A little bit about Marrakech

I had a great time in Marrakech, but it was slightly disappointing. It is known as the most touristy city in Morocco, and so I was expecting to be pretty busy all the time, seeing all the sights etc, doing lame touristy stuff and feeling good about it.

However, Marrakech's main tourist center was its medina, which was similar to the medina of Fes and Rabat except more stereotypically orientalist (and also slightly crazier). There is a huge square, called Djemaa el Fna where there are all sorts of things like snake charmers, people with monkeys, Berbers selling 'traditional potions' or telling stories. Basically what we associate with the Arab world in the 8th century. 

If you had never been to the Middle East before, it would have been completely astounding I think. I would have been completely content to spend 3 days in that square just seeing everything there was to see and probably would have been gushing about he experience, but unfortunately it was just more medina-y than the medinas of Fes or Rabat, so it wasn't nearly as much of a shock. 

That being said it was still a great trip. Marrakech has a lot of stuff to offer that the medinas of Rabat and Fes don't (like all of the things I listed above) and it was also nice to be out on our own with no rules of when we have to be back (one major complaint people have had with IES is that we are expected to be back by 10PM, which makes it hard to explore the city). We did see some cool sights like some palaces and whatnot. Also the hostel where some members of our group (not me) were staying was really, really cool and was owned by an awesome British guy. So we ended up spending a fair amount of time just hanging out there doing some team bonding.


Also despite sounding unenthusiastic about Djemaa el Fna, it was actually really awesome. Here are some pics:

This is a sheep's head.

Yes, that thing on the bottom is the ear. Yes, it's edible, but no, it does not taste good. 

Anyway I ate that

Probably won't blog until Monday

I'm in Marrakech. I will note that we ate breakfast in a cafe and I understood the news, which was talking about the Florida primaries. That was exciting.

Also I think my overall schedule here was somewhat unclear so:
I stayed in Fes for 10 days with one host family. Then I moved to Rabat to move in with my second and last host family. We are in Rabat for the rest of the time here, until we (possibly) visit Egypt for the last week. There are occasional excursions, both organized by IES and not organized by IES. This trip to Marrakech is not organized by IES, but later we will go to Spain for a few days, visit the desert for a few days (no idea what that entails), and visit a Berber village (also no idea what that entails). Those are all organized by IES. 

Even more things I do for fun

- Various cultural activities. A group of us went to a photo gallery which was kind of cool. We spent a long time trying to decide if a certain photograph was of an eye (it was) or a wave (what I thought and what it clearly looked like). A bunch of people also went to a Berber music concert, which I mention only because I didn't go there because of other cool things I was doing (not team handball)

- Hanging out and talking with other people in the program. I like the other people here! Cool. We spend time in cafes drinking sugary and pesticide-heavy mint tea and other cool things like that.

- Doing slightly cooler things with other people in the program. Today we played soccer on the beach (I mention because this is actually the first time I've played soccer since I broke my wrist and it was loads of fun) and this weekend we are going to Marrakech since the first 'quarter' is over and we have no organized excursion this Sunday.

- Hanging out with my host family. I do this a lot, but part of that is because, due to the fact that I've already had two host families, I've spent more time than would be expected in the "getting to know your host family" stage.

As my life goes on here in Rabat, I hope to spend more time in the "doing slightly cooler things with other people in the program" and "various cultural activities" areas.

What walking in the streets is like

When in the medina:
Hectic but not as hectic as in Fes. All of the streets are narrow, and even residential areas (i.e. not the market) have various food stands around where you can buy some fruit or something. A lot of the main streets in the medina are market streets, though, where they sell various stuff. Typically things are sold in sections, i.e. there's a food section, a clothing section, some touristy-items sections, etc. It's not neatly categorized though, there will be food items sold in the clothing sections and there are many sections of the same thing, e.g. there are a ton of food centers. The food sections smell amazing because there are spices out in the open and people are cooking street food which smells and tastes very, very good.

You can tell you're in the tourist section of the medina when people start following you and asking you what languages you speak. In general that's the only interaction I have with random people on the street unless I am specifically asking someone for directions or buying something. But basically they'll see that you're white and will then follow you and say "you speak french? english? russian? dutch? spanish?" etc. I generally just ignore them and they give up after a while. I feel really rude, but to be fair, they're really annoying. If you engage, they'll just talk to you for a while, not saying what they're getting at, and then offer to sell you drugs or give you a tour of the city. Also, they actually do know all of those languages (I think) because people in the group have said that they've said "yes" when someone asks them one of the less common languages; i.e., someone will say "yes, I do speak German" (in German) figuring that the person doesn't actually speak it, but then the person does. And it's sort of awkward at that point because now you have to talk to him. I'm only using a sample size of like 3 here though.

When I engage someone in conversation by asking for directions or trying to buy something, if the conversation is going to entail not just a few words (e.g. "how much is this, ok i want it") but something more substantial ("how do i get to this place") then they very often ask me if I speak french because clearly they think communication in french will be easier. But often enough we have the whole conversation in arabic and it generally works more or less.

Also, there are a lot of beggars. There is a beggar whom I always see right across from our house. There is another one or two on our street, which is about 100m long. There is rhetoric among middle/upper-class Moroccans (or just Rabatans?) that beggars aren't actually starving but are doing fine and just saving up money for a house. Or something, I'm not entirely clear on what the story is or where the idea comes from.

When you exit the medina it's more like Chicago. The biggest difference is honestly crossing the street, which is fun because there are no rules. Red lights do exist but they're really more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules so it always makes crossing the street an adventure. Also, there are some streets, like Muhammad V (the main avenue) which continues to have things for sale on the ground. For example, half of the sidewalk is taken up by people selling books. Another street has tons of paintings taking up half the sidewalk. 

This is my host brother, Adam

Il est mignon

More things I do for fun

Get lost and watch team handball, which is way more of a thing here than it should be.

What I do for fun

Mostly try to get un-lost and watch soccer. 

Moulay Idriss

This is a follow-up to my post on Volubilis.

Moulay Idriss is a town right next to Volubilis, where the person Moulay Idriss founded the Idrisid dynasty in the late 8th century, bringing Islam to the Maghrib. He died soon after, but his son, Moulay Idriss II, went on to found Fes somewhat nearby. Shown above is the town (it's very small). In the picture below, the building with the green pointed roof is the mausoleum of Idris I, accessible only to Muslims. People still take pilgrimages there today.

So all we really did after going to Volubilis was wander around this city and see the (outside of) the mosque and tomb. Neat stuff.

Night life

Note - this is mostly second-hand, from other people who have tried going to bars and whatnot.

There are basically 3 types of bars, as far as I can tell.
1) Male-only bars. There is no music but lots of guys hanging out and smoking cigarettes.
2) The same as above, but with prostitutes and music. A lot of guys in Fes said they tried to find good bars and this is all they found. They also said it was incredibly awkward.
3) Bars that are very 'Western', i.e. both men and women can enter, there is music, etc. Also incredibly expensive. I'm not quite sure how expensive "incredibly expensive" is though. I think ~$15/beer.

Alcohol is legal in Morocco but there is a strong movement that thinks that it should be illegal. As a result, drinking alcohol is stigmatized by the dominant social class. People who deviate from this are not poor people so much as very wealthy people, I think.

So in general there isn't much of a nightlife simply because of the stigma associated with alcohol. 

Food

Foods that I haven't eaten, or even seen, include hummus and falafel. I have been incredibly surprised that there is no hummus anywhere. How weird.
I have seen occasionally, but have not eaten, pita bread. People eat more substantial bread. Makes sense.

Today I ate spaghetti and pizza which was kind of funny. Yesterday I ate rice and milk for dinner which was also funny (seriously, just a plate of rice). This family clearly makes dinner as somewhat of an afterthought.. hah. It's always very simple stuff with few vegetables like... a plate full of rice or pasta.

Lunches on the other hand are... uh, better. For example today we had some really good chicken, tomatoes (they were spiced in a certain way so as to be absolutely delicious with bread, but I have no idea how exactly it was made), and a cauliflower thing.
I eat meat every day, which surprised me but in retrospect it shouldn't. Meat is simply really abundant here because of the sea and the general abundance of pastures and whatnot.

In general food is of lower quality than in Fes, because I think our host mom in Fes just spent a lot more time making food. 

Running

To answer some questions:
So far I've only run on the beach. There is sort of a path that one can run on, similar to but far lower in quality than Chicago's lakefront path. At some points I end up running on the beach itself, which is fine because the sand is packed enough.
Also, the stretch of beach that I run on is terrible for actually going to the beach because it's very rocky. I'm not sure where the best beach spots are but I've come across some decent points once or twice.
The other supposedly good place to run is a park in the city. I think it's about a mile around and it's where most people run.
Running is definitely a thing. It's not much of a thing, but people do it. On the beach I see a few people running, sometimes even in shorts (but a long-sleeved shirt, or pants and a short-sleeved shirt which is what I do regardless of temperature. Since I run on the beach with the wind, and in the morning, I don't get too hot). When I asked my host father "where to run outside, for exercise" he immediately understood what I meant and said I should go either to the park or the beach. He also offered to go with me to the park because he plays soccer there, but I declined because I didn't want to get up at 6:30AM (ha). This is in sharp contrast to Fes where my host mom simply didn't understand what I meant when I said that I wanted to "run outside, for exercise" and I certainly never saw anyone running (not once!)

Also, I forgot to say that on the second day after we arrived in Morocco, when we traveled from Rabat to Fes, at some point there was a cross country meet going on! With girls in shorts and everything. It was really cool. So there's some cross country culture here, but I would guess that it's less of a thing here than in the states (which is saying something).

Also I would say that the biggest difference comes to running in the city itself (aside from in that park). Running on the streets is really not done. This is unfortunate because generally I like running in new areas as a way to explore, but I can't really do that here. 

The beach

I live very close to the beach (it takes me about 4 minutes to run there). It's beautiful!
The second picture is of Rabat.

One weird thing is that there are tons of cemeteries on the beach. It's odd but nice in a way.

Things I've discovered

Last night I got terribly lost and had no idea where I was, but discovered that my darija is good enough that I can ask for directions and even kind of understand them!
Also, cabs are incredibly convenient (costs about 8DH = $1 to get pretty much anywhere within the city, and they REALLY help if you're lost! hooray)

Fried Cauliflower

Had this in Fes actually, but I'll post as much of the recipe as I know (aka the list of ingredients).
1) Cook the cauliflower almost all the way (boil, steam, whatever)
2) Mix together a bunch of olive oil, an egg, a few (possibly many) cloves of garlic, some (possibly a lot of) cumin, salt, a hefty chunk of parsley, and I think some amount of harissa but I'm not entirely sure about that. Generally the important principle is "something spicy".
3) Fry the almost-cooked cauliflower in that mixture for a short period of time.


If anyone tries this and it tastes good, then that means that my darija is improving! 

Couscous Part II

It's definitely a Friday / special occasions thing. And the KEY to making great couscous is to add the cooked-in-cinnamon-I-think-raisins. I think.

An important verb, found only in the imperative form

"kla" means "to eat," but one only needs to know the form "kul!" which means "eat!"
My host parents (especially mother) say "kul!" to me a lot, regardless of how much I may be eating at the time they're telling me to eat. I have been told (insistently!) to eat while currently chewing on large amounts of food.
The following is quickly becoming a common event:
I am eating food, possibly a borderline-rudely large amount of food. The mother looks at me, says "kul! kul!" and the dad then says "kul!". My mouth is full of food so I can't really say anything, I just kind of nod and chew a little faster. Then the dad puts more food on my plate, regardless of how much I've already eaten. Then he says "kul!"

Another example of this is the first night I was here, when they were serving us tea. They served me one cup of tea, which I gladly drank. Then they served me another while I wasn't looking, which I also gladly drank (the tea is really quite amazing). Then the mother asked me if I wanted more, to which I said "la shukrun" (no thanks). She insisted, and I said again, "la shukrun, la shukrun," to which she said "un petit peu!" and then filled up my cup all the way.

Bye bye, Fes!

I am now in Rabat. I feel like I hardly spent any time in Fes, and I will sorely miss it. It was lots of fun and I barely scratched the surface of it. I'll still write a few more blog posts about my time in Fes -- there are some things that I haven't gotten around to yet -- but those might have to wait. For now I'll quickly tell you about my first day in Rabat.
Our host family is really cool and active. Both parents speak French. We met them at the IES center in Rabat and drove to their house, which was a bit of a drive with traffic (which there was a lot of), although normally I'll be walking. There was a lot of conversation on the way there (sharp contrast with my experience in Rabat), in Arabic, French, and English. It was all very fast but enjoyable. At one point our host dad asked in Arabic, "Do you like sports" to which I replied that I liked football and American football. He got excited, said "real madrid vs Barcelona tonight! You real or barce?" to which I replied "Real". He got even more excited, said that he also liked Real Madrid, but he had a son who like barcelona.

Then his car broke down.

So after awkwardly waiting around for a few minutes, he said "Welcome to morocco, eh?" (very cheerfully) and we took a cab back home. There was a ton of traffic so at one point the cab just went into the other lane (with traffic going the other way, but there wasn't much traffic that direction). This was somewhat terrifying but admittedly saved us a huge amount of time. It was sort of awkward when other cars came directly towards us, though. It was a bit of a game of chicken. Also at one point we got so close to hitting a pedestrian that our host mom screamed.

Then we arrived at the house and met the sons (I'm not entirely sure how many there are, I think there are 4 but one of the 4 we met was actually a cousin, so...), all of whom, upon meeting us, asked us "real or barce?"
This was especially funny when it was the 4 year-old asking us this, as he was pretty adamant that real was the way to go. He also high-fived us at least 20 times. He really enjoyed high-fiving us, going back to his seat a few meters away, then running back to us and high-fiving us again.

Then we were watching TV before the game came on, but at some point the TV stopped working. So the spent about an hour trying (and eventually succeeding, in time for the game) to fix it. At about the halfway point the host dad again turned to us and said, "Welcome to Morocco, eh?" (still cheerful).

The house is incredibly nice. The living room is quite big (maybe as big as the apartment I was staying at in Fes) and there are 3 floors. I have no idea what's on the third floor, though, it might be nothing. But all the bedrooms are on the second floor. They have a really nice TV too, as well as a maid.
I have now discovered that living with maids is incredibly awkward because they do all of your chores for you  and you sort of just feel rude having this person do all of your work.

Lastly, although the house is very nice, and they have two bathrooms one with a normal toilet, none of their bathrooms have sinks. I'm kind of confused. Also the bathroom with a toilet doesn't have a door that closes which is sort of weird.


Finally, the answer to the question I posed is: The lines are for sliding doors.

Some less offensive ruins

On Sunday we went to Volubilis and Moulay Idriss.
Volubilis is these cool Roman ruins. 

That is the public bath. You sit in the indentations on the sides. I have no idea what the middle part is for.

Those are at the base of columns to certain buildings. The symbols let you know what structure it is. The first is the bakery and the second is the butcher. Pretty cool stuff.

That's a gate. You can also see how they had different styles of columns, some plain and some spiraled. 

There were also lots of mosaics like the one above, but honestly you might as well look at the wiki page for those. It was really sunny so it was hard to take good pictures.

And lastly...

Can anyone guess what those lines in the floor are for?

A wildly inappropriate picture

We walked around Volubilis, which are some really cool Roman ruins. I'll say more about them later, but for now...

That's how you know that room was the brothel.

Headscarves

When I see women in the streets, 100% of women over the age of 50 are wearing a headscarf, while maybe 25% of women under the age of 20 are wearing one. 

Climbed a mountain

https://plus.google.com/photos/101537118314665651162/albums/5697606329726638545
There's the photo album. Should be visible to everyone, tell me if it's not.
Left at about 10:45. We wanted to take a taxi to the base, but it wouldn't go that far (I think there are rules against certain taxis leaving the city) so it dropped us off... Very far from the base. As soon as we realized we would have to walk all that way we figured we had 0 chance of making it to the top. But we made surprising progress and then realized that we should be able to make it, and eventually we did! Hooray.
Mostly the pictures are just of really beautiful scenery. What amazed me the most is how many different views you get. On the one side is this lush greenery, agriculture, etc. Then it smoothly transitions into these cool sand hills. Crazy.

It was very sunny so a lot of the pictures are kind of bad quality (very light). I don't really know how to deal with that.. Tell me if you do, for future reference.

There was a road most of the way but at one point we were doing some climbing up on all fours action. That was fun. What was less fun was doing the same thing on the way down. 

(Pictured above is what we went down -- it took us about an hour!)

Another picture I want to highlight is the cutest girl of all time -- she must have been like 5 years old, but she was doing some serious shepherding. They were doing what she wanted them to, it was awesome.

Missing from the album is a picture of the mountain itself -- hah. Next chance I get, I'll take one and post it up here. 

Some events of the trip:

1) Constantly being worried that we were encroaching on people's property. This was especially the case when we went to ask random strangers for directions. But then you say salaam, labas (hi, how are you?) and they just say labas back (good -- this exchange is the Moroccan equivalent to "ca va?" "ca va bien") and you know you're fine. 

2) When we had to go down that steep cliff, there was a dog barking at us literally the entire time. Just a constant yap-yap-yap-yap for one hour straight. It was terrible.

3) Right after we descended, there was a donkey tied to a tree by one leg. It was constantly trying to get free! Every 2 seconds or so, it would try and move forward, realize it was stuck, get back into position, and then try again. It was very sad.

4) At the top, we met some people guarding the telecommunications towers. They were both in uniform and one spoke good French so we could communicate with them effectively. They were really cool and clearly had the greatest job of all time (sitting around in the mountains all day). Very friendly people.

That's about all I can think of for now. 

Today (Sunday) we went on a trip to see some Roman ruins and a cool village. I'll tell you about that sometime later though.

Drugs

Fes (and I assume other cities) has a huge drug problem. I very often get asked if I want to do drugs. Specifically, if I want to "try the pie before I die". Aside from being hilarious, it's also kind of depressing. According to Sofia, this happens to all men, not just tourists. I can guess that this is correct based on the fact that I get asked when I'm alone and don't look like a tourist and the fact that the women all say that they don't get asked to do drugs.

Couscous

Oddly, I've only had couscous twice now, once at a fancy meal in a hotel on one of the first days, and once just a few hours ago for another nice meal (because our host mother's two sons, and one wife, and a cute granddaughter who is ~2 yrs old came over). I think couscous is eaten really commonly, so my experience so far is probably anomalous.
But each time we've had it, there's an absolutely massive serving dish in the middle, with a ridiculous amount of couscous piled on it. Then on top of the couscous is all these vegetables/possibly meat. It ends up looking really elegant, and forms kind of a pyramid. Both meals were incredibly delicious (and fairly similar).
On top of the couscous were garbanzo beans, carrots, zuchinni, potatoes, raisins, onions (I think), and lamb. I think that's all, I might be missing something. There was also some sort of broth that you could pour over it.
I have no idea how she prepared any of the things I just mentioned. They all were flavored very heavily, but I'm not sure how. The raisins I think were boiled in a mixture containing cinnamon and honey (they were amazing). The carrots were also very sweet so I think they had been soaked in honey or something. Everything was very tender, so I think they had been stewing for a long while along with the lamb.

We all had plates but never used them and instead just ate out of the central dish. 

Doors

That's a door.

There are actually two doors, one larger one and one smaller one (you can see the two handles). Initially, the big one was for animals and the small one was for people. Then people stopped inviting animals into their houses, so they used the different knocks (which sounded different from each other) to differentiate who was knocking. If you were knocking and, if a woman answering the door had to be veiled, then you used the big knock. If she could answer the door unveiled (e.g. you were a member of her family), then you used the small knock.

Now you just do whatever you want.

As we (all 22 of us) were learning this, someone living in this house exited, looked at us oddly, then carefully locked his door and left. We continued staring at his door and talking about it in English.

Mint tea

I think this is a thing throughout much of North Africa, but mint tea is big here. Mint tea is green tea stuffed with mint leaves and a ridiculous amount of sugar. I love it. You drink it ALL the time. Supposedly in business meetings that go on for a few hours, people will be served like 20 glasses of tea (so you have to always ask for it without sugar or else you die).
I am averaging slightly over a glass a day. It's amazingly delicious. 

Something I learned in class today

People reading this may or may not know anyone with the names "Taha" (as in Taha Hussein) or "Yasin". I learned today that these names are Qur'anic: At the beginning of some chapters in the Qur'an, the letters "T H" or "Y S", or the full names "Taha" or "Yasin" are randomly inserted and nobody knows why. But some Muslims name their children that.
The context of this tidbit was someone suggesting that parts of Muhammad's revelation that people didn't understand may not have been written down (i.e., the compilers of the Qur'an may have thought that a certain revelation of Muhammad's was incomprehensible and therefore there was no need to record it). But they certainly wrote down even the random letters that nobody understands to this day.

My host mom

Spends a lot of time watching foreign soap operas dubbed into Arabic. It's awesome.

Fes

Fes is divided in three parts, the Medina (Fes al Bali, the old city, dating from ~800 AD making it the oldest Arab medieval city in the world), Fes Jdid (new Fes, founded ~1300 AD) and la ville nouvelle (french created). I have spent 100% of my time in the Medina, so that's what I'll talk about.

The Medina is crazy. The way I'd describe it is this: If you think of the movie Aladdin as a caricature of Arab life, clearly you've never been to Fes al Bali. It's really wild. There are no cars because the streets are too narrow (technically there are cars in the peripheries). People do ride motorcycles (more like mopeds) at scarily fast speeds (like... not that fast, but when you're always walking in basically a 4-foot wide alley that bends and turns and a moped is driving at you at 20mph it seems really fast). It's common to see people with mules carrying their goods to the market (which seems like it takes up about 80% of the city...)

Those are some pictures of the Medina. It looks kind of dead, or at least I thought it did. There just doesn't necessarily seem to be a lot going on. But I will try to disabuse you of that notion by showing you a few pictures.

Those are pictures of the souk (market). But it gives you an idea of what walking around the city is like; it's all hidden from up above because it's these tiny little streets with a million people walking. That being said the souk has a wildly different feel to it than the rest of the city. I'll talk more about that some other time.

My daily life so far

I've only had a 'schedule' for 3 days in Fes but I'll say some things about my daily life. First, things I don't do:
1) Go running. This is because I would get terribly, terribly lost, and also because Fes is not a city you run in. I'll describe Fes in the next post a bit more probably, but basically it is 100% impossible to run inside Fes and I don't know how to get out. I also don't know how to ask my host mother how to get out. I think this might be something that I'll try to do tomorrow.

2) Drink water. This is because I keep on not buying bottled water for no good reason. The tap water is unsafe in Fes, safe in Rabat. I would say I drink about a third to a fifth of the water I drank in Chicago. That will probably change soon. The main problem is I keep on not being thirsty until night time, at which point I get really thirsty (like now!) but don't want to go outside to find water.

3) Check enough of my email or of the news.

4) Communicate effectively with my host family.

Now's as good a time as any to describe my host family: There is a mother, who I guess is ~60 years old, whose name is Houriyya. She speaks no English or French, and seems to not understand me when I speak in correct formal Arabic, and definitely she never speaks to me in formal Arabic but instead in Darija, which is impossibly to understand. There is also an elder son, Toufiq, who works on a motorcycle all day (?) and speaks some French. But he always comes back very late, so I rarely talk to him. She has another son whom we have never met -- I think he's in the army -- and I know nothing about the husband. There are no pictures of the husband in the house. Touchy subject? Not gonna ask.

Now, for things I do. I'll start with meals.
Breakfast is always generally bread and jam. But 'bread' can also consist of pancake-like objects and other sort of pastries. It's a very French breakfast I think.
Lunch and dinner are both delicious and both always have a meat. This was a big surprise to me -- I thought not being vegetarian in Morocco wouldn't be a big deal, because they don't eat meat much, but I was wrong. We've had chicken, fish, and beef so far, and meat with every meal. It's also all really, really good. No couscous yet (this is odd). Lots of bread with every meal - the type of bread changes, but it's all good. Stews are really common and really good, and are called tajiin.
Our family eats with utensils, but it's unclear to me whether or not most Moroccan families do. Certainly using bread as a utensil is sort of accepted. We eat finger food a decent amount (i.e. today we had a really delicious pita sandwich thing, although it wasn't pita it was some other kind of delicious bread which I have no idea how to make but it was really good, and we also have had chicken and fish which were both bony enough that they had to be eaten with hands), so it's hard to tell. Other people in the program have said that they eat with their hands. I suspect it varies with wealth, and I think our family is well-off enough. It's hard to tell. The apartment is very nice.
Anyway, what happens when we eat is Dexter and I sort of awkwardly stand around and try to help, but she doesn't seem to understand that that's what we're doing some of the time. We hopefully manage to help place the dishes on the table. She almost always makes multiple side dishes which look complicated, like some delicious eggplant-tomato-lemon-thingy, some salad, another salad, the main meal, and two bowls of olives. Then we start eating. Dexter and I will point to an object, say 'shnou hada' (what is this) to try and learn some Arabic. Then she'll say a long sentence that we completely fail to understand. We give her a blank look and then she shortens her sentence to just telling us what it is. Then she points to everything else and quickly tells us what all of those things are too, so by the end of it I've forgotten everything because it's all just a string of consonants.
Example of some Darija (Moroccan) Arabic:
In Standard Arabic, "eggplant" is baadhnajaan (the "dh" sound means the "th" in "that" -- as opposed to the "th" in "math"). When I put 2 a's in a row, it's because the vowel is long which means you literally hold the vowel for twice as long.
In Darija, it's "bdnza". Literally the exact same, minus all vowels, and some letters are changed around ("dh" becomes "d", which is a common transformation from formal to colloquial, and "j" becomes "z" which is also common).
But hopefully that example helps you understand how I can be pretty reasonable at Standard Arabic but completely overwhelmed by Darija. If they said everything nice and slowly maybe I would have a chance. But it's too much too fast. Hopefully I'll get better.


We have class from 10-12 with Cornell Fleischer and Moroccan Arabic from 3-5 with someone who clearly thinks we're a lot dumber than we are, because the class moves incredibly slowly. After the first class we walk home (~5min walk, learned the way relatively quickly, which I was proud of) and eat lunch and do some reading, and after the second class we either come home, or hang around IES (the center) to get some work done, or go explore the city, which we did yesterday and today.

I'll probably try and write a post about Fes (with pictures hopefully?!) tomorrow or something.

Some things about blogging

OK the plan is to blog almost daily. So far I haven't because I haven't had internet access/time. This may or may not continue. I have this little internet stick thing that I can use whenever I want (I get a free week and can buy a free 3 months for ~35). The problem is it's pretty slow. There's also internet access at IES (where classes are) which is faster. But I've been spending most of my time trying to do things, instead of being on the internet. But there's lots of things I need to do on the internet, like getting pictures up on this blog (which takes a while, and is why I haven't blogged yet) and read the news and check my email. So.. we'll see how this works.