Our day today began with a late start and I'm sure all of us embraced the extra hours of sleep. We were fortunate enough to have a lecture this morning from Dr. Abdallah Malki, an incredibly wise and worldly intellectual, even if he was a Hoosier.. The lecture closely mirrored the lessons of Rosa, Josh, and Tommy concerning cultural awareness and expanding past just tolerating other cultures by also accepting, respecting, and enjoying them. It was the perfect complement to our lecture series while abroad.
Following the lecture a large group of us joined up with our new Moroccan friends, from yesterday's tea, to venture back into the medina and test out our bartering skills (spoiler alert: they were subpar at best). Hannah dropped the ball on her first try and my attempts to psych out the vendors by pretending to walk away were unfruitful. Thankfully we had one of our new friends to do the dirty work for us, and man was he good at it. At the end of our journey through the endless winding of stalls we walked out with two gorgeous leather backpacks for 600 Durham for both when they started with a set price of 600 for each! Definitely way beyond my skill level of bartering.
To make the trip even more perfect we got to see the monkeys!! I have had the self realization that being around exotic animals and ultimately getting to touch them is my “happy place” and today I was definitely there. He checked me for bugs and when it was confirmed that I had none, he gave me a kiss. My heart has melted.
Now to the good stuff… I apologize for the lack of pictures from the next segment of my blog but if I had included any, we would have had to up the age limit to 18+. Today, we visited a hammam, also refered to as a bathhouse. We went in nervous but thankfully we had a Moroccan friend with us to show us the ropes. Most of us decided to embrace the culture fully and go sans tops, because when in Morocco.. It was definitely a great bonding experience. We all giggled and smirked at eachother as the overly masculine women scrubbed our skin down and then we all marveled at the amount of dead skin that we all shed in the process. There was no understatement when the locals told us we would feel the cleanest we have ever been. Surprisingly enough I could definitely see myself doing it again.
The best part about today was that I truly felt immersed in the culture. I can confidently say that today I was not a tourist. I accepted, respected, and enjoyed the Moroccan culture fully. All that was missing was a glass of mint tea!
Checking for bugs
Kisses as my reward for not having any
Post-Hammam super clean selfie
Classroom picture
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