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.