Hey Friends. Sorry it has been so long, but my most recent blogworthy event was a big one and I'm still working on it. Therefore, I'm going to just post it in pieces. Great idea, pat on the back!

October 27, 2009

9:34 PM

Well, I just got home from Morocco. I think it’s safe to say that this journal entry is going to be VERY long. The longest one yet, I would venture to say. To begin, let me start a day or so before the trip began, way back on Wednesday. Sydney and I left our art history exam half an hour after it was supposed to end, hands tired and minds blank. We stopped for Tapas on ourway home, and Sydney, in an uncharacteristic moment of fatigue, called it an early tonight and went to bed…before me! (I never thought I’d see the day) On Thursday morning, the day before our departure, Sydney awoke feeling terrible, and spent most of the day in bed, only getting up for our trip to the cafeteria. Optimistic through her sickness, she vowed she would go to Morocco the next day no matter what. Unfortunately, despite taking Tylenol, drinking water, resting and willing herself to get better, when Friday rolled around, she was feeling just as bad. Saying goodbye and shutting the door behind me was one of the worst feelings I have had in a long time. I felt so sad and alone arriving to the group without her, and it was awful to tell everyone that she wouldn’t be coming. There were a few moments when it looked as if it would be possible for her to meet us in Gibraltar at night, but in the end no such thing ocurred. So, although we were headed off on an exciting adventure, it was a bittersweet moment to pull away from Granada leaving Sydney sick and very alone at the dorms. That’s the preface. Here’s the story:

Day 1

Our itinerary for day one was to make the drive from Granada to Algeciras (about three hours), and then spend the rest of the day in Gibraltar. For those of you who do not know, Gibraltar is an English territory at the very tip of Spain. Our drive was uneventful, except for the couple of minutes during which large white splashes began to fly against the windshield. Oddly enough, the crazy bus driver (whose ring tone, by the way, was “Born in the USA) didn’t use the windshield wipers to clear anything away. The splashes were not silent splashes, the way a light rain might be, but instead were loud splats against the glass. Javier (our program director) and I looked at each other, and he promptly asked the driver what odd event was occurring.

Without blinking an eye he responded that we were driving through a huge swarm of bees, and that the little white splats on the windshield were there guts. Yummy. They were still there today when we got back on the bus after 5 days. Delicious.

We pulled up to our hotel at about one or two in the afternoon. It was, in typical IES fashion, swanky and stylish. After a quick picnic we walked over to the border and entered Gibraltar. Immediately the street lights, the signs and the trashcans are completely different. It’s one of the weirdest feelings ever to walk across a border, in case you were wondering. Right on the other side there is a huge air force base from which the Royal Air Force was doing flying drills. Probably the loudest/the coolest thing I have ever heard/seen in my life. What was even more awesome, though, is that the runway is perpendicular to the main road that leads to the border, and when there is a plane taking off, they have to stop traffic. Essentially, in case you are having problems visualizing, which I would be too if I had just read my horrible explanation, the road and the runway form a “t,” meaning that when something is driving down one, nothing can be driving down the other. You see? Yeah, me neither. Whatever, it’s fine. The important thing to take away is that, because of the Air Force drills, our buses got stuck in horrible traffic, and we got to watch the helicopter drills.

Watching huge army helicopters take off may or may not be a life changing experience. It’s also terrifying when they lift off the ground about 30 feet and then just hover there for a good 30 seconds, going absolutely nowhere. You never know whether they’re actually going to make it, or whether they are going to have a horribly gruesome crash landing. We saw none of those. Phew!

Eventually, after opening the road again we walked across the huge runway to the other side, and awaited our buses at a gas station. We heard some local school children (I feel that is an appropriate way to identify them because they are English) talking to each other, and, weirdly enough, their conversation was in Spanish. Gibraltar confuses me a lot. Our buses pulled up and we got on in two separate groups. The driver of our bus had some normal name, but told us that he “likes the name Pepe more, because it sticks to the lips.” Direct quote. Anyway, the little paper sign at the front said Pepe, so Pepe it was.

He gave us a brief, very rehearsed tour of Gibraltar, during most of which he told inappropriate jokes about disabled people while we sat in traffic. I also didn’t understand a lot of what he said because of his bizarre accent. It almost sounded like he was an Andalucian who learned English, but spoke it with an accent. At the same time, though, his English was perfect in a way that a non-native English speaker’s wouldn’t be. It was really strange to hear, and today when I tried to imitate it for Sydney it did not go over that well. I sounded a little Australian, a little Chinese, and a little Russian. Awkward.

Despite Pepe’s shortcomings as an innovative tour guide, he was extremely funny and did take us to see monkeys. They were terrifying.

At one point they started yelling and getting in a fight, and I was afraid I was going to get attacked, naturally. That was the moment when I decided to take some pictures of the boats instead, and then quietly and calmly get back on the bus. We were dropped off at the end of the tour on a commercial type strip of Gibraltar, and had a quick 30 minutes for a snack before a “nice hour and a half hike to the top of the rock of Gibraltar.” Rock is a very deceptive word. Mountain would be more accurate.

Our leisurely hike began with a trip through the town, during which I spent a lot of energy taking photos and seeing the sites. After about half an hour I was regretting the choice to wear pants and a backpack, and was sweating profusely. Half an hour later a small group was walking together up an incline of about 45 degrees (I’m not exaggerating) singing Disney classics.

Singing actually isn’t the best word to describe what was going on. Gasping, breathing, mouthing would probably be better words. At one point I was so out of breath I thought I was going to throw up. It wasn’t that awesome of a moment, but I was revived when a comrade suggested that we sing Smashmouth's Allstar, (which is, ironically, the one song that everyone of our age seems to know all the words to) and I continued onwards, gasping the words loudly. When we got to the top of the mountain the sun had just begun to set behind the mountains in Algeciras.

We could see miles around us, and could even see the coast of Africa.

It was one of the most rewarding, breathtaking moments I have ever experienced. I was drenched in sweat for all of it, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. We descended and enjoyed a lovely meal at an English restaurant before heading back to the hotel for a well deserved rest. Since coming to Spain I have watched TV on a television approximately two times. Being the TV addict that I am, I craved it like crack when I got back to the hotel, so turned it on to the end of what I am assuming is High School Musical 2 or 3, considering that at the end they graduate high school, so anything after that would technically have to be called Post High School Musical. I don’t know. In any case, it was dubbed into Spanish (except for the singing parts) and I really enjoyed it. And so ended Day 1.

Day 2

The second day was to be the first of a series of very long and tiring, but fun-filled days. We got up bright and early at 6:30, stuffed our faces with complimentary breakfast and headed over to the Ferry, where we met our tour guide Anna. She was from Portland, and in May just completed a 2 year Peace Corps stay in a small village in southern Morocco. The first five sentences that she spoke went something like this:

1. Hi, I’m Anna, and I’m terrible at names.

2. I probably won’t remember any of yours.

3. I don’t know anything about the history of Morocco, but I heard you guys do.

4. I know a lot about the culture and the traditions of Morocco.

5. When I’m speaking to you please don’t stand far away, I’m not going to shout.

It’s safe to say that I did not get a great vibe from her.

Staying positive, we boarded the boat and headed to Africa. Anna proved herself to be two things on this trip. The first was condescending. On the boat ride over she told us that she would like us all to sit kind of close so that she could tell us some important things that we might have to know. Unfortuanately, she didn’t mention that until after the kids who had taken drammamine had already chosen a seat and fallen asleep in it. So, in a very lovely way, she said to the people sitting off to the side or by themselves “Please can you guys come over here so I can give you some important information?” When there was little movement, she said, “Yeah, that generally requires you to get up and move from where you currently are.” I loved her.

In any case, we arrived in Tanger safe and sound a couple of hours later and headed off to a women’s center. It was really cool and we got to speak to a couple of young Moroccan women.

One was a post grad in English literature, one had already gotten her masters, and the third was a senior in high school. Ironically the third was the best English speaker. We had a very interesting conversation with them about everything from their personal feelings about wearing the hijab (the head scarf) to finding work as a woman in Morocco to living with family and finding a husband. It was eye opening to talk to three very educated women in a place that I had previously assumed to be much more strict and male dominated. We enjoyed a lovely lunch that, at the time, I was a little too nervous to eat, and headed to Rabat.

On the way we pulled over on the side of the road at a beach full of camels. When I say full, I mean 7. Apparently there is a group of guys that goes out to this same beach every day and sits there for fifteen hours just waiting for people to pull over on the side of the road for a camel ride. If you have never seen one in person you cannot know how ridiculous camels are. Some observations:

- First of all, they are happier lying down than standing up, just like a cat or a dog. When they sit down they fold their skinny little legs under them, and the only part you can see looks like a pair of chicken legs attached to this huge animal.

- They chew their cud approximately 100% of the time

- The majestic sound they make as they cross the desert sands is a type of grunting scream. Really beautiful.

- They are incredibly knock-kneed. I think that they and I bonded over that.

- When they are standing up they look at every second as if they are about to fall over.

- Their eyelashes are really long.

- Their feet are the most awesome feet ever. Their surface area increases drastically every step that they take, which is so tight.

- Their poops are really tiny compared to their bodies.

Riding one was awesome, but also kind of difficult at the beginning and the end. Because they are so awkward, they get up really slowly and it’s tough to hold on. They stand up on their back legs first and for a pretty long while their front legs are still folded under them on the ground. You are essentially holding on to a huge camel sitting there at about a 45 degree angle. At the end, to dismount, they have to sit down again. Sedentary as they are, they don’t sit unless someone hits their knees with a stick. Eventually they just give out and their whole front half goes crashing to the ground…with yours truly onboard. After a couple of scary seconds they lower their back legs and sit down, but holding on during the interim is no small chore. Anyway, what’s important is that I can now add camels onto the list of animals I have ridden on. In fact, I just doubled my list from 1 to 2:

1. Horses
2. Camels

Several hours later we arrived as a group to a lovely home in the middle of a neighborhood in Rabat and divided into groups of two or three. I grouped with Mary and Jillian, and we were assigned a family that lived close by. The English speakers of the family were the two daughters, one who was 18, and the other who was 22. The younger one spoke better English, and, to my astonishment, had never studied it a day in her life. Her only knowledge was from American movies, TV shows, music, and the American students they have hosted in their home for the past five years. The older sister had the same basic background with 3 additional months of formal studying. They claimed it was an easy language. Compared to Arabic, I think it is. In any case, they were awesome, and I loved them. Not only did they speak Arabic and English, but they also spoke French (as everyone in Morocco does) and the younger sister even spoke Spanish and wanted to be a Spanish literature major in University. What a stud.

They walked us in the dark through a series of narrow alleyways and finally through a market to their home. It was on the second floor of a two-story building and was one of the cooler houses I have ever been into in my life. In our homes here or in the States we walk through the front doorway into some kind of foyer or front room, and throughout the house there are different rooms that all connect to one another. The structure of this house was more or less like my high school. In the middle was a large square of space open to the air.

It probably measured something like 20 feet by 20 feet. The rooms were all off a hallway that went all the way around the open-air column (for lack of a better expression). There were three bedrooms, a living room/den, a bathroom and a kitchen. The sink and laundry area for the bathroom were under the hallway awning, not in their own room. This is maybe the worst explanation ever, but I really can’t think of how to explain it better. Oh well.

Each room is different than our rooms, too, because there is a bench that runs along the edge of the whole room, the only gap being at the door. The bench is covered with cushions and pillows, and there is nothing but a table or two in the center of the room. They have really high ceilings. As beds, each person uses a different section of bench. The eating/den room is the same, but instead of sleeping there, they eat there. Here’s what is important to take away from the living room image: everyone sits on these couch/benches around the table and, after finishing, only has to reposition his or her head/body so as to be oriented towards the TV. Such a great idea. Anyway, I’ll stop trying to describe the house now, because it’s too confusing. Sorry.

I will, however, happily move on to the meals. They are also completely differet from anything that I have ever experienced, and I have decided that they are far superior to our meals. On our first night there we were told that dinner was ready and headed into the dining room. We each took a seat on the couch/bench, and waited politely for our food to be served. All of a sudden the mom came out and put a huge platter of French fries on top of chicken in the middle of the table. Immediately, the family launched into the most awesome feeding frenzy of all time. Armed with nothing but a piece of bread (that’s right, no spoon, no fork, no plate) Mary, Jillian and I joined in, too. Everyone feeds off this huge central dish of food without transferring anything to a little plate before hand. Some people use their bread, some just go at it with their hands. That takes a significant amount of skill and a special technique that I did not have, though. In any case about 15 minutes later, hands and nails covered with food, bellies full, minds completely confused about what just happened, and a plate scraped clean in the middle of the table, dinner was over. The table was covered in olive pits, scraps of food, drops of liquid, bread crumbs and dirty napkins, and I loved it. Eventually we had an orange for dessert and helped to clean up by dumping every food scrap and piece of trash onto the central plate and carrying it into the kitchen. Such a simple dinner strategy, yet so unknown in the States. Anyway, I think it builds character and community, so I’m going to implement it in my own household (when I have one).

After dinner, tired from a long day, we washed up and went to bed. However, washing up and going to bed wasn’t what it is at home. Our toilet was, as they say, a Turkish toilet. What does that mean? A hole in the ground, essentially.

And, despite the fact that our family was obviously not particularly poor, the bathroom smelled absolutely horrible. So, for about a half an hour we milled around discussing our trip to the bathroom, and then, in an act of sheer heroism, I demonstrated to my comrades how it was done. Unfortunately I did an awful job and peed all over my foot and sandal. That was exactly the thing I had wanted to happen when I knew I wouldn’t be able to wash my foot for a full 24 hours. So, foot covered in pee, I walked back to my room, changed, and went to bed. During the night we were awoken several times by loud chants and drums going through the streets. The next morning our sister told us it was a wedding. Pretty sick. Day 3 is yet to come...