Tonight I was talking with my host dad about how I should just stay with them forever and never go back to America. I would live with them, for no money, and find a Moroccan man if I wanted, and I would have the life of a Moroccan, just sitting with my family and sleeping. Even though we were just joking, the truth of it is, what they wanted to paint as a Moroccan paradise- is my nightmare. I am sooo not a sitter. I love Morocco, but even though my family and I have great conversations, I just have to do more stuff. I like to be busy, and I wake up early to run, and I have been playing a lot of solitaire at night because there is just not a lot to do here but I need to do more than sleep after I eat dinner. I know I’m not alone in a feeling of overall boredom; my classmates and I often make plans for weekends and evenings because we all agree that sitting at home is somewhat agonizing, as much as we all love our host families. We plan weekend trips because we want to see the countryside and other cities, but also because after you’ve been in Fes for one weekend you’ve pretty much exhausted the outing possibilities. This weekend I was excited because there was supposed to be this big Suffi music festival going on. Well, as usual, Morocco was more talk than happening, and though there were some suspicious looking Berbers camped out in Bab Bajloud, I saw no music festival. There may have been one, but no one could tell me where or when it was and the streets were all as quiet as ever come nine o’clock, with the exception of maybe a few more Euro tourists. In a lot of ways I like the relaxed pace here. I definitely love the family togetherness; I absolutely adore my host mom and sister especially. But in the long term I want more than time to just sit and sleep. I want time to fill with stuff. With family and friends and running and studying and a job I like and going out and seeing things and enjoying the outdoors and dancing and… making my life. Obviously I keep busy here too, but I feel like that is more because I am me, than because of Morocco. My host family I’m pretty sure thinks I’m nuts. They tell me a lot that I need to stay home and sleep during the weekend. I just can’t do it though. I’m thinking about all this, too because I’m starting to feel like my time here is coming to an end and I was trying to decide how to make the most of my last month. What is it that I really want to do in Morocco? Well, I want to travel more, so that’s good,and I also want to spend time with my host family, and just be in Fes, but I’m not really sure what else there is for me to do here. I’ve explored, I’ve met people, I’ve sat in cafes for hours, I’ve done as the Moroccans do, and now, I want to do more. I want to do as the Jennifer’s do- and some of that needs to be done past 11:00 and pretty much all of that needs to be done not in front of the TV. I’m have plenty to do with school, and homework, and Arabic, and language, and studying, and Arabic, and did I mention school or studying at all- because if I finish all that I could also study more. But I want other things again outside of being a student. I like to relax, but I really appreciate the variety of opportunities that I have in America. For now, I would prefer to save the sitting and sleeping for my old and decrepit years and live my twenties out and about; running, exploring, and ruckusing (the verb for “to dance” in Arabic but sounds a lot like creating a ruckus to me…)