Thursday, August 18, 2011

I'm Coming Home

I'm coming home!

In a few hours I will be leaving this place that has been my home for the last 2 months. It's been such a fun time, and I'm very grateful to have had this opportunity. If you are in college and want something amazing to do next summer, I highly recommend applying for the Critical Language Scholarship program from the US Department of State.

I will miss all the people I have met, I will miss seeing little lizards in the bathroom while I'm taking showers, I will miss getting sandwiches from the "melbana," I will miss having freshly squeezed orange juice for breakfast every morning, and so many other things. Morocco has been a wonderful country to live in for the summer.

But I am ready to get back. I can't wait to see my family and friends, I can't wait to eat some of Mama Stirgwolt's cooking (peach cobbler, please, Mom!), I can't wait to drive a car again, I can't wait to get back to Purdue and graduate and see what lies ahead...

Yesterday we had our final party. The guest of honor at our party was Mohammad from the melbana. He has got to be one of the most genuinely friendly people I have ever met. He has been incredibly nice to us all summer, so we invited him to the party. After the party ended, a few of us went to the melbana to buy some juice. Mohammad told us, completely honestly and graciously, that it was the best night of his life. I will miss him a lot.

Nina, Mohammad, and me at the melbana.

This is the melbana where I bought a majority of my food this summer.

Well, once again, this is the last blog post that I will be putting up for awhile. I had no idea that this blog would have even been resurrected this summer, and I really don't know when it will come back again. Let's hope that it's soon...

I wonder what the what will be in the blank: Ben's _______ Adventure...

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope that I will see you soon!!!

Sunday, August 14, 2011

The End is Near

Only a few more days left in Morocco. That's really hard to believe. This summer has gone by so quickly. I am ready to get back to Purdue for my last semester and to find out what's going to happen in the next phase of my life. Right now I really have no idea--which is exciting and scary at the same time.

As I mentioned last post, this week we studied terrorism, which was actually pretty interesting. However, for my research paper I decided to do something totally different, so I wrote about the future of space exploration and the importance of the private space companies. If your interested and able to read Arabic, then here's the link to my paper.

I really don't have much to report because nothing too exciting has happened here recently. So, in order to make this post worthwhile, I decided that I could upload some photos. I realized that I never took pictures of the campus where I spend 85% of my time. So here are my photos:


On the path to the pool.

The dormitory. My room is the furthest to the right.

The BEAUTIFUL pool. I've spent many hours here...

My room.

I expect to put up another post before I leave on Thursday night, but I wanted to mention that I will be getting into Columbus at midnight on Friday, then will be at Josh & Rebecca's wedding on Saturday in Wadsworth, and then will be leaving for Purdue on Sunday, with school starting on Monday. That's the plan at least...

Have a good Sunday!

Monday, August 8, 2011

Spies, Drugs (again) and Sheep Feet

How could you resist a blog post with a title like that? I guess I'll start with the first word...

Johan came to visit me in Tangier this weekend since he is working on his graduate research. We didn't do anything too exciting, just walked around the city and spent a long time catching up. As we were walking to (attempt) to get lunch, we walked into a restaurant and I asked the two men sitting in the restaurant if they had any food or not because it is Ramadan and a lot of places don't have food. One of the men said, "No....and I wouldn't give food to Israeli spies anyway." I told him that we were Americans (Johan is Norwegian, but that's almost America, right?) and that we are not spies. But I was angry because of his comment, so we left, looking for a new place.

As a rule of thumb, I won't go to a place that has people out in the streets trying to get more people to come to their restaurant. You've just got to assume that there is something wrong with that restaurant if there's people fishing for you. Anyway, we ran into a man who wanted us to go to his restaurant. We told him that we were not interested (I only used Moroccan Arabic here just so the idea would click with him), but he became very hostile quickly. He said some very derogatory things and then accused us of being Israeli spies.

I'm very curious as to why we were called spies twice within 20 minutes. I have a feeling that it is because Johan was wearing what I call "FBI sunglasses." I don't know. Where do these people get these ideas that Israeli spies are infiltrating their country?

And moving onto the second word--drugs.

This is really a non-story because it happens so often, but to some of us who come from Wadsworth, Ohio, this isn't exactly an every-day experience. It's not uncommon to be walking down the street and have some creepy man come up to you and say in English, "Hey, do you want some hasheesh?" He may even then whip out a sample for you to see. Just like when you're accused of being a spy, this is another time when you just have to pretend like you only speak Japanese and you have no idea what he's saying (have I written about how I've had to explain to so many people that neither my mom nor my dad are from Japan?).

And sheep feet...

Yeah, I ate one. I wasn't really sure at the time. I had a suspicion, but I wasn't really sure. The meat was just in a strange shape and there were a lot of bones. It was kind of like leather. It wasn't very good. I probably won't eat it again...but it was a good experience...I think.

That's all for now. I have a lot of homework to do--write about some terrorist organization in Algeria and about the future of space exploration. Guess which one I'm really excited about...

Have a happy Monday!


Thursday, August 4, 2011

Just Like Home

I realized that I forgot to mention something amazing that happens every week here in Tangier. At the school we have the nicest ladies who clean our dorm and our rooms and do our laundry for us. They fold everything, too. It's a wonderful thing that happens every Thursday, and I'm going to miss it a lot when I return to America. It's so nice that I can't believe I forgot to mention this earlier...

This week we have been discussing the economy, which includes a whole new set of vocabulary for me. I really don't care for economics all that much, but it's such an improvement over poetry, where we're essentially given a line of poetry (maybe 15 words, only 3 of which I knew) and are asked to explain it. That was the worst week ever. But this week has been better. It was interesting to present on the economies of different countries. I chose Iraq for my presentation and actually learned a lot from doing the research for it.

And even better than learning about economics was our discussion about renewable energy. This was the best class we've had by far. We even watched a clip about renewable energy used in aviation. There was even a solar-powered airplane. I think our teachers were definitely catering to my interests, since this is also what I wrote my research paper on.

This weekend Johan (my Norwegian friend from Egypt) is coming to Tangier to visit/continue with his research. It will be an awesome reunion! When I left Johan in Cairo I never would have thought that I would meet him in Morocco. It's funny how things like this happen...

Have a good Thursday!