Well that didn’t take long --

I hadn’t stepped foot for 5 minutes out of my new apartment in Rabat, Morocco, before already meeting an entire group of new friends.  In asking for direction to the nearest grocery, a young woman I had stopped on the building stairs instead introduced me to half of her entire extended family—particularly her sister, Malak, who is about my age and lives with her younger cousin (10), her cousin’s mother, and her grandmother.  After meeting another cousin who lives next door and one of the grandmother’s sisters, Malak took me to a local grocery store so I could buy a few necessities before her aunt decided to make a trip to the get groceries, too, which resulted in me getting a night tour by car of practically half of the city, and a visit to the largest grocery store in Rabat!  So in just my first night here, I’ve already received some very good advice from people who know their way around, and they assure me that the building we are living in is very safe.  This I do not doubt, as my apartment building faces the police station, so the police are always automatically keeping an eye on things!

It is now 7:15 in the morning for my first day of school and I am ready and waiting for my two new roommates, Zoe from Canada and Rebecca from the U.K., to freshen up before we all head out to the front of the building where we’ll catch our bus to school.  I was told when I checked in yesterday that I’ll only be taking my placement test today (let’s hope that my ARA 202 final exam is still fresh in my brain!) and then hopefully my lost checked baggage will show up at the airport and I will get to go get it.  I probably should have studied more last night, but I was enjoying myself so much with Malak’s family that I couldn’t drag myself away.  Her family immediately took to me, as I took to them.  While Malak will only be staying with her aunt on the weekends because she has university studies in a different town during the week, I have been told repeatedly that I am welcome any time and Malak’s ten-year-old cousin, Yasmin, asked me to stay the night so I told her I would tomorrow because then I would be done studying for my exam.  Even so, her mother Sala’a made me a delicious plate of salad and a sandwich.  I couldn’t refuse such hospitality so I risked getting sick (if the salad was washed in tap water and contains microorganisms that my stomach’s not used to handling), figuring that I’ll probably get sick some time while I’m here eventually, there’s really no avoiding it…

It’s very overwhelming being in Morocco for the first time with no understanding of the Darija Arabic dialect, absolutely no French under my belt, and just a little grasp on Fusha formal Arabic, but with help from the Qalam Center, my new classmates, and my new neighbors, I think I will have support in getting all the help and advice that I need while I explore Morocco for the next 4 weeks.  Ma salaama!