Anyways I ended up going again and I went with another exchange student friend and we ran into two of the Italian exchange students, so we ended up traveling together and getting an apartment together. It worked out really well!
We got there late Friday night and spent the evening finding an apartment and exploring the medina a bit. And just like last time, there were numerous hashish dealers wandering the streets. You could find one at the turn of every corner. It is amazing to me how much it is a part of their culture there.
Saturday we called up one of the guys we met Friday night who said he owned his own cannabis farm. We had breakfast, and afterwards he gave us a tour of his fields and he even showed us the process of making it. The fields were mostly bare since it is nearing winter and they had already collected most of it. We went into one of the farms buildings and there were just piles and piles of weed everywhere. The entire room was full of it. He then picked some out, brought it and us to another room where he showed us how to make it.
These are photos of the cannabis fields and the process of making hashish. In the end we ended up learning to make it ourselves and of course we were served Moroccan Tea :)
After our tour of the farm, the guy took us on a hike through a trail in the mountains nearby. We saw a lot of beautiful waterfalls, and we made stops along the way for food. It was beautiful. It was amazing to me how clear the water was. But it was too cold to swim in. Anyways, I always enjoy hiking :)
We finished the hike when the sun went down. We headed back to our apartment and relaxed for the rest of the night.
We woke up Sunday morning and just explored the medina. The others that I had come with had not been before so I ended up revisiting a lot of the same parts of the medina. We shopped a lot. My exchange is coming to an end in less than a month and I'm constantly worrying about Christmas shopping already.
Most of our late morning and early afternoon was spent shopping. Then we caught our bus back to Fez at 3pm and I worked on my paper for a Politics class on the bus ride. I suppose we could have stayed later in Chefchaouen, but I had to guarantee I would be back before midnight to submit my paper. I cut it close but I got it done and submitted it five minutes before midnight when I got back to Ifrane. Success!
I still can't believe my time here ends in less than a month. There have been a lot of ups and downs, but now I don't want to leave. In the past two weeks since I have not been hanging out with other international students, I've been feeling a lot more grounded here in Morocco. I realized I was doing my exchange completely wrong. There is no point in studying abroad if the main people you hangout with are people from your own home country. It was stupid, and I regret my decision for doing that before. Even though I have plenty of Moroccan friends, continuing to hangout with fellow Americans all the time makes you view Moroccan culture as a touristic/foreign perspective. Since I've been mroe on my own in the past few weeks, I've been spending all my time with only Moroccans, and being the only foreigner, people will speak less English. If there is a huge group of foreigners people will speak english. But because it has just been me they will speak their own native language. In the past few weeks I've learned more Darija (Moroccan Arabic) than I have in my entire semester her thus far. With it being just me, assertive Moroccans teach me how to pour the tea, they wont just serve it to me.
That's the difference between really immersing yourself, and just living here as a tourist. You can sit back, speak English with fellow native English speakers and observe the culture (the fact that tea is important for example) from a foreigner perspective because you are only conversing and analyzing with other foreigners, OR you can put yourself into the culture and be taught how to pour the tea. You wont just sit there and have it be served to you, but you can learn HOW to make it and HOW to pour it. Another example is attire. Foreigners can sit back and observe how people dress here, possibly even make fun of it. I know that I thought peoples attire was interesting and strange, but once you put yourself in the culture you understand Moroccan perspective and WHY people dress he way they do. These are the slight differences. Between observing, and understanding how things are done.
I'm not really sure if this all make sense but my mind is also sort of all over the place. Overall I'm feeling a lot better about myself and my time here in Morocco. Before I was so homesick, but now I only wish that I could stay longer. Now that I'm understanding more, I'm learning more and I feel grounded here. Morocco has become more of a home to me now in the past few weeks than it ever did before. Before, I was just living here. That does not mean it's a home. A place where I understand things and local cultural habits feel right. Does this make sense?
Anyways, I'm off to write a paper. I'll write more soon! Ciao ciao
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