Our first Sunday in Marrakech, the day hike in the Atlas mountains, was also the day of the NFC and AFC championships. Pauls, a die-hard Seahawks fan, was planning to stream the games live at the CLC, and Ryan and I decided that we would join him after getting some dinner. As we left from the CLC, Hannah asked if she could walk with us to the nearby Adidas store, where she wanted to buy a new backpack. As we were walking, we talked about the day and how we were enjoying our homestays, and I made a bone-headed remark that was something along the lines of, “Morocco seems to be more open about gender issues than I was expecting.” Hannah looked at me and said, “Will, you two are having a very different experience than us. Did you see everyone else when we left? Apart from us, all of the girls were calling their families, checking in, making sure everyone had a way home.”
My intention with this blog is to document this trip, the most exciting and emotionally-intense thing I have ever done. I am not the only student on this trip making a blog, and I want my blog to be about my experience, but I want to also be true to what is happening over here. Though it is not affecting me personally, hearing about the issues the women on this trip have been having and seeing the pain and annoyance and fear in their faces has been part of my experience. This is all a way of saying: read this blog post, read as much of my blog as you want, but, please, also read the other blogs. I don’t want to put anyone on the spot, but I know a few of the people on this trip have been planning to write a blog post similar to this. Wait for those, find those, read them.
What I think has been the most jarring for everyone is the catcalling. Each woman on the trip has had it happen to them at some point. I saw it happen to Karissa when we took a tour of the historical monuments in Marrakech, Alexa one day asked Abdelkebir what she should yell at the men who always catcall her on her walk to school, and Lauren complained about a man following her home from the bus-stop. They have had discussions over morning tea about ways to avoid the men. They all say this is the most frequent catcalling they’ve ever experienced in their life.
From what I can tell, this problem isn’t happening exclusively because they’re American. Hannah’s host-sister, Malika, apparently gets it all the time, and has devised ways of avoiding it or shutting them up. This past Thursday-night, Hamza organized a discussion for us with seven Moroccan women who take classes at the CLC, and each of them were unsurprised that the women on the trip were getting catcalls; what seemed more surprising to them was that it didn’t happen as much in America, and that it frightened the women. When Lauren told them the story about the man following her home, one of the Marrakchi women, a university professor, told her, “Oh, don’t worry, if he wanted to attack you, he would have done it right away, not followed you.” This wasn’t comforting to any of us, until it was clarified that by “attack,” she meant “steal your purse,” not “rape,” as we all were thinking.
As advice for avoiding the catcalling, all I’ve heard is that they should ignore it. When Alexa asked Abdelkebir for some things to say, he only shook his head and said, “Just ignore those guys.” A Marrakchi woman at the panel had a longer answer, but she eventually wound up at the same place; “I believe that the men who do such things are sick in their hearts, that something is wrong with them, but they will only catcall you, nothing else, so just don’t worry about it.”
I must admit that I pay attention to and remember these stories for a somewhat selfish reason. After a week and a half, I had been outside the US for longer than any other point in my life. It’s been exhausting, it’s been frightening, and more than once, I’ve wanted to call it off; board a flight, come home, and be done with it all. I remember these stories about what the women on this trip have been going through as a way to remind myself that I am not having a difficult experience. In fact, I’ve got it easy. If I give-up, why should any of these women keep with it? Yet, they are handling this trip with grace and confidence, and it’s great to have the chance to come along for the ride.
This is a shorter blog post than usual, and has been different from the others. Tomorrow is the start of our last week in Marrakech; the week after we’ll get to travel for a bit, and then we’ll meet up in Fez for the last two months of the trip, inshallah.