Morocco 10

In three days I leave morocco and go home to the states. Class is coming to an end, we have several exams and speeches to give in the next few days before we depart. In our group we've discussed the goods and bads of leaving and what we feel currently. Most of us are glad to be leaving marrakech but are sad to be leaving the people and friends we've made on our journey. I am fine with leaving morocco, but it will be hard to be apart from everyone. I've fallen in love with my host family, Moroccan friends and american friends, the thought of possibly never seeing them again is a difficult thought but at the same time, I'm ready to see my American family again. I am looking forward to seeing everyone again, getting a kale avocado salad, skating, eating goldfish, having all of my cloths back, and getting to wear shorts and tank tops again! I've started thinking about everything I want to share of my experience with people back home and am really looking forward to it. Also, giving gifts to people is going to be amazing! With this trip, I feel as though I have accomplished quite a bit. I have learned more that I ever thought possible and have enjoyed just about every second of it. Class in morocco is fun, interesting, and challenging and I can't imagine going home to American school. Having 4 hours of Arabic class everyday can be tiresome, but I can't imagine having spent this summer in any other way.

Morocco 9

Just got back from the best place on earth (essaouira) and am now back in marrakech. The last night of being in essaouira a group on Moroccans came into our dining area in the hotel and played music for us and danced. The music is meant to put Muslims in a religious trance, but is also great for Americans wanting to dance around and have fun. One of the dancers was amazing, he would do a squat than jump up and do a split 5 feet in the air and then come down into another squat, the whole time keeping beat with an instrument in his hands. The dancing is mostly quick feet and squats, it looked like lots of fun to learn. Tomorrow is a day off from school, the second total day off I might add. It's starting to hit me that in a week I'll be away from all of my new friends and back in the states with my old, whom I've honestly started to forget about. The Americans I've met here have become my true brothers and sisters, it's crazy that it took going across an ocean to Africa to find true friends from back home in the states. Several of us on the east coast have already started discussing ways to get back together as often as possible, inshaala it happens!

Morocco 8

Yesterday we traveled from marrakech to essaouira morocco. The trip was through a desert like region surrounded by low mountains and then suddenly there was the ocean. The second I stepped foot off the bus my hair was tugged from the wind and I could feel myself being moved, the sun was brilliant, the temperature 30 degrees cooler than marrakech, and it smelled of the ocean, which you could also hear in the distance. We were right outside the walled in Madina where a game of soccer took place and right away I know that I had found the perfect place. To get to the hotel we walked through many narrow cobble stone streets meant for only walking or biking in. We passed many nice street vendors with many wonderful things being sold and then reached the hotel. From the outside it looks like an average white building, like all others in the city. But from the inside it is the most beautiful Moroccan themed building I have ever witnessed. I lucked out also by getting the best hotel room available, it's the biggest with the best things in it including a view of the city on one side, the ocean on the other with large cutout rock and waves washing over them. We also have a fire place, unlike other rooms, and the best bathtub too. Also, we have a room close to the ground floor and can jump out the window to walk around the outside of the building on the ocean side so we can get down onto the rocks, which are unreachable from any other point. Needless to say many people have come through our room to get down to the rocks. For meals, we go to the roof of the hotel. Part of the top floor is indoors for eating and the other side is outside and overlooks the ocean with a lounge area. When getting to this hotel and seeing everything here, I got tears in my eyes from the beauty surrounding me.

School is inside the salon of the hotel on the ground floor, I've never had class in such a nice place, it's distracting sometimes. For lunch today we went to a crape place and had a nice lunch and then went shopping. The vendors are all nice and are willing to lower prices, I can successfully get them to lower the prices in Arabic now, which is exciting. Many of them will lower their prices a lot and joke around, I've been called Berber many times now because I never pay a high price for things. Later on sometimes I'll see vendors I know walking down the street and even if I didn't buy from them, they'll stop and chat happily with me. The clothing is beautiful and very hippyish here, there is a lot of wooden boxes, pottery, boots, and bags as well as good fruit and bread. You can get a huge warm loaf of bread for 10 us cents on the street here, and the bread is amazing! The first day in the madina some of us walked to the beach, it was cold and super windy but still very beautiful and worth it. Tomorrow morning we are going to do sunrise yoga on the beach with me teaching and after school are going to ride camels on the beach and go kite surfing. Wish me luck!

Morocco 7

Just journeyed to the high atlas mountains with some Americans and Moroccans, the first thing we did after getting off the bus was to go down to a creek. We collected rocks, dipped out feet in, took pictures and walked along the shore. The shore was made up entirely in little rocks of all colors and the water was clear and chilly. After walking a little ways down we came to a donkey bridge used to carry heavy loads over the water and a small village with people washing their cloths and bathing in the stream. There was one little boy that watched us as we walked by and seemed really curious. The next day we passed by him again sitting in the same place as the day before. I wonder what little kids do when their parents are farming and they live in a small village on the slopes of a mountain. Do most sit in one place day by day and watch the time go by? That night we decided to sleep outside where it was cool and beautiful, there was a roof for girls and a roof for boys to sleep on. We brought out our big mattresses from the rooms and brought them to the roof. It was amazing sleeping under the stars and listening to the owls, stream, and frogs, I would have liked to lay there for ever. The next day we went on a hike over a mountain. We used the paths used by locals and passed through several villages as we climbed. The terrain was very dusty and rocky with little to no ground covering. It was beautiful and lifeless at the same time. That night a local burber man talked to us about their culture and lifestyle. We were informed that everyone is to marry at age 18 to someone arranged to them and that school is optional. School is hard to get to because there aren't many around and it can take several hours to walk to. They got electricity 6 years ago and all live in little clay and rock buildings. They fence in their animals with cacti or other plants and grow all sorts of delicious fruits. Most people living in the mountains there are nomads, they live in the mountains in the summer and live in the Sahara desert in the winter. Also that night, my roommate and I got to talk to one of the Moroccans about his religious views. He is a nonmuslim with much more westernize views than most in the area which made an interesting conversation while looking up at the stars. Hearing religious views here have been mostly similar, most are strong Muslims with some slightly different views, but they are very similar overall so it was nice to see a completely different view for once.

Morocco 6

The other day my host sister, American room mate, and I went to the hamam. For those of you who do not know what a hamam is, it's a public bath where people gather together to bath. They undress, sit on the floor of a steamy hot room and use buckets filled with water to cleanse themselves. First we used henna and put it all over ourselves. After a few minutes we washed it off and covered our skin with black soap. After rinsing that off, you scrub yourself all over with all of your energy with a scrubbing kit and see skin coming off. After reaching all places you can reach, someone else will scrub your back for you (which feels amazing) and then you use your normal shampoo etc. After rinsing again, another round of henna is put on and rinsed one final time. The process took us almost 3 hours and seemed strange at first but was very interesting and nice by the end. We plan on going back each week for another scrub.

Morocco 5

A week and a half into being in morocco I have grasp some of the culture differences at a decent enough level to share about some of them. First off is the food, everyone eats off of one dish and drinks from the same cup. They do this because they believe that to share a meal, a meal should truly be shared, not just passed around. For some dishes there are spoons but for the most part everyone eats with their hands. Another cultural difference is that there is food served all the time. There is breakfast, brunch, lunch, snack, predinner, and dinner and if any guests visit, another meal is put together, it is polite to always serve a guest food. So there are about 6 or 7 meals in a day, with dinner tending to be around 11 pm or midnight. Now about the food, breakfast tends to be bread and tea, brunch is bread and tea, lunch is a tajeen with veggies on the side and a desert of either fruit or sweets, pre dinner tends to be more sweets and tea, and dinner is another tajeen with veggies on the side and another desert with tea. Dinner also comes with juice. Not just any juice either, it's the best juice in the world, freshly made at each home. Tonight we had pomegranate juice and orange strawberry juice, to die for! It's probably my favorite thing to have with meals so far, especially strawberry juice. There are lots of olives, oranges, nectarines, and tomatoes here so we eat lots of those and there are many varieties of breads for each meal. On a side note, they Blanch almonds here, which I had never heard of before. Very interesting concept that I don't yet understand but will attempt to gain knowledge about it.

Morocco 4

The Medina! It's a crazy crazy place that I have been to twice now. For those of you reading who don't know about Medinas, they are basically shuks (stores) all together with tiny passage ways between them. There's some open areas for food vendors, snake, henna, and monkey people etc. It's very unsafe, especially for people who look like tourists. I managed to take some pictures of what it looked like but didn't get to get many since I'd rather my camera not get stolen. So these little shops are all really interesting, there's different areas of the passage ways for different types of vendors. For example, all of the shoe vendors are all next to each other, that way the shoppers can compare products and prices easily. There are many colorful interesting shops, many selling products like shoes, clothing, spices, cloth, metal, lamps, leather, bags, and rugs. There's stuff hanging about the walkway as you pass and everywhere around you, no space to walk by, and you never know when a snake man will put a snake around your neck and ask for money (which has already happened). supposedly the food in the Medina is the best around, but you have to be willing to get sick if you try anything. Today I got my first sign of meebs (amoeba) from food that I ate yesterday. Here you never know where the food comes from and what's been done to it.