Of Classes, Museums, and Personal Hygiene

So, it has been almost a week since I last updated. Sorry about that! I got this cool little device this past weekend that serves as a USB modem thing-y for my laptop. Anyways, this means that I will be able to use the internet from my host family's house and hopefully post more often, as long as I keep having interesting things to say!

This past week has been good. I started classes, as I mentioned in my last post. My Arabic and Darija classes are still intense, but I definitely feel like I'm learning a lot. My Gender, Islam, and Society class has a ton of interesting readings, and I'm glad that we're looking at both secular and Islamist feminist movements. We also get to take field trips to visit organizations working with women's issues in Rabat. My Contemporary Moroccan Culture class seems cool, mostly because we get to read short stories, and look at art, and listen to music as well as read academic journal articles. I think that this class will also be really useful since I am going to be here for a year and having a higher level of cultural awareness can only be a good thing. My last class, Islam and the West, is a history class taught by this little old American man who claims to have wanted to be a professor since the age of 17. He's lived in North Africa for many years and knows everybody who's anybody in North African politics and culture. The readings all seem really interesting and the class is entirely discussion based, which is great.

Classes starting has also been good because I feel like I'm finally settling into a routine. I go to class in the morning, work on homework in the afternoon, and explore the city with my particular group of friends in the rest of the afternoon and early evening. I head back to my host family for ftour, and then finish any homework I have left. The homework load hasn't been too bad so far (except Arabic), and so I've had plenty of time to explore. This past week, we spent the afternoons wandering around the older parts of the city with the huge markets and colorful stalls. My best find so far has been the modern art museum. The grounds are comprised of beautiful houses that have been converted into art galleries and large lawns with huge water fountains. Unfortunately, and this is throughout the entire city, water is expensive, so although there are many lovely fountains, they are almost never turned on! This is especially disappointing as it is very hot here and some fountains would go a long way towards making the city cooler. Also, they just look kind of depressing standing there all dry and empty.

Back to the museum. When we visited during the afternoon on Saturday, there were very few other guests and we discovered that one of the buildings has these lovely, cool marble floors. Given the absence of other museum goers and any sort of security, we just decided that it was too hot to walk around and lay down right on the floor. It was heavenly! My other favorite thing about the modern art museum is that it has evening programs that are free, or inexpensive, and open to the public. Saturday was a demonstration of Capoeira, or Brazilian dance-fighting. It was so intense! The people doing it moved so fast and so close to each other that I thought someone was going to get hurt for sure, but the dancers were so graceful and in control that nothing happened. Next week is a weird puppet show that looks kind of cool.

Evelyn and I also went out with Ranya again last Friday. I think that she's nervous about leaving for Canada and decided to assuage her anxiety by making out with a guy in the back of Ali's car. Whatever works I guess! Ali was also in rare form, and proved to be a very enthusiastic teacher of Arabic. He wants to improve his English, and in return is more than happy to give Evelyn and I new Darija and MSA vocab to work with. When teaching me the word for breeze, he was so excited that I knew a certain pronunciation point in Arabic that he started banging on the horn of the car! Unfortunately, with Ranya and Ali both leaving for school in the coming weeks, I am afraid that I will have no more Moroccan friends. Oh well, I suppose I'll just have to try and founder along on my own.

And now for my interesting cultural adjustment issue of the week. As I mentioned before, water is expensive in Morocco. As such, bathing every day is a luxury that few can afford. Now, I'm not a huge shower stickler, but I do like to have one every morning to wash my hair at least. No, that does not happen here. I get up and wash my face and hair in the sink (thank God my hair is so short), but I'm lucky if I get a real shower every three days. Most of my host family showers in the afternoon or evening, which I think I need to start doing, as I feel awkward asking my host mom to turn on the hot water for just me in the mornings. This week, I went five days without a real shower. I wiped myself down with a damp towel and wet wipes, and shaved my legs in the sink, but that's it! My feet are the worst part. I wear mostly sandals here and so my feet are absolutely filthy all the time. I usually rinse them off before bed, but I have a feeling they won't be fully clean until I'm back in the States. I'm always paranoid that I'm going to start to smell, so I'm glad I remembered to bring a bunch of deodorant with me!

Well, that's all for now. My friends and I are about to head to TGI Friday's so that we can have American food for ftour. My host mom is an excellent cook, but traditional Ramadan food is eaten for every ftour and there's only so much soup I can take before needing a break! I'm meeting my language and culture partner, a Moroccan student I'm supposed to meet with every two weeks to practice my language skills with, tonight, so hopefully I'll have good things to report in my next post.