wonderfully ambitious people with equally lofty research questions – but once asked to present their plans in public, they explain what they do in soft mumbles and stutters and it is as though their work instantly dissolves into a pile of ashes in the palms of our hands.
I notice it, too, among the holders of PhDs who have teaching positions at a university – and whose idea of a discussion seems to be a monologue. They have completed the transformation from student to teacher, and now possess all the authoritativeness of the more powerful knowledge-giver. Once they hear that I am an anthropology student, even the linguists and political scientists insist on explaining to me everything I need to know about anthropology.*
And finally, I notice it in the comments I pick up from other foreigners here. In the laments, for instance, about how difficult it is to really connect to Moroccan women. Not only because their lives are so different but also because it’s so hard to have a discussion with them – either they indicate that they don’t know enough about a topic to discuss it, or they cannot accept your view on something when they’ve learned something else as being true. I’m reminded also of a comment made by the University of Amsterdam psychologists who were here for the workshop at the Clinic. They’d been so relieved at the psychiatric residents’ active participation, because when the researchers had tried to conduct a workshop here before they’d all been completely mute. The difference, we all realized, was this: Dr. Chikri (the Clinic’s director) had attended this first workshop. He had answered every single one of their questions, and his residents had remained demurely silent in their seats. During this most recent workshop, the residents had been liberated from their subordinate positions by a budget meeting that claimed Dr. Chikri’s presence – as a result, they had been free to participate, and eagerly did so.
Basically, it seems as though there is no middle ground here between ‘knowledge’ and ‘ignorance’. There is only one version of the truth, and in every ‘exchange’ of thought there is always one person who possesses it, and one person who does not. This makes any plans for democratic seminars and discussions a little unrealistic.
An additional problem is the state of social science as a discipline. Departments of sociology and political science are hard to come by (anthropology being entirely nonexistent), and often hide deep within the recesses of a larger ‘faculté des lettres et des sciences humaines’ (the actual ‘sciences sociales’ here mostly refers to the disciplines of law and economics). To give you an example: Cynthia and I recently paid a visit to a research laboratory for psychopathology. It was a single room with a few empty desks, where a sole professor shared his coffee with us as he explained that there are but two departments of psychology in the country (one here in Rabat, and one in Fes) and no more than fifteen psychologists. Fifteen. The problem, he explained, was that anyone with any ambition packs up and leaves the country in search of greener academic pastures. The talented people pursue an education abroad, and once they’ve tasted academia there, Morocco is “like a cold shower,” as he put it.
A Dutch demographer, in Rabat for the conference on labor migration that Cynthia and I organized, complained of the state of research. “There is so much data!” She exclaimed to us in desperation, “but no one’s doing anything with it!” She herself had begged to be allowed to use this data, stored at a national demographic institute – and after countless letters and official stamps, her permission had been granted. She was hoping to set up a collaborative project with local researchers, but found it very heard to motivate her Moroccan colleagues.
It’s possible (likely, even?) that this underdeveloped state of the social sciences has something to do with the view of knowledge that I described above (and perhaps a little also with the limitations on political freedom?). Without a tradition of questioning, it’s difficult to really do any social scientific research – and it’s no surprise that the talented researchers wish to do their work elsewhere.
In any case, this dearth of academic individuals makes it difficult for us to recruit any potential teachers for our program. Add to this, as a third limiting factor, a language barrier. As much as I do think Morocco is beginning to realize the necessity of English for the realization of its global ambitions, the language of academia in Morocco still and stubbornly remains French. Unfortunately, this is not a language most Dutch students speak, but there is no more than a handful of faculty in Rabat who speak sufficient English to lecture in this language. Cynthia and I discovered during our meetings with other foreign educational institutions in Rabat that, likewise faced with this barrier of communication, they often partner with the same few Moroccan professors we often collaborate with. No wonder they are always so strapped for time…
The thing is – education is not unimportant in Morocco. To the contrary: I think both the public and the government realize that education is the key to development and to a better future. Both make investments in education. But the problem is that this investment is made pragmatically – in the areas with the highest rate of return. People and funds flow not toward universities, but toward private institutes of higher education, all with acronymed names like ILCS, IIHEM, HEC, or ENCG, that teach management, IT, and marketing. It becomes a vicious cycle from here, of course – more money means better teaching methods, which improves education, which attracts more students, which in turn brings in more money. It leaves very little for the universities, that are part of the public education system that the government offers to its citizens at no charge, and that, suffering from a lack of funding, have no choice but to stick with outdated teaching methods and a dearth of resources.**
So what to do? It certainly has to do with money – universities will never be able to stimulate the development of research if there are no funds to do so. But it’s also about changing the definition of ‘knowledge’ – about democratizing it, making it available to everyone and recognizing the fact that it’s within everyone’s reach (money is one way in which to ensure that availability, of course). And finally, I think institutes like the NIMAR have a responsibility here, too. Because the vestiges of imperialism are also implicated in the underdevelopment of academic research in former colonies like Morocco. After all, imperialism used the knowledge-as-truth concept in support of its mission: it used the power of scientific research to validate its subjugation of other peoples, and cast colonies in the role of subjects, of knowledge absorbers (knowledge about ‘civilization’, in this case) and never knowledge producers. Perhaps it is our responsibility, then, to make a concerted investment in the development of ‘indigenous’ research in these countries (to use a very colonial word). By initiating and stimulating collaborative projects between Moroccan and European or American researchers, for instance. As that Dutch demographer suggested, and as we realize given the limitations of Moroccan social science, this may be difficult. But it must be done, and in order to do so, we have to meet it halfway.
* It has made me realize, though, that I need to stop introducing myself as a student. I do this because in the US I am called a PhD student. In most other countries, however, you are considered a researcher in this stage of your academic training. I’m trying to get used to presenting myself as such. It still always feels a little bit like fraud, because I haven’t actually started my research yet…
** This in many ways maintains the divide between rich and poor, since only the former can afford the superior education of private institutions, and thus only those who already have money have access to the better and higher paying jobs.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Fashion Forward
I don’t have enough appropriate summer clothing.
I have about five outfits that I consider fitting for the Rbati* summer streets. By week’s end, I’ve rotated through them, and my sense of fashion-consciousness dreads having to bore my colleagues with the same ensembles during the next week. Once my financial situation stabilizes a bit, I definitely plan to devote some time and funds to the pleasant task of shopping.
Rbati girls and women do not walk around in the long black abayas you may associate with women in Saudi Arabia. You may be familiar with the Moroccan jellaba – the hooded dress/coat that is worn by men and women alike and comes in all colors of the universe – but even this garment is worn mostly by generations over forty years of age. Moreover, I’d estimate that no more than thirty-five percent of young women wear a headscarf, or veil. Fashion in Rabat, in other words, comes across to me as a colorful and very eclectic mix of styles and tastes, where nearly anything goes.
Of course there is the occasional individual with a somewhat challenged sense of style, but overall I get the impression that Rbati girls and women take pride in their appearance. Their outfits are always perfectly put together. They are color coordinated to the smallest details (the colors and patterns may be a bit too bright for my taste, but I think this is a cultural difference), their shoes always match their purse, and they never forget to accessorize. A headscarf always matches the color of the clothing, and some women even skillfully combine multiple scarves to create an intricate pattern effect of colors on their head. And by the way, a headscarf by no means implies that you can’t wear fabulous earrings (or even flowers pinned by your ear), and the effects of eye-shadow and kohl always beautifully accentuate the eyes.
This fashion sense comes in all varieties of modesty. There are girls and women, of course, who choose to cover themselves. Underneath their brightly colored spaghetti-strapped dress they’ll wear a turtleneck sweater, and underneath a knee-length skirt they’ll sport a pair of leggings. Should they choose to wear (tight) jeans, they’ll combine it with a longer cardigan or top that covers their behind. Some women go a step further and noticeably take care to hide the shape of their figure, choosing loose-fitting ensembles such as wide skirts and a longer variety of the headscarf.** But you will also come across the occasional girl who wears less than what I grew accustomed to among the eighteen year old Californian college students I taught last year. I see girls who’ve chosen to wear leggings as pants and pair it with a low-cut halter top, the straps of a brightly colored bra conspicuously showing on her back.
I often find myself at Marwa, a home-grown chain of stores not unlike H&M, fingering ambiguous clothing items. Among the harem pants, leggings, summer dresses and checkered blouses hang certain patterened and multicolored items (further adorned with bows, lace, pleats, and so on – nothing is ‘too much’, it seems) whose purpose I can never determine. They’ll be too long for a top, too short for a skirt, and I’ll wonder, how on earth one is supposed to wear such a thing? And these slightly see-through pants, are these meant to be worn on their own, or underneath something else? Unsure of what to do with such items, I usually abstain from making any purchases. The girls I see on the street, however, have clearly chosen to interpret this ambiguity as they see fit. I’ve seen the same item worn as a top by one girl, as a dress by another. I guess these multifunctional garments are ideal in a society where the meaning of ‘modesty’ can vary so greatly from person to person.
So what do I mean when I say that I don’t have enough ‘appropriate’ summer clothing? What implicit rules am I referring to, if this truly is a city where anything goes?
The truth is, of course, that it’s not. One might see all varieties of skin coverage, but this does not necessarily mean that everything is equally accepted. Modernization, and the tendency to associate this development with ‘westernization’, have certainly led to a greater acceptance of more revealing style, and lends girls more freedom to dress themselves like the women they see on satellite television or in French magazines (in fact, this style now shows up in Moroccan magazines, as well). But the ambiguous value that always sticks to the whole notion of ‘modernization’ also colors evaluation of these new trends in fashion. A short skirt means ‘modern’, but for many it also still means ‘loose’, ‘immodest’ – and thus suggests ‘immoral’. In a society where people are often judged by behavior rather than intentions, this can be a dangerous and harmful association.
The reason these styles are worn and seen more and more commonly in Morocco’s larger cities has to do, for one, with the fact that this ambiguity does create space for it (‘ambiguous’ is a step up from ‘not done’, of course). But I also think it has something to do with the fact that judgment seems to be more important for some than it is for others. I don’t mean that some girls simply don’t care about their reputation. What I mean is that I’m getting the impression that some girls have certain buffers to protect them against the harmful effect of social judgment. Perhaps it’s money, perhaps it’s a good education and a respectable job (though these are always bought with money, of course) – but whichever it is, I am starting to get the sense that a certain social gravity, or position, elevates one’s reputation above the harmful effect of someone’s gossip. Though it may, of course, depend on who’s gossiping. I’m reminded of a comment Ilyas made to me, that night that we went to see Amours Voilées. In this film the protagonist gets pregnant out of wedlock, and the movie remains strikingly non-judgmental about the whole affair. Ilyas suggested that this had something to do with the fact that the protagonist was a doctor. This elevated status bought her a certain freedom of action, he explained. He did not elaborate and I retreated into silence as I tried to make sense of this seeming moral relativism.
This greater freedom to experiment with the traditional rules of propriety seems a lot like the same kind of situation. Come to think of it, we see that same kind of relativism every day in the US and the Netherlands. And so I’m left to wonder, what is the logic behind it? Are moral rules ultimately pragmatic, designed only to keep us on the straight and narrow until we ‘make it’ – and do they thus fall away once we do? Are girls more free to dress revealingly because they’ve already ‘made it’ by virtue of their money, education, or profession? Or does this say something about the corrupting effect of such status symbols, the immorality of them? About the corrupting effect of social power, perhaps?
My reputation as a western woman is weighed on an entirely different scale, of course, with an ambiguity all its own. Always already considered as outsiders, western women are not judged by the same standards of propriety as those that apply to Moroccan women. So why not wear whatever I want? I don’t have to worry about being considered ‘loose’ and unfit for marriage. But at the same time, I always already am considered ‘loose’. Created for us by the worst examples of televised western promiscuity, our reputation in some sense always already is that of someone who would never live up to Moroccan standards of propriety. And as much as we’re explicitly not being judged by Moroccan standards, everyone is aware of the fact that we’d never pass if we were.
I feel that wearing spaghetti strap tops ultimately only confirm a reputation that we don’t deserve. I know that my personal choice to cover up just a slight bit more than usual won’t make a dent in the larger reality, but at least I feel like I’m doing my part in promoting some kind of deeper cross-cultural understanding. Also – despite the fact that some Moroccan girls are getting away with ‘new’ styles of clothing – it’s a matter of respect for local mores, to me.
And secretly? I see it as a way to set myself apart from the average tourist. It’s my way of trying to blend in just a little bit more. Of trying to look as though I belong here, walk around here every day, and have accustomed to the surroundings.
* The –i suffix makes a noun into an adjective; ‘Rbati’ thus means something like ‘of Rabat’. I don’t write ‘Rabati’ because the capital city’s name is actually pronounced something like ‘Rrrbat’.
**Yes, you will also see the occasional woman dressed head to toe in black and who leaves only her eyes for the public to see. But this happens very, very rarely.
I have about five outfits that I consider fitting for the Rbati* summer streets. By week’s end, I’ve rotated through them, and my sense of fashion-consciousness dreads having to bore my colleagues with the same ensembles during the next week. Once my financial situation stabilizes a bit, I definitely plan to devote some time and funds to the pleasant task of shopping.
Rbati girls and women do not walk around in the long black abayas you may associate with women in Saudi Arabia. You may be familiar with the Moroccan jellaba – the hooded dress/coat that is worn by men and women alike and comes in all colors of the universe – but even this garment is worn mostly by generations over forty years of age. Moreover, I’d estimate that no more than thirty-five percent of young women wear a headscarf, or veil. Fashion in Rabat, in other words, comes across to me as a colorful and very eclectic mix of styles and tastes, where nearly anything goes.
Of course there is the occasional individual with a somewhat challenged sense of style, but overall I get the impression that Rbati girls and women take pride in their appearance. Their outfits are always perfectly put together. They are color coordinated to the smallest details (the colors and patterns may be a bit too bright for my taste, but I think this is a cultural difference), their shoes always match their purse, and they never forget to accessorize. A headscarf always matches the color of the clothing, and some women even skillfully combine multiple scarves to create an intricate pattern effect of colors on their head. And by the way, a headscarf by no means implies that you can’t wear fabulous earrings (or even flowers pinned by your ear), and the effects of eye-shadow and kohl always beautifully accentuate the eyes.
This fashion sense comes in all varieties of modesty. There are girls and women, of course, who choose to cover themselves. Underneath their brightly colored spaghetti-strapped dress they’ll wear a turtleneck sweater, and underneath a knee-length skirt they’ll sport a pair of leggings. Should they choose to wear (tight) jeans, they’ll combine it with a longer cardigan or top that covers their behind. Some women go a step further and noticeably take care to hide the shape of their figure, choosing loose-fitting ensembles such as wide skirts and a longer variety of the headscarf.** But you will also come across the occasional girl who wears less than what I grew accustomed to among the eighteen year old Californian college students I taught last year. I see girls who’ve chosen to wear leggings as pants and pair it with a low-cut halter top, the straps of a brightly colored bra conspicuously showing on her back.
I often find myself at Marwa, a home-grown chain of stores not unlike H&M, fingering ambiguous clothing items. Among the harem pants, leggings, summer dresses and checkered blouses hang certain patterened and multicolored items (further adorned with bows, lace, pleats, and so on – nothing is ‘too much’, it seems) whose purpose I can never determine. They’ll be too long for a top, too short for a skirt, and I’ll wonder, how on earth one is supposed to wear such a thing? And these slightly see-through pants, are these meant to be worn on their own, or underneath something else? Unsure of what to do with such items, I usually abstain from making any purchases. The girls I see on the street, however, have clearly chosen to interpret this ambiguity as they see fit. I’ve seen the same item worn as a top by one girl, as a dress by another. I guess these multifunctional garments are ideal in a society where the meaning of ‘modesty’ can vary so greatly from person to person.
So what do I mean when I say that I don’t have enough ‘appropriate’ summer clothing? What implicit rules am I referring to, if this truly is a city where anything goes?
The truth is, of course, that it’s not. One might see all varieties of skin coverage, but this does not necessarily mean that everything is equally accepted. Modernization, and the tendency to associate this development with ‘westernization’, have certainly led to a greater acceptance of more revealing style, and lends girls more freedom to dress themselves like the women they see on satellite television or in French magazines (in fact, this style now shows up in Moroccan magazines, as well). But the ambiguous value that always sticks to the whole notion of ‘modernization’ also colors evaluation of these new trends in fashion. A short skirt means ‘modern’, but for many it also still means ‘loose’, ‘immodest’ – and thus suggests ‘immoral’. In a society where people are often judged by behavior rather than intentions, this can be a dangerous and harmful association.
The reason these styles are worn and seen more and more commonly in Morocco’s larger cities has to do, for one, with the fact that this ambiguity does create space for it (‘ambiguous’ is a step up from ‘not done’, of course). But I also think it has something to do with the fact that judgment seems to be more important for some than it is for others. I don’t mean that some girls simply don’t care about their reputation. What I mean is that I’m getting the impression that some girls have certain buffers to protect them against the harmful effect of social judgment. Perhaps it’s money, perhaps it’s a good education and a respectable job (though these are always bought with money, of course) – but whichever it is, I am starting to get the sense that a certain social gravity, or position, elevates one’s reputation above the harmful effect of someone’s gossip. Though it may, of course, depend on who’s gossiping. I’m reminded of a comment Ilyas made to me, that night that we went to see Amours Voilées. In this film the protagonist gets pregnant out of wedlock, and the movie remains strikingly non-judgmental about the whole affair. Ilyas suggested that this had something to do with the fact that the protagonist was a doctor. This elevated status bought her a certain freedom of action, he explained. He did not elaborate and I retreated into silence as I tried to make sense of this seeming moral relativism.
This greater freedom to experiment with the traditional rules of propriety seems a lot like the same kind of situation. Come to think of it, we see that same kind of relativism every day in the US and the Netherlands. And so I’m left to wonder, what is the logic behind it? Are moral rules ultimately pragmatic, designed only to keep us on the straight and narrow until we ‘make it’ – and do they thus fall away once we do? Are girls more free to dress revealingly because they’ve already ‘made it’ by virtue of their money, education, or profession? Or does this say something about the corrupting effect of such status symbols, the immorality of them? About the corrupting effect of social power, perhaps?
My reputation as a western woman is weighed on an entirely different scale, of course, with an ambiguity all its own. Always already considered as outsiders, western women are not judged by the same standards of propriety as those that apply to Moroccan women. So why not wear whatever I want? I don’t have to worry about being considered ‘loose’ and unfit for marriage. But at the same time, I always already am considered ‘loose’. Created for us by the worst examples of televised western promiscuity, our reputation in some sense always already is that of someone who would never live up to Moroccan standards of propriety. And as much as we’re explicitly not being judged by Moroccan standards, everyone is aware of the fact that we’d never pass if we were.
I feel that wearing spaghetti strap tops ultimately only confirm a reputation that we don’t deserve. I know that my personal choice to cover up just a slight bit more than usual won’t make a dent in the larger reality, but at least I feel like I’m doing my part in promoting some kind of deeper cross-cultural understanding. Also – despite the fact that some Moroccan girls are getting away with ‘new’ styles of clothing – it’s a matter of respect for local mores, to me.
And secretly? I see it as a way to set myself apart from the average tourist. It’s my way of trying to blend in just a little bit more. Of trying to look as though I belong here, walk around here every day, and have accustomed to the surroundings.
* The –i suffix makes a noun into an adjective; ‘Rbati’ thus means something like ‘of Rabat’. I don’t write ‘Rabati’ because the capital city’s name is actually pronounced something like ‘Rrrbat’.
**Yes, you will also see the occasional woman dressed head to toe in black and who leaves only her eyes for the public to see. But this happens very, very rarely.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
A Psychiatric Tower of Babel
I was first introduced to the cultural dimension of healthcare and illness by a lecture at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam. It was 1999, I was a first year medical student, and I absolutely loved the curriculum. I listened with rapt attention at every lecture on biochemistry, microbiology and physiology, and I adored the anatomy lab sessions in which we explored a female body with scalpel and tweezers. But what really, truly awoke a passion was a single comment during a brief class on primary care medicine. The lecturing doctor mentioned that it is important to keep in mind that patients of immigrant backgrounds often have a tendency to explain their symptoms in ways that may be different from the ‘average’. That this is due to their cultural backgrounds – their ways of understanding illness, and the taboos that exist within their framework of reference. And that a Moroccan woman, for instance, may explain her gynecological symptoms to a male doctor as a stomachache – but that this should not be taken as a cue to start thinking about appendicitis.
This was the point when things changed for me. When I realized that medicine alone was not enough for me – that it was the socio-cultural side of medicine that I really had a passion for, and that I was missing a greater focus on this dimension in my medical education. I became a pre-med after my transatlantic move to Chicago, but drifted more and more toward the Division of Social Sciences, pulled in by classes with titles like “Mental Health and Healing Across Cultures.” A new world opened up before me as I realized that our American or Dutch way of conceptualizing illness is by no means ‘objective’. The fact that we imagine neurological issues as the short-circuiting of an electrical system – and a disorder of the urinary tract as a problem with our ‘plumbing’ – is as much culturally determined as someone’s belief that epileptic symptoms are the manifestation of spirit possession. Even the definition of ‘pathology’ is in a sense contrived: who determined that 200 mg/dL of cholesterol in your blood is the boundary between ‘normal’ and ‘risky’, and why is it not, say, 225, or 231? I was mesmerized by this disappearance of objective truth even from such a scientific discipline as medicine – and intrigued to no end by questions such as these: do illnesses like schizophrenia really occur in every corner of the world, and do they always manifest themselves in the same way? Does a different way of explaining illness just mean a different way of experiencing the same biological problem, or is the illness itself inherently different? If patient and doctor work with different models of explaining illness, how does that affect the course of treatment? How does the inherent inequality of power that characterizes the doctor-patient relationship (because the doctor is always the authority figure) affect treatment? To make a long story short, I quit the pre-med program and became a PhD candidate in medical anthropology.
The answer to the above questions, basically, is that of course all of these things affect medical treatment. Because what these issues all come down to is, in very basic terms, a barrier of communication. Simply put, doctors and patients are often each monolingual in their own language. Their tongues may sound similar – but deceptively so, because it only obscures the fact that translation is necessary. In any case, you can imagine how a resultant miscommunication might lead to problems: a wrong diagnosis, a misunderstanding about the dosage of medication, or a lack of trust in a doctor who just doesn’t seem to hear you, can all seriously hinder the success of treatment.
If most problems come down to barriers of communication, most research in this field aims at calling awareness to the need for translation – at developing dictionaries and universal languages to improve the effectiveness of patient-doctor dialogue.
This was the goal of a workshop that I attended this week at the Clinic.* Three psychologists from the University of Amsterdam had come to Morocco to speak with psychiatric residents and psychologists here about the development of an interview questionnaire that would be multiculturally valid. The rationale for this, as they explained, was their frequent work with teens of immigrant backgrounds in the Netherlands. They found that the existing self-report questionnaires that are used to assess teen functioning often didn’t produce useful results with this population, because these questionnaires work with scales of ‘normalcy’ that are based on very Dutch cultural assumptions.
The goal of this workshop was, then, to develop a self-report questionnaire that would work for teens of Moroccan origin in the Netherlands, as well as teens here in Morocco itself. It gave rise to a productive cooperative effort in which the Moroccan residents, as the Dutch researchers had hoped, actively participated. But although some great headway was thus made to bridge a communicative gap between Moroccan and Dutch cultural contexts, the workshop itself simultaneously brought to light two communicative barriers unique to the Moroccan context, that I think the researchers had not quite been aware of. One was cultural, the other linguistic.
The researchers had come prepared for the Moroccan-Dutch linguistic barrier. Although two of them spoke only English, the third spoke a beautiful French and translated the others’ presentations. Even this interpretation became a cooperative affair, as she asked her audience for assistance with the translation of technical psychological terms; a request the residents eagerly obliged. But as they did so, they brought to light another linguistic barrier that might problematize their use of this questionnaire with Moroccan patients. Like most other standardized questionnaires that are used at the Clinic, this one was to be composed in French. French is the language in which psychiatrists are educated, and it is the tongue in which they and other highly educated Moroccans converse comfortably – it may even be the language they prefer, when they talk about their work. However, statistically speaking the majority of Moroccans are not as highly educated as a doctor, and thus are far more comfortable explaining their symptoms in Moroccan Arabic.** The already difficult task of reducing your complex experience of symptoms into words that correspond to some kind of diagnostic standard is thus made even more difficult by requiring you simultaneously to translate that reduction into a foreign language.
I later asked Dr. Rachidi about this, and she confirmed: this barrier between French and Arabic is a constant issue in the communication with and treatment of patients. Only about 10% of their patients, she told me, speak French well enough to work with one of these questionnaires. A Moroccan psychiatrist is perfectly able to speak with a patient in Moroccan Arabic. However, without the convenience of a biological test for mental illness, linguistic assessment must be substituted for blood work or an MRI; and the only diagnostic tools a Moroccan psychiatrist has at her disposal are in French. Somewhere, a translation has to be made – but whether it be the psychiatrist or the patient who makes that effort, there is always the risk of mistranslation. And as all literature lovers know, a translation is never quite the same as the original…
The other barrier that became apparent is cultural. One thing the Dutch researchers may not have been entirely aware of is the infinite cultural heterogeneity within Morocco itself. Without even mentioning the different cultural practices of Arabs, Berbers, and Jews, and without even trying to parse out which cultural elements come from sub-Saharan Africa and which originated in the Middle East, there is a particular duality that seems lately to preoccupy the collective Moroccan mind – and it was brought out spontaneously and quickly by the Moroccan residents. When the researchers asked the group of residents to itemize typical characteristics of parental behavior in Morocco (this was to be the main topic of the questionnaire), they produced two separate lists. One applied to the “old generation,” while the other characterized the “new.” There are two different value systems in Morocco, the residents explained, pointing to items that presented these two generation of parents as polar opposites of one another. Where the old generation valued the family (“c’est vraiment de la vénération des parents,” one resident explained), the new strove for individualism. And where traditional parents enforced a strict authoritarianism, modern ones actually listened to their children.
The contrast between ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’ seems to be on everyone’s mind in Morocco, and it resonates through nearly every dimension of public and private life imaginable. It’s a big issue also in Moroccan psychiatry: for one, their allegiance to modernity is psychiatrists’ way of distancing themselves from what they see as the dangerous practices of ‘traditional’ healing. My own research actually deals very directly with the question of how this duality of modernity and tradition (or a seeming duality, because I think the Moroccan verdict on their compatibility isn’t in yet) affects the way in which people think about mental illness and different forms of treatment. And so I was intrigued, when the residents suggested that the questionnaire under construction may not be universally applicable at all. And if they were right that there was such a great difference between these two generations, they were right that certain questions would have very different meanings for each. Each question represented a statement, and respondents would be asked to indicate on a scale of 1 to 5 to what extent they think the action in that statement is important. A ‘traditional’ parent would score “giving more allowance to a boy than to a girl” as very important. However, a ‘modern’ family wouldn’t know what to do with this question. They would completely disagree with this discriminatory practice, the residents hypothesized – but filling in “not important” is very different in value from indicating that you disagree with the statement. Well, one of the Dutch researchers suggested pragmatically, couldn’t we change the wording of the phrase to something more neutral that applies equally to both old and new generation?
Moving on to the next problematic item on the questionnaire, the residents never responded.
Is there even an answer to this question? I’m tempted to wonder if complete universality is ever actually possible in medicine – and I’m tempted to say no. But why should there be? The beauty of life may very well be that there is no objective truth, and thus that nothing is universally valid. So why doesn’t medicine do what anthropology tries to do, and celebrate the diversity in human experience? Because a lack of objective truth by no means suggests that everything is untrue. To the contrary: it means that all different views on life are equally true. All we need to do is be aware of the fact that we don’t all speak the same language, and enjoy the process of learning others’ foreign tongues.
* It’s been a while since I last mentioned this place, but the Clinic is the (pseudonym for the) psychiatric treatment facility where I will be doing half of my research.
** Not to mention the universal truth that the less fortunate among the population are always more likely to get sick and need a doctor (read Paul Farmer for more on this), meaning that the percentage of low-educated, non-francophone individuals should be even higher among patients at the Clinic than it is in society overall.
This was the point when things changed for me. When I realized that medicine alone was not enough for me – that it was the socio-cultural side of medicine that I really had a passion for, and that I was missing a greater focus on this dimension in my medical education. I became a pre-med after my transatlantic move to Chicago, but drifted more and more toward the Division of Social Sciences, pulled in by classes with titles like “Mental Health and Healing Across Cultures.” A new world opened up before me as I realized that our American or Dutch way of conceptualizing illness is by no means ‘objective’. The fact that we imagine neurological issues as the short-circuiting of an electrical system – and a disorder of the urinary tract as a problem with our ‘plumbing’ – is as much culturally determined as someone’s belief that epileptic symptoms are the manifestation of spirit possession. Even the definition of ‘pathology’ is in a sense contrived: who determined that 200 mg/dL of cholesterol in your blood is the boundary between ‘normal’ and ‘risky’, and why is it not, say, 225, or 231? I was mesmerized by this disappearance of objective truth even from such a scientific discipline as medicine – and intrigued to no end by questions such as these: do illnesses like schizophrenia really occur in every corner of the world, and do they always manifest themselves in the same way? Does a different way of explaining illness just mean a different way of experiencing the same biological problem, or is the illness itself inherently different? If patient and doctor work with different models of explaining illness, how does that affect the course of treatment? How does the inherent inequality of power that characterizes the doctor-patient relationship (because the doctor is always the authority figure) affect treatment? To make a long story short, I quit the pre-med program and became a PhD candidate in medical anthropology.
The answer to the above questions, basically, is that of course all of these things affect medical treatment. Because what these issues all come down to is, in very basic terms, a barrier of communication. Simply put, doctors and patients are often each monolingual in their own language. Their tongues may sound similar – but deceptively so, because it only obscures the fact that translation is necessary. In any case, you can imagine how a resultant miscommunication might lead to problems: a wrong diagnosis, a misunderstanding about the dosage of medication, or a lack of trust in a doctor who just doesn’t seem to hear you, can all seriously hinder the success of treatment.
If most problems come down to barriers of communication, most research in this field aims at calling awareness to the need for translation – at developing dictionaries and universal languages to improve the effectiveness of patient-doctor dialogue.
This was the goal of a workshop that I attended this week at the Clinic.* Three psychologists from the University of Amsterdam had come to Morocco to speak with psychiatric residents and psychologists here about the development of an interview questionnaire that would be multiculturally valid. The rationale for this, as they explained, was their frequent work with teens of immigrant backgrounds in the Netherlands. They found that the existing self-report questionnaires that are used to assess teen functioning often didn’t produce useful results with this population, because these questionnaires work with scales of ‘normalcy’ that are based on very Dutch cultural assumptions.
The goal of this workshop was, then, to develop a self-report questionnaire that would work for teens of Moroccan origin in the Netherlands, as well as teens here in Morocco itself. It gave rise to a productive cooperative effort in which the Moroccan residents, as the Dutch researchers had hoped, actively participated. But although some great headway was thus made to bridge a communicative gap between Moroccan and Dutch cultural contexts, the workshop itself simultaneously brought to light two communicative barriers unique to the Moroccan context, that I think the researchers had not quite been aware of. One was cultural, the other linguistic.
The researchers had come prepared for the Moroccan-Dutch linguistic barrier. Although two of them spoke only English, the third spoke a beautiful French and translated the others’ presentations. Even this interpretation became a cooperative affair, as she asked her audience for assistance with the translation of technical psychological terms; a request the residents eagerly obliged. But as they did so, they brought to light another linguistic barrier that might problematize their use of this questionnaire with Moroccan patients. Like most other standardized questionnaires that are used at the Clinic, this one was to be composed in French. French is the language in which psychiatrists are educated, and it is the tongue in which they and other highly educated Moroccans converse comfortably – it may even be the language they prefer, when they talk about their work. However, statistically speaking the majority of Moroccans are not as highly educated as a doctor, and thus are far more comfortable explaining their symptoms in Moroccan Arabic.** The already difficult task of reducing your complex experience of symptoms into words that correspond to some kind of diagnostic standard is thus made even more difficult by requiring you simultaneously to translate that reduction into a foreign language.
I later asked Dr. Rachidi about this, and she confirmed: this barrier between French and Arabic is a constant issue in the communication with and treatment of patients. Only about 10% of their patients, she told me, speak French well enough to work with one of these questionnaires. A Moroccan psychiatrist is perfectly able to speak with a patient in Moroccan Arabic. However, without the convenience of a biological test for mental illness, linguistic assessment must be substituted for blood work or an MRI; and the only diagnostic tools a Moroccan psychiatrist has at her disposal are in French. Somewhere, a translation has to be made – but whether it be the psychiatrist or the patient who makes that effort, there is always the risk of mistranslation. And as all literature lovers know, a translation is never quite the same as the original…
The other barrier that became apparent is cultural. One thing the Dutch researchers may not have been entirely aware of is the infinite cultural heterogeneity within Morocco itself. Without even mentioning the different cultural practices of Arabs, Berbers, and Jews, and without even trying to parse out which cultural elements come from sub-Saharan Africa and which originated in the Middle East, there is a particular duality that seems lately to preoccupy the collective Moroccan mind – and it was brought out spontaneously and quickly by the Moroccan residents. When the researchers asked the group of residents to itemize typical characteristics of parental behavior in Morocco (this was to be the main topic of the questionnaire), they produced two separate lists. One applied to the “old generation,” while the other characterized the “new.” There are two different value systems in Morocco, the residents explained, pointing to items that presented these two generation of parents as polar opposites of one another. Where the old generation valued the family (“c’est vraiment de la vénération des parents,” one resident explained), the new strove for individualism. And where traditional parents enforced a strict authoritarianism, modern ones actually listened to their children.
The contrast between ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’ seems to be on everyone’s mind in Morocco, and it resonates through nearly every dimension of public and private life imaginable. It’s a big issue also in Moroccan psychiatry: for one, their allegiance to modernity is psychiatrists’ way of distancing themselves from what they see as the dangerous practices of ‘traditional’ healing. My own research actually deals very directly with the question of how this duality of modernity and tradition (or a seeming duality, because I think the Moroccan verdict on their compatibility isn’t in yet) affects the way in which people think about mental illness and different forms of treatment. And so I was intrigued, when the residents suggested that the questionnaire under construction may not be universally applicable at all. And if they were right that there was such a great difference between these two generations, they were right that certain questions would have very different meanings for each. Each question represented a statement, and respondents would be asked to indicate on a scale of 1 to 5 to what extent they think the action in that statement is important. A ‘traditional’ parent would score “giving more allowance to a boy than to a girl” as very important. However, a ‘modern’ family wouldn’t know what to do with this question. They would completely disagree with this discriminatory practice, the residents hypothesized – but filling in “not important” is very different in value from indicating that you disagree with the statement. Well, one of the Dutch researchers suggested pragmatically, couldn’t we change the wording of the phrase to something more neutral that applies equally to both old and new generation?
Moving on to the next problematic item on the questionnaire, the residents never responded.
Is there even an answer to this question? I’m tempted to wonder if complete universality is ever actually possible in medicine – and I’m tempted to say no. But why should there be? The beauty of life may very well be that there is no objective truth, and thus that nothing is universally valid. So why doesn’t medicine do what anthropology tries to do, and celebrate the diversity in human experience? Because a lack of objective truth by no means suggests that everything is untrue. To the contrary: it means that all different views on life are equally true. All we need to do is be aware of the fact that we don’t all speak the same language, and enjoy the process of learning others’ foreign tongues.
* It’s been a while since I last mentioned this place, but the Clinic is the (pseudonym for the) psychiatric treatment facility where I will be doing half of my research.
** Not to mention the universal truth that the less fortunate among the population are always more likely to get sick and need a doctor (read Paul Farmer for more on this), meaning that the percentage of low-educated, non-francophone individuals should be even higher among patients at the Clinic than it is in society overall.
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