on my way home!

sitting in charles de gaulle, about to board my second plane... meant to wake up at 4:30 this morning, get to the airport by 5:30, and leisurely get through customs and on to my plane.... that didn't work out so well, as i woke up, to my horror, at 6:30.. got to the airport at 7:05, thanks to a dedicated and fearless cab driver, and got through customs (thanks to a very nice french couple who let me back in line when i forgot my customs card, ack!) just in time to board my 8am flight at around 7:40... so besides feeling like a totally inept traveler, i feel extremely grateful that everything else besides the failed wake-up call has gone smoothly.

i'll try to post pictures from marrakesh and essouira.. as soon as i get pictures from other people (and off my camera phone.. we'll see how those turned out..). the last week has been a blur of traveling and paper writing as we finished arabic class with finals last thursday and wrapped up our film class with our final papers this week.

this trip has been amazing in that i've gotten to see so much of this country and engage in many fascinating and enlightening conversations about many current topics and events about islam, the role of women, and geopolitics. i've seen the beauty of the sahara, the wilderness of the mountains and waterfalls, and the differing ways of life in various cities.

this has also probably been one of the most enlightening trips of my life, and unfortunately i must say i'm more than ready to get back to the states. it's been overwhelming to see the global changes we have to make if we want to preserve the planet and our way of life as we know it. i've been reading thomas friedman's book, "hot, flat, and crowded" (which i highly recommend), and being in morocco i've seen firsthand how the globalized world, our dependence on foreign oil, and exploding middle class are already wreaking havoc on our planet, our politics, and foreign perceptions of america.

i realize i sound extremely pessimistic here, but the truth is we just can't ignore it anymore. if we continue to shirk responsibility and fail to plot a new course, we're going to destroy our habitat, continue to support terrorist organizations and tyrannical regimes, and drive our world further from peace.

so while i could, and perhaps should, focus more on the amazing parts of the trip and the memories that i will cherish forever, for the moment it seems to me that it's just another way of adopting the silence that blankets the truth about what's going on in the world, and of ignoring the problems that we can't afford not to face.

cascades d'ouzou

last weekend, we went to the cascades in the middle atlas mountains to hike and swim and see monkeys. probably my favorite weekend trip, along with the sahara! there were lots of places to jump off of rocks into really deep cold water (which felt great after our hike!), and it was clean and protected wildlife, without the commercial buildup of niagara falls.











































on our hike, you could see caves in the rock cliff, where there are still neolithic cave paintings (it can only be reached by rappelling down ropes.. "so easy, a caveman could do it"...?), and archaeologists are still digging around up there.


























and while we were eating our lunch, barbary apes came and helped themselves to our bread and melon. they were kind enough to stay for a brief photo shoot.

henna!

it's been awhile since i blogged, due to final exams and end-of-trip craziness... we're in essouira, i'll have to update on lots of things... but one at a time...

our last day in fes our host mom had a henna party for us, with tons of yummy treats and a woman to give us henna! depending on how much you wash your hands etc, it will last about two weeks.





































once the dye dries on your hands, they dab on a slightly sticky solution and let it flake off (mine took about 24 hours to come off completely)

calligraphy class

still don't know where to start on how much arabic i've learned.... but i've started a quick calligraphy class in my last two weeks and i love it! we had our second class today and we got to write our first word, الليل, which means "the night". i can already write about the weather, daily activities, greetings and introductions, nationalities, etc in arabic, but calligraphy takes longer to learn because each letter has precise dimensions and shapes.






















in our first class (tuesday) we learned a lot about the arabic language and script. some quick highlights:

- the first message mohamed received from allah was "READ".
- the first believer in islam was a woman, mohamed's wife kadija (my spelling is terrible and i apologize)
- the first male believer in islam was a jewish rabbi
- short vowels were not invented until several centuries after the qur'an was initially written, thus making translation of words dependant on context
- calligraphy was developed as an art form, as most arts were forbidden under islam, as they might cause followers to be led astray by false idols
- there are many different forms of calligraphy (persian, turkish, indian, etc)
- to learn calligraphy in the "true" traditional style, you must go to a sheikh and ask repeatedly to be taught.. he'll reject you over and over until you show how serious you are