The Morocco Series #1
Allowing everyone to be my teacher
I’ve learned that my brain often turns off when I’m not purposefully trying to study. I zone out as Moroccan music plays in the taxi, I point to things at my local corner store instead of learning their names, and I look out the window as Moroccans engage in conversations near me.
I don’t learn.
There is a misconception —at least I believe it is for me and those like me, that mere immersion is beneficial. That you can plop yourself in a foreign country and just absorb the language.
This isn’t true.
I’m not the first example of this, when I lived in Jordan I knew many who could say no more than ‘y3ni’ despite being settled there for years. To be fair they didn’t exactly immerse themselves in Jordan as much as they simply immersed themselves in the particular ex-pat neighborhood we lived in filled with English speakers.
But there are still others I’ve known, who live and even work in foreign countries and never learn much of the language, not without effort. A part of the problem with the immersion idea is that immersion —with few exceptions, is a choice. Simply moving to another country is not exactly ‘immersing’ one’s self in that culture. Not in a time like ours when we could all lock ourselves in our rooms and engage with life through a screen. And especially as English speakers when English is either spoken in the country —which it is in many, or the people you come across all want to seize the opportunity to practice their English with you (1).
Outside of the option of living with a Moroccan family —which would force the immersion process. I realize I’ll have to choose immersion. Instead of zoning out when people speak around me, I have to tune in. This may seem obvious but it takes work. Our minds are used to tuning out from that which is irrelevant —and people speaking languages other than our own usually is.
But in learning Arabic —despite studying Fusha and Moroccans speaking Darija (we’ll come back to this another time). I have to be open to seeing this entire place as a living classroom in which I am a student. And while my priority in learning Arabic is to access the classical texts of our religion, I do realize that all language is rooted in people, cultures, and societies. I have to train my ears to tune in with curiosity —without being overly intrusive, it must humble itself, and zone into the possibility of what everyday people have to teach.
So, I’m trying.
I’m listening.
1. One “upside” in Morocco as opposed to Jordan is that the second most spoken language is French —which I don’t know at all, so even when it pains me I’m forced to muster up enough broken Arabic to communicate with others. This wasn’t the case in Jordan where locals would sometimes insist I stop speaking broken Arabic —to their annoyance, and please just speak English, their second language.
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