That’s a Win for L.A.

As you might be able to tell by glancing at the length of this page, this week’s blog post is going to be something of a departure from the usual format. Truthfully, I actually enjoy doing these little write-ups. They give me a chance to reflect on the week and serve as a way for me to memorialize important parts of my journey, and I know that my large contingent of fans enjoy getting updates on what I’m doing. However, as pathetic as this might sound, I am simply too tired this week to put out anything of quality. After seven weeks of studying Arabic all day, every day, in Morocco, my brain needs a break…and the good news is I’m getting one! This coming week, the entire cohort and I are taking five days off to visit the southern half of the country and explore various new cities and towns. I think I can safely speak for everyone on this trip and say that we are beyond excited. This little getaway gives us a chance to experience different parts of Morocco, stay in hotels where we can actually shower daily, and receive a respite from homework. It also marks the halfway point in our program, which is pretty weird. So, while this post will be a little shorter, next week’s update will probably compensate handily for it. Still, I do have a couple of things to share so you good people at home don’t write in with too many angry emails. 

The biggest update I can share right now is that the demonstrations I mentioned last week have diminished, meaning the restrictions that were placed on us have been lifted. It’s been nice to be able to navigate the city without having to factor in how to avoid angry students waving the straw hat banners from One Piece (that’s from an anime that I haven’t seen, but it’s actually a very interesting sociopolitical development that’s occurring in a lot of countries experiencing revolts right now). Look it up if you have the time. Another highlight of the week was our cultural activity. For this one, we went to the homestay of a pair in our cohort and helped their host parents make msemmen and harcha. I posted a photo to the album of our finished products—msemmen on the left, and harcha on the top and bottom right. Both of these Moroccan foods are some of my favorites. Msemmen is a flaky, layered flatbread that can be eaten with any meal, and it’s pretty simple to make. The hardest part is taking a small ball of the dough and using your hands and a lot of melted butter to get it so thin that it looks like tracing paper before folding it up carefully to get the desired layers. Every student got to try their hand at making one, and I can proudly say that mine came out the best. Actually, I don’t know which one was mine, but I’m just assuming it was the best because I’m the one who made it. Harcha is like a cornmeal-based pancake, except with thinner batter, and is probably my favorite breakfast food (it’s delicious with Laughing Cow cheese and any sort of jam or honey). Its batter is so thin because instead of being poured directly onto a cooktop, it’s poured into molds and cooked into a much more dense round. A third great thing that happened this week is that I finally met a native Moroccan whose Arabic is worse than mine! Her name is Maha, and she’s four years old, so, y’know, whoo-hoo. She’s my host mom’s grandniece, and she’s so adorable! If I get a photo with her, I’ll definitely share it. Finally, the last highlight I can share this week is that the Dodgers won the series against the Phillies and have made it to the next playoff round. This doesn’t really have anything to do with anything, but I couldn’t think of a better title, so I just had to throw this in here, and because I wanted to gloat a little bit. 

All too soon, this brings me to the end of another blog post. Fall is in the air here in Morocco, and by fall I mean the steady nosedive my grades are taking as the seeds of madness are sown into my mind. The good news is, I’m not having any dreams about my professor yet, like some people in my cohort are. Instead, my recent dreams are about things like forgetting where I parked my car or realizing that I haven’t washed any of my socks, which I guess are just adult nightmares. Speaking of nightmares, I hope that you all are enjoying some scary Halloween movies. My version of a horror movie is Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, so I’ll try and live vicariously through anyone who’s not a complete coward. Have a good week ahead, and I’ll see you next Sunday!