Rain in Rabat

It rained today and yesterday. This might not seem like a big, news worthy event, especially for all of you Pacific Northwest readers, but here in Morocco, rain in September is apparently almost unheard of. In fact, just last week Ranya told me with much conviction that it was not going to rain at all until January. I'm rather enjoying it, personally, as rain makes the place feel more like home, and lowers the temperature by a good 10 degrees.

Because it rains so infrequently this time of year here in Rabat, neither the streets nor the people can really handle it. I walked back from school yesterday, sans umbrella, which was fine for the first 10 minutes, when it was drizzling, and by the time the rain started in earnest I was too close to home to justify taking a taxi. Not that I would have wanted to anyways. Traffic in Rabat is frightening under the best of circumstances and the rain just made everything worse. The streets were full of standing water due to inefficient drainage and there seemed to be twice as many cars on the road as usual, which led to twice the amount of honking, shouting, and near death experiences for my fellow pedestrians and me at busy intersections. The rain did provide me with some nice Moroccan bonding experiences. I ran into a group of hijab and djellaba wearing women at one of the intersections along my route. They all had umbrellas and got a chuckle out of the fact that by this point I was definitely dripping wet. They got an even bigger laugh over the fact that instead of walking around puddles like they did, I decided to attempt leaping over them. A couple of the women attempted a conversation in Darija with me, but once they realized my language skills are still basically nil we had to make do with more laughter and hand gestures. When I finally arrived home, my sister Neda opened the door and began laughing her head off as soon as she beheld me in all of my clothes sopping, shoe squelching, and glasses fogging glory. I wasted no time in toweling off and putting on comfy clothes, and then proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon sitting in my window doing homework and watching my host dad and our housekeeper cleaning off the patio.

My host family and I are still getting along well, and I've had a few good bonding experiences in recent days. Last night, Neda and Sarah decided to help Evelyn and I study for the Arabic quizzes that we had today. Neda took charge of Evelyn, who is in beginning Arabic, because Evelyn speaks French. It was so funny watching Evelyn say or write a word only to be told "Non!" or "La!" very sternly by Neda who would then proceed to say the word again repeatedly or force Evelyn to rewrite it. As part of my graduation to Arabic 202, I've moved onto a new book that gives me three times the vocab my old one did. Sarah's contribution to my studying was having me read all of my thirty plus vocab words out loud while she corrected my pronunciation. It was actually very helpful and funny as Sarah is a huge tease. I also learned that Sarah is a fellow Stevie Wonder fan, and has been to one of his concerts, of which I am extremely jealous!

This afternoon, Neda took Evelyn and I to the souq to by the things we need to go to the hamamm, or public baths, namely special soap and a scrubby glove. The expedition turned into a visit to all of Neda's favorite stalls, and Evelyn and I ended up purchasing shoes, 5 dirham panties (with 8 dirhams to the dollar that's really good), and 20 dirham knock off designer brand perfume that was mixed right in front of us. The perfume stall was a lot of fun, as the employees there were very chatty and one guy wanted to improve his English so he talked to me for a good 10 minutes. He told me that I need to speak Darija all the time and invited me to come back to the stall for a visit if I ever need someone to talk to. He was very nice about listening to my terrible MSA and laughed when I attempted Darija, but it was all good, or mashee mushkeel (not a problem), in the local tongue.

Tomorrow I am heading to Casablanca for the day with a group of girls in my program. I think it should be fun. My host mom seems rather anti-Casablanca trip though, as she immediately pointed out that it is supposed to rain when I told her what I was doing. She also told me that she was going to make couscous tomorrow and asked if I didn't want to see her make it. I made Ranya tell her that I really did want to help with the couscous (which I do!) and that I couldn't back out of my plans as I already told the other girls I was going with them. She agreed to push back the couscous making to Sunday, but still seems skeptical of the trip.

I really like my host family, but sometimes it's weird living with them as I'm just not used to having parents around all the time. At school, and this past summer, I rather got out of the habit of telling people where I was going and when I would be back whenever I left the house. The language barrier also complicates things. If I had known that the couscous making and a trip the the hamamm were on the agenda for Saturday, I would not have agreed to my Casa trip, but I did, and I want to go, so now I'm missing host family bonding time. I have to keep reminding myself that I am here for nine months, and that I don't have to do everything right away. There will be other trips to the hamamm! All that aside, my family does seem to be getting used to Evelyn and mine's presence, as is evidenced by the fact that I am now only urged to eat more twice a meal, instead of every two minutes. At dinner tonight, we had a celery and beef tajine and Evelyn and I had a great time trying to explain eating celery with peanut butter and also stir fried beef and snow peas to our host mom, as she didn't immediately understand our description of peanut butter and Evelyn had to draw a picture of the snow peas before anyone could even begin to conceive of such a vegetable.

Well, regardless of my host mom's disapproval I am off to Casablanca at 9:00 AM tomorrow, so be on the look out for my first non-Rabat centered Morocco posting!

Also, just a random interjection here at the end. Evelyn and I were told by our host dad that Ranya was leaving Wednesday for Canada, but she is still very much here in Rabat. I guess that Moroccans plan trips differently than we do in the US, as when I asked Ranya when she was leaving, she looked at me like I was crazy and said that she is leaving when she decides to buy her plane ticket...which might be tomorrow...or next week...I have no idea. I have a feeling I'll come home from school one day and Ranya will just no longer be here!