{"id":753,"date":"2012-06-26T19:33:02","date_gmt":"2012-06-26T19:33:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/arabworld\/?p=1"},"modified":"2012-06-26T19:33:02","modified_gmt":"2012-06-26T19:33:02","slug":"my-name-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/?p=753","title":{"rendered":"First Impressions"},"content":{"rendered":"

My name is Chris Benson and I\u2019m studying History\/Sociology\/Anthropology (people) at Loyola University Chicago.\u00a0 This summer I received a scholarship from the State Department to study Arabic abroad, and chose Morocco after the recommendation of professors as an exciting and fascinating country.\u00a0 They weren\u2019t lying.<\/p>\n

The adhan (call to prayer) begins with a single \u201cAllahu Akbar!\u201d blasting from the speakers of a nearby mosque.\u00a0 As other mosques join in, the call becomes a distorted hymn from the past, (think of the end of a psychedelic Beatles song.)\u00a0 At the same time, satellite dishes crowd the skyline of archaic buildings, and the French language has spread throughout the city.\u00a0 Rabat, Morocco is half contradiction, half anachronism, and entirely ideal for studying Arabic this summer through the Critical Language Scholarship Program (CLS).<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve spoken more Arabic these past few days in Rabat than I did in a semester in college.\u00a0 I\u2019m still adjusting to immersion in the language, and have spent much of the past few days with the other American students.\u00a0 Culture shock hit me for the first time Monday, and I had the mantra of \u201ccountry roads, take me home\u201d for a few hours.\u00a0 Since then I\u2019ve gained infinitely more confidence with my Arabic and ability to handle my situation, and will hopefully ease into more interaction with Moroccans.\u00a0 I live in the old medina (city), particularly in the suq (marketplace), where the streets are too narrow for cars and too winding for navigation.<\/p>\n

In reality I\u2019m studying two forms of Arabic here, darija and standard.\u00a0 Darija is the Moroccan Arabic dialect, and I spend about a fourth of my class time studying it as well as using it out on the streets.\u00a0 The other three fourths are dedicated to standard Arabic, which most Moroccans seem to understand though far fewer will reply with it.\u00a0 The two are not as different as Spanish or French are from Latin, but also not nearly as similar as British and American English, so we study them separately.\u00a0 Both standard and darija Arabic have become for the first time immediately useful to me for communication.\u00a0 There is not better answer to the question \u201cwhy should I study?\u201d than \u201cYou won\u2019t be able to get home or eat or communicate.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t seen my host family much because I\u2019ve spent so much time with Americans, and the family was preparing for their daughter\u2019s wedding last Saturday (to be described in a future blog.)\u00a0 Of course, as Said\u2019s (my host father and father of the bride) guests, my roommate Orion and I are attending.\u00a0 Said is a successful man with a successful man\u2019s home.\u00a0 The house has its entrance at the end of a sketchy alley in the suq, but inside it\u2019s a palace, with intricate tile work along all the walls and two rooms dedicated purely to decoratively embroidered couches for socializing.\u00a0 The family is considerate even while so busy, and we\u2019re lucky that Said is dedicated to the study of standard Arabic and thus speaks and understands it well.\u00a0 Not to say that we can communicate with much proficiency.\u00a0 Orion is a far more serious and advanced student of Arabic than I and even he reflects that he must sound idiotic with his slow speech and limited vocabulary.<\/p>\n

Studying Arabic here is only so rewarding because it is so challenging and disorienting, but I love it.\u00a0 I also have the chance to experience a culture that so far doesn\u2019t make much of any sense.\u00a0 I won\u2019t pretend to understand it, but I have noticed some sad bits.\u00a0 The adhan goes unanswered.\u00a0 God\u2019s call is ignored while new idols (white, Western models) have become the modern ideals for emulation.\u00a0 The old medina seems like the most enduring traditional neighborhood, and for now its labyrinth has obstructed the infringing Western culture, (Western television, secularism, and technophilia) well as many of my attempts to return home.\u00a0 Even here, however, the hypnotic, desperate call to prayer is ignored for the necessities of business.\u00a0 (Colloquially, it\u2019s like after a high school breakup where one person still texts the other several times a day, in vain.)\u00a0 It\u2019s a constant reminder of the past being abandoned for a future where religion and tradition are placed on the backburner in favor of modernity.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My name is Chris Benson and I\u2019m studying History\/Sociology\/Anthropology (people) at Loyola University Chicago.\u00a0 This summer I received a scholarship from the State Department to study Arabic abroad, and chose Morocco after the recommendation of professors as an exciting and fascinating country.\u00a0 They weren\u2019t lying. The adhan (call to prayer) begins with a single \u201cAllahu […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}