Ana Fee medina Rabat

Yea that is the extent of my amazing Arabic skills. I think the title says I am in the city of Rabat. That part should be in quotqtions but I cant figure out how to do quotes or apostrophes on this keyboard. The keys are also in different places...so if you see a Q out of place just mentally put an A there.

so now when I try to do a capital s it keeps rebooting...just dont mind the grammar until i get a better hang of this. Here is what I wrote on sunday after I arrived at about minight the night before...

well, touristing came to an abrupt end today when i got off the plane in casablanca and i wasnt sure what to say to the customs officer when i handed him my passport. hello, since im from the Us and english is kind of universal for traveling3 fyi three is going to mean question mark for now or hola, since i had just come from spain3 or bonsoir, since they speak a lot of french here3 or just say nothing3 i decided an attempt at arabic was out of the question.

saad, the projects abroad director, picked me up at the airport and we weeded our way through a mess of people waiting for other passengrs with signs in a variety of languages. i was immediately impressed by saads understanding of a travelers needs. he offered ne water; grabbed one of my packs and we headed to meet the driver.

it was too dark to see much on the ride from casablanca to rabat, so i just took advantage of the time to ask saad 1001 questions. what are the names of the host family3 how far a walk is the school3 is it safe to talk to people on the street3 are short sleeves ever okay3

i immediately felt like a helpless puppy dog once we met my host mom and brother and people started to jabber away in arabic. we followed them back from our meeting point to their house, a short series of twisting narrow alleys. i didnt even try to look like i knew what i was doing. the hiking pack made that kind of impossible.

so now i know where the bathroom is; how to work the shower, which cushions to use to block light into my windows, and how to say good night in arabic. all in all, not bad for my first day. with that ...laila saeeda.




okay back to the present. so my host family is like, completely amazing. they actually have two kids my age, sahim ..shes 25...and khalid..hes 24...plus two other international students my age..amandine from france...20...and laura from the Us ...20..so its perfect. the mom is ridiculously cool, and the whole family thinks that twe should eat nonstop...i have to asure them that i doooo like the food but it is not normal to consume 45671867 lbs of bread in one sitting. on sunday we had couscous with all these colorfum cooked vegetables..it wasnt the food that was funny though, it was the fact that it got tossed in one gigantic serving bowl and laid out on the coffe table. we all sat down on the kitchen benches and i was just about to ask hohw one goes about consuming it when the grandma just reached her hand straight into the middle, wiggled out a piece of meat, and flung it towrd my side of the bowl. i was too amused to be disgusted. then amandine said ...allez cest parti and everyone just started reaching in...hahaha. i can just imagine that in the dhall...one big bowl of frozen yogurt...grab a spoon and dig n, right3 after all, it gets less stuff dirty.

so yesterday i went to introduce myself to my english class and was ridiculously impressed by their english. i was expecting 10 year olds who could barely say thei names and instead i got 20 somethings who , in general, speak quite well. we set up a teaching schedule and they all seemed really eager to protect me and help me find my way...i think its a morrocan guy thing, because there is only yone girl in my class. they all offered to meet me at the taxi stop and walk me to the class so that i was not walking through a bad area by myself. im really excited about starting the class tomorrow, but i am not quite sure what i want to teach uyet...ill have to do that tonight.