I don’t think I have mentioned this before, but Fes has a cat problem. Of all the animal problems a city can have, I have decided cats are one of the better ones. If you have a cat problem, you do not have a rat problem; and cats are better than stray dogs that get rabies and bite people. Lucky for me, I’m not a big cat fan anyway, sorry Grandma, but it’s still kind of sad to see all of these starving animals roaming the streets. In particular, I have been rooting for this family of Mama and three kittens that live outside my school’s Riad in the old medina. Unfortunately, today, we are one kitten down. R.I.P black one with white tummy, may your siblings survive to roam the garbage filled streets.
Other than dead cats, Morocco is great right now. My classmate friends and I went to Rabat this past weekend and had a blast. Highlights include but are not limited too; befriending Muhammad, who was a pleasure, kind of, to talk to but a pain to try and explain that you needed to go back to the hotel to, sitting in the gorgeous garden of the Kasbah and listening to casually gathered musicians playing there, exploring the Chellah and hoping my future fertility was helped out by the eels there that supposedly help you be fertile, and realizing that there are places in Morocco that are more modern than Fes and that I might not actually mind living in for long periods of time. Overall of these things though, was my love affair with the tragic story of the Hassan II minaret. Sunday morning when my friends were surfing I ventured out on my own to Muhammad V’s tomb that is built right next to the remains of this mosque. The story is that in some century oh so long ago Hassan II was going to build this ginormous mosque bigger than any mosque at that time. Well, he died during the construction and it was never finished. Most of what was built was destroyed in a big earthquake a century or two later, and now all that remains are the foundation pillars, one piece of wall, and this gorgeous unfinished minaret. The incomplete dream in this story is really beautiful and tragic to me; standing in the ruins of what this man wanted so badly was a little heartbreaking.
I returned from my weekend travels to the best family on this side of the Prime Meridian. I had a mini-breakdown last week because I was being kind of an ungracious guest and I was worried my host family hated me. We had a semi-emotional conversation about it (emotional for me anyway) and I since then I think we’ve both been going out of our ways to understand and love each other. I’ve started “helping” my host mom in the kitchen which consists of me carrying out complicated tasks like carrying dishes to the table and putting salt and pepper on the tomatoes. But, it helps me feel useful and it’s been good bonding. Travelling really makes me enjoy and appreciate life here more, and I’m excited to go to Marrakech and Cheffchaoun these next two weekends, while still spending quality time with the fam bam during the week. As predicted, following a spell of “let’s get this month over with,” I am feeling now like my time left is too short.
This has nothing to do with anything but I just have to mention that one of my professors has two different completely corduroy outfits; one in brown and one in mustard yellow. I didn’t think fashion got any worse (better?) until he wore his denim outfit, topped with denim zippered vest. Let’s just say as soon as I find those in the medina I know what everyone is getting as a souvenir present from Morocco.
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