NOTE: This posting is a few days old already; I wrote it on the plane from New York to Casablanca.
I’m typing this entry from a cruising altitude of 32,000 feet, high above the Atlantic Ocean on my way from New York to Casablanca, where I’ll have a twelve-hour layover before the final leg of my journey—five planes over the course of three days from Spokane to Dakar: yuck. My current airline, Royal Air Maroc, is tri-lingual (Arabic, French, and English), which seemed novel and exciting at the beginning of the flight, but now that it is the middle of the night it just means annoying announcements take thrice as long.
I’m sitting next to a really sweet middle-aged Moroccan woman named Nadia, who lives and works in upstate New York and is going home to visit her family in Rabat. She has some really interesting perspectives as an immigrant working in the US—as an unmarried daughter in a strictly religious family, she faced the choice between living with her parents indefinitely or setting out on her own. Job availability in Morocco is extremely low—even college-educated men can’t find work—so her opportunities there were extremely limited, and she didn’t want to burden her parents financially, so she obtained a US work visa.
Nadia is what many Americans would like to think of as an example of the unmitigated success of the American dream—supporting herself independently as a cashier, striving to assimilate as much as possible into a new culture, basically living a modest working-class life in a way that would have been impossible for her in Morocco. The reality, as Nadia tells it, is a lot more complicated: the social and spiritual isolation she feels as an immigrant in a small town make life very difficult. She says she doesn’t have friends, has no prospects of having a family of her own because there aren’t any single Muslim men within an hour’s drive of her house: “All I want is a phone call, every once in a while,” she told me, “I never thought it would be a problem before I came, I was just happy to be approved for the visa. But it is very hard not to have anybody, no friends to go out with, it’s not a real life.” She seems like an extremely optimistic person overall, not looking for pity at all, but it was pretty sobering.
I guess it’s easy to take for granted the ability to socialize and have relatively normal, effortless relationships with people. Add in the cultural, religious, and language displacement she deals with, and her day-to-day life sounds like a pretty alienating—but, in America, incredibly common—experience. I was thinking a lot about my Swedish great-grandmother, and what a relief it must have been to meet my great-grandfather, who was also a young immigrant Swede.
Anyhow, Nadia is wonderful—really charming and fun. She told me what to see in Morocco if I ever make it for a legitimate visit and we talked about food and religion a little bit. Not a bad way to spend an evening, jetlag be damned.
But back to me, the rightful occupant of this narcissistic blog’s spotlight! It was really fun to have a few hours in New York, and I got to see one of my favorite people, the inimitable Malena Amusa. She’s a friend from Northwestern who is writing for a awesome newsmagazine called Colorlines, and she works in a nice office…with an 18th-story window view…just off of Wall Street. For some reason, she doesn’t get it that this is impressive. We had lunch at a busy cafeteria (my last American meal was fried chicken, mashed potatoes, pineapple, and a bunch of gravy covering everything…amazing) and had a great time catching up. Afterwards, we had some New Yorkers take our picture…somehow the “zany” pose we were going for turned out looking like “we’re dippy tourists.”
Maybe it’s my dorky hat and oversized sunglasses, maybe it’s the fact that we’re posing for a photo in front of a nondescript sidewalk, or maybe it’s the fact that Malena looks like she’s bearing down on the next pedestrian she sees for an overly-enthusiastic high-five…I’m not sure, but we look like nerds. Nevertheless, the exuberance (over-exuberance?) of the photo was very authentic—it was great to see Malena.
I suppose that it might be informative if I laid out my plans for the next five months in case I haven’t told you yet. The only problem is…I’m not really sure what my plans are. For the moment, I do know that I get to Dakar at 10:45 on Thursday evening, where I will be greeted by a man named Alphoussayni Kouyate. Alphoussayni is the nephew of my kora teacher in Chicago, Morikeba Kouyate, and he has kindly offered to take me under his wing for the first couple of weeks I’m there, before Morikeba shows up. Right now, I think that Alphoussayni’s band is playing at a music festival in Dakar on Saturday, then they’re going on a short tour of the southern part of the country, including Bounkiling, the Kouyate’s home village. I’m basically following the band for the first week, “Almost Famous”-style (including the part where I try to coax an acid-tripping Senegalese singer off of a rooftop), then staying in Bounkiling with the Kouyates (where Morikeba told me “all there is to do is play kora and soccer,” which actually sounds amazing). Around the middle of August, I’m coming back up to Dakar to meet Morikeba at the airport, then I have no idea what we’re doing. As you can tell, I’m just along for the ride with these guys for the first few weeks, which is honestly just the way I want it. The “unknown (mis)adventure” part of my stay ends September 2, the day my study abroad program commences. From then on, I’ll be staying mostly in Dakar and living with a family. Should be interesting…
This post is already indefensibly lengthy—chalk it up to having nothing to do on this plane. If you’re still reading at this point, you probably have a lime-green-induced migraine. To be fair, for the past hour my choices of activities have been:
1) Watch the dumb movie they’re showing (something involving a road trip and Ice Cube in the leading role…and it’s a sequel)
2) Read (my eyes already hurt from writing this vapid, uninteresting epistle)
3) Listen to music (I loaned my headphones to Nadia, so scratch that)
Clearly, none of these three options will cut it, which leaves me with a final choice between:
4) Writing this post
5) Sleeping
What can I say…I’m too excited for sleep.
I’m sitting next to a really sweet middle-aged Moroccan woman named Nadia, who lives and works in upstate New York and is going home to visit her family in Rabat. She has some really interesting perspectives as an immigrant working in the US—as an unmarried daughter in a strictly religious family, she faced the choice between living with her parents indefinitely or setting out on her own. Job availability in Morocco is extremely low—even college-educated men can’t find work—so her opportunities there were extremely limited, and she didn’t want to burden her parents financially, so she obtained a US work visa.
Nadia is what many Americans would like to think of as an example of the unmitigated success of the American dream—supporting herself independently as a cashier, striving to assimilate as much as possible into a new culture, basically living a modest working-class life in a way that would have been impossible for her in Morocco. The reality, as Nadia tells it, is a lot more complicated: the social and spiritual isolation she feels as an immigrant in a small town make life very difficult. She says she doesn’t have friends, has no prospects of having a family of her own because there aren’t any single Muslim men within an hour’s drive of her house: “All I want is a phone call, every once in a while,” she told me, “I never thought it would be a problem before I came, I was just happy to be approved for the visa. But it is very hard not to have anybody, no friends to go out with, it’s not a real life.” She seems like an extremely optimistic person overall, not looking for pity at all, but it was pretty sobering.
I guess it’s easy to take for granted the ability to socialize and have relatively normal, effortless relationships with people. Add in the cultural, religious, and language displacement she deals with, and her day-to-day life sounds like a pretty alienating—but, in America, incredibly common—experience. I was thinking a lot about my Swedish great-grandmother, and what a relief it must have been to meet my great-grandfather, who was also a young immigrant Swede.
Anyhow, Nadia is wonderful—really charming and fun. She told me what to see in Morocco if I ever make it for a legitimate visit and we talked about food and religion a little bit. Not a bad way to spend an evening, jetlag be damned.
But back to me, the rightful occupant of this narcissistic blog’s spotlight! It was really fun to have a few hours in New York, and I got to see one of my favorite people, the inimitable Malena Amusa. She’s a friend from Northwestern who is writing for a awesome newsmagazine called Colorlines, and she works in a nice office…with an 18th-story window view…just off of Wall Street. For some reason, she doesn’t get it that this is impressive. We had lunch at a busy cafeteria (my last American meal was fried chicken, mashed potatoes, pineapple, and a bunch of gravy covering everything…amazing) and had a great time catching up. Afterwards, we had some New Yorkers take our picture…somehow the “zany” pose we were going for turned out looking like “we’re dippy tourists.”
Maybe it’s my dorky hat and oversized sunglasses, maybe it’s the fact that we’re posing for a photo in front of a nondescript sidewalk, or maybe it’s the fact that Malena looks like she’s bearing down on the next pedestrian she sees for an overly-enthusiastic high-five…I’m not sure, but we look like nerds. Nevertheless, the exuberance (over-exuberance?) of the photo was very authentic—it was great to see Malena.
I suppose that it might be informative if I laid out my plans for the next five months in case I haven’t told you yet. The only problem is…I’m not really sure what my plans are. For the moment, I do know that I get to Dakar at 10:45 on Thursday evening, where I will be greeted by a man named Alphoussayni Kouyate. Alphoussayni is the nephew of my kora teacher in Chicago, Morikeba Kouyate, and he has kindly offered to take me under his wing for the first couple of weeks I’m there, before Morikeba shows up. Right now, I think that Alphoussayni’s band is playing at a music festival in Dakar on Saturday, then they’re going on a short tour of the southern part of the country, including Bounkiling, the Kouyate’s home village. I’m basically following the band for the first week, “Almost Famous”-style (including the part where I try to coax an acid-tripping Senegalese singer off of a rooftop), then staying in Bounkiling with the Kouyates (where Morikeba told me “all there is to do is play kora and soccer,” which actually sounds amazing). Around the middle of August, I’m coming back up to Dakar to meet Morikeba at the airport, then I have no idea what we’re doing. As you can tell, I’m just along for the ride with these guys for the first few weeks, which is honestly just the way I want it. The “unknown (mis)adventure” part of my stay ends September 2, the day my study abroad program commences. From then on, I’ll be staying mostly in Dakar and living with a family. Should be interesting…
This post is already indefensibly lengthy—chalk it up to having nothing to do on this plane. If you’re still reading at this point, you probably have a lime-green-induced migraine. To be fair, for the past hour my choices of activities have been:
1) Watch the dumb movie they’re showing (something involving a road trip and Ice Cube in the leading role…and it’s a sequel)
2) Read (my eyes already hurt from writing this vapid, uninteresting epistle)
3) Listen to music (I loaned my headphones to Nadia, so scratch that)
Clearly, none of these three options will cut it, which leaves me with a final choice between:
4) Writing this post
5) Sleeping
What can I say…I’m too excited for sleep.
2 comments:
It is Monday, August 6 and I am just finding that you have posted something on your blog!! I had fun reading about your flight Blake! It sounds like you learned a lot from Nadia. I loved seeing the photo of you on the streets of NYC, too. What fun and how far away you are from that world now!!! I will let other family members know that your blog site has a posting.
XXO Momma Loo
P.S. It is malaria medicine Monday!!!
Wow Blake, What an adventure! You are in the midst of becoming a traveler rather than a tourist...I hope you find the Africans as friendly and curious as Kelly did, and hope you don't run out of room on your photo card. I'm praying for your health, study, new friends, and a common language. Vicky Boubel
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