Here's Lookin' At You, Kid.

Hassan II Mosque


This tower is the size of a skyscraper, I haven't seen a building this big since leaving New York


Exterior of the Mosque


Pretty fountain

Fountains for washing before Prayer

Pool in the basement of the Mosque. It's part of a Hammam that has never been used.

The ceiling of the Mosque

Gorgeous Rotunda

An example of more European architecture here

The film Casablanca being played in the second floor lounge at Rick's Cafe

10/24/09

Yes, that's right, I went to Casablanca today!

Casablanca is only an hour south of Rabat, so we decided to make a day trip there this weekend. There's not exactly a lot to do there, but we did see the famous Mosque and, of course, make a trip to Rick's Cafe.

Hassan II Mosque is one of two mosques in Morocco open to non-Muslims, though in order to enter you must be with one of the scheduled guided tours led between prayer times. It was commissioned by the previous king and was paid for largely by contributions from the people of Morocco. He asked the citizens to give money for this, and our host mother told us that our host father and his business partner donated 1million dirhams (I'm pretty sure she actually said million and not mille, the French word for thousand - I will have to double check this number because that is quite a hefty sum). She told us it wasn't a tax or required to donate, but the people just did it...whether out of loyalty, love, or fear I don't know.

At any rate, the mosque is absolutely beautiful. It is built almost on top of the ocean, echoing a statement in the Quran which says that God's throne is built upon the water. You can see the ocean through beautiful huge doors which are ornately carved so that patterns of sunlight stream in. After six years of construction from 1987-1993, it stands as the largest building in Morocco. Over 6000 artisans aided in the designing of it.

The whole idea of building houses for God is so strange to me...yet all religions do it. Even the ancient ones which involve rituals with possession and all that...is that not just a way of offering your body as a house for God? I can't imagine God really cares about anything like that...but I guess everybody wants to make an offering of some kind. Standing inside this place where thousands of people come to pray 5 times every day I was thinking about how big your prayer would have to be to fill up all that space. You'd have to be capable of so much hope and belief...I can't help but be reminded of theatre.

Our tour guide was really funny, though I didn't understand most of his jokes - I managed to somehow get stuck in the tour led in French...so I only understood about 10% of what was being said, but I figured, what the heck, I need to practice listening to French anyway. He took us through the main room where the praying is done, then down into the basement where there is a hammam and a huge room of fountains. In case you don't know, it's required in Islam to wash yourself before you pray. As one Moroccan I met put it "Think about how you spend time getting dressed and ready to meet a good friend. If this is how you prepare yourself to see a friend, how much must you prepare yourself to converse with God?" Good point Jad, but I can't imagine many people from my hometown of Houston, let alone New Yorkers, stopping to wash and pray 5 times a day. It's such a different world.

And of course, we made the obligatory trip to Rick's Cafe. It's a total tourist trap, but we decided to go anyway just for the novelty of it. The restaurant was built after Casablanca became a big hit. They serve mostly American food (basically because we're the suckers to go there) and play the film nonstop on the second floor lounge. They also sell T-shirts, and while I was tempted to buy one, I passed on the opportunity.

You can definitely see the French influences in the architecture in Casablanca. Also there is a very big church there as well as many streets and schools named after Christian saints which is, as you might have guessed, very abnormal in Morocco. Another interesting phenomenon here was the group of young Goth Moroccan kids wearing Marilyn Manson T-shirts and moodily staring us down as we walked through the park. We may have found all the Moroccan Goths that exist in that one park, but ladies and gentlemen, they are real.

And with that trip done, I have been to all the major cities of Morocco!

Fes

10/17/09 - 10/18/09

We went to Fes! Fes is just to the east of Rabat by about 2 hours. Due to its close proximity to Rabat, we decided it would be more cost efficient to get up very early Saturday morning and go rather than arrive late the night before and basically just eat then go to bed in a hotel.

So, Saturday at 5:30am Chloe and I met Lyall, Ronan, Henry, Barbara, and Amrita at Bab el-Bouiba (the gate to the medina where we often meet to go out) and walked to the train station where we met Max and Michael. In case I haven't mentioned them yet, here's some info about them each: Max is a20 year old Austrian kid who works at the same center as me. His mom is American and his sister goes to FIT in New York. Michael is Nigerian but has lived in America for a while. He is 24 and was an investment banker in New York before coming here. After his stay in Morocco he will travel to Nigeria where he will be for the next six months doing his obligatory civil duty there. He said normally its really easy to get out of, but he wanted to do it. Awesome.

Our train arrived on time at 6:12 am. We got to ride on one of the fancy new trains! They only run on the shorter train lines. For those of you who frequent the LIRR or the NYC subway, the differences between the trains are basically the same as the old and new trains on those lines. The new ones have AC and white decor, better bathrooms, etc. The train ride was uneventful the way you want traveling to be. We arrived on time at about 8:30am and after dropping our bags off at our hostel, we set out on a desperate search for coffee and breakfast (which took us about 45 minutes-an hour - more people = more difficulty reaching decisions).

It was pretty cool to be in the Medina while everyone was setting up for the day. A few of us couldn't stand the lack of caffeine in our systems any more and got coffee while we waited for some others to catch up to us. This little cafe happened to be at a central point of the Medina where a few roads cross and there is a little bit of open space and many shops. Ok, so I know it's not France, but moments like that I just can't help but think of the beginning of Beauty and the Beast, "Little town, its a quiet village, every day like the one before. Little town, full of little people waking up to say BONJOUR!" Of particular note in this small square were a couple metalsmiths working side by side. The clanging sound of their work made me wish I knew how to tap dance really well so I could find some cool percussive way to add to their rhythmic symphony. Men led their donkeys through the square, the animals' backs piled high with rugs, leather to be tanned, and various other merchandise. Moroccan music (which I love) wafted from the cafe. As I was standing there I couldn't help but think of Benjamin (my college voice teacher) and "opening my ears." There were so many sounds to choose from and I think he would have appreciated them so much.

We found a cafe where we could all fit and we loaded up on coffee and pain au chocolat. A funny thing about places here: if a place doesn't have something you order - they hop over to another shop and buy it for you. At this cafe they didn't have pain au chocolat, but Henry ordered it, the guy asked how many of us there were, then a little bit later he came upstairs with two big brown bags full of pain au chocolat. Everybody "knows a guy," or "has a cousin," or something like that.

Afterward we walked around all the Soukhs and they were pretty amazing. I have to say, Fes is by far my favorite city we have visited thus far, mainly because I felt like I was left alone the most there. On the tourism scale it falls between Rabat, which is not touristy at all, and Marrakesh which is basically the theme park version of a Moroccan city. Fes is also regarded as the intellectual and cultural capital of Morocco. There are very old and beautiful libraries, Mosques, and Medersas (Quranic schools). There are also a gajillion Soukhs where I did some pretty great shopping there - got two bracelets, two sets of earrings, and three paintings for 170 dirham (about $22)! I really hate haggling, I'm so bad at it. Luckily the jewelry guy started low in the first place.

After a very delicious lunch right across the street from our hotel we ventured back out into the medina and went to take pictures of the old Medersa there (some of which you can see in the entry below). There was a tour group there of German speaking people. The cool thing about traveling in an international group like this is that I was able to turn to Max and ask him everythin the guide told them about the place. The rooms at the top are classrooms, the rooms downstairs are praying rooms, and there is a big main area for praying as well.

We were pretty exhausted after getting up so early and wandering around in the heat all day, so we settled down in a cafe and rested for a bit. Then Will showed up! He was heading for the desert the same night, and this was the last time we got to see him. I will miss him and his hilarious british humor very much. We all had a nice dinner together literally just under our hotel then headed back up to our rooms to hang out for a while and call it a night.

The next day we all got up and ate breakfast on the terrace. The man there was extremely nice and was sure to tell us that he "loves all people the same! allemand! americain! francais!" We had amazing breakfast crepes (kind of a normal breakfast here - basically this amazing doughy bread with a sauce of honey and butter on top), chocolate croissants, rolls, cheese, yogurt, and coffee. All this for 20 dirham (under $3). We then headed over the tanneries to take a look at all the leather being dyed. When you walk in the building they give you a piece of mint to cover the awful smell of everything. The poor plant tries to hold on to its nice aroma, but after a while it has to give in to the odor of the dyes and the skin. There was a man there who spoke a "lottle bot ongloosh" who explained that all the dyes are natural and not chemical, which allows them to be more permanent. It's kind of strange to me that these people who are working under some pretty intense conditions have been sort of turned into a theme park attraction...but I won't get on my high horse about it...things like that are very complicated and I have a hard time deciding what I really think about them.

We then headed out of the Medina and into the Mellah, which is the Jewish quarters of town. It was nice to have a change of scene. We went into a cemetery there and it was very peaceful and beautiful. Some people were buried there as recently as 2001. Something I especially liked about the cemetery is that there were olive trees everywhere and several men out picking olives and tending to the trees. I liked to see something living there. It's hopeful somehow, unlike seeing dead flowers on graves. There was also a "museum" there of things left behind inside the walls of the cemetery. After the creation of Israel most of the Jews emigrated from Morocco. This museum is basically just a bunch of crap that people left behind. It kind of looked like an old unkempt antique store or a whole bunch of garage sales going on side by side. You can see some pretty cool pictures of that below also. Also there were some crazy tools used for measuring peoples' dimensions. They thought they could tell if you were a Jew by measuring your nose and things like that. Our guide book said that though it is a museum, you can very easily purchase things there.

We then grabbed some lunch at a pretty posh place called 'Mezzanine.' It was the first non-Moroccan food I've had in a while, and it was fantastic! Pesto has never tasted so good.

After a bit of a mad dash we made it onto a train back to Rabat. It was at a pretty peak time, so we ended up without seats for the two hour ride, but it wasn't so bad. I loved Fes and Chloe and I definitely want to go back another weekend!

Sunrise, Sunset

Ok so here are all the pictures from our trip to Fes this weekend. The detailed summary to come, but I didn't spend all this time uploading pictures to not post anything today!

Sunrise Saturday morning through the dirty train window (I rather like the effect)

It was a sleepy train ride to Fez! Julia, Amrita, Chloe, and Barbara power up for the day!

Michael and Ronan at the cafe where we stumbled in, desperate for coffee and pain au chocolat.

Toutes les filles! (Julia, Claire, Amrita, Chloe, Barbara, et moi!)

The beautiful Medersa in the Medina in Fes

Another view

And another view

The huge Tannery where they naturally dye all the leather that is sold there.

The side of a Grave in the Jewish Cemetery

In the Jewish Cemetery

The biggest room in the "Museum" inside the cemetery in the Mellah

Funky pillow inside the museum

Hotel Cascades where we stayed for 70 dirham each (under $10)

Chloe being a goof!

Ronan, Max, and Michael crammed in the vestibule where we spent the trip back to Rabat (you can't see but Henry, Chloe, and Julia are sitting also and Lyall, Claire, and me are standing behind them)

Sunset on the train home Sunday evening

I DID IT

Why Do They Call Them Wisdom Teeth?

Ok, basically this isn't a huge story but my mouth has been really bothering me the past couple days. I called Asmaa, who works for Projects Abroad, and told her I needed to go to a dentist. She arranged an appointment for the same day and went with me to make sure I didn't have any communication problems.

He told me I need my wisdom teeth out...great. My immediate reaction was "Hell no I'm not getting my wisdom teeth out in Africa!" So he prescribed me some anti-inflammatory drugs and gave me some disinfecting mouth wash, but they aren't really working and I'm in some rather annoying pain. I think I'm going to have to have at least this one tooth removed because I don't know how much longer I can stand this. Pretty ridiculous.

I am trying to decide if I should get them all out. It would cost me about $250 to have the surgery, which is so much cheaper than if I go back to America and need them out later...without insurance. Chloe was telling me about a new phenomenon called "Medical Tourism" where all these people are going to foreign countries to get procedures done because even including travel expenses and hotels it's cheaper. That's pretty messed up and says a lot about our country - and don't try and tell me it's just because our medical stuff is better. I don't believe that for a second.

Now, before you all freak out, the place where I had the appointment was very clean and legitimate and was found through Projects Abroad. While I was there the doctor asked me if I was with the Peace Corps because lots of volunteers from there come to their office as well - very reassuring.

Basically the way I see it, it's going to really suck no matter where I have it done, it might as well be for cheap while I don't really have any obligations. I will have to take a little time off work here...but it's not like I'm losing money. Other volunteers have suggested I go to Spain, but it just doesn't really make sense for me to travel 5 hours to Spain, have surgery, then have to find my way back to Rabat alone while I'm all messed up on drugs. No thanks. If this pain and swelling keeps up (you can see it from the outside of my face) I won't be able to wait two months until I get back to the States.

Don't let all this fool you though, I'm actually doing really well. I'm peeved I have to worry about this, and I'm still waiting for my new ATM card to arrive, but I'm having a great time with everyone and enjoying Rabat. Besides, when I was in Marrakesh I saw a guy selling teeth...maybe I can make my $250 back!

New Face, New Fun

Ok so I'm a dog person through and through, but Spotticus is pretty darned cute!

10/06/09

So today Amrita, Barbara, and I all started belly dancing class! It is so much fun and another crazy shock in this culture. The women have the complete garb with all the little bangles and the crazy little bra tops, they can do unbelievably provocative movements, yet the windows and doors in the room are completely covered with drapes so nobody can see all the ladies shakin it. It's really great to be in a dance class where having some meat is desirable and actually makes the dancing easier. Barbara, who is a tiny little Asian chick, is so cute to watch because of course she hasn't an ounce of fat or any hips and kind of looks like she's on a bumpy roller coaster ride when she tries to shake her bum. The things that these women can do with their hips are uncanny. It requires so much isolation! I can kind of do it, but not with the precision they can - I still have to move my knees a little bit to get my hips to do anything, but these ladies seem to be standing with their legs completely straight....it's wild. It's strange the same way the Hammam is strange. What I'm learning is that the women here are not afraid of their sexuality the way you might think they are...they just don't display it for all to see. I dont know...I'm still so confused on my thoughts of womens' roles here.

So at our weekly Tuesday social event was at our house this week. After our belly dancing lesson Amrita, Barbara, and I all rushed to the house to meet everyone (I ran upstairs and changed out of my nasty sweaty clothes). We had some really tasty cookies and pastries and the a la menthe (traditional Moroccan mint tea) and had lots of fun playing with all the kittens (Fabienne, Chloe, and me spend most of our free time at the house playing with Spotticus, Caramel Cream, and the others which we haven't named yet).

There were tons of new volunteers to meet! Max is from Austria and he works with me in Takadoum in the mornings and teaching English in Sale in the afternoons. His Mom is American and his sister goes to FIT in New York. Michael is Nigerian but he lives in New York now. He's also teaching English in Sale. Julia (pronounced Yooliya) is German, the third super tall German chick we've had (Viola and Laura being the other two), and works with Chloe at the maternity clinic. She only speaks a little English and even less French, but luckily there are several German speakers here she can communicate with, including Chloe. And it's not like she speaks no English, so she should be fine. Claire is a lawyer from Seattle and is my new running buddy! She is working on the Human Rights project here. Both Claire and Julia are going to join us in Belly Dancing class. Philippe is much older than the rest of us (about 60) and he is from Belgium...I don't know how well he will fit in - he seems a little distant, but he is nice enough. He works with me in Takadoum.

Laura, Friederike, and Titi are all gone now. Friederike has gone on to Togo with her next Projects Abroad placement, Laura is on her two weeks vacation after ten weeks of working here, and Titi is back with his wife and children in France. Au revoir!

Marrakesh Pictures

Yves St. Laurent Monument in the Jardin.


Perkins the Dog the turtle



Gorgeous Walkway

Cool Fountain

The entrance to the Garden

The awesome decor at our first hotel

More awesome decor at our first hotel

And even more awesome decor at our first hotel.

Bathroom at the Riad! It was very long and skinny.

Awesome fountain in the Riad.

Marrakesh!

WARNING: THIS ENTRY IS SUPER F-ING LONG!

10/2/09-10/04/09

We went to Marrakesh this weekend!

Marrakesh is situated about 4 hours south of Rabat. Henry, Ronan (not sure if I've mentioned him yet - he's a young British guy deferring his enrollment to Oxford for a year and is here studying Arabic), Will, Barbara, Amrita, Chloe, Fabienne, and I left La Gare Rabat Centre Ville at 5 45 on Friday. The trains here are comprised of many different compartments rather than open rows of seating like on the LIRR or the Subway in NYC, so we snagged two almost empty ones and split up.

The trip there was pretty hilarious for a few reasons:

-The door in our compartment didn't work and it was hilarious to watch people try to enter and exit.

-The lady sitting next to me had a pair of small scissors on her keychain...ok, fine, maybe she's a seamstress or something. But did she have to hold them on her index and middle fingers so that the blade stuck straight out threateningly? Halfway through the ride she got up and stood out in the tiny hallway instead, staring menacingly at the people trying to push past her and her large suitcase.

-The train stopped at one point and nobody could figure out why. First we heard that a young man jumped off the train and died, then we heard that he simply had fallen and broken his arm...after about 45 minutes of sitting there we heard that it was an "April Fools Joke" and really it was just an electrical problem (we were told it doesn't have to April for April Fools Jokes to occur....a little frightening)

-Ok so technically this happened after we got there but it was right before we went to our hotel so it still kind of counts. We had just met up with Tom (he had gone down to Marrakesh to catch his flight the next day) right outside the Medina and were figuring out what we wanted to do for food when this guy just walked up, took Tom's water bottle from his hand, took a sip, poured some water over his head and scrubbed his face, then handed the water bottle back to Tom and walked away.

-Welcome to Marrakesh.

Ok, so here's the thing about Marrakesh: It's a huge tourist trap. Remember in Aladdin when Jasmine dresses up as a peasant and goes into the town and everyone is talking to her and people are charming snakes and have trained monkeys and all that? Ok yeah, Marrakesh is like that. It was pretty tiring to have to constantly be warding off people and haggling for prices, but it's a nice city none the less. The great thing about being in the tourist capital of the country was that things were a little cleaner and upscale than in Rabat. The bathroom at the train station was actually like a normal train station bathroom - a little dirty, but still flushes and has toilet paper. AMAZING!

The hotel we stayed in the first night used to be a house where all the members of one extended family lived. It is a courtyard style house with 30 rooms and lots of really awesome decor. I would definitely love to decorate any future homes of mine with Moroccan flare. It's so gorgeous!

The next morning we all had breakfast on the terrace to make our plan for the day. We went to this really beautiful garden where the ashes of Yves St. Laurent are scattered and saved this tiny turtle (which Henry named "Perkins the Dog") from the sidewalk...at least I think we saved him rather than hurt him. Not too exciting, but I always appreciate moments of shade and tranquility. We then ventured back the Medina for lunch where I had the supposedly famous "Couscous aux Sept Legumes." It was tasty, true, but when they say "seven vegetables" they mean literally seven pieces of vegetables sitting on top of the couscous (I think it was something like 3 pieces of carrot, 2 slices of eggplant, and 3 slices of zucchini). We then set out into the Souk to do a little shopping!

Let me tell you, the guys in the Souk in Marrakesh are AGRESSIVE. I can handle people calling after me or saying things to get me to come into their shop - I get it, they're trying to make money - but the amount of times I was grabbed by the wrist was uncanny. I'm normally a very polite person but I really cannot stand this attitude toward foreigners and have no problem saying with complete disgust "Don't touch me," or "Ne me touche pas!" as the case may be. They would never grab a Moroccan woman like that. Don't get the wrong idea, not everyone is like that and I met some very nice people while I was shopping that day. I got presents for some of you! Be excited! Some of us got really great deals because we were with Amrita. Amrita is Indian but people here think she is Moroccan all the time and give her the "Moroccan discount." Her usual story is that her parents are Moroccan but moved to America and so she grew up American. The funny thing is though that she puts on this really weird accent that she totally wouldn't have if she grew up in America and spoke only "shweeyah" Arabic. (shweeyah = "a little" in Arabic) But whatever! It works out well for us!

That night we had a pretty wacky experience going to dinner. We first attempted to go to this restaurant mentioned in Lonely Planet, but the prices were double what the book stated, so we left. It was pretty fantastic though, they had this little fountain of fire in the middle of the restaurant (I don't remember what the actual name of the restaurant was, but it translates to "FireWater.") So we left and went to this little place in the Medina that Will had popped into before to see if it might be a possibility for dinner. Apparently the guy there said that he would serve us wine with our dinner and had asked him to call if we wanted to come there. So we walk in...and it was incredibly dark, as in, only the candles on the tables were lighting the place. The couples at their candlelight dinners all glared at us...weird...but ok, maybe they all happen to be in the middle of arguments. After a few moments of waiting in this odd side room we were taken to our table. The owner seemed very strange (we think he may have possibly been drunk) and kept coming over and talking to us. He mentioned several times to Will that he did not call before we came to the restaurant. We tried to explain that it was a spur of the moment decision but I don't think he understood. When Will inquired about the wine, the owner seemed especially dismayed. A while later we saw him enter the restaurant with a bag - he had gone outside the Medina to purchase it for us and tried to charge us 300 DH (about $40) for the bottle, which is absolutely insane. The wine was crap and you probably could have bought it for under $20 at any grocery store in America. He told us that wine is illegal in the Medina and he went to great lengths to get it for us, but we told him that we're sorry he took the risk but he didn't explain this to us beforehand and we were not going to pay 300 DH. We got it down to 100 DH and tried to get out of there as quickly as possible. He did send us on our way with lots of statements like "You are my customers, if you pay or no, I love you." He also gave Will a small glass of wine to take on the way out the door, which we immediately ditched. Oh, and did I mention the random women that seemed to be coming and going all throughout the restaurant? One was wearing all leather...SHADY! The tagine was pretty good though.

The second night we stayed in a Riad, which is basically just a nicer hotel than normal. Marrakesh is known for its Riads, so we had to see what they were all about. Some are very fancy and have pools or hammams directly inside them, but ours was pretty basic - just nice rooms and people. The bathrooms were amazingly large! Definitely the biggest one I've been in since coming to Morocco. And we had a really baller breakfast on the terrace in the morning. It was complimentary and it came with fried eggs, pain au chocolat, crepes, bread, coffee/tea, and juice. Yumm!

And after the amazing breakfast, I discovered I had a major problem. I had lost my debit card and 400 DH (about $50). I have no clue how it happened. I used my card to get money out of the ATM to go to dinner the previous night, and that was the last time I saw it. I thought that maybe when I was trying to quickly pay for dinner the night before it fell out of my bag onto my lap and I didn't notice. So....I had to ask Will to accompany me back to the restaurant. It was the last thing on earth either of us wanted to do...but we did. It wasn't there. It also wasn't at the bank where I took out money the night before or at the hotel, and therefore it was completely lost.

So for me the morning was spent mostly at an internet cafe frantically checking my bank account (no charges were made), trying to see if I could cancel my card online (I couldn't) and trying to find phone numbers to call to get it cancelled. Of course, I had run out of money on my cell phone (almost all phones here are pay-as-you-go). Luckily I had accidentally purchased a regular calling card for payphones a couple weeks ago. Unluckily, it was in Rabat. So I just kind of prayed nobody used my card until I returned home. I immediately went to a payphone and called my mom to see if she could call and cancel the card for me since her name is also on the account. Everything is fine and now I am waiting for the new card to arrive. Disaster averted. Also, after calling Visa myself I learned that there is such a thing as "Visa 911" where if you lose your Visa card while traveling, they can wire you money from your own account. At that point my Mom and her fiance Curtis had already wired me some cash, but it's nice to know that such a service exists.

TRAVELLERS: NEVER STORE ALL YOUR CASH IN THE SAME PLACE.

Luckily I had not put all my cash in my purse and still had enough money in my backpack to buy lunch, get me home, and to travel to work for the rest of the week.

Ok so even though the trip was filled with strange characters and the loss of my debit card, it was still great and I'd like to go back to Marrakesh another weekend and see all the things I missed!

Pics

Ok so here are some pics I wanted to put with the last post. Tom and Henry on Tom's last night, and Fabienne, my new Swiss roommate!

Comings and Goings

Note: more entries to come about Marrakesh and other things, but I need to buy more batteries for my camera so I can upload pics.

So there have been lots of comings and goings the past couple weeks.

9/30/09

My running buddy Tom has gone back to England. :( He is going to be working there in a lab (I think) for two or three months, then he sets off for Argentina where he will be teaching English for a few months. His grand plan is to then drive home to England, yes that's right, drive up through South America, Mexico, the States, Canada, Russia, the whole shebang...we'll see if it happens or not.

The upside of him leaving was that we all went out to celebrate for his last night!

This guy Alex, from Maryland, used to live with the same host family as Will and Tom but now lives on his own and teaches English. He's become friends with all of us and he took us to this hotel bar in Centre Ville which serves alcohol (hard to find in a Muslim country and illegal in many places) and has live music. The band was so amazing! I hope I can get a copy of their music before I leave. It's this funky mix of Latin and African music. The rhythms are out of control and made dancing very interesting! However, their beats were not as impossible to dance to as the Moroccan music played while the band took their breaks. Will and Tom's host brother had been showing me some neat dance moves earlier in the night, and he kept trying to show me how to dance to the Moroccan music but really all he did was gain a good laugh at my expense. I think I deserve an A for effort though!

Note: there is no proper dance floor in this place, just a small area which happens to not have tables. But everybody squeezed in the small space and gleefully shook their tail-feathers - I have been thirsting for a good "dance-break" in my life for some time, and it really hit the spot!

We will be frequenting that place for sure.

PS - Tonight is technically Will's and Simon's last nights with Projects Abroad, but they will both be in Rabat for a couple weeks so it doesn't really count.

10/1/09

A new volunteer arrived in our house today! Her name is Fabienne and she is Swiss. She seems pretty shy but also very sweet. I'm sure she'll start to open up after being here a little while and getting to know everybody.

Her story for coming here is very sad. Her brother died in a plane crash here four years ago, only a few days before his 22nd birthday. He and his friends were all hobby pilots and they were flying from Marrakesh in a small plane and never made it to their destination. The plane crashed near a small Berber village. There are a lot of mysteries about the crash and the Swiss government and the Berber eye-witnesses have different stories about how it all happened. Her family is also forbidden by Swiss law to speak with the families of the other victims. It's all very strange. The Swiss government told her family that they tried to land their helicopters to pick up the bodies but all the villagers tried to attack the helicopter and that the family should not go to Morocco because the people there would try to kill them. After months the family still had not received the body of Fabienne's brother, and they decided that they'd had enough. Two years ago they went to Morocco to climb the mountain where the plane crashed and speak with people in the Berber village. The bad impression the Swiss government had given her of Morocco was changed after her visit here, and she decided then she wanted to come back to Morocco later on her own terms, for her own reasons. It's a way of making piece for her.

And by the way, while she climbed the mountain where the plane crash happened she was able to collects pieces of the debris from the crash. Her family also was able to collect her brother's body and give him a proper burial. They still don't know why the plane crashed - the hypothesis is that it ran out of fuel because there was no explosion and there would have been if there had been fuel in the plane. Sometimes the people who sell gas here mix it with water to save money...

I would like to give her both FORGETTING and TD/BC to read.

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The strange thing about playing roles that really mean something to me is that I sometimes have a false sense of my own experiences. Because of FORGETTING I somehow felt like I really strongly connected with Fabienne about her brother...I know that that sounds absolutely ridiculous and I know that the experience wasn't mine and in no way do I seek to undermine what it truly means to experience that kind of loss....but Trista's writing and her presence in rehearsals made me feel like I was inside her experience of it all somehow....I know it sounds strange but I think a couple people reading this might kind of understand what I mean.

I miss acting.

Some details about work

Me and Ismaha. She is deaf. One day last week she suddenly showed up with a head covering, basically in the fully veiled ensemble minus the part that goes over her face. I am always sort of disgusted to see such young girls covered because I just think "Really? She's 9 and you are sexualizing her hair? Pervs." It was just so sudden...and I wonder if there was an instance or if she had a birthday or something that made her parents start changing her dress.


This is Fahid. Very cute. Very energetic. Very tiring. The main reason I now have a cold.



Don't tell the other kids but Ibrahim is my favorite.

10/01/09

This past week has been a little rough for me. Working with the handicapped kids kind of wears on my soul a little bit. Some of the kids with downs syndrome are really poorly behaved, and I feel as though their parents completely ignore them at home. One kid, Farid, the littlest one, has had a cold since I've been here and its gotten progressively worse. He always has thick mucus running down his face and his eyes have become crusty and watery also. He is also very poorly behaved which I refuse to believe is solely the product of his condition. He knows full well that throwing things at other children is bad behavior. I hate to be the bad guy, but I feel that if I don't discipline them somehow then they will never learn. Nothing crazy, don't think I'm a Nazi or anything. But if you throw the legos after I ask you to stop, then you don't get to play with legos and you have to sit alone with me for a few minutes and not play.

Another kid...well he's 25 actually though you'd never know...is mentally and physically disabled. His name is Saiid and he lives his life in a wheelchair. He likes to draw. We tape all four corners of a piece of paper down in front of him and put a pencil in his hand and with with concentration than I've ever had to use he puts pencil to paper and creates all he can. He also loves to play this one memory game with very large pieces which he can actually flip over, though it takes him a while and quite a lot of energy. The amazing thing is that I lay the pieces out face up and leave them for 15 second or so then flip them all over. He owns me every time. And not like he gets a match or two more than me, he has a map of the game in his head and is never wrong. I suppose that's what happens when your life IS observation. I can't help but think about all the obstacles present in his life. If we're talking in theatre terms...what your objectives even have the possibility of being is completely changed by those obstacles...and he has to make concessions about what a successful achievement of objectives are based on those things which are completely out of his control...

I think that last bit will make sense to a couple people reading this blog...

Our mission is to teach these kids how to function as properly as possible in society. And I refuse to treat them like they are incapable of learning. Whenever I try and work with Fahid my boss says "No, no, its ok, he will make you tired." I politely tell him I don't mind and continue doing what I'm doing, but secretly I'm thinking "You have no idea how much tiredness I can handle buddy. Working with one kid three hours a day ain't nothin."

The three volunteers who work at the center rotate days helping out the teachers with the "normal" kids. They are so tiny, 3-5 years old, and the classes are absurdly large. In one tiny classroom there are 43 children, and in the other there are 31. This is a very general statement, but I feel like the children here in general are very poorly behaved (of course this is from my Western perspective - I have no idea what "well-behaved" means here). It is very difficult for me and I feel very useless because I can't speak Arabic, so I really am no help at all controlling the kids. Usually I just say "la!" (that means "no") with a lot of conviction then stare them square in the eye until they look away....animal style.

I wish the classrooms were larger - that way we could do more physical activities that would keep the kids engaged. What kind of 4 year old is going to sit still for three hours, however well-behaved they are? I think the center accepted way to many children and now everyone is suffering. I'm still trying to figure out what I can do with the handicapped kids one day. All we really do is give them toys and paper and crayons - it's not really an active time and I would like that to change. There is a park closeby and my boss has mentioned several times taking the kids there, but so far it hasn't happens. Peut-etre un jour semaine prochaine. Ou peut-etre je se dis de je voudrais aller un jour chaque semaine. hmm....(again pardon my lack of accents and the grammatical errors...mais j'ai besoin pratiquer souvent!)

Another strange thing at work is when the fully veiled women drop their kids off. I still have a strange reaction to these silhouetted figures of relatively human forms floating through the streets. They seem goulish and frightening to me, and I feel like I'm not supposed to speak to them...mainly because I don't know how to speak to people when I can't see their eyes. Usually I mutter a "Labess?" ("How are you in Dareeja") in their general direction and keep walking like I'm busily going somewhere. This is behavior I will have to work on. But I guess acknowledging that they kind of freak me out is the first step.

....right?

chefchaouen

Here are some pictures of Chefchaouen itself. It's really gorgeous there and I'd love to go back!

chefchaouen

All of us soaking wet after being rained on all day.




The big waterfall we hiked to!





Tom leaping through the air. To the side you see Dodge, Henry, and Lyall


In the minibus on the way to the bottom of the 'trail' we hiked


Pretty!

The small waterfall halfway through the full hike (some people only hike to this point)

Chloe by the pond at the base of the bigger waterfall where we swam!

9/27/09

So this weekend we went to Chefchaouen! I'll divide the entries up by days. All in all, this trip was a great test run for weekend traveling. Basically Chloe and I learned some valuable things about traveling in Morocco such as, don't trust boys to make travel arrangements for you, always pray before entering taxis, and always start trying to get home first thing in the morning - that way you might actually find a bus or train that will get you home by the night. The transportation systems here are extremely unreliable and we found we were better off bargaining with taxi/minibus drivers for rides places.

Ok, so Chefchaouen is known as "the blue city" because many of the houses and medina walls are painted blue, an influence from the large Jewish population which used to inhabit the town. Now it is part of "Spanish Morocco" and we had a rough time communicating with anyone because they speak a funky mix of Spanish and Arabic whereas down in Rabat people speak Dareeja (i don't know how to spell it, but its the Moroccan dialect of Arabic) and French. My French is pretty awful and I have a hard enough time trying to communicate in French here in Rabat, but even the people fluent in French couldn't speak to folks. Plenty of people spoke English and could help us though.

I have come to realize that money talks - and it speaks English.

The first day we decided to hike to a waterfall we read about in Lonely Planet, so we set out via minibus on the 40 minute car ride to the bottom of this hike. After starting out then realizing we really didn't know where in the world we were going, we took a guy up on a led hike to the waterfall. Of course, it began to rain. It wasn't torrential, just a sprinkle, but we were in it for so long that we all ended up soaking wet.

Oh yeah, and I swam at the waterfall. It was the coldest water I have EVER swum in, but I loved every moment of it. I think it might be the coolest thing I've ever done. The hike back down the mountain was a lot faster than the hike up because we were all soaking wet and MORE than ready to get into dry clothes - although we did see monkeys scaling the side of the mountain on the trip down. Total the hike there and back was 6 hours.

That night after getting back to the hotel and dry again we all went out to dinner. I had some really great pastilla, which I've never had before. Yum!

I won't get all fruity on you, but suffice it to say that I was feeling really free and one with nature and all that getting rained on in Africa.