Time to Morocco and roll...

It's hard to catch up with blogs when I've been gone! But I need to make myself do it, because it's the only record I'm keeping of what I'm up to (selfish!)

Yesterday, a bunch of us went to the Hassan II mosque in the morning and caught an English tour. The mosque was absolutely amazing. It's one of the biggest in the world. The inside has room for 25,000 people, and outside has room for 80,000. The tour guide said it is FULL during Ramadan. Insane. Anyway, it was beautiful and I completed the spiritual trifecta this past week - I've been in a cathedral, a synagogue, and a mosque in the past week.

Afterward, I went to go find stamps, snacks, and help a friend change her dirham back to dollars in time to catch lunch on the ship. We struck out on all 3 AND missed lunch on the ship. It was extremely irritating and also insanely hot. The post office was PACKED (what I had also experienced in Marrakech) so no postcards from Morocco. Sorry. We couldn't find a grocery store to save our lives, and the cash change places wouldn't give dollars for dirhams. This is particularly aggravating because it's illegal to import/export Moroccan dirham, so nobody else will take it. I also happen to have too much money left because on the way to the train station in Marrakech we didn't take a taxi, we got second class tickets on the return train trip, and we paid student prices at the mosque. Awesome that I saved the money, bummer that I couldn't do ANYTHING with it. Frustration!

Anyway, it was so hot walking around for those 3 hours. I lost every drop of water inside of me. And my nose got sunburned. I won't really miss the Moroccan heat and sun, but Ghana's going to be waaaaay worse, so I can't really relax yet.

So we got back at 2pm, had a veggieburger at the pool bar (the pool bar is extra $$ whereas the dining hall is not) and I laid down for about 30 minutes before gangway duty at 4pm. Basically, I just had to help get everybody back on the ship (we do every other port). Not too many problems, but a few students got irrationally angry about a certain policy that's been in place since Day 0, so whatever.

The ship is absolutely filthy from being in this port. I'm not sure if I mentioned that Casablanca is a very industrial port and is very, very dirty. There is a thick film of dust covering everything outside on the ship. The gangway security has been wearing facemasks for days. I hear they're going to start deep cleaning today. I also hear this is nothing compared to India.

We watched the ship sail from the port and, as usual, it was very exciting. It was also very dark because the sun sets very early here. See the picture above for our departing view of Casa. I saw the pilot hop off the ship onto his boat and we waved goodbye to Casablanca and Morocco! The picture above was taken right after the pilot left us.

After setting sail, we had our post-port reflection groups again. I know I said this last time, but I'm so lucky with my group. They're awesome and had a lot to say about Morocco. It seems only one person was left with a negative impression of Morocco.

There was also a birthday party in the lounge last night for the academic dean's wife. My stomach has been in bad shape for a couple days, but I still had some ice cream cake (ice cream is rare on the ship). Yeah, it didn't help, but it was sure delicious.

What a long day it was! But now I'm back to work for 7 days before Ghana. No plans yet for Ghana, so we'll see what happens.

A couple final notes/stories about Morocco:

- When eating dinner one night in Marrakech, we sat next to some people from London. The woman in the couple was originally from Mauritius (where we will be heading in about a month). Small world. Smaller island! She gave us some tips on what to do, so that was great.

- When we were being led to our riad in Marrakech, Marci asked the boy "so how much are we paying you to help us?" and the kid turns around and smiles and says "Welcome to Morocco."

- Safety concerns are nothing like in the US. When we were waiting for our train to arrive to take us to Marrakech, everybody was just crossing the tracks as often as they pleased, and many were sitting on the side of the platform with their feet up on the tracks. It was bizarre, I kept wanting to tell them to be careful because they'd get electrocuted! (there's no third rail though)

- The boy I sat next to on the train back to Casa had 3 songs he kept playing on his phone (without headphones, of course - but he was adorable, so I didn't mind): The Shakira World Cup song, "Smack That" by Akon, and "Lose Yourself" by Eminem. Oh make that 4 - he had a Rihanna song too.

- The water is not safe to drink in Morocco, so I've been brushing my teeth with bottled water. Yesterday, back on the ship, I went to the sink and started brushing and forgot for a second that the ship was safe water. I threw my toothbrush out of my mouth and ran for my Nalgene. And then I remembered I was on the ship :)

- I think I forgot to mention that my service trip in Morocco was canceled. I was very disappointed, but I have a few more lined up down the road, so I'm trying not to dwell :)


All right, I'm off to start my day. Going to go to global studies, get some work done, go to a couple meetings, and then tonight we have our first extended family dinner. More on that tomorrow!

xoxo