On Sunday we took an hour long bus ride outside of Fez to visit the ancient ruins of Volubilis, which was a Roman city built in the 4th century (i think). It was really interesting, especially because it was so old and yet they had things like running water figured out. There were also a lot of mosaics that were still in tact and in bright colors, which was amazing. We also visited a town that's built around Moulay Idriss Mosque and climbed to the top of their Medina. The view was great and I took a bunch of pictures so I'm hoping they'll load. (I'm at a cafe right now and the wireless is ok, but who knows).Yesterday we went to campus and to meet our families. Our dad, Mohammed, was there to greet us and took us to a cafe to meet his friend/neighbor, Mourad. Mourad lives right around the corner from us and is also a music teacher at our school who has 2 boy students from Virginia staying with him. Mohammed had to go back to work, so Mourad sat with us and then drove us to our gate at the Medina. Our house is about a ten minute walk through the maze of the Medina, but we don't have to walk through the market streets if we don't want to, so it's less crowded.
Mohammed's house is amazing. It's a dar, which means it doesn't have an open garden courtyard in the center, but it's about 4 floors high and has a roof terrace where we can sit/hang our laundry. It's hard to describe it because their houses here are so different from ours, but I'm going to take a video of me walking around through it because I don't think pictures could do it justice.
We met Mohammed's wife, Nahima, who doesn't speak much English but is very sweet, and she seems to run the house and Mohammed, who is more soft spoken and quiet. They have a daughter, Iman, who is 11 and knows a lot of English, which is great because otherwise Sarah and I would be lost. They're Muslim, but not strictly traditional, so they were wearing modern but modest clothing and no head covers, and Iman knows all about Hannah Montana and Avril Lavigne and was singing us their songs.
Nahima made us lunch, which in Morocco is the biggest meal of the day, and I made Iman laugh really hard because I started eating some red mixture with my fork, and apparently it's sauce for bread. Oops. The food is delicious though, even if i did just eat plain sauce.
Our house has bathroom, which is only a tiny little square room with places to put your feet while you squat. not fun. It's actually not so bad, except that the door ends higher than the ground, and the room faces the main rooms of the house, so I feel like while everyone's eating dinner they can see me. Sarah and I are going to make the bathrooms in the Ville Nouvelle our friends. Mohammed said they could install a toilet for us, but they already had to fix the shower heater (which doesn't work at all) so we said we'd be fine.
by the way, our shower is more interesting than the 'bathroom'. It's on the second floor, through this room that I think is an extra food storage place/laundry room. It's a very long, narrow, short space that's walled in tile and ceramic mosaics, with the faucet in the back and a heavy plain block of wood that serves as a door, but doesn't close unless you move the propane tanks that you light to heat up the shower. The room ends up smelling a little like musty gas and is oddly lit, so I feel like I'm in a gas chamber while I'm taking an ice cold shower. Not the best, but it still felt good to rinse off.
Classes started this morning and so far so good. Our teacher speaks mostly Arabic in class, but she goes slowly and is really nice, so I'm not worried and I think I'm going to learn A LOT. we're heading back to our house for lunch/visit with the family (since it's like dinner time to them), then I have an afternoon class. There's a Riad in the Medina where we can study, so we're going there after, and I'm really hoping I'll have time to add pictures.
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