Our lecture this afternoon was disappointing because the lecturer’s English wasn’t really up to it, but she made a good effort. We were done super early, therefore, a bunch of us went to the Kasbah. It’s right across the street from my house really. It has a beautiful garden that, in theory, is good for studying, but the kittens are distracting. Street cats are everywhere, and not bending down and petting all of them tries my patience daily, especially the kittens.
So the Kasbah. A kasbah is really just a walled town and they’re all over. In fact, most cities have a kasbah at its center. The kasbah here marks the first area of settlement of Rabat, where the river Bouregreg meets the Atlantic Ocean. All the houses inside the kasbah are painted white and blue; it looks almost like Greece.
I got home around 3:30 and tried to study my Darija vocab. I tried. But I ended up taking a nap, so it’s really just like home.
Later in the afternoon I went for a run down by the beach with my friend Becca. The glorified sidewalk is actually under construction. That’s one of the things I like about Morocco, the public works are open to all. Really though, we almost ran between a dump truck and a bulldozer; there aren’t any fences or guards or anything. We were running on half-made sidewalks and curbs and it was fine.
The coast is spectacular, by the way: the waves have been eating away at the sandstones and limestones to create a 30-foot drop to the ocean. The waves were huge today, easily breaking over the tops of the cliffs.
Crazy people surf here actually; there’s an official surf club on the beach. Some members were walking home and ran me off the sidewalk with their boards (in a nice way).
That’s another thing, we girls get yelled at everywhere we go. The main road parallels the sidewalk by the beach, so can you imagine the amount of catcalls and beeping we were subject to? Yeah. A lot. You’ve just got to understand that these guys don’t mean anything hostile when they holler at us in the street. Back in the day, and still, it was a manner of courting: the only place where the sexes could mingle was the street. Guys yell at girls to get their attention, and girls can look back at them, or something, to indicate their interest. It works against however, because when somebody shouts at me I generally look. Some guys are just trying to be polite I think, but others are just trying to get your attention. Broken English is popular, as is French, and sometimes Arabic, but I don’t usually get the Arabic because I am blond, and therefore a European. Some guys will actually follow you, but that hasn’t happened to me yet. I’ve also learned to ignore pretty much everything in the street as I walk.
Later in the afternoon I went for a run down by the beach with my friend Becca. The glorified sidewalk is actually under construction. That’s one of the things I like about Morocco, the public works are open to all. Really though, we almost ran between a dump truck and a bulldozer; there aren’t any fences or guards or anything. We were running on half-made sidewalks and curbs and it was fine.
The coast is spectacular, by the way: the waves have been eating away at the sandstones and limestones to create a 30-foot drop to the ocean. The waves were huge today, easily breaking over the tops of the cliffs.
Crazy people surf here actually; there’s an official surf club on the beach. Some members were walking home and ran me off the sidewalk with their boards (in a nice way).
That’s another thing, we girls get yelled at everywhere we go. The main road parallels the sidewalk by the beach, so can you imagine the amount of catcalls and beeping we were subject to? Yeah. A lot. You’ve just got to understand that these guys don’t mean anything hostile when they holler at us in the street. Back in the day, and still, it was a manner of courting: the only place where the sexes could mingle was the street. Guys yell at girls to get their attention, and girls can look back at them, or something, to indicate their interest. It works against however, because when somebody shouts at me I generally look. Some guys are just trying to be polite I think, but others are just trying to get your attention. Broken English is popular, as is French, and sometimes Arabic, but I don’t usually get the Arabic because I am blond, and therefore a European. Some guys will actually follow you, but that hasn’t happened to me yet. I’ve also learned to ignore pretty much everything in the street as I walk.
No comments:
Post a Comment