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Tidbits of Morocco

Meknes Happenings Ù…ÙƒÙ†Ű§Űł

  • Me: “We were discussing a topic today and you’ll never believe it. I know what I want to do with my life now, I had a revelation!”Roommate: “Oooh, oooh, you had a..a..epi..EPIPEN!...Oh wait, no that’s not right.” She meant emiphany.

  • I just discovered that the mother of all Arabic dictionaries, Hans Wehr, is available on an iPhone app. As I excitedly explain this to my teacher, another classmate exclaims, “Hans Wehr is on an app?!” knocking over a full glass of coffee in the process. We get excited about dictionaries now. Arabic is our life.

  • Why did they decided to rip up all the sidewalks in Meknes this summer? I cannot count on two hands the number of falls I’ve taking into holey sidewalks.

  • Meknes McDonalds: 0 - Amman McDonalds: 1...at least McDonalds here didn’t make us sick like KFC did


  • Book hunting: The first book that appears when I ask booksellers for autobiographies in Arabic is Hitler’s Mein Kampf. The second is Malala Yousafzai’s “I Am Malala.” I did find my favorite Turkish author, Elif Shafak to be very popular here and I now have a great collection of Arabic books: I Am Malala, Elif Shafak, Nizar Qabbani, a few Moroccan authors, and Hilary Clinton’s autobiography. All in Arabic folks.

Volubilis and Molay Idriss Zarhoun

  • Our first weekend trip with the program: Nearby Roman ruins and the picturesque overlook of Molay Idriss Zarhoun (one of my Facebook cover photos). We visited a women’s cooperative in the town and wandered the souks full of dates and hand-woven jellabas.

Tangier Ű·Ù†ŰŹŰ©

  • Spain is so close! You can see the Spanish coastline all around Tangier’s point on the Strait of Gibraltar.

  • A friend and I had an incredible opportunity to meet a group of Moroccan couchsurfers and go out to cafes and the beach with them. We had some great conversations, especially about how they’re most comfortable speaking French mixed with Darija. We we amazed by the number of languages used and heard in Tangier, French, Darija, Spanish, German, English.

  • The souks were again, exciting and full of jellabas, seasonal fruit, traditional paintings and artwork. My friend and I were sure to bring home some artwork.

  • We visited the Kasbah, and old palace, and were given a personal tour of museum. The American Legation Museum introduced us to American-Moroccan historical relations - Did You Know Morocco was the first country to recognize the United States?

Beaching it for Eid in Molay Bousselham Ù…ÙˆÙ„Ű§ÙŠ ŰšÙˆŰłÙ„Ù‡Ű§Ù…

  • Our host family took us to the seaside town of Molay Bousselham, a quiet summertime beach town. I embarrassingly exited the car with a giant rip across the butt of my favorite white pants! My host brother took us to the souk where I was able to find some new pants and then we went through the fish market on the hunt for one of our last Iftar meals.

  • The electricity went out at our last iftar meal and we spent a good five minutes trying to figure out if it was time to break the fast of not, having our phones stationed to Meknes time! If you didn’t know, Muslims break the month-long Ramadan fasts at sunset, and as the sun moves, every town differs in the exact time of the breaking of the fast.

  • Basically, our Eid consisted of lying on the beach for three straight days! We met a young French women working on a farm in a nearby town and invited her in for lunch on the day of Eid. You make friends everywhere you go in Morocco.

Rabat Ű§Ù„Ű±ŰšŰ§Ű·

  • The capital, although not the largest city! It’s the fifth or sixth largest city, even Meknes is bigger than Rabat!

  • We saw a handful of historic sites, including the mausoleum of Kings Mohammad V and Hassan II. I was reminded of Ataturk’s mausoleum in Ankara, Turkey. The Moroccan mausoleum was decorated beautifully in Arabic calligraphy and we had a fun time outside on the pavilion exploring ancient columns.

  • Nine of us girls spent the night in a beautiful “riad,” an old Mosaic-tiled Moroccan villa where we were served a nice breakfast before heading to the beach for surf lessons and another long beach day. Never thought the beach would be around so often in my summer Moroccan experience!

  • We stuffed ourselves at a famous Lebanese restaurant - kibba, falafel, shwerma, mtabbal, hummus, maqloubeh, mloukhia, warbaat. Many of us missed Balad Al-Shami food! Even though I was there just one month ago...

The Desert Awaits
my last blog post will include my trips to Merzouga Ù…Ű±ŰČÙˆÙƒŰ© in the Sahara desert, the seaside town of Asilah and it’s mural festival, and final notes on an amazing summer with incredible teachers and 29 other CLS participants.

Check out our instagram CLSMeknes2017 and CLScholarship to follow our summer programs. Exchange Our World gives you a glimpse into exchange programs all over the world!

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