A Whole New World

What if Disney Princes were in a boy band?

(Yes, this video is completely unrelated to everything I've posted so far).

Day 6: Food Swings

Thursday, June 27

I suppose one thing I haven't really talked about are true cultural differences. Naturally, there's a lot.  I'll spread them out over the posts, but I'll discuss one of them here.

Cultural Adventures #1: They like to eat. And they expect you to like to eat. A lot. My body is not geared towards three meals a day, especially when two of those meals are potentially large. Now, that's normal for them. Usually, they have a reasonably sized breakfast, a large lunch, and a smallish dinner. Whereas in America, we prefer regular sized breakfasts, lunches and large dinners (typically). I don't usually eat more than 1-1.5 times a day normally in America, but they want us to eat all the time. Like, all the time. Whenever I don't eat a lot, Noura thinks that I don't like the food. Which isn't true, necessarily. (I'm not gonna lie and say that I've loved everything. Apart from CousCous--of which I am not really a fan--everything kind of tastes the same, which is fine, but boring). But throughout the whole meal, she tries to give me more soup, and more bread, and more chicken/turkey/beef, and more fruit, and then yogurt afterwards. LA! (Translation: NO!) I don't want anymore. I'm done. I'm full. I'll be sick. (Except, more politely: La, la, thank you. I'm full. I'm not hungry. Thank God. I'm full. No thank you. Really, I'm good. Everything was delicious. *repeat*)

They also eat bread with everything. The put things in the bread, or they dip the bread in things, etc. They love bread. It's a staple. They have bread for breakfast, bread with lunch, and bread for dinner. Noura was saying that she hates airplane food because they only give you the tiniest amount of bread. "No, no, no. I'm Moroccan," she says. "I need more bread." They generally refuse.  

I'm over bread. I'm over it. Give mine to some ducks somewhere. Or a homeless person. Yeah, better to give it to a homeless person. (I don't know why I thought of ducks first. I'm a terrible person).  

"But what about homeless ducks?" 

So, along those same lines about eating, on Thursday we had McDonald's! We wanted to try it, and there's WiFi and air conditioning there. The food was actually better than the McDonald's food in America. AND, the burgers do not come with onions, or tomatoes, and they automatically come with mayonnaise. It's like they were made for me.

I had a lot of trouble at the counter trying to order, though. The girl kept trying to speak to me in French, and I was all, "I don't know French!" I was trying to figure out what the sauce was that came on the BigMac, because the only things on the menu were pictures and names of the sandwiches. The guy in line next to me heard my plight. He was German, and spoke a little English, and French/Arabic (overachiever). So, he helped me, which was lovely.

'Muroco

After lunch, I met with my weekly conversation partner back at the school. She's pretty nice, and she's also learning English, so she is able to sympathize when I don't understand her. I had a hell of a time trying to explain daylight's savings time, only to find out that they have it here too.

For dinner, I don't remember what we had, except for the BEST WATERMELON I'VE EVER HAD. (Boldfaced, capitalized, italicized, and underlined. Oh snap.) But, my goodness. You can't imagine the fruit here. It's all so good and fresh. I like fruit here that I don't normally like in America. Like cantaloupe. And some other fruit which I didn't even know what it was. But this watermelon was so juicy and heavenly. It's super good. 

Day 5: Lunch

Wednesday, June 26

A pretty uneventful day.

Though, Professor Mahmoud Al-Batal from UT was visiting us (one of the writer's of Al-Kitaab, the book that most universities who teach Arabic use), and he invited us to lunch with him at a restaurant near the school.

This restaurant was the ultimate picture of a "hole in the wall" type of place. It's in the Old City, surrounded by old, worn down streets, tiny beat up shops, and a sign outside that reads: "Restaurant". Then you go in, and it's all beautiful and clean and big and the seats all surround a glass walled-off courtyard.

(Though don't be fooled by the glasses: they never actually gave us beverages).

Mahmoud giving an inspirational speech. I was inspired. 

The food was... interesting. Though, admittedly I didn't eat much of the first course.  I did eat the chicken and sugar cake/pastry thing, which is kind of an assault on the senses, but good.

Not pictured: sugary chicken.

Then they served us this, and at first I was all like: 

Then I was all like:

I don't really remember much about that day apart from that. The days were just starting to reach a certain level of normality, the beginning of our summer pattern.

Day 4: House of Sun

Tuesday, June 25

Morning summary: bread breakfast, classes.

After class, my roommate and I went with a group of people to go buy phones. Unfortunately, the walk was sort of far. Now, a 15 minute walk may not seem that far, but when you're this close to the equator and it's 1:15pm, it really is.

Once we got to the phone store, there was only one person working there, and every person that needed a phone took forever. Then, when it was finally my turn, they were out of phones. So yeah. Made that walk for nothing.

Well, not nothing. I discovered where the McDonald's and Pizza Hut was, at least. I'm not sure how good Pizza Hut could be anywhere that's not America: Home of the Grease. But I'll try it eventually, if only just for the comparison.

After the phone hunt, we went to a restaurant next door called O'Fast Food. It was at least a thousand degrees in there, and, for some reason beyond the realm of sanity, everyone wanted to stay and eat. So stay we did, and eat they did, while I felt like I was baking alive the entire time. There was no refuge from the heat. They were making rotisserie style chicken in a large hot oven right inside of that tiny building. I felt like dying a little.

The heat seems to affect me more than other people. I remember from last summer, everyone wanted to have class outside, and they all thought the classrooms were cold. They were all bundled in their little sweaters, while I was all sweating, like, "Can't we get a blizzard up in here or something?" Then they also wanted to have class outside, as if it wasn't 101 degrees outside. And a swamp. And they celebrated like prisoners who had never seen the sun every time we did just that.  I felt like weeping like a sad, little child when that happened.

I did however get some pictures of the old city, and a park, and some sweet graffiti.

Some of the Old City.

The blue cars are Petite Taxis.

The Old City is on the left, beyond the wall.

الحرية = Freedom

A really cool park that we can't get into.

The taxi we took back home had a very nice and talkative driver. He asked us if we were learning Arabic, and he talked about the weather, and air conditioners, and the local architecture and how the older houses are much cooler than the newer ones. 

For dinner we had grilled turkey and soup. I'm not usually a fan of turkey, but this was really good. They know what they're doing here when they cook meats. They're pros. The meat is never dry. I also greatly enjoyed the soup. I can't really describe it. It doesn't taste like any soup I've before.

Then at night, I talked to Mom and Dad on Skype, which was really nice, while I was trying to work on some especially confusing homework. It's not that the work itself is really hard. It's the directions. I spend most of my time just trying to figure out what they want from me. GAH. 

Day 3: A Small Taste of America

Monday, June 24

On the first day of class, we were late. My phone, which had been connected to the internet, was for some reason an hour behind. I thought it was because it didn't account for daylight savings time, but they have that here too (but only for two months during the summer). We took another Big Taxi that morning because we didn't have time to find a Petite one, and everything was awkward all over again.

Fortunately, after getting to school, explaining what happened, and that I had no way of knowing that the time was off (also because the internet went down the previous night, but luckily came back up again the next afternoon), they decided to let it slide. 

We are taking 4 classes this summer: Modern Standard Arabic, Modern Colloquial Arabic, Media, and Round Table Discussion (despite the obvious fact the table is rectangular). The Colloquial Arabic class is so insanely easy compared to the Moroccan dialect class we had last semester. It's like they're babying us a little bit.

Oh, and they do have WiFi here in the apartment. I guess you've assumed that, by now. Only about 2/3 of the program's families have internet. Needless to say, some people are going through internet withdrawal.

But not here! Noura is literally on Facebook and Skype all day. I suspect she Facebook-stalks her other daughters who are in college/work (one of them is in Dubai).

After we got home, Noura gave us some croissants and jelly, and, being the clever individual that I am, I just so happened to have brought peanut butter with me. So you know what that means.

At some point later in the day, Noura out of nowhere decided it would be super fun to dress us in her clothes, pose us, and take pictures. So that's exactly what she did.

At dinner, she made us cheeseburgers and French Fries. She was trying so hard to make us feel at home. The hamburger was good but obviously very different, with different spices and no mayonnaise because I'm super white. BUT, 'dem fries were friggin' good.

With Gouda cheese.

Then, while I was doing homework in the living room, the TV had been left on to channel MBC4, which plays a very wide variety of shows, from Arabic comedies to American dramas and sitcoms, including Project Runway in English. So, I watched that. It was an old season, so I know who wins, but it is interestingly my favorite season.

Not much else besides homework for that day. 

Day 2: Oriental Orientation

Sunday, June 23

Originally, we were supposed to have orientation on Saturday, but seeing as how we were so late in getting here, and we didn't meet our host families until yesterday, they decided to move it to Sunday.

So, after waking up and figuring out how the shower worked (you have to turn on the hot water in the kitchen-- Noura showed me), we went to school.

The city is divided into at least two parts (maybe more, I'm not that learned yet). We live in the New City, the side built by the French. The school is in the Old City, which is surrounded by a wall. It's pretty far, probably an hour and half walk on foot. Because of that, we have to either take a taxi or die of heat stroke. We chose the taxi.

Here, they have two types of taxis: Big Taxis and Petite Taxis. The Big Taxi carries people much in the way that a bus does: people get on, they pay the driver, he takes them where they want, and then they get off. Simple.

Except when you're shoved into the back seat with three other people, and there's three people in the front. And no AC aside from rolled down windows in the front seat. Keep in mind that these cars aren't that big. They have normal, 3 person maximum back seats, so imagine the fun when you're literally smashed against door, perched on your seat, your roommate uncomfortably sitting next to you smooshed up against some Arab man, and the drive is winding, long, and somewhat insane. (Remember those hateful circles and triangles from Washington D.C.? It's so, so much worse here.) Anyway, it's all really awkward, but it's cheap, about 40 cents. But after the first day, we decided not to use the Big Taxis anymore.

Petite taxis are slightly smaller, blue (so you can see them from afar), and you can have one all to yourself. It's a bit more expensive, but in the end the difference is really only 10 cents. (It's a lot to them, but not so much for us).

So, we got to the school and for the first time we got to really look at the school. You can't imagine the mosaic work here. It's like nothing you've ever seen, most likely. Unless you fancy mosaic wallpapers for your desktop, I'll wager you've never seen anything like this. I'm not entirely sure how old the mosaic work is (or even how old the building is), but it feels old.

All of those patterns are all tiny mosaics.

Then, yet again, we had another exciting orientation session on how to survive! Basically, the Resident Director tried to describe where things were in the city, and what to do and what not to do. DON'T drink the tap water. DO drink lots of water, however. DON'T go down dark alleys alone. DO visit the shops. DON'T eat the street food. DO talk to people. DON'T eat the fruit without washing it super, super thoroughly. DO eat it, though, because it's delicious.

She also warned us to never pet stray animals. Apparently, there are a lot of stray dogs in the city, and they roam around in packs. A singular dog by itself won't attack you, but if there's more, it's very likely they will.

"You came to the wrong neighborhood, motherfucker." 

It's best to throw rocks at it if there is only one dog, to scare it away. If there's more, you either (a.) change directions, or (b.) good luck. Apparently they only roam around abandoned or empty parts of the city. So basically, don't go places where there are no people. One guy last year did just that (literally minutes after orientation) and he had to get tetanus shots for the remainder of his stay.

There's also a lot of stray cats and kittens. It's all I can do not to pet them. They're so chill and unafraid. And adorable. And diseased. Probably.

After orientation, the Resident Director took us on a tour of the local Souq, or market. It's very confusing, the path is hard to remember, and the road gets really small in places and it's kinda hard to walk sometimes when there's some dude walking the opposite direction as you with his donkey covered in lentils, but there's also some pretty sweet shops in there, where the bros are making hand-made crafts, some of them big things like rugs, or fountains covered in mosaics. It's so cool.

Originally a water fountain, but it's broken now.

In the plaza near the Souq.

But the Souq is also full of men and no women. And I don't think I would ever want to go there without a group of people because of it.

After orientation, we grabbed a taxi and came back to the apartment. We determined that we needed more bottled water, so my roommate and I walked back to the supermarket and bought 10 liters worth for 1.3ish dollars. I like the supermarket. It feels a bit like home. Nobody there really stares at you. I mean, I'm kind of very white, and my roommate is blonde, so there are eyes that follow us everywhere, but the staring is least bad here because there are a lot of types of people there in a reasonable variety of clothes. (Not quite on a Wal*Mart level, but that has a level all its own).

http://peopleofwalmart.tumblr.com/

After we got home, we watched the season finale of Arab Idol with Noura. The finalists were from Palestine, Egypt, and Syria. The Palestinian won, and there was all the parties in Palestine that day. It's more than just a competition in the Middle East. For them, they're not just some singing superstar, they're representing their entire country. It's a pride thing.

More couches.

And, btw, Arab Idol is exactly like American Idol: 4 judges, audience, a lot of blue laser lights, crying mothers, and the same theme music. The only thing it's missing is Ryan Seacrest being a total tool, and Randy telling everyone, "Yo, dog, yo. I really digged the song, y'know. It was real good. You have a lot of power behind your voice and you got real stage-presence. I really felt what you were singing, dog."

Then homework (because, yes, they gave us homework before classes even started). Then sleep.  

Day 1: Green Chicken

Saturday, June 22

Now that it is the weekend, I finally have the opportunity to write about this past week in Morocco. I was hoping to update every day, but when I got behind, there was no hope to accomplish more than one blog in a day. So now, I shall write all those from this past week, and hopefully, إن شاء الله , I will be able to keep it up every day from here on out.

So, we woke up in the hotel, and I was hella sick. They all told us we'd get sick, but they always said it was because of something we'd eat. By this point in time, I hadn't eaten anything in Morocco yet. But at least I got to be the first. Gotta be the best at something.

It didn't last long, fortunately, and I was fine within the hour.

But now I must say that this was most beautiful hotel that I've been in. There was nothing generic about it. (Well, I'm speaking from inexperience; maybe all the hotels here look like this, and perhaps this one was especially generic, and people go there, and they're all like, "Oh, it's so 17th century." But I'm just speculating). The hotel is located in the Old City, as is our school. 

Inside the hotel, beyond the front desk and down a tiny hall, is a large open room, with lots of seating: couches, cushions, chairs, etc. The ceiling extends all the way to the roof, so that the second floor has a walkway around the upper half of the room. The bedrooms are located off of this main room or on the second floor. Three beds to a room, and each room has a bathroom. I took one of the ground level rooms, and the bathroom was a little sublevel, the ceiling only a few inches higher than my own head (and I'm kind of short). It smelled of mold a bit, and maybe that's what made me sick (sleeping near that smell all night), but it wasn't bad.

(Due to sickness, I didn't take any pictures unfortunately. However, my roommate did!)

From inside one of the bedrooms on the 2nd floor

Inside the main room

Fountain in the middle of the room, cuz why not?

Breakfast

From the roof

We woke up at 8, and everyone who wasn't sick had breakfast and tea (i.e. everyone but me, not that I'd want tea, I make a terrible Moroccan, besides, you know, my arctic complexion). Then we returned to the school and met our host mothers. (We all stay with host families. Two students to a family. Ours is small. Just a mother and her teenage daughter living here. Her husband is....... somewhere. We haven't dared to ask.)

Our host mother's name is Noura, and though it was very intimidating to, like, leave everyone behind (except my roommate) and get in some car with some strange lady who doesn't speak English, she's very nice. She's an Arabic teacher, so she's able to understand us better than some other families that don't know any standard Arabic and only know colloquial (because we know more standard Arabic than we do the local language). 

Before getting to our mysterious new home, we went to the... well, we went to the supermarket. We were surprised to learn of their existence in Morocco. Apparently they've only had them for about 10 years or so. They have everything~ish, except pharmacy-type items and clothes. But, as anyone who shops at Wal*Mart knows, it's really damn convenient. 

She knows.

Afterwards we went to the apartment in which I will be living for the next 7 weeks. It's on the fourth floor, and it's quite beautiful, the living room spacious. 

And this isn't even ALL the couches.
(I will add more pictures later.)

The bedroom is a bit small, and I share it with my roommate, but it hasn't been a problem. We each have our own closet with shelves and the bedroom has it's own balcony.

We discovered later that leaving the balcony doors open at night keeps the room cooler, as they don't have an AC here. (Well, they do, but it's expensive as hell to run, and it's only in the living room). This does, however, create the problem of sunshine spilling into the room in the morning and melting your retinas.

And afterwards we spent the rest of the day just baking chilling. Then Noura made dinner.

I ate chicken covered in green sauce. Wat.

But it was good! Doesn't taste like anything I've had in America, but I suppose green chicken isn't the most popular thing on the average menu.  

"Those were my parents."

And after dinner we went promptly to sleep, because really, we hadn't slept more than 4 hours solid in, like 3.5 days. And I really can't remember anymore about that day at the moment, except that it was my first time ever being in a culture so VERY different from my own. 

(Sorry for being long-winded, but these first few posts will be longer, because everything is still new).