Volubilis (وليلي) & Meknes (مكناس) & First Day of School!

Hello lovely readers!

So today was my first day of school! It was also the first day I was completely confident of the route to the taxi stop from my house!! On the first day we toured the Old Medina we had quite a few conversations about the necessity of carrying a ball of string to lead us back out of the labyrinth:) 

I am taking fifth semester Arabic, which seems like it will be quite difficult from the first day even! I will be taking 20 hours of formal Arabic classes every week and a few hours of other classes in between. Essentially, by the end of these three months, I will have finished a years worth of Arabic. Whew! But the teachers are really good, I have seven other kids in my class with whom I can work through the lessons and my host father has offered to help me, so I will get through it, in shah allah. Oh, by the way, the phrase "in shah allah" is used when talking about the future, anything you hope to happen etc, and it essentially means, "if gods wills it" then it will happen!

I watched the beginning of a scary French movie with my host brothers Ahmed and Uthman last night. I could barely hear the film-which is better for my Arabic- and I feel comfortable speaking arabic with them so it was a good bonding activity:) My brother Uthman also did a spectacular magic trick for me which ended with the card I chose coming out of his mouth!! It was amazing and he said he's show me another one tonight, in shah allah!!

Our trip to Volubilis (or waleelee in Arabic) was very fun and very hot. I finally learned to appreciate the socially centered lives of the Ancient Romans. Each meal would take hours and they would all sit over a trough-like thing to relieve themselves together afterwards:) They also took jacuzzi for hours a day and drank tons of wine. Unfortunately all this togetherness eventually killed them in the way of disease and incest...oh well! The structures they built are still quite beautiful as you can see...

Corinthian style columns ( I KNOW those of you who were in sixth grade english class with me will recall that term :) )

All my new friends outside the forum!

The beautiful Meknes from a distance. It was built into this hill in two parts which now resemble the two humps of a bactrian camel.

Me in Meknes 

The grainery in Meknes...HUGE.

Beautifully tiled mosque

Dane ( one of the other students there from my university) trying his hand at a game during a gathering in the main center of the city, a daily occurrence in Meknes according to our guide! 

Well I guess I should start my homework for tomorrow!! 

Ma salaama!

Lessons from the passenger seat in a Morrocan taxi...

Ahlan ya shabaab! (hello young people!) (all you old people can be included too, haha)

So before yesterday I thought being the passenger as my dad sped through the streets of St. Paul was frightening. Today, i know better:). Here in Fes, lines for lanes of traffic are painted on the streets, but are almost never obeyed. Taxis, bikers, pedestrians, mopeds, cars, buses, trucks, everyone weaves among each other on the eternally crowded streets. It's like a terrifying ballet where half the dancers are line backers and the melody is made up of yelling, honking, and me singing happy, carefree tunes in my head...haha. The key is to remember that they have been driving in these conditions for years and I have yet to see a crash. I guess that's pretty pacifying. If that ceases to keep you sane...this probably isn't the place for you:)

Also, here are PICTURES!!!!!
#1 the courtyard outside my school building! Beautiful. Also some of my beautiful friends, Parsa, Amberine, Dane's head, and Eric.

#2 The central garden at the study building near my new home! And the director of our program here in Fes, Abdullatif.

#3 More of the study garden.

#4 The gate to the Old Medina.

#5 SHOES! I really just love how colorful everything was in the marketplace in the Medina. And for those of you who have watched travel shows with me where people eat food, the jars on the left are filled with meat preserved in lard!

#6 A gorgeous 'madersa' (school) and mosque with a tower where they call for the five daily prayers. They are ubiquitous it the old medina.

#7 Pretty lamps and things:)

#8 The largest tannery and dyery (is that a word??? haha. place where they dye clothes) 

#9 A look at the old medina past the tannery

#10 Yup, this is where i live now:)

#11 Beautiful view of the Medina. oh, and me:)

#12 okay, tell me this doesn't look like a picture in a cooking magazine! haha! I love it:)

#13 The view from my bedroom window!

#14 the 'sandali' my ummee-'mom' in moroccan:) -gave me to wear around the house! 

I suppose that's it for now! We're traveling to volubilis tomorrow morning (see picture in earlier post!)

مع حُبّ (with love)

kellen

The first days!

So it is my second day here in Fes! We arrived at about one o'clock yesterday morning. We took a seven mile walking tour of the streets of the old Medina, through some of the skinniest paths i've been down (claustrophobia kicked in a little bit...) We saw the largest tannery in Fes, tried on scarves and listened to very small children sing very loud songs at school:) It is beautiful here!!!

I met my host family after the city tour last night. They are wonderful! My father is a teacher of theology and biology and my mother makes the best cahua wa halib ( coffee and milk) My brother is very nice, but would much rather speak in french than arabic:)

Arabic word of the Day: helwa (حلو)=sweet
Everyone in morocco likes sweets. Everything is very sweet or they add sugar to it:)

I woke up to the morning prayer at sunrise this morning for the first time and it was beautiful!

Gotta run to class!

ma salaama!

Dreams of Morocco from the blizzards of Minnesota...

So, my trip has been slightly delayed due to the wonderful weather we are experiencing in Minnesota. Thus, I thought I would post some pictures of a few places I will be traveling once I eventually do arrive in Morocco! This first one is called Volubilis, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and some of the best preserved Roman ruins in this part of Northern Africa!

The second picture is of a city called Chefchaouen whose streets and buildings are painted blue. Can't wait to take pictures of this beautiful city!

This last one is a shot of the Sahara desert and the creatures I have been waiting for years to come face-to-face with...camels!!!!!!

Hopefully I'll be able to post my own photos of these awesome places soon!

Au revoir!

My mailing address

Hey folks! Here's my mailing address at the university in Fez:

Kellen Abraham
c/o The Arabic Language Institute in Fez
B.P. 2136
Fez 30000, Morocco

I look forward to presents!! Just kidding:)

T-5 hours. Aaaahhh!

oh wait...I'm leaving tomorrow?!

Hello everyone! Welcome to my blog. I hope to post pictures, stories and everything about my life for the next three months in Morocco here, so enjoy!!

People have been asking me for the past month or so whether I've begun packing. The answer was always...um no...not really. But now, it's the day before I fly out and the answer really should be yes. I have my clothes packed, making a final run to the store for allergy medicine and Nyquil in the morning, and hoping that the imminent winter storm won't delay my flights too long:)

As you'll find from future posts, I love food. Probably more than is socially acceptable. I usually plan my day around the meals and snacks. Therefore, it is only right that I first tell you about my last dinner here in Minnesota. Steak and Potatoes. My dad's specialty and one of my favorite comfort foods of all time. It was wonderful.

Tomorrow I will begin my journey from the Minneapolis airport at 2:30PM, in sha allah. Next stop: O'Hare, from there a lengthy flight to Brussels, Belgium; after a 4.5 hour wait a final flight to Casablanca, Morocco and then a four hour drive to my new home of Fez!!

I will start classes at the Arabic Language Institute of Fes (ALIF) on the 23rd, but will start learning the Moroccan dialect (a mix of Arabic, French and Berber) the day I arrive! For the first two nights all the students will be in a hotel together and the third day we meet our host families and go home with them! I brought them girl scout cookies and some classy Minnesota post cards as gifts. I am really excited to be living with a family for the language experience and the local know-how for the city of Fes. I will be living in the Old Medina, only a little worried about getting myself lost in the winding, surprise dead-end streets, but I'm sure I'll figure it out:)

Okay, I'm sure I'll have lots to say later, but for now I need some sleep!!

Ma salama!