Adventures in Africa

Hello to all,

I wanted to be sure to write about my trip to Morocco before I forgot about all of the awesomely cool details, so here in my attempt. I have to go to class in a half hour.

We left bright and early on Thursday morning after waiting for about 20 minutes for our program director who was late... she is obviously on Spain time! We hit the road at about 8:15 am and drove down to a town in Spain called Algeciras where we caught a ferry to take us to the continent of Africa... but the place where we docked was still a part of Spain - this city called Ceuta. The ferry ride was about a half hour. The rain was incessant. It would NOT stop at all. I was a little disappointed. When we got into Ceuta, we bolted for the bus so as to not get too wet, but everyone looked like they had just gotten out of the shower anyway. So, there goes my efforts at straightening my hair for the whole weekend - I was devasted! Haha, I didn't bring my hair straightener because I figured I wouldn't need it... darn it! After we boarded we headed for the border and into Morocco. On the border we had a creepy, smelly inspection patroler come on board and check out our passports. He was not messing around.


The city our hotel was in is this city called Tetuan. The hotel was really nice - super fancy. The lights were all motion sensored so as to conserve energy. Thomas Friedman would be proud. I shared a room with Danielle, so it was a precursor to our Paris trip in December! The bathroom was super snazzy - I finally had a shower that had hot hot water and I didn't have to hold the shower head and be cramped in a small bathtub. Superb! After we dropped our things off, we went to visit this artisan school nearby where little kids learn an art that ends up being their bread and butter for the next lifetime. It was really amazing, because the kids were so good at what they did and had a level of concentration I don't think I'd ever seen in a kid at an elementary school in the US. But it was also a weird feeling, because they were already learning a vocation - child labor laws anyone? This is the task that would sustain them for their whole lives and I know it's their lifestyle and tradition to stick with the way they've done things for years and years and years, but a part of me just felt bad because we have so many opportunities in the States and many people just throw them away... and here we are in Tetuan looking at these kids like they were a zoo exhibit, you know? I didn't like that... although I felt like the whole group was like an exhibit when we were walking in Morocco - we got a lot of stares.


After visiting the school, we went and got lunch at a traditional Moroccan restaurant. We got some kind of sweet noodle soup and couscous with veggies as the main meal, and the delicious delicious tea and fruit for dessert. We also got a performance from a crazy old man that balanced a tray of candles and water on his head while doing some dancing and moving around, it was a great show! It was still really windy and rainy outside, so that caused the power to go out for a while in the restaurant, so that's when crazy candle man really came in handy with his candles.


After lunch, we all went with our guide Abdul to visit the Medina in Tetuan - that is to say, the old part of the city. It was still pouring cats and dogs at this point, and unfortunately my umbrella I brought with me was a little broken, but it served it's purpose for the most part. We walked through the market where we were truly a spectacle for all of the locals and we got to see a mosque and a synagogue amongst some other things. It also is normal to see swordfish heads chillin' on tables and live chickens running around next to a stand full of dead, skinned chickens - body still totally intact. Very different from our nicely packaged chicken breasts wrapped in plastic at nice, clean grocery stores. We also learned how to haggle with rugs - they showed us a bunch of gorgeous handmade rugs, and we got to pick the ones we wanted to buy and haggle the price down. I chose a nice hallway rug that would have been cool to have, or maybe for my sister's house, and I haggled the price from 200 euro down to 60 euro, but I didn't buy it, don't worry. It was just for fun.


After touristing in the wind and freezing my butt off, we finally went back to the hotel for dinner... I believe we had some kind of fishy soup and some kind of main course - I don't remember what it was right now. I was really exhausted so Danielle and I went up to our room after dinner and chatted for a while and called it a night.


The next day we traveled to a town called Tanger about an hour and a half away from Tetuan. The streets were totally flooded, though, so we had to take a detour so it took longer to get there. We were supposed to visit a factory where they make clothes for firefighters and fireproof things, but all of the streets leading up to it were flooded and there was no way to get there, so we didn't end up seeing it, which was a bummer... We visited the business school in Tanger, though, and that was really cool. We met a lot of Moroccan students and it was really cool to see a different kind of school than the one previously mentioned. These people were really worldy and knowledgeable and I was really impressed - they had clubs and activities and when they talked about what they wanted to do in the future, they were all bright eyed. I mostly talked with this guy Amine and a girl named Amina (funny that they have the same name, but apparently just a coincidence). They both wanted to get their MBA after graduating.

After visiting the school, we went to get lunch at a restaurant where the food was absolutely delicious, but I know it made several people in our program sick... not me, though, so it's okay :-) It was this tasty fusion of cinnamon, sugar powder, chicken, and peanuts and it was all wrapped in some of the typical bread they make... kind of like a pita, but way better and not as thick bread. After we ate, we visited these Caves of Hercules which was okay... not as cool as I thought it would be, but at least it was sunny and not raining. That made my day. Then, the coolest part of the day... we got to ride camels! That was fun, they were pretty smelly, and it was almost like riding a horse, but a little bumpier ride. After we did that, we went to the place were the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea collide and meet :-) That was really pretty - the sun was setting and the sky was pretty colors.


Afterwards, we went shopping for a bit and I found some pretty cool things to give as gifts for Christmas time. I can't wait for people to open their presents! And it was cool - we had to haggle for a price and I got one guy to go down a fair amount for this one thing :-) Almost my bottom price, but I had to go up 5 euros because he was not budging to go any lower :/ Oh well. I'm really excited for it.

Upon returning to the hotel in Tetuan and eating dinner, we felt really great and so we decided to have a massage party. All of the boys got these awesome suites in the hotel (can we say not fair!! Girls need more room!), so we went down to Brett, Mike, and Matt's room with a bunch of people and watched TV and chatted about serious and not serious topics and got excellent massages.

The next, and last, day, we gathered our things in the morning and were off to a city called Chaouen. This entire city is painted blue and white, I kid you not. Although the main reason is to cool the houses in the summer and heat them in the winter, the blue and white also have symbolic meanings... that is to say, the blue means the love of God, and the white means peace. We got a tour of that city and walked through the Medina there (the old part of town) and I felt like I was in a world that was a cross between Dr. Suess' The Grinch Stole Christmas and The Smurfs... The houses were very quaint and very adorable. After getting a tour, we did some more shopping and haggling and by the end of the two hours we had to do that, I was exhausted and wanted no more haggling. I am so glad that we have set prices in the US. Can you imagine haggling for the price of your bread? No thank you! But I got some more cool things in Chaouen for gifts and I'm pretty much done with Christmas shopping, so yay me!

On the way back home, I slept in the autocar most of the way since I was exhausted. We nearly missed our ferry, which was cool, but in the end got back to Sevilla in one piece and with lots of good memories. Morocco wasn't as enchanting as it sounds, but seeing another culture and another lifestyle that is so different from ours was very eye opening and I enjoyed the experience very much... despite the rain and how unprepared we all were for it!

So, that's my trip in a nutshell (a very large nutshell). I'll post pictures later.

Cheers,

Olivia