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[safasaf2018]

Day 35 - 7/6/18

Last day in Morocco..... This morning class was a wrap up of all the big topics for the first hours, and the second hour was spent on the roof with each of us giving a brief talk about our trip in Morocco, what we learned from it, etc. It was really sweet, and our professor finished it by telling us that we were his wife’s favorite group and definitely one of his favorites as well. He told us that more so than in other groups he sees that we really have a strong group dynamic, where we’re not too clique-y, you could take any number of us from the group together and send us on a day trip and we’d be absolutely fine. It was really really sweet. After that we took a group picture on the roof and some of us stayed on the roof while the others went home. I didn’t stay long because today is Friday and Friday means couscous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I came home early and took an hour long nap and woke up just in time for the most delicious couscous I’ve ever eaten and ever will eat. Mohamed didn’t eat with us because in the month of July Muslim men fast for an additional 6 days after Ramadan. After couscous we were all very sleepy as it put us into food comas, so we turned on the game of France and Uruguay!! Victor came over to watch it, and Nadia gave me traditional Moroccan braids while he played with Soulaymane who was facetiming his friends from his phone and showing off his train collection. France won of course, 2-0. After the game Victor and I went to Blueberry Café where we always go to get some work done. We stayed there about an hour and then came home to quickly change and go to dinner. Tonight professor bought us all a fancy dinner at a Riad in the medina as a farewell last group event. We had to place our orders earlier this week, so everything was prepared for us when we got there. I got duck tajine with caramelized apples and I don’t think any food will ever taste the same again, it was a religious experience. I was sitting in the middle of the table so half the time I was talking with Professor and his wife about immigrant policy and grad school plans, and half the time I was focused on the other side of the table joking and laughing and being way too loud for the fancy setting. The Belgium Brazil match was on during dinner which we were all very happy about (Belgium won 2-1). After dinner we had dessert and we all stayed quite a while after it was done, talking. When we finally decided to leave the restaurant we stood around with Professor and his wife outside the restaurant joking about the trip and laughing so loud that we all got kicked out, so Professor and his wife gave us hugs and went home, and we moved to the outskirts of the medina to talk more. One by one people started leaving and hugging everybody goodbye, and Shâdy, Victor, and I went to the boat bar to say goodbye to Ismail who was there with some friends. We sat down for maybe 15 minutes and as we got up to leave the worker from the other night who I talked to about America’s birthday saw me and stopped me to say hi! I told him I was leaving tomorrow and he got kind of sad looking and said, “well.... I wish you the best travels, and I hope you get a good job and can come back here soon.” which seemed very genuine. Victor and I left and I came home where everyone was awake in the living room. Nadia told me today that tomorrow is her birthday! So when I was at the café with Victor I bought a rose from a child selling roses, and when it got to midnight tonight so that it was her birthday I went to get it for her. I also gave her a shawl, and gave Omaima a pair of pants, and Soulaymane and Mouad each a t-shirt. They were all beyond happy, smiling ear to ear, and Omaima and Nadia immediately retreated to the bedroom and returned afterwards with armfuls of dresses and necklaces that they wanted to give me. As one of the students said today when we were reflecting on our trip, Morocco absolutely redefines hospitality. After that Omaima and Mouad both added me on facebook and gave me their and Nadia’s Whatsapp numbers so I could add them when I got back to the US, and now I’m writing this and about to start working on my paper more. As is tradition I’m not sleeping tonight, my plan is to finish my first paper tonight, sleep on the 2 hour taxi ride to the airport, and then write my second paper in the airport and on the plane and finish when I get home if I fall asleep on the plane or don’t finish it. Okay I have to stop writing this and go on to my papers, also if I keep writing I’ll have to write about how I’m feeling which is heartbroken that this is my last night in the medina. Okay bye! 

[safasaf2018]

Day 34 - 7/5/18

Today was an extremely cute day. I woke up and went to the living room for breakfast where the table was empty, and Nadia was for some reason sleeping on the couch. She told me that Mohamed had gone downtown to buy bread and cheese, so I poured myself some tea and waited for him to get back. After breakfast I walked to class where we learned more about Berbers in different parts of North Africa. After class and after lunch I went up to the roof and read one of two chapters I have to read today in the sun while listening to music with Jack and Victor. When I finished the chapter we all went into town to get Jack lunch and go to an ATM. Jack got his favorite food here, a tacos (which is just a chicken wrap), and went back home. Victor and I walked the long way back to our houses through the busy market streets, and bought 20 cent ice creams on the way. When I got home I asked Omaima if she could show me where I could go get my henna done, so she changed into a dress and her Nadia do her hair up in a braided bun with a circle of yellow barrettes. We left for henna and on the way I called Nadia and insisted she let me pay for Omaima to get her henna done as well. Omaima led me out of the medina and towards the beach where women were sitting along the walk offering henna. We picked two women and sat down with them to look through their photo albums of designs they could do. Omaima and I each chose 2, one for each hand, and after I chose mine she decided she actually wanted what I had chosen. On the way there she was explaining to me that it’s good she was coming with me because otherwise the women would most likely overcharge me, seeing that I wasn’t Moroccan and wouldn’t know the normal price for roadside henna. She said, “Once I talk to them in darija (Moroccan Arabic) they’ll know to give us the normal price,” so when we sat down she figured out a price with them and we got to work. As they were finishing up two other women who were doing henna somewhere else came over and started talking to them. I didn’t understand anything they were saying, and when they finished I payed, didn’t get the right change back, tried to explain what was wrong, and eventually gave up and just left with Omaima because she seemed upset by what the two other women were saying and I didn’t want to stick around any longer. When we left she told me that the two women came over and asked the women doing our henna why they didn’t charge us more, assuming that we didn’t speak Arabic. Omaima of course understood all of this. The women doing our henna said, “Sh! She’s Moroccan.” after which the two women looked at Omaima and said, “she doesn’t look Moroccan.” They probably assumed she wasn’t because she was with me. Then they asked her, “Is this your maid? Or is your family renting their house out to her for extra money?” to which she proudly replied, “this is my sister,” and said nothing else. On the way home three different individual guys called to me, “Beautiful henna!” or “Bonjour madame” or something along those lines, and Omaima asked if I knew them. I had to explain to her that when I walk, especially alone or without any guys with me, men who don’t know me will often call out after me and she told me that she understands because that’s started happening to her as well when boys her age see her in the street. We talked about that a bit, but didn’t dwell too much on it. When we got home we showed Nadia our henna, while trying not to touch anything in the house so it could dry. Then Nadia started mixing her own henna paste to do our feet, which was her way of repaying me for paying for Omaima’s henna. The henna we got on our hands is orange and the paste Nadia mixed is black. She did my feet first, two beautiful traditional flower designs, and then Omaima’s. While she was doing Omaima’s feet, Victor came over to see the henna, and she ended up putting a design on one of his fingers and writing “victor” phonetically with the Arabic alphabet. After that Omaima and I also wanted our names on our wrists so she added “Willow” in Arabic on my right wrist and “safasaf” on my left. When she finished Omaima’s feet she took me to the bathroom to wash off the dried henna from my hands and feet, and Victor and I left to go downtown. We stopped at a chwarma/kebab place on the way there even though we’d both already eaten because I was determined to taste a Moroccan kebab before I left Morocco. I ate about half of it just to get the taste and then gave the rest of it to a young boy begging for food, and my fries to an older woman sitting by the side of the street asking for money. From there we went to the Blueberry, the café we’ve been to every time so far. We just got orange juices because it’s a very hot day and we’d just spent money on chwarma, and I read the second chapter I had to read today while Victor listened to music and browsed on his phone. Since we finished so early there we both went back to his house to get more work done but I fell asleep as soon as I sat on the bed, and didn’t wake up until an hour later when he was leaving to go to Hammam with some of the other guys and I had to go home for dinner. When I got home I was still feeling tired and a little bit sick again, so I went up to the roof and lied down on the couch while Nadia prepared dinner. While I was laying there she brought me a beautiful traditional Moroccan dress that’s white with a black hand of Fatima on the center that she and Omaima picked out for me, so I went downstairs to put it on before eating. Luckily dinner tonight was light - rice porridge with bread and hard boiled eggs and dates, with watermelon for desert and corn on the cob after that when it was done cooking. I went to the kitchen while Nadia was getting the corn on a plate and asked if she could make me another egg, but she said there were none left, so I said that was fine and I would just eat the corn. However, 15 minutes later, Mouad comes onto the roof with a bag full of eggs he had gone to the market to buy me!!!! Nadia fried them up and Omaima and I ate them with bread and olive oil. After dinner I came downstairs and Omaima and I watched an animated movie about a ballerina. It finished at midnight and I was falling asleep while opening my laptop to write this, when I noticed Omaima trying to do the 5 ballet positions. I remembered them from when I took ballet 300 years ago, so I got up to show her, which resulted in me showing her a ton of stretches and whatnot. While we were doing that Mohamed came in from outside with a bag of chocolate and nuts, a tradition for them when they watch movies together late at night. Omaima and I continued stretching and Soulaymane joined in. Eventually Mouad and Mohamed left so now I’m writing this while Soulaymane plays with the small American flag I just gave him, Omaima is picking up the sunflower seed shells, and Nadia is on the couch watching the movie Mouad put on before he left. It’s about to be 1:00 am, but I don’t want to go to bed now that my family’s given me energy, so I may work on my paper. Peace! 

[safasaf2018]

Day 33 - FOURTH OF JULY!!!!!

This morning I woke up early to go swimming with Victor in the same hidden ocean spot where his host sister took us last week. Because of my tattoo I could only go waist deep, but that was perfectly fine because the tide had come way in and covered the beach. After that I went home, showered, had breakfast, and went to class. In the place of class today we invited 8 Moroccan students ages 18-28 to join us, broke into 3 smaller groups, and just got to asked each other questions. They asked us questions about Trump, we asked them about Mohamed VI, gender politics, religion, etc. My group had a male and a female student who were best friends, and we talked to them mostly about how the schooling system in Morocco teaches students about Berbers.Turns out it’s a lot like how US schools and documents used to teach about Native Americans - as an uncivilized people who weren’t even really people, overlooking any massacres or taking over that took place. The girl was very soft spoken, and at one point Hamza, the guy, mentioned that she could sing. Of course we all asked her to sing her favorite song, Someone Like You, by Adele, not really expecting her to do it, but then she started singing! We asked if we could film her and she said yes, so we all took out our phones to capture her beautiful voice, and our professor was sitting nearby and clapped with us when she was done. After that we all came back together as a class and shared interesting things we learned from each other, and then went to eat. I guess this counted as a special occasion, because the school made us all a special lunch buffet for us on the main floor. Also, today’s the Fourth of July!! Kimberly, Carolina, and I carried around little American flags with us inside the school, but I promptly put mine back in my bag once we went outside to walk home. I started walking Shâdy home with Victor, but they were annoying me so I left and accidentally ended up on the entire opposite side of the medina. I got directions on my phone and went back home where they were just cutting into the biggest watermelon I may have ever seen. I relaxed in the living room with everyone for a bit watching a Japanese cartoon that was on the tv, and then I had to get ready to go to Hammam with some of the girls in our group. Hammam is traditional Moroccan bathing, in a public bathhouse. Women cover you in a special Moroccan soap and you sit in a sauna and let it soften your skin, then they come back in and scrub your entire body with an exfoliating glove, pour water over you to rinse off the dead skin, shampoo and braid your hair, and send you on your way. We were all nervous in the beginning, especially when they told us to put our hair up in buns so we couldn’t use it to cover up what little it could anymore, but we soon got very used to sitting with each other naked and seeing the entire town naked in front of us. The Hammams are of course split up into male and female, so we were only there with other women. After Hammam I went back to the school and went to the roof to find Victor with another group of students from Vanderbilt College, talking about some secret government thing. Another class came up shortly after I got there to have a class on the roof, so we all left. I went home to grab my work stuff and tell Nadia and Omaima about Hammam, and we left again to do work somewhere. On the way we saw Kim and Iskandar and they gave us a piece of this delicious snack they were eating, I’m still 100% unsure of what it is. So we went and bought our own bag and came to a café where we are now, writing, looking at the beach, drinking coffee, and eating a crèpe with nutella. My skin feels like a damn baby, even my hair feels amazing - petition to start Hammam in America starting now. Other than the little flags we haven’t done anything for the 4th, but I think some of us are going out later to celebrate on our own. Alright that’s all I have to report right now, I’m off to start working on my 2 papers due this Saturday…

2:00 AM

After the café I came home and played with Soulaymane for about an hour in my room, it was so nice. We pretended to sleep and snore, and would hide whenever someone passed by my door, I would tell him in Arabic, "hmmmm I’m hungry… I want to eat some… Soulaymane!!" and pretend to eat his arm, or I would ask him where I should sleep and pretend to use him as a pillow, he was shrieking with laughter it was the best. After about an hour of that we went up to the roof and played pass with a soccer ball on the roof until dinner. Nadia’s sister and Omaima’s friend who played cards with us the other day both came for dinner, so we had a massive feast of vegetable and chicken tajine, homemade bread, peaches, cantaloupe, watermelon, and a Moroccan dessert called "sbees". They were all speaking in Arabic with each other and when I understood something like "kuuli kuuli!" (eat eat!) or "shuma soulaymane!" (bad, Soulaymane!) or anything simple like that I would chime in, and of course every once in a while they would speak to me in French, but I enjoyed being lost in the bustle of a conversation I didn’t understand, it reminded me of my first weeks in France. We ate for about 2 hours, and then Nadia showed me how to cook sbees, and we cooked another plate. After it was done, which took about 4 minutes, Nadia, her sister, and I sat at the table and talked while eating the dessert with Moroccan mint tea. Eventually I had to leave because we all went out tonight as an attempt to celebrate the 4th of July. We went back to the bar in a boat that everyone went to last week, and this time I drank with them a bit. Tonight was karaoke night, so Jack and Carson sang some song I don’t know, and I sang Sunday Candy very poorly because I was so nervous, but everyone filmed it and clapped afterwards anyways. Karaoke night was great, there were maybe 2 people the entire night who couldn’t sing, other than that everyone had an impressively good voice. There was one man at the table next to us who nailed a couple numbers from Celine Dion and Frank Sinatra, which made my night. Every 30 minutes or so the staff would put on Happy Birthday on the speakers for someone celebrating their birthday tonight, so towards the end of the night when the bar was slightly emptier I went up to our waiter and told him, "It’s not my birthday, but it’s America’s birthday, what can you guys do for me for that?" and he told me to pick any song I wanted and they would play it on the loud speakers. I jokingly suggested Star Spangled Banner, and when he said, "Just pick a happy song!" I told him to play Happy by Pharrell Williams. He asked my name and told me his name, and told me he loved America, and congratulations on our independence, and then played Happy, which we all danced to. On the way home one of our waiters caught us across the street because Somto hadn’t paid for his last drink, so we sorted that out with him, he was so friendly, and didn’t sweat it when he was 10 dirham short. Then a car full of boys my age stopped next to me and asked in French how I was and said, “come here!!” to which I replied, “No, thank you, bye” in Arabic, c’est la vie in Morocco. It was really a truly fabulous night. Unfortunately I came home at 2, and even though I told Nadia not to stay awake for me and that I would lock the door, she did stay awake, so I told her a little bit about my night, and hoped she couldn’t smell the alcohol on my breath. I’ll talk to her about it tomorrow and make sure I didn’t cross a boundary. Now I’m in bed finishing up this post, loving life, and about to go into a comatose state for the next 6 hours until I have to get up for class tomorrow. Coffee will be needed. Bonne nuit!

[safasaf2018]

Day 32 - 7/3/18

Today was an absolutely beautiful day. I woke up at 7 to have breakfast which I ate alone in the living room, and then met Victor to walk to the CCCL and get on the bus to Casablanca. I sat with Jalen, Somto, and Jack on the way there and we all joked around for about the first half of the ride and then I slept for the second half. When we arrived in Casa our first stop was a Jewish museum which is the only Jewish museum in the Arab world. Maybe you didn’t catch that? It’s the only Jewish museum in the Arab world. So that was pretty cool. It was very small, and mostly consisted of photographs and jewelry, with some old dolls featuring traditional Moroccan Jewish dress, and prayer materials. Over the weekend one of our students lost her passport on a train so while we were in the museum she went to the American consulate to get an emergency passport, and our driver took her and a friend there since they couldn’t find a taxi. When we were done at the museum we waited for the driver to come back for us, and then left for probably my favorite thing we’ve done this trip. We went to an association called Solidarité Feminine, which was started 33 years ago by an amazing woman named Aïcha. It’s an association that helps single mothers in Morocco so they don’t have to abandon their children. Pre-marital sex is so forbidden here that women will sooner kill or abandon babies born in wedlock than raise them on their own as single mothers. Many single mothers are left in the streets by their families, told not to come back unless they get rid of the child, and many hospitals are understaffed and can’t handle the surplus of babies abandoned every day - 24 per day. So this association takes women in for up to 3 years and teaches them a trade - cooking, sewing, cleaning, etc, and helps take care of their children and get them into good schools, until they can manage on their own. The first woman ever helped by this association is now a doctor, and both of her gets have received their diplomas. The woman spoke Arabic and French but not English, and she told us her life story in French and had a man translate for her. I was sitting right next to her and she knew I spoke French so she would clarify with me to see if I understood and ask me questions, and I was actually moved to tears by her story twice, but I won’t put it all in here, because that would be way too long. But she has an amazing life story that has perfectly set her up for the inspiring work she’s doing now. So we all had lunch at the restaurant they use to train the women, a delicious lunch of lentil soup and vegetable tajine with watermelon and honey dew melon for desert. After that we got back in the bus and went to the Hassan II Mosque, which is the only mosque in Morocco that allows non-Muslims to enter. I wore a scarf covering my head and shoulders, but I was the only person in our large tour group doing so. The mosque was absolutely massive - it had 360 speakers inside, and could comfortable 25,000 people to pray inside, with more praying outside. The basement has large sinks for people to traditionally wash themselves before prayer, and the main floor has prayer rugs and a chair for the Imam facing Meccah. Despite the tourists the scene still felt very sacred. In the beginning while we were waiting for other people to join our tour group we were able to take pictures, and a woman and her niece approached me asking if I knew of anything fun to do in Casablanca. The woman was from San Diego, and her niece was from Paris, and they’re staying in Casablanca for 2 days. I told them what I could suggest, and talked to them throughout the rest of the tour, they were both so sweet. After the mosque we got back in the bus and came back to Rabat. I slept on the bus and listened to music, and when I got home I went up to the roof and helped Omaima shuck peas for about an hour and a half. While we were shucking we sang songs together and teased Mouad saying we would give him henna while he was asleep. When that was done we all had dinner together and Mohamed and I talked about political boycotts happening in Morocco right now. After dinner Ismail came from his house to a café in Rabat so I went to meet him and the others there to watch the game between England and Columbia - England won in the penalties. I hate games that end in penalties!!!! Then Ismail, Shâdy, Ismail’s friend Sasha, and I walked to the beach and back, and now I’m home writing this in my room after having played with Soulaymane a bit in the living room throwing cds back and forth like frisbee. Very rewarding day, falling deeper and deeper in love with Morocco and Rabat. 

[safasaf2018]

Note

To save myself a little bit, I realized that when I get home and walk upstairs to the roof and notice the dirt on my feet and actually feel like washing my hands will help, it makes me think of 2 things: 

1. My dad’s poem about living hard and digging deep, “eating everything on the plate, even the asparagus” 

2. Being young and running around outside all day, being in shape just because you’re always doing something, being healthy because you’re always outside in the sun breathing fresh air, falling in love with everything you’re experiencing, playing hard, living hard, being. 

Okay thank you, goodnight

[safasaf2018]

Day 31 - 7/2/18

I’ve come to an interesting realization, which is that I enjoy being in a country that makes me dirty every day. Walking through the medina and even downtown Rabat you’ll inevitably get a nice layer of dirt, cement, and dust that says “today, I lived”. America is so damn clean, I can go a day without showering and not even notice it. Silly as it is, it reminds me of when I was younger and idolized Disney characters like Mowgli or Pocahontas or Aladdin who were agile and always in the wilderness or outside in the town, sleeping outside and wearing clothes that were purely for function. I imagined running over tree roots with Pocahontas or sprinting through dusty streets with Aladdin, it always seemed so much nicer than sitting in a palace with Aurora or Cinderella. Anyways it’s superficial and feels semi-exploitative, but at the same time it reminds me of childhood excitement and excites me for my future where I know I’ll be working in countries that get me dirty and make me feel like I’m actually living and actually doing meaningful work. It’s so American to think that working in a country that gets you dirty is meaningful work, “Oh, look! My feet are dirty! Wow, I must be really living the rough life out here.” but oh well, I can’t think of any better way to describe what I’m feeling. ANYWAYS. This morning I woke up very late, about 10 minutes before class started. I brushed my teeth and Nadia made me a very quick breakfast sandwich to go which was half a baguette with cheese and olive oil, and I left. Nadia couldn’t walk me today because she had to walk Omaima to her school to get her official report card, and I was too tired to tell her I didn’t know my way, so I stepped outside and started walking in a random direction and messaged the other students to send me their location so I could get directions. Luckily I ran into someone else who overslept on the way and he knew the way, so we walked together, only momentarily getting stuck behind two small trucks that somehow managed to get perfectly side by side in the medina streets with not a centimeter of space between them or on either side. Our professor wasn’t mad at all and thought the entire thing was funny, so when we arrived 15 minutes late we started class and everything was fine. Class today was about the Arab Spring, which is our last focus in this course I believe. After class we had lunch in the dining hall, and then Victor came over to my house to try to help Mouad download some software on his laptop using all of the free software our Yale accounts give us access to. While they were doing that Mohamed cooked a delicious berber omelette (with tomatoes and onions, like we ate at the hotel at the edge of the Merzouga desert), which is one of my absolute favorite meals here, and turns out Mohamed is Berber! So it was truly authentic. Mohamed cooked lunch today because Nadia was at the hospital for some pain she’s been having around an old C-section scar. After lunch she came home and told us all that they wouldn’t need to operate (thank goodness), and she was given medication to take that should fix it. We watched Moana in English with Arabic subtitles, ate, and fiddled around with his laptop unsuccessfully for about an hour. Then Victor and I left to meet the other students at a café and watch the match between Brazil and Mexico, which was a truly great game. Mexico played really well, better than a lot of us were expecting, but I think they just had bad luck with a lot of their shots, and Brazil was confident enough as a team to slowly but surely score two goals throughout the game. We weren’t all at the café, but most of us were there, and it was fun to talk soccer with other students who, like me, usually only watch the World Cup or the European Cup, and know vague information about teams, specific information about random players, and that’s about it. After the game was over we all went back to the school because our professor was giving a presentation on his book. It was about 45 minutes of him summarizing his book chapter by chapter with a slideshow, and then 45 minutes of audience questions which consisted of a lot of people semi-aggressively getting butthurt over his book title, Yale students defending him, and a few actually good comments and criticisms of the book as a whole. After that I came home for dinner on the roof with just Nadia, Omaima, and Soulaymane. After dinner Nadia and I talked about money, their past with it, and my past with it. This family is really not wealthy, but Nadia seems to have the absolute best intentions, and seems to be a very wise mother hen. After dinner I left to meet Iskandar, Victor, Kimberly, Carolina, and Iskandar’s host brother, and go to Iskandar’s house to smoke hookah on his roof which ended up being a really nice evening. We were only there about 45 minutes until everyone left to meet up with the other students and go to that cool boat bar we went to last week. Victor and I went back to his house to watch a documentary called The Square about the Arab Spring in Egypt, it was absolutely incredible. When there were 10 minutes left his family came home and we turned it off to let them have dinner and I came home. Now I’m in bed writing this. I recommend to anyone reading this to watch The Square if you haven’t already. I remember in 2011 my mom telling me that in Egypt everyone was protesting against their government, and I remember her telling me when they had succeeded in taking over some square downtown, and I couldn’t really understand how that worked, but it was still exciting, and the first I remember thinking about a revolution. So it was really cool to watch the movie and have actual dates and names added to my vocabulary regarding the Arab Spring in Egypt. Tomorrow morning we all leave for a day trip to Casablanca, and it’s 1:30 am right now, so I am off like a dirty shirt. Peace! 

[safasaf2018]

Day 30 - 7/1/18

Happy first day of the month!!! (Got you Nana) I woke up semi-early this morning and had breakfast with everyone, and then went to a café with Victor to get some work done. The café was outside of the medina on the water, so the ideal people watching spot, which unfortunately meant I didn’t get much work done. We were there for a few hours until I had to go home to eat lunch. When I got home Nadia was still cooking lunch so I sat in the living room with Omaima and Mouad and watched Hercules in Arabic on the tv, and helped Mouad set up his laptop. It’s a 2009 laptop that they got 5 years ago and had to hide because Omaima and Mouad used it as a toy to fight with. Nadia and Mohamed told Mouad that if he had good grades this year he could have the laptop, and since he received his report card and his grades were good they took the laptop out of hiding and it was all his. He needed my help setting up the keyboard and downloading a different internet browser, things like that. The laptop is so old, hardly anything works on it, but he somehow was able to download a new browser along with a few video games. During lunch we watched the game between Spain and Russia, which went into double overtime and then penalties, where Russia won. Spain had something like 75% possession and then lost in the penalties.. I hate games like that. After lunch I went to Victor’s to work more, and again didn’t get much done. I’m honestly not sure where any of the other students live, but Victor lives 4 minutes down the road from me, so that’s enough. I came home again for dinner and we watched the Croatia and Denmark game which was exactly the same, Denmark got out in the penalties. My host dad and I talked about the politics of the World Cup and gushed over how cute Demark’s goalie’s dad was when he was proud of his son. After dinner I played cards again with Omaima and Mouad, and after a few games Mouad asked if he could show me a magic trick. Immediately Omaima started saying, “No, it’s not true, it’s not magic!” The trick was done sloppily, but successfully, and afterwards I showed them a few of my own. One of them, the most impressive one, baffled them so much that Mouad refused to continue hanging out with us until he could find out how I did it on his laptop, and Omaima refused to leave until I had done it enough times for her to figure out the trick. The trick has two parts, and she caught on to the first part very quickly, and needed only a liiiiittle help to figure out the second part fully. Meanwhile Mouad was still searching away, so Nadia, Omaima, and I all had a good laugh at him for relying on his laptop when Omaima figured it out on her own without internet. Omaima practiced it several times on Mouad and me until she was satisfied. Then we brought down some pastries from the kitchen and had a snack, I attempted to get some work done, failed, and went to Victor’s to play rooftop soccer and listen to music. All in all a very nice Sunday. Everyone was tired from the weekend, so it mostly consisted of people napping and watching the game, and me walking back and forth between my house and Victor’s, which in my book is an a-ok day. 

[safasaf2018]

Day 29 - 6/30/18

I woke up at 8 this morning and went out to the balcony, unfortunately we all fell asleep before Shâdy, Ismail, and the 2 girls got back. When I woke up Linette was already gone because she had plans back in Rabat, and Ismail’s 2 friends had already left as well. Apparently they all got back very drunk at 3 am and went into Victor’s room and woke him up and bothered him quite a bit. After we left the bar they all went to a club and drank more and danced with this random old Italian couple, it looked like a fun night, but I definitely don’t regret coming back early. Everyone else woke up around 10 and we all had a very relaxed morning. Shâdy and Ismail slept on the couches because the girls slept in their room, so we all just sat on the couches, finished off the chips from last night, and eventually got up to clean up the place before we left. We left at about 11:30 and walked over to a tattoo place I contacted last week for me to get my tattoo! I got "nfs shams" in Arabic writing on my ribs, which means "the same sun". It’s the same as my senior quote, and comes from a French song that says, "we don’t have the same flag or skin color, we don’t have the same language or religion, etc, etc, but we all have the same sun and the same moon". The guy who owns the tattoo parlor is Moroccan, and runs it out of a very nice apartment. He has a couple tattoo artists, and the one who did mine was a Ukrainian man. The appointment before mine ran over, so we sat on the couch and he helped me choose a nice font while we waited. The man who did my tattoo didn’t really speak English, but we still talked while he worked. I asked him questions and he told me he’s from Ukraine and he’s been in Morocco just a few months doing tattoos. He did tattoos in Ukraine as well, but he wanted a change of scenery. He showed me a tattoo he gave himself on his left forearm, and told me that despite being covered in tattoos there isn’t a single one he regrets. The man who owns the studio was doing work on his laptop while I was getting my tattoo done. While we were waiting he asked us where we were all from and how we all knew each other, and asked me if it was my first rib tattoo to prepare me for the pain. After the tattoo was finished and wrapped up I bought a small jar of tattoo aftercare ointment. When the man was done with my tattoo I asked him how someone would say "thank you" in Ukraine and even though I don’t remember how to say it now, I said it then and he got a huge smile and shook my hand. He was huge and had a big blonde beard and kind eyes, and he wore an apron when he tattooed. I went to shake the man who owns the studio’s hand, and he told me that when someone gets something knew in Morocco, you say "b-sahar", which means "with health", and he taught me what to say in response that I also don’t remember now, so I said, "Okay, say b-sahar" and he said it and I said the response and he smiled and also shook my hand. I thanked them both again and left, they were both so nice. The studio also had a beautiful white cat with one green eye and one blue eye who didn’t really like anyone except her owner, the owner of the studio. After the tattoo we grabbed two taxis to go to Rick’s Café from the movie Casablanca!! We took pictures outside and then went in to see the inside and decided to eat lunch there. The inside was so beautiful, and they were playing old Frank Sinatra and jazz and had the movie playing in a sitting area. The menu was divine, and not outrageously expensive for such a nice place. I got salmon and risotto, but we all shared our meals, and played paranoia, the game where you whisper a question to someone and they say the answer out loud and then you do rock paper scissors to decide if you have to reveal what the question was or not. The point is to ask a question where the answer is one of the other people in the group, like "If you had to be stuck on an island with one person at this table who would it be" so then they really want to know what the question is. We stayed there for quite a while playing that, and all the waiters thought it was funny seeing us whispering to each other and laughing, we were definitely the youngest and least-rich looking people eating there. After that we walked to the train station and got on a train back home to Rabat. I fell asleep on the way, but Ismail woke me up when he had to get off and I went to sit with Shâdy and Victor. At our stop we got off and walked home, buying ice creams on the way. When I got home I went upstairs to the kitchen and found some bread and olives to bring back down to the living room, where Soulaymane was napping on the couch. Nadia came in a few minutes later and told me that everyone was asleep because they had been out late the night before, and had been to the beach that morning. While Soulaymane slept on the couch, I showed Nadia my tattoo and told her the story of it, which turned into a conversation about discrimination, politics, religion, money, school, traveling, a ton of really great topics. When Omaima woke up she joined us, same with Mouad. At one point Nadia tried telling me something but couldn’t find the words so she told Omaima and she translated that Nadia really really loved the meaning behind my tattoo, that she had never heard anything like that, and she would always remember it. We talked about how there’s too much hate in the world, and she even told me that in the past they’ve hosted girls who disliked Muslims. It was an amazing conversation truly. Then we had dinner, I did work, and now I’m at Victor’s doing work here. I really like Casablanca but when I got back to Rabat and walked through the medina to get to my house, I was really happy to be back. 

[safasaf2018]

Day 28 - 6/29/18

Today was day 1 in Casablanca!!!!!!!! I woke up around 6:30, showered quickly, grabbed the wrapped up fruit my mom left for me in the fridge, and left to meet Victor, Shâdy, and Linette at the train station. We got our tickets and got on the train, and our friend Ismail got on at the next station! It was my first time actually meeting Ismail, but we’d been talking on Facebook ever since my friend Reda "introduced" us online, and we planned out this weekend together. The train ride was about an hour and we all somehow stayed awake for it. When we arrived in Casa we had to wait until 3pm to go to our Air BnB, so we had some time to kill. We walked with Ismail to his work and waited outside while he checked in, and then he came back out to walk us to the mall which was literally right next to his work. The beach was also right next to his work, but none of us had really thought about packing for a beach except for Linette, so I needed to buy something I could swim in. The mall was really nice and had a lot of American stores in it, but the bathing suits were all really expensive when there were any, so I bought a t-shirt to swim in instead. When we were done shopping we sat down next to a Cinnabon and waited for them to make the first batch of cinnamon buns, but they took forever, so we eventually left, Ismail went to work, and we all went to the beach. We put our stuff down, but decided that at least one person should be with our things at all times, so took turns swimming. The waves were absolutely magnificent, they reminded me a lot of the Ocean in Moana were there were waves keeping you in for the first 100 meters and then beyond it was just clear water, but the waves got slightly bigger as you went out further. When we were posing for pictures in the water for Victor who was taking them, our stuff started getting submerged in the incoming tide, so we all ran back to help him move it, and sat down laughing and getting laughed at by passing locals. A couple lifeguards stopped and asked if they could take a picture with us, probably because they don’t get a lot of tourists there, or maybe it was their way of hitting on us, but we said no. The tide came in and soaked our stuff again so we ran even further back and put our clothes and bags on some rocks hoping the sun would dry them. Ismail messaged me saying he was on his lunch break, so he bought a sandwich and came to meet us on the beach. Unfortunately my jeans and shirt never dried, so I put on the dress I’d brought, put the rest of my stuff in my bag, and we went to the mall for lunch. They all got KFC and I got sushi, and we ate outside after Ismail went back to work. After lunch we decided to take a taxi to our Air BnB and find a café to sit in close to it until 3:00. Luckily there was a café in the building next to it so we sat outside Moroccan style, ordered juices, and relaxed for an hour. At 3 we went up and knocked on the door, but the cleaning lady was still there and she told us to come back at 4. We didn’t want to sit in the café for another hour, so we decided to walk around and see what was around us. We saw restaurants and stores, and realized we were really close to the whole downtown area. On the way back it was still only 3:30 so we sat down in a park and watched some boys play soccer. At 3:50 we walked back and the lady let us in. The Air BnB is absolutely GORGEOUS. It has a wide open living room and kitchen with a balcony overlooking the street in Casablanca. There are 3 bedrooms with queen beds and one bedroom with some bunkbeds, and we have the 3 rooms with queen beds. Each bedroom goes out to a large connected balcony in the back that overlooks the neighboring houses. There are 3 bathrooms, 2 of which have showers. We really lucked out. We all hung our clothes up outside to properly dry, and took turns showering and napping waiting for Ismail to get out of work. When he got out he took a taxi over and came up, and we waited for the last of us to finish showering before heading out for dinner. We decided to just walk around and look for a place to eat, and chose a sushi restaurant. We sat down at a traditional Japanese table on the floor, Victor and I ordered a sushi boat to share, and we took turns asking each other awkward questions to break the ice. After dinner we went to a convenience store to buy a bottle of wine and head back to the Air BnB to watch Casablanca and drink wine. On the way in I saw a homeless man sitting down outside who mimed "food", so I bought a bag of potato chips and an apple inside the store and brought them out to him. He pointed towards the sky which here symbolizes "may God bless you," and bowed his head to me. I went back in, and they told me that the store didn’t sell alcohol past 9 pm, so we went to a bar instead and ordered wine there. When Ismail and Victor finished their cigarettes they wanted more, so I offered to walk with Ismail to the convenience store to buy more. One our way out the same homeless man from earlier asked for a cigarette, so I asked Ismail if I could give him one and he said I could give him 2. We didn’t have our lighter on us so I asked some guys hanging out outside of the store if they had one and they lit his cigarette for him. He again thanked me, and we went back, and Ismail told me, "you’re so full of life." While we were there two friends of Ismail joined us, both from the US. After a little while there it was clear that his friends were there to get drunk (after the first few shots of vodka that was evident), so those of us who weren’t there for that reason went back to the Air BnB. We bought chips at the same convenience store on the way back. Ismail told me to make sure we stayed awake and didn’t watch Casablanca without him, so now Victor, Linette, and I are just talking in the living room trying to stay awake.

[safasaf2018]

Day 27 - 6/28/18

This morning I woke up early to have breakfast with my mom and dad before going swimming with Victor, his host sister, and one of her friends we met yesterday. We went to the small beach you have to climb to. It was extremely secluded so we were the only ones there, but if you swam out far enough you could see above the walls of the fort to Rabat, and you could also see across the river to the coastal houses and hotels of Salé. The current was strong enough to drive you towards the ocean if you just stayed still, but very slowly, and it wasn’t difficult to swim against it to get back to where we were. We only stayed for about a half hour because Victor and I had to get to class, but that was exactly enough time to wake us up. We each went home to shower, and then my mom walked me to the building where we had classes today. I bought a peach on the way there for 10 cents for a post-swimming snack, and we all bought coffees when we got there. We had a second follow-up orientation with Doha to ask questions now that we’d all been living with our families for a day, and then we got into the lesson which was essentially just a history and tour of Rabat. Professor showed us through various maps and photographs the old medina where we all live now, the new city, the Kasbah (the fort on the ocean), and the river and ocean. After that we went on a very short tour of Rabat where we saw just what was on the way to the CCCL to get lunch, ate lunch, and then ended up cancelling the more robust tour we had planned because everyone was exhausted. I think I have a small cold or something because I was falling asleep during class and lunch, and when I got home I went to talk an hour long nap that I set my alarm clock for, woke up, went to the kitchen, got water, went back to bed, and woke up 4 hours later when they called me for dinner. At that point I felt a bit better but still extremely groggy. Luckily dinner was very light - just bread/pastries and fresh fruits, and we got to eat on the roof which was very cool. After dinner I went downstairs and Nadia showed me about 450 pictures of exchange students they’ve hosted in the past, and postcards they’ve received from them. She also showed me pictures of her and her friends at the beach when they were in their young twenties, of her kids when they were very young, of her on her wedding day, and even a really old black and white photograph of her as a child holding her mom’s hand. She told me about having to move out of the house she grew up and got married in because it was in a bad neighborhood that was too expensive, and how it had made her depressed for a year, and Omaima had to help take care of her, along with the first exchange student they ever hosted, who came back to Morocco to help her and her family, and offered to help them get a new house. It was a really nice and honest talk, Nadia definitely loves having company to talk to. After that Omaima came back with one of her friends, whose name I forget. They asked if I wanted to play cards which resulted in an incredibly fun night of them teaching me Moroccan card games and me teaching them American card games until we finally settled on our favorite which is a game called Tongues that my friends here taught me which involves sticking out your tongue, and makes everyone laugh. Nadia and Mouad even joined in, it was a really great night. After playing for a few hours I went into town to meet Jack so he could give me some money he owed me. They were all at a really nice bar that’s in a literal pirate ship in the water, so I went in and sat down while Jack went to an ATM. While he was gone the bar upstairs closed so they wanted to go downstairs to the karaoke lounge bit which was also a really really nice vibe. The karaoke wasn’t going because there was a singer there who had the greatest energy ever ever ever, and was so obviously ecstatic to be there, and everyone was loving it. Even though I just sat there and enjoyed the atmosphere while Jack got my money, it was fun and at least I got out of the house. When I got home I finally came into my room because I’m still really tired and I have to get up tomorrow morning early to go to Casa for our free weekend!!! Nadia found me some Dayquil that another American student left at her house once, so I took two of those and I’ll take another 2 tomorrow. So today was pretty uneventful because I spent SO MUCH of it sleeping, but the parts that were awake were really nice. I still feel super safe in Rabat, and I love the medina. Victor left with me to go home and we bought ice creams on the way back, and there was a lot of construction going on so all the main streets in the medina were closed, but all the workers, despite only speaking Arabic, did their best to help show us which way to go.

[safasaf2018]

Day 26 - 6/27/18

As I predicted, I didn’t sleep last night. Well, I fell asleep for 20 minutes at 6 am, but I’m not sure if that counts. At 8:00 I went to the café where Mehdi was already waiting for me as he had promised. We talked more about life until Reda and Abdallah both showed up as well and sat with us. At 8:30 I had to go meet everyone at the bus so I hugged them all goodbye and left. The bus ride was short, about 3 hours, and I just slept the whole time. When we arrived in Rabat we went to the Center of Learning where our classes will be and immediately had lunch. There were other exchange programs there, so we were surrounded by other American and other international students also eating lunch. We got a delicious lunch of different veggies and rice, and then went to an orientation with Doha, the woman who runs and started the program. She’s the most adorable woman ever, and prepared a slideshow for us to prepare us for life with a Moroccan host family. She talked to us about Turkish squat toilets and buckets for showers, and told us that Moroccan mothers will always shout “kul kul!!!” (”eat eat!!!”) no matter how much we’ve eaten or how little they’ve eaten, they will always replace whatever we’ve just finished. She taught us to eat with three fingers and only using our right hand, and to use bread as utensils. She told us basically not to be stupid when it comes to walking alone at night, but that other than that it’s like any other big city, and finally she gave us our family assignments. It was just a piece of paper with the names of our parents and siblings, what languages they spoke, and if the house had a Turkish or Western toilet. Once we all had our family assignments we went downstairs to wait for them to arrive. They all arrived at around the same time, so it was a mess of Moroccan families coming in and timidly looking for someone they didn’t know. A woman came in with a young girl, and the young girl was holding a piece of paper, and said shyly “Weelow?” I grabbed my stuff and went over and hugged the mom, asked if they spoke French (which they do!), and we went outside to finish the introductions because the inside was busy and full. Outside the mom, Nadia, and the sister, Omaima, introduced themselves to me. Nadia speaks very broken French, but we’re able to communicate relatively flawlessly, and Omaima is studying French at school (she’s 11), so speaks French very well. It was about a 15 minute walk to their house, and I was trying to take in what I was seeing in order to remember it, even though I knew I would forget it all. On the way there Omaima asked me a ton of questions, like what’s my favorite color, and did I like going to the beach. When we got to their house as soon as I walked in the cutest little boy I’ve ever seen ran up to me with a huge smile and gave me a giant hug. He’s 3 years old and his name is Soulaymane. In the living room Mouad, the 16 year-old brother, was sitting down, and said hi to me. I put my stuff in my room and went to the living room to settle in. When the prayer came on, Soulaymane ran to the kitchen and brought the smallest rug I’ve ever seen to the living room and did the prayer motions of standing up, kneeling, bowing, etc. It broke my heart and resurrected it it was so sweet. Nadia told me that he usually does that with his dad but that since his dad was at work he did it alone. Eventually the dad, Mohamed, came home and said, “Good evening, how are you?” in a very thick accent. I answered him in French and in French he said, “Oh you speak French! Thank God.” I stayed for a bit and got to know them, and then left to meet Victor and his host sister to go to the beach. She showed us an old fort with a beautiful view of the beach, as well as the two main beaches and a hidden one you have to climb to. His sister seems to know everyone in town, she said her mom is a social butterfly so everyone knows her, so she talked to every shopkeeper we passed and every local on the beach. On the way back from the beach we stopped at the park and sat down. Throughout the day one of her friends would follow us until they had to go and then another one would come, etc. So the friend that was with us at the time came to the park with us and sat down to hang out. More of her friends came and went, and we finally got bored and went back home. I went back to my house where I went up to the roof. The kitchen is attached to the roof, so you have to walk through the kitchen to get to the roof, and on the roof Omaima, Mouad, and Soulaymane were all playing while Nadia prepared dinner. Omaima was jumproping, Soulaymane was playing with his toys, and Mouad was playing video games with the small TV that was up there. I went between playing with Soulaymane’s toys (which involved throwing things back and forth), talking about video games with Mouad, and sitting at the table talking with Omaima. She had a ton of questions about what I wanted to do in life and why I loved traveling, it was a really sweet talk. She told me that her life goal is to help old people who have no families and orphans, which is something her mom used to do. She’s so so so sweet, I honestly have the cutest host family there is. I also went back and forth from watching the game with Mohamed and being up on the roof with everyone else. When dinner was ready they brought it down and we all sat around the table in the living room. It was a big bowl of pasta in the middle with a large spoon for each of us, and bread to eat with it. I told them that Doha had taught us how to eat Moroccan style, and that Moroccan moms would always say “kul! kul!” They laughed at that and said it was true, and then Nadia went to the kitchen to get something and came back and said, “Willow, kul! kul!” before catching herself and laughing. After dinner a bunch of students went to Mawazine, a huge music festival happening in Rabat, to see Bruno Mars, but a few of us just went to the beach and watched from across the river, which I think was the perfect alternative. The music wasn’t too loud, it wasn’t crowded at all, plus we were on a beach!! There are I think 3 different stages in different parts of the city for the festival, and each has a different theme - globally popular music (the main stage), European artists/DJs, and African/Moroccan artists - and we were watching the Moroccan/African one which was honestly really cool. We admitted at the same time that in the beginning of the trip we didn’t really understand Arabic music and why it was so different from music in other countries, but that now we’ve grown to enjoy it. At 10:00 the music suddenly stopped really early, and we thought that it was over but then prayer came on and we realized they had stopped the music for prayer, which was really cool. Prayer continued and it took about a half hour for the music to come on, because some people can’t pray exactly at prayer time, but then the music came back on and continued for hours longer. Some of the students were nervous to be out so late at night on a beach, but I felt perfectly fine, I really feel safe in Rabat. Or at least comfortable. At one point two men approached us and told us and one of them told us he was a police officer and just wanted to know what we were doing out so late and let us know to be careful. Later a man came up to us asking for a cigarette and then left, then came back later and sat with us. He said that the fishermen where he was sitting watching the music called the cops on him for no apparent reason, so then the cops came and talked to him and realized he was a good guy, so he came to sit with us in case the guys called the cops on us too for loitering or something, so he could talk to the cops. We talked about the music and about Morocco for a while, but then it got to midnight and we had to go home. I really do feel safe in Rabat. It’s funny because as far as Moroccan cities go, Ifrane, where we were studying, is a very small town, and it’s the king’s favorite part of Morocco so it’s very safe and very well kept, but at the beginning of this month I didn’t even feel safe there whereas now I’m in Rabat, a much bigger more “dangerous” city, but I feel comfortable. It seems cleaner than some other cities we’ve been in, but that also might just be me getting used to how cities here work. But I will say that in the medina, where we live, every night a crew of city workers comes and picks up all the trash left behind by the market. 

[safasaf2018]

Day 25 - 6/26/18

Today is our last day in Ifrane at Al Akhawayn... So because of that, I’m pulling an allnighter, as usual during my last night in any place. For now I’m in my room packing, but I may go hang out with my friend Layth later who’s here with the other American exchange program. Class this morning was actually really interesting. We’ve been reading a book about Northern Africa written by Michael J. Willis, and today he was our guest speaker! He and a man named Nizar Messari came and sat in the front of the room and just answered any and all questions we had for them. They both used to teach at Al Akhawayn together, and now Willis teaches at Oxford and Messari is still at AUI. Quite a few adults from on and off campus even came to listen to them and ask questions, so I guess they’re a pretty big deal! I love lectures that are question-driven, they go so much faster and it’s more interesting when we get to dictate the material to a point. I admittedly asked quite a few questions, but my favorite one by far was the question of Algeria’s identity. We’ve spent quite a bit of time in class discussing national identities of the past of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco, especially as it relates to colonialism and then the nationalism that led to the revolts resulting in independence, Morocco was always a very confusing and controversial mix of Arab/Muslim, native Berbers, Jews, and elite French, Algeria was always very fiercely French, and Tunisia was somewhere in the middle of Tunisian and French, closer to French. But we never really talk about national identity today other than to talk about Morocco and how the government is attempting to re-assimilate the native Berbers and the Arabs, so I was curious about how a country who felt so fiercely French felt about their national identity post-independence in a region (North Africa) that was in many ways trying to steer away from the lingering national identity linked to its colonialist past. So I asked Willis, who had written the book about North Africa, “What is Algeria’s national identity today?” to which he responded simply, “Algerian.” He explained that their national identity relies heavily on the fact that they’re the country that overcame French colonialism. (Since Morocco was more of a protectorate than a colony and they also had Spain involved, Algeria claimed that as their own.) Willis even said that every day in the newspapers you’re bound to see “On this day in 1943, Algerian soldiers won X battle against Y French troops,” it’s truly their entire identity. Anyways, I thought that that was interesting, and I wonder how sustainable it will be to have your national identity so heavily reliant on something that happened a half a century ago, and how much longer they can ride that. ANYWAYS I DIGRESS. After class I went straight to the café because this is our last day on campus and I want to spend as much time as possible with the kids here. I got lunch at the grill and then sat outside with Victor doing homework. When Victor went to take a nap I went into town with Reda and Ryan to pick up my flag from the banker, Badr. On the way there he asked if I would go alone so he could ask me to coffee which I thought was a liiiiittle weird, so that’s why I asked Reda and Ryan to come with me. When we got there he was in his normal casual clothes, he gave us the flag, was very nice to all of us, and then left, which made me feel kinda bad for being hesitant to get coffee with him. And then I felt even more bad when I saw the flag he gave me, which is about the size of my bed at home, made out of nice fabric, and smells like orange blossoms. I swear he stole this flag from the capital building. And he told me it was his! Like he didn’t even go buy me a cheap polyester flag he straight up gave me his nice flag from his house. So then I felt pretty sacrilegious signing it, so Reda, Ryan, and I went to the marché to try to find a cheap unofficial Moroccan soccer jersey or something that I could have people sign instead. On the way to the stores we saw Kim and Iskandar eating dinner at the first restaurant we got tajine at, so we put our stuff down, went to check the shops, couldn’t find anything, and went to eat with them. Jack came to join us, and while we were eating Reda went to talk to some shop owners and found me a jersey! Victor was home sleeping so Ryan and I bought him a sandwich to deliver to him and went back to campus. I stayed at the café when Ryan delivered it because girls can’t go into the guys’ residential buildings, and I met up with Younes and some other friends to go out with everyone for my last night on campus. In the end we were like 10 or 12 people, and we went to the same place as last night, which is attached to a hotel, and has little secluded sitting areas for groups of people. I brought my jersey and people signed it throughout the night, it was such a wholesome time. A new student I hadn’t met yet named Mehdi came with Younes, so I talked to him for part of the night about life and whatnot. At the end of the night some of us walked home, we all hugged goodbye, some close friends promised me they would wake up early to wish me goodbye tomorrow morning at the café, and we left. Now I’m just finishing up packing and talking to my roommate. I’m sad to leave AUI, and I knew I would be even before we came to Morocco - I almost decided not to do the trip because I knew how sad I would be to leave when it was over. I just know myself and I know that I’m really bad at goodbyes, but traveling is beyond worth it. Tomorrow Rabat! 

[safasaf2018]

Day 24 - 6/25/18

1:20 AM (technically the next day)

I just got home, I’m now sitting in bed listening to music and writing this blog. Class this morning was a rough start, it’s definitely a Monday and it’s definitely a Monday after a long weekend spent traveling. About a third of the class showed up late, but luckily our professor understood. Karen, the woman who lectured in our class earlier this summer about migrants in Morocco, was there with 3 students from AUI who are part of the interfaith alliance group on campus. They were there because today’s class topic was religion in Morocco, specifically Islam. Questions we asked and discussed included “What is Islam?” “How many Islams are there?” “What is religion?” etc. I really really enjoyed the first hour of the class where we discussed those questions and we were able to bring in comparisons and examples from other religions like Christianity, Judaism, and even Buddhism, but the second hour of the class focused exclusively on Islam and specific details on its history and different sects and I got lost in all the details, but the first part was really interesting. It definitely reminded me that I want to study religion more, especially comparing and contrasting different religions, finding similarities between them. After class we went to get lunch at the campus pizzeria, and after that Victor and I went downtown. I was trying to find a Moroccan flag for all of my friends to sign, so I asked everyone in town and then everyone in the market and no one had any, so we just went to the bank so Victor could exchange some euros and dollars for Moroccan dirhams. For some reason today the electricity city-wide keeps flickering on and off, so it took a while for the transaction to complete, and I started talking to the bank teller. We started off talking about the World Cup and the games we’d seen and were excited for, then he asked where we were from, etc. He spoke English but he spoke French better so we spoke in French. I asked if he knew anywhere I could get a flag because tomorrow’s my last day on campus, and he said no, but that if I couldn’t find one by the end of the day he would buy me one as a present. I’m slightly hesitant about this, but it’s a very nice offer, so tomorrow I’m going back to the bank (with male friends) to get my Moroccan flag! We happened to go to town right during everyone’s lunch hour so we had to wait in the park for a while which was absolutely fine, and we played a childish game of Fuck Marry Kill with people we both know. After Victor finished up at the bank we went back to campus and back to our rooms, I showered, and then went to the café to start working. My friend Ben came in while I was ordering an espresso and sat down at my table, and then later my friend Reda came in so I didn’t get much work done, but then they both left to go downtown to watch the World Cup game between Morocco and Spain. I stayed at the café to get work done, but then streamed the game on my laptop to watch it while I worked, and... didn’t get much work done. During halftime I banged out a rough draft of my paper due Wednesday, so I feel fine about that. The game was amazing until the last 3 minutes when Spain pulled a low blow and tied up the game, so let’s just move on. After that I walked with Victor to his building so he could grab a sweatshirt, and we went back to the café to meet up with friends and go downtown. We went to a bar where some people drank and some people ordered hookah, and just talked. There were 10 of us so we broke into smaller groups naturally in conversation but ended the night with a group-wide game of Never Have I Ever, a true classic. We left the bar at 11:50 because campus curfew is 12, and then went to the café. (Some of them went to one of the student’s off-campus house). At the café we got pastries and sat down and talked more until the café closed at 1, then walked home still talking, and now I’m in my bed. I really really really really really don’t want to leave, so I’ll just leave this blog at that. 

[safasaf2018]

Day 23 - 6/24/18

Today was very uneventful. We all woke up very late and had about an hour to get ready before walking downtown to get 2 grands taxis to the bus station. At the bus station we figured out our tickets, and then asked the conductor for a nearby restaurant where we could get lunch before the bus left. He led us to a restaurant in the Jewish Mellah that had subs. Carolina and I got what was called their “sandwich normal”, which was anything but normal. Still not entirely sure what was in it, but the guy told us there was tuna in it which was probably the weird fishy thing I tasted. Then there was some white stuff that was either mashed potatoes or mashed up rice, and then olives and peppers and onions and other veggies. I mean it was edible, it didn’t make me feel sick at all, but I definitely wouldn’t call it normal, I would maybe 3/10 order it again. Then we just went back to the bus which was an 8 hour ride to Fès with a 25 minute stop at a gas station where we bought cookies and watched part of the Japan Senegal soccer game. In Fès I called our taxi driver who was meeting us to drive us back to the university and asked if he could pick us up an hour later than planned so we could get dinner. We went to a restaurant across the street from the bus station and ordered a bunch of meat and french fries, a classic Moroccan meal where you order meats by the kilo. I had salad and bread and fries which was filling enough, and since my part of the meal was so cheap they just covered me and didn’t make me pay which was nice. Then we got in the taxi and came back to AUI where I went to the café where my friends were waiting for me!!!!!!!!!!! Reda, Ryan, Ali, Michael, Abdullah, and Younes were all there which made me so happy. We stood outside talking for a bit while they smoked, and the went in to work until 1 am when they closed, and then went to the computer lab which is open 24/7. At the lab it was just Younes, Victor, Reda, and me, which is fine by me because they’re my favorite people here. Reda had Haribo and chocolate so we all snacked and got work done, and Younes and I talked about idiomatic English expressions that only white people say, like “I’ll be a monkey’s uncle” or “I’ll be there in two shakes of a tail feather.” He knew a ton of them, and he showed me a conversation with one of his friends from here where they just send each other the whitest expressions they can find, and call each other white names each time, like “Geez louise, Jeremey.” “What’s got your panties in a bunch, Logan?” It was hilarious, and hearing Younes say them was even funnier, he calls himself an “Old aunt phrase enthusiast”. Eventually we all got tired so we left, but Reda stayed behind to finish his work, and now I’m in bed writing this and listening to music. I’m glad to be back on campus, and like I’ve said a million times it’s gonna hurt like a ***** leaving. Oh well!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

[safasaf2018]

Day 22 - 6/23/18

We all woke up pretty leisurely this morning since we were up late last night, as always on the roof of some building talking and listening to music until we hear the late night or early morning prayer and realize it’s definitely time for bed. We went to the roof for breakfast which was Moroccan flat bread and round bread with olive oil, olives, peach marmalade, and honey, and a pot of mint tea and coffee. Four of us decided we didn’t want to go on the tour (including me), and stayed at the hotel. I wrote blogs for days I missed and got some work done, and when their tour was done, Somto, Jack, Victor, and I went to find a taxi to go find them. They had all taken a grand taxi to Martil, a beach town about 20 minutes outside Tetouan, so we took a grand taxi to Martil, and then a petit taxi to the restaurant they were at, which was a waterfront Moroccan KFC equivalent. The waiters spoke English, French, and Spanish, and were very friendly, one of them even telling me he was planning on getting his wife’s name as a tattoo, and then saying, “So I’ll see you next summer to get your name as my tattoo?” After lunch we went to a juice shack for fresh fruit juice and then found a spot on the beach. Martil is a very touristy beach town, but very Moroccan touristy, so people from around Morocco go there, but not many foreigners. We were the only people who I could see on the beach who were obviously not from there. Looking around there were women and girls my age dressed from head to toe either in traditional djellaba or just in whatever outfit they’d worn that day in the water swimming. There wasn’t a single female there in a bathing suit. I looked out in the water in front of us and there were two guys our age in bathing suits, shirtless, and a girl in a djellaba, and they were all messing around and climbing on each other’s shoulders, laughing, and it struck me for some reason. I think I see women wearing djellaba, especially even to go swimming, strikes me as old fashioned and very conservative, and I subconsciously don’t associate conservativeness with youthfulness and fun, so it caught me off guard to see that for some reason. Anyways because these observations I felt slightly uncomfortable taking off my dress, not because I was worried I’d get harassed or anything, but I didn’t want to come off as disrespectful. So I just pulled my dress up a little bit to get some sun for my legs, and sat in the sun with everyone else. Honestly other girls with us were in bikinis or one pieces sunbathing, and no one seemed offended by it, but I just couldn’t get past it. A little less than a kilometer off shore there were large yellow buoys telling swimmers not to go past them, and Kimberly wanted to swim out to one so she did, it took her a while, but she did. Then slowly people started getting in the water and I decided to just take off my dress and get in because I wanted to swim all the way out to the buoy, and once I was in no one would see me anyways. I went in the water with Kimberly, Iskandar, and Victor, and Victor and I swam until the buoys, which took a while and a lot of salt water in my eyes and mouth. When we got out we touched it, floated on our backs to rest, looked at how far out we were, and started swimming back. I haven’t swam like that in so long, it was an amazing feeling. When we got back I didn’t want to put my dress on when I was wet, and I had gotten past the initial uncomfortable feeling, so I just sat in my bikini in the middle of the group and enjoyed the sun and company. We were on that beach for hours, it was so much fun. At one point Iskandar and I were showing each other wrestling and MMA moves in the sand (after I put my dress back on), and a few people left to get more juice. Finally at around 5 pm we decided it was time to leave, so half of us got up and went to get crepes and gelato, and the other half stayed on the beach a bit longer before coming to meet us. Unfortunately a guy from the beach who had been trying to get my attention followed us to gelato and was being very creepy, so we had to leave, which is the second time that’s happened with me, so I felt bad about that. But like last time everyone was fine with it, and we just left and asked people for directions until we found the grand taxi stand to get a taxi back to Bob Okla. Because it’s further North, Tetouan and Chefchaouen have a lot less people who speak French, and even a lot of people who don’t speak Spanish or English, only Arabic. Between us we all spoke enough languages to get around pretty much anywhere, but this weekend we had some difficult times. When we got back to the hotel we all showered the sand out of our hair, changed into warmer clothes, and walked out to find a restaurant on our own without the help of Iman. We found an older woman walking her grandson inside Bob Okla and asked where to get good food within Bob Okla. She didn’t understand so Kimberly mimed eating to her, and then we realized she spoke Spanish and everything was fine. She just said “Oh yes! Come come.” So we followed her as she hobbled surely along, looking back every so often to make sure we were there, leading us through residential areas, and tiny packed streets, going the back way that led finally to the marketplace with tons of restaurants. We were happy to find the marché because I think we all love the markets here, but all of the restaurants were far too small to comfortably seat 10, so we found our way out of Bob Okla into the busier part of Tetouan, and after what felt like 10 hours of searching and asking directions and going to restaurants that were closed, found a fancy Spanish restaurant. It ended up being the perfect vibe for the night, and was surprisingly inexpensive for such a high end atmosphere and good quality food. We got croquettes, fried eggs with chorizo, Spanish tortilla (omelette), it was delicious. After eating we went back to the hotel where some of us went up to the roof and others went straight to bed. On the roof we listened to music and talked as always, and a few of us were up there until we could hear neighbors getting ready for 4:00 am prayer, which is when we knew it was time to go to bed. Like I said last time, traveling alone with this group is the best. I love having to figure out how to get a taxi driver to bring us where we need to be or ask a local for directions to a good restaurant, and I love how we’re getting used to certain Moroccanisms, like how any local you ask will bring you to his brother’s restaurant no matter how good or bad the food is, or how we’ve come to expect bread before and tea after every meal, and we’ve developed a taste for what real good Moroccan tea is. Tomorrow we go back to the university where we have 3 days left before going to Rabat for our homestays. I already miss my friends from the university, and it’s going to be horrible to leave them all so soon after finally making them. C’est la vie! I think traveling is worth it. 

[safasaf2018]

Day 21 - 6/22/18

I’m officially in love with Chefchaouen. We woke up this morning in the Air BnB very leisurely and showered and got ready to leave for the day. We had to pack up all of our stuff and move it to the roof because the next guests came while we were in town, and they needed our rooms. When we woke up we found a white cat sleeping on the couch in the living room who had half of her tail missing and one of her legs very badly twisted and dislocated it seemed. We named her Uli’s Cat because we knew she was his but didn’t know her name, she was the sweetest cuddle bug ever. He must have rescued her after a car crash or something. Anyways we left for Chefchaouen and decided to get a late breakfast/early lunch when we got there at the first restaurant that asked us to sit down. Since it’s Friday I ordered a DELICIOUS plate of couscous that 100% made up for last night’s dinner. While we were eating a woman came up to us with a book of henna designs asking if we wanted henna. A couple of the girls and I actually did, so we told her we’d go over after we were done eating. A little bit later another woman came up with a henna book asking the same thing. We were semi-annoyed and confused because we thought it was the same woman, so we told her we’d go after we were done eating and she left. When we finally did finish eating four of us went to the first woman we saw and sat down, and the other woman started screaming at her in Arabic that she stole her customers, and we tried to explain that we had seen her first, but she kept yelling. Our lady kept telling us, “No problem, no problem, sit down.” and her friend got involved, and at one point I turned and looked to my right and saw the second woman barreling towards us yelling, and then two guys who were sitting in front of us got involved and told her to calm down and she finally left but she was still very upset. We felt bad because there were 4 of us and we each got both hands done, so that’s a lot of money for one woman and not the other, but we got our henna done and then left to meet up with everyone else. While we were waiting for them to come back, we were talking and a guy around our age who was sitting down in front of us asked where we were from. He was from Louisiana, and he said he knew someone at Yale. He’s traveling in Morocco by himself, and he wanted to know what we’d seen in the country so far. When the others got there we left with them to look at shops but soon turned down a residential street that had the classic Chefchaouen blue and white, and we ended up staying in the residential streets the rest of the day taking pictures at every turn. In the beginning of the residential area we saw a small store with beautiful souvenirs and gifts, so we bought some stuff there but then spent the rest of the afternoon just wandering around and taking pictures. At 3:30 we had to go back to the Air BnB so we walked to the outskirts of the medina and got 2 grands taxis to take us first back to the house to get our stuff and then to Tetouan for the next leg of our journey. The ride was only about 3 hours, so we arrived just after dinner at our Riad (hotel) that was owned by a young Moroccan guy. The hotel was inside of an indoor village which is the best way I can think to describe it. It was in the middle of Tetouan, which is a very European/American feeling big city, but it was completely walled around, and on the inside there were walls/buildings forming the small streets. Within the area, which was called Bob Okla (spelling?), there were stores, restaurants, houses, hotels, it was seriously an entire town. We had written instructions on how to get to the hotel, but an official city guide found us on our way there looking lost, and led us the rest of the way there. We put our stuff in our rooms and settled in, and got ready to go to dinner. Iman, the hotel owner, walked us to a restaurant which was great because we never would have been able to find a restaurant let alone find our way out of Bob Okla. The restaurant he took us to was actually a taxi ride away, but it was worth it. It was in a small beach town outside of Tetouan, and he was friends with the owners. There was no menu because they served the same thing every night, so we just told them how many orders of each thing we wanted, and that was that. The first course was lentil soup which was SO delicious, followed by freshly caught and cooked sardines (not at all like the sardines we have in the US I don’t even know why they’re called the same thing), shrimp, and kalamari, and, of course, loads of bread, oil, and vinegar. The fish we ate with our hands on the paper tablecloth, scraping off the meat around the bones, and eating it with the bread. It was such a good meal. When we were done eating, Iman brought us to a tall wall along the water that we all climbed up onto and walked along until the end which had a gorgeous view of Tetouan. Carson stayed back because she was afraid of heights, so when we got to the edge we just turned around and went back, but it was seriously beautiful. From the end of the wall Iman pointed out where we were going afterwards across the water. It was a walk to get there, because we had to go around the water, but we passed through a large open space filled with kids renting scooters, hover boards, miniature cars, and other cute vehicles. Past that was a pretty touristy part with big hotels and restaurants, and Iman led us through one big hotel to the bar in the back where we all got mojitos or tea and played “Hotseat” where you set the timer for one minute for each person and everyone can ask them whatever they want. Of course they can pass, but it’s discouraged, and the answers are all very quick, almost like word association. We played it with Iman, who had never played it before, and eventually moved over to the pool and played a game called “Contact” which is way too hard to explain but it was fun when we all finally got it. After that we taxied back to the hotel and went up to the roof to listen to music and talk until very very late. Because there were other guests at the Air BnB after us in Chefchaouen we couldn’t stay another night, so we’re doing two nights in Tetouan instead of two in Chefchaouen and one in Tetouan, which is a shame because I really liked Chefchaouen. But so far Tetouan seems very cool. I absolutely love Bob Okla, Iman explained that there are lines made of stone in the middle of the roads, and if there are 3 lines it’s the main street, 2 lines means it goes in or out of Bob Okla, and one line means a dead end. And then outside of adorable Bob Okla, the rest of Tetouan seems very exciting and big city. Traveling with no professor is really fun. Whenever someone doesn’t have money for a meal or taxi one of us will cover for them, we all stay together for the most part, or make sure everyone’s safe if we’re not together, it’s really nice. Tomorrow we’re going on a tour of the city, then to get lunch, and then to the beach, which we’re all very excited about, so I’m gonna hit the hay. 

[safasaf2018]

Day 20 - 6/21/18

Well. This morning we woke up early to leave for Fez, part 1 of our long weekend. Today we’re in Fez with our professor learning about history, but then we have the rest of the weekend completely free. The bus ride was just a few hours, and right before we got into the city we stopped at a spot with a nice view of the entire city. Our professor stepped down in front of us to show us the different quarters of the city, the palace, the Jewish quarters, the “Old Town”, the “New Town”, etc, and fill us in on the historical context. After that we got back in the bus and drove into the city where we were dropped off right in the medina/marché/old town. We walked through that with our professor, occasionally stopping to look at something or buy fruit, and stopped at the other end of it where we went into probably the most beautiful university I’ve ever seen. The oldest university in the world is in Fez, but that’s not the one we went to. Nonetheless the university we saw puts Yale’s architecture to shame. I couldn’t even begin to describe it, so I’ll just try to upload pictures of it at some point. We were all walking around thinking it was a really really old ornate school that had been preserved for tourists because of its beautiful architecture, but when we asked if we could go upstairs to look at the dorms, we were told no because there were students sleeping in them! Soooooo yeah. After that we went into another gorgeous building that had been repurposed to be a museum sort of. The middle was open with hallways going around each floor and little rooms off of them around the periphery. In each room there were things on display - there was a kitchen utensils room, a baby cradle room, a room where they had trays they used to use to carry brides on their wedding day, etc. There were 4 floors of old stuff to look at, and then we went to the roof to have coffee and tea before leaving for our next adventure - the tannery. Morocco is known for its leather production - the word for leather goods in French comes from the word “Morocco”. If you’ve ever been to a tannery, you know the smell. And guess what the smell comes from? LITERAL PIGEON POOP. We went to a leather goods store that was attached to the tannery producing the goods, and went all the way upstairs to the roof to look over to the tannery. Our professor started explaining the process of softening (WITH LITERAL PIGEON POOP) the hides, dying them, and drying them, but then one of the workers came up and took over the explanation. He explained how naturally everything was done there, and then invited us down to the store to show us the difference between their products and factory-made leather products. I didn’t ever know leather could be as soft as theirs was. He gave us a leather jacket from them, and one that was made in Paris, and told us to feel the difference, it was absolutely crazy. He explained that different animals’ hides are good for different products - goats for jackets, camels for bags, etc. After the tannery we all went to a rooftop restaurant (as has very much become our thing) with our professor and his wife who met up with us, for a last activity together before we all left for Chefchaouen. They had the most beautiful menu (I actually took a picture of it) but once we saw that they had CAMEL BURGERS we all decided to get that, our curiosity got the better of us. It was actually really good! It had some kind of fig sauce on top and a salty cheese, the restaurant definitely knew what they were doing. After that it was time for us to go, so our professor walked us back out of the medina where two grands taxis (literally “big taxis”, which are 7 seater taxis that can take you long distances) were waiting for us. Luckily the drivers were fluent in French, although we didn’t talk much on the way there, for the most part everyone slept. It was a 7 hour trip, and they dropped us off in town in Chefchaouen. Our Air BnB was more in the outskirts, so we grabbed some petits taxis (”little taxis”, 5 seaters that only take you places within the city), and went to our Air BnB which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. The map to get there was kind of confusing so they dropped us off on this dirt road with a few buildings around it. Luckily there were some kids there who were very friendly and helped us find the Air BnB, which was a beautiful building run by a young German guy named Uli and the cutest British woman ever whose name I never actually learned. We only stayed there long enough to claim rooms and drop off our stuff, and then the British woman showed us how to get to the downtown area from the rooftop. It was about a 15 minute walk to downtown, and then another 20 minutes walking around looking for a place to eat. We settled on a rooftop restaurant (like I said, our thing) that was pretty disappointing food-wise, but had a beautiful view and fair prices. On our way back from dinner we looked at some shops, although most of them were closed, and bought some fresh fruit. We walked back to the Air BnB and showered, eventually making our way up to the roof where the owners brought us some homemade chocolate they had made. We shared that and Moroccan mint tea with them and a few backpackers who were also staying there, it was a great night.