Chefchaouen

---

J'ai decide d'ecrire quelques pieces de mon blog en francais, chinois, et l'arabe, a partir de maintenant. Il faut que j'utilise tous mes ressources de practiquer mes langues, et encore, je vais etre une vraie adulte bientot et si je voudrais etre traducteur, j'ai beaucoup de travail pour faire!

Le weekend derniere, je suis allee a la cite Chefchaoun. C'est grande et positionnee sur les montanges, et elle est la plus celebre pour etre "la cite bleue". Si on est debout sur les collines, on peut regarder la cite entiere--c'est une groupe des maisons blanches et bleues qui on ne peut jamais prevoir qu'ils seraient situee la. On peut voir cette scenerie si on acces mes photos sur facebook si nous sommes amis...ou google si nous sommes pas...qu'est ce que vous preferez...

.شفشاون مضحك، لأنه هو رأس المال الماريجوانا من المغرب. كان الجميع إما التدخين، أو بيعهرسمت. المدينة بأكملها الزرقاء.كان لالتقاط الأنفاس. ارتفع دينا الجبال وسبح في شلال كان الماء تجميد، ولكن كان حار جدا إلى أننا لا يمكن أن تقاوم السباحة. كانت هناك أيضا ثمانية الجراء في أعلى الجبل. كان ذلك مفاجأة لطيفة

Ok I can't figure out why the Arabic script keeps jumping across the page and I want to go to bed so I am going to write the rest in English. Chefchaouen was amazing, we stayed in a Riad for two nights, and a guest house for one. A guest house is essentially where a family rents out rooms/cooks for large groups of travellers. I was under the impression that our group returned to the same guest house every year. They had the most adorable kitten, which I was psyched to play with until it "playfully" sunk its teeth and both sets of claws into my arms and had to be pried off multiple times. I am now more wary of the cats here...but hey I got my rabies shots for a reason! The Riad was a building that was encased by beautiful moroccan rooms, and about 5 floors high, but the middle of the ceiling is not present. It's pretty much a huge skylight/courtyard type deal and there is a terrace you can hang out on at the very top. One of the days we went to a Spanish territory in Morocco called Ceubta; we actually had to go through customs and everything to get in and out. (For some people this trip was non-optional, because you can stay in Morocco for three months without a visa, but if you go over three you get in trouble, so those of us who would have been in over three months because of the program date just hopped across the border to Spain and got a clean slate for three more months...). Ceubta, though geographically attached to Morocco, was definitely Spain. The people spoke Spanish, we had to use euros, gender roles were different, buildings were different--it was really crazy how different two places can be when directly on the other side of the customs wall.The next day we got to work with local artisans, and I went to an acrylic painting crafter. It was so cool to see what life is like for them, and he had a dog that lives with him that he calls "Jolie" (pretty in french). He is one of the few people I've met that show that much affection to animals. She was super healthy and happy and I was playing with her when he walked out of the back and said "Oh, I have a cat too", and was casually holding a TINY white kitten with huge blues eyes. I knew I had picked the right artisan...

The following week some of the students and I went to the American Language Center to visit a class of Moroccans learning English. The students were about 13 to 26 and were all amazing speakers. They were having a very scholarly discussion about captial punishment when we walked in, and then told us they were the "intermediate level"....and needless to say we all decided we would never be that good at arabic and that all of these students were geniuses. It was very cool to talk to them though, the girls laughed with us and apologized about and for how all the men catcall here. One girl came to ask me about my political beliefs on this election, she was super direct about asking so I just told her bluntly that I prefer Obama and why, and she said thank you and left. I found that interaction, though short, to be intriguing. We also got a lot of requests from these people to be language partners so we can all study our Arabic, English, and French together. I think I may be starting that with someone after break!

---