Post Dump. More recent stuff later.

11 June 2008 12:53pm GMT+1 Rooftop of the Marquez, Rabat
So, we woke up at 7am for breakfast at the 4 saisons, again. The orange juice (( is super fresh, if a bit sugared, and the pain au chocolat isn’t bad, but the coffee taste like a steamed doubleshot (the starbucks drink from a can that you drink cold). Hey, at least it’s caffeine. I burned my tongue last night on a café au lait at the singular café we’ve found with free wireless (imagine 9 of us crammed into a small room on the second floor using the internet and praying that our batteries don’t run out b/c the room lacked plugs).


12 June 2008 10:45pm GMT+1 في بيتي (at my house)
So, I kind of got called away when I was writing that last entry. Now I’m sitting in my host family’s house, watching TV. Satellite is huge here; everyone has one. So far I’ve watched episodes of Charmed and Friends subtitled in Arabic (which scrolls too fast but I can understand certain words here and there) and a Turkish soap opera dubbed in Arabic. Whoa; want to talk about confusing?

Anyway, I’m staying about midway between the Annex and the Marquez. So you know, the Annex is where I have Arabic classes in the morning and the Marquez (the CCCL) is where our Culture & Society Seminar and all extracurricular activities take place. I have free wireless there, but it’s been off/on in the past few days, and I can only access it until 6:30.

I got my language placement. Apparently no one was placed into intermediate. There’s beginner low (aka newbies), beginner mid (myself and Kristen), and beginner high (4 students). I’m learning a lot that was neglected when I took Arabic at St. Ed’s. Colors, Time, counting past twenty, and adjectives (I am… hungry / happy / tired / strong / pretty / exhausted / short, etc.) Tomorrow is day 3; after that we don’t get to speak English in class except when we say a word after “Kaif Na-Kool…?” to know how to spell it. Though today I had to play pictionary since Omama (our professor; she’s getting married at the end of July and Kristen & I are invited!) didn’t understand “truck.”


13 June 2008 9:08pm GMT+1 في بيتي (at my house)
Apparently I just can’t get an entire entry done in one sitting. Something is always coming up. For those of you who expect me to have sent you an email/ postcard/ letter by now, I’m sorry. I’ve barely had time to sleep, and I only have internet when I’m at the Marquez, which closes at 6:30 on weekdays and is closed all weekend. I’ll see what I can do.

During our orientation, we were told that the Television (tel-e-fiz-ee-oon) is a part of the family. There’s a formal living room, but the majority of the action in the house is in the family room. Really. It’s the nexus of the house, where we eat lunch & dinner (breakfast is a quick affair in the Cosina (kitchen, in Darija) and sit at all other times. You do your homework there, hold conversations, and the TV is never, ever turned off except when everyone leaves and Mama goes to sleep on the couch. In Morocco, it is normal for girls to sleep on the couches in one room and boys to sleep on the couches in another, even to the point that after a certain time the parents will sleep separately. It’s just the way it’s done.

The house I’m in though has all teenagers and 20-year olds. Abdelatif (29; haven’t met him yet) and Zacharia (23; perfect French, good English, no Fusha) sleep in one room, and Maryem and I sleep in the same room next door. Maryem is awesome. She picked me up at the center (her mom, Fatima, who I call Mama, is housebound… she can’t walk very well, so she sleeps in the third floor family room. On the second floor is the kitchen and the bathroom and the first level of the roof where the clotheslines are. She sends out Zacharia or Maryem for whatever she needs and her family (two sisters and a brother) live in the house below us on the first floor… It’s kind of funny because when I’m on our roof, we can look down into their atrium. And I just realized I’m in parentheses still. Sorry!) and Maryem and I get along great.

She’s 17 and speaks excellent English, perfect French, and has studied Fusha so she’s helping me with my homework and pronunciation. My first night here she took me to the Kasbah, the fort overlooking where the river that runs between Rabat and Salé goes in to the Atlantic Ocean, and we talked about a lot of different things. I asked her about the cat-calling guys do on the street and when she started wearing the Hijab, and she asked me what religion I was. When I said Catholic, I had to explain that it was Christian, and then the difference between Protestants and Catholics. That was interesting. I still haven’t found where Mass is being said, but I’m going to try to do that after class tomorrow (we have 2 Saturday classes the first week, then from there on we’re on regular Mon-Fri, 8:30-11:45am class).

Ok, it’s late (11pm) so I think I’m going to wash up and go to bed. Don’t know when I’ll post this. There might even be more entries before I put this up. Maa Salaama!