Up Stairs

Today was the last day of orientation Hamdullahe (praise be to god)! Learning and doing so much important stuff every moment is kind of exhausting to say the least. Today was all about education because our classes start on monday. Brittini and I found our way to school without a problem, hooray for us. We spent the morning learning about differences in the education system in Morocco and America. In Morocco education is teacher centered, the Qur'an has a saying that says essentially, a teacher is eq

ual to a prophet. Thus classes are mostly lecture, most class time is spent taking notes, no reading is done for discussion and most think

ing by the students takes place at test taking time. We also got to meet our professors and learn a bit about the classes. One I am really excited about is on Islam and gender, we get to visit some women's organizations in Morocco for the class.

We spent a great deal of time wandering around Agdal today as well. During breaks in the orientation schedule we walked around looking in shops, getting qhwa (coffee), and running errands. We checked out two gyms that we want to sign up for and looked around a book store. After lunch commenced the longest darija arabic lesson of my life, 3 hours! Needless to say I have only had 2 darija arabic lessons so far but still, 3 hours! Our sweet teacher taught us a popular Moroccan song and the whole class sang it over and over again. The story of the song is of a girl asking her love if he likes her. We then learned about an opportunity to volunteer teaching english twice a week, I am eager to volunteer and become involved in the community.

In the evening we had a small dinner with the students and faculty in the program. We milled around and talked meeting more professors and two of the other students who have already been here for a semester. The food was bite size sweet and savory treats. Most were mysterious so I adopted taste testers to check the snacks for meat. We were about

to leave with two other host girls and the one and only host boy we've met when we stared talking to some guys who teach english at AMIDEAST, Trent, Gavin, and John. They invited us to Up Stairs for a drink. This marked my first bar experience! The bar was fun inside though I noticed immediately the telltale blonde heads of foreigners. We all got drinks and talked for a while listening to stories about life in Morocco and also about how the girls in Tennessee might seem sweet but can punch hard, Trent's first hand experience. We said goodbye and caught a taxi back home using some of our newly learned darija arabic.

After we got home we got to meet our other host sister Amina. She is in a wheelchair and can't speak much but she seemed happy to meet us. We practiced our arabic with Fatima and Rabia and sang them the song we learned but mostly forgot. They said this is a song that all Moroccan girls know. Tomorrow begins our first weekend here and I am guessing it will be used for sleep and relaxation. In the morning Fatima is going to take us to the Hammam, or bathhouse that is very popular here. So now I must lay my weary head down to rest.

tsbh 3la khir (Good night)