Study Abroad - Morocco/Spain

The market in Marrakesh was so much fun that I ended up going five times in three days. This hot city is more of a night city due to the weather. I like night so naturally this city was the most exciting for me. Also it could have been the crazy amount of people that go to the market. This was easily the largest market and even though at first I was afraid of getting lost, after a while I got used to how it was set up and to look for the tall mosque when I needed to get out of it. I did most of my shopping in this city. My favorite item that I purchased was a teapot. It is gold with a little bit of silver in it. I feel like I stressed out the seller by bargaining so much. My roommate and I got separated from our small group but we met so many nice locals that it was not even a bad thing. One of the cloth owners liked us so much that he invited us to stay for tea in his shop. After a hard long day of shopping, we went to one of the 1098438 orange juice vendors located at the front of the market. Yum! We missed our bus so we had an exciting time finding a taxi and getting back to the hotel. Every night in Marrakesh was a good night. Another thing we did in this city was ride a camel.  A lot of us decided to go on this excursion to a little town. We each got dressed up in dresses and head scarves and got to ride a camel up to a town. At the town they gave us tea and some food. The entire experience was great!

On the way from Tangier to Fes, we had a stopover in this little town. It was the most peaceful place on this trip. All the walls were painted blue. The tour guide told us that three times a year they paint everything blue. They do not paint from the bottom of the building to the top. What they do is paint up to the first floor and half. Then above that they keep white because I guess it would be too difficult and they do not have the necessary equipment to paint high up. After taking us around the narrow streets, the guide showed us the “water park.” This was a beautiful use of waterfalls and rocks. So many children were playing in this little area of shallow water and falls. Everyone looked and acted like a big family. I love America but the one thing that I wish was different was how individualistic Americans are. I wish we could all talk to each other like we are friends and leave our doors open at home! There were lots of little market stands in this city too. Chefchaouen is known for its crafts and art. This was very evident looking at the community and the buildings.

Tangier was the first city in the Republic of Morocco that we got to visit. To get there, we took a short and dramatic ferry ride. This ride would not have been too insane if it were not for immigration in Morocco. There was a line that started during the start of our two hour ride and lasted for an hour after the ride was over. We were on that fast ferry for so much longer than necessary because of this. The people on the ferry were mostly Moroccan. This was our first glimpse of the Moroccan folk.I really did not go into this trip with too many thoughts about how the people would be. I was just going to see it when I got there and try to immerse myself. There was a boy who needed to borrow a pen during immigration so he sat at our table and I tried to talk to him. It was difficult and there was more smiling and laughing than words. This is when I realized how hard it was going to be to talk to people. Spain was easier for all of us because, being Texans, Spanish is a language that we all have been at least introduced to. After we finally got off the ferry, we headed to our hotel. The thing I will remember most about that first hotel is the crazy elevator. It was not sensitive to people and almost ate up one of our students. This was only the beginning of tiny, insensitive elevators. It was not really a big deal but it was just funny to see how different things are and how much there is to learn about even simple things. After getting settled and calm, we met back down for a wonderful drive up to the mountains for a welcome dinner. This dinner was absolutely beautiful. It was a five-course meal with wonderful food and an even better setting. We could see the sunset and the ocean right outside. The next day, we experienced our first Moroccan market adventure. The market was walking distance so a small group of us went and had a great time looking at all the nice cultural knickknacks, bags, teapots, and clothes that were offered. Also, the sellers were fun and each person that I met and talked to told me a little more about Morocco. The pride they all had for their country was amazing.

Our first destination was Malaga, Spain. The long flight made this city even more enjoyable due to its relaxed atmosphere. The first thing that my roommate and I did after getting to the AC Palacio Hotel was checked out the room. For a while we were puzzled as to how to turn on the electricity but after some fumbling and trial we figured out that the room card has to be put into a slot that activates the lights. We both wanted so badly to just pass out on the beds but we knew that to get on the right sleep schedule, we would have to stay awake for a while longer. We changed and went to the beach. The beach was nice but it was cold. It was a shock going from the extreme hot sand to the icy waters. If there is one thing I learned on this trip it is that the beach does not get warmer as the sun gets hotter, the ocean stays pretty much the same temperature give or take a couple of degrees. After this ocean fun we got some Spanish pizza which was good except that it had a little more cheese than most pizza I have ever had. I liked that we could watch the cook make the pizza right there and have a fun little conversation with him. I enjoyed the language barrier to an extent. It made it more challenging to communicate but also more satisfying. At the Picasso Museum there was an English speaker who was trying to tell the door workers something but was having trouble. I used my four years of school Spanish and proudly helped translate between them. I was pretty excited to use the language that I spent so long studying. Malaga’s shopping area was beautiful. The streets were laid with marble and above, there were sun shades that went from building to building. This was a fun start to the trip.

After 3 days in the blazing heat of Marrakech, we got to spend an exciting 11 hour bus ride to the beautiful beach resort in Tetouan. Our last night in Tetouan we had an appreciation dinner to the Arbai Family and to Chiab for all of their hard work to make our trip a success. I would like to give them an extended personal thanks from the bottom of my heart for making my study abroad an experience I will never forget! Thanks you guys! Moving along, the next day was filled with a little fun in the sun for most but unfortunately I became ill. Going thru the Spain border was arduous and logistical (Dr. Pelton’s 2 favorite words) and took forever!!! But finally switched buses at the border and luckily made it to our ferry right on time. The next day was bitter sweet because we were coming home and having to say bye to Ratmany and Micheal. I am so happy I got the opportunity to meet two amazing people from different backgrounds than mine and was able to learn so much from each of them. I truely believe I will see them one day in the future. But to sum up my entire study aboad experience, it was nothing i could have ever expected! My trip was filled with amazing people in my group, amazing people I met along the way, all of which I wouldnt have gained if I spent my summer in Texas. I would study abroad in a heart beat if I had the chance to do so again! So until next time folks!

Sara Yousuf

So these past couple of days have been real busy. We’ve been to Fes, Rabat, Casablanca and now Marrakech. When we visited Fes, we visited a University in Ifrane. The campus was beautiful and enchanting. For some strange reason, visiting that school really has me considering studying abroad for an entire semester..something to think about.. Movin along, Rabat was a nice stop as well, our hotel was a 5 minute walk from our hotel,  Rabat is the capital city of Morocco so we visited the parliament and met in U.S. terms the V.P. of the Senate. He was a very down to earth and funny. In Casablanca we visited a community center in the “ghetto” of the city. This visit really touched everyone’s heart, the center is doing an incredible job helping out the community and youth. Marrakech is blazing hot temperatures! its about 110 degrees out here, with little to no breeze. We’ve been mainly site seeing here. Im getting kind of sad because the trip is coming to an end. Thats all i got for right now so ill fill yall in later.Bye!

Sara Yousuf

Hello everyone!!! We have done so much since I last updated that I dont even know where to begin. Definiately one of the most memorable things we have done so far was visit Sams house for dinner. That was an awesome experience. His house was absoutely beautiful. Tangier has been one of my favorite cities so far. It amazes me how at 2 in the morning on a Monday people are still out on the streets. It seems like the city never sleeps. Today was one of the most ardorous days so far. Waking up at 530 was not fun! But in the end it was all worth it. We got the chance to visit the US embassy meet the prime minister and parliament. These are all things we would not have had the chance to experiment if we were regular tourists.  It also amazes me how nice everyone is to us. For example yesterday at the old medina a local asked me where we were from and after telling him we were from america he said welcome welcome to our country. Our home is your home. It is things like that that I seem to enjoy the most. Well it is getting late and this keyboard is WEIRD so I will update later!

As of right now we are in Fes.  Although I haven’t seen much of it, the ride in, hotel stay, and visit to the AUI University left a very good impression on me.  The ride in was difficult.  We stopped in a small city about 2 hours outside of Fes for lunch and a mini tour.   The city was small and truly had a lot of charm and character.  I was surprised to find out that this was one of the places in Morocco that sees a great deal of snow during the winter months.  Today we visited the University and I have to say that I was thoroughly impressed.  The University was very modernized and accommodating to a variety of cultures and students.  We had the extreme pleasure of listening to a lecture, of sorts, from the Dean of the Business college.  I am always impressed and interested in smart people; and he was smart.  I love economics and look forward to my financing courses, so for me this was one of the best parts of the trip so far.  He was very insightful on the global as well as local economies and the effects that each has and has had on each other relating to recent events.  We were treated to a wonderful lunch in their cafeteria, and headed back to the hotel.  

Tomorrow we leave bright and early for the city of Rabat to meet with some government officials.  I hear that Rabat has great markets, and since I have yet to buy anything I am hoping that it’s true.

Our 2nd day in Tangier was long, but fun. This is when the academic portion actually began. We toured 3 factories and the newspaper place. The first factory (Morcryal Sarl) made blankets. They made my favorite types of blankets, the fury soft ones. We saw all the steps from making the yarn to packaging them. A unique thing we learned is that wholesalers can ask the Morcryal Sarl to put any city they want there blankets to be made at, as long as the blankets are sold in Morocco. For example. Moracryl Sarl can put on the label “Made in Alaska” even though it really was made in Morocco. However,  Moracryl Sarl still puts there logo on the package as well and those blankets can only be sold in Morocco. The 2nd and third factories are like sister factories. They work together to make clothes for lines such as Banana Republic, Gap, and much more. The 2nd factory cuts all the pieces of the clothing. It starts off with the clothing line sending them a sample of a clothing (for example a jacket) and all the material it would take to make so many jackets. The company then has to figure out how many different pieces it takes to make that jacket. The blueprint of the pieces are then printed out and used to cut the different pieces. The pieces are then packaged and sent to the 3rd factory. The 3rd factory takes the pieces and sews them together to make that jacket. They have 14 production lines where each one is an assembly line of sewing the clothing together.  When we were there, they were making some nice jackets. I wanted to bring one for each of my daughters. The last tour was of Tangiers greatest newspaper-Le Journal de Tanger. This was a special visit because not only did they show us how they make their newspapers, we are going to be featured in it. Isn’t that great. We learned that this newspaper has been around for over 100 years. It is the major newspaper for northern Morocco. They get subscription from everywhere, even the U.S. After the academic festivities where over a group of us went to the market and had dinner on the beach. Finally, we went down to the Mediterranean and stuck our feet in it. It was cold. A perfect ending to a fun filled day.

The next day was not as busy. We started off the day with a tour of Tanger Med Port. It was huge. However, the highlight of the day was a traditional Moroccan dinner at our tour guide Sam’s house.  Sam’s father is acually the owner of the Moracryl Sarl. This dinner was a 5 course meal. 1st: salad, 2nd: baby lamb 3rd: chicken, 4th: desert, and 5th: fruit. Boy were we full. The best course was the rasberry yogurt icecream pie..it was delicious. A traditional dinner consists of everybody digging  into the course (hands or utensils), which is in the middle of the table. The evening ending with Sam showing us how to make the traditonal tea. It is good as well. Tomorrow we head for Fes. We are also going to see a traditional wedding…so exciting. It is such an experience to live in another culture. Well until next time.

Mel

Our first true day of studying occurred on our second day in Tangier.  We were fortunate to tour 3 factories, one that was for blankets and the other two were working together to produce clothing for such labels as Banana Republic, Gap, and Zahra.  The factories were definitely an eye opener for many, as the conditions are not the same as expected in the USA in terms of comfort (no AC) and safety precautions (no masks in the blanket factory despite the usage of glue and the presence of material in the air).  However, I was impressed by the fact that the workers have a similar deal as we have relating to breaks and wages.  After a brief stop at the hotel we then toured a printing press for the Le Journal de Tanger.  This was a particularly special visit because our group will be featured in their next edition.  I personally was presented with a book from a gentleman I was speaking with at the press.  It’s in Arabic so I better get studying so I can read it!  At the end of the day several of us went down to the Mediterranean and ate at a restaurant down there.  We did walk through the market beforehand, but not for very long.  The markets were crowded, but tempting.  They had some amazing looking food and honestly if we were staying a bit longer I would have stocked up!

Today we visited Port Tanger Med.  This was very interesting because our dealings with the port here in downtown Tangier was not exactly pleasant.  It was a large structure that was only nine miles from Spain’s Port of Gibraltar.  I was interested in finding out that they have expansion plans in order to ferry people by 2010.  This seemed to be important to me because the port we arrived on was so crowded and seemingly needed some relief.  Also, we were fortunate to learn that the main export of Morocco is phosphates, something you wouldn’t automatically associate with the country as an outsider.  For dinner we had the pleasure of being treated at our guide, Sam’s house.  We were spoiled in every sense of the word.  A 5 course dinner of appetizers, lamb, chicken, dessert, and fruit.  His family was very hospitable and really we all had a great time and enjoyed our traditional meal and tea service.

Tomorrow we leave for Fes.  I’m am overly excited about visiting the university as I am shopping for a Masters program preferably outside of the States.  I couldn’t think of a better place to study than here or someplace similar.  It would truly be an adventure.