Mint Tea and Directions across town

So the computer at my host familys house does not let me post blogs...so I am just going to keep a journal and post everythiong once a week.

This weekend I went to Marrakesh with the other interns in the Projects Abroad program. It was very touristy but really an amazing city of markets, snake charmers, palace ruins, mosques, and orange juice stands where you can get TRULY fresh squeezed juice for less than 50 cents. The funniest part of the weekend was when I went with two of the other interns, Pete and Tom, to one of the gardens that was a decent walk from the town center, Djemma el Fna. We wanted to make sure we were going the right way so I asked a police officer in French if we should just keep going straight to get there. The police officer smiled at me and proceeded to explain the directions to Pete in French...apparently women are not capable of understanding complicated things like that....funny thing is, Pete has not taken as much French as I have, so the diirections kind of got lost in translation...

I have been so impressed by the difference in the workload between the men and the women here. The men work all day and come home to relax. The women work all day and come home to , well, work. My host mom gets up, makes breakfast for the three international students and family, cleans, and goes to work. She comes home to help with lunch and then doesnt get back from work until 7 or so at night. She cleans, does laundry, cooks, and helps us with language work until 11 or midnight, and then goes to bed in time to do it all over again a few short hours later.

You know how inviting someone out for coffee or a drink at home is kind of a personal/social invitation? Like, the mailman probably wouldnt invite you out for coffee? Thats not really the case here. Once youve met someone, they are likely to invite you for mint tea at some point. I have been invited by several people...young and old, women and men...within 5 or 10 minutes of meeting them. Its just so friendly....and the tea is amazing. Speaking of friendly, when you shake someones hand here it is polite to touch your heart afterward as a gesture of caring or kindness. I want to do it too but I just feel so silly....

There are actually not too many hardships living in Morocco compared with other places....I have consistently hot water, a nice classroom, lots of good food with enough Coke and french fries thrown in not to miss home, and a washing machine to boot. The only thing I would kill for right now is a couple of good dry erase markers. The ones here dont work well at all so writing vocab words on the board is pretty tricky. Today I resorted to notebook paper and a blue highlmighter. Other than that I lovvvvvvvvveeee my English class. It is really my favorite age and level...like 16-25 year olds who have mostly had a year or two of English. No time gets wasted trying to keep control of the class, everyone knows enough to conduct the class in English, but everyone has a basic enough level that you can make obvious improvements in a short time. I get picked up and dropped off at my taxi stop, and I have a computer for making copies.

The dinner schedule is so crazy for me though, because it does not occur at any hour that could possible be considered normal at home. 10pm dinner would be super early...usually it is more like 11 or so. Its okay though, since there is food around at other times. I would never be able to wait that long without eating in the afternoon.

OH I did acquire a free souvenir in Marrakesh. The store owner of this little jewelry/pottery shop gave me his nuber and my choice of free necklace. I kept the necklace. He told me he wanted to marry me.....I was actually a little insulted that I only got a free nacklace along with the proposal. A friend of mine here got offered 35,000 camels. I mean, seriously...A necklace versus 35,000 camels? Oh well...at least I actually got the necklace without accepting the proposal....

So bathing. As scooping warm water over yourself from a large bucket does not necessarily promote an extraordinarily clean and fresh feeling, a lot of people here go to hammams, or public bath houses. You bring this strange black scrub stuff made from olive oil and you pay a woman to scrub you super clean in a sauna like atmosphere. At least I think thats how it goes. I have not gone yet, for two reasons. One, black globs to not generally make me feel clean. Two, a naked woman scrubbing me clean does not sound like a particularly appealing way to rid myself of grime. The girls here that have gone have raved about it, but I still dont know if I will be making an appearance. I think I might stick to my buckets of water.

What else? I think that was the most important stuff that I have been thinking about. The other Projects Abroad interns are a lot of fun...Tom, Pete, Soussan and Janice are English, Laura is Canadian, Amandine is French, and Drew, Helen, and I are from the US. A few people are leaving Morocco soon, but I think there are a bunch more arriving as well. We played a version of Kings on the terrace of our hotel overlooking the main plaza on Saturday night and indulged in a night -actually a weekend- of English speaking.

Okay well that is it for now-thanks for all the emails/posts/messages...hope everyone else is having a great summer as well!

PS Did you see? I have questions and exclamations in this post!!! I am getting good at this!