hey, want to hear about Morocco?

My House
Remember the harry potter tri wizard cup maze? Somewhere in there… God only knows how to find it- there is a small door marked by an 18 over it that is the doorway into my house. Everything in Morocco is masked by a tiny crumbling outside and then you go through the doors into the palace. My home is really nice, I have my own room across from a room with a sink and there is another washroom complete with toilet (woo) downstairs. We eat in the living room area complete with TV. My only concern about my house really is that I have absolutely no idea how I would ever ever find it.
My Family
Um-mee (my mother) is the most loving person on this planet. She has insisted that I come to her for absolutely everything. She will be walking me to school everyday. She gives me big hugs- which I am so so grateful for, and she came into my room to make sure I wasn’t crying. (I was not! I don’t know how I could my family is wonderful) She was a bit horrified at my packing job though and so helped me fold every last piece of underwear and put it away. I think she was a little overwhelmed with how much underwear I had. (I was told to pack a lot) My Ab-be (father) is a taxi driver. He is diabetic and showed me he has lost all of the toes on his left foot so in the evenings he is home early. My brother, Muhammad, is 14 and is taking German in school. Even with this common language, though, I’m not sure we will be super close. I don’t get the impression he wants to work hard enough to make me understand… at least not yet. Did I mention, by the way, that none of my family speaks any English. There are small, small pieces of French with the kids, but only my mom speaks modern standard Arabic, my dad mostly speaks colloquial which makes communicating a little (lot) difficult. They have had a lot of exchange students in the past. My mom showed me pictures of all of them, and I’m not sure how much Arabic their past student spoke but I get the impression they are surprised by my lack of knowledge. I don’t think they would ever judge me (not that I could help it if they did) but at times I feel a little like I’m doing something wrong. I can tell, though, that by the time my stay is over I will be one million times better with the language. Of course, this brings me to my final family member, Uchtee! (my sister) I am so lucky to have gotten the best tutorial over the past two months on big sisterhood, because I have the cutest little sister ever! Miriam (yes, my siblings are Miriam and Muhammad, welcome to the Middle East) is so adorable. She is nine years old and a master teacher of Arabic. She spent an hour reading me a bed time story- the story of the fall of man- Adam and Satan. She pantomimed everything for me and would not move on until she was convinced I understood. She is a strict teacher too, and she likes to color so I know we will get along very well. Cathy, I gave her your t-shirts and I think she was overwhelmed with all the presents so she wouldn’t take them so I told her they were for her and Muhammad, not from me but from my sister, especially for her. She was extremely grateful and I told her you wanted to meet her on Skype. After today combined with Colorado, sisterhood has a whole new meaning for me and it is somewhere in the magical indescribable loving feeling zone; I really hope you get to meet her via cyber café. I feel you two are transcendentally connected to each other. Also, Mom, I showed Ummee el meghrib (my Moroccan mother) your picture (the one of you holding all my 21 birthday candles) and she said you are very beautiful. Dad, the only picture I had on my camera of you was your snarky face one so they haven’t seen your picture yet. Sorry, I’ll find a good one on my computer I promise. 
My school
I still don’t know a ton about it but there are a lot of people there learning both English and Arabic. It really is an international language school. Today I overheard and English class going on. The teacher was explaining sun bathing as “when people go outside, with very few clothes on, to darken their skin. That is sun bathing.” I am nervous for classes, because like my Arabic class has always been, school here is said to be a lot of very hard work. I finally met some of the staff and they are all very nice and accommodating. I feel like part of a very needy group but that is mostly because of the lack of experience we all have I think. I hope that we are the rule of inexperience and not the exception to the more experienced crowd. La arf. (I don’t know) The other students from UMN are really nice and fun. We are a small group and only one other person lives in the medina with me, the rest live in the ville nouveau. (fes is really like three cities in one. Medina=old city/unfathomable maze city. Middle city=inbetween new city/ville nouveau= French city which I was promptly informed has zero history). The school is in the new city, and like I said getting back and forth might be interesting. I haven’t given up hope on learning the ins and outs of the medina- there was never hope to begin with. I don’t think you could ever learn it. I think you are either born here, you have a guide, or you die trying to find your way out alone. For once in my sarcastic life I am not exaggerating. Pictures will come soon I hope.(inshahallah) for now, though, I have to go to bed.