Dirty Diana

        Friday was a good day, I had reviewed a lot and done extra homework so I was a lot more on top of things in class. I was a lot quicker to answer questions and think of answers so that was really nice to feel like I had gotten somewhere. The test was pretty easy actually so I’m positive I’ll be in Beginner 2 by next week! At the end of class, Sarah told us she was really proud of how well we did on the test and especially proud of me for catching up so fast. I’m glad she thinks I’m catching on fast because I feel like I’m usually really slow to fully grasp new things.

        After class I went with Samia to her friend’s house to get dressed up for the Halloween party. Her friend had just come back from studying to be a pharmacist in Geneva and is living with her family in Rabat now. Me and Samia put on our gypsy outfits and her friend dressed as a Chinese person, we were quite the ensemble. Luckily, we were able to park the car right out front of the school because we looked way too ridiculous to be walking around on the street at night and not many people in Morocco celebrate Halloween.

        We walked in to music and some people were dancing and being goofy. Some of the students had dressed up the teachers who hadn’t brought a costume so there was a male professor dancing around with a pink headscarf and lipstick (someone told me we missed the good part when he had been going around looking for a husband earlier). There was also a teacher with a pizza hut menu made into a hat on his head and a sign on his chest saying “Mr. Pizza at your service.” There was a girl dressed up as Lara Croft so I made sure to show my appreciation for that costume since I had been Lara for Halloween 2 years ago :D I also met a brazillian guy who was apparently dressed up as a brazillian guy in the summertime, this costume consisted of dreadfully short shorts, a light-weight button down t-shirt, black ray-bans and a small straw hat heheh… There was also a hippie, a rhastafarian, a flapper, Jasmine, alladdin and various animals such as mice and cats.

        After a little while they began the awful karaoke. Awful because of the quality of the songs they found and also because the girls running it would choose songs for guys to sing like Single Ladies by Beyonce and Bad Romance by Lady Gaga and these poor guys would have no clue how to sing the song hahah it was horrible. Oh! Except for the one guy who sang Arabian Nights and some other alladdin songs. He was really good, I could tell he had been in theatre or something because he acted it out while he sang. So that almost made up for the atrocious murders of Beyonce and Lady Gaga songs :P

        Samia and her friend left early and the pizza came that I had gone in on with Tiberiu, Wouter and a guy from Florida. The pizza was super spicy that they ordered and I pretty much almost died. I have no clue what was in that thing but it really did almost kill me and the guys were just like “eh, it’s kinda hot I guess…” hahah. I left soon after that because they put on a scary movie that I hate. Wouter was nice enough to come out and wait with me until I got a cab since it was too late to take the bus. The cab driver was super funny and I got to practice a little of my Arabic with him. He got all excited that I was American and put a CD in for me to listen to… and guess what came out of the speakers? Michael Jackson! Hahah… we sang to Dirty Diana the rest of the ride home. Best cab ride EVER!

        The family was up and watching a live show on tv when I got back so I sat and watched that with them. It was a show in Rabat with a traditional Moroccan band and berber style dancing that looked like a cross between hula dancing and belly dancing. They had tons of this filmy material for a costume and tinsel garlands on their hips and heads. It was cool but when that was over and baba ali went to bed, they turned on the movie channel and we watched Top Gun! Hahah, I had never seen the whole movie before and absolutely loved it. Mama Katoum told me it was a beautiful movie and she had seen it many times. Gotta love it.

        On Saturday Mama Katoum took me to a guy down the street to get my phone fixed. I was happy to find out that he not only could fix my phone but he owned an internet café that is literally a minute away from the house! Hallelujah! We then embarked on Mission de Cous Cous. Mama Katoum took me all over the little souk in Yassoufia to find the best ingredients for Cous Cous. I almost got run over by some biker dudes who came speeding through the market, the stopped and made kissing noises at me while I waited for mama Katoum to bargain for some pomegranates (by the way, they have the biggest pomegranates I have EVER seen! YUM!)… guys really know how to get a girls attention over here hahah, scare the crap out of her then make yourself look like an idiot in front of the whole town by puckering up and making stupid noises at her.

         Lunch was amazing, with a heap of steaming cous cous, fresh veggies and tender beef… I was in heaven. Then they gave me a bowl full of pomegranate seeds and a spoon. Yum :D I learned the word for pomegranate from them and told them that the pomegranate was delicious (in Arabic)… I was very proud of myself. After lunch and prayer time, the fam fam piled in the car for a trip to the Hay Riad Marjane. Marjane is like a sams club almost and it was packed with families since Saturday after prayer is THE TIME to go to Marjane! Shopping is a family thing and quite a long process since nobody is in a hurry. We strolled around looking at everything, every once in a while we would loose either mama katoum or baba Ali and had to search up and down the crowded isles for them. There was a whole isle dedicated to yogurt and hardly any frozen food. Microwaves are not common kitchen appliances around here. There were girls giving out samples of things, so after trying the laughing cow LIGHT cheese, baba ali insisted that we should get that one instead of the regular because it’s “Bon pour la SANTE!” I only got run into by shopping carts about 2 or 3 times which was amazing since people have no sense of space or of where other people are. It’s similar to driving in Morocco except it’s not as big of a deal if you actually run into someone :/ aghhh…

        Nadia ran into a few people she knew who all gave me kisses and asked me things in incomprehensibly fast Arabic to which Nadia would respond for me. One of her friends even asked if I was Arab heheh… We then went and window shopped while mama and baba braved the line for the cash register. When they got out we tried to get gelato, but there was nobody working at the counter. Sad, sad day :(  When we got home I showed Nadia some pictures from my trip so far and some of home where, once again, she thought Kelsey was my husband! Hahah Soooo weird. Everyone went to bed early so I did some homework and watched The Blind Side on my computer, I LOVE that movie.

        Sunday was another lazy day. I woke up to pouring rain and a little thunder so of course I loved it. I talked with Nadia and Katoum for a while over breakfast then went upstairs to get some work done. I wanted to go to the internet café down the street after lunch so I thought I’d get everything ready ahead of time so I wouldn’t waste any time at the café. Unfortunately for me, when I headed down there after lunch everything was looking pretty dead and closed up. Sure enough, the internet place was closed up too, so I just completed my circle around the block and went right back home. Nadia told me that it was only closed for a few hours and should be open after prayer time. Nadia doesn’t speak French so I got all this from massive amounts of sign language, charades, and using the teeny bit of Arabic I know.

        Since the sun had come out I really wanted to get outside and enjoy the weather so I invited Nadia to go down to Rabat beach with me. Not for swimming but just to walk around and watch the waves. I don’t know what she thought I was asking but we ended up going out and taking a very very VERY long walk around Yousseffia (almost down to the school!). I enjoyed the exercise and trying to communicate with Nadia is rather hilarious. When we reached the main street, we walked arm in arm down the sidewalk in deep conversation which consisted of commenting on people walking by… “that’s a tall girl!” “that’s a pretty lady!” and other astute observations such as these. Hahah… then we went into the little souk and Nadia kept telling me to watch my purse and be careful whenever I took my camera out to take a picture. On our way home, it started pouring down rain again and an acquaintance of Nadia’s rolled by in a fancy black car like Mr. Big from Sex And The City, rolled down his window and offered us a ride. He was very friendly and dropped us right in front of Nadia’s shop so we went in there for a while. She was trying to tell me something about him but I really didn’t fully understand what she was saying. She kept saying something about marriage then puffing out her cheeks like a chipmunk to imitate the man’s chubby face. I couldn’t tell if she was saying that he wanted to marry her and she was having none of it, or if he was asking if I was married and she had told him yes.

        Being exhausted by all the walking and charades with Nadia, I bid her farewell and headed back to the house to grab my computer and hope that the internet place was open. It was open, but after a few futile attempts to make my computer work with their connection, I just gave up and headed home again. So much for that :/ Maybe I’ll find a café with wifi nearby that I can go to… and not be stared at like a freak because I’m the only female there… oh God help me! Hahah this place is crazy. But don’t get me wrong, I love it and I wish every day that I could extend my stay somehow. Ohhh wishful thinking :)

        When I came home, I watched the end of Fantastic Four with Baba Ali and ate toasted almonds and popcorn with my tea mmmm! The next show that came on was a Moroccan comedy sitcom starring the wife of their son Mohammed (the actor). I couldn’t understand what they said but it really was quite funny and reminded me a tiny bit of monty python style of comedy. Mama Katoum then turned on Rocky V and I watched that while reviewing my vocab. I love the selection of movies around here :P

        We ate some weird milky soup for dinner, it was kinda salty and like watery grits. I also had eggs and an orange. I think the soup is the first thing that I really haven’t liked here, but it wasn’t horrible. I talked with the ladies for a bit then took my shower and crashed.

So it hasn’t been an extremely exciting weekend, but I enjoyed it immensely. It’s nice to relax and get my thoughts and various projects together… oh yeah and NOT spend money for a few seconds :D

TTFN!