I've got all your questions and answers in this email. I am back at my house in the medina and I have your emails downloaded but no internet! What a great incentive to write you a truly detailed email. Tova went to buy a fan in the Ville Nouvelle and I came back early since I had no charge on my computer and left my charger at the house. Fatima just walked in to check on me since she heard me alone in my room. There are a lot of strong bonds here in the family and it's rare for someone to be alone doing anything! Haha, there is no such thing as alone time in this culture. So treasure your alone time!!! She's back again and we just talked about how her sister Habeeba has a very small apartment and comes and stays here a lot to eat and sleep. I'm getting much better at communicating, which is a huge plus of being here. I can definitely feel my language skills improving since I have to always think on my feet about how to communicate with the family. Alright, alone again!

The classes at ALIF are air conditioned, some are cooler than others. My class in the morning can be a bit hotter and we have to turn on the air conditioning ourselves so it takes a bit to cool down. My Moroccan culture lectures are in this basement lecture hall across the street in a Science Building and they are SO COLD ITS FANTASTIC. My second Arabic class is also very chilly. Otherwise, "air conditioned" here does not necessarily mean the same "air conditioned" we have in the states. For example, to have anywhere in this country as cold as say.... Laura's house, would be absurd. Haha. Last week it was in the 100s but this week it is back to the 90s so that is a HUGE relief.

Alright, let me try to summarize my friendships with the people here. I can say that I get along with everybody in the Rutgers group, and have become closer friends with a great lot of them. I'd say I am really close with Samantha, Justin, Keith, and Shereen (yes, the one you picked out for me at the orientation, Mom haha). Samantha decided to come very last minute, so you didn't meet her, but I am going to try to put some pictures in this email so you can get an idea. She has blonde wavy hair. Justin is the other "Stein" in the group who is very religious, keeps Kosher (and is trying to here - to not much avail), and... don't hold your breath, Mom.... gay. Haha, sorry. No Jewish babies in Morocco for you. Thinks Evan's a hottie though. Haha. Keith is that creepy old guy from the orientation, who actually turns out to be pretty cool and a pretty decent socialite. He unfortunately has been really sick the past few days with an intestinal infection and he will be back to school tomorrow. And as you know, Shereen is the Egyptian girl who you met at orientation. We get along really well and she is planning on going to study abroad in Egypt next year at AUC which is a really popular choice for Middle Eastern studies majors, and she wants me to come too! She also invited me to go to Europe with her and Emily after Morocco is over but they are coming back too late in August and I don't want to spend money extending my plane ticket plus I need to be studying Arabic during that month to catch up to GW. By the way, do you think you can line up an Arabic tutor for me in the month of August? I can try and get more details for you about what I am looking for, but perhaps calling the department at Rutgers if they can suggest any tutors in the area to help me in August. Meanwhile, I am working with the school here to help out me and Shereen to get our full credits (other classes have enough Rutgers students to be changed or students don't care about the credits) and we are going to either try to get Rutgers to refund us money for false advertisement or pay for tutors to catch us up to the advertised credits here at ALIF. I'm thinking they will take the latter. I'm kind of pissed with Rutgers about this whole deal.

Aww! Fatima just came in a gave me a tray with tea and cookies! :) Just what I need to finish this email! YUM.

Alright - my daily schedule. I have class at 8 AM - 10 AM at ALIF so I wake up depending on what I have to do that morning (fix my hair, do homework). Fatima makes me breakfast but I usually take it with me to class because I am not so hungry for the delicious sweet food she makes for breakfast, but I usually devour it during class. After my two hour class I go to the courtyard and talk to my friends and do homework and such. We can get lunch at any of the cafes, or at ALIF, or McDonalds. Haha. I went to McDonalds today and got a fish sandwich. It was really interesting and the place was really really air conditioned which was so nice. The french fries weren't that good but they have tasty potato wedges, and McFlurries of course. I don't think I'll go there that much though because the prices are the same as they are in America which makes for an expensive lunch. We had lectures at 2:30 but tomorrow they are being moved to 1 - 2:30. Ennaji's lectures are really really boring. That's the extent of it. Mostly I find that Ennaji has no idea what he is taking about, even in the classes that he is teaching. He messed up dates and the classmates were correcting him, and he will agree with whatever you say, which is annoying. Hopefully the expensive books he assigned will be more helpful.

Habeeba just asked me if I wanted to go with her to the sook but I just showered and want to finish typing this email. Wow this tea is hot but it is sooo good. :)

Oh so after the lecture I have class from 4 to 6 in Arabic again. At first the classes were terribly slow, but we had a meeting with the advisors and they told the teachers to speed up so they did, which has been much less annoying. They teach us a lot of words that are not in the book, but that doesn't bother me so much anymore because now they are moving steadily in the book and add a few extra words here and there, which I can actually absorb rather than making a huge list of random words they decide to teach us. Now that today I talked to the advisor directly, things should work out and I can finally start enjoying my stay here without worrying (too much) about the credit situation. Jen is in level 200, and I am in 300, so she isn't in my class. My class has a student from Princeton, the UK, a liberal arts school in NY (that I can't remember right now ahh), and another is a scholar who lived in Jordan for a year.

Fatima is going to the souk also and she has a shopping cart type rolling thing, so I'm guessing they are buying a lot of things (probably food?) for the house. She again asked me if I wanted to go but I told her that I was good here and she said that was better so then good. :)

Yes, Fatima is a stay at home Mom, but many other people have different homestay situations where the mothers also work. I happened to get a traditional family whereas Samantha is living with one of the female teachers at ALIF who teaches french and her 29 year old son who walks around in his boxers (despite the fact that they have air conditioning!) with his girlfriend, haha in the Ville Nouvelle. So there are quite a number of different homes and families. I'm pretty happy with our family because I am getting the true medina experience. I think I am going to try and record on my camera my morning commute when I am with Cevilla tomorrow morning so you guys can see how I walk through the walls of the medina to get to Batha (the taxi and bus stop) to get to the school. A student Cevilla lives in the apartment underneath me and Tova and also has 8 AM classes so we go together to grab a cab, which is really nice and convenient. She is from Brussels and is married, and taking classes here and doing the homestay! Haha. How about it Mom?

At night I mostly stay at the house, just because there is not much to do here anyway besides go to the souk or the internet cafe, and I'd rather relax and not get all sweaty from walking around - I exert myself enough in one day here. Tova just got back and is going to the souk with Fatima and Habeeba. More alone time. :) Although I do feel like I'm missing out a bit, ah well, the souk is always there. Alone time is definitely not.

Fatima did our laundry once so far, and we give her detergent to do it with. I think they have a washing machine and hang things to dry on the roof upstairs. This is an apartment, not sure why I keep calling it a house haha.

We are using Skype, I skyped with Evan once since I've been here. Dad hasn't been on when I have been on to try it. I usually have time to go on from 10 - 1 and from 2:30 - 4, and maybe after 6 if I stay to use the internet. So figure out with the time zone what would be best for you guys.

I'm not really sure what the dad does for work, but it's a typical job. He is home when we are home.

The youngest son learned English at school, the father knows English too. I'm not sure what they routinely teach, but I have a really funny video of the kids in pre-school singing songs from our medina tour. I will try to send it to you. We mostly communicate in formal Arabic, and we don't really know any derija (colloquial Arabic) but we are able to communicate pretty well. I assume that in a few weeks I will have picked up some derija.

I think that I am basically going to be using these emails as my journal, because journal writing has been hard for me to do without anything to remind me of what to write! Haha. I have a few, but not enough, so I think a combination of what I've written, the pictures I've taken, and the emails I've been sending will be my journal. Perhaps I can make something to commemorate my trip in the states.

The role of the women here vary. It is a very traditional city and woman can do whatever they want and live whatever lifestyle they choose. You'll find less modern women and families living in the medina, they are mostly in the Ville Nouvelle for obvious reasons. We were only with women at that time. I'm glad you liked what I has said there about going with them to the souk. It's funny because I know I was coming here to discover some sort of insight between the cultures, and I really rediscovered what has brought me here all along.

That's not to say that being an American girl here doesn't draw negative attention. I have gotten used to keep a straight face and ignoring any calls when walking home, mostly they are looking for a reaction or invitation to press further. But those people who choose to try to get my attention in the street are not representative of the whole culture, they are the ones who just choose to judge me by what they think of Americans. There is rarely any physicality here, I have not ever been touched by one person here and I don't think that it will ever happen now that I know how to ignore. The harassment is a bummer but it is very safe and for every person that will harrass you there are 20 who will help you, and I haven't needed any.

Just now somebody came to see about renting Habeeba's apartment, and it was a student in my class! The one who had lived in Jordan! I talked to her for a little bit and I think she has some things to tell me about Habeeba and the apartments that she has in Morocco. I will find out tomorrow.

Abdelarachim (or abd rahim??) says to say that the whole family says Salaam!

There is a definite Jewish population in Fez but it is hard to locate since so many people moved to Israel and other places. Samantha has relatives in Fez that are Jewish and she is going to try to track them down so we can meet them and talk to them about Jewish life here. :) There are mellahs in every city with old temples and Jewish cemetaries.

Tova was wearing her Jewish star in the beginning but hasn't been lately.

The bucket shower - it is in a shower stall but instead it has a bathtub like faucet with a stool and a big bucket underneath to put water in. Then there is a littler bucket to take out of the big bucket and pour on yourself. I think this is commonly done to save water since it is expensive in the medina. I'll take a picture soon.

Okay I'm getting tired so I'm going to have to skimp on some of these last questions and if you have more questions about it just send them back.

We just eat until we are full and then say Shebet or Sofe and it is more acceptable than just saying we can't eat anymore. They continue to say that me and Tova are too skinny but it's just a cultural difference and it's not a big deal. Not too many of the meals have meat but tonight we had chicken and I told the father that since I haven't eaten meat in five years it's hard for me to eat a lot, but I will have a little, and to explain to the mother so she isn't offended.

All the adapters are working fine.

I'm glad to have Tova with me.

old city = medina (in arabic, medina cadeema) and it is divided into sections depending on what they are selling. The places where they dye leather are on the lowest parts of the medina so that the whole medina doesn't smell like pigeon dung. We went there on Saturday and I will send you pictures.

The family is middle or upper middle class. They don't have a car, but they don't need one in this city. Also, Morocco is a very poor country, so for them to have the things they have is really really good. The house is beautiful, I will show you pictures soon.

I am pleased to say I have had no health problems whatsoever.

Alright, well I'm sure your eyes are tired from this email! Haha. I will talk to you soon.

Danielle