Tetouan, Chefchaouen, and Eid

Eid Mubarak! Ramadan is over and I can finally eat Magnum Double Chocolate bars in broad daylight. Alhamdulillah.

This week, one of the Yes Abroad alumni that I met took me to the “Mega-Mall” in Rabat. When I heard “Mega-Mall” I was assuming some kind of mall that would be somewhat bigger than just a normal mall. I was wrong, the mall was painfully small. A lot of kids on the program talked about how comforting being in a mall was, but I disagree. Some sweet corn is comforting, being in a mall was just about the same as being in the McDonalds. It’s cool to see, but doesn’t have the same feel. I also got some frozen yogurt there (add this to the list of foods I miss). It left something to be desired.

Our group project this week was a trip to the Sale medina. It’s a much more practical medina than ours in Rabat, in that most items are being sold for daily usage rather than for tourists. It felt more like a legitimate medina, but I also don’t really need household item so there wasn’t a lot of shopping to be done. However, I finally found a gift for my father, so I suppose it was all worth it.

Last Friday we made our departure up to Tetouan and Chefchaouen. I was really excited about this trip. Northern Morocco is incredibly close to Spain and so many citizens up there speak Spanish. My Spanish is just a couple skips over survivalist, but I have a much better grasp on it than I do on Arabic. It was nice to be a little more comfortable communication-wise than I've been in the past 6 weeks.  

Anyway, we first made our way up to Tetouan, where we stayed at a resort right off the Mediterranean. I was pretty pumped about seeing the Mediterranean, and I wasn’t disappointed. It was really beautiful. My Tetouan roommates and I walked along the beach and picked up shells (which were huge, by the way), and sort of went swimming. The water was really cold, so the whole group lasted about 7 minutes before evacuating to the heated hotel pool.

We then went to the medina in Tetouan. It was very large and crowded, and I didn’t really get that much. It’s cool to compare the medinas though. The more “authentic” medinas I visit, the more I realize just how much Rabat caters to tourists.

But something happened in the Tetouan medina that made my night. Like I’ve said before, the kids in the group poke fun at how much I love Iowa. This means that we end up talking about Iowa a lot. The more we discuss it, the more I really miss things from Iowa. Namely, sweet corn. Anyway, my group is meandering around the medina, when suddenly I see two little girls walking around gnawing on some corn. I now know it’s out there.  We run around quite a bit until I see it- my corn. I ask the guy, in Spanish (PTL for Spanish) if I could just take a picture with his corn. He looked very confused. But he says yes, and I finally get a reunion picture with my corn. The guy was hardcore judging me in the picture, and I don't even care. Alhamdulillah for corn. I didn't get any though. My mom says that she has a bunch waiting for me at home, and I wouldn’t want to adulterate my memory of sweet corn.

Anyway, after the medina we all headed back for the hotel. I really wanted to look at the stars from the beach, so I dragged my Tetouan roommates (Charlotte and Jenny) down to the beach. We just kind of stayed out there for a really long time. At about 2:30 in the morning, I went back to the hotel room to get at least some sleep. I woke back up at 4:00 and went out to see the sun rise over the sea. It was completely and totally worth the sleep deprivation. At 6:30 we all headed back to the hotel room.

The next morning we had the option to stay at the beach or head out with Sarah to a souq. Of course, I like making things hard for myself, so at 8:00 I got up to go with about 9 others to go see this weekly souq that was about an hour away from Tetouan. The souq was very crowded because Eid was approaching. A group of us just walked straight through the souq and headed for this huge gravel farm. They had these giant gravel piles that we climbed up. It was really cool to see how this town was just encased by these huge mountains. Never has the panoramic function on an iPhone been more relevant.

After climbing down and reuniting as a group, we took a very scenic drive to Chefchaouen.

Chefchaouen has got to be my favorite city that we visited this whole trip, and we’ve seen a lot of pretty cool cities. I would go back in a second, right now if I could. The big tourist pull for Chefchaouen is that the whole city is painted blue. We got there that night and just walked around the medina. The different blues painted on doorways and on streets was breathtaking. Everything was just so picturesque. We walked down all of these different alleys, stumbled upon little girls practicing a dance routine, and bought trinkets at these stores tucked away in the walls. I loved it.

However, after all of that, I was operating on very little sleep and so I went to bed at like 11.

A problem that I’ve been encountering a lot recently is that I can’t sleep when it’s light out. I’m like that little girl from Frozen with the “When the sky’s awake, I’m awake” thing. In Iowa, I apparently have shades that prevent this problem. In Morocco, I don’t have that luxury. So every morning, like clockwork, I’m up at 6:30. So, when I woke up at 6:30 in Chefchaouen, I figured I should get stuff done. I went down to the pool and swam around, by myself, until the sun rose. It was maybe one of my favorite parts of the whole weekend trip. I was the only one in the pool, or awake at all for that matter, and I just got to watch the sun come up over these mountains and slowly light up the city. It was pretty awesome. I then packed my suitcase, talked with a friend for 30 minutes on her birthday, read part of a book, wandered around (and got lost in) the city, and ate breakfast all before my roommates even woke up. On the city note though, I got lost in that city for an hour and a half. I started out and somewhere along the way realized that I had no idea where I was. It’s very hard to remember landmarks when literally every landmark is blue.

During that walk though, I saw a lot of really adorable cats, so I feel like it was worth it.

After everyone woke up, we wandered around the medina a little more and then got packed up to go home.

That night, I had ftour at Charlotte’s house. Because I live with vegetarians, I had yet to try the harira with meat. It was really cool to see how another family functioned- they had bucket showers and also bucket toilets of a sort. They also watched TV during dinner, something we were told at PDO that happens frequently in Morocco, although my family never has.

I’ve been kind of scrambling to put my final project together and study for the last test on Thursday, so that’s what I did during the last day of Ramadan.

Then we had the first day of Eid. Our host mom made a variety of insanely good Moroccan treats and she and my host dad dressed up in their traditional garb. Eid is a day when friends and relatives come and visit. Guess who came to our house? You guessed it- Marwan. He looked adorable as ever in his little traditional outfit and tiny hat. I died.

Manal, Catherine, Elizabeth, and I

We spent the whole day talking on the couch, looking at pictures, and eating the treats. Eid is seen as a day set aside for family, so we hung out all day.

That night I went out with Chloe and Kayla. We were just going to walk down Mohammed V Avenue, but we stumbled upon what was, as best as I could tell, some kind of Moroccan military marching band show. There were elaborate routines and entire bands riding on horses through the streets. It was pretty incredible, but even more so because we had just found it by chance. It was like an equivalent 4^th of July. Everyone seemed pretty happy that Eid had come.

Anyway, we're going to be leaving in about 2 days. I had the scary realization last night that I have more gifts to get and a suitcase to pack. I also have a test to study for and a project to do. I'm not even going to think about actually leaving until it's absolutely necessary. I mean, I love my corn, but I'm not sure I want to leave yet.

Marrakech

I have found the only hebebe I care about. His name is Marwan, he is five years old, and his parents are the caretakers for the building I live in. Every time I pass him on my way out the door, I’ll ask him “Lebes?” and he’ll reply “Lebes.” We’ve been doing this for about 4 weeks now. I eventually worked up to asking him for his name and his age. Then I met his brother, who seems to be about as old as me. He speaks English very well, and I told him that his little brother was absolutely adorable. He then called Marwan out of his room and into the hallway, and told him to give me a kiss on the cheek. I died. I have found the only hebebe I need. He’s one of those five year olds who rides a plastic tricycle around the lobby and makes the car noises while he does it. Or he will throw the ball at the wall as hard as he can and chase it around until he catches it. What a cute kid. I asked his brother if I could take him home with me and he said “my mother probably wouldn’t like that.” I definitely couldn’t fit him in my suitcase anyway. Oh well.

I’m getting the point of have a daily example of how klutzy I am. We live on the 2^nd floor of a 4 story building, where the ground floor is considered the 0 floor. One morning, the caretaker of our building was mopping 1^st floor, (one floor below mine but one before I get to the ground floor.) I stepped off the stairs and slid a little. I did the windmill arms to keep myself upright. He looked very concerned and did the stop-sign hand that’s kind of double as a “do you have your balance” and I gave him the “I’m good” wave, the “thanks for being so concerned but I totally got this.” I painstakingly walked over the incredibly wet floor, and got to the next set of stairs. I was unaware he had mopped these as well. I put one foot on the stair, and watched in slow motion as my foot swung vertically into the air. I smashed backwards into the top stair. It was not fun. I now have five very colorful bruises because of it. When I got home that night my host family had a good laugh over how all of these accidents seem to happen to me. It's just a gift that I have.

Our Arabic class during break

We've still been hitting the Arabic grind hard. Next week we have Eid so there won't be class until Thursday, meaning that we've have about 2 days of class left. We've been speeding through rather quickly. One of my favorite language disparities that happened this week had to do with my host family and some glass coke bottles. In the Oudayas there’s a café that serves Coke in glass bottles with the words “Coca-Cola” written in Arabic on the side. I thought that was the coolest thing in the world, so I down a coke just to have the souvenir. I asked some of the other members of the group for their bottles as well. Anyway, I brought these bottles home with me, and they sat on my shelf for about a week. When we returned from Marrakech, I asked my host father where they were. He said something along the lines of “Sellway” and I thought he was saying “Sale,” like the city right next door. I figured this meant he had thrown them away and there was some kind of dump in Sale. I later asked a Moroccan friend and he said that “Sellway” is the word for garbage. Incidentally, the city of Sale is sometimes called “Sellway” by outsiders because they think it’s a dump. Either way my coke bottles are gone so I’m going to have to go back and down some more Coca-Cola. Ugh.

On my 3rd glass of orange juice

We went to Marrakech this week, and I really enjoyed it. We only went to the medina and the Majorelle gardens, so we didn’t get an extensive view of the city, but I did enjoy the parts we visited. I spent like 8 hours in that medina. The shopkeepers there are incredibly impressive- they can converse in multiple different languages on the turn of a pin. Although it’s kind of disheartening when someone immediately begins the conversation in English because then you just know that you reek tourist. Great. I also had like three glasses of orange juice there. There have got to be 50 orange juice shops, all selling 4 dirham glasses of orange juice. It was amazing. I’m also almost done with gifts, alhamdulilah. I think I have something for every family member, except my father, because he is impossible to shop for.

Marrakech at night

I wore a new jellaba in Marrakech, and I got 27 comments on it (a boy in our group counted). Random shop owners would be like “beautiful jellaba, Fatima.” I have no idea if they were trying to lure me into their shop, or if they were just mocking me, but I thanked every single one who said something. I felt so good about that jellaba when I left. Like, according to the shopkeepers in the Marrakech medina, I pretty much had the most beautiful jellaba known to man. Yeah, the more I think about it, the comments probably weren’t genuine. Ah, whatever,

 We went back to the medina at night, and it was incredibly cool. There were snake charmers and monkeys, contortionists and thousands of lamps. It had totally transformed since that afternoon. The change was amazing.

One stairway leading to the house

             The next day we went to the Marjorelle gardens. It had been the former home of the Yves Saint Laurent. There was a whole garden segment with extensive trees and flowers and sharp contrasts of blue and yellow. It was absolutely beautiful. There was also a large blue house in the center of the garden. He patented this specific shade of blue and used it throughout the garden. It was such a gorgeous shade of blue. I can't get over how absolutely stunning it was.

Anyway, we’ve got exactly one week left before we head back to America. I would like to take the next few lines to question why on God’s green Earth I am being flown back through New Jersey. Why am I not going to Chicago? That makes no sense to me. We have a boy here from New Jersey, and I was explaining that there is probably only one flight to Iowa because Iowans don’t tend to go to New Jersey, so if I missed it I was screwed. We got into this whole tizzy about New Jersey, where I learned that no one says “New Joisey” and that only one member of the “Jersey Shore” cast is from New Jersey. He also tried to claim Billy Joel, but I firmly believe that New York gets to lay claim to Billy Joel. But still, why not Chicago? If I get stuck at an airport, I do not want it to be in New Jersey. At least if I was in Chicago, I would know exactly where to go if I got stuck.

I’ve also started to put together a list of food that I really need to eat in the 14 days I have before I head out for college. Mom, this section is specifically for you. My list of foods that I miss: sweet corn, raspberries, bacon, ham balls, actually just anything made with pork, sesame chicken, sweet corn, Qdoba, pad thai, cheesecake, and sweet corn. The repetition of sweet corn was intentional. I need to get my hands on some sweet corn. Really badly. We talk about it a lot on this program due to my love of Iowa, a

nd the more I talk about it, the more I realize I would really like some good old Iowa sweet corn. A boy from upstate New York said that they had pretty good sweet corn, and I told him he had no idea how good sweet corn could get unless he went to Iowa. I also need some Dr. Pepper, because I haven’t had that for 5 weeks. That’s longer than when I gave it up for Lent this year, and it was willingly when it was for Lent.

When we started this program, they told us that we were citizen ambassadors for the United States. I feel like I am doing a much better job acting as a citizen ambassador for Iowa. Because I can rave about Iowa for hours. Is there a state that has nicer people, cuter towns, and better sweet corn? No, there isn't. I've had four people tell me that they would like to visit Iowa after hearing me talk about it. I never thought I’d be sitting on a bus preaching about how much I love corn mazes, but that has happened more than once. I get a bit of crap about my enthusiasm, but I feel like it is my sole duty to promote Iowa’s tourism industry. So far, I’m doing a pretty good job, If I do say so myself. It’s not like a have a lot of work to do though, Iowa pretty much promote itself.

Now the group is headed up North for the weekend. I’m pretty pumped about finally getting to use some Spanish, and also seeing the Mediterranean. Hopefully I won’t trip over too much while I’m there.

I also apologize if the blog posts are pushed together in the coming days. Due to a lack of wi-fi this weekend, I'm going to have to push a couple of events together that happened quite a few days apart. Just pretend along with me.

An Abundance of Hebebes

In the past 7 days I’ve gained 1 carpet, 2 books, 5 hebebes, and multiple band-aids.  It’s just been one of those weeks.

Our group excursion this past Tuesday was to Khemisset, a small village with a famous weekly carpet souk. I really wanted a rug. I asked the group leader for her book on traditional Moroccan carpets because I find them so fascinating. I read the whole thing. I love carpets. The way in which they make each of the dyes, create each carpets to reflect the region it originated from, and how the whole lifestyle of those who weave carpets play out is so incredibly interesting. So I was really pumped about finding a rug.

The problem was that my mother also told me that if I found a rug for the house, I should get it.

I couldn't handle that kind of pressure. I found a rug for myself, but I have no idea what I’m going to do with it. It neither fits my bedroom or my dorm, I just loved it. I didn't, however, see a rug I liked for the house. I needed like a dark green, or maybe a light purple of some kind. These bold reds and oranges didn't match and it tore me apart on the inside. I was disappointed that I didn't find anything, but there’s always Marrakech (this is becoming my new catch-phrase).

Our familial trip this week was when our host mother took us to a city nicknamed “The City of Beautiful Art.” All of these artisans had gathered into a city and put all of their works on display: paintings, woodwork, metal work, and every item you can think of in clay form. These clay pots were everywhere, drying on roofs and swallowing the entrances of their respective stores in huge piles. It was quite impressive to see the amount of artisans in this city in one concentrated location. It was also neat to see all the stages of the clay posts- from the shaping to the drying to the finished product.

I feel like an uncultured swine at my house. Elizabeth and Catherine are constantly reading books with lofty titles like “The General’s Daughter” or “Dune.” I love reading, don’t get me wrong, but I also love binge-watching Netflix. They actually make me feel bad with how little TV they've even heard of. (“No M*A*S*H*? No ‘I Love Lucy’? No ‘The Office’? Or ‘Andy Griffith Show’ or ‘Community’ or ‘Breaking Bad’ or ‘Monk’? Guys?)

So since they don’t have that much TV under their belt, we talk a lot about their books. Whenever we talk about books, they’re all about these left-wing utopias they just read while my latest contribution is Mindy Kaling’s “Is Everyone Hanging out without Me? (And Other Concerns)”. While Kaling’s book was hilarious and I highly recommend it, by no means did this book serve as a parallel metaphor to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. So I've resolved to fix this problem. I asked our group leader, Sarah, for a book from her traveling collection. I now intend to actually march around the house carrying James Joyce’s “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” (You may have heard of James Joyce because of, oh, you know, Ulysses). Whenever someone asks me what I’m reading, I also intended to introduce it that way. “I’m reading James Joyce’s ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.’ James Joyce, as you know, wrote Ulysses. Yes, Ulysses. No, I have no idea how I got to be so cultured.” Maybe then I’ll stop feeling so bad that I have some episodes of the Cosby show down by heart.

This week could only be described by the term “an abundance of hebebes.” Hebebe, as I have chosen to transliterate it, is technically “one true love” in Arabic. On this trip however, we’re choosing to use it to describe a person who has expressed interest in a girl in the program. Certain female members have many, others have few. I didn't really enter the hebebe game until this week. A group of us decided to go down to the beach where we met some Moroccans sitting around in a circle strumming guitars. Eventually we joined them in singing some American songs.

Truth be told, I was a little mystified by what is popular here. Songs like “All of Me” and “One More Night” have hit it big, and I understand that. What I don’t get is The Dixie Chicks and John Mayer being huge name artists with the young population. These kids at the beach did “Daughters,” which I knew, but after that I was pretty much done for a while. They also played some Stromae and I discovered, years behind everyone else, that I really like Stromae. I've played a cycle of “Papaoutai,” “Tous Les Memes” and “Alors On Danse” all of this week.

I absolutely loved hearing how they mixed these genres of songs together. It was a testament through song to how Rabat melts so many cultures together. They played some more traditional sounding songs for us as well, the most popular being “Zina,” which I’ve heard quite a few times since being here.

It was a fantastic experience and I loved it. But I know what you’re thinking- where do the hebebes tie into this? What a good question.

My family shuts off the wi-fi every night anywhere from 12:30 to 2:00, so the first opportunity I had to check Facebook was the next morning. I should preface this with saying that they only knew that my name was pronounced “Kyra.” Not how to spell it, not my last name, my age, my state, really not very much to go on. I woke up with 3 friend requests and various messages about how they had loved that night. I immediately sent screenshots to my father because of our ongoing gag that I am going to get married in Morocco. I just wanted to let him know that his joke might be realized here shortly. Anyway, I’ve racked up about 2 more hebebes now. We went back to the beach later that week and strummed and sang again. The beach is my absolute favorite spot in Rabat. The vast beauty truly is astonishing, and I love the people there.

In other news, I bit the dust pretty hard this week. One night, on the way back from the beach (not a night we were singing with the Moroccan group though), I had a slight problem crossing the road. To get home, I have to cross over a highway of sorts. There are 6 lanes and they are divided into three sections by two lane meridians. On my way across, I tripped over the first lane meridian. While tripping, I slammed my toe on one side of the meridian. I then crashed over the top and skidded into the middle of this busy road. I stumbled across the rest of the highway with one suddenly very slick shoe. I didn’t get hit by a car, but I had taken off a lot of the skin on my toe. It was actually looked pretty awful, and happened at a really inconvenient time (about 20 minutes before my curfew, and I was across town). I called Elizabeth and said something along the lines of “I don’t want to say my foot is gushing blood, but it’s a pretty steady stream so I’m probably going to be late.” I don’t want to freak my mom out though, so full disclosure, I’m fine. But anyway, I limped to the tram stop to discover that I had missed the last tram and there were no more coming until morning. So then I dragged myself down Mohammed V Avenue until I found where the late-night taxi drivers wait for customers to come over. I got home, just around 40 minutes late, so it took me over and hour to make a normally 20 minute trip. My whole host family was sitting in the main room waiting for me. They said it was no problem and introduced me to the cousin from Tokyo who was visiting like nothing had happened. So yeah, I quickly depleted my band-aid supply, so alhamdulilah for hanoots.

One thing we learned this week in Arabic 101 was how to talk about specializations, like “sociology” and “anthropology.” I took Spanish for 3 years and never learned those words. The way our textbook is organized is that you learn things like “to work” in the same vocab sheet as “United Nations.” Not that this is bad, now I can tell people my brother is specializing in engineering, but I also really need to learn how to tell my host mom that I will actually explode if I eat any more food. Usually we have this fun “Coolie” (Eat), “Sbat” (I’m full), “Kyra, Coolie,” “Sbat,” “Coolie!” “Sbat!” exchange, so I need some more graphic terms to use. They always go after me because I am such an easy target. I am so weak in the face of Moroccan food. I have gained like 20 pounds through cheese and bread alone. Not to mention our host mom has started putting Nutella out at every single meal, so I’m pretty much a lost cause.

This week, a group from the program also went to visit the second-hand souk in Sale (spelled with a accented "e" at the end). Sale is the sister city to Rabat known for its cheap cost of living. Many live in Sale and will commute in Rabat. The point of this being that Sale is a 20 minute tram ride away. When we got to this souk though, the whole feel was different. When they show you pictures of the poverty in Africa, they take pictures of places that look like Sale. Huge piles of trash, some dilapidated houses, and these small crowded markets. I was with a group who was not about a second-hand souk in the least bit, so we walked through the whole thing rather quickly. The souk was like a Goodwill if everything had been laid out on tables under colored tents. It was old shirts, bags, books, and games. I thought it was really interesting that we see so many pictures of cities like Sale and so few pictures of places like Rabat. Not that Sale is a bad city by any means. It felt much more cultural, and I know a lot of people who are in love with Sale. It was just interesting that this was 20 minutes away and yet it was a whole different world.

During the week we also interacted with some kids who were going with YES Abroad to America next year. I met a girl who just returned from Davenport and one girl who was headed to Ames. I have the small problem of being in love with my state, so I kind of flipped out when they let me talk to her and tell her about Iowa. Everyone seems to think it’s really funny that someone could love Iowa, but it’s not my fault that it’s the best state in the nation. I can’t help that. Now I’ll get the occasional “Hey Kyra, are you from Iowa? Do you like it there? I couldn’t tell,” and some have started calling me “Iowa.” Sorry about it, I don’t even mind. You wish your state was this cool. I did accidentally tell the girl to go to Hickory Park and get pulled pork. Oops.

In other news, we are currently headed to Marrakech, where I am planning on getting everyone souvenirs. Everyone basically told me to wait to get souvenirs in Marrakech, so that’s what I’m doing. I would like to point out that I am a pretty fantastic daughter for planning to get my family things even when they’re on vacation right now without me. Thanks, guys.

Anyway, I have to go back to reading “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” by James Joyce. You may have heard of James Joyce because of, oh, I don’t know, “Ulysses”?  Yeah, that’s right, “Ulysses.”  I am so gosh darn cultured.

Fes

View of Fes from the tannery

This weekend we had our excursion to Fes, a city two hours away from Rabat via bus. Our host dad told us that Fes was the cultural center of Morocco. Our program leader described it as being more conservative than Rabat with a more traditional approach to life. So, with our duffel bags and very modest clothing, we set out for Fes on Saturday morning.

We didn’t have loads of time to meander around the city itself, but we did spend a long time in the Old Medina. The Old Medina is like our medina in Rabat, only pushed to an insane level. It’s bigger and more like a maze than the medina in Rabat. This medina tries to get tourists lost so they spend more time and money.  Speaking from the perspective of someone who is directionally challenged, I would’ve been in there for weeks if we didn’t have a guide. I mean, we had a guide and I still got lost 3 times. I’m not kidding.

Our first stop in the medina was at a restaurant near the Blue Gate of Fes. We ate on the roof of the building after climbing up a 4 story narrow staircase. I still don’t know how they managed to bring us our food. I ordered the camel burger. That’s right, I had a camel in burger format. Contrary to what I’d heard, it tasted nothing like chicken. It was a little tougher than normal hamburger meat but I can’t really describe the taste. It had a very unique tint to it. It was good, for sure. It's not lost on me that I've eaten a camel here before I've ridden one.

My camel burger

After lunch we trekked around the old medina. It was disorienting, but completely worth it. We visited the tannery (Fes is known for its leather), the old mental institute that sits in the center of the medina, and a large conglomeration of copper-workings with a lot of smaller stores in-between. Not to snitch on gifts, but I got Evan the one present he asked for, so older sister mission accomplished. The best part about the medina was probably how people would walk through the narrow streets with their donkeys just about every five minutes. It made you feel pretty cultural.

After we all made it through the medina, (why yes, the group did have to wait for me to find my way yet another time), we went back to the hotel and had iftar. My host mom does it better. Just saying. After dinner the group went to the hammams in Moulay Yacoub, a city known for the healing power of its sulfur water.

The next day our group visited Volubilis, a ruin of an ancient Roman settlement. Gaius Octavius extended the Roman Empire into Morocco during the Pax Romana, and that’s how we got Volubilis. Lauren, one of the girls on this trip, is very into Roman history and she was running me through the elaborate past of the ruins while we visited. She pointed out the aqueducts, would say whether the tile had Islamic or Roman origins, and she actually cried when she saw the bath houses. I was not that well-informed about Volubilis before going, nor am I incredibly passionate about Roman History, but I definitely could appreciate how gorgeous it was. What was even more impressive was how magnificent it was on such a massive scale. It was pretty amazing.

This week has been a pretty intense week language-wise. They really push through the material. One week ago we were going over simple nouns and now this week we’re doing irregular plurals, possessives, and verb conjugations. In fact, I have a test tomorrow over all of this. As you can imagine, I’m slightly less prepared than I want to be.

One thing that we did this week to work on our Darija (regional dialect) was a facilitated language learning activity. We had to find around 6 locations by asking different civilians where things were.The problem is that Morocco has a certain custom about directions. Basically, if you ask where something is and the person doesn’t know, they make it up. So we got quite a few detailed directions to absolutely nowhere. Our Language Learning Partner was being very obedient to the rule that he shouldn't help us, so we pretty much trekked across the whole city. We walked past one building five times before we realized it had been what we were looking for. Such a fun time.

The secrets of mint tea

In other news, I have seen two semi-riots and four fights in the past couple of days. It was explained to me that this happens during Ramadan because people are reacting to the lack of nicotine. It’s a little nerve-wracking to see, but the police are on high patrol during the month so I've never seen it get to an intense level.

But by far the most important thing that happened this week was that my host mom showed me step by step how to make mint tea. My life is absolutely complete. There is nothing more I need to do here. Well, except learn how to make all of this food. That might take a while.

I Wasn't Good at Fasting

Ramadan has begun.

I thought I knew this city. Since Ramadan hit, everything has changed. Not exactly in a bad way, but in a “is there a restaurant still open where I can eat lunch” kind of way. The city completely shuts down during the day. There’s very little honking, the streets are quiet, and it’s incredibly hard to find an open store. The stores that are open have turned all of their lights off. The will leave the door slightly ajar, so as not to draw attention, and then those exempt from Ramadan know that it's open. Then at night, everything wakes up. I didn’t know that there were so many teenagers here. Masses of them emerge at night and fill the restaurants and parks. The honking that was blissfully absent during the day returns with a vengeance, and the community comes together to celebrate their successful day of fasting. It’s pretty awesome.

                I did try fasting and made it all of two days. The first day I tried the traditional Ramadan fast that everyone does. No food, no water. At first, it wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be. I don’t generally drink that much in the first place, and I just had to wait a little later for dinner. But around 5, I was really starting to feel it. Iftar starts at 7:45 or right after the call to prayer. I was skyping my brother at the time when our host dad called us to dinner. I stopped Joshua in the middle of a sentence, told him that I was far too hungry to delay dinner any longer, slammed the computer shut and pretty much bolted to the table. Our host mom had 2 tables set up with all of this gorgeous food out. I recognized only the dates, everything else was something I’d never seen before.

               

                My host sister, Manal, told me that since I had been fasting, the first food I needed to eat was a date. In Muslim culture, dates are considered to be the healthiest food you can eat, which is why you use them to break the fast on a day when you had no nutrients, I’ve got to say, I’m not a huge fan of dates. I thought they would be another Moroccan food that vastly improves overseas, but it wasn’t the case. I just don’t like dates. Everything else was absolutely amazing. Everything was very new to me, but it was still incredibly good. Completely worth the wait.

                Anyway, fasting wore me out so I went to bed at 9:00 and was woken up at 2:30 am for suhoor. This is the last meal that can be eaten before the sun rises. At 3:36 the canon goes off which signals the end of eating and the beginning of the fast. The suhoor consisted of beef and cauliflower plus the ever-present Danon. Neither of my roommates wanted to try fasting, so it was just me and my host family. It was a really lovely meal but it was far too early in the morning. I went back to bed around 3.

                The next morning I felt very dehydrated and sick. I was contemplating calling the program coordinator and asking to stay home. However, with the amount of Arabic we go over in a day, I didn’t think I could afford to lose any class time. I was really determined to make it through fasting for a week though, so I did a water fast that day, where you can drink water but not eat. My roommates and I went to see the Mausoleum where Mohammed V and his two sons are buried. There were men on horses guarding the grounds, a lot pillars in rows, and these white and green buildings that held Mohammed V and his sons. I thought the most interesting part was the Koran reader in the corner. Multiple things in Rabat are named after Mohammed V (a tram stop, a university, the airport), so it was interesting to see another way Moroccans commemorated his life.

                That evening I told my host mom over (a once again delicious) iftar that I have gotten sick this morning. Apparently, if you get sick you aren’t supposed to fast. So it was kind of decided for me that I had been kicked out of the fasting program. I didn’t really know that I had been removed until I woke up at six the next morning and realized no one had knocked for suhoor. So that was that. I felt ill again anyway, so maybe it was better to stop fasting altogether. Consistently being sick in a foreign nation is not my idea of a fun time.

                So I ate breakfast which my daily dose of Laughing Cow Cheese. There is an obsession with Laughing Cow Cheese over here. I have yet to see another kind of cheese. I’m a little obsessed with it, mainly because we eat it every day at almost every meal. I think at college I’m going to stock my dorm room with Laughing Cow Cheese and mint tea. I don’t think that I could live without them at this point. Anyways, after breakfast my roommates and I headed off to school.

                So I lasted 2 whole days of Ramadan and I feel like such a weakling. I was going for a week and just didn’t get close at all. I thought I gave it a nice effort, but it turns out that I'm not all that great at fasting.

                In other news, I finally found Balghas in my size. Yes, in order to do so I did have to get the men’s shoes. They are incredibly comfortable. The best way to describe them is that they are like slippers that have a harder flat bottom so they double well for walking. I told Manal that they looked kind of life elf shoes. She didn’t know what an elf was, but once I looked it up and showed her, she laughed and agreed.

 

The World Cup is still going strong. I watched Algeria’s painful loss to Germany and the US losing to Belgium. Not a good week in terms of teams I was rooting for. I love watching the games with my host father. In the US versus Belgium game, it was a lot of "USA" chanting and the return of the good old Washington DC hat. I also took some photographic evidence of how much of a community affair each game is. 

Paris and I at the ruins

              Our group trip during this week was to the Chellah ruins. I’m not the best at Roman history, but it was explained to me it’s the ruins of an ancient Roman settlement. There was some kind of earthquake and the city was abandoned in favor of its neighbor, Sale. The ruins were pretty amazing. There were no posted rules anywhere, so people were walking wherever they wanted and climbing down into the crevices. It was so different that the strict reinforcement the US has on many historical items. I was just beginning to think that there wasn't any enforcement of policy at all, but then, the security system emerged. It was a guy with a whistle. What a fun country. The Chellah ruins get a thumbs up from me.

               But the best part of my week was definitely when I went to a Moroccan TGI Friday’s. Because it's Ramadan, the crowd started to appear around 9:30/10:00. I went with Lauren, who is another girl in the program who had just been to the restaurant the night before. The Moroccan TGI Friday’s is a party. The music is blaring, every chair is full, and there is this huge Karaoke screen taking up the front wall.

               

Lauren, my karaoke buddy 

                I never really had a dream of one specific thing I needed to do in Morocco. I didn't have one overarching experience I had hoped for going into the program, but I discovered it on a Wednesday at 9 pm in a packed restaurant.

                Singing karaoke in a Moroccan TGI Friday’s was and is my dream. I couldn't keep still once I realized how much I needed to be a part. Lauren, who had sung the night before, went and got the karaoke book. There was a section for Arabic songs and a section for English songs. Flipping through, I noted the vast amount of Billy Joel tunes. I picked “Only the Good Die Young." It's one of my favorites and it was the last song he sang on his recent tour stop in St. Louis (which was the first time I ever saw him sing live). It all came together so nicely. Although the song isn't really in the best place for me range-wise (I have to shift octaves every once in a while) I had to do it.

               

                The DJ handed me the mic and I got up and stood in between two tables packed with Moroccan guys. One guy asked “What are you singing, America?” I told him, and he replied “Interesting, America, interesting.” Then the DJ actually told the crowd that I was “America” and the song started.
                 It was the most positive karaoke environment I've ever experienced. There was constant commentary and yelling and shouts of "America!" I have found my place in Morocco. It was amazing. I was followed by a man singing the most flamboyant version of “Don’t Stop Me Now” that I’ve ever heard. It's my place.
            
                Anyway, that's what's been happening recently in Rabat, Morocco. Tomorrow is America's birthday and then we depart for Fes. No one here really considers America's birthday to be a big deal (we have our first test on Independence day, for goodness sake). I'm planning on walking around in red, white, and blue and singing every patriotic song I know.