Gibraltar and Morocco

Hi everyone,

I just got back from Marruecos (Morocco) a few hours ago and I am super tired. But I want to write a blog before I fall asleep and forget small funny details!! So here goes:

Day 1: Gibraltar - so first we took about a 3-4 hour bus trip to Gibraltar. We checked into our hotel, on the Spanish side, and then made our way over to the British side for a bus tour of Gibraltar, a hike up the rock, and dinner. Gibraltar is a very weird city. It has a mix of all sorts of different cultures. Spanish/British accents are so funny. It's very small and completely under construction like all the time. An interesting fact is that even though Gibraltar is only like 5 by 5 miles, it has like 25 miles of tunnels...those aren't exact numbers cause I don't remember, but it was something like that. The tour was great because it brought us RIGHT to the monkeys!!!!! and they were EVERYWHERE!!!!! First we went to the Caves...there are sooo many caves in the Rock. They were amazing. They are the type of caves that are always moist. There is even a complete "theater/stadium" thing inside for concerts and plays. Crazy!! But the best part was when we got out, and led into the gift shop of course, we looked out the window and there they were!! Monkeys everywhere. I was in heaven. Luckily I had a sandwich in my back-pack that I could "eat" and get stolen by the monkeys. I took it out and ripped off a little piece and handed it to the monkey sitting near me, and he looked at it, and ran over to me and grabbed the rest of the sandwich out of my hands! The don't eat meat so he ignored the turkey and ate the bread and cheese. It was sooo funny to watch him eat it. A few other monkeys came over to help, but it was very territorial. He wanted this sandwich to himself. I have so many pictures of monkeys I don't know what to do with them all. We could even touch them...a little. There were babies and old ones and big ones and small ones. I loved it. After the tour we took a hike up the Rock...it is STEEEP. I huffed and puffed quite a bit...but the view was spectacular. The city looks much pretty from a distance! haha Afterwards a few of us went to a Pub with Javier, the director of IES, and had fish and chips! We all went to bed pretty early that night since we had to get up at 6:30 the next morning for our venture to Africa!

Day 2: Tangier, Rabat: Early, early in the morning we caught a ferry from Algeciras, Spain (just next to gibraltar) to Tangier. First we met up with our guide, Rick, who is an American dude who has led tours all over and now is working with this group in Morocco. He doesn't speak Arabic or French or anything, he was just good at planning things and carrying them out. He also lives in Granada. From there we took a little walk through this little food market- there were some intense animal guts going on and it smelled horrible. Flies are EVERYWHERE in Morocco- gross. Then we went to DARNA, a women's center in Tangier. It is a center funded actually by Spanish money, that helps women learn useful skills like reading and writing, sewing and secretarial skills. We took a little tour and then met up with this lady who studies somewhere else in morocco. She spoke English, and we talked with her a little bit about Ramadan (we were there during Ramadan!) and some other things like dating, the culture, arabic languages etc. We had just learned a lot about this stuff in my Islamic Civ class the other day so it was pretty cool hearing it from her. It's ridiculous how many "dialects" of arabic there are. It's really no wonder why arabic countries can't be united and identified as arabic when everyone identifies with a different language and history. There is classical arabic (Koran is written in this) and Modern Arabic (what people learn in schools, very similar to Classical) and then there are like 10's of dialects. In Morocco they speak Darija (or Dariya). In Algeria something else, Syria something else etc. And in Morocco there is also a Berber language that is completely different. In books, newspapers, tv Classical is spoken, in School classical and French is spoken, and outside of school dariya is spoken and berber. Sooo..most Moroccan people know 3 languages if not more! ANYWAY - we had this nice talk with this student and then they served us this amazing Mint/Green tea...it is like the national tea of Morocco! haha. It's sad though since it's ramadan, none of the Moroccans could eat/drink with us until after sun down. The ladies at the Center then made us lunch. COUS COUS!!! it ROCKED! In fact, everything I ate in morocco I LOVED. After lunch we began our drive to Rabat (which was our home base).
On the way we stopped at Asilah along the Atlantic Coast. It's this little beachy town thats really pretty. We took a walk though the Medina (the old part of town surrounded by walls) and took lots of pictures. SO many cities here have the White painted walls with blue paint all over. It was started by a Jewish tradition actually (Blue and White!!) and then they also added a lot of Green because that is a very important color in Islam. When we were done in Asilah, we drove our 3 hours to Rabat to meet our homestay families.
BUT before we got there, Javier and Rick surprised us with CAMELS! we took a little ride on the backs of camels. It was pretty sweet. I've got lots of pics!
About 3 of us lived with each family. I was with 2 other girls, Addie and Karla. We had a great family and home. We had a real toilet and shower!! The beds were all around the room in sofa style, and everyone just sleeps around it. Us 3 had our own room, then the aunt and the 2 sons slept in another room and the mom and dad had their own. But everyone slept on these funny couches, except the mom and dad. We loved our family. The 2 sons that we met (out of 4) were both Professional Volleyball players for the National Moroccan team!!! Isn't that crazy..they were 19 and 24. The other 2 sons both live in New York! The 24 year old has PERFECT English - one reason being he has had an American girlfriend for 4 years now. The 19 year old spoke very well too and he hasn't even studied it before! He's just learned it from his brothers girlfriend and TV! Moroccans are amazing when it comes to languages. Both of the sons also speak French fluently. The mother was hilarious. She only new a few words in English like eat, sleep, shower, welcome, and maybe a few more. But we was soo welcoming. I felt more comfortable with her sometimes than I do my host mom in SPain! Everyone in Morocco was more welcoming and friendly really than any other group of people I've met. We communicated mainly through hand motions and the few arabic words we knew, the few english words she new, and her sons. She was so great though, she tried explaining to us that she liked us because we are girls (since she has 4 boys) by grabbing her boobs and then saying "No" pointing to herself and making hand motions for penis and then holding up 4 fingers!!! hahah She just kept grabbing her boobs! it was so funny. Anyway, her younger son Mustapha, took us for a little walk around the Medina and then we came back and ate some food. I could write a whole other blog about all the food...so I might just wait. Then we met up with our group of 15 and took a walk again. We were exhausted so we hit the sack at 10 pm that night (to us it was 12 because of the time difference) and passed out. It was frustrating though, because in Moroccan we can't drink the water, so we had to always use bottled water, even for brushing our teeth!

Day 3 Rabat: On day 3 we woke up pretty early again (8) and went to a little school for a discussion with this professor. We talked about politics and women/gender issues. It was very interesting to listen to and talk about. We learned about the new Family Code that was started around 2004 or so that gives Women the right to know about divorce, have a say in whether she wants one, who gets the kids, the house and such. before a man could just divorce his wife without telling her and kick her AND the kids out. It also restricts polygamy by giving the Wife the right to say no I don't want to be a second wife or something. After the discussion we went to visit the Chellah ruins. They are old Roman ruins surrounded by more recent Muslim ruins built around it. There is this pool of eels there that is supposed to be a "fertility" pool. You were supposed to throw money in it with the eels and it gave you fertility. But it was surrounded by Cats! Cats are EVERYWHERE in Morocco...almost as many as the flies! Apparently, cats are more "sacred" or respected than dogs there so they are treated better. I was in Heaven again! Although also sad to see so many stay kitties, but most of them get fed often because people like them. It made me think about Daisy a lot and I got very sad a few time. After the ruins we went to the Mausoleum of King Mohammed the 5th. It is built in this old unfinished mosque that some crazy dude tried building but his empire collapsed.
After that we went to have lunch with our families. We had a delicious curry chicken and potato dish. Once lunch was over we went out to meet up with some Moroccan students who study English and we took a walk around the Kasbah and the sweet Markets. We did lots of shopping and bargaining. It is very stressful. I don't like it. I felt bad because more than talking with the moroccan student we were set up with, we mainly used him for helping us bargain. We couldn't understand what was going on, and we sucked at bartering for better prices. I did get some fun stuff though!! The currency is Durams. 11 duram to 1 euro about. After shopping we went home to Break the Fast with our families. This is at sunset and they have a very traditional meal to break the fast. This type of soup, bread (hobbs), these sweets, and dried dates! It is delicious! The best part comes up next though. After dinner we went to the Hammam. These are the Arabic Baths! The girls went with one of the host moms and the boys went with Jose and Javier. I've described the baths before I think, but ancient ones. This was a modern bath. It was 3 rooms just like the old ones, cool, warmer, hot. and you go in with buckets, fill them up, soap up, scrub down, wash, repeat, and get clean. It was strange though. All the girls decided to do it the right way...topless. All of the arabic women were either naked or topless so we actually felt more weird and out of place going with tops on than not. I've never in my life done something like that. I don't even show my stomach in public! But it was soo much fun. We went in and it was just like amazing sisterhood bonding. I know it sounds ridiculous and you kind of have to be there to know what I am talking about. The host moms just started grabbing us and scrubbing us. It was like monkeys grooming each other, but cool haha. You got people to scrub your back for you, your arms. It was wild. And to be honest, when I left I felt sooo clean and calm. It was definitely an experience I will never forget and I think my group bonded a lot. I really got to know the girls better! haha After that we pretty much went to bed. Throughout our stay with the family we spoke with the older son a lot. He was very interesting and kind. We talked about Obama - he wants, and about Palestine/Isreal. That was slightly more awkward. I don't really know much about the topic unfortunately...not enough to back up my side. He of course has a biased towards the Muslims and me the Jews...we kinda stopped shortly after starting that convo.

Day 4: Rif Mountains, Chefchaouen - The next day we woke up early again to be on the road by 8. We drove to the Rif Mountains to have lunch with a local rural family. It was really fun. They made us cous cous, which was amazing, again! We sat outside in this kind of gazebo type thing that the family built themselves. It had an amazing view of the mountains. We weren't really supposed to take pictures there so we had one designated photographer- i'll have to get the photos from her! The family was so kind though and they kids were adorable. living in the rural areas of Morocco is very different. They have an elementary/middle school near by, but the closest high school is 1 hour away. The kids have to leave their family and go live their during school. This family believed in education a lot, but many families do not. The wifes brother, who was our translator has a masters degree even (he's finishing it), but he has no job because jobs in Morocco are very hard to find, and a college degree doesn't always help. Anyway, they took us on a little walk around their land..it was beautiful..i did take pictures of that! They gave us a fresh plum from their garden and we took pictures together. THey have a 2 year old boy who is absolutely precious. OH and by the way, this is where I went poop for the first time in a turkish toilet! YEAH kate. Our group bonded a lot over poop conversations hahaha. This girl in our group hadn't pooped for 4 days and this other guy was pooping a lot haha and we discussed how to poop without sitting on a toilet and well..it was pretty entertaining. we knew everyone's business! Anyway, after we spent the afternoon with this family we started to head towards Chefchaouen, northern morocco. Checchaouen has a Moorish and Jewish history and therefore has this tradition of being painted blue and white. It's really cute, and a little more touristy than the other places we visited. It also used to be a Spanish territory so most of the people there also speak Spanish, which was a nice change from only Arabic and French. We stayed in a Hostel named Yasima. It was really nice actually, we took over the whole hotel. We did some shopping and then got dinner at this cute arabic restaurant. I got Chicken Tangire or something like that...its a way they cook it...its like stew cooked in this clay pot and covered and cooked for a long time. Its delicious!! After dinner we headed back to the hostel and we all went up to the roof and had a little "reflexion" conversation. Our guide turned off all the lights, we sat around with blankets and lit a candle in the middle! haha. There was lighting and thunder over the mountains so the atmosphere was pretty cool. We had some good conversations about our trip and I think we just bonded some more. After the serious stuff we decided to tell some silly things that happened. THere were 2 guys in our group and they of course lived together in Rabat. They started telling this ridiculous story about their host brother and an awkward thing that happened in the bathroom...it was hilarious...no need to go into detail here though. Then when all was said and done and we were laughing about their story and told us it was completely made up!!!!! They totally made up everything and on the spot! It was amazing haha, their detail was soo impressive and they never broke the story. I don't know how they came up with this idea, but it was funny! It was a good note to go to sleep on!

Day 5: Walk in Chefchaouen and Ceuta, then Spain - In the morning we woke up at 6:45 to go for a walk up to a pretty look out point in chef. We had to get on the rode at 8 so that was the reason for the earliness. It was nice, but very steep and all steps!!!! argh steps. Anyway, then we hit the road. It was a 2 hour drive to Ceuta. Ceuta is a Spanish city/territory in Africa so we can "walk" across the Moroccan/Spanish border. It is a very shady area. They told us that sometimes it is really crowded and there are things you have to prepare yourself for...seeing sad things, children trying to get across, people not being accepted and such. but there weren't many people when we went. In this area, that night/morning it had RAINED a shit load and it was flooding and there was lightning and thunder. It was crazy. We all got pretty wet. There was one boom that was so loud it made car alarms go off!!! There was this creepy guy who like bribed or something the passport stampers to stamp peoples passports ...we didn't really know what was going on, but it looked like he would get paid by people and then go slip something little to one of the guards and that passport would be stamped...i dunno what was really going on. But we got through just fine and took our ferry to Gibraltar. The ferry ride was crazy though because of the storm, it was sooo rocky. it was like a roller coaster no joke. My mom would have died i think!!! At least for the first 20 mins...you could barely walk around without falling over.
Well thats it. Everything went really smoothly, my group bonded over all sorts of things - hammam nudity, inability to poop/how to squat...and OH how Javier, our director, is GOD. We all love him..and are always amazed at how cool he is. He speaks like 7 languages, has been and lived like everywhere and is always calm and laid back. We love him...he is like our dad away from home.

OH and today I have like 30 hives around my body and a got a shot in my butt! haha I don't know where they all came from, but I woke up this morning very itchy...who knows if it was from Morocco, or I am allergic to something here or what...but I'll keep you posted...I am totally fine though, just itchy!

Love
Kate