a good beach read

 View from my balcony in my new apartment in Rabat.

To summarize this last weekend in a few paragraphs would be impossible, it feels as though I crammed about a years worth of experiences, emotions and events into one weekend. To begin, I no longer live in Fes.  Friday was more last day living in my home stay, and parting early Saturday morning was a lot more difficult than I had expected it to be.  Living with a family was a truly invaluable experience; I learned so much about Moroccan culture and got a jump start on my Darija.  However, after six weeks I was definitely ready to return to a life of independence, and left Saturday morning to finish the rest of my language study in Rabat. 
Early Saturday morning I said goodbye to my home stay Mom, but not before she gave me a really kind parting gift of a keychain with the symbol of Khamsa on it (supposed to keep away the Evil Eye).  I left my old apartment in Fes and arrived at the train station and rode the three hour ride to Rabat.  On the train ride I met a lot of foreigners traveling, some from Australia, others from Canada.  Near the end of my ride a Moroccan woman sat down next to me and we started to converse.  It was in a sort of Darija-French language, where I spoke French and inserted the few Darija words I knew in.  We began talking about the upcoming holiday, Aid el -Kabir, and she of course asked me if I had a place to celebrate.  I am not Muslim, and she knew this, and when I told her I didn't have any plans, she insisted that I come over and spend it with her and her family.  She was so insisted that she wrote down her number and address and took my phone number as well.  Aid el-Kabir is one of the biggest holidays in the Muslim faith, in a way it could be compared to Christmas for Christians in the sense that it is a very important time for family.  The history of the holidays dates back to the story of Abrahams willingness to sacrifice his son for God.  Typically in Morocco, each family slaughters a sheep and eats it for about three days.  The woman was describing to me how for breakfast the second day,  you eat all parts of the animals head.  This encounter is a great example of how generous and welcoming the Moroccan people can be.  I could never imagine riding a train from Baltimore to New York and having someone invite me over for dinner, let alone a major holiday. 
Upon arriving in Rabat, I immediately hoped in a taxi and headed off to my new apartment and to meet my new roommate.  My new roommate is a Fulbrighter from last year who is staying here till February to finish his research.  The apartment is located in l'Ocean, and as you can guess by the name, it is right on the water.  In fact my room has a balcony that overlooks the ocean.  The view alone makes the apartment worth it.  After I got settled in, I ran all around Rabat picking up the rest of my belongings. I had four boxes at the Fulbright office and a bag at another Fulbrighters apartment.  This was excellent practice with speaking Darija as cab drivers are often shocked that not only am I speaking Arabic, but I am speaking Darija. After gathering all my belongings together, I had only a small amount of time to unpack as this weekend was the first annual Pot Luck at our directors house and there were around six other Fulbrighters coming in from Fez to attend and stay in my apartment.  The Pot Luck was a welcome break from adjusting to life in Morocco.  Everyone brought a dish so there was bean dip, pasta, all kinds of salad, banana bread and even gluten-free chocolate (I made guacamole).  The night was a great opportunity to catch up with all the Fulbrighters and hear how everything was going.  Sunday morning we all slept in and then went out to a great brunch at a French restaurant about a thirty minute walk from my apartment. 
Monday morning however, it was back to Darija class.  I am now enrolled at a new language school in Rabat that is unfortunately, a thirty minute bus commute from my apartment.  Currently, I have class from 2-6 every day and private tutoring for an hour Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  The class from 2-6 however, only has three people in it (including myself) from 2-4 and two people in it from 4-6.  This is such a great exposure to Darija, as I am always participating in class, but it is only Tuesday and I am exhausted.  Between the commute and the class time, its a lot.  However, this is the time during my grant where my sole focus is on learning the language so it makes it easier to manage my time.  Plus, the school has free, unlimited Moroccan tea throughout the day which helps keep me going.
Between starting at a new school, learning my way around a new city and cooking on my own a lot of changes have been going on.  There is also the matter of trying to shop and cook meals.  Morocco is set up, where there are groceries stores, but there are also stores that only sell eggs, little shops that sell all kinds of packaged foods and of course fresh bread, and then there is an incredible fruits and vegetables market right next to my house.  You can also always find fresh fish on the street.  As great as this sounds, and it is great, it can be very overwhelming as well.  Trying to learn what the right prices are and how many kilos you need can be hard in English, let alone in Arabic.  Tonight, I settled for the easy option of buying two eggs and bread (as I had a lot of left over vegetables from making the guacamole).  In total, my two eggs costs 2 Dirham and my bread costs around 1 Dirham for a total of 3 Dirham or around 36 cents.  Needless to say, a very cheap dinner.  This is easily contrastable with my Sunday brunch at the cute French restaurant which cost around 110 Dirham (for a salad and tea) which is around $13.50.  The key point is that in a city like Rabat, there can be such huge differences in prices and it becomes a manner of finding a good balance.  I am attempting to do this, while moving into my apartment, learning Darija and of course learning my way around Rabat.  My mind constantly feels at a loss and I think I've gone through every single emotion in the past five days. 
In the end, my move to Rabat has been great so far.  I am just happy to feel settled (at least until January) in one place, and I can't complain that the place is located on the ocean.  Waking up every morning and looking out on the water has been a great motivator and kept me calm throughout the moving process.