First Week of Death (I'm sorry, I mean Class)

Salam wa aleikum!

Well, the first week of classes has ended and it was interesting to say the least. Now as some of you know, I was slightly overwhelmed at the beginning of the week. I’ve never suffered from culture shock before, but it hit me pretty hard really quickly. After the first two days, I honestly felt like calling it a day and heading back to the States. But, as things tend to do, it got better.

I have three different classes that I end up in during the week and our group was split up into three different groups. So what happens is this.

From 9:00 to 1:00 each day, I have a Modern Standard Arabic class, a Darija class (the Moroccan dialect of Arabic), and a media class. Now these all don’t happen everyday and the classes are switched around depending on what day of the week it is, which can be kind of confusing, especially when you’re trying to do your homework for the next day, but you’re not sure what classes you have. I figure I’ll get the hang of it by the end of next week and I won’t have another situation where I didn’t do the correct homework. Eh.

But anyway, that’s what happens in the morning. From 3:00 to 5:00 on Monday and Wednesday, I meet with my language partner Habiba. Who is adorable. For real. I’ll post a picture later. We met yesterday for the first time and got to know each other a little, so hopefully she be a good person to have helping me as I learn Arabic. From yesterday’s meeting, I’m pretty sure she will be.

Plus, this is the building we’re studying in, just a few pictures, but it is really pretty. Don’t you think?

In other news, multiple people in our program have already gotten sick, just like they said we would when we were in Washington DC. I think the count at this point is six out of the sixteen of us have gotten the sickness. And it’s just the first week. Pray really hard that that won’t happen to me. It seems to be a little inconvenient.

But just letting you know that I’ll try to post at least twice a week. Arabic homework has been taking hours and that means hours less that I have to write in English. I’m doing some fun things this weekend with the family, so I’ll be sure to give you some pictures of that. 

PS. We also we out to lunch as a group. That was fun. Here are pictures. Enjoy.

Ma’a salama!

While We Were Waiting...

Salam wa aleikum!

So today was orientation, which actually was kind of fun. At the very least, I got some awesome sayings from Anne Marie, our RD. I’ll put them at the end of the post so that you can share in the joy of her wisdom.

Anyway, we started out the morning at around 8:00, although I actually woke up earlier due to the parrot making noise. That’s right, the parrot. Jacqou is his name and definitely spelled it incorrectly. If anyone can figure out the right spelling, feel free to tell me. But he started making noise pretty early so I was awake a little bit before I wanted to be.

But we had breakfast (jam and bread and orange juice and bread and dates and bread and you see where I’m going with this?) and then stopped by the café next door so that Elizabeth could get her coffee. Plus the place has Wifi, so if we want, we can just walk next door to do emails and Skype and all that good stuff. Plus, the city itself is pretty entertaining.

                                                            Street.

                                                          Sheep.

                                                           Street.

We walked to the AALIM center (first ones there!) and then waited around for people to show up who were late (there were actually quite a few of them), after which we went and had our actual orientation. Here is a quick rundown of how it went: Don’t be stupid, don’t drink tap water, sassy comment, don’t touch the feral animals, don’t be stupid. Hopefully we will be able to follow these relatively simple rules, but you never know. After orientation we walked to the market (which is a strict left-right-left-right directions. I had at least one helpful landmark though.

                                                    Aww, it's so sweet!

All the pictures I took at the market were hip shots, because if someone sees you taking a picture that they’re in, they’ll often ask for payment. And I don’t want to pay to take your picture. As my sister would say, ‘Sorry, not sorry.’

                                                         This doesn't count.

                                                         Eggs!

                                         I don't know what's happening here...

                                              Relatively empty plaza.

                                             He's just impressive.

After I beat everyone back to the AALIM center (with my amazing sense of direction), we chilled for a little bit, then went home for lunch (which was super late! Like at 3:30!).  We did our homework (yes, we were assigned homework. No, classes have not started) and took a small nap, then headed out to the market. Which was awesome.

                                               Bab Monsour. Is famous.

                                                          I so artsy!

                                             Some things never change.

                                         Except popcorn made by fire.

                                            These are wedding gowns. I know.

                                                 The moon over the market.

                                          Shoes are everywhere, all the time.

                                  I don't know what half of these are.

                                                 Pots with paint.

                                                    Pots au naturale.

After the market, we headed home for dinner (at 10:30, no lie) and then got ready for bed. I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as a short day here. We’ll see how exhausted I am by the end of two months. I’m sure it’ll be entertaining for everyone involved.

Words of wisdom from Ann Marie:

• “God gave it this life. Let it live its kitty life. That means letting it catch its rats, and prowl its city, and die if it needs to.”

• “You’d think because I’m over 50 and gray that I’d be off the market. No, I’m a breathing, walking, living woman, and therefore available.”

• And then there was this little jewel in the orientation slides.

                                           ...I don't know what this means. 

Also, shout out to Erin. You know what for.

Ma’a salama!

Okay, Now I'm Here

Salam wa aleikum!

Well, you never get tired of planes…until you spend over twelve hours actually on the planes and even more time waiting for your connections. Yeah, I was kind of over it once we hit Frankfurt. But I got to watch Jack the Giant Slayer (quite entertaining I thought) and Wreck-It Ralph (Awwww), both of which I hadn’t seen before. Also, to get myself in the Arabic mood, I watched Mulan in Arabic. Unfortunately, it was in Egyptian Arabic and the majority of my time was spent thinking, ‘It’s a good thing I have this movie memorized. Otherwise, I would be having serious problems.’

But yeah, we had our layover in Frankfurt (which mainly consisted of trying not to fall asleep) and then connected through Royal Moroccan Airlines for our relatively quick three-hour trip to Casablanca.

However, we ran into a few problems at the airport. First, when I went to exchange all the money my mom gave me (which might have been a little excessive (just a bit)), they only gave me 200 dirham bills. That would be the equivalent of me walking into a Wendy’s, ordering a 99 cent burger, and then handing them $100. Yes, it’s possible. No, they don’t want to do that. So I had to tell them that I needed smaller bills. A LOT of smaller bills. The biggest issue was that one of the girls’ bags did not make it to the airport. So she had to go through the process of declaring (I made sure she did it, Mom!) and she’ll have to go pick it up in Fez when they find it. She thought that the lady said that they knew where it was, but as people who study languages know, sometimes things can get messed up in translation. Inshallah, she’ll get her stuff back soon.

                                                          The struggle.

We finally left the airport, riding a lovely bus, and then ended up arriving at the AALIM center at 3:30ish. In the morningish. We had to lug our luggage up this rather irritating hill, drop it off at the AALIM center, and then quickly grab things for an overnight (morning?) stay at a nearby hotel. To be fair, the hotel was actually really pretty and had a great view. However, the fact that I’ve had less than seven hours of sleep in the last 48 hours puts a little damper on things. But we met our host mother (who is awesome and keeps accidently speaking to us in French) and she took us to our summer home. Which is gorgeous.

                                                             Yeah.

                                                           Be jealous. 

                                                            Because this. 

                                                       Is where I'm living. 

                                                      For the entire. 

                                                         Summer!

  

Apparently I have an insane amount of host family luck (look at the Ciao Italia! blog to see why). So yeah, we’ve just chilled the rest of the day, (my roommate is Elizabeth, from the University of Texas. And is an Italian major. Seriously, what are the odds) which is nice considering the amount of travel stress we’ve been under. Our host mom and her niece cooked us lunch (which was delicious, in case you were wondering (chicken with some cinnamon like seasoning, tons of fruit, and tons of bread)).

Then we got a taxi and headed to AALIM center, mainly so that we could make sure that we know the way when we need to walk there. It’s thirty minutes, door to door, so it’s really not that bad at all. There also is a rather large park on the way, so that’ll probably become a good place to hang out as we get more situated. We then came home, chilled, ended up with two other girls coming over who are in the program and whose host sister is the niece of our host mother. Small world, right? So we had dinner (this soup-ish thing that was pretty good and some stuff that tasted like bologna, but wasn’t) and then hung out for some more. Overall, it was an unproductive, but much needed, break.

Tomorrow we have orientation with the AALIM center, so I’ll be taking lots of pictures to show y’all. Get excited! Until then!

Interesting Stories of the Day:

• So we played Monopoly with our 8-year old host brother. The game was in French, so that was cool. But more importantly, I dominated. Like hard.

                                                      It was awesome.

• Also, when we were walking through the park, there was this Moroccan guy strumming on his guitar, surrounded by all these other young folks. He was playing this slow song, but it was pretty soothing and nice sounding. And right when we were about to get out of range, I realized what he was singing. One Time by Justin Beiber. Take that as you will.

Ma’a salama!

Not Quite There Yet...

Salam wa aleikum, ya sadiqi! (Which means "Peace be upon you, my friend!)

This will be my blog for my time in Morocco as I continue my studies in Arabic. We have a few hours before we head the airport, so I figured now would be as good a time as any to let you know how it's been going. 

I got to Washington DC two days ago and we've been doing orientation so that we don't do anything too stupid while we're there. (And there's been some other stuff about language and culture shock and all that good stuff.) I've met some fun people and we just sent off the group of students that will be spending their next year in Egypt. So I've just got to say that I'm pretty glad that I'll only be spending two months in Morocco, no matter how awesome it might turn out to be. 

So we're just waiting in Starbucks, looking forward to our (extremely long) flight, which I'm sure will be a bundle of joy(ously caused pain). Eh, it could be worse. I'll let you know how I fared once I actually get to Meknes, which is the city that I'll be living in. I'll also let you know about my host family and roommate once I actually get to know them. (No snap judgements (except about the 5-month old who will be adorable because he's a baby))

Anyway, I'll be taking pictures and doing all that good stuff, so be prepared! Until then!

Ma’a salama!!