Day 11: "Blogging"

Tuesday, July 2

OH OH OH LOOK AT THAT DATE Y'ALL I FINALLY CAUGHT UP 

Let's see how long this lasts, shall we?

No cultural lessons today. I'm going to watch a movie or something instead. Or do homework. Whichever I deem more important in a few minutes.

Today was SUPER long. I had to get up early to finish my reading assignment of this book, "باب المراكش"  . Or in the English tongue, "killmenowitisoboring".

Our first class today was Round-Table Discussion.

"Round"

We talked about tourism, the most famous places, and the good and bad that comes with it. I contributed by mentioning that the often overlooked, bad results of tourism are museums: like art galleries, you know? You think, Why the hell is that a bad thing? Well, there are some museums, if not most, that take art from other cultures and do not give them back, just to draw-in tourists. Does that art belong to them, or to the people from whence it came? While it is a good thing that a person can visit a single place and see art from all over the world, unless that art was donated (often not), it is stolen, and now the people that it actually belongs to have no way to appreciate their own work. Museums also take art out of context, and mush it all together into a nice, but totally inaccurate display. Every time there is an "African" section, I have to grumble a little inside, because anything that looks exotic and different is shoved in there, with little to no references about what it meant or what it still means.

For example, there was a museum in America, I believe, that had these African masks from the Burkina Faso people on display, without description or tags. In reality, these masks were used in ceremonial dances, only in ceremonial dances, used to cleanse the people of negative forces and ensure good health. Their context is important. They're not meant to stand alone, and they have no meaning outside of those dances, let alone in a museum. 

There was another museum in Europe (I think), that had these ceremonial, carved wooden heads on display. They were from an ancestral cult known as the Bieri, and the Bieri would keep the skulls of their ancestors in boxes when traveling, and on top of the box they would put the carved head or figure that would guard its sacred contents. Now, somewhere out there are a ton of ancestral boxes remaining unguarded. Within a museum, where they serve no purpose except to be looked upon, what do they mean?

I have another example. There was an auction in France recently that managed to "obtain" several sacred artifacts from the Native American Hopi tribe. The tribe insisted they give them back, that they were highly prized and sacred to their people, their culture, and their history. Some of the masks were so sacred, they weren't even supposed to be looked upon by most human eyes; only those who were worthy could see them. But in the end, the auction continued and the masks were sold, all for the glory of attracting crowds.

Here is the article pertaining to this particularly outrageous event: http://news.yahoo.com/paris-court-oks-sale-north-american-artifacts-105531120.html

Museums only suppress actions that make the objects meaningful. You could call them "a heaven for things," because it's the place where these artifacts and artworks spend their afterlife, separated from their previous lives.

And now that discussion has officially derailed, we can be moving along.

"My goodness, where were we?"

In our second class, we talked about that horrible and mind-numbing wonderful and interesting book.  It was everything I could do to not fall asleep for two hours. I have no recollections of what was said.

After class, I had my meeting with my conversation partner today, and we went into the market together. She's nice, and it's better to start my shopping experience with somebody who actually knows the language. We stopped in a couple shops to look at the super sweet stuff (which I won't tell you about because I may buy some of it and then show you all). Just know that most of it is handmade and it's awesome.

Then we chilled at a cafe (despite what I said earlier about cafes being super manly hang-out-joints. Apparently it's okay if you're on the roof, which is where we were). It was a nice day, and it wasn't hot at all under the shade. We had Cola-Cola and talked about, I dunno, stuff. AND! I got a new coke bottle to add to my Coke bottle collection! It's definitely the most different.

After she took me back to the school, (cuz hell if could navigate those streets) I updated my blog and dicked around on the internet  I worked on homework. 

Then I came home in a taxi all by myself (because I am an independent woman! And because my roommate already left).

And now here we are! Noura just made us pizza for dinner. 

"Pizza."

And after dinner I talked to Mom and Mrs. K. on Skype, which was very lovely. 

OH, and you know what? I've technically been gone for a solid two weeks now. Oh. Snap.