WTF Tunisia. I was told that you were beautiful and sandy and that the Mediterranean would be lovely. Instead you're just rainy. I can see the beauty, but I can't experience it without a rain jacket, and even then I get pretty soaked. The bigger problem is that you keep teasing me with good weather so that I go out without enough clothing and then as soon as I spend 10 minutes outside you start to rain again. Really, this vacation would be much happier if you would just stop raining.  

Conviction

So I have a shit ton of free time right now. I know no one here, have no major plans and it is very stormy so as of now there isn't much swimming going on. Instead I'm writing posts and emails and reading a couple of books (God help me when the books run out). If you wanted to hear from me, skype with me or call me (which is free) just email and I will set it up because I really am that bored.

This entire post wasn't just a cry for social contact though. I do have an interesting Tunisia story. Yesterday during my excruciating several hour wait for a train I was talking to a Tunisian guy in a mixture of Arabic and English. We somehow ended up on the topic of religion and he asked me what I thought of the Islamic man. I told him that it was an interesting religion and it is certainly something I would like to learn more about. He took his as a cue to try to explain why it is better than the other religions. His rational was that when you become a Muslim you feel things that you have never felt before.

There is really no way for me to argue with that logic, I tried to explain that I had no interest in converting but the message wouldn't quite get through. Instead he tried to teach me some new Arabic words. In particular he tried to have me repeat after him, “There is no God but God and Mohammad is his prophet.” I caught on after about 4 or 5 words and asked him, “Aren't Muslims the only ones who are allowed to say that.”

His reply, “Yes after you say it you will be a Muslim man.”

It was at this point that I politely excused myself from the conversation and found a new place to wait for my train. But here is the thing, the conversation has stuck with me for the last day, and I'm still pissed off. The man was obviously educated and put together, he seemed bright and engaging, however he had no qualms about taking away my right to believe, or not believe, in the God of my choice. A choice that, as far as I understand, most religions grant all people (though they all believe that if it is not their god you are an idiot). Move over, if there is one thing I would think a Tunisian would understand it would be the natural right to choice whether it be governments, or God.

Well I'm glad I got that off my chest. I'm sure ya'll will hear from me again the the next couple of days as I continue watching the rain fall outside my room.

First views of Tunis

I left the Qalam wa Lawh apartment at 4:00 this morning and took a drive down to Casablanca to catch my plane to Tunis. I haven't yet come to a decision on whether going to Tunisia was a good idea or not. I'm not afraid for my safety or anything, rather I just really miss the people with whom I was able to spend the last seven weeks. I honestly can't imagine what my life was like before I knew all of them. It just seems so much like they are the friends that I have always had. While, I'm sure I will see some of them again (hopefully soon) it still seems so daunting to leave people who have been so instrumental in what has been some of the best weeks of my life.

But now I'm sitting in a train station in Tunisia waiting for a train to take me down the coast so I can sit on a beach alone for a week and perhaps come up with some kind of plan for, if not the rest of my life, at least the next couple of months. I'll be on a plane to Egypt in 6 days, I'll see my dad in about 2 weeks when he visits me in Cairo and, inshallah, I will be back home in 5 weeks.  

Asilah, also know as the best weekend trip

Last weekend we headed up the coast towards Tanger until we met the city of Tanger, (and when I say we, I mean Sam, Anna, Shanna, Frenchy aka Justin, Libby and I.) We were all supposed to meet at the train station for the 8:30ish train of course when there are 6 people coming from several locations it is rather difficult to show up places on time. Shanna and I were the first to show, we waited about 15 minutes and Frenchy showed and he proceeded to buy tickets for himself, Libby and Sam who all showed up just as the train was supposed to leave. Shanna and I were still waiting around for Anna. We finally got a hold of her and she told us she was probably going to make it so we ran down to buy tickets. As it turns out Anna miscalculated the amount of time it was going to take her and she showed up a couple minutes after the train was scheduled to depart.

Luckly, we were in Morocco so nothing ever happens when the schedule says it will and the train was about 30 minutes late. We all got on and took off to the beach. It was about a 3 hour train ride and when we arrived it was just about 12:00. We walked around Asilah a bit before finding a place to eat lunch. During which, it turned out that my math major might have been helpful after all. We were given the bill and it was for considerably more than we had ordered. A bit of quick math showed that for some unknown reason our waiter had just added about 150 (almost $20) to our bill. An argument was started which after about 10 minutes we won and we were on our merry way having avoided another white tax.

We looked through a guide book to find a cheap hotel for all of us. After finding one close by we walked over to it only to find that the hotel was closed for the season. However, next door there was another hotel. It was rather nice and when we walked in the owner told us that each room was 450 Dirham. Sam, using her amazing dareja skills, was able to talk the guy down to 350. That meant that we each spent 175 for the hotel for the night. After dropping off all of our stuff we took off to the beach and played in the water and sand. We stuck around long enough to watch the sunset over the Atlantic ocean, a first for me.

After, we headed back to the hotel to get ready to eat. When we got there we explored the hotel a bit more and discovered a beautiful roof to sit on. Instead of going out, a couple of us went down the street and bought 5 bottles of wine and a good amount of bread, cheese and avocado. The wine cost 250 Dirham while the food for all six of us cost 80 Dirham. Needless to say it was an excellent night.

The next day we walked around the old city and stared at all of the beautiful artwork that is apparently commonplace around the city, unfortunately I forgot my camera so ya'll don't get to see the amazingness of Asilah until someone sends me some pictures.   

Pissing off some Moroccans

Last weekend I went to Fes. It was the last big city in Morocco that I really wanted to see and I had a really nice trip with a couple of friends. Anna, Shanna and B3 (Ben number 3, apparently its a very common name with the guys in this school.)

We took off on Friday night after saying goodbye to a couple of German friends that were just finishing up school. We got on a train at 9:00 and arrived in Fes around midnight. We were greeted by a Riad owner named Max who was an expat from Australia.

Saturday morning I woke up and found breakfast waiting for us on the roof. After eating until we were ready to explode we headed out to the souks. Fes has the largest car free city center in the world so get to walk down crowed streets dodging donkeys who carry all the shit that the store owners sell to tourists. We stopped by a couple of shops, my favorite being the apothecary who sold Anna and Shanna some perfumes and Argan oil. This shop had a plethora of animal skins including A lion, cheetah and jaguar, so now when I tell people that I went to Africa and they ask if I have seen a lion I can say yes.

Sad Cheetah

Anna and Shanna with the awesome shopkeeper (he was about 16 years old)

Then we found a little kid who insisted on showing us a tannery. We went with him and he brought us to this shop where they took us up to the roof and showed us the tannery and described how it worked. Then we were brought back to the shop where they showed us some of their jackets. Anna found one she really liked but was hesitant to pay the 800 diram price that the shopkeeper quoted. So instead we went to a restaurant to eat lunch. Anna decided that she want to get the jacket so we went back to the store. When we asked for the price again the guy told the jacket was 1800 diram and claimed that his was the price he originally quoted (which to be fair, might have been true, it was in Arabic). Needless to say we didn't buy the jacket, and tried to walk out but the guy got a little confrontational about not bargaining with him for it (there was no way he would take anywhere close to the 800 diram, we tried). We eventually got out and took off down the the street, got lost (which is what you should do in Fes) and then made it back to the Reid in time to follow the Reid owners directions to the nearby cafe where we had dinner and watched some great live music.

The tannery

the tannery smells bad so they gave us some mint to smell instead

After, we headed back to the riad and drank a couple bottles of wine on the roof and stayed up late. The next day we were greeted, again, with a delicious breakfast. We walked around for a while and went back to the same cafe to eat berber pizza for lunch. Then we got in taxi's and went to the train station. My taxi diver decided to charge me a tax for being white, which I'm getting tired of paying, but I was too tired to argue. We got on the train and headed back to Rabat for another week of school.

Me enjoying berber pizza

Mopeds in Rabat

Come round kiddies and let me tell you a story about my friends Anna and Rebecca and their awesome moped in Morocco.

You see Anna was a totally fearless American who had spent her mere 24 years on this earth convincing herself that she was invincible. After stints in Afghanistan and Iraq Anna decided that she wanted to go back to school to learn about chemistry so she could become a doctor. Unfortunately, she decided to take physical chemistry during her last year and it filled her head with chemistry nonsense. Therefor, she decided to leave the US and spend some time in Morocco learning Arabic. When she arrived she decided that she didn't like walking around and she didn't want to spend money on taxis for three months. Instead, she bought a 1985 moped.

Rebecca was an army brat for Canada. She went to college and spent a couple of years trying to learn Arabic. When she graduated college she couldn't find the job she wanted and instead decided to further her Arabic studies by traveling to Morocco.

Anna and Rebecca met in Morocco and instantly became friends, Anna would even drive them together on the moped all around the city.

Then one dark (actually rather sunny) Monday afternoon, Anna and Rebecca were driving to the souk when an evil (I have no data to support that claim) taxi driver pulled into a bus stop without signalling to pick up some fares. Anna did her level best to swerve around the taxi and successfully navigated the moped and herself away from the hazard. Unfortunately Rebecca's knee didn't quite miss the taxi. In fact, her knee blew through the tail light and bumper of the taxi. This sent her heel into the spokes of the moped rapidly followed by Rebecca into the air. She landed on the street and skidded for a bit before coming to a complete stop.

Now Anna managed to pull Rebecca to the side of the street and together they called the school that they were attending. Then they waited for about an two hours.

They, and the school helper (and me), grew tired of waiting for an ambulance and decided to drive to the hospital by themselves. When they arrived they were squished into an examination room and told that the doctor would be with them in a minute. Three hours later the doctor showed up. He looked the deep gash in Rebecca's knee and the piece of skin missing from her heel and said, "It's not so bad."

Then Rebecca and Anna were brought into the operating room where the doctor proceeded to root around in Rebecca's knee before giving her any local anesthesia. When he was sure she hadn't fucked up her knee too much he gave her local anesthesia for the knee and sewed her up.

Then he moved to the heel. He again, without anesthesia, pulled back the skin and cleaned the wound out. Now, I'm not sure if there is some sort of anesthesia shortage in Morocco, but the doctor decided to stitch up the heel without any anesthesia. Rebecca's yells of pain followed by crazy laughter could be heard several doors down the hall.

But Rebecca is a champ and she struggled through it all. The doctor discharged her with some over the counter pain meds and, inshallah Rebecca will catch her flight back to Canada on Wednesday.

Here is too wishing Rebecca a quick and safe recovery.

-Ben

You will get sand EVERYWHERE

I went to the Sahara, which incidentally is both the name of the desert I visited and the Arabic word for desert. Before we left we were given a briefing by the school's Debbie Downer. The most memorable part of it was the phrase "You will get sand everywhere." Turns out this is true, when I finally made it back to Rabat I took my pants off and turned them upside down and found that I had brought a couple grams of the Sahara back with me.

They really liked the peanuts

It really was a great trip. We spent the first day driving to Midelt which is basically a city in the middle of no where about halfway between Rabat and the Algerian border. On out way we got to stop and, as the schedule so eloquently put it, "pet Monkeys!" I spent 5 diram (about 60 cents) on peanuts when we got there to feed the monkeys. I know that someone out there is probably thinking, "You shouldn't feed them, its not natural." All I have to say is, you're right. Its not natural, but I got to feed cute monkeys and in return they let me take some awesome pictures with them, so i really don't care that much about whether it was natural or not, because it was awesome.

Anna hanging out with her new friend

We spent the night in a really creepy hotel. There was an attached restaurant where we were served by a man who I am pretty sure is a vampire. He was pale (frighteningly so for a Moroccan)  and had exceptional manners, also he looked like he enjoyed the taste of blood.

On Saturday we drove the rest of the way to the desert. We had to switch to jeeps at one point because there wasn't really any roads across the desert. Our group was split between three jeeps and I'm pretty sure that we got the best driver. When we started off on roads he drove pretty conservatively, probably between 40-50 mph. When we hit the desert he sped up to about 75 mph and payed significantly less attention the where he was going.  At one point he was trying to fix his mp3 player and had both hands off the wheel and was looking in his lap while the car was speeding at about 65 mph through the desert. After he fixed the mp3 player he would spend about 5 seconds of every minute looking out the rear view mirror. At first this really confused everyone in the car until someone thought to ask if he was in a race with the other drivers. All he said was naam (Arabic for yes) and slightly nod his head before pressing on the accelerator harder. In case you are wondering, we won by a considerable margin.

When we finished with the jeeps we got on camels. What you have to know about camels is they are a once in a lifetime experience. As in you will do it once in your lifetime and never want to ride them again. They were fun for about 15 minutes and then just really, really uncomfortable. We started our camel trek right around sunset and got some pretty nice views before arriving at the camp about 2 hours later (2 hours is a long time to sit on a camel). It took the guides about 3 hours to make dinner. so we at at about 10 and then hiked to the top of a sand dune and looked that the stars until 2 in the morning. I finally went to sleep at about 3 and had to wake up at 5:15 for the 2 hour camel ride back to the jeeps.

Sunrise in the Sahara

Sunday was spent sitting in a minibus for about 10 hours during the ride back to Rabat. I sat next to a sick person for about 6 hours so inevitably I also got sick. That's not to say I blame Anna for my getting sick rather, I'm trying to use it as an excuse for my very late blog post.

Ben