I had been told that Ifrane was fairly quiet and there wasn’t much to do there, but my father’s good friend Driss had invited me to spend the weekend with them. My interest was piqued by memories of a photo or postcard my mom had sent me a few years ago when my parents visited, of a college campus that looked just like a Swiss chalet. So I decided to go.
Driss and my dad are old friends (I think my dad even taught Driss when he was in the Peace Corps) and have worked together for the past few years until Driss was hand-picked by the king to become the president of Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane back in January. Driss and my dad share a sort of Stanislavski/Danchenko relationship, without the souring years later…they have been known to stay up late talking about ideas related to their field. I’ve met Driss several times and really like him, but I had never met his wife, Keltoum, whom I was told in advance is a very quiet but nice high-powered dentistry professor in Rabat.
I drove up with Keltoum in a chauffer-driven Audi, arriving in Ifrane about 2 and half hours after leaving Rabat. Ifrane is on par with elevation in Colorado, a mile high. The whole weekend felt a little bit like Waiting for Driss, who was so busy with commencement activities and board meetings that really the only time I got to see him was Sunday at breakfast. I think that’s why on the drive back he wanted me to spend the rest of the day and the night with them in Rabat.
Keltoum was very nice though, although quiet in the literal sense…I sometimes had a hard time hearing what she was saying, not to mention deciphering the French!
On Saturday morning when I met her outside to go to the souq (market), she was talking with a friend and began to introduce us. The woman, Melika, said, “Sara! I know you! I’ve known you since you were this big! I’m Dahbi’s wife.” I hadn’t seen Melika since I was seven, but know that we spent a lot of time with their family (she has two kids my age and an eleven year old daughter now) when we spent the summers here. I had seen Mohamed Dahbi, the Dean of the School of Humanities & Social Sciences at AUI, back in November when he was in DC for a conference with my dad. I finally got to re-meet his daughter Miriam, who is a few years younger than me, but I’ve heard a lot about her over the years, and she was really nice.
There really isn’t much to say about the town; its quiet and small. About 10,000 people live there, with more visitors during the winter ski-season. What was more fascinating to me was the campus. Also quiet and small, but it’s completely different than any other place in Morocco. In fact if it hadn’t been for the mosque on campus and a few architectural things, I could have been anywhere but Morocco. It was quite liberating to feel like I could walk around, by myself, wearing whatever I wanted (within reason, obviously, but a tank top would have been fine for once). It was the first time I felt completely comfortable being by myself in public in Morocco.
Why? Because AUI is an anglophile university. It is the only university in Morocco where the courses are taught entirely in English, and it follows the American four-year curriculum. As a small, private university it has become one of the best schools in the country since it was created just fifteen years ago, and many of the students are quite wealthy. I was lucky that I just so happened to be visiting during their commencement weekend, and the ceremony was very interesting. It was similar to any American graduation, but instead of cap and gown the graduates wore nice suits, with a ribbon attached to their lapel signifying their school. There was a large screen where speeches given in English were written in French or Arabic, and vice versa. This was so the families could understand, since they didn’t all speak English. Interestingly, there was a great amount of recognition and thanks given to the parents and families, multiple times. This made sense since Morocco is such a family-centric country, but I also found out it’s because in Morocco the parents are the ones who pay entirely for their children’s education.
There was a party that night for the commencement, and Miriam invited me to go, but I had a terrible headache. Maybe it was because I had been out in the heat at the souq without a hat. Maybe it was because of the altitude. But after life in Rabat, the traditional souq that morning, and the American-like atmosphere on campus, I think maybe it was because my weekend in Ifrane left me culturally confused.
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