Adjusting to Life Here. Feelin' a little down.

I've been so busy getting adjusted to classes and life here on campus, and traveling as much as I can on weekends that I haven't really sat down and written about how things are here in Ifrane.

But first, here's a quick post about my last weekend in Barcelona, Spain:

Last weekend the University gave us a long weekend from October 4th-7th off because it was Eid al-Adha, a Feast of Sacrifice to honor of Abraham willing to sacrifice his promised son, Ismail. Basically every family comes together and they all slaughter sheep as the sacrifice. I kind of wanted to experience this because it is such a unique tradition in this part of world that I could probably only experience while studying abroad here, but at the same time I knew that I couldn't be around when they slaughtered all those sheep. I really just couldn't do it.

So me and two other friends decided we'd go to Barcelona for the weekend. Morocco is ridiculously close to Spain, so much so that many people in the Northern part of Morocco speak Spanish. It was just a short of two hours flight. We left Friday morning and when we got there my friends' cousin (whom we stayed with. She is currently studying abroad in Spain) picked us up and brought us to her apartment in the middle of the city. Her apartment, and the city as a whole is so beautiful. It made me miss Europe a bit, but at the same time made me remember why I chose Morocco.

I've lived in Europe before (Italy), and I've traveled through much of Europe (Including Barcelona, so I wont blab on too much about the city) throughout the past years. It is the definition of Western. Although Europe is beautiful, I knew that I wanted something different, somewhere different in the hopes that I'd be able to immerse myself more because I would be forced to do so because it is so different. What I mean by this, is when I lived in Italy with my first host family, it was so easy to escape from the culture that I was presently in. I was able to get by with English, I was able to sit inside and stay on my computer, I was able to go out and find the same things(food, shops, etc.) as I would find back home in the States. Yes, there is still a huge culture difference, but I didn't fully experience that until my second semester in Italy with my second and wonderful host family. But what I mean is that, In Europe I could get by without changing any of my habits, finding things I was already used to having, and I would be able to stay in my own shell and my own little world. I knew that if I went somewhere completely different, I would be able to fully immerse myself. At least I'd hope so.

Anyways, throughout our four days in Barcelona, we spent our time at the beach, eating, bar hopping, going to clubs, and eating some more. The food on campus at my University in Morocco is the worst food I've ever had. Literally every time I eat something from there I end up sick with a stomach-ache or I begin vomiting. I've never had such terrible food in my life, nor did I think it was possible to make such disgusting food. So before we even left for Spain, I was determined to eat as much as I possibly could. Don't get me wrong, Moroccan food is AMAZING and I could eat it all day. But that is not what is served on campus, and I only get to eat it on weekends when I leave the campus and go out or travel.

@ Sagrada Familia

Being toursty and went to Opium night club.

Our time in Barcelona was a lot of fun, and my friends cousin was the best host we could have asked for. She showed us around a lot, and took care of us. Returning to Europe was awesome, I really missed it. Especially food. Food to me is one of the biggest part of a culture, and I'm really sad about kind of missing out on that during my time in Morocco (except for weekends). But it's alright, I get by.

Back in Morocco (October 6th):

We returned to Morocco on Monday (we still had Tuesday off for the holidays but we couldn't find flights that came back on Tuesday) and flew into Fez, then taking a grand taxi cab (the best things ever) to campus in Ifrane.

Campus was completely dead, except for a bunch of international students who either stayed on campus over the holiday, or they also went somewhere but could only find flights to come back on Monday. The campus was kind of spooky because it was so empty. On Tuesday I tried to go to the library and study because this week, and next are midterms. I got there and all the lights were completely off. Are you kidding me? I know it's a holiday, but it's the night before going back to school during midterms week.. This happens on several occasions where I just get fed up and don't understand how this university functions. It's supposedly the best university in Morocco, which I believe. But.. Let me just go off for a sec on some of the frustrations I am having here, at the university specifically.

-This university holds high expectations and assigns a steady amount of homework. however, just like this midterms situation this past Tuesday, when Sundays roll around (which are supposed to be homework days), the library doesn't open until 2 pm and it closes at midnight. Actually it closes at midnight every night. Oh, and often times a lot of assignments you are given can only be done with resources in the library, or at least resources that are supposed to be in the library. I've gone to the library multiple times to read a book on reserve, and they let someone check it out... I really don't understand that.

-I'm also incredibly frustrated with how bad the INTERNET here is. I have not been able to make a single Skype call or phone call over Viber or Whatsapp without it going in and out multiple times. I kind of forgot how bad the internet was because I was also getting bad internet over my entire summer before coming here as I was staying in a hostel in Southern Italy. But, once we had gotten to Barcelona and I had experienced good Wifi for the first time in about 4 months, I realized how bad it was here. But at least the university does have Wifi on the campus, whether it works sometimes or not.

-FOOD. I can't stress enough to you how much food is a part of my life. When I got here the first day and started eating the food, it was bland and room temperature. Ok fine. But a couple days after it caught up to me and I got really sick. I continued to eat the food and realized that that was the cause of my sicknesses. I was pretty much having stomach problems nearly everyday for the first three weeks until I gave up eating food from the campus restaurant and began to just live off bread and french fries (because those are pretty hard to mess up) that I could get at the student store with my meal points. It didn't matter to me whether or not this was an unhealthy choice, my stomach became neutral and for the first time in three weeks my stomach didn't hurt. So now I've stopped eating the campus restaurant food except for on Fridays when they serve couscous. Friday is couscous day and it's kind of hard to mess that up as well I would think.  The only real food I get is when I travel on the weekends and leave campus. But when I do get real traditional Moroccan food, man, that stuff is the best I could eat it all day everyday. Couscous and Tajines are my favorite. When you eat out here, small appetizers of olives, bread, lentils, etc, are provided before your meal. And when your meal comes, you eat it all with bread. It reminds me a lot of Italy, how you sandwich your food bits in between pinches of bread. Basically you eat with your hands most of the time.   
Real Moroccan food. YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Onto observations, not frustrations:

-How people DRESS is so interesting to me. Ifrane is up in the mountains, and is does not really reflect the rest of Morocco. Ifrane is one of the few places where it snows, the rest of Morocco is insanely hot, Well, at least for me. For many Moroccans it's quite the opposite, it's now October 11th, and in the middle of the day it still feels like summer. It's probably around 70 degrees Fahrenheit most days and I'll be out walking from class to class in my summer shorts and a tshirt, meanwhile others in long pants, winter coats, and girls in ugg boots. This makes me laugh every time, but I'm sure they laugh at me too. I've been called out multiple times and people think I'm crazy. No, this is just normal weather for me, but cold for them. Another comment on attire here on campus, is that because this university is supposedly modeled after American universities, it has a very western mindset. Same with this town, the town the campus is in is very small. But because it snows and it's so different from the rest of Morocco, it's alright to go out dressed however you like. People seem to dress more revealing than most people I know even in the States, which was an extremely shocking thing for me when I first got here because I was prepared to wear long skirts and be covered and be modest. Many girls here wear short skirts and even crop tops revealing their stomachs or their full back. It's shocking, but interesting. However, in the rest of Morocco, people should be dressed more modestly as I have understood. Many of my Moroccan friends tell me that for me as a foreigner (I clearly don't look Moroccan) it doesn't even matter how I dress because people will stare at me anyways, people will cat-call me anyways, and however I dress doesn't matter as it would for normal Moroccan women.

-Privilege. It is a privilege to be able to attend this university, and to be able to study in Morocco. This university is the top in Morocco, and perhaps one of the top universities in all of Africa. Many of the people who attend this university are very privileged, people have multiple houses, and their own cars, etc. We even have cleaning ladies that come into our dorms and clean our rooms for us once every two weeks or so. There are also women who do our laundry for us, as long as we bring it to them. It's interesting, I'm really grateful for it, but at the same time I wonder what I am learning. with this town and University being so western, I chose Morocco in hopes of being able to escape that. Even our courses are taught in English, so just speaking to people everyone will respond to me in English, just because its more convenient. I get it. It's just difficult adjusting to what I had not anticipated. I feel like I'm in a mini-America on this campus an in these mountains. I mean, thankfully I am making a lot of Moroccan friends who have invited me into their homes and will sometimes speak to me in French if I ask. At least there's that, and it's not fully an American university with all Americans. I try my best to hangout with just Moroccans aside from my two American friends. I want more of an immersion. For now, I'm trying and doing what I can.

-LANGUAGE. People here know numerous languages and I can't keep up. Some people know Berber, which is the ancient language of true Moroccans, some people know Spanish, which is a very Northern thing, and people know Moroccan Arabic (mix of classical Arabic and French), French (levels of fluency vary because some people were educated in Arabic and others in French, and vice versa with Arabic), and then there's English, which everyone on this campus knows. People here in a single conversation will throw around words of any language they know. It's really hard to keep up with. Some people who don't know French as well will speak just Moroccan Arabic, and vice versa with people who don't know Arabic as well, they'll speak just French. I knew coming into this that Moroccan was multi-lingual and very multi-cultural, it has influences from so many different cultures because at one point in time or another it was colonized by someone different, like the Spanish, or the French, etc. I never expected it to be this difficult to pick a language up though. Just because I know some words of Spanish and lots of French and I'm fluent in English and Italian, doesn't mean I'm just going to start conversing with someone using words from four different languages. I really didnt expect people to talk the way that they do here. So learning French and improving it has been difficult. It definitely is improving because I learn by hearing it, then once I hear it I will speak it. And I am definitely hearing it more here in Morocco than I do at home in the States. But still, I thought I would be fully conversational by now. I just have to keep working on it. I'm trying to find another way to fully immerse and try start speaking it more. People speak to me in English, but I would only speak French if they spoke French to me first. I just get really nervous about my speaking abilities in French and will not do so unless I hear it enough and know how it is supposed to sound. I hate talking and sounding like an idiot, but I guess practicing like that and trial and error is the learning process.

-HOMESICK. I've never really been homesick before. In all the times that I've traveled.. I started traveling in 2008 and I've gone from Canada, Mexico, Peru, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, England, China, Monaco, Iceland, and Morocco. I've been away from home for significant periods of time traveling on me own and this has never happened to me. I guess, despite the friendships I'm making here, I'm still feeling a bit alone. I miss my home, I miss my family in Seattle, I miss my puppy, I miss my family in Italy, I miss my Pernosano Osteology family, I miss my Pi Phi family, I miss Oregon and my life there with my loved ones. I guess until being abroad again, and finally feeling like I have these families everywhere, and that I've established these intense relationships with my loved ones, I never felt this. It's probably a mix of things going on here in Morocco, and finally feeling like I have these family relationships, that are making me feel this way. Being abroad really makes you appreciate the real strong relationships in your life, and at times, being abroad can also make you feel the most lonely you may have ever felt. This is definitely what's happening. It's just weird to experience it now, and know that I didn't when I've lived abroad multiple times before. But now I'm at a different point in my life with different people in my life. I need to understand that, and move on.

I know it does seem like I am really down right now. I mean I'm not going to lie, I am a bit. But it doesn't mean that Morocco in any way hasn't been amazing. That's not what I'm trying to convey. It is significantly different than what I had expected to deal with, that is part of my adjusting. I am so happy to be here, and it really is such an amazing experience. I'm so lucky to be here, and Morocco is one fo the most beautiful countries I've ever been to and seen. The people are such beautiful people as well, so kind and friendly and welcoming. I wish that I could stay here forever, live here and be outside of this Western, different than the rest of Morocco, town. Because really I've never been to such a place with such history, that is so multi-cultural in this way, that is scenically beautiful, artistically beautiful, and with such beautiful and warm people. After my exchange, I definitely will be coming back. I know that for sure. I'm in love with this country, just not my university and some of my experiences here. I wish I could be immersed more, and that I could learn more. Instead of getting by each day with just English here and there, everywhere. On such a Western campus, it's so easy to get by doing my normal thing. Just like I said what was doable in Europe.

Oh well, I'll work harder on what I can, speaking more French, making more friends, trying new things and food, and traveling when I can so I can see the rest of Morocco and its beauty.

For now, I'm off. I have to study for the rest of my midterms. I just had one last Thursday in my Politics course. I read hundreds of pages last minute because the library was closed and I felt like my body was drained because it took so much coffee for me to stay up and read it all. But I think it went alright. I submitted an Art research assignment on Friday. As for next week I have my French midterm on Monday, my history midterm on Tuesday, and Art on Wednesday. The following week I'll have an hour long presentation in my History class as well. As you can probably guess I'm staying in town in Ifrane this weekend because of midterms. So last night since we aren't traveling this weekend and can't go anywhere to eat, me and my two friends went to the super fancy hotel in Ifrane (and super expensive) to treat ourselves for a delicious dinner. It was a nice dinner date. It'll be a chill weekend here, which is good to have sometimes. Anyways, wish me luck on studying and midterms!

Treating ourselves last night. Wining and dining

I love and miss you all back home!! I miss my families <3


P.S.
Moroccan friends, if I'm getting any of my information wrong, let me know and correct me please :)