Day 13 - 3/21/12 - Casa: Visit to the Hospital

We are up by 7:00 am and waiting in the lobby.   Hilda and I grab eggs and tea across the street in the snack shop.

Everyone meets at the Rabat Ville train station to catch the 8:00 am train to Casablanca where Gabrielle has promised to meet us at 9:00 sharp with “Deux grand taxi.”     She is there as promised and we all cram into the two large white Mercedes, which represent our means of travel around Casa, which is not as walkable as Rabat.

At the hospital - (http://www.aufaitmaroc.com/maroc/societe/2011/4/13/lart-de-soigner)  - Hopital Ibn Rochd – University Hospital Centre – we are greeted by Boushra Benrazzi who is the sole practicing art therapist in the country of Morocco and works with adult psychiatric patients.   Boushra has a diploma in art therapy from the faculty of medicine in Tours, France and  is interested to learn of American approaches to art therapy.

Ibn Rochd University Hospital Center

She shows us around the facility, which is housed in a series of low, white washed stucco buildings surrounded by gardens.  The sun is bright and the sky is a lovely blue.   The facility looks charming in cheerful in this light.  Bougainvillea and other flowers grow along the walk ways.

Boushra points out the gardener who is busy in one of the many gardens.  She has commissioned various artists to create bright, abstract cheerful images on some of the blank walls.

She herself is a tall, energetic person with a wonderful wide smile, who wears bright orange pants and big hoop earrings as well as a white lab coat to distinguish herself as clinical staff.   But the reality of the hospital is far more grim as this is not a private facility but state funded and suffers from lack of funding just like state psychiatric facilities in the states.   She tells us that for extra amenities a basic as soap they must rely on donations.   We see blankets laid out on bushes in the sun.

Solar power to dry blankets

It’s clear they must be washed by hand and then dried this way as an inexpensive means of laundry.   We are led through a unit for women, who are all very curious to see us and say hello.  We are, of course, asked not to photograph the patients.   Despite the wall murals meant to brighten, the unit remains spare, devoid of furnishing or personal items as is usual so that nothing can become a weapon as is often the case with a distressed or agitated person.   

Boushra show us the garden for the patients where they can grow their own flowers and peppers and other vegetables.

Tasting the fruits of the garden

She explains that she is involved in designing all of the recreational programs, such as basketball, not just the art therapy.   Sounds very familiar to us.

Boushra shows us the basketball court

We are then shown the men’s unit, which like a riad has a central garden and fountain and the sun shines down into the center,

Interior garden

but the four or five men that we see there are walking continuously around the central garden as there seems to be nothing else to do and they have energy they need to burn off.   Most of the patients wear scrubs or pajamas, except for one man with a graying beard who appears handsome, normal even except that he moves very rapidly around the perimeter and becomes annoyed if any of us impede his progress.   Surrounding the perimeter are the patients rooms, which are dark and lack the sun.   At one end are a series of doors painted bright pastel shades.   Boushra explains that they are the isolation rooms, which she has attempted to brighten up with the paint.  Indeed we see that there is one small window in the door, perhaps for checking on patients.   Another man is pointed out that is lying in his room covered by blankets.   Boushra says he rarely leaves his bed.   He is from a wealthy Islamic family, who never come to visit him and have disowned him refusing to pay for his care and so he remains at the state hospital and has for many years.     We meet one young man who is 18.  He sits with his mother, a shy young women in head scarf.    Boushra invites them to join us in the art therapy room where she takes us next.

Gabrielle by the Art Therapy Studio

As soon as we walk into the art room a feeling of calms descends.   It looks newly renovated and spacious with a large round table in the middle and a second room for storage and office space.   The spareness of the rest of the facility is replaced here by numerous paintings made by patients up on the walls and sitting in great stacks against the wall.   Four adult male patients join us in the room and sit down at the round table.  Boushra has a very gentle and loving way with her patients and it is clear from the atmosphere in the room that she is a caring and loving clinician.    Ikuko sits down to join the men

Boushra and Ikuko with patients

and the rest of us stand to observe and converse with Boushra who has numerous questions to ask us.  We each give her a synopsis of what we do in the field with what populations.   Several clinicians join us, possibly psychologists, both women who wear head scarves and white lab coats.   They speak some but not a lot of English.   Boushra seems to have a fair amount of English.  Between Gabrielle and myself we manage to translate for the group.   This task has fallen to me since Helene’s departure on Monday.  Really great for my French, but not much help the others as it is pretty bad.

With Boushra and psychology staff of hospital

Boushra shows us a number of the patients’ paintings along with some of their stories.  There seems to be a real conflation of folklore, myths and identity for some of the patients, as well as some confusion and loss of identity for some coming out of tiny village who lived in a more primitive and superstitious cultures and were now confronted with the stress and strangeness of modern society.   

We have a tight schedule though and Gabrielle reminds us that she has scheduled lunch and then a visit to a gallery in the afternoon so we must go back to the Grand Taxis for the next stop.    Boushra asks how long we are staying and seems very sad to see us disappear – 8 women all practicing the same profession, which she must do in isolation.   She says she has a house near the beach with donkeys and chickens and peacocks and that we must come and stay over night the next time.    Before we leave she presents us all with a pin made out of small flat stones and seed beads, which have been made by the patients.  Mine does not have a pin so she takes her own, which is a brilliant orange, and pins it on me.    I hope very much to return and work with her.

Pins made by patients of the hospital

The taxis loop through the crowded Casablanca streets in the direction of a restaurant that neither the cab drivers nor Gabrielle seem able to locate.

Traffic in Casablanca

I have sat in the front seat of the second cab supposedly to help out the driver with my French, but as usual it’s not much help.  Eventually we arrive and have a meal of shish kebab, tajine, the usual Moroccan fare.    Gabrielle has invited a young Moroccan/Belgian psychologist, Mouna to join us.    She describes working with developmentally delayed/MR teens and their families.   She will join us at the gallery in the afternoon where we will work with a group of children from an orphanage.  

From the restaurant Gabrielle leads us, with her brisk pace, to a printing making studio: Marsam Ateliers d’Arts Graphiques, run by Khalill Chraibi who shows us around.    We see the printing presses and a multicolor job being prepared for lithography by a young woman.    The front room is a gallery and holds work of several of the represented artists.    In the back room waiting for us are about 12 or 15 children from a Casablanca orphanage.   They are a mix of ages and disabilities.   There are numerous adults present as well, but none seem to speak much English, so Mouna is a great help because her English is very good.  Khalill, the gallery owner has arranged a few of the print tables with large sheets of paper and we assist the children to put plastic garbage bags on (with holes for the head and arms of course!) as smocks.   We are then given long brushes and acrylic paint to work with the kids.   This becomes very hectic very quickly for a number of reasons – 1) the language barrier 2) the developmental needs of the children some who are profoundly autistic and some mildly retarded or spastic 3) the cumbersomeness of the materials, and 4) the over-stimulating nature of paint.    We do the best that we can.  Mouna is a great help and asks very smart questions like:  “Isn’t this material a bit too much for these kids?”   Yes indeed it is.   Fortunately we had thought to travel to Casa with some supplies in our bag so we eventually discouraged additionally painting and brought out the dry media – pastels and colored pencils, which have a more calming effect on the kids.  

I work with Ikuko and we try and balance the needs of about five different kids who all want paint at once.    One delayed adolescent, with profound speech impediment, but great spirit has no trouble getting what she needs because she points until we get what she wants.  I work with a sweet boy who is there with his older sister.  She speaks English and tells me he has made their farmhouse when he paints a red house surrounded by figures.  He also does several self-portraits all at the developmental level of about a six year old.    He understands quite a bit of English and I learn that he has Asperberger’s syndrome and has come as a family friend of the gallery owner, whose own son is autistic.   It seems clear that the resources are perhaps not present for art programs for such kids here or they have just mixed the groups together for the experience.   Not an ideal situation for anyone and not terribly therapeutic, although the kids seemed to have fun as much as I could tell. 

After about and hour and a half of this and we encouraged and helped the kids to clean their hands and brushes and then we were all invited to have tea of course!  And delicious Moroccan almond cookies.   It was difficult to converse with the various parents and childcare workers there because of the language gap, but we next encouraged each child to hold up their work and receive applause, just as we had done with groups in Rabat.    Some were too shy and others liked this so much they had to do it several times.

Since the Grand Taxis had been paid for and dispatched, Mouna and Khalill kindly drove us to our train back to Rabat.    But first he gave us each an original print from the Moroccan artist, Meriem Mezian, who does figures in traditional dress and classic scenes of Morocco.

On the train platform, a few young Moroccan women sit near Ikuko and begin to talk to her, curious about why she, a Japanese woman, is there.   They use what English they have to communicate and soon begin bragging about their own cities and how each has the best tajine – Tangier, Marrakesh, Fez…  Soon a few more young women drift over – all strangers but who feel compelled to show off about the wonders of their country.   And soon a lively discussion ensues.   Once all strangers, we are now all friends.

Ikuko and Hilda with new friends at the 

Casablanca Train Station