Dresses, kittens, and elections...

6/13


It’s been a productive week! This is surprising since it also hit over 100 degrees in the shade and usually nothing gets done when it’s that hot. The main highlights were going to Agadir to go shopping for wedding outfits for Jamila’s wedding, getting my kitten, and the elections.


I’ll start with Agadir on Wednesday. Marj and I were going to go originally so I could get cat stuff and so Marj could pick up a Banjo for her Berber Banjo lessons but I found out my host dad gave Jamila and my host mom the ok to go to Agadir only on Wednesday to do shopping for wedding stuff. So, Marj and I went ahead and went without them in the morning and got our stuff done. After that we went to the soq and met up with my host mom, Jamila, and a host cousin. We found my dress pretty quick and painlessly. Mine is a lavender color and has three layers. The 1st is a satin and then there’s a layer on op of that that is lacey with silver accents. The final layer is a shear shall which even has a hood which makes me look like something out of Star Wars. The man selling the dress was from our town so we got a better deal on it so that was nice. After dress shopping we got lunch and walked around some more. The soq basically is a giant Moroccan version of a Mall so it provides a lot of entertainment. It’s comprised of little cubby hole shops under a giant plastic and tin roof. Everything you would ever want or need is there from furniture and clothes to bootleg DVDs and antiques. It’s quite the experience going and at first a little overwhelming but lots of fun once you get a feel for it.


Now, on to my kitten! My friend Whitney brought her on a bus all the way from the Tata region further south on Thursday. She is 7 weeks old and really really tiny with black and grey stripes. She didn’t really appreciate the bus ride but she made it. After much dispute her name is Raja. My host family didn’t like it because it’s the name of Casablanca’s soccer team and a Moroccan name but she’s definitely a Raja so the name stayed. My host family also took her brother (Tommy) so she has a playmate. The only problem is that my host family has lots of fabric and curtains in the house so it’s not very kitten proof and I think it’s only a matter of time before things start to get shredded. We’ll see….


And lastly, we had local elections here on Friday. This doesn’t sound too exciting except for the fact that Jamila was running for a position and won. This is significant because she is the first women in the region to hold any type of elected office. She ran along with four other women for various positions and was the only successful one. She also ran under her own party that she created and which was named after the group that kicked the French out. She really didn’t know if she had a chance or not especially since campaigning is only allowed for the week before the elections. The night before the elections there were all kinds of rallies and parades around town for the various parties. We went on the roof and since we live in the center of town and watched everything that was going on. She found out that she won around midnight along with two other family members in different areas. It was exciting but a long night followed by a day packed with visitors. It was fun though and I got to meet a lot of neat people. One of the other winners in town was a guy named Obama so when he came over to congratulate Jamila we had a good laugh about that. It was funny too because I heard people chanting his name on election night and I was really confused but then my family explained to me there was also an Moroccan Obama too hahah.



Alright I’ll end here until the next post, take care!