Last night our whole program went to a café called “Café Clock” to meet with Moroccan university students. At first it was kind of awkward after we all introduced our selves but then we started talking about stereotypes and politics and our different lifestyles and I found out some really interesting things. I talked a lot with this one girl named Sansous who was getting her masters in English and Gender Studies. She was telling me that she is one of a minority of women in Morocco that do not wear the veil. She said because she is more educated and modern she can make more of an informed decision, whereas those who are less educated/poor just wear the jellaba’s and the veil out of tradition without really understanding the roots or the religious background. She aspires to go to Boston University to continue studying. She was really nice and already friended me on facebook! It was a great experience and I hope we will get to have more experiences like that one.

Today we had our first Arabic quiz! I think I did well; I actually really enjoy learning Arabic, and I have started to use it with taxi drivers, store clerks, etc. Today after class a few girls and I went into the Medina to buy jellaba’s. I got to practice my Arabic and could even tell them what I wanted, ask how much it cost, bargain it down the price I wanted, and thank them afterwards – I’d say that’s pretty good! I got a beautiful (“zweena” in Arabic) pink jellaba with gold embroidery for 70 dirham (which is around 7 or 8 dollars!) Everything is super cheap here, we take a taxi every morning to class and it is 7 dh each way (which comes out to be less than one dollar.) I also have only been drinking bottled water because I was told that the water in the Fez medina would definitely give me a stomach ache but a 1.5 liter bottle (very big – “kbhira”) is only “chamsa dirham” (5 dh.. aka like 50 cents).

Yesterday we had a lecture on Islam and today we had one about the linguistic situation in Morocco. They were both really interesting and helped give a better understanding of the Moroccan people and families.