Volubilis / Hammam Visit

            Wow. Sorry to all my blog followers. I have been severely lacking in keeping you updated on a normal basis. It’s not because of lack of love for you all, because I am really honored that there are even some people who follow it.  The experiences I am having have already surpassed any of my expectations for this trip and will do my best to continue to share them with you all.

           

            Last weekend we took a trip to Volubilis. This is an old Roman city just outside of the city I’m living in. The structures we were able to see, touch, sit on, and really have free reign on are over 2000 years old.  It was an awesome site. According to my roommates, if you’ve seen one Roman ruins site, you’ve seen them all. But being that I am a Roman ruins site virgin, this was an awesome experience. So much history packed into such a small place. It was just really cool. You can check all the pictures out on my Facebook if you haven’t yet.

            

            The following day we took a trip way out into the middle of nowhere in a traditional Berber city. We arrived at our guide Zorgan’s house at around 9 in the morning.  This was after a quick stop in Ifrane on the way. Ifrane was seriously the weirdest looking city ever, only because it was located in North Africa. It looks almost identical to a European city, especially a Swedish city, from the architecture to the attitude of the people and the quality of everything. Anyways, Zorgan’s house/farm was so cool. They served us a traditional Berber breakfast (bread, jam, butter, corn bread type stuff, green tea, and honey). The most incredible thing was that EVERYTHING was homemade, from the bread, to the honey, to the butter. They made everything on their farm with their own farm animals. So good.

            

            We then started our hike up to on of the highest points in the Atlas Mountains. If the truth be told, I hate hiking, and still do after this trip, but it was well worth it. Half way through our hike we came across guys with beautiful horses who were giving out rides for 20 Dirhams…or D’s as we call them (about $2.50 American). A bunch of people tried it had a blast, especially my Columbian roommate Juan. He just hopped up on the horse and, like it was nothing, took off leaving the owner standing there in the dust. It was quite the scene. We then continued on the hike and came across a huge group of monkeys. As you can see in my pictures, we were able to get really close to the monkeys and feed them bread and stuff. It was a really cool scene.

           

            Finally, we arrived at the peak of our hike, the panoramic view of a lifetime. It was just this cliff with an amazing view of everything below. We were about 2000 meters up at this point. A few of us were being daredevils (or idiots, you can be the judge) but we were climbing out as far as we could try to get good profile pictures for Facebook haha. I posted these pictures as well, but bottom line; it was an incredible time and view.

            

            Last week as far as school goes was pretty basic. Finally got into a routine and situated with most of my professors. One professor I have to talk about is my professor for two classes, Arab and Western Media and Peace and Conflict Resolution. His name is Hajjii and he is SUPER liberal, that’s not even doing it justice. He essentially is a Marxist/Socialist. He’s an awesome teacher and a really really good guy. We just never see eye to eye when it comes to politics.  And somehow, the first day of class, he called me out as a Reagan loving, Fox News watching, American patriot. Literally, you can ask my classmates, he walked up to my desk about an hour into class and just called me out. Since I’ve confirmed, he has been on my case non-stop. To the point where my roommates/classmates can’t believe I’m not mad or upset with him. I have two 3-hour classes with him on Wednesdays, and each class he spends at least 10 minutes calling me out about the conservative stereotypes.  Luckily for me, I’m far from a push over, and give him a run for his money every time he calls me out. He doesn’t mean any harm by it, and compliments me on my defensive remarks, but it still is a constant thing keeping me on my toes.

            

            For example, we were all sitting around during a break having tea, and he accused me of hating black people, poor people, and Arabs. Stating it just like that. There were about 10 of us American students sitting around a table, and every single person like dropped their cups and instantly went silent. This of course because many of them are more liberal and that is quite a HUGE accusation. I kind of laughed and responded with, “Hajjii, that’s a pretty big accusation. That’s like me saying that since you’re an Arab, then you must be a terrorist who wants to kill every American you meet, and we both know that’s not the case. So, no I do not hate black people, or poor people, and definitely not Arabs. I mean I am a conservative who came over here to educate myself, what else do you want from me?” He then, trying to keep his pride, commended me on my response, somewhat apologized for assuming, and walked away. He really meant no harm by it, and there were no hard feelings either way, it was just a great educating experience for the both of us. He will definitely keep me on my “debating toes” all semester though.

            

            As far as this weekend goes. I had a very eventful weekend here in Meknes. We had our first Hammam trip (public bath). This was a crazy but incredible experience. I’ll give you a quick synopsis of how it works for the men. You go in just your underwear, to a huge locker room looking sauna. You have a bucket, soap, and shampoo. You then choose your spot, around the entire perimeter are spigots for hot and cold water. Each person gets one of each for there area. You then fill your bucket up and clean the area in front of your spigots. Then you lie down and let your self sweat for like 20 minutes. After this an old Moroccan hammam worker comes and drags you out away from your bucket. He then proceeds to “man-handle” you. I was legitimately nervous after watching the first few of my roommates get “cleaned”. He attempts to loosen you up and stretch you out. Grabbing and twisting and bending your arms, flipping you on your back and pulling you up, straddling you and pulling your legs everywhere, turning you on your side and yanking your legs. Let’s just say, in American culture, it would be nothing short of something very homosexual. But it was nothing like that at all. It’s just a part of their culture, let alone it was a somewhat violent experience haha. After this, you lay on your back and they take a very rough brush and scrub all the dead skin off of you. It’s like when you rub your hands together and that nasty stuff comes off. They do that to your entire body, and then soap you up with a bar, and you rinse off. Then you go to the cool down room, rinse off again, and then change back into your clothes. I don’t think this many pores of mine have been open since I was a new born. We’re hoping to go back once every two weeks or so. It’s only about $5 American.

           

            After that, Nabil (our Moroccan friend) took my roommates and I to get custom tailored suits from a friend of his way outside of town. It was like 10 pm and we went into this guy’s tiny shop. He came out with a measuring tape around his neck, perfectly stereotypical tailor. Nabil told him what we wanted, and he pulled out 100’s of fabric samples for us to choose from. It took us awhile to choose from just square patches, but then he took each of our measurements, drew out our suits, and we added or took away any features. For example, I got 2 buttons, regular pockets; one cut on the back of the jacket (it’s common to do two cuts over here), and then got pleats on the pants. It takes him about 5 days to make the first stage, then we go try it on and make sure it fits perfectly. Then he takes another few days to finalize everything. Then $100 American, we take our suits home.

            

            Well, I decided to write this blog when I had a lot of reading to do for my class this afternoon. So I must go attend to that really quick. On a quick side note, the beard is still going strong, looks outrageous, but it’s still in tact! Hope everything is going well with everyone on the home front. And don’t forget to go get your pumpkins at the Pick’n Patch!!!

(Sorry for any grammatical errors, I didn’t have time to reread it yet.)