Entering the IEP Gauntlet: Let the Games Begin!!!

On Friday night, a few of us fended off jetlag long enough to enjoy the nightlife in Rabat. We hit up a nightclub for a couple hours of of gringo dancing, silly picture taking, and as much as we tried to resist, watching the MTV music videos that were playing in the background. Aside from a lost cellphone, the night was rather benign.  Nonetheless, after spending most of the day at Chellah most of us were entirely too lazy to pull a second night in a row, so we made the decision to stay in and save our party rocking for Marrakesh.  Instead, we huddled in Meaghan’s room (our building is quite cold at night) for an innocuous, but nonetheless thoroughly entertaining game night.

Party in Room 06! We're playing Spin-the-Bottle, so Don't wake up the R.A.!

We started by resurrecting A-Z, the board game which Meaghan introduced the evening before.  The object of the game is fairly straightforward: You are given a category, and you want to come up with as many examples as possible. Typically, the maximum number of players is 6. On the surface, this would appear problematic, since there 12 of us present, but as many Harvard students know, 12 happens to be a perfect multiple of 6. Using our lateral thinking skills, we divided into teams of 2. Although it was a fast-paced game, we played several rounds. Inevitably, it revealed some of the weirder idiosyncrasies of our already motley crew:

• Sophia and Brian watch way too much figure skating
• Mike and Mark both suck at naming famous art museums and car parts (seriously, are they good for anything?).
• Asumi doesn’t read much Shakespeare, but she sure knows a lot about animals.

After a few rounds of total domination (hey, this is my post, I can be a bit liberal in my storytelling…) we switched to another game Meaghan (our gamesmaster) knew, called 3 step charades. We played a massive version of it at the IEP Potluck in December, and good times were had by all. Here are some of the highlights:

• Sameera performing a Tony worthy one-woman interpretive performance of the “Little Mermaid”:



An age-old allegory of  a young hybrid fish-woman coming of age

• Attempting to describe the following concepts in one word: Lionel Messi, Harvard 375^th Anniversary Birthday Cake, harpsichord 
• Attempting to act out the following concepts without words: banana tree, Felipe Barrera-Osorio, Rod Stewart, girlfriend
• Immature humor that is undeniably unbecoming of  Harvard graduate students, and yet in which we continue to be repeat offenders

As Meaghan wrote, it was "a raucous good time." In particular, the charades round is always hysterical. I’m sure some of you wish you were here with us, so on a final note, I thought it might be fun to give you guys a chance to play along, so I have taken the liberty of creating a caption contest at Kana's expense: 

What do you see? 

Leave your answers in the comment section. And as a sidenote, if you have any other questions/criticisms/complaints/affirmations/special requests for our group, please send them our way! We love to hear from you!

Speaking Like a Local: Guest Blog from Jane Hsu

Jane here, reporting live from the streets of Rabat!

Language has played an integral role in our research trip as we have been learning about the impacts of French colonization, Arabization policies, marginalized groups such as the Berbers, and many other language-related factors that influence the quality of education in Morocco. I'm sure with Meaghan's copious note-taking that theacademics of this topic are being fully documented so, I've decided my update will focus rather on something lighter and more personal ... the joys of learning Moroccan Arabic in the past two days!

I’ll start off by letting you in on a secret. I’m not really a linguistic rock star, but somehow got dubbed “The Linguist/Polyglot” last night at dinner when we were creating nicknames for everyone in the group. In this guest blog entry, I’m going to share handy tips on jumping into beginner’s Arabic, so you too can impress friends and locals next time you are in North Africa!

1. On the plane ride over when everyone else was watching the Narnia sequel, I wrote down some key phrases from our group’s Google doc “Visitor Guide to Morocco” so they would be easily accessible in my notebook for the rest of the trip.

2. At the airport while we were waiting to exchange money and claim bags, a bunch of us started trying out phrases. I kept asking Rachel (resident Arabic expert from her Moroccan Peace Corps days) to provide pointers on pronunciation. Then Kana and I practiced the greetings back and forth, back and forth, back and forth until they became rote…which I’m sure was a pleasure for everyone who was listening.

3. Mnemonic devices helped me survive the SAT’s and they still work just as well today! They don’t have make sense to anyone else, just quirky enough to stick in my head. Here are some examples (btw these spellings are not even close to correct but also help me remember).

“Afak” (Please) - sounds like Affleck (as in Ben).
“Bineen” (Delicious) - sounds like the country Benin.
“Ana FarHana” (I’m Happy) - sounds like Ana Faris.
“Bes Meela” (Let’s eat) - sounds like Best Meal (you say this before you start anything)
“SmeeTee” (My name is) - sounds like Smee (that pirate sidekick character in the movie Hook).
“Ana Midigadiga” (I’m tired) - sounds like Anna Ma Diga Diga (it`s just fun to say so easy to remember)
“El Awful” (You’re Welcome) - sounds like Awful.
“Safi” (Enough) - sounds like Afi’s name with an S in front.
“SmeH-liya” (Excuse Me) - sounds like Smell ya!
“Coolie” (Eat) - sounds like a derogatory Chinese reference (you say this when motioning to a girl to eat/you say Cool for a boy)
“Humdoola” (Praise be to God) - sounds like Humdinger. Is that a real word or just a Cranium category? (you use it to say something is good)

4. The first Moroccan we met was Rita’s husband who greeted us with a big smile when we got out of the airport. Someone encouraged me to try out my new phrases with him and I spit out a slew. He responded in a big belly laugh and loved the effort. From there my confidence grew.

5. I`ve been writing down more words in my trusty notebook as the days pass. We’ve been attending back-to-back Ministry of Education meetings (all in full force Francois since that is the language of the government, business, urban elite, etc.), so I haven’t had that many opportunities to try out my Arabic conversation skillz on the street, but today is a free day to explore downtown Rabat so I'm ready!