Day 12: Roman Ruins and Cooking with Khadija

Chellah ruins

Wednesday was a typical day in the neighborhood: hard work at the orphanage and then back to the Home Base to relax for the day. Not so typical, after placement and lunch, Abdellah took us for a tour of the Chellah ruins. There was a mosque as well as a school built in the 1300s. Apparently, there was a earthquake in the 1800s that partially destroyed the buildings. It was really cool to be able to see the foundation of the buildings, even with some mosaic tile still visible. There were also ruins of mausoleums and tombs where Muslim “saints” are buried.

Storks on the minaret

Storks!

Saints burial place

            The ruins were beautiful, and as we walked further through them, we entered Roman ruins from an earlier era. It was so cool to see statues, or parts of statues, with Roman writing, yards away from buildings with Arabic writing.

Broken Roman statue

            Highlight of Wednesday was definitely coming back to crepes at teatime. I honestly think I’m going to go through withdrawal of Moroccan food once I get home, haha.

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            Thursday was a messy day at the orphanage. Bathing and feeding the kids took extra long and by the time we left, we were all covered in who-knows-what. We did meet a woman from Boston who was at the orphanage with her sister, who was adopting a little boy. Small world. It’s nice to talk to a third party about what we’re doing in Morocco every once in awhile because sometimes I forget how much we’re helping.

            After lunch we had another cooking lesson. YES! This time Khadija taught us how to make this pancake-like bread we sometimes have for breakfast. It’s super flaky and a little bit crispy and basically delicious. I was surprised at the ease of the recipe in contrast to how much work it took to make them. The bread was simple—made only of flour, wheat, water, and salt. But Khadija mixed and kneaded the bread FOREVER, making it nice and fluffy. Then, she made perfect little balls of dough, proceeding to flatten them, and add a semolina/baking powder mix before she folded them into nice squares. We cooked them on a skillet, flattening them out a little and eating them with strawberry jelly at teatime, mmm…

Mix

Knead

Perfect balls!

Flatten

Cook

           Cooking was followed by another Arabic script lesson. We learned the rest of the letters and how to write our names! There's something so exciting about being able to write your name in another language. Overall, Arabic is so hard to write and if I had to use it all the time, it would take me forever to write one sentence. Good thing it's so pretty.  

Zweena!

            Malone, Kate, Meghan, Sarah, and I left right after teatime for the Medina. I finished up my souvenir shopping and can’t wait to pass out presents! The Medina is always such an experience. For one, no matter how much we try, we never seem to blend in. Funniest comment was from a man we walked by who said, “Hey, Spice Girls!” This was followed by a close second to a man who called me “Little Shakira” and another who called me “the little Moroccan sister” of the group. Their creativity with English is impressive, haha. I am not very good at bargaining, though. I think it’s because I don’t want to offend anyone. Malone and Kate were getting some good practice with their haggling, though. With some help from Sarah. The key is to seem disinterested. They got some good deals, but according to Khadija when we got back, they should have started the bargaining even lower. We’re still learning.

            Our new game in the house is Trivial Pursuit on Malone’s iPad. We played for a while after dinner, and Khadija even brought us some popcorn. She’s the best.

            Tomorrow is my last day at placement and I don’t know how I feel about it. I’m going to miss the kids and the nurses for sure.

Be back tomorrow!

Bonne nuit,

-Allie