August 7

Even though, we had planned a full weekend of activities, our plans didn't materialize in the way we envisioned. In the morning we woke up and had breakfast with the group. We were planning on going to Hercules caves, the beach and riding camels that day, but that didn't happen. We were all feeling like staying in and relaxing, so we did. Megan and I had a take-care-of-ourselves morning and straightened our hair and I painted my toe nails. It felt really good to have some time to ourselves

In the afternoon, we decided to finish our gift shopping and then go to dinner to Agadir. Although none of us (Andrew, Megan, Bess and I) were feeling like shopping, we had a very successful afternoon. One of our first weeks in Tangier, me and Martha (my roommate) went shopping and met this shopkeeper whose name was Khaled. Ever since we went, many people from the program have gone to visit him and he has gotten great business from the CLS Tangier students! He thinks me and Martha are single-handedly responsible for his business success among CLSers, so every time we go, he gives us gifts. When I went again he gave me a very nice pair of silver earrings. After buying many things from his store, everybody else in the group got a gift of appreciation from him! It was really nice!

After stopping by at his store, we went to a few other places before heading over to Agadir for dinner (Agadir is the name of the restaurant, we didn't go to the city!). Agadir is a small restaurant that serves traditional home-made style meals. It is the best food I have eaten since we got to Morocco, so I was very excited to go eat dinner there. When we got to the restaurant, however, there were too many people, so we decided to go to a different restaurant. La Pagode is a very nice Chinese restaurant not too far away from Agadir, so we just went there. It ended up being a very fun evening and we had a very interesting conversation about religion.

I am really enjoying my last weekend in Tangier!

August 6

Today is our last Friday in Tangier. I can't believe the program is almost over!

After class and our test, Megan, Bess, Tucker and I went out to dinner close to the beach and out for ice cream. Even though we didn't do anything extravagant, I really enjoyed their company and our conversation.

I am really fortunate to be a part of this program together with these amazing people!

August 4

Today was Amy and Ashley's birthday and our last movie night. We went to the Cinematheque de Tanger and watched a Palestinian movie. After the movie, he all had cake in celebration of Amy and Ashley's birthday (although Ashley was sick and didn't come). Even though it was a school night, Nina, Mohcine (speaking partner) and I took Amy to dinner to celebrate. We went to a restaurant close to the beach and had a very nice evening together. Amy is one of the sweetest girls I have ever met. In the beginning of the program she hung out with a group of people and they always did their own thing, so I didn't really get to meet her until the middle of the program. One night we stayed up talking about each other's lives and since then we've been friends. When I was super sick after the weekend in Asilah, she came to visit me at breakfast, lunch and dinner, to bring me food, medicine and to check on me. She even had my class and my professors sign a "feel better soon" card for me.

I am really happy I got to celebrate such a special day with her!

August 3: Tangier Tuesday

Our last Tangier Tuesday!!!

Sarah and I got along really well toward the beginning of the program, but because we don't live in the same building and we are in different classes, we haven't really hung out all that much. After realizing how little time we had left in the program, we decided it would be a really good idea to go on our Tangier Tuesday by ourselves and have a mini adventure. To make it extra special, we decided to wear our matching CLS shirts and scarves with the CLS colors- as you can see in the picture.

We left the AST(American School of Tangier) campus and took a taxi to go cafe-hopping! Our assignment for the day was to talk about how Tangier had changed throughout the years. We though it would be a good idea to go to the legendary cafes that are a part of Tangier's recent history. We got in a cab to go to our first stop, but we started talking to the cab driver, Khaled, and he asked us if we wanted to get coffee with him and talk about Tangier, so we did. He took us to a cafe he frequently visits and we talked about many aspects of the city, but also of Morocco in general.

After having coffee with him, we went to al-Minzah's cafe. Al-Minzah is one of the nicest hotels in Tangier and it has a wonderful bar/cafe. There we talked to Adnane and Youssef, the two waiters in the cafe. Adnane talked to us about his experiences in the city and how much it had changed from being a very small, open-minded city to a very crowded city. He was nostalgic about the earlier times in Tangier, but was really grateful to be a part of the city to this day. We had a great conversation with him, and what was even more amazing is that most of it was in Moroccan dialect! We were really proud of ourselves!

Later, we went to the legendary cafe Hafa. The view of the ocean and Spain on the other side is just gorgeous. We met up with a group of students who also decided to go there for their Tangier Tuesday experience.

I'm really glad Sarah and I got to hang our and have an adventure of our own!

August 1: Chaouen, Tetouan and Tangier

Early in the morning we had breakfast in our ryad and hiked down to the entrance of the medina, where our bus was waiting. We were going back to Tangier, but first stopped in Tetouan for a few hours. There we went shopping and had a group lunch at a very nice restaurant. We arrived to Tangier at night. Thankfully we didn't have tons of homework for Monday!

It was a great and very relaxing weekend!

July 31

On Saturday we had a free day- no plans made by the program except for an optional tour of the Casbah. Many people decided to go hiking on Saturday morning, and then walk around the medina. Me and Bess (in the picture) decided to sleep in and enjoy our free time in the morning and then we visited Ras al-Maa, which is a place where there is water flowing straight from the mountains and people were singing and dancing and enjoying the day. After that, Bess and I decided to separate from the group of other students and speaking partners and went to lunch with Adriana, the director, Abdal-Haq, the codirector, and two professors Azeez and Abdal-Lateef. We had a fantastic time at lunch!

We then went on the tour of the Casbah and took a ton of fun pictures, like the one I posted! We had a group dinner at night time and before then, we did a bit of shopping! Chefchaouen and its people are so wonderful! We really enjoyed our time there!

July 30

On July 30, we set out to Chefchaouen for the weekend. Chefchaouen is a small city located in the middle of the mountains. The group of 32 students+speaking partners was divided into smaller groups because no ryad could host us all. I stayed with 9 other people in a five-room ryad owned by a Spanish couple. The ryad was located almost at the top of the medina, so it was a hike to get to our place, but the view, as you can see from this picture, was incredible.

July 23-24 Weekend in Asilah

Luke came to visit this free weekend and we spent it in Asilah. We had a great time together, but I got really sick and we really didn't get to do much! Luke has all the pictures from that weekend, but here's a picture of the train station where we arrived on Friday afternoon (this picture was taken the time the group went to Asilah).

July 20

For Tangier Tuesday we went on a tour of the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Tangier. One of the CLS students had a host family experience with one of the people that works there! We were all super excited!

July 19

The trip to Meknes and Fes marked the middle of the CLS experience and many things have happened up until this point. I feel very differently than I did in the beginning of the program, mainly because I'm more comfortable with the people and dynamics of the program.

Today I had a very interesting conversation with Mohsine, my conversation partner for the day. We talked about politics, life aspirations and the dangers of the future...all in Arabic! It's with conversations like these that I realize what I am capable of saying with, what I still feel is, a very reduced vocabulary. Still, I keep on learning new things and surprising myself at how much I'm absorbing. Even though I got my test back, and I didn't do well on it (like I predicted), I was ok with it, because I am learning a lot and that's what counts (right, mom?).

Ok, I need to go do homework!

July 18

We had the morning off, so the group in the picture (in order of appearance: Tucker, myself, Megan (in the green scarf), Bess, and Mohsine) went shopping. Mohsine, a conversation partner, helped us bargain and I bought a very nice pair of leather shoes, a couple of scarves, and a traditional dress to be worn at home. Not that we couldn't have bargained, but we would have spent twice as long to get to the final price!

The shopping in Fes was great! I was one of the more conservative shoppers, but there were many things to buy at a very reasonable price!

I really liked Fes, except for the weather, but so far, it's my favorite city! I think it might be because there's not a ton of tourists like in other cities and because it's got so much history.

July 17

We spent the morning touring the old medina, going through the small streets and visiting the most important sites. Although we had been warned about harassment in Fes, I felt pretty safe during the tour. We visited the Bou Inania madrasa, dar al magana, a tannery (Fes is known for its leather),and a textile workshop.

Panorama of the tannery right in the middle of the city.

July 16: Fes

We arrived in Fes and had dinner at our hotel situated right outside of the old city. After such a long day, it was nice to go to our rooms take showers and sleep!

This picture was taken the day after, but I had no pics of Fes the day we arrived!

July 16: Meknes

We made it to Meknes and Bess survived! We had lunch at a traditional restaurant and the food was delicious! We then had a few hours of free time before we headed to Fes, so me, Bess, Megan and Mitch hung out together. We were interested in seeing the sites, but at our pace. Lunch was fantastic, but we ate a lot and it was pretty hot outside so we were all tired! Bess was feeling a lot better, but didn't want to be rushed to go see the Mausoleum of Moulay Ismail or the other sites, so we rested in the restaurant for a bit longer after everyone left and then left.

We were going to go see the Mausoleum of the Moulay that reigned when Meknes was capital, but we first went into what seemed like a souvenir shop. I started talking to the shop keeper and he then asked if we were interested in seeing rugs. I wasn't, but I knew Bess was so I said yes. He took us to the second floor of his shop, which was huge and started showing us his rugs. Bess found the rug of his dreams and negotiations begun. He said the tourist price for the rug was 20,000 dirham(Mad), but he gives tour guides who bring the tourists a 40% commission. Because we didn't come with a tour guide, he gave us 12,000Mad as the initial price to start bargaining. After much conversation and bargaining, Bess finally got him to go down to 3,500mad and they shook hands in agreement! I'm really glad I was a part of the bargaining experience! She got an incredible price, given that the keeper "calculated" the sunk cost at 4,500!

By the time the bargaining finished, we had no time left to visit the sites, but this was quite the experience so I'm not too sad about it!

July 16: Volubilis

On Friday we went on our second weekend trip to Volubilis, Meknes and Fes.

We took the bus and first stopped in Volubilis, or Walili (in Arabic), a roman city close to Meknes. I'm not huge on visiting roman ruins, but it felt great to understand the tour guide! I didn't listen to a great deal of the tour because there was a big group of us, and I wanted to check up on Bess, who got car sick from the bus ride. I ended up walking back with her to the bus before the tour was over. I then went to get her a cold drink and when I did, I conversed with the shop keeper for a few minutes, and he said he was impressed with my Arabic! It's moments like this that make me realize I am progressing in the language!

July 12-15

Here's a picture of me wearing purple, a color I don't usually wear, and hence the need to take a picture. Luke's mom sent it to me as a present when he came to visit me, and I got a ton of compliments from people!

Also, this week was the toughest yet for me. Last Friday, they switched our professor Halima for Sanae (from the Advanced 2 class). I was really upset because I really liked the dynamic we had going with Halima and Azeez. I also had been hearing awful things about Sanae as a teacher, so when I found out about the switch, I wasn't too excited. On Friday, we had our first class with Sanae, and she's a wonderful professor, but her energy level is not the same as Halima's. Class wasn't bad on Friday and I was just so excited Luke was coming, I was in a good mood no matter what.

On Monday, I realized that Sanae and Azeez are both very mellow in their teaching style, so class got a little boring. Tuesday and Wednesday were tough because our class and our professors were still adapting to each other. In addition to this, I was sick, so that didn't help at all. However, things started to change Wednesday night, when, after having slept a lot during the past couple of days, I started feeling better.

Thursday I was finally feeling better and I went into class with a very positive attitude and it totally paid off! In my opinion it was one of the best classes we've ever had. Sanae taught the grammar section in review for the midterm and all of the grammar concepts we had studied up until then became clearer. Azeez led the section of the class relating to our literature reading, and he is just amazing. He knows a ton and is really interested in literature so he helped us understand a short story written by a Moroccan author. We talked about the symbolism in the story and the author's intention to criticize the power system in Morocco that represses the impoverished people of the country. It was awesome!

Then we had the midterm, and I didn't do so great, but oh well, we're here to learn!

July 9-11

Luqui came to visit me for our fourth anniversary weekend! We had lunch with Bess and Ashley and went shopping with them as well. We then took a cab to watch the sunset close to Hercules Caves, but we were a little late. We still managed to take a picture with the sunset colors as the background before it was dark. We had a wonderful time together, and I'm really glad he had a chance to see what it is I'm doing here!

July 6

Tangier Tuesday!

Every Tuesday in the CLS program is Tangier Tuesday! What that means, is that we either do a cultural activity related to Tangier or we visit the city. This Tuesday, we visited three important sites in Tangier: Hercules Caves, the Tomb of Ibn Batuta and the Cinematheque. We were divided into small groups and assigned a speaking partner for the adventure. In my group were Maia, Andrew and Brouchra was our speaking partner. Our group was great because it was small and because everyone in our group has a great attitude toward the program. Not everyone was as lucky, and most people did not like the planned activities as much as we did. This makes me realize how important your environment is in determining the experience you have.

In the picture, a view from Hercules Caves.

July 3

Wow! It's been so long since I last blogged and so much has happened! So what I'm going to do is make blog entries for the most salient events of this past month. I'll start with our trip to Asilah:

On July 3rd the whole group of CLS students and some professors took a trip to Asilah, a small coastal town close to Tangier. One of the academic coordinators of the program, Youniss, is from there, so we were all very excited to visit the city. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate the day we went, and it was raining, so everyone (including myself) was in not such a great mood. Despite the rain, the city was incredibly beautiful and charming. Asilah is known for being an artistic city and, as I learnt from a taxi driver, more and more tourists are buying houses there. The weekend after the one we visited Asilah, marked the start of the annual festival, and like every year, they painted different murals on the city walls. One of the neatest things about the city is that it is always changing, because of the art, so whenever you visit Asilah, it never looks the same.

June 24

We have SO much homework!! Yesterday I did work for 4 hours and didn't even finish! I'm now on my break from catching up with yesterdays homework in addition to doing todays! The picture I posted is pretty much a schedule of what we're supposed to do in class and what we have to do for homework each day of the week. As you can see, there's no homework posted for Fridays so all of the work is due during the week. The reason for this is that we have weekend trips and home stays scheduled during the weekends.

I realized I haven't really explained what our days consist of, so maybe this is a good time to do so. Every morning, we have breakfast from 8-8:30am and classes start at 8:30am. My class starts with darijah lessons for an hour (Monday-Thursday) with Younis, the speaking partners' coordinator. Then, we have class in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) until 1pm with a 30min break. My professors names are Halima and Azeez. They are very nice and so far they have proven to be good teachers! After lunch, there are office hours scheduled every day and optional tutoring classes. We also have conversation classes with the speaking partners any time from 2-4pm for 30 mins. Younis is the one in charge of scheduling our appointments with our speaking partners, so each day they are at a different time. After meeting with the speaking partners, we are free for the rest of the day and dinner is on our own.

Anyways, I now need to go do a lot of homework and study for our test tomorrow. Oh, yeah! Every Friday, we will be tested to see how much our level improves from week to week. Should be interesting to see how much we improve in the course of the summer!

June 23

Today was the US-Algeria World Cup game. We went to a big cafe and watched it together with the speaking partners. It was a great experience because, despite the political relationship between Morocco and Algeria, all the Moroccans (in the cafe) were rooting for Algeria. There was a group of us, CLS students, and a fair amount of Moroccans (including speaking partners and other people at the cafe) and we were all having a great time watching the game and learning new words in Arabic.

After that, we went back to the American School of Tangier (AST) and did homework until super late!

June 22

We finally moved in to the American School of Tangier!! This is our incredibly big room. In the process of moving, we changed roommates, because there are two buildings where students can live. One of them hosts 27 out of the 32 students, and the other one hosts the remaining 5 of us. We were the ones who decided which dorm we wanted to be in. The difference between both dorms is the size of the room and the population in the building. I decided to be in the less populated dorm because I figured it would be quieter, but my roommate Michelle wanted to be in the other one so they re-assigned roommates. My roommate now is Martha and she is great! She is really organized and very hard-working. She is in the advanced level 1, I am in the intermediate 4 level, so she helps me out!

In the picture is Ashley, who comes and studies in our room because we have a huge table and because it's easier to focus in the quieter room.

I'm just so happy to be all moved in and having been able to unpack! This place already feels like home!

June 21

Our first official day of classes took place at the American Legation museum . In the picture you can see Ashley and Megan going in to one of the rooms of the museum.

We took a tour of the museum first and then divided up into our levels to start classes with our professors. I'm so excited to finally be getting into a routine!! We will finally move to the American School of Tangier tomorrow!! I'm really glad I'm going to finally have a chance to unpack and get settled in!!

June 20

Today we had most of the day off so I met my dad and his friend Nael for lunch. We went to a beautiful hotel with a very nice restaurant and ate a delicious meal! The view was spectacular! Here's a picture with my dad at the restaurant!

At 6pm the group got together and we got to present about our adventure in Rabat (in Arabic, of course!). Then we had dinner at the hotel and I went to bed early!

June 19

Our first day in Tanjah! We visited the casbah in the morning and met some of our speaking partners. Speaking partners are Moroccan native Arabic speakers who meet with us for half an hour every day for conversation class. It is a great opportunity to practice the language one on one everyday so they can correct us and we can improve our speaking ability. Besides the assigned half hour, speaking partners also join us for lunch and other cultural activities, like touring to the casbah. After visiting the casbah, we walked around and found a place to eat.

Tangier is very different than Rabat. In Rabat, like I've commented before, I felt very safe walking around and didn't feel that people looked at me all that much. Walking around the streets of Tangier is a bit different. I was wearing skinny jeans, which I wore in Rabat (no problem) and guys not only stared at me but also said things that I didn't understand (and probably didn't want to understand). It might be a matter of adjusting and dressing more conservatively, I'm not really sure. Being tired probably doesn't help my views about the city, but oh well! We'll see how it goes!

It just so happens that my dad is visiting for a few days, so I will get to see him a few times while he's here! I'm very excited about that!

June 18

It's adventure time! We were given a list of three places to go visit in Rabat with no directions as to how to get there. The goal of the exercise was to practice asking for directions in Arabic. The places we needed to visit were the royal palace, the national library, and a store that sold something Moroccan. I must admit, when I first heard what the exercise entailed, I wasn't thrilled. Soon, this proved to be one of the funnest activities.

Ashley, Bess, Michelle and I set off with our not-so-great Arabic and absolutely no sense of direction! After asking a very kind woman to direct us to the royal palace and not understanding the directions, we decided it might be a good idea to take a taxi. There are two types of taxis in Morocco big taxis or taxi kbeer and small taxis or taxi sgheer. The difference is that a taxi kbeer fits up to six people and the sgheer fits only three. Because there was four of us, we needed a taxi kbeer. Patiently, we waited for a taxi kbeer and after 10 minutes we decided to try to walk somewhere else. As we were walking we saw a police car. I asked the policeman if he could give us the phone number of a taxi company (yes, I asked in Arabic!) or if he could tell us where we could find one. The policeman told us to wait there, that he was going to look for one. He got in his car and drove away. Ten minutes later we see a taxi kbeer being escorted by the police car coming towards us and stopping right where we are. The taxi diver gets out of the car and so does the policeman. The policeman says goodbye to us and the driver kindly greets us! We couldn't believe the policeman went out of his way like that to help us out!

We got in the taxi and started talking to the driver, Abdal Latiff, while he was taking us to the royal palace, our first stop. We successfully made it there and bargained our rate with the driver. We thought we had overpaid for the ride, but turns out, we got a pretty good price!

Abdal Latiff dropped us off and we started walking without really knowing how to get to the palace itself so we decided to ask. We found two young ladies walking toward us and Ashley asked for directions to the palace. They kindly walked us there and, in the meantime, talked to us in Arabic. In the picture, you can see our two friends (Asma and Qthia) standing with us in front of the royal palace. After showing us where to go, they were nice enough to give us a brief history lesson on Morocco (in Arabic, of course!). I understood more than I thought I was going to, so it felt great! There were also parts of the explanation I didn't quite understand, but I'm also very good at pretending to understand! :)

By the time they finished the explanation, we asked them for directions to the national library. They told us they were walking to take a bus to go run some errands at their school, and that the same bus could drop us off at a nearby location. So we all walked toward the bus stop and meanwhile stopped to take pics in front of the parliament. We also passed by a newspaper/magazine stand (owned by Asma's cousin) and bought the equivalent of the "National Inquirer" in Arabic. We had, thus, completed two of our tasks: the first, to visit the royal palace, and the second to go to a store that sold something Moroccan! We only had one more place to visit, but we ran out of time, so we had to head back.

We returned to the ryad and had our last meal there: couscous. After lunch, we hopped on a bus that took us to Tangier. Because the American School of Tangier (where we're staying) was not ready for our arrival just yet, we stayed at a hotel for three days until Tuesday. Our hotel, the Tanjah Flandria is very conveniently located, but not that nice of a hotel when compared to the incredible places we've been staying at so far. We got to Tangier around 7pm and had dinner at 8:30pm. I was pretty tired so I went to bed early.

Overall, the trip is going really well, but I just can't wait to finally get to a place where I can unpack!

June 17

This morning we had Darijah classes in small groups. I feel a lot better about my Darijah skills than I did before! Learning in a small group is so much better! We actually had a chance to carry on practice conversations with each other. We're learning the basics, so besides introductions, it was essential to start learning the words to help us bargain! My favorite word is "bzaf", it means "too much"!
We had most of the day off, so I just added a picture of the Hassan tower, which, I forgot to mention, we visited yesterday as well!
I am having an incredible time in Rabat!

June 16

We made Couscous today! A very kind family welcomed a group of us to their home and Saadia taught us how to make couscous! We had a great time and the food was unbelievable!

We also visited the Roman ruins in Chellah. There are so many intersting places to visit in Rabat!

June 15

Today we had a Darijah lesson in the morning; learning darijah is like learning a whole new language! The pronounciation is very difficult because there are hardly any vowels! An example to say I live, you say knskun.
In the afternoon we had a lecture about...well, not really sure because it was all in Arabic and the woman spoke really fast and used a lot of technical language! Then, we toured the Oudaya casbah. This is a picture of the view from the Oudaya. Oh! How I love Rabat!

June 14

This is my room in the Ryad where we stayed at. A ryad is the Moroccan version of a bed and breakfast. The green one is my bed, or as I like to call it, the princess bed! I am sharing a room with Michelle, Mari and Vanessa.

This is our first full day in Rabat. We had a lecture in the morning on the history of Morocco and then a brief Darijah lesson (Moroccan dialect). We then went to the U.S. Embassy and got a security briefing. After that we were free to go out and explore! Rabat is a very nice and safe city. I've been pleasently surprised!! I think that after all the warnings on the pre-departure packet about dressing conservatively and holding on to our belongings, I was a little more paranoid than I needed to be! :)

June 13

Arrival to Casablanca after many hours of travel. A bus was waiting for us to take us to Rabat, where we spent the next five days. Even though it was a very long trip, it was a great opportunity to get to know people a little better.

That's Sarah in the foreground of the picture- we shared many laughs during the trip...I think this is the beginning of a great friendship!

Thank you

I would like to begin my blog by thanking everyone who has made this trip possible. First, I would like to thank the U.S. Department of State for offering me the Critical Language Scholarship to study Arabic in Morocco. Thank you for considering me a deserving candidate of this very prestigious award.
I would also like to thank my references for this scholarship for making my application a more competitive one. Thank you for believing in my potential.
Last, but not least, I would like to thank my family, friends and professors for being so supportive of everything I do. Especially, I would like to thank my mom, Jennifer Rayward, for always motivating me to be the best that I can. Without her and her support, I would not be the person I am today. Thank you for all your hard work and for giving me all the opportunities you have to accomplish my dreams.