souk

Ever since Toubkal, we've been hanging out with the guys pretty much all the time. Thursday, we all went down to the beach with the drums and frisbee and hung out for a few hours. We had wrestling matches in the sand (which Olga pretty much dominated) and then went swimming in our clothes because none of us had brought bathing suits. Afterwards, we went over to their house for dinner, cooked by Hicham, and we hung out there for the whole night. The next night, Hicham cooked again (couscous) and we played truth or dare, which is probably my least favorite game ever, but it was still pretty hilarious. It's good to feel like I have friends and a life here in Rabat. I seriously wish I could be here longer than just one more month.

This morning, Nouh (my friend/drum teacher) took Olga, Caitie, Gabriel, and me to a souk about an hour away by bus. He needed to buy horse skin for the head of a djembe that he made. I didn't realize that he would actually be buying raw skin, still with the hair and everything fresh off a horse. When we got there, there were hundreds of animal carcasses hanging up in the sheds, and piles of the skin all over the place. Men were dragging fresh, bloody skins across the ground and throwing them into the piles. It was impossible to avoid stepping in puddles of blood because it was everywhere. Definitely enough to keep me from eating red meat for a while. Despite how gross it was, I'm really glad I saw it. After that, we walked around the souk for a while and did some second hand shopping.

Toubkal

This weekend, I climbed Toubkal-- the tallest mountain in northern Africa. I went with Olga, Sarah, Caitie, Romain, Roman, Gabriel, Hicham, Rachid, and Lucas. With all those people, there were a lot of personality clashes and some fights, but it ended up being a really fun weekend regardless. I rode their in a car with Hicham, Rachid, Olga, and Romain while everyone else took the train. On the way, we stopped in Marrakesh and got some snails and pig's head from the vendors in the main square. It was kind of weird eating the pig while it's full head was sitting right in front of me, but I guess it's good to know exactly what you're eating, right?

We stayed in a hostel in Asni that night and left in the morning to start hiking. It took about 4 and a half hours to reach the refuge, where we stayed that night. I thought the hike up was fairly difficult and tiring, but I realized after the next day that the first day was nothing.The hike from the refuge to the peak of Toubkal was extremely, extremely difficult. In fact, only 5 out of the 10 people who went on the trip with us even made it to the top. Almost everyone got altitude sickness, or was too tired to continue, so they turned back. I was actually the only girl who made it! If I had been alone, though, I probably would have given up in the middle of the mountain and not wanted to move because it was so hard and scary. Coming down was way worse than going up because the rocks kept sliding from under me and it was impossible to keep balanced. The view at the top and the feeling of accomplishing it was worth it though. I had a lot of fun hiking and am really glad I did it, but I would definitely never, ever do it again. Hicham, Rachid, Sarah, Lucas, and I stayed at the refuge again that night and hiked down in the morning. The third day was a lot of fun because we had all actually slept and didn't feel rushed to get anywhere. On the drive back, we stopped at a cooperative for argan oil where we saw how the women make the oil and got to sample some.

Tuesday, Nadia, Monica, and I had an info session for our project at AIESEC. It went fairly well, I guess, but it was difficult to do what we had planned because there were way more people than we were expecting. Afterwards, I went with a few people to drop off the car at Kenitra and we took the train home. We had a lot of time to kill while waiting for the train, and we ended up laughing the entire time. I really like the people I've met here -- we can be doing absolutely but still manage to have a lot of fun.

business

I have been so busy lately, so I haven't been able to write in my blog... sorry! We've been having dinner parties almost every night and going to concerts because there was a 9 day music festival right by the oudaya. One night after a concert, a bunch of us decided to go swimming in the ocean at midnight. It was extremely cold, but really fun, and afterwards we came back to the house and hung out on the roof, which is definitely one of my favorite places to hang out in Rabat.

I met a guy named Nouh, who has been giving me drum lessons. We've been going to the Hassan garden, which is also one of my favorite places here. We spend hours there playing together and he has taught me Senegal, Nomadic, and Moroccan beats. I bought an awesome djembe (african drum) from him for 500 dirhams (which is about 70 dollars), which was made by his neighbor from Senegal. I think I'm getting pretty good! He gave me all of his gnawa (african music) cd's to upload on to my computer.

I have also been taking surf lessons twice a week with Sarah, and I'm getting progressively better. I'm still not that good, but it's a lot of fun, and at least I can stand up!

We had an info session with the AIESEC LC about our project the other day. It went pretty well, and it seems like a lot of them are interested in coming to our activities. I organized a cultural miscommunication card game, which could have gone better, but got it's point across. One of the girls in the LC invited us over for couscous today, so we will go to her house in a few hours. It's a Moroccan tradition to have couscous on Friday's, which is the Islamic holy day.

Today, a big group of us are going to travel to Marrakesh and then Imlil to climb the Toubkal mountain, which is the highest mountain in northern africa. I'll keep you updated!

Real World Rabat

Friday night, Olga and I met up with Lucas outside the medina. He took out his stuff to make huge bubbles and hundreds of people gathered around to watch. Determined little kids tried to pop every bubble and if they couldn't reach it they threw coins, shoes, clothes, whatever. Olga and I went around with a hat collecting money because Lucas is trying to collect enough to get a visa for Senegal or Mauritania. After the bubbles, he did a fire show, and even more people came and gave money. After the show was over, people followed us around for a little while hoping that he would do another show. After about 20 minutes, I looked around and realized all the kids and women were gone, and it was just men, who all seemed to just be staring at Olga and me. One of them was a 40 year old man who recognized me from the bus... creepy. We decided to take the opportunity to promote our project so we gave them all flyers about our activities. Afterwards, we counted the money and Lucas had collected 113.50 dirhams! Almost 20 dollars, all from locals, who generally don't have that much money to spare.

There is a big music festival going on right now all around Rabat for the next 2 weeks, so after the bubble/fire festivities, we walked to where a concert was going on, but it was just ending, so we walked towards one that was right by the Oudaya (George Benson) and watched from the street for a little bit.

Saturday, we had our film screening of Crash. Despite our efforts to get as many random people from the streets to come, it was basically all AIESECers. Despite not having a big audience, the discussion went pretty well. Afterwards, we had a meeting at the megamall, and then came home because Lucas had cooked another big meal for us. Then I went to the Ziggy Marley concert with Olga, Souhail, Lucas, and two of Lucas's Moroccan friends. I never realized what a huge rasta scene there is in Morocco, but it's apparently pretty big-- half the people there had dreadlocks and were holding up peace flags. We kept running into people who recognized Lucas from his fire shows in Casablanca, Marrakesh, and Rabat-- he's basically a celebrity in Morocco now.

After the concert, some people came over, but I ended up having an allergic reaction to some cherries-- my right eye got really swollen and my throat closed up a little bit, so I decided it was time to go to sleep. People stayed up hanging out for a hours longer and I guess Monica and Nadia got pretty mad. they yelled at them a few times to be quiet, so Olga offered that they sleep downstairs in Kamil's room so they wouldn't be disturbed, but they refused. I woke up briefly and overheard Monica and Nadia complaining about how disrespectful they were being. I guess they had to get up early this morning for belly dancing classes, but when you live with 6 people in their 20's, it's basically impossible to accomodate everyone. Good thing I don't get angry easily, because I imagine this might be only the beginning of personality clashes. I'm starting to feel like we're the cast of Real World Rabat, like my parents first suggested when I told them how many people I was living with.

Tuesday night, Sarah and I went to dinner with Romain (France), Rachid (Russia), and Gabriel (Quebec) at their house. Romain cooked a tagine before we went out to Reservoir for salsa. They really only speak french, but they were really nice and it ended up being really fun. I felt a little awkward at first because I didn't really know them and I am still timid about speaking up in french, but it was ok later. None of them could really dance either, so we all just had fun messing around on the dance floor.

Wednesday morning, we had a meeting at ISCAE with the OC. Olga did a really good job preparing the meeting and motivating us to start actually working. The project's starting to look it has a lot more potential to succeed, so I'm feeling pretty optimistic right now. When we got back to the house, I met Lucas, who is staying with us for a little while. He is from Poland and has been traveling by bicycle for 10 months, and is now moving on to Africa. He moves around with very little money and either sleeps in nature or meets people who will let him stay with them. In exchange, he cooks and cleans for them, which is what he is doing for us now. While he travels, he works with children and does humanitarian work just to make people happy. He speaks 15 languages and has been to 23 countries in the past 10 months, and says it is just the beginning of his travels. Lucas, Nadia, and I went into the medina to buy groceries for dinner. I asked some men outside a restaurant, in french, where the best place to buy inexpensive vegetables is, and one of them offered to show us. He took us to a tucked away part of the medina where men sell fruits, vegetables, etc. and walked around with us for about an hour and a half while we looked for the best prices. I wasn't sure why he was helping us so much, but then he asked me out, so it all made sense. We got back to the house after a few hours with tons of fruits and vegetables for about 90 dirhams (the equivalent of about 13 dollars). We had a bunch of people over for a dinner party and Lucas cooked a vegan meal of Maroccan salad, couscous with vegetables, and zucchini pancakes. 5 girls who go to school in Spain, but are from a different places, are staying with us for a few days, so we have a pretty full house right now. The party was a big mix of people speaking different languages-- polish, french, russian, english, spanish, and probably more.

Yesterday, Olga fired Ishrak, who was the president of the PBox. She wasn't really doing anything, which is why the past few weeks have been so frustrating. Olga is taking over now, so hopefully we will start getting something accomplished. We had a meeting in the afternoon to start planning, and it actually went pretty well. We thought of some good ideas for activities, so hopefully everything goes as planned.

Today, Simo called me to tell me I would be moving to a nicer place in Agdel, but I told him I'd rather live here. Even though the house is a little messy, I really like living in the Oudaya and with the people I'm with. Agdel is the nice, expensive neighborhood here, but I like living near the medina in a traditional Moroccan Kasbah. In the aternoon, Sarah and I took a surfing lesson down at the beach. It was really fun, and I was actually better than I expected. I signed up for 10 classes, so I'll be taking them twice a week for the next 5 weeks. Tonight, we're going to dinner with Sarah's friends and then to a club called Reservoir for salsa dancing. I'll probably embarass myself because I have absolutely no idea how to dance salsa, but I'm sure it will be fun anyways.

Sahara Expedition

Around 10 pm on Tuesday night, we decided we would go to the desert for the weekend. We left for the train to Marrakesh Wednesday morning and got there in time to make our reservation with Sahara Expeditions for the next morning. We had dinner at a nice restaurant overlooking the main square. We stayed in Marrakesh for the night and left early the next morning for the expedition.

In our van, there was an older couple from Holland, their daughter, and her Moroccan husband, a Canadian woman, an English woman, a Canadian man, and his son. The drive to the Sahara was really long, so we stopped periodically and saw some cool things on the way. In the afternoon of the first day of our trip, it started raining in the desert, which almost never happens. The road we were on got washed out, and cars were lined up for about 2 hours while we waited for it to dry up. Some bigger trucks got impatient and tried to cross anyways. One truck actually ended up tipping over the edge in an attempt to cross and was probably totaled. Luckily, the guys in the truck weren’t injured and they just had to wait on top of the truck until they could get help. Eventually, the water slowed down and we could continue the drive. That night, we arrived at a little traditional Berber hotel, where all the power was out because of the rain. We ate a delicious couscous dinner by candlelight.

The next morning, we left early again. At our first stop, we met a tour guide who showed us around a huge garden and then took us to the old Jewish Kasbah. We went into a house, where a man and his sister showed us how the women make carpets by hand. Some of them take up to 4 years to complete, and are absolutely beautiful. We spent a while there, drinking tea and looking at the different carpets. Our next stop was for lunch and to explore for a little while. I’m not sure what the place was called. While we were walking around there, I found some guys who were selling drums. I didn’t have enough money to buy one, but I played with the guys for a little while. I kept walking, and on my way back they asked me again if I wanted to buy one. I told them, I only had 120 dirhams (which is about 17 dollars), but that wasn’t enough. Eventually they let me buy the drum for 120 dirhams, 2 white hanes, and my watch (which was from walgreens).

We finally got to the Saharan desert just in time for the sunset. We rode camels from where the men live, through the dunes, to the middle of the desert, where we slept. Our campsite had big tents made out of blankets and had carpets on the sand floor. For dinner, the Berber men made us some really good tagine and served it to us in one of the tents. At night, there was another storm, and sand was blowing everywhere. It felt like the tent was going to blow over while we were trying to sleep. One of the Berber guys who worked there came into our tent and just sat there for about 20 minutes. He didn’t speak english and it was really awkward, but we eventually communicated that he had to leave. In the morning, I woke up around 4:30 to a rooster crowingm so I knew the sun was starting to rise. I climbed the the top of the highest sand dune near our tent. It was really tiring, especially that early in the morning, but the view was definitely worth it. After sunrise, we rode our camels back to the base and ate breakfast.

We drove for about 2 hours, through a small town called Rissani, where we were dropping 2 of our group members off at a bus station. We saw a sign at the bus station that said Rabat, so we decided to get off and take the bus to Rabat, so we could go directly there instead of going through Marrakesh again. It was 9:30 am, and the bus for Rabat wasn’t going to leave until 5 pm, so we had a lot of time, but our ride had already left. The guy who worked at the bus station was named Khalid, and he showed us around Rissani. It’s a small little town with very little to see, but we walked through the markets for a little while. We ran out of money again, so we needed to go to an ATM so Monica could withdraw some. However, there were only 2 ATMs in the entire city, and both were broken, so Khalid took us on a bus to a city 20 minutes away called Arfoud. After we got money from an ATM there, we got into a large van crammed full of locals, who all seemed very confused by our presence there. We got back to Rissani and went to a restaurant and sat there for a few hours. We went back to the train station and got our drums and bags out of the storage room and decided just to wait there for our bus. There was a group of older Muslim women there who started talking to us in french asking us about how much our drums cost. One of them demanded that we give her one of the drums, and then a man came up demanding that we give him a cigarette, which none of us had. We got uncomfortable and angry that people would be so rude and demanding, so we left and sat at a café until it was time for our bus to leave.

Our bus was crowded and boiling hot, but didn’t have any airconditioning. We immediately regretted our decision to take the bus. After a few hours of sweating, I fell asleep and woke up shivering because I was so cold. The temperature had dropped from about 45 degrees celcius to about 5 degrees. The bus stopped at a little restaurant around 11 pm, and we got some Harrira soup and some tea. The bus finally got back to Rabat at 4 am and we got a taxi back home.

Last night, all the housemates (and Sarah) went to dinner at a nice Italian restaurant called Pinchos in Agdel because Defne is going back home to Turkey today. She has been here for 6 months and was trying to learn Arabic, but felt like she wasn't accomplishing anything and decided to move on and do something else. I'm amazed at how free-spirited and spontaneous everyone I've met here is. A lot of them seem to be controlled by their passions, which would be an amazing way to live. They have already seen and experienced more things than I can hope to in my entire life. The more time I spend here and the more people I talk to, stories I hear, the more I just want to travel around the world and live in different places. There is so much to be seen and not enough time... it's really overwhelming. I have heard more amazing stories and had more interesting discussions about culture and religion in the past week than I have in my entire life. It just makes me realize how much is really out there.

After dinner, we got ice cream and then came back to the house and talked for hours about the cultural differences of dating. Nadia says in Singapour, you would never date someone who you couldn't see yourself marrying because it is a waste of time. Olga says that, it's important to date a lot because it's experience and you learn more about yourself and what you are looking for by dating. However, I feel like it's so hard to find a really good guy, and it seems to be something about the american male mentality. I can't even find someone worth dating... I can't even imagine looking for someone worth marrying right now!

Olga told us about how, here in Morocco, it's so important for women to be virgins until marriage, that a lot of girls here lie and pretend to be even if they are not. Her friend's father is a gynocologist here and he told her a story of a young girl who broke her hymen while playing sports, which is very easy to do. She came to the hospital bleeding and ashamed, and didn't want to say anything. She had tried to sew it back together by herself because she was engaged to be married and her fiancé said that if her found out on the night of their marriage that she wasn't a virgin, he would kill her. That's definitely an extreme case, but it says something about the culture. Abortion is also apparently huge here, even though it's completely illegal.

Today, we're taking the train to Marrakesh and then going on a 3 day tour with Sahara Expeditions to the desert!

I spent most of the day yesterday feeling really, really sick with a bad stomach ache and diarhea (sorry, gross I know). Monica had the same thing, so it must have been something we both ate or something. We sat around the house feeling miserable for the whole night, but luckily I felt better when I woke up this morning, although I didn't have anything in my stomach at all.

Today, Nadia, Monica, and I spent a few hours walking around the medina today looking at different shops and figuring out how much everything should cost. I got to bargain with the shopkeepers a lot in french, which was kind of fun, and ended up getting some pretty good prices. I got a silver necklace of Fatima's hand, which is an arabic symbol of good luck, and found some cool little african drums that I want to buy as long as I can figure out how to bring them home with me.

Later this afternoon, we went with Olga to her salsa class. I already knew I couldn't really dance, but my doubts were reaffirmed during the class. The instructor pretty much focused on just me for the majority of the class, but it was fun regardless. We're thinking about trying to find some belly dancing classes instead, which would be really cool, and more of a moroccan experience. After the class, we went with Badr and his friends to have dinner at a little restaurant and then went to his house and hung out for a while.

Yesterday, we had our first "bridging the gap" activity. Not as many people showed up as we were hoping, but it actually turned out pretty well. We had everyone write down questions they wanted to know about our cultures and then we each took turns picking questions out of a bag and answering them. One question I got was whether or not Americans were against the war in Iraq. People here don't realize that people in the US are generally against the war, and that has a strong effect on what people in other countries, especially Muslim countries, think about America. People put some fun questions, as well. For example, teach us a dance from your country, or sing your national anthem. Everyone seemed to really enjoy the activity, but we definitely need to do more promotion so more people will come to them in the future.

Later, there was a big party at an AISECers house. I realize now what everyone was saying about the gap between the rich and the poor in Morocco. I have heard that everyone here is either really poor or really rich, and there isn't much in between. The house we were at was huge and beautiful, and would have easily cost 5 million dollars in Chicago. The party was fun; everyone was dancing and I got to know a few new people. Ahmed agreed to only speak french with me from now on to help me get better while I'm here, and also said he would give me some arabic lessons.

This morning, around 10 am, I woke up to someone pounding on the door and repeatedly ringing the doorbell. I answered the door, and it was a man looking for Olga. I let him in, but then realized Olga wasn't here, and then he sat down and asked to use my computer to check his email. He didn't really speak english, so I couldn't understand him well at first. We then started speaking in french and I realized it was the man from Cote d'Ivoire who Olga had told me about. Apparently, he pretended to be in AISEC so he could have a place to stay and then he kept making Olga pay for things for him. She eventually figured out he wasn't in AISEC and she kicked him out of the house. He kept talking to me about AISEC and asked me to give him my adress so he could come stay with me in the US. He asked me if I was married and asked me to give him a written invitation to come to the US. I didn't know how to deal with him, but eventually he finally left.

This evening was the opening ceremony for the "bridging the gap" program. It was all in french, but I actually understood basically everything. During the ceremony, they showed a video clip of 9/11 and I got surprisingly emotional, more so than I ever have in the past about it. I'm not sure exaclty what has changed to make me more sensitive about it, but maybe it's the fact that I have recently been surrounded by so many different cultures that now I feel a stronger identity with my own. During the ceremony, Nadia, Monica, and I all made short presentations. I made a powerpoint presentation in french and spoke in english about the different stereotypes people have of americans. For example, everyone thinks we are all self-centered and don't care about people of other countries and cultures. I said that, however, that is just a stereotype and I have known tons of people in the US who do care about other people and devote a lot of time, money, and effort to community service, not only in the US but in poorer countries, as well.

After the ceremony, we were invited to a Moroccan poetry reading, which was at a beautiful traditional building that is often used for weddings. A band of about 15 men played authentic Moroccan music and then a few poets recited some poems in Arabic. A woman from AISEC started translating it to me, but then I noticed the poet randomly switched to french (which is normal here), so I told her I understood french. When the poet switched back to Arabic, she started translating to me quickly in french. Even though I didn't understand everything she was saying, it was good practice for me. Icham, who doesn't speak much english, noticed her speaking to me in French, so he started doing the same and I spoke with him for the rest of the night. The head of the event then introduced Nadia, Monica, and me and asked us to say a few words to the crowd. Because everyone there was Moroccan, I decided to speak to them in French. I probably made a few mistakes, but I think people appreciate that I am making an effort.

After the event, we walked around the area with the men because it is unsafe for women to walk alone at night here. Around 8 pm, all the shops close and people sell things in the street, which is illegal to do during the day. We saw people selling toys, piles of shoes, counterfeit dvds, and even turtles-- all for very cheap. Men cooked delicious smelling Moroccan cuisine-- meats, vegetables, spices-- and people were gathered all around. It's so nice that we have locals from Rabat to show us around, because there are things they are showing us that typical tourists would not know to go see. We get the unique opportunity to see it like they see it.

Thursday, May 1, 2008
I was supposed to have a meeting this morning at a café with my group, but when I arrived the café was closed and apparently the meeting had been postponed. I met a few more AISECers and they took me to the megamall, where we hung out for a few hours. I talked with Ahmed about the different things he thinks about the US. He says that he dreams to go to the US and he feels as though America is an idealized place where anyone can make money and where everyone wants to go. I was kind of surprised to hear this because it is different from what I have heard from other Moroccans, who generally have a negative view of Americans. In general, they seem to think we are self centered and don't care about other countries or learning about different cultures. Unfortunately, it has been difficult for me to prove otherwise because, although that is a generalization, it's kind of true. For example, Americans don't focus on learning different languages as much as people do in other countries. We also spend more time in school studying the capitals of the states and US history than we do learning the capitals of other countries and learning about world history and current events. It has been brought more to my attention over the past few days by conversations I've had with people I've met. I am supposed to make a presentation about American culure tomorrow at the PBOX opening ceremony, and I'm having a lot of difficulty finding positive things I can say about the US because most people here have such a negative view about it.

While we were at the megamall, the leaders of the AISEC team for PBOX had a meeting completely in french, which I sat in on. I was able to understand about half of what they were saying, and I'm hoping that I can improve my french a lot while I am here. Shortly after I got back to the house after the meeting, the girl from Singapour, Nadia, arrived. She's going to be working on the same project as me. Two of the Moroccan AISECers took us out to lunch/dinner or whatever a meal is at 5 pm here at some kind of shopping mall/food court sort of place. Today was memorial day, so a lot of places were either closed or dangerous to go to because of protests, so we drove kind of a long way to get there.

Tonight, a few of us sat on the roof of the house overlooking the entire city of Rabat. We layed out blankets and had really interesting conversations about so many different things for a few hours, looking at the stars and the clouds. It's amazing to me that I am able to have such intimate conversations with people from such different cultures who I have only known for three days or less, yet it is so comfortable. There are people I have known for years who I do not feel this comfortable talking to. Maybe it's the fact that we are all in a different place and are here to experience new things, or maybe it is these people specifically, but something is very different about how people are here versus how people are at home.

I started thinking a lot today about what I want to do with my life, and I wonder why I have always just assumed I would live in the US. There are so many other places in the world and so many different things to experience that there is really no reason I should limit myself. I feel like I have already learned more just from spending four days here than I could learn in a semester of a history class. I want to make sure that I spend the time to really experience and learn from various cultures around the world while I am still young. Hopefully I'll have more opportunities like this one because I already wish I could stay for longer.