Day 16: The Conservation Sensation

Sunday, July 7

The heat! It burns! 

"It burns us, my precious!"

So we have another Cultural Adventure today; not sure that it's really "cultural" so much as a "regional" thing, but here we go:

Part 6: Electricity, Money, and Water

Electricity is really, really expensive here. It's at least twice as expensive here as it is in America. And most of these people make less than half of what an "average" American does. I mean, 1 dollar equals approximately 8.4 dirhams (the Moroccan currency), and when something is 10 dirhams here, it's considered expensive. For example: McDonald's here is a fancy place. People generally only go there for dates or on family outings, because (a.) the food is considered expensive, and (b.) there's AC, which is abnormal.

(Don't get me wrong: Mickey D's is a lot nicer here than it is on average in America, but still. The point stands).

The other day, our host mother's daughter was saying that something was rather expensive. She was talking about jam, or something, and she said that it was 40 dirhams ( = $ 4.70). My roommate was all, "That's not expensive." And I was trying to jab her to get her to stop talking, because what we consider cheap, they consider expensive, and I think  it's a bit rude to flaunt that fact.

And because money is such an issue here, they also use a lot less water than we do. They do not take showers very often, and they do  not wash their clothes unless they absolutely have to, and when they do have to, they wash them all at once, shove as many of them as possible into the washing machine, and the rest are washed by hand, and dried out on the lines.

They also take a lot less showers than we do. That's pretty hard for me. Not that I wash my hair every day or anything back home (because that's not good for it), but I do try to keep clean and smell-free. Nay. Not here. We are the smelliest group of students, because we all try to be polite and shower as little as possible. Or at least, only as often as the host family does. So for us, we shower every 3 days or so, and after being hot all day, it's kind of gross. Ew.

Also, Daylights Savings Time happened here today. We gained an hour. They do daylight savings here it at this time of year  to accommodate for Ramadan (which starts very soon, on Wednesday, most likely), so that darkness comes earlier in the day and they can eat/drink before it's super late at night.

So that's that. 

Well, I spent the first half of my day being very, very hot at the apartment, baking like a delicious pastry, except instead of filling the house with sweet smells, the more I baked the more offensive I became.

Much like these cookies, here.

Then I decided to skip the heat and hit up McDonald's where there is AC. I bought food, the amount that I would normally eat back in America, and could only eat half. I think my stomach/appetite is getting smaller from eating so much less all the time. I also think I've lost a bit of weight since being here. Not complaining. But I do miss food in general.

I probably stayed there for 3 hours at least, and once it was evening, I went back home, and sort of worked on homework. We had an essay, and much like our presentation it was also about somebody famous, so I wrote about Stan Lee. 

"I always hate it when the water does this."

If you don't know who Stan Lee is, shame on you:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Lee