Eid al-Adhan --> watch yourself if you hate blood

Head set aside as the rest of the body was dismembered
disemboweled

SOME BLOODY PICS. BEWARE

Ohh salam alakum

Sorry it's been a while again. These last couple weeks have been fairly busy - mostly with traveling, etc. And I'm kinda sleepy and also working on this damn ISP (independent study project... love my topic. But dear lord it's a lot to write) but I figured I'd stop being lazy about the blogging thing and end the terrible suspense of the last post and fill you in on Eid al-Adhan! Ahh I'll start with some pictures of the big day (and because I'm not entirely sure who's reading this blog and because I don't know your gore/blood-tolerance level, I'm going to keep the pictures I post relatively tame. But if you hate the sight of blood, don't look at these pics. **Just to warn you.**)

Sorry if this grosses you out. I just felt like
I shouldn't deprive you of the scene I got to
witness

Skin --> off

Disemboweling 

                  

The end

Alright. So. Those pictures tell you a lot about how we started our day. Again, if you don't care to hear about the details of the event, skip down a few paragraphs. Woke up, had a little breakfast, watched the king on TV as he sat through the imam speaking at the mosque, saw him kill 2 sheep on TV. The atmosphere in the house felt somewhat like it does on Christmas - everyone's just kind of lounging around, ready to relax for the day. Then without any warning, the ram is on the 2nd floor with us, as are an imam and 2 men that clearly do the killing and later butchering. They wrestle the ram down to the ground and cut it's throat very quickly - tons and tons of intensely bright red blood poured out, but the ram was dead relatively quickly. It kind of scared me a little later though, because like a chicken running after his head's been cut off, the ram kicked out and went crazy after his throat had been slit. Gaah. The imam left shortly after, and we were left to watch the dismemberment of the body of the ram. That part was a lot easier to watch, oddly (esp with the skin off, you kind of distance yourself from the idea that that body was just a few minutes ago a living, breathing animal and it becomes just meat someone is butchering) and I've included some pictures from that. The final picture is what the body finally looked like, once all the organs were taken out. I'm really surprised I made it through this whole thing without either throwing up or passing out, but for some reason the setting of it and how quickly it all happened made it somehow tolerable. Can't really explain it, but maybe I was partially just shocked by it all too.

We then waited while my friend's host fam prepared lunch. This was a meal of liver skewered on sticks with a slice of fat wrapped around it grilled over some coal. The taste was pretty good, but I'm not a huge fan of the texture of it all. Oo boy. For dinner later, we had organ and chick pea stew! Mmm, tasty? Apparently, the first day you eat the organs and you wait for the next day to eat the actual meaty part of the sheep. So that was that. I'm glad I tried it but I don't think I'm going to be ordering it in a restaurant anytime soon. 

Anywho, as crazy as the actual slaughtering was, we had an experience outside the house that I thought was just as interesting. The aftermath of Aid... da da daaa. My friend and I walked down to the end of her street, which met up with the main road, and immediately in front of us was this chaotic smokey scene of destruction. Maybe a little melodramatic, but really. This was intense. There were these huge fire pits set up for roasting the heads of the sheep - but not just roasting. Blackening to a crisp. The guys out on the streets (between the ages of about 13-28 maybe) would then grab the heads out of the fire (some bare-handed! gah. Only the older ones though) and proceed to chop the horns off the head and then split the head in half. Next to these massive fire pits were piles of these skins turned inside-out, all waiting to be picked up for cleaning and drying. All along the street too, people were trying to keep these huge fires going, so were throwing in old doors, chairs, crates, whatever would be fire friendly and was currently unused. You can imagine all the sounds I got to hear that day! What with all the sheep killings, the blood, the heaps of sheep's skins, the blackened heads emerging from these fire mounds, the kids throwing chairs and doors into these fires, the gray sky and the smokey air, it seriously looked like some apocalyptic, end of the world scene from a movie. So. Intense. It felt like being part of some sort of exclusive club though, being out on the streets with all this happening and witnessing it. Sometimes it pays to be American - though I'm a girl, since I'm foreign I didn't get shuma-ed off the streets. Hurray.

So, needless to say, Eid was intense. If you didn't read about it from the last post, it's basically reenacting the biblical story of Abraham. He was instructed to sacrifice his son, but at the last minute there was divine intervention and instead Abraham was told to sacrifice a sheep in the place of his son. Hence killing the sheep. Crazy how many people go all out with getting one sheep (or more... depending on econ status) - of the 4-5 million sheep that are killed in Morocco each year for food, 1 million are killed on Eid al-Adhan. This probably seems like such a waste or cruel to animals (which I still am unsure how I feel about it) but, when you look at it, the sheep are killed quickly (if it's done right I suppose) so suffering is, inshallah, minimal. The sheep is not wasted either - everything is consumed. So you eat every part of the body (except possibly the hooves? I never saw what became of those) and the skin is dried and cleaned and used later as blankets or else the wool is taken and spun later. So the animal is being put to use and not wasted, as it probably would be in other parts of the world. Though I will say, the religious significance seems to have been lost over time. There wasn't much ceremony around the killing of the sheep - it was more of just an exciting spectacle people look forward to everywhere, with special food to go along with it. It's also been fairly heavily commercialized, as could be seen with all the advertisements the week or two before. But hey - look what's happened to Christmas. 

That's all I have for you for now. Sorry if the formatting is funky - it's taking me forever to do it all and I don't feel like fixing it 0:) I'll probably want some distraction from my ISP this week so inshallah I'll fill you in on the rest of what's been happening lately. Talk to you sooon. 

Word of the Day:

Inshallah - God-willing. Used as the English equivalent of 'hopefully' but soooo much cooler and powerful. Used all the time - will you come back and visit? - Inshallah. What time is your train arriving? 3:00 pm, inshallah. So. Good

Humdullah - Thank God. Kind of goes along with the theme of inshallah I guess. This word is also used a lot, and is pronounced differently according to how much you want to emphasize the word. So much fun to say.

     

Here comes Eid al-Adha

Alright. I realize it's been a little while since my last post, and I probs won't have too much time in the next week to post again. BUT I wanted to write something real quick because it's the holiday season right now! Tomorrow is Eid al-Adha, pretty much the equivalent of Christmas in the States. Dear Wiki can tell you more about the background and tradition of the holiday if you're curious:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_al-Adha

So I'm staying with my friends family for the next couple days (complications with my family and had to move out) and they already have a ram! It's in this little room right next to the living room where I'm sleeping. Goofy little guy, but he can be loud when he wants. So basically the fam is going to kill the sheep and then we'll eat it. Big big occasion. Everyone's super excited about it - there are tons of sheep/rams in the streets, ready to be sold or are being delivered. Little stands have popped up selling hay for the sheep and coal, or guys sit along the streets with a wheel to sharpen blades. All the commercials and ads recently have been filled with sheep. Also, the bigger the sheep you buy, the better - gotta impress the neighbors!

And soon I get to experience this tradition of sacrificing the sheep. I don't like seeing animals suffer and I'm queasy around blood so not gonna lie, little nervous about the whole thing. But it's something that people have mentioned ever since Ramadan. There is another Eid then, but this is Eid Kabir, or the Big Eid. So inshallah, everything goes well!

Just thought I would just give you a little taste of the atmosphere and upcoming event so you can feel some of the suspense/build up that everyone else here is feeling.

More to come after the holiday :)

Southern Wanderings

Oy ve. It's been a while again. I've got a ton of emails to send but this stupid internet stick is taking FOREVER (I lost my other one that worked like a dream... damn) so I figured I might as well start writing a new post while I wait.

Anywho. I don't even know where to start with this and enough has happened that telling all is somewhat daunting. So. I'm going to try and use pictures and give you a rough idea of what's been going on in the past 2 weeks or so.

Ahh digression before I even start... Halloween happened... when? One thing I've been missing from America has been fall and the whole build up to the holidays. Apple picking, leaves changing, that distinctly autumn smell.. ooh dear. And of course, the wonderful holiday of Halloween. It was so strange this year to not think about a costume at all really and to have some people just say.. ooo yeah. Happy Halloween. I got to hang out with my Vass friend visiting from London on Halloween! And went to someone's house. But other than that, nothing at all resembling dressing up, trick or treating, or whatever occurred. I'm going to have to do a better job with creating some sort of makeshift Thanksgiving because I can't miss both fall holidays. That just wouldn't do.

Oh. Another little side note before I get into the happenings of the past 2 weeks. I was talking to one of my friends online and he asked me to tell him about weird customs I've encountered in Morocco. That's an easy one, right? I'm surrounded by Moroccan culture all day and all night, I live in a Moroccan household, and my house is in the old part of the city where European culture has been held back to some degree. But oddly, I drew a blank and couldn't think of anything. Weird customs? I had no idea what to say. The only thing that really came to mind was something to do with food.. but even that was a kind of lame, I-need-to-think-of-something response. And then I started thinking about it more... there are a lot of things that happen daily that were alien to me at first, but since I encounter them so often I've started taking them for granted and so don't think of them as that strange anymore. Take bargaining for example. The first couple weeks that was something difficult to try and do - shopkeepers inevitably set the price really high, especially since they know I'm American tourist. Arguing with the shopkeeper about their product being too expensive and trying to get the price down was really uncomfortable at first. But now I like it - it's become a sort of game. And you get such an awesome feeling of accomplishment when you've managed to bring the price down a good deal. Here's how a typical conversation could go (abbreviated version):

Me - 200 dh for that bag? Pshh that's way too much. I'll pay 100 dh.
Shopkeeper - 100 dh, no. 200 dh is a good price.
Me - No. 100 dh.
Shopkeeper - How about 180 dh?
Me - No, I'll pay 100 dh. I'm a student.
Shopkeeper - That's not possible. What's your last price?
Me - I'm not paying anymore than 120 dh.
Moment of truth. Here I'll either get it or I won't. Still not perfect at it, obviously, but I had some good luck getting some little presents in Marrakech. Wooo. That's one thing I've decided I'm going to miss a lot about Morocco. I can just imagine going into a Macy's or Urban Outfitters or something...
$90 for the jeans? That's ridiculous. I'll pay $50.
Um ma'am, you either pay $90 or you don't buy the pants.
That's no fun. But anyways, the whole point of that was that language barrier/street harassment aside, I actually feel pretty comfortable here now, to the point that things like bargaining or even eating tajine that were once awkward and nervous activities for me are now easy and natural. I thought I would always be conscious of the differences and foreign habits I encountered here, but now it's just a part of everyday life. Gah. So great.

Alright enough with that. So, the past 2 weeks! The first interesting thing that happened was my venture up north during the school week. I finally decided for sure that I'm going to do my big research project on contemporary women artists in Morocco. Which means I just get to travel all over and talk to people :) That's not why I'm doing it obviously, but it works out well. My professor for one of my classes got me into contact with two women we studied in our visual arts class. They live close to each other and both agreed to meet me, so I picked up and went up north to Tetouan (sounds like something from Star Wars) to meet these women. They were both just the sweetest people in the world - so accommodating and so helpful. It was fun to get a glimpse into the Moroccan art scene, especially with artists that exhibit their work internationally as well. I still have a long ways to go with the project but this was a really, really awesome start.

Typical view during the bus tour. NBD

Again, through the bus window

So yeah, I ended up spending about a day and a half in Tetouan and a nearby town. That was on a Wednesday and Thursday, and so upon returning to Rabat, I barely had time to catch my breath before my program had us pack up to head south. Ah the Southern Excursion... what the program insisted would be one of the highlights of the program and oh how right they were. This was quite a trip though - our destinations included Ifrane-Azrou, Middelt, Merzouga, N'qob, Ouarzazate, Marrakech, and Essaouira. All in a week. There was a lot of bus time at the beginning of this trip. We stopped by cedar forests to learn about deforestation, drove through palm valleys since that industry sustains so many people, stopped by this fancy shmancy university called Al Akhawayn (means two brothers, and which was absolutely gorgeous and I can't believe I didn't apply there ha), etc. Being on the bus for so long was kind of rough, but the drive was absolutely gorgeous. We drove through the Atlas mountains and a bunch of tizis, or the valley essentially between 2 mountains, and that was breathtaking. Oh lord. At this town called Rissani, we ditched the bus and took Land Rovers out to pay a visit to the Sahara! Gah. Oh that was one thing we learned - don't say Sahara Desert. Sahara means desert in Arabic. So it will sound real redundant to say Sahara Desert.

Desert at sunset

Once in the desert (in a small town called Merzouga) we settled into our hotel and went outside to go grab our camels :) Actually, my camel and the one on the same lead kind of terrified me. They both made some angry noises while on the ground and mine had really pointy teeth. But once actually on, it was fun. We rode the camels up to the top of one of the dunes to see the sunset - my pictures can't really do justice to the colors we saw, so you'll have to take my word for it. But it was absolutely incredible. I'll try to add in more later but my internet is being exceptionally lame right now and will only load this picture to the left. Camel pictures to come later.

But anyways, after sitting atop the dunes for a bit, we meandered back to the start of the dunes and went back to the hotel. Which was awesome. It was dinner time by then, so we had a lovely buffet and had the opportunity to hear a Gnawa concert afterwards. Gnawa music is incredible. It's a type of music that came to Morocco with the sub-Saharan slave trade, and over the years has developed according to sub-Saharan, Amazighi (Berber), and Arab influences. It's usually very spiritual or mystical, and at times induces trances for exorcism, for connection to the more spiritual realm, etc. It's easy to see how it could do this - it's got a strong drum base and the same phrase is repeated over and over again, often times for hours at a time. The rhythm changes though. It felt somewhat awkward, because a hotel dining room full of European and American tourists is clearly not the place that Gnawa music should be played. It was hard to not feel like this was, again, an activity catered to the Oriental fantasies of colonialists. That aside though, the music was amazing. And later on, some of the waiters started playing just the drums so people got up to dance, which was awesome because this just felt like a celebration. Gotta find a CD of Gnawa music before coming home.

After several days of traveling around the Atlas region and seeing several towns, we stopped in Marrakech for two days. Marrakech was really awesome. There were tons of tourists, but Marrakech still had a certain charm to it and there was so much to do. The Djamea Lefna is the huge huge square in the middle of the old medina and definitely lives up to it's reputation of being just crazy. It was most fun at night, when a large area of the square was devoted to long tables where you could sit and have skewers of meat and veggies, vendors came out selling this incredible but super intense spiced tea (we came back to our vendor several times, so he ended up putting some ginger jam and menthol into ours... it was like smelling Vicks vapor rub. So definitely cleared the sinuses but after the initial shock of the fumes was fine to drink) and of course, the famous entertainers were out and about. Musicians were everywhere in the square, and I did walk past a snake charmer a couple times. But there was also a guy dancing with a rooster on his head that was pretty hilarious. Just all kinds of things to see in the square at night.

This is one of the smaller squares we went to with an awesome
cafe with this fun view

There was plenty of shopping to be done in Marrakech and lots of sight-seeing. My fav parts were definitely the art museum that had some great contemporary art, and our illegal picnic in the Majorelle Garden (this garden was gorgeous but felt super structured, which I didn't really like).

After 2 days in Marrakech, we headed out to our final destination - Essaouira. This small city sits on the ocean and has a gorgeous, clean medina and tons of cute shops and art galleries. I'm going to live there for at least part of the time of my independent research period. It's the south, which I loved, and is a city but seems very manageable. Ahh can't wait for the independent study time.

Anyways, I think this post is long enough so I'm going to go to bed. Night!


WORD OF THE DAY:

Al-Fan (fus'ha) - Art. I'm doing my independent research project on al-fan in Morocco! Heeey

Global phenomenon and... just for kicks

Alright so I just wanted to add this real quick, because I meant to mention it in my last post and forgot. So here it is!

Back to the village for a sec. So remember that I said I had a sister who spoke English in the house I was staying at? I think I said that. Anywho, we got on the subject of music, and she was telling me the names of some Moroccan artists I should check out and also listing the American artists she likes. She mentioned Cat Stevens, which seemed random to me but I guess since he converted to Islam, it might make him more appealing? Also, my pretty conservative host-sister, who said she would wear the burka if her husband asked her too, said she was a fan of Bob Marley. I thought that was so great - while I've seen a lot of Bob Marley merchandise here, I didn't expect her to mention him. But that's not all. The thing that got me the most was that she talked about watching TV last year and seeing Michael Jackson's kids with their aunt. Clearly referring to all the footage of his family and all the events surrounding the death of Michael Jackson. Obviously I knew that Michael Jackson was a global phenomenon and his death was felt around the world, but hearing my host-sister talking about watching it made it real. She lives in a bigger town than the rest of her family because she goes to school there, but even still - we shared a kind of connection even back then, just because we were all following the same pop culture event unfold on TV and all sharing in the loss of this American icon. Ah globalization and the super-culture you've created.

And then just this little fun thing I wanted to share because I finally got a picture today.

Guess what we call him? Yeah... dread dog. Easy enough to remember. He hangs around near the main center where we take classes and oh. Makes me so happy every time I see him. 

WORD OF THE DAY: 

Fayl (pronounced f-eye-l, roughly) - verb. I'm studying a bunch of AFAAL (plural form of verb) right now for my test tomorrow. So I should go. Bye!

Taking a peek at village life

Oops. So I guess it's been a while since I've last written... and a good deal has happened. And if you're like me, seeing a super long post might be daunting and I don't want to bore you, so instead of recounting every little thing I've done in the past 2 weeks or so I'll just give you some little glimpses at what life has been like. Cause let me tell you - there have been plenty of new experiences in the past 2 weeks. I'll start with the village.

Alright so! As you might have read in the last post, my program planned an excursion to a rural village called Alateesha (don't hold me to that spelling). The closest city is Boujad, about 20-30 min away or so. Here's a map - Boujad is in the bottom right corner, right under the 's' in Atlas. Just to give you an idea of where we were at. Sadly my time was shortened a bit - because my stomach loves me so much, it decided to act up the night before. And by act up, I mean my body really didn't want me to leave quite yet for the village. So I stayed behind for a day or so to catch up on sleep and whatnot and set out on my own to the village a couple days later. And woo! That was a journey. I hopped on a train to Rabat at 9:45 am, switched trains at Casa to go on to Khouribga, caught a bus from there to Boujad (and whoa I stood out there. Not only was I the only non-Moroccan on that bus, but I don't think there was anyone not from a rural area on that bus) got a ride to the association in Boujad, and from there got a ride with the driver/2 policemen accompanying the program during the village stay all the way to the village. Made some friends along the way (there's no way I would have made it to the village had I not asked someone every single step of the way where I should be going) and 10 hours later, I pulled up in front of the house that I'd be staying at. By this time, around 7:30 pm, it was completely dark and had been for about an hour - the sun sets around 6 pm now, so after that you pretty much have to be back at your house in the village. I was pleasantly surprised to find one of my friends was staying there too! So especially after that long day that was really nice to just sit and relax and catch up on all the happenings of the village.

 Here's a look at where I was at for real. My house! There's a small TV I saw them turn on once or twice the entire time I was there but other than that there were no functioning electronic devices, so we had dinner by candlelight. And when it was time to brush our teeth/use the bathroom before bedtime, that meant taking a flashlight and walking around the side of the house to the backyard. That was actually a really cool time to be outside - when I turned my flashlight off and looked up, the stars were INCREDIBLE. Something I've only seen a handful of times in my life. I tried to look for constellations and actually couldn't find any, because there were too many stars and I couldn't distinguish any shapes. I also understand now how the Milky Way got it's name, because it definitely lives up to that when you can actually see it. And ahh I like to think of it as a little farewell, but the last night in the village my friend and I saw a shooting star - and not just the little ones you see for a millisecond in more lit up areas. This one had a trail and went far across the sky - it was something out of a movie. I could deal with having a sky like that every night.

Front yard of my home, with the oven
in the corner

On a different note, one thing I learned in the village is how much you can communicate without words, or at least with a very limited vocabulary. I really got a chance to test my Darija out here - my family, comprised of a mother, father, and 3 sisters, spoke only Darija (the middle sister, who had pretty good English, didn't come til the 2nd or 3rd day I was there. So after that we got into lengthier, more in depth convos, but until then we were limited to whatever we could communicate in Darija and through hand gestures). The youngest daughter knew some French, but it was about as good as my Darija. The father spoke some French, but thought it was way better than it actually was and also didn't understand why my friend and I didn't speak more. So that wasn't too helpful. He was saab bezzof - very difficult. Like I said, I won't go into detail about everything about the village and I don't want to use this as my ranting space, but he was a very traditional man who believed that women shouldn't have rights and should stay at home. He wasn't around much and didn't eat meals with the rest of the family, so I spent most of my time with my host mom and sisters, which was awesome. They are truly some of the sweetest people you'll ever meet - right away, they welcomed me into their home. The language barrier didn't stop them from talking to us a lot, and we actually got a lot across. The older sister, Naima, was about the same age as me. One of the little gestural-conversations we had revolved around ideals of beauty, if you will. She pointed to the side of my nose (implicating the nose ring) and basically asked why I had it. Same with my toe ring, and my non-lobe ear piercings. I didn't know what to tell her other than I liked them and they're pretty in America, to which she made sure to tell me that girls didn't do that in Morocco. Ha I think she thought it was a little strange (I've seen a handful of girls with nose rings in Morocco but yeah, for the most part it seems like it's not really a big thing here).

Rug I'm pretty sure my host mom wove. If you
turn right, right before the open door, you
enter the kitchen. But if you go out that open
door, you're in the backyard. And right next
to the cows and chickens.

But this little gestural-convo took an interesting twist that I didn't really expect. Naima asked my friend and I why we didn't wear a headscarf - I couldn't really give her a good answer, except that we just don't do it much in America and that I just chose not to wear one. Her response was "mashi zwina," or not beautiful, not so good. She then made a prayer gesture, and the sign of the cross, asking if either of us prayed. Neither of us do, which we told her. She seemed a bit confused - but as with my unconventional piercings and bizarre toe adornment, it just seemed to be just another odd thing about me. She didn't seem offended by it, or think of me differently (at least she didn't act any different around me). Surprised? I was. Maybe it's because I'd been warned that being a Jew or Christian was better than not practicing any religion, but this attitude and subsequent continuation of the conversation, as if this was just another weird thing making me different from her, was not what I expected. I anticipated that I might have offended her somewhat, or at least caused her some distress that I didn't pray. But no. She told her mother, and the other sisters found out later too, and again none of them seemed bothered. That a family living in a small, rural village with little exposure to the "West" (with the exception of the English speaking sister) could be so accepting certainly surprised me and gave me something to think about. If nothing else, this trip helped to break down some of the stereotypes often associated with rural life, and about how they view the rest of the world. But hey - what happens when you assume? Ha.. I hope someone can tell me the answer to this.

Anywho. Life in the village was sweet - it was quiet and tranquil, and nothing was rushed. If you enjoy a farm-animal soundtrack, then you'd be right at home. It was surprisingly cool here, too, but I actually liked that a lot - one thing I've been missing about being in the States is experiencing autumn, mah fav season. But on one of the days towards the end of the trip, the air definitely carried that distinct, autumn smell/feel, which made me super happy.

Another thing that made both my palette and my stomach happy was the food. Ah. Remember how I got sick right before leaving? Well, looks like I should have just gone to the village right away to experience my fams cooking - I was recovered by the time I got there, but my stomach felt so super normal, like it hasn't felt in a while there. That was awesome. The hobz (bread) was fresh everyday - the first morning there, I woke up and while eating a breakfast of tea, bread, and an olive oil/honey mixture (I was skeptical at first.. but again, my assumptions were proven wrong and it was delish) watched my older sister mix and knead the bread in a big bowl, and then set it aside to rise. I watched my host-mom put it in the igloo-like mud oven later. We had tajine of course, which again was so. good. Our couscous, or ksuksu, was a little different than what I've been getting in Rabat - there were of course the requisite vegetables like potatoes, squash, and carrots, but they also poured hot milk over the entire platter and it was even a bit sweet. Omg this was yummy! My host family also made a kind of oatmeal-like rice pudding thing for dinner one night that was also delicious. And every meal was, of course, accompanied by the wunderbar fresh hobz, which I so wish I still had. Ah.

You don't get an idea of the entire
 compound, but this was one of the walls of the
school. I just liked the picture...

I guess I'll skip to the last important part now. One of the things we did the last 2 days we were in the village was hang out at the local school and help out around the grounds. Ahhh. These kids were so cool. They were between the ages of 5-13 I'd say, and were clearly excited for us to be there. We sat in on class one day, and I ended up in a room where the teacher taught both 3rd and 6th grade, since they didn't have enough teachers to separate them. The teacher seemed really awesome - he spoke at least 3 languages and was super sweet with the kids. I've been learning about gender disparity when it comes to education, especially in rural areas, but this teacher made it a point to include all the kids in class, regardless of them being a girl or not. We stood up at the front of the room at the beginning, and our program director told us to do something for the kids. So we taught them "head, shoulders, knees and toes," which proved to be quite a hit. This turned into a lesson, learning some new English words, and they repeated it over and over again. Gah it was cute, and a bunch of them were singing that song for the next several days. When leaving the school compound to go back to Rabat, some of the kids followed us down to the end of the road and a few of them were still singing head shoulders..

Working hard. Yeah

But yeah, after that we spent the rest of our time outside, cleaning up the yard, whitewashing the walls surrounding the compound and the trees/rocks, and then painting the walls with designs and whatnot. It didn't feel like much at the time, but after everything was done, one of the teachers made it a point to let us know how important it was that we had come and how much it meant to all the kids/teachers. I guess we should keep in mind not to underestimate our actions, and what even the smallest gesture can do.

I was just starting to settle in and feel more comfortable with life and our routine in the village when already, it was time to go. So went a little less than a week in this village that somehow managed to accommodate 40+ of us. It was definitely leaving but, oh well. My host fam said I could come back anytime and I wouldn't mind taking them up on that offer.

Oh and you think I'm done writing. I'll keep the rest of this short. So I had a night in Rabat before leaving again, this time to the northeast of Morocco to a town called Al-Hoceima, right on the Mediterranean Coast. Again, this was quite a journey - overnight train in a freezing train car and then a 2 1/2 hour taxi ride left us with about 3ish hours of sleep, but we arrived, checked in to an awesome but relatively cheap hotel, and set out about our day. The group I was with took a boat ride of the coast and whooaa was that worth it. Ha I'm bombarding you with pictures with this post but I can't not show what this place looked like! Plus they're actually from my camera now so I feel better about it. Anywho, the coastline was rocky, cliffy, what have you, and it was a really gorgeous day. Our captain and first mate were both super cool, and oo hey the captain was originally from Corsica so spoke Italian! My Italian was rusty at first fo sho but ooh my lord it felt so good to break that out finally.

If you thought that looked like a Spanish
fort atop a small little island, you were
right - Spain still has some random and, in
some cases, pretty useless territories in parts
of Morocco. Colonialism/imperialism lives on!

The next day we made our way to another little town to do some hiking, which ended up being really sweet since we were right on the coastline. It definitely wasn't a stroll in the park, but that ended up being more fun - it felt like no one, besides maybe some goats and their owners, had seen this area of the land that we climbed. Again - so worth it.

Got back to Al-Hoceima later, called up our captain friend! And hung out with him and the first mate later. And then left the next morning. The hiking, boating, and general atmosphere of this town and the spontaneity of it all definitely made this one of the best weekends by far. I would go back there for sure.

I guess this about wraps up this post. I don't think I can tell you anything else exciting that's happened, except for what's to come next weekend - the southern excursion! We'll be spending a week down south, hitting up Marrakech, Essaouira, and ooo even taking a peak at the desert. But that's for another post. Bislemah!


WORD OF THE DAY:

Aloomam Almootaheeda (forgive me, I don't know how you actually spell it with Latin letters..) - United Nations. Not only is this word really fun to say, but it's totally random right? Yeah, one of the first words we learn in the Arabic textbook. Good stuff

Quick little thang

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!

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?

Fes old walled madina

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).