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.
Monday, September 29, 2008
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.
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