Tangier etc.

So I can’t pretend to like everything on this trip. I did not like this weekend’s trip to Tangier, and here are the reasons why:

1. the 4 hour bus ride there
2. living with 5 other girls in a cramped, but nice, apartment
3. how those same girls thought it would be a good idea to buy lots of bad wine and get drunk last night
4. tourists are not a novelty, they are a source of income only
5. we got hassled way more by men on the street
6. other things…

Here are the things that I liked:
1. lunch on Saturday at a tapas restaurant called Zoco Chico, where the owner was very nice and the food was amazing
2. walking around the medina
3. the view from pretty much anywhere in the city
4. the cleanliness of the streets

Once we got back to Rabat we tried to catch a cab, and a cabbie herded four of us into a Petit Taxi, which is illegal (only three per Petit Taxi). And then we noticed he didn’t have a meter, so we got out, got hassled, and hailed another cab which dropped us off right outside the medina next to a clump of police officers. I was tired, sketched out, and hungry. It was not a good time.

I was so glad to get back home to 57 Rue des Consuls. I returned in the midst of a cleaning frenzy which was precipitated by the washing machine overflowing (?). My French isn’t working so well right now, but they got the idea that I’m tired.

I didn’t come to Morocco because it was going to be easy. I decided to study abroad in North Africa because I knew it would be different from everything I had ever experienced and I would come away from it a wiser person. This is hard, I admit. I’m tired of eating so much bread and cookies and sugar, I’m mentally exhausted from living in three languages, and I miss my friends and family back home just like everyone else in the program at this minute.

I think it’s a turning point though. Having such an awful time in Tangier really made some of us realize how much at home we were in Rabat. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. This is also the time where we just have to abandon all our feelings of discomfort with our surroundings, and accept what and where we are. It’s no use missing what you can’t have.

This next part is because I know you appreciate my honesty and frankness, and also because I just need to complain to somebody: some of the girls in this program are rather high maintenance. If they absolutely require a western toilet and hot water so they can shower everyday and shit without squatting, then why did they choose to study abroad in Morocco? The mean part of me can’t wait to see what they do for the village stay.