The Extraordinary and the Ordinary

I've been meaning to write about my trips and about life here in Marrakesh for some time now, and I have a long list of all the memories I want to put into words. However, a friend advised me last month to try to live in the moment as much as I can in the short, short time I have left in this beautiful city. Rather than write about the amazing trips I went on in the past months -- the long treks through the tiny villages and river valleys of the High Atlas, fresh suntan lines from floating on my back in the calm Mediterranean, or the sound of the call to prayer rising up from the winding streets of Fes's labyrinthine medina -- I want to tell you about today.

Today was an ordinary day in Marrakesh. I woke up early and walked to school, went to Arabic class, ate lunch at school, did my homework, walked around the old city with my friends, went to the gym, and hung out with my family after dinner. However, as I started to get ready for bed a few minutes ago, I was struck by how relaxed and happy I felt, and how wonderful my day had really been. It's easy to get stuck in a routine here and forget how amazing my life here really is.

I woke up just after sunrise when I heard Yassir come downstairs, and we ate breakfast together with my host mom. I tied his shoes for him like I do every morning and made tea to take to school with me. The morning was cool, and my walk along Avenue Fessi was full of the bustle of the awakening city.

Oustada Lamia, my Arabic teacher, started class by giving us feedback on the 10-minute Arabic presentations we gave last week to the director of our school. We presented and fielded questions about the 6-page research papers we had spent the spring writing. It's easy to feel discouraged sometimes in class, since progress is often not very tangible and 8 months of daily 3-hour Arabic classes has burned me out. However, realizing that I had completed this assignment (a paper/presentation that I honestly wouldn't have believed I could complete at the beginning of this year, when I didn't even know the Arabic alphabet) was an immensely satisfying feeling. I drank tea with my friends during break and talked with Mama Khadija, the CLC's chef. She teaches my cooking class, and I've become pretty close with her through our daily interactions.  After 7 months of studying, teaching, and volunteering at the CLC, I really feel like I've integrated into the community there, and that in and of itself makes this year seem worth it to me.

After class, we ate lunch and I said my first goodbye to Mama Khadija's daughter, a girl named Chaimaa. She works for the travel agency Rustic Pathways and is traveling for the next month, so I won't see her again. She is such an amazing girl, and I was sad to say goodbye to her. That goodbye made me realize that this is just the beginning, and that I need to start preparing myself for more farewells. In a lot of ways, I feel like I've only just recently developed any semblance of a social life outside of my wonderful host family and American friends, and I wish I had more time to continue developing these relationships before I have to leave.

I left the CLC around 3 o'clock and walked around the old city with 5 of my American friends. We bought gifts and wandered through the medina streets, taking in the sights and talking. I walked home along Fessi as the evening set in. When I returned home, I drank coffee with Oumaima and my host mom. We talked about our days, and I realized that I made a joke in Arabic. This might not seem very monumental, but I'm not a very funny person in English, let alone in Arabic. It's really hard to understand and make jokes in a foreign language, and I realized after we talked that our conversation had been very easy and natural for me. It's a small milestone, but I'm so happy that I can converse more equally with these people that I love so much.

Afterwards, Yassir and I went on an "adventure" to the corner store so I could buy gum (and buy him candy, of course). We ran down the street to the store, racing and goofing around. My little brother has the best laugh, and I loved hearing him cracking up as we joked on the street. Last weekend, I took him to the water park in Marrakesh, and he had an amazing time. I gave him a swim lesson (he told me "Now I can swim anywhere because I know alligator kicks, spoons not fork hands, and big arms" -- he's definitely making progress) and we went on the water slides all afternoon. He's started a jar in his room labeled "Another Day at AquaPark" and he currently has 60 dirham cents in it (approx. 6 American cents). I gave him the little change from the corner store, so now he only has about 119 dirhams left to collect...

I dropped Yassir off at home and worked out at the gym. After my workout, I talked with some of the women there. They are so open and inviting, and I have loved getting to know them in these months. One of them offered to drive me home tonight, and it's been wonderful to feel like I'm part of that community as well. I walked the short way home in the darkness, watching the lingering glow of sunset fade from the sky and the slivered moon rise up over the horizon. The night air was warm and mild, and I could see the lights of Le Palmerie and the suburbs stretching out towards the distant darkness of the hills.

At home, I gave Yassir his daily lesson on how to tie his shoes -- he's a quick learner, but we still have a lot of work to do. I sat in the kitchen with my host parents and shelled peas while my host mom cooked and my host dad did the dishes. The kitchen windows were open, spilling light out into to the mild night air, and the room smelled of freshly cut herbs. We chatted about our days and worked together in a comfortable rhythm.

After a delicious dinner of turkey and peppers, Zineb and Oumaima and I sat in the kitchen and talked over the empty communal plate. I can't even remember exactly what we were talking about, but I do know that I laughed so hard tonight that my sides hurt. We sat on my bed and looked at the jewelry I bought today. I've spent so much of my time here missing my own friends and my own family, and sometimes I think I overlook the fact that I've made two of the best friends I've ever had in my life in my house here. They are such amazing girls, and I am going to miss them so much.

In sum, that was my day today. Nothing particularly glamorous or exciting happened, but this is what my life is like here. I have a lot of ordinary routines that might seem boring to an outsider, but to me these little moments with my family and my acquaintances are what make this place so special. I can't believe how little time I have left, and I hope that my days from here on out are just as extraordinarily ordinary as today was.

A Recap: Winter in Marrakesh

To catch you up on my winter, I’ll try to recap the last couple months here! After my parents and Cordelia left, I fell back into my usual routine with my host family. After a bout of illness, I recovered slowly and was ready to start my second semester of Arabic as the New Year began. The day before my classes started, I went on a wonderful walk with my host family at Le Palmerie, the golf resort next to my house. It is the original oasis that Marrakesh was founded around, and there are rolling gentle green hills, pools of water, and great flocks of migratory birds enjoying the clear air outside the city. We walked around for a few hour, enjoying the warm breeze blowing in from the Sahara and sunshine in the crisp winter air.

My Arabic classes started that Monday with two weeks of Darija, the local dialect. Originally, my class switched to a new teacher, an amazing Moroccan woman named Raja who was finishing her Fulbright requirements by teaching at the CLC. Due to a long and convoluted series of events, Oustada Lamia, my teacher from last semester, actually ended up returning to our class to teach us this semester. Her teaching method is very strict and very tough, but I really grew to like her last semester. Her pedagogy clicks with me, and she makes me work harder than I’ve ever worked for a single class in my life. At the beginning of the year, I was absolutely terrified of her. She used to make us get up in front of the class and recite our new vocabulary lists, and if we made mistakes, she would have us do push-ups in front of everyone. She has maintained the same levels of expectations over the year, and has also started to open up more to us. With time, I’ve grown to really admire her. She is deeply intellectual and incredibly hard-working, and her work ethic inspires us to act similarly. I think she is the best teacher I could have had this year, and I’m so happy I got to know her.  At this point, I feel like I am really improving in my spoken and written classical Arabic skills (although my Darija -- the local dialect -- is pretty bad), and I’m excited for my last five weeks in class. I’m currently writing a 6-page research paper in Arabic about the effects of children’s books and textbooks on gender stereotypes in Morocco, and I think it will be a great chance to put together the skills I’ve been working on.

In January, a group from Lewis and Clark College was also studying at the CLC. It was really wonderful to have some fresh blood around, and I loved getting to know some of the other students. They were all very nice and outgoing, and they brought a vitality to the CLC that was much-needed in the “depths of winter” here (60 and sunny most days). One of them went to a boarding school near my house and actually knew a couple of my friends, which was such a coincidence. We ran into them on our trip this past week completely by coincidence, and I hope that I get to see some of them again before they leave Morocco.

A few weekends into second semester, Oumaima and I organized a trip with some of the other CLC students to go to a place in the mountains called Oukaimden. About two hours outside of the city, Oukaimden is a small-scale imitation of a ski village where Marrakshis go when they want to see snow. Seth, Mohamed, John, and his host brother came with us, and we took a cab up into the snowy peaks. There was a roadblock about 5 kilometers from Oukaimden, so we actually ended up leaving the taxi in the massive line of cars stuck on the winding mountain pass. A huge crowd of Marrakshis were doing the same around us, slamming car doors and laughing as we began the trek up the rugged mountainside. The Moroccans weren’t exactly dressed for the outdoors, but the crowd brought festivity and laugher. Women in ballet flats and handbags picked their way over the craggy rocks, slipping and grabbing onto each other for support and falling over in laughter. Groups of boys carried drums and tambourines, and they wove through the crowds shouting and spreading an infectious energy. We squeezed between cars and buses packed bumper to bumper on the road, climbing all the way up into the snow-capped peaks. Once we got there, we ate a delicious picnic complemented with piping hot tea.

 John, Seth, and I rented skis, and it was a pretty unreal experience to ski two hours away from the red desert atmosphere of Marrakesh. The snow was powdery and beautiful, and the mountains were shining in the sunshine under the deep slate blue of the winter sky. We cut up to the top of a high ridge and skied down through the sunshine and powder. It was an incredible day, improved even more by the sudden snow flurry that hit as we left. I didn’t think I was going to see falling snow this year, and that was a wonderful surprise. When we returned to Marrakesh, we headed to the heart of Djemma al Fna and drank steaming red spiced tea that warmed my whole body. Oumaima and I finished up an amazing day by going to a girls’ movie night at Shivonne’s house, where we ate delicious pasta with the other girls and their host siblings, did each others’ nails, and talked late into the night. I met an interesting girl there who was about to graduate from Lewis and Clark and was finishing her thesis in Marrakesh. We had a wonderful evening that was the perfect end to an amazing day.

The next weekend was my birthday! My friends at the CLC took me out to lunch and gave me a beautiful scarf, and my host family had a wonderful surprise party for me. I came home from meeting my speaking partner and was greeted by Margaret, my entire host family, some of my Moroccan friends, my host mom’s friends, and their daughters. We ate delicious cake, talked, and danced until late, and it was a wonderful way to spend my birthday. Between the party and a very long birthday phone call with a friend, I went to bed exhausted with a big smile on my face. A couple of my friends from the States also sent gifts over, and that really touched me and made me so happy that they remembered.

The next day, I taught my first English class. The other students on my program and I became certified English teachers last semester, and this semester we are volunteering for three hours every Sunday teaching for a program called CLC Connect. My school offers scholarships for underprivileged Moroccans who are unable to afford CLC tuition and who speak very little English, and my group volunteers as their teachers. I teach the class with the highest level of proficiency. I’m lucky they know so much, because it is much easier to grow closer to them when we have more of a common language. There are 9 girls and one boy in my class ranging from age 14 to 17, and all of them work incredibly hard. I’ve gotten to know them fairly well over the past seven weeks, and I think I’ve managed to connect with each one of them. I love the feeling of being in front of a class and I love seeing how exciting these kids are to learn English. They surprise me every week with their work ethic, new vocabulary, grasp of grammatical concepts, and their positive energy in class. Both of my parents are teachers, and I’ve always thought that I might like to follow in their footsteps. This semester has reaffirmed that possibility for me. I feel really comfortable in my class and I have loved my experience so far.

I’ve continued running recess for the Kid’s Program, and I love playing with the students. The sense of community I get from volunteering with them, both from the teachers and the little kids, is amazing. Last week, we played Red Light Green Light, incorporating their new vocabulary about the rooms of the house. My Wednesdays continue to be one of the highlights of my week, and I am excited to see the kids this week.

In addition to teaching, the other new elements of my Arabic curriculum this semester are my speaking partner, an intercultural dialogue group, a Darija class, and a religious studies class. My speaking partner is a really cool, really smart girl named Nouhaila. She has amazing English and Fusha, and has big dreams. We meet every Saturday on the terrace at the CLC, alternating talking in classical Arabic and hanging out with the groups of students on the terrace. It’s a great way to practice my Arabic and get closer to some of the Moroccan students at the CLC. On Monday afternoons before my cooking class, I go to a class on the fundamental principles of Islam and their application on life on Morocco. A graduate student from California who is studying at the CLC agreed to teach us, and it is fascinating to learn about the history of Islam, how it affects life here, and how intertwined its beliefs are with Christianity and Judaism. I wasn’t raised religious and I feel that I have a huge knowledge gap in regards to religions, especially religions of “the book”. I’m happy that I have the chance to learn more at Islam, especially in a place where I can see the amazing applications all around me in contrast to the horrifying and biased news you hear at home.

On Wednesday nights, my group and I have started participating in intercultural dialogues with a really incredible group of Moroccan students. There are a lot of touchy, uncomfortable, or fascinating topics that come up between Moroccans and Americans – for example, atheism, Judaism, healthcare, education systems, wearing hijab, money, tourism, and Islam, to name a few – and the club seeks to give us a safe forum to discuss these tough themes. Our first topic is education, and to prepare for our dialogue next week about educational opportunities and differing systems we visited two schools in Marrakesh last week. In Morocco, people who have enough money often send their children to private school to give them a higher quality education, but the vast majority of kids go to public school. The public schools seem to deliver a great education if you can support yourself, understand everything, and are motivated, but also seem to leave a lot of kids behind since there are so few teachers, so many students, and so few resources. We went to a pubic school in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Marrakesh and visited a math class. The visit was a sharp contrast to the AP Calculus class we visited two days later at the American School of Marrakesh, a school founded by ex-pats to deliver an American-style education to rich Moroccan and ex-pat children. The trips definitely raised some uncomfortable questions and highlighted some interesting points. For example, at the Moroccan school when the teacher asked a question to his class of 50, almost every student had their hand in the air clamoring for their teacher’s selection to give the answer. At the American school, in a class of 9 not a single student raised their hand when their teacher asked them a question. That scenario is pretty similar to many American classrooms, and I thought the contrast between the two attitudes was very interesting. However, it’s obvious that the support that the American school is able to provide and the caliber of their teachers provides a better education than most public schools here. My group leader asked the students at the American school, and also to those of us educated in America, an interesting question. Since we had the privilege to receive an education like that, whether or not we optimized our opportunity, do we feel that we therefore have a responsibility to use it well? I’ve always just assumed that my high school education was a right, not a privilege, since it was never presented to me in any other way. After thinking about what my director said, I’ve realized more and more how lucky I was to be in a position to think that way, and how untrue that belief is for the vast majority of the world, including many parts of America. I also think he is absolutely right – if I have the resources to receive an education like the one I am going to get, I feel that I do have a responsibility, and I think it is so important to be aware of that. My weeks here are packed full right now between these activities, my Darija class, my daily Arabic, my homework and my research paper, and I think I’m going to leave here with a lot more inside my head than when I came.

My running regime also changed this semester after culminating in the Marrakech Marathon in mid-January. I continued my training with Seth in the mornings before the race (he ran the half-marathon), and on January 25^th three months of hard work paid off. The morning was clear and cold, and my host family dropped me off at the bottom of the hotel district early. 

They cheered me on as the race started, and I suddenly found myself in the middle of a mass of hundreds of runners pressing out of the starting gate. Loud music pumped though the chill of the morning air, and the atmosphere was festive and jovial.  I chatted with an American woman living in Rabat for the first few miles, and everyone fell into a focused silence as we rounded the north corner of the city. We ran through the Menara gardens next to the giant basin built by Moorish invaders in the 12^th century, and I could see the glittering snowy peaks of the Atlas rising above the other runners in the distance. Some families came out to cheer us on in the early morning air, and I loved the encouragement. We continued onwards on the long main street where I usually run, and the familiarity of well-known footsteps carried me through the next 5 kilometers. 

Water and sponging stations were set up along the route. As the day grew hotter, I made sure to stay hydrated. We cut up along the walls of the old city and ran through the Agdal Gardens, a beautiful shaded route that was full of cheering Marrakshis. I was wearing a shirt from a Marrakesh road race earlier in the year, and lots of people watching gave me a thumbs-up and an extra smile. I had been a little worried about the men here and the harassment making the marathon an uncomfortable experience, but I didn’t have problems. There weren’t that many women running, but I dressed modestly and I think the local tee-shirt helped me out. When we left Agdal, we continued along the walls of the old city. An Englishman who was a veteran marathon runner gave me some good tips, and he was fun to talk to. Since the marathon pace has to be maintained for 26.2 miles, I was running slowly enough that the first 15 miles were actually enjoyable and it was easy to sustain a conversation. At this point, the streets had filled with fans. Little kids lined the sidewalks stretching out their hands for high-fives – I think I gave and received more high-fives that day than I ever have in my life. Their encouragement got me through the middle of the race, and we reached the empty outskirts of the city at about mile 18. We ran through Le Palmerie, the palm grove I wrote about earlier, and I was able to settle into a focused rhythm in the peace of the oasis. We retuned into the city near my house and headed back towards the finish line on two of the biggest roads in the city. I got very tired around mile 23, but I was able to maintain a pretty steady pace. I stopped three times to walk for 30 seconds in the last 5K, but other than that I ran for the entire race. The last kilometer was on the largest avenue in the city, and cheering people lined the streets. I was so tired, but once I saw the familiar street and heard the noise I got an amazing second wind. I turned onto the last straightaway and sprinted for the finish line, finishing just under 3:56:00. I had run without a watch and had no idea what my time was until the finish. The lower end of my goal time had been 4 hours, so I was absolutely thrilled. Seth and Mohamed and my host family met me at the finish line, and it was such an amazing feeling to achieve my goal. I don’t know if I’ll ever run another marathon – the training was exhausting and little too all-consuming for me—but running my first marathon in Marrakesh, Morocco was a pretty surreal and amazing experience and was well worth all the early mornings of training.

Since the marathon, I’ve slowly started running again. My training is much more relaxed now. I run in my neighborhood before school or in the afternoon most days, and I’ve started running a lot more with Oumaima or Zineb in the evenings. Oumaima and I will meet up with her friends to run at sunset, or Zineb and I will walk to the beautiful track complex at her dad’s university to work out.

Over the last couple months, I’ve also really started to build a social network in Marrakesh. I’ve been frustrated this year about how hard it is for me, with the language barrier and cultural differences, to build genuine friendships with Moroccans, but this semester the pieces have really started to come together for me. My host family is still, as they should be, the most important part of my experience here. I cook with my host mom a lot and eat breakfast with her every morning, and I’ve grown really close with her. As I’m writing this, I’m on my way home from a trip, and I’m so excited to see her – I miss my second mom! I know enough Darija now to have real conversation with my host father, and I often find myself sitting with him for a long time after meals discussing some element of life in Morocco. He has a fascinating life story and a really unique perspective on Moroccan culture, about everything from Islam to women to pork to education, and I love talking to him. Yassir is as hilarious and crazy as always, and I’ve gotten even closer to him in the last few months. We watch movies cuddled up in my bed together a lot, and at least two afternoons a week we go up to the roof to hang out and look at the view and play. 

He jumps on me to get a piggy back at any given moment at home, and he always sneaks up on me when I’m studying to tickle me. He’s the perfect little brother, at times annoying (of course!) but always hilarious, exciting, and fun. His favorite thing to do to mess with me is to hide in my room whenever he hears me come home and jump out to scare me. I don’t think he realizes that I always know he is there, and I’ve definitely had to work on my acting skills to make him think he still scares me. It’s a hilarious routine that we share, and I think my life here would be a lot less joyful without him. More than half of the times I’ve cracked up laughing here have involved him, and I am going to miss him so much. I hang out with my host sisters more than anyone else here, and I get to see two very different sides of being a young person in Morocco through them. 

Zineb is a hijabi and takes her modesty and rules very seriously. She doesn’t have a job and isn’t studying this year, and I think she feels a little directionless. On the plus side, this means she has a lot of free time to spend with me. We go to cafes together a lot, explore the medina, or walk around at night together in our neighborhood. Last Sunday, we went to an all-night hammam (Turkish bath) together, and we were the last ones there. We had a water fight at one in the morning in the empty cavernous bath chamber, our laughter echoing off the walls in the steam. 

Oumaima and I hang out a lot after her classes on Saturdays at the CLC, and we love to walk around by ourselves or with her friends going to cafes and other young teen hangout spots. At home, I’m with the two of them fairly constantly, whether studying together in the kitchen or hanging out in their rooms together. We love to joke around together, and they’ve met all my friends and family over Skype. The other night, I heard screams and loud music coming from the salon. Oumaima and Zineb had discovered Beyonce on Youtube and were both dancing and doubled over laughing to Single Ladies. They are so joyful and amazing, and I love having sisters in my house. I’m so lucky to be living with such an incredible family, and I'm so glad I get a couple more months with them.

Outside of my family, I’ve slowly but surely developed a social network here. Social interactions and time with friends is very different in Morocco than it is in America in terms of time and activity, but after some adjustment I’ve learned to like social life here. All Moroccans are obviously different, and I don’t want to generalize, but many people here, especially girls, seem to have smaller social networks and spend far less time with their friends outside of school. Indeed, time built around classes and activities are really the only chances that my host sisters take to hang out with their friends. Coming from my life at home, which was always full of a wide variety of people, I felt really lonely sometimes when I first arrived. However, as the months have gone by I have adjusted to this new way of life and also made a lot of connections with people here. The girl who rents the top floor of our house, Afaf, goes to the same gym as me, and we go to the gym together three times a week. She made me start going to dance and aerobics classes with her and all the other women at the gym instead of working out alone on the machines, and I slowly have become a part of the gym community. After we shower or during breaks in the classes, Afaf confides in me about her life and her romances. I love hearing yet another unique and amazing woman’s story, and my gym nights are a wonderful addition to my routine here. 

On my walk home from school every day, I have another routine and wonderful interaction. An elderly, poor niqabi woman sits under the shade of a palm tree on one of the main city roads selling popcorn. For about a month, I walked past her without interacting with her. I’ve never personally known a woman who wore niqab, and the veil is almost dehumanizing on a stranger. I never gave her a second thought until I stopped to buy popcorn from her one afternoon and was astounded by her warmth. When I started talking to her in Arabic, her eyes lit up and crinkled, and she responded enthusiastically. I still couldn’t see her face, but the anonymity of the niqab was broken. The next day, I passed her on the way home and tried to give her a dirham to buy popcorn. She told me that the batch was not good today and that I should keep my money. When I tried to just leave the coin with her, she wouldn’t allow me to give her my money without buying something. Most people struggling to make a living sitting on the street would have accepted my money one way or the other, but she refused. Every day on my way home now, I stop to talk to her. Sometimes I buy her popcorn and some days we just chat. She always impresses me with how vivacious she seems, and also with her honesty and pride. My interactions with her are always a highlight of my walk home.

In terms of “hanging out with friends” in the sense I know of, I spend a lot of time with my resident director Margaret and with friends I’ve met at the CLC. Margaret comes over for lunch a lot and my family and I love having her in the house. For about a month when she was living closer to us with her old host family, she was a fairly regular guest at our house. She and Zineb have the same birthday, and we celebrated with a wonderful lunch together before she returned to her host family and Zineb and I went out into Gueliz for the evening.  

A couple weeks ago, my friend Hajar invited me over to her house for some typical girl time – we hung out with her mom, sat on her bed, tried on her clothes, and gossiped. A girl who lives close to me named Hiba also studies at the CLC, and I chat with her often at school. She’s started giving me rides home when we are there at night, and I love getting to know her and her friends a little better. I went to another host sibling Yazid’s a birthday party last Sunday and met a lot of really cool university students there. I also went to an AISEC celebration at the Royal Theater with other kids from the CLC. It was fun to meet a lot of international students, but there was one little problem. We had been told to bring some American food, but when we walked in, we saw that everyone else was dressed in traditional clothing and had ornate dishes prepared. All the countries were supposed to get up and present their outfits and food, and we had absolutely nothing good to present. We had made the children’s dish Dirt and Worms (chocolate pudding and gummy worms) and we were all dressed in jeans. We had to stand up in front of everyone – following two Ukranian girls with a sophisticated-sounding dish and beautiful dresses – and present our jeans and “Dirt and Worms”. It was a pretty hilarious experience that definitely did not help to change the stereotype that Americans have no culture. 

Earlier that week, a boy named Brahim (a friend of mine from the CLC) and Zineb taught me how to ride his motorbike in the empty lot behind our house. We hung out in the street for about an hour in the warm, mild evening air and talked. 

I gave Yassir a ride on the back of my normal bike as Zineb and Brahim talked and laughed, and everything about the day felt comfortable, easy, and happy. These are all small but very telling examples of what my social life is like here. They may seem insignificant, but after adjusting to Moroccan social life I really do feel that I have built a good network of people around me.

I hope that this very long-winded post helps provide a picture of what my life was like this winter. I just got back from an absolutely incredible trip to the north of Morocco, and I plan on writing about both that trip and my earlier trips to Beni Mallal and Fez soon. Tonight, I have to continue work on my research paper – wish me luck!

A Walk in the Palms

The days here are starting to grow warm and mild, and with the sea change in the weather I have begun to start my day a different way. In the cold, dark mornings of winter here, I would leave my frigid house before sunrise to catch a taxi, walking quickly down my deserted street past the wild dogs lying still and numbed by the cold.  There is always a slight element of uncertainty walking in the dark here, a partially-justified fear of the shadows. My neighborhood is quite safe, but I always hurried towards the main street in the dim morning light, my arms crossed against the inescapable chill of the night. 

As the mornings have grown lighter and more mild, I wake up with the sunlight streaming into my room and eat breakfast with Yassir and Oumaima and my host parents before school. Our family breakfasts are a wonderful weekday routine that has become one of the best parts of my day. Yassir and Oumaima are usually rushed, but I always sit with my host mom and chat with her over steaming glasses of tea and warm bread. As the sun rises higher, I pack my schoolbag and set off for school, walking through my neighborhood, a place called Amarchiche. These days, the sunlight is strong and warm even at eight in the morning, and I no longer need to wear a jacket. I walk out through my neighborhood in the growing warmth and pass by the university next to my house. Zineb went to school here when she was younger, and the crowds of students outside are always laughing and happy. I cut through a deserted lot that has become a de-facto street for students on their way to class and continue on my way, passing by crowded bus stops and bakeries. The scent of freshly baked bread and cookies wafts out of the ovens into the streets, and the shouting of children on their way to school fills the air. A playground full of toddlers and young mothers comes up on the corner, and I turn onto a different street lined with cafes. Students and adults sit relaxing before their obligations start, pulling chairs around crowded tables on the patios to enjoy tea and msimmon, a delicious Moroccan pastry, with their friends.  A beautiful rose-colored mosque presides over the neighborhood, its minaret rising at the distant corner from a bed of orange trees. Here, I leave Amarchiche behind and walk to school along a large avenue called Fessi. The street is flanked with tall palm trees and apartment buildings with restaurants, banks, shops, and cafes on the first floors. It is full with the bustle of an awakening city in the morning. Shopkeepers open their doors, hanging their wares outside and sweeping suds of soapy water from their morning cleaning out onto the street. Vendors spread msimmon dough to cook on on hot stone surfaces outside cafes, wrapping cheese and honey in the pastry as a cheap breakfast to go.  Donkey carts mingle with cars, buses, bicycles, and motorbikes on the crowded street, and the traffic is a strange mix of the ultra-modern and the traditional. I join the groups walking on the sidewalks, weaving between girls in the smocks of the mandatory school uniform here and packs of boys swaggering in an unbreakable line, heading towards my destination with the rest of them. 

Since the weather has turned, I have not taken a cab to school once. I either walk the 50 minutes to school or take my host father's bicycle. The bike is a large, ungainly piece of machinery with broken gears, and I always feel a certain thrill of independence (and a little bit of terror) when I ride on the crazy streets here. I am probably the only person in the entire city of Marrakesh who wears a helmet on a non-motorized bike, and everyone on the street always gives me a slightly confused look. A blonde girl, in my neighborhood, is a fairly uncommon sight. A blonde girl who chooses to not take a taxi but rides a bike and looks incredibly stupid doing it (I wear a brightly colored and misshapen helmet) is just an amusing sight for most people. However, I've come to love the utility of riding the bike and all the advantages that come with it. A big one is that I largely avoid being followed or yelled at on the street when I'm on the bike. I love my walk to school, but I also have to put in headphones and have my vocabulary notebook out in front of me to have an enjoyable experience. If I am looking around, I always end up making eye contact with a man on the street and proceed to have an experience that either annoys, revolts, or scares me. To deal with this unfortunate facet of life here, I download a new music album onto my phone every morning and listen to it with the volume up high. I also multitask by memorizing the vocabulary that my teacher gives up every day (approximately 25 new words every day in addition to our textbook work that I have to be able to pronounce, spell, and use correctly by the next day).  Instead of staying up an extra hour at night to memorize these words, I have a special small notebook that I look at on my walk to school to memorize the vocabulary. I've always been a kinetic learner, and I think this habit has helped me learn a lot. In addition, it sends a pretty serious "Leave me alone" vibe to everyone on the street, which is a huge plus. The only downside to this strategy is that occasionally women in my neighborhood have thought I am a tourist trying to read a map. One day, I was stopped three separate times by women asking me if I needed help finding directions back to Gueliz. It took a little bit of time to convince them that I did, indeed, live way out in Amarchiche. 

In the afternoons, I go back home on the same route. Sometimes I stop on my way, resting in the soft afternoon sunlight on a park bench or stopping at a cafe that is nestled into a small garden between apartment buildings. I meet Zineb there and we drink coffee and talk, sitting under the trellises with their long tangles of hanging purple flowers. When I'm alone, I put in my headphones and study my vocabulary as I walk, but I still feel an immense dissatisfaction about the way I have to conduct myself on the streets here. I've written before about how I don't feel quite like myself when I walk around here, since I have to force myself to look unfriendly and closed off. Normally, there are no repercussions for how closed off I am, but the other day I had a very unfortunate interaction. I had met one of Zineb's friends once before on the street with her, and he is a student at another English language school here. He invited us to come hang out with him and his friends and the Americans from the other school, but he lost Zineb's phone number. One day, I was walking past the university and he saw me from his car and tried to catch up with me so he could tell me about our logistics. In America, we (especially girls) are conditioned to be afraid when someone follows you in a car. In Morocco, this isn't as big of a deal -- robbers are much more likely to be on foot or on a bike. My host mom has told me that if a man in a car is following you, you should be happy because he really can't do anything to you. However, in America we are taught that someone following you in a car means you are in danger. This teaching transfers over to Morocco quite poorly, but it is almost impossible to forget 19 years of instinct and not freak out when someone starts driving alongside you and following you to your house. The boy was wearing a hat and I did not recognize him, and I ignored what he was saying to me (I've developed a shockingly good filter against male voices here). I did a couple loops around my block since I didn't want him to see where I lived, and he kept following me, making u-turns so he wouldn't lose me. Finally, I walked to a narrow part of the street where he couldn't turn around and waited until he was beside me. I screamed at him to go away and sprinted to my house, annoyed, frustrated, and fumbling with my keys so I could get inside before he saw where I lived. 

The next day, Zineb told me that she had ran into her friend and he had told her that I had been incredibly rude to him on the street and he couldn't understand why. I put two and two together and realized he had been the boy following me in the car. Although he shouldn't have kept following me as much as he did, I still felt really bad and now, because of the way I acted, he hasn't invited us again to hang out with his friends. I really wanted to meet these people, and I'm really disappointed that I have to act this way and make these mistakes. There really isn't an alternative, because if you act any other way you open the door to the vast, vast majority of cases in which the boy doesn't know you and you should be trying to get away. I can deal with having to ignore people on the street and not feeling so much like myself, but I really hate that this comportment leads to situations like this one. 

When I'm occasionally out at night, I walk home on Fessi as far as I can. Zineb and Oumaima and I love to go out to eat pizza at a cafe called Jannat (the Arabic word for paradise), and we go there often on Saturday nights. The street is full of Moroccans enjoying the night breeze and lights. The city turns out after dark, and it is a lovely feeling to mingle among the crowds of people shopping and eating out under the palm trees that line the avenue. When I'm not alone, I walk all the way home through my neighborhood in the dark. The vast majority of the streets in the area are safe, but there are a couple of areas that we always walk very quickly through. There is a certain feeling of discomfort that I always feel walking here at night, and this is a part of Morocco that I know I will not miss. At nighttime, you walk quickly and silently, avoiding eye contact and watching the shadows behind you. Zineb tells me that she knows Allah will take care of her at night, but I have nothing else other than my own wits and faith in the strangers on the street to protect me. Although I know I am probably never in danger of physical harm, I still get scared, and I hate that I have to be scared. I remember walking back to my home in Sudbury at night quite often from a house close to mine, and I never felt scared. The one time I ever felt afraid was when a car stopped beside me, and it turned out to be a policeman asking me if I was alright. I'm beginning to really love Morocco and life here, but differences like these show me the parts of my home that I took for granted and the parts of life here that I will never truly be able to adapt to. 

We've been talking a lot about authenticity recently at the CLC with relationship to study-abroad. When most people think about Morocco, they probably think about traditional clothing, villages, and the cultural scene marketed to tourists in places like Djemma al Fna. Many people who come to Morocco probably look for authenticity in the obvious ways, like traditional culture. In a lot of ways, those things are all representative of a part of Moroccan society, but if you are looking for true authenticity, I think you should look at the way the people of a society live today. Although I live in a very certain sub-sector of the modern population, I think that this aspect of life here is just as important as the "traditional culture". My walk to and from school and my experiences surrounding it are probably the most authentic view of real Moroccan society that I will be able to give you in writing. It covers the beautiful, the bad, the good, and the frightening, and hopefully will help you understand more about my time here. No place is all good or all bad, and there are definitely many parts of life here that I do not love, but the whole reason I am here is to think critically about those parts of life and their corresponding aspects on the United States. I have written most of my earlier posts only about the edited and sugar-coated parts of life here, but as I become happier and more comfortable here I want to start recording what my life is really like. 

Overall, my experience here in the last few months has only kept getting better and better. I continue to spend basically all my time with my host family, and I really love hanging out with them. Arabic is going well, and I love teaching English. I'm living in a beautiful city flanked by dramatic mountains and lined with palms and orange trees, and I'm struck by how beautiful it is every time I step outside my house or go upstairs to hang my laundry to dry on the roof. The weather is sunny and mild, and I have found a second family that I am so happy with. I promise (sorry, Mom) to catch up and write about more of my experiences this winter soon, and I'm excited for the coming weeks.

A Very Belated Update: Christmas and a Wonderful Start to 2015

I’m writing from the sunny terrace outside of the salon at the CLC overlooking the basketball court. It’s recess at the school across the street, and I can hear the happy screams of the children. The midday sunshine is has started to feel spring-like, and as the frigid mornings grow more mild I am realizing how little time I have left here. It’s been more than a month since I’ve written, and I have a lot to record.

Before my parents and Cordelia arrived in Casablanca, I traveled with the other Americans to the small seaside town of Essaouira. White-washed buildings hug the coast with the charm of a slowly crumbling colonial city. When the Portuguese controlled parts of the Moroccan coast, they called this city Mogador. Over the years, the town regained its Moroccan name, but the influence of the Europeans is still present in the old forts that rise above the city. 18^th century cannons line the ramparts, and buttresses hang out over the rocky coast. The city itself moves with the slow rhythm of a beach town. It is a quiet escape from the crowds and craziness of Marrakech. The beach stretches for miles of pure soft sand, and to the south the city disappears. Other than the distant windmills rising out of the fog, the beach is a natural expanse of sand dunes and rocks undisturbed by civilization.

We stayed in a hotel with an breathtaking view of the waves breaking along the rocky shoreline to the north. The city walls drop away directly down to the ocean, and I spent my mornings reading on the sunny rooftop deck and listening to the soothing crash of the waves. 

One morning, Seth and I ran down the beach for miles away from the city. It was early, and we stopped halfway into our run to watch the sunrise. In the middle of the empty beach, a river cuts through the sand dunes and distant mountains. A mile from the wide mouth where it empties into the sea, a small town is nestled into the green hills. The sun rose through the dissipating clouds over the minarets of the village, and we watched in contented silence as the rays slowly spread over the beach. 

We continued along the coast and found a jellyfish the size of a small table that had washed to shore. Later, we rolled up our pants and waded out to the ruins of an old fort at the tip of a curve in the beach. Eroded by centuries of crashing waves, the fort had degraded into a haphazard pile of sandstone slabs. However, you could still make out the ramparts, the buttresses, and the windows. 

When we returned to the city beach, there were already pick-up soccer games starting on the beach. Ignoring the frigid morning air, we ran into the freezing waves in our clothes. I floated on my back staring up at the brightening sky, rocked by the motion of the waves. It was two days before Christmas, and I had been sorely missing New England and my family. However, moments like this one, staring up at the stunning morning sky from the shimmering water of the Moroccan coast, made me realize how worth it this experience is. I will have other Christmases with the people I love, but I will probably never again spend my Christmas Eve exploring a crumbling colonial Moroccan city in wonderment.

On Christmas Eve, my friend Katie and I walked down to the beach at sunset. We watched the sun sink below the horizon behind the island that protects the harbor. A single minaret stands next to the abandoned fort, and our vantage point on the beach was perfectly positioned to watch the sun set directly behind the silhouette of the mosque. The long trails of wispy clouds were painted a surreal tapestry of pink and red and gold, and the colors reflected onto the draining sand flats of low tide. We stripped to our bathing suits and ran through the damp sand under the mirrored sky. The chill of the ocean took my breath away, and we submerged ourselves under the soft waves. The surface of the water was a shimmering pastel sheet in constant flux with the rise and fall of the swells. We stood knee-deep in the clear water of the harbor watching the last sliver of the glowing orb fall below the horizon.  As we walked back through the cooling night air, feeling the night wind pick up through our hair and whistle through the ramparts, I was reminded again of how experiences like this make my whole experience here worth it.

When we returned to our hotel room, we made hot chocolate and sat next to the French doors looking out at the city lights. I could hear the crashing of the waves as the tide receded, and we sat wrapped in blankets in the dark listening to Christmas music. The lingering chill from the water and the ocean breeze sneaking in through the cracks in the windowsill enhanced the warmth of the room. It was the one time that December in Morocco truly felt like Christmas, and we sat there listening to music and enveloped in the peace of the moment.

We returned to Marrakech for Christmas Day, and I went to church in the morning to watch Katie sing in her church choir. The city’s single church is situated right next to a mosque in the newer French neighborhood, and the service was packed full with tourists and locals alike. Although I do not usually go to church on Christmas, it was nice to be in a place that was celebrating. Christmas in Morocco is, obviously, just a normal day, and it was lovely to be in such a festive atmosphere and hear the beautiful carols that Katie and her choir sang.

That night, Margaret came over to my house and we made Christmas dinner for my host family. We cooked a huge vat of spaghetti topped with a spicy tomato sauce and baked chicken parmesan. We served the dish on a red platter along with brie and hot apple cider. Zineb and Oumaima decorated the table in the salon with a beautiful tablecloth and candles, and we spent the meal laughing and eating in an incredibly festive atmosphere. I wrapped some presents and candy for Yassir and put them under the miniature Christmas tree in my room, and he opened them with all the excitement of a little kid on Christmas morning. After dinner, Margaret, Zineb, Oumaima and I bundled up and climbed the ladder to the top of our roof. We lay on the tiles wrapped in blankets and gazed at the stars in the clear, cold night sky. Margaret sang Christmas carols, and her soft high voice rose over the sleeping city. I realized again how lucky I am to be here, even without my family, at Christmastime. I am so blessed to have found a new family here to celebrate with, and I can’t imagine a better Christmas in Morocco than my Christmas with the Ibarkis.

As we stared at the stars, my family was boarding a plane in Boston and traveling across the Atlantic. The next morning, I got on an early train to Casablanca to meet them. I sat next to a professor from the north of Morocco who studied at Kenyon and now teaches at a university in Ohio, and I passed the time talking with him. I met my family at our hotel, and it was so wonderful to see them again. They got their first glimpse of Morocco in a walk through the markets in Casablanca at twilight, and then we relaxed in the hotel together for the night. One of our family Christmas traditions is to watch The Grinch together, so we all bundled up in our bathrobes and gathered in my parents’ room. We exchanged gifts and watched the movie, and yet again it felt like Christmas in Morocco.

Unfortunately, I was very sick for most of the trip, but we still managed to have a good time. We started out early the next morning and visited the impressive Hassan II mosque in Casablanca, a modern and opulent construction that towers over the city from the Atlantic coast. That afternoon, after a long drive and a wonderful lunch, we arrived in the magical city of Fes. Over the next two days, we explored the winding, labyrinthine streets of the old city. We visited an old Quranic school in the depths of the medina, watched leatherworkers dying impossible quantities of leather in the ancient tannery, and wandered through markets packed with glittering wedding decorations, ornate sweets, wood carvers, leather workers and spice vendors.  

The ancient city of Fes spreads through one of the valleys between the foothills of the Middle Atlas Mountains, and we climbed to a high vantage point on one of the hills outside the city to take in the view. Leather from the tannery was drying on the hillside, and behind us fertile farms stretched over the rolling hills as far as the eye could see.  Fes was sprawled out below us in a mysterious puzzle of red roofs, green tile, and crumbling stone that somehow blended together with a stunning continuity. We gazed out at the city from beside the Merenid ruins on the hillside, taking in the strong stone walls and winding lanes from above. We watched the sun set from our hotel and spent one more night in Fes before we continued onwards.

The next day, we visited the Roman ruins of Volubilis, a key town for Roman traders on their way to Spain. I had never seen ruins of this scale, just an old Roman theater in Cadiz, and I was blown away. The town was situated on the top of a ridge overlooking fertile flatland, and the gray stones rose up dramatically against the rainclouds in the distance. The remnants of an old temple and the columns of a central meeting place still remained, topped by haphazardly constructed storks’ nests and surrounded by the preserved foundations of houses. Some houses still had their original mosaic tiles on the floors, and it was incredible to see the intricate designs still there 1,700 years later. 

We walked through the old gates and on the stones of the Via Appia, taking in the ruins of the arcades and neighborhoods. It’s amazing to me that these ruins still exist at all, and the fact that they are in Morocco absolutely blew my mind. Since everyone in my family loves history and we all took Latin all one point, we were fascinated and spent about half an hour longer at the ruins than our guide was expecting us to. He was a middle-aged man from a nearby town who spoke broken English and was incredibly excited that I knew some Arabic. In the hour we spent there, he told us many stories about the ancient town and helped us navigate the ruins with a better understanding of the place.

Later that day, we visited the imperial city of Meknes. Fortified with three walls by a paranoid ruler in the 14^th century, Meknes is an impenetrable town. We visited the remains of the same king’s granary and his deserted stables. The walls were overgrown with ivy, and I felt like I had stepped into a mystical secret garden. By chance, the American ambassador to Morocco was also visiting the granary at the same time we were, so we got to see him and his entourage.

After Meknes, we continued south to the coast to the capital city of Rabat. Rabat has the comfortable, clean feel of a very moneyed city – the streets are wide and well-kept, the market is beautiful and calm, and there are long walkways stretching along the Atlantic coast filled with walkers and families. We visited the Chellah first, a lush garden of flowers and blooming trees built around the ruins of a Roman and Islamic city. The Roman city was lost to history hundreds of years ago until its excavation, and now a few remnants – the stones of the market, gravestones, and a headless statue – are scattered throughout the grassy hillside. Down below, a small complex from the 12^th century still rises above the treetops. A small minaret tiled in the style typical of Andalusia marks the old mosque of the settlement. An earthquake destroyed much of the region long ago, but the minaret stayed standing. The garden is high on a hillside overlooking the wide, fertile delta of Rabat’s river, and the clear air is a haven for storks. Their nests cover the ruins and the trees, and the constant chatter of their beaks fills the air in an oddly peaceful racket.

From the Chellah, we continued on to the Oudaiyah, one of the oldest parts of the Rabat medina. Surrounded by fortified walls, the Oudaiyah is a charming town painted blue and white that is balanced on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Atlantic. No motorbikes or cars are allowed inside, and the residents still make their living in traditional ways. The town is peaceful and slow, the calm broken only by the occasional tourist and the calls of street vendors. We walked along the narrow streets taking in the sights, and eventually found ourselves in a massive plaza overlooking the Atlantic. You could see up and down the coast for miles, and we watched the waves break and roll into shore. We climbed down the steep stairs to the ancient fort below and explored the crumbling walls, the cool ocean breeze quick and lively on our faces. 

After wandering around the town, we left the ocean behind us and continued on south towards Marrakech. As we got closer, the climate began to change from the damp chill of the north to the bright sunshine and warmth of the south. We passed through the low hills to the north of the city, and my family was blown away by the stunning view of the snowcapped High Atlas in front of us. The mountains are massive, and they tower high on the horizon from hundreds of kilometers away on the flat plain. In Marrakech, we dropped my family’s bags off at their hotel and immediately headed out to Amarchiche to introduce them to my host family. From there, one of the best nights of my year commenced.

We asked the taxi to drop us off at the entrance to my neighborhood, and we walked past the pickup soccer games and sleeping dogs towards my house. I showed my family the incredible view of the mountains from my house, and suddenly we were interrupted by excited honking. Zineb had just picked up Yassir and Oumaima from school, and they stopped the car beside us. Yassir ran out of the car to introduce himself to “Michael Jackson” (his name for my dad), and my host sisters took Cordelia with them in the car.  From the very beginning, my host family and my family got along incredibly well. It was wonderful to watch my dad and my host dad try (and succeed!) to communicate with each other. I’ve always thought they are incredibly similar, and I was so happy they were able to get to know each other even with a seemingly insurmountable language barrier. My host mom and host sisters, in their typical fashion, were incredibly welcoming and warm, and with some translation help my mom and host mom were able to talk as well. We ate sfaa, my favorite Moroccan dish, all together that night. I will always remember my two families sitting around the massive round table in the salon that day, the air filled with laughter and the delicious scent of steaming cinnamon pasta. 

My dad and Yassir played soccer in the courtyard, my mom talked about education with my host mom, and Cordelia chatted with my host sisters. Yassir was thrilled to have found two new playmates – Michael Jackson and Cordelia – and he never stopped moving and laughing the entire time that they were here. As it grew late, we drove my mom and dad back to their hotel and Cordelia slept in my room with me. After everyone else went to sleep, we dressed in warm clothes and brought blankets to the roof with Zineb and Oumaima. We sat there talking under the vast starry sky, cuddled together in our warm clothes.

The next day was New Years Eve. We explored the huge network of souks in Marrakech, and I took my family to my favorite rooftop café overlooking Djemma al Fna. From the corner of the square, you can see the vast crowd moving below among the vendors, snake charmers, and musicians. The unintelligible blur of conversations rises up with fiddle music and smoke from food tents, and the shimmering lights below draw your eyes downwards. We drank steaming tea and ate dinner above the square, and listened as the evening call to prayer rose from the minarets over the lively city. That night, Cordelia and I stayed in a beautiful riad-style hostel deep in the medina. We went up to the rooftop and midnight and watched fireworks explode in the distance, listening to the crowds in Djemma al Fna and the festivities around us. Watching the fireworks over a maze of minarets and alleys with Cordelia next to me was a wonderful way to start 2015, and I am excited for what this New Year will bring.

The next day was my family’s last day in Morocco. After breakfast on the stunning rooftop of the hostel, Cordelia and I met up with my parents early. We walked along my favorite running route, a long park-like street with an incredible view of the mountains. I took them to see my school, the CLC, and to the beautiful Yves St. Laurent gardens, and we walked away from the bustling hub of the city out to my house in the Amarchiche neighborhood. My host mom had prepared a massive plate of couscous, and we gathered in the salon to eat together. My dad and host mom exchanged cooking tips, and my host sisters and I taught my family how to eat couscous with their hands.

A side note: Eating couscous without a spoon is a true art. First, you have to pull meat and vegetables from the steaming center to the side of the rounded communal dish and mix them in with the tiny grains of pasta. Next, you take the mixture in one hand and roll it back in forth in your palm using your fingers -- without using your other hand, as using your left hand is rude – until a compact ball forms. You then pop the ball into your mouth and construct a new one. I have not yet achieved the mastery of the couscous balls and I still end up with a fair amount of couscous on my lap, but in the next three months I hope to improve my expertise.

After our meal, my host sisters and I gathered buckets, soap, and all the necessary items for the hammam, the Moroccan bath. No trip to Morocco would be complete without a trip there, and we did not want my family to experience the tourist hammams. Instead, we took them to the fancy hammam next to my house.  The rooms are steamy and warm, and we hired scrubbers to clean my mom and my sister. An hour and several layers of skin later, I think they were the cleanest they’ve ever been. In my next post, I will explain more about the hammams, which are a very important part of life Morocco.

We returned to my house and ate a delicious dinner of beef and prune tagine, one of my host mom’s specialties. The food was delicious, and I loved being able to share yet another meal with both of my families. My host sisters dressed my mom and sister in traditional Moroccan takshetas (formal wear), and we stayed in the salon talking late into the evening. 

As with all good things, my family’s trip had to come to an end. They left very early the next morning after a family sleepover in their hotel room (I slept on the floor, naturally). Before they left, they all expressed to me how happy they were that they had been able to meet my host family and see what my life was like here. My parents were quite resistant and apprehensive, understandably, when I told them that I wanted to spend a year in Morocco with a family we had never met. However, they know now that I am in very good hands – I cannot imagine a host family better than the Ibarkis – and that my life here is safe and happy. I always knew that I had made the right decision coming here, and it makes me really happy that my parents seem to think the same thing now.

This post is already seven pages long, so I think it’s time to stop. I will write very soon about January, a month that was full of new adventures and the happiest month here yet!