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