fes/meknes/volubilis

this weekend i ventured outside of rabat with four friends east to fes. fes is an incredibly beautiful old town (it just celebrated its 1200th anniversary) and its only about 3 hours away by train. so, meghan, lindsey, noorin, debbie, and i headed out on friday afternoon. we arrived at the fes train station at around 7:00 pm.

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an open letter to fes

dear fes,
first impressions are very important. you are a beautiful, historical city with lots to see and do. you should welcome visitors with open arms. so why, dear fes, do young men have nothing better to do on a friday night than cruise the train station? seriously, shmoes of fes, do you really think that leering at a woman under a greasy mop of dark hair is the best way to get her attention? moroccan women respond to white pointy shoes and "hello beautiful"? "You have nice big asses" is the best way to get 5 american women to come home with you? for all women everywhere, let me just say, "NO."
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shmoes aside, some guys just wont take "get the hell away from us" for an answer. i understand that a large group of tourists will always attract a certain amount of attention from scammers. we attracted one such boy. i cant imagine that he was over 18. but as we tried to find the name of our hotel to call and let them know we would be there shortly, mr. scam artist decided that we would enjoy his 'hotel' much more.

"you are welcome my seesters! i have very nice hotel for you, come with me"
"my seesters, i am speaking to you, hello? you are welcome!"

After ignoring him for a few minutes we finally say "no, we have a hotel, thank you, no."

"my seester, is very good hotel, is in lonely planet. yes, family hotel, very nice! you come with me!"

"NO! leave us alone! we have a hotel! go away!"

"my seester, you are paranoid! we love you here! you come to my hotel yes?"

At which point we walk away to find a pay phone to call our hotel. the medina, or old city, of fes has over 9,000 streets and alleys and does not allow cars (only donkeys). it is the largest medina in the world. the proprietor was to meet us at bab boujeloud, the blue gate, and walk us to the hotel. otherwise we might have very well wandered the medina all night with no clue as to where we were. so after calling we hear,

"my seesters, i also have car, very good for 5 persons, very cheap!"

every town has official taxis called petit taxis that are all one color. in rabat, taxis are blue, in fes they are red, and in meknes they are white. they all have a little sign on the top that says petit taxi. they have meters (except apparently in marrakech). do not be fooled by cars that are the right color, but nothing else. mr. scam artist had two large red vans.

"i dont want anything that kid thinks is ok!" i exclaimed, and my whole group started to cross the street.
"my seester, you are paranoid!"
"um, yeah!"

and that was the end of that.

the man from the hotel, dar bouanania (tell your friends!) met us at the beautiful blue gate and walked with us for a few minutes on the windy streets of the fes medina. we arrived at a wooden door that opened into a magical place. many riads, beautiful old homes, have been turned into hotels. we opened the door and there were gorgeous tiles on the walls, the floor, everywhere. it was so beautiful! such a sanctuary from the dirty medina.





in the morning we decided to check out the rooftop terrace. the view was incredible, just breathtaking.




as i mentioned, the medina has over 9,000 streets. actually, i think its closer to 10,000. there is no rhyme or reason to the streets; they seem to go wherever they feel like going and you can either encounter a dead end, pitch black that seems to go nowhere, spaces only a child could fit through, a beautiful mosque, a university, a fantastic crafts shop, or cheap knockoff armani shop. fes's location is at a crossroads of several berber tribes, moroccan styles, and jewish artwork. everything comes to the medina to be sold. so, how do you know if you are buying a hand made moroccan camel leather purse, or a cashmere scarf made in india? and how do you find your way out? you need a guide, who comes to you for only 250 dirhams for the entire day (roughly $25 split by your group) and gets a commission from every store where you buy something. our guide, amina, was a charming woman who was recommended to us from some previous volunteers. she asked us what we wanted to see, and off we go.




the tour was a combination of shopping and sight seeing. we started at the blue gate, moved on to a madrasa, a mosque, lots of history about fes, and then walked through the residential area. this is where you might find yourself on a tiny road to nowhere. thank god for amina. then we arrived at the carpet shop, which is at the end of a random alleyway. it is an old riad which was turned into a cooperative, so families and carpet makers from all over morocco send their wares there to be sold. we get a tour of the shop and the looms and some information about carpets and the different kinds. there are moroccan, berber, and jewish carpets, each with distinctive styles. the carpets of fes usually feature "fes blue." a charming man gives us all of this information while we sip mint tea and his assistants roll out different carpets onto the floor as examples. then the sales pitch begins.




"this is art, if you see anything that touches your heart you should buy! for when in your life will you have this opportunity again!"



my friends meghan and debbie begin considering different rugs, which was great fun. at one point mr. charming rug salesman comes up to me and says, "excuse me for asking, but how old are you?" i inform him that i am 26 years old.

"i have very nice son, you would make wonderful wife for him! i promise you 100 camels, a week long wedding, you will live in the finest house!"

i inform him, no, i'm sorry, i have a boyfriend we've been together for three years. really, i'm not available.

"well," he says, "i wish you long and happy life with him! i hope he is everything you want him to be! but if he is not, you come back here, i promise you will live like a princess!" and darn, it was always my dream to be married to a 21 year old and live in fes with all the carpets i could ever want!

next we went to the famous tanneries and were all hit on by our exuberant guide, who pretended he couldnt speak english for the first 5 minutes, and then broke into perfectly accented american english. he could also do british, australian, and south african.




the next stop was the berber apothecary who gave us a demonstration of all kinds of delicious smells and herbal remedies for everything that ails you. the moroccan black seeds actually worked and i bought some. i also bought, a small bag of 45 spices called ras el hanout (top of the shop) for women who cant cook. (on a side note, i mentioned to my class this morning that i cant cook, and they told me that i had to cook to get a good husband. but honestly, i seem to be getting plenty of marriage proposals anyway, so i'm not to worried.)

and the last shop was the cloth weavers. honestly, it wasnt the best cloth shop, but i did recieve another marriage proposal. "if you marry me, you can have an entire shop of scarves!" tempting, but no camels...

my friend lindsey received the best marriage proposal of the day.
"you and me should get married. we would move to the desert. we would have two camels, you, me, and allah!"
they do know how to make a girl go weak at the knees.

we took a briaf tour of the carpenters and joiners quarter and then were ready to fall down after a day of walking the cobblestone streets, so we bid farewell to amina back at the blue gate, went back to the hotel to pick up our bags, and caught our train for meknes. first class was sold out so we had to take second class, which is only slightly cheaper and has no assigned seating. which means screw granny and the kids on their way home from the holiday, step on people and shove them in the face to get on that damn train. we americans are not comfortable with shoving granny, seeing as how she cant really get around all that fast and has been separated from her son by a swarm of people, which means we all get shoved extra hard when we *gasp* wait to let her climb onto the train.

despite that we found seats without a problem and spent a charming hour chatting in french with two sisters who were traveling with their mother to meknes for the weekend. their mother loved lindsey's blond hair and said she had a son who would be perfect for her to marry. for good measure, she said there was another son for me and a cousin for noorin. by the end of the ride we were all basically family and one of the women, who is studying french literature at the university in fes, gave me her phone number and told me to call her if i am ever in fes again.

our hotel in meknes, the majestic, was fine. it is in the new town, a block away from the train station (which we didnt know when we got into our taxis, but realized when they drove us around the block and stopped). it is not expensive. the staff is very very nice. that was the best thing about the hotel. but really, it wasnt anything special, like a gorgeous tiled converted riad.

we decided to head to volubilis in the morning, despite the rain, which was a good idea on many levels. it is a half hour drive from meknes and everyone gets a grand taxi. these are used for long hauls and are pretty cheap. we were overcharged, given what some of the other volunteers were charged, but it was 400 dirhams for a driver to take us all out and then wait for two hours while we walk around, and then drive us back with a few scenic stops. about $10 per person. and we were overcharged. i love morocco.

volubilis is an archaeological site with roman ruins. i dont know what people generally think about this place, but i though it was pure magic. that was a combination of a cool archaeological site, really fun, go-with-the-flow people to see it with, and unpredictably incredible weather.

when we arrived, it was drizzling a little bit. we all did a little bit of slip n' slide in the mud and i resolved that it would be a perfect day if i could manage to not fall on my ass. there are amazingly preserved mosaics and lots of pillars and stones. it was really beautiful and fun to walk around. then came the torrential downpour. we huddled under meghan's umbrella up against an ancient stone wall as the wind blew the rain right into us and soaked us all completely. at which point we decided we were finished with volubilis. all of a sudden we looked up and saw slashes of blue in the dark sky. soon the clouds swept up the mountain and the sun came out and the entire world sparkled and shone. we could see another storm coming through the valley and the previous storm on top of the mountain, but we were in an oasis of sunlight in the middle of brilliant green and ancient stone.









some time later when we finally left, soaked and happy, our driver took us up the mountain for a panoramic view of moulay idriss, a tiny town on the hillside. then we headed back to meknes for lunch.

as i may have mentioned, women in morocco dont really go out to eat or to sit in cafes. that makes finding a lunch spot, or a cafe to duck in from a storm quite difficult, since all cafes are filled with men. they tend to stare, make comments, or assume you're a prostitute if you frequent cafes. but we found a place to eat finally, after which we realized it was pouring and we had hours until our train. during a brief break from the rain, we spotted a patiserie called la tulipe. now there's a place that women can frequent, we thought, and headed in. well, we were wrong, but we wanted hot chocolate and tea so we just sat down and hung out for a few hours. a few women ended up coming in, but they were all with men. still, we could have done worse.

finally, soaked and loaded down with bags, we got on our first class train and headed homeward. it was a fantastic weekend and a great first trip, proving my friend neaka right. this place is crazy, totally and completely insane. and awesome, so much fun, and always an adventure.

mabrook l'eid! CAREFUL!!!!! GRAPHIC DEAD SHEEP PHOTOS!!!

craziest day ever.
ever.

so, my student fatiha invited me to her house for this holiday, l'eid. basically, its like thanksgiving except with sheep instead of turkey. everyone goes home to celebrate with family, and then kill a sheep and eat it. but they have to kill the sheep themselves. its just part of the fun.

first of all, it was so nice of her to invite me in the first place. its really a family thing. so i arrived promptly at 9 am. it took me about half an hour to find a taxi, and my program director, mohammed, nicely waited outside with me at 8:15 am and gave the cab driver directions. so i get there ($4 for a cab all the way across the city), and her mother is still at the mosque for morning prayers. her youngest sister, ouda, is also there. she is nine and sooooooo cute! we prepared breakfast and watched tv. fatiha made ouda turn on an english station and we watched that golf movie with matt damon for a while. anyway, her mother came back and we sat down for breakfast.

the thing about eating with moroccans is that you cant not eat something, and they hate to waste food. so i ate a weird pasta/milk soup, then a shredded wheat ish pancake with honey. then there were these round spongy bread things with honey. then there was tea and little cookies. some of them i brought, some of them they already had. mohammed told me that people bring something sweet to eat with tea instead of flowers, so i brought a bunch of cute cookies from the bakery down the street. anyway, after eating what felt like everything in the apartment, we waited for the sheep to arrive. it was like 2 hours late. but we got to watch the king kill some sheep on tv. anyway, we went up to the roof, where apparently everyone in rabat kills their sheep. i could see people on rooftops all around us. took lots of pictures. in the street below a bunch of young guys were burning the heads and around the fire was a pile of horns.

finally the sheep arrived. he was really cute. i couldnt watch, so i put my camera on video mode and told ouda to film it. the 9 year old girl had no problem with two guys holding a sheep down and slitting its throat. (note: the difference between tuer and gorger.) but i looked as soon as it was over and took some great sheep with a slit throat twitching pictures. i guess you couldnt really see the twitching in the pictures. so then ouda, who looooved my camera, kept pulling me closer to the sheep while the men cut off the skin and the head and the front legs. then they strung it up by the back legs from the laundry line and took out the innards. dinner time!

so we went back into the apartment after the slaughter and started preparing the food. they roasted some part of it on a barbecue like thing like kebabs which we ate first with bread. gamey, but not bad.

then came the interesting part. i kept asking if i could help (because i'm stupid like that) and fatiha said i could make the salad. didnt take too long. can i do anything else fatiha? sure! these innards are really slippery, can you hold them taut while i slice them into pieces? umm, ok. this is strange, what is it? the intestines! the lungs! stomach lining! the throat! and we're going to be eating all of this? well, try everything once i guess.

so they put all of this stuff in a pot and then they boil it, put a bunch of stuff in, and boil it some more. fatiha is asking me about every half hour if i'm hungry and i keep thinking that i'm still full from breakfast, but i get the distinct impression that she thinks i'm just being polite.

while all of this is going on, i was playing with ouda. we were pretty much best friends before the sheep even arrived, and then we played hand clapping games and danced around the living room. she's an excellent dancer. then fatiha puts on a video of her sister's wedding, which was in may. the wedding is like nothing i've ever seen! the bride has 6 different dresses and she sparkles (literally) in all of them. the music was incredible and she's being lifted by 4 men while sitting in this little gold seat with a roof and smiling and waving with her henna'd hands. the music was so fun and there were lots of shots of fatiha dancing that she actually got up with ouda and started dancing! then they pulled me up (leeeeeeeze!) and started teaching me some moroccan dance moves and we were all dancing in her living room while her mother clapped on the couch! there is something to be said for a big holiday with only women in attendance.

finally the innards are ready for consumption. they are served in a bowl and we all gather round with bread to eat with our hands. the stew part is really quite good. still has the sheepy flavor, but tasty with the bread. i'll be honest, the stomach lining wasnt bad. the intestines were pretty good too. the lungs pretty much made me gag. and after trying everything two or three times i was pretty much at my strange texture threshold. luckily, i ate enough to please fatiha and convince her that she's a great cook (which she is, that stuff was pretty edible). we ended the meal, as always in morocco, with clementines, oranges (which in arabic is limon) and apples. moroccans have things like cookies and cake with tea. dessert is always fruit.

everyone was really tired (after eating a sheep) and so i said i should head home. i was perfectly happy to hail another $4 cab, but fatiha caller her boyfriend who lives nearby to drive me home. she said i had time to freshen up and go to the bathroom before he arrived, and when i went into the bathroom a very important questions was answered for me. where do they keep the sheep carcass, balls hanging down, empty rib cage, blood dripping? thats right, in the shower!

all in all it was an amazing day! it was so great for fatiha to invite me into her family for one of the biggest holidays, and she had only met me 4 times. now its like i'm part of the family. when i was getting ready to leave i told fatiha how this was so amazing for me and she said that i was a wonderful guest and made their holiday better! she wants to take me to visit her mother and sister in their home town near fes. i had to navigate the entire day with french (and the 3 arabic phrases i know) and it was fine. and seriously, when in my life am i ever again going to have the chance to celebrate l'eid with a moroccan family on the roof of a nice downtown apartment building?

AND NOW... hey, they're kinda gross, but its another culture, ya know? these are some dead sheep pics, so dont scroll down if you dont want to see.

why i LOVE other countries

so, i have now officially been here for a week. its so weird, when you spend 24 hours a day with people you get really close really fast. so even though i have new friends i've only known for a week, we have become really close. its strange to think that these people, who have left at this point, are not going to be a part of my overall experience since i have 11 more weeks here. there will be a lot of other cool people to meet. but at the moment, i cant imagine our house without these people.

in explanation of the milkybar photos... so, yesterday my friend meghan was going to acima (the grocery store a block away from the house) and i asked her to get me some chocolate, any chocolate. this is what she came back with. the milkybar wrapper is the funniest thing i've seen so far in morocco. i guess thats the milkybar cowboy kid...? anyway, i find him adorable. for more on the milkybar kid see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM8h7Yc3zfc

nothing much else is new. some of my friends have left, some are staying, its the weekend and its been sunny. today all of us sat out on my balcony and read in the sunshine. it was so nice to be really warm! tomorrow my friend and i may explore the palace and the park near our house. good night!

sad and happy

the past few days have been a little bit crazy.

teaching has improved. i an really getting to know my students and their english level and what they like to do. they are getting to know me. one of them, fatiha, invited me to her house for the holiday this week, eid. its the holiday where the whole family gets together, slaughters a sheep, and eats a big meal. i'm really excited to be able to participate in a moroccan holiday! but i dont know if i can watch a sheep getting slaughtered... we'll see how that works out. its on tuesday.

i dont teach classes on friday, so i worked with one of the other volunteers at the childrens hospital. its a bit strange, the hospital is dark, the basement floods when it rains, has no heat and, i saw a baby on a bed next to a plastic bag. i'm told all of these things are normal. but the kids are so adorable!!! we colored some giraffes and elephants. there is one boy who must be 12 who is there because his brother is in the hospital. he speaks a little bit of english and is so sweet and enthusiastic. he was out with us, coloring with the 3 year olds and making bracelets with string and helping us play with the kids. such a sweet helpful boy, so much energy. some of the kids take a while to warm up, but then they chatter away and drag you around the play room. the mothers appreciated that i spoke french, since the other volunteer doesnt speak french or arabic. there was also a french volunteer who was happy to have someone to talk to; a retired woman from burgundy. so all in all, i'm looking forward to having my fridays there, until the university students are back from break and i can do english classes there. the university students are mostly getting their masters' in sciences and want to work on conversational english.

in other news, some of my new friends are going home this weekend. they have been here 9 weeks and are at the end of their programs. that will be sad, they're really funny.

in other sad news, one of my good friends from high school passed away last week and i only just found out two days ago. he was a friend that i just assumed would always be in my life, and i'm shocked and just so sad that he wont be around. now i have no one to marry for eu citizenship. the funeral is today, and obviously i couldnt go since i had to work and flights to london are over $1000 last minute. i'm just remembering all of the fun we had together, in high school and when i lived in london a few years ago. i missed him when i hadnt seen him for several years, and now i miss him even more since i know we'll never be able to meet up in london or dc again. he was sweet, funny, lively, smart, sarcastic, and i loved him very much. he was one of the only friends i actually kept from high school and we kept in touch with email and facebook chats. strangely enough, i saw posts on his facebook page which were weird, which led me to contact his sister to find out what was wrong, and then she told me he had died. we had talked about meeting up when i was out here and i was just going to email him and see if we could get together. facebook is all pervaisive these days. its just so sad; i was so excited about seeing him again while i'm here, and now i cant.

anyway, thats my good news and bad. i have a week off of work for this crazy sheep holiday and i'm looking forward to getting to know rabat better. i'm posting a bunch of pics of my house so you all can see where i'm living!

fun facts

1. when teaching french, 'do' is a very difficult concept to describe. i do the dishes, i did like that movie, i do like mozart, does he live in rabat? i will somehow need to explain this tomorrow...

2. there is a puddle on my floor. it is right in front of my closet, by the sliding door to the balcony. i continue to step in it wearing socks and nothing will make it go away. nothing.

3. it did not rain today. there have been very pretty clouds, and it is still windy and freezing, but no rain is a step in the right direction. another step would be to fix the heating in the house. but at least we now have hot water. baby steps in the right direction. stepping in the puddle in my socks is another step in the wrong direction.

4. my house used to belong to the spanish ambassador. it is 15 years old. that might explain the lack of heat.

5. ... funny stuff about some people in my house that i am censoring in case they ever come across this blog...

6. swearing-in and inauguration are difficult concepts to explain to moroccans in french.

7. "donkey parking" was a term used in my orientation on morocco today. also, the arabic word for east is shark (sharq). rabat means "stronghold of victory" and i think thats a lot to live up to. berbers dont like the term berber. they prefer amazigh. fez just celebrated its 1,200th anniversary. this is a pretty cool place.

8. rice with onions, spices, and raisins is delicious. so is lentil soup, especially when its this cold. i still dont like green peppers and eggplant. sweet tea with mint should be served in every country for every meal. meat should be so soft that it falls off the bone and does not require a knife. if only i could have a cook prepare all of my meals as well as 4:00 tea in the states!

9. weeklong moroccan holidays where it is inadvisable to travel in morocco are really putting a cramp in my style. especially since tickets to france are $200.

10. while putting on spf moisturizer, my oldest student (at a whopping 36 years of age) told me "c'est difficile de reparer ce que le temps a mis en domage." apparently this is a moroccan proverb about being yourself and going with the flow; not trying to stop the damage of time and being yourself regardless. she asked me to translate it. and-- zing-- discussion topic for class tomorrow!

11. i have just been informed that the heat will be fixed next week. which means, for some reason, the hot water will be off all week. sigh. my travel plans suddenly become more important.

12. i love morocco, i love my house-mates, i love my students, i love my broke down freezing cold house, i love the feral cats that play in the yard, and i love view of the sunrise that i can see from my bed first thing in the morning.

emotional fatigue...

but in a good way!

today was insanity and awesomeness!

we woke up and prepared for our placements. i was teaching my first english class and was super nervous. i figured we would go over introductions and then talk about this big holiday coming up, Fete du Mouton. Thats the day when they slit the throats of the sheep and then have a big family sheep meal. my students now know how to spell 'sheep.' well, that took us up to about a half an hour, at which point i was out of material and needed to fill an hour. at which point, i asked one of my students for the time.

turns out, they hadn't learned time yet. aha! there went 15 minutes doing exercises about the clock. nice!

for the rest of class we just talked. they asked me questions about vocabulary mostly, we talked about what they wanted to learn and why. they're great people! the youngest, and best at english, is 19. the oldest, and chattiest, is 36. for the record, i wasnt going to even ask about age, since in the us that can be impolite, but these ladies offered up their ages without batting an eye. there are three women and two men, which i was surprised about at a placement called feminin pluriel. but the center is apparently about cultural understanding as much as it is about female empowerment, and i suppose the fact that there are men who want to learn english at a female empowerment center is pretty open minded.

so we ended up chatting for about the last 5 minutes of class while the center workers served us tea and cookies (not a bad gig). one of my students invited me to her wedding in december, which opened up a whole discussion about what moroccans do for weddings. they also said that i seem very american, that i look and act american. but then they said that they've only ever met three of us. anyway, it was a really cool morning, and i think i'm going to like my work here.

this afternoon we took a walking tour of downtown rabat and hassan tower, as well as mohammed v's mausoleum (which is at hassan tower). the rain let up just in time for the hour and a half long tour, and there were beautiful clouds over the ocean by the casbah (where apparently the pirates used to hang out). there were cats frolicking in the garden and in the market place and i was overcome with the cute kitty awwwwwwws.

so now i'm exhausted, looking forward to dinner, which is continually delicious, and i need to do my lesson plan for tomorrow!