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Ugh!  I’ve definitely been lazy since I got here.  My intentions were surely to keep up this blog, but I have clearly not be doing a good job at that.  Here is my attempt to recap many of my experiences over the past two-and-a-half months in Morocco.

As I said in my first post, Morocco is a beautiful place.  I have only gotten a chance to see a small bit of it.  While I live in the capital city of Rabat, I’ve only ventured as far out as Meknes, a city about 2.5 hours north of here (by train).  I went there with a coworker back in November, and it proved to be fun.  Believe it or not, it was my first time traveling by train (MARTA doesn’t count).  Got there and didn’t encounter too much, nothing that I haven’t already seen here in Rabat.  It’s worth mentioning, though, we did get to a see a famous smaller town by the name of Moulay Idriss, which lay 30 minutes outside of Meknes.  We got there by cab, which was an adventure in itself.  Long story short – this place sits high in the mountains and we had a driver who liked to drive fast.  Oh, and this was a narrow, curvy, two-lane road with no guard rails, and there were seven people crammed into the cab.  There were even shepherds walking their flocks of sheep on the “sidewalk”.  I fought back tears through most of the ride, expecting us to crash.  As much as I tried to just close my eyes and pray, I couldn’t help but watch my potential demise unfold right before my very eyes.  Clearly, I didn’t die as I am writing this blog.  Still, as nice and traditional as the place was (I got to see my first Moroccan mule there), I am in no hurry to do that again (if ever).

The last day of school was this past Thursday, so I am free for the next two weeks.  I’d love to write about my experiences teaching in Morocco, but I really don’t have a lot of positive things to say at this point.  Suffice it to say many of my experiences are almost totally different from what I experienced in Indonesia, in many different respects.  I definitely plan to hang on in there throughout the duration of my contract, but I don’t think I will be itching to stick around after that.  Then again, stranger things have happened; I only expected to stay in Indonesia for one year.  If anything, I have decided to use my experience here to better MYSELF, not just my teaching abilities.  I am taking French and Arabic.  I am equally bad in both, lol.  Having a prior knowledge of Spanish has helped me to learn French, somewhat, while I find Arabic just overall more fun to learn.  Plus, natives seem to respect you more as a foreigner if you try to use Arabic with them, even though nearly everyone does speak French.  Speaking of being a foreigner, most people don’t know I am not African until I open my mouth to speak.  When they discover I can’t speak French, the quickly put it together…maybe not that I am American but that I am definitely not African.  Furthermore, I find it funny that Moroccans draw a distinction between themselves and Africans, Africans usually being the darker-skinned people living here from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal and other countries outside this place.  It is not meant to be disrespectful, I don’t think.  Still, it’s just funny to me that I am in Africa and living in a place where people still call themselves something other than African.

Anyway, I have an adolescent male cat named Habibi (Arabic for “my baby” or “my sweethart”).  He is a jerk and has a bottomless pit for a stomach.  A coworker and I snatched him off the street over two months ago.  He was small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.  Now he’s much bigger and getting worse by the day.  He has some redeeming qualities though.  Just the other day, I discovered he could use the toilet (no lie).  I don’t think he was trying to show off.  It’s just that I’d accidentally locked him out of the room where his litter box is and he went to the next best place.  Don’t know how he knew how to use the toilet but he did.  Now I just need to teach him how to flush and he can make us both rich.

Hmmm…I’ve also gained weight.  While I’m not noticeably bigger (yet), I thought it was worth mentioning, as when I lived in Jakarta, I lost about 15 pounds over that year-and-a-half.  However, I have only been in Rabat for nearly three months and have put on, I think, at least a third of that.  I’m sure there is more to come as well.  It is because Moroccan food is so good.  It is a starch-based culture.  Everything is either made with or served with bread.  There are bakeries on every corner and all the mini-markets sell bread.  Every other morning, I go out and buy a fresh loaf or wheel of bread for 2 dirhams a pop (25-cent USD).  Slap some butter and jelly on it for breakfast or some olive oil at dinnertime, and you are in there!  I find that I haven’t eaten much meat since I got here.  Aside from eating canned tuna, I can count the number of times I have eaten meat (i.e. beef, turkey, chicken) since I got here.  I don’t really miss it that much.  I make myself a meal of sauteed veggies with noodles and olive oil most nights, or I will eat a bowl of harira soup and fries at a local restaurant (which might run me about 1 to 2 USD).  Everyone here drinks tea, really sweet tea (sometimes sickeningly sweet).  It’s a trip, too.  There aren’t bars, only cafes.  You can see grown men having tea parties on the sidewalk, in addition to doing other things that might appear to be strange to us Americans…but then again, what is strange to me anymore.  I certainly don’t know!

To be continued…

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