Journalism abroad

Orientation is now officially over and all my time spent at the Center for Cross Learning will be for just that, learning. My journalism classes begin next week, after 8:30 AM Arabic classes. It’s starting to really set in that this is where I live. Like my first semester in Boston, it’s a question of when I stop walking the streets looking up (in addition to when I feel comfortable reaching across the table for an apple during dinner with my host family).

In a Thursday journalism session, the future of backpack journalism came up -as I’m sure it will throughout the semester. Mary Stucky, who runs our program and will act as the professor/editor of our group, sent us a link to this article from The New Yorker. She says this discredited idea of slow journalism is one thing we will work this semester to understand. Mary tells our group that we are here to do something that “parachute correspondents” cannot. Not only are we going to immerse ourselves in the culture, walking before we can run, but we will work closely with a journalist writing our story for a Moroccan audience.

After looking at Paul Salopek‘s story, I am reminded of the way that many journalists use Twitter to communicate. They send out 20-30 updates/day. Breaking news in 140 characters or less, with usually only a fraction of them dedicated to one story. Of course there is a place for this, but imagine if more people dedicated themselves to one project. If people all over the world could focus all their analytic energy to further communicate diverse cultures and languages in their own complex experiences. Surely our in our information driven society there is a place for this too.

Can I make a living from doing this? That is still to be determined. But I can always try.

I write this sitting in the living room in a djellaba on loan from my host mother. Today we are driving out of town for my “uncle’s” engagement party. This is why my mother dressed me this morning in an elaborate maroon dress and a beaded necklace.

Latifa is treating me more and more like a daughter. She takes my arm as we walk down the street and last night, when we went to the Hamam (Turkish Bath) to prepare for the party, not only did she force me to wash at least five times, but she scrubbed my back. Hard. I’m still recovering.

It’s experiences like this, going to the public bath with your mom and sisters-listening to friends and neighbors talk (and fight) crowded and naked- that I still can’t believe are real. With each day I can’t help but feel that I can be just a little more confident in my final story, that the days I’ve spent here in the Medina will reflect in my writing and reporting. I hope so. Last night while sitting in the Hamam, I had to wonder how many stories I had read or heard from journalists stationed nearby who may have never had this weekly experience (or another of relative normalcy). I again thought of Mary’s comments.

Coming up: An engagement party in Morocco, my first assignment and pictures of Samia’s flower doodles (now multiplying in my planner and notebook)