Notwithstanding the advances in technology, it seems that interpersonal relationships have not changed much. A recent post on a volunteer blog describes how a female volunteer, after a year alone in her site, decided to ask Peace Corps to send a second male volunteer to her site. With some frustration, she describes being harassed on the street and propositioned on a regular basis in person as the reason for asking for a second, male volunteer.
When you are a foreign woman in Morocco, accompaniment by a man, or better yet, another Moroccan, can help reduce incidents of harassment. However, i well remember at least one instance in which my presence failed to deter harassment of the woman I walking with down the streets of Fez. The behavior of indigent men on the city streets toward foreigners and particularly foreign women has long constituted the ugly side of a beautiful country. I am regularly assured that it has been ameliorated, but articles such as this one make me not so sure.
]]>I had the unusual privilege and pleasure of joining a group of Moroccans and Americans for lunch with Dr. Yossef Ben Meir, president of the High Atlas Foundation, one of the best known organizations promoting sustainable development in Morocco through cooperative efforts between Moroccans and Americans. The organization is particularly known for its 1 million tree reforestation program, but this is just one among its many initiatives. Discussion ranged over a wide range of topics, but one particular concern was encouraging greater participation in the foundation's work in United States, particularly among members of the growning Moroccan American community.
]]>I have been reading and greatly enjoying Dorothy Dunnett's Legendary Lymond Chronicles and have arrived at book four, Pawn in Frankincense.Dunnett, who demonstrates a remarkable facility with medieval languages and cultures, has just landed her eponymous hero, Francis Crawford of Lymond, in Algiers for his latest escapade en route to deliver a gift from the French king to the Ottoman Sultan. While the characterization of the Turks does slip occasionally into cartoonish cruelty, exaggerated even in this cruel age, she does nevertheless paint a vivid picture of a world in which the Ottomans were the most powerful, wealthy, and sophisticated empire. I haven't gotten far enough in the book to have a real appreciation for how Dunnett will develop her portrait of the leading power of the time, but whichever direction she takes promises to prove interesting, whether for depth of cultural understanding or depth of cultural misunderstanding has yet to be seen.
]]>The High Atlas Foundation is holding its Moroccan Film Festival from November 18 to November 19, 2011, at Tribeca Cinemas in New York. Proceeds from the festival will go toward reforestation and cultivation of fruit trees in Morocco in order to support Moroccan agriculture, raise the standard of living of rural Moroccans, and help reduce soil erosion and desertification.
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