An update, finally!

Hey y’all!

Greetings from Zanquet Souika!  That’s the road I live close to.  And yes, that’s souika as in souk, or market.  I live super close to shopping, which makes me happy!   Today is my last day of the first week of classes- we have Thursday and Friday off for Eid (the celebration at the end of Ramadan.)  While others are making plans to go out of town, I think I’m going to try to explore Rabat this weekend.  A few things on my list: find a church (I’m joining a bible study too!), find a place for my sister to stay when she visits, find a gym to join, and do some catch-up reading. 

Last Sunday night I went to the hammam, a trip that will definitely not have pictures.  The hammam is similar to a Turkish bath, or so I’m told.  You go in to your locker room (gender specific of course) and take off however much you are comfortable doing (if you are a boy, you must wear shorts, but if you are a girl you can wear as little as you’d like.)  Then you enter a steam room, where you fill up buckets of water to rinse with and find a nice place to set your bath mat.  Then, using a special brush, you scrub off all the dead skin off your body.  This is not an entirely comfortable process, as you have to brush pretty hard, but you feel so clean after!!  You also can shampoo and condition normally and even shave if you want (but with the risk of staph, that may not be such a good idea.)  It is a great, albeit awkward, cultural experience and I highly recommend it if you ever travel to Morocco!

The people in my program are all wonderful and so much smarter than me, it can be very intimidating.  But they’re also very nice and I’ve made some great friends who are willing to go get chocolate milkshakes with me when I need them (pictures to follow, but they aren’t on my camera, unfortunately.)  Everyone is going through a lot right now, so I’m lucky I know good people I can talk to. 

My host family also continues to be wonderful, and my host brother is becoming less scared of me.  They are very conservative, though, so it can take some adjustments.  For example, I can only shower at night because going out with wet hair is shuma (shame, a very common word here!)  But really, I’m learning a lot and love having some privacy, a new thing for me with host families.

Lastly, I am constantly told Morocco is an unfortunate place to be a woman.  This can be true; street harassment is annoying, as being catcalled all the time and not allowed to go out late at night (except during Ramadan, when everyone does) are not things I’m used to.  But while some students have had more trouble (being followed, touched) I’m so far impervious to this level of harassment.  But I certainly am not enjoying time in yet another country where machismo is the rule of the land, to the point where women cannot eat outdoors in cafes (the sidewalks are men’s spaces.)

Well, that’s it for now.  I’ll try and blog more this weekend, but if not, Monday, when hours become longer and I have more time to post pictures and such!  Thanks for sticking with me!  I promise my blog will become more interesting!

Love always,

Lauren

P.S. Did anyone see that China is now requiring everyone (including foreigners) to show I.D. when getting cell phones?  Supposedly to stop spam, I’m not looking forward to this intrusion into my privacy!

P.P.S.  I have a boyfriend- the only one who makes harassment look cute.  The six year-old who lives across the street from me always says “hello princess” to me in French (the princess is a redhead, so I’m called princess quite frequently) and has recently told me there is no reason for me to go to my house, I should go to his instead.  I’ll try and keep y’all updated how it goes, and if I get a picture I’ll post it!