Week 3- New favorite food, halfway, and a (birthday) party: July 8th-12th

Monday we began our new text book, Al Kitaab, which gets into more grammar and vocab. I snagged some avocado juice after school and then headed home.  I had picked up the cold that everyone else had over the weekend so it was good to spend a night in.  

Tuesday I discovered a new favorite food! There I a type of bread in morocco called raif- it's a basic flour, water and butter bread cooled on a griddle.  In the old medina you can buy tomato raif- it's got onions and tomato and is delicious! Not to mention it only costs 3 dirhams (about 38 cents).  

Wednesday the tenth was significant for two reasons: it marked the halfway point of my trip as well as the beginning of Ramadan.  Basically during Ramadan everyone fasts between sunrise and sunset, eating two big meals at night.  The meal just after sunset is called Iftar and consists of dates, prunes, milk, juice, various meat pastries, raif, khobz (bread), and different kinds of Moroccan sweets. Iftar is announced both from the minarets as well as on tv. I spent my first Iftar in the old medina at my host grandmother's apartment.  

Beginning Thursday we started eating breakfast at Qalam- I have no complaints because it's always delicious.  This means none of our host families have to get up for us in the morning during Ramadan. After classes we met a woman, Emily, who works for American Councils, one of the organizations involved with the NSLI-Y  application process. We walked around the ruins of an old mosque called Hassan Tower and the showed her around the old medina. I then went home for the night because I still wasn't feeling too hot.  

Friday the 12th was an early morning- I was at Qalam before 7 to help Jack ( who incidentally is from Concord Mass) bake a cake for our other friend Emily's 17th birthday.  With the help of some of the women who work in the kitchen, we had a chocolate cake out of the oven by 8. After class we had "cinema club" which left us more confused about Moroccan films than we had been going in.  I'm still not sure what the movie was about.

That evening was the graduation and party for the group who had just finished a session at Qalam. The was a lot if food and music.  We took the opportunity to give Emily her birthday cake (candles and all!). 

It was nice to get in bed that night knowing we didn't have to get up rediculously early the next morning.  

Chefchouen & Tangiers: July 6th-7th

We woke up bright and early Friday the 6th and after breakfast at Qalam, we were on the road.  After a four hour car ride we arrived in the beautiful town of Chefchouen. Chouen, as the locals call it,  is nestled in the Atlas mountains.  Its streets are almost exclusively pedestrian because of how narrow and sloped they are (not to mention the occasional stairs).  The houses themselves are also beautiful- they are all bright blue and white and are reprinted every year during the month of Ramadan.  

After lunch, we went to a youth center where we played chess and drew pictures with a group of young kids.  Afterwards we met up with a tour guide who showed us around Chefchouen.  Our tour began with a walk up to what we were told was the oldest mosque in Morocco.  It sits on a hill overlooking the town.  We then headed back into the town and explored on foot.  We visited the old Kasbah (fort) and its surrounding gardens within the city.  There are not a lot of specific attractions or things to do in Chefchouen - the city itself is the attraction.   

The next morning, exhausted from all of Saturdays walking, we had a very sleepy 3 hour ride to the coastal city of Tangiers.   Tangiers lies on the strait of Gibraltar with views of both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.  The city itself is not particularly exciting, but the beach is nice.  We spent the morning on the beach, relaxing and swimming.  The water was actually surprisingly cold.  We were driven into a cafe by high wind after a few hours.  By the time lunch rolled around everybody was a bit miserable- we had one throwing up, three others with colds, and everybody else just generally exhausted.  After lunch we took a walking tour of the city - highlights include Tennessee Williams' house, the Kasbah (theres one in pretty much every city), and views of Spain.   We were all happy to get back on the bus and sleep, although only for a short time- 30 minutes outside of Tangiers is the cave of Hercules. Apparently Hercules spent a night there before one of his twelve impossible tasks.  The cave is actually more of a tunnel leading down to the ocean.  The big highlight was watching the locals dive off the cliffs and into the ocean (I'll try to get a picture of this up soon).  

It was then time to head back to Rabat- everybody was quite exhausted and ready to sleep.  

The view of Chefchouen from or hotel room balcony.

Looking out at Chefchouen from the old mosque.  

Week 2, 4th of July, and exploring Rabat: July 1st-5th

The week started of pretty slow because we were all exhausted from our trip to Erg Chebbi.  I spent most of my afternoons exploring Rabat.  

Monday I had dinner at my host grandmother's house in the old medina. There are two Americans, both college students, living there. It was a nice change of pace to be speaking English at dinner as oppose to just French and Arabic.  

I spent Tuesday evening exploring the "new medina" neighborhood with fiends. We went to a honey festival sponsed by the department of agriculture on the main drag, Mohammed V.  The outside of he tent had a large picture of the king on a tractor.  You find a picture of the king in just about every building in the country. There is a whole gallery devoted to him on Mohammed V- pictures of him shaking someones hand, sitting, standing, smiling, frowning, eating- you can even get a picture of the king jet skiing.  Anyways, at the honey festival we tried about 8 different types of yummy local honey.  After that we got juice (juice is big in Morocco). The avocado juice is delicious! 

Wednesday marked our final day of learning letters! We started working on numbers and more vocab. I visited the national library- it' huge and quite nice but very research oriented- if there was a fiction section then we didn't find it.  Books in different languages are all together- everything is organizes by topic.  They appear to use the Dewey decimal system, although the sections were not in exactly the right order.  In the evening we walked around the river bank.

The Fourth of July in Rabat came as a bit of a surprise- without all of the red white and blue it's a bit more inconspicuous. Some of the Americans at Qalam organized a potluck barbecue complete with burgers and watermelon.  Most of us NSLIY kids then headed out to the cliffs on the ocean for sunset.

On Friday we experienced a typical instance of lack of clarity- one schedule said we were watching a movie, another suggested ping pong, and a third listed literature club. Naturally we went paintballing!  We've become pretty accustom to nothing happening on time or as planned.

Looking down the river aroun sunset.

Our celebration was indeed infiltrated by several Brits. 

Most of our group by the ocean on the 4th.  

The Dunes of Erg Chebbi: June 28th- 30th

Apologies folks- I've been quite busy and I haven't exactly been great about keeping up with this.  

I'm going to split the last couple weeks up into a few different posts.

Last time I posted we were about to head out for the Sahara desert.   

That Friday afternoon we all piled into a 15 passenger van accompanied by a driver, a teacher from the school, and William, our resident director.  We drove about 4 hours south and west to Midelt. About 3 hours in we stopped to see the monkeys that lived in the mountains. We spent the night in Midelt in a very nice hotel. After an early morning breakfast we were back in the van heading south. We made a quick stop to pick up turbans for our desert excursion.  After a stop at a fossil factory and dinner, we were finally en route to Merzouga.  From Merzouga we departed by camel into the desert.  Riding a camel is not quite as comfortable as it appears- they're considerably wider than horses.  I (in contrast to orhers in my group) find camels to be quite majestic.  After a 2 hour camel ride, we arrived at the Berber camp within Erg Chebbi. Despite the oncoming darkness and general hunger, all 15 of us made the climb up a large dune before dinner.  The stars were not too much to talk about because it was a bit overcast, but it was fun to mess aroun inn all the sand.  Dinner was tajines and tea.  That night we all choose to sleep outside (as opposed to the stuffy camel hair tents).  All was well until about 3am when we were roused by one of the Morrocans. At this point the wind was whipping and lightning was illuminating the dunes around us. As we pulled our mats into the tents it started to rain.  Storms like this one are very rare in the dry season.  We were woken again at 5am to make the trek back to Merzouga. Although nobody enjoyed getting up early, we at least avoided the worst of the heat.  Once in Merzouga we started the long drive back to Rabat- who doesn't love a good 10 hour car ride?  Exhausted, we finally arrived back at Qalam center around 10pm. 

The view from somewhere on the road during our long car ride.

Making friends with the locals.

In Merzouga, all turbaned up and ready to go.

Saturday night's dinner- meat filled bread thing (can't say I remember what it's called). 

My very friendly camel whom I named Yom, meaning "day" in Arabic.  My Arabic name is Leila, meaning "night".

Erg Chebbi at its finest.

Rafa, third from the left wins for most casual camel riding. Oliver, second from the left, takes the prize in camel yoga. The rest of the people on this train were a group of Slovaks. 

Pictures!

Finally was able to get some photos uploaded!  Leaving soon to go to the Sahara.

If you want to see all of my photos, click here 

https://plus.google.com/photos/102152952276429730458/albums/5894179368755882449?authkey=CMfk4pzomrPukwE

I'll try get some captions on them next week!

Here's the group all ready to go in New York!

This is the school where I am currently taking close in both classical Arabic and darija (Moroccan Arabic)

This is on the beach in Rabat- lots of great sunsets!

Home, Sweet, Home

As of right now I do not have internet with my host family- I will try to write something about each day and then post them when I have internet at the Qalam center (my school). 

Friday June 21st

We have finally arrived in Rabat itself!  We visited a different school where we met about 30 other NSLI-Y scholars who were in Moorroco with Legacy International (we are here through I-EARN).  There we received a briefing from one of the US embassy security officers- moral of the story was don't buy drugs and don't follow strangers into dark alleys and you'll be fine.  After some tea we headed over to our school, the Qal center where we had a lovely couscous for lunch followed by a tour of the city by bus.  We visited the Old Medina and the Oudayas.  We then went back to Qalam where we met out host families!  I am currently staying with a young married couple outside of the old medina.  We are spending the weekend with our host families and then start classes on monday.  

Saturday/ Sunday June 22-23

I took the train to tangiers with my host mom and met up with one of her friends and he friend's daughter, Radia. We got henna and enjoyed the beach view.  Sunday night I met up with a couple friends and we explored the old medina- the medina is essentially a walled in maze with vendors covering every inch of space. It is one of the oldest parts of the city.  I live about a 15 minute walk from the medina.  

Monday June 24th

I had to wake up early (7) to get to class on time.  I met up with two other students and together we took a petit taxi to school. There are two kinds of taxis in Morocco- petit taxis which take 3 passengers and will go to a specific address and grand taxis which hold 6 passengers and follow a specific route.  

We had our first class- learning Arabic is a bit like learning to read all over again- the alphabet and sounds are completely different- picture a kindergarten level phonics class at an accelerated pace.

After class we hung out at Qalam center and then took the tram home- the tram is very clean an definitely the most comfortable way to get around.

Tuesday, June 25th

Today we had our first class in darija.  The majority of Arabic I am learning is modern standard Arabic (MSA). MSA is used in news, government, and other more official things.  Darija is the Moroccan dialect of Arabic- every Arab country has its own version of Arabic - many are as different from each other as French and Spanish.  

Currently the computers at Qalam aren't working so I can't post any pictures yet (I'm writing from my iPod) but I will upload them as soon as I can! 

Cheers,

Laurel

In Morocco!

We are currently at what I believe to be an out of session boarding school in Rabat's sister city, Sale.  Despite having been here for only 2 full days, we are already learning quite a bit of Darija (the Moroccan dialect of Arabic). The food here is delicious and the people very friendly and helpful. Every meal turns into an informal Arabic lesson with whoever is sitting with us.  We have eaten several tajines, a traditional Moroccan meal with different meat and veggies cooked in a beautiful cone-lidded ceramic dish.

Tomorrow we will be visiting the US embassy in Rabat and meeting our host families with whom we will be staying from then on.  At some point tomorrow we will also be getting a tour of the city and visiting the school where we will be studying Arabic.