Jim Franklin

Jimbad

Jim Franklin

I am currently a Sophomore at Dickinson College where I major in Middle East Studies. This past summer (09) I studied with AMIDEAST in Morocco and next year I am going to study in Jordan for the whole year also with AMIDEAST.



Africa » Morocco » Rabat-Salé-Zemmour-Zaer » Rabat July 17th 2009

I may have more to write when I get home but I want to get these down while I am still in Morocco. I just finished my final exam which was divided into two parts, reading comprehension and grammar. It wasn't too hard and I am not too worried about how I did. Overall my satisfaction with AmidEast is mixed. The homestay has been awesome because I have been able to improve my speaking (in modern standard Arabic) ability exponentially. But as for the classes, I found them to be a little disappointing. I don't feel like I have learned all that much from the classes to be honest. We moved at such a high speed that it was difficult to retain any new grammar much less vocab. At home, Prof Blosser would give us like ... read more

Africa » Morocco » Souss-Massa-Draâ » Agadir July 13th 2009

I apologize for not making a post sooner but to be honest there hasn't been anything post worthy in Rabat, probably because I am used to being here so it feels "normal" to me, well as "normal" as Rabat can be. Anyways, here goes... After class on Thursday (7/9) MSJ took a train from Rabat to Marrakesh. We shared a cabin on the train with a family who had a little girl The girl really liked playing with my watch so I took it off and let her play with it for a while. When we arrived in Marrakesh it was oppressively hot, like 110 Fahrenheit. No taxi really wanted to pick us up so we got a ride from a random guy with a van. Jess was pretty sketched out but he turned out to ... read more

Africa » Morocco » Rabat-Salé-Zemmour-Zaer » Rabat July 6th 2009

So I got back from Asilah at around 8 pm on Saturday night (4th of July) and as I got close to the apartment I heard really loud music. When I got to the apartment building entrance I noticed that a large truck was parked right up to the door and there were men in uniforms scrambling around carrying things up the stairs. As I made my way past them I was eyed cautiously because they were probably wondering "Who the hell is this French tourist crashing this family's party." I say French because in Morocco if you are white they assume you are French and will speak French to you. Anyways, as I climbed the stairs the music got even louder and I finally reached the enclosed patio and looked in to see around 50 ... read more

Africa » Morocco » Tangier-Tétouan » Asilah July 5th 2009

(I know this is a day late, whatever) Happy Independence Day! عيد الاستقلال سعيد Today AmidEast went to Asilah, a small beach town to the north of Rabat (a little south of Tangier). We rode on a bus up there for a couple hours, it was really hot. Once we got there we walked around the Medina, then ate some lunch. Then MSJ walked sort of out of Asilah (for some reason we always find ourselves way outside of the tourist areas) and we found a cool beach that had rocks and kids and fishermen. We then got ice cream and sodas and Sara bought a kite. We continued to walk around for a bit, talked to some guy who spoke decent English, and then ran into a beggar child when we were getting ready to ... read more

Africa » Morocco » Rabat-Salé-Zemmour-Zaer » Rabat July 5th 2009

On Thursday night my family brought a rather large sheep home for the party they were having on Friday and Saturday. The sheep was delivered in the trunk of a BMW sedan and the dad, the butcher, and I carried it up 3 flights of stairs in their apartment building to the apartment where it was tied up outside. Then a bunch of female relatives and the daughter of the family, who is married and just had a son, who the party is for, started rearranging the apartment and I kept offering to help because they were moving some pretty heavy stuff but they kept refusing my offer. The next day I woke up to find the sheep in the tiny bathroom just chilling. The dad explained that they had to bring it inside to make ... read more

Africa » Morocco » Rabat-Salé-Zemmour-Zaer » Rabat July 1st 2009

well today is wednesday, and i havent had much to write about but id figure id try to put another post up. i guess ill do one about an average day in rabat and then some just funny stuff ive seen. typical day: wake up between 7 and 7:30am. Then breakfast from 7:45 to around 8:10. 8:10 I get a taxi to AmidEast. 8:30 through 12:20 class. Then lunch from 12:20 to 1pm. Then Darijah (Moroccan colloquial) class till 2pm. Then MSJ usually do homework and surf the internet from like 2 to 4pm or so. Then we might go somewhere, and hang out till around 7pm and then I'll go home. At home we will have tea and watch TV till around 10pm. Then we eat dinner, then I got to sleep "early" anytime between ... read more

Africa » Morocco » Fès-Boulemane » Fes June 29th 2009

This post takes place from Friday 6/26 to Sunday 6/28 Friday After our quiz MSJ went to the train station in the Agdal neighborhood in Rabat. We ate at a restaurant and had some really good cheeseburgers and then got on the train to Fez. We shared a car with two Moroccan men who listened to Arabic music over speakers. The ride was fairly uneventful, it was around 3 hours. When we got to Fez we realized that we didn't have a map and had no idea where we were. We hailed a cab and asked him to take us to our hotel. He took us to the "blue door" and we were pretty sure that we were in the wrong part of the city. Sara called the hotel and told them where we were and ... read more

Africa » Morocco » Rabat-Salé-Zemmour-Zaer » Rabat June 24th 2009

This post picks up from where the last one left off. So Jess went to have tea with a Moroccan family and Sara and I decided to take a cab to her neighborhood so she could figure out exactly where it was. After riding from Agdal to Hassan and walking around for a bit we found her house. She went inside and I continued to explore the area on my own. I walked to the Hassan Tower and took some pictures, spoke Arabic to horse mounted guards, and just wandered around aimlessly. Me, Sara, and Jess (from now on will be abbreviated MSJ) had decided to meet at 5pm at Bab al-Had, a big traffic circle just to the south of the Medina. At around 4pm I called Sara and asked if she wanted to walk ... read more

Africa » Morocco » Rabat-Salé-Zemmour-Zaer » Rabat June 23rd 2009

Yesterday was the first full day of classes. The morning class is Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and the afternoon class is Darijah (Moroccan colloquial). The MSA class is kind of intense and we get a lot of homework. The Darijah is fun b/c the teacher doesnt speak English and it is all oral with really no homework. After spending the afternoon doing MSA homework Sara's home stay family came and picked her up. Jess' host dad was going to come to get her but was busy. My family doesn't have cars so they expect me to be able to maneuver my way around Rabat. I am starting to get the hang of it and don't feel so overwhelmed in the streets. So me and Jess decide to share a cab. Her neighborhood is to the northwest ... read more

Africa » Morocco » Rabat-Salé-Zemmour-Zaer » Rabat June 22nd 2009

Well my first night here Michael took me to get some leather slippers to wear in the house. It was hard to find some that would fit me but once we found some we bartered the guy down to around $10 USD. The slippers are really nice, hand made. When we got home Rashid asked what I got and so I pulled em out and handed them to him. He thought they were cool and put them on. Yesterday I couldn't find them and asked Rashid where he put them. He got this sad puppy face and went and got them. He explained to me that he thought I got them for him as a gift. I didn't mean to convey that by simply showing him the slippers, I felt really bad. Oh well. I tested ... read more




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