Can't keep up

Tarik, after French, asks where he can learn guitar, as in class I mentioned studying art here. I walk him to the conservatoire, where he asks in Darija for the secretary.

My friend from choir, Iman, speaks to me in French or English. I teach her the word "saddlebags" and she laughs for a full minute. Some days she helps me read the Arabic songs and translates the words. "Amal; hope." "Leyli; my night."

I forget that the girl on my right doesn't speak French. "Est-ce que tu es une etudiante, aussi?" She asks Iman to translate, but I stop her and ask again. "No, beleti: Hal anti taliba aydan?" She understands my rough Standard Arabic enough to say "la."

In the hamam, the women tell me that Arabic is sahal, easy. "La, la, saab!" I say. Oriane, my hamam companion, switches to Spanish for kicks and asks me, "Piensas que tu vas a regresar a marruecos?" Then the masseuse stops by and tells me in Darija to wait: "Beleti."

After years of feeling embarrassed by my French, I use it at l'institut des beaux-arts to do les analyses and les critiques with my French-speaking Moroccan classmates. Techniques we've used so far in the printmaking class: frottages (rubbings), tampons (stamps, not tampons), pochoirs (stencils), et l'imprinte digitale (to blow images up in size). 

In Arabic class, I laugh to learn "Eshia fi Tetouan" (I'm living--temporarily is the sense--in Tetouan). "Fi Turkia, nakul nefsi shey...fiil min nefsi asal." I tell Fatima. In Turkish, you would say "Tetouan'da yaşıyorum," and the verb must have its origin in Arabic.

Alaina talks to her boyfriend on Skype in Spanish while I lesson-plan. Later I realize I'm eavesdropping. At Casa de España, she orders some kind of pescado, and when the waiter informs me that there's no tagine de pollo con almendras, I change my order to el pescado, tambien. 

Selwa, who gives me singing lessons in exchange for English conversation, asks "Comment on dit shariaa?" "Sariaa? C'est street."

Passing the violinist from the conservatoire in the street, "Ça va?" "Ça va bien, alhamdulilah."

I can't process these language experiences in Tetouan fast enough, let alone write them all down. My brain is simultaneously flooded and on fire.