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.

Desert Solitaire

My first encounter with some camels.

Caravan into the desert.

The camp where we spent the night.

Quality bonding time with my camel, who I somehow forgot to name...

Sahara!

Sahara!

 

 

 

 

 

This weekend I had the great opportunity to spend the weekend traveling down south and into the Sahara. After another long week of Darija class, we left directly from school and boarded two small buses for a seven hour ride.  Now, as unenjoyable as  a seven hour bus ride sounds, imagine a seven hour bus ride where air conditioning consisted of a few puffs of air and a mix CD composed of Celine Dion, Johnny Hallyday and Hotel California being blasted the entire time.  The one consolation was getting the chance to observe the diversity that lies within Morocco's geography.  As we left Fez, we passed through the beautiful forests and mountains of Ifrane, before heading further south to what felt exactly like driving through Arizona or New Mexico, with high mountains and sparse terrain.  The windy and steep roads can only be described as beautifully terrifying, as our driver seemed to think that the best way to traverse them was in the center of the lane going what felt like a hundred miles an hour.  Through the blasting music, the curving roads and the terrifying driving, we finally arrived at the hotel. We were greeted with men playing Berber music as well as delicious dates. The hotel itself, which was decorated to look exactly how people would picture Morocco, was in reality, nothing like the Morocco I have come to know and love.  Stepping into the hotel, I immidiately realized that this hotel was designed with tourists in mind, and although beautiful, I had never felt so far away from Morocco. 

Now, all this aside, the hotel had great rooms and two amazing swimming pools.  After four weeks in the heat and congestion of Fez, a swimming pool was a welcome relief.  We were so eager to swim, we immidiately changed into swim suits, ate dinner and headed straight for the pool before collapsing into our comfortable beds around 11.

Saturday morning we woke up with quite a bit of free time, so once again I went swimming.  Afterwards we boarded back on the bus, and immediately the same mix CD began to play, leaving Celine Dion songs I had never heard stuck in my head for the next two hours.  We arrived at another hotel, where we dropped off our stuff and prepared for our excursion into the Sahara.  I have never road a camel before in my life and I was expecting at least same kind of instruction before we left.  Instead, one of the guides pointed at me, pointed at a camel, and said 'get on'.  So, putting on my bravest face I climbed onto the camel.  It was sitting down, and really did not look that big.  Immediately after I got on, the camel began to rock and I clenched the small, metal handle, and held on for dear life as the camel first lurched forward, lifting up his back legs, then sharply threw me backwards as the front legs followed.  A little warning might have been nice, but I was up and I was staying up there for the next two hours.  Everyone warned me that camels were mean and smelled bad, I experienced neither of those, however they are extremely uncomfortable to ride.  After the first five minutes, the excitement of riding a camel began to wear off, and my legs and butt began to fell the pain.  The other thing about camels is they don't move fast and the Sahara although beautiful, is just sand after sand after sand...Truth be told, I was extremely happy to arrive at the camp and get off the camel.

The camp where we were staying is at an oasis, so there is a well for drinking water.  There was no electricity and the bathroom (which did have actual toilets, just no means to flush them) was located outside the camp and slightly difficult (actually impossible) to find without a flash light.  We all immediately settled in and took in the beauty of the night sky. I have never seen so many stars in all my life.  The rest of the night consisted of table discussions over tea, a nice dinner, and music performed by the guides.  We then pulled out our little mattresses from the 'tents' and spent the night sleeping under the stars.

The next morning we awoke around 5:30 to watch the sunrise.  Conversations were pretty much at a minimum, as we were all without breakfast and it was 5:30 in the morning...After the beautiful sunrise, I realized it was time to get back on the camel for another two hour ride back to the hotel.  It somehow seemed to go faster, and it was fun hearing all of the names of the camels (from Barack Obama to Michael Jackson).  We got back to the hotel around 8:30 and had a buffet breakfast waiting for us (which included cereal, a welcomed change from my usual bread, butter and jam that I have every morning). After breakfast was a quick shower (to get all the sand and camel stench out) and we boarded the bus for the ten hour bus ride back to Fez. 

This bus ride too seemed to go by quicker than the ride out.  There were a lot of different trivia games played, ranging from twenty questions to naming capital cities.  It became apparent that the bus was full of nerds when the answers to the 20 question game consisted of Rangoon,Venus Flytrap and Stephen Hawking...

As soon as the bus arrived in Fez, I went straight home and went straight to bed.  I don't think I have ever been so exhausted in my entire life. The experience though, was truly once in a lifetime, and was well worth the lack of air conditioning, Celine Dion play lists and the fact that I am still sore (3 days later).  It was also a good reminder that my time in Fez here is ticking away, as I will be moving to Rabat in two weeks to finish the rest of my language study.  Oddly enough, Fez has started to feel like home.  I am finally getting to know my way around, speak enough of Darija to communicate at the most basic level, and even now believe that no meal is complete without bread and coffee must have at least two sugar cubes and be 3/4 milk.  Although I am ready to start the next chapter of this adventure in Fez (and hopefully start working with some immigrants) there is still a lot I need to see and do in Fez and will use my next two weeks wisely.