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Greetings! This blog is bought to you by fuel boats in Gibraltar, the game of Duck Duck Goose, and Moroccan mint tea.
Morocco was definitely an Experience.
The day before we were supposed to dock in Morocco, we were scheduled to bunker for fuel in Gibraltar. Bunkering is when you don't actually dock, you just drop the anchor. Then the boat with fuel pulled up next to us and attached a fuel line and voila! There was fuel. Theoretically. At the very end of our cultural pre-port lecture that night, Luke (the assistant executive dean) informed us that although we bunkered, we did not actually get fuel because the water was too rough to get the fuel line across. We had to wait until the next morning to get fuel so we lost an entire day in Morocco. I was a little worried mostly because the Field Office said that all of the overnights would be pushed back a day which sounds great except that I would now be getting back from my overnight to Marrakech at the same time I was supposed to leave for Dinner With a Moroccan Family. I talked to the Field Office and they said I would be able to both and they'd tell the family that I would be a little late. Of course, now we were all stuck on the boat for an extra day. Luckily, there were activities planned. I went to a lecture on bartering (don't say any prices you don't intend to pay, don't let the merchant make you feel guilty, don't be afraid to walk away because they'll usually lower the price) and another one on how not to get pick pocketed (stay alert, split up your valuables, don't take anything out of your money belt in public). There was also an open mike night which was a lot of fun.
Actually being in Morocco was AMAZING!!! It was so different from the U.S. The medieval section of the cities is called the medina and that's where all the souks (stores inside the medina) are located. Walking around the medina is intense. The streets are very narrow and crowded and lined with shops that seem to go on forever. It would be very easy to get lost if we didn't have a tour guide. In the main square there are snake charmers, henna artists, men with monkeys who walk up to random people and put the monkey on their shoulder, musicians, and food stalls. The tour guide took us to a pharmacy that sold traditional herbal medicines and a man who worked there explained what a lot of the herbs were for and how they were used. A lot of Moroccans still use traditional medicine. The next day we went up into the mountains to visit a Berber village. We stopped at a Berber home and got a small tour and then the family served us mint tea and homemade bread. The tea was delicious. It's actually a mixture of Chinese green tea, mint, and sugar so it's very sweet. While we were in Marrakech I also had the chance to barter! I wasn't sure how I would feel about it at first but I loved it! It felt weird when I had to buy things with fixed prices (like stamps) because I really wanted to barter for them. That night I had Dinner With a Moroccan Family. There were six girls from SAS in my group and we went to Saida and Dees' apartment in Casablanca. They have two daughters, Lillia and Shama, who are absolutely adorable. They played duck duck goose with us and showed us their room. We had cous cous for dinner. In Morocco cous cous is the main dish instead of a side dish. It's served on a huge platter with vegetables and meat. It's so good! They also had fresh fruit which was delicious (especially the oranges) and homemade cookies and mint tea. Two of Saida and Dees' friends came over and they were really funny and Saida and Dees were so nice. None of us wanted to leave! The next morning I got stamps and then went on a service visit to the SOS Children's Village which is a village for orphans and children who's parents are too poor to take care of them. We took a tour of the village which was very interesting but we didn't really get to interact with the children because they were in school while we were there. The coolest part was the preschool was the village. In the morning the kids are taught in Arabic and in the afternoon they're taught in French. Since so many people in Morocco speak French a lot of the signs were in Arabic and French which was cool because I understood a lot of them. I even understood some words when people spoke in French.
That night the captain made an announcement that the boat would experience severe rocking as it left Casablanca. We had encountered rough seas coming into Casablanca and I figured it would be about the same (stuff falling off of tables, drawers opening and slamming shut, people falling all over each other) but I was wrong. It was about ten times worse. My bed slid forward about two feet while I was on it and then the TV fell off of the shelf and landed in between the beds! I'm not sure how, but it didn't break. Thankfully the water has calmed down a lot since last night and we're on our way to Namibia!
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