Medina Life: Buying Furniture

In my first post from Fes I expressed my desire to live in the Medina, Fes' old city. I also gave a brief description of what I imagined life there would be like:

I will work in new Fes, but hope to live in old Fes. Fes's medina, also called Fes al-Bali, is the world's largest car-free urban zone. It is the pre-colonial Islamic city, and houses several hundred thousands Fessis (people who live in Fes). Living in the medina is a little like going back in time. Its streets are really serpentine alleyways that seldom follow a straight line. Without cars, people use donkeys to transport goods, much like was done centuries ago, except today they carry mini-fridges and flat screen televisions as well as rugs, spices, and anything else a person can't carry him or herself.

A month later, now a settled resident of the medina, I can definitely say that life here is different from any other lifestyle I've experienced in my life.

Fes' medina has 'enchanted' many many writers, especially Westerners. I definitely fall into that crowd. There are so many moments where I'll being walking down the street - to work, to shop, to grab a bite to eat - and I'll see something that reminds me of how incredibly fascinating, intriguing, and mystifying my new home can be. But what I've learned is that the experience of living in the medina, and probably anywhere, is impossible to generalize. I think that when you reduce the medina to a place "back in time," through which "serpentine alleyways" weave, you lose the fact that this is a living city, where hundreds of thousands of people pass their daily lives, performing normal, everyday tasks. To play into the mystery and enchantment of this place is to forget that it is real.

So in contrast, I'm going to present scenes of medina life as I experience them and without placing them within some greater narrative. Once this year is over, we can look back an figure out just what makes Fes the place that it is.

Since moving to the medina I've been on the lookout for furniture. Traditional Moroccan homes are not equipped with much storage space. Space is designed to be used actively and to be lived in, so even a room like the kitchen, which is not livable, is usually small and tucked away. Storage comes in the form of furniture, and though my room in my new house came with a small shelf unit, it didn't meet my needs. What I really wanted was a dresser or armoire to store my clothes, and other items.

So, I set out on a mission. I discussed options with my friends and colleagues, and decided to look for something antique or used. I could have purchased pre-fab, factory direct furnishing from Marjane (Morocco's Wal-Mart), but felt I needed something nicer to accompany my surroundings. I visited the antique market in the mellah, the old Jewish quarter. The quality of the furniture and craftsmanship amazed be, but I could neither afford it nor honor it with dutiful service. I wanted something permanent, not eternal. As a result I shifted my focus closer to home.

As it turns out, my neighborhood is home to a small furniture joutiyya. A joutiyya is a used goods market, and where many Moroccans purchase clothes, furniture and home goods. My friend and neighbor David informed me that mere blocks away from my house, on Derb Belhaj, is where men sell used furniture to the neighborhood. The men are brothers Hasan, the salesman, and Said, the workman, and they have since become friends. I had passed by them, and made conversation, but had never noticed or understood their business.

One day on my way back from work, I saw them selling an old, gigantic, slightly beat up armoire. Perfect for my needs, and cheap. Yet, the realities of medina life seemed to stand in the way of our union: how would I transport it to my house through those "serpentine alleyways"? How would I get such a huge thing into my house? I thought for a day, but decided that possible or not, I needed the furniture, so I might as well buy it and see what would happen.

I voiced my concerns to Hasan, the salesman, and he gave me the very Moroccan answer of "no problem;" he would carry the armoire in a karrousa, push cart, and deliver to my doorstep. Just to make sure, I walked him to my house and he looked at our entry and repeated "no problem". I returned with him to the joutiyya and met his brother Said, the workman. Said told me he would "fix up" the armoire before delivery, which designated for Wednesday, one of my days off. I didn't quite know what he meant, but I appreciated the thought, paid, and waited.

Wednesday morning, as I turned onto Belhaj, I met my new armoire, freshly varnished, its new brass hinges gleaming in the sunlight. I was overjoyed. I found Hasan, told him I was ready for the delivery, and he said, "excellent," that he needed to find his brother and that I should go home and he would come shortly:

My wardrobe, before and after.

What I had failed to realize was the solution to the problem that Hasan had told me was "no problem": getting a 6 foot tall, 4 foot wide wardrobe through a small doorway, around a hairpin turn, and up a narrow, windy staircase into my courtyard. My brain, which is not good with 'logic' and sometimes still stuck in America, figured if he said it could be done it could be done by artful navigation and manipulation of the wardrobe as a whole. So I was surprised when I opened the door for Hasan and found my wardrobe in pieces. After I helped carry the parts in, Hasan got to work and told me Said would come later to reassemble the wardrobe. And as happens frequently, the obvious sense of this process struck me quite suddenly and bluntly.

I am grateful to Hasan and Said for letting me photograph their handiwork:

The first stages of reconstruction

Hasan adding varnish to the bottom of the wardrobe

Said carrying one of the wardrobe's doors into my room

Said with the finishing touches

The experience of purchasing a wardrobe, having it delivered in pieces and watching it be reconstructed my bedroom, made me realize in the medina life is carried out in ways that are very obscure to Westerners. Perhaps this is why it is so mystifying. To get past the mystery and wonder of this place, you have to meet it on its terms. But sometimes that's easier said than done, and even then, an outsider can only penetrate so far.

That time I taught 200 students and half of them walked out

Today, the students' union organized a walk out during my class to protest the quiz I had scheduled. The quiz was five questions long: define four terms and a short answer comprehension question. It covered the material I had taught the previous class. I told my students it would be easy and was an important in assessing their note-taking abilities. I managed to convince many of my students the quiz was a good idea, but the union persuaded more to walk out. There was a stand-off. Eventually, I relented.

While this experience was frustrating, I think it's really illustrative of the problems facing Moroccan higher education. The system is at best dysfunctional. Issues as basic as the inability to distribute course materials and as complex as the political relationship between the Ministry of Education and Morocco's public universities impede learning on a daily basis. Students and faculty struggle everyday to perform what appears to some as an exercise in perpetual futility. It is a situation that breeds discontent and frustration to the point where a simple review quiz can be seen as a tool of oppression.

Why are things this way? There are many ways to answer this question, but in my opinion a significant factor is the gap between ideal and reality.

Every Moroccan recognizes that the education system needs improvement, and there is a great and nearly universal desire to do so. In the past decade, the government has enacted three consecutive education reforms, each of them attempting to compensate for the shortcomings of its predecessor. These initiatives aim to move Moroccan schools towards a more modern educational philosophy; they emphasize active and collaborative learning and make curricula more flexible so they can meet students' needs. The will to improve and the ideas to do so are present, but at every level the system lacks the necessary resources to realize these goals.

The most fundamental resource gap is between the rich and the poor. Many many Moroccans are poor, some Moroccans are wealthy. Rich Moroccans send their children to private school, poor Moroccans can't. At the tertiary level, only very few Moroccan families can afford private universities or to send their children abroad. The government recognizes this, so public universities are free and open to any Moroccan who passes High School. So, Moroccan university students come from mixed socioeconomic and educational backgrounds. Those who attended private primary or secondary schools tend to perform much much better.

Continuing with this theme, Moroccan university professors, while earning enough money to qualify as middle class (roughly $750-1100 a month), are underpaid. Without tuition, public university budgets are small, which means professors make only enough money as is necessary. Many of them work two jobs, teaching full time at the university and part- or full-time at private schools or language centers.

These two realities converge to create a critical situation. A vast majority of eligible university students attend public universities. There, they sit in classes taught by overextended, underpaid professors. Add to this the reality that most universities are desperately understaffed, and you have serious problems. My department has 12 professors and 1000 students; overworked faculty members don't teach classes of 30-40, they teach classes of 100-200+.

Add to this the resource deficiencies at the macro level. Universities lack good libraries, accessible audiovisual aids, and study areas for students. Students wait in line everyday to get course materials from the small campus copy center. Break downs in communication are frequent. Students often arrive hours late to class due to unreliable public transportation. In this situation it is practically impossible to realize any type of educational ideal. Students and faculty get frustrated. Educational quality deteriorates to the point of desperation.

Professors stretched between multiple jobs will often augment their class schedules, with or without informing students. I've heard stories of Moroccan professors who work at American universities and only teach here over Winter or Fall vacation, compressing a semester's worth of classes into two or three weeks. Homework and quizzes, which take time to grade, are often omitted in preference for midterm and final exams. Sometimes professors allow students to skip class and only sit for major exams. Many students fail in these cirumstances, but that's what is expected. Moroccan professors may be stretched between jobs, but Moroccan students are equally pressure by their course schedules.

Moroccan universities operate under the French system, so students complete the License (equivalent to a BA) after three years or six semesters. Semesters are divided into modules which are divided into classes. In those three years they must complete nearly 300 hours of class. If students fail any of their modules, an average failing grade in that module's classes, they have to retake the failed module before they can pass their semester. Because failure is so common, this leads to students taking multiple modules at the same time in order to pass. Many of my students cannot attend my classes because they have other classes from other modules scheduled at the same time.

This is a complex situation that defines educational dysfunction. Failure is expected, with many department anticipating a 50% drop out or fail-out rate among first year students. This is certainly accepted, and perhaps condoned as a means of alleviating the tremendous burden of overcrowding. And this is the environment where I work twice a week, trying to do my best to teach well and support my students in any way I can.

I started teaching three weeks ago. I have two classes: Comprehension and Spoken English and Mythologies of the West. Both have over 100 students. My Comprehension class averages 200-250 and the Myth class around 150.

I came into this experience thinking I was prepared. I had applied to be an "English Teaching Assistant" and I had taught two student taught courses at Rice. I had written lectures and syllabi, organized group projects and even a field trip. I had imagined my responsibilities would be light: assisting English teachers in instruction or course design, giving presentations about American culture and maybe providing tutoring to students outside of class. Obviously, turned out to be very different, but that's pretty inconsequential at this point. Now, all that matters is doing my best to help as many students as possible in the time that I have.

I am lucky for many reasons. First, I am American. This is important because my students, like many Moroccan students, have never had a native speaker teach them English. They recognize this, and view the opportunity to learn from me as a great and fortunate privilege. And while I feel that I'm not a great teacher, I know that my students are motivated to attend and to participate in class by this fact alone. Second, I only teach two classes, and though they are large, I'm able to focus on my students and give them as much individual attention as possible. Third, many of my students love learning English. They see English as a language of freedom and liberty, not politically, but culturally and economically. They listen to American music, watch American movies and television, and aspire to work in multinational corporations or in any of the hundreds of countries in the world that speak English or value English speakers.

So between my status as a native speaker, my students' passion and motivation, my ability to give them time and attention, and my motivation to work with them as much as possible, I see great potential in my time as an English teacher in Morocco. And for the most part, my work has gone well and I've been successful. But as today illustrates, the system, with its problems and frustrations, can oppose good intentions.

I understand the union's complaints. When students are overworked and overstressed, being held accountable through constant assessment can be a huge burden. In an environment where professors are often unfair, capricious and exacting, a review quiz is not merely a review quiz, it is a measure of control or punishment. Unfortunately, they consider me and my methods to be part of the problem rather than the solution. And that may be true, I may be asking too much. But rather than setting impossible expectations, I see myself as challenging my students. And unlike the professors who choose to not or cannot pay attention to their students' needs, I've committed myself to meeting them as best as I can. So we'll see what happens in the future as that becomes more apparent.

What encouraged me today is that when I resisted the walk out, about half of my class supported me. Many of my students wanted the quiz, but too many did not.

Today, I decided to give in rather than lose the entire class period. Maybe next time things will go the other way.