“Do you smell that? It smells like America.”

There’s nothing quite like having the smell of a mall wash over you for the first time in a few months. That plastic, inauthentic consumer smell that comes from things made in factories and people walking with plastic bags from European department stores in one hand and Starbucks cups in the other.

The screen outside Morocco Mall. It's a little big.

There’s also nothing like asking a woman for directions and having her flag down a taxi for you. There’s nothing like climbing into said taxi, talking to the driver about the differences between Americans and Moroccans and taking a sip of his coffee with no regard to everything your parents once told you about drugged drinks and taking things from strangers.

Casablanca feels like America. It’s dirty, grungy and touched by colonialism in the form of American consumerism.

Casablanca also feels like Morocco. Its best people are kind hearted, gentle, intelligent and want to hear what you think about Morocco. They want to talk to you about their children, make sure you get to your stop safely and wish you a “Bon voyage.” Insha’ Allah, you will reach your destination.

The Hassan II Mosque is the 7th largest mosque in the world, and is one of two mosques in Morocco open to non-Muslims. Unfortunately, I couldn't go in that day. It's only open some times.

The happiness I’ve experienced in Morocco has come from people. It’s come from watching soccer games with my friends. It’s come from playing with my host sister, even the times I want to tell her she’s a brat but don’t know how to say that in French. It’s come from making dinner for my best friends and talking to them about our dreams and fears.

It’s also, admittedly, come from the “glamour” of technology. Having an iPhone has enabled me to see my family and friends face to face, tell them I love them and share my Moroccan experience. But at the end of the day, it’s still the people that make that experience, not the technology.

Sometimes, a 99 cent toy car from the Boyfriend can end up being a constant travel companion. Case in point.

There’s something distinctly comforting about finding that same appreciation for the human experience Meknesi people seem to have even in a place so powerfully impacted by the “American Dream.” The desire for STUFF and THINGS can’t overcome the basic human need for, well, each other.

I’ve been feeling some pretty intense fear about going home. I know I still have a month and a half here, but I’m so afraid to get on that plane.

But in a weird way, seeing Casablanca gave me hope that I can live my Moroccan experience in America. It doesn’t matter where you go or what you see, even how much you have. If you can find yourself sitting next to the right guy on the train who says you and your friends are “strong, special girls,” in a taxi with the right sassy cab driver and calling the right loved ones to tell them about your experience at the end of the day, you don’t need money or fancy clothes and electronics.

If you can find the right people, you’re the richest person in the world.

And I'm feeling pretty rich.

Happy travels.

This post is shwiya not safe for work. Shwiya.

Describing the hamam is a writer’s challenge.

I mean, what rating would I give the situation? PG-13? R? Should I not go by the American film rating system? How does Morocco rate films?

I Googled “Moroccan film ratings.” Got nothing. Well. Here goes.

The hamam is basically a sauna, but way better, because it costs about 6 USD and, well, I kind of embraced myself as a woman after going.

To cut to the chase, it’s a public bath, with dozens of mostly-to-entirely naked women scrubbing themselves (and each other, for a small fee) and the occasional chubby kid scampering around.  

Yeah, that’s why this is a photo-less blog post.

It’s interesting how much my tolerance level has gone up since I’ve been here. Just ask Roomate. I mean, between the two of us we probably shower a total of four times a day, we openly discussed the contents of our stomach post-camel and we’ve got plans to go back to the hamam once a week. And within five minutes, she turned to me, giggled, and asked if we should take our bras off.

True. Story. She’s my best friend. Who else can you ask to rinse your back off while you’re mostly naked in a steam room in Morocco?

The biggest thing I got out of the hamam, other than ridiculously soft skin, was realizing Roommate’s body isn’t perfect. My body certainly isn’t perfect. In fact, that was a room full of not-perfect bodies. But y’know. It was okay.

I can’t imagine many American women feeling comfortable hanging out naked for two hours because of that. I don’t even like going to the beach in a bathing suit in America. But in Morocco, it doesn’t matter.

Actually, that’s one of the most important things I’ve learned in Morocco. Women here are beautiful. It doesn’t matter what shape or size they are. They’re all gorgeous. I think women are more inclined to accept their bodies for what they are, or at least, that’s the impression I have. They aren’t pounded with images of 6-foot, 100-pound supermodels the way we are in the U.S. There’s no pressure to look a certain way.

I keep saying everyone should come to Morocco, and that they’d learn more about themselves and life than they ever could before—but if that’s not the case, at least every woman should. When there’s less pressure to be “beautiful”, it’s easier to be confident as a woman, and that’s the fastest way to be beautiful.

Happy travels.

Moroccan Katie is not American Katie

When you live in the U.S. and tell people you’re from Washington, they ask you if you’ve seen the President.

“You’ve seen the President?”

“No, I’m from Washington State.”

“Oh, does it rain a lot?”

It’s not ideal.

But, when you live in Morocco and tell people you’re from Washington, they ask you if you’ve seen the President and they won’t accept your corrections.

“You’ve seen the President?”

“No, I’m from Washington State. I live very far from D.C. The other side of the country. Seattle.”

“Is D.C. beautiful?”

I’ve always had an identity crisis in the U.S. People ask me where I’m from and I’m never sure what to say. I’ve never stayed in a place for more than five years or so, and I suspect that will continue for a while.

ISA Morocco rocks out in front of the Chellah Ruins of Rabat. 'Cause sometimes, you just gotta make an ass of yourself in public.

I live in Pullman, my family lives in Spokane, I was born in Edmonds and I used to think Olympia was where I felt most as home.

Now, having come to Morocco, that’s all beginning to change. Sometimes I wonder if I even truly identify with Americans anymore.

What will I say when I come home when people ask where I’m from? America? Or Morocco?

Morocco has made me realize who I truly am, more than any American experience ever could have. I’ve learned the value of family, love, time and caring for the people who care for you the most. I’d rather have a average or slightly above average career and an incredibly happy family than the other way around.

I've never been happier in my life than I am in Morocco. Fact.

Tell that to American Katie, from a year ago. She’d have told you she would have stepped on whoever it took to move ahead in her career, loved ones or not. She would have made work a priority above all else.

Moroccan Katie values the rare hot shower, listening to the call to prayer at 5 a.m., reading the headlines in Arabic even though she can’t understand them, getting letters from a certain boy back home, explaining to her host sister that sometimes in life you lose and it’s okay, warm cats curled up in her lap and making friends with strangers crammed into taxis. These are things American Katie wouldn’t have believed were possible a year ago.

Maybe identity has nothing to do with where you’re from. We’re told Islam is an ideology, not just a religion. It’s a way of life defined not just by its tenants, but by the behavior of its people. Maybe this is like that. My life is defined not by my geography or where I am at any given moment, but by my behavior.

In that case, I guess I’m just a sum of my parts. It doesn’t matter where I’m from, where I’m going or what the answer is to the question “Where are you from?” I’m from everywhere. When I come home, I’ll add Spain, France and, most importantly, Morocco to the list of places I’ve come from.

I guess from now on when people ask, I’ll just have to smile, laugh, and tell them I don’t really know, but I’m here now, and that’s all that matters.

Happy travels.

My Second Moroccan Family (A Photo Blog)

Moroccans will invite you into their homes and won’t let you leave unless you’ve had seconds and thirds and planned another visit.

I mean, I'm just saying, they take care of you in this country. There's always food, and waaaay too much of it for a stomach I've realized is much smaller than I thought it was.

It's aaaaaaaaall so good.

Everyone needs a hole in their backyard for bread. Especially me.

The sweetest, smelliest little puppy ever. He got lost and was later found waiting next to the car. What a good dog. 😀

In no place is this truer than with my Second Moroccan Family, a group of really amazing people who have adopted me and my friends. One of the girls mentioned she wanted to go hiking, our ISA director said he knew a guy with a farm and we could go visit. And we did. And wouldn’t you know it? We made some friends. And for some reason, they actually think we’re cool. Or something, ‘cause they keep inviting us over to watch Barcelona games.

Legit.

I don't always car surf, but when I do... I'm in Morocco.

So beautiful.

I’m pretty psyched about it, there’s always food and excellent company, which are probably my two favorite things. I never thought I’d end up being friends with a group of Moroccans and a former American student who fell in love with this country enough to keep coming back. I wonder if that’s gonna be me someday.

If they keep inviting us back, I might just never leave.

These guys own a huge farm, about 1,000 acres, complete with COWS. I love cows!

Roommate and I have occasionally questioned their sanity in having us over to visit. I mean, we’re pretty boring people, but they seem to like us, so I’m cool with it.

😀

But I think more than anything so far, it really shows how different this culture is from America’s. You meet a group of people once and they keep inviting you back for more, even if it’s just to watch a soccer game and eat something yummy. In the U.S., that’s a quiet night in. Here, it’s an adventure, just like everything else has been so far.

They're cute when they're alive.

Thanks, guys. Shukran, and merci.

Happy travels.

Homesickness and other adventures.

For those of you that haven’t heard the epic camel story, it’s detailed here in a column I wrote for my newspaper back home.

I don't know why I thought this was a good idea. It even looks like feces. The things I do in Morocco.

Long story short, I’ve been miserable and sick ever since. It’s pretty gross. The highlights of the last week have included crying, body aches and incessant bathroom jokes with Roommate because it’s the only way to cope with one’s own misery.

Only in Morocco, am I right?

For a brief period I wanted nothing more than to go home, eat a bacon cheeseburger and sleep somewhere warm and cozy. Preferably somewhere where my puppy is. Or Boyfriend. But mostly my puppy. Because I can’t even blog without throwing him under the bus, even though he’s taken very good care of crabby sick me from a few thousand miles away.

I missed my mom and my gramma and just wanted to go straight back to Spokane. Even Pullman sounded good a couple of days ago, and I couldn’t wait to get out of Pullman for a few months last December. But there I was, curled up in bed… kind of hating Morocco.

Yeah, that didn’t last, don’t worry. There’s a happy ending to this story.

It’s hard to remember what made you fall in love with a country when you’re sore, tired and haven’t properly eaten in a few days. It’s hard to remember how wonderful the culture is and how nice the people are, especially when some Moroccan boy is getting in your face telling you you’re beautiful.

No, Moroccan boy. I am not beautiful, I am tired, I am sick and I hate you.

I may have even told a professor off for not sending out the reading early enough for us to actually do it. And by tell off I mean sarcastically ask that he send 100 pages out earlier than, I don’t know, the night before? That would be awesome.

Did I mention I’m horrendously unpleasant when I’m ill? Eek.

But that all changed today when one of our Lovely ISA Staffers (Because everyone needs a code name, clearly) made Morocco seem a little bit brighter. Roommate and I even felt that little hopeful glimmer of “I’m going to stay here forever” feeling we had a week ago. She took us to a pharmacist, helped us buy some tummy medicine, then took us out to lunch. Best. Cheese croissant. Ever.

And you know what? I ate the whoooole thing. And you know what else? I went home and ate two scoops of rice, drank a couple of glasses of juice and had a piece of the best ever cake I’ve ever tasted EVER.

A full stomach is a sure-fire way for a happy Katie. I still could go for a double bacon cheeseburger with pickles and some fries… But that’ll be worth the wait.

Roommate and I went over to the Medina, checked out some of the festivities for the Prophet’s Birthday, then went back to a friend’s house to take care of her sick tummy and talk about our feelings. Weddings were planned and salsa was made. It got real.

Tomorrow, we’ve been invited to a farm in the middle of the country, where I’ll come face to face with my new arch-nemesis: A real live camel. Oh man. But in true Moroccan fashion, they’re picking us up, driving us 40 minutes away and feeding us. If there isn’t camel involved, I am down for anything.

I even flirted back a little bit today with a couple of repeat offenders: A pair of boys who apparently haven’t stopped thinking about us since we met. Ohhh Morocco.

The difference a day makes is absolutely incredible. I’m in a significantly better mood. I actually want to practice my Arabic. I want an entire freaking box of those cheese croissants.

I only have 89 days left in Morocco. That’s barely enough time to do all the things I want to do. Wasting them in bed moping because I miss home is not on my to-do list.

So as Roommate said today… “We’re back.”
Happy travels.

Teacher… Leave those kids alone?

This is where I go to school every day. Legit.

I sat sipping my café au lait from the coffee shop downstairs from my class at Moulay Ismail University. It was a sunny, beautiful Moroccan afternoon: 70 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, birds were singing…

There was only one problem.

I didn’t have a teacher, and my classmates and I were sitting outside talking about taking a trip to the medina.
It turns out this teacher had a totally legitimate excuse. But it’s kind of representative of my classroom experience in Morocco. My Arab media professor thought we had all next week off, so we don’t have that class next week. There isn’t exactly a solid syllabus in any class. We take 15 minute coffee breaks that turn into 30 minute coffee breaks.
I’m not a person that needs structure in the slightest. I kind of hate structure, actually. The older I get the more I realize traditional American education is really, really bad for me. This though… This is interesting.

I love it, though. My professors are all brilliant and incredibly worldly, and it’s so fantastic to be in tiny classrooms where we actually have the opportunity to talk about things, unlike most of my classes back home. And I feel like teachers want us to LEARN. The obsession with grades is not as prevalent in my courses, and although I really want to succeed in class, I suspect success is measured in different ways here.

This is the only room I've had class in so far. So basically Arabic all day, erryday.

If we wander around on campus, students come up to us and want to talk about the definition of culture and how defining one is too difficult due to the growing interconnectivity of our planet. Really? This doesn’t happen in America.

On the other side of that, it’s actually really humiliating to have to explain to professors that no, I don’t know that much about the Arab Spring, and no, I haven’t heard of the war between Morocco and Algeria and seriously, I don’t know why everyone wants the Sahara because it’s a big freaking desert and what, there’s stuff in it?

We don’t GET this stuff in America. Just like we don’t get hundreds of hours of foreign language instruction before we step foot into a high school, or free tuition to quality universities or anything like that. I sometimes wonder if Moroccans and Europeans take that for granted, just like some of the things I’ve realized we take for granted in the U.S. LIKE CONSISTENT WIFI OH MY GOD THIS SHOULDN’T BE A BIG DEAL BUT IT IS. Education is a bit more important though, I suppose.

Soooo much coffee from this little place. Allllll the coffee.

It’s easy to forget that this part of the world exists, but there’s so much going on here. I’m just getting a slice of what the Middle East/North Africa has to offer, and it’s probably the only slice I’ll get for a while, as my home university really doesn’t have any offerings on this part of the world. I’m fully expecting to struggle to retain my Arabic when I get back to Pullman. Fortunately I’ll have Roommate back home, so she’ll be able to help, but it’s just not the same as taking a class every day.

Maybe being the higher education budget reporter for my student newspaper makes me cynical. Maybe the grass is always greener, or something. I guess the thing to do is enjoy it while I’ve got it.

Happy travels.

Check out my ISA Featured Bloggers post!

So I’m a featured blogger for ISA! It’s an excellent opportunity to get my writing out there. I’m pretty pumped about it. Check out my first post!

My Moroccan family.

I’m in love with my life at the moment. And Morocco. And my new family.

It’s me, my lovely roommate, Arlie, and the five family members (whose names I don’t really want to publish here, especially with a photo of the little one).

She's a lot smiler than this normally. And I'm a lot less creepier than this. But I love her, she's like my best friend.

They’re wonderful. There are three daughters, and the mother and father are both teachers at the French institute. The mother is Parisian, so her accent is exquisite and I’ve definitely already picked up on some of it. The father is classic dad figure. I feel like he would be the dad that breaks some knee caps when the daughters start bringing their boyfriends home.

We’ve taken to the littlest one already. We spent the afternoon playing with Bananagram letters. I’ve seriously learned so much French in the time that we’ve been here. Playing with her has taught me more French than any class in college has.

I think being with this family has been an incredible growing experience for me, in the few days that I’ve been with them, in the little ways as well as the big ways. Like their kitchen? I want it. It’s gorgeous, there’s a ton of cabinet space, the cabinets have glass fronted windows, there are beautiful granite counter tops… I just can’t handle it. We’re apparently going to cook for the family. I’m thinking traditional Thanksgiving with all the fixings. I’m excited, we’ll see what happens though. Our house keeper is going to teach us to cook, too. She’s kind of a freaking amazing cook, soooo… I’m thrilled.

But it’s also the big things, like watching the interaction between two parents and siblings, interactions I’ve never really seen before. I adore my family (my American family, I mean) but I’m still getting a view into something I think I want for myself someday. Like a dad who’s gonna tell his daughters (I think we count) to close their window at night so the bad people down below don’t look up while they’re changing, or ask if they need a heater because it gets cold at night. Or a little girl who comes running in for hugs and kisses and says good night a couple times before she actually goes to bed. It’s weird to see these interactions from this perspective. But maybe I’m just being silly and reflective.

I live here now. I'm so thrilled.

That aside, I’ve completely fallen in love with this city and everything about it. And as if the city itself weren’t enough, I have a Moroccan family that I get to go home to every night. My life is perfect right now.

Happy travels.

Marrakech: The Red City

A gal here, Amber, getting a monkey thrown at her. This picture cost me 100 DHs. Oh well.

My new favorite shade of blue!

Holly joined us for dinner, too.

Eating in Marrakech is an adventure. This meal was incredible and super cheap, and cooked in an open air market two feet from me. Is this really my life right now?

Mmmmm.

The view from our balcony at lunch. Si belle, non?

During the day, this square is full of snake charmers, monkeys and orange carts. At night, it’s a huge open air market with restaurants for forever.

All kinds of natural remedies used in Morocco. No Advil at this back alley place.

Most mosques have either three or five balls, three for the three religions that exist in Morocco, five for the five tenants of Islam. This one has four. Apparently a king’s wife broke her fast at Ramadan (She ate like, a fig or something) and in penance, melted all her jewelry and had it added to this mosque in the form of a fourth ball. Cute, huh?

The inside of the Saadian tombs in Marrakech. I believe this was the one for children, although I don’t completely remember now.

There’s something about the pulse of a city of more than 1 million that can’t be beat. The smells, sounds and movements of a city make me feel alive like nothing else can. And Marrakech’s pulse? I’m definitely feeling it.

I woke up this morning at 6:45 a.m., way too early for someone in my condition to wake up. I got in last night at 10 p.m., showered, got in my sweats and Facebooked until 2 a.m. I was that kind of crabby. But after a cup of coffee, clean pants and a half a dozen olives in my tummy (WHAT. SO GOOD.), I felt like a new person. And after today, I’m pretty sure I am.

We started our day like a pack of American tourists, of course, bussing over in a huge group to the Menara Gardens, an olive garden built in the 12th century. Like, 1100s 12th century. As in almost a thousand years ago. What.

From there we visited the Koutoubia Mosque, which was built in the 12th century and named for the booksellers in the area surrounding. We couldn’t go in, of course, being non-Muslim, but it was still beautiful.

Then, we went to the Saadian tombs, which date back to the 16th century and contain the remains of about 60 members of the Saadi Dynasty in Morocco. There are three rooms, one with men, one women and, the last, children. Absolutely stunning. There are roses growing in Morocco right now, if you can believe it.

Then on to the Jardin Majorelle, which was built in the 1800s by a family of artists. In 1980, Yves Saint Laurent (Yes, THAT Yves Saint Laurent) created an association to protect and maintain the garden, and now, his ashes are spread there. It’s completely gorgeous. They call Marrakech “The Red City” for a reason: Everything is red. But inside the gardens, it’s cool and a bit dark, and everything is green or this wicked bright, deep blue. The air smells soooo clean, and so fresh. It’s absolutely beautiful.

But it’s when we went to the Old Medina and the souks that it really sunk in. The markets of Marrakech are a labyrinth of shops and stalls selling everything, from knock off Dooney and Bourke to the rare and exotic, exactly like you’d picture a slightly sketchy outdoor market to be. It goes on for what must be miles, down windy little cobblestone alleys, too tiny to accommodate the crowds, but somehow they do more than that. They accommodate obnoxious tourists like myself, staring hungrily with a fat camera down every corner, welders with their faces inches from deadly sparks, Moroccan children shouting at you to buy their families’ wares, not to mention the occasional man on a motorcycle whizzing past the foot crowds, or the cats that are apparently a permanent fixture in this city.

I think I smelled every smell, heard every sound and saw every color there is to see in that winding maze, and the day had barely started. I mean, this is all before lunch. But when we were turned loose to go find some food and take the time to explore, what started as an interesting morning turned into an even more interesting afternoon and evening. Myself and the posse of ISA students I hung out with today got lunch at a terrace restaurant overlooking the city, and the view was stunning. Especially when the Muslim call to prayer started. I guess I was expecting something a little more dramatic. Actually, I only saw a few people begin praying. I don’t really know what that means, if it has to do with Morocco being a bit looser with its Islamic culture, if it was due to the time of day or if there were really just a few Muslims in the square we were overlooking.

After lunch, more exploring, including an interesting encounter with a monkey tamer. Basically, it started with me practically having a monkey thrown on me, then ended with me throwing 200 DHs into a man’s hat to get him to stop harassing me. Definitely not cool. But I guess there’s always gotta be one of those experiences, right? I didn’t mind, I mean, sure, I’m out 200 DHs, but I really think it made me more aware of what I’m getting myself into. I think I would have just walked away had I been a little bit less terrified of this strange man with a monkey in his arms, and if it ever happens again, that’s what I’ll do.

There are women in the streets of Morocco who carry around henna in syringes and grab you, trying to get just a speck of the paste on you then demanding dirhams. I’ve learned already not to look at them. Or anyone with anything in their hands for that matter. Curiosity is dangerous, and it’ll get you with something being shoved in your face, and sometimes, that something is a monkey.

We returned to the square later tonight, after dark. The transformation is incredible. By day, the square is a hub of activity, with snake charmers, monkey tamers (obviously), musicians and the like performing and dancing as people go on their way to shop. But it pales in comparison to night time. By night, dozens, maybe hundreds of restaurants open across the square, serving absolutely everything imaginable. Last night I had calamari, a bit of a friends’ couscous, the amazing orange juice I’ve been drinking everywhere and bread. Then some more bread.

I’ve never seen so much activity in one place before, and this is a nightly ritual for Moroccans. Again, there’s just something about the most arbitrary things that makes me feel alive. Like biting into a bitter pit in your orange juice because someone just squeezed it, or being followed by a scrawny little girl for a quarter of a mile while she desperately asks you to buy her tissues. Words cannot describe the feeling I’ve had all day, but I’ll try.

It’s somewhere between a mix of apathy and enthrallment. Somewhere between “I’m in Marrakech, that’s cool,” and “HOLY MOTHER OF GOD I AM IN MARRAKECH WHAT IS LIFE IS THIS REAL,” usually toward louder end of the spectrum, of course. I don’t know if or when it’s gonna sink in and stop feeling like summer camp. I know I’m gonna get tired, and I know I’m gonna start getting a little mean when I get homesick. That said, I’m kind of on a high right now, and I’m gonna hang on to that for as long as humanly possible.

Happy travels.

It’s okay to be 12 again.

“What funny clouds… AH MOUNTAINS.”

Maybe it’s the novelty of everything, but I’m so ecstatic about life again. Also slightly incoherent, and for that, I apologize.

This time yesterday I was in a state of panic. I was curled up at the airport, talking incoherently to ISA representatives, in tears. And now, I’m in Denver, so shell shocked and happy I can barely handle it.

My first experience with air travel? A complete success, but also some serious regression going on. I think regression will be the theme of the day, actually.

It wasn’t until the pilot announced we were 15 minutes from Denver that I realized I’d been clutching Holly the Honda Hybrid in my fist the whole time. Boyfriend thinks it’s cute, I think it’s dorky.

I got to watch the sun wake up. 🙂 So pretty. So worth it.

Take off was the most grand adventure I’ve ever experienced, and with it, I left behind all of yesterday’s panic, the crying, the hysterical laughing at dumb things to cope with having my flight cancelled. I can’t think of a more relaxing way to spend my morning. iPhone in one hand, taking pictures, coffee in the other and it all in in a state of complete awe, the kind you only get when you’re too young or inexperienced to process quite what’s happening to you.

Remember being little and looking at the clouds and seeing things like… A girl on a bike? A knight fighting a dragon? A skeleton with a grinning skull? I got to see all those things today, but from above the clouds. I’ve never had that before. There’s a first time for everything, I’m just having this one when I’m 20 and still a kid at heart.

Soooo beautiful.

And now I’m in the airport, staring at everyone, eyes huge, scampering around the flat treadmill thingies and almost falling when I get to the end. All the stress of yesterday is gone. ISA has arranged a ride for me, I’m flying to Frankfurt in 6 hours and then the adventure really begins. So I’m gonna hang onto my inner 12 year old. She’s a hell of a lot more fun than I am.

Happy travels.