Fez Is More than Just a Hat

Wednesday 18 February:
I woke up at 5.30am. On my walk coming back from the toilets I could see that there was not a single light on in the entire casbah, meaning that no one else was yet awake. Breakfast was served at 6am, and I was the only one downstairs. We needed to be on the bus in half an hour to start our twelve-hour drive to Fez, but people only started showing up around 6.20am. We were late shipping off, and then we were on the road for thirteen hours because of a second flat tire and four breaks for lunch and utilities. At one point in the afternoon we saw a large gathering of brightly-colored cars sitting in a row on the dunes, so we stopped to see what was going on. The group was a number of French people partaking in SuperCinq Rapide 2009 - a program in which people are given the means to do some dune-surfing and desert racing in exchange for bringing handicap and medical supplies to remote desert villages. As I am one of only two in the group to speak French, I made good friends with several people and was invited to come along. We saw them depart and resumed our trip. Lunch was held at a hotel where the CCCL takes participants of the ElderHostel program. The pool was shaped like Africa. The meal was a sort of desert pizza - bread stuffed with meat and onion. It's name in Arabic, مدفونة, medfuuna, means "buried" because the meat is buried in the bread. The drive wasn't boring at all. We went from desert to mountains to cliffs to snow to green valleys to the metropolis. At one point I led a recitation of over an hour of the Little Mermaid and was the only one who never missed a line. I learned how to conjugate Turkish and that there is a serious problem with school zoning here in Morocco. Some children walk more than 20km a day to get to school. We met a really adorable dog at a café and we fed her some of desert pizza leftovers. Our hotel was pretty nice to look at but the people were terrible. The service at dinner that night was horrendous and the rooms were by far the least spectacular of all the hotels we stayed in. Room service was dirt cheap though.

Thursday 19 February:
If there was ever a city that I adored more than Fez, it would have to be renamed "Paradise." A guide took us from the main street (designed by the same man who did Paris's Champs-Elysées and is named the Arabic equivalent) to the palace (where the king was at the time) to the souks to the Jewish quarter and a synagogue where I washed my hands in the pure rain water that is normally reserved for a bride's pre-marital bath to the TANNERY! I am sure that y'all have seen pictures of the giant lot full of dyeing vats. Let me assure you that it is much larger in real life, and the smell is not like the leather of America. The owner of the tannery gave us the 101 on how leather is made and the dyeing process. Red dye comes from henna, green from mint, blue from indigo, and yellow from saffron (thus it is MUCH more expensive). I did not buy any leather there because the leather in Rabat is imported from Fez and a third the price. I did however buy 20dhm of nougat on the street, and it was by far one of my favorite purchases ever. We went to see the mausoleum of the man who founded Fez. I forget his name but the mausoleum is Moulay Idriss, and there is a brass plate on which you can place your hand and make a wish. Lunch followed and it had the best salads that we have ever had. Nine in total there were, ranging from potatoes to eggplant to cucumbers to bell peppers to tomatoes to olives. The tagine was beef with prunes (much tastier than it sounds) and we had pears for dessert! After lunch was a stop at a wood museum (the trees of Morocco, tools, shelves, chairs, thrones, furniture, cribs, etc.) and then a textile shop where some of us actually got to do some weaving. Everything in the store had been woven by hand on site, and I made my first serious purchase of the entire semester. As students, we were being offered a 25% discount. Well, that just wasn't enough for me. I had fallen in love with a bedsheet that was originally 800dhm. Through an odd mix of FusHa, darija, French, and English, I got the man down to 375dhm and walked away with a massive grin. We then had to go to a women's shelter in the area to satisfy our gender studies professor but on the way one of our boys, Matt, was solicited for marijuana. The man followed Matt for ten minutes until we reached our bus, hounding him the whole time. The shelter had only been open a month and already had ten monthers with fourteen children. It was the fifth center to open in Fez, and we were told that there are as many as 75 cases of women calling for help per center per month. We were given a tour, and it surely is a beautiful establishment. All of the women smiled as we walked by, and many of the children ran after us, none of them being more than four or five years old. Islam does not encourage strong marriages in any way and really kind of encourages divorce. So, that's what happened there. We returned to the hotel, had another terribly-serviced dinner, and went to bed.

I was taught how to fry fish by Mohammad last night. I have plans to go to the giant supermarket this weekend. We're trying to make plans for the Prophet's birthday (i.e. four-day weekend). Some people still haven't figured out spring break and are upset that the prices are so high now.

On the Road Again

Monday 16 February:
We drove to the village of Zaouia Nissiriya (don't you act like you've ever even heard of it) and were given a tour by a most attractive man named Sa'iid of a large and beautiful casbah (pretty much an Arab chateau and surrounding small houses). In this particular one we were able to watch a man melt silver and pour it into molds to make jewelery of the hand of Fatima. We were taken to the storage part of the house where the sales are made, and with the help of Fadoua, our program director, we bargained significantly and made off with lots of hand made silver jewelry. The first of the many car problems happened after that. Our tire exploded. It just so happened that this happened in the middle of the transition into the desert with lots of mountains everywhere, so we all climbed the mountain while our awesome driver, Sidi Mohammed, changed the tire. We had a fun time driving through dirt roads to lunch because there was a giant hole in the road but nothing that our desert Jeeps couldn't handle. We ate at a nomad's house. He told us his life story and explained that because of his age he must stay in the house now but that his sons have taken up the nomad lifestyle and go out for two to three weeks at a time to tend to the camels that they breed and come home for a few weeks and repeat. He made tea in front of us, and I was intrigued by the cone of sugar that he used because in the cities it is only sugar cubes. We then went into the desert. There were four people to a Jeep and we turned right off of the road and went through the sand dunes for fifteen or twenty minutes to reach the camp site. My driver was kind of insane, and it was more of a roller coaster instead of a Jeep. Poor Monica bumped her head on the roof of the Jeep because she didn't know how to off-road too well. We reached the camp site complete with giant tents made of rugs sewn together. We dropped off our things and headed straight for the camels. I got to ride a giant white beauty because I myself am tall and have riding experience. What people don't realize is that small camels are the size of a Clydesdale. When my camel stood up, I was probably ten feet off the ground. I was absolutely thrilled to be so high up and I quickly learned how to ride the gait. However, I was very disappointed to realize that we were just lead about for forty-five minutes instead of being allowed to actually ride the camels. I understand that camels are very stubborn animals and kind of difficult to handle, but would it have been so bad to let us do a camel trot for a few meters? We were on the camels while the sun was setting, and it was absolutely stunning. To know that there was nothing for miles but gorgeous dunes and sparse trees creates a sense of isolation - but in a good way. We had a photo shoot on the dunes using the sunset to create a bunch of silhouettes. There will be pictures as soon as everybody starts sharing them. We returned to the tents to have a musical performance by a Berber group. There were women ululating and a bunch of girls in the group tried (unsuccessfuly) to ululate as well. Dinner was served and delicious. We then had a dance party with drums, the musical group, and the two boys on guitar that lasted until about 10pm when the fire outside was lit. We all were on our backs staring up at the incredibly vivid night sky. This sky couldn't even compare to the sky in the middle-of-nowhere part of northern Minnesota where I dogsled in March 2007. The strip of the Milky Way was as obvious as the moon herself. With a little help from my friends, I found six constellations that I had never been able to see before. The boys brought out the guitars and we sat and sang until 1am or something ridiculous like that.

Tuesday 17 February:
A desert sunset is gorgeous, but a desert sunrise will absolutely change your life. The sky was a rainbow for almost half an hour before any part of the sun showed itself but then the great disc was fully raised within fifteen minutes. Almost the entire group trekked to the highest dune we could find and were all wrapped up in blankets (desert mornings are cold!) and sitting on top of it. I really wish that I could do a better job of capturing the awe and glory of that one-hour art exhibit, but I just can't, and I am sorry. We reluctantly went back to camp to have a breakfast involving camel's milk and camel's cheese and desert honey and home-made bread. I have been developing a grudge against American health regulations because there is nothing anywhere near as delicious as fresh milk from a strange animal. We drove all the way back over the sand dunes, back onto the dirt road, back onto the paved road, and then onto the highway all the way back to Zagora. We toured a second casbah complete with goatskin butter churners and baby cribs. Our guide was actually giving us a tour of his own house! We went to a pottery village nearby and, after watching a man spin a candle holder and a few mini tagines on the wheel, a few of us got to try. People took a long time buying pottery afterwards, making us late. Wherever we went, many children followed us. This was never a problem until one time Anna brought out her notebook because the children were all holding out stickers as if intent on putting them on some surface. As soon as the notebook came into view, there was a madness that spread in half a second and all fifteen children started grabbing at it. Anna was very upset and our guide had to come in and bat away the children to retrieve the notebook. Apparently, European tourists give pens, pencils, stickers, and notebooks to children of the small villages. The children had been asking for such from Anna, and it got out of hand because of the miscommunication. We had made it to Nkoub, a small town that no one has heard of whose claim to fame is having the most casbahs in one city, fifty-two. Our hotel that night, a casbah, had the toilets located on the opposite side of the property from the rooms, which certainly made midnight bathroom runs very interesting. There was a fireplace in the "lobby" that made us all quite warm and snug. The casbah was very cool because, being a casbah, it was made of mud bricks.

My Moroccan family wants me to cook an American dish for them. It has been difficult to decide what to make as the vegetable/fruit season is shifting from oranges and squash to other foods. I went with a few girls from the group to a meeting of the VLT (Very Little Theatre) last night, which just so happens to be made up of a bunch of ambassadors, their wives, Peace Corps officers, World Bank employees, and a few Americans teaching in the university here. It took place at the home of the man who is currently serving as the American ambassdor because Obama has not yet nominated one. It was so intense because I had had no idea who would be in it. There was just a flyer that had been posted at the center. It was really intense. Unfortunately, the group wants to perform these one-act plays in late May, so I myself will not be able to perform with them. There is one girl from our group, Susanna, who wants to stay here for a while teaching English, so she will be performing with them, and I intend on following her to more readings and rehearsals.

The weather has been cloudless and 65 for many days. My family is building a restaurant in the bottom part of the house, so there is a lot of excitement in the air. Hanane has been busy planning the baby shower, and her husband is handling the restaurant business.

Let Me Count the Ways...

Saturday 14 February:
Heart-shaped cookies accompanied us for the four hours to Marrakesh. We stopped at a café with a playground and our fifteen-minute intended break turned into almost forty-five minutes, and we were never on time thereafter. Upon arrival in Marrakesh and seeing the inescapable battering and aggressive salespeople, I decided that Marrakesh is to New York City as Rabat is to Arab, Alabama. We went to the musée de Maroc, fifteen minutes from the famous square. The old Quranic school dorms are so overwhelmingly gorgeous. The Moroccans have perfected the art of misleading, banal exterior of houses that lead to the most ornate décor imagineable. Just you waituntil I get pictures up. I spent most of the evening hanging out in the famous square, jamaa' al-fna( جماع الفنة), avoiding pickpocketing children with large, brown eyes, watching the storytellers (and not understanding a word), dancers, acrobats, gamblers, men with prize-winning games, snake charmers, men with monkeys on chains, and, of course, food carts. Take a string of food carts from a carnival, triple it in size, increase the food quality tenfold, double the price, and introduce really aggressive advertising. If you walk down the avenue of carts, you get hounded by men complimenting you in every language they know and grabbing your arm to drag you to their vendor's benches. It got pretty scary at times. Overall, I didn't actually like Marrakesh because it was too touristy, too expesive (for Morocco, that is), and didn't have a lot of culture to offer. Our hotel was pretty grand and exhausting to look at for all teh visual stimulation. We were in triples, but my own room had five beds, and thus lots of space. Our bathroom had a meter long hallway, and our terrace was about two square feet in size. Most of the group went out to a nightclub, and I am glad that I didn't. The cover charge was 250dhm ($37.50) and drinks started at 80dhm ($10). The buffet dinner at the hotel was insanely delicious, and room service was cheaper than actually going out and buying the stuff. Amanda G, Anna, and I split a red wine with cheese, bread, apricots, and dates to the tune of less than three bucks each. I'd say that we won the game of entertainment that evening.

Sunday 15 February:
We left on our trusty little bus and spent the next four hours in hell. We were driving to the desert, but to do so, we had to pass through the mountains. I have never been one to fall victim to car sickness but when every single other person on the bus is green in the face and moaning with each turn (i.e. every five seconds), it pretty much happens. We made several stops for sanity and health's sake, and the boys brought out their guitars each time. I think we went through the entire White Album before lunch. A few people were seriously ill but that all disappeared the moment we took the last turn and there was nothing but rocks and sand and straight roads for miles. Our hotel was in an oasis town called Zagora, one of the last stops before the Sahara (صحراء which is the word for desert in Arabic). The hotel that we stayed at looked like a resort with lush gardens, a large pool, and plush furniture and rugs everywhere. The weather is finally beautiful. That day in particular was fine, with no clouds and probably mid-sixties for the temperature. There was lots of breezes, so a sweater was justifiable. The garden was full of palm trees, date trees, one banana tree that had no fruit, roses, a sort of lily, and lots of monkey grass lining the walkways. There was a fountain with five turtles, but as the fifth turtle was hiding behind a rock, he was my secret friend. We ate dinner in tents while sitting on plush sofas. That night was the first of four nights in a row during which we ate chicken and potato tagine for dinner. A few people jumped in the pool and started screaming because it was quite cool (the thermometer read 12 degrees Celsius). None of the outlets in my room worked, so I had to bum outlets from other people to recharge my camera battery.

I'll just stick to two days at a time so that y'all don't get overwhelmed. Since returning to Rabat I have eaten a lovely lunch at Fast Pizza with a seafood pizza, fries, and a coke for only 40dhm ($5) and then ice cream at Venezia Ice, far more expensive but worth the price (15dhm a scoop). In culture class this morning I got a "good!" from the professor, and I almost fell out of my seat. My most amazing friend Melissa sent me a care package on 27 Jan, and it arrived today. It was like Christmas, and I must make a public thank you to her for having made my day. :)

Excursion Preparations

Another picture album!
http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=275314974/a=72121623_72121623/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish

Gender class yesterday was a serious disappointment yet again. The man just cannot fathom giving us new information on a really fascinating topic. I have serious concerns for the mid term. The man has the potential to throw us evil essay topics that would touch on a single name he mentioned once in an anecdote. As our grades are entirely dependent on the mid term, the final, and the "project" as they call it, I really would appreciate knowing what I need to be doing.

I helped Mother do my laundry yesterday. We put half of it in the machine and did half of it by hand. I don't understand why we don't hand wash clothes all the time! It takes a fraction of the time and cleans your clothes so much more thoroughly. The dirt actually comes out because you actually work to get it out instead of swishing the clothes around in a tub of water. Set in stains that were years old were gone after a few seconds of elbow grease. It was just incredible. Mother laughed as we pulled out a pair of pants from the machine that still had a ring of dirt on the hem. We hung it all up to dry, but as this was at 7pm last night, it's all probably still quite damp. It is important that it all gets dry because I leave tomorrow morning at 7.30am for our excursion! I'd hate to be "that girl" with her clothes laid out over all the extra seats on the bus so that they can dry.

Baking soda is a gift from God. Febreze does not exist here, and honestly I was surprised to find baking soda because people don't bake in their homes. Ovens just don't happen, nor do microwaves. But shoes and closets are made much better with just a sprinkle of baking soda. And it's so cheap! 75 centimes (9¢) and it will last longer than my time here.

Today is Friday the 13th. The superstition associated with this day is not known here, but I took care to get everything done yesterday to avoid doing it today. I faxed three pages to BU housing yesterday to the tune of 150dhm ($18.75). That made me depressed for the rest of the day. I went to the bank to cash another traveler's check and was hounded by men on the street just outside the door to exchange my money with them. Street money exchange is highly illegal, and I suspect that the men who offer it right outside the bank doors are plants. However, the man at the desk told me that he needed the receipt for the check to cash it. I told him that such was nonsense because I had read the conditions and it stated only my presence, my passport, and my signature. I told him that I had been there before and cashed it without the receipt and reminded him that the receipt and the checks are meant to remain separate. He refused to work with me. I went first thing this morning with the receipt in my bag, just in case. It was a different man, and, as it is supposed to go, he didn't ask for the receipt. The exchange rate for the dollar has gone up a wee bit while the British pound has come down, much to my brother Finn's dismay.

Strawberries are coming into season here. If I could send you all a single strawberry from here so that you may witness the glory, I would. I like to think that farmer's market produce in America is much better than store bought. Well, here, even the crummiest bunch of any produce beats anything American produced. I cannot explain it. Nor can I explain the insatiable appetite for sugar. I ask my family to go easy on the sugar in my coffee and tea, but still, it is hard for me to handle. I once even indicated to them how much I would like by mixing it myself. My brother-in-law shook his head, saying that the half spoonful that I had put in didn't even count as added sugar and attempted to put in two sugar cubes (equivalent to four American sugar cubes). Diabetes here is supposed to be a big problem, present in almost a third of the population, but I have yet to see anything diabetes-related in any sort of store.

COUSCOUS! Now that I am in a normal Moroccan home, I will be graced with couscous Fridays from here on out. Brother-in-law was describing it to me yesterday during lunch and saying that he would not allow me to chicken out and use a spoon to eat it. I told him that I have tried twice now to form couscous into the little balls as the Moroccans do but failed miserably. He said that he will teach me. I just hope that more ends up in my mouth than on the table.

I have no idea if I will ever have Internet during our excursion, so I apologize for the very likely hiatus in updates. I will keep a log of the goings-on each day and post them the minute that I return. مع سلامة!

I May Never Be Happy with a Shower Again

I got home last night to find a young Brit in my living room. On learning that his name is Finn, I was told that he is here teaching English at Université Mohammad V and has been here for a month. He technically lives with my sister Hanane, who has the upstairs half of the house to herself and her husband. He was very impressed with my French and my Arabic because they're both better than his own, and he was further impressed with my lack of Southern accent and ability to take on his Sussex accent with no problem. You see, linguistics is practical! He had been with some of his friends in Marrakesh for the last week while the university had its post-finals vacation. He is quite nice overall.

I went to hammam for the first time last night! Hammam, for those who don't know, is the public bath houses prominent in all of Arabia. The tradition starts with the Romans back in whatever century B.C. One pays 9dhm for admission, 50 centimes for the special pre-soap, and 1dhm to rent a bucket and little stool. You undress down to underwear, or at least I did; most of the natives were fully naked. Then you take your bucket(s) into the hot rooms. There are always three rooms ranging from "cold" to "hot." The first room, the "cold" room is probably 75 degree, and meant as the recovery room after having bathed in the second "warm" room and sweated in the third "hot" room. I went with several girls from the program and had a blast. Always one starts in the second room, probably around 90 degrees, and you always fill your buckets with the hottest water you can stand from the taps along the wall. First, you smear the pre-soap all over you, an odd concoction with a green-brown color and no odor. You then take a scrubbing glove and rub all of your skin off. I am serious when I say this because if you yourself don't do a good enough job scrubbing, a nearby woman will take your glove from you and proceed to scrub you until you're as pink as a newborn babe. Twenty minutes of scrubbing is a minimum. After you have rinsed off all of your skin by scooping from your buckets, you may bathe as normal with soap, shampoo, and conditioner. It is considered very bad manners to dip from another person's bucket and also to pour water on yourself while standing. When you have finished all of your bathing and rinsing, take your bucket and dump it over your head. Then, after drinking a cup of water provided by an attendant, you proceed into the third "hot" room, which is easily 100 degrees. You sit there as long as you can stand and sweat everything out. You then go to the first "cold" room, drink another cup of water, and then go back into the main room to reclothe and go on with your day. I thought we spend a long time in the hammam after an hour and a half. My mother laughed at me, saying that she spends closer to three hours each time she goes. Never has my skin been so soft and never has my face been so aglow!

Mother insisted that have my head covered when I came home from hammam for fear that I would catch a cold with my wet hair in the evening air. I was forced to take a second bowl of hot soup for dinner as well, for fear that my body had lost its ability to make itself warm. There's a sort of superstition that a person's very first time to hammam is traumatic to the body because it has never known such cleanliness or so much warmth. I was also given an extra blanket at bedtime and told that now that I have started, I must go to hammam at least once a week. I have no objection to this. Even now, fourteen hours later, I feel cleaner than I think I ever have following a shower.

The Arabic quiz proved tricky but it was not a problem for me. What will be a problem for me is the oral presentation that I am giving this afternoon with two of my classmates, Matt and Monica. We translated the itinerary for our excursion this coming week, and while I know it very well, I have never been good with presentations.

Slight Injustices

I have a quiz today in Arabic. I am terrified because there was a ton of weird information that was thrown at us in the last two weeks. We learned about feminine sentences and the dual. These things are so odd, and I try to figure out how such things could have evolved linguistically but to no avail. We have to give an oral presentation tomorrow in front of the entire group, four minutes per person and using the new vocabulary. The theme of the last two chapters has been the planning of the fictional cousins Maha and Khalid by their fathers.

I ate soup with cinnamon in it last night for dinner. It was delicious but in a very strange way. I had dates for the first time, and they were incredible. I saw a cat eating the head of a chicken that had been discarded by a butcher on my walk home. I have been craving stuffed pasta since last Friday.

Culture class this morning was terrible. We're reading short stories and are required to prepare a discussion on it. When we do give our presentations, the professor interrupts us, never accepts our interpretations by flat out stating "no," and he does not answer our questions. He only wants to hear his own opinion regurgitated back to him. It is such a shame because the readings are truly good and enlightening as to the conditions of the people during the French Protectorate and following Independence. When it was my turn to present my short story, the professor stated that since I was of the literature circle that I ought to inform the class on what school of thought the author wrote. I had no idea that I was in the literature circle. This professor is so enlightened that he knows more about me than I do!

One of the Carolyns was running in a park with three other students. She was holding her cell phone in her shirt sleeve. A well-dressed business man came up to her, grabbed her arm, held it behind her back, pushed her down onto the ground, and fought with her for some time to get the phone. Carolyn had been yelling for help and it came a minute after the man had departed in the form of two youths "running after" him and then asking Carolyn for money for having helped her. The thief called Fadoua, our program director, from Carolyn's phone and apparently talked to her for quite some time.

I intend on buying saffron here and smuggling it back to the US. While it is cheaper here, it's still a pretty penny (30dhm/gram; $3.75/gram). I have been awesome about not spending money here. I think I have spent $100 in five weeks in going out to dinner and buying snacks. Next week is our week-long excursion during which everything is paid for. I love this game of not spending money!

Favorable Changes

So, the reception with the SIT kids went well enough, but we were all much more interested in the abundant cookies than in cross-group socializing.

I did a terrible thing. I practically ran away from the Khadiri house. While I was there for the lunch break, I grabbed my big duffel and left to drop it off at the center. Upon my return, Mother asked where I went (she hadn't seen me leave with the bag). I said that I had forgotten something at school. I ate lunch with Father as Mother had long since decided to not eat with the family for several days. He went back to watching TV, Mother went to the terrace to do laundry (after having asked me where my clothes were), and I grabbed the rest of my stuff and left the house with nothing but a small note and the key remaining in my alcove.

My new family is absolutely wonderful. Their house looks like a Moroccan house. I was force fed cookies and mint tea 'til I almost popped last night. My sister, Hanane, is six months pregnant with her first child. She and her husband live upstairs. I have a 20-something-year-old brother Touriq who stopped by for a few minutes. My mother is one of the sweetest and funniest ladies I have ever met, and she is small and fierce to boot. I have a real room with a real door, a real bed, a real pillow, and real shelves to put my stuff on. I am so happy to not be living out of my suitcase anymore! The bed is so comfortable, the house is so warm, everything smells good (not mildewy like the last house) and I still have a western toilet and hot water! I am so happy now! Hanane and her husband Mohammad showed me their three wedding albums, each showing a few of her eight total kaftans (fancy Moroccan robe) and the henna and the partying and the honeymoon in Marrakesh. We watched a homemade video of a friend's baby's baptism which included the slaughtering of a lamb. I was informed that this baby's not due until a few weeks after I leave but I was informed of a party for him/her the first of April and that I will be attending and there will be some shopping done to have me properly dressed for the occasion! We ate dinner (all together!) and it was this amazing little bitty ball-shaped pasta each maybe a quarter of an inch in diameter with LAMB! It was my first time eating lamb at home!

Bottom line - I AM NOW SO HAPPY THAT I AM ALMOST SUSPICIOUS! THINGS HAVE IMPROVED TENFOLD IN JUST A MATTER OF TWELVE HOURS!

Of course, there had to be some sort of come-uppance. It came in the form of Mother Khadiri walking past me in the street on my way to school this morning. I live on the opposite side of the medina, and this happened at 9am, when she should be working at the school. She stopped me and kept insisting that I tell her what she and the family had done wrong. Rather than insult the woman to her face, I kept insisting that it was I who needed to change and that I had come to Morocco with the intention of changing families a time or two in order to have a more well-rounded experience. She dismissed this by saying that all families are the same. It was incredibly hard for me not to laugh at the point. I kept assuring her that I am the kind of person who is always seeking change. She didn't really believe me; I am sure. The point is that now I have changed and I am so much happier and that is that.

Spring Break Plans

So I am going with Monica, Daniella, and Rebecca to Madrid this spring break. We found a hostel for 90 euro a week and a flight for 580dhm (roughly $74). That ain't half bad.

Just kidding. One girl bought a ticket just now and apparently it was the last one for the day. The prices for the other days are fantastically more expensive. This is awkward....

Well, this weekend was different. I spent a lot of time exploring the city with a group of girls from BU. We're getting pretty tight as a unit. We went to Shella, the old Roman fortress on the outskirts of the city. It is absolutely beautiful. My homestay mother's mother showed up because she is now blind and quite ill. I did have a fair amount of reading to do, so I stayed up both weekend nights doing that. I was able to sleep in (with the help of earplugs) untill almost 10am! It was amazing! Homestay Mother buys sweets for breakfast on the weekend, so I had nice little chocolate cakes both mornings with my hot milk and coffee.

As far as I know, I will be changing families in the very near future. I do not feel guilty about it because the homestay is half of my experience here. It needs to be awesome. I went to my friend Anna's house this weekend and was treated like a daughter. I went to my friend Monica's aunt's house and was lavishly received with coffee, tea, cakes, bread, cheese, etc. It was thrilling to just sit and eat and observe the family interacting.

It has been difficult to talk to Lindsey to establish our preference of apartments for next year. BU certainly isn't even attempting to make things easy for us. *sigh* Things will get worked out. I had to spend over 100dhm to fax forms to BU, and with my luck with faxes, BU probably didn't get them.

We are having a reception tonight to mingle with the SIT kids. They're from schools all over the country, so they're still trying to get to know one another. I think that they have moved in with their families as I saw many American-looking young people walking with Moroccan women and children this weekend.

The sun has finally arrived! Saturday saw the worst rain yet in Morocco but yesterday and today have been almost painfully brilliant. I have definitely felt happier just by the preferable change in weather.

A Full Belly

It cost me 4dhm to print a page at a cyber café. Unfortunately, it wouldn't let me open or print the summer housing application. As I find it of importance to have somewhere to live this summer, I may be emailing one of y'all to fill it out and forge my signature.

Culture class has kept us on our toes. The professor gave Fadoua, head of our program, an incorrect list of required readings, so she made copies of incorrect readings, and we are now at a loss for prepartion for Monday's class.

Yesterday I befriended fellow BU student Anna's homestay family. They are my favorite Moroccans by far. Beautiful, intelligent, generous ladies who gave me ghaifa with cheese and maple syrup, tea, cookies, and hours and hours of fun talking in all sorts of language hybrids. It was my best evening here by far.

The entire group went out to lunch this afternoon at a Moroccan restaurant, Au Hasard. We were there for more than three hours. They gave us endless bread and house salads (cucumber-tomato medley and homemade coleslaw). Then came the salad course with six total salads: sour rice salad, olives, pepper medley, carrot and potato, onion and tomato, black-eyed pea paste. After this did the main meal happen. I got couscous, and this dish could rival serving sizes at Maggiano's. The heap of vegetables, beef, and couscous filled the bowl and rose above it for many cubic inches. It was the size of the dinners that I have at my house when meals are shared by the entire family. All of that food, all five pounds (maybe more) of it cost me 50dhm ($6.25). I love the prices here!

I have not yet moved families but I should be doing so after the weekend. My body continues physically adjust to things here. My mind is drained after each day. I sleep incredibly well despite hard surfaces all around. The rain is still torrential but it is supposed to end this weekend. Following, al-jow will be sunny and sixty-five degrees for weeks on end. Plans are being formulated for spring break (Spain) and the long weekend of the Prophet's birthday (Amsterdam). Happy birthday to Sean, Sophia, Melissa, Mommy, Peter, Ethan, and Jeanette this month!

Dairy Products Are Life

I bought a half liter of milk and finished it in one go. I bought a wheel of cheese and had eaten half of it. I am so incredibly happy to have calcium in my system again. Sadly, I think this is the highlight of my time so far. :)

LES CHANGEMENTS!

So, I talked to Doha, the homestay coordinator, this morning, and I am getting a new family. I felt bad throwing it on her now because tomorrow the SIT kids all go to their families (all forty-five of them), so she has a large workload, but after the past few days, this needs to happen.

Fayçal sat in front of me at breakfast today and insulted me to my face in mixed French and Darija for almost five minutes straight. Both Maha and my mother were there, listening, and neither did anything. I will certainly not stay in a house where such a demon is allowed to roam free. I have eaten dinner by myself three times this week alone. This absolutely is not all right. I am never interacted with but am never allowed to go do things. My mother wouldn't let me stay out any night past 10 or 11pm, she wouldn't let me go to Casablanca, and she won't let me go to the hammam with my friends. This is just a terrible situation. I am moving elsewhere and hopefully before the weekend arrives.

Classes are better. We keep flying through material in Arabic. We are already on chapter 19 and we are only going to chapter 6 of the next book, meaning that in all the weeks we have left we are doing eight chapters. I dont' understand the rush. We've so far been doing a chapter and a half a week, but are we going to spend two weeks on each chapter here on out?

Culture class has been such a strange experience. We each were given a poem that we were told to prepare a ten-minute presentation for. The professor always reacts in opposite to how we do. If a student barely touches on a poem, the professor spends twenty-five minutes analyzing it to minute detail. If a student does a bang up job preparing the text, the professor looks confused and moves immediately onto the next text. Yesterday we had to prepare poems that he had written himself and the academic director ran class. Prof Mekouar sat in the back of the class with a huge self-satisfied grin. His poems were very impressive as far as vocabularly goes but lacked any sort of profound message.

Gender studies is quite dull. I love all of the readings, as they have greatly enriched my knowledge and awareness of Islam, but the professor is one of those men who can talk nonstop for ten minutes but not say a thing. Also, the students are never able to speak. It's purely him making references to people we "surely already know."

The rain will not stop. Everyone speaks of how exceptional it is, but I am starting to not believe them. It pours nonstop through the night. Afternoon showers occur three to four times daily. Students living in simpler houses have everything soaked for days on end.

I have been told by several friends that I can expect a great deal of mail soon. Morocco is so slow in doing everything, so I can imagine me getting a humongous lump of mail on or around 30 April despite that it was all sent a week or more ago.

Two Can Play That Game

All right, let's be blunt.

Devon is not having a good time here. If one were to make a line graph of my experience here, it would be negatively oriented. When I go on week-long excursions into the woods, it is then that I expect to hear next-to-nothing from my friend and family. When I am on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean in an exotic location, that is when I do expect to hear things from my friends and family. I especially anticipate hearing from people when I leave them messages.

I have never been more disappointed in myself as I have been in choosing to come here for my study abroad experience.

Nothing Special

Morocco redefines the term "raining buckets." Since midnight last night there have been regular five-minute downpours that are the equivalent of annual rainfall in the southwestern US. People are saying that this is the most rain that's been seen in thirty years. Also, it's the coldest it's been in more than fifty years. It's an exceptional winter for everyone.

My weekend was spent almost entirely inside my house because my phone has no more calling credit and because I did not go with people to Casablanca. My "party" on Saturday consisted of my mother bringing home some really strange feminist poet French lady. She put on a CD of her friend's hip-hop reflections and kept pointing out that poetry "is all around us." She brought out a ball and had us play a bunch of poetry games. For dinner we had a pizza with a cornbread crust, really sweet tomato sauce, almost no cheese, and peppers and onions. We had orange soda and CAKE! Fayçal kept trying to pick out his pieces of cake but Mother slapped his hand saying that the cake belonged to me and that I get to pick who gets what piece. It was a six-layer cake of white cake, cream, chocolate, cream, white cake, and lemon custard topping. It was absolutely delicious.

Otherwise, nothing really special has happened. We just discussed a lot of poetry in culture class. The SIT kids are coming up to mingle with us. We will have a lot more boys how, thank God.