june 2 - ok, took me long enough, right?

i'm no longer actually in morocco (i write this from a hotel room in prague where i happen to have free internet) but i'll try to remember the important stuff. we flew into paris (overnight) where we had a 2 hour layover then came in to casablanca, where our tale begins. the first day was mostly travel and logistics. the only thing i remember now about it was meeting the other members of my group and driving past some shantytowns with about fifty satellite dishes perched on the walls (like the slums of dakar, they are mainly just walled-in villages of tents with a couple of youngish guards posted outside). we also met our tour guide, Lezrak (a man from Fez who speaks about eight or nine languages including halting english) and our bus, Africa Bus.

on day two, we were basically free to explore the beach strip of casa where our hotel was located. this is a local hangout and (by day) has lots of people sunning, playing football (soccer), and just walking around. we met and talked to two guys, ahmed and whatshisname (i only remember ahmed because he gave me a post card with his name/address on it - "send me a bulls jersey from the US!") who spoke a little english and a lot of french. they showed us how to navigate the convoluted path from the road down to the beach and asked us about american life. ahmed is studying to be an international businessman and his friend is a hairdresser, apparently. i felt the effects of not having spoken french in half a year. i think speaking with them helped significantly though.

after staying in casa for awhile (and going with dr. harshbarger to see st. exupery's favorite restaurant) - i think two days - we bussed to marrakesh. unfortunately we didn't take the marrakesh express, but i feel like CSNY would have approved of the journey anyway since it pretty much parallelled the railroad the whole way. our hotel in marrakesh was much more centrally located and therefore allowed for quick nightly trips into the medina (downtown? not really a direct translation) of the city. in marrakesh there is this big square where monkey trainers and snake charmers hang out by day, hoping to lure in tourists and make them pay for a picture. by night, it turns into a local/tourist music festival where stands sell food very cheaply (a kabob for about twenty cents if i remember correctly) and bands of drummers compete with each other for the tides of the crowd. all types of moroccan music styles can be heard here: arab, which is focused more on euphoric pitches and prolonged melodies, and berber, which concerns itself more with rhythm and beat (mostly three or four drummers and a couple of other percussive instruments). it's a fun place. during our stay in marrakesh, we became well acquainted with the tenants of stand 65. the manager there gave each of us nicknames (the only one i remember is Davis' - "Davis Cup") and Patrick arm-wrestled all the 17-year-old servers. after he had soundly beaten all of them, the biggest moroccan any of us saw on the trip (the guy was probably 300 pounds, and only about 5'9) sat down across from him and pretended to give him an even contest (after which he casually and good-naturedly slammed patrick's hand down about three times for show). a good time was had by all, etc etc. we went there a couple of nights consecutively (i think we stayed three or four total in marrakesh).