Morocco -- First Week

Well, I've been in Morocco now for six days. I expected to feel more culture shock than I have so far. Perhaps that comes from the fact that Ifrane, where Cheryl works and lives, is in a high mountain plateau and has a very french influence. Also, since it was so hot in Fez when they picked me up, we immediately headed up the mountain to beat the heat a bit and to ready ourselves for a small picnic outing with other University faculty families -- to celebrate 4th of July.

Cheryl (Woehr), an international counselor at TMCC, took a contract here for a year to teach and be the only counselor for an American style University of 1400 students. It is called Al Akhawayn University and was created by the King of Morocco and the King of Saudi Arabia. It is a beautiful campus. Most of the students are young people from privileged backgrounds who are living here in the residences. For many this is their first time away and they are trying to discover themselves. The faculty is quite diverse. Of course, there are Moroccan instructors but there are also American, Italian, Canadian, Turkish, and others. Cheryl set me up to do a presentation for students on Thursday. 70 students attended! It was interesting an fun -- just a little difficult due to the acoustics making it even harder for me to understand their french/arabic sounding English. I'm so impressed with how many languages everyone speaks and certainly wish that languages came easier to me.

We have gone to the spice market and shopping for rugs so far. Had a wonderful couscous lunch with the family of the rug shop owner. He has sold many rugs to Cheryl so they have become good friends. Friday is couscous dinner day and so his mother made this wonderful traditional dish of couscous, vegetables, and beef that we all shared. It was set in the middle of the table, we all had a spoon and section of our own, and we ate. There was he, his mother, his sister, his wife and her brother, and three of us at the table. Then the children were around playing. Their 8 month old daughter was the sweetest, large eyed little girl I've seen in a long time and they had a 2 year old little boy who was also delightful. The older children ate in a room separate and saw us periodically. I really appreciated being invited into their home and getting to see family life--what an opportunity for a family therapist!

The rug purchasing adventure was also an interesting experience. They pull out numerous carpets, overwhelming you with options, and then you start putting them in piles of yes, no, maybe. Finally, you do it again so you can start eliminating down to the ones that you want. There are many different types of berber rugs, some made of silk, some in wool, some knotted, some not, and very lovely differences. It was very hard to decide -- of course, now I want to go and get more.

We are taking off for a Riad in a few hours so I will report on the second half of the Moroccan adventure in a few days.