Falls and Flamethrowers

Hello friends,

What a wonderful few days we've been having! Yesterday (Thursday) was wonderful. We went to see the waterfall in Ouzoud, a three hour drive from Marrakech. After a picnic lunch, a group of us took a hike around the falls and then made our way down to the bottom. We spent hours playing in the pool beneath the falls and watching Moroccan boys hurl themselves off of huge rocks into the waters. Our guide swears he saw some Barbary macaques playing near us, but thankfully none of them made off with any of our packs. We were all sad when it was time to leave, but we used the bus ride back as an opportunity to catch up on rest before the extravaganza that the owner of our riad had planned for the evening...

We enjoyed such a wonderful party that night! The innkeeper, an amazingly kind woman and very talented chef, prepared food that could have fed a small army. We feasted upon Moroccan salads of tomato and pepper, eggplant, chicken tajine, and delicious khubz (the bread served at almost every meal here). Desert was huge platters of bananas, peaches, apricots, and cookies. While we ate in the private courtyard of our gorgeous riad, we were serenaded by a trio of Gnoua musicians. Their music was so lively, everyone was on their feet by the end of the night, holding hands and literally leaping around the fountain in the middle of the courtyard. A surprise performer came at the end...a flamethrower! Wielding flaming batons, he was thrilling. After a long day in the sunshine and waters, our evening was full of eating and dancing, a true Moroccan feast to end our stay in Marrakech.

We are currently in the seaside, hippie town of Essaouira. We got here around 2PM, after visiting a cooperative of single women who manufacture argan oil and other natural products. We feasted on fresh seafood right on the water, then toured the town. After a long evening of shopping, we are settling into our rooms before heading to the beach tomorrow morning.

We can't believe our trip is almost coming to an end! A month in Morocco, and while we all know so much more than we did before we began, there still is so much to learn. It's interesting to see our increased knowledge of this country's culture in our everyday exchanges in restaurants and shops...I think we have all become much more comfortable in this place, and it's bittersweet to be coming home soon.

This is probably my last blog post, so see you back in the U.S. soon!

Service Project Bliss!

Hello everyone! We have now finished both our service projects in Marrakech! Yesterday we planted an herb or aromatic garden at a girl's boarding school in the Ourika Valley! We all had a great time getting to know the girls and planting a garden that they will use to become more self-sustainable! Not only are they getting the opportunity to go to school, these girls are also learning several languages and how to cook and care for a garden.  After we got done there, most of us went on a very unexpected hike up a mountain! It was hot, but very cool to say that we just climbed a mountain! They wanted to show us the trees that have been donated by Americans and how they keep them watered. After that we went and saw an Aromatic Garden not far from where we did our little mountain climb. It had all sorts of herbs and a list of what they do! Today we woke up quite early, scarfed down some breakfast and started our walk to the junior high school where we would be planting trees. I'm not sure how many trees we planted, but it was very hard soil and we had to use pick-axes to get the soil loose first. A bunch of the students from the school were helping us, and it was again very nice to spend some time with the people of this region. It feels really good to give back! They gave us all some food and a spot of tea, and then came out with a rose for each one of us! It was very sweet! They appreciated it a lot! I think we might have to see if Entre Nous wants to get involved in possibly doing some fundraising for this great cause! Tomorrow we are going on a hike in the mountains to see some waterfalls! I think we are all very much looking forward to doing a bit of swimming since the weather has been so hot! There are not many of us who don't have sunburn from yesterday in the group!
I hope all is well back in the states! Crazy, we are coming home in 5 days!
Have a great Wednesday!

Marrakech Express

Greetings from Marrakech!

We are all basking in the comfort and beauty of the riad we have to ourselves for a week! You can check out the website, http://www.riadjbellakhdar.com/index.html, and see for yourselves how lucky we are! The owner is a friend of a friend of our professor, and we are so grateful for this connection.

We arrived in Marrakech on Friday evening, after a gorgeous - although somewhat nauseating - drive over the High Atlas mountains. The scenery was breathtaking, and everyone survived the altitude changes and curvy mountain roads despite a tinge of seasickness :)

Any visit to Marrakech should begin with a tour of the Seven Saints, holy men buried in various places around the city. We stopped at one on our way in, and got a good glimpse. As non-Moslems we weren't allowed into the shrine, but we all said the traditional Arabic greeting, "Salaam alaikum" ("Peace be with you"), in order to bring baraka (blessing) upon our group before visiting the city.

We have spent a bit of time in the famous square here, the Djmaa el Fna, which is a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site. There is so much going on in this square! A lot of the activities and shows are intended for tourists, such as snake charmers, faux dentists, macaque wranglers, and henna artists. However, there are some attractions, like storytellers, that savvy Moroccans know about and visit. Some of us saw a female storyteller last night, and although her tale was in Arabic, we still felt the energy and richness of the oral traditions here.

We had a busy day yesterday, and visited the Marjorelle Gardens (where Yves Saint-Laurent's ashes are), the opulent tombs of the Saadian kings, the Bahia palace, a Catholic church in the new city, and a traditional Moroccan herbalist. Evenings have been free, and it's delightful to grab dinner on a terrace overlooking the square and hear the evening call to prayer resounding from five different minarets.

Today after class is a free day, although some of us are going to our guide's home this evening to learn how to prepare some Moroccan cuisine. Tomorrow is also free after class, and some of us will be visiting a plant nursery to help select plants for our service project on Tuesday, which will be working in a garden at a girls' school. We are all very excited for the opportunity to give back in some way to the community, as we have enjoyed wonderful welcomes here.

Best wishes to all of you back home! We'll be in touch soon!

South to the Desert!

Hello all! It's Melinda!

We traveled south to the Sahara desert, and spent two nights there. We experienced the full beauty of the sand dunes, taking walks over the dunes, some of us even rolling down them. As a group, we also had a camel ride, which, though a bit rainy at first, was extremely beautiful. We saw some very tall dunes, and climbed to their tops.

In addition to having rain in the supposedly driest place on earth, the hotel near our tent village (which we used for meals and to store some of our things) had a swimming pool! It was beautiful, surrounded by birds, and a bit surreal. The mixture of modernity and pure desert was astounding, and a bit boggling at times.

More activities besides sleeping in our camel-wool tents, playing in the dunes and in the pool, and making camel friends (mine is called Naa'la!) included our mechoui (roast lamb) dinner, followed by the professional storyteller. Though the storyteller didn't necessarily meet our expectations (rather than telling traditional Moroccan folktales, he went the route of serving as an oral historian, telling us facts about ancient life in the desert, and how the Berber people lived), he was still very entertaining and interesting to listen to.

The desert itself is windy, much like our home of Morris. The difference is that the wind here picks up the sand! If you don't want to have sand EVERYWHERE, I would not recommend going to the desert.

Yesterday, after leaving the desert, most of us spent a lot of time working on our first papers, that were due this morning. We traveled a lot today, seeing two different gorges, and stopping at a stand where a woman named Fatima sells many interesting items, from Berber scarves, to skeleton keys, to necklaces and daggers. After some souvenir shopping, we made our long trek to Ourzazate, where we are now.

The name "Ouzarzate" means "no problems" according to our guide, Ishmael. Ish (as we fondly call him) worked some magic tonight and got the hotel to give us a free dinner! This hotel also has a (warm!) pool, and music to dance to. We have a free night tonight to catch up on homework and enjoy the hotel and town, before leaving for our Riad in Marrakech tomorrow.

Goodbye to Fez

Hello all,

Sorry to be AWOL for the past week, but internet has been very hard to find during our homestay. I also apologize for any typos or missing punctuation, as I am using an Arabic keyboard and am slightly confused...

Everybodys experiences have been different this week. Activities have varied depending on family...some of us have gone to hammams, the traditional bathhouses here, done henna, and one family even took their students to a wedding last night. They got back at seven am this morning, just in time for class!

Arabic lessons this week at INLAC, our school located in the medina, have been a real treat. One week hasnt been quite enough time for us to become fluent, but we are trying out some basic phrases with merchants and those we meet in the street.

We have also had the opportunity to extensively tour the medina here; seeing weavers, coppersmiths, potters, and tanners at work. Lots of neat photos and not a few artisan souvenirs will be headed back with us. Shopping here is an amazing experience. Our guides have taken us to some of the best artisan shops, and we have been treated with amazing customer service. Imagine being served mint tea while you sit on comfy cushions and merchants toss rug after rug on the floor before you. A bit more tantalizing than a trip to Target!

I dont have too much time to write, since I have to get home for my last lunch with my host family. Its bittersweet moving on. I have met some truly wonderful people here, but we are so excited to continue south to the desert. We will do our best to keep you posted, but obviously internet will continue to be challenging.

We are thinking of all of you and sending our best wishes your way from Fez!

Fez Home Stays

We are all now staying with Host Families in Fez. For the most part, they have been going well. We do have internet at the school that we are studying Arabic at. The school is called INLAC. We had our first lesson this morning and we now know how to greet people in Arabic and ask a few general questions. This afternoon, we will be touring Fez! Should be fun to finally see this huge city!

Roman ruins

C'est Heather!
This morning we had a great breakfast at the hotel and then headed out on a little adventure to a museum filled with Roman artifacts! They were a preview of what we were going to see later today! We left Rabat after running around trying to get stamps and exchange our money for smaller dirhams! We headed for Meknes, but on the way we stopped at Volubilis (spelling might be wrong) but it is the sight of the Roman Ruins just North of Meknes! We had an archaeologist who was our guide and he took us around the site pointing things out and telling us stories and information about what we were seeing! The site was in a fascinating location in the foothills of the Middle Atlas Mountain range! Even though it rained on us, we all had a great time exploring the ruins and seeing the storks! Yes they have stork nests! Don't worry, a lot of us got pictures! :) Anyways, we were in the ruins for about an hour and then it started to pour as we were leaving! We all ran to the bus and took off for the holy city, Moulay Idriss, which was located not too far from the ruins! (We could actually see the city from the ruins!) Moulay Idriss was the first Saltan of the first major dynasty in Morocco! He was responsible for a large part of the spread of Islam in Morocco! He was a very wise man and was an imam! An imam is a elderly or learned man or woman who leads prayers in the mosque, but has no more religious authority than any other Muslim! In the Hassan II Mosque we saw in Casablanca, the imam has a special elevated chair that they sit in to lead the prayers! After we got to this city, we climbed a ton of stairs to get to a view that Omar, our guide, said we couldn't miss! He took us to a place where we could see a panorama of the city! It was absolutely beautiful! We got to take pictures and then went and found a great place to eat Kefta. Kefta is a Moroccan hamburger that cannot be compared to the American hamburger! The bread is great that they serve it in and the meat is just delicious! We then took the bus to Meknes where we are now! We have a really nice hotel with a pool and a balcony overlooking the pool! C'est bon!(It's good!) A group of us went swimming tonight for a little while and had a great time! Then we had a delicious spaghetti supper and are now having a bit of free time before bed! Tomorrow we will be heading to Fes! Homestays begin Sunday night! Should be interesting!
Note: Internet is not super reliable here in Morocco, so if you don't always hear from someone, don't panic! We may not have access or internet that works well! Being that we are doing homestays this week, it will probably be very hard for us to have internet access this week! Don't fret though, cyber cafes will be accessible at some point and I'm sure most students, like myself will make an effort to update our lovely friends and family in the States!
We love you all and are having a great time! :)