Cross-Cultural Communication

I had my first argument over Facebook chat today.

For those of you who are familiar with Facebook, you know that while you're checking out the photos of your friends' most recent drunken rampage, a little box will pop up and one of your Facebook friends (not to be confused with the real variety) will start typing messages to you. Those of you who are familiar with Facebook chat will also know how poor quality it is and thus understand why most people I know rarely use it, preferring instead AIM, G-chat, or Skype.

In fact, the means of communication for my generation of Americans has gradually migrated as we have grown up and the technologies have changed. In middle school and high school, ICQ and then later AIM were the chatting technologies of choice. No one really emailed anything of substance and there was no Facebook, Skype, or cell phone culture. In fact, cell phones were forbidden when we started high school because they were considered a part of drug culture.

But things gradually evolved. Cell phones were soon ubiquitous, and a quick phone call became the preferred way to communicate anything of any importance. Facebook came on the scene in 2005. Skype's technology made international calls free with internet access. And about the same time, texting took off, all offering legitimate ways to contact someone, albeit with different niches. And somewhere along the line, Facebook Event invites and Evite became the standard way to invite large groups of people to an event, sharing all the details and collecting RSVPs.

So, as an American these days I expect someone who wants to do something with me to use one of these many means: picking up the phone and calling me, sending an email, sending a text, using an Evite, or even sending a Facebook message. I also still accept snail mail, particularly for weddings and other formal occasions.

Needless to say, Moroccans do not share my view of the world.

Meriam: "I am mad at u"

This morning as I got on Facebok to spend my five to ten minutes checking up on friends, that little box popped up in my Facebook window and greeted me.

I knew why she was mad right away: we had planned to go skiing yesterday, and that didn't happen. There were a number of reasons it didn't happen, but in Daniel and my mind, one of the main reasons was our Moroccan friend's refusal to communicate with us.

We had been talking about going skiing in the nearby town of Ifrane since December, and we were all very excited, none perhaps as much as Meriam.

Everytime we got on Facebook, she told us how much she was looking forward to the trip. However, that was the only place communication ever happened. She never used any other means of communication to share her knowledge or expertise or recommendations about a place she was infinitely more familiar with.

Of course, this is not unusual. I have never had a Moroccan call me on the phone. It costs almost $.50/minute, and most young Moroccans seem to have concluded that no issue ever merits the importance of an actual phone call...which I find unfortunate. We Americans certainly think our friendship is worth $.50 or $1 once in a while. And no Moroccan I know has ever responded to an email or Facebook message (i.e., not chat). They just want to chat or maybe text (texts cost $.13 or so). It's exceedingly frustrating for us Americans when we want to communicate something substantial.

This week was eventful. One of our female American co-workers broke up with her Moroccan boyfriend, and so she wasn't sure if she was going to come with us. Since she was closest with Meriam (and was female) and since we're always a little afraid of how excessive contact between us and Moroccan women might be perceived, Daniel and I had assumed that the two women would arrange the details and share them with us. In fact, after settling on the day with Meriam a few weeks ago, I had explicitly told both of them to do that.

When Friday came around, our co-worker let us know she didn't want to go to Ifrane on Saturday. It turned out that she hadn't spoken to Meriam at all. So late Friday night, she gave us her phone number, and Daniel and I sent her a text asking if she still wanted to go. Our assumption was that since no email or other message with the details had been exchanged, interest had waned. She would have contacted us to double-check at the very latest by Friday night. Sometimes things slip to the last moment, but at the last moment you always make the necessary communication happen.

She never responded to the text message.

The next morning Daniel got a Facebook message indicating disappointment, but that was all. Then this morning I got my berating.

I found this horribly unjust and so decided to be honest. I indicated all of our frustration with Moroccan's lack of communication. After explaining what we were thinking, I listed all the various means she could have used to communicate with us: phone call, text, email, facebook message, etc.

The response:

Meriam: i always try to talk with u when ur online on facebook,but ur go offline quickly

That's right. We get on, look at photos, make a few comments, click on links, and we're done...which is why a phone call or an email or a text would work so much better.

She continued to say that she had tried to talk with our co-worker. So I decided to point out the cultural elephant in the room, saying:

was it all on facebook chat though?
because that's an awful way to communicate...we americans don't take it very seriously
i think if you want something serious to say, you send an email or make a phone call or even a text
also, another cultural miscommunication might be that we americans get on facebook for just a few minutes every day just to check things
it's not something we stay on all day or all night chatting
we find it strange when moroccans are on for so long
that might be why you think we get off so suddenly
we just have a totally different conception of communication and being online

I think that explanation might have done the trick, because we went on to agree that both of us could have done more to make the trip happen. And I offered a coffee as some sort of recompense for her disappointment.

I still don't understand Moroccans' communication habits. Some mix of fatalistic ideology combined with a lack of money and a differing relationship with developing technology probably all contribute to what I perceive as inconsiderate, bizarre behavior. It still seems to me that the desire to see a friend and do something together would trump financial and cultural obstacles, but apparently we just value adequate communication differently.

I try to suspend judgment and understand, but sometimes I just don't get it.

A Death In The Building

Yesterday when I arrived home from work, for the first time in my four months here both of the front doors to our building were open.

There were five or six people waiting for the elevator, whereas normally there is only one...or two maximum. Most of the time I ascend alone.

When they all got off at the fourth floor, I could hear the bustle of many people in the far apartment. From a distance, I could hear the sound of muffled weeping.

I didn't think it was any of my business so I went on home and went to bed.


This morning, Daniel told me that a woman had died in our building.

I said, "I could have guessed as much from what I saw last night, but how did you find out?"

Apparently, he had seen a woman carrying a pillow in the elevator. He tried to make a joke about it, but the joke didn't go over very well. The carrier of the pillow explained what had happened, that the woman had died.

I don't know anything about the woman or even about proper ways to express condolences here. It's strange to think about. I have no real connection with the woman or her family except that I shared the same building, electricity, water, and sewage.

I assume I had seen her at least once or twice, but I wouldn't know if I had.

Scenes From Morocco: A Meknes Street

A January afternoon on a street in Hamriya, the new city of Meknes

The American Culture Club Resumes

Yesterday I taught the first session of this term's American Culture Club.

Last term, we read Langston Hughes' "A Dream Deferred" and read parts of speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama. My goal was to help my Moroccan students better understand the American Dream and how the African-American experience related to it. I had four or five regular students, and by the end, I think they had a pretty decent idea of American history with a more nuanced view of American racism.

This semester, I hope to develop the same theme but move it in a different direction. We're going to watch "Remember the Titans" and learn about American football and school integration.

Most Moroccans don't have a clue just how much American culture revolves around football. Three of the questions on my pre-test I gave to the class yesterday queried them about which days of the week high school, college, and NFL games take place. When they realize that football starts on Friday night, continues Saturday, and doesn't end until Sunday night (or Monday night as the case may be), they start to come to grips with how much football the American fall weekend contains.

After the pre-test, I introduced my students to American football by showing them the highlights from the 2007 Fiesta Bowl when my beloved Oklahoma Sooners lost in startling fashion to the upstart Boise State Broncos. It was a good opportunity to show how a game works, explaining the key positions and rules along the way. By the end, I was asking them to predict what the teams were going to do. Impressively, all four of my students (three veiled girls and one boy) correctly predicted that Boise State would go for the two-point conversion in overtime.

The hour and a half allotted to the club flew by. At the end of the period, I had to smile.

I thought to myself, "I just got paid to talk about football for over an hour."

A New Bar

After our adventure on Sunday, we decided to check out another local one.

There is one that is just a block away. It's near the intersection of the two main thoroughfares in our part of town. The streets are wide. It's well-lit. It's a nice part of town.

So we ducked under the smaller than door-size piece of cloth hanging in the doorway.

Daniel and I stopped dead in our tracks.

We had entered, hands-down, the seediest place I have ever been in. The garish lighting illuminated rows of dirty tables and chairs all of them filled with prostitutes, their cleavage bursting out, and lower class Moroccan men, stubble-chinned and ruffle-haired. They were almost all facing the one small television in the corner, which happened to be directly above the entrance.

My first reaction was, "Cool. I've always wondered what one of these places really looked like."

My second reaction: "Ok, I've seen enough. Ready to go."

My third reaction: "Hmmm...might be interesting if we stick around for a while..."

Daniel and I looked around the room. There were no open seats anywhere. More than anything else, that settled it for us. We turned to each other and simultaneously nodded towards the doorway.

Even in no-auto-emissions-standard Meknes, the air smelled fresher on the street.

We walked around the corner and into a shisha bar we know well.

Customer Friendships

I grew up in a Walmart society.

That is to say, I never frequented mom-and-pop stores of any type. Every restaurant, grocery store, movie theater, and barber shop that I visited was part of a broader chain. I'm sure I benefited from lower prices and more consistent service and products than previous generations perhaps did, but I also tend to think that I missed out on a lot too.

In Philadelphia, I became friends with the owners of a few establishments in my area, but here in Morocco that experience has been taken to an entirely different level.

Today I went and picked up some produce at the outdoor market nearest my house. I always go to the same stall. I've become well acquainted with Lotfi and Said, the two friends who work there. They know me by now and they ask me about America and tell me about their friends and family abroad (almost every Moroccan has several friends or family members living in Europe or the United States).

It occurred to me this morning that I almost never know the people at any of the grocery stores or restaurants or cafes that I go to in the United States. Yet here, I am often on a first name basis with all of them.

And, I have to say, it's a very enjoyable experience.

I know this sort of thing still exists in the United States; I certainly got a taste of it in Philadelphia. But the better part of America grows up these days as I did, where familiar faces and personal relationships are not as important as familiar brands and primarily economic relationships.

And while they may be paying slightly lower prices, I tend to think they're missing out on something.

A Visit to the Bar

Last night, Daniel and I went to a bar a few blocks from our house for the very first time.

Early on, we had decided not to bother with local bars. There are no young people who go, and there even fewer women. For the most part, they are either hangouts for old dudes or semi-brothels. Those catering to old dudes are usually rather claustrophobic, smoke-filled dens playing some soccer game. The hotels which cater to foreigners and Moroccan johns are much nicer and more open, but the blatant prostitution that occurs creates an unpleasant atmosphere for our female friends who might join us.

When we arrived, we walked up to an open area of the bar. In Darija, I asked the man in one of the stools at the counter if anyone was sitting in the two open stools next to him. He turned, his head a bit cock-eyed, and started speaking in Dutch, which I didn't understand. He then switched to Spanish, which I did understand, "I speak Dutch, Spanish, French, and Arabic." Then he repeated himself in French and Arabic.

So we sat down, assuming he would protest if his friends were there.

I tried talking to him in Arabic, but he switched to Spanish. Daniel tried speaking Dutch to him because he knows a little Dutch. We then had about a five minute conversation that was completely incoherent. I would attempt to reproduce it for you if I could, but it changed languages so many times and there were so many misunderstandings and non sequitors that it would be virtually impossible. Suffice it to say, he didn't think that anyone should speak in a language that he hadn't mastered to a sufficient degree (I think this was a reproach of both of us for our feeble attempts to communicate). He simultaneously thought this could be best communicated by repeating it in many different languages, not all of which he had mastered completely.

Eventually he paid, got up, and stumbled his way to the door.


The next seat over was filled by a man in his 50's who had had too much to drink before we even arrived. Shortly after we arrived, his head dropped onto his chest as he sat at the bar. And it stayed there for the larger part of the next two hours. At one point the bartender roused him to pour him some more Vodka. After another long nap, they shook him awake again to swipe his credit card. The bartender asked if he wanted a taxi. He mumbled something and went off to the bathroom. Ten minutes later he came back, sat down in his stool, laid his chin on his chest, and went back to sleep.


Our bartender was an unveiled woman who chatted with us in Darija. We asked her what various things were called, and she asked about America:

"Is America beautiful?"

We debated the wisdom of responding with "Yes, but not as beautiful as you." But after concluding that we didn't even know how to make the construction in Darija, we eventually settled for the much less flirtatious (and perhaps more honest) "yes".

"Are all American girls fat?"

We smiled and then explained, "Many are, but not all of them."


We would watch the soccer games on either side of the bar and when the prostitutes would come through the door and walk through the room to go downstairs, we would glance at them: the lighter skinned ones seemed to enter and exit more frequently. Mostly we just chatted between ourselves.

After the second hour, the other men at the bar decided en masse to start talking to us. The drunk nearest us, whom I had affectionately named "Sleepy", tried to speak only English to us. It took minutes for him to finish his sentences, so in between his forays into the language of Hemingway, we responded to the others' questions about where we were from and what we were doing. We questioned them in kind.

It turned out that two of the men were cafe owners in our neighborhood. And not only were they cafe owners, they were also cafe owners on our block, one on either side of our house. One had spent a long time in Spain, so he had named his recently-opened cafe "Toro", filling it with images of Spanish bulls. However, he detested bull-fighting, he assured us: the only image of an actual bullfight was a small picture of a torero's hand in a small corner downstairs.

I asked Sleepy if he spoke French. He responded in French, "Of course I speak French. I lived in France many years."

"Where exactly?"

He started naming of a list of French cities so long that I doubted if he had ever been to all of them.

"I speak French better than the French," he slurred in all seriousness.

The man next to him scowled and said, "Lived...not visited, stupid."

"No...no. I...lived...there."

He eventually decided to go home. Like a blind man making his way down a bustling street, he made his way through the open room to the exit.

Shortly thereafter, the owner of the Toro asked us if we were going to stop by soon. We responded, "Inshallah" and headed home.

It was not at all the typical American bar experience we were looking for, but it was fascinating all the same.

Scenes From Morocco: My Room

Our house remains quite spartan, but my room is slowly becoming a more cozy and comforting place. Recently I bought a second comforter, and I added another blanket, a Christmas gift from my grandmother.

Moroccan Paper-pushers

Until I came to Morocco, I don't think I understood what the term "paper-pusher" meant.

Every Moroccan is required to visit City Hall for every possible legal reason. Every contract must be stamped, signed, and verified by government employees. Officialized documents are needed for every possible reason.

When you enter City Hall, there is a huge room with are lines in every corner.

At some windows, you must enter your name and personal information in a contract register (still completely non-digital). That register in turn must be stamped and signed by successive individuals as well as the people involved in the contract.

At other windows, documents are officialized. First, they are stamped by one bureaucrat. Then they are pushed to the man next to him, who...well, I'm not really sure what he is supposed to do (...maybe he keeps track of the money you pay the first man?) But the last man signs the document on top of the stamp.

When I went in to get my rent contract officialized, the first man tried to hold up this legal gauntlet for my document. Only after the Moroccan I was with reasoned with him for a while did he agree to pass it on to the second man without delay.


All of this happened back in October. But it came to mind today when my roommate reminded me that we have to go back in to city hall again. Our work permits require officialized copies of our work and rent contracts.

Not the originals, which are already officialized.

The copies.

A Quick Trip to Rabat

At the suggestion of my UPenn professor, I have been seeking out Moroccans who can help me read classical Arabic. Darija (Moroccan dialectical Arabic) and Fusha (standard Arabic) don't help me read millenium-old Arabic poetry from Al-Andalus.

Last week I found an essay online about the Andalusian poet Ibn Hazm written by a Moroccan scholar in Rabat. I sent her a quick email asking about Ibn Hazm and his love poetry, and she responded by asking me to join a workshop entitled "The Love Hate Enigma" that she was conducting.

Usually it wouldn't be possible. I work every day of the week but Friday. But it just so happened that Friday was the day of the workshop. So yesterday, I hopped on a train to Rabat and went to her house for the workshop.

I felt a bit out of place with a number of Moroccan scholars and one American working for an NGO, but all and all it went very well. The conversation ranged from French to Spanish to Arabic to English, but they tried to do most of it in English for us Americans.

Spending time with the NGO worker was a bit strange. I was dressed in slacks and a sweater, nothing special. I was certainly out-dressed: she wore a slick pant suit, complemented by Prada glasses and power heels. To top off the DC professional persona, she carried around a nice leather-bound planner.

She speaks excellent French, but she hasn't bothered to learn Arabic. She told me she did a cost/benefit analysis and she just couldn't see the utility of bothering to learn it. Such a sentiment utterly baffles me. Well, perhaps it doesn't baffle me. I understand that thoroughly American mentality, but I also dislike it and disagree with it. I have had amazing conversations and relationships with non-Americans thanks to the hours of language-learning I put in. And for me, there is no dollar or time value I can attach to those experiences.


Afterward we went out to the only Irish pub in Rabat (owned by an Italian of Roman extraction). In my short time there, I met a director of the Moroccan branch of AVIS and a lawyer who splits his time among Paris, Rabat, and New York City. But I couldn't stay long as I had to teach this morning, so I caught a train back to Meknes.

In the cabin where I was sitting, I noticed that the Moroccan family sitting around was dropping German words into their Darija at regular intervals. So I started talking to them in German. The man sitting next to me told me he was born in Germany, but his mother was born in Morocco. They lived there for a few decades. It isn't exactly clear to me why they came back, but they brought back a thoroughly altered Arabic. I've grown used to hearing the French content of Darija range from 10% to 40%, but German was a surprise.

Soon, we switched to Arabic. That's when I answered the standard slate of getting to know you questions that I know by heart now: Where are you from? What are you doing? Do you like Morocco? Are you Muslim?

We had a nice little conversation about Germany and Morocco, before we all turned back to our own music, books, and newspapers. It was short, but it was enjoyable. And it wouldn't have been possible if I hadn't spoken Darija or German.

When Bribery Becomes Dangerous

In the French-language Moroccan weekly that I read, they regularly use the term "pot-de-vin" for corruption here in Morocco. It's a bit ironic in a supposedly tee-totaling Muslim country since "pot-de-vin" means "pot of wine". It's even more ironic that the French regularly use the Arabic term "bakchich" back home in the Hexagon.

Although I have no personal experience with corruption here in Morocco, I hear about it all the time. Traffic tickets and drug charges disappear instantly with a little bit of cash. Apparently johns never get in trouble for prostitution because they pay their way out of it (the fact that they are male also seems to help the situation...) Friends have even told me that their parents have had to pay a potential employer in order to get a job.

So it came as no surprise to me that the restaurant across from my workplace had passed the mandated fire inspection even though there was no fire extinguisher on the premises.


A few days ago, I sat down at a cafe with Daniel to watch an African Cup game. He had been at the cafe, which is only a block from our work, longer than me, and he told me that a fire truck had just gone by.

"A guy got up and left the cafe to see what was going on. He came back a minute later," Daniel told me. "So I figured there wasn't anything worth seeing."

As I found out later, there wasn't anything worth seeing because two of my Moroccan co-workers put out the oil fire immediately with our fire extinguishers.

The restaurants' cooks and waiters had just left the building when the vat of cooking oil caught on fire. Despite the open butane tanks near the fire, they were mindlessly staring at the building with their heads stuck out and mouths open ( according to my co-worker who, admittedly, has a tendency to exaggerate things a tad). My coworkers (one a security guard, the other an administrator) noticed the fire immediately, grabbed the extinguishers, ran over and put everything out.

The last few days when I see both of them, I've addressed them both as "hero".

Update

I must apologize to my readers for my poor posting consistency as of late.

The past month has not been very kind to my ideal schedule (which includes regular blogging).

First, I had finals here in Morocco. Then, I headed back to the States for Christmas. But then, even since I have returned to Morocco, I have been a poor poster. Part of that is due to my lack of access to the internet, a situation that I recently remedied by buying a USB wireless connection.

In addition, until this week, the weather had also been rather awful. There were regular water and electricity shortages. While none of this directly inhibited me from posting, I still just couldn't muster the motivation to write.

So as penance for my laziness, I will attempt to post extra in the coming days.

The Wonder of Running Water

Since I returned from the United States, our water has been cut off every night. I'm not sure exactly why this happens. One Moroccan told me that the water filtering system can't handle the run-off when it rains a lot. And since it's been doing that non-stop, I guess the nightly water shortage makes sense.

Usually this isn't a big problem. I have learned to fill a few 5-liter jugs with water every day. Then I can brush my teeth and pseudo-flush the toilet with that water. And the dishes from dinner always wait quietly until morning to be washed (I have very patient dishes like that).

But the last two days, the situation has gotten worse. The water has been cut off for hours in the middle of the day. This disrupts my schedule more than I thought it would.

Both yesterday and today have presented a sunny response to the depressing downpours of the past few weeks. The temperature climbed into the 20s (the 70s or so, for you Celsius-challenged folk). I wanted to take advantage of the good weather and go running.

However, I was so concerned that the water would not be turned back on before I had to teach, that I just sat at home instead. Nobody wants a hot and sweaty English teacher.

Yesterday I didn't do much of anything, and today I ended up heading out to meet a friend in a cafe (despite my two and a half day lack of bathing) and then made my way back to the house an hour before class started.

Miraculously, the water was back on.

I showered and showed up to work spick and span.

Returning Home

After a week and a half Christmas vacation in the United States, I am now back home in Morocco. My welcome has been both comforting and a bit startling.

Shortly after arriving in Meknes I ran into a security guard from work on the streets and his greeting was even more enthusiastic than the usual elaborate Moroccan greeting, including large grins and excessive touching of my arm and shoulder (excessive from an American point of view, that is). I received similar treatment from many coworkers when I stopped by work yesterday.

The strangest part of my welcome, though, has been the kisses I have been receiving from older men. Now, after extensive time in Latin America, Spain, and France, I am well accustomed to the "bises" that I am expected to exchange with females, but males only rarely exchange them, and I personally have always stuck with the Germanic handshake in my encounters with men.

I was passing the electronics store near my house on the way to work and the middle-aged, partially toothless, and stubbled security guard greeted me warmly. He stopped what he was doing and approached. I held out my hand to shake his. He took it, shook it, and then pulled me in towards him. As his face neared, I quickly realized this wasn't a hug. He intended to exchange the bises. Trying not to flinch, I accommodated his unusual greeting. Then I quickly pulled away and said goodbye with a forced smile.

I just thought it was an anomaly, some over excited security guard. But then later in the day, when I saw my concierge for the first time since returning, his warm, grinning greeting morphed into an up front and personal experience with his stubbled cheeks.

So, apparently I've learned a new Moroccan cultural practice. It seems that when Moroccan men have not seen each other for an extended period of time (I guess two weeks counts?), they kiss each other on the cheeks. Good to know. I'm contemplating whether I ever want to leave Morocco again...

My flight returned a few days ago, but I did some traveling before returning to Meknes. The cheapest return flight I found from the United States took me through Dublin on Aer Lingus and then to Agadir, a beach resort town a few hours south of Casablanca. I had looked forward to a nice vacation checking out some tourist hot spots on my way back to Meknes.

After arriving, I remembered why I do not particularly like tourist hot spots.

Agadir is a beautiful beach town, but its beauty is marred a bit by the touristy atmosphere. Every 100 meters or so, a Moroccan would approach me, profile me, and say hello in every language I could possibly speak (German, French, and English/American seemed to be the only nationalities I fit). I would try to ignore them or give them one word answers. But they would persist. Since each one seemed to think himself my best friend, he seemed offended that I didn't want to stop and gullibly fall into his hustler's spell.

Some were more direct. Rather than playing the pretend friend game, some just get straight to the point: "Hello. You want hashish, shit, marijuana...?" The /I/ sound in 'shit' is particularly hard for some Moroccans. So it often comes across as 'sheet', but some manage to also pronounce it as 'shut' or 'shoot'. I would have made a joke at their expense, but such a response would have been counter-productive to my escape strategy.

After a day in Agadir, I headed to the strangely Europeanized city of Marrakesh. The hustlers were exactly the same. After a couple of days, I quickly grew tired of the whole experience, living out of a suitcase, being a tourist. So I decided to head back to Meknes a little early.

After a six and a half hour train ride, I arrived back in familiar Meknes, and I began the short walk home. Halfway between the train station and my house, I heard a voice calling to me, "Hey! You! Friend...stop. How are you?"

I rued to myself, "I can't escape being a tourist no matter where I go." I tried to walk a little faster as I ignored the voice. As usual, that didn't deter this persistent Moroccan. He ran and caught up to me.

I turned to recognize a familiar face.

"Hey. You remember me?"
"Yeah."
"We had coffee a couple of times. You're going to buy a rug from my friend, right?"
It was true. We had had coffee a couple of times in my first few weeks in Meknes. He and his friend had been very friendly, and they had always wanted me to come with them to buy a carpet, which I had always declined.

He asked how Christmas had been in America and how my family had been. He asked if I wanted to get coffee or maybe go check out his friends' carpets. I said I was tired after the long journey and wanted to go home.

We shook hands and parted on the corner by my house.

It is with a little disappointment that I recognize that everywhere I go in Morocco, I will always be a foreigner.

But there's still something strangely comforting about being hustled by a familiar voice.

Moroccan News in 2009

It seems a fair assumption that my readers do not follow Moroccan news closely. So to give a better idea of the context from which these Moroccan dispatches originate, here is a summary of some of the main Moroccan news stories from 2009.

The year 2009 marked the tenth year of the reign of Mohammed VI, the third Moroccan king since the 1956 end of French colonialism. There was praise for certain of his reforms in education and family law and his greater concern for human rights. Most negative news was downplayed if played at all. In related news, the weekly magazines TelQuel and Nichane were pulled from racks and destroyed for daring to publish a survey including a question about the king's approval rating. It stands at 91%, but no matter. One cannot ask that question.

On the journalism front, the daily Akhbar al Youm was shut down, and the editors of Al Jarida Al Oula and Al Michaal were all condemned to over a year in prison. The crime of the editor of Al Michaal? Commenting on a sickness of the king.

Politically, the newly formed Party of Authenticity and Modernity, headed by the friend of the king Fouad Ali El Himma, continued to maintain power.

On the diplomatic front, negotiations continued for political autonomy between Algeria, the Polisario rebels of the disputed territory of Western Sahara, and the government of Morocco. In related news, Western Sahara independence activist Aminatou Haidar went on a month long hunger strike in the airport of the Spanish territory of Gran Canarias, after destroying her Moroccan passport. After visits to Washington D.C. and Paris by the foreign minister and following Spanish approval, Haidar was finally allowed to return to Western Sahara. This followed a visit by Hillary Clinton to Marrakesh earlier in the fall, the highest member of the newly elected Obama administration to visit here.

In more domestic news, a young group organized a symbolic picnic in Mohammedia during the month of Ramadan in protest against a law prohibiting eating in a public space during the day. It was organized via a Facebook group.

In more religious news, some European Christians and Iraqi Shiites were expelled from the country for proselytizing.

In entertainment news, films such as Casanegra, Amours voilés, and Tu te souviens d'Adil all addressed local taboos and raised whirlwinds of controversy, whether over sexual themes, harsh language, religion, or terrorism.

Inspired by the Demi Moore cover of Vanity Fair a few years back, former TV presenter Nadia Larguet appeared nude on the cover of the women's magazine Femmes du Maroc while eight months pregnant. This, needless to say, inspired a great deal of controversy.

Along with the better part of the world, many Moroccans mourned the passing of Michael Jackson with performances, tributes, and music purchases (or free downloads as the case may be).

Aicha Ech-Channa, the founder of the Association for Feminine Solidarity won the Opus Prize and its $1 million award for her work for single mothers.

In sports news, Morocco failed to make both the World Cup and the Africa Cup despite some great players such as Bourdeaux star Marouane Chamakh who have had great success in European leagues.

As in much of the world, the swine flu (aka "H1N1" or "influenza A") made a big media splash and a much smaller (but still serious) impact on the real lives of Moroccans. Over 2800 people in Morocco (including my roommate) came down with it, and over 50 died.