So…I kind of suck at blogs. Let’s not pretend that’s a surprise. But, I’ll be home in a week and that’s kind of exciting/ I have an exam tonight, but I can’t possible read convoluted BS about investment anymore.
The last few weeks have been a bit of a roller coaster. I had a bit of a minor break-down yesterday that was spurred by my insomnia causing me to have about 10 hours of sleep in the last week, a few beers, and the weird love-hate relationship that I have with Morocco and the people in my program. I’m incredibly apprehensive about my return to the real world and my return to responsibilities and advanced coursework and language classes where I actually learn something. It’ll also just be a relief to be a part of something again and to have a place in the world again. My biggest problem with Morocco has been that I never really felt like I had a place with the group in the program and that I got too lonely.
Regardless, I’m going home in a week and I will look back on Morocco with fondness. I’m going to miss couscous and extended coffee breaks during any part of the day and mint tea in the morning and the simplicity that encompasses me on a daily basis. I’ll never possibly be able to re-create the adventures that I have here and I accept that. There is no other place in the world and no other time in my life that this experience could have been possible. As painful as the experience has been, there was no other group of people who would have forced me to grow in the way that I did throughout these last few months. Being here has made me so much happier with myself and my little odd quirks and characteristics. I might not have meshed with these people, but I stayed true to myself for my whole experience in Morocco and that is something that I am proud of.
In the end, I think I’ve fulfilled all the clichés about Americans studying abroad. Who knows, I might not be able to get out of the country (I’m an illegal immigrant right now) and I’ll be able to explore even more?
Friday, December 5, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Casa: Take 2
Since I finally clicked in to being happy in Morocco, I have fallen more and more in love with this country. This weekend demonstrates why.
Thursday was a national holiday so we didn’t have classes. The national holiday celebrates when Moroccans peacefully took over the Western Sahara to spread the Koran, but I won’t get in to the fact that they study something that never happened. The joys of state run television.
Instead, we had an optional day trip to Asilah. Asilah is a little beach town about 2 and a half hours north of Rabat that is known for it’s hippy lifestyle, summer art festivals, and sea food. We got to Asilah around 10:45 and had a quick guided tour of the tiny medina and the various look-out places for the ocean. After that, we had lunch at this nice seafood restaurant on the beach that was recommended by the New York times travel section. Since we’re all so frustrated with the utter failures of the program and the fact that we are not getting what we paid for, we all ordered an appetizer, entrée, and a beer. I had seafood paella (the further North you get, the more Spanish influences you see in Morocco) and garlic shrimp. They were both delicious.
After lunch, we were free to wander around for another hour or so. The reason that the medina was so amazing was the sheer mass of murals painted on random walls during the summer art festivals. Beach side medinas and Kasbahs are usually fairly colorful, but this was massive murals every few feet. Some of the paintings had seen better days, but it was still an amazing sight to see. Then we went shopping for a bit and I spent a little bit more money than I should have.
Saturday morning, I had to make up class for anthropology in Casablanca. Our school didn’t figure in enough hours for us to get our credits so they’re shoving all these random extra credits on us. For my anthropology class, they paid for us to take the train to Casablanca to go to the Social Sciences library and do our research for our paper. Despite the fact that I had to leave Rabat at 8:30 in the morning, the fact that I got transportation free for that night’s debauchery just adds to the excellence.
After class, Jennifer and I went out for lunch and coffee while we waited for the others to come meet up with us. We had all planned on having a “girls night” in Casablanca. The international Harlem Globetrotters were in town and Ain Daab (the beachfront of Casa) is well-known for it’s clubbing. We somehow found a hotel that would let us each stay there for 100 dirhams (about 13 dollars) and had a bar that had 14 dirham beers (drinking is really expensive in Morocco) and we chilled there for a bit before heading out.
Our first stop was dinner at this nice, but unlicensed restaurant. The manager at the restaurant (who looked a little bit like Andy Garcia) told us that he used to manage a club out in Ain Daab and we could call him later and he would get us in for reduced cover and let us cut the line. We took his number and told him we’d call him later.
The Harlem Globetrotters were an interesting experience. The stadium in Casablanca is dirty and absolutely disgusting. We were sitting way up in nose bleed for the first half of the game and just watching. The announcers were speaking a really weird combination of Arabic, French, and English, but I couldn’t understand any of it from where I was sitting. The game was kind of funny though and I would have been thrilled to be there if I had been 5. I’m not sure how it works in the US, but the international Harlem Globetrotters play against a permanent home team called the “Washington Generals”. I’d had an awful headache all day and had stupidly chugged a liter of water on the way to the stadium and had to use the worst bathrooms that I’d seen in all of Morocco twice. On my way up the second time, one of the million and two security people offered to move me to the 200 dirham seats (twice the amount I’d paid for my ticket). Yes, he was hitting on us, but it was a free upgrade so all 7 of us somehow made us way down to the 200 dirham seats.
On the way out, the same guys tried to herd us into some random place and were obviously drunk. It was a little uncomfortable, but I’m used to it. I’m a little ashamed at how easy it is for me to manipulate Moroccan men, but I just figure that they’re going to harass me regardless and I might as well get something out of it.
Anyway, we catch a cab back to our hotel and go up to the hotel bar. After a rushed pre-game session (the bar closed at 11) and a game of never-have-I-ever, we’re all pleasantly buzzed and ready to go out. We go up to our rooms and drop off some of stuff/ get ready to go out. At this point, I still have a killer headache and am starting to get tired, but we all decide to go out anyway.
We get two petite taxis out to this club (after our new manager friend talks to the cab driver) and we take a 50 dirham cab ride out to Ain Daab to this club called Chocolate. We get there and realize that it is obviously a swanky place and there is a good sized line outside. We hand my cell phone to the bouncer and we get in past the red velvet rope easily. After arguing with all the security and having “cute faces”, we get in without paying the 150 dirham cover. We’re all a little bit shameless and kind of confuse Morocco.
The club is crowded when we get there, but nothing extraordinary. We sit down for a bit, but then I decide that I need another drink while we’re waiting for things to get started. Jennifer, Suzanne, and I go and get martinis at the bar. An old French man watches our drinks for us to make sure the bartender doesn’t make our drinks weak and we end up with cocktail glasses that are 95% Belvidere vodka. Drinking in clubs in Morocco is worlds away from drinking on Green street and I kind of miss my massive amounts of honey brown, but anyways…
I’m not going to detail my night out chronologically to you, but it was beyond amazing. After the first drink, I bought a shot a few hours later, but I mostly drank out of the bottles that guys that I met had paid for. All the people in this bar were loaded (if they got in, they were rich) and I’m not going to apologize for that.
About an hour after we get there, I realize that there’s a huge amount of very tall black guys who are partying right by us. It took me a long time to reach the realization, but it was the HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS. We went clubbing with the HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS. They were all really nice and we all danced and partied and closed down the bar with all of them and it was amazing. Before I knew it, the bar was closing down and it was 4AM. We grabbed a taxi outside and got back to our hotel exhausted, a little drunk, and still trying to deal with the night. Suzanne and I went back up to our room and woke up Vanessa (who thought we made it all up) and relived some more before passing out in our beds. What a surreal night.
From now on, I’m just going to try and block out my last trip to Casablanca and replace it with this extreme and awesome one.
The end.
Thursday was a national holiday so we didn’t have classes. The national holiday celebrates when Moroccans peacefully took over the Western Sahara to spread the Koran, but I won’t get in to the fact that they study something that never happened. The joys of state run television.
Instead, we had an optional day trip to Asilah. Asilah is a little beach town about 2 and a half hours north of Rabat that is known for it’s hippy lifestyle, summer art festivals, and sea food. We got to Asilah around 10:45 and had a quick guided tour of the tiny medina and the various look-out places for the ocean. After that, we had lunch at this nice seafood restaurant on the beach that was recommended by the New York times travel section. Since we’re all so frustrated with the utter failures of the program and the fact that we are not getting what we paid for, we all ordered an appetizer, entrée, and a beer. I had seafood paella (the further North you get, the more Spanish influences you see in Morocco) and garlic shrimp. They were both delicious.
After lunch, we were free to wander around for another hour or so. The reason that the medina was so amazing was the sheer mass of murals painted on random walls during the summer art festivals. Beach side medinas and Kasbahs are usually fairly colorful, but this was massive murals every few feet. Some of the paintings had seen better days, but it was still an amazing sight to see. Then we went shopping for a bit and I spent a little bit more money than I should have.
Saturday morning, I had to make up class for anthropology in Casablanca. Our school didn’t figure in enough hours for us to get our credits so they’re shoving all these random extra credits on us. For my anthropology class, they paid for us to take the train to Casablanca to go to the Social Sciences library and do our research for our paper. Despite the fact that I had to leave Rabat at 8:30 in the morning, the fact that I got transportation free for that night’s debauchery just adds to the excellence.
After class, Jennifer and I went out for lunch and coffee while we waited for the others to come meet up with us. We had all planned on having a “girls night” in Casablanca. The international Harlem Globetrotters were in town and Ain Daab (the beachfront of Casa) is well-known for it’s clubbing. We somehow found a hotel that would let us each stay there for 100 dirhams (about 13 dollars) and had a bar that had 14 dirham beers (drinking is really expensive in Morocco) and we chilled there for a bit before heading out.
Our first stop was dinner at this nice, but unlicensed restaurant. The manager at the restaurant (who looked a little bit like Andy Garcia) told us that he used to manage a club out in Ain Daab and we could call him later and he would get us in for reduced cover and let us cut the line. We took his number and told him we’d call him later.
The Harlem Globetrotters were an interesting experience. The stadium in Casablanca is dirty and absolutely disgusting. We were sitting way up in nose bleed for the first half of the game and just watching. The announcers were speaking a really weird combination of Arabic, French, and English, but I couldn’t understand any of it from where I was sitting. The game was kind of funny though and I would have been thrilled to be there if I had been 5. I’m not sure how it works in the US, but the international Harlem Globetrotters play against a permanent home team called the “Washington Generals”. I’d had an awful headache all day and had stupidly chugged a liter of water on the way to the stadium and had to use the worst bathrooms that I’d seen in all of Morocco twice. On my way up the second time, one of the million and two security people offered to move me to the 200 dirham seats (twice the amount I’d paid for my ticket). Yes, he was hitting on us, but it was a free upgrade so all 7 of us somehow made us way down to the 200 dirham seats.
On the way out, the same guys tried to herd us into some random place and were obviously drunk. It was a little uncomfortable, but I’m used to it. I’m a little ashamed at how easy it is for me to manipulate Moroccan men, but I just figure that they’re going to harass me regardless and I might as well get something out of it.
Anyway, we catch a cab back to our hotel and go up to the hotel bar. After a rushed pre-game session (the bar closed at 11) and a game of never-have-I-ever, we’re all pleasantly buzzed and ready to go out. We go up to our rooms and drop off some of stuff/ get ready to go out. At this point, I still have a killer headache and am starting to get tired, but we all decide to go out anyway.
We get two petite taxis out to this club (after our new manager friend talks to the cab driver) and we take a 50 dirham cab ride out to Ain Daab to this club called Chocolate. We get there and realize that it is obviously a swanky place and there is a good sized line outside. We hand my cell phone to the bouncer and we get in past the red velvet rope easily. After arguing with all the security and having “cute faces”, we get in without paying the 150 dirham cover. We’re all a little bit shameless and kind of confuse Morocco.
The club is crowded when we get there, but nothing extraordinary. We sit down for a bit, but then I decide that I need another drink while we’re waiting for things to get started. Jennifer, Suzanne, and I go and get martinis at the bar. An old French man watches our drinks for us to make sure the bartender doesn’t make our drinks weak and we end up with cocktail glasses that are 95% Belvidere vodka. Drinking in clubs in Morocco is worlds away from drinking on Green street and I kind of miss my massive amounts of honey brown, but anyways…
I’m not going to detail my night out chronologically to you, but it was beyond amazing. After the first drink, I bought a shot a few hours later, but I mostly drank out of the bottles that guys that I met had paid for. All the people in this bar were loaded (if they got in, they were rich) and I’m not going to apologize for that.
About an hour after we get there, I realize that there’s a huge amount of very tall black guys who are partying right by us. It took me a long time to reach the realization, but it was the HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS. We went clubbing with the HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS. They were all really nice and we all danced and partied and closed down the bar with all of them and it was amazing. Before I knew it, the bar was closing down and it was 4AM. We grabbed a taxi outside and got back to our hotel exhausted, a little drunk, and still trying to deal with the night. Suzanne and I went back up to our room and woke up Vanessa (who thought we made it all up) and relived some more before passing out in our beds. What a surreal night.
From now on, I’m just going to try and block out my last trip to Casablanca and replace it with this extreme and awesome one.
The end.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
I have accepted that I will never have the time to detail my whole week of travels, so I’ll just give you guys an amazing top-10 list of my week of travels.
1. Walking for 2 hours along the beach in Essouira while the tide was coming in.
2. Watching the sunset from the fourth floor terrace of our hotel and hearing the call-to-prayer echo across the city.
3. Staying with a legit- Berber family in one of the suburbs of Agadir where they dressed us up and made us dance until 2 in the morning.
4. Watching a storm roll in on the beach at Tiznit while eating the best fried calamari that I’ve ever had.
5. Lunch by the Todra Gorge and driving through Morocco as the terrain changed from mountains to desert over 3 hours
6. Riding out into the desert in the darkness only to wake up the next morning to see a huge sand dune.
7. Taking a land-rover tour of Erg Chebbi and then drinking a beer (in a land rover) while driving through this sand-road street in Rissani.
8. Watching the sunset on camels as we made our way into the camp for the second night.
9. Wine+ stargazing+ Sahara desert
10. Riding out of the desert (on a camel) in the rain, while singing.
1. Walking for 2 hours along the beach in Essouira while the tide was coming in.
2. Watching the sunset from the fourth floor terrace of our hotel and hearing the call-to-prayer echo across the city.
3. Staying with a legit- Berber family in one of the suburbs of Agadir where they dressed us up and made us dance until 2 in the morning.
4. Watching a storm roll in on the beach at Tiznit while eating the best fried calamari that I’ve ever had.
5. Lunch by the Todra Gorge and driving through Morocco as the terrain changed from mountains to desert over 3 hours
6. Riding out into the desert in the darkness only to wake up the next morning to see a huge sand dune.
7. Taking a land-rover tour of Erg Chebbi and then drinking a beer (in a land rover) while driving through this sand-road street in Rissani.
8. Watching the sunset on camels as we made our way into the camp for the second night.
9. Wine+ stargazing+ Sahara desert
10. Riding out of the desert (on a camel) in the rain, while singing.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
((CAUTION: You are about to start reading a very long blog))
Marrekesh is just an interesting place and I’m not quite sure if I’m going to be able to do the bizarre ups and downs that I’ve had this weekend. Right now, I’m on the bus and we’re about halfway home to Rabat. Some of the “cool kids” are chugging cheap vodka on the back of the bus, but they’re really just annoying me. When did I grow up?
Day 1: Welcome to the Moroccan circus city
We were supposed to leave for Marrekesh at 7 AM on Friday morning, but we didn’t end up going until 8. Moroccan time. Morocco doesn’t usually wake up until about 9 AM so the streets were amazingly deserted. I was really excited/dreading this trip. I’d heard that Marrekesh is like a circus and is huge and crazy, but I’d also heard not to build it up too much.
We get to Marrekesh around 12:30 and pull up to our amazingly nice hotel. Our academic director (who is trying to make us like him so bad, I feel bad for him because of all the people who dug into him in their evaluations) is somehow connected to the bureau of tourism and they got us booked into this 4 star hotel that is usually exclusively booked by one of those vacation groups. We eat lunch and then we have our first class session.
This class session was about film and Moroccan society and was also surprisingly interesting. We watched this silent short “Le derniere cri” that I’m still not sure that I’ve figured out and that I agree with the people who were leading our discussions. Then we watched some clips of this older movie called MarroK which was about a Muslim girl and a Jewish boy (on some slow day, I’ll share all of my fascinating opinions about Jewish Moroccans). Moroccan society is so contradictory in their cultural norms and what they expect from their families. I still haven’t adjusted to living in a society that is so focused on family and I feel myself losing my identity a lot.
After that session, I did my best imitation of a MUN conference and we pre-gamed dinner. We knew that we were going to a fantasia venue for dinner and knew that meant dancers and fireworks and all sorts of thing that would just seem better with a bit of a buzz going. So, we all went up to one hotel room and had girl talk and drinks for 3ish hours before dinner. We also got to watch some of those great Moroccan soap operas where all the women look the same and all the men are about 15 years older than them.
Dinner was definitely an interesting experience. I had ready about the night in my guidebook and was really exciting. They said that it was a bunch of colors and sounds that combine into an amazing experience. We get into these little vans and drive out to this complex about 20 minutes outside of the city. About half the group is tipsy and yelling and singing and I felt, very briefly, that I actually belonged. We get to dinner (the venue was called Chez Ali) and see a sea of tour buses.
I guess that we’ve been in Morocco for 6 weeks now (and only 8 left- thank god) and I’ve stopped feeling like an absolute tourist. I live on this dirty street with Moroccans and I trudge through the dirt and knee-deep cats on a daily basis and I felt like Chez Ali was too much of a Moroccan Disneyland and not Morocco.
We all sit down in these huge tents and are surrounded by some more European tourists. I’m a little bit buzzed and everything still seems too clean. We order a bottle of wine and then begin the longish wait for our food.
Our first course was some hariyra and bread. The bread was actually moist and warm unlike the dry, slightly stale bread that I’d grown accustomed to in the last few weeks living with a family. The next course was what ridiculous. They put down half a lamb on our table that had been coated in grease and grilled. All the tables around us are cutting up their portions and putting them on their plates. My table, in contrast, is eating with our hands and bread like we’re used to. The lamb was really good (apparently I eat lamb now), but I really didn’t understand why they needed to coat it with grease and serve it with the skin and the bones.
The main course was couscous. I love couscous and have yet to find something bad with it. I am going to miss good couscous when I go home. Veggie couscous, couscous with figs and some kind of meat, beef couscous. It is always amazing. This was followed by tea, fruit, and cookies. As we were eating (and waiting) there had been various groups of dancers coming in and doing their various specialties. They all looked so bored and rehearsed. It was kind of sad how much their enthusiasm had waned.
We got there kind of late so we missed the start of the show. Outside of the tents that we had eaten in, there was a huge arena (medieval times style) and a bunch of fake building and bleachers. The first act we saw was a man doing acrobatic tricks off of his horse. This was followed by processions of people in costume, a belly dancers, and charges of people in horses though it was more fun to watch Prof Zaki wander around drunk.
We got home and a bunch of people went out, but I opted for bed (it was already 12:30, I was not putting myself together to go out).
Day 2: Somewhere between class and a night club
Saturday started out obscenely early for a Saturday. We had to get down to breakfast by 8 in order to go to class at 8:30. On a Saturday. Our session was about the human rights movement in Morocco and it’s relations to the regime change. It was interesting in that “I have to be interested because human rights are important” kind of way, but was neither presented well nor at an appropriate hour in the day.
We had an optional pre-tour of the city before lunch. I went and discovered that meant group nap-time on the bus. We went out to this garden and saw a few old buildings and then drove through the Palmerie. After lunch, we had a full tour of the city that included the great mosque, the mellah (the jewish quarter), a sheik’s old palace, some gardens, and a few museums.
The center of the medina in Marrekesh was amazing. I really wish that I had more time to explore it, but I had a hard time getting people to go out there with me. It’s a huge mass of open space with orange juice stands, stores, cafes, trained monkeys, dancing snakes, singers, and dancers. There was more tourists in that one place then I’ve seen in any one place since I got here (besides Chez Ali). The stores in the square (and in the rest of the medina) were amazing. If I go back to any city in Morocco, it’ll be back to Marrekesh to go shopping.
We were on our own for dinner that night so we awent out to this amazing Asian restaurant. I find myself craving foods of various nationalities almost more than I miss American food. The nice thing about Morocco is that we can go to nice restaurants (like we did for Asian), but it’s still fairly inexpensive. I had this shrimp wok rice dish (Thai and absolutely amazing), a cocktail, and a beer. I knew that we were going out that night and the drinks at the restaurants were much cheaper than at the club.
Apres ca, we went back to the hotel for the age-honored tradition of pre-gaming and getting ready. The next few hours are a little bit blurry and a lot bit chaotic, but at least I have officially had my first clubbing experience. We went to a club called Theatre (pronounced the French way) that was pretty much designed for the crème de la crème of Moroccan society. We pull up in front of the club and work our way through the crowds (predominantly Moroccan). Getting past the bouncers is the easiest thing when you are a white girl so it took us no time at all to get in. There was a bunch of drag queen-esque clowns/pirate/dancers dressed in the Napolean ear clothes standing on the steps which should have been my first sign of where the night was headed.
Inside the club was amazing. It was a huge, dark, two-storied room which was absolutely mobbed with people. We had paid 150 dirhams to get in, but that included our first drink. At some point, I’ve been told that I disappeared for 30 minutes, but we spent a lot of time making our own drinks with the alcohol that we snuck in, dancing on the stage, fighting off creepers, and screaming at each other. At some point, they set the bar on fire and, right before we left at 2:30ish, the pirate dancers got on stage to the pirates of the Caribbean theme song set to a techno beat. It was intense and we were all slightly sloshed.
When we left the club, the taxi drivers tried to charge us 100 dirhams to take a 10 dirham cab ride. I’m not a fan of the taxi drivers in Marrekesh anyway.
Day 3: Chillin’ in the Atlas
Sunday started out early again, but it was even more painful considering the sheer amount of alcohol consumed amongst the 20 of us the night before. We got on the bus and made our way out to the Atlas mountains and the Ourika valley.
The first stop we made on the way was at the tomb for some disliked sultan. Then we stopped at some synagogue/jewish shrine where the caretaker didn’t know what she was talking about and told the women to cover their heads out of respect. Finally, we made out way out to our restaurant/ hang-out for the day. We walked into this gorgeous complex filled with tries and a pool and a restaurant. I know that there were rooms for rent, but it was nice and private and I wanted to spend the rest of my life there. I do think that reaction might have just been because I had really been missing the outdoors.
Once there, we had our final session of the trip on Local Democracy and Morocco. I still think that they need a lot more reform, but the reform isn’t going to come before the people are aware of their political rights (the topic for my semester-end paper btw). We then had another mediocre meal in an amazing setting. We had a Moroccan salad, vegetable tangine, and chicken and meat skewers following by, once again, cookies and fruit. I’ve had a lot of good food in Morocco and I think my taste buds are becoming spoiled, but this food was not good. I think they had banked all the success on the amazing scenery and serenity.
After that, we “hiked” up to a local village on the mountain. It was hardly secluded, but it was very primitive. You could see the road from the walls and some of the houses had satellite dishes, but there was still chickens and cows camping out in people’s living rooms. Morocco has such a weird clash of technology and tradition that I’m not sure anyone else even saw the bizarre nature of the situation.
Eventually, we made our way back to the hotel and wandered around the town until we had dinner at our hotel. The hotel was astoundingly like a scene from Dirty Dancing randomly put into the streets of Marrekesh. The bar had the hotel employees who were dancing and the pool had entertainers. It was bizarre.
We ended up going to this classy adult bar across the street around 10 for a few drinks. We had the most amazing waiter ever while we were there- he was quite easy-on-the-eyes, nice, and brought us lots of free stuff. Of course, we acted like 15 year old girls and made sloppy passes at flirting and giggled a lot. Eventually, he agreed to come meet us after he got off work at the club in our hotel (after a round of free shots) and we left him a note with some of our phone numbers. Sadly, we missed him later that night at the prostitute-club, but he left us a note at the hotel and we ended up going to visit him again the next day (he was really cute- don’t judge us).
So, after the bar, we went over to the night club across the street. It was a Sunday night so I didn’t have that high of expectations for fun, but what I found was definitely not what I was expecting. The club was filled with 50% sleazy, dirty guys, 45% prostitutes, and 5% us. These weren’t the classy escort kind of hookers either, they were the spandex, short skirts, and simulating sex on the dance floor kind of prostitutes. It kind of reminded me of the singing prostitutes in “Across the Universe’, but I’m pretty sure that the ones in the club had a hell of a lot more STDs. Needless to say, we left that place pretty quickly.
Day 4: Shopping Spree Interrupted
Monday was a pretty chill day. I woke up, went to breakfast, and stayed in bed until we had to check out. After that, we grabbed a cab to take us to the medina to get some shopping down. Originally, our taxi driver (in an attempt to be helpful) took us outside of the medina to the over-priced fixed price store. Our misfortune ended up turning into so much more of an adventure.
We ended up wandering through some of the side streets that we hadn’t planned on shopping in and into some of the coolest places. We spent about an hour or so in a shop with this guy who went on expeditions down south and brought back tribal merchandise to Marrekesh. We later found out that one of his parents was Berber and the other belonged to another small tribe down south. He was amazingly interesting and let himself be haggled down to a real price. It was my first experience with old-school Moroccan buying practices. We had tea, we chatted, and, in the end, the other girls got good prices (about half of what he had told us before).
After that, we went on a search for a café for lunch. We ended up in this really nice, vegetarian place with amazing fresh, fusion food. The four of us split three dishes, but my favorite was definitely the spinach, squash, and goat cheese pastilla. The man who owned that shop was also very interesting. He had owned a shop out in L.A. for a few years and now he ran this restaurant as well as a store in New York. He also lived in Rabat so we talked about that for awhile.
After that, we did a bit more shopping, but I didn’t end up buying anything besides a “medina girl” friendship bracelet which promptly broke and I have yet to fix. Overall, Marrekesh was one of the better weekends that I’ve had in Morocco. I’m still not 100% certain on what I’ll be doing for my week-off next week, but I imagine that I’ll stay in Morocco. Currently, my tentative plan is to travel from Saturday until Sunday with my roommates down through the South (Essouira, Tafraroute, Taradounnt, and back to Marrekesh). It’s a much better alternative than traveling by myself and I’ve just resigned myself to doing Europe some other time.
I also doubt that I’ll get it up to write another entry before I get back from that (but who knows, I have 4 hours to kill at school tomorrow) so I’ll save you the trouble of checking until then.
Marrekesh is just an interesting place and I’m not quite sure if I’m going to be able to do the bizarre ups and downs that I’ve had this weekend. Right now, I’m on the bus and we’re about halfway home to Rabat. Some of the “cool kids” are chugging cheap vodka on the back of the bus, but they’re really just annoying me. When did I grow up?
Day 1: Welcome to the Moroccan circus city
We were supposed to leave for Marrekesh at 7 AM on Friday morning, but we didn’t end up going until 8. Moroccan time. Morocco doesn’t usually wake up until about 9 AM so the streets were amazingly deserted. I was really excited/dreading this trip. I’d heard that Marrekesh is like a circus and is huge and crazy, but I’d also heard not to build it up too much.
We get to Marrekesh around 12:30 and pull up to our amazingly nice hotel. Our academic director (who is trying to make us like him so bad, I feel bad for him because of all the people who dug into him in their evaluations) is somehow connected to the bureau of tourism and they got us booked into this 4 star hotel that is usually exclusively booked by one of those vacation groups. We eat lunch and then we have our first class session.
This class session was about film and Moroccan society and was also surprisingly interesting. We watched this silent short “Le derniere cri” that I’m still not sure that I’ve figured out and that I agree with the people who were leading our discussions. Then we watched some clips of this older movie called MarroK which was about a Muslim girl and a Jewish boy (on some slow day, I’ll share all of my fascinating opinions about Jewish Moroccans). Moroccan society is so contradictory in their cultural norms and what they expect from their families. I still haven’t adjusted to living in a society that is so focused on family and I feel myself losing my identity a lot.
After that session, I did my best imitation of a MUN conference and we pre-gamed dinner. We knew that we were going to a fantasia venue for dinner and knew that meant dancers and fireworks and all sorts of thing that would just seem better with a bit of a buzz going. So, we all went up to one hotel room and had girl talk and drinks for 3ish hours before dinner. We also got to watch some of those great Moroccan soap operas where all the women look the same and all the men are about 15 years older than them.
Dinner was definitely an interesting experience. I had ready about the night in my guidebook and was really exciting. They said that it was a bunch of colors and sounds that combine into an amazing experience. We get into these little vans and drive out to this complex about 20 minutes outside of the city. About half the group is tipsy and yelling and singing and I felt, very briefly, that I actually belonged. We get to dinner (the venue was called Chez Ali) and see a sea of tour buses.
I guess that we’ve been in Morocco for 6 weeks now (and only 8 left- thank god) and I’ve stopped feeling like an absolute tourist. I live on this dirty street with Moroccans and I trudge through the dirt and knee-deep cats on a daily basis and I felt like Chez Ali was too much of a Moroccan Disneyland and not Morocco.
We all sit down in these huge tents and are surrounded by some more European tourists. I’m a little bit buzzed and everything still seems too clean. We order a bottle of wine and then begin the longish wait for our food.
Our first course was some hariyra and bread. The bread was actually moist and warm unlike the dry, slightly stale bread that I’d grown accustomed to in the last few weeks living with a family. The next course was what ridiculous. They put down half a lamb on our table that had been coated in grease and grilled. All the tables around us are cutting up their portions and putting them on their plates. My table, in contrast, is eating with our hands and bread like we’re used to. The lamb was really good (apparently I eat lamb now), but I really didn’t understand why they needed to coat it with grease and serve it with the skin and the bones.
The main course was couscous. I love couscous and have yet to find something bad with it. I am going to miss good couscous when I go home. Veggie couscous, couscous with figs and some kind of meat, beef couscous. It is always amazing. This was followed by tea, fruit, and cookies. As we were eating (and waiting) there had been various groups of dancers coming in and doing their various specialties. They all looked so bored and rehearsed. It was kind of sad how much their enthusiasm had waned.
We got there kind of late so we missed the start of the show. Outside of the tents that we had eaten in, there was a huge arena (medieval times style) and a bunch of fake building and bleachers. The first act we saw was a man doing acrobatic tricks off of his horse. This was followed by processions of people in costume, a belly dancers, and charges of people in horses though it was more fun to watch Prof Zaki wander around drunk.
We got home and a bunch of people went out, but I opted for bed (it was already 12:30, I was not putting myself together to go out).
Day 2: Somewhere between class and a night club
Saturday started out obscenely early for a Saturday. We had to get down to breakfast by 8 in order to go to class at 8:30. On a Saturday. Our session was about the human rights movement in Morocco and it’s relations to the regime change. It was interesting in that “I have to be interested because human rights are important” kind of way, but was neither presented well nor at an appropriate hour in the day.
We had an optional pre-tour of the city before lunch. I went and discovered that meant group nap-time on the bus. We went out to this garden and saw a few old buildings and then drove through the Palmerie. After lunch, we had a full tour of the city that included the great mosque, the mellah (the jewish quarter), a sheik’s old palace, some gardens, and a few museums.
The center of the medina in Marrekesh was amazing. I really wish that I had more time to explore it, but I had a hard time getting people to go out there with me. It’s a huge mass of open space with orange juice stands, stores, cafes, trained monkeys, dancing snakes, singers, and dancers. There was more tourists in that one place then I’ve seen in any one place since I got here (besides Chez Ali). The stores in the square (and in the rest of the medina) were amazing. If I go back to any city in Morocco, it’ll be back to Marrekesh to go shopping.
We were on our own for dinner that night so we awent out to this amazing Asian restaurant. I find myself craving foods of various nationalities almost more than I miss American food. The nice thing about Morocco is that we can go to nice restaurants (like we did for Asian), but it’s still fairly inexpensive. I had this shrimp wok rice dish (Thai and absolutely amazing), a cocktail, and a beer. I knew that we were going out that night and the drinks at the restaurants were much cheaper than at the club.
Apres ca, we went back to the hotel for the age-honored tradition of pre-gaming and getting ready. The next few hours are a little bit blurry and a lot bit chaotic, but at least I have officially had my first clubbing experience. We went to a club called Theatre (pronounced the French way) that was pretty much designed for the crème de la crème of Moroccan society. We pull up in front of the club and work our way through the crowds (predominantly Moroccan). Getting past the bouncers is the easiest thing when you are a white girl so it took us no time at all to get in. There was a bunch of drag queen-esque clowns/pirate/dancers dressed in the Napolean ear clothes standing on the steps which should have been my first sign of where the night was headed.
Inside the club was amazing. It was a huge, dark, two-storied room which was absolutely mobbed with people. We had paid 150 dirhams to get in, but that included our first drink. At some point, I’ve been told that I disappeared for 30 minutes, but we spent a lot of time making our own drinks with the alcohol that we snuck in, dancing on the stage, fighting off creepers, and screaming at each other. At some point, they set the bar on fire and, right before we left at 2:30ish, the pirate dancers got on stage to the pirates of the Caribbean theme song set to a techno beat. It was intense and we were all slightly sloshed.
When we left the club, the taxi drivers tried to charge us 100 dirhams to take a 10 dirham cab ride. I’m not a fan of the taxi drivers in Marrekesh anyway.
Day 3: Chillin’ in the Atlas
Sunday started out early again, but it was even more painful considering the sheer amount of alcohol consumed amongst the 20 of us the night before. We got on the bus and made our way out to the Atlas mountains and the Ourika valley.
The first stop we made on the way was at the tomb for some disliked sultan. Then we stopped at some synagogue/jewish shrine where the caretaker didn’t know what she was talking about and told the women to cover their heads out of respect. Finally, we made out way out to our restaurant/ hang-out for the day. We walked into this gorgeous complex filled with tries and a pool and a restaurant. I know that there were rooms for rent, but it was nice and private and I wanted to spend the rest of my life there. I do think that reaction might have just been because I had really been missing the outdoors.
Once there, we had our final session of the trip on Local Democracy and Morocco. I still think that they need a lot more reform, but the reform isn’t going to come before the people are aware of their political rights (the topic for my semester-end paper btw). We then had another mediocre meal in an amazing setting. We had a Moroccan salad, vegetable tangine, and chicken and meat skewers following by, once again, cookies and fruit. I’ve had a lot of good food in Morocco and I think my taste buds are becoming spoiled, but this food was not good. I think they had banked all the success on the amazing scenery and serenity.
After that, we “hiked” up to a local village on the mountain. It was hardly secluded, but it was very primitive. You could see the road from the walls and some of the houses had satellite dishes, but there was still chickens and cows camping out in people’s living rooms. Morocco has such a weird clash of technology and tradition that I’m not sure anyone else even saw the bizarre nature of the situation.
Eventually, we made our way back to the hotel and wandered around the town until we had dinner at our hotel. The hotel was astoundingly like a scene from Dirty Dancing randomly put into the streets of Marrekesh. The bar had the hotel employees who were dancing and the pool had entertainers. It was bizarre.
We ended up going to this classy adult bar across the street around 10 for a few drinks. We had the most amazing waiter ever while we were there- he was quite easy-on-the-eyes, nice, and brought us lots of free stuff. Of course, we acted like 15 year old girls and made sloppy passes at flirting and giggled a lot. Eventually, he agreed to come meet us after he got off work at the club in our hotel (after a round of free shots) and we left him a note with some of our phone numbers. Sadly, we missed him later that night at the prostitute-club, but he left us a note at the hotel and we ended up going to visit him again the next day (he was really cute- don’t judge us).
So, after the bar, we went over to the night club across the street. It was a Sunday night so I didn’t have that high of expectations for fun, but what I found was definitely not what I was expecting. The club was filled with 50% sleazy, dirty guys, 45% prostitutes, and 5% us. These weren’t the classy escort kind of hookers either, they were the spandex, short skirts, and simulating sex on the dance floor kind of prostitutes. It kind of reminded me of the singing prostitutes in “Across the Universe’, but I’m pretty sure that the ones in the club had a hell of a lot more STDs. Needless to say, we left that place pretty quickly.
Day 4: Shopping Spree Interrupted
Monday was a pretty chill day. I woke up, went to breakfast, and stayed in bed until we had to check out. After that, we grabbed a cab to take us to the medina to get some shopping down. Originally, our taxi driver (in an attempt to be helpful) took us outside of the medina to the over-priced fixed price store. Our misfortune ended up turning into so much more of an adventure.
We ended up wandering through some of the side streets that we hadn’t planned on shopping in and into some of the coolest places. We spent about an hour or so in a shop with this guy who went on expeditions down south and brought back tribal merchandise to Marrekesh. We later found out that one of his parents was Berber and the other belonged to another small tribe down south. He was amazingly interesting and let himself be haggled down to a real price. It was my first experience with old-school Moroccan buying practices. We had tea, we chatted, and, in the end, the other girls got good prices (about half of what he had told us before).
After that, we went on a search for a café for lunch. We ended up in this really nice, vegetarian place with amazing fresh, fusion food. The four of us split three dishes, but my favorite was definitely the spinach, squash, and goat cheese pastilla. The man who owned that shop was also very interesting. He had owned a shop out in L.A. for a few years and now he ran this restaurant as well as a store in New York. He also lived in Rabat so we talked about that for awhile.
After that, we did a bit more shopping, but I didn’t end up buying anything besides a “medina girl” friendship bracelet which promptly broke and I have yet to fix. Overall, Marrekesh was one of the better weekends that I’ve had in Morocco. I’m still not 100% certain on what I’ll be doing for my week-off next week, but I imagine that I’ll stay in Morocco. Currently, my tentative plan is to travel from Saturday until Sunday with my roommates down through the South (Essouira, Tafraroute, Taradounnt, and back to Marrekesh). It’s a much better alternative than traveling by myself and I’ve just resigned myself to doing Europe some other time.
I also doubt that I’ll get it up to write another entry before I get back from that (but who knows, I have 4 hours to kill at school tomorrow) so I’ll save you the trouble of checking until then.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
I’ve definitely broken my cardinal rule and let my feelings and insecurities go into my blog entries…I’ll try and stop that.
The biggest heartbreak of the last few days have happened a few thousand miles away and I’m not going to rant on them TOO much because I’m sure that you all know how I feel about the Cubs. I’m so embarrassed that I thought that we would actually do something with an amazing season. On one hand, I’m sure they only lost because they knew that I might have a panic attack if I missed the World Series because I was in Morocco, but, on the other, this is absolutely ridiculous. Swept by the Dodgers when you are, by far, first in the league. UGH!
Anywho, these last few days have been rather full. Friday night, we had “Morocco night” at our residence directors house complete with a Moroccan band, dancing, henna, and my entire program clad in djellabas, caftans, and any other sort of Moroccan clothing that we felt like buying. Personally, I bought a djellaba for about 35 dollars. It’s light blue with multi-colored embroidery on the hems. It’s made out of really good fabric and is a good quality one so I’m pretty happy with it. Unfortunately, I’m still undeniably white underneath it.
The party was a lot of fun. All of Madiha’s (our resident director)’s family was there and the entire program was there. I still don’t have much appreciation for Moroccan/Arab music, but I have hope that a tolerance will develop sometime soon. We must have danced for six hours and we ate SO much food (to the point where one of Madiha’s relatives told us that we were going to get chubby). There were cookies, tea, more cookies, couscous, and fruit salad. It was easily the best couscous that I’d had since I got here with some kind of heavier meat and figs. Now that Ramadan is over, Friday is couscous day and the world is a better place. I love couscous, it’s just good stuff.
I didn’t know what I was doing for the rest of the weekend until Saturday morning. I had plans with other people, but they all spaced on me or claimed that “they just decided to go on a small trip, but we really want to travel with you”. Thankfully, some people didn’t pull that crap on me and the medina girls (including me) went to El-Jadida about 4 hours away.
El-Jadida is a resort town right on the shore south of Casablanca. It’s not especially known for any crafts of sites (except for the beach), but it was totally worth it. We were planning on catching the 1:00 train from Rabat, but Suzanne’s host brother (who was coming with us) was late and we decided to just catch the 2:30. When we finally got to El-Jadida around 6:30 and got into a car (that was not marked as a taxi). It was very shady, but Zachariah (Suzanne’s host brother) started talking to the guy who was apparently not kidnapping us and he took us to this house that we could rent on the outskirts of El-Jadida towards Sidi Bouzid.
The house/apartment was amazing- it was two bedrooms, a kitchen, a balcony, a full bathroom, and two Moroccan sitting rooms. It was nice to not be staying in some shady hotel and it only cost 100 dirhams/night per person (about 14 dollars). Since we got in so late, we weren’t able to do any site-seeing that night. Instead, we caught a ride downtown and then we went to dinner and then began our epic search for a place that served alcohol. El-Jadida is a small resort town in its off-season so there were not a lot of affordable places that were licensed. We had a few beers at this tiny, smoky bar in a hotel and then (after dealing with Zachariah’s childish moods) ended up at this great club with a loud Moroccan band and over-priced alcohol. I had a lot of fun, but it would have been a ton better if we hadn’t been paying 7USD for a tiny baby beer. I miss logo night.
The next morning, we all slept in and had breakfast at home before heading over to the beach at Sidi Bouzid. One of the guys who we had met the night before told us that Sidi Bouzid was the most beautiful beach in Morocco and I think that might be true. It was deserted and stretched for miles in either direction. It was also, more or less, trash-free (a rarity for Moroccan beaches). We spent the day tanning, reading, and talking. I went into the water twice, but the waves were huge and would definitely had won in an epic battle between the two of us. Around 3:30, Zachariah left to go back to Rabat and we were free of dealing with his mood swings. In case you haven’t caught on, I really don’t like him, but there’s nothing that’s going to change him- he’s had 33 years of getting his way and being coddled by Moroccan society.
We were all pretty broke so we didn’t have any ambitious plans for Sunday night. We tried to make it to the Portuguese cistern, but had trouble catching cabs, some people insisted on showering/talking to Moroccan boys and we ended up getting there after it closed. Instead, we just grabbed some dinner at a snack bar (the Moroccan equivalent of a diner, fast food place, and Dennys all combined into one). We spent the rest of the evening walking around and taking in the sites.
We had a slightly Babel-esque moment when our train got stopped for about 40 minutes in the middle of nowhere. I’d never been on the train for quite so long and it was really shocking to see the disparity between people there. We passed by countless of people herding sheep and riding donkeys, lots of homes made out of old fences and aluminum sheets, but we also passed by some really nice buildings with gates and cars.
Next weekend, I’m going to Marrekesh for a class trip. All I’ve heard about Marrekesh is that it’s a total circus and not a super-safe place, but I’m really excited. Because we’re going with the program, it’s going to be cheap and fairly safe. They’ve got the hotel and the meals. If I had a cord for my camera, I’d promise pictures, but, unfortunately, I don’t.
- Brief update-
Last night proved that Morocco is a billion times better when it’s not Ramadan. It was Micah’s birthday so a group of 15 or so went out to a tapas and wine bar to celebrate. Half a bottle of wine and about 8 courses of tapas for less than 30 dollars. It was a lot more fun than anything I’ve done in awhile here.
The biggest heartbreak of the last few days have happened a few thousand miles away and I’m not going to rant on them TOO much because I’m sure that you all know how I feel about the Cubs. I’m so embarrassed that I thought that we would actually do something with an amazing season. On one hand, I’m sure they only lost because they knew that I might have a panic attack if I missed the World Series because I was in Morocco, but, on the other, this is absolutely ridiculous. Swept by the Dodgers when you are, by far, first in the league. UGH!
Anywho, these last few days have been rather full. Friday night, we had “Morocco night” at our residence directors house complete with a Moroccan band, dancing, henna, and my entire program clad in djellabas, caftans, and any other sort of Moroccan clothing that we felt like buying. Personally, I bought a djellaba for about 35 dollars. It’s light blue with multi-colored embroidery on the hems. It’s made out of really good fabric and is a good quality one so I’m pretty happy with it. Unfortunately, I’m still undeniably white underneath it.
The party was a lot of fun. All of Madiha’s (our resident director)’s family was there and the entire program was there. I still don’t have much appreciation for Moroccan/Arab music, but I have hope that a tolerance will develop sometime soon. We must have danced for six hours and we ate SO much food (to the point where one of Madiha’s relatives told us that we were going to get chubby). There were cookies, tea, more cookies, couscous, and fruit salad. It was easily the best couscous that I’d had since I got here with some kind of heavier meat and figs. Now that Ramadan is over, Friday is couscous day and the world is a better place. I love couscous, it’s just good stuff.
I didn’t know what I was doing for the rest of the weekend until Saturday morning. I had plans with other people, but they all spaced on me or claimed that “they just decided to go on a small trip, but we really want to travel with you”. Thankfully, some people didn’t pull that crap on me and the medina girls (including me) went to El-Jadida about 4 hours away.
El-Jadida is a resort town right on the shore south of Casablanca. It’s not especially known for any crafts of sites (except for the beach), but it was totally worth it. We were planning on catching the 1:00 train from Rabat, but Suzanne’s host brother (who was coming with us) was late and we decided to just catch the 2:30. When we finally got to El-Jadida around 6:30 and got into a car (that was not marked as a taxi). It was very shady, but Zachariah (Suzanne’s host brother) started talking to the guy who was apparently not kidnapping us and he took us to this house that we could rent on the outskirts of El-Jadida towards Sidi Bouzid.
The house/apartment was amazing- it was two bedrooms, a kitchen, a balcony, a full bathroom, and two Moroccan sitting rooms. It was nice to not be staying in some shady hotel and it only cost 100 dirhams/night per person (about 14 dollars). Since we got in so late, we weren’t able to do any site-seeing that night. Instead, we caught a ride downtown and then we went to dinner and then began our epic search for a place that served alcohol. El-Jadida is a small resort town in its off-season so there were not a lot of affordable places that were licensed. We had a few beers at this tiny, smoky bar in a hotel and then (after dealing with Zachariah’s childish moods) ended up at this great club with a loud Moroccan band and over-priced alcohol. I had a lot of fun, but it would have been a ton better if we hadn’t been paying 7USD for a tiny baby beer. I miss logo night.
The next morning, we all slept in and had breakfast at home before heading over to the beach at Sidi Bouzid. One of the guys who we had met the night before told us that Sidi Bouzid was the most beautiful beach in Morocco and I think that might be true. It was deserted and stretched for miles in either direction. It was also, more or less, trash-free (a rarity for Moroccan beaches). We spent the day tanning, reading, and talking. I went into the water twice, but the waves were huge and would definitely had won in an epic battle between the two of us. Around 3:30, Zachariah left to go back to Rabat and we were free of dealing with his mood swings. In case you haven’t caught on, I really don’t like him, but there’s nothing that’s going to change him- he’s had 33 years of getting his way and being coddled by Moroccan society.
We were all pretty broke so we didn’t have any ambitious plans for Sunday night. We tried to make it to the Portuguese cistern, but had trouble catching cabs, some people insisted on showering/talking to Moroccan boys and we ended up getting there after it closed. Instead, we just grabbed some dinner at a snack bar (the Moroccan equivalent of a diner, fast food place, and Dennys all combined into one). We spent the rest of the evening walking around and taking in the sites.
We had a slightly Babel-esque moment when our train got stopped for about 40 minutes in the middle of nowhere. I’d never been on the train for quite so long and it was really shocking to see the disparity between people there. We passed by countless of people herding sheep and riding donkeys, lots of homes made out of old fences and aluminum sheets, but we also passed by some really nice buildings with gates and cars.
Next weekend, I’m going to Marrekesh for a class trip. All I’ve heard about Marrekesh is that it’s a total circus and not a super-safe place, but I’m really excited. Because we’re going with the program, it’s going to be cheap and fairly safe. They’ve got the hotel and the meals. If I had a cord for my camera, I’d promise pictures, but, unfortunately, I don’t.
- Brief update-
Last night proved that Morocco is a billion times better when it’s not Ramadan. It was Micah’s birthday so a group of 15 or so went out to a tapas and wine bar to celebrate. Half a bottle of wine and about 8 courses of tapas for less than 30 dollars. It was a lot more fun than anything I’ve done in awhile here.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Another weekend gone and not very many more stories, I think I’ll still type it up just to stave off the utter boredom and annoyance for a little bit longer.
On Thursday night, about 16 of us went out for dinner at TGIFridays. It was really nice to go out to an American restaurant and to actually eat a burger and fries. Service was really slow because they fed all the Moroccans first so they could break their fast. It also, coincidentally, happened to be our month-iversary of being in Morocco. It was also the first time (excluding core class) that so many of us have been in one place since the orientation. For me, seeing so many people was kind of bittersweet, it just threw so many of my/the program’s inadequacies into sharper focus.
After dinner, we all went over to the hookah bar in the nouvelle ville. In typical Arab tradition, it’s a smoky, dark room that is frequented by men and the occasional (or common) prostitute. In the typical American tradition, certain people in my program thought that it would be a good idea to bring along their cheap alcohol and mix it with Hawaii while in the bar. It was like a night full of stereotypes. Despite how bitter I am right now, I really did enjoy the night. We had four hookahs and a round of drinks and it ended up still being less than 50 bucks split between 10ish people. You really can’t beat that considering one hookah is at least 15 dollars at home.
The highlight of Friday was easily the first thing that I did. I woke up kind of late (around 9) and went for a run. I’ve missed working out so, so much and it felt so good to have a healthy sheen of sweat. I’d been really hesitant about running because the ground is never level here, women exercising outside of aerobics classes is odd, and I can’t run with my iPod. So, I decided to run out of the medina to the tiny park on Avenue Hassan II and went for a half hour leisurely jog in sweat pants and a T-shirt. People were still staring at me like I was a crazy person, but it was totally worth it.
Later that day, I went back to the Andalusian gardens and read for a bit. I think the henna hecklers are starting to recognize me- rather than follow me and grab at my hands, they just asked me if I wanted henna. The gardens did go down a bit on my list of places that I like, though, since I did have two awkward conversations with guys who just decided that it was alright to sit down next to me and start talking. I went out that night briefly for coffee with some of the people in Gabby’s (one of my roommates) program.
Saturday was just as awfully dull as Friday. I woke up and read for a little bit, worked on some Arabic, and worked on some LSAT prep-stuff- I know, it’s hard not to be jealous at the thrill in my life. I went shopping with Suzanne and Jennifer for a few hours in the afternoon in some of the nicer shops in the nouvelle ville. I still haven’t figured out if I need to buy anything for the “winter” weather. All we’ve had for the fall, so far, is a few bits of rain on occasion. We also made a stop at McDos for a snack and people-watching.
I came home to discover that we had three girls staying with us from a study-abroad program in Granada. The more that I talk to people in other programs, the more I resent my program for never having their shit together and not providing us these opportunities. That night, the 26th of Ramadan, was a little bit of a holiday. All Moroccan families dress up their children in traditional costumes and take them into the streets to parade them around and get their pictures taken at all the photography shops. A ton of people in my program had made plans (without calling me of course) to walk around the medina and the nouvelle ville and people watch. We all ended up meeting up again (me with the three girls from Granada in tow) and going to the hookah bar for a second night in one weekend. One of the guys in my program is working there (under the table) so it was interesting to see him running around with the coals and drinks.
Sunday was another day that I exercised my ability to be independent. I read, worked on homework and readings, and watched a movie on my computer in the morning. In the afternoon, I went and read in the park, ran a few errands, and went to the cyber café to talk to my parents. On the way home from the cyber café, I did run into a man holding a rooster while trying to force my way through the crowds.
I’m sure by now, you’ve picked up on the ton of this entry. I really should just make an LSAT question out of it. I am beyond frustrated with my program and with the group of people that I am here with. The program has failed on so many of the promises that were made to us and lacks the resources and programming that were supposed to be crucial. As for the people in my group, I must have, at some unknown point, done something that made them all unanimously decide that I was not work anyone’s time. They never call and when I do manage to weasel my way into their plans, they tend to spend most of their time ignoring me and acting as if everything I say is the most idiotic thing that they’ve ever heard. I always knew that I needed to be more independent, but I never realized that I was going to be forced to find this independence while in a foreign country. It’s lonely and I wish it was feasible for me to go out and meet new people, but it’s nearly impossible.
On the upside, I have been returning to my old habits and reading incessantly. I can’t possibly explain how much I missed losing myself in a book. I haven’t had the time or means to read (excluding those brief periods that I go home) and it’s comforting to be transported back to the English-speaking world. I also think that I am starting to understand some of the logical and analytical reasoning problems. The LSAT makes the ACT look like those standardized tests they used to make us take in 3rd grade where you got points for solely being able to fill in a dark circle.
Ramadan is over on Wed. or Thur. next week so I have great hopes that things will get better following that. Cafes and restaurants will be open during the day and I won’t have a guilt trip every time that I want to eat during the daylight hours. I’ll be able to go to the gardens and I won’t have to leave because I’m parched and need to drink water, I’ll be able to pull out a water bottle and drink in front of people. It’ll be extraordinary and I’m beyond excited.
Right now, my tentative plan for my fall break is to go to Egypt. Not exactly your stereotypical, American college-student break, but I have a feeling that it’ll be worth it. I can go out and spend a week drunk at home, it’s much more economically and logically sound to take this chance to go to Egypt. Let’s see how that goes.
If not that, I'd love to go up to Spain, but that seems a little bit iffy as well.
On Thursday night, about 16 of us went out for dinner at TGIFridays. It was really nice to go out to an American restaurant and to actually eat a burger and fries. Service was really slow because they fed all the Moroccans first so they could break their fast. It also, coincidentally, happened to be our month-iversary of being in Morocco. It was also the first time (excluding core class) that so many of us have been in one place since the orientation. For me, seeing so many people was kind of bittersweet, it just threw so many of my/the program’s inadequacies into sharper focus.
After dinner, we all went over to the hookah bar in the nouvelle ville. In typical Arab tradition, it’s a smoky, dark room that is frequented by men and the occasional (or common) prostitute. In the typical American tradition, certain people in my program thought that it would be a good idea to bring along their cheap alcohol and mix it with Hawaii while in the bar. It was like a night full of stereotypes. Despite how bitter I am right now, I really did enjoy the night. We had four hookahs and a round of drinks and it ended up still being less than 50 bucks split between 10ish people. You really can’t beat that considering one hookah is at least 15 dollars at home.
The highlight of Friday was easily the first thing that I did. I woke up kind of late (around 9) and went for a run. I’ve missed working out so, so much and it felt so good to have a healthy sheen of sweat. I’d been really hesitant about running because the ground is never level here, women exercising outside of aerobics classes is odd, and I can’t run with my iPod. So, I decided to run out of the medina to the tiny park on Avenue Hassan II and went for a half hour leisurely jog in sweat pants and a T-shirt. People were still staring at me like I was a crazy person, but it was totally worth it.
Later that day, I went back to the Andalusian gardens and read for a bit. I think the henna hecklers are starting to recognize me- rather than follow me and grab at my hands, they just asked me if I wanted henna. The gardens did go down a bit on my list of places that I like, though, since I did have two awkward conversations with guys who just decided that it was alright to sit down next to me and start talking. I went out that night briefly for coffee with some of the people in Gabby’s (one of my roommates) program.
Saturday was just as awfully dull as Friday. I woke up and read for a little bit, worked on some Arabic, and worked on some LSAT prep-stuff- I know, it’s hard not to be jealous at the thrill in my life. I went shopping with Suzanne and Jennifer for a few hours in the afternoon in some of the nicer shops in the nouvelle ville. I still haven’t figured out if I need to buy anything for the “winter” weather. All we’ve had for the fall, so far, is a few bits of rain on occasion. We also made a stop at McDos for a snack and people-watching.
I came home to discover that we had three girls staying with us from a study-abroad program in Granada. The more that I talk to people in other programs, the more I resent my program for never having their shit together and not providing us these opportunities. That night, the 26th of Ramadan, was a little bit of a holiday. All Moroccan families dress up their children in traditional costumes and take them into the streets to parade them around and get their pictures taken at all the photography shops. A ton of people in my program had made plans (without calling me of course) to walk around the medina and the nouvelle ville and people watch. We all ended up meeting up again (me with the three girls from Granada in tow) and going to the hookah bar for a second night in one weekend. One of the guys in my program is working there (under the table) so it was interesting to see him running around with the coals and drinks.
Sunday was another day that I exercised my ability to be independent. I read, worked on homework and readings, and watched a movie on my computer in the morning. In the afternoon, I went and read in the park, ran a few errands, and went to the cyber café to talk to my parents. On the way home from the cyber café, I did run into a man holding a rooster while trying to force my way through the crowds.
I’m sure by now, you’ve picked up on the ton of this entry. I really should just make an LSAT question out of it. I am beyond frustrated with my program and with the group of people that I am here with. The program has failed on so many of the promises that were made to us and lacks the resources and programming that were supposed to be crucial. As for the people in my group, I must have, at some unknown point, done something that made them all unanimously decide that I was not work anyone’s time. They never call and when I do manage to weasel my way into their plans, they tend to spend most of their time ignoring me and acting as if everything I say is the most idiotic thing that they’ve ever heard. I always knew that I needed to be more independent, but I never realized that I was going to be forced to find this independence while in a foreign country. It’s lonely and I wish it was feasible for me to go out and meet new people, but it’s nearly impossible.
On the upside, I have been returning to my old habits and reading incessantly. I can’t possibly explain how much I missed losing myself in a book. I haven’t had the time or means to read (excluding those brief periods that I go home) and it’s comforting to be transported back to the English-speaking world. I also think that I am starting to understand some of the logical and analytical reasoning problems. The LSAT makes the ACT look like those standardized tests they used to make us take in 3rd grade where you got points for solely being able to fill in a dark circle.
Ramadan is over on Wed. or Thur. next week so I have great hopes that things will get better following that. Cafes and restaurants will be open during the day and I won’t have a guilt trip every time that I want to eat during the daylight hours. I’ll be able to go to the gardens and I won’t have to leave because I’m parched and need to drink water, I’ll be able to pull out a water bottle and drink in front of people. It’ll be extraordinary and I’m beyond excited.
Right now, my tentative plan for my fall break is to go to Egypt. Not exactly your stereotypical, American college-student break, but I have a feeling that it’ll be worth it. I can go out and spend a week drunk at home, it’s much more economically and logically sound to take this chance to go to Egypt. Let’s see how that goes.
If not that, I'd love to go up to Spain, but that seems a little bit iffy as well.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Filler Post
So, it’s been over a week since I’ve updated and I’m pretty sure it’s just because nothing monumental has happened in the last week or two.
I remember trying to explain to somebody this summer how Ramadan wouldn’t be all that bad and how it would be an experience, but, in reality, it’s just boring. I haven’t been fasting, but have still been eating a pretty healthy lunch of fruit and an occasional quiche from the butcher’s shop next door. Everything is closed during the day and everyone moves on an even slower time table. It’s hard to travel and people on the streets have short tempers.
On the up side, we don’t have classes on Wednesday and Thursday next week to celebrate the end of Ramadan so I’ll withhold all my final judgments until then. October is going to be a real easy month for classes since we have a 10 day break in the middle (I still don’t know what I’m doing!) and a class trip to Marrekesh. All my classes here are kind of jokes anyways, they aren’t that hard and I don’t actually feel like we’ve covered any real material. I did find out today, however, that they are only crediting my obscenely difficult Arabic class as Intermediate 1 and I’m currently in a battle of wills with my academic director to get a syllabus in English so I can try and convince U of I to credit it the same as Arabic 404.
I had a really sketchy walk to the beach last night. I was followed two (maybe three) times by different groups of guys on the 10 minute walk to meet some friends at the café there. I ended up being me and stumbling down some stairs and messing up my ankle again. It was definitely the most insecure that I’ve felt walking by myself since the first week living in a homestay. Thankfully, there are two other ways to get to the beach and now I know not to take that way at night…honestly, I should have figured that walking through the Kasbah would be a little shady since it’s such a touristy spot during the day.
I’m still amazing, almost a month in, at a lot of things that I witness on a daily basis. In the month that we’ve been here, there have been at least 7 or 8 incidents where somebody was mugged, pick-pocketed, or something along that vein, but our ass-of-a-director still insists that we aren’t being targeted because we’re white. I still get shocked when I see people dumping fish heads on the streets and by some of the comments people make at me while I pass- it’s not as if I’m your typical promiscuous American lush so I really don’t think it’s fair.
I’m fasting for Ramadan for the first (and probably last) time today. I only had one class today so it seemed like a good day to try and it’s easier at the end of Ramadan because the sun sets earlier. I woke up this morning at four to eat, but I’m already hungry and it’s hardly noon yet. Let’s see how strong my will power is.
I remember trying to explain to somebody this summer how Ramadan wouldn’t be all that bad and how it would be an experience, but, in reality, it’s just boring. I haven’t been fasting, but have still been eating a pretty healthy lunch of fruit and an occasional quiche from the butcher’s shop next door. Everything is closed during the day and everyone moves on an even slower time table. It’s hard to travel and people on the streets have short tempers.
On the up side, we don’t have classes on Wednesday and Thursday next week to celebrate the end of Ramadan so I’ll withhold all my final judgments until then. October is going to be a real easy month for classes since we have a 10 day break in the middle (I still don’t know what I’m doing!) and a class trip to Marrekesh. All my classes here are kind of jokes anyways, they aren’t that hard and I don’t actually feel like we’ve covered any real material. I did find out today, however, that they are only crediting my obscenely difficult Arabic class as Intermediate 1 and I’m currently in a battle of wills with my academic director to get a syllabus in English so I can try and convince U of I to credit it the same as Arabic 404.
I had a really sketchy walk to the beach last night. I was followed two (maybe three) times by different groups of guys on the 10 minute walk to meet some friends at the café there. I ended up being me and stumbling down some stairs and messing up my ankle again. It was definitely the most insecure that I’ve felt walking by myself since the first week living in a homestay. Thankfully, there are two other ways to get to the beach and now I know not to take that way at night…honestly, I should have figured that walking through the Kasbah would be a little shady since it’s such a touristy spot during the day.
I’m still amazing, almost a month in, at a lot of things that I witness on a daily basis. In the month that we’ve been here, there have been at least 7 or 8 incidents where somebody was mugged, pick-pocketed, or something along that vein, but our ass-of-a-director still insists that we aren’t being targeted because we’re white. I still get shocked when I see people dumping fish heads on the streets and by some of the comments people make at me while I pass- it’s not as if I’m your typical promiscuous American lush so I really don’t think it’s fair.
I’m fasting for Ramadan for the first (and probably last) time today. I only had one class today so it seemed like a good day to try and it’s easier at the end of Ramadan because the sun sets earlier. I woke up this morning at four to eat, but I’m already hungry and it’s hardly noon yet. Let’s see how strong my will power is.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Here's to looking at you, kid./ Apparently, I'm kind of a bad ass.
I’m not sure where one could possibly begin when describing Casa. Despite the best intentions of Hollywood, Casablanca is a seedy, dirty, and kind of scary place. All of Morocco is usually filled with stylish buildings and brilliant colors, but Casa looks like the dirtier part of any European city. Not to say that the entire trip was reasonable, but I don’t think that anything could be much more…eventful (with all the bad connotations) than Casa.
But let’s start at the beginning shall we…
I left for Casablanca on Thursday afternoon. We took the train out of Rabat-Agdal and got in at Casa-Port about an hour later. Due to some timing mishaps, we got into Casa right as iftar was about to happen so all the taxi drivers had gone home to break their fast. We (Emma, Maggee, Xotchill, Kristina, and I) hung out at the train station with some blind, deformed kittens for a while before a grand taxi pulled up. (In Morocco, there are two types of taxis: grande and petite. Grande taxis can fit more people and are willing to take longer trips). We all piled in to the taxi and asked them to take us to our youth hostel. Little did we know that the hostel just happened to be a two-minute drive away. For that ridiculously short drive, he charged us 50 dirham (about 7 dollars) which is about 2 days worth of taxis to and from school (a 10-12 minute drive).
We got into the hostel and got our room. Thankfully, they had rooms with five beds. The place was surprisingly clean, but pretty empty (it was a Thursday night). The owner seemed confused when we asked about a key to lock up our stuff, but we did get it eventually. We went out for dinner that night, but we couldn’t find the place that we were looking for in our guidebook. Instead, we ate at some really nice hotel restaurant with fairly awful food. It’s nice, however, that we can eat in one of the nicer restaurants in town for about the same price as a full meal at Chilis.
The next morning, we turned out to be a bit confused about the hostel breakfast and managed to miss it by about 20 minutes. We had planned on using that day as a Hasan Mosque/ beach day, but the weather left something to be desired so we decided to spend the day shopping and seeing the other sites. So, we left in search of breakfast in the downtown area. After a good half hour of searching, we gave up and went to McDonalds. Shockingly enough, Ronald McDonald is the only guy in Casa who seems to realize that tourists do eat during Ramadan.
The rest of the day and the next day can be summed up in two columns. The good/fun stuff and the sketchy/scary/bad stuff. I’ll start with the bad and make my way towards the good.
THE BAD:
This is a memory that I will never ever ever forget and I still haven’t fully pieced together my thought process for when it happened. I just know that I am immensely lucky and I will never be so careless (and American again). So, we’re sitting in some empty (ish) park eating the pastries that we had bought for lunch. We’re all tired and kind of frustrated with the lack of things to do in Casa when some guy comes up behinds us, says “Bonjour Madimoiselle”, grabs my purse, and bolts.
No. I’m not kidding. I’m also kind of proud of my reaction. I just took off after that fucker and chased him across the park. At some point, I decided my shoes were annoying and kicked them off and then about 2 seconds later, I realized that there was about 20 other men chasing down this guy to get my purse back. I didn’t really think about what was happening until I had run down the block and was at the corner, about to run across the street, and somebody handed me my purse back. I remember yelling at him in French and running. I think it was mostly adrenaline because I have no recollection of what was running through my head when this was happening. I was out of breath, shoeless, and on a street corner in Casablanca, but I had my purse. The other girls come up to me as I’m checking to make sure everything was still there (it was) and trying to ensure the crazy big crowd of Moroccan men surrounding me that everything was there. Apparently, they caught the guy and held him until I gave my word that everything was there.
We hung out for a few more minutes while some other really nice Moroccan men get me my shoes and then we decide to get out of that sketch-tastic neighborhood.
2. One of our big plans for the day was to go to the Jewish museum in Casablanca. It’s their only museum and is supposed to be awesome…it also apparently doesn’t exist. Or is invisible to the naked eye. We took a cab 15 minutes outside of the city to find it and the best the driver could offer us was some big church (although he insisted that was it). Oh, Morocco.
3. The last one wasn’t all that bad, just weird and made me dislike Casa even more. Maggee, Kristina, and I were on our way to dinner at this restaurant that was frequented by the guy who wrote “Le Petit Prince”. We’re walking down one of the main drags of downtown Casa (and outside the always-open McDonalds) when a mob of about 40 guys in their late teens/early twenties come running down the road and yelling. We back up against the wall and just stare at the mob as they turn down a street and go towards a storefront. They didn’t seem particularly angry or vicious, it was just weird and a very odd ending to our day.
4. Restaurants sucks at being open during the day during Ramadan. That’s it.
THE GOOD:
We found this random cathedral that was in our guide book. Inside was fairly vacant (they used it for Catholic exhibitions), but the guide was kind enough to let us go up the tower. The tower was absolutely covered in pigeon shit, but we made our way up to the top and the view was AMAZING. You could see Casa in all directions and out to the ocean. The wind was blowing and it felt like we were literally on top of the road. Since it’s Morocco, and not the US, there are none of those safety guardrails and we were up there by ourselves. It was so peaceful to be above the city and to have nobody bothering you. You just can’t plan things like that.
On Casa Day 2, we went to the Hassan II Mosque. This mosque is the third largest in the world and the biggest one that non-Muslims are allowed to enter. It is absolutely amazing and stunning. The minaret (the tallest in the world) is tiled and marble and beautiful and the outside of the mosque is covered in tons of tiled fountains and ceramics. The mosque is right on the ocean and you can see the waves crashing into the shore from the courtyard.
It gets better on the inside. The main hall is filled with elaborate wood work, more tiles, marble floors, and a retractable ceiling. It has got to be the best place to pray EVER. The floors are heated during the winter and they have artfully hidden speakers in the eves. It was just gorgeous. They also showed us the room where people can go to wash. It has all these round little toadstools of water with these columns that are made to stop the humidity from running all the metal in that room. There was also a stunning hamman (bath-house) in the mosque, but it has never been used.
We also had this kick ass tour guide who gave our tour in English and Dutch and was just hilarious. She was amazingly frank and knew her facts backwards and forwards.
The beach was also fairly nice. The actual beach is a little dangerous because the waves are huge, but there are beach clubs with filtered water where you can rent “relax” (chairs) and miss out on a lot of the really shady people that you can find at the, I dunno, Rabat/Kasbah beach.
I have this fabulous (sense the sarcasm) sunburn line across my stomach, chest, and back, but I think it’s already faded. The red is mostly gone and it hardly hurts anymore. I realy should just be smarter than that.
And that, my friends, is Casablanca. It was quite a formative experience and I now feel like I can deal with anything while travelling in Morocco. We came back a day early and I spent today being as chill as possible. I read all morning and went to the grocery store and cyber café this afternoon. Gabby’s (one of the volunteers that I live with) got her wallet taken out of her bag in the souk right outside our house though. So, if I hadn’t just returned from the life-alternating experience of Casa, I would probably be freaking out about that slightly. I think I’ve just learned that you always have to be more on guard during the weekend. Every bad thing that has happened to someone so far has happened on a weekend. There’s really no protection for anyone who looks like a tourist then, it’s almost engrained into the lower-class mentality that tourists (i.e. white people) are just easy targets.
This is a really long entry to read so I doubt anyone has actually read the whole thing. Mazel tov if you did though, that takes some real dedication (and you must like me at least a little bit).
Jen
But let’s start at the beginning shall we…
I left for Casablanca on Thursday afternoon. We took the train out of Rabat-Agdal and got in at Casa-Port about an hour later. Due to some timing mishaps, we got into Casa right as iftar was about to happen so all the taxi drivers had gone home to break their fast. We (Emma, Maggee, Xotchill, Kristina, and I) hung out at the train station with some blind, deformed kittens for a while before a grand taxi pulled up. (In Morocco, there are two types of taxis: grande and petite. Grande taxis can fit more people and are willing to take longer trips). We all piled in to the taxi and asked them to take us to our youth hostel. Little did we know that the hostel just happened to be a two-minute drive away. For that ridiculously short drive, he charged us 50 dirham (about 7 dollars) which is about 2 days worth of taxis to and from school (a 10-12 minute drive).
We got into the hostel and got our room. Thankfully, they had rooms with five beds. The place was surprisingly clean, but pretty empty (it was a Thursday night). The owner seemed confused when we asked about a key to lock up our stuff, but we did get it eventually. We went out for dinner that night, but we couldn’t find the place that we were looking for in our guidebook. Instead, we ate at some really nice hotel restaurant with fairly awful food. It’s nice, however, that we can eat in one of the nicer restaurants in town for about the same price as a full meal at Chilis.
The next morning, we turned out to be a bit confused about the hostel breakfast and managed to miss it by about 20 minutes. We had planned on using that day as a Hasan Mosque/ beach day, but the weather left something to be desired so we decided to spend the day shopping and seeing the other sites. So, we left in search of breakfast in the downtown area. After a good half hour of searching, we gave up and went to McDonalds. Shockingly enough, Ronald McDonald is the only guy in Casa who seems to realize that tourists do eat during Ramadan.
The rest of the day and the next day can be summed up in two columns. The good/fun stuff and the sketchy/scary/bad stuff. I’ll start with the bad and make my way towards the good.
THE BAD:
This is a memory that I will never ever ever forget and I still haven’t fully pieced together my thought process for when it happened. I just know that I am immensely lucky and I will never be so careless (and American again). So, we’re sitting in some empty (ish) park eating the pastries that we had bought for lunch. We’re all tired and kind of frustrated with the lack of things to do in Casa when some guy comes up behinds us, says “Bonjour Madimoiselle”, grabs my purse, and bolts.
No. I’m not kidding. I’m also kind of proud of my reaction. I just took off after that fucker and chased him across the park. At some point, I decided my shoes were annoying and kicked them off and then about 2 seconds later, I realized that there was about 20 other men chasing down this guy to get my purse back. I didn’t really think about what was happening until I had run down the block and was at the corner, about to run across the street, and somebody handed me my purse back. I remember yelling at him in French and running. I think it was mostly adrenaline because I have no recollection of what was running through my head when this was happening. I was out of breath, shoeless, and on a street corner in Casablanca, but I had my purse. The other girls come up to me as I’m checking to make sure everything was still there (it was) and trying to ensure the crazy big crowd of Moroccan men surrounding me that everything was there. Apparently, they caught the guy and held him until I gave my word that everything was there.
We hung out for a few more minutes while some other really nice Moroccan men get me my shoes and then we decide to get out of that sketch-tastic neighborhood.
2. One of our big plans for the day was to go to the Jewish museum in Casablanca. It’s their only museum and is supposed to be awesome…it also apparently doesn’t exist. Or is invisible to the naked eye. We took a cab 15 minutes outside of the city to find it and the best the driver could offer us was some big church (although he insisted that was it). Oh, Morocco.
3. The last one wasn’t all that bad, just weird and made me dislike Casa even more. Maggee, Kristina, and I were on our way to dinner at this restaurant that was frequented by the guy who wrote “Le Petit Prince”. We’re walking down one of the main drags of downtown Casa (and outside the always-open McDonalds) when a mob of about 40 guys in their late teens/early twenties come running down the road and yelling. We back up against the wall and just stare at the mob as they turn down a street and go towards a storefront. They didn’t seem particularly angry or vicious, it was just weird and a very odd ending to our day.
4. Restaurants sucks at being open during the day during Ramadan. That’s it.
THE GOOD:
We found this random cathedral that was in our guide book. Inside was fairly vacant (they used it for Catholic exhibitions), but the guide was kind enough to let us go up the tower. The tower was absolutely covered in pigeon shit, but we made our way up to the top and the view was AMAZING. You could see Casa in all directions and out to the ocean. The wind was blowing and it felt like we were literally on top of the road. Since it’s Morocco, and not the US, there are none of those safety guardrails and we were up there by ourselves. It was so peaceful to be above the city and to have nobody bothering you. You just can’t plan things like that.
On Casa Day 2, we went to the Hassan II Mosque. This mosque is the third largest in the world and the biggest one that non-Muslims are allowed to enter. It is absolutely amazing and stunning. The minaret (the tallest in the world) is tiled and marble and beautiful and the outside of the mosque is covered in tons of tiled fountains and ceramics. The mosque is right on the ocean and you can see the waves crashing into the shore from the courtyard.
It gets better on the inside. The main hall is filled with elaborate wood work, more tiles, marble floors, and a retractable ceiling. It has got to be the best place to pray EVER. The floors are heated during the winter and they have artfully hidden speakers in the eves. It was just gorgeous. They also showed us the room where people can go to wash. It has all these round little toadstools of water with these columns that are made to stop the humidity from running all the metal in that room. There was also a stunning hamman (bath-house) in the mosque, but it has never been used.
We also had this kick ass tour guide who gave our tour in English and Dutch and was just hilarious. She was amazingly frank and knew her facts backwards and forwards.
The beach was also fairly nice. The actual beach is a little dangerous because the waves are huge, but there are beach clubs with filtered water where you can rent “relax” (chairs) and miss out on a lot of the really shady people that you can find at the, I dunno, Rabat/Kasbah beach.
I have this fabulous (sense the sarcasm) sunburn line across my stomach, chest, and back, but I think it’s already faded. The red is mostly gone and it hardly hurts anymore. I realy should just be smarter than that.
And that, my friends, is Casablanca. It was quite a formative experience and I now feel like I can deal with anything while travelling in Morocco. We came back a day early and I spent today being as chill as possible. I read all morning and went to the grocery store and cyber café this afternoon. Gabby’s (one of the volunteers that I live with) got her wallet taken out of her bag in the souk right outside our house though. So, if I hadn’t just returned from the life-alternating experience of Casa, I would probably be freaking out about that slightly. I think I’ve just learned that you always have to be more on guard during the weekend. Every bad thing that has happened to someone so far has happened on a weekend. There’s really no protection for anyone who looks like a tourist then, it’s almost engrained into the lower-class mentality that tourists (i.e. white people) are just easy targets.
This is a really long entry to read so I doubt anyone has actually read the whole thing. Mazel tov if you did though, that takes some real dedication (and you must like me at least a little bit).
Jen
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Alright, the past few days have shown me that regular updates are not going to happen. I have Wi-Fi at school and there are a few places to get it in the nouvelle ville, but I will be disconnected from the world for the majority of the time.
I will try and be a bit more regular with my updates though because I have A LOT to let you guys know about.
In usual Jen fashion, I’m writing this while I should be studying for my exam tomorrow. The past two weeks have been a blur of intensive Moroccan Arabic classes in the vein of 5 hours a day. I was un-ceremoniously dumped in the advanced class along with the other 7 students who have any Arabic background. It’s been enough to make my head hurt. If it weren’t for my determination to learn Arabic, I would have dropped down to a beginner class and re-learned the alphabet, but that seems a bit lazy and a bit like something U of I would give no credit for. My professor’s name is Muhammad and he speaks very limited English so the majority of the class is taught in French. Moroccan Arabic is slightly ridiculous: the grammar is either much more simplistic or needlessly complicated and a lot of the words are just Arabized-French words.
After class, we sometimes hang out and use the internet, but I usually just go home instead. Now, I live in the medina with this great woman named Zackia, her sister Haneea, her niece, and two girls who are here with Projects Abroad to volunteer. It’s a very nice house and very clean. The first home they put me was not so nice. There were about 12 people who slept in 3 rooms (on couches and on the floors) and constant noise and constant chaos. They never locked the door and I was followed home twice in the few days that I lived there. I couldn’t deal with it (the noise, the people, and the lack of shower) and they moved me out after three days.
At Zackia’s, I have my own bed and my own little area. I can study and plug in my electronics and nobody will bother me- it has just the right amount of convenience mixed in with an authentic feel. I can’t possibly describe what it’s like to live in the medina, but it’s never boring. The medina looks like it could go back a few hundred years and the only thing that would change is all the signs for cyber cafes and teleboutiques. The streets are narrow and are arranged in no logical way. The hanouts (little stores) can be found on any of the streets and the souk (market) is spread throughout the medina. You can make one turn and end up in front of a butcher’s shop with cow legs hanging from hook or a stand that sells fresh produce and random spices in industrial sized buckets. If you walk ten feet, you might be at a stand that selling all kinds of “designer” clothes for less than 20 bucks. Same scenario, but there’s electronics stands, cell phones, baked goods, scarves, leather products, shoes, or books.
I do deal with a good deal of harassment, but I just put a blank look on my face and pretend I don’t understand what the guys say to me in French, English, and Spanish. For the most part, I get TONS of people who think that I’m French, but a fair amount of people seem to believe that I’m Spanish. Even when they do figure out that I speak English, they never assume American- it’s always British.
I love living in the medina and wouldn’t trade it for anything. The majority of the people in the program live in the wealthier outskirts of the city in real houses. Some of them have servants and chauffeurs and real gardens, but I much prefer my chaos and character to their comfort. Plus, everything is SO cheap in the medina. There’s about 7-8 dirhams to the American dollar and you can buy a shirt for around 40 dirhams and food from stands for about 10 dirhams. A full meal in a restaurant can usually go for 35 dirhams. I buy a massive bottle of water everyday for about 5 dirhams.
I don’t have any specific adventures that I can really tell you guys about. I’ve been going to the beach fairly often (it’s a 10 minute walk away), but have only been swimming in it twice. The first time, I made the mistake of going with 4 girls and it was…uncomfortable. The second time was during Ramadan so the beach was empty and I was with a huge group of people. We’ve been playing a lot of bocce ball.
Tomorrow, I have my exam and then my consultation with our program director (who is a total ass). Thursday is the first day in our “shopping period” for classes and there are no classes on Fridays. I’m going to Casa (Casablanca) with a few of the girls in my program so I don’t go too stir crazy. I’ve never been anywhere (relatively speaking) and I didn’t come abroad to spend 4 months straight in Rabat.
I’ll be very happy when Ramadan is over. It’s nearly impossible to get food for lunch (of course Mac-Dos is always open) and we eat an early dinner which makes it more difficult to do anything after class. Moroccans break their fast at 7 (If-tar) and then eat again at 12 and then sleep. Some of them wake up at 3:30 to stuff themselves again before the rest of their day of fasting. I would never have that much self control and I admire anyone who can do it. A whole bunch of people in the program started to observe Ramadan, but I think that it’s down to only who girl who’s stuck with it. Unfortunately, since most of the places with Wi-Fi in the nouvelle ville are cafes, this also means that they’re all closed during the day. And, as shallow as this is, all the bars and “discotheques” are closed during Ramadan which severely cuts down on any kind of nightlife.
So far, life has been intensely surreal. I feel like I had no transition time (despite the fact that I was home for a week) and like I was at camp yesterday. It’s also odd how much I miss camp considering how miserable I am half the time when I’m there. I feel like I’m at Morocco for an extended vacation and the classes don’t seem quite real. I miss the people at home, but it hasn’t really sunk in that life is going on at U of I without me. I miss my niche there and am kind of desperate to find one here so I can stop stressing about making friends and being social.
I suppose I’ll update when I get back from Casa, but until then…
Jen
I will try and be a bit more regular with my updates though because I have A LOT to let you guys know about.
In usual Jen fashion, I’m writing this while I should be studying for my exam tomorrow. The past two weeks have been a blur of intensive Moroccan Arabic classes in the vein of 5 hours a day. I was un-ceremoniously dumped in the advanced class along with the other 7 students who have any Arabic background. It’s been enough to make my head hurt. If it weren’t for my determination to learn Arabic, I would have dropped down to a beginner class and re-learned the alphabet, but that seems a bit lazy and a bit like something U of I would give no credit for. My professor’s name is Muhammad and he speaks very limited English so the majority of the class is taught in French. Moroccan Arabic is slightly ridiculous: the grammar is either much more simplistic or needlessly complicated and a lot of the words are just Arabized-French words.
After class, we sometimes hang out and use the internet, but I usually just go home instead. Now, I live in the medina with this great woman named Zackia, her sister Haneea, her niece, and two girls who are here with Projects Abroad to volunteer. It’s a very nice house and very clean. The first home they put me was not so nice. There were about 12 people who slept in 3 rooms (on couches and on the floors) and constant noise and constant chaos. They never locked the door and I was followed home twice in the few days that I lived there. I couldn’t deal with it (the noise, the people, and the lack of shower) and they moved me out after three days.
At Zackia’s, I have my own bed and my own little area. I can study and plug in my electronics and nobody will bother me- it has just the right amount of convenience mixed in with an authentic feel. I can’t possibly describe what it’s like to live in the medina, but it’s never boring. The medina looks like it could go back a few hundred years and the only thing that would change is all the signs for cyber cafes and teleboutiques. The streets are narrow and are arranged in no logical way. The hanouts (little stores) can be found on any of the streets and the souk (market) is spread throughout the medina. You can make one turn and end up in front of a butcher’s shop with cow legs hanging from hook or a stand that sells fresh produce and random spices in industrial sized buckets. If you walk ten feet, you might be at a stand that selling all kinds of “designer” clothes for less than 20 bucks. Same scenario, but there’s electronics stands, cell phones, baked goods, scarves, leather products, shoes, or books.
I do deal with a good deal of harassment, but I just put a blank look on my face and pretend I don’t understand what the guys say to me in French, English, and Spanish. For the most part, I get TONS of people who think that I’m French, but a fair amount of people seem to believe that I’m Spanish. Even when they do figure out that I speak English, they never assume American- it’s always British.
I love living in the medina and wouldn’t trade it for anything. The majority of the people in the program live in the wealthier outskirts of the city in real houses. Some of them have servants and chauffeurs and real gardens, but I much prefer my chaos and character to their comfort. Plus, everything is SO cheap in the medina. There’s about 7-8 dirhams to the American dollar and you can buy a shirt for around 40 dirhams and food from stands for about 10 dirhams. A full meal in a restaurant can usually go for 35 dirhams. I buy a massive bottle of water everyday for about 5 dirhams.
I don’t have any specific adventures that I can really tell you guys about. I’ve been going to the beach fairly often (it’s a 10 minute walk away), but have only been swimming in it twice. The first time, I made the mistake of going with 4 girls and it was…uncomfortable. The second time was during Ramadan so the beach was empty and I was with a huge group of people. We’ve been playing a lot of bocce ball.
Tomorrow, I have my exam and then my consultation with our program director (who is a total ass). Thursday is the first day in our “shopping period” for classes and there are no classes on Fridays. I’m going to Casa (Casablanca) with a few of the girls in my program so I don’t go too stir crazy. I’ve never been anywhere (relatively speaking) and I didn’t come abroad to spend 4 months straight in Rabat.
I’ll be very happy when Ramadan is over. It’s nearly impossible to get food for lunch (of course Mac-Dos is always open) and we eat an early dinner which makes it more difficult to do anything after class. Moroccans break their fast at 7 (If-tar) and then eat again at 12 and then sleep. Some of them wake up at 3:30 to stuff themselves again before the rest of their day of fasting. I would never have that much self control and I admire anyone who can do it. A whole bunch of people in the program started to observe Ramadan, but I think that it’s down to only who girl who’s stuck with it. Unfortunately, since most of the places with Wi-Fi in the nouvelle ville are cafes, this also means that they’re all closed during the day. And, as shallow as this is, all the bars and “discotheques” are closed during Ramadan which severely cuts down on any kind of nightlife.
So far, life has been intensely surreal. I feel like I had no transition time (despite the fact that I was home for a week) and like I was at camp yesterday. It’s also odd how much I miss camp considering how miserable I am half the time when I’m there. I feel like I’m at Morocco for an extended vacation and the classes don’t seem quite real. I miss the people at home, but it hasn’t really sunk in that life is going on at U of I without me. I miss my niche there and am kind of desperate to find one here so I can stop stressing about making friends and being social.
I suppose I’ll update when I get back from Casa, but until then…
Jen
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Update
God, I get it. I'll type up an update today on Word and post it tomorrow (no internet in my homestay), but I'm alive and semi-happy and miss you guys all a lot. Something will be up tomorrow.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Where to start?
It started out...and then kept going and going and going.
So, I am in Morocco and it feels like I've been here for ages although i kept going and going and going. On Tuesday, I flew from Chicago to London over night (losing six hours). The next day, I flew from London to Paris and then from Paris to Rabat. My first experience on international flights was a lot better than I thought it would be. They give you tons of food and talked really slowly for me because my French kind of sucks.
Honestly, when I was getting ready to go to the airport, I was a nervous wreck. I just wanted to go home and go back to U of I and crawl into my bed. So far, that seems like it would have been a bad idea.
On the flight to Rabat, there was an Olympic athlete sitting in the row across from me so when I got there, there was a ton of suits waiting for him on the runway. I guess that's what a medal gets you. We got off the plane and walked into the airport (on the tarmac) and did hte whole customs things. (suprisingly quite easy). After being hassled by some certified-porter guy to get my luggage in, I went out to the internatinal greeting hall (which is the only other room in the airport). At first, I didn't see anyne there to meet me and I was quite creeped out, but eventually I found some guy with a handwritten sign.
I followed him out to the van and I had definite thoughts that I was getting kidnapped. He didn't speak English and was just kind of staring me down. I was thinking of exit strategies when he handed me the cell phone to talk to the program director. Safe. We drove straight to the restaurant where the rest of the program was eating.
Moroccan food is amazing. I sat down and looked at my menu (thankfully it was in French) and ordered a chicken sandwich. Amazng. Of course, the program director was trying to talk to me in French and that just hurt my head.
Went to the hotel. Went to bed.
(Cont. tomorrow/next time with reliable internet- so so so tired)
So, I am in Morocco and it feels like I've been here for ages although i kept going and going and going. On Tuesday, I flew from Chicago to London over night (losing six hours). The next day, I flew from London to Paris and then from Paris to Rabat. My first experience on international flights was a lot better than I thought it would be. They give you tons of food and talked really slowly for me because my French kind of sucks.
Honestly, when I was getting ready to go to the airport, I was a nervous wreck. I just wanted to go home and go back to U of I and crawl into my bed. So far, that seems like it would have been a bad idea.
On the flight to Rabat, there was an Olympic athlete sitting in the row across from me so when I got there, there was a ton of suits waiting for him on the runway. I guess that's what a medal gets you. We got off the plane and walked into the airport (on the tarmac) and did hte whole customs things. (suprisingly quite easy). After being hassled by some certified-porter guy to get my luggage in, I went out to the internatinal greeting hall (which is the only other room in the airport). At first, I didn't see anyne there to meet me and I was quite creeped out, but eventually I found some guy with a handwritten sign.
I followed him out to the van and I had definite thoughts that I was getting kidnapped. He didn't speak English and was just kind of staring me down. I was thinking of exit strategies when he handed me the cell phone to talk to the program director. Safe. We drove straight to the restaurant where the rest of the program was eating.
Moroccan food is amazing. I sat down and looked at my menu (thankfully it was in French) and ordered a chicken sandwich. Amazng. Of course, the program director was trying to talk to me in French and that just hurt my head.
Went to the hotel. Went to bed.
(Cont. tomorrow/next time with reliable internet- so so so tired)
Monday, August 25, 2008
Camp (Finale)
Alright, after this post I have a new rule: no posting anything if it’s negative or if I’m in one of my undeniable emo moods. As the women who works at the credit card service center told me today, studying abroad is the chance of a lifetime. There’s no use moping when you can experience life. I’m never going to be able to afford to live in Morocco for 4 months ever again and I might as well “carpe diem”-it.
So, where do I start. I suppose an explanation of my uber-emo posts is in order. Camp has this weird affect on me. I love it when I’m not there, but I’m guaranteed to hate it at least half the time when I’m there. The atmosphere is so infectious and vibrant, but I’ve never felt like I belonged there. It’s a very lonely place when you consider that you live less than a 2 minute walk from 200 people. It drives me crazy that people act like you’re a part of camp and then exclude you five minutes later because you’re not rich/peppy/organized/smart/pretty enough. And honestly, I know that I’m not and I don’t need people reminding me about it.
Regardless, as I drove away I couldn’t help crying. It was about the same amount of tears as on the way there. I delude myself into thinking that I absolutely matter there (I don’t) or that people will realize that they miss me (they won’t.)
Sadly, I know if I can’t find something else next summer then I’ll be back and I’ll throw myself headfirst into the whirlwind again.
So, where do I start. I suppose an explanation of my uber-emo posts is in order. Camp has this weird affect on me. I love it when I’m not there, but I’m guaranteed to hate it at least half the time when I’m there. The atmosphere is so infectious and vibrant, but I’ve never felt like I belonged there. It’s a very lonely place when you consider that you live less than a 2 minute walk from 200 people. It drives me crazy that people act like you’re a part of camp and then exclude you five minutes later because you’re not rich/peppy/organized/smart/pretty enough. And honestly, I know that I’m not and I don’t need people reminding me about it.
Regardless, as I drove away I couldn’t help crying. It was about the same amount of tears as on the way there. I delude myself into thinking that I absolutely matter there (I don’t) or that people will realize that they miss me (they won’t.)
Sadly, I know if I can’t find something else next summer then I’ll be back and I’ll throw myself headfirst into the whirlwind again.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Things I Bet You Didn't Know About Camp
1. I go to bed at 9:30 PM and I like it.
2. The sunset on Lake George is the most beautiful thing ever.
3. Walkie chatter is more amusing then most TV shoes you could ever watch.
4. You can't have performance anxiety over coiling a rope
5. Moving cabins and activities defines who you are.
6. Walking up cardio hill every day is more exercise than the average american gets in a week
7. Still miss my friends, but it's more of a dull pain.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Au revoir
I leave tomorrow morning and I am a total and absolute wreck. I don’t want to do this. The past few days have been awful; my stomach has been cramped, my skin has been breaking out, I haven’t been able to breathe, and I’ve had several minor panic attacks whenever I start thinking about camp.
This is such a bad idea. I miss my friends so much already and I’m going to miss the comfort of home as soon as I get through security at the airport again. I don’t want to go surround myself with trees, people who don’t like me very much, and traditions that I am not a part of. That’s not fun. I don’t want to do it.
I’ve spent the last few days plotting with my friends on all the diseases I could come up with just so I can come home: menegitis? Polio? Hepatits? It’s just so much easier now for me to go out there and be miserable than for me to back out now. I have so much control over the rest of my life, I don’t know why I let uncertainty and doubt fill my summers.
Honestly, I’m so low right now that the only place to go is up. I just really don’t think that it’s going to be okay.
This is such a bad idea. I miss my friends so much already and I’m going to miss the comfort of home as soon as I get through security at the airport again. I don’t want to go surround myself with trees, people who don’t like me very much, and traditions that I am not a part of. That’s not fun. I don’t want to do it.
I’ve spent the last few days plotting with my friends on all the diseases I could come up with just so I can come home: menegitis? Polio? Hepatits? It’s just so much easier now for me to go out there and be miserable than for me to back out now. I have so much control over the rest of my life, I don’t know why I let uncertainty and doubt fill my summers.
Honestly, I’m so low right now that the only place to go is up. I just really don’t think that it’s going to be okay.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
An Introducton
In exactly one week, I leave Illinois until I come back during the second week of December (minus one week in August)…and apparently that’s a pretty big deal. I’m going to upstate New York for camp for 2 months and then I’m going to Morocco for four months. I know, in the long-term, that hardly seems to be very long and very adventurous, but I feel it warrants some kind of official documentation for everyone to see.
I just got back from my visit down to school. It was the last chance that I’m going to have to see most people until January or even May. We said good-bye in the usual way and now my clothes smell like card games, smoke, and wheat beer. I somehow combined almost all my vices and lots of my favorite people into one night. Excellent.
The idea of going back to New York has been stressing me out like crazy. I’m sure once I’m there, I’ll be fine, but until then I expect another panic attack and a few childish tantrums. Last year, my experience pretty much just mirrored someone with minor bipolar disorder. Some days were really, really bad and then some days were absolutely amazing. I think the fact that I have realistic expectations will make this summer better. I’ve also grown up a lot since then so I’m hoping that I’ll actually be able to take things at face value.
Morocco is still an open book. I don’t know where I’m living, what I’m taking, or what I want to get out of the experience. The only thing that is clear is what I’m leaving behind. I’m scared to death, but I’m sure it’ll be okay. I want to live my life and Morocco seems like an excellent place to start. I can get all my French and Arabic in one place.
Unusual travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.
-Kurt Vonnegut
A good traveler is one who does not know where he is going, and a perfect traveler does not know where he came from.
-Lin Yutang
I just got back from my visit down to school. It was the last chance that I’m going to have to see most people until January or even May. We said good-bye in the usual way and now my clothes smell like card games, smoke, and wheat beer. I somehow combined almost all my vices and lots of my favorite people into one night. Excellent.
The idea of going back to New York has been stressing me out like crazy. I’m sure once I’m there, I’ll be fine, but until then I expect another panic attack and a few childish tantrums. Last year, my experience pretty much just mirrored someone with minor bipolar disorder. Some days were really, really bad and then some days were absolutely amazing. I think the fact that I have realistic expectations will make this summer better. I’ve also grown up a lot since then so I’m hoping that I’ll actually be able to take things at face value.
Morocco is still an open book. I don’t know where I’m living, what I’m taking, or what I want to get out of the experience. The only thing that is clear is what I’m leaving behind. I’m scared to death, but I’m sure it’ll be okay. I want to live my life and Morocco seems like an excellent place to start. I can get all my French and Arabic in one place.
Unusual travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.
-Kurt Vonnegut
A good traveler is one who does not know where he is going, and a perfect traveler does not know where he came from.
-Lin Yutang
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