I am writing this from a bus, somewhere between Chefchaouen and Fes in the middle of Morocco. Just typing that sentence raises my awareness of the incredible life I live and my gratitude for the journey I'm on right now in North Africa. Experiencing a culture so very different from my own is an awesome, heart-opening opportunity that I wish everyone could experience for themselves.
Chefchaouen is a beautiful, quaint, laid-back, hippy kind of town in the Rif Mountains of northern Morocco. The most striking feature is the blue-washed walls of the town - here are some photos, but they don't come close to capturing the feeling of walking around in a medieval medina bathed in soft blue hues. It's gorgeous!!
Our hotel was inside the medina and cost us a whopping $6/night. Yes, that's right, SIX US DOLLARS per person per night. SCORE! And it was an adorable little place, perfect for a couple of nights. (It's the Hotel Ouarzazat if you're ever in the neighborhood.) Here are a couple pics of what six bucks gets you in Chefchaouen:
The overall pace of the town is much more relaxed than the bigger cities. My friend Erin and I spent time walking around the narrow streets of the medina, shopping, watching the artisans at work, exploring and bargaining. Most of the shopkeepers leave you alone unless you seem interested in something they have to offer, although the occasional proprietor likes to "just practice" his English speaking skills (and, in turn, try to rope you in to looking at his products).
We did encounter two VERY friendly shopkeepers - they were beyond kind, funny and unique, and I'm glad we met both of them, though both Erin and I felt a little molested after the experiences in their shops! We chatted and laughed with each of them for a good while, and received an abundance of hugs and kisses from them both. Neither seemed to care that both Erin and I are married (we made it a point to tell them), so we aren't sure if the lack of personal space and over-the-top affection is just a cultural difference, or if we were, indeed, being molested. Either way, it was hilarious and we have some great stories and pictures from it! :-)
We also did some light hiking outside of the town to see an old Spanish mosque that is supposed to be accessible to tourists (the mosques in Morocco are off-limits to foreigners). We made it up the mountain to the mosque to find it closed, but the views along the way and at the top were totally worth the trek.
If you ever find yourself in Morocco, I highly recommend some time in Chefchaouen. It's an awesome little town and totally worth the long bus ride to get there. I heart Chefchaouen!!
After being home sick for two days, I was really looking forward to my last day of placement at the University because I wanted to see my students and say goodbye before leaving Rabat. But if there is one 'rule' in Africa, it's that things never seem to go as planned; I'm telling myself that the three hours I spent working on unused lesson plans were not wasted, I just saved the next volunteer some time! But, I did get a chance to see some of my favorite students and exchange contact information before the end of the day, so it was not a complete bomb.
I've been thinking a lot about my volunteer placement and the work I've done here in Rabat – this was an absolutely different experience from my time in Tanzania last year, where I felt as though I had been scrubbed raw from the inside out. Instead, my Moroccan volunteer work seems to have been more for me than for the people I worked with. I feel like I personally gained much more from this experience than my students could have possibly gained from me.
To be quite frank, I was a little scared of Islam and the Arab world before I came to Morocco. I knew that the images we see in the news at home are sensationalized and the stories very one-sided, but that was still where my preconceived ideas were formed. So of course I was nervous and not sure what to expect. Because I wanted to break through my own prejudices and learn the “other side” of things, I asked my students to teach me about their religion and culture – yes, that helped them practice English, but I am truly the one who benefited most from our classes.
I realize that we only scratched the surface of Islam in our discussions, but I do feel much more informed than before. I cannot say that I agree with everything my students told me, but I was able to listen with an open mind to concepts that were new to me or even contradictory to my own beliefs. And I can say that with every question and explanation we exchanged, I learned more about them as individuals, as Muslims, as Moroccans, and as human beings.
In Tanzania I was overwhelmed with the question of “WHAT DO I DO?” to help people who were literally dying from poverty and disease. There is definitely poverty in Morocco, but here my journey has been more about acknowledging the fact that we are all dying a little each time that we fail to see the humanity in one another.
Sorry for the length of time since my last update - I've been down and out with a nasty bug for the past few days. :-( It really sucks, I've missed three days of my volunteer placement over these two weeks - the main reason for coming here in the first place! That's definitely a bummer. Anyway, here is an update from last weekend and I'll try to catch up soon.
Friday afternoon I began an amazing journey with four other CCS volunteers (Erin, Hanna, Alex and Monty) to the edge of the Sahara desert. We had a FANTASTIC guide named Hamza - he was so wonderful - and a funny driver we nicknamed Abdu. Friday afternoon we drove for about 5 hours, stopping along the way to see some of the sights. The landscape in Morocco is beautiful and varied - from the Mediterranean climate of Rabat to the desert of Merzouga with forest, pastures, and mountains in between. Saturday consisted of another 6 hours of driving and sightseeing before we reached the desert dunes.
One of our first stops was to feed some monkeys in a forested area - they were so sweet! They came right up to us and took bread from our hands. I was so excited feeding them that I didn't get many good pictures. :-)
Each town in Morocco has, somewhere, the Moroccan motto spelled out in the landscape. We saw this in a few towns - it reads "God, Country, King" (from right to left). I was trying to think of the U.S.' motto - is it Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness? Or Land of the Free, Home of the Brave? What is it? (my patriotic knowledge = FAIL) Morocco is a royal kingdom and something interesting I learned is that it is illegal for Moroccan's to speak badly of the King - you get jailed, for a long time, if you're caught. It does sound like the current King (Mohammed VI) has actually done quite a bit to improve the lives of Moroccans, particularly women.
Here is a big pile of goat and sheep skins on the side of the road, waiting to be taken to the tanneries in Fez. Plus a few other really cool sights we saw on our way to the Sahara!
Hamza took us into the bowels of a kasbah - it must have been 100 degrees outside (miserable heat), but when we went through the halls of the kasbah the temperature dropped considerably. The walls are made of a mixture of mud, straw and water. We actually got to go into someone's home and have tea in a real Moroccan's living room! It was very cool.
We finally made it to the dunes of Merzouga in the late afternoon. It was so ridiculously hot - Hanna has an alarm clock/thermometer device and it was about 103 degrees inside our van while driving down the highway with all the windows open. Uggh! We had some tea to relax before learning how to tie our turbans and heading off into the desert on the camels. The turbans were quite helpful - you leave a long piece of cloth loose to protect your face from the sand (when the wind gusts) or to protect your skin from the searing hot sun. We also found it helpful to keep flies from going into our mouths.
The camel ride was surreal - I mean, come on, I rode a camel in the Sahara desert!!! Such a crazy and unexpected experience! We rode on our stinky, snotty camels for about an hour and a half across the dunes to a Berber camp. The camp was actually really nice and comfortable - they had very sturdy tents with small mattresses and sheets for each of us, a nice table with comfy cushions for us to relax. But watch out for the yellow sand! ha ha ha
We climbed one of the dunes near camp to see the spectacular sunset and hung out with each other and Hamza, enjoying the lovely evening. We were served a tasty dinner and then treated to some traditional Berber music - the three guys who run the camp played trance-like drums and sang songs to us while we relaxed under the bazillions of stars in the sky. It was an amazing experience. We all pulled our mattresses out of the tents and fell asleep under the stars of the Sahara desert.
So that we could see the sunrise, we woke up at 5:30 Sunday morning and got back on the camels to head home. It was breathtaking! The rest of Sunday was spent in the van driving back to Rabat (about 11 hours).
There are a few things I've failed to mention in previous posts. On Wednesday night, Erin, Alex and I decided to take a walk down to the Marjane, which is kind of like a WalMart on steroids. It was a huge, crazy, busy shopping center where the price checker guys wore Rollerblades and a Zamboni moved through the crowds to mop the floors. It was hilarious!
Also, have I mentioned the driving here? It is really insane. SCARY insane, not funny insane. There are lane lines painted on the streets, but I have no idea why they waste the paint because not a single car pays attention to them. A street that's intended to have one lane of cars in each direction is "easily" made into a four-lane road by the crazy drivers here. And god forbid you try to put on a seat belt in a taxi - the driver actually gets offended and takes it off of you! One thing I do like, however, is that everyone is very liberal with their car horns. That always gives me a chuckle.
Yesterday (Thursday) we were scheduled with the PhD student(s) again. Turns out there are actually 2 students, the guy Hamid who we met on Monday, and a woman who joined us for the first time yesterday. I haven't quite figured out her name, but she was awesome! We chatted at the University for a little while, then the students took us to the new Moroccan National Library to show us around. It's a beautiful facility (apparently the largest in Africa), very modern and well equipped. We had to cut our tour a bit short so we weren't able to see the entire thing, but it was a nice little side trip.
In the afternoon we had a Moroccan cooking lesson! Khadija taught us how to use a tagine to make a traditional Moroccan dish. I don't think I've mentioned the food here yet - it's awesome! Lots of fresh vegetables, some sort of soup and yummy bread accompany every meal. The staff at the home base are wonderful, especially the cooks!
Last night I hung out at the house because I wasn't feeling really great. Unfortunately, I woke up early this morning because I had to throw up, which is really awesome when you're on the top bunk of a bunk-bed. I'm glad I made it to the bathroom, but I had to stay home from placement this morning because my stomach would not settle down. :-( Bummer. I've been resting this morning and am feeling a little better now. I hope my illness passes quickly, because we are heading out for a weekend excursion this afternoon! A trip to the Sahara Desert to ride on camels and play in sand dunes. :-)
My first day of volunteer work was at the University, teaching conversational English to Chemistry PhD students. Turns out that the PhD class is very small - only 1 student - so I was really glad that another volunteer went with me! We asked him what he would like to focus on during our time here, and he just wants to practice conversation. His English speaking skills are quite advanced, so we just spent time talking and getting to know one another. When I couldn't think of anything to talk about, Jennifer (my co-volunteer) would jump in with questions. It was actually pretty difficult to fill up an hour and 45 minutes with conversation! When we meet with him next time, we will be bringing some articles to discuss or have other topics of conversation planned. All in all, I think it was a good first day.
In the afternoon, after lunch, we had a two hour discussion about Morocco at the home base. Mohammed, the CCS Country Director for Morocco, gave a little bit of a lecture but mostly allowed us to ask whatever questions we wanted to ask. It was a very interesting and lively session! I learned a lot about the country and am really looking forward to more sessions like this.
After that, four of us decided to go into town and explore the medina on our own. It was crazy and a lot like the Stone Town in Zanzibar. Thankfully, the medina in Rabat is a lot less pressure than those in more touristy areas, such as Marrakesh. It was crowded, but we were able to walk around and look at all the cool stuff without being hassled. We made our way through the medina to the beach and a little boardwalk area where we had a yummy dinner for really cheap!
Second day of placement (yesterday) was different - we had Master's level students this time, and it was a class of 11! They were a lot more lively and competitive, and the activities we had planned went much faster than we thought they would. Their English speaking skills were definitely not as advanced as our PhD student's, but many of them are still able to easily communicate with just a little help. Jennifer and I were scrambling to think of more to teach/talk about, so we definitely need to prepare better for upcoming classes. It was a fun group, but it's stressful being a teacher! I have that much more respect for all of you teachers out there.
After placement the volunteers went on a "field trip" with the CCS staff - Abdullah took us to the medina and several other tourist sites, such as the old kasbah, the ruins of an unfinished mosque, and the King's tombs. It was awesome! Rabat has a lot of history and some beautiful sights.
Today our University students had a conference, so we did not teach. Instead, I spent the morning at the local orphanage helping take care of the children. It was really heart wrenching. Culturally, children born out of wedlock in Morocco bring huge amounts of shame to the woman who bears the child (and her family). Most of the kids who end up in the orphanage are abandoned because they were the result of adultery.
The orphanage was actually a nice facility by local standards, but the standard of care for these children is atrocious. Healthy children tend to get adopted pretty quickly (it's a six month adoption process, and three or four adoptive parents were there today playing with their soon-to-be-kids). But most of the kids in the orphanage have some sort of disability and, unfortunately, the kids with special needs tend to spent their entire lives in the orphanage. Some were in their 20s or 30s and have been there since birth. It was incredibly sad - I've never before seen human bodies so contorted and mangled from disease. And beyond their physical disabilities, the standard of care at the orphanage was really rather disgusting. Several of the wheelchair-bound kids had skin infections, none of the kids ever get their teeth brushed so they all have rotting teeth, and perhaps the saddest part was the diapers. Because the orphanage has very little money, they only allow each child three diapers per day. One when they wake up, one after lunch, and one before bed. That's it. It doesn't matter if the kid needs more, they just have to sit in it. And because they don't want the kids to pee very much, they aren't given any liquids at all; they are fed three meals but get no water or beverages.
I was helping with the three year olds, and given two kids to watch for the morning. One, Emande (probably spelled that wrong,) was an adorable little girl who wanted to be held all the time. I feel confident that she will be adopted soon - she is really cute and playful and calls everyone "mama" (including me). The other child, whose name I do not know, was a wheelchair-bound little boy. I don't know exactly what is wrong with him, but he is severely disabled and disfigured, unable to walk, see or communicate. I don't think anyone had picked him up out of his wheelchair to just hold him in ages. He was so happy to just have me pick him up for a while. It really broke my heart to be there and see the lives of these abandoned kids.
Here are some pictures for you. In order, they are: 1) the ceiling of the King's tomb, 2) looking down into the King's tomb onto his grave, 3) wall detail in the King's tomb, 4) fancy gold thing outside of the King's tomb, 5) man on a horse outside the King's tomb, 6) an orange juice stand in the medina where they juice the orange for you and give you the MOST DELICIOUS glass of orange juice you've ever had in your life!, 7) me rocking the kasbah, 8, 9 & 10) inside the kasbah, 11) the entrance to the kasbah, 12) a neat door, 13) an alley in the medina, 14) the Rabat port/river/beach, 15) a view of the kasbah from the beach, 16 & 17) looking up in the medina, 18) A VIDEO FOR BUDDY!
The Paris Charles de Gaulle airport is a crazy place. It's huge and spread out. I decided to be adventurous and fly a discount European airline called EasyJet from Paris to Morocco. I believe the reason that EasyJet has such cheap fares ($125 roundtrip Paris/Casablanca) is because they are advertisement whores - the back of every seat was plastered with an ad for some cell phone company and the flight attendants actually go through the cabin trying to sell you stuff, multiple times throughout the flight. It was amusing.
Anyway, I arrived safely in Casablanca with gorgeous weather. As I walked into the terminal they were playing some awesome Middle Eastern/Arabic tunes. Then as I waited to go through immigration, the next song was a Muzak version Careless Whisper (George Michael) - ha!! I muddled my way through immigration and security, got to the train station and managed to purchase a ticket to Rabat. Score!
The first train from Casa airport was a confusing, hot, sweaty mess. There was no AC, it was about 85 degrees outside, and for some reason the folks sitting next to windows did not feel the need to open them. People (myself included) were sweating like crazy and it was completely packed. I got the lucky seat right next to the toilet, so that was a nice scent mixed in with all the sweat. ;-) I am so glad it was a quick 30 minute trip to my next stop! And I am very thankful to the woman beside me who looked at my ticket and told me when to get off the train!! I would have completely missed my stop, as the stations are not labeled in English or French. Probably not in Arabic either, but I can't be sure about that one.
The second train was MUCH BETTER. Air conditioning! Lots of leg room! Fantastic views of Morocco on the way to Rabat! Yay!
And I saw the poverty very clearly - trash piled along the side of the roads, rows and rows of dilapidated multi-family housing, buildings that look like they are about to crumble, etc. At the same time, there are some beautiful, lavish grounds that obviously belong to wealthy people. It's funny, a friend I was talking to before this trip was really surprised when I said I was going to volunteer in Morocco. She has a friend from Morocco who is from a wealthy family, so the only things she's heard about the country are how beautiful everything is and how much her friend loves living here. Just like in many countries, there seems to be a sharp divide between the rich and the poor here.
After planes, trains and automobiles, I made it safely to the CCS home base in Rabat. Yay! The home base grounds are beautiful, in a very nice neighborhood/suburb of Rabat (the royal family lives down the street). I met several of the volunteers as soon as I arrived, and was informed that it was the last night of a huge, free music festival. During the prior week the volunteers had seen BB King, Santana, and Elton John - I got to see....STING! Woot!!
I made my first trip "across the pond" in 2007 and caught the wanderlust! I am not a frequent blogger, but have created this site to keep friends and family up-to-date on my travels. Also, I heart weasels!
The overall pace of the town is much more relaxed than the bigger cities. My friend Erin and I spent time walking around the narrow streets of the medina, shopping, watching the artisans at work, exploring and bargaining. Most of the shopkeepers leave you alone unless you seem interested in something they have to offer, although the occasional proprietor likes to "just practice" his English speaking skills (and, in turn, try to rope you in to looking at his products). 
We did encounter two VERY friendly shopkeepers - they were beyond kind, funny and unique, and I'm glad we met both of them, though both Erin and I felt a little molested after the experiences in their shops! We chatted and laughed with each of them for a good while, and received an abundance of hugs and kisses from them both. Neither seemed to care that both Erin and I are married (we made it a point to tell them), so we aren't sure if the lack of personal space and over-the-top affection is just a cultural difference, or if we were, indeed, being molested. Either way, it was hilarious and we have some great stories and pictures from it! :-)
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