My school

I've taken some pictures of my school and I'll write a little about it.  Alif (American Language Institute in Fez) has classes in both English and Arabic.  The English classes are at night and that's a much bigger program.  The street fills with traffic as Moroccans come to take evening classes.  The Arabic classes are during the day and I would estimate there are fewer than 50 students.  We are at all levels.  Classes are small.  There are 5 students in my class:  two nineteen-year-olds, one twenty-two year old, one twenty-six year old and me.  Classes meet for four hours per day (two hours with each teacher) unless there are fewer than three students.  Then, the number of class hours is reduced.  Almost all the students are American.  We had a Scottish guy living in the villa with us, but he only did a 3-week course, so he has gone home now.  The school property is surrounded by a wall and there is always at least one guard at the entrance.

 Inside the walls, there is the Alif Garden where students can study or eat lunch.  There's a concession where I buy lunch every day.  I alternate between tajine chicken with vegetables and tajine chicken with prunes.  They also sell dishes of beans or lentils.  Of course, everything comes with a basket of delicious Moroccan bread.  Below you can see the garden with a group of my friends eating at the best table (most sun).  Behind them on the left is the concession that sells the food.

And here is a picture of Karim and the ladies who cook.  Karim takes our orders (in English, Arabic or French) and then delivers our food to us.  None of us can figure out how he always remembers who orders what. The concession also sells:  coffee (made in a very fancy expresso machine), tea with mint, fresh fruit juices and all sorts of tempting cakes.  In the second picture, you can see Karim leaving the concession to bring a tajine to someone.

And, lastly, pictures of my class and my teachers.  In the first picture, you can see Kestrel, Pierce and Nicole.  Ozzie, our only guy, is absent.  This is significant because Arabic uses a different word for you and different conjugation for whether you are talking to a girl or a boy.  Ozzie hurt his ankle playing soccer.  He lives in the medina.  You have seen pictures of what the streets are like there in previous postings - extremely narrow and uneven.  No car could possibly go down it and I can't imagine navigating those "streets" on crutches.  So, he had to be brought home on a donkey.  Unfortunately, no one has a photo of it.

This is one of my teachers, Abdelhafid.  Note that he is wearing his winter coat in class.  Although Abdelhafid lives in Ifrane, which is about an hour from Fez and is a ski resort (There is snow on the ground there now.) he says he is from the desert and likes the heat - not the cold.  He has central heating in his house in Ifrane.  Abelhafid is always happy and friendly and he is a natural teacher.  He's also quite a world traveler.  He has lived in the US (studied at JMU) and France.

And here is my other teacher, Sanaa.  She's from Fez and says that people in Fez don't want heat in their homes (although she sometimes wears her coat when teaching, too.)  Sanaa usually dresses especially nice on Fridays - often in a jelaba as you can see here.  She reminds me a little of Mary Gibson - always nicely-dressed with lovely jewelery and very professional at all times.

Rain and cooking

First, two blog notes: (1) I don't think it's possible to send me an email through this blog, but if you know a way, don't do it.  In order to create the blog, I had to give a gmail address.  I created one, but I don't use it.  It's full of junkmail.  If you want to contact me, send an email to my yahoo address - or post a comment for all to read on the blog. (2) Have you noticed on the right side of the page "my blog list"  The first is Baby Violet's blog.  Her mom is my friend, Lemore.  Violet is so precocious that she started a blog before she even starts walking.  The other two belong to friends who live/lived in this house.  Peter, was here for 3 weeks.  He is an undergrad student originally from NY.  He's traveling with his parents now and then will go to Jordan.  I'm anxious to hear what he says about studying in Jordan.  Nimra is a graduate student planning to go to law school.  She's from Pennsylvania and will be here in Fez till May.  So, anyway, if you want to read someone else's take on life in Fez, read their blogs.  They're very different from mine.
Now to what's been happening since I last wrote:
Last night we made onion bread and Moroccan soup.  Leila, the woman who cleans the house here, gives cooking lessons.  Someone has to go with her in the morning to the market to buy the stuff (Chris did that.)  Then we all chip in for the ingredients and to pay Leila.  Last night's lesson and dinner cost $8 each and there are leftovers to eat tonight (but I think we are going to go out for fried fish instead.)  We made onion bread.  We all kneaded the bread and chopped onions.  Then, you fold the bread around the onions and fry it.  (Everything here has lots of olive oil.)  Jeremie is able to flip them with the pan like a crepe, but I needed a spatula.  The Moroccan soup turned out to be split pea soup - minus the ham of course.  It was okay, but I'm just not a big fan of pea soup.  Nicole took some photos of us cooking.  If she posts them on Facebook, I'll copy them and add them here.

Since I have been here it has only rained one day until today.  I really like the chance to get warm in the sun in the afternoon, but Morocco is in a drought.  The farmers are worried about their wheat.  Two weeks ago, the king directed the mosques to pray for rain.  I think they have been praying for rain every Friday since then.  I even saw on the website for the Catholic diocese of Rabat that they have a prayer for rain, too.  It has a picture with umbrellas falling from the sky (without Mary Poppins)
http://www.dioceserabat.org/
So, today, the skies were a little gray and five of us decided to go for a walk after lunch and explore a part of Ville Nouvelle that we hadn't really seen.  When we had been walking for about 15 minutes, it started to seriously rain.  We went in a cafe for a while, then came out when it stopped raining,  Of course it started pouring again as we walked home.  We got totally soaked.  My clothes are hanging from the railing on the stairs.  Pierce's shoes got totally soaked, too.  At least, my shoes miraculously stayed dry.  The sidewalks here get very slippery when it rains.  They seem to be made with ceramic tiles.

Win a Three Night Stay in a Riad in Marrakech

Here's a link to win a 3 night stay in a gorgeous riad in Marrakech.  Unfortunately, I don't think it includes planefare, which is the most expensive part for those of us who live in the US.
http://africageographic.com/safari/blog/competitions/win-a-3-night-stay-in-a-luxury-marrakech-riad/
The answer to the question about the BBC program is "Eating in the Sun"

The Alif Villa

I had planned to go to the desert this weekend.  It looked like a fantastic trip.  You get to eat delicious food, sleep in a Berber tent, watch the sunset over the sand dunes and ride a camel.  Unfortunately, you have to cross the mountains to get there and the road is currently impassable because of snow.  So, I'm going to write about the residence where I am living.
Alif (my school) has a villa around the corner where students can rent rooms.  Currently, there are about 12 of us living here.  In front of the house is a lovely garden - with irises growing in January - and a sunny porch where we can do work in the afternoon (nice and warm)

We have a shared kitchen where we often cook together.  There is a small room off the kitchen with a table where about 3 - 4 people can sit and eat.  It has a microwave and toaster oven.  There is another room off the kitchen with computers and a table.  In front of that is the living room (I have already posted pictures of that) and in the other directions is my room and Stephan's room.
kitchen:

Upstairs, there are more bedrooms and the showers.  Down in the basement, there are more bedrooms and the washing machine.  (I didn't take any pictures in the basement.)
shower:

This last picture is the roof.  We hang our clothes to dry in the sun and sometimes we study up there in the afternoon.  And for all this, I pay $10 per night.

Chefchaouen

We left yesterday (Saturday) morning for Chefchaouen.  It's a four hour bus ride.  The bus was very nice (heated!) and it stopped at a restaurant at the half-way point.  There was a woman selling Moroccan pancakes with honey  Valeria and I split one.  We got to Chefchaouen around noon.  We found a cheap and fairly nice hotel.  Valeria and I shared a room.  There were two bathrooms on that floor, but the shower was icy cold along with the room (2 blankets helped).  We did quite a bit of climbing.  Chefchaouen is in the Rif mountains.  Its name means horns in Berber because of the shape of the mountains behind it.  It was founded by Jews in 1471 when they were fleeing Spain.  Now all the Jews have gone to New York and Israel (according to a Moroccan carpet merchant).  The buildings are all painted blue.  Apparently, they were originally painted blue by the Jews because of something in the bible, but Nathan's explanation (one of my traveling companions) was that perhaps one day they were all sitting around stoned on hashish and said, "Hey, let's paint the whole town blue."  Anyway, it is very interesting to look at.  It's a maze of little streets.  They are all paved with cobblestones and painted blue.  None of the streets in the center of town are wide enough for even a mini-cooper.  They are also quite steep.  Kids run up and down them and I kept wondering how many skinned knees they end up with.  We did lots of climbing.  Everywhere you go, you can climb up and see a beautiful view.  Also, it's very close to Tangier and Spain, so lots of Spanish tourists come there during the summer.  We would ask questions in French and people would answer us in Spanish. 
 I bought two berber carpets!  They are being shipped.

1: our bus   2: our hotel  3: a street with kids playing   4: man in bus station (LOTS of Berbers wearing jelabas with hoods up here)   5: a little shop

Cheeseburgers!

We had our first quiz this morning - pretty hard.  I wouldn't call it a quiz.  I'd call it a unit test.  Anyway, it's good - keeps me studying.
This evening, we grilled burgers.  Peter thought he would need to buy a hibachi, but Leila (the woman who works in the house - cleaning, etc) said we had a barbecue.  It turned out there was a big one in the side garden.  None of us had ever gone there.  Leila cleaned it out for us and showed Stephan where to buy charcoal.  There's no lighter fluid and people were worried that we wouldn't be able to light the charcoal.  It's real charcoal - bits of wood in variable sizes.  Fortunately, I remembered that Ganam used to start charcoal on the gas stove in the kitchen because he didn't like the chemicals in the lighter fluid.  So, we placed small piles on the stove, started them and then transferred them to the barbecue.  It was very successful.  We even had buns, ketchup and Vache Qui Rit cheddar cheese (surprisingly good!)

Some of the others left at 10:00 to go to a bar.  I declined.  I need to get ready to leave tomorrow.  We need to get a taxi at 6:30 and get to the bus station at 7:00.  I won't be taking my computer with me, so the next time I'll be in touch is Sunday night.  I will take the Moroccan cell phone and my ipod touch in case they have wireless internet (which seems to be more common in Morocco than in the US!)

Barbecue pics:

Thursday - remember I'm 5 hours ahead of you

So, Lemore said enjoy the Italian dinner because you guys are at happy hour, but we had our Italian dinner tonight - Thursday.  Danny and Peter made pasta with merguez (little sausages) and vegetables.  They also had some very tasty croutons in it.  Tomorrow night - still ahead of my happy hour buddies - Danny and Peter are planning to grill on the roof.  They are going to Marjane tomorrow to attempt to buy a hibachi.  They want to grill burgers! (Probably not cheeseburgers because Danny and Peter are Jewish, but I haven't asked them how kosher they are since there's no pork here.)  We'll see if it happens.  (MacDonalds is walking distance if we need it.)
Four (maybe 6?) of us are going to Chefchaouen this weekend.  It's supposed to be very beautiful.  We've gone through lots of debates on how and when to go.  There are no classes on Friday afternoons, but there are also no buses at that time.  It's possible to hire a grand taxi to take you there anytime you want (four hour drive), but it's expensive.  I think our final decision is to take the bus on Saturday morning.  I like that plan because then I could do all my weekend homework on Friday afternoon and leave town knowing all my work is done for Monday.  Chefchaouen is supposed to be very beautiful.  I'll try to post pictures.  So, if I leave Saturday morning, I probably won't bring my computer with me.  I'll post pictures when I get back to Fez.

Independence Day?

I didn't see any signs of celebration today.  It seemed equivalent to Columbus Day or Veterans Day.  The banks and schools were closed.  Lots of kids in the stores and on the street (a nice sight).  I washed clothes in the morning and hung them on the roof.  Then I went to Marjane with Elizabeth.  We were much more successful with taxis.  First of all, we got in the taxi before we told them where we were going.  Then we asked for old Marjane.  Apparently, there are two.  The old one (which looks the same as the new one to me) is closer.  Also, Elizabeth asked the driver if he would be willing to come back for us at 12:15 (We left at 11)  At first, he said he couldn't because he gets off at 11:30.  Then, later, he said he could ask his replacement to come for us, but we would need to pay the round trip fare in that case.  We said fine.  I wondered how we would know which driver is his replacement, but he said to look at the number on the top of the taxi.  That worked out great.  Also, the driver came up to me in the parking lot and said Salaam walekum.  Moroccans never approach you and talk to you when they don't know you.  This is a good and a bad thing.  You don't get harassed, but also if you want a taxi or something else, no one is going to offer help.  You have to ask for it.  Then they are happy to help you.
I had tons of homework, so I worked on that this afternoon.  Then, Pierce and I cooked dinner for the four of us.  I bought 6 bottles of wine at Marjane so we are well-stocked now.  Jeremy is uncomfortable in the liquor store and I don't think Pierce or I should go there without a guy.  At Marjane, it's really easy to buy wine - just like buying it with your groceries in the Giant.  Other people in the house asked me if the clerk in Marjane looked at me like I was crazy buying 6 bottles of wine, but she didn't blink an eye.  I thought I wouldn't be drinking any wine here, but it seems like I'm drinking more than home because there are always people to eat dinner with here.  It's almost like a party every night.  Tomorrow night Danny and Peter are cooking.  They say they're making Italian.  Tonight Danny and Peter went to the MacDonalds and came back saying it was fabulous!  I still need to get more details.  They had some kind of cheese balls (croquettes de fromage) and their food came in a Happy Meal without the toy.  That's all I know so far.

A holiday

Tomorrow is a Independence Day in Morocco.  Apparently, the treaty was signed in Fez, so the king is coming to Fez.  There are lots of security people on the streets.  I asked our teacher what the king will do.  He said he will probably make a speech on TV.  Fez is one of four imperial cities in Morocco.  The others are Casablanca, Marrakech, and Meknes.  The king has 2 palaces in Fez.  He doesn't use the big one.  His father used to live in that one, but the current king uses a smaller palace which is in Ville Nouvelle.  (That's the part of the city that the French built and it's where I live.)  People say that he will make the big palace into a museum.  Most of what I told you above (except the part about the imperial cities) I learned from my teacher today.  He is very good at saying things in Arabic in a way that we can understand, but it is very possible that I completely misunderstood some things.
So, we have no classes tomorrow.  I do have a lot of homework, though.  And I need to go to Marjane again.  I'm not looking forward to it.  The store is fun, but finding a taxi to take you each way is difficult.  I tried to use my hairdryer and it broke, so I need to buy a new one.  And, of course, I'll think of lots of other things to get there.  I'm also hoping to wash clothes tomorrow.  We have a very fancy washing machine in the basement, but no dryer.  So, I'd like to wash early and hang my clothes on the roof where there's lots of sun.
I don't know whether I mentioned how nice it is to live in the Alif Residence.  There are five students in my class and four of us live here.  We work on homework together or consult each other about assignments.  In the time I studied Arabic in DC, I never really had anyone to talk to about it.  It's fun to have people to laugh at expressions with you and to be able to say, "What in the world does that mean?"

A quiet day

Today was just a quiet day.  I was tired from yesterday, so I just wanted to do some homework and rest.   I'm thinking I may be getting into a routine here now and will probably stop writing every day soon.  There just won't be very many new things. Also, uploading my pictures to Facebook went very quickly, but uploading to Snapfish takes forever.  I think I will just wait till I get home to put pictures on Snapfish.  The people who use Flicker say the same thing.  On Facebook, we are all changing our city we live in to Fez and our school to Alif.  I'll change it back when I get home, but for now, it's fun to have a FB page that says I live in Fez.
I forgot to tell you about the bakery yesterday.  In Fez, each neighborhood has a bakery.  Families bring their bread to the bakery to be baked in the communal oven.  Each family then picks up their own freshly-baked bread.  It looked like it just goes on a specific shelf.  The oven is wood-fired.  The guide said that bread has flour in the middle - good for your heart - and barley on the outside - good for your bones.  He said if someone breaks a bone, they give the person barley.  They also feed the donkeys barley so they can carry heavy loads in the medina.

Amazing day - but exhausting

Today is Saturday - no classes.  I signed up for the tour of the medina (souk).  We needed to be at the school at 8:30 a.m.  Then we took taxis to the medina.  The guide then brought us through the medina and explained many things.  The medina is a UNESCO world heritage site and was founded in 789.  It has thousands of streets.  Fez is in a bowl.  The center of the souk is the lowest part.  So, if you are going downhill, you are going toward the center of the souk.  If you are going uphill, you are on your way out.  Our guide showed us two types of homes.  They both look the same from the outside.  (You just see a wall and a big door.)  A riad has a courtyard in the center.  It has a big door.  A dar has a roof over the courtyard.  The door is smaller and it has a small door within the larger door.  Originally, stables were kept in the house (in the basement)  If you were entering with a horse, you would knock on the larger door (big noise).  If you were just people, you knocked on the smaller door.  Nowadays, you knock on either door or ring the bell.  There are no cars in the medina.  Donkeys carry everything.  Or people push carts.  We also saw the tannery.  This is what Fez is famous for.  First the hides are put in lime vats.  It cleans them and makes it easier to get the wool off.  (They use sheep and goat hides.)  People who work in those wear boots and gloves.  Then they go in the dye vats.  I think that's where there is also pigeon poop.  It helps soften the hide.  The tannery stinks really bad. They give you a sprig of mint to hold under your nose.

The tour ended around 12:00.  Then Nathan took us (10 people) to his homestay house to meet his family.  They were very nice.  After that we went for lunch - a long walk through the market to find the place.  We went in a tiny door and then climbed many narrow stairs.  It was about the equivalent of climbing to the 4th floor, but small winding steps.  By this time, it was about 1:30.  I was getting very tired and hungry and I thought those steps would never end.  We sat on the roof of the restaurant.  We took lots of pictures of the panoramic view of Fez.  The lunch was delicious.  I shared a tagine avec viande et legumes with Valeria.  By the time we finished lunch it was around 3:00.  Then we went shopping some more.  As we were shopping, we lost the other six and it ended up just Nathan, Danny, Valeria and me.  The merchants want you to come in their shop and let them give you a demonstration.  Valeria and I had bought scarves during the tour and we were running out of cash.  (We had more in our rooms, but not with us.)  We kept telling the merchants that we hadn't brought our money.  We would see their presentation, but buy another day.  They were okay with that.  By the time we got out of the souk, it was 5:30.  We were exhausted.  Valeria and Nathan walked to their homes near the medina.  Danny and I took a taxi back to the villa.
Smile, you're in Fez:

 Shops:

 Camel head for sale in market

Fun Friday - some things harder than I expect, others easier

We had class from 8:00 - noon.  There's a new addition to our class.  We're not just 4 ladies anymore.  Ozzie has arrived.  He was here last session and then went to Europe with his parents for winter break.  His dad got a degree in Linguistics from IU in Bloomington! Same as me - just a few years later.  Such a small world.
Today there was the free couscous lunch in the Alif garden.  Our class got to the garden first and grabbed the table in the sun - nice and warm.  More people joined us and then they brought big platters of couscous with chicken and vegetables to the tables - delicious.  Since we had no class in the afternoon, a group of us decided to go to Marjane - the big store that feels like a Target.  We didn't have a lot of cash.  I went in the school and asked Yousif (housing coordinator & tech guy) if he thought there was an ATM at Marjane or if we needed to go to a bank first.  He said, "How much do you need?" and started taking out his wallet.   I said, "a lot.  You can't lend it.  We need about 600 dirham ($85)."  He handed me the money and said he knew I would pay him back!  So, then seven of us started looking for a taxi to Marjane.  This was much more difficult than I expected.  No taxi wanted to take us there.  And, taxis will only take 3 people at a time, so we needed 3 taxis.  In looking for the taxis, we passed a bank and went to the ATM.  The card I thought would work (Chase credit), didn't.  The one I thought wouldn't work (Suntrust debit) did.  (I called about both these cards before I left and was told there would be no problem using them in Morocco.)  So, finally, we found 3 taxis and headed out to Marjane.  We were like a group of college kids (which most were).  We got a cart and started throwing things in - shampoo, towel, cup, wine, etc.  Then, when we got to the cashier, we had to sort out whose was whose.  I feel well-stocked now.  When we got back, Valeria, Danny and I went to the cell phone store.  Danny and I bought phones.  Valeria had a phone from England and couldn't find a solution that worked for her.  Danny and I didn't have our passports with us, so they used Valeria's to put on both our contracts.  We had trouble understanding how the phones work and how many minutes we had.  When we didn't understand, they switched to English (which they didn't speak very well).  I got annoyed and said, "I understand the French.  I don't understand how the telephone works.)  They couldn't seem to get it that phones in the US are different.  Anyway, I have a phone now.  Here's my #:  (Morocco code is 212) then:  06-74-93-30-62.  It doesn't cost me anything to receive calls or texts, but you will pay for an international call if you call me - or you can also text, but email is still the best way to contact me.  I helped Danny buy his phone, because his French is weak.  He's only 20 years old!
Tonight we cooked again - nice warm kitchen with the stove on - and then had a large group of people to eat in the living room of the house.  Several people contributed bottles of wine.  Life is getting better and better here.  Tomorrow, I need to do some homework and studying.
Pictures of our dinner below:

Pictures of my room

I know it doesn't look beautiful, but, believe it or not, everyone is jealous of me.  They say it's the best room - mostly because it's a single.  All my friends are in doubles.  And don't let that radiator fool you.  It's completely turned off during the day and slightly warm at night.

And still busier

Wow.  We finished class at 6:00 and my teacher just gave us enough homework to take 2 - 3 hours.  We have class again at 8:00 tomorrow.  We're eating left-overs tonight, thank goodness.  And I won't drink any wine.  I am definitely learning a lot, but it's challenging.  After my class finished at noon, I bought lunch at the concession in the Alif garden (tajine chicken and prunes).  Then Valaria (Italian friend) and I went on the roof to work on homework.  It was really warm!  I was peeling off clothes.  (Of course now that the sun has gone down, we all have our coats and gloves back on - inside.)  We worked from about 1:00 to 3:00, then decided we needed a break and got a coffee.  Then, I had my 4:00 - 6:00 class - where we got all the homework.  I also have homework for Abdelhafid, but I won't see him till Monday.  The weekend will be easier.  I'll have more time.  Valaria and I signed up for the free couscous lunch tomorrow.  (Moroccans eat couscous on Fridays.)  Then Valaria, maybe Danny (from NYC) and I want to try to go to the cell phone store and possibly also the big supermarket -- big plans for our half-day off from classes!
There's a stray cat that lives here.  I don't know his name.  If you're sitting on the porch, he'll jump in your lap and make himself comfortable.  He just came in my room and went under the bed.
So, off to eat left-overs with Jeremy and Stefan and then on to the homework!  I will be so smart when I get back.

Getting busy

So, I need to write fast.  Before classes started, the days seemed long.  Now, I am having trouble finding time for everything.  I have homework for both my morning class (a story that we read - I need to write it three times: (1) copy it.  (2) Change it from 1st to 3rd person  (3) Paraphrase it.  Then for my afternoon class with Sana, I have to write a paragraph about what I did last Sunday. 
This morning, before class, three of us went to the market and bought sausages, veggies and olives.  Then, after class ended at 6, we went out again to buy oil, spices and wine.  We cooked up a nice meal in the kitchen.  That made the kitchen nice and warm.  I'm sure the wine didn't hurt either. 
At noon today, we had orientation.  We filled out paperwork - passport #, emergency #s, etc.  Then they took us to see the bookstore, library and computer lab.  They're all pretty nice.  I was impressed.  They also gave us a lot of info about living in Fez.  One thing on the list was "dress modestly."  The coordinator said, "I don't think we need to worry about that because it's too cold."  They also passed out the list of extracurricular activities.  There's a trip to the desert for a weekend that I definitely want to go on.  You get to ride a camel.  Actually, all the activities look great.  Most of them are free (not the one to the desert).
Karen Milton asked in a comment how to become a follower.  I did it for Violet's blog, but I already have a blog, so I think that made it easier.  Can anyone answer that question for her.  Karen, at the very least, bookmark the page so you don't have to go through Facebook each time.
It's already after 9.  I've got to start homework.

First day of classes

Let me first say that last night we were eight going out to dinner.  Every other meal before this has been me and Jeremy, so it's nice to have a big group.  There are four people who are studying for an international MBA at USC.  They will be in Morocco for 3 months and then go to another country - probably Jordan.  One of them was in Peace Corps Gambia.  Another is in my class. 
There are seven students on the roster for my class, but only four were there today.  More people came in tonight, so maybe the other students will be in class tomorrow.  Right now the class is very nice - four women.  Three of us are new to Morocco, but studied Arabic in the states.  The other one has studied at the school before.  She is definitely much more able to talk than the rest of us.  We are all very rusty, but at about the same level.  I feel comfortable in the class.  I wish I hadn't forgotten so much, but I am definitely at the same level as the others.  We have only met one of our teachers, Abdelhafid.  We will see him again tomorrow morning, then have the other teacher, Sana, tomorrow afternoon.  We don't know anything about her, but we all agree that we really like Abdelhafid.  He speaks slowly in Arabic and we can understand him most of the time.  When we don't, he explains in English.  A women just came tonight - returning from winter break - and told us that Abdelhafid is her favorite teacher.  She said he can be a little tough at times, but we are all happy with that.  I feel confident that I will be much more able to speak in Arabic when I finish this course.  People keep asking if I am staying longer, but I have to get back to do WIDA testing.  (Lemore - thinking of what you said about the Peace Corps commercial.  You were right.)
Nicole, one of the students in my class studied Arabic in San Francisco.  Her bag didn't make it to Morocco.  (She flew SFO, Chicago, London, Fez).  First it was in London, then they sent it to Marrakesh and called the school and asked if she could pick it up.  The school told them that Marrakesh is several hours away and they needed to send it to Fez.  So they sent it to Paris and then Chicago.  It is on its way back to San Francisco.  She is trying to get it turned around.  It has her Arabic book in it and her warm socks.  So, tonight we sat at a table and shared my book to do our homework.  It's good to be living in the ALIF residence.  It reminds me of being in grad school.  Everyone is studying the same thing even if they are at different levels, so you can help each other. 
Tomorrow we have orientation.  I think that means filling out a lot of papers for the Moroccan government. 
I'm anxious to see what happened in the Iowa caucuses, but it is still early in the US.

A very nice day

I found out where the showers are yesterday and had a nice hot shower this morning.  What a difference if makes.  I felt really warm.  I also made myself a hot cup of tea in the kitchen (bought the tea at a little store last night.)
Things are really starting to happen now.  Arriving on Saturday meant I was here when no workers were here and most students hadn't arrived yet.  Today, Leila, the lady who cleans came.  She's wonderful.  She will be a good resource - very friendly.
I went to the office to get my schedule and pay my fees.  It's a great schedule.  I have classes Mon - Thur 10:00 - 12:00 and 4:00 - 6:00.  On Friday, I have classes 8:00 - 12:00.  Lots of students arrived today.  Leila told me the residence is now full - 14 students.  (There are other students on home-stay or living other places.)  Leila told me I'm very lucky to have a private room.  (I started emailing them in November to ask what I could do to be sure I have a private room.)  This afternoon, I sat on the roof and studied.  That's definitely the place to go - nice and warm and sunny.  Linda (registrar) told me that the last few days have been unusually cold.  She said the cold air is coming down off the mountains.  It looks like it will get a little warmer in a few days.  I do think that my room will always feel cold, though.  Outside seems to always be better than in. 
I'm still working on learning my way around.  I have only walked around this area.  When I feel that I know it, I'll go further.  Page suggested taking a taxi to the old part of town and then walking back.  I think that sounds like a good system.  I've done quite a bit of walking each day and haven't had any problems with my foot.
Tomorrow, classes start.  I'm excited.  (And a little nervous - hope I'm not the weakest student in the class.)

My first full day in Fez

I slept pretty late - mostly because I didn't want to get out from under the warm blankets.  Then, I wandered around the city - not far, just this section - and got lost.  When I found my way back, I was feeling very tired and I took a nap.  I went back out in the afternoon because I knew I had to get out of here to get warm.  So, I went to the corner restaurant and had pizza and then walked around.  I got lost again, but found my way back faster the second time.  In the afternoon, it is sunny and really pleasant to walk around.  Later, I was sitting on the porch reading and Remy came out (That's the kitchen guy).  He told me that it's very pleasant to sit on the roof.  Nothing blocks the sun, so it's nice and warm and there's a great view.  I'll try it tomorrow.  I also talked to Page (my 3rd friend!) in the kitchen just now.  She's from Chevy Chase and has studied in Jordan.  She was telling me how to get to a big supermarket that's kind of like a Walmart.  I'll definitely go there tomorrow.  I need a towel (couldn't fit it in my suitcase) and some other stuff.  I'm hoping everything will get busier tomorrow.  The school will be open, so I should be able to talk to people there, get my schedule and, hopefully, other new students will come.  Classes start Tuesday.