1.3.10
Hamam
A hamam is a Turkish bath house. You go in, get a bucket of hot water, sit in what is essentially a steam room, cover yourself with olive-oil based soap and wait. Eventually you scrub with a kiss which is a glove for exfoliation and watch the dead skin roll off. Crazy place. One girl passed out from the heat. ha...funny? maybe not. anyways...crazy experience. Lots of older larger ladies. Soft skin now.
Friday: Day of Cous Cous
Breakfast in our salon before meeting to go to Saleh, Rabat's sister-city for a conversation with Moroccan students about "images of each other" etc. My phone's alarm went off even though the phone is turned off...it did this every morning and I can't turn the alarm off because I don't know my pin number to turn on my phone...soooo weird.
In Saleh we had tea and treats and interesting conversation with the three students there. Afterwords I talked with one of them and he started talking about his studies and his ideas about interweaving belief in religion and science and between religions...interesting.
The trip was about connecting with people and learning about Moroccans as people and so forth so they took us to see a slum which was a little awkward. We pulled up in our tourist bus thing to look...felt weird. o well.
When we returned to Rabat we went to Chellah which is an old Roman city that's all ruins and a lovely garden. So beautiful.
We returned home for lunch because Friday, being THE religious day for Muslims is
special and it is typical to make cous cous. So delicious. Heather brought two of her friends from school because they have an apartment and no one to make them cous cous...sad life. Cous cous is eaten from a communal bowl with spoons working your way from outside - in and is eaten with a weird sour milk drink that tastes like drinking sour cream. I tried it and drank some, but did not like it.
After lunch we met back up to go for a walk through the medinah/wherever our Moroccan guides wanted to take us. Camilia and I went with some girls from the other group and 2 guys and a girl guide. Esmat (i want to say this is how you spell it, but probably not) and Simo (Mohammed) talked to me a bit, but they liked talking to each other more and with Camilia in Arabic once they found out she was Tunisian.
Bought some hand-of-Fatima earings, got a date from a spice stall, tried to cocolate-
almond fudge type treat of Simo's and went to a cafe-type place for apple soda. Decent afternoon. Fun to walk through the market.
In Saleh we had tea and treats and interesting conversation with the three students there. Afterwords I talked with one of them and he started talking about his studies and his ideas about interweaving belief in religion and science and between religions...interesting.The trip was about connecting with people and learning about Moroccans as people and so forth so they took us to see a slum which was a little awkward. We pulled up in our tourist bus thing to look...felt weird. o well.
When we returned to Rabat we went to Chellah which is an old Roman city that's all ruins and a lovely garden. So beautiful.
We returned home for lunch because Friday, being THE religious day for Muslims is
special and it is typical to make cous cous. So delicious. Heather brought two of her friends from school because they have an apartment and no one to make them cous cous...sad life. Cous cous is eaten from a communal bowl with spoons working your way from outside - in and is eaten with a weird sour milk drink that tastes like drinking sour cream. I tried it and drank some, but did not like it.After lunch we met back up to go for a walk through the medinah/wherever our Moroccan guides wanted to take us. Camilia and I went with some girls from the other group and 2 guys and a girl guide. Esmat (i want to say this is how you spell it, but probably not) and Simo (Mohammed) talked to me a bit, but they liked talking to each other more and with Camilia in Arabic once they found out she was Tunisian.
Bought some hand-of-Fatima earings, got a date from a spice stall, tried to cocolate-
almond fudge type treat of Simo's and went to a cafe-type place for apple soda. Decent afternoon. Fun to walk through the market.
Rabat: Meet Your New Family
In Rabat we got our host family: Saida. She is very nice and has two sons - Sufyan is 5 and Said is 9 months. Her husband is a body guard/secret service type guy for the king so he is gone. A girl from the university was there as well and it was nice to have her so she could explain some things. Saida didn't speak much english (hello, you're welcome, etc).
As soon as we arrived and were settled we were served tea and sweets. Moroccan tea is AMAZING! It's really bitter and gross so they add tons of sugar. haha. I liked it. Sweets are also amazing. We made a pact to eat as much as we could/wanted in Morocco so we ate a LOT!
Sabah, the neighbor is 12 and took us for a walk at night. The streets are similar in feel to India, but there are a LOT less people. Is less busy and more people strolling and sitting on benches in the parks. Brick roads and many venders. People selling food that smelled awesome. One area in the medinah was completely filled with smoke because all the grills were set up to sell kebabs and other meats.
Saturday 2/27 is Muhammad's birthday so there are lights on the main road (Muhammad V). It was a nice warm temperature outside and there are pretty gardens and fountains everywhere.
Morocco is great for one's self confidence/a little annoying because pretty much any guy you see under 30 will cat-call you or say something as you pass by. It's entertaining because they will rattle off 4 different languages hoping you understand one of them. Or they will say something like "hey spice girls" or "i like your hair movement". One guy even started singing "the way you make me feel" by Michael Jackson.
When we returned Saida sent us back out to pick up some sweets and Sabah bought us some peanuts. When we got back it was time for dinner. We had told Saida we only wanted a light lunch...breads and sweets on arrival are filling...so we ate sandwiches of melted chicken and cheese and Moroccan soup while the boys slept under the TV. Camilia speaks fluent French and can get by with her Arabic so it's nice to have her to communicate with Saida.
Arabic:
Shukran: thank you
Mouzzien: very good
inshallah: similar to "let's hope" kinda
yahlah: let's go
that's all i knew to get by.
As soon as we arrived and were settled we were served tea and sweets. Moroccan tea is AMAZING! It's really bitter and gross so they add tons of sugar. haha. I liked it. Sweets are also amazing. We made a pact to eat as much as we could/wanted in Morocco so we ate a LOT!
Sabah, the neighbor is 12 and took us for a walk at night. The streets are similar in feel to India, but there are a LOT less people. Is less busy and more people strolling and sitting on benches in the parks. Brick roads and many venders. People selling food that smelled awesome. One area in the medinah was completely filled with smoke because all the grills were set up to sell kebabs and other meats.
Saturday 2/27 is Muhammad's birthday so there are lights on the main road (Muhammad V). It was a nice warm temperature outside and there are pretty gardens and fountains everywhere.
Morocco is great for one's self confidence/a little annoying because pretty much any guy you see under 30 will cat-call you or say something as you pass by. It's entertaining because they will rattle off 4 different languages hoping you understand one of them. Or they will say something like "hey spice girls" or "i like your hair movement". One guy even started singing "the way you make me feel" by Michael Jackson.
When we returned Saida sent us back out to pick up some sweets and Sabah bought us some peanuts. When we got back it was time for dinner. We had told Saida we only wanted a light lunch...breads and sweets on arrival are filling...so we ate sandwiches of melted chicken and cheese and Moroccan soup while the boys slept under the TV. Camilia speaks fluent French and can get by with her Arabic so it's nice to have her to communicate with Saida.
Arabic:
Shukran: thank you
Mouzzien: very good
inshallah: similar to "let's hope" kinda
yahlah: let's go
that's all i knew to get by.
First Views of the Atlantic
Our first stop along the Atlantic coast was at the ocean where we got to ride
camels...felt super touristy. It was raining a bit, but the ocean was beautiful. Got a shell. Continued to Asilah.
Asilah is a smaller beach town that's very touristy in the summer I guess, but it was pretty quiet due to the time of year and it was drizzling a bit on and off. The medinah of the city (old city)is very beautiful. Each year they repaint everything white and people pain murals on the walls or blue to ward of mosquitoes in the summer. Views of the ocean were amazing.
When we first entered a man was selling sweets to Alan bought us all something. I had a baklava with peanuts-type thing. Very delicious. We had a guide, but he didn't do much except walk in front of us and tell us about the wall painting and that the design of the bricked-ground was the represent the waves of the ocean.
Got back in the bus for 3 hour drive to Rabat. Stopped about 2 hours in for a bathroom break and snacks: dates, figs, cookies. Had a nice nap in the bus before we discussed our home-stays.
Oh Africa: Morocco
After we ate breakfast in the hotel we walked to the port, which wasn't too far away and met us with everyone. There were two groups of 15 on the trip, but half of our group came by plane from Madrid so only half of our group took the ferry. Interesting experience. Our leaders were Alan and Rachel. Alan is like the director of the program so it was nice to have him because he knows pretty much everything and Rachel was training to become a "guide", but was amazing and spoke the Arabic dialect of Morocco and french.
We had orientation and coffee on the boat which did not like to run smoothly. The
trip was pretty rocky. Even I felt kinda sick and there were girls with us who had decently bad motion sickness usually. Couple people sitting on the group with heads in trash bags...
About 2 hours later we arrived in Tangier. We walked through a market and bought
some dates and figs...the meat section smelled pretty nasty, but the fish market was fun. We went to a woman's center second where we got a tour and a chat with some students from Tangier.
The women's center is a place where education is given to women who have come from hard backgrounds including divorce, single mothers, etc. It's not a place to empower or build feminism, but a school to incorporate all women into the workforce so they can care for themselves and their family. There were classes for reading and writing, traditional sewing, how to use modern sewing machines, etc. Very interesting place.
We got a tour from 3 students: Majid, Khadija, and another girl that I can't remember her name. There were very interesting though because after the tour we sat and had lunch and talked with them about Morocco and life and different things. It was nice to have a male and two different female perspectives - Khadija is 27 and wears a hijab and the other was a senior in high school and a bit less traditional. The disagreed on topics like dating, what to do for fun, voting, and the state of the government. VERY interesting.
We had chicken tajin? for lunch (a dish of chicken and vegetables like it was in a crock-pot)and Khadija talked with Camilia and I a bit about living in the US as a Muslim. Afterwords we hopped into our mini-bus and went driving south.
We had orientation and coffee on the boat which did not like to run smoothly. The
trip was pretty rocky. Even I felt kinda sick and there were girls with us who had decently bad motion sickness usually. Couple people sitting on the group with heads in trash bags...About 2 hours later we arrived in Tangier. We walked through a market and bought
some dates and figs...the meat section smelled pretty nasty, but the fish market was fun. We went to a woman's center second where we got a tour and a chat with some students from Tangier.The women's center is a place where education is given to women who have come from hard backgrounds including divorce, single mothers, etc. It's not a place to empower or build feminism, but a school to incorporate all women into the workforce so they can care for themselves and their family. There were classes for reading and writing, traditional sewing, how to use modern sewing machines, etc. Very interesting place.
We got a tour from 3 students: Majid, Khadija, and another girl that I can't remember her name. There were very interesting though because after the tour we sat and had lunch and talked with them about Morocco and life and different things. It was nice to have a male and two different female perspectives - Khadija is 27 and wears a hijab and the other was a senior in high school and a bit less traditional. The disagreed on topics like dating, what to do for fun, voting, and the state of the government. VERY interesting.
We had chicken tajin? for lunch (a dish of chicken and vegetables like it was in a crock-pot)and Khadija talked with Camilia and I a bit about living in the US as a Muslim. Afterwords we hopped into our mini-bus and went driving south.
Algeciras Here We Come
Wednesday was a long day. A guy came to the residencia and drove us to Madrid where we had to catch a train to Algeciras. Turns out there is construction on the rail lines in the south so half way through "Marley and Me" we had to get off and take a bus the rest of the way. It was ok and we watched some movie with Ricky Gervais and Greg Kinnear (if that's how you spell his name) and then the program put us up in a nice hotel where we each got our own bed, watched some Olympics, and had a bomb breakfast.
Downside: Only women's long distance speed skating on...sorry, but boring. The comedor had packed us dinner of sandwiches with jamon serrano so we were well fed for free.
Downside: Only women's long distance speed skating on...sorry, but boring. The comedor had packed us dinner of sandwiches with jamon serrano so we were well fed for free.
Home?
I am back in Avila. Yay? Morocco was easily one of the best experiences of my life. NEED to return. It's to late to post pictures yet, but tomorrow I promise lots of stories and photos. Tired.
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