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