My trip started out easily enough. I met Marcy and Josiah at their apartment complex and loaded my things in Marcy's Honda. I got there early and had the pleasure of enjoying some of the beignets they were having for breakfast from the Fish House. Scrumptious little fried dough things doused with powdered sugar! Not long after, at 9am, we headed northeast to Cincinnatti. My flight was due to leave at 1:15. This was going to be my first time at the Cincinnatti/Northern Kentucky airport, not a very interesting side note there. The drive was pleasurable and uneventful, we arrived at the airport in about an hour and a half. Interesting side note - we could have played a rollicking good game of roadkill bingo had we had our wits about us - the roadside casualties were bumper deep!!
Once at the airport I checked in peacefully, no lines, the airport seemed empty actually, odd for a Saturday morning on Memorial Day weekend, but what do I know? My checked bag was 3 lbs overweight - I could pay $90 or skillfully remove one 4 pound item, which I did. I headed off for my gate and was immediately confused. Everything looked like it was in the wrong place. Had I never flown Delta before? Must not have. I continued once I figured out where the arrows were pointing. "That's odd," I thought, "I've never noticed shuttles between terminals at the airport here before." Then I realized I was discombobulated because the moment I stepped out of Marcy's car, I thought I was at the Louisville airport. The surreal effect was crushed, I returned to reality and wandered to the security check, my gate, my plane to Detroit.
"Visa required except for stays up to three months". This phrase stumped the hell out of two "airline attendants" who were "helping" me confirm that I didn't need a visa. My tickets all had "visa required!" stamped on them, which caused me concern. My program director, Dr. Greg, was no help, serving only to add a flustered element to the mix, texting me back, "No, you shouldn't, but ask just in case!" (I was leaving about 3 hours ahead of my group, me being the only student who chose to book her own tickets and travel independantly of the cat herd. We were scheduled to meet at JFK and to be on the same flight to Casablanca.) Ultimately common sense prevailed, I ignored the confused "airline attendants" who were still repeating the phrase back and forth to each other with confused looks on their faces and texted Dr. Greg that we were in the clear, as our trip is for five weeks. Not three months plus, unfortunately.
When I disembarked at Detroit, I saw that my NYC flight was listed as "boarding" - so I had to beat feet (though I never subjected myself to the indignity of running in the airport, I'd sooner miss my flight!) I got to my gate with plenty of time, saw Danny Glover get on first class (for reals yo!), and had yet another uneventful flight.
At JFK I had about and hour and a half wait, so I got a beer and a cheese tray, nibbled and sipped for a while as I subtly eyed the other passengers of my flight. A few blantant Americans in their athletic cargo pants, long sleeve Under Armor heat wicking shirts, Teva/Keen athletic sandals, backpacks, and loud voices. Large Muslim families, wives in hijab, beautiful children - boys carried around like princes, daughters adorned like princesses, fathers doting on both, grandparents looking on serenely. Large group of Africans (a vague term I know, but I didn't ask where they were from and they were definately not speaking Arabic or French!) in business attire, clucking like hens over each other's suits, checking on each other constantly.
Boarding commenced early, as it was a large group. I was lucky enough to get an aisle seat, and my seat mate was an extraordinarily awkward looking American girl, likely very early 20s, dressed like a mix between college student, 40 year old Minnesotan soccer mom, and Amish teen. Her hair was a veritably frizzy mess, her glasses unflattering, her grey t-shirt a litte too snug, and the sleeves a little to short, her long, green, floral, cotton skirt hung and clung in unflattering fashions, emitting all the charm of an ill-chosen thrift shop disaster. Topping off the outfit were her thick, stained, white tennis shoes. To warm up, she donned a maroon Harvard hoodie. When the lights went off, preventing reading, instead of putting down her Murakami (I think I got that right) "Norweigan Wood" book, she held it awkwardly in her hands and looked stubbornly at the cover, waiting for lights to come back on. This girl confused me. The book was good, the sweatshirt COULD be good, if she was a student there, everything else was bad.
Oh and the poetry she started writing on her Apple laptop after the lights never came back on, that was bad. The poetry that I read with my left eye, while my right eye pretended to be asleep. That was some bad poetry. I really wanted to read the blog entry she began writing, "Plane Trip to Morocco" to see if a) she had any insights I could steal for my own blog, 2) if she would mention the gorgeous, intelligent, independant and keenly dressed redhead who was sitting next to her to the whole flight. The redhead who never peed once, who drank diet Coke like it was going out of style, who snorted when I tried to explain to the non-English speaking flight attendant that I don't want the chicken OR the fish because I don't eat meat!, who did like, 20 crossword puzzles from start to finish (actually dear, I only did 11 between boarding at JFK and departing at Casablanca.) The redhead who drifted off in a determined manner after the flight finished, like she knew exactly where she was going. Or c) caught wind of my contempt and bemusement by/of her. Just curious.
The flight landed in Casablanca. My first impression of north-western Africa was, "This looks exactly like the mid-West." Gridded crop fields, ponds, rivers, streams, various shades of brown, sienna and umber. Tidy, functional, functioning.
Passport - stamped. Customs - the man checking my things opened my suitcase up, saw a towel which I threw in at the last minute, and a stick of deoderant, which the lid had fallen off of. Nothing else. He took one look at the deoderant stick on the bath towel, closed the lid quickly and waved me on. Did my deoderant offend him? Did he think it was a giant Western tampon? Did it make him realize the potential for what else he may encounter in my bag, if deoderant is just laying on top? I may never know, I just know it saved me a 10 minute stay in customs while a rubber gloved attendant pawed through my drawers.
So I mentioned before that I was travelling independantly of my group, which consists of 10 students, and the Morocco program director, Dr. Greg. When I landed at JFK, I recieved a text message to contact the International Study coordinator ASAP. My phone was nearly dead, and I tried not to fall into a panic, imagining the scenarios that would require me to call this guy as soon as possible. Did someone in my family die/get hurt? Did something awful happen in Morocco that is causing the trip to be cancelled? I won't pretend I didn't entertain the mental image of what I could do with the money I would get refunded from this whole trip. I sure wouldn't go back to work for those five weeks!
It winds up that the contingency plan that Dr Greg had prepared me for happened - the main group's flight was sufficiently delayed to cause them to miss the flight to Morocco. I was to go ahead to Casablanca, where I would meet with one of the instructors in the program, who is also from KY, (who is teaching the Islamic Art and Architecture, kismitically), who had just flown in from Madrid, and we would both be then met by a driver who would chauffer us to Meknes, a four hour drive from Casablanca. So I didn't have to put up with a van full of goons who I'd have plenty of time to get to know. I got the relaxed, at my own pace flight and travel, and the compact car ride to Meknes through the scenic and gorgeous countryside of Morocco. Pastoral! Glorious! Amazing!
I started the car ride to Meknes eager to observe all the landscape. After fifteen minutes of beautiful scenery, the conversations with my companion, Eileen, drew quiet, and the car grew warm, and my eyes heavy. The trip to Meknes was thus an on and off series of naps, which had me ready for arrival in the Medina.
I didn't take any pictures during the ride over, I was too jet lagged and sleepy. The hotel I'm in is incredible though, there is a nice patio outside my room with seats and nice plants, which looks out over the Medina of Meknes. The old town. So rad.
This also means that I got to stake out my territory in my shared room first, before my roommate makes it here tomorrow. That's fantastic also. Guess who got the big bed? Boo-ya.
The center at which the learning will be done - the Arabic-American Language Institute of Morocco, (AALIM) is an amazing place. The director of the place, a fantastic gentleman who's name (naturally) escapes me, took myself and Eileen on a tour of the building in which the center resides. It is, simply put, jaw droppingly gorgeous. I could wander up and down the five + storeys of this school (which was formerly a palace) just to admire and touch the intricate and beautiful mosaic and stucco work, which varies from room to room. Then there is the intricate wood ceilings, the muqarnas arches and doorways, the multi-colored glass windows which swing open from cast-iron work window grilles, the windows themselves which offer views on the bustling Ville Ancienne, the Medina of Meknes. You are provided with bird eye views into the narrow and twisting alleyways of the Ville, the children running amok, chasing rail-thin cats with Egyptienne ears, mothers and wives on lower roofs in moments of domestic every-day which charm the socks off me, hanging clothes to dry, watering geraniums, beating dust off a carpet.
Like I said, I could wander around that place ALL day, tracing patterns with my fingers, smelling the cool must of the timbers at the heart of the structure by the breathe vents that are strategically placed throughout the building to, literally, allow the wood to breathe.
Dinner was charming and wonderful - seven of us, Eileen, myself, the director of the AALIM center, Habib, a grandfatherly wonderful gentleman who was a journalist for Moroccan news centers before retiring to his home of Meknes to teach Arabic at the AALIM center, his peer, another teacher,this one of religion and international relations who I woefully cannot recall the name of, a delightful young woman who is from Meknes, and who taught English via a Fullbright grant in Nevada for a year and now teaches Arabic at the AALIM center as well, and another charmer, a Meknes native who teaches Arabic at Washington University in St. Louis. I know I used and reused and overused the phrases "wonderful", "delightful", "charming", and so on in that paragraph but I cannot help myself. We all sat around a round table, being served by the staff of the center.
Salad was a light starter with lettuce, shredded carrot, sliced cucumber, boiled potato cubes, red onion slices (very thin!), one quarter of a hard boiled egg, and green beans. Following was what I eagerly hoped would be served - Moroccan style cous cous. I suppose that's a redundant phrase, since cous cous is Moroccan by nature. Whatever. It was served in a giant platter in the middle of the table. The Moroccans all scoffed and remarked that we, "weren't going to eat it Moroccan style", meaning, with our hands, from the communal platter. Eileen was in the throes of a sinus infection of sorts, so I harbor no regrets at our eating of the cous cous "western style", with plates, and serving spoons (and individual spoons that were the size of serving spoons!). Habib, sitting to my right, continually heaped spoonfuls of cous cous on my plate, followed by dousings with an entirely mysterious reddish orange, brothy sauce. The cous cous was made with vegetables only - cabbage, carrots, zucchini, acorn (looking) squash, garbanzo beans, fava beans, and that was all it needed. The food was delicious, light, and flavorful, and the company enthralling.
It was my first experience at a tri-lingual dinner table. The Moroccans flowed seamlessly from French to Arabic to English and back around the entire meal. With my (slight) familiarity with French they took increased liberties to speak in French, which is wonderful for me (but not so wonderful for Eileen who is fluent in Spanish, but knows NO other language besides English.) After not even 15 hours in Morocco I know my French has improved and once the Arabic classes ensue, lord knows how far I shall go. My favorite moment was when the gent who teaches in St. Louis was explaning the plot/pretext of the epic "Supersize Me" to Habib, who has only limited English, in French and Arabic. I was able to follow along completely, though I only knew about 25% MAX of the words he was saying.
Following dinner, a tray of mixed cookies made with sesame, almonds, dates, etc., were passed around with my new favorite thing - glasses of hot mint tea, slightly sweet with honey. Exquisite - my goal is to know how to make the tea how they do, before I leave!!
The next goal will be to incorporate the sence of community, sharing, open doors, recieving and giving that I've already experienced with the Moroccan culture, into my own life. Yes. Inshallah, that shall happen.
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