our trip to Senegal.

Fall Break, 2010.  Original plan:  visit Kate and Liz, my friends from GWU studying abroad in Senegal with Nora.  See some of “real Africa”, some tourist sites in Dakar, and the old colonial city of St Louis as per the recommendation of a friend, and eat some Senegalese “Yassa” with their host families.  New plan, after missing our connecting flight to Dakar in the gigantic Madrid airport and realizing that buying another ticket to Senegal would literally cost an arm and a leg:  Rome.

We arrived in Rome around 10am and got into a taxi outside of the airport, showed the driver a piece of paper with the name of the hotel Nora’s friends were staying at, and watched fascinated as we drove through Italy.   We waited for the friends at a café near the hotel, bought a simple breakfast of a cappuccino and a delicious croissant—essentially a glazed donut in Italy— and tried to absorb where we were.  Women walked by proudly dressed to the nines in heels and fashionable fall clothes, stopping to chat with other women and men in gregarious Italian, as the traffic passed.  No garbage on the streets, no rubble from never-ending construction of a questionably useful Tramway… we definitely weren’t in Rabat anymore. 

Mika needed to do work for a project at the Vatican, so we tagged along.  We wandered through that quarter of Rome, had our first divine taste of pasta at a cheap café, and stayed at the Vatican after Mika was finished with her research.  Theme of the trip:  “we found ourselves at/in…” .  We went inside St. Peter’s Basilica, then meandered over to the Castle di St Angelo, walking up to the top and looking out over the area around the Vatican.  I was astounded by the sheer beauty of the city and the landscape, one and the same, ancient and modern, modern built on top of ancient and people milling about it all. 

Fresh off the plane, touring the Vatican.

View of Rome from the top of the Castle St Angelo

One thing about Italy that we weren’t prepared for was the price of everything… cabs, coffee, everything was much more expensive than in Morocco, let alone than what they would have cost in Senegal.  As a direct result of this, we mastered the bus and metro system quickly when we couldn’t walk anymore, which made travelling around Rome not only cheaper but much more interesting.  Most of what we saw, we stumbled across while walking towards another destination.  On our way back from the Castle, for example, we walked through the Piazza Navona, a plaza with an elaborate fountain in the middle located in between alleys of apartments and boutiques.  It is reminiscent of the Montmartre area of Paris or an artsy district of Boston, or the Eastern Market of DC, with artists sitting behind their paintings and photos, people sitting under umbrellas at outdoor cafes, and mimes, musicians, and other street performers doing their thing.  It was more refreshing than I can say, to be around all this art and open human creativity. 

Art in Piazza Navona.

We stayed in Nora’s friends’ hotel the first night, so we went back there in time to tag along with them on their “free Tuesday night dinner”—they all told us that, even though we came during midterms week, we “planned” to come on the perfect night.  Of course we did!  Delicious lasagna, fresh fresh salad, and some sort of tart dessert… yes, please.  We slept in the next morning, feeling refreshed after our last night of “sleeping” in the Madrid airport.  Then we walked a few minutes and found ourselves at the Colosso and Colosseum complex.  It was all so well-preserved, considering, and walking through you could just imagine people living here thousands of years ago.  We tagged along on part of a tour, heard about the Vestal Virgins, then stood in line to get inside the Colosseum.  It hit me again, not that it hadn’t already about 10 times that day: we were in Rome. 

The Colosso

The Colosseum

Next stop:  find an internet café, and find a hostel for the next two nights.  We ended up booking one near Termini, the main train station and metro stop in central Rome, and were put up in a clean room with six beds.  We rested for a bit and then went back to the first hotel, to meet up with the friends and go out to the Hard Rock Café for someone’s birthday.  Is it bad that the best part of that night for me were the nachos I had for dinner?  They were unreal… how I miss nachos.  Everyone ordered nachos and/or burgers… a bit of Americana is all you need sometimes while travelling.  Yummmmm!!

Our last full day in Rome, we woke up late again and headed out toward the Vatican again.  We stopped for a breakfast of pastries and coffee at a café across from the Basilica De Santa Maria Maggiore, which we went into the day before, just ‘cause it was there.  Once we got to the Vatican, we climbed up to the top of St Peter’s Basilica, to see out across all of Rome.  We walked up into the dome, and then through a narrow door, up a narrower staircase, which narrowed more and more, the walls at an angle, the windows mere slivers of no-wall, until we reached the very top.  What a view.  See below. 

Sugar overload for breakfast in front of the Santa Maria Basilica.

Inside the dome of St. Peter's Basilica.

Smallest staircase ever up to the top of the Basilica...

View from the top, overlooking the Vatican.

After the treacherous descent from the top of the Basilica, we rushed to the Sistine Chapel before it closed to tourists.  It was packed with people, and a guard kept shushing everyone and trying to stop people from taking pictures.  It was—is—absolutely mind-blowing to think that one man painted this entire thing by himself.  And the way it is painted is entirely three-dimensional, so when you’re inside you think you’re in a vaulted chapel, but think about it—it’s just one plain room.  I think the best part of it was the blue.  People are painted all over the walls and ceilings, over a base of blue blue sky.  It was beautiful. 

After the Vatican, we wanted to walk by the Pantheon on our way back to the hostel.  We found ourselves in the Piazza Navona again, and then walked through an alleyway to be met by a sample of ruins, and the Pantheon and piazza around it emerged.  The sheer size of the Pantheon was overwhelming.  In the surrounding piazza, a band just so happened to be playing, so we sat and listened for a while.  Why people don’t set up outside of the medina in Rabat and play, I don’t know… It’s something I hadn’t even realized I’d been missing, reminded me of New York and DC.  We consulted the map (again), and realized how close we were to the Trevi fountain.  Thinking we’d see it the next day, we kept walking, and then literally ran into the street it was on.  It is the hugest (?), most elaborately carved fountain I’ve ever seen, with waterfalls basically flowing from statues, all built into a building.  We each sat on the ledge of the fountain and tossed a coin over our left shoulder with our right hand, and made a wish.  We met up with Nora’s friends later for a last dinner of delicious crepes: prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, and spinach.  YUM.

Musicians at the Pantheon.

Trevi fountain.

Our last day in Rome:  A last leisurely morning at the hostel, then we wandered around by the Spanish Steps to find a café for breakfast.   As we walked down a narrow street lined with high-end stores, we heard music and found a woman sitting in between a café and a flower shop playing the cello.  Of course, we ate breakfast at that café, and then continued wandering.  We walked to the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, a formidable white building with two gigantic iron flying horses on top that we had seen from wherever else we were in the city.  After finally figuring out what it was, we walked back past an archaeological site of an old fish market/village to the hostel, and then to the train station.  After getting to the airport and waiting 6 hours for our delayed flight, we finally made it to our hostel in Spain.  We met our two other friends in the same hostel at breakfast, who had spent their weeks off in Spain, and then left for home—Rabat.  Hamdullah!

Home sweet home :-)

Meknes and Fez

Two weekends ago, our entire program went on our first trip together to the imperial cities of Meknès and Fez.  Fez is the oldest city in Morocco, and was the first capital when the country as we know it today was first established in the 8^th century.  We took a bus to Meknès, which was the capital of Morocco in the 17^th century under Moulay Ismail.  First stop was the old Stables of Moulay Ismail, and then to the prison where we descended into a stark, dark basement holding room where holes in the ceiling let in light and also, in the old days, food lowered down from the ground above.  From there we walked around the medina and into the Musée des Arts et Métiers Traditionels de Meknès, a traditional art museum converted from one of the king’s riyads in the past.  Some rooms were preserved as originally furnished—unbelievably ornate—while in other rooms where rugs, pottery, and woodwork in the traditional Meknèsi style the floors, walls, columns, and even ceilings were tiled (zellij) and embellished.  After lunch of couscous and juice—any kind or combination of fresh pressed juice you can imagine—we continued on our way to Fez.  At one point we stopped on a mountain road to look down into the white-washed city of Moulay Idriss, named after the 8^th century king of Morocco and off-limits to non-Muslims.  Inside the city is a mosque of the same name, which is a point of pilgrimage for Muslims.  It was a spectacular view, nestled into the mountains and looking like a white oasis in the rugged landscape. 

Outside one of the doors to the medina in Meknes.

A traditional riyad room maintained in the Musee.

Our next stop was Volubilis-- called Walili in Arabic, which is equally as fun to say-- an archaeological site of Roman ruins (and now a UNESCO World Heritage site).  Structures like Roman baths were still intact, as were some of the elaborate tiling on the floors depicting various scenes and characters.  From the top, you can see little towns tucked away into the mountains, and again the vast, dry openness of the landscape. 

The center of Volubilis.

On a mountain overlooking the city of Moulay Idriss.

From Volubilis we continued on to Fez, checked into our hotel and proceeded to explore the medina, which is the largest and oldest medina in all of Morocco.  We wandered through the labyrinth, passing stalls and stalls of fresh meat—I mean fresh as in skinned animals displayed everywhere— and then herbs, and then the jewelry/clothes/general artisan products sections.  It was like a much, much larger version of the Rabat medina that I’m familiar with, “a medina’s a medina” as someone said.  The most obvious distinction, aside from the sheer size and crowdedness of the thing, was the behavior of the people working there.  The Fez medina is a major tourist attraction, and as a result walking through the medina for us means getting hassled and accosted and pushed to buy things and pay for services.  If you stop walking, it’s all over.  We soon realized that, and found refuge in a little ice cream parlor, named “Disney Channel”, of all things, tucked into one of the alleys. 

The lobby inside our hotel in Fez.

The next day we went on an actual guided tour of the medina, with a professor from Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane.  First stop was at Madrassa Bou Inania, built in the 14^th century as a religious school and mosque.  In addition to all the tiling that I pretty much expect to see everywhere by this point, even on ruins, the walls were all constructed of wood and stone elaborately carved in Arabic and Maghrebi script.  We walked through the “dormitory” area, which consisted of very small stark rooms, meant to encourage a life without distraction for the importance of the studies.  We left the madrassa and meandered through to the Nejarine Museum, dedicated to historical regional woodcrafts and located in the metalwork section of the enormous medina.  After the tour, we found some more souk sandwiches, which are enough to fill you up for an entire day and cost approximately $2 American, and then started off on our own tour of the medina to find the famed tanneries. 

Center of Madrassa Bou Inania.

Maghrebi script and zellij on the walls of the Madrassa.

The metalwork area in the Fez medina.

Outside the Nejarine Museum in the middle of the medina.

We were told that the tanneries were located far in the middle of the medina and that our best bet would be to pay someone to take us there, but we decided to try to find them ourselves.  We walked back to the metalwork district (amazingly we remembered how to find our way through the twisting, cramped alleys), where we began to be accosted by young boys asking, “You want to see the tanneries?  This way, this way!” each pointing in a different direction.  We finally escaped from one boy who had been following us through the alleys, only to be taken to the tanneries by his friend—when we got there, we spotted the first boy hiding behind a wall watching us.  He was with another boy, all about 12 years old, who earlier in the day had shouted insults and obscenities at us in Arabic (which we understood, thanks to our Moroccan friends).  Eventually, we got to the roof of a leather goods store which looked down over the tanneries—huge stone baths filled with different substances for cleaning, treating, and coloring the freshly skinned leather.  Our little guide explained what each substance was for; there was one area, the little boy explained to us, where the baths were filled with the technically-named “pigeon shit”, to thoroughly clean the leather.  We were shown to a “pharmacy” of pungent herbs and spices afterwards, to replace the tannery odors.  The owner of course tried to entice us to purchase something, of course, after giving us a lengthy explanation of each herb and their properties.  That was the Fez medina—everyone trying to get money from tourists, by any means possible, and turning any would-be stroll into a blindered brisk walk.  The shopkeepers get frustrated: we were walking out of the medina after seeing the tanneries and a man was offering us the menu to his restaurant, so we said “leh, shokran” (“no thank you”), as we always do.  We passed him, and then heard “leh shokran, I HATE LEH SHOKRAN!”  Oy vey.  Sorry, mister, but I hate “You want to eat here?  Good price, 70 dirhams…”  C’est la vie.

Overlooking the dying baths in the tanneries.

The rest of Fez:  MacDo (with elaborately carved ceilings) for dinner on a rainy night; one of the king’s many palaces (one in all of the major cities and regions of Morocco); and a synagogue in the area just outside of the palace where the Jewish population traditionally was located.  One last tour through the medina for traditional Faissi soup at a hole in the wall soup stand (literally, a hole in the wall), 5 d’s for a bowl of hot buttery, garlic bean soup with a hunk of bread.  Also a stop outside of the Karouine university and mosque, located inside the medina as well, which was founded in the mid-9^th century, and is still operating today as an academic and religious education center.  It was eye-opening to see the dynamics of this city, so old and yet modern in parts, the people so tough and jaded, making a day of exploring a run to preserve your sanity.  As with every trip I’ve been on so far, it’s made me look at Rabat in a new light.  I’m spending this weekend not travelling, and I’m realizing again how nice it is to be able to walk down familiar streets, seeing the same shopkeepers, going to the café where the owner knows us and will talk to us about where we’ve been in Morocco or how we find the Arabic language.  Rabat is such a balanced city, small for a capital city in my opinion and kind of sleepy, especially when compared to bustling, high-rise Casa.  But it’s a place where I can carry out my life, not the same as home in America of course, but in a way that makes sense here. 

Fez at night: fountain and MacDo

Palace at Fez

Faissi soup in the medina

Looking into Karaouine.

Catch-up: hammam, wedding, Rabat, etc

Monday after our weekend in the dusty mountains, we decided to go to the hammam, the traditional public bath house, to get the layers of dirt scrubbed off of us.  Going to the hammam was something I had wanted to do since I came here, even though I was a little uncomfortable at first with the idea of bathing in front of other people.  But, we're all girls here, etc etc, and to be honest by that time I was so grimy that I just didn't care (in general, our level of hygene has diminished, maybe to 2 or 3 showers a week, but it's better that way.  Gas is expensive, and people really don't need to shower every day!  It's not like we're going to the gym all the time or anything, clearly).  Anyways, we went to a hammam in the medina, and on our way we bought a "kiis", a little scrubby mitt that you use in the hammam, and a small towel-type mat thing to sit on.  Once we got into the hammam, we bought this special henna soap and paid our 9 dirham to get in, and we went into the changing room.  Then, you fill up buckets of water, and basically took a bucket shower in a big, warm room.  We went into the next room, which was really hot, and proceeded to get scrubbed down by the female attendant.  She flipped me over like a dead fish and scrubbed layers of skin and dirt off that I didn't even know I had; I knew I was dirty, but I didn't think it was that bad!  I came out about 3 shades lighter, literally.  It was maybe the most relaxing feeling though, laying on the hot floor getting years of grime scrubbed off of me. 

Our bathing timing was strategic (as always), because that night we had a mock wedding at the program building.  There was live music and a woman doing henna, and the bride and groom (kids from the program) wore traditional dress, and were carried in turn on this litter by 4 men.  There were Moroccan students there, too, and there was a lot of dancing and singing involved.  We all had to wear traditional clothes, so Nora and I borrowed Rihab's djellabas and Rachida's jewelry.  It was so much fun, and everyone had a great time.

 Musicians in Room 2,3 of AMIDEAST for the mock wedding.

Dancing

 Bryce and Sara, the happy couple!

 Sara in the traditional bridal costume and litter

Bryce

 Nora and I in our borrowed djellabas

With Doha, our wonderful program manager/travel advisor/third mother 

Henna!

We spent the weekend in Rabat to sleep and catch up on work, with midterms coming up as well as our fall break week, during which Nora and I are travelling to Senegal to visit some friends from school.  After our MSA class Friday morning, we took the train to Casablanca in order to get vaccinations for our trip, met some friends for lunch, and then took the train back to Rabat... all in a day's work.  Over the weekend we went to a movie (called "The Dealer" in English, but filmed in Arabic/Ukranian...), went to a cafe/restaurant with live African music at night, and also found an American softball game on Sunday morning where our team (AMIDEAST) was playing.  There is an American primary school in Rabat, with a YMCA-esque complex in the back, complete with a basketball court, baseball diamond, lap pool, and field for soccer/etc.  It was kind of like being in a limbo land, especially because almost everyone playing was American, with American accents and American mannerisms.  I cheered in the dugout with another girl and one of the program directors at AMIDEAST, a fantastic gay Scottish man dressed in an orange button down shirt with matching sneakers.  In between asking us to explain the game, he would shout "Smashing!!" or "Bloody hell!!" alternately, often cheering for the other team (which he attributed to Scotland's history of losing at games)-- no pun intended. 

The weather is getting considerably colder here, although the phrase "cold country with a hot sun" still holds true in the afternoon.  It's rained a few times, but according to Moroccans it's not until November that it really starts raining, and once it starts it doesn't stop.  I admit, I miss the New England fall, even the DC fall... there's nothing like that. 

In addition to classes, our program hosts various speakers-- one from the US State Department last week and three young people from the Peace Corps this week-- and offers the opportunity to teach English at a youth association once a week.  I went with a group of students to the association a few days ago, after planning a first lesson for beginners, only to find that we weren't teaching but were having a meeting with the board of directors of the association (wafae).  Us four American girls walk into a room of about eight middle aged Moroccan men, who proceed to serve us tea and traditional corn bread.  We discussed, mostly in French, how we were going to conduct our classes, and how many of us would be teaching each class.  There are roughly 1,000 children aged 10-15 at the wafae and as we're teaching classes of 40 maximum, only about 80 can attend.  According to the director, "only the best" get to go.  We are teaching for free, and these students are competing fiercely for a spot in the class.  This meeting brought to light the situation of kids here, and the priorities they have/the paths they see fit to take to improve their lives.  Our taxi driver on the way home commended us on "helping the Moroccans", a statement I found a bit difficult to handle.  There's a fine line between giving people the skills the want and need to move around in the world and imposing our culture/our Americanism upon people. 

Today alone was unordinally packed with extra lectures and events; in my Francophone literature class, Abdelfatah Kilito (the author of the book Dites-Moi le Songe which we read) came to speak with us. He spoke slowly and passionately first about another book he has written, roughly translated as Don't Speak my Language, on the idea of language and identity.  This is huge in Morocco, where French holds strong colonial connotations but has been around for so long that it is enmeshed in the rapid Darija street speak.  It was a really unique experience to have time to discuss Kilito's literature with him.  Immediately after that, we went to visit the LDDF, La League Democratique pour les Droites des Femmes, for our women's studies class.  We didn't have much time here, but we were shown a presentation on the work of this organization to promote women's rights and empower female victims of conjugal violence in Rabat and the surrounding cities.  The organization reaches out to youths too, both male and female, to spread awareness about various topics related to women's rights and the position of women in society.

Next post: Fez/Meknes with AMIDEAST, and Senegal/Madrid!

The Festival that Wasn't

Two weekends ago, we decided to do some interactive learning and visit the small town of Imilchil for the annual Berber marriage festival which we had been studying in sociology.  We had reserved a room in a "hotel" in Rich, another emall town about 3 by bus from Imilchil. Both towns are in the Middle Atlas Mountains, and both are very rural and difficult to get to.  Five American girls and our Moroccan friend Amin, we boarded the night bus at 8:30 pm on Friday.  Amin, being a Moroccan, could not understand our desire to go there-- neither could our brother, who did not even know of the festival.  It's interesting to see how the differences between Berber culture and Moroccan culture appear. 

Night bus to Rich

The night bus was over-crowded, and I was lucky to get a seat and not have to sit/sleep on the floor like some people did.  I ended up sitting next to a man who, upon establishing that I speak a little Arabic and he spoke a little English, asked me The Big Question: "Do you believe in God?"  Just like that, like "Do you think it's cold outside?"  That's just the thing: in America religion is more of a touchy subject, up there with politics and sex as not-appropriate-dinner-conversation.  Maybe because we were going to be stuck on the bus for the night, or maybe because it's Morocco, but I ended up talking with this man, Abdulhuk, for the majority of the ride, in between trying to sleep and our far too frequent stops at food stands on the side of the road.  He was pretty open minded, when I could get a word into his energetic, passionate, and insistent ramblings about the nonsensicality of the Cross of Christianity and the intelligence of the Jews who, alas, had done something wrong in the eyes of God.  As someone who is not strictly religious and doesn't adhere to a doctrine per se, I found everything he said very interesting.  Except, maybe, the last part before I played the exhaustion card: Abdulhuk: "Do you pray?" Me: "No." Abdulhuk: "Do you give alms to the poor?" Me: "Yes, sometimes." Abdulhuk: "Ok well yes. Inshallah we will meet again in Paradise."  What a guy.

Sleepy town of Rich at our arrival at 6am

I awoke as we were pulling into Rich, around 6am.  The landscape was breath-takingly beautiful at dawn, just vast expanses of dusty plains and mountains in the distance dotted with trees, and the lone paved road stretching on.  After checking into our hotel rooms, experiencing the turkish toilets (oh, yes.) and freshening up (as much as possible, understandably), we went to a cafe and had some strong, far too sugary espresso.  Amine then proceeded to make friends with every other man in the vacinity (as is the Moroccan way, for a man, anyways), including a driver who offered to take us to Imilchil, even though he'd never been there.  We squeezed into the van, Emily in the trunk, and started our drive through the mountains.  It was, once again, undescribably beautiful.  Our driver began stopping roughly every 20 minutes at little apple farmer tents on the side of the road, making friends and talking with the farmers and leaving with a few apples, which were thrown into the trunk of the van along with Emily.  Johhny Appleseed pulled over by the side of a river so we could  wash and eat the apples and drink the fresh mountain-river water.  I can only attempt to describe the colors of the mountains there, ribbons of sediment undulating for miles and miles-- kilometres and kilometres-- with little towns nestled at the base of mountains.

Eating apples in the Atlas

الله ، الوطن ، الملك

God, Homeland, King

Imilchil-- no festival in sight

 Berber souk

We finally arrived in Imilchil 4 hours later, found a restaurant with Berber tajines (characterized by potatoes, olives, and other vegetables stewed over chicken or beef), and were told by Amine that we would not be seeing the marriage festival, afterall.  At that point, all we could do was laugh, and finish our tea and tajines.  Turns out, the music and activity happens at night, but we had been driving all night and day and would be driving all the next day too, so we (Amine) decided to turn back early.  We went to the huge marriage festival souk nearby and walked around for a bit-- being a Berber souk it was different from those we're used to in Rabat and elsewhere, it was much, much larger and with lots of silver and Berber rugs.  After only half an hour of walking around, we headed back to Rich.  Of course, our van got a flat tire and we pulled over on the side of the road (read: ravine, as we were driving through the Middle Atlas Mountains).  Us girls got out of the car, laughing, and wandered around the rocks and the dried up river, because honestly what were we going to do?  A truckload of Berbers saved the day-- careening around the mountianside, they stopped up ahead of us a little and got out of their van, climbing down from the little pen-like structure on top of the van.  Too many cooks in the kitchen-- or Berbers in the van-- so some of them started talking to us in some kind of sign-language, which we eventually understood to mean they wanted us to take their picture.  They fixed the tire somehow and drove away, and we went home to Rich.

Berber men save the day.

We got on the bus the next morning with no troubles, heading out on the 8 hour return trip to Rabat.  On the whole, uneventful, except for Mustapha the electrician.  My friend Meera was sitting in the aisle seat, sleeping with her legs crossed, and her skirt had risen just above her knee.  Mustapha was sitting on a stool in the aisle of the bus (too crowded, but meshi mushkil (no problem)), and all of a sudden he reached over and pulled her skirt over her leg to cover it.  She woke up, startled, and he said in Darija, "I am Muslim", with a shrug of his shoulders.  Shuma bazaaaaf.  That's pretty much the attitude of men here as far as I've seen, especially as you get into the poorer areas of the city, or the more rural areas of the country.  I try to air on the safe side, which means being uncomfortably layered always.  The rest of the ride, he attempted to talk to us, but we weren't really in the mood.  Got back home, did some homework, called it a weekend. 

View from the top

Something to note: originally, Amine was not coming with us on this trip, and once he decided to come, we did some things differently from how we had planned.  As helpful as it was in terms of navigating prices and directions, we didn't stay in Imilchil because he was tired, and he had made an agreement with the driver to get back to Rich at a certain time.  It goes back to the gender issue, the pros and cons of having a man with you (not necessary at all times).  Oh well, guess we'll have to come back for the festival next year :-)