Weekend in Tanger

This weekend was my first trip outside of Rabat since my arrival three weeks ago, and it was spent in Tanger, (I refuse to call it Tangiers).  I was invited to join a group of my fellow students and just over 24 hours later I was on a train to Tanger.  This city is one of the furthest North cities in Morocco and has a rich history with Spain.  Almost immediately we were struck by the difference when people began to approach us with Spanish instead of the French we were met with in Rabat.  The city is shockingly modern in some areas, (such as the beach community along the Strait of Gibralter), while others are ancient, (such as the winding medina streets which slope over 45 degrees and are more narrow than most American sidewalks).  The contrast is shocking after spending so much time in Rabat, where no building is over five stories tall and the old and new are far more cohesive.

Rabat Train Station

View from the Hotel

We spent the day walking the streets after having a delicious and filling breakfast at a small cafe near the Cinema Rif.  While we stuffed ourselves with rice, olives, sausage kebabs, eggs, french fries, bread, salad, fresh orange juice, and coffee with milk and sugar, it would rain momentarily onto the awning while the sun shone from the other direction.  It brought a smile to my face as it reminded me of the moment of revelation in a story by Abdelfattah Kilito, called "Dites-moi le Songe", where the lead character yearns for a moment when he can laugh and cry at the same time.  It was beautiful.

However, our bruch was followed by a difficult learning experience.  We had first-hand experience as tourists being hounded by Moroccan "tour guides", men who attempt to swindle you into a guided tour of the medina and demand money afterward.  Our "guide" began with a friendly explanation of a sign and proceeded to lead us deep into the kasbah.  Although I was attempting to shrug him off for quite a while, he continued to follow us.  Once we reached a street we recognized we did our best to tell him we were through talking, but he started to yell at us.  It was so horrifying to have a man scream at us that we were spoiled Americans treating him like a dog and cursing our country.  Not only that, but the rain left us all with wet feet and dampened attitudes.

We walked for a long time until we felt we had established a safe distance between us and our new friend and then debriefed.  It was established that we were now aware of some negative cultural aspects, and that we all had negative opinions of the treatment of women in this particular area, but we decided to move forward.  After a quick visit with our friendly cafe owners from breakfast, we walked down a steep hill to the coast.  The beach was beautiful and we even saw a camel!

Part of the magnificent breakfast

Sarah and holy bread

Fountain in Tanger

A camel on the beach

The beach of Tanger

Horses waiting out the rain.

Teeter totter in the rain

Gran Cafe de Paris
Though it rained off and on for our day and a half in Tanger, it was a beautiful experience.  We learned some difficult lessons about being safe around strange men, but not for lack of beautiful vistas.  Our hotel (where we are told the Beat generation stayed on a regular basis) had a view of Spain across the Strait.  We also had breakfast on Sunday at the Gran Cafe de Paris, where the Bourne Ultimatum was filmed.  In all it was a great mini-vacation from our vacation.

Salons, Buses, Parties, and More

I have been slow to post any news this week because the events have been innumerable and exhausting.  Here are four interesting points of reference:

1) Hair salons are different from American salons in the following ways: it is not assumed that your hair is washed or that it will be washed when you go to a salon to have it styled or cut, men are not allowed in the salon unless they work there, and there is absolutely no sanitation policies.  This may be a list of irksome qualities for some people, but it is actually quite endearing.  Women feel comfortable in salons to be uncovered and to gossip.  Hair stylists are not constantly walking away from you to re-sanitize a comb during a hair cut.  You don't have to feel guilty about disliking the whole hair washing experience.  Though if you want your hair washed all you have to do is say so.  For a $5 total for a wash, cut, and style I am not complaining.

2) You do not need exact change for the bus.  A bus employee wanders the bus with a change purse and they will not only give you change, but also a cute little ticket to document your experience.  There is also no pull cord to get off the bus.  The bus merely stops at each stop, which is more than a block from one to the other.  This is a relief to the bus riders who no longer have to stop at every corner while trying to go to work or school.  There are also friendly bus employees who stand at the bus stop to answer any of your questions if you are lost.  How cool is that?

3) Yes, people have parties in Morocco.  Even though drinking is frowned upon and sexual relations outside of wedlock are illegal, there are still ways to spend the evening for the more adventurous traveller.  I attended my first party this week and was pleasantly surprised.  There was a small amount of alcohol and a huge amount of snack foods and juice.  The most enjoyable part was the music.  We were finally allowed to loosen up and get our groove on.  And to top it all off, we got to play "tea pong".  Yes, that means "beer pong" but with traditional mint tea.  Talk about a multicultural experience.  However, if you want to be safe, try not to dance with Moroccan men.  No matter what you think the mood is in the room, they still will think that one dance means love.  Proceed with caution.


4) I want to return to the idea of sanitation.  There is very little sanitation here.  One of the most surprising correlations between Morocco and Brazil is the smell of rot on the streets.  In both hair salons and cafes I have seen an extraordinary amount of American Health Code violations.  Despite all of this, I have started drinking the tap water and eat the food I am served.  I am not afraid of good germs and would prefer a strong immune system to the weak American version.  Although this might not be for everyone, I highly encourage you to take a risk and eat pastry that had bees buzzing around it and get a haircut with a dirty comb.  You'll be fine.

Something I never thought I would do...

Ice skate in Africa.  There is a skating rink inside the MegaMall in Rabat.  This is a place for wealthy kids to act...like Americans.  Ice skating, for example, in the desert.  In Africa.  Of course I had to go.

Religion and Rabat

Today was Sunday and it was an unusual Sunday for me because I spent a lot of time outside observing a Moroccan Sunday.  Morocco is one of a few countries in the arabophone world which has adopted the Christian weekly schedule while still abiding by Islamic tradition.  To be more clear, Friday is the day of worship in Islam and thus many Islamic countries have Friday and Saturday as their weekend.  Saturday is technically the first day of the week, but schools and businesses consider Sunday-Thursday as their work week.  Morocco, on the other hand, has a Saturday-Sunday weekend and businesses are mostly closed on Sundays.  Today we asked: why is that?

From what we have gathered the historical influence of France began the Sunday "day of rest" tradition in Morocco.  Friday afternoon and evening is used to prayer and worship, Saturday is a relatively normal day, and Sunday is the second day of rest before the work week begins.  I find it very informative of Morocco's transient position between two cultures to see how they have incorporated both days of worship into their schedule.

To further our research, and also to pay our respects to people that we have lost at home since arriving in Rabat,  two of my friends and I went in search of a church.  There is a magnificent cathedral in Rabat.  Cathedrale Saint-Pierre is situated in the newer neighborhood called "centre-ville" which also houses the Parliament and the train station.  It was built in 1919 and is obviously a Catholic home of worship.  We did not attend the morning worship, but we stepped inside to look at the stained glass.  It was intimidating, we unanimously decided, as all Catholic churches should be.

One important thing to mention is that there is one cathedral in Rabat and hundreds of mosques.  This is similar to the proportion of mosques to churches in Milwaukee.  However, as we have bells ringing all around us in Milwaukee, the call to prayer blares around you in Rabat.  It is a beautiful experience, even though it wakes you up at 5:50am most mornings.

Association Club Royal

As I have previously mentioned, I am a proud owner of a gym membership to Association Club Royal.  This lovely establishment requires me to pay $25 a month for unlimited cardio machine usage and special womens aerobic and belly dancing courses three days a week.  It may be a steal, but there are pros and cons to every good deal.

The Pros:
1) Women are allowed to work out during any open hours, (that would be 7am-9pm all days except for Sunday, which is 7am-12), and there are special hours which are "women only" on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday from open until 9pm.
2) There really aren't any regulations about sports wear within the gym.  You can wear what you are comfortable in, whether that is biking shorts or sweat pants.

3) For many of us this is the only location of stress-free showering.  Not only are you naked in a relatively secluded area (there aren't curtains on some of the stalls, but no one will enter into a stall with someone in it), there is also hot water.  The hot water phenomenon will be something we recover from soon enough, but most of us don't know how to turn the water heaters on in our homes and it is hard to find an appropriate time to shower.  We are probably making it a lot more complicated than it needs to be because of our language barriers, but hot water has become a hot topic of conversation between the students here.
4) The staff is really willing to help and some of them have become friends with our little group of workout-a-holics.  In particular, they will try to pull you into aerobics classes and make you laugh.  Laughter is always a good thing to incorporate into your exercise.

The Cons:
1) There is a lot of staff at the gym and most of the time they just sorta stare at you while you are exercising.  No Moroccan women have yet been seen on the elliptical machines or the bikes.  Sometimes they rush over and try to get a machine working for you that is in English, but they don't speak English.  Today I actually had the boxing teacher decide to be my personal trainer and he kicked my butt with boxing exercises.  It was very funny and exhausting and for the first time I didn't mind being bothered at the gym.
2) As I have mentioned before, the toilets are squatty pottys.  Enough said.

This is the actual toilet in the gym.  I
happened to be there alone today,
so I was able to take a picture.

3) No one wipes down the machines.  I don't feel that many people use the cardio machines except for us girls, but we get very sweaty.  This will be referred to again when I write a blog about sanitation in Morocco.
4) Even though you are allowed to wear what you want, no one else wears shorts.  Or tshirts.  They really all wear sweat suits.  We have tried to determine if Moroccans simply do not have sweat glands.
5) There is a woman who sits in the locker room on women's day.  It is sort of awkward because we don't know if she is supposed to receive a tip or if she is there for any particular reason.  She mostly stares at us and whispers to the Moroccan women.  It just feels strange, but I guess for as long as we have European features, we will be stared at everywhere we go until we hop on a plane out of this country.

Toilet Toils

Seeing how I have no homework to work on this evening, let's talk about toilets.  There are some great distinctions between American and Moroccan toilet systems, namely the "squatty potty".  The four most noticeable differences are as follows:

My current restroom.  The curtain intrigues me.
I have not had to use it yet.
This toilet has only a bidet spiggot, see the
hose on the right of the toilet.

1)  Toilet paper is uncommon.  What is common is the bidet.  From the first day in the hotel until moving into my new host family the bidet has become commonplace in my life.  As I have been told this is widespread in Islamic culture because nothing in this world contains purity such as water.  Therefore water is used to clean everything and paper is seen as inferior.  After some research on this subject it sounds like a wise invention.  But I am still terrified to use it.

2) Toilets flush with intensity.  There is no rhyme or reason to this fact.  It simply is a notable intensity which appears like a huge waste of water in an area so consumed with the conservation of water.

Another cheap imitation of a real picture,
but oddly enough, I did not feel
comfortable whipping out my camera
in the womens locker room of my gym.

3) Bathrooms are very noisy.  Or so they feel while you are inside.  Everything is made of tile and there are very few padded rugs, large towels, and the like to pad the sound.  Bathrooms seem to be the one room not covered with decoration.  However, they are usually hidden between multiple doors, so little sound escapes.  This is a plus because each classroom at our school has its own bathroom within it.  Who wants to use the bathroom when everyone can hear you?  This is a new concept I call "double door security".  These walls must be bulletproof.

4) The squatty potty. This new concept to my western brain is actually one of the oldest forms of civilized waste removal, as one could imagine.  I have heard it referred to as a Turkish toilet, an Eastern toilet, and even a Natural-Position toilet.  While it is clear that its use spans the majority of the world, I had to do some research after discovering that this disposal method will play a role in my life. Today I found my first one, hence this blog post.  And where did I find my first squatty potty?  The gym.  Sanitation at its peak.  At least my first one won't be on a train.

I worry that I will be scolded for this post, but we all know that you were dying to know the intimate details of Moroccan life.  Bslama.

Daring Darija

I have a new blog for all linguistics and sociology nuts.  I will be filling it with observations of language and communication in my multilingual surroundings.  You can either find it by following my "full profile" page to "Daring Darija" or you can type it into your browser the good old fashion way at daringdarija.blogspot.com.  I hope you find my multilingual and cultural experiences as fascinating as I do.

Hammam magic

Not the hammam I frequented, as I would
 never be able to take a picture of a hammam.
Here is an internet substitute.

For those of you who are dying to know about hammams, I now have information for your eager ears.  Last night I joined four of my fellow students on the way to the hammam.  We ended up at one which is two blocks from my current home.  It was called Sunsilk.  Yup.  Like the shampoo.  We entered and walked down a very long blue tile corridor to a small window.  There we purchased soap, scrubbing gloves, and a ticket to enter.  From there we entered the locker room where four short-tempered middle aged women took our bags and watched us undress.  This was the only uncomfortable moment: the moment when you enter the unknown.

The rest was heaven.  As strange as it was to be among almost naked friends, we found ourselves quickly adjusting to the nudity in the humid sauna beyond the locker room.  Adventurously we walked straight through the first two chambers to the third, hottest chamber.  To any Bikram yoga followers it was tepid.  After a few minutes it became quite hot due to the high humidity.  The ceiling literally dripped on us.  We used the scrubbers to the best of our newbie abilities and soon found ourselves dumping buckets of cold and warm water over our heads.

The soap is a particularly interesting feature.  It is made with argon oil, which is unique to Morocco, and is nearly black with a cookie dough consistency.  The exfoliating qualities of this soap are superb.  By the time we left I had rolls of dead skin rubbing off on everything I touched.  It may sound disturbing, but it is a wonderful feeling.  We only lasted in the chambers for 30 minutes, but it was thoroughly exhausting and I came home completely at peace with the world.

Now, the sights you see within the hammam should remain within the hammam, but I know you are all dying to know if it is really like the sensuous bath houses of old.  It is not.  It has almost a primal nature to it because you see all sizes, including the most unappealing, relaxing against the walls.  The walls in this particular hammam were whitewashed, not tiled.  Also, there were no benches as one would have assumed.  However, it was an experience to remember and I will go back very soon.

How do you form a civil society?

There are some changes to be made in this blogging format.  Now that I am familiar with the blogging process, I am going to adjust my use of this outlet so that it is more informative for my readers.

The first change is that this blog will be used to document my Moroccan cultural observations and experiences.  I will also be creating a second blog which will document the interlinguistic phenomenon which I encounter as an active linguist in the field.  I have found that the new world of Arabic and Islamic studies presents a vast world of verbal, written, and gestured language which I feel is a learning experience for westerners.  If you can bare with my fluctuation here I am sure we will all benefit.

Today I want to point out an incredibly important revolution happening at this very moment in Tunisia.  I realize it is not exactly Moroccan culture, but the two countries are closely related in history, culture, and language.  As most of you know there have been many revolts in Tunisia across the past month.  As far as I know it is being covered in the the American press, but we all know how American media outlets tend to graze only on pop interest and rarely cover international news thoroughly.  Today I had the fortune of speaking with an American who lives in Tunisia and had just this morning fled the country in an evacuation effort through the American Embassy in Tunis.  I was made aware of facts which stunned me and I feel it is my duty to send smoke signals out to my friends and family.

To begin with, although the riots began from a demonstration on December 17th, they have been fueled since the global financial crisis began.  You see, this crisis did not just affect the middle class or those invested in wall street.  By the trickle down effects of the European market slide, the families of immigrants out of the Maghreb to France were unable to provide for their loved ones.  The lack of tourism and foreign support also aided in the crash of third world systems.  In Egypt there are millions of college graduates without jobs.  Prosperity across the middle east (except of course for Saudi Arabia) and the middle class are dwindling out of existence.  Thus, the region is ripe with agitation and rumors.  It doesn't hurt that many of the governments are in different shades of improvement.

Tom detailed for us the fear of living in a state of chaos and rioting where the police disappeared from the streets and he awoke to gunshots in the night.  He explained how on Saturday morning his neighbors flocked onto the street to form a makeshift militia of vigilantes against the rampant looters.  It reached a point where it was nearly impossible to tell who was "good" and who was "bad".  Both our guest and our professor expressed a notion that it takes extreme courage to return to ideology in a time like this, however they remain hopeful that Tunisia will not fall into an anarchic state.  They hope that a gradual reemergence of leadership will occur in the coming months.

I strongly encourage you to research this revolution.  It is poised on the idea that today's society cannot be squelched by a militia or an oppressive regime.  The government tried to shut down Facebook.  They failed.  They tried to shut down email accounts.  They failed.  They tried to cut off their revolutionaries.  They failed.  We live in an age where people will always have an outlet to express themselves until all the satellites are shot out of the sky and electricity is obsolete.  So I leave you with the question we were asked this afternoon: how do you form a civil society?

He Studied

And now it gets difficult.  We dove into schoolwork this week with all new classes and abundant Arabic language homework.  Today I have 15 Standard Modern Arabic dictation exercises and four writing exercises.  This is on top of six more pages of reading.  And that is only SMA.  I have four other classes.  There will probably be far fewer blog posts and shorter at that.

However, I have made a lot of interesting sociolinguistic observations since my Arabic courses have begun.  There are SO MANY allophones in Arabic, meaning that they hear the vowels in bed, bad, bid, and bod, as the same vowel.  They also hear the vowels in bit and beat as the same vowel.  It makes for a very confusing experience for a linguist attempting to take notes in phonetics.

There are no commas in Arabic.  You just have to list items with "u" which means "and".  So I went to the gym and school and the hammam and a friends house and the store today.  Talk about cumbersome.  

Another interesting fact: they always present the infinitive of a verb in the male third person singular tense.  Hence, the verb "to study" is presented in its infinitive form as "he studied".  So I guess I have "he studied".  Just kidding.  That was a linguistics joke for all of you non-linguists.  It wasn't funny to linguists either.

A final fact is that Berber is apparently an offensive term.  I haven't had the time to look into it, but according to our Moroccan Culture professor it is better to call the culture and language Amazigh.  

Today I went to my first hammam and let me just say, what are Americans so scared of?  It was amazing.  It was absolutely beautiful.  I feel wonderful.  Ask me again in a few hours after I sleep this one off.  I will probably still love it.  Imagine going to a spa for only $1.50 and then bathing in a primal fury.  You are overwhelmed at first with the sizes and shapes of all the naked beasts around you, but then you realize that you are just like them and suddenly you relax.  No one is ashamed.  It is pure freedom.  And it is hot and relaxing.  You leave behind your dead skin and worries.  I love the hammam, and I bet if you tried it you would love it to.  Bslama!

Pause

Our first break!  After a week of intense girl time, we are finally allowed a little R&R with our host families.  For Leah and me this means sleeping in and trying to figure out how to communicate our weekend plans in foreign languages.  Eventually we decided to spend Saturday playing catchup with our workout schedules and doing some local exploring.

A few of us have decided to join a local gym, and from the look of the pictures people are now posting of me on the internet I am in sore need of the exercise.  We have memberships which allow us access during womens' hours to the machines and also to bellydancing and aerobics courses.  In the morning I finally did some yoga and then we took a taxi back to the gym, which is conveniently located near our school.  We used ellipticals and stationary bikes while our friend, Brie, partook in the bellydancing course.  Next weekend we plan on joining her.  There is nothing quite as interesting as listening to bellydancing tunes while exercising.

Afterward our host mom served us a very interesting and delicious lunch.  She carried out into the dining area a very large plate with chicken around the sides and eight cooked eggs in the center.  It was covered in cumin- very very tasty and filling after our work out.

With Lilia, my host sister. Bad hair day for both of us.

Lilia took us for a walk around the neighborhood after an hour of rest.  We walked east to the Medina and found our bus stop for school and afterward we approached the medina.  This time we allowed ourselves the pace we desired to look at items and to enjoy the fresh air.  The day was cool, around 60-70 degrees, but everyone thought it was freezing.  For the first time Leah and I saw the covered portion of the market which has a curved glass ceiling.  There are sections where the market surrounds side doors to the mosque and it is easy to be swept away in the afternoon prayer crowds.  I bought my first moroccan scarf, but otherwise we are waiting until we know the prices better to make many purchases.  It is easy to be ripped off as Americans, because even their elevated tourist prices seem very cheap to us.

We ended our walk down along the ocean and then winding our way back through the neighborhood.  It seems that we live in a very nice neighborhood, and all of the buildings seem like residential complexes.

Our host family is giving us a lot of alone time, which is good and bad.  I know I need some space, but I also crave more experience and exposure.  Sunday morning has been very restful for us, but this afternoon we plan on going to see a movie in Arabic with some of our friends from Amideast.  I am sure there will be much to report on the format of the Moroccan movie theatre.  B'slama.

Shwia-shwia l'arabia

There isn't much time for a full post today, but a few things have happened which should be reported.  I was moved into my host family on Wednesday afternoon and it has been a success so far.  My host mother, Siham, is in her 40s and teaches French to children at a private school, so she is perfect for my aspiration to become a fluent French speaker in the coming months.  She does not hesitate to correct me, and also has the patience to let me fumble.  Her husband is a banker named Said who appears very European although they were both born here, in Rabat.  My host siblings are Lilia, 17, and Nadir, 14.  They are both in high school, though Lilia is studying for her Bac.  By the time we leave she will have taken the most important test of her life, which is a very intimidating thought for those of us in the American school system.  She speaks English fluently and her brother is just beginning to learn.  We have been asked to help them practice their English and in return they will help us acquire Dirija, the local language.

Leah, my roommate from Amideast, is from Rhode Island and is very easy to live with.  We share a room, which we believe is actually Nadir's, and it provides ample space for us both.  I guess living in the dorms might not have been so bad after all.  We are living in a very modern Moroccan family, but there are still conservative bits and pieces.  Examples would be our parents waking up for prayer at 5:50am and that Lilia is not allowed out at nighttime.  The living room is the most Moroccan style room in the apartment, and it is very comfortable with its sprawling couches.

Headlines in Arabic

Homestay of Alaina and Anna

Homestay of Alaina and Anna

A street scene

And yet...advertisement remains the same.

Coca-cola within traditional architecture

A butcher using the teleboutique

Anna taking a photo of a woman who sold tajine n the street.

Cool cars for my dad.

I began seeing women fully covered including a few in burkas.   I will discuss this more later.

View from my host home foyer.

My host home "salon"

Many views of the salon.

Said's prayer rug.

The kitchen.

The bathroom.

Our bedroom.  I am on the left.

Thursday consisted of an activity with AmidEast called Rabat Challenge.  We split into three groups of students and wandered the neighborhood in search of eachother's homestays, a post office, the train station, and an activity in the Medina.  We were told to walk through the souk and find one small gift of 10DR (1.2 dollars) and one ambiguous item of the same price.  Our ambiguous item had to be something which was unfamiliar to Americans, but which plays a typical role in Moroccan life.  My group selected these adorable padded slips which are used to hold hot metal tea pot handles.  Basically a decorated pot holder.  Other groups chose traditional eyeliner and oddly shaped cookie cutters.  The day was exhausting, but I was able to close it out with a skype date with Mr. Nathan, so I am feeling a little more relaxed now.  I finally had a full night's rest.  The first since before I left Milwaukee.  Time to get back out there and handle three more hours of beginners Arabic.  B'slama.

Salam oualaykum

Among the most complicated days in my life were the past two days.  Monday provided a bit of rest for those of us who did not have Arabic placement testing, but we received the whiplash of intensive Arabic survival skills across the past two days.  While the day is coming to an end in Rabat, with a bit of relaxation, there is a lot to reflect on from this week.

While walking on Monday we found these pillars around a
major road with arabic writing on all sides.  This is sideways,
but the person's height adds perspective.

Monday, again, was a free day for students with only French background.  We started the day slowly at the hotel and did a bit of exploring, which led to our getting lost twice on the way to our one class.  Computer skills were the run down for the day and after an hour we knew how to access the internet in the computer lab and use our laptops on AmidEast's wifi.  The exchange students are also provided with a room with Skype, for those who will not receive internet at their host families.  Much to my surprise one of the computer technicians studied at a Portuguese university and brought me some entertainment with a short Portuguese chat.

Up close

Avocado smoothie dinner

Most of us were wiped out by our excursions by the end of the day, but we attempted to go to the Medina anyway for our dinner.  After a long conversation with the door man and repeated disagreement with taxi drivers, we split off and some girls went to the Medina while the rest of us grabbed smoothies and sandwiches closer to the hotel.  Again, to my surprise there was another hint of my Brazilian adventure when we were able to buy avocat smoothies, AVOCADO!  The only time I have had one before was in Brazil and it probably was the cause of my serious weight gain.  This year I will share each occasional smoothie instead of wolfing them down every day.

Tuesday was an intense day of Arabic survival skills for all of us weary travelers.  Class started with everyone following Doha's instructions on non-verbal communication.  The next post will go into further detail with that information.  We then engaged in skits about home-stay situations and how to avoid offending our hosts during our stay.  The skits included not stretching in front of males and being careful to avoid showing the bottom of your feet to people along with taking off shoes while entering someone's home.  It is also true that you are to eat with your right hand in Morocco, as the left is seen as dirty.  The lack of toilet paper in many bathrooms supports this notion.

After a very short lunch of moroccan pizza, we began survival Arabic.  We learned over 100 terms and phrases in the first day, and the only thing which absorbed all of this information was my notebook.  My head cannot seem to distinguish between so many consonants and gutteral sounds.  I have been told I will improve, but I can still only remember a few words at a time.  Within 2 hours we were sent to a cafe next door to order coffee (kahwa, not to be confused with kawa, which my mom would not like me to define on this blog) or tea (atay- mint tea is atay b naynay).  The students with arabic background were rather successful.  The rest of us were very good when our notes were in front of us.  My first arabic word spoken in public- "Kif-kif", which means "the same" and is accompanied by a hand gesture of rubbing the index fingers together.  

The coffee recharged all of us and we set out on a march to the Medina.  We reached the inner city just after dark and were surprised by the hustle and bustle of the markets into the night time.  Even on their national holiday of independence the streets were packed and overwhelming.  We many times had to stop just to be sure no one had gotten lost into the maze of shoppers.  When we made it to the restaurant we were shocked by the abundance of mosaics and traditional stools and low sofas around the dining tables.  Dinner consisted of Moroccan salad, tajine, and finally flan or yogurt with mint tea.  The waiter poured the tea down to his shins from high above his head- a skill we all yearn to acquire.  It was a delight just to experience such a traditional meal and it only cost about $10 per head!  This was considered expensive by Moroccan standards.  Wow.

A night time photo of the Medina

Another view of the Medina at night.  Not much to go on yet, but better pictures will come.

After dinner we split into groups to be led back through the Medina.  We were overwhelmed by the amount of items for sale- none of which cost over $20- and the sheer variety.  The last street we walked down displayed rows and rows of shops selling caftans- the most beautiful and expensive robes money can buy in all shades and colors.  Not to be outdone, Hassan led us away from the Moroccan leather section and into the wealthy part of Rabat.  We passed the Parliament and the new train station where the streets widened to four times their normal size to accommodate the sprawling government palaces and foreign embassies.  It was all too much to take in for me, so I stuck close to a new friend and fell deep into a linguistic debate about sociolinguistic attitudes.  The evening came to a close when we tested our new arabic on the sweet shopkeeper next to the hotel who has been keeping a close eye on us since we arrived.  It was a beautiful day  in Rabat.  Lilya sa'aida.  Good night