So my list of blogs to write has been adding up over the past week, but since classes started Monday it's been quite an eventful week. I need to post about my host family, my birthday, and the beach, but I'll have to get to those topics this weekend.
But today is FRIDAY FRIDAY, GOTTA GET DOWN ON FRIDAY! Ok, sorry to get that song stuck in your head. Friday is a big day in Morocco and all Muslim countries: it's the holy day. Being here for Friday noon prayers is like Sunday at noon on Whitesburg Drive in Huntsville where there are 20 churches in a row and they all get out at the same time, but more intense. I live right behind a mosque. I like living near it most of the time because it's pretty, cultural, and a perfect landmark for taxi drivers, but it's not so great every morning at 4 am during the first call to prayer of the day. Katherine, my lovely roommate, and I sleep with the window and door to the balcony open because open windows function as air conditioning here. Open windows + 4 am call to prayer + loud speader right outside our window = not the most incredible set up in the world.
The very loud speaker outside our apartment.
Actually, I don't mind it that much because I'm a very sound sleeper and it really doesn't wake me up all the way anymore - I just kind of hear it in my dreams. And honestly I think it's kind of cool to live right next to a mosque, especially after today.
Katherine and I were walking home from class at about 12:15, and as we passed the mosque we saw men setting up their prayer rugs outside the door to the mosque and around our apartment building. I tried not to look twice out of respect, and I hurried up the four floors to the apartment to spy from the balcony.
The first few men gathering to pray.
More men kept coming and setting up outside the mosque. We were so intrigued, but Sanae, our host mom, told us to wait and see, that there would be way more men soon. So we just stood in the shadows on our balcony and watched men flock to the mosque, which was filled to capacity, and set up their prayer rugs on the sidewalk and road. They just kept coming, and the filled up the whole street and sidewalk, and there were men lined up at the bottom of all the apartment buildings on our street. It's hard to describe, but it was just so incredible to watch (especially from our vantage point above). Then by 12:35 or so the Immam (I think) sang some sort of beginning prayer over the loud speaker, then gave his sermon (not sure what the right word is for that). Then after 15 minutes or so it was time for the prayer. I've seen Muslims pray before, but never that many crammed into such a small place, just spilling out of the mosque onto the road, sidewalk, around cars, on the cafe terrace, and right beneath our balcony. It was such a cool, unique experience.
So many people!
The rest of my day was not quite as exciting, but I took my first taxi by myself! I was super nervous, but thankfully both on the way and the way back I didn't have any problems. I went to the American Embassy to meet the Cultural Affairs Officer, who invited the several other Boren scholars in Morocco and me to coffee. It was great to get out of my little school bubble and talk to some other Americans. I'm really anxious to make some Moroccan and non AMIDEAST (that's my "school" here) friends, because as great as our group of 25 kids is, I see them every day cooped up in a small building where I have a class with pretty much everyone. I'm going to have a Moroccan language and culture partner, so I'm super excited about that.
In other news, as I was sitting at this cafe a guy just walked by carrying a huge bucket of eggs in one hand and a bunch of dead chickens in the other. C'est la vie aux Maroc.
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