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!!!

The Butcher, the Baker, and the Candlestick Maker

Well I really didn't talk to a butcher or a candlestick maker, but yesterday we did get to go out into the community surrounding the school and talk to the owners of local businesses, like small grocery stores, a shoe repairman, and a worker at the hammam. It was incredibly difficult to understand what most of them were saying (they mostly use Moroccan Arabic, which I know very little of), but generally we were able to get the information that we were looking for. Hopefully practice makes perfect, eventually.

In the souk. The fruit is wonderful.

(Grandma, if you click on the picture it will get bigger.)

Boys working in the wood shop. The owner was talking to us.

The man who fixes shoes.

Today we went on a trip to the new port (building began in 2003) just outside of Tangier. It is the largest in Africa. I learned some new vocabulary, and it was neat to see all the ships and the beautiful landscape along the way. The photo below shows the port with the words "God", "Country", "The King" written on the mountain.

Port Tangier

The countryside outside of the city.

I think tomorrow is a relatively calm day without any additional Arabic-related activities--just 4 hours of classwork. On Friday one other student and I will be going to our Moroccan family for a few hours to eat with them and get to know them. Then during the weekend we're going on an excursion to a beach and a private nature reserve--pretty exclusive, right?

I've been able to go swimming in our pool a couple of times, and it has been so refreshing. It gets very warm here in the afternoons.

I hope you are having a good Wednesday!

Life in Tangier

One of the things that I like best about this program is that we get to use the Arabic that we learn in our classes on the streets of Tangier. Yesterday we had a class about asking for directions. After the class we divided into small groups and took to the streets on a scavenger hunt of famous places in Tangier, asking the locals for the location of each place. It was a really good exercise to solidify the vocabulary that we had learned, and it was fun to see the city.

The goal was to take pictures of each of these locations. The final thing we had to do was take a picture of something strange. As we were trying to figure out what to do, we noticed a policeman directing traffic so we decided to ask him if he could take a picture with me pretending like he was arresting me and me looking sad. He told us that he probably would, but he was afraid since the Moroccans are voting on their new constitution in a few days, he thought if the picture somehow got to the press, it would be very damaging having a police officer arresting a foreigner. So we didn't get the picture. It was still fun.

Afterwards we went to a restaurant and got dinner (this was around 10:00 pm). Like in Egypt, there is some really good fruit juice; last night I had peach juice, which was heavenly.

In the medina.

On the first day that we were here we visited the American Legation Museum, which is the oldest piece of American property outside of the United States. It was beautiful. This is a picture of it below. From what I understood, it seems like they do a lot of research here. I remember reading in my orientation materials that some of us may have to write a research paper (in Arabic, of course) using some of the resources from this center. I wouldn't mind spending some time there...

American Legation Museum

Today I'm going to return to downtown Tangier and do some more exploring and maybe have give bartering a shot, though I still don't know much Moroccan Arabic, it is still so much fun to speak to the locals in Arabic, and they love it too (one man said in Arabic "God bless you for speaking Arabic" when I spoke to him at a cafe).

The days have really been full of things for us to do. Formal classes start tomorrow, which probably means that life will get even crazier, but that's okay.

Happy Sunday!

But I Don't Speak French!

I don't know how it's Tuesday evening already! Earlier today as I was waiting my turn to go through security (yes, full-body scan) for a few seconds I forgot what city I was in and a few hours later I had no idea what day it was. I guess that's what you get for going to 6 airports in 6 days...

When I arrived in DC, my friend from Purdue, Kathy Brumbaugh, picked me up from the airport and we did a car tour of the greater DC area. That afternoon we had a meet and greet at our hotel so that we could get to know the other participants in the program. There are about 30 of us, most of whom are studying international relations/political science/Middle Eastern studies. I'm the sole engineer. It's kind of strange to me because I'm not used to having so many conversations that are about democracy and Middle Eastern issues. Needless to say, I spend a lot of time listening; definitely no conversations about herpolhodes or space cones...

However, we did make it to the National Air and Space museum today, so I had my chance to point out the Bell X-1 and explain some of the parts of a rocket engine.

Yesterday was a full day of guest speakers including a diplomat who was evacuated from Yemen within the last several weeks, several people who have worked as analysts at the CIA, and someone who works at the Christian non-profit organization World Vision. They were are very interesting.

And of course, if you're in DC you have to see all of the monuments, so we did that as well. (The internet at the airport is very slow, so pictures will have to wait a bit)

Right now I'm waiting for our flight to Paris. We were originally scheduled to make a quick connection in Paris to Casablanca, but our plane got delayed, so now we will be spending 24 hours in Paris, so we're going to do a whirlwind tour. And I'm going to eat a croissant.

I'm very tired, but hopefully I will be able to sleep on the plane. I don't know when I'll be able to post another update, but most likely it will be when I have arrived in Morocco!

So, as always, have a good Tuesday evening.

The Adventure Begins, Part II

I noted in my last blog post of "Ben's Egyptian Adventure" from Fall 2009 - Spring 2010 that there would quite possibly be a new "Ben's _________ Adventure" site in the future. I had no idea where that adventure would be or the reason why I would be going, but I had a suspicion that I would be travelling somewhere, sometime in the future.

I wasn't expecting this opportunity at all. I applied for the U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship program at the behest of my Arabic professor, who told me about the program 2 days before the scholarship deadline. In one night I scrambled to put together 3 short essays, letters of recommendation, and the rest of the application. I submitted everything and then waited 6 months to find out that I was selected to spend 2 months in Morocco in an intensive Arabic program during the summer.

Here are two pictures of where Morocco is. I will be staying in Tangier, which is in northern Morocco, as seen in the second picture. (Pictures are public domain from www.cia.gov)

If you're interested in the program, here is a media note regarding some of the details. Even though I haven't even started the program, I have a feeling that I will end up recommending it to anyone who is interested in learning a foreign language and spending the summer in another country (but I'll write my review of the program at the end of the summer).

For now, I'm headed to Washington D.C tomorrow (Sunday--Father's Day) morning for a couple of days of orientation speakers, panels, etc. until we depart as a group on Tuesday evening.

One thing I've learned already--it's MUCH easier to pack for 2 months than it is for 9 months. I have quite a bit of room left in my suitcase (more room for souvenirs?).

Happy Saturday!