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| The day of our hike, it really felt like Africa |
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| Beautiful view from the top of Lexus |
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| Crepe making! I took lots of notes and intend to give them a try soon! |
The title pretty
much sums up how my mind is feeling right now after having the most
memorable and wonderful week of my life and while I know the future will bring other
memorable moments, graduation, career, marriage etc… there is something
incredibly special about your first experience you acknowledge may impact the course of your life. If you haven´t guessed by now, I spent this
week in Morocco and can say I didn´t visit the typical touristy destinations,
not even Marrakesh, Rabat or Casablanca, I did not stay in the prettiest hotels
or meet known, influential persons of the cities, but I am proud to say I saw
Morocco through the eyes of the Moroccan people and I met many inspiring people
who live lives as ordinary people but have astonishing ambitions and
courage. My eyes were opened to the
beauty of the Arab/Muslim culture, to a fulfilling life of family and simplicity,
the overwhelming views of the mountains in Morocco, how loving and open minded the people
are and how I know I cannot live the rest of my life without immersing myself
more into this amazing culture and country.
Friday was a whirlwind of emotions: I was shocked by how sad I was to leave this
country and felt as if I were leaving a place I’ve known much longer than five
days; my mind is stirring with ideas of schemes of travelling after college,
while at the same time trying not to be greedy about the world and being happy
with what I have; I was reminded about how lucky I am to have the support of my
parents and their encouragement to travel the world and discover firsthand how
the world turns and of course unfortunately I couldn’t stop thinking about how
sad I will be to leave the lifelong friends I have made in the program. Not only was the week full of cultural
adventures and an abundance of new and wonderful people, but it was a week of
bonding among these people I see every day and God reminded me how much I have
come to love them. We created memories
as if they were from a Rodgers and Hammerstein movie: we spent the night under the stars listening
to life/love stories of our school “mother,” Antonia (our academic director);
we sang and learned new songs on our bus ride; we climbed trees and got stuck
in the mud pits of the African country side; the girls jumped into bed with
Antonia one night and cuddled as she told us more stories of love and tragedy
in the Spanish Civil War; we danced and listened to traditional Arab music in
the country and happily spent time enjoying word games instead of entertainment
from an iPhone.
Our
excursion began at 7am Monday morning where we had our own private bus to take
us to Tarifa which is a border town where we caught the ferry to Tangier
Morocco. The instant we hit Malaga and
were able to see the ocean from the bus we all anxiously woke up and began
searching for a view of the mountains of Morocco which you can see from certain
parts of Spain. After a long awaited
arrival to Tarifa, which is a beautiful coastal town with many tourists, we
hopped on the ferry to head for Tangier.
While we only had one girl get sea sick and a few of us in the balcony
of the boat trying to maintain an environment of fresh air to avoid feeling
the sway of the waves, we finally docked in Tangier and were met by our guide for
the week, Abdel Salam. The instant we
stepped onto Moroccan soil our eyes were overfilled with new sights, women in
hijab, rickshaws, towering mountains and an overwhelming array of colors and
smells. Our guide put us in our private
bus for the week and we headed for food as well as a tour of a women’s co op aimed at taking women off the streets and teaching them life skills such as
weaving and cooking and sells their products as income for the center. Wow was the food amazing!!! I admit I was a little nervous about being in
a country where we couldn’t drink the water and I was told no fruits and
vegetables that were not well cooked.
But after seeing a bowl of beautiful lentil soup, I think we all ignored
the warnings read before and dug in. Our
lentil soup was accompanied by homemade whole wheat bread, organic vegetables
stuffed with cheese, rice and spices and refreshing fruit. Needless to say we were all fine and the
whole week, everyone luckily avoided any kind of “traveler’s issues.” After lunch and discussing a bit of the history
of Morocco’s monarchy and democracy we saw the women’s workspace and I was in
awe watching them use the machines of pre-19th century to make
beautiful scarves, blankets and rugs.
After walking around the city of Tangier and seeing a
typical Moroccan market place which included an array of live animal markets (even though I love eating chicken, I think I will hold off for a while after seeing an assembly line to the slaughter); there were fruits and vegetable galore and other types of vendors selling phones, shoes, clothing, computers and anything else you can think of. Tangier is a city of around 700,000 making it one of the larger cities of Morocco with quite modern areas, as well as very poor areas where you can see the typical dirt and slums that you probably imagine parts of Africa entail. Our next stop was the Cave of Hercules which legend has it Hercules found a resting place after finishing his twelve labors. The mouth of the cave forms
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| Heading for Tangier! |
an image of Africa and opens into the mouth of the Atlantic. Seeing the waves swell into the cave and crash onto the rocks, splashing us all inside was definitely one of the highlights of the sights we saw. I just remember standing there and telling myself I couldn't believe I was actually here in Africa!
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| Leaving Tarifa Spain |
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| Map of Africa |
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| Tangier Women's weaving Co- Op |
We were dragged from the Cave of Hercules where we had been playing the childish game of running from the crashing waves before they spilled over the tops of the rocks soaking us and headed for our camel experience. Everyone was so excited when Antonia told us that we had the chance to ride a camel because after all we were in Africa. So we came to a point overlooking the ocean and found our camels waiting. Honestly they are a lot dirtier with more slobber than you see in the movies which try to parallel them to a horse, they are far from a horse and getting on and off is much harder than movies show.
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| While they did slobber a good amount, they are cute creatures. |
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| Almost falling on my face trying to get off. |
Keep in mind this was all still our first day in Morocco, and we ended our introductory day in a town called Asilah where we spent the night. While I was incredibly tired the adrenaline was rushing from just the constant realization of being in Africa and after arriving at the hotel several of us took off for the streets to head for the ocean. We walked through the town of about 30,000 and wandered around the markets, listening to the fourth call to prayer for the day. Muslims pray five times a day and it all depends upon the sun, but usually they pray sometime around 4am, noon and seven in the evening along with two other times. Never in my life have I been in a city where I heard the call to prayer and I must say it was beautiful. Usually I am struck by the beauty of bells ringing from a Catholic church but the sound of this calling to the city was equally as mesmerizing when you see men and women heading for the mosque to pray. We walked to a beautiful lookout to watch the sunset and were bombarded with Moroccan boys offering to give us tours of the city and join them later that night for drinks. This is the culture however in Morocco and not all of the men/boys who follow you are creepy, but they're trying to make money from all the tourists in the country. After watching the sunset we headed for our hotel where we struggled to keep our eyes open through dinner. Morocco is two hours behind Spain, so while we were eating at 8 it really was 10 Spanish time and sitting on the floor to eat my dinner only tempted me more to curl under the table and fall asleep. Traditionally Moroccan's eat on the floor for their dinner but of course provide tables for tourists, however it was very uncomfortable sitting on a couch and hunching over to eat off a mini table, so I became traditional that night and just sat on the floor for comfort. The food was amazing however and only topped off my satisfaction of the day before going to bed.
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| Asilah at night |
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| The white town of Asilah |
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| My two closest friends in the program (Cecilia and Sara!) |
Tuesday morning we were up at nine to explore the city with our guide and take pictures of the famous murals of Asilah. Each year there is a town festival where artists come from all over to paint the walls of Asilah with the most beautiful paintings, most of them are abstract, some are happy, others sad, but what they all have in common are their exquisite colors!
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| Our school is creating a collage of each student in front of a mural. |
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| Almost all the doors are beautifully painted in yellow or blue. |
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| One mural of Asilah: many represent a political or social statement by the artists. |
After
discovering the murals of Asilah before the town woke up (they are
similar to Spaniards in that they go to bed very late and get up even
later) we headed for Lexus which is the site of old Roman ruins and
ventured on a hike up to see the amphitheater. While it was a rather
gray day, somehow the weather seemed to add to the ambiance of this old
city and we read poems in the site where the gladiators used to fight
the lions and Abdel Salam sang an Arabic poem. Once again the whole
experience was like a dream for me.
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| Lexus Ruins. |
After our hike we had lunch in the city of Larache where there is a large Spanish influence and I felt I was in Spain when we were served paella and seafood for lunch. Actually even in Spain I have never had more "alive" seafood than at this outdoor restaurant where lunch included paella, shrimp, some fish with their eyeballs in, calamari and several other unknown samples. It was all wonderful! Even though I was still full from breakfast which was an abundance of bread and fresh orange juice, I managed to devour everything in front of me. And before going further I have to say I absolutely adore Moroccan food and I hope that if you have not tried it, you find an authentic Moroccan restaurant and eat crepes, lentil soup and couscous. This summer my parents are going to have to learn to like it because I intend to practice until I master some of the most important dishes. Another luxury of the country is their abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables, which are mostly organic, and so every morning we were served freshly squeezed orange juice with crepes that only ten minutes ago came out of the oven.
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| Was a little nervous about eating this guy, but was brave and followed the lead of our teacher and gulped it all down. Can't say it tasted bad either. |
After our foggy morning we headed for our village experience where all we figured we were in for a surprise since the family lived in the mountains, isolated from most industry and the drive proved our my assumptions correct. However, the night in the moutains turned out to be a highlight of the week and although it was quite warm, the toilet included a hole in the ground, some of us slept only partially clothed because of the heat and we were unable to shower, we all enjoyed the experience immensely! The town is called Bellouta and we stayed with a family, a very large family, to see the rural lifestyle of Morocco which is a major part of their economic industry. Traveling to the village was unbelievable and it was like everything you see in the movies of what you assume Africa looks like. The bus wound through the dirt roads of the mountains while I watched shepherds in the field with their sheep, goats and cows accompanied by their watch dog; people traveling on donkeys transporting water to their homes and rickshaws of people passing by. While that might be a rather simplistic analysis of the landscape, the drive was the ultimate reality check for me at how different this world is from mine. When we arrived to a dirt road Abdel said we would walk the rest of the way and after two hours in a very hot bus, we gladly hopped off to walk. We were a bus full of school children, having pent up energy from the ride and immediately hoping off, climbing trees to get a view of the surroundings and Abdel placed us in a line across the road and as if in elementary P.E. class, and raced to the tree near the house. While the family only spoke French and Arabic, we communicated through the three Arabic words we learned (delicious-lazeez, hello-salaam, and thank you-shokran) and through smiles and gestures about how wonderful the food was or how beautiful their house was. This family is beginning to do Agri-Tourism which has only recently come about in this area of Morocco and in fact our program was the first to practice this experience with this village. As you can probably guess, this form of tourism consists of staying in a rural home and working with the family to experience the farming life in Morocco, but unfortunately the families participating in this project receive resistance from municipalities because of the feeling that foreigners are "invading" their land and don't quite see the benefits from this project. Most of the learning from this week was observation and being in such a close setting, this village stay was the perfect opportunity to see the relationship between men and women and city vs. rural life. The grandfather greeted us when we arrived but shortly after retired to his room where he remained during our stay because it is inappropriate for a traditional Muslim man to see young women not fully covered. The women worked almost the entire time we were there, cooking, cleaning and caring for the five little girls in the house, one of which was only 8 months old. Our first activity in the house was henna, which if you don't know is a tattoo that women paint on themselves during festivals such as marriage, childbirth, or death or just for cultural fun like we chose to. During our henna the women helped us reenact a marriage ceremony so we could see the traditional dress and hear the music of typical weddings. Needless to say this was quite funny seeing two of our students dressed in marriage attire and the entire household laughing at them as they were escorted by two of the little girls and two of our boys with drums and baskets on their head around the house. However, Abdel did teach us a wedding song which we then continued to sing everywhere we went and I'm sure will be stuck in my head for the next week or so. Our dinner in the house was more bread, with soup, sweet onions with raisin and rice and were all amazed by how much food these women had prepared for us and did our best to help serving and cleaning up. After dinner we listened to a little boy from the village play Arabic songs on his piano and Abdel accompany him on the drums; we played word games and Abdel told us several stories of Morocco and after the boys went to bed (although Abdel told us to go as well), the girls sat in the courtyard under the stars as Antonia told us her life story. Somehow we sat out there for two hours listening to her experience of adopting her daughter, her battle with breast cancer and how she funded the school we are all so happy to attend and while we were all so surprised at how honest she was with us, I think it was only natural to her to share these life experiences with us as we are still young and somewhat naive girls about the world. Needless to say I felt more Spanish sitting there looking at pictures of her children and asking her questions of her life since the American way of life is much more private than Spanish culture. Of course being girls, some went to bed with tears in their eyes as we all hugged Antonia goodnight and wondered what we were going to do when we have to leave and won't see her everyday.
Wednesday
morning, after waking up at 6:30 to watch the grandmother of the house
make crepes, we had the most wonderful breakfast, bread,
homemade jam and olive oil which gave us the energy to embark on a steep hike up to the
local school and then off to our pickup point to head to another town.
This hike only added to our fond country memories but unfortunately for
some put Morocco on a small "shit list" (literally).
Being a country of farmers there is bound to be a rather strong smell
in many places of manure and one has to be careful when walking
anywhere, especially dirt roads. We hiked up a very steep bluff to get
to the local school where it takes 30 minutes everyday for the children
to access, we saw a community oven, and a local well where women were
collecting water on their donkeys. Abdel, being a guide and native
Moroccan is a little more used to the local terrain and certainly enforces
the rule of just following the guide and not asking questions, I think
it humors him when tourists don't listen and get themselves into shit
(no pun intended ;) So we began walking down this slope heading for a
short cut across some fields and while dodging the mud, several people
decided to take their own route, not realizing that perhaps the mix of
cow manure and mud wasn't exactly stable underneath (also probably not realizing there was manure, but being half raised in the country on my grandparents farm, it wasn´t far from my mind). The next thing we
heard as we were walking along was a very girlish yelp and Chelsey
yelling for someone to help her... as she had literally sunk almost to
her knees in the mud. For a good 30 seconds we all stopped where we
were and laughed at her while she scolded us that it wasn't funny at
all! Also, of course she was one of the girls that decided she had to
wear a skirt and sandals in Morocco as Carrie Bradshaw had done in "Sex and
the City" the movie. We told her to start picking up her feet and walk but unfortunately she was
truly stuck in this mixture and half laughing and disgusted began
yelling that her shoes were broken and that we needed to stop laughing
and help her. So I walked to her trying not to sink in as well and one
of the boys valiantly went in after her to literally pull her leg out
while I held her hand and pulled. Abdel wasn't as pleased with her
decision to go her own route and after cleaning her legs off in a cow
trough Antonia took her back on the road while we continued to trek
through the cow fields. I cannot tell you how funny it must have been for the neighboring farmers to watch, they actually were on their porch simply watching this American mishap. Abdel was clearly irritated and fussing at us for not following him exactly as Antonia kicked into mother mode and stuck up for Chelsey. After walking along the highway to the only
congregation of buildings in sight, we regrouped with water and the bus
picked us up to take us to Chefchauen where Abdel had promised a very
nice hotel where we could immediately take showers.
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| View from the top of our hike. |
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| This is part of what we walked through |
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| Valiant Spencer got in the mud so none of us would fall in. |
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| Poor Chelsey, she gave us a good laugh. |
We were beyond happy to arrive in Chefchauen and see a beautiful hotel with hot water where there was little risk if we drank the water when preoccupied with how happy we were to shower and forgot to close our mouths, as I did. Chefchauen is the most beautiful city I have seen with the entire town painted white and blue, a natural spring from the mountains which runs to the town and children play while women wash clothes. It was picture perfect! That evening after our showers we had several university students come to our hotel and we split into small groups to have a tour of the city and had the chance to ask them about life in Morocco and cultural stereotype. My guide was a 17 year old girl studying economics in Tetouan who loved to talk and was more than happy to be honest with us about Arab culture and world views. We talked about relationships between men and women, which are still quite traditional (she is engaged to be married!) however none of the marriages are arranged anymore. It is important to say that while the majority of women in Morocco wear the hijab or at least cover their head, they do it for modesty and it is done completely voluntary! While the women practice Islam, some chose to wear the hijab because it is simply part of their culture, like jeans are part of the American cowboy culture, it isn't mandatory but custom. So while many people may assume that all Muslim countries oppress women, it is quite the opposite here in Morocco. Morocco has been a Parliamentary Monarchy for many years and was the first African country to accept a U.S. embassy within its borders. While there are fundamentalist groups in Morocco, the majority of the people are moderate and are only trying to provide for their families and obtain an education. It made me sad to hear Roma tell us that many Moroccan's think Americans assume most Muslims hate America/ are terrorist, but unfortunately there is more truth in her assessment than I want to admit. Roma was the sweetest girl, as all the students were, and it was wonderful to talk to them about the typical dreams and ideas of a young person and to hear about what they like to do for hobbies. We of course all invited them to visit the U.S. and I certainly hope the two girls I got to know take me up on my offer someday, I would love to see them again in the future. Wednesday night we all crashed after dinner and I must say I slept better in that hotel bed than anywhere else while I've been here. It was a true vacation!
Thursday morning we enjoyed more bread/crepes and fresh orange juice and divided into three groups, participating in different workshop showing traditional Moroccan culture, fortunately I got to be in the cooking group! The leader of the Moroccan university students took me, three other girls and Antonia to her house to learn how to make couscous and show us the lifestyle of a Moroccan family! After entering a walled fortress that enclosed her house, we stepped in to find a beautifully painted and vibrant house with typical horseshoe shaped couches decorated in bright blue and purple and her mother, waiting for us to begin our lessons. Although her mother did most of the cooking, I tried to peel onions but after only a minute, tears began streaming down my face, so I gave up and went outside to play with the 3 month old German Shepherd puppy (clearly I haven´t cooked all semester). However, Dua explained each step carefully to us and we observed each step, noting that no matter how easy we said it looked, I´m sure I will return to the U.S. and simply burn the couscous.
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| Her she is preparing the chicken with spices in the pressure cooker. |
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| I know, of all the things to do in Morocco, I chose to play with a puppy. |
I honestly don´t think I´ve ever had real couscous and I can guarantee you that never again will I have couscous as good as Dua´s mother unless I return to her house, which she invited me to do the next time I´m in Chefchaouen (don´t worry I´m already coming up with ways of returning sooner rather than later). After only 2 hours or so of cooking, lunch was ready and we were more than happy to sit down and enjoy this unbelievable meal! Like tradition, we all ate out of the same humongous bowl which represents that we are all present and connected at this meal (it´s considered rude if you eat out of a separate bowl). The only, and I mean ONLY food I more than disliked, was a concoction of what was supposedly yogurt. So, there I was thinking oh this will be so refreshing for such a heavy meal and of course I didn´t want to be rude and not try the drink, which they said is traditionally served with couscous. Let me tell you my first sip was like Fraulein Maria not being able to control her first instinct to yelp when sitting on a pine cone at her first dinner with the Von Trapp family! They of course were all watching as we took our first sips and anxiously waited to ask us how it was. Naturally when your senses, especially taste, are shocked out of belief, my body language reacted as fast as it could with quite a distorted face and several noises from my lips which I believe were their way of trying to ask "what the hell was that!?" Here I felt bad that the mother had just poured each of us an entire class of this stuff, which she probably milked and made from whatever animal it came from, and I had spent the last hour outside with her puppy. So of course I did my best to not only put a dent in the glass, but FINISH IT! I can say I did more than most people. Of course you try telling yourself, it isn´t that bad, just shove some chicken in your mouth to cover the aftertaste, or it´s easy enough holding your breath right? It was like with each following sip my noise went on strike and in the end I was just trying to chug it since taking separate sips only made me taste the stuff more times than necessary. I am happy to say that I drank almost my entire glass and only stopped when I saw Antonia finish hers, the mother jump into action to refill her glass with Antonia immediately trying to insist that she was full. So I halted my yogurt downing mission in the hopes she would understand I was "full" as well. Despite the yogurt incident, it was the most wonderful afternoon and after saying goodbye, each with big, warm hugs to Dua´s mother, we headed to the village for some afternoon shopping. Here was our big chance to do some of that bargaining Morocco is famous for and test our compromising skills. Happily I can say I´m a hard bargainer and I think I got pretty fair prices for my memorabilia. One thing about bargaining, both ends of the deal have to be honest and I give Moroccan´s credit, they are good sports about it all even when I´m sure they know tourists are ripping them off. Some of the stuff is really worth bargaining for because you can tell its cheap, other things however are good quality and you have to remember that they buy and sell these products for a living, so agreeing on only 3 Euros less than their initial offer, even though you could probably get 6 Euro off is important to keep in mind. Honestly I enjoyed bargaining with the vendors because some of them will really go after you if you walk away and they do the work for you by offering even lower than you thought you could go. The one universal understanding however is once you say okay and they agree, you cannot change your mind and go lower once you see that they´ll budge.
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| Lunch Group |
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| Marketplace |
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| The Blue Hallways of Chefchaouen |
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| Dua and Antonia |
After spending about 2 hours in the blazing sun and thoroughly sweating through our clothes, my friends Sara, Cecilia, Rosa and I made a unanimous decision to jump into the pool with our clothes on. After sharing an extremely cold "cool off," and then the most refreshing shower, it was time for our last night of dinner Moroccan style. Actually everyone wanted to stay another day and Antonia was encouraging us to strike so Abdel would have to consider keeping us another day, but unfortunately after a cruel joke of agreeing to our begging, we resigned ourselves to returning to Granada Friday, which is rough right? Friday morning, bright and early mind you, we headed for Tetouan where we had an hour lecture from an immigration professor and language teacher on the history of Morocco, walked through a tannery (which if you´ve never seen one, I advise you to never go), explored the streets of Tetouan and made our way back to Tangier to catch the ferry for Tarifa. To keep our minds off the fact we were leaving, Abdel delighted us with some songs in the bus and Antonia was insistent we learn some Andalucian songs and eventually Abdel began calling out states and the people from those states had to sing. To my surprise almost everyone was willing to sing and even the guys gave us a little Johnny Cash and The Beatles while Cecilia and I sang the folk song by Emmalou Harris, "Didn´t Leave Nobody But the Baby." After singing Abdel turned to me and said I had a sweet, softness in my voice and asked if I would sing some American song that one might sing if driving along the open stretch of highways in Colorado. Well after trying remember the words to the Yellow Rose of Texas, I settled on "Que Sera Sera" since these days that seems to be the only song stuck in my head. But after thinking about it, I´d say it was pretty appropriate. I have to say it was the nicest compliment I´ve had in a long time, especially when I have been saying these past few months how much I appreciate America now that I´ve been away. The bus ride certainly was memorable and will remain one of my fondest memories of the trip, driving through the mountains of Morocco, singing some traditional Arabic, mixed with Spanish and a little bluegrass country and Doris Day.
While it is nice to be back in some stability and not be run down at the end of each day, I desperately miss our experiences and new adventures and the whole time all we were able to think about was how it was our last full group excursion together. I will never forget our trip to Morocco and fell all the more closer to this wonderful group of students and professors I have met while on this amazing journey. I cannot emphasize how grateful I feel everyday to have this chance and feel as though these past 3 months have been more astonishing than anything I could have hoped for. In four weeks I leave this wonderful world and return to the U.S. with only goals of traveling the rest of the world and learning as much as I can about different people and places. This experience has finally convinced me that with hard work and perseverance I can have the tools to explore this world waiting for me to work hard and reach any goals I set for myself. I will go home encouraging every young, middle aged and old person to travel the world as long as they can live and breath because there is nothing more spiritual, enlightening and self engaging as seeing other people and cultures. I hope to return to America and study more about the conflicts of the East and West and engage in conversations to improve our relations with Arab countries and break peoples stereotypes and misconceptions about a world that seems so different from "our" America but in reality is filled with the same loving, open minded and determined people. I think there is too much bigotry in this world, yes even in Texas, that is due to people simply being too stubborn to trying to understand a world that exists outside of their own backyard. Perhaps in the future all these hopes, dreams, goals, "perhaps, perhaps" "if" etc... will actually be accomplished and right now it is my generation which stares these words in the face.
