Is there really no such thing as fun.

I keep asking people around here for a translation of the word fun in Derija and so far no one has been able to come up with one. The best they can do is come up with is a way to say happy times. If you translate the word directly for fun they tend to talk about “forbidden things”. One of my friends (in a completely silly manner) stated that most of the things we American call fun are not allowed, meaning smoking or drinking. (ATTENTION THIS WAS MENT IN A JOKING MANNER! You crazy internet people). I just got to spend a weekend off and we had the most fun I could have asked for. My spirits were lifted in so many ways it really put me in a better place. Yap a bunch of Americans in Morocco celebrated Cinco de Mayo.

The toughest part is not that these things are forbidden; we can live without all of these things and in this case have, will and don’t care. The toughest part is that not only is there a language barrier, but that there are not even translations to help explain the way we are feeling. Actually in Derija the word mqllq is both sad and angry. The word Sb3 is toes, seven, morning, and lion. Talk about not always being able to express the way you are feeling. “Are you trying to tell me there is an angry lion or sad toes?” Waxxa(ok) so most of the time you can understand just from context what people are going on about, but still.

We had a sit down with our host families to talk about life and gender roles. Of course Americans have plenty of preconceived ideas of gender roles in Morocco and vice versa. First we had to try to get passed just being polite and saying the “correct” answers which we never really did, but then being able to explain the concepts and then have them be understood complexly.

On our time off a lovely group of us Peace Corps Trainees got together sat on a roof top at Bab Bou Jeloud and enjoyed some wonderful conversations. At one point the conversation switched to talk about objective realism and with an open minded group of people, 4 languages that could be spoken fluently, we were still not able to get to a point where we could fully understand each other’s opinions. The end of this debate ended in such a manner that beginning another debate or building upon that one was not possible due to the inability of some to theoretically understand where the other was coming from.

I am sorry this blog harps so much on language, but with the basis of language not being around it hinders conversation from going an interesting place. Now that language has begun to get better and we have been able to have conversations with people who speak the same language I am amazed at how sometimes people just don’t or almost can’t agree to disagree and let that stop them from continuing with a debate. I am grateful that so far my close group of friends are always just willing to move on and continue with a variety of debate, and I hope that I continue to get better at language and inevitable be able to communicate and understand where others are coming from and have them even try to understand where I am coming from.