Thursday
Sooooo it's definitely been an interesting couple of days. number 1) i'm on day 3 without a shower 2) i saw 4 freakin sheep slaughtered yesterday morning and 3)I ate more innards than i ever thought i could stomach (no pun intended but I did eat lung and was offered pancreas. politely declined by telling Chaima I didn't think I could handle it).
After I posted yesterday, everyone napped, then we all had tea and cookies. I met Hemsa's sister and hit the highlight of my day... she thought I was Moroccan! I was sitting there with the family still in my pjs (which btw is VERY moroccan... no one changes out of their pjs unless they are leaving the house and even then you can just throw on a djellaba to cover the fact that you haven't changed in 2 days) with the cat on my lap and i kissed her when she came in and said Salam alle cum (which is like saying hello). She started talking to everyone in Arabic and was telling what seemed to be a hilarious story about Hemsa, who is my host brother's best friend. Everyone was cracking up,, but I was just sitting there petting the cat. I guess she must have said something to Hemsa because I hear him say (in arabic) "no, she's from the US." His sister was like, really? and he said yeah, she's american. At that his sister turned to me and said "I am so sorry... I thought you were Moroccan! I thought that you were just sad or something because you weren't talking at all." She was so cute! After tea and cookies, Hemsa, his sister, Ahmed, Chaima and I went out for a walk. I have NEVER seen the streets so empty! Usually Suika, the main street and open market, is crazy busy with people walking and shouting prices and trying to sell you things but it was almost completely deserted because of the holiday! While we were walking Hemsa's sister walked with me and talked to me about her life. She works in marketing, but was told that she can only work in an office because she wears the head scarf. She used to work in Europe but she didn't wear a scarf then. On our way back, we saw this intense physical fight. A woman was beating this young man and then a fully grown man joined in. The young man fell to the ground and a man proceeded to kick him in the stomach. Then the young man managed to get away and ran, but then fell to the ground again. Fortunately a bunch of men intervened and stopped it. It was one of the only times i've truly felt powerless here. I realized I really wanted to do something, anything, to help this kid but I 1) don't speak the language 2) I'm a woman and it probably would not have been good in that regard and 3) if I had gotten involved I probably would have just gotten the kid in more trouble and gotten myself into a mess. So we stood there until it was broken up.
Today I woke up early and went with my family to the butcher. They carried the 4 sheep carcasses down the street to be chopped up. Apparently some families do it themselves and mine used to, but the past couple years they've been going to the butcher, so there we were. We carted the meat back to the house and watched as Ahmed and his cousin carried the last one off. On our way back to the butcher, we watched as the sheep fell from their arms onto the street! It was crazy watching these 2 boys try to carry this huge sheep. Luckily a nice man was coming the other way and took the sheep from them and carried it the rest of the way for them.
At this point I think I need to talk about what I must have looked like. This is day 4 of no shower, meshimushkil, I was still in my pjs as I have been for the past 24/48 hours and I was wearing Chaima's djellaba over them. I was still not wearing contacts because of my eye and I haven't washed my face or brushed my teeth because I had breakfast, then went straight to the butcher's. And I was actually in public like this! Clearly my sense of hygiene has been so skewed by this trip. I'm actually beginning to get a little concerned for when I get back to the US.
Anyway, I left in the afternoon and only was able to leave with the promise that I would be back Friday for couscous. I love my host family so much! So I came back to my very cute apartment with Megan because Chandra was going to get her friend Hannah from the Casablanca airport. I'm not sure if I've described the apartment yet. It's this really cute place on the 2nd floor of a little complex in the middle of a sleepy little part of Sale. Although we don't have a refrigerator, hot water or an oven we're cooking our own meals every day we're there. It's actually not that difficult because of our location right between the open veggie market and the grocery store. We just cook enough for us and use things like milk and cheese within 24 hours of opening them.
Friday I headed back to Rabat in the afternoon and had a great lunch with my host family. After lunch, my host mom carried a covered pot to the table. I was shocked when she opened it and there was one of the sheep heads! They had boiled it so that they could take off the skin and take out the tongue, brain and whatever other meat they wanted. They made fun of me while I sat and watched with my eyes popping out of my head and my mouth covered with my hand. I just couldn't believe that they could do it so non chalantly! It was pretty crazy. I left in the afternoon again and hung out with my friend Lauren. Apparently there's some drama with the group that is living in an apartment in the medina, but there are also a lot of very strong personalities.We (the girls who are living in Rabat, Megan, Chandra and her friend Hannah) went out to Pizza Hut for dinner, which was a welcome change to the sheep and moroccan food and also cooking. Afterwards we went to get ice cream and had an unfortunate encounter with a couple of drunk men who seemed to think it was ok to follow us.
Here is my theory: the attention that a group of girls gets on the streets here increases exponentially by the amount of blonde hair that is visible. Which is quite unfortunate because Chandra, Hannah and I all have blonde hair. But we headed towards the medina and the guys left us alone. Then we caught the bus and went back to the apartment.
Saturday we went back into Rabat after a late breakfast. Unfortunately it was raining, but that didn't stop us from walking around the beach and the medina and visiting the kasbah's beautiful garden. I went to the HUGE grocery store in Rabat that reminds me of Walmart and got marshmallows and oats. I got back just in time to hang out with Chandra, Hannah and Chandra's Moroccan friend Driss who is 30 and speaks pretty decent English. He kept us laughing with his stories about sneaking over to Spain and told us more about the Eid. We returned to Sale not at all hungry but ready to cook. So we made dinner with veggies, then made these amazing no bake cookies with the oats, bananas, peanut butter and milk. We ate like 1/2 of the cookies right out of the pan. Seriously, we're going to need a wheelbarrow to get me out of this country. None of us were even that hungry, but it was just so addictive! We were all on such a sugar high, then we felt pretty sick. Hannah was hilarious when she all of a sudden said "Erin there is something wrong with your prescription. It says to take it with an empty stomach, but that's not possible while you're in Morocco." It's so true! While we were trying to overcome our silliness, we explained to Hannah why we called the back room the crack den. When we had made sfouf (this awesome combination of peanuts, almonds, sesame seeds, browned flour, honey and oil) late one night we had to blend it. But we didn't want to keep up our neighbors so I suggested that we blend it in the back room. I stayed in the kitchen to clean up, but when I went back and tried to open the door, Chandra just looked up and said "close the door" while Megan was sorting through all of the nuts to make sure that the big ones went in first. I sat there and seriously felt like a drug dealer. So now we refer to the back bedroom as the crack den. So since there is a lock with a key, on Saturday night we decided to hide the sfouf, no bake cookies and the milk in the crack den with the window open and treat it somewhat like a fridge. with a lock. so we couldn't eat anymore.
Sunday we woke up late again and made a late breakfast/early lunch of oatmeal, cinnamon, milk, honey and membrillo which is the perfect combination between apple and pear. I stayed in and researched for my project while Chandra took Hannah around the souk, then to the airport. It was so sad saying good bye to Hannah, but luckily she'll be in Madrid all year so we might travel together next semester! When Chandra got back we went to the souk and got stuff for dinner, and had a nice quiet night. While it's been nice having other people stay with us, it's also nice to have some quiet and have it just be the 2 of us.
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