Pictures of the building I have class in every day

Welcome to the Medina

In the Medina the streets are narrow and plentiful. Streets range in width from about a wingspan to wide enough to drive a car down. The building tower on each side, preventing you from seeing any distinguishable landmarks to help you navigate to wherever it is you are heading. All you see is painted walls lining each side of you up to about 4-5 ft. where it goes white all the way to the top. Its the kind of place where you leave your house and head with determination in one direction, lets say east. You take all the necessary turns and straightaways to keep going east, and after 5 minutes you end up back at your door, having approached your house from the west.

I found the directions I first wrote down to find my way from my school to my house, both in the Medina. I found them amusing. It will help give you an idea of how you mentally keep tabs of where you are in the Medina

1) Take a right out of the CCCL (School)
2)Take first right
3)Left at 4-way
4)Left at brown door
5)Right at black
6)Left at archway
7)Right at yellow-gray
8)Left at black and red door
9)Go straight...ish
10)striaightish
11)Right off of bigger street

...Completely useless directions in any other context but here. You can only pick one thing to notice about each turn or change in direction you make, mentally label it somehow, and then hope that when you take that route again it sparks your memory. Although at this point I am starting to get used to it and can get to school and back by instinct.

Peace

1 day in Marrakech, 1 day in Essaouira, and one day throwing up

Yesterday I got back from a trip to the famous city of Marrakech, and the not quite as famous city of Essaouira. Marrakech was wild. There is a famous part of the city called Jamaa Iffna. This is the square in the city where snake charmers, monkey handlers, story tellers, musicians, fruit stands, and acrobats set up shop and pull in the starry eyed tourists like myself. As soon as I entered the squared I was flanked by two monkey handlers who proceed to put one monkey on each arm, and then each shoulder. I was ok with it, it was one of those "what the heck I'm in Marrakech things". What I wasnt ok with though was how much he charged. They wanted 200 dirhams per monkey. Outraged, I refused and me and this guy argued for decent amount of time. After seeing he would budge, I payed him 100 dirhams angrily and left. After a few minutes he found me again, apologized, and gave me 50 dirhams back.
At night in Marrakech I sat around as Moroccans would tell stories around lantern light in the middle of the square. A crowd would gather and listen. It was in Darija, so I didnt understand but it was still entertaining to watch and guess what the story might be about. Another cool experience was sitting around a circle of musicians and just soaking in the music. It was pretty incredible.

Essaouira was a more laid back city, situated right on the Atlantic. Essaouira's clame to fame is that Jimmy Hendrix threw a concert there once. It was a nice change from hectic Marrakech. Essaouira is a cool city (temperature wise) known for its persistent wind.

As the title says, I spent a day throwing up. I'm assuming it was something I ate in Marrakech or Essaouira, but on the bus ride back to Rabat, I knew something wasn't right in my stomach. I nearly made it back before pulling over to lose my lunch. I spent a day throwing up, feverish and achy, but now I'm feeling good as knew.

Food

This is the description of food that I promised earlier. During Ramadan, everyday at sunset (around 6:45 here) the call to prayer goes out and everyone can break their fast. You break the fast with a traditional meal called the ftur. Typical of a Moroccan ftur is a bowl of dates. I discovered that I love dates and will eat lots of them back in the states. By the bowl of dates, you'll find a bowl of shbakia. This is a fried thin pastry that is folded around itself many times. It's coated in honey and sprinkled with sesame seeds. Then you move on to the eggs. The eggs are hard boiled and you take one, dip it in salt, then in cumin, and eat it plain. After the eggs you make your way to the bread. There is bread with leaven and bread without. The bread with leaven you use to dip in your soup and as a spoon to pick up other food. You do this with three fingers on your right hand only (dont use the left). You pinch the bread between your thumb and 1st and 2nd finger and scoop things up with the bread. The unleavened bread you pick up, fold in on itself, and eat it plain, or you can take a wedge of a pretty mild cheese and spread it accross. In front of you, during the ftur, you will find a soup, harira. It has a little spice to it. Its a kinda thick broth with chicken and chick peas and other things I havent identified. You eat this with a spoon, but you hold the spoon a specific way.

After the ftur tea, coffee, and pastries will be brought out. The mint tea is delicious, and a staple of Moroccan culture. It is always mint tea. It is served in smallish tea glasses with alot of sugar. It is a sweet drink and doesnt taste much like the tea I am used to in America. The coffee is similar, lost of tea and milk. As you sip your tea or coffee often pastries will be brought out. These are fluffy pastries, with a sweet dough, and with a little bit of chococalte lining the bottom of the pastry to add a little sweetness. Either this our you will find pastries with a little bit of lemon jelly running through the middle.

After they eat the ftur at 6:45ish and then the tea and pastries. Then around midnight you eat another meal. This meal isnt like the ftur. It will be something like chicken and potatoes which you communally eat with your right hand off the center of the table. Then after that they eat another meal around 3:00 am, right before dawn when they have to fast again. This is another meal like the midnight meal. Then when I wake up at 8:00, Mama makes me another breakfast! So basically I dont remember what hunger feels like. Since they eat during the night during Ramadan, they sleep throughout the day until late afternoon. This has been hard for me to sustain because I have school early. No complaints though. The food is great.

Peace

Greetings from Morocco

So I’m on my third day now in Morocco. Its hard to figure out what to describe to you. There is so much to describe. Lets start with my hotel room. My hotel room, which I share with two other people from my trip, looks out on the Medina, the old, pre-colonial, neighborhood of the town. The Medina is surrounded by a giant, fortress-like, sand-orange wall. There are arched doorways in the wall that lead you into a market, or, suq. There, street vendors line the already small street on either side. They sell all kinds of things: shoes, DVDs, fruit, bread, fish, instruments, clothes, everything… You will constantly run into the smell of cooking tajines and Moroccan spice. Music rising out of the Medina can be heard through my bedroom doors until the early hours of the morning.
The place where I will be taking classes, starting Monday, is inside the Medina. It is called the CCCL. You walk down narrow alley ways with white-washed buildings on your right and left, take a couple turns and you are there. The building the CCCL is in is phenomenal. There are so many intricate mosaic designs on the floors, walls, lining stairwells, basically everywhere. The roof of the building gives you a panoramic view of the city, which is huge. Its basically buildings in some shade of white, seemingly stacked on top of each other as far as the eye can see. Its really beautiful.
We arrived in Rabat in the middle of the month of Ramadan. During Ramadan Muslims fast from almost everything (drinking, eating, and smoking) during the daylight hours. Things are relatively calm during the day, as people are in a more restful state. You wont find anyone eating or drinking on the streets during the day, so when we eat or drink, I do so inside somewhere. But when the sun sets and the call to prayer is sounded, everyone eats. Restauarants set food out on tables, and people will come and sit by the food for 20 minutes or so before the fast is broken. Then when the call to prayer goes out, they all start eating what is infront of them. So during the night hours here, the city is alive with people until the wee hours of the morning. They then wake up around 4:30 am and have a big meal before the sun rises. To give you an idea of how much food is eaten, one of my academic directors said that in the month of Ramadan, Moroccans consume 1/3 of the amount of food they eat for the whole year. 1/3 in one month!
Being in Morocco is very different than anything I have experienced before. Adjusting will definitely take some time, and may be hard at times, but will be well worth it.

Masalaama