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I have minimal knowledge on Muslim/Arabic cultures and customs. I never knew how hard it is to obtain medical care while pregnant and how dangerous it can be. Additionally, I was surprised at the standards of beauty. They are more inline with european standards of beauty, but this makes sense since they are located so close to Spain. I think the most shocking thing I learned is how mental health is handled. In the future I will be more cognisant that I will need to form a bond with this type of patient before they are likely to disclose issues surrounding mental illness. This is due to the stigma attached and the mistreatment of these individuals. I am thankful that Z gave me so much information on these topics, and plan to use this to better care or patients similar in background in the future.

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Who shops and prepares food? How are family members involved with making food choices?

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Who shops and prepares food? How are family members involved with making food choices?

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Z:"Religion actually affects food choices. We try to eat foods the prophet ate which are considered super foods. These include garlic, honey, ginger, olive oil, and oregano. Women mainly prepare food, but now men are beginning to cook more. In Morocco we do not have freezers, and fridges are small, so women go to the market daily for meat, fruits, and veges. Lunch is usually at 12-1pm after prayer. Women do use time at the market to socialize and gossip."

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Do religious beliefs and practices affect you or your family's diet?

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Do religious beliefs and practices affect you or your family's diet?

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Z:" Yes Islam affects what we eat. It is not a religion but a way of life and is present in every aspect of your life. You eat to nourish the body, not live to eat. Pork and alcohol are forbidden. It is frowned upon to smoke, do drugs, and overeat. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day, this is when we eat meat, couscous, and dessert. Additionally, we eat with the right hand only. The left is seen as unclean."

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Are there special rites or rituals for someone with a terminal illness?

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Are there special rites or rituals for someone with a terminal illness?

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Z:"If someone is terminal, water ands sugar are often placed into the mouth. The Koran is recited into the ear at bedside. The person has to testify that there is no other God but the one God and that Mohammed is his prophet. This must be said by the dying person in order to gain entrance to heaven."

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How does your family's culture affect health and illness?

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How does your family's culture affect health and illness?

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Z:"The power of God is above all. Vaccines, medicines, and treatment do not work unless God allows them to. Normally, illness is not seen as a punishment, however Coronavirus is the first time I have heard of my culture saying it may be a punishmnt from God. Doctors do not determine if you will heal, only God does."

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Who acts as caregiver for ill or older patients?

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Who acts as caregiver for ill or older patients?

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Z:" In my culture children take care of their parents. If they do not have children or grandchildren, anyone in the bloodline takes care of you at home. If no one in he bloodline is available, a neighbor will care for a sick or elderly person."

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How are biomedical or scientific healthcare providers perceived?

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How are biomedical or scientific healthcare providers perceived?

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Z:" It depends on the eudcational level. In the cities where there is more education, Western medicine is accepted and used. In rural areas where education is lower, they rely on home remedies. Sometimes a guru or healer is used to treat illness. They are said to have healing hands and often use prayer and the Koran to help."

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What is your cultural group's view on mental disorders?

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What is your cultural group's view on mental disorders?

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Z:" They do not understand mental disorders. When someone's behavior is out of the norm, it is considered to be possession. Many times the Koran, prayer, and home remedies are used to try to heal the person. Black magic or exorcism is sometimes attempted. There are not true mental hospitals, they are more like asylums. The patients are treated very poorly, like animals, and are often abused. If the asylum becomes to full or the patient becomes to much to handle, they load these patients on to a bus and drop them off on the outskirts or the wooded areas and leave them there."

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What are your culture's beliefs about body shape and size?

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What are your culture's beliefs about body shape and size?

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Z:"There is no ideal for men. As long as they are able to provide looks do not matter. Women should not be too skinny. The lighter the skin the better. My color and darker are less preferred. The ideal is to have breasts, hips, butt, straight black hair and large eyes with thick eyebrows that are shapely."

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When Z's dad passed, he dies at 6pm in the evening. They had him buried by the next morning in order to be completed by 12 oclock prayer. Additionally, over 1,200 people came to pay their respects to her father and they used 9 neighbors houses inorder to accomodate them all.

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Z:"When someone dies, th opposite sex may not handle the body.  Also, there are ways the body must be handled according to the religion.  The sooner the burial the better and less than 24 hrs after death is preferred.  There is no viewing.  The wife stays in her home for 40 days and if she must come out she is to be dressed head to toe in white.  Again, neighbors play an important role and accomodate those who come to pay respects to the family.

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Z:" It used to be that when a girl began having menses she was eligible to be married. However, this thought process has changed with education. The current average marrying age is 17-18 years old. If you are a woman and not married by 21 you may be looked down upon. Polygamy is common with men being able to have up to 4 wives. If women work they tend to stop after marriage, to allow the man to be the sole provider. For Berbers, marriage within the family is common and encouraged. It is not uncommon to marry a first cousin. Community is extremely important. When having a wedding, extra plates, chairs, etc. are borrowed from neighbors to accomodate guests. Neighbors also cook food for the wedding meal."

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Z:"There are multiple ethnic groups with there own practices.  In general the birth of a boy is more celebrated than the birth of a girl.  Boys carry the family name and have more utility.  It also a common belief that "real" men and women produce boys.  The first born should at least be a boy."

Z told me her uncle and aunt had a first born son, then had 7-8 girls and the wife was unhappy, so they continued having children until number 11 was a boy.

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What are the beliefs associated with life events such as birth, marriage and death? 

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What are the beliefs associated with life events such as birth, marriage and death? 

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Z:" Lets start with birth"

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Z told me a story about growing up in Morocco as as a child and how she remembered that her sister had started her period.  But it was a source of shame so she and the other neighborhood girls would pay a young boy around 6-7 years old 50 cents to purchase pads for them.  She joked that he was too young to understand what they were for and that is why they chose him.

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Do you or your family express restrictions related to sexuality, exposure of body parts, or certain surgeries?

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Do you or your family express restrictions related to sexuality, exposure of body parts, or certain surgeries?

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Z:"Women have no clue about sexuality, reproduction, their periods, or STIs. It is a taboo subject and a source of shame. There is a clash between the educated and uneducated class, in that the educated class is more willing to discuss these subjects and educate women on them where the uneducated class still considers it taboo."

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How do men and women show modesty? Are their cultural expectations on male-female relationships?

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How do men and women show modesty? Are their cultural expectations on male-female relationships?

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Z: There is definitely a seperation of the sexes.  Men prefer male doctors and nurses and women prefer female doctors and nurses.  In the cities where people are more educated, it is more acceptable to have opposite sex nurses and doctors. In rural areas mothers and babies frequently die during child birth because of only being willing to use a midwife.  Sometimes these midwives must hike for hours prior to getting to the mother and child.

Z sent me this link discussing this issue

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Morocco's Maternal Health Challenges in Rural Areas

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What is the preferred term the cultural group chooses for itself? You for yourself?

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What is the preferred term the cultural group chooses for itself? You for yourself?

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Z: "Arab/Arabic".

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How do the view of your family regarding cultural affiliation differ from yours?

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How do the view of your family regarding cultural affiliation differ from yours?

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Z: "My family identifies less with the African side than I do."

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With which cultural group or groups do you identify with?

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With which cultural group or groups do you identify with?

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Z: "I would identify as Moroccon, Arabic, Muslim, African, and Berber."

For those unfamiliar with Berber, they are the original people of Morocco, similar to the Native Americans in the US.  They are also known as Amazigh and speak various languages.

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Berber, any of the descendants of the pre-Arab inhabitants of North Africa. The Berbers live in scattered communities across Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Mali, Niger, and Mauritania. They speak various Amazigh languages belonging to the Afro-Asiatic family related to ancient Egyptian.

An accurate count of Berbers is difficult to come by for a variety of reasons, including a lack of thorough surveys. The two largest populations of Berbers are found in Algeria and Morocco, where large portions of the population are descended from Berbers but only some of them identify as Amazigh. Roughly one-fourth of the population in Algeria is estimated to be Berber, while Berbers are estimated to make up more than three-fifths of the population in Morocco. In the Sahara of southern Algeria and of Libya, Mali, and Niger, the Berber Tuareg number more than two million.

From about 2000 bce, Berber (Amazigh) languages spread westward from the Nile valley across the northern Sahara into the Maghrib. By the 1st millennium bce, their speakers were the native inhabitants of the vast region encountered by the Greeks, Carthaginians, and Romans. A series of Berber peoples-Mauri, Masaesyli, Massyli, Musulami, Gaetuli, Garamantes-then gave rise to Berber kingdoms under Carthaginian and Roman influence. Of those kingdoms, Numidia and Mauritania were formally incorporated into the Roman Empire in the late 2nd century bce, but others appeared in late antiquity following the Vandal invasion in 429 ce and the Byzantine reconquest (533 ce) only to be suppressed by the Arab conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries ce.

It was the Arabs, who had enlisted Berber warriors for the conquest of Spain, who nevertheless gave those peoples a single name, turning barbarian (speakers of a language other than Greek and Latin) into Barbar, the name of a race descended from Noah. While unifying the indigenous groups under one rubric, the Arabs began their Islamization. From the very beginning, Islam provided the ideological stimulus for the rise of fresh Berber dynasties. Between the 11th and 13th centuries, the greatest of those-the Almoravids and the Almohads, nomads of the Sahara and villagers of the High Atlas, respectively-conquered Muslim Spain and North Africa as far east as Tripoli (now in Libya). Their Berber successors-the Marinids at Fès (now in Morocco), the Ziyanids at Tlemcen (now in Algeria), and the Ḥafṣids at Tunis (now in Tunisia) and Bijaya (now Bejaïa, Algeria)-continued to rule until the 16th century.

Meanwhile, Berber merchants and nomads of the Sahara had initiated a trans-Saharan trade in gold and slaves that incorporated the lands of the Sudan into the Islamic world. Those achievements of the Barbar were celebrated in a massive history of North Africa ( Kitāb al-ʿIbār) by the 14th-century Arab historian Ibn Khaldūn. By then, however, the Berbers were in retreat, subjected to Arabization of two very different kinds. The predominance of written Arabic had ended the writing of Amazigh (Berber) languages in both the old Libyan and the new Arabic script, reducing its languages to folk languages. At the same time, an influx from the east of warrior Arab nomads from the 11th century onward was driving the Berbers off the plains and into the mountains and overrunning the desert. Together those factors were turning the population from Berber speakers into Arabic speakers, with a consequent loss of original identities. From the 16th century onward the process continued in the absence of Berber dynasties, which were replaced in Morocco by Arabs claiming descent from the Prophet and elsewhere by Turks at Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli.

When the French conquered Algeria in the 19th century and Morocco in the 20th, they seized on the distinction between the Arab majority and the Berbers of the mountains. On the strength of Ibn Khaldūn's history, the latter were once again classified as a people under their modern name of Berbers. The identification and description of their language, the anthropological study of their society, and their geographical isolation all gave grounds for their separate administration as a people going back before the time of Islam to a pagan and Christian past. Those colonial studies and policies have determined much of the history of the Berbers down to the present but meanwhile have left a record of their manners and customs before the advent of modernity.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the Berber world had been reduced to enclaves of varying size. In Tripolitania and southern Tunisia those were chiefly formed by the hills of the Nafūsah Plateau and the island of Jerba, in eastern Algeria by the mountains of the Aurès and Kabylie, and in Morocco by the ranges of the Rif, the Middle and High Atlas, the Anti-Atlas, and the Saharan Atlas. In southern Morocco they consisted of the oases of the Drâa valley, and in the northern Sahara mainly those of the Mʾzab with those of Ghadames, Touggourt, and Gourara. In the central and southern Sahara was the vast area of the Ahaggar mountains and the desert to the south.

The economy was largely subsistence agriculture and pastoralism practiced by farmers, transhumants, and nomads, coupled with weaving, pottery, metalwork, and leatherwork, and local and some long-distance trade. Dwellings varied from caves to pitched-roof houses to flat-roofed "castles" to tents. Whatever the dwelling, its construction was designed to create an interior ruled by the women of the family. Outside the home, women would gather at the fountain or well and at the tomb of the local saint, whereas men would meet at the mosque or in the street and square. In the case of the nomadic and matrilineal Tuareg of the central Sahara, the camp was largely controlled by the women, who chose their husbands and, with their songs, were central to social gatherings.

The dwelling was home to the nuclear, usually patrilineal family, which was the basic unit of a tribal group going under the name of a common ancestor, whose Ait, or people, they claimed to be. In principle all families and clans were equal, governed by codes of honour likely to give rise to feuds but also by a council of elders, the jamāʿah, who kept the peace by adjudication, rulings on compensation, and determination of punishments. In fact the various societies were not egalitarian. The village and the clan regularly admitted newcomers as inferiors, and the ruling elders came from leading families. If villages or clans went to war, as they frequently did, a chief might be chosen who on the strength of his prowess might attract clients, form his own army, and-like the lords of the High Atlas about 1900-establish his own dominion. The Tuareg of the Ahaggar and southern Sahara, also called Blue Men because of their indigo-dyed robes and face veils, were aristocratic nomads ruling over vassals, serfs, and slaves who cultivated the oases on their behalf; they in turn recognized supreme chiefs or kings, who were called amenukals. They had preserved a form of the old Libyan consonantal script under the name of Tifinagh, though most writing was in Arabic, by a class of Muslim scholars. Such saintly scholars were everywhere figures of authority, and among the Ibadi Berbers of the Mʾzab they ruled the community.

While many of those features of Berber society have survived, they have been greatly modified by the economic and political pressures and opportunities that have built up since the early years of the 20th century. Beginning with the Kabyle of Algeria, emigration from the mountains in search of employment created permanent Berber communities in the cities of the Maghrib as well as in France and the rest of western Europe. That emigration in turn has conveyed modern material and popular culture back into the homelands. The independence of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania, Mali, and Niger meanwhile created a new political situation in which Berber nationalism made its appearance. That circumstance was largely a reaction to the policies of the new governments, which have frowned on a separate Berber identity as a relic of colonialism incompatible with national unity. In Morocco the monarchy felt threatened, first by the French use of Berbers to dethrone the sultan in 1953 and second by the role of Berber officers in the attempted assassinations of the king in 1971-72. In Algeria the rebellion in Kabylie in 1963-64 was further justification for a policy of Arabization, resented by Berbers not least because many had been educated in French. Berber studies were forbidden or repressed in both Morocco and Algeria, but in Algeria in 1980-81 the cancellation of a lecture on Berber poetry touched off a "Berber Spring" of demonstrations in Kabylie that were energized by popular Berber songs and singers.

Berberism under the name of Imazighenity (from the Berber Amazigh, plural Imazighen, adopted as the proper term for the people) was meanwhile formulated academically by Berbers in Paris who founded the journal Awal in 1985. Berber languages have been revived as a written language called Tamazight (the name of one of the three Moroccan Berber languages) with a modified Latin script as well as Tifinagh, and the people and their culture have been fleshed out in print through UNESCO's ongoing publication of the French-language Encyclopédie Berbère (1984- ).

Growing demands for the recognition of Berbers-in theory as the original inhabitants of North Africa and in practice as distinct components of its society-have met with some success. Tamazight is studied in Algeria and since 2002 has been recognized as a national, but not official, language; despite popular unrest in Kabylie, Berbers have yet to achieve a strong political identity in an Algerian democracy. Berberism in Morocco has led to the creation of a Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture, to schoolteaching in Tamazight, and finally, since 2011, to the recognition of Tamazight as an official language, all in the interest of national unity under the monarchy. Meanwhile, Berber culture provides the invaluable tourist industry with much of its cachet: its distinctive architecture, crafts, and costumes set in a romantic landscape that is specifically Moroccan. In Libya the overthrow of Muammar al-Qaddafi opened the way for the Berbers of the Nefūsah Plateau to demand a recognized position in the new order, but the Tuareg from abroad whom Qaddafi had recruited into his army were driven out of the country. The Algerian Tuareg of the Ahaggar were turned into cultivators, their nomadism surviving only as a tourist attraction. But the Tuareg soldiers returned to the southern Sahara to reignite, in concert with Islamic militants, a long-standing conflict of their people with the governments of Mali and Niger over Berber minority status and to make yet another demand for separate status. Although the outcomes of contemporary conflicts remain uncertain, Berberism is sufficiently established as an ideology and as a cultural and political program to provide the scattered communities of Berbers with a new national identity in place of the old anthropological one.

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Berber | Definition, People, Languages, & Facts

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Berber, any of the descendants of the pre-Arab inhabitants of North Africa. The Berbers live in scattered communities across Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Mali, Niger, and Mauritania. They speak various Amazigh languages belonging to the Afro-Asiatic family related to ancient Egyptian.

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What concerns do you have about current and future healthcare for yourself and your family members?

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What concerns do you have about current and future healthcare for yourself and your family members?

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Z: "I am not specifically concerned about my health, but I am concerned about the general direction of the healthcare system in this country, the cost of medical expenses, and the healthcare system structure."

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What is the family structure in your current home?

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What is the family structure in your current home?

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Z: "Just me and your dad!"

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Did you move directly to your current home or did it take several moves to get you where you are today?

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Did you move directly to your current home or did it take several moves to get you where you are today?

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Z: "I originally came over to work for Disney so I first lived in Florida. I followed love to Pittsburgh, but it did not work out. However, I decided to stay here."

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What age were you when you left your birthplace?

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What age were you when you left your birthplace?

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Z: "I was 20 years old when I left Morocco."

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What was the family structure like for you in Morocco?

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What was the family structure like for you in Morocco?

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Z: "I am one of seven children.  We lived with our mother and father.  In Morocco it is customary to live with your parents until you either marry or a new job forces you to move."

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Who is being interviewed and what is their age?

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Who is being interviewed and what is their age?

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Zineb who goes by "Z", age 44

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In what part of the world were you born in?

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In what part of the world were you born in?

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Z: "I was born in Khimesset, Morocco. It is about 2 hours from the Atlantic Ocean."