al-manzara min Ifrane

(on the road from fez to ifrane)

Here goes, first post in a long while... must admit, it's a little intimidating! BUT I'm on the road again and sharing is caring, right? sooo...Yallah!

lilac-lined walkway on campus

So the campus... feels more like a ski resort than a university, but ma'alish, it's pretty (albeit really out of place).

One thing's for sure - this is summer school. It's the end of a long night of reading, hunkering down with a dark chocolate dove bar (thanks, Andrew) and a heck of a lot of early Muslim religio-political history. We all felt a little bit tricked, I think, after comprehending the course load after our first day of classes. They're really squeezing a whole semester into these four weeks. In. tense. I'm pretty exhausted, but happy to be here, to be living here in Morocco....a place I spent so much of my high school and early college years dreaming about. Although being here makes me feel more like studying Arabic literature and language + Moroccan cultural geography than politics, development, and democracy. It all meshes together, though and, as always, I make what I want of it. I expect that my classmates in "Development in Theory and Practice" will tire of my cynical, contrarian commentary pretty soon, though. Yes, the development field has its issues. And I can't help but point them out. But I also love the debate that ensues, which to me is essentially the whole point.

Spent some time getting lost downtown (off-campus) yesterday, looking for the souq/marche. Must have stopped about seven people for directions, all to not much avail (well, mainly since they all insistently responded to my Arabic pleas for help in French - it seems that people automatically assume that, if your Moroccan Arabic isn't flawless, you'll be more likely to comprehend francais...unfortunately for me... but when I'm insistent, most humor me with Arabic.), but they were all really kind. And eventually we found the souq - a medium-sized, winding market, half covered, half open-air - and accidentally strolled down the butcher's section on our way to the telephone shop. After chatting with Fatima, the nice woman who sold me my SIM card, my friend and I plopped down at an outdoor cafe nearby with some homework. We sipped tea and read alongside lots of middle aged men who, actually, seemed pretty used to random, foreign student-types (both of us women), and paid us no mind. Then it was a quick taxi back up to campus. I have had really good luck with taxi drivers in town - all have been willing to help me practice my newly developing Moroccan Arabic with meaningless banter (this one , after inquiring after my heritage, spent most of the time talking about how Rome is a rip-off and Morocco is heaven in financial comparison) and none have tried to rip me off (Turkish taxicis should take lessons from the drivers of Ifrane!)! Woohoo! I'll post a transcript of the funniest of my taxi adventures some day - the conversations are generally worth sharing...

"it is forbidden to stop in front of the wall"

Looking forward to spending Wednesday in Fez and this weekend's trip to the Tafilalt Oasis! Better photos to come! (Must force myself to take some. Have been in a photo lull lately..)

one of my roommates (my hand for scale)

another one