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!
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