Updates!

Hello from Morocco!

It is 11pm right now and I am getting ready to go to bed. Arabic class is at 8:30am tomorrow and my lecture is at 1pm after lunch. I usually like to go exploring after class and I'm considering taking a run by the beach tomorrow afternoon, so I best get some sleep.

Today, I went surfing with my host sisters Widad and Kawtar. It was so much fun! I hadn't realized how powerful waves can be. My throat is so dry from all the sea water I swallowed.

My friends Alicia, Mark, Megan, Denise, and I decided to meet yesterday to take a train to a beach called Skhirat. Unfortunately, like the tourists we are, we reached the train station with no knowledge of how often that particular train runs. The next one wasn't until 4:30pm. Instead, we walked back into the medina to hit the local beach behind Oudaya, or the Kasbah. On our way there, we ran into two girls our age who were on another study abroad program. They were doing Semester at Sea and their ship had docked in Spain a couple of days ago. They are spending the week backpacking around Morocco and Spain. It was really great to help them get oriented to the medina and Rabat in general. I didn't realize how much I knew until they started asking me where things were and how to get there!

Friday was the first day of the Eid -- the celebration of the end of the month of Ramadan. My host family and I donned our best clothes and crossed a couple of busy intersections by foot to visit my sisters' grandmother in the Kasbah. She is a very, very old woman with a huge laugh and a booming voice. Everything she said was apparently very, very funny and the entire room would choke with laughter. She had henna dyed all over her fingers and feet. My host mom prepared a lunch of lamb and potatoes for all of us to share.

We spent the entire day at the house. That evening, Alicia, Mark, and I met up at Balima Cafe downtown just to chat and catch up. Annie and Danny met up with us later and we were all trying to make plans for hiking, taking trains, going out of town some weekends, even heading to Spain after the program. So much to do...yet only 3 months!

I am blessed and happy to say that I am really enjoying Morocco. The medina is very overwhelming sometimes but not to the point when I want to throw my hands up in the air and cry. It's a wonderful type of overwhelming -- no two days in the medina are ever the same!

Sending lots of love from Morocco,
Asil