The past few days with the family have been great! The only thing is that I need to get over this hump of not understanding them. I want this immersion to work immediately! I love the girl Kawtar she is super nice but it is still really difficult with me to communicate with the parents. Even if I can figure out how to say something or ask a question the chances of me being able to understand their response are slim to none. A few days ago they had a bunch of family over for tea (including every pastry and type of bread available in Morocco). There were 2 girls around my age and one of them spoke some English (she actually lives in Germany now) so it was cool to actually be able to communicate with her. They also have a little baby cousin named Melka who was THE MOST ADORBALE CHILD EVER! She loved me and kept jumping on my and talking to me (even though I couldn’t understand a word she said) but the family was enjoying watching me play with her. They laughed every time she said something to me because they knew that I actually had no idea what she was saying. That evening my family gave me an Arabic name – Sumilla! Sometimes they call me that now though and I do not respond because I usually think they are just saying something in Arabic that I do not understand.

Yesterday was my first day of classes, but all I had was Arabic. I went running up and down the streets of Morocco after class, which was neat, and then I came home and had lunch with my family. The mom is an AMAZING cook. We have gourmet meals for lunch and dinner every night (which I think is tradition in Morocco) but I swear my host mom is one of the better cooks. After lunch they usually all watch tv and hang out for a little while. Today after Arabic I came home again for lunch but I had to go back at 4:30 for my “Politics of North Africa” class. I really like the professor (he reminds me a lot of my dad and I feel like they would be friends). He is a journalist now in Morocco but he spent a couple years in Washington, D.C. working for the state house and now is the editor of a journal in Morocco that focuses on politics in the region. Although there is a TON of reading for the course I think it will be really interesting and I am excited about it. I still have two more courses that I haven’t had yet but I will not have them until next week because tomorrow at 8 am I am going to the Sahara!!! We have a fun 4 days planned and I will definitely be blogging about my adventure when I return to Rabat on Sunday.

I am officially in love with Rabat. Not only are the people welcoming and hospitable but also the atmosphere is really growing on me. As I did my 30-minute walk home from class today through the Medina I started to recognize things and really feel at home. Walking through the Medina in Rabat is a truly unique experience. The colors of the clothes hanging from the sides of “stores”, the lights at night, the men preparing fish on a table, the butchers, the leather jackets and purses hanging from every which way and all of the people around you (mostly women dressed in jellabas, wearing head scarves and men standing around chatting) make Rabat so special. It is nothing like walking down the streets of Needham, Massachusetts and I’m always baffled when I take a step back and remember that this is real, everyday life for so many people. The walk to and from class everyday gives me a chance to really fit in here and not look like just another American tourist. It helps remind me that I am not simply on vacation, but that I live here now, too.