Days are dwindling in Rabat

The river between Sale and Rabat is home to lots of colorful fishing boats.

This semester I have had a love/hate relationship with the city that I have come to call home. I have lived in the traditional medina and moved out to Hassan, one of the nicest areas in Rabat. I still love to get away from time to time, and will complain while I'm in the city, but there is some part of me that is so attached to this city. Walking around while I know my time here is coming to an end is somewhat of a relief, but also a deep sadness because this is a place where I have made new friends and had new experiences.

If there is one thing Morocco has it's nationalism. This is taken
at the King Mohammad V's Mausoleum. The red flag in the background
can be spotted often around Morocco. 

The Hate

So, because I don't want to end this on a bad note, I am putting the bad first. You better make it to the end though, because the good makes all of the bad go away.

1) The cat-calling is relentless. Walking down the street I could be called 2 times or 200 depending on the day. Just ask anyone here I almost never go anywhere without my 5'4 blonde best friend Becca. So, we get called a lot, especially when we are together. We try to laugh it off best we can with imagining kicking guys off their motorcycles, or using our few Arabic curse words when it gets really bad. Rabat is where we have experienced it the worst, but this is also where we spent the most time. This was especially hard when we were living in the medina, because it is so crowded there. The nicer the neighborhood and farther from the medina you experience it less. Also, headphones and sunglasses have become my best friends while walking alone; I might have hearing problems because of how loud I play my music, but I haven't had many problems while alone since I got my new phone to play music as I walk.

2) When you are lost and there isn't a magical person that knows English, you are really lost. So, this doesn't happen in Rabat anymore because I have lived here for four months, but it did at the beginning and it did a lot in other cities. We actually had to direct a cab driver back to our apartment because he was still new at his job and didn't know the city well. You just have to keep walking and get yourself situated again when you recognize something, whether that means leaving the medina and trying again or finding the one building you recognize and go from there. It really isn't that bad, and as the semester went on learning more Arabic did help. Also, when in doubt use a cab; they are so cheap, especially in Rabat, because cab drivers are generally nice and use their meters. If the cab driver refuses the meter in Rabat you can find another one that will use the meter, unlike many of the bigger tourist cities *cough* Marrakesh *cough.*

3) Women's dress code: No knees or elbows. It's subtropical North Africa. It's starting to get toasty over hear and I can't leave the apartment even to grab something from the corner store below the apartment in my shorts. It's not illegal like Saudi Arabia, but it's h'shuma and you will get more people staring. I have been pushing the boundaries with short sleeves, but all I really want are sundresses and shorts.

That's all for the bad, really if the cat-calling wasn't as bad and if I had data on my phone to use Google Maps I would probably stay here forever. I also really dislike and take the catcalling to heart, because I miss Saint Mike's where I could not walk more than 50 feet without smiling at a friend or starting a new conversation. You learn the hard way to walk with your head down to attempt to ward off unwanted attention. Also, I could never do summer here. It's getting too hot already.

The Good:

My little host brother Samad.

1) There is nothing like walking around and seeing palm trees everywhere.

2) There are some truly nice people that you meet randomly walking around and in cafes.

3) The protests; ok it's probably because I'm a journalism student, but it's always an interesting sight to see. And since Rabat is the political capital, protests happen often. It might not be to the same extent as home, but it is partially free speech, so yay. (Can't wait 'till I'm back in the land where democracy was founded and speech really is free).

4) Not always being attached to the grid. So, the majority of us don't have data on our cell phones here; we are back to the burner phones of 7th grade. So, we can enjoy not being constantly connected; days you spend outside your home or cafe's are spent completely off the gird, forcing you to post those snapchats after you get back to wifi. I didn't even have a phone for a month. Sure I missed it a little, but over all I didn't die. It's going to be weird going back and having data literally. At your fingertips at all times.

5) The languages. I'm gonna miss hearing Arabic and French everywhere, and feeling the immense happiness when I'm in a crowd and hear the few English speaking people. It's going to be weird going back where everyone can understand what I say and I understand everything they say. I'm also going to miss the happiness I see on people's faces where I can actually speak a little Arabic to them. It will be weird going back to saying "Hey" instead of "Salam." My American friends and I even still use some Arabic words while talking to each other. 

So here is a little vocab lesson:

Inshalla- God willing

Mzien- Good

Bzzffff- Lots

Shweya- A little or so-so

Hamdallah- Thanks be to God

6) The feeling of relief and pride that you get after dealing with a difficult situation, which is extra difficult because of the language barrier.

7) The ease of travel. The Moroccan train system is great! First class is the way to go by far, and those tickets aren't too expensive. It's about $20 to go from Rabat to Marrakesh first class, which is a 5-hour train ride. You have plenty of time and room to relax. And the trip can be productive if you bring work to do.

I think Tangier was my favorite spontaneous trip.

8) 4G data USB sticks. So, I'm not sure why these haven't caught on in America yet (probably because they would be too expensive because wireless companies are only in it for the profit), but these things are freaking fabulous! Especially on long train rides, or when the wifi isn't working. *BONUS* I can FaceTime while using my wifi stick, though video chat services are technically banned in Morocco, because VPNs don't always work.

9) The exchange rate. Hamdallah for the US Dollar being so strong!

10) The food. Fresh veggies that are domestic, not imported and with GMOs that are wicked cheap. I bought enough veggies for a few meals for under $0.50. Also, chicken will never taste as good as it does the same day it is killed. And tajine and couscous are mzien bzzzffff.                                            

11) I'm going to miss living downtown in a city. Almost everything is walkable, though I do tend to take lots of cabs when I'm out at night (but again the exchange rate is amazing so they are wicked cheap and everything is relatively close.) And though restaurants are not really a thing in Morocco (I can't wait to go home and be able to go out to really good restaurants) there are a few that we enjoy and that give variety to the tajine I ate every night in my home stay or the pasta I cook for myself all too often on my own (I can't really cook that much, but when I do it is good).

Most of all I am going to miss my friends that I have made in Rabat. My host family was absolutely amazing, welcoming me into their home and lives. The friends we made that go to circus school in Sale.

In our last few days Becca and I are checking off our Morocco bucket list! We move back to the hotel we first started in Sunday for a week of presentations about our projects. I'm going to miss our Hassan apartment, even if every time we try to cook we almost blow ourselves up with the gas stove, or always seem to have trouble turning on the hot water for showers, or a lot of things in the apartment are actually broken.

We visited King Mohammad V's Mausoleum as part of our Morocco Bucket List.

Then Saturday May 14, we leave the program. We are all headed in separate directions. First stop for me will be London! It's going to be fun and an easy transition because I will get to see some of my summer camp friends and in England they speak English! We joke that nothing will ever be as hard or confusing as it is in Morocco. Our teachers tell us if we can be journalists in Morocco we can be them anywhere.

However, I'm sad to be leaving a place I have fallen so madly in love with. Everyday is a new adventure here, from the first time we walked through the medina to living on our own and traveling. I have grown a lot, and somethings are not as glamorous as they first were. However, this is my here and now, and I'm not sure what is going to happen when it is not.