**"...In over my head is where I want to go"**

          

Tuesday

        I hate that I'm slightly behind on posting because the longer I wait, the more details I forget and end up leaving out. Tuesday I didn't end up getting caught up since my little Casablanca trip turned into a slight adventure. But I'll start from the beginning of the day. Chad, Jill and I took taxis down to the East West center (called Orient Occident on the sign) around 9:00. I had my lesson plan all ready but we found out that WE were in charge of splitting the students into levels and would be meeting in the same room for the first part of the class. We THEN learned that we had to be out by 10:30 (our class is supposed to be 2 hours mind you). So needless to say, we had to do a little improvising and figure out how to work together without a cohesive plan. It was slightly embarrassing at moments since it seemed rather disorganized, but we were able to somewhat follow my lesson plan and eventually Jill weeded out the main advanced students and took them to another room with her. The rest of the class was rather hard to split up into intermediate and beginner so Chad and I decided to keep them together for now and work together (we had about 18 students I think). Just like I had heard, the students were all very cooperative and understanding, they helped each other and us, they asked good questions and they genuinely seemed to want to learn. So it was a great experience and we got through some good introduction exercises, reviewed pronunciation of the english alphabet and a few other things. Many of them thanked us and two of the ladies even came up and kissed me goodbye (the traditional greeting/ air kisses on the cheek). It was really nice to feel like maybe I'm able to help them reach their goals and get better jobs even though I'm probably the youngest among them. So cool.
        At home-base we got a lecture on Islam by Mohamed. It was very informative, though I must say I have heard most of what he said in my religion classes in high school and the religion debates at my home church. One of the main points that he spoke about that makes more sense to me now that I'm in Morocco is the way that Muslim women dress. There are no specific instructions in the Qu'ran telling women what they should wear, it just says that they should dress modestly and cover their chests. Mohamed explained that the way women dress is (or ideally should be) up to their discretion. In Morocco there are no laws telling the women what to wear, but the culture is used to women dressing modestly on the street so more women chose to be covered up. Honestly, if I lived here, I would probably adapt to their standards of modesty (I already have slightly) because I want to avoid the extra attention that dressing in more modern styles gets me. Mohamed also stressed how similar most main religions (especially Christianity) are to the Muslim faith. The stories are similar, the prophets are the same, and their God is the same. It's a very diplomatic way of putting things and I really do wish that I could buy the whole "all religions lead to the same God" idea because debating religion would be pretty much unnecessary. I know he has spent a great deal of time studying both books and comparing them, and yes they do have similarities, but they contradict each other. I'm sorry but it can't be all an error of translation, people have painstakingly studied and translated the scriptures and why would they believe in a prophet and savior who said that there is no way to heaven except through him (Muslims believe that there is nothing between them and God). In this and many other cases Jesus would be a liar. So good thought provoking talk, but I couldn't wait to leave for Casablanca and leave the awkward religious talk behind :D
     Christine and I took the train to Casablanca and stopped by Rick's cafe to take some pictures outside. We didn't want to eat there since it's known to be rather touristy and we had a more interesting place to eat planned for later. We walked along the marina where we saw a ton of cargo ships and a huge cruise ship. We also saw a sailor in full white sailor suit with the hat and EVERYTHING! It was soooo cute so I had Christine pretend to take a picture of me so that we could get him in it as he walked by hahah... Good times :D We then walked through the outside courtyard of the Hassan II Mosque. The sun had just gone down so the sky went from light blu-ish purple to dark indigo above our heads. The mosque was lit up with dramatic lights and almost glowed an orange color which was gorgeous against the dark blue of the sky and ocean around it. I literally couldn't think of anything to say except... WOW. It was a beautiful sight. We then continued our walk along the beach around a small bay to the other side where Le Petit Rocher, a french and italian hotspot, was supposed to be. We found a sign pointing down a street saying "Le Petit Rocher" but the street was only lit up part of the way. There was a VERY dark part and we couldn't tell if there was even a restaurant or anything beyond that. Super creepy! We stopped to discuss whether we should brave the darkness but then felt uncomfortable standing there looking unsure so we got our speed walk on! As we emerged from the darkness we saw the restaurant sign flickering and breathed a huge sigh of relief. We climbed up some stairs exclaiming over how we would most definitely have them call us a cab when we left.
        As we reached the top of the stairs and looked around the chic little bar with couches and tables, the ambiance was perfect and there was a special dining area in a glass room that looked over the water and had a beautiful view of the Hassan II Mosque. There was only one thing missing......... People. Creepy. We looked at each other then heard someone coming up the stairs behind us, he was someone we had just speedily walked past on the terrifying street of doom. He smiled and walked past us and into the back. Hmmmm... okay. Then another man came up and greeted us, we asked if it was open and he nodded emphatically and gestured for us to sit. We made our way to the corner of the glass room and asked the waiter to open the window so we could feel the ocean breeze. We ordered a bottle of Rose (which they didn't have so we had to get a different, more expensive, bottle of Rose), and chatted for a half hour until the Kitchen finally opened and he brought us our menus. Two other tables showed up while we were there, and the owner who looked very european metro came up and welcomed us. It was very strange but very good food and the wine helped to ease our nerves. 
       Our waiter said he could not call us a taxi but assured us that one would be around if we waited downstairs. We waited for a little while, talking to the valet and grumbling over how rude it was of the restaurant not to call us a cab. We knew we had to make it back to home-base by midnight and it was after 10pm already. We did NOT want to walk down that road again but were contemplating it when a taxi finally showed up. The valet poked his head in the cab and asked if we wanted company or something... I told him no, and thank you, not wanting to really know what he meant. The cab driver gave a strange look when we said the name of the train station then asked for 100 DH, Christine was about to agree but I was feeling ripped off already, indignant, AND slightly braver with the wine in me perhaps, so I said no! I told him that the train station was close and we walked here so there was no way the ride was worth 100 dh (but i said this in broken french with the help of christine as well). He agreed on 50 dh and we headed off only to pull in front of the station and realize that it was closed. Yikes. So the driver took us straight to the other Casablanca station and demanded more money so we gave him 20 dh. The ride back was interesting since we were trying to stay awake. We recorded a movie on my camera of Christine relating the events of the night (since she is an animated story teller!) We also watched a slide show (with music) of the pictures we took on my camera. I then proceeded to nod off for the rest of the ride (thank GOD Christine managed to stay awake!). We got back to Rabat and faced the wall of men yelling "taxi" "taxi" "need taxi?"... We walked towards one and told him we needed a ride, he started walking us to his car but ran into a man standing in his way. The men looked at each other angrily, said some harsh sounding words, our cab driver spit on the other mans feet and stomped away. We stood there looking dumbfounded for a moment, nobody seemed to notice, nobody even seemed to care! So we moved on and found another cab to drive us home. We made it back at exactly midnight :D

Wednesday

       Yesterday (Wednesday), class was good, though over 30 students showed up and we didn't have anywhere for them to sit at the table. We are devising a plan to split the beginners from the more intermediate ones. The rest of the day was kind of rough since I did not get a ton of sleep and I was working on lesson plans with Chad until lunch, then internship and research stuff for the rest of the day. I did get a break in the middle of studying to go to the Chellah ruins in Rabat. Abdellah acted as our tour guide around the picturesque mix of roman and Islamic ruins. There was a pond of eels where a man and tons of cats sat. Apparently legend says that if a woman throws a coin into the water then she will be able to have a baby. So women come and light candles around the little pond and throw coins in (a few of the women in the group threw a coin in with the condition of "when I WANT to have a baby, let me have it" hahah)... I can't say I had much desire to do so :P   ...The old man also showed us that throwing egg into the water would get the eels out of hiding to feed. It was very cool but strange. I wandered around the ruins by myself for a little while and got yelled at by a momma stork who had built her huge nest on top of a minaret. There were tons of stork nests (big enough for me to sit inside comfortably on top of the crumbling arches and spires. Storks are known to bring good luck so they don't bother to shoo them away from the ruins. There was a running water channel from the pond that fed a huge garden full of fruit trees (grapefruit, pomegranate, orange, lime, banana and more). It was gorgeous, and it's safe to say that I am now a ruins junky... I'm addicted and must see more!
       While I was slaving away on my computer a group of the ladies went to the Hamam, a traditional way of bathing for middle eastern women mainly, but men can do it too in separate locations. Ashley told me she was going to the Hamas though which made me giggle. The Hamam sounds frightening to me, but I'd choose that any day over Hamas (a militant islamic fundamentalist group that doesn't really like Israel or the US). I may actually be warming up to the idea of being scrubbed down by a half naked lady so if I ever get the courage up to go, I'll be sure to record all the gruesome details here ;D
      

As for today, I will be posting later to make sure I'm caught up on today's happenings!
TTFN!