Shiny and Soft

Two Sundays ago we went hiking in Zouia d'Ifrane. We hired two drivers/cars to take us there as it's about 70km from our village. They have pretty waterfalls so we spent the day hiking up to the top of them and having a picnic and then up further. It was a pretty cool, rainy day - maybe this is what fall is like here (wet!) or maybe we're skipping straight to winter (it's supposed to be cold and wet - miserable - this year). We're planning for snow before we leave here for our permanent sites on Thanksgiving. Definitely going to appreciate the stack of blankets at my house that is literally taller than me - I will try to take a picture of it. Joe, our Moroccan teacher, didn't believe me about how many blankets they have so I had to show him when everyone came over for kaskrut (the coffee/tea/snack break at 6:30ish). He was shocked to see so many (and scared to think about what winter is going to bring)!

Last Saturday we went to Ait Hamza, a village of 300 people, that’s just a short taxi ride away from us. We went to visit another group of trainees there. Some people from two of the other groups came as well. We were able to be away from our site overnight so 19 of us stayed at the home of a current PCV that lives there. She made Mexican food, but unfortunately I was too sick to take even a bite. I was puking and ______. So pleasant – I spent the evening lying on Emily’s bed, but it was fun to see everyone and have such a big group. The next day the group was going hiking but I was not up to it and Zena (from my group) wanted to go back and study so she and I got a cab to the next town where we then got another cab back to our town.

We find out our permanent sites this Friday and we're all pretty excited/nervous to find out where we'll be spending the next two years. We talked to the program director last weekend to let him know if we had any requests or information for him regarding our site, but from everything we've heard, no matter what we say, they put you where they need you, SO - who knows and why bother!

Yesterday the 3 other girls in my group, our cook and I went to the hammam, which is the public bath. I liked the after result – silky smooth skin, but sitting there in only my underwear – no top on – with a bunch of other women was totally awkward. There are basically 3 rooms and a changing “lobby” in the place. You go in, strip down and then go in to the next room and then the next. The first room is cool, then the middle room is warm and then the last room, depending on the number of people, is hotter. There are faucets around the room and you fill a bucket and wet-down and then put this argon oil soap on, wash it off and then start scrubbing with this weird mitt thing. After awhile your skin starts coming off in small spaghetti-like strands. Talk about gross. Oh, and since you can’t really scrub your own back to death, someone does it for you. And lucky me, before I knew what was happening, the lady that works there had me thrown on the ground and twisted in all sorts of weird positions and was scrubbing the s*** out of me. I’m pretty sure I was supposed to pay her, but I only took enough money to get in (since your clothes and shoes just hang out in an open room). I think my host mom wants me to go pay her tomorrow but due to the language barrier, I’m not totally sure. I didn’t want this “service” in the first place – I thought the lady was just asking about my host mom and telling me there was hot water over there – ugh. She had a couple of mats I laid on – gross – and they smelled like a barnyard. Many thanks to my “friends” who didn’t save me!! Anyways, once you’re done scrubbing (which goes on for quite some time) you rinse off and wash with real soap and shampoo and then rinse off and then leave. Some people stay for hours, especially the men who evidently in addition to scrubbing each other also assist each other in stretching. I’m sure it’s nice in the winter since they don’t believe in actually heating their houses, but then the cold reminder that you have to go outside will set in and yikes that will be rough. I’m sure I’ll go from time to time but will try to avoid being pinned to the ground. That night 3 of us made our own kaskrut (the evening coffee break, but ours consisted of Coke, chocolate pudding, french bread and some soft cheese stuff - we get it how we can. Then we had a girls movie night (watched Fargo on Jamila's computer) - we huddled together on Nora's bed to keep warm. It was relaxing and quiet with no one talking (i.e. yelling because they talk so loud) in arabic.

Today was the first day we didn’t go anywhere or do anything out of our site. I slept in (well didn’t sleep, but stayed in bed) and then did most of my homework before the family came in to tell me they were all going different places for awhile. It was nice to have the place to myself for a bit. When my host mom came back we did my laundry and then she showed me the unfinished apartment upstairs from ours where we hang clothes to dry. She was also drying seeds to make into bread (okay, they weren’t seeds, but my English these days is diminishing so I don’t know what to call them). Tonight for dinner I was really excited that we were going to have pizza. Until I learned that it was fish pizza. Can’t anything be the same?! Yesterday we made Chinese food and it was quite delicious. Actually tasted like Chinese food and unlike anything we eat here – we even left the cumin and turmeric out of it (they cook with an overabundance of those here and I’ve learned I don’t like them – not good!). Thanks to Jamila for whipping up chicken fried rice and stir-fried (well, steamed) veggies chicken and thanks to Zena for buying soy sauce when she had to make an unplanned trip to Rabat a couple of weeks ago.