It is time to say goodbye

It is FINALS times!!!
This weekend we went to Azrou. A major Peace Corps city south of Ifrane. Azrou means rock in Amazigh, which is what Azrou was built on. One big rock. It also supposedly is related to the fact that Azrou will always stand like a rock.
We mostly came here to buy souvenirs. We bought shoes, hands of Fatima, prayer beads, knives, everything Moroccan. It was amazing. The last time that I used my Arabic in full conversations. It felt great. At AUI it was hard from time to times to employ the newly learned knowledge mostly because many did not speak Modern Standard, and I did not speak enough derija. For some weird reason most of Azrou's people understood me, and I understood them. Great!
Sadly I need to return to my studies, two more finals left for freedom.
I will write one or two more posts recapping my experience, once I have been away from it long enough. Right now it feels like one of the best times of my life.

Best regards from the Middle-Atlas,

Diogo

A little piece of heaven

السلام عليكم،
this weekend I did my last major trip. It was the May 1st weekend, Hannah, one of my great friends from Germany, visited, and we thought the beach would be a great place to go. First we all headed to Marrakesh for a day in order to enjoy the greatest juice, and the lovely Djma al-Fnaa. Since our end-station was Essaouira, we had to go through Marrakesh anyway. There we explored the modern side of the city. We hung out in the Ville Nouvelle, Gueliz, and tried to get into some clubs. Problem were my shorts and flip flops, here if you want to go to a club you need:
-gelled hair,
-slick shoes/kicks,
-pants/dark jeans, and
-sunglasses,
as you can see, I probably had neither. Well, nonetheless we had a good time. I even bought something in a store, in which Sarkozy shopped. High class I know.
Anyway, on Friday we bolted fro Essaouira. What a gorgeous place!
As you can see, beautiful. We were in this tiny nice hotel called Hotel Cap Sim, and the lady there, was a typical Moroccan woman. She was friendly and helpful, always ready to poke fun at some of us, and she was correcting my Arabic (ma ahla).
A little bit about Essaouira, it is amazing. It is a small town at the beach, which back in the days was an important trade port. Occupied by the Spanish for a time, who built the fortifications seen on the left, around the old city.
The charm of this city is that it is a lot like Chefchaouen, but it has an upside. It has a beach right there. The people there are very relaxed, laid back, and do not try to harass you just for walking past their store. That is topped by the fact that it seems like everyone in that town a) loves music, b) is having a great life, and c) hope you love the town as much as they do.
As every hippie place, there is always this one funky restaurant/cafe to go to. We found our Essaouira version in a back alley. They offered funky juices, great organic dishes. I had sweet rice, with dates, raisins, and almonds. The dish was accompanied by a lemon, garlic, carrot juice... yum! After that experience we went to the beach, and I got to eat something I have not had in a long time, SUGAR CANE! I used to drink its juice in Brazil, found it here again, and this guy told me to peel it, and chew around on it. That was just perfect, sitting at the beach with sugar cane. I even got to share it with some little Moroccan kids. It was interesting to see that they actually had a sharing system. I cut it in four pieces for the four little boys. Suddenly a fifth one showed up, a friend I assume, and the biggest of them told all of the others to share a little with the fifth boy, so that everyone can have some. So much for the Western conviction that the Arabs, or the Middle East and North Africa is irrational and primitive.
Essaouira is also known for its silver works. The jewelry rocks, if you like very alternative things. Another thing Essaouira used to be known for was its Jewish community. The city still has a giant Jewish cemetery, with a very nice woman working as caretaker.
On our way back we crashed at this awful hotel in front of the Casa Voyageurs train station.

That was my weekend.
مع سلاما من المغرب

I am an invalid

Hi everyone,
let me keep this short. Some Moroccans do not know how to play Rugby. I do not know how to either.
This week my eardrum was punctured after someone slapped me on the ear during practice. I am miserable and in pain. Glad that the Mimouna days are coming up.

The only good thing that this brought, is an insight into the medical system of the country. It is pretty decent, if one has sufficient money. I have a feeeling that otherwise, one is pretty much doomed to still die from leprosy.

Nursing my battlewounds,

Diogo

A Moroccan Passover

Greetings from the land of the sun and oranges,
this past weekend in order to properly celebrate Passover, I went down, or up depending from your point of view, to Fes. The very kind Mamane family hosted my friend Payne and I for a Moroccan Seder. It was quite an experience.

For those of you that do not know, most of Moroccan Jewry lives peacefully among other Moroccans. Since the beginning of the past century Arabs and Jews lived next to each other, considering themselves to be Moroccans in the first place. Many of the remaining are of French or Spanish decent. Thus French is quite common among all Jews. They still constitute some form of elite in many areas, the most prominent among them being His Majesty's adviser Andre Azoulay.

Another aspect of Moroccan Jewry is their following of Sephardic customs. These are extremely visible during Passover. Mdm. Mamane served various delicious dishes which included fava beans, rice, lentils, and nuts. Most Ashkenazi Jews would keep their fingers far away from all that stuff. The Seder was beautiful. It was chaotic, it was loud, it was funny, and above all it was festive. After becoming the religious authority of the house, Mr. Mamane and I moved steadily towards the food part, it was an extremely fast Seder. Yet it was interesting nonetheless. The Harosset was not the usual apple and wine mixture, but instead was made out of dates and other local ingredients. The counting of the plagues was not done by using the pinkie, but instead by mixing wine and water in a large bowl, and last but not least, Mr. Mamane, for some inexplicable reason went around with a plate, held it above our heads, put it down, and it was eating time.

Many of the traditions they could not even explain, but they seem to be distinctively Moroccan. The most famous one though are the Mimouna Days. Right after Passover, people open their houses for their family, friends, and neighbors and put a myriad of sweets on the table. These are shared among everyone, it reminded me a little bit of trick-or-treating. It is a form of celebrating the end of the yeast feast, which I will gladly joined.

It was interesting to see how much they defended their Moroccan identity. Especially when I mentioned Israel. Many Jews from here left the country after WWII, yet the Mamane's swear that most of them still maintain strong roots, and a strong identity in the country. Moroccan Jews compared to those of other countries' see Judaism to be something extremely different from Zionism, due to the long period of peace between the different population groups.

The last little thing that I want to mention is that there even used to be some Berber Jews living in the country. Most of them emigrated to Israel, where they maintain their Berber culture through this day.

Chag Sameach m'magrib va shalom,
Diogo

BEH

هذا الاسبوع بقيت في جامعة لان ليست كان عندي شيء فعل. الطقس خيب في اليوم، وما زال طوال نهاية الاسبوع.

Yes kids this is Arabic. Nothing to report, except for THESE PROFESSORS CAN BE STRICT.

Marrakech wa Riad wa zuin

السلام عليكم،
after our amazing Spring Break trip, we decided to head to Marrakesh for the weekend. That, my friends, was a great choice. We ended up staying in a Riad, owned by some French people. Riad's are traditional "villas" in the medinas of Morocco, and can be found everywhere. They basically are atrium constructions, and go over two, three floors. Many times there is some form of water body in it to help control the temperature, since Marrakesh can get quite hot over the summer.
As it is "custom" in Morocco, most rich families will have a caretaker as well. The lady who was taking care of the Riad, was a rather interesting person. She did not seem to appreciate the help we were offering her, and clearly did not enjoy non-Moroccan men in her kitchen. Something I thought to be rather interesting.
Back to the topic of Marrakesh. Morocco received its name from the city, only speaking about European languages. It is the fashion capital of the country, it is also the city of the young people. There is a certain "arrogance" throughout the city, a feeling of being better than everyone else. But the pulse of the city is the Djma al Fnaa. That square seems to not have changed at all over the past years. It is full of life, and useless things. Yet these useless things are so fascinating, they give the whole place a character of its own. People with Cobras, monkeys, and other random things. Orange and dried fruit stand vendors, fight for customers, although everyone has the same goods. At night time food stands pop out of nowhere, and yet again, basically the same stuff everywhere, yet they advertise them as the very best of Marrakesh. The rest of the medina has various different souqs, anything your heart desires, can be found here. The freaky part was the voodoo section. Supposedly voodoo was brought from sub-Saharan Africa, and mixed with Islam somehow. I did not really understand, and ran out of the area after a while, because I actually am scared of the stuff. Alessandro did not understand that, the Moroccans did.
Another interesting thing of Marrakesh is the Koutubia. A mosque that was once completely destroyed, because the kiblah was facing the wrong direction. Once they've rebuilt it though, the kiblah was still facing the wrong direction. Mumtaztic. It was completely restored a few years ago, so the pink bricks can actually be seen. It is not just a pretty building, but it also provides some sort of backbone to the chaotic Djema al Fnaa.

In my next one I will talk about the Majorelle Garden. It's late wa ana taba3an.

مع سلامة من المغرب،
ديوگو

SPRING BREAK Y'ALL!!!

Finally the week of Spring Break arrived. It was over the same time as Miami's, which means I missed no important news. Well we decided to head South. It seemed to be the best time for such a trip due to the countries size. Morocco has an area comparable to the state of California. We went from Ifrane to Casablanca to pick up my friend Alessandro from the airport. There we visited the Hassan II mosque. By pure coincidence I also met Wynona and her husband Richard there, quite pleasant I have to say. That mosques is "ginormous", and completely out of proportions to reality. I mean, it is the third largest mosque in the world, it has the tallest minaret in the world, with all the bells and whistles, every Moroccan paid money for the mosque, and people even died building it. Instead of giving it a name that is synonymous to the people and the country, it was named after the King Hassan II. I assume that this is how Morocco works, if you have the money you get everything that you want.

The next day we started our journey due South. We left Casablanca and traveled towards Marrakesh, where we stayed for one night. The next day we left for the coast. We arrived in Agadir around 4ish, and instead of continuing towards Mirleft, we decided to go North and stop in a small town named Taghazout. We decided to do that, since Agadir is a giant luxury construction site.... YUK! In Taghazout we stayed at the beach, had fish 4 times, and Andrew tried to surf. From there we finally made our journey to Mirleft, yes we went to a small Berber fishing village.

Once we got into Mirleft, it became clear that it might just be one of the most deserted places I've ever put my feet in. One road, that was basically it. The beach was beautiful, cliffs all around, nice waves, fine sand. Except for some trash and a tourist trap cave, it was a very different experience. Most people there spoke better English and Berber than Arabic I felt. The place we stayed in was original Moroccan to a certain extent. A nice atrium style house with an original squatter toilet!!!!! It was quite an experience, be ready for it if you come to these parts of the world. The rest of the week was dominated by relaxation and random shenanigans. On Friday we headed back, the trip was marred by some disagreements, but all in all, we were a pretty fun crowd to travel with.