i'm in morocco bitch

hi hiiiiii to all of my avid followers here at alajnabia, i.e. the (female) foreigner for all y'all who for some ungodly reason are not studying arabic or have not read my entire blog from the beginning (RECOMMENDED). i still like that picture of sana'a and my catchy heading so i think i'm gonna leave that up...forever. i am (un)fortunately (not sure which one) not back in yemen, but rather studying arabic in fes, morocco this summer. as usual, there are a lot of things i like about it and a few things i don't. to start with the negatives, basically i don't like walking around by myself (especially in the old city, where i live) because you get a lot of harassment from fake guides and of course moroccan men. while i'm sure that many moroccan men are solid peeps (like my host dad), the street creepers specialize in whispering unsettling things to you once you have JUST passed them and they are out of your field of vision...aka they specialize in being wimps. i think that they must take a class or something because they are way too good at being scumbags. thus far, i have refrained from murdering anyone but it's been close a few times. i haven't heard much aside from the occasional "beautiful" or "ghazaala" (gazelle) lately because i walk with my host fam when i go out in the medina (old city), but on my first day here i was told "you are a jew. only jews say that" (when i said "please leave me alone," or perhaps some less polite version, to a fake guide). when i later tried the avoidance tactic, the nicest thing the kid said to me was that he saw me in a porn. he added a bunch more after that. not sure why they haven't invoked the death penalty for working as a fake guide, but i'm thinking of starting a campaign. now that i have made myself angry again...on to the good stuff! :) great to be out of the US and sorta back in africa/sorta back in the middle east. i landed in casablanca and went straight to rabat, where i had a busy couple of days attending the mawazine music festival (saw scorpion and lenny kravitz) and visiting Zhour Ghourram at the university of kuneitra (north of rabat). Zhour is a professor/writer who visited Michigan last fall. i hope to get back to rabat to actually explore the city a bit, so we'll see if i have time. then, hopped over to fes on the train (train system is GREAT) where i stayed at the funky fes hostel a few nights. this was refreshing as i had to stay in a rando shitty hotel with a shared hole toilet in rabat since everything was full (i didn't realize the music festival was going on). in fes, i allowed myself the luxury of hanging out with some rad foreigners for a couple days (exploring the medina/eating out/smoking sheesha and drinking on the terrace at night/watching magic tricks) and got very jealous of some crazy traveling folks. buttttt, i'm sure i'll do that in the future and for now i'm glad to be in one spot. i moved in with a host family in the medina about a week ago, and they are WONDERFUL! host dad mohammed (supriiiiise), host mom saeeda, host sis khoula (14), and host bro mohammed (8). the food is amazing, host mom does my laundry (occasionally she lets me help, but usually she argues with me until i give up), we go out in the medina together and visit friends, the dad is a honey trader and his stuff's amazing, and i have free stolen internet that's better than some internet connections i've had in the states. i talk a lot with saeeda and khoula and they're very open-minded, sincere, sweet, funny, etc etc. bro mohammed likes to grab my iPhone out of my hands to play games and occasionally shuts my computer screen when i'm skyping. seyy mohammed (pops) like to grill up kafta in the living room and fill the entire house with smoke. khoula LOVES turkish soap operas and gets so excited when explaining the plot lines that i don't understand anything. i'm studying the moroccan dialect at alif (arabic language institute in fes) right now, and combined with my practice at home i feel like i'm learning a good amount. but, i definitely cannot understand moroccan speech at a normal rate (or even most things at a mucho slowed-down rate). i get along pretty well in the house though using a nice mix of moroccan, levantine, modern standard, yemeni, and occasionally egyptian arabic (which i'd say is probably the closest thing that i know to moroccan, but still not close at all). ok well i haven't had my post-lunch nap yet so i think i'll stop here for now. i'm not sure if it's the heat or just something about fes, but i nap at least once a day here and occasionally twice. perhaps this is why i haven't been very productive so far... ma3 hobb bizzaaf, addie