Casablanca, Casanegra

This past week has been filled with adventures of various kinds, from food to visiting the Institut Royal de la Culture Amazighe.  The former is always an adventure, and sometimes taken at one's leisure.  Today, after running along the Bou RegReg river boardwalk area, I decided to stop at one of the many hanouts (little grocery stalls) in the Medina along my way back home.  Fortunately, the one I picked sold fresh squeezed orange juice, a real treat in the muggy heat of the morning.  Ever since my Arabic professor told my class about this grain flavored yogurt, I had been wondering what it tastes like, so I decided to grab a little breakfast.  One of my first nights in my homestay, Mami gave me pistachio yogurt, so I had already conquered that flavor and now it was time for something new.  You'd think that yogurt with flakes of grain in it would not sound appetizing, but it was actually quite spectacular.  It reminded me of the taste of granola and yogurt, minus the crunch.  So if you ever see "cereales" flavored yogurt anywhere, take a step out of the American flavor box and go for it!

Many of my posts lately have dealt with food, and for good reason.  A lot of Moroccan social interaction involves food.  Throughout the day there are not just three designated eating times, but four; breakfast, lunch, what I call teatime, and dinner.  Why the teatime you ask?  Because Moroccans generally don't eat dinner till between 9 and midnight, and so need something to tide themselves over till the later dinner time.  And a very important component to the teatime and to breakfast is, naturally, the tea.  Moroccan mint tea is unlike most teas I have seen prepared--granted my only tea experiences have been in bags and some loose leaf tea that you can get in the States, but bear with me.  Moroccan mint tea is made by putting a little bit of green tea, some fresh mint, Sheba (something that my Arabic professor said made you "feel warm" in the winter time), and a block (or 3) of pressed sugar in your teapot, then add the boiling water and boil it just a little more.  The end result is what I consider a spectacular concoction of mint and sugar that makes me anxiously await teatime every day.

But food isn't the only thing on my mind, I also get to travel!  Yesterday, I spent the day in Casablanca and got my first taste of what most Americans consider summer, but to Moroccans is still early spring.  Personally, I'm siding with the American viewpoint on this one not only because I am American, but also because it was the first time this year that I officially got a bit burnt.  It was such a nice day that I wanted to spend it all outside, but that ended up wreaking a bit of havoc on my poor skin.  However, meshi mushkin (it's nothing), as Moroccans say.  In Casablanca, I got to see the third largest mosque in the Muslim world, Hassan II Mosque.  Just to give you a sense of how large this building is: it can fit 25,000 worshipers inside at one time.  It was truly spectacular not only because of its size but also because roughly a third of it was built on the ocean.  It was commissioned by King Hassan II in the late 80s and early 90s to be what it is and to use mostly materials found in Morocco.  Every little detail was ornately decorated in a carefully planned pattern, even down to the ablution room that had carved fountains in the shape of flowers.  Most of the marble used came from the middle of the country, with a small minority coming from Italy, and we're talking 9 hectares (22 acres) of marble.  Truly spectacular in every sense.  Next I naturally moved on to the beach!  I did set foot in the Atlantic, though it was truly just a foot because while the air was quite warm, the water was absolutely frigid.  There were so many men and boys playing soccer on the beach that it was a little hard to actually get to the water.  They had built their "fields" back to back so that one group used the same goal as the other, so it was sometimes difficult to see what was going on in any game and navigate safely.  After spending a couple hours at the beach pondering the meaning of life and trying to figure out what was going on in the game in front of me, I proceeded onward to the Medina.  I feel like it's impossible to truly get a sense of any Moroccan city without visiting its Medina.  The Casablanca Medina was very complicated, this coming from the person who has learned to navigate the streets of Rabat's Medina.  What makes Casablanca's Medina so disorienting is that the streets don't go the direction you think they do.  If you want to end up in some general direction and don't know what street to take, you can generally find your way anyway in Rabat, but in Casablanca, I definitely had some trouble.  By the time I had sufficiently walked around the Medina, it was already pretty late so I decided to catch the train back to Rabat, which only took about an hour.  My sister, Amal, doesn't like Casablanca as much, so she always refers to it as Casanegra, but I didn't have a bad experience in the commercial center of Morocco.

Casablanca is not my only excursion, as SIT calls it, this week.  Tomorrow I board a bus that will whisk me away to the Southern and Eastern parts of the country.  It's to the Middle Atlas Mountains and then the desert for me!  This time next week I will have ridden a camel.  To me, that's the most exciting, so I'll keep you posted on how that goes.

Bovines Beware!

Going from one family to another is always a challenge, and going from the youngest to the oldest in a family even more so.  Every day my siblings find new and exciting ways to provoke reactions from me.  At the beginning, it was little things like pointing at me and saying something in Arabic that I had no idea what it meant, so I would simply respond with a funny face.  However, now the youngest, who is 4, has taken to gnawing (yes, I really mean gnawing) on my leg, arm, or anything he can get a hold of that is obviously mine.  I know he's not teething--he should be far past that stage, according to my very limited knowledge of small children--so it must just be for kicks.  One time it got so bad that I had to carry him out of the room and drop him in the kitchen with mami, which caused a chain reaction of laughter throughout the house.  Needless to say, it has been interesting, and has exposed me to a very different side of family life.

On another but similar note, I got my first real taste of something completely different for the first time the night before last when mami put cow's feet in front of me for dinner.  She had told me before what we were having, but I just thought I misunderstood something.  However, that wasn't the case.  She fully intended to say cow's feet, and there they were sitting on a plate of beans in front of me.  I did gag a little at first when I tried it, but it turned out to not be nearly as bad as I had imagined. I thought that cow's feet would be the strangest thing I would try in Morocco, but I was sorely mistaken.  Last night I had something I never thought you could eat: meat from a cow's head.  I won't go into vivid detail about where it comes from, but suffice it to say it is mostly from the back part.  Luckily, the meat did not come intact with the bones like the feet did, so it was not at all an unenjoyable experience.  There was still a lot of fat with the meat, which is most likely why it is so expensive, but I could tolerably push past this fact and ended up liking it.  Also, like most Moroccan dishes containing meat, it was served with a plate of white beans, so it was not the only thing to eat.  Although a good dollop of mashed potatoes would be fantastic, white beans are a fairly good substitute when paired with the excellent sauce Mami makes.

Travel Plans = Cancelled

Upon hearing that all trains to Tangier were canceled this morning, I am actually quite happy that I dropped my plans to got to mountainous Chefchouan in the northern part of the country.  It has been raining almost non-stop in Morocco for the past week, and with the unreliability of the roads and trains, I figured I'd pass on that venture for now at least.  I definitely plan on going to Chefchouan for one of my free weekends, but not this one!  So what to do this weekend? Explore Rabat's surroundings! There is apparently a zoo and garden to the north of Sale, Kenitra--a 30 minute train ride away--supposedly has a fantastic beach and is a very nice smaller city, and there is always more to see in the city of Rabat itself, considering I have only really been in a small part of the Nouvelle Ville and mostly in the Medina.  So it's time to be a tourist in my "home town" and surroundings!

An integral part of my weekend plans will also be studying Arabic.  Since we started learning Fus'ha in class this past week, we have covered the Alphabet and basic vowels, but while it is nice that Arabic has a separate letter for each sound, it is extremely frustrating to try to find a coordinating sound in English or Latin script.  My only options were to remember the sound (not really an option) or try to write down some strange and most likely not accepted transliteration of what they sound like to me.  I have been ok with sounds like "a", "f", "g", and "s" but when it comes to what my professor calls the stronger letters, things can get a little hairy.  So for the past week I have been making a fool of myself in front of my family as I attempt to mimic their pronunciation and how they write each letter.  It makes me feel like a child all over again, despite the fact that I'm 20. I have seen some of the fruits of my labor, however, because when I look at Arabic words spelled on an orange juice bottle, for instance, they no longer look like just a bunch of squiggles and lines with dots, they actually look like letters and sounds.  Just a little bit more effort and I might be able to read. 

Another one of the uniquely Moroccan encounters I have had to deal with lately was a different form of harassment.  As I was walking home from belly dance class with my sister, Amal, this one man started saying something very extensive in Darija, and after a bit, Amal turned around and started saying something back to him.  At first I thought she was just giving him a taste of his own medicine, but I noticed that she never got that upset about harassment before.  I asked her what he had said, and she slowly replied in mixed French that he had called me a U.S. spy that her family took into her home so that I could take all of the secrets of Morocco back to my government.  While I had been warned that people might say this upon seeing hordes of foreigners in the Medina, I had not expected that I would actually be accused of being a spy.  While not extremely disturbing, it was definitely a moment that made me stop and realize how foreign I can seem to some people.  Homestays are a relatively strange concept when you think about it: going to a country and staying with someone you have never met so that you can study their culture.  It makes sense to me as an anthropologist, but that's only the emic perspective; I need to think outside of my ethnic box.

Fez, Meknes, Volubilis oh my!

Traveling can really take things out of you. After two days of straight travel and many hours in the bus sleeping, somehow I am still tired. We started the "Four Dynasties in One Weekend" tour of the middle of Morocco early Saturday morning. At 7:45 we boarded the bus and began the two and a half hour drive to Meknes, and upon arriving (after sleeping the majority of the time of course) I found it to be very beautiful, even in the occasional rain. We first saw the beautifully decorated Thursday Gate (Bab El-Heftouh), proceeded onto another gate, which was also very beautiful, and then went to the Mausoleum of Moulay Idriss, who fought against four enemies in the 15th century to keep Morocco from submitting to a foreign ruler. Quite a spectacular achievement considering the force of the Ottoman Empire and Spanish alliance. To fight these formidable foes, he had to be sure that his army would always have supplies, and in order to do so he created a massive granary to store enough barley for his 12,000-horse army for three years. You could never predict when another Moroccan drought would strike the countryside, and since he asked for a certain amount of barley instead of money for taxes, he knew his granary would always be full. After this brief sojourn in Meknes, we departed for the nearby town of Moulay Idriss, a holy city where the ashes of this great sultan reside. What was truly spectacular about this city was the fantastic view of the valley and adjoining ridge. There we had lunch at a local restaurant reserved solely for tourists that day. Afterwards we descended the very steep side of the ridge, and it definitely reminded me of driving in the moors of England; when dad attempted drive away and we came upon a winding, 12% grade road in our relatively large van. Just substitute "bus of 41 SIT students" for "large van".

It was definitely an interesting experience, and well worth it because upon descending the ridge, we came upon the ruins of the Roman city, Volubilis. Although it was raining part of the time, it was absolutely gorgeous, especially when looking out upon the surrounding farmland. The mosaics archeologists were able to find there were also spectacular and almost completely intact. Being there was odd in a way though because it felt like a part of Italy with all the olive trees along the hillsides and the Roman ruins, but there was still a Moroccan vibe to the whole area. I really felt at a crossroads, as odd as that idea may seem. Overall, it's an experience better conveyed through pictures (in other words, check out my stuff on Flickr: Pictures)

After Volubilis, we proceeded onward to Fez! We arrived at night and had the opportunity to wander around the city for a couple hours (in groups of course) before we went to dinner. The dinner was probably the most interesting variety show I have ever seen. It began as a simple dinner with music experience, but then the acrobatic drummers came out and the whole evening really began. There was a magician, belly dancer who also played with fire, singers, and even a fake Moroccan wedding just for all the tourists. In addition to all the interesting events (again, see Flickr), it was nice to just relax and talk for a couple hours with people, and then go to bed early! That is one thing I've noticed about Moroccans, they never seem to go to bed before 11 or sometimes after midnight, and then most get up around 7 or 8 each morning. It took a while to get used to after having a steady sleep diet of 8 hours, but now I think I've adjusted. But I digress. Fez: absolutely crazy in the Medina, which was where the majority of our tour took place. The Medina of Fez has much smaller streets than the one in Rabat, and it truly is like a maze! But the artisans there are amazing. They work in what appear to be museum set-ups of how people used to work in other times, and turn out some of the most beautiful metal-work I have ever seen. We also (unfortunately for my nose) visited the tannery. Apparently the entire process has not changed much since the middle ages, and there are still earthen pits where they treat and dye the skins. While interesting to see how the craft has not changed much from the past, it does raise some serious health concerns for many of the workers, who spend all day in vats of chemicals or dyes. I should mention that all the dyes come from natural sources, but are still probably not good to be steeping oneself in day in and day out. Otherwise, the leather they make is the best I have ever seen. It is all very soft and I just couldn't resist purchasing a pair of blue-green sandals. The other craft we explored that day was weaving, and went to one of the guild houses in Fez to see how scarves and other textiles are made from the Agave plant. Previously, I had only known agave as a source of wonderful sweet stuff that I put in my coffee, but apparently if you work with it you can get some almost silk-like material that is fantastic for scarves and bedspreads. I was tempted to purchase a scarf, but had unfortunately already spent all my money on the wonderful leather goods at the tannery. However, I have a feeling that I will be going back to Fez at some point because they call it the intellectual capital of Morocco and possibly the oldest university in the world is there, built in the 9th century. So even though I was a tourist this weekend, I think I'll be getting to know Fez in the future.

David Guetta in the Souk

So it really is true: American rap/pop is absolutely everywhere. Before, I had only remotely recognized that this could be possible but now it is definitely confirmed in my mind.  Why, you may ask? Because I heard "Sexy Bitch" as I walked down the Souk street (aka the street I live on and the main market street in the Medina) and a couple seconds after that Lady Gaga.  Then I get home and Amal (I finally figured out the spelling) is blasting Sean Jean (sorry if you have no idea what I'm talking about right now, but suffice it to say that these are big names in American pop), and I had no idea what to make of the whole situation.  It's somehow extremely disorienting to hear American music while in a Moroccan market or kitchen.  Either that or just extremely unexpected.

Today I finally got the chance to explore the city a little bit more after being enlightened by our bus tour of the city, and a few friends and I went to Agdal.  Agdal is a very wealthy and European section of Rabat, with plenty of cafes, wider streets and plenty of shops containing plenty of actual Gucci, Prada, and other designer names.  While there are plenty of cafes no matter where you go in Rabat, the main difference between ones in Agdal and ones closer to the Medina is that you almost never see a woman sitting outside a cafe near the Medina, but in Agdal women are all over the place and in high heels of all colors and styles.  After living in the Medina for the past week, I've come to expect a more modest, though still very fashionable, mode of dress and to see so many seemingly and actually risqué outfits was almost a shock.  I'm heading to Fez and Marrakech this weekend to be a tourist so I will probably be shocked once more, but more on that later.  Look for pictures and see you after the weekend!

J'ai parlee plus en francais que j'ai pensee!

My host family has been fantastic.  After the initial shock of having a turkish toilet/shower (aka squatting over a porcelain hole) and having to live with 7 children, things have gone great with my family; 4 girls and 3 boys, all under 19.  I am very lucky because my host mom, who insists I call her Mami, speaks French very well.  When she was my oldest sister's age, she was at the top of her class in school, but unfortunately couldn't continue her studies after her surrogate mother died.  Needless to say she is a very informative informant (not in the spy sense, in the anthropological sense!), and has given me much to think about in the coming weeks.  On Saturday, for instance, we stayed up till 2 am talking about what it means to be a Muslim and particularly what it means to be a Muslim in Morocco.  Her generation fell between those who were very strict and more lax on the definition of a Muslim woman, and so while she wears hijab (the headscarf) whenever she goes out, for any reason, she allows her daughters to leave the house in whatever they choose to wear.  Her logic is that if you follow the correct way of living, according to Islam, then it shouldn't matter exactly what you wear.  A very moderate position to take on such a controversial issue, I think.  Mami also places a great emphasis on education.  She expressed to me numerous times over the past few days how much she dislikes the government for shutting down several of the public schools in the Medina, and combining them into one that is right behind our house.  However, like our homestay coordinator said about Morocco, the more you attempt to understand of the country, the more confused you get.  While Mami doesn't like the images of crime and illicit behavior she sees on the TV (all Moroccans have satellite TV by the way), she really wants to send her oldest daughter, Aman, to the States to study.  Denounce one moment, praise the next.  Just as Morocco is part modern and part traditional.  It's quite an interesting mix to learn about and live among.

As for a description of my house: it's fairly modest but has lots of stairs!  From the gigantic front door, you go upstairs to the second floor of our house.  It's kind of like living in a condo.  You have people with a door next to yours but living on the first floor of the structure, while you live on the second.  So you go upstairs, turn down a long hallway, and all of the walls are covered in this decorative tile, which I think is unique to Morocco.  Then you come to the entrance to one of our small salon rooms (kind of like a living room) that has couches lining two of the walls, and TV on another, and a doorway at the far end.  If you got to the doorway, you come to a hallway that leads to another living room which also has a TV, Mami's room, and a more formal salon for greeting and meeting distinguished guests or having parties.  One thing I instantly found out upon my arrival is that Moroccans love the TV, even if no one is watching it, the TV will still be on.  If you go back the way you came, you'll find a fairly large kitchen on your right and a small set of stairs on your left.  You take the set of stairs up to my room, which is very modest, and my sister's room.  If you open the little hatchway/door next to her room, you'll find yourself on the terrace looking out on the soccer field for the school and the Medina wall.  It's absolutely beautiful up there, and I love to spend some rarely found quiet time there in the evening just before everyone gets home from school.

With 7 kids, you'd imagine the house would be filled with noise day in and day out, and you're most certainly right! Debates, fights, jokes, and crying are no strangers at my house.  Either the youngest, Abdellrahaman (you'll have to excuse the spelling), and the next youngest, Idriss, is crying, screaming, or doing something they're really not supposed to be doing.  For instance, one time I walked into the room to find Idriss and Abdellrahaman playing with the lighter we use to light the stove.  Just about what you'd find any boys that age attempting to do when they think no one is looking.  And I must say it is definitely a change going from being the youngest to being the oldest.  Kudos to the older siblings for being able to put up with anything and everything little boys can dish out!  But apart from the fights and the jokes, my family has really helped me adjust to life in Morocco by making me feel as welcome as possible.  My sisters already laugh and joke with me, though sometimes I have to ask them to translate, and my oldest sister, Aman, took me to her Egyptian dance (belly dancing) class Saturday night.  I'm definitely considering paying for the month so I can ward off at least some of the incoming pounds!

The culminating experience of the weekend, however, was the visit to the hamam, Morocco's version of the Roman bath house.  Aman took me there on Sunday, and it is definitely an experience I won't soon forget.  We donned djellabas, put our toiletries in a little bucket, our clean clothes in a bag, and off we went.  The real experience started when she told me to strip naked upon arriving; what?!?  Aman bought black soap, bain noire, at the front desk, which is supposed to bring out toxins in your skin and help take off the dead skin, and then we went into the actual hamam rooms.  There are three rooms, which vary in temperature from steaming hot to a little warmer than room temperature, and we filled the large buckets we had gotten at the front desk with hot and cold water from the spigots at one end of the room.  The bain noir isn't like any other soap you'll ever encounter.  It's a goopy, semi-solid the color of oily mud, so I was a little apprehensive about spreading this stuff all over my body.  However, we then proceeded to spend the next hour exfoliating (aka scrubbing the living daylights out of all the skin on my body), washing, and rewashing.  It was very relaxing but at the same time I couldn't figure out what to do for remaining 40 minutes.  All in all a good experience, and very cleansing, though I still took a shower yesterday...

Fin Medina?

Just to allay some fears, I was not harmed in this portion of the SIT program.  My drop off was actually surprisingly easy and didn't reveal as much of the city apart from the synagogue.  However, I did get an appreciation of how large the Medina is.  For some reason, I was one of the last people to be dropped off on our independent (and somewhat clueless) excursion of Rabat, which happened to be quite fortunate or unfortunate depending on how you look at it.  I ended up being only 2 blocks away from the Medina wall and could easily find my way to the part of the Ville Nouvelle that I have explored a lot already.  So, sadly, I did not have quite the exploratory adventure I was hoping, but I did end up feeling very comfortable walking around by myself and asking women which way I should go.  At one point just to make sure I knew where I was going, I stopped and used some broken French/Arabic to ask four women which way to go.  They immediately smiled and told me the way to the Atlantic (they had no idea what I was talking about when I attempted to say the name of the CCCL in Arabic or French), so I don't think the rest of my stay here will be too bad.  At the moment, I am waiting for my host family to come pick me and my massive amount of stuff up from the center and take me home with them.  Hopefully all goes well!

As the end, to my Orientation experience, we also went on a bus tour of Rabat and a little bit of Sale.  I'll tell you more about that later, and I promise I'll upload the pictures from that soon!

Moroccan Momma

So after a week of anticipation, the moment I have been waiting for and simultaneously dreading since I got accepted finally arrived today: I met my Moroccan momma!  After another lecture about the potential issues that could arise from dealing with miscommunications with the homestay family, we finally received a little fact sheet about the family we would be spending the next 8 weeks with.  On said sheet included the names of all the family members, what kinds of facilities they had (shower water, toilets), what language(s) they spoke, and any other relevant information.  I received my sheet and it had the names of the nine people who would make up my host family: 3 brothers,  4 sisters, mom, and dad.  It kinda reminded me of my wonderful family back home :) Then we were told that all of our families were waiting for us downstairs at the center, and I just about had a heart attack.  However, once I met my Moroccan mom, who insisted I call her mami, I instantly felt welcomed and at home.  She spoke fluent and very rapid French, and began to tell me a little bit about her very large family.  She apparently sells food at a street shop, so I am basically guaranteed fantastic food while I stay with her.  Hopefully she will teach me some of her skills so I can bring them back to the States with me.  I will have two sisters living in the house with me: one is 19 and the other 14.  Both of my host sisters are in school, and one of them takes Egyptian dance classes, which I took to be belly dancing.  One of her other 4 daughters lives in a small town outside of Casablanca with her own family.  And she has another relative who lives out in the countryside of the middle of the country.  She didn't tell me much that I could understand or pick up about her sons or husband, but I am sure I will learn whatever I need to know when I move in tomorrow!  I am so excited to finally meet the family I will be spending the majority of the next 8 weeks with, and I can't wait to move in tomorrow.  Another activity I am not looking forward to as much tomorrow is what SIT calls the "drop off" exercise.  We will each be dropped at some point in the city, and we will have to find our way back to the Center for Cross-Cultural Learning (CCCL) in the Medina. I'll let you know how that goes...

Raining in Rabat

Since my first impressions of Rabat, I have been able to explore the Medina and a very small part of the Ville Nouvelle (aka the New City) and not much has changed.  The houses are still amazingly beautiful in their very Moroccan way, and while I did not mention it before, the food here is fantastic!  The combination of the French, Moroccan, and Arabic cuisines creates a very interesting mix.  For instance, here is a typical day in food: Breakfast-cucumbers, salted tomatoes, thinly sliced oranges with cinnamon, pastries (croissants, pain au chocolat, something akin to danish), and thick coffee (with plenty of sugar and milk of course!) or the incredibly sweet moroccan mint tea (I think it puts the South to shame); Lunch-either steamed chicken or beef, beans/potatoes, salted tomatoes, bread, stewed carrots or quince, and either a piece of fruit or honey-covered semolina cookies; Dinner-same as lunch with whichever meat (chicken/beef) you didn't have at lunch and most likely a different veggie (though they do like their carrots...).  That is basically a day of food in Morocco, massive amounts of carbs and all. 

Apart from the massive intake of carbs, things have been very interesting the past few days.  SIT has been very good about teaching us all we need to know about Moroccan culture, history, hassling, bargaining, and Arabic (Darija is the name for the Moroccan dialect, in case you were wondering) but we have not had much time to go out and explore Rabat, until yesterday and today.  Yesterday's outing was preceded by a lecture on how to bargain, phrases we could use to help us get a better price, and, of course, a lecture on how to deal with hassling.  After the lectures we were sent out into the city with 10 Dirhams (a little more than US$1) to try to see what we could get for it.  So with a couple friends, I went out into the soukhs to see what I could find for 10dhms.  Sunglasses are generally 50, scarves 30, bracelets 10.  I didn't really want to buy any of the others, so I decided to go for the scarf.  After browsing the many shops that sell scarves on the street, I walk into what appeared to be a frequent of tourists looking for souvenirs.  It seemed promising--there was so much to choose from!--so I began talking to one of the men who worked there.  He showed me some leather and cloth bags, scarves of varying degrees of quality, leather pouches, silver and ceramic cups, but once he pulled out a beautiful scarf from amidst the rows and piles, I knew what I wanted.  I feigned disinterest and asked him the price, just as I had done for every other piece he put in front of me, and he quoted 60dhms.  I looked appalled because others had said only 30, and I was determined to work on my bargaining skills.  As instructed, I asked about other objects, how much they were, etc. trying to strike up a conversation and make it more of a social rather than a business interaction.  A little later I brought up the scarves again, and asked for one for 30 dhms, he flat out refused, and I changed the subject again.  So after about 30 minutes talking and shopping I finally got him to agree to sell me the scarf for 30; mission semi-accomplished!  However, as I was about to walk out, he said "so you come back for business or not for business?" I was so flabbergasted at the insinuation he was making, and immediately realized this was one of the great traditions of the relations between the sexes in Morocco, also known as street harassment.  As quickly as I could, I said "Ca suffit!", paid for the scarf and practically ran out the door.  Since then, I have experienced much more harassment on the streets, but it has been harmless.  Just men passing by on the street saying "hello" or other phrases as quickly as they can in as many different languages as they can.  This harassment is actually a form of courtship for Moroccans, who are largely unable to meet members of the opposite sex in any other place but the street.  So I will just have to keep my head about me as I go about my business in the streets of Morocco.  And I can't forget, I did get a good deal on a very pretty scarf. 

The one bad thing I have encountered since being in Rabat is definitely the pouring rain that came in full force today.  Everyone has told us that it is unusual to have this much rain in the city, but one day in four isn't a bad ratio for rainy to sunny days since arrival.  However, the major drawback about the rain is that it turns all of the ever present dirt in the street to a silty mud, making the markets and streets a very real hazard especially when crossing the street in the bright of day is hazardous enough.  I was able to make this leap with relative ease, but the survival Moroccan Arabic (aka Darija) was much more difficult to maneuver.  We started with the customary hello, return greeting, my name is..., and what is your name... that usually punctuate any beginning language course.  But even that was very hard on the brain.  Here's a sample conversation (this is all phonetic spelling, so don't expect much): j-assalaam ulikum, k:-walikum salaam, j-anna taliba. Wennti? k-heta anna taliba! Anna mericanea, menn wisconsin. Wennti? j-heta anna mericanea! Menn Pennsylvania. k-mutchelfin! j-mutchelfin! (hello; hello; i am a student, and you?; i am also a student! I am an american from wisconsin. And you?; I am also an american! From pennsylvania.; nice to meet you!; nice to meet you!; end conversation) While that's the quick and dirty version, that's pretty much all I have learned at this point.  All this in preparation of meeting my host family tomorrow, and I can't wait!