"9 Times Speaking Darija Changed my Experience" by Tal Slon
Quick Hits of Joy
At the beach, the man who rents out chairs respected our “La, mabgheetsh.” His boss called over and asked, “French?” With a hint of confusion, shock, and proud surprise, he corrected his boss, “Arabic!”
Our InDrive driver was so excited by our Darija that he began showing us YouTube videos (while driving) of his home region. Now we know to travel to Nador, Casablanca, and El Jebha for excellent beaches and mountains.
In a hostel, a Moroccan kept asking questions about my Arabic until we discovered that he too was an alum of Amideast (the English program). What a small world!
Buying rugs in a medina, my friend was able to express exactly what she wanted—shape, size, and color. Not only that, but we were able to talk to the rug seller’s family as well. A seven-year-old told me she’d seen me in a YouTube video (I’m not a YouTuber…). When we ran into the carpet seller the next day, he immediately recognized us and gave us his son’s WhatsApp number in case we ever find ourselves back there.
At a clothing stall, we explained exactly why we didn’t want to purchase this man’s goods rather than zooming away after a brief “La, shukran.” He understood, laughed, and we all left with a sense of respect for each other.
Literally, every single taxi man in Rabat LOVES our Darija. Initially in French, as soon as the transition to Darija occurs, a loud “Marhaba bikum!” rings out through the car. The rest of the ride we are effusively reminded that Morocco is our second home. I cannot count how many times this has happened! :-)
Deeper Moments of Understanding
The main square of Chefchaouen is populated by restaurants and hosts who push menus on you in the hopes you’ll sit for a meal. Knowing that most of the people are tourists, we were met with a panache of European phrases revolving around “want to eat?” As soon as I responded with “Mabgheetsh, shukran (I don’t want, thanks)” I was immediately left alone. Other tourists, responding in Spanish or French, weren’t given up on so easily. Not only were we left alone, but the man looked at me knowingly and said, “Ah you’re from Rabat aren’t you?” To this day, I have no idea what gave me away in two words.
Our grand taxi driver spends his days shuttling tourists around his city. Speaking Darija immediately opened him up. For the next 45 minutes, he proceeded to tell me about his life: how he has a degree in law but there are no jobs in Morocco so he is forced to drive this cab; how his family has lived there for centuries but he finds the city boring; how the drought isn’t so bad because they have ample groundwater. He ended up giving me three new songs for my Maghrebi playlist and we both wrote down new words in each other’s notebooks. (Speaking Darija also enabled us to get the fair price, not the blown-up tourist price.)
Traveling to Merzouga, our group was hosted for the night in a “Berber style campground” (read glamping). All of our guides spoke Darija and Tamazight and had a small repertoire of the most important tourist languages. Speaking Darija opened a two-hour conversation with Hassan in which I learned about his favorite parts of Morocco and the tourism industry and ended with him giving me his scarf to practice tying turbans. Darija also allowed me to engage with a French-Moroccan man who could not understand, for the life of him, why I had come to study in Morocco.
Tal Slon is a student from the University of Southern California studying abroad on the Amideast/Morocco Area and Arabic Language Studies program during the Fall 2023 semester.
