Greetings from Morocco! I am Anas. Haha. That is my Moroccan name given to me by my host family actually.
I realized I haven't added a new post in quite sometime and I figured I'd take advantage of WiFi for a posting. Well goodness where do I start? I just I'll start with food. Man it's so much food here and I don't know how well Operation Weight Loss is going thus far, but it's okay. I walk around so much and so far that I am probably doing better than I think. I have started using a smaller belt loop and that's great! But back to the food....its amazing!!! I have had goat, beef, sheep, and chicken in the two plus weeks I've been here. I have tons of potatoes, carrots, and peppers. All veggies I'm cool with. There have been tasty desserts, amazing Moroccan pizza (Can't wait to make that in the states!), and stacks on stacks of xubz (bread).
In regards to everything else, it's been good to okay. The host family I'm with is pretty cool. I have three sisters and one brother and I brought a gift for the children and they love it! Who knew Moroccans loved puzzles so much. My sisters love it and out it together like 20 times since I gave not to them. There have even been some speed competitions between family members, myself included. Here at home it's great. My family essential lives in a mansion, by Moroccan standards, which is awesome. We have a nice place and I have my own room downstairs. Can't complain. The language and cultures classes are good and I'm taking in lots of information. Now I just need to translate all this information into actually knowledge retention so I can speak with my family and the youth at the Dar Chabab (Youth Center). Its tough being somewhere and somewhat feeling like a baby. A baby in the sense that I don't know the language and have to rely on others to communicate for me and I have to use gestures sometimes to convey my thoughts and desires. That's rough. I am currently trying some new strategies for memory retention so for those of you that have had to learn a new language please share your strategies with me.
What else? Hmmm..... Oh yeah today I went to my first souk, which is basically a big outdoor flea market full of food, gear, and randomness. There was a man selling doors next to a man selling chickens next to a man selling cellphones and of course a person selling popcorn and sardines. Yeah that's souk to give you an idea. It was great though and I bought some chocolate and we had beef! And made made hamburgers with it of course. That's Americans for ya.
Jumping back to the language classes briefly, my group of fellow trainees are awesome. They are five other cool cats that I get to spend nearly all day with. Our teacher, Ayoub is awesome as well and we truly are lucky because he actually went to school for linguistics and got his Bachelors and Masters in the subject as well. How cool is that?!
Well that's all for now world, but here are more pictures for your viewing pleasure. Some of my family ; some of my surroundings. Be sure to post comments and ask questions and I'll do my best to respond back.
bslama (goodbye) for now
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| Sheep Head ( I am going to eat some of that!) |
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| Closeup of Dolly |
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| Dolly no more |
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| The Souk (Outdoor Market). Comes on Thursdays in my town |
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| Family time. my youngest sisters working on a puzzle I brought |
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| Success! |
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| My language teacher (Ayoub) and my host brother trying to beat the girl's time |
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| Somewhere over....you get the idea |
DJ it sounds like you're having a great time. How was the sheep? When I was learning french I got some French games and comics strip with English under the French and that helped. Well my teacher hot me those things but it helped a lot while I was learning and ended up being the best I'm class. I can't remember any now. With Spanish I would tall to my Spanish speaking friends and they would correct me when needed and laugh at me when they couldn't figure out what I was trying to say lol. Eat as much of that amazing food as you because you will miss it when you're back. Better yet you should try and learn how to make some of that stuff so you won't miss it as much. Looking forward to reading more Post. Btw miss throwing things at mean Tee hasn't come out since you've been gone interesting
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