Waiting for Ramadan

We've been waiting for several weeks now for Ramadan to get here, and it's so close that we can almost taste it. Over the last few days I've noticed several telltale signs of the month of Ramadan--the bakeries have huge platters of sweets, lights are strung from houses, flags adorn the parks...and the Moroccan King reset the clock (thanks for the extra hour of sleep)! I wouldn't have known about the time change had it not been posted by one of my friends on Facebook. Google was also aware of the time change. I see how it is...Now we're just waiting for the official announcement of when Ramadan actually starts.

This weekend we made another trip to the beach, which is where these pictures are from. This was our first free weekend this summer, which was really nice to be able to relax a little bit. Besides having 7 people squeezed into a car for an hour, the entire trip was great.

As we were leaving, we stopped by a bookstore just to see what they had. I ended up buying 4 small books about the Wright brothers, space & artificial satellites, and Galileo. As I was about to pay for my books, I was explaining to the owner that I focus on astronautical engineering in my university and that I was really excited to buy books in Arabic on this topic. He then began to enlighten me on how, in reality, it is not the Earth that revolves around the sun, but actually the sun revolves around the earth. I didn't want to get into an argument, though, and plus I haven't taken AAE 532--Orbit Mechanics, so I probably wouldn't know anyway...

Low tide at Asilah.

Artist's depiction of immigration (remember the video I posted awhile ago?).

Our group.

There's really not much to report here, just a lot of studying. Last week the subject was Arabic literature, and this week we're discussing economics. It's hard to believe that I'll be headed back to the US in 2.5 weeks and will be starting school shortly after that. The summer has really gone by quickly!

Have a good Sunday!

Another Weekend, Another Vacation

I don't know how it's been almost a week since I last posted anything. Perhaps it's because the weekends always go by so quickly. This last weekend we went on another trip, this time to Chefchauen and Tetwan, which are about 2 hours away from Tangier.

There's a lot of blue decoration in Chefchauen.

Chefchauen is probably my favorite city that we have visited so far. It's beautiful. It's a rather small city, settled into the mountains. There are also waterfalls nearby, but I didn't have time to hike to them. However, I might go back during one of our upcoming free weekends. I took a lot of pictures, which you can view here (28 new ones at the end of the current album).

View of the mountains from our hotel.

The city is very laid back. The weekend essentially consisted of shopping, eating, hiking, and swimming. Not too bad at all. The city is especially known for it's wool and its artwork. It was warm trying on wool clothing, but I did make some purchases.

One of the things that I've noticed is how the articles that we are reading in class are affecting the way that I look at things in Moroccan society. For example, we spent a bit of time reading about drugs and begging in Morocco. For the first (and second time) this weekend, I was asked if I wanted to smoke hasheesh, which apparently is pretty popular here...not to mention the marijuana farm that was just off our hiking trail...

Mosque on top of the peak near our hotel.

But what really is bothering me is the people who beg on the streets. There are a lot of them, and I always feel so badly when I pass by them, especially if they are holding a child. We read an article about how these people will purposely use children as part of an act to get more sympathy and more money. So whenever I see beggars, I wonder if they are really as bad off as they appear...and then the thought that I am even considering this makes me angry at myself. So usually I just walk by them, struggling with understanding them...

Hanging out under a tree during our hike.

The most unique thing that happened in the other city we visited (Tetwan) was when we were walking through the medina and saw two WHOLE (yes, everything), skinned cows on a cart, on the way to the butcher's store. It was totally gross. Give me camel hooves hanging on a hook any day...

Oh, and the king was in town that day, but we unfortunately didn't get to see him, just the opening of one of the huge doors to one of his palaces.

Happy Monday!

Halfway Done

It's hard to believe that we're already about halfway done with the program. In about a month I will be back in Ohio for about 36 hours (for Josh & Rebecca's wedding) before returning to Purdue for my last semester. I'd imagine that the remainder of the summer will go by just as quickly as the first half has.

This last weekend we went on a trip to a small city called Asilah, which is about 45 minutes away from Tangier. We were supposed to see the annual arts festival, but that was essentially non-existant. Instead we wandered around the city, saw some of the murals from the previous year's art festival, and went to the beach.

In order to get to the beach, we could either ride in a taxi or take a horse and "carriage," which was more like a horse and a board with 2 wheels. I decided to take the horse. The trip itself was not too exciting, and it was nice to be able to slowly see the city until we got to the poor part of the city.

As we rode through the slums, we saw a group of young boys gathered in the street. After we had passed them, we noticed that they had begun to throw rocks at us. I was surprised at the distance they were capable of launching their rocks. I'm not sure why they decided to throw them, but fortunately it didn't last for too long and they decided not to chase after us because another horse-drawn cart was coming their way.

Right next to the slums are probably some of the nicest buildings in the city. These buildings are brand new (built by rich Middle Easterners) and were a stark contrast to the poorest part of the city right beside it. It was very sad.

The beach itself was really nice. You can see my pictures here. We had a lot of fun, and the waves were huge.

Friday is my birthday, which is hard to believe, but we're going on another trip this weekend, so that will be my birthday celebration.

Have a good Tuesday!

Drugs, Immigration, and Port Tangier

We've been covering some not-so-fun topics in our class, like homelessness, drugs, and begging in Morocco. Specifically we've talked a lot about homeless children who are addicted to drugs. Usually this takes the form of sniffing glue. The reasons that they do it are varied, but today our teacher explained to us that one of the main reasons is so that these kids can get used to breathing fumes. Let me explain.

Tangier, and Morocco as a whole, is located in strategic location where there are a lot of ships coming and going. A lot of times the ships carry trucks back and forth across the Mediterranean with the goods already loaded. These glue-sniffing kids latch themselves onto the bottoms of the trucks before the trucks enter the port in hopes of making it out of Morocco. With the "practice" of sniffing glue, they hope that they can withstand the fumes of the trucks.

Of course, all of this was said in Arabic, and I could have misunderstood somethings, but I'm pretty sure this is what our teacher said.

Yesterday for homework we had to watch a video addressing illegal immigration of Moroccans attempting to enter Spain. The video is in a mix of Darija (Moroccan) and Spanish, but you don't really need to understand either to get the gist of the video.

About an hour ago I got back from my Moroccan family visit. They took us to a restaurant in the port at Tangier. We literally saw them carrying the fish from the ocean into the restaurant and then onto our table. It was really good, too. First they bring a platter of shrimp, which we all eat from using our hands, of course. This ain't Red Lobster. Then they bring a huge platter of fish, topped with calamari (delicious). I'm not sure what all I ate, but it was really good, even though I'm pretty sure I ate a head of some sort of fish. Believe it or not, it's much easier to eat fish with your hands than with a fork and knife...

We then took a road trip to a city about an hour away in my family's new van. As we drove along the Atlantic coast listening to a very loud mix of Italian, Spanish, American, Egyptian, and Moroccan music, I had one of those "I can't believe I'm in Morocco right now" experiences. It was so neat to see the beautiful ocean shining in the sun and the clear beaches without any form of commercialization around.

Tomorrow we're going back to the same city for an arts festival. On Sunday I have to whip out a 3-5 page paper about energy & electricity in Morocco. I was so glad that we were able to choose our own topics...

Have a good Friday!

Trip to the Imperial Cities

This weekend was our whirlwind tour of 3 Moroccan cities--Meknes, Fes, and Rabat. I won't go into all the details because I think the trip can best be described through pictures, which you can find by clicking here (same album as before; new pictures are at the end).

Fes was by far my favorite city. It's narrow roads in the old medina (city) are overwhelmingly full of smells, sounds, and sights. Though cars aren't allowed, or capable, of travelling on these streets, you have to be careful of the mules that haul vendors' goods to their shops. At one point we saw a man get his foot stepped on by one of the mules. He wasn't too happy...

The items in the souk change depending on where you are. There's a fruit and vegetable section, a clothing section, a shoe section, a meat section, and leather section, etc. Probably the most memorable thing I saw was in the meat section--goat heads and camel (?) feet. As appetizing at they looked, I decided not to buy them. However, later for lunch I had probably the best meal that I've had yet in Morocco...but it was chicken; nothing too exotic.

If it wasn't for the heat, our time in Fes would have been perfect. I especially had a good time at night when things cooled off a little bit and we were able to explore the city and sit in the park for awhile and just chat or drink lemon juice.

It's another week of classes this week. Friday I'm going back to my Moroccan family's house and then on the weekend we're going to a music festival. Right now I really need to get some sleep...

Have a good Monday!

Moroccan Beaches & Moroccan Cooking

I have a test tomorrow that I need to study for, but what a better way to procrastinate than to put up a new blog post?!

Last weekend we made a trip to the Atlantic to visit the supposed cave where Hercules slept as he was completing his 12 tasks. Then we made our way to our "private beach" for an afternoon of swimming. I think just about all of us were expecting an exclusive beach with nice sand rest on. Well, it was beautiful, but we had to hike down a mountain with some seriously steep slopes, and our private beach was more of a random house built on some rocks that just so happened to have a ladder screwed into them. It just wasn't what I was expecting, but it was fun. I jumped into the water from the "cliff," and swam for a total of about 10 seconds before I decided that I wanted to avoid hypothermia. As one person described the water, "It's cold, but at least you don't sieze up." Yeah, that's a good way to describe it...

Yesterday we did our "community service" project, which consisted of us going to a program that teaches women how to cook nutritious meals. We baked cookies, which were delicious.

This weekend we're going on a trip to the Imperial Cities. I don't know about my internet connect while we're away, so pictures might have to wait for several days.

Overall, things are going well here. I'd like to think that I'm getting better at Arabic. Today when I sat down with my conversation partner, she started the conversation by talking about circumcision and why it is good. I thought it was really random, but perhaps that shows that I'm moving past the basic topics of talking about my major and my hometown. Perhaps we could talk about something slightly different, though...

Have a good Thursday!

The rocks where we went swimming.

There was some pretty scenery as we tried to figure out where the beach is.

"Little boy, do you know if there is a private beach down this path for the American School in Tangier?"

Cute puppy.

Opening of cave shaped like Africa? Yes.

My Moroccan Family

It's the weekend--what a welcomed break after a very busy first week in Morocco!

Yesterday, after taking our first round of exams, we met with our Moroccan families for Couscous Fridays. My family is very, very nice. There are 2 sons and 1 daughter in the family. When we (me and 1 other person in the program) got to their house we sat on the balcony for awhile and played with their little kitten. Soon afterwards the seven of us sat down around a small table and began to eat from a huge platter of couscous, vegetables, and turkey. It was delicious. I wish I hadn't eaten shortly before going to my family's house, however. They kept telling me "kol," meaning "eat." I'd stop and they'd say "Ben, kol." So I just kept "kol"-ing away...

For a long time we just sat around the living room just talking about anything and everything. We looked through some textbooks that my older Moroccan brother uses. I looked through his Arabic textbook, which was very difficult for me to read. Then I looked through his math book. Even though all the explanation was in Arabic, I understood each lesson since math is a universal language: f '(x) = 3x^2 + 4x +1 is the same in English as it is in Arabic. Beautiful.

In the evening we drove outside of the city to Cap Spartel and the surrounding area. It was beautiful. You can see some of my pictures by clicking here.

One of the highlights, in addition to the beautiful scenery, was eating escargot (snails) for the first time. It was actually really good--just pull it out with a toothpick and pop the whole thing in your mouth. Fun, fun times. It was awesome to chat with our family as we sat near the Atlantic Ocean.

As my Moroccan family dropped us off at the school around midnight (we spent 10 hours with them; pretty short visit, right?) they told me that I should consider them just as my own mom and dad. They gave me a tiny Qur'an that I am supposed to take with me wherever I go (it is less than 1" x 1"). They were very, very nice and generous to us.

Today is a day to rest and to explore. Tomorrow we are going swimming in the ocean!!! I can't wait!

Have a great Saturday, everyone.

And to those in America: Happy Independence Day weekend

And to my grandpa: Happy 90th birthday!!!