catch up. ProMo Birthday

For those of you who have been complaining about my lack of bloggage, I feel like I should tell you to what lengths I'm going to publish all of this.

I'm currently sitting in a cafe about a block away from my apartment with my room mate. We are the only women here, there is a soccer game on which means it's about 90% full and I'm downing double espressos (niss niss, in Arabic) while inhaling copious amounts of cigarette smoke as well as the stairs from about 10 pairs of eyes as I type this.

Now that we have this clarified, I can update you on one of my favorite parts of Morocco so far.


About two weeks ago, we had the opportunity to take part (or sit on the side-lines, at least) of one of the largest religious festivals in Morocco.

The Prophet Mohammad's Birthday is to the Muslim world what Christmas, Easter and Arbor Day are to the Christian world. (Just kidding about that last one...)

We had two days off of class and pretty much the entire city shut down for days of religious ceremonies, streets crowded with pilgrims and the blood of various farm animals.

All of these activities took place in the medina, which is the old part of the city. The medina is what you would typically associate with Morocco- old old mosques, streets lined with markets and vendors and snake-charmers and mouseleums. It's where we do our shopping and buy the most delicious 1-dirham donuts you can imagine- but more about that later. In sum, the medina is where I would take each one of YOU if you came to visit me.

So, Wednesday morning, me and the girls that I live with dressed in as many bright colors as possible (you aren't allowed to wear ANY black on ProMo's bday!) and headed off to the medina.

What we came upon was unlike anything I've ever been apart of. The streets were packed with women and children in their brightest and most beautiful djellabas (hooded robes that are typically worn with hijabs) and masses of people lining the streets for a reason un-beknownst to us.

So, in typically suit, we followed the crowds and stationed ourselves on a small wall running along the street. Soon after, a huge mass of people starts to make it's way down the street. In the middle of the mass of people were about 6 men playing hand drums and small horns and recorder-like instruments. There was also I man carrying a pole with flags hanging off of it. All of these men were dressed in solid white robes and crowded around them were women and men who appeared to be dancing. Now, this wasn't like Homewood High School Prom of 2008 dancing, it was more of a solitary shaking back and forth type of motion. So we watched the crowd pass and wondered what exactly had just happened in front of us.

My friends and I continued to walk around through markets of goods and produce, eventually making our way to an alleyway filled with brightly colored tents. From each tent came loud music in a similar style to that which we had heard in the streets earlier. My attention was caught by the dark-haired curls of a woman dancing inside one of the more open-tents so we quickly walked over to check out what was happening. Curly, dressed in a bright purple djellaba was dancing and shaking her hair and moving around to the beats of a band of men playing these instruments behind her, situated on stripped rugs. A crowd quickly formed aorund the outside of the tent and we watched on half confused and half amazed at what was going on only a few yards away. A man stood next to me and realized that I spoke French and explained to me what was going on.

This "trance-dancing" is from Berber culture and has seeped it's way into North African Arab culture. The woman was dancing and acting out a spiritual song to the music and it was her way of connecting with Paradise. He said that the songs can last up to 3 hours and that nobody can interrupt her while she is in this trance-like state. The reason we weren't allowed to wear black is because, supposedly, the spirits that possess you don't like the color black and the person in a trance is more likely to act out towards you if you are wearing this color. Fortunately, I didn't see anybody "attacked" by a Spirit, but it was an eery and fascinating moment to be apart of.

I joked about being in the Hammam and being "smack dab in the middle of Moroccan culture," but my experience at the Prophet's birthday celebration takes the cake for cultural experiences on this trip so far.

The more I'm here, the more I'm drawn into the heterogeneous culture that I find myself in the midst of. Seeing and experiencing how a religion as strict and dictated as Islam has been blended with animistic cultures from Subsaharan Africa is fascinating to experience. And mostly, being surrounded by the blurred lines and vague ideas that dictate the greater culture around me has refined my own beliefs and made me even more confident and assured of what I believe.