Ooo hey. I meant to post earlier, like after this weekend - we went to this ADORABLE town called Assilah, near Tanger, and had the coolest experience with the beach (will write more later.. promise). But, of course, scheduling was weird this week and we were basically going to class from 8:30 am til around 5 pm, one day 6 pm. And I won't be writing for a little while because... drum roll...
Rural Village Stay!! We're leaving mad early tomorrow and ahh I still have some packing to do - hence the very short little piece just so you all know what's going on.
I'll just tell my real quick story before signing out!
So before Assilah we had class, as always, on Friday. But Friday is a special day in Morocco - aside from it being the day that most people go to mosque, it's also couscous Friday! So for lunch, you can bet that a majority of Moroccans are digging into the communal ceramic bowl every Friday, enjoying that wonderful meal. But ah, you can't have couscous without washing it down with something! And my family chooses to drink leben (pronounced luh-BEN) with their meal. What's leben you say? Yeah, I didn't know either - or at least didn't know the term. Which oh.. got me in a little trouble.
So my host mom (daughter? I don't know.. the younger woman who's a motherly figure..) had just gotten out of the shower and the older woman rarely leaves the house. So my host mom asks me to do a favor.. tells me to get leben, hands me a note that has the word leben written in Arabic and Latin letters, hands me a 20 dh note (around $2) and tells me to get some of this stuff, speaking in rapid French, and tells me to go right away so we can eat. One of the only words I catch when she's describing the stuff to me is 'les vers'.. 'the greens,' or so I think. So I think I'm on a mission to get some kind of herb, I'm guessing for the older lady since she's been sick, with this 20 dh note and I have no idea how much to get. So I turn out into the little street and make my way to the nearby souk. There, I see a man selling all kinds of veggies and guess that he'd either have leben or know where I can get it. So I ask him (he has little French btw..) and he tells me I must go a long ways down the street to get some. I have no idea which stand I should be making my way to, so he ends up leading me and pointing me to a little cart. I say shukran and he leaves.
So I go up to this guy at the cart and ask him for leben, showing him the piece of paper just in case my pronunciation is totally off. The guy nods and asks how much I want. I of course have absolutely no idea, not even knowing what leben is, so ask for 10 dh worth. The guy starts scooping tons of bigger couscous into a plastic bag... I question him and say leben? and he just says yes and keeps on scooping. He then opens another bag and starts ladling some think milk looking substance into another plastic bag. Ahhh. We had this last week for lunch. It was like buttermilk or something - real thick and sour and, in my opinion, not good and not something I want to have with lunch. But anywho, I figure out that that's what I'm supposed to be getting and so tell the guy that I don't want the couscous, cause I def not supposed to get that. I hand the guy the money and wait around for a little while, double checking that this was leben, and when he doesn't give me change I walk home. Dumb.
I get home with the bag of leben and at first my family looks happy. But then my host mom looks in the bag confused, asks where the change is, and when I tell her he didn't give me change she looks real mad. Freshly showered, she throws on her headscarf and djellaba and tells me to come with her back outside. We end up walking all the way back to the guy selling leben (apparently I walked waaay too far and should have gone to a closer stand) and watch while my host mom yells at the guy at the cart, hands him the bag he gave me and demands her money back. Turns out that this was one of the carts that people come up to to have a snack and so eat couscous with leben, like cereal, at the cart before going on their way.
My host mom and I then go to a little boutique right next to the veggie stand that I'd first been to, and I watch as she gets 2 cartons of the stuff for 6 dh total. Oh. If I'd known that's what I was supposed to be getting, I so easily could have done that cause that was nothing. But omg. My host mom was super angry, cause 20 dh and 6 dh is a big difference, and she was pissed that the guy hadn't given me any change. So while she's getting the cartons of leben, she's ranting to the guy about the man with the cart, saying 'Shuma shuma!' which means 'shame!' and is used often enough when someones done something taboo. All the other shopkeepers around were of course listening and exclaiming, clearly saying things like "Oh my god! I can't believe he would do that!" and so on. So awesome. I totally brought shame on a shopkeeper in the madina. He did rip me off so I guess he had it coming, but still. I feel bad.
So yeah, I don't think my host mom was mad at me at all - I think she found it somewhat amusing. But there's my story of issues with the language barrier and having NO IDEA what I was supposed to be doing.
Talk to you after the village stay!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Alif Baa
Oops it's been a while. So, plenty has happened since the last time I posted.
I guess I'll start with the title of this post. Alif Baa! !اب Not only is that the name of the textbook I've been using recently, but it's also the names of the first 2 letters of the Arabic alphabet. Yep. We've learned the alphabet now! All 28 letters, their 3 different positions, and then the vowels that exist but people don't actually really write with. Ahh learning the alphabet really brought me back (to kindergarten, that is) - having to write the same little symbol over and over again, practicing your handwriting and trying to get everything to look juuuust right. And then of course, listening exercises and trying to distinguish between letters that sound so damn similar. It's getting better though. And oh! You take reading for granted - at our level, we've gotten to a point where you almost can't not read a sign when you see one. So we might not remember that feeling of actually being able to distinguish those weird symbols on a sign and actually know what it's talking about! Ha I'm getting to experience that feeling all over again. Signs and streets and menus aren't just incoherent pretty little symbols - sure my vocab is super minimal, but I'm actually able to sound out words now. And there are some that I can sound out and even recognize the word! Take for example Mohammad V Avenue... Sure it's an easy one. But I can actually sound out the word for avenue, and then recognize Mohammad in Arabic. Bah. Do you know how exciting this is?!? I'm excited... Oh also, I can show you what my name looks like in Arabic أنا yeaaah. Which leads me to a little story about my name that I checked and can't believe I haven't written about yet! Some of you already know so sorry to repeat. But. My name. We had to do a project on our names in 7th grade, and I found out my name means 'graceful' (ha.. yeah). It also is supposed to be a 'bridge' name - one that transcends different cultures, or bridges them even, and so can be found in a number of different languages. So I was totally unprepared for what I found here when I introduced myself to people! My name, ana, literally means "I" in Arabic. So when people asked me my name and I said "Anna," they looked at me funny like "Ok... go on.." No. That's it. Anna. Or I. My name is I. That's what it sounds like. So needless to say I've been given some other names here. A few people have been calling me "Anni," which is kind of cool. My Arabic teacher said he'd be giving us Arabic names soon, so hopefully he works on that.
So yeah, the Arabic's been taking up a lot of time. 3 hours a day! But let's see, besides that there's other things I could tell you about. This past weekend we went on our first bigger excursion as a group - the "Four Dynasties" tour. That meant leaving Rabat mad early Saturday morning and hopping on a bus to hit up Meknes first (you can see on the map - Meknes and the other cities we went to are just east of Rabat, the red dot). Meknes is the pretty little city that was the capital of Morocco for about 20 years I think? Way back in the 1500s. We visited this enormous old granary that supplied the horses in the army of the sultan - the granary could hold enough food to feed 12,000 horses for 3 years. Yeah, it wasn't small. We also went to this one shop that told us about the crafts that they make only in Meknes - like this black metalware that they hammer silver into to make designs. That was GORGEOUS - there were plates, bowls, more sculptural pieces like birds, etc. I wish we'd seen more of Meknes but right after that we got on the bus to go to Moulay Idriss - this small little town nestled in the valley between some mountain-ish hills. It's not very wealthy but apparently this town does pretty well for itself - the land's fertile, so they grow olives, wheat, and I think grapes. It's apparently a good location. Because if you drive about 15 minutes away (which we proceeded to do right after lunch, which is all we did in the town. Again, wish I'd seen more of it) you get to Volubilis! Roman ruins much? Yeah - for those who weren't aware, the Romans made it all the way to Morocco and set up camp here. The ruins we saw were kind of like what you would see at someplace like Pompeii or Ephesus - a pretty substantial town, complete with a Roman bath house, indoor plumbing, a basilica/church, brothel, etc. The ruins would be in better shape, but there was a massive earthquake in the 1700s that destroyed a lot. Still though, you got a pretty good feel for the town. The ruins were gorgeeeous. It was cute too, on 2 of the columns that are still left standing are some enormous birds nests. Apparently there are storks that spend part of the time at these ruins, where they lay their eggs, and spend the rest of the year in Paris. What a life, right?
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| Fes old walled madina |
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| Tannery in Fes |
So after time at the ruins, we drove on to Fes, which was founded in something like 791. Ah Fes. This city is huge. Our old madina, where I'm staying, can seem overwhelming to those who've never traveled it with all the winding streets. We have about 40,000-50,000 people living in the Rabat madina. Fes? about 900,000. The madina takes up something like 750 acres, and I'm pretty sure is the largest madina of it's kind. I think I could spend a year in this madina and still get lost all the time. The streets are way crazier here too - some are so super narrow, your shoulders are practically touching the walls on either side. And, the most popular form of transportation is a donkey. So, you hear "Balak!" "Attention!" often because oo hey! There's a donkey coming down the street, carrying some load for its owner. The donkeys never really looked so happy - I felt really sorry for them. But apparently some lady started a veterinarian clinic just outside the old madina, so now at least they can get treated when they're sick. But yeah, in this madina we were taken all around to different sites. Saw an absolutely beautiful madrasa, or what used to be a functioning school, that looked more like a mosque it was so finely decorated. They also took us to a leather shop, where we also got to the see the famous tanneries. Ooo lord. Talk about exploitation of workers. The owners are apparently pretty wealthy, but the workers see hardly any of the profit. The working conditions look absolutely miserable too - this picture is one I got off the internet, and let me tell you that pic is doctored. All day, guys are stuck in these huge vats of either dye or some kind of fixative, to work the leather. It looks like a huge amount of work too - the skins are enormous, and with all the absorbed liquid look really heavy. It was pretty hot in Fes, so it's got to be some pretty nasty, sweaty work. Ah lord, these are some working conditions that need some improvement soon. As soon as I get my own pictures up you can see the real thing. The smell is incredible too - when we walked in they gave us all a sprig of mint, so we could have a kind of gas mask to cover up the stench. I feel weird now, seeing all the leather goods everywhere, when I saw for myself the process of how those came to be.
Besides that though, Fes was pretty sweet. A few of us got these kaftan kind of things - apparently the new style of dress in Morocco. It's like a dress sort of thing but has a piece running along the middle. It's one piece of fabric and really hard to describe how it looks/how to put it on because it's really weird, but basically I feel like a princess in it and it's clearly Moroccan, not Western, so people in the streets always say "Ah zwina!" and clearly get a kick out of American girls wearing Moroccan dress. But I think, for the most part, they appreciate it too.
So anyways, I'm going to go to bed soon (got sick after this weekend of travels, which made an appearance during my stay in Casablanca - had to leave early, no fun. Need sleep) but before I do I just want to say one other thing I did this week that was a definite highlight! Finally visited a hammam - a Moroccan bathhouse. I went with a few of my friends, one of their host moms, and the host mom's friend and daughters - so it was a partay. We picked up this weird, brown taffy looking substance on the street that was our soap, along with some henna to mix in with the soap to get extra clean and soft. For 10 dh, we got admission into the hammam. From there, we took all our shampoo, soap, and requisite mats and made our way into one of the three rooms. If anyone has ever seen a Roman bathhouse, it was the same idea except smaller, with a long room that had an arched ceiling. We had buckets of water in front of us and... were completely naked. There wasn't a ton of lighting in the room but still - you saw everybody. Then, for 20 dh (about $2.50), a lady came over and used the scrubby thing I'd bought from off the street to scrub me down... everywhere. And whoa, my scrubby thing was pretty new, so it was like taking sandpaper to your body and rubbing hard. It was interesting though, and the whole process just felt really motherly. I felt super clean afterwards, definitely the most clean I've felt this trip. And ah, being in that pretty hot room and dumping cold water all over feel soo. good. I would definitely go back. I think we're going to try and hit up some other hammams, to do some kind of comparison. I want to go to one of the more high end hammams to get the mud masks done - that sounds sweet. But yeah, that was my interesting bit of culture I got to explore this week.
So I've got to go to bed. But I'll try and write more again soon!
WORD OF THE DAY:
Darija:
Tabib - doctor. The older woman in my house keeps telling me about the tabib, because she's apparently had to go a bunch recently and I think she's not supposed to be eating much sugar now (Ramadan definitely takes its toll on people, and a bunch of them have health problems afterwards because of all the tons of sugar they consume during that month).
Monday, September 13, 2010
Aaand normal life begins...
Before I start in with the rest of this post, I thought I'd just follow up with the juice bar thing that I ended with in my last post. I went back for a second time today because the juice bar was just that good. The first time I tried the avocado juice (didn't have much of a choice actually...) and OMG it was delicious. It was mixed with a lot of milk and I think honey, so ended up being relatively thick and almost like a smoothie, but was surprisingly light and refreshing. And today I had papaya juice, and I think they literally just blended a papaya and maybe added some water. I'm considering opening up a juice bar back in the states because I can't think of any place that has stuff like that, or at least not at a reasonable price. They didn't have it today but I'm going to have to go back for the hazelnut juice... yuuum.
But back to the rest of the post! So I guess I last left with you with the soccer game. It's kind of hard to keep track of everything but I guess I might as well start with last Thursday, since we had Thursday off (4 day weekend whaa). Actually I guess nothing too exciting happened... my friends and I had a little picnic by the river, lots of walking around the medina and the Ville Nouvelle at night. Oh! Thursday night we did get henna done though - I went with my friends host mom, her daughters, and a couple more of my friends to some ladies house to get it done. She did one of my hands and one of my feet and aahh it looked so good. We were sitting there for ages though but it was kind of funny being there - henna seems to be a little girl thing, so 4 college students looked a little out of place there. This was clearly a popping place to get henna done though, people kept coming in and out and dropping off their girls and coming back later. Awesome. After that we dropped by McDonalds to hear some live music (by the time we got there it had kind of died down). Yeah, McDonalds. Only in America is McDonalds somewhat sketch and just a place to grab some food - here it's actually considered a good meal, and apparently a place to host a band. The inside is much nicer here than in the states, for the record.
Then Friday was Aid (pronounced ay-eed). That's the celebration of the end of Ramadan, and what some people told me was roughly the equivalent to Thanksgiving/Christmas because of all the food/fam time. Sooo I woke up, got to have breakfast with my family for the first time since I've been here, and then went to put on a long dress since I'd have to sit and greet people with the rest of the family. But oops, dress is not the proper attire for Aid. My host mom (sister? whatever.. the younger one) brought out one of her fancy shmancy satiny djellabas for me to wear for the day - pics will go up eventually, but I can tell you that I still looked pretty damn American. The two women made me put on makeup too and then wanted pictures of me in a couple of the rooms wearing the djellaba - it felt like prom all over again ha. Felt cool wearing my Moroccan slippers and with my fresh henna though, to complete the look. But anyways, two men came over first, my host mom's brother and his son (too many new names/can't spell any of them, so sorry for not writing those down). I thought the two women I'm staying with are pretty religious, but whoa I think my host mom's brother and nephew are more so. I stood up to greet these two men in skull caps with long beards (and the younger one with kohl-rimmed eyes) as I have every other person I've met at the house (including other guys) and was quickly told that that's a no-no... these men don't touch women, so shaking their hands wasn't going to happen. Oops. The other brother came over, who is not as orthodox and who I've met before, so I shook his hand and met his nephew? who was 12 and super adorable. At first it was a little annoying, because they were looking over and laughing and clearly talking about me (as have most everyone who's come to visit. It's the same with everyone else and their host families - the Moroccans that come into contact with us seemed fascinated with people hosting Americans, and so talk about them right there for a long time). But then the little boy came over to sit across from me and said "You speak English?" Ah, the first English I've heard in the house since I moved in. So, I proceeded to talk to this little boy, who was clearly excited to be able to communicate with me and get some practice in with his speaking. I felt like I was reviewing one of my beginning language textbooks - "What kind of music do you like? What foods do you eat? Do you have any brothers or sisters?" was how most of the convo went. It was cute when we got to the age question though, because I asked how old he was and he said twenty. When he asked me I said I was twenty, and he said O no wait! I'm 10 and 2... so I told him he was twelve. He burst out giggling then and thought it was so funny he'd said he was 20. Gah he was so cute, it was fun talking to him.
Wow I'm writing a lot, I'll try not to ramble so much. So I left around 3ish that day (the most important part of the Aid celebration apparently happens in the morning) to go to a beach house with a big group of people about 20 minutes south of Rabat. That was a huuuge mess at first, because my friend who was organizing it thought we could fudge the numbers a little and fit a lot of people in the house we rented. It was a house for 12... and we showed up with about 30 ha. Oops. The landlord was not happy. About 10 people broke off and found another apartment nearby, and we ended up fitting the rest into the first place where I stayed. By the time we got everything settled it was later though, and so we ended up just going out to dinner basically and then coming back and hanging out at the house. It was really nice actually - I liked all the people there, but we usually can't do stuff like that altogether because going out in public with that many people doesn't work well. So it was fun to actually hang out with everybody for a while. Also watched a bootleg version of Titanic 2 that someone bought in the street that day - the movie is actually way more horrible than it sounds. I'm pretty sure it was trying to be serious, but it was like watching one of those parody movies like "Scary Movie.." "Date Movie.." "Sinking Ship Movie." God it was terrible. But as much as I hate to support the whole pirating industry, it is pretty cool to be able to pick up some movies on the street for 5 dirham (50 cents) to watch later. Inception anyone? I guess it's not out in the states yet but we've got it here :) Some of the movies are burned copies of an original DVD, but a bunch of them are filmed theaters and then sold on the street. Pretty entertaining.
Ah sidetrack! Ok so the next day we went to the beach and walked around for a while - there wasn't really a good place to swim it turns out, but it was really pretty and fun to walk around. We came back on a bus, when I had my first introduction to a shanty-town. So yeah, let me digress and explain the class structure a little bit, as I'm experiencing it anyways. As I'm sure you can guess already with the prices I've been throwing out, Morocco is not a rich nation. We learned a little bit about the budget in one of my seminar sessions and let me just put it all in perspective for you - the GNP for allll of Morocco is roughly $80-85 billion/year. The budget for the U.S army? $700 billion/year. The budget for the Ministry of Education, which deals with all the public schools in the nation is something like $5 million. Harvard's endowment, ONE college (which yes, I know is absurdly wealthy... but just work with me for this comparison) is around $14 billion. So as I'm sure you can guess, we're not exposed e to loads of wealth, unless you go to some 4-5 star hotel or hit up the palace.
The Ville Nouvelle (part the French colonialists built) is definitely the nicer part of the city and cleaner, but we're in the old madina, which when looking at it through Western eyes, could probably use some fixing up. It's pretty dirty, there's trash everywhere, stray cats roam the streets, and people live pretty modestly and don't have much in excess (TVs are a must, however) and for the most part buy for necessity. Most houses are relatively small, and most people have something like 3 rooms and a kitchen in their house - and this is all pretty nice. But, I realized, even in the madina ghadima, which definitely has its fair share of beggars, we're in a bubble. The shanty town which we passed along the coast was enormous, and exactly like how you see it in films/news reports. I think it was good to see though - Rabat is the capital city, so things are at least decent here. But seeing the shanty town definitely brings home the idea that even if the government here has started some programs to improve the welfare of the nation, they still have a loooong ways to go. I know we have poverty in the U.S, but this was different. Might consider this for my independent study project later this semester...
The shanty town all passed by in a hurry, though, and we found ourselves back in Rabat. The rest of the weekend was fairly uneventful. A group of us went to the beach again on Sunday (it apparently doesn't start really cooling down til mid-October? looks like the beach will be on my agenda for a while..). This time though, we met an interesting guy. He told my friends and I that he would teach us to make tajine (like a casserole, the dish and the actual food have the same name. The kind of tajine we'd be making would most likely consist of cooked eggplant and whatever else). There's a picture by the way. He said we could make it on the beach - ahh fun. And that he'd teach us to surf. Who needs the expensive surf club when we can have a surf buddy.
Let's see I guess I can tell you one more thing. FINALLY went to the Hassan Tower - a mosque that was started in the 11th century (or a little later) by Yacoub el Mansour, and which was destined to be the biggest (or maybe 2nd largest, next to the one in Mecca) mosque in the Islamic world. But alas, it was never finished, and so now is just a huuge huge tower with rows of half columns and a mausoleum (which I'm pretty sure the previous king, Hassan II, had erected). Sadly it was closed when we went, so I guess I'll have to go again sometime soon to see the inside of the mausoleum. But there's still plenty of time.
Well. I think you have a pretty good idea of what I've been up to lately. I start fus'ha tomorrow! Standard Arabic, and finally the alphabet. And oo yeah, the title of this post is in reference to the end of Ramadan and the beginning of normal life here (no more eating at midnight or 3 am, night life's dying down, people are resuming regular schedules, etc). Hopefully this means less sweets too - I think I'll be on my way to developing diabetes if I keep the Ramadan diet up. Although I just found out today that some people continue to fast 6 days after Ramadan to make sure their prayers are heard, like my family. So things aren't completely normal in all the households, but in the streets/public life they are.
That's all for now. Good night!
WORD OF THE DAY:
Darija
mdegdeg(a) - pronounced ma-DIG-a-DIG-(a - fem version). Ana mdegdega - I'm tired! Useful phrase, and oo so much fun to say.
But back to the rest of the post! So I guess I last left with you with the soccer game. It's kind of hard to keep track of everything but I guess I might as well start with last Thursday, since we had Thursday off (4 day weekend whaa). Actually I guess nothing too exciting happened... my friends and I had a little picnic by the river, lots of walking around the medina and the Ville Nouvelle at night. Oh! Thursday night we did get henna done though - I went with my friends host mom, her daughters, and a couple more of my friends to some ladies house to get it done. She did one of my hands and one of my feet and aahh it looked so good. We were sitting there for ages though but it was kind of funny being there - henna seems to be a little girl thing, so 4 college students looked a little out of place there. This was clearly a popping place to get henna done though, people kept coming in and out and dropping off their girls and coming back later. Awesome. After that we dropped by McDonalds to hear some live music (by the time we got there it had kind of died down). Yeah, McDonalds. Only in America is McDonalds somewhat sketch and just a place to grab some food - here it's actually considered a good meal, and apparently a place to host a band. The inside is much nicer here than in the states, for the record.
Then Friday was Aid (pronounced ay-eed). That's the celebration of the end of Ramadan, and what some people told me was roughly the equivalent to Thanksgiving/Christmas because of all the food/fam time. Sooo I woke up, got to have breakfast with my family for the first time since I've been here, and then went to put on a long dress since I'd have to sit and greet people with the rest of the family. But oops, dress is not the proper attire for Aid. My host mom (sister? whatever.. the younger one) brought out one of her fancy shmancy satiny djellabas for me to wear for the day - pics will go up eventually, but I can tell you that I still looked pretty damn American. The two women made me put on makeup too and then wanted pictures of me in a couple of the rooms wearing the djellaba - it felt like prom all over again ha. Felt cool wearing my Moroccan slippers and with my fresh henna though, to complete the look. But anyways, two men came over first, my host mom's brother and his son (too many new names/can't spell any of them, so sorry for not writing those down). I thought the two women I'm staying with are pretty religious, but whoa I think my host mom's brother and nephew are more so. I stood up to greet these two men in skull caps with long beards (and the younger one with kohl-rimmed eyes) as I have every other person I've met at the house (including other guys) and was quickly told that that's a no-no... these men don't touch women, so shaking their hands wasn't going to happen. Oops. The other brother came over, who is not as orthodox and who I've met before, so I shook his hand and met his nephew? who was 12 and super adorable. At first it was a little annoying, because they were looking over and laughing and clearly talking about me (as have most everyone who's come to visit. It's the same with everyone else and their host families - the Moroccans that come into contact with us seemed fascinated with people hosting Americans, and so talk about them right there for a long time). But then the little boy came over to sit across from me and said "You speak English?" Ah, the first English I've heard in the house since I moved in. So, I proceeded to talk to this little boy, who was clearly excited to be able to communicate with me and get some practice in with his speaking. I felt like I was reviewing one of my beginning language textbooks - "What kind of music do you like? What foods do you eat? Do you have any brothers or sisters?" was how most of the convo went. It was cute when we got to the age question though, because I asked how old he was and he said twenty. When he asked me I said I was twenty, and he said O no wait! I'm 10 and 2... so I told him he was twelve. He burst out giggling then and thought it was so funny he'd said he was 20. Gah he was so cute, it was fun talking to him.
Wow I'm writing a lot, I'll try not to ramble so much. So I left around 3ish that day (the most important part of the Aid celebration apparently happens in the morning) to go to a beach house with a big group of people about 20 minutes south of Rabat. That was a huuuge mess at first, because my friend who was organizing it thought we could fudge the numbers a little and fit a lot of people in the house we rented. It was a house for 12... and we showed up with about 30 ha. Oops. The landlord was not happy. About 10 people broke off and found another apartment nearby, and we ended up fitting the rest into the first place where I stayed. By the time we got everything settled it was later though, and so we ended up just going out to dinner basically and then coming back and hanging out at the house. It was really nice actually - I liked all the people there, but we usually can't do stuff like that altogether because going out in public with that many people doesn't work well. So it was fun to actually hang out with everybody for a while. Also watched a bootleg version of Titanic 2 that someone bought in the street that day - the movie is actually way more horrible than it sounds. I'm pretty sure it was trying to be serious, but it was like watching one of those parody movies like "Scary Movie.." "Date Movie.." "Sinking Ship Movie." God it was terrible. But as much as I hate to support the whole pirating industry, it is pretty cool to be able to pick up some movies on the street for 5 dirham (50 cents) to watch later. Inception anyone? I guess it's not out in the states yet but we've got it here :) Some of the movies are burned copies of an original DVD, but a bunch of them are filmed theaters and then sold on the street. Pretty entertaining.
Ah sidetrack! Ok so the next day we went to the beach and walked around for a while - there wasn't really a good place to swim it turns out, but it was really pretty and fun to walk around. We came back on a bus, when I had my first introduction to a shanty-town. So yeah, let me digress and explain the class structure a little bit, as I'm experiencing it anyways. As I'm sure you can guess already with the prices I've been throwing out, Morocco is not a rich nation. We learned a little bit about the budget in one of my seminar sessions and let me just put it all in perspective for you - the GNP for allll of Morocco is roughly $80-85 billion/year. The budget for the U.S army? $700 billion/year. The budget for the Ministry of Education, which deals with all the public schools in the nation is something like $5 million. Harvard's endowment, ONE college (which yes, I know is absurdly wealthy... but just work with me for this comparison) is around $14 billion. So as I'm sure you can guess, we're not exposed e to loads of wealth, unless you go to some 4-5 star hotel or hit up the palace.
 |
| The old madina where I'm living! (sorry, stole the pic from a friend) |
The shanty town all passed by in a hurry, though, and we found ourselves back in Rabat. The rest of the weekend was fairly uneventful. A group of us went to the beach again on Sunday (it apparently doesn't start really cooling down til mid-October? looks like the beach will be on my agenda for a while..). This time though, we met an interesting guy. He told my friends and I that he would teach us to make tajine (like a casserole, the dish and the actual food have the same name. The kind of tajine we'd be making would most likely consist of cooked eggplant and whatever else). There's a picture by the way. He said we could make it on the beach - ahh fun. And that he'd teach us to surf. Who needs the expensive surf club when we can have a surf buddy. |
| Mausoleum at Hassan Tower. And I know, getting all fancy with all these pics. But still not my own picture ha |
Well. I think you have a pretty good idea of what I've been up to lately. I start fus'ha tomorrow! Standard Arabic, and finally the alphabet. And oo yeah, the title of this post is in reference to the end of Ramadan and the beginning of normal life here (no more eating at midnight or 3 am, night life's dying down, people are resuming regular schedules, etc). Hopefully this means less sweets too - I think I'll be on my way to developing diabetes if I keep the Ramadan diet up. Although I just found out today that some people continue to fast 6 days after Ramadan to make sure their prayers are heard, like my family. So things aren't completely normal in all the households, but in the streets/public life they are.
That's all for now. Good night!
WORD OF THE DAY:
Darija
mdegdeg(a) - pronounced ma-DIG-a-DIG-(a - fem version). Ana mdegdega - I'm tired! Useful phrase, and oo so much fun to say.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Sense-scape
Ok. So I figured the theme for this post would be to give you all an idea of what my environment is like, because I realize almost every single time I take a picture that it just doesn't do the scene justice, especially with so many new scents and sounds. I also want to do this before everything becomes natural, because I think I'm even starting to get used to the sensory overload that is the wonderful souk (market). It feels like I've been here a long time already - I can't believe it's only been a little over a week.
So anyways. My day starts with my alarm waking me up and hearing the sounds of the older woman, Hadija, shuffling around the house making me breakfast (I feel bad when I wake up later, cause she fasts for Ramadan so prepares me breakfast but doesn't eat it. Waking up before school seems to be early enough tho that she joins me). I usually wake up covered in sweat though, because my room gets a tad stuff and there's not much ventilation in the house. Buuut as soon as I'm done getting dressed and all that, have my breakfast of bread and marmalade and sweet mint tea (ate be nana) I leave the house to go to Arabic lessons outside the medina. I really wish I were a morning person and could be up this early all the time, because the streets then are the best. It's fairly quiet but people are starting to wake up, so some people are milling about. Most of the medina streets are fairly narrow, maybe 4 people could walk abreast? but are certainly wide enough for a motorcycle to go zooming by. Most areas smell pretty neutral in the morning, but you do pass areas where someone clearly took a piss there. The walls are either white, cream, or some kind of blue (some areas also have red painted halfway up) and are pretty decrepit and dirty, but for some reason I love them. I don't like when things look too new anyways, and I guess there's something bare and honest about them. I took pictures this morning, so as soon as I find time to load my pics on my comp I'll put some up. Ooo yeah, they're there all the time but particularly in the morning I see tons of cats. They're adorable but keep to themselves, which is good since rabies isn't uncommon here. Ha one scared me this morning though, because it jumped down from over a door but looked like it kind of feel, and it just startled me.
To get to the Arabic school, we have to walk through Mohammad V (Mo 5 seems to be the consensus abbrev) which is one of the main streets in Rabat and cuts through the medina. Mo 5 is awesome - there's always people there, but particularly at night and the afternoon. Bustling would put it lightly - especially at night there are TONS of vendors out, selling everything from these slipper shoes to shirts to candies to hardware items to snails, fresh fruit, and oo yeah. DVDs for 5 dirham (about 50 cents) that definitely have a little while til they come out on DVD. Inception anyone? Titanic 2? Found out that came out last week - but vendors on the street in Rabat have it! Walking through the medina, and also the souk thats perpendicular to Mo5 brings with it all kinds of scents/sounds. You get the smell of baking bread, yummy looking pastries, frying or rotting fish, raw meat (hanging up everywhere - slabs of lamb but also cow and lamb hooves, lamb heads, cow tongue, etc) leather if you're going through the shoe souk, etc. But you also get the smell of piss, some B.O, and some other unpleasant scents. Ahh the sounds are awesome though. Tons of people speaking in darija or French, vendors yelling constantly, traffic sounds, motorcycles zooming by, little kids yelling 'Maman!' and sometimes the call to prayer. I'm definitely gonna miss hearing the call to prayer everyday - the muezzin have such beautiful voices. It's entrancing.
That's something I've found interesting though - I pass mosques all the time, but in the madina you wouldn't necessarily assume they were mosques from the outside. Some have minarets, the tall tower-ish structures that muezzin originally would climb to do the call to prayer, but now just house loud speakers. But many are buildings in among the houses, and you only know they're mosques because the doors are open and you see rows of pillars and carpets and, if you're lucky, people kneeling praying. Sadly, as a non-Muslim, I'm not allowed in any. Ah well, I'll just keep peaking in.
To continue with my soundscape though! Language is a huge huge part of it but is still so new to me. I like the sound of darija... but mimicking those sounds is. Yeah. There are a bunch of sounds in Italian, Spanish, French, whatever that are difficult and that we don't use in English but you can figure them out eventually. There are several letters in Arabic though that we don't have anything even close to in English, and trying to pronounce some of them is like trying to roll your r's for Italian or Spanish and literally not being able to do it - that's how at least 5-6 letters are in Arabic. Needless to say, everyone hearing you trying to say some of the Arabic words gets a kick out of your pronunciation.
Some words are easy though and I've been trying to use them as much as possible! My friend and I are even buddies with a guy in a shoe store, who taught us a few little phrases. Ah that's another thing - prices of things. Everything here is so. damn. cheap. At this shoe store, I bought a nice pair of leather shoes, with a colorful design apparently of Berber origin (the people who originally inhabited Morocco, before the Arabs came) for roughly $6.50. That doesn't even seem fair, but that's how everything is. Internet cafe's charge $1/hour, compared to what, $3-4/hour in Europe? A really nice scarf was $2.50, a small nice leather purse is probably $8.00 tops.
Which reminds me of the next thing I have to write about! Leaving the sense-scape a little, I have to tell you about quite the deal I got a few nights ago. 60 dirham, or about $7.50, got me a whole night of entertainment. That was the price of a ticket and 20-ish minute ride, there and back, to see the national Moroccan soccer team!! Ooohh my lord that was an experience. A bunch of us piled into the back of a truck to be driven to the stadium (one of the guys on our trip lives in a household with a Moroccan guy about our age, and he had a friend who had the truck and offered to drive). We were dropped off about a half mile away from the stadium (tons of traffic) and walked the rest of the way. Getting closer was funny, and my one friend put it perfectly - it was like walking to the Quidditch World Cup. There were no lights for miles around, except for the stadium. We had to go through a huge parking lot and foresty kind of area, and everyone was hurrying to the same place. Gooood thing we had some Moroccan guys with us - I don't know how we would have figured out how to get tickets/get into the stadium otherwise. Once in the stadium, we sat behind one of the goals because it was less crowded. And the game had already started - Morocco vs. Central Africa!! As stereotypical and cliche as this might sound, this is the first time I actually felt like I was in Africa - everyday I have to remind myself I'm in Africa, because it feels more like I'm in the Middle East or even India. But the soccer game was great. Anyone watch the World Cup? No vuvuzelas (sp?), but there were other reminders. The crowd was never quiet - there was always either some chanting going, whistling, cheering, etc. My favorite though was that several people around us had some drums out the entire time, so people were dancing together and running all around. It was incredible, to say the least. I have the feeling the crowd gets a little out of control some of the time though ha - there were policeman with shields next to their feet around the entire perimeter of the field, some with dogs as well haha. Ooo boy. This wasn't the most exciting game in the world though, and ended in a tie, but I'm so so glad I went. Soccer in general is fun, but the atmosphere of the stadium totally made the game. We did leave early though, so we could beat the crowd. And I'm glad we did cause it was already kind of crazy when I left. The truck picking us up again turned around and came to the side of the road where we were, and about 10 guys we didn't know were trying to jump in the back of the truck. We had to quickly hop in and drive away, and still 2 or 3 managed to find a spot on the back of the truck. It was kind of funny though, can't lie.
We went to the beach the other day too, which was pretty fun because a big group of us ended up together. There are some pretty awesome waves at the beach, and a surf club - so lessons this semester? Maybe? It's a little more expensive though so we'll see.
I guess the thing that some of you are wondering about, which I haven't really written much about and which I'll write more about later, is the whole concept of gendered spaces. Most of the things I'm doing are clearly in the men's domain - beach, soccer game, even cafes at night. Saying girls are a minority in all these places is an understatement, but in places like cafes an all girls group can kind of get away with it because we're clearly not Moroccan. And though there were women at the soccer game, we definitely stood out, and at the beach? I usually see 5 Moroccan women tops at this very crowded beach when I go, and when I do they're covered from head to foot (many women dress in a pretty Western style, but at the beach for some reason, that's the time to cover up and be way more conservative). And though I'd like to say as girls we can do the same things as guys, it's definitely more difficult at night, and helps a ton to have male escorts to accompany us. It hasn't been a problem so far, but I think it's definitely going to get frustrating to have to have a guy walk me back to my house every single night I go out, because the madina can get kind of sketch at night. I'll write more about that issue because I'm just about to leave right now actually! Trying a juice place our Arabic teacher recommended for us today that apparently serves any type of juice you want - mango? almond? avocado anybody?
Talk to you soon!!!
Word of the day:
Darija
mashi mushkil (pronounced mesh-y moo-shki) - no problem. I have to say it in person for you but it sounds soooo great and I love saying it.
So anyways. My day starts with my alarm waking me up and hearing the sounds of the older woman, Hadija, shuffling around the house making me breakfast (I feel bad when I wake up later, cause she fasts for Ramadan so prepares me breakfast but doesn't eat it. Waking up before school seems to be early enough tho that she joins me). I usually wake up covered in sweat though, because my room gets a tad stuff and there's not much ventilation in the house. Buuut as soon as I'm done getting dressed and all that, have my breakfast of bread and marmalade and sweet mint tea (ate be nana) I leave the house to go to Arabic lessons outside the medina. I really wish I were a morning person and could be up this early all the time, because the streets then are the best. It's fairly quiet but people are starting to wake up, so some people are milling about. Most of the medina streets are fairly narrow, maybe 4 people could walk abreast? but are certainly wide enough for a motorcycle to go zooming by. Most areas smell pretty neutral in the morning, but you do pass areas where someone clearly took a piss there. The walls are either white, cream, or some kind of blue (some areas also have red painted halfway up) and are pretty decrepit and dirty, but for some reason I love them. I don't like when things look too new anyways, and I guess there's something bare and honest about them. I took pictures this morning, so as soon as I find time to load my pics on my comp I'll put some up. Ooo yeah, they're there all the time but particularly in the morning I see tons of cats. They're adorable but keep to themselves, which is good since rabies isn't uncommon here. Ha one scared me this morning though, because it jumped down from over a door but looked like it kind of feel, and it just startled me.
To get to the Arabic school, we have to walk through Mohammad V (Mo 5 seems to be the consensus abbrev) which is one of the main streets in Rabat and cuts through the medina. Mo 5 is awesome - there's always people there, but particularly at night and the afternoon. Bustling would put it lightly - especially at night there are TONS of vendors out, selling everything from these slipper shoes to shirts to candies to hardware items to snails, fresh fruit, and oo yeah. DVDs for 5 dirham (about 50 cents) that definitely have a little while til they come out on DVD. Inception anyone? Titanic 2? Found out that came out last week - but vendors on the street in Rabat have it! Walking through the medina, and also the souk thats perpendicular to Mo5 brings with it all kinds of scents/sounds. You get the smell of baking bread, yummy looking pastries, frying or rotting fish, raw meat (hanging up everywhere - slabs of lamb but also cow and lamb hooves, lamb heads, cow tongue, etc) leather if you're going through the shoe souk, etc. But you also get the smell of piss, some B.O, and some other unpleasant scents. Ahh the sounds are awesome though. Tons of people speaking in darija or French, vendors yelling constantly, traffic sounds, motorcycles zooming by, little kids yelling 'Maman!' and sometimes the call to prayer. I'm definitely gonna miss hearing the call to prayer everyday - the muezzin have such beautiful voices. It's entrancing.
That's something I've found interesting though - I pass mosques all the time, but in the madina you wouldn't necessarily assume they were mosques from the outside. Some have minarets, the tall tower-ish structures that muezzin originally would climb to do the call to prayer, but now just house loud speakers. But many are buildings in among the houses, and you only know they're mosques because the doors are open and you see rows of pillars and carpets and, if you're lucky, people kneeling praying. Sadly, as a non-Muslim, I'm not allowed in any. Ah well, I'll just keep peaking in.
To continue with my soundscape though! Language is a huge huge part of it but is still so new to me. I like the sound of darija... but mimicking those sounds is. Yeah. There are a bunch of sounds in Italian, Spanish, French, whatever that are difficult and that we don't use in English but you can figure them out eventually. There are several letters in Arabic though that we don't have anything even close to in English, and trying to pronounce some of them is like trying to roll your r's for Italian or Spanish and literally not being able to do it - that's how at least 5-6 letters are in Arabic. Needless to say, everyone hearing you trying to say some of the Arabic words gets a kick out of your pronunciation.
Some words are easy though and I've been trying to use them as much as possible! My friend and I are even buddies with a guy in a shoe store, who taught us a few little phrases. Ah that's another thing - prices of things. Everything here is so. damn. cheap. At this shoe store, I bought a nice pair of leather shoes, with a colorful design apparently of Berber origin (the people who originally inhabited Morocco, before the Arabs came) for roughly $6.50. That doesn't even seem fair, but that's how everything is. Internet cafe's charge $1/hour, compared to what, $3-4/hour in Europe? A really nice scarf was $2.50, a small nice leather purse is probably $8.00 tops.
Which reminds me of the next thing I have to write about! Leaving the sense-scape a little, I have to tell you about quite the deal I got a few nights ago. 60 dirham, or about $7.50, got me a whole night of entertainment. That was the price of a ticket and 20-ish minute ride, there and back, to see the national Moroccan soccer team!! Ooohh my lord that was an experience. A bunch of us piled into the back of a truck to be driven to the stadium (one of the guys on our trip lives in a household with a Moroccan guy about our age, and he had a friend who had the truck and offered to drive). We were dropped off about a half mile away from the stadium (tons of traffic) and walked the rest of the way. Getting closer was funny, and my one friend put it perfectly - it was like walking to the Quidditch World Cup. There were no lights for miles around, except for the stadium. We had to go through a huge parking lot and foresty kind of area, and everyone was hurrying to the same place. Gooood thing we had some Moroccan guys with us - I don't know how we would have figured out how to get tickets/get into the stadium otherwise. Once in the stadium, we sat behind one of the goals because it was less crowded. And the game had already started - Morocco vs. Central Africa!! As stereotypical and cliche as this might sound, this is the first time I actually felt like I was in Africa - everyday I have to remind myself I'm in Africa, because it feels more like I'm in the Middle East or even India. But the soccer game was great. Anyone watch the World Cup? No vuvuzelas (sp?), but there were other reminders. The crowd was never quiet - there was always either some chanting going, whistling, cheering, etc. My favorite though was that several people around us had some drums out the entire time, so people were dancing together and running all around. It was incredible, to say the least. I have the feeling the crowd gets a little out of control some of the time though ha - there were policeman with shields next to their feet around the entire perimeter of the field, some with dogs as well haha. Ooo boy. This wasn't the most exciting game in the world though, and ended in a tie, but I'm so so glad I went. Soccer in general is fun, but the atmosphere of the stadium totally made the game. We did leave early though, so we could beat the crowd. And I'm glad we did cause it was already kind of crazy when I left. The truck picking us up again turned around and came to the side of the road where we were, and about 10 guys we didn't know were trying to jump in the back of the truck. We had to quickly hop in and drive away, and still 2 or 3 managed to find a spot on the back of the truck. It was kind of funny though, can't lie.
We went to the beach the other day too, which was pretty fun because a big group of us ended up together. There are some pretty awesome waves at the beach, and a surf club - so lessons this semester? Maybe? It's a little more expensive though so we'll see.
I guess the thing that some of you are wondering about, which I haven't really written much about and which I'll write more about later, is the whole concept of gendered spaces. Most of the things I'm doing are clearly in the men's domain - beach, soccer game, even cafes at night. Saying girls are a minority in all these places is an understatement, but in places like cafes an all girls group can kind of get away with it because we're clearly not Moroccan. And though there were women at the soccer game, we definitely stood out, and at the beach? I usually see 5 Moroccan women tops at this very crowded beach when I go, and when I do they're covered from head to foot (many women dress in a pretty Western style, but at the beach for some reason, that's the time to cover up and be way more conservative). And though I'd like to say as girls we can do the same things as guys, it's definitely more difficult at night, and helps a ton to have male escorts to accompany us. It hasn't been a problem so far, but I think it's definitely going to get frustrating to have to have a guy walk me back to my house every single night I go out, because the madina can get kind of sketch at night. I'll write more about that issue because I'm just about to leave right now actually! Trying a juice place our Arabic teacher recommended for us today that apparently serves any type of juice you want - mango? almond? avocado anybody?
Talk to you soon!!!
Word of the day:
Darija
mashi mushkil (pronounced mesh-y moo-shki) - no problem. I have to say it in person for you but it sounds soooo great and I love saying it.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Settling In
Woo! Sooo I'm going to try to be good about this whole blogging thing so it's easy to keep people updated, but I'm sorry in advance if I don't do it often enough/my blog doesn't look all sweet and flashy. I'm gonna be real happy when I figure out how to add pics to this page. And I actually have a few to put up! I'm just too lazy to load them right now/want to actually catch up on sleep tonight.
I guess now I'll just get some basic info out of the way right quick. So! I'm based in Rabat, Morocco (the northwestern area of the country) and oo, right on the ocean. The beaches are a little dirty but otherwise look pretty cool - big waves, lots of guys fishing on the rocks along the side. Apparently we need to get to the beaches soon before Ramadan's over, because then they get real crowded again. We have about 10 days left of Ramadan, which means for the most part that people are either more pious during this period and purifying themselves, or they're real cranky during the day because they're fasting and occasionally take it out on customers, people in the streets, but most often it seems while they're driving. But it's poppin at night, cause everyone wants to go out and have a good time and it seems like it's the best time for us to be out and about. Night life dies down a lot after Ramadan's over apparently.
But besides going out to experience Morocco, I'll taking classes during the week. It'll be 3 hours of Arabic every morning (some darija, the Moroccan dialect, and then mostly standard) and then an hour and a half of a themed seminar, which will have something to do with multiculturalism and human rights. Woo. Taking a bunch of excursions at some point too - we'll be going to Fes one weekend, Casablanca for a day, and then will have a southern excursion and a week of a rural homestay. So tons of traveling, which should be pretty exciting.
So yeah, for my living sitch I'll be staying with a family in the medina (old part of the city - maze of small streets and markets and all that) for the next 2 months and actually just moved in today! There are two women - an older one, and her daughter, who looks like she's in her 30s. They're both super nice and def have made me feel welcome. I got lucky and landed myself with a Western toilet, hot water, and a room to myself, not to the mention that the house is absolutely gorgeous (pics to come). But ooo hey, the older woman only speaks darija - so little difficult communicating with her. And her daughter speaks darija and French - and that's it really. So I realized today I have to learn Arabic (standard but some darija for communicative purposes), try and dig out French from the deep recesses of my brain, and also not be a horrible Italian major and forget all my Italian. Awesome. But turns out my French isn't as terrible as I thought and I was actually sort of able to have conversations/understand most of what the daughter was saying to me. So that's something. Also, the brother was over tonight for ftour (breaking the fast), and I was actually able to understand him asking his sister in darija if I was French or American! Granted the words are similar-ish to ours, but clearly our darija lessons kicked in a bit. Woo
So hmm what else do I need to update you all on. There's 60 people in our program, whaaa. I had no idea it was going to be so enormous. Most of the people are from the east coast/go to an east coast school, but there's a good number from Minnesota too. Haa I'm not the only midwesterner. The people I've met so far are pretty cool, and it should be fun to get to know them more. A group of us went to a carnival last night that's by the river and that I'm pretty sure is only up through Ramadan, so that was pretty tight. The rides were sick actually - so awesome and I've never seen them in the states. And I'm not sure if that's because the design simply hasn't made it over to the states yet or if they wouldn't pass our safety regulations.. but regardless they were sweet and gave you tons of butterflies in your stomach so were awesome.
Oo yeah, little side story that was kind of great - met 2 Moroccan hipsters. One of the dudes had suspenders, and both had great hair. Omg it was great. They came up to 2 friends and I at a cafe at night, which was a bit of a sticky situation because for orientation they definitely drilled it in our heads that we should not talk to guys we meet on the street or respond when they say something to us cause it can be sketch, and esp since there was no guy from our group around it was kinda vague whether or not we should talk to these guys. But they ended up being super nice and totally harmless - they were both learning English and asked us if we would be at the cafe later, and that they could bring some books by to 'discuss literature.' So cute. They were asking us what kind of music we liked, and the one guy said he liked old school music. Definitely old school. But also liked rap and hipster music. Baaah it was so adorable, too bad we didn't see them later. But yeah, found out hipster is universal and crosses all kinds of cultures! So that was one fun little discovery.
Well this post looks pretty long so Ima go to bed now. Leila saeeda! (Night!)
WORD OF THE DAY:
2 actually, both in darija.
Zwina - beautiful. Used that a lot when taken on a tour of my home.
Hamak (sp?) - crazy. Brahim, the cook, taught my friend and I. And then my homestay mother said it while watching some Moroccan soap opera, so clearly a useful word.
I guess now I'll just get some basic info out of the way right quick. So! I'm based in Rabat, Morocco (the northwestern area of the country) and oo, right on the ocean. The beaches are a little dirty but otherwise look pretty cool - big waves, lots of guys fishing on the rocks along the side. Apparently we need to get to the beaches soon before Ramadan's over, because then they get real crowded again. We have about 10 days left of Ramadan, which means for the most part that people are either more pious during this period and purifying themselves, or they're real cranky during the day because they're fasting and occasionally take it out on customers, people in the streets, but most often it seems while they're driving. But it's poppin at night, cause everyone wants to go out and have a good time and it seems like it's the best time for us to be out and about. Night life dies down a lot after Ramadan's over apparently.
But besides going out to experience Morocco, I'll taking classes during the week. It'll be 3 hours of Arabic every morning (some darija, the Moroccan dialect, and then mostly standard) and then an hour and a half of a themed seminar, which will have something to do with multiculturalism and human rights. Woo. Taking a bunch of excursions at some point too - we'll be going to Fes one weekend, Casablanca for a day, and then will have a southern excursion and a week of a rural homestay. So tons of traveling, which should be pretty exciting.
So yeah, for my living sitch I'll be staying with a family in the medina (old part of the city - maze of small streets and markets and all that) for the next 2 months and actually just moved in today! There are two women - an older one, and her daughter, who looks like she's in her 30s. They're both super nice and def have made me feel welcome. I got lucky and landed myself with a Western toilet, hot water, and a room to myself, not to the mention that the house is absolutely gorgeous (pics to come). But ooo hey, the older woman only speaks darija - so little difficult communicating with her. And her daughter speaks darija and French - and that's it really. So I realized today I have to learn Arabic (standard but some darija for communicative purposes), try and dig out French from the deep recesses of my brain, and also not be a horrible Italian major and forget all my Italian. Awesome. But turns out my French isn't as terrible as I thought and I was actually sort of able to have conversations/understand most of what the daughter was saying to me. So that's something. Also, the brother was over tonight for ftour (breaking the fast), and I was actually able to understand him asking his sister in darija if I was French or American! Granted the words are similar-ish to ours, but clearly our darija lessons kicked in a bit. Woo
So hmm what else do I need to update you all on. There's 60 people in our program, whaaa. I had no idea it was going to be so enormous. Most of the people are from the east coast/go to an east coast school, but there's a good number from Minnesota too. Haa I'm not the only midwesterner. The people I've met so far are pretty cool, and it should be fun to get to know them more. A group of us went to a carnival last night that's by the river and that I'm pretty sure is only up through Ramadan, so that was pretty tight. The rides were sick actually - so awesome and I've never seen them in the states. And I'm not sure if that's because the design simply hasn't made it over to the states yet or if they wouldn't pass our safety regulations.. but regardless they were sweet and gave you tons of butterflies in your stomach so were awesome.
Oo yeah, little side story that was kind of great - met 2 Moroccan hipsters. One of the dudes had suspenders, and both had great hair. Omg it was great. They came up to 2 friends and I at a cafe at night, which was a bit of a sticky situation because for orientation they definitely drilled it in our heads that we should not talk to guys we meet on the street or respond when they say something to us cause it can be sketch, and esp since there was no guy from our group around it was kinda vague whether or not we should talk to these guys. But they ended up being super nice and totally harmless - they were both learning English and asked us if we would be at the cafe later, and that they could bring some books by to 'discuss literature.' So cute. They were asking us what kind of music we liked, and the one guy said he liked old school music. Definitely old school. But also liked rap and hipster music. Baaah it was so adorable, too bad we didn't see them later. But yeah, found out hipster is universal and crosses all kinds of cultures! So that was one fun little discovery.
Well this post looks pretty long so Ima go to bed now. Leila saeeda! (Night!)
WORD OF THE DAY:
2 actually, both in darija.
Zwina - beautiful. Used that a lot when taken on a tour of my home.
Hamak (sp?) - crazy. Brahim, the cook, taught my friend and I. And then my homestay mother said it while watching some Moroccan soap opera, so clearly a useful word.
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