With the urging of my new roommate Amelia I am beginning a blog. I left the US 16 days ago to begin the adventure of a life time. Kim and I met in Munich and took a 10 day tour through Germany, Amsterdam, and Ireland. It was amazing, and long over due since Kim had been studying abroad since May! We made our 1 week of hanging out count.
Amelia and I are staying with the Baghda family in Rabat, they are beyond friendly. I feel right at home here. Our host parents are Rabia and Ali. Ali runs a store in the medina and Rabia takes care of the home. Their niece Fatima lives here as well (although she is more of a sister than a cousin) along with their two daughters Sara and Amina. We haven't met Amina yet because she was sick yesterday, but Sara and Fatima are super friendly. Fatima speaks English really well so we have mostly been communicating with her, but I can't wait to learn some more Darija so I can talk with the rest of the family.
For those new to Arabic, fusha is classical arabic and darija is spoken arabic. I have taken 3 semesters of Modern Standard Arabic at UWM, but this is not the spoken language here in Morocco and many words are completely different. We will all be taking 2 Arabic classes here, one teaching Moroccan arabic and the other teaching Modern arabic.
Today we went on a scavenger hunt in groups (The Rabat Challenge). Wajida, Hila, Robin, and myself were teamed up. We visited Hila's homestay and it was beautiful! Robin's family wasn't at home when we stopped and Wajida is staying in the student dorms as of right now.
After vi sting families we had lunch on the beach!! Then we went to the medina to buy mystery gifts, and one random item that we didn't understand. It was a lot of fun.
Wow I'm tired, I'll write more later!
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