Don't take this the wrong way, but...

There’s something oddly satisfying about taking your pants off in the comfort of your own home. Wait, wait. Hear me out. I’m not a nudist or anything, but there’s no denying the moment you peel off a pair of grimy jeans is pure bliss. After a full day of Arabic in a city where nearly everything is challenging for me, being able to walk into my room and change into shorts and a t-shirt is no small thing. Because my room is my space- I don’t have to worry about offending a my neighbors, entertaining a host family, or deal with the inevitable friction that comes with sharing a dorm room. I can just be myself, with or without pants.

I’ve spent a lot of the past two weeks attempting to get settled, to strike a balance between my former and current lives. I, like many Fulbrighters, find comfort in the oddest places. Finding Ramen noodles at Marjane (the Moroccan equivalent of Wal-Mart) was perhaps the highlight of my day yesterday. Drinking NesCafe (powdered) with milk (it comes in a box) in the mornings is nice. And, of course, our cat Marley is pretty much the cutest cat ever.


How did this glorious cat come into our lives? Roz, one of my two housemates, arrived in Morocco fully prepared to be a responsible pet owner, with a flea collar, cat nip rug, and a book on cat parenting. One of our first days here, we took a walk over to a quieter part of the medina, where we spotted a group of kittens pitifully huddled in a door frame. Marley approached us immediately, which, according to Roz, is one of the best traits in a potential cat. After a trip to Marjane, where Roz bought kitty litter, a litter box, a bed, cat food (wet and dry), and a carrying case, she brought him home the next day. Is this girl together or what?

Marley is, in a word, adorable. He purrs all the time (human contact of any kind will set him off), learned how to use the litter box immediately, and kills cockroaches with glee. The world is his playground. He’s a very welcome addition to my life, even though he’s starting to learn the power of his claws, which is not such a fun developmental stage.

One of the best parts about living in Fes is the bizarre, wonderful coincidences that I seem to experience on a daily basis here. Case in point: Last weekend, a few friends and I were trying to catch a cab at a crowded medina gate. We waited futilely for close to 15 minutes, barely even having the time to move towards cabs before they were snagged by Moroccans far more adept at cab-catching than us. And then- A cab came in our general vicinity! Alas, we were outrun again by a Moroccan family. Again. But luck wasn’t on the family's side, because the cabbie was none other than our landlord, Mustafa, who kicked the family out of the cab and took us instead. Ahh, serendipity.

It’s hard not to get discouraged with myself on a daily basis here: I’m an educated young woman who speaks Darija like a 5-year-old. Consequently, I’ve started treating myself like a 5-year-old. I pat myself on the back for even the smallest accomplishments: successfully using my Arabic to purchase fruits and vegetables in the packed street market near my house. Not peeing my pants in terror when I ride to class on my roommate’s motorcycle. Successfully outrunning Moroccans for cabs. It's all part of making myself feel at home here.

And, if all of that fails, I can always take off my pants.

"230 years of friendship... Let's keep it that way."

After one three-hour bus ride, two and a half days of orientation, five nights spent in two different hotels, thirteen and a half hours of Arabic class, and countless furtive sips of water during daylight hours, I am officially settled in the city of Fes, where I am the proud tenant in an honest-to-goodness Moroccan house in the city's medina (old city). How much is the rent for this glorious three story-plus-terrace house? 5500 dirhams per month, split between three people, which means I’ll be paying around $275 a month.

The roof is by far my favorite place. From it, you can see the whole of the medina, the mountains, and a lot of the new city.

Originally, my roommate and I were a little worried about finding a place to live, since finding a house or apartment in Morocco usually involves going to cafés where simsars (real estate agents) hang out. But, since it’s Ramadan, there isn’t much hanging out at cafes during the day. Amazingly, when we arrived to our Language Institute, we were conveniently provided with a list of available housing throughout city. No simsar needed!

After a few unsuccessful phone calls to landlords, we were in touch with Mustafa, who picked us up 15 minutes later to take us to the available house. It’s a few minutes walk from Batha, one of the main gates of Fes’s medina, but it’s not so far into the city walls that we’ll feel unsafe if we’re walking at night alone (Fes is know as the city of 9,000 alleys, and is notoriously difficult to manage if you’re new to the area).

Once we navigated our four alleys and entered the house, we were greeted immediately with the beautiful interior courtyard I’ve come to know and love in Morocco. As Mustafa showed us around, my roommate and I kept looking at each other in disbelief- What’s the catch? What’s getting lost in translation? Do we have to baby-sit his kids every afternoon? Where’s the shower?

Well, I haven’t found the catch yet. Objectively, it’s not a perfect place to live (It’s the type of place that will never be truly clean, cockroaches, freezing in the winter, etc.), but it’s the perfect place for me to live for the next four months: spacious, in a great location, and cheap. And there’s a private roof!

Now that the stress of finding a place to live has been eliminated, I have the time to focus on studying Arabic and throwing myself into medina life. Arabic classes started on Wednesday after two very long days of Fulbright orientation. We’re talking lectures about every facet of Morocco from 9-5 here, people. I love Morocco, but I think I reached my saturation point somewhere around lunch on day one. The highlight of orientation was perhaps a grizzled, wizened State Department Regional Security Officer, who began his talk with the statement, “Morocco and America: 230 years of friendship… Let’s keep it that way.” (Morocco is proud of the fact that they were the first country to recognize the United States in 1977.) Err, I hope I can do my part to not destroy bi-national relationships, at the very least. I guess it’s important to set realistic goals.

After the Fulbright orientation ended, most of the Fulbrighters made our way from Rabat to Fes to begin our language grant at the Arabic Language Institute in Fes, located in a beautiful building in the nouvelle ville.

I’d decided originally to take mostly Modern Standard Arabic classes, with a few hours a week of Darija, Moroccan Colloquial Arabic. But after a few pathetic days of ineptly interacting with Moroccans, I decided I should commit myself to learning Darija. So now I have 20 hours a week of Darija class and 5 hours a week of MSA tutoring. After two days of class, I can confidently say that I am in for a lot of hard work (my tutor told me to photocopy a verb chart and sleep with it under my pillow), but I’m committed to learning and, perhaps more importantly, excited about learning the language for the first time in a long time.

Fes is a maddening, beautiful, confusing, wonderful city. If you get beyond the throngs of European tourists in capri pants and halter tops, the history is overwhelming- there are signs up right now that promote the 1200th anniversary of Fes. 1200 years! That’s ridiculous! It’s incredibly daunting to live here, especially in the medina; I feel like as hard as I try, I’ll never learn enough about the city in just four months. But, as I meet more Moroccans, improve my Darija, and get to know the immense markets better, I feel like I'm always getting a little bit closer to figuring it all out.