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.