I don't have internet at my house so I write on a word doc at night and when I have a little bit of time at school I will post what I can:

9/4/10

Today was a long day. We got up at 7:30, ate a traditional Moroccan breakfast (bread, bread and more bread- I’m on carbo overload.), and then went to the ALIF center where we started learning Arabic. We had 2 teachers who were great. It was 4 straight hours of Arabic with only a 10 minute break in between so I was exausted when it ended. I do feel like I have already learned a lot though and I am excited to be able to practice with my host families. After that we had another orientation in the afternoon and then were picked up by our host families.

Tonight is my first night at the house in Fez (where I will be staying for a little over a week). The father (Jamal) picked up my roommate Taylor and I at our riad at 5:00. We had to walk for almost ½ mile to get to his apartment. It was way too hot and of course I had too many bags to carry myself (as did my roommate) but unfortunately our host father got into a car accident and was using a walker.. so we struggled all the way to the apt and then up the 4 flights of stairs..quite an adventure. Our host father is very nice, he speaks just a little English though. His wife, Fadwa speaks only Arabic so we haven’t really been able to communicate with her yet. They have two boys, Mohammed is 7 and Ziad is 3. They are adorable and Mohammed was helping me with my Arabic this afternoon. For dinner, we had 2 long baguettes, croissants, some type of Moroccan soup, dates, some other type of dried fruit (figs?) with sesame seeds on them.. some spice that was kinda like cinnamon (that they literally ate spoonfuls of) and these pancake type things. They also have a different kind of orange juice that I do not really like and milk already poured…which I also don’t like. I’m not really accustomed to the food yet and I am a little picky so it’s been difficult but I’m trying here. Oh and I can’t drink the water in Fez so I literally just came back to my room and chugged a bottle (I didn’t know if it was rude to bring it to the table because it is the big bottles like in Israel). Our room is really small, and I have 3 bags to unpack so I’m not really sure where all of that is going to go.

This place is very different in so many ways and will take so much getting used to. The bathroom here is small, there is no shower curtain, and the whole family shares it. I just showered and since there was no curtain, got water all over the floor. They also use just the shower head with no place to hold it up..so you have to hold it while you are washing yourself..it is quite the process and will take a while before I am accustomed to it.

Hopefully things will get better here; I’m a little homesick tonight being at a house and not being able to communicate with them at all.. but I know it takes time. I really think that by the end of my 30 hours of CMA during this orientation I will be okay its just hard when all I know how to say right now is “Hi, my name’s Becca. I am American. I am from Boston. How are you? I am good. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10” I am so tired and still jet lagged so I am heading to bed soon… but I will update more tomorrow and hopefully have a better time with the family to share.


9/5/10

This morning we woke up to a plentiful breakfast consisting of bread, bread and more bread. Then we took a taxi to our center and started our second day of Arabic. I am picking up Arabic pretty fast and really enjoying it!! After our four hours of Arabic were up we took a brief lunch break. My family made me a Tagine sandwich (typical chicken, vegetable stew thing on a baguette). Then we went on a tour of the Fez medina with a Moroccan guide, which was really cool. He told us it is the biggest Medina in the world (and after 3 hours of walking through it I believed him!) A medina is kind of like a flea market but this flea market was intertwining streets and NEVER ENDING (so it seems). We saw some really cool places. We went into the back of a place that makes the traditional Muslim head scarves and saw men making them on the looms. We all got to try them on and take pictures. We also went to the biggest tannery in the Medina, which was huge. It had tons of bags, shoes and other things made of leather. We went into the back and looked out of a window to see the men working at the tannery below us and got to see how the leather is made. The tour was cool but I had my laptop with me (because we don’t have internet at the house I was hoping to have time to use it at our school..but I didn’t) and was using a shoulder bag so after 3 hours of walking through the Medina it’d be an understatement to say I was struggling. We finally made it back to our house and were exhausted.

Today was better with the family. The little boys are adorable and were climbing all over me and playing with me in my room for a while. The older one was helping me practice my Arabic and the younger one is just adorable. I try to use my Arabic with the father at dinner but I think he is trying to practice his English cause he always responds to me in English. I also am getting better at taking showers here. I finally successfully showered today without getting water everywhere! Oh and I definitely appreciate the fact that they have a western toilet here at my house because I had my first experience with an eastern toilet today… and it was dreadful. Basically an eastern toilet consists of a hole and in the ground. And that is it. It was bad.