Weekends

Sorry it’s been so long since last post! I have been super exhausted these last couple of weeks, tons of work, tons of school, too much food and not enough sleep! Despite the exhaustion all has been good and I’m enjoying myself here.

In the past week or so I’ve had some exciting Moroccan experiences and have made some new friends. Two weekends ago my family took me to a nearby town called Moulay Yacoub, it’s about 17km west of Fes. It’s a really small town in the mountains that was built on top on natural sulfur hot springs. So the town has about 5 hammams (public bath houses) and is a tourist site as a result. The town it’s self is beautiful, and has more of the quaint old world feel that I expected Morocco to have than anything I’ve seen so far. The streets are lined with vendors selling all sorts of bathing accessories that one might need for the hammam including, “kisses” hand loofas that feel more like steel wool on your skin when in use, pumice stones for feet, large bags of henna for skin and hair, rassoul (dried clay that has been mixed with lavender, cloves, orange water, rose and cloves) that you add to warm water to made a paste with which you use to cover yourself with mud and makes your skin and hair really soft, and a variety of other bathing products and amenities. All of these can be bought in single dose amounts for the equivalent of only a few US dollars.

The hammam that I went to with my host family and neighbors was the hammam that locals use. It cost about 8 Dirham (1 US$) per person and consisted of one large communal bathing pool that everyone gather around a bathed in. There was a tap on the side of the pool that everyone got water from (collected in large plastic buckets) and then brought back to her bathing spot. There were seemingly 100 other women there when we first got there, we went on a Sunday, which is a popular, bathing day so there were a ton of people. In these hammams everyone is wearing nothing but their underwear and you bathe with the people that you go with, family or friends. I ended up being there for about three hours and washed my hair and body about four times. You generally leave the hammam with an ultra clean feeling and most women wont bath for anywhere from three days to a week after wards. So far I can only last a day or two without showering but I’m working my way up to Moroccan standards. The sulfur in the piping hot bath water was really awesome, it made both my skin and hair extremely soft, hopefully my permanent site will also be built on sulfur water hot springs! In’shallah! The hammam experience is definitely becoming an essential part of my life here in Morocco.

This last weekend I went to my first Moroccan wedding! I went with my family and another PCT, Rachel, and her host family. I was given a gold and blue kaftan to wear with gold gini pants to wear underneath, which ended up being really hot and uncomfortable. At the wedding there were about 100 people and it took place in about three different houses. For the first 5 hours Rachel and I sat around with our host families waiting to eat, which we didn't do until midnight. By the time we ate everyone had gotten really hungry and crabby, not to mention tired. This was probably the first time that I was hungry since I got here. After we ate we all went to another house and there was a big dance party, which was really fun. Rachel and I were forced to dance by ourselves in front of almost everyone which was really embarrassing, but later we danced more when everyone else was dancing. We also got to see the bride and groom, who didn't appear until the very end of the wedding, about 2 am. We ended up being awake until about 4 am, which is the latest I have stayed up here, thank god we didn't have school the next morning. All in all the dancing was fun but Rachel and I have concluded that most weddings here are just about sitting around and are kind of boring.

My diet has become almost 100% consistent of only sugar oil and olives.

Also we fine out site placements this weekend!!!! Wish me luck for a good site.

Until next time.