Ba'Slama

I'm not ready to say ba'slama yet. But I guess I have to.

I need to come back here. It's on my list.

For now we took our final exam this morning in our Media in the Muslim World class, and Becca and I are just now wrapping up our visual appendix for our script, which we finished about thirty minutes ago.

We're exhausted and sad to leave. Sad to leave a place we've come to love so much.

I need to learn Arabic, and I need to graduate and I need to be a better visual story teller and I need to learn how to conduct anthropological research and I need to go to Spain, I need to keep traveling, flying walking taking trains taking boats and taking photos. Because at the end of these journeys that I make from time to time I feel whole. This trip was exactly what I'm meant to do. I'm a story teller and I'm just starting to learn how to do it. I'm fascinated by people, I'm fascinated by culture and language and clothes and food and geography, and I never ever want to stop learning from everyone around me.

More than even my time in Nepal I have really realized in the past four weeks how isolated we are as Americans. Home will always be home, and number one in my heart, but people are not the same everywhere and I think the best way to spend my life will be to talk to all the people, to learn from them, to photograph them, and to tell their stories, so that we can all learn from each other.

See you soon America!

(Next stop is most likely Spain so stay posted for a new blog in the coming months!)

Wrapping it Up, and Not Enough

Today Becca and I woke up super early before class to head to the souks (market) and buy a zillion last minute gifts. So early in fact that no one else was awake, including the shop owners themselves. We sat on a bench and watched a man nail his car front and back on the curbs approximately 7 times in the process of attempting to parallel park. After, shopping was a success but left us feeling extremely, extremely poor. We raced home in time to grab our laptops and notebooks and speed walk to class. Class was class. Slow. Kind of boring today, though we did get to talk about Detroit and Dearborn which no worries I gleamed while it happened and explained triumphantly that my sister works there! When my professor asked if she ever brought home any goodies I was proud to say Hijabs and Baklava appropriately. 

We made it home, went through all of our gifts and I hate to say it but I started packing. I chose my last four outfits that I would wear in this magnificent country and started to shove the rest in every nook and cranny. We got shawarma for dinner, as we nearly do every night, and then have worked on our documentary script the rest of the night until I started to sleep answer Becca's questions. We both showered and are off to sleep early because we have class in the morning, along with a long day of scriptwriting and reading and studying for our other final on Friday. We are all completely exhausted here. At our wits end. 

Amongst that though, Becca and I have already had the discussion about coming back to Morocco after graduation and further working on this project. We have come so far integrating ourselves into this community, making bizarre connections with people I never dreamed of meeting. This project falls so perfectly into a realm of anthropological research and journalistic coverage that I don't know how I could resist coming back. 

Four weeks was not enough. I'm just now learning the money and the languages and my way around. There are streets in every direction I still haven't explored. 

Four weeks is barely enough time for you to taste a culture, but I did. I came, I came to Morocco with no clue what it would be like, no expectations in mind. It's Arab but it's Africa but Islam but Europe but Spain but the ocean but hijabs and Arabic but French? But wait what? 

I had no clue what an amazing complex culture I was stepping into. This place is bizarre with strange cultures and traditions and practices and beautiful wonderful people and camels and cows and goats, beaches and soccer, and trams fancier than I've ever seen, busses and taxis and petit taxis. Souks and cats everywhere. Cats. On cats on cats. Graveyards and rituals and women in strange red snuggies with puppies on them. Yala shabeb. Gelabas that are not to be confused with KKK robes and women in white when they are in mourning, but only for four months and ten days. Shawafas. Le bes. Bread. Cats and Tagine and Cous Cous, cucumbers and juice and paninis and fries and paninis and pizza and paninis and fries and paninis. Fromage. Weird Fromage. Mint tea, everyday all day in small glasses out of a silver tea pit who's handle is so hot you are guaranteed 1st degree burns if you accidentally touch it. Humdullah. Bread. Yala. Cats and the ocean and graveyards. Bus rides and markets and medinas and mosques and cookies and soccer and tagine and Cous Cous. Shawarma. Shoukran. Fiqh. Clementines until you're itchy, well at least until I'm itchy. French and Arabic combined into one. Dirija. Bread. Friends on the street. Bread and eggs. Leather shops that smell like death. Yala shabeb. Shawafas. Tight winding streets of the Fez Medina. Women in Nikabs and Burqas and Hijabs and Tight jeans, and tight dresses, dyed hair flowing with mounds of make up. Arabic TV, soap operas. Yala. A red flag with a green star. Shawafas. Giant posters of the King wherever you go. Literally wherever. Every single store, shop, library, office, school, etc. Cats. Paninis. Henna. Mint tea. Cats. Bread. Yala shabeb. Shawafas. Fiqh. Shoukran. Fez. Meknés. Casablanca. Marrakech. Tangier. Chef Chaouen. Asilah. Rabat. Morocco.

Four weeks is barely enough.

Tangier and the Beginning of the End

It is bizarre how quickly four weeks in a foreign country can fly by. With two classes, a documentary script project, learning a language or two and a culture and where to find food and how to get a taxi and how to ride a tram and which alleys of the streets have the cheapest items and which are a little sketchy and how to get to the beach and, figuring out how to stay warm in a freezing country where heat isn't a thing, bus rides on bus rides on bus rides, desperately searching for internet and wall outlets to charge things and downloading and uploading photos and editing and transcribing and desperately searching for bathrooms and toilet papers or something that will at least serve its purpose and lions and tigers and bears ...  we've been sort of busy the past month.

I've tried to blog. I've tried. Constantly being on the road and having wayyyy too much to do has been a challenge but here is my attempt to catch you up.

This weekend we went to Chef Chaun, which can be spelled a zillion different ways. Here is what I have to say about it. You. Have. To. Go. ... No really, you have to. You're entire life will change the moment you see those blue doorways in front of your eyes. I will try to post photos before I go home. Everything is blue. It is hilly and curvey and twisty and turvey by far the most beautiful place I've ever been. Cats and children and old women and fruit and scarves and rugs and kids playing soccer and Moroccan tea and everything in between. We only got to stay for one night and leaving was awful. If I ever make it back to Morocco, which I plan on doing. I will most definitely make time in my travels to stop in Chef Chaun again.

Next we headed to Tangier. In Tangier, from the coast, you can see Spain. I'm not kidding, at all. Spain. Like Spain. It is a 37 minute ferry ride from Tangier to Spain, but we weren't allowed to make the journey. From my bed I could sit up and no joke see Spain out the window. Out hotel was right across the street from the beach. For the day we drove to Assilah and toured the market and then Becca and I bought a soccer ball and brought it to the beach to play with everyone. We had a really great day. It was beautiful also.

We went back to Tangier and hung out our last night and morning. Becca and I worked on our project a lot and had the comfiest beds in the world. 

We took a long bus ride home and last night. Becca had bought a movie on iTunes so we ordered Pizza Hut and we watched a movie and passed out.

So that's my update. Now we're working on starting our script this week and doing some initial packing along with final shopping a long with studying for finals. Yikes.

Ba'Slama

Chef Chaouen and Beyond...

So today we took our lovely bus to the city of Chef Chaouen. Wifi doesn't work in our rooms and the lobby is a little too smokey for my asthma to handle BUT- I promise to post photos from this remarkable place in a few days! Wifi will be harder to come by this weekend as we travel around near Tangier. I'll be sure to blog about it all, because this is by far the most beautiful city I have ever set foot in in my entire life. On that note, 2015 is off to a great start here in Morocco! Happy New Year everyone! Baslama!