Ryan and I decided for our first official overseas blog post we would each write how our first week went. In out own words, our own thoughts. And not read each others until we publish. This might be enjoyable, hilarious and a very strange. Please, do enjoy!
Bean's First Week Abroad:
As many of you know, I am not a world traveler. There is nothing exciting to me about getting on a plane for hours to tootle around and sight see. Now, if there is a warm beach and a fruity drink involved then that is a completely different story. Anywho...When Ryan first said that we would be moving to Africa (of all places?!) I was quite displeased. Very displeased. Ok, down right angry about the fact. Looking back I don't think that it was an irrational reaction. But I might have gone overboard a little bit. With saying that...Being here is not.
that.bad. Yes, folks, you heard it from me. But don't ever ever EVER quote me.
There are things about Morocco that I didn't expect, totally expected and sometimes make me go "Whaaaaat?'
1- The call to prayer. I expected to hear this, multiple times a day...but until you have heard it with your own ears its nothing like anything that you have ever heard. I am not a religious person in any capacity, but just the sheer magnitude of this man and his prayer has made me stop in my tracks every time I hear it. It is beautiful.
2- The weather. Everyone said it would be like Monterey, CA. Well I guess that I have been living in the wrong Monterey. The weather is perfect. Warm breezy days and cool quiet nights. I am sure the summer will be literally the fires of hell around us, but I will enjoy this winter as long as possible.
3-Rabat in general. Rabat is the no where near the largest city in Morocco but it is the Capital. I have been to large cities, and I know that I have not seen all that Rabat has to offer but I can get used to this. (maybe) Its large enough to be a city but not so big that there is traffic, noise, congestion etc. The moon and stars at night are enough to make me possibly want to stay.
4- Traffic and Rabatian Drivers. Holy Hot Damn. These people are freaking crazy. Like seriously, I am not sure how any of them are not in accidents every day. I am not sure the rules are about getting a drivers license around here but I am sure that even if they did have one it wouldn't matter. I usually just close my eyes and squeeze Knox tight and hope for the best. (Yes you read that right I am a terrible mother and have held my kid in the back of a car on multiple occasions with out a car seat. *gasp* Its gross and negligent and pretty much gross negligence, but its the way things are done around here. And asking a Marine Guard to watch my car seat for me while I wander the embassy is frowned upon. But I did it once!)
5-Safety Precautions Stressed by the Embassy. We are safe. Safer than we have ever been any where else in the entire world. (Morocco is not that much of a dangerous place anyway...) But still, I know you all are wondering. If anything were to EVER happen we could not be in better hands. These people have their shit together. And I swear there is a phone in my bedroom that might be a direct line to the Secretary of Defense. (Not really people, please do not try to call DC from my house phone)
6-Marjane. Pronounced Mar-jan. Its like the Moroccan Walmart, its a mall and a Walmart and it pretty much is my favorite place as of now. I am sure I was that crazy American all up in the toiletries isle smelling hand soap before I bought it. I had to make sure it didn't smell awful! The carts there are all crazy like with wonky wheels, the cashiers always have something better to do, and they dont sell booze (you CAN buy booze and pork here!) but I love that damn store. Perhaps bc it feels like a little piece of 'Murica a mile away. With barnyard animals out back.
7- Learning the language. Please please please, If there are any FAO spouses reading this before IRT, take language classes. Learn all of the native language that you can. I didn't get the chance to learn at DLI while in California and didn't think anything else of it. Now, being here I am literally kicking myself. I know that I will pick it up, but stepping off the plane and knowing the language would have been awesome. With saying that, I am definitely going to learn. At least enough to get me around. And I think that it makes Ryan a little happy seeing me try to speak French even if "my accent sucks".
8- The Embassy. It is an absolutely amazing well oiled machine. Everyone has a job and knows how to do it. No one is ever idle there and I think that is great. Badges, suits, flags, uniforms, Cadillacs, Embassy Cats, All of it, it is just fantastic. I am proud to say that my husband works there.
9-Speaking of cats...Trash Cats, Garbage Cats, Street Cats, Guard Dogs, Slum Dogs. I just want to help them all. I know they are living the life the best they know but it still breaks my heart to see them out and about. I promise that I will not bring any home, but I might try to save a few while I am here.
10- Garbage services. I am not quite sure why I find this so interesting. The garbage gets picked up every night here in Rabat. That is wonderful. The thing is that we have to bring our trash to a dumpster. And we have to options for the dumpster. One is down the quiet street about two blocks, and the other is about 400 feet away across a very busy street. Decisions decisions! Oh, and always watch for the Trash Cats before throwing something in.
11- My family. I know that I didn't want to come here. I know that it will only be a year, but there are no other people I would want to be with. Seriously. Ryan knows his shit (and if he doesn't he sure is good at faking it) and Knox is getting the experience of a lifetime, even if he wont remember it. My boys have been troopers. And that is the reason I am on my best behavior. For them. We are in this together.
Ryan's First Week Abroad:
As I reflect on our first week in Rabat, it occurs to me that we are faced with adjusting not only to the foreign country of Morocco, but also to another paradigm, as paradoxically exotic as it is familiar: embassy life with the Department of State.
We landed at night. I wish I could begin our first blog post painting a picture of the rolling Sahara, the tall Atlas mountains, or the North African coast of the Atlantic as seen from the air but, alas, the only thing I could describe to you is the blinking light on the winglet of our Airbus 300 from Paris Roisy-Charles de Gaulle. Of course upon landing, we were running on fumes after our whirlwind tour of Paris with just enough left to meet our sponsor and get in the embassy van that brought us to our new home (after the pushy baggage porters loaded somebody else's bag in the van for us...another story).
Rabat is everything I expected, and everything I didn't all rolled in to one. I was prepared to hit the ground running speaking French (as opposed to Paris where everybody wanted to speak English with you at the first nod of being American). I wasn't prepared for such a heavy Arabic accented French or (for that matter) sentences that weave between Arabic and French sometimes mid-word.
The closest references (and thus, expectations) I had to North African was the middle east from deployments to Iraq. I know (and knew beforehand) that this is a night and day, apples and oranges comparison, but it was all I had to go off on. I was pleasantly surprised that the air did not smell of a mixture of feces and burning garbage. On the contrary, it was crisp with maybe a hint of ocean breeze. Quite nice.
Rabat, like any capital city, is well populated with ex-patriots which makes people used to foreigners. Morocco, however, has a particularly special and popular relationship with the United States because (among other reason) Morocco was the first country to officially recognize American sovereignty in 1776....true story...look it up. Many people feel an apprehension--a sense of alienation--when emerging among a foreign people in a foreign land, but I can say I feel quite comfortable. Our differences are fewer than our similarities. One slight difference is the fact that I'm wearing short sleeve polo shirts in this winter of mid 70 degree weather and everybody else is wearing heavy coats. There's also the call to prayer five times a day that replaces Sunday church bells. Cats too...they are everywhere and apparently have no fear. And then there is the driving.
Driving in Rabat is a special kind of controlled chaos. Everybody on the road is crazy. Absolutely insane. However, they are all insane in just the same kind of way that makes them compatible enough to not hit each other. There is even a certain sense of respect given to the guy who had enough initiative to cross three lanes of traffic to cut you off in order to turn left on his way to drop off the kids for school. Traffic lanes are merely suggestions. While waiting for oncoming traffic to clear in order to turn left, you may find the car behind pulling a flanking maneuver and beating you to the turn. There is one law that is religiously obeyed; there are no right turns on red. Anywhere. We want a car, I'm just not sure I want to drive it.
Cost of living and values of goods is something we are still trying to figure out. I paid about $5 worth for a bar of chocolate in a convenience store but about 25 cents for an entire baguette. That being said, we were able to enjoy a very nice lunch of pizza and stromboli along with my sponsor and his two kids all for about 300 Dirham (35ish Dollars) yet I paid 120 Dirham plus tip for a basic haircut. PS, still trying to figure out if and how much you tip around here. My coiffeur was very excited with a 15 Dirham tip and I bet he can't wait until I come back.
We live in a quarter of Rabat called Hay Riad which is essentially a more upscale business district, slightly removed from downtown, full of other expats, and close to Souissi and lots of other embassies. We have an indoor shopping mall (with Walmart-type store), McD's, Pizza Hut, Dominos, and many other comforts of home close by. All of it is quite walkable or within a 10 Dirham cab ride ($1.50).
It helps to speak French. Many Americans stationed here, surprisingly, speak neither Arabic nor French (or at least not very well). This is not a show stopper. You can go quite far frantically pointing and making hand gestures until eventually you get your question or point across. Knowing one or both languages, however, dramatically increases your confidence moving about everyday life. I am very excited that both Knox and Sabrina are working on their French every day.
I mentioned embassy life and the State department as a world nearly as foreign to us as Morocco is to most Americans. Eight years in the military (not counting undergrad) may not seem like much, but it is long enough to make you accustom to a certain style of life. The same stores, organizations, acronyms, uniforms, housing, and (most importantly) bureaucracy. The military is a large family. There is solidarity within units, but you may not know the guy with the same job as you in the next battalion. Military bases have tens of thousands of people living on them, constituting self-sustaining cities of their own. As much as units perform as team, people generally don't know anybody outside of their own tight group of friends. In the embassy, everybody knows everybody else both by face, name, and job. They know the last two people to have everybody else's job. They've been to each other's houses. Everybody in the embassy is on a first name basis, even between structural levels of hierarchy. Of course in the Security Cooperation and Attaché sections, us military personnel tend to observe at least a little more elevated standard of customs and courtesies that come with rank and position, even though we wear business suits rather than uniforms most of the time.
In the embassy, there is a stronger sense of community and family. Stronger than I ever felt in the military. This is not a criticism of the military. This seems to emerge largely out of necessity in the absence of everyday comforts and conveniences found in life back in the states. Everybody has gone more than out of their way to help us get settled in and taken care of since they remember what it was like being new and without the same familiar resources available after only a quick move to another state.
Over the past week, we accomplished a lot. We received and set up some of our household goods. We've gotten food, local cell phones, (limited) internet, and know how to get around our immediate neighborhood. I look forward to seeing the progress grow exponentially over the next few weeks as we get a car, tv, better internet, and venture out further in to the city.
With one foot barely set in Africa's northwestern frontier, it is also time for me to lean forward and prepare to travel south across the desert in the coming months. Overall it has been been a time of readjustment for Knox, Sabrina, and I. There will be more obstacles to overcome and things to get used to, but I am proud of what we've seen and done and know there is a lot positive in store for us in the future.
.JPG)
