A week of firsts

Last week was a week of firsts.

I rode the bus for the firs time, home on Tuesday and to school on Wednesday. My friend Leah and I, who is an avid bus rider here hopped on and payed the incredible 3.60 Dirham price (about 50 cents). The other great thing about the buses here is that you don't have to have exact change, any amount will do and there is a always someone walking around taking your money and giving you change and a ticket. Of course there was another "medicine man" preaching his word but we found seats and were left alone for the ride. At one point the bus stopped but we paid little attention and continued talking. Eventually I Noticed the bus driver looking back and us but I couldn't tell if he was talking to us. As I struggled to understand I looked around the bus and realized that there was no one on it and that the driver was trying to explain we were at the last stop. We got of laughing at ourselves and made out way home, successful bus ride with more to come.

Taught English for the first time Tuesday night. Two friends and I headed to our service

learning organization on Tuesday night for out first english class.organization helps underprivileged youth and women mostly through education. We had gone once before to meet the President, a talkative goofy man, and check out the location and facilities. It is not much, a concrete building that is dark, cold, and damp inside. When we were there it had been raining so everything inside was wet somehow and we kept getting dripped on. We had brought some paper and pencils and a rough idea for a lesson plan. At first we had only a couple students. We had them write their names on name tags and then we introduced ourselves. We started by checking what level they were at and we really had so many different levels. Students kept trickling in for about 30 minutes so we slowly branched off into smaller groups and worked with the students more individually. We had students ranging from age 11-28 and all different levels of beginner. I worked with three rowdy boys and one girl. We practiced greetings mostly and a little bit on numbers and the alphabet. They were all so eager to learn and quick to catch on that I found myself being swept up in their excitement. It was quite exhilarating. We ended up teaching over about half an hour we got so caught up in the fun of teaching. At the end of class every single student ran up to us asking us for our facebook info so they could add us. What a world of technology it is today, crazy!

Got my first scrub down at the Hammam on Thursday. I've already explained much about the hammam a place which I love. I usually try to go once a week relax in the steamy room, wash my body and hair, and of course use the "kiis" to scrub off all my dead skin.

So far I have stuck to scrubbing myself and maybe the backs of the friends I am with. However there are women who work in the hammam and for a small price will bring you buckets of water and scrub you down. I had been a little wary of this experience watching the almost violent scrub down others get but my three friends and I decided to go for it, this was the day! It took some time and at least 2 languages to explain to the woman what we wanted but eventually she brought us some buckets of water and called over the first of us to lay on the mat for the scrub down. We all watched closely to see her reaction and though the women was scrubbing hard and at times she looked in minor discomfort she came out of it feeling rejuvenated. So we all went ahead one by one. When it was my turn I laid down the matt and she began to scrub my arms, then stomach, legs, back, and neck. Some places almost tickled me and it was rough but it was also wonderful. I came out feeling alive and tingly and the softest I have ever felt.

I rode the train the first time on Friday. Transportations around Morocco is great. You can travel by train, bus, or Taxi to basically anywhere. So on Friday my three friends and I met at the train station to catch a train to Meknes. We waited in the sunny cafe at the train station and drank coffee and orange juice while waiting for our train to arrive. We met an Australian man named Heath and an interesting American woman named Laura who wore a head scarf. There were teachers in Fes returning from travels for the Prophets birthday.

We made our way down to the train platform with them and soon realized that we simply had to ask if we wanted to know what train was ours. Eventually the oldest most rundown train we had seen turned out to be ours and we crowded on. The train was already almost full so we were left to stand in the narrow hall that runs along the compartments. Many people on the train seemed to think that if they kept moving down the hall either way they would find a compartment that was open which proved difficult when the hall was only wide enough for one person let alone a person with a backpack. Things settled down and we did find one seat in a compartment which we rotated sitting in. The scenery was beautiful, lot of green countryside and small colorful towns. And in the end we safely made it to Meknes by train for only 65 dirham ($8).

Then we were on to the next part of our journey to the saint town of Moulay Idriss for the weekend....

Fez Part 2: 300 Camels for her!

...and so it continues!

We woke up early Saturday morning, no sleeping in for us on the weekend :( Enjoyed a delicious breakfast at the hotel and then were split up into two groups for our tours. My group headed to the old Medina for the first part of the day. The Fez medina is the largest medina in Morocco and in fact the largest contiguous car free urban area in the world! Fez is the second largest city in Morocco and has been called the "Mecca of the West" and the "Athens of Africa". So we embarked on a tour of this ancient city.

Our tour guide also mentioned that Fez is a model of an Arabic style designed city. The Medina was narrow, busy, mysterious, loud, intriguing, and full of hidden wonders. We saw the the University of Al-Karaouine founded in 859 AD by a woman Fatima al-Fihri and is in fact the oldest continually functioning University in the world! We also visited and were able to go inside the Bou Inania Madrasa founded in AD 1351. It is quite beautiful and ornate with intricate arabic carvings, stained glass, and original woodwork. We stumbled upon an area of all the original pottery and looked around for a bit. The main thing that the Fez Medina is known for are the tanneries. We got to climb the narrow steep stairs of a tannery and look down at the process.

Men standing half submerged in steaming vats of dye, piles of fur, and stretched hides drying in the sun. It was a very interesting view. We all wanted desperately to go shopping but out tour guide had other things in mind, namely running through the narrow Medina alleyways. We almost lost a few girls, I being one of them. We made our way out in time and headed back to the hotel for lunch and a break.

Some other girls and I found a restaurant and sat outside in the sun. The weather was fabulous all weekend. After lunch we lounged by the outdoor pool in the courtyard of our hotel. Not sure if the pool actually is for swimming or maybe just looks? The sun was shining I laid down to soak it up. After the break we switched with the other group of students and bussed around the city to different historical points of interest and amazing viewpoints of the city. Apparently lots of wars and fighting have gone on historically in the valley. Also Fez is huge when you can see all of it from above. You think you're looking at the whole city then you realize that there is a whole other part of the city hiding behind the mountains. Sneaky little city. We went to the doors of the royal palace where we were instructed to take pictures only straight ahead of the main doors. To the left was the personal entrance of the King and if we took a picture guards with machine guns would get mad, no good.

We returned to the hotel after the tour was over. I went out to dinner with some friends to an sushi/thai food restaurant in Morocco! It was quite a strange experience. The place was super modern with bamboo shoots sticking up everywhere and tassels hanging from the ceiling. Everything was extra delicious up to the Phad thai which was not up to par. What was great was that one of the waiters had a crush on my friend Bri and brought us free food because of her. He even brought her some vanilla ice cream saying, and I quote, "Vanilla ice cream because you already have the chocolate." She's African American so this could be either cute here or super offensive in the states. haha. After dinner I took a walk down the main strip with my hotel roommate Anna. It was nice though the twinkle lights that lined the walk were turned off and of course all the shababs were out ready to harass us. We went back to our room and proceeded to watch a soap opera for what seemed like an hour adding our own English commentary. After which I passed out.

Sunday out trip guides decided to let us have the morning for shopping in the Medina which we didn't get to do the day before. We headed into the Medina with shopping lists in hand. Eventually we broke off into smaller groups depending on what people were looking for and how serious they were about this shopping biz. Leah and I were serious. We looked and bargained and came out with a leather bag each, I got leather boots, three pairs of earrings, and three scarves. All for less than $100, great success! At the scarf shop our salesman found Leah quite pretty and offered 300 camels for her hand in marriage. Half kidding half not I think. I told him it wasn't enough, we're going to keep looking. We left soon after with the whole group and drove through breathtaking countryside. There were farmers, lakes, men plowing with donkeys, kids on horses, and women working in the fields, amazing. Then we arrived at our last destination before home, Volubilis. The best preserved Roman ruins in Northern Africa. This was my favorite stop and actually one of my favorite places so far. It was windy out and the blue sky was spotted with clouds. The valley around Volubilis was vibrant green and the yellow of the ruins looked incredible. We had about an hour to walk around looking at the mosaics, arches, pillars and olds baths of the city. I also got some great pictures! After we settled onto the bus for a few hours drive back to Rabat which is beggining to feel more and more like home each time I return. That's all for now.

B'salama

Fez Part 1: The Western Pub

I awoke at the crack of dawn Friday morning (before the call to prayer even) and headed to AMIDEAST to board a bus bound for Fez. The trip to Fez and Marakesh was going to be the first group trip of the semester. We boarded our mini busses and headed out for our weekend excursion. Our tour guide/historical background professor/father on the trip was Michael Peyron the most adorable white haired british man who truly uses those hilarious british phrases that we all use to impersonate brits. He actually told us to give him a "tinkle on his mobile". We made our way to Fez stopping at ever and any interesting place along the way, Michael Peyron's doingno doubt. The first exciting stop was to a small town called Azrou which means rock in the indigenous Tamazight Berber language. We only had about 30 minutes enough time for a bathroom break and of course a climb to the top of the huge rock for the which the town in named. I loved that all of our first thoughts was to practically run to it and then climb straight to the top of the rock. This trip definitely brought out the playfulness in us all.

After getting back on the bus we started going through an area called the "Wild and Woolly East". Basically this means the land becomes barren with forests here and there. Much less populations density but a high Berber population. We even saw mountains covered in snow and more patchy snow right up to where were driving. It made for a beautiful landscape. I almost forgot, we also drove through a monkey forest. Yep just what you would think: lots of monkeys, lots of trees, and lots of snow? We stopped for lunch literally in the middle of nowhere at a restaurant on what we'd been told by Michael Peyron was a "windswept plateau".

It pretty much was that with a little snow and some cute stray dogs. We sat outside for lunch of a delicious tajine, bread, and oranges. Of course by the end everyone was throwing snow balls, isn't that how it always ends when snow is near? After lunch we drove to a remote location in the hills for horse riding. On the way we saw Moroccans sledding, skiing, and even picnicking in the snow.

The horse riding stop was interesting for more than one reason. It is a result of heightened tourism in the area and a need for jobs in the Amazigh or Berber population. The horses are called Fantasia horses and are dressed up in ornate and colorful horse-wear. The moment we got of the bus the Berber men swarmed us with their horses trying to get us to ride. It was very overwhelming and sad, the desperation in their eyes and their need for money. The horses too were not being taken care of very well, they looked sad and in pain from their bits. It actually almost made me want to cry. But I decided to ride a horse, I don't really know why. It was crazy and scary and I think I nearly had a heart attack when he made the horse run without guiding it and when he made it jump up in the air numerous times without warning, at least none I could understand at least. But it was fun and I did at least provide some incomefor the men although I don't know if I support their business.

We stopped briefly at the side of the road for a wonderful view of the huge valley stretching out before us. Of course, as was the fashion of the day, we all jumped out of the bus and ran as fast as we could up the side of the mountain. The view was spectacular and we were all giddy with excitement. My favorite part of the day perhaps was when on the side of the hill we sang and danced to "Waka Waka" which had quickly become the theme song of our trip. It's time for Africa! We stopped at two more small lakes, both in the small college town of Ifrane. Before finally arriving in Fez at around 6 pm. As we were shuffling around the hotel lobby getting our keys and choosing roommates we learned that Mubarak finally stepped down and handed over power to the military, alhamdulillah! I hope some peace and reform can now come to Egypt.

I think at this time we all headed straight to our rooms and took much needed showers, showers are hard to come by in Morocco. A group of us then headed out to find some dinner. It was unnerving being in a city that we don't know at night with the usual strange men following us trying to give us directions (for money most likely) and I found myself missing our familiar Rabat. Finally after what seemed like much wandering we found a nice place called Sicilia where I got some delicious Spaghetti. After dinner we found some dessert and then settled at a cafe for some cafe creme before heading back to the hotel. All was normal of the evening thus far, but Morocco is never normal and you never know what to expect so inevitably there was something more no it's way...

A group of us decided we didn't want the night to end there and we had passed an upbeat sounding bar just around the corner from the hotel. So we headed back out luckily persuading one of the guys to go with us. We walk in the door a group of about 8 girls and 1 guy. Instantly all eyes turn to us and time seems to stop. It as a little uncomfortable to say the least. The front room is pretty packed with creepy Moroccan men and the music is blaring so we keep moving through the bar. There is a middle room and then we enter the next more tame part of the bar, on the wall is a sign saying "Western Bar". Right then a man walks up and introduces himself as if he's the owner, welcomes us, and says he is going to take us to a "family room" since we're such a large group. So we follow him through a door that leads to a back room with a pool table into another room with a table and chairs. We all sit down and he takes our drink order and a waiter brings us the usual popcorn and olives. We sit back there for probably about an hour talking and regularly remarking on how bizarre this is. The man helping us keeps coming to check on us, repeatedly welcoming us, telling us we are is family, and asking if we are good. He takes a liking to Nate because of his arabic skills and because he's from New Jersey? He also tells us about his families ceramic factory that we must come visit and take pictures at. Eventually we asked if we could go back out the main bar and we went out in small groups.

We went back to the Western bar section but not after heading toward the more boisterous one when all the men started reaching out and beckoning us forward. We sat in the Western Bar and almost caused a fight when the man helping us took a stool from someone else for us to use. We started feeling like it was time to go so Nate started to work out getting the bill. It was at this point that we started to seriously wonder if the "owner" actually even worked at the bar. He tried to get the waiter not to charge us but he refused, hmmm. So we paid and headed toward the front door. A man tried to say something to me but I brushed him off as another creep. As we reached the front door we realized it was closed up and the man had been trying to show us the real way out. We turned back and had to wade our way through crazy Moroccans reaching out for us. Finally we emerged back onto the street all in a state of awe and shock at the bizarre experience of the night. We laughed and joked about it on the way back to the hotel. Nothing was more evident of the night that in Morocco you never know what to expect.

To be Continued...

It's time for Africa!

Last Sunday (exactly a week ago, oops) we all gathered atthe AMIDEAST building at 8:30 sharp to be locked in for a 12 hour period all to view the Super Bowl and eat American food, God Bless America!

We spent the majority of the day shopping and preparing our pseudo American meals. Four other girls and I made out first trip to Marjane which I can only describe as a small mall off random stores and a grocery store to beat all grocery stores. Basically Costco, Wall Mart, Target and Safeway combined, Moroccan style. We spent about two hours in the store looking around and searching for whatever makings we could find for our makeshift American food. I made chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and my roommate made "chili". The cookies turned out quite well, the only main ingredient missing was brown sugar. My host sister helped me make them and insisted on mixing with her hands an technique that proved to be much more efficient. We had to be at AMIDEAST by 8:30 exactly because the building would be locked from then until 8 the next morning. We were the last to arrive just in the nick of time. The night was magical. We immediately sat in a circle on the ground and devoured the food. Everyone beough something, we had chili, Mac and Cheese, homemade salsa, apple pie, chocolate cake, chips, candy, and more. Everything had a Moroccan taste to it and of course we ate it in the communal Moroccan style.

We barely gave ourselves a second to digest before moving into the classroom next door for an epic 2 hour dance party. No joke we did not stop dancing for 2 hours. Slowly we peeled off clothes and the room got hotter and hotter as we learned how to dance to Waka Waka (It's time for Africa!) and Single Ladies. We brought out classics like Baby got Back (which we all knew the words too) and Get Low. And we broke it down with come feel good moments of hair whipping and Indian dance. To put it simply we let loose with some funky moves with good friends in a classroom we normally study Islam and the West. Awesome.

Eventually we settled down, watched some 30 Rock on the porch, and finally figured out how to stream the Super Bowl half an hour into the game. The only live stream we could find was the

BBC coverage of the Super Bowl which we were all surprised to find. The stream failed about half way through and we resorted to having one the girls dads skype the Super Bowl coverage to us. We had made a mega bed in the study abroad room at this point and were all snuggled up to each other. Due to the combination of the warm mega bed and it being 3 in the morning I fell asleep shortly after halftime. I woke up only 30 minutes before class, a luxury I could get used to. Then I ran into my Arabic teacher, just coming our of the bathroom in my pajamas, something I could definitely live without. And so our magical night of American football and American food and dance parties for hours ended and school began again.

That's all I got for you tonight. Alas I am tired after just arriving home from a weekend in Fez which you will hear of next, hopefully not a week from now Insha'allah. Happy Valentines Day to all those I love, and that's a lot of people!

Laila Saida

double rainbow

I present to you the tale of my random and delightful week.

It all began Monday morning, as usual. I woke up extra tired from my long weekend trip. School went quickly and at 12:30 we all boarded a bus to Casablanca. We listened to a new "Morocco Party Mix" cd that we'd purchased in Chefchaouen. We arrived in Casablanca at the Women's organization, "Soliderite Feminine". It is an NGO that helps single mothers by supporting them, putting them through a 3 year program, and providing childcare. The program provides job training and a job in the businesses that the program runs, suchas a restaurant, Hammam, and Daycare center. We got a quick tour of the Hammam and then got to meet the amazing women who started the organization. Her name is Aicha Chenna and she is one of the first women activists of her kind in the Muslim world. She is a large 60 year old Moroccan woman with a contagious spirit for life. She told us the story of starting the organization and her struggles since while her son translated. Single mothers are quite taboo in Morocco and elsewhere anduntil some recent reforms their children where not even given names just called X. Now some things have changed but single mothers are still looked down upon. Aicha Chenna explained that it is a deep rooted struggle to change the ideology of the people in the ways they think about women. In most cases this means even changing how the women themselves think so that they believe that they can support themselves and live successfully without the support of a father of husband. She has gotten many death threats and much criticismfor her work, some equate helping single mothers to supporting prostitution. On one tv talk show Aicha was on recently the reporter was giving her a hardtime for being so bold so she poured her water bottle onto the table to explain that sometimes the ground is so dry that to make a change, get the water to penetrate, you have to flood it with water. She is a revolutionary! To top it all off we then got to got to the daycare center and play with some of the most adorable babies of my life. I latched on to a little boy with the longest eye lashes I have ever seen and thick curly dark hair. Or should I say he latched onto me, he chewed on my fingers the whole time with his toothing gums. A room full of sweet cared for babies with twinkling eyes can really make your day :)

Tuesday I woke up to a double rainbow outside my window:) what does it mean?

Wednesday was finally the first sunny dry day we had in a while. It was also the day that 9 of the AMIDEAST Cairo students flew into Rabat. If you haven't been following the crazy historic events taking place in North Africa right now go look it up! It started in Tunisia a few weeks ago when a poor fruit seller set himself on fire after his cart was taken by military officials. This event sparked a nationwide protest that led to the exile of president Ben Ali after 23 years of power. Then sure enough the citizens of Egypt who have long been on the verge of revolution erupted into million people protests in hopes to oust president Hosni Mubarak. What is now a full fledged revolution in Egypt has turned violent with police and military trying to keep protests down and government planted pro-Mubarak supporters fighting anti-Mubarak protesters.

Mubarak has yet to meet protesters demands and leave the country thus Americans have been encouraged to evacuate and many study abroad programs such as AMIDEAST have decided to end the program for now. So about half of the students chose to come to Morocco and they arrived Wednesday afternoon and we were able to meet them.

That night we had our first Intercultural Dialogue. Students from our group and Moroccan students get together to discuss topics of interested for a few hours about once a month. We decided on the topic of the internet, facebook, youtube, twitter, etc. The conversation proved quite interesting covering everything from privacy to popular youtube videos, from facebook stalking to dating and Islam.

Thursday was my first Arabic test and I totally aced it! Every night with my family this week we've been watching new coverage on Egypt. Friday came Insha'allah! After Arabic I went shopping with a new friend. We went to this store that we all call the second hand store although nothing is used just possibly taken from other stores?? Either way clothes are super cheap and I got some more cute clothes to supplement the frumpy clothes that I brought. For lunch we had a Cous Cous gathering at AMIDEAST to help welcome the new students. That night we all headed to Up Stairs again this time with almost our whole group and the new Egypt students. It was a fun, busy, crazy time and I finally made it home at midnight the latest I've come home since I've been here. I might noticed the slightest disproval of my host mother and I will be happy for the day when I can let myself in unnoticed with my own house key.

Safi, enough storytelling for now. Stay tuned to hear about our epic sleepover/lock-in at school on Super Bowl Sunday.

B'salama