First week/Orientation

Ssalamu 'alaykum!  For our first week in Rabat, everyone on the program is staying in a hotel in Agdal, which is one of the nicer districts of Rabat.  We walk to the program building every day for lectures, and had our Arabic placement exam today.  It is Ramadan right now, so during the days and especially on the weekends, the streets are fairly empty.  Goint into the medina (the old city of Rabat) at night, there is so much more life.  People were packed into the narrow streets lined with stalls, with vendors yelling things-- just for fun, it seemed at times-- and the smells of the food and the music were incredible.  Some pictures:

The street we walk to get to the program building.  This was at about 9am on a Sunday, and it was dead.  Note the green "Sandway" sign, looking suspiciously like a "Subway" sign...

 The souk (market) at night, same day as the above picture.  During Ramadan, life seems to do a complete 180 here, with everything coming alive at night.  It's difficult to find food during the day, especially on the weekends, but we manage to find a few snacks and then eat "ftour" (breakfast) around 9pm with everyone else.

The ruins of the minaret, mosque, and cemetary complex at Chella, an ancient Roman city near Rabat.  There were storks' nests built on top of tall trees, as well as one on top of the minaret-- it's the brownish top part, and the little dot on top is a stork.  There was a hammam inside the mosque ruins, and similar to the top of the minaret (below) there were some tiles which were still painted their original colors.  Behind the mosque in the cemetary, the main tomb belongs to a sixteenth(ish) century sultan whose wife was English, according to our program/tour guide, which influenced the sultan's governing policies.  There was also a small tomb and a small building dedicated to teachers of the madrassa located on the complex.  It's doors and the roof were painted a minty green/icy blue color...

The city of Sale is in the distance, and the stork's nest/stork is on top!  A river separates Sale from Rabat. 

 

The teachers' tomb and building. 

There are so many malnourished cats everywhere here. At Chella, in the streets, at outdoor restaurants, just scrounging around for garbage or scraps to eat. This man is at Chella, and our guide told us that Americans brought would bring cats over to Morocco a few decades ago and take care of them, but then they would breed and now they're everywhere.  So, nice people, or "cat lovers" as he called them, will feed the cats (and chickens, in this case) from time to time, or in certain places.  Finally saw a man feeding one leftovers in the souk tonight, but I think that is a rare occurance.

(the beach/Sale is through those far windows)

The blue walls of the kasbah in the old medina of Rabat. I always have such a hard time describing my favorite color of blue, and this is it, all of them painted next to each other like that. It's a winding uphill walk to the top of the kasbah-- an old fortress-- where you can see down onto the beach, the Atlantic, the city of Sale across the river, and the rest of Rabat off behind the kasbah. See below:

We move in with our host families tomorrow.  Apparently there is an older brother and an 18 year old daughter in my family, and I'll be living with them and another girl from the program.  We had our first lesson of "Survival Moroccan Arabic", or "darija", today, and even by knowing just that little bit of vocabulary it is easier to accomplish things around here, and people are much nicer to us and willing to help.  I''ve only been here a few days and still feel touristy, from living and going most places with our huge study abroad group, but already I love it.  More to come, eventually.  Bisalaama!