I finally caught up!

Monday
Oh man has it been a long day! This morning seems like so long ago! I got up and had breakfast with my host mom and Bushara, then went to Arabic. The skits were hilarious, then we had a cooking class where we learned how to make couscous (in Arabic of course). It was soooo awesome! Then we went to lunch and had our 2nd class of the day which was kinda boring. I got to go on skype though! I was so excited! Then when I got back from the library (where we had class) I had tea with my family. Afterwards we went to bring Bushara to the bus stop. I was so sad to see her go! She was so much fun and now whenever someone asks where I'm from they say Argentina and it was her idea from the first night we went out! Oh yeah, I forgot. On the way to the bus, a friend of one of Chayma's friends apparently got her phone number so that they could talk to me! She doesn't know him and she just gave me the phone saying "here he wants to talk to you." So when I said no, she took the phone and told him I was from Argentina! Then when he said he speaks Spanish she said I was born in Argentina, but I'm not from there. It was hilarious! Finally he stopped calling her back.
Then she got a call from her boyfriend. He was at the beach and he wanted to see her so he told her to go to the beach. She told him no, so he said he was coming so he could see her. Apparently he was pretty intoxicated. So we walked around a bunch of stores and sat in a park for a while until he and his friend got there. While we were walking, a young girl threw something at Chayma's friend Maria. They got into a fight and the young girl actually started to act like she was going to get physical! I couldn't believe it! We ended up walking to a park after a guy tried to talk to us and we pretended like I was deaf and Chayma started signing to me. While we waited Chayma and I had a really great conversation about where in Morocco to visit, snow, Jason and boyfriends in general and stuff like that. It was so interesting!
Then once the boys got there we started walking around. They thoughtfully started speaking french and VERY broken english for me which was sooo funny because they were really struggling. They were completely ridiculous.
So we were walking around and Chayma's boyfriend randomly came up behind me and touched my hair saying it's special beause it's blonde, which was just silly. I guess it was funny for him until I guess another random guy who was walking by said something about "the blonde." I thought Chayma's boyfriend was going to tear him a new one. He started yelling at him and then his friend joined in to help fight the guy. 3 other men had to split them up. I, meanwhile had no idea what had happened! I thought the guy had said something to Chayma or to her bf. But after we walked away her bf took me aside and tried to explain, and now looking back he was saying that I was with his gf so he needed to defend her and her family. But he talks soo fast and with such a different accent it was a little tricky at the time. Then his friend explained that that was his best friend and he needed to help and I'm a friend. They kept apologizing and her friend said that he really didn't want to meet with us because he didn't want us to see him like this. He just kept saying "I'm sooooo sorry!" And my incessent response was "C'est pas grave. It's ok."
Chayma told me at dinner that the whole thing was about me. All because of my stupid hair! I said to Chayma that I should just dye it, but she made an excellent point that then they would just say something about my eyes, etc. They'd find something. So you see I tried to keep my head down Trish! I didn't even notice that the guy said anything! But I don't know whether I should be impressed or upset that the guys decided to "defend" me. Either way, it was a very exciting night.

Tuesday
I finally got a schedule! Here's the finalized schedule of all of my travel for the semester.

Sat 9/18-20 Meknes, Moulay Idriss, Volubis, Fes
Wed 9/22 Casablanca
Thurs 9/30- 10/6 Village Homestay
Sat 10/23-29 Middelt, Merzouga, Ourzazzaat, Marrakech, Essaouira
Sun 11/14 Independent Study Project begins which means I can travel wherever
Sun 12/5 ISP ends -Back in Rabat at the hotel majestic
Mon 12/6-10 ISP presentations
Fri 12/10 Final Program evaluations
Sat 12/11 6:50am Flight to Paris

I'm so glad! Today we also had a conversation about our indpendent study projects. The shortest one I saw in the books (they keep all of them at the library) was 15 pages, which is totally do-able. I can handle it. lol. I think I may have even picked a topic! My professor actually suggested it. I have a few that I've been bouncing between and it really depends on how much information I can get, but I think it would be interesting to look at the increasing number of women in the judicial system here and their decisions, specifically in regards to domestic violence. I want to go to the clinics and talk to volunteers about the domestic violence problem here, then speak to as many female judges as possible. I think it would be so interesting! Of course I have to try to tie globalization in somewhere so it counts towards my major, but I don't think that it will be impossible. Also, to talk to a judge I would need someone to translate because my arabic will not be very good. So my professor, who I talked to today about all of my ideas, advised that I get a law student to help and in return I'll help correct a paper in English or something like that. I think that relationship itself would be interesting which is why I'm leaning towards this subject rather than the idea I had about clothing. Also a lot of people want to do or have done something about clothing but no one has ever done something about the judicial system, I guess because the increase in women is fairly recent. I really want to do something new so I think this is it! and that means I can travel to different places to see the different clinics, but I also will need to be in Rabat for the majority of it because that is where the new trend of women judges is. I really hope that this is not like a lot of my classes at home when I get really excited about a class or subject and then by the end kick myself for picking it. I guess we'll have to see! Otherwise today was not very eventful. Arabic is hard. The sounds and the alphabet is completely different and I feel like a 2 year old trying to figure it out. But it's always fun and I just laugh at my mistakes so nbd. I took a nap when I got back from class and had some tea with Chayma, Maria and Ahmed. I took out 3 books from the library but I think I'm going to bring 2 of them with me when we travel this weekend. I think the bus ride will be longer than anyone expects.