Saturday, April 4, 2009
We woke up EARLY so we could take showers and get ready before we met with the group. The shower was definitely one of the worst parts of the whole trip. It was a hand-held one like we have in Spain but it was just a tiny room with a curtain and a hole in the middle. I had a lot of trouble with the hot and cold since they were backwards from what I’m used to and they were really touchy. I burned my hand and had a sore spot for a couple of days! The other bad part was the bugs. Earwigs to be specific. It was not a pleasant experience to say the least.
As soon as I was done we had our feast of a breakfast with Chefia. There were four kinds of bread: toast, biscuits/rolls, and two kinds of what probably translates to “pancakes” but were flatter, had more flour, and were flaky. Delicious! We had them with butter and strawberry jelly and of course, tea. Chefia insisted on seconds of tea for everyone (even though we didn’t want more) and when Brigitte tried to cover her glass a couple drops fell on her hand! We also had a couple of the sweets from the day before. Taylor still wasn’t feeling good and Brigitte eats like a bird so I took care of their servings for them J Breakfast took FOREVER and finally I just had to politely excuse myself and rush around like crazy to get my stuff together. I ran out with wet hair and no makeup, and just threw all my stuff in my bag for later.
We met the group outside of our house and drove to a French school where we had a discussion with a professor. Our group talked with a lady who works in the English teacher preparation program so I thought I would be really interested in what she had to say. Wrong-o. She went around the room and had us introduce ourselves and ask her a question. I didn’t have anything to ask (my questions arise during the discussion) and she seemed a little annoyed that some of us seemed disinterested. Anyway, she basically talked at us for an hour or more about nothing concrete. She briefly touched on maybe three of our questions and only paused to take a breath a handful of times. Some people weren’t feeling so hot, everyone was exhausted, and considering the effort it takes to listen to a non-native speaker, nobody was listening. I enjoyed watching a few people do the head bob. I bought a book written by the other professor who talked to Rick’s group which is called Requisition of the Arab and Islamic Mind: An assessment of relevance. He has done these talks for several years and loosely based the book off of his previous discussions. I haven’t read it yet but I hope it’s more interesting than the title (I think it will be).
Back to the bus for more food (príncipes and other snacks) and more information from Ben. Each time we got on the bus he had some interesting facts or stories for us. This time we were headed to Chellah, a Roman ruins site. It was the furthest outpost to the east of the Roman Empire and we learned that 60% of the grain was produced in North Africa so this site was pretty important. There were columns, epigrafía (design with writing on it), a minaret, tombs of ancient emperors, and lots and lots of storks. Apparently Chellah is some sort of refuge and they all come to make their gigantic nests there. We passed by what I thought looked like a few stalks of corn and when I asked Ben what they were I was really surprised to learn that they were bamboo! I was glad to hear that I’m not the only Iowan who thought that – a bunch of the other girls agreed with me. In the mosque he showed us these tiny, flat oval-shaped stones that used to form the floor of the mosque. I thought about taking one as a souvenir but someone mentioned that I should think twice about it and see the movie “Mummy”. From near the mosque we could see Rabat’s sister city, Saleh, across the river. Ben led us to this pool with an eel where legend has it that if you throw a boiled egg in and he eats it, you’ll be blessed with fertility. So obviously he bought a couple and encouraged us to give it a try but we were all hesitant being that nobody’s really looking for a baby anytime soon. Luckily, he clarified that his understanding is you can specify when you want to be granted this gift so apparently you can wish to the eel God to put it off for ten years or whatever. Interesting.
So back on the bus and you guessed it – more snacks. We all went back to our houses for lunch which turned out to be pretty delicious. Chicken and potatoes, bread, Moroccan salad (chopped tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, and loads of pepper), fruit cocktail (bananas, apples, strawberries – things Julia claims “aren’t in season” therefore we can’t eat them. Lies…) As expected, I ate for all three of us. Our host mom told us to, “culo” which apparently is the second person plural command form of eat. In Spanish, this is a not so nice way to say butt. Cul – we eat,culi – you eat, culo – you all eat. We all had a good laugh about that J
After the meal, we met Ben and the group and he paired us off into small groups with Moroccan students. They all spoke English astonishingly well! I was with Taylor, Cheffia, two other Moroccan guys, Tosha, Brigitte and some other girls. We walked through this cute café with a great view of the city and the water, through the medina, then to a pool hall. Every single time we saw a bathroom we had to stop and I felt horrible for Taylor. The Medina is the central market where there were tons of stands selling everything from touristy stuff and jewelry to shoes (pointy, shiny, colorful, and lots of slippers), tapestry, and woodwork. At the pool hall there were tons of pool tables, people smoking, and the lights were dimmed. It was fun but sort of odd since it was the middle of the day. We played a couple games and had some tea/pop/batidos then went back to our houses. My camera ran out of batteries around this time and I was pretty sad about it. I know Mom is bringing me more in Italy but I was mad that my calculations were a couple days short L A little while later we met at the girls’ house upstairs for a meeting for both our group and Rick’s group with a Fulbright Scholar and a Peace Corps Volunteer. I loved hearing about their experiences and just talking with them. The girl was doing research on abortion in Morocco and said her first days there were in Fez during Ramadan – talk about culture shock! She talked about the actual Fulbright Scholar program and how tough it is for her to find any information. She spoke so eloquently and directly but was witty and bubbly at the same time. You could just tell from being around her that she was very intelligent and passionate about what she does. I was jealous, to say the least… Same goes for the guy – he talked about how he was in the most remote parts of Africa for his first year doing all kinds of amazing things. I would love to do something like that someday but I doubt I would last.. I think a lot of people were really inspired by our discussion.
From the house we went straight to the Hamm am (public bath). My host mom gave Brigitte and me the most beautiful thing to wear. I wish I could remember the name of it, but it’s a relative of the muumuu but has a hood, wide sleeves, and is hand-stitched. So we got to the Hamm am and everyone seemed a little hesitant since we heard that tops were optional ... actually, they were not encouraged. We followed our leader (one of the girl’s host sisters) into the big tiled room and all sat in a row along the wall. There was a square fountain in one corner with boiling hot water constantly running and it heated up the room like a sauna. We each got big buckets of hot water and used our cups/beach toys that our host moms gave us to dump water over our heads. We were given a packet with exfoliating liquid that we put on, let soak in, and then scoured off with our scrubbers that looked like boys underwear. It was disgusting how much dead skin came off! We got to spend a whole hour in the room and only a couple ladies and their little son came in at the end. I had such an amazing “bath” and felt so clean and smooth afterward! Brigitte and I walked Erin home and thank goodness we did because we were pretty far away and she didn’t exactly remember her way. Since the Arab baths really dehydrate you, Taylor didn’t go but went out with Chefia for a while.
We had dinner when we got back – the special soup they eat during Ramadan, biscuits filled with chicken and cheese, bread, hardboiled eggs, and sweets that looked like octopi. We used the computer for a little while and Zineb gave us her email address and we found Chefia on Facebook. I was bummed though because I opened my email all the way but it wouldn’t load L I did buy the silk dress muumuu thing though, for only 250 DRH! It’s a beautiful black and white one with animal print and flowers. My host mom apparently sells them to vendors or something so she gave me a really good deal on it, especially considering the fact that it’s hand-sewn.
