Part 1 of 2. End of Fez

So what have I been up to these last few days? Well, a bunch! I took a trip to Volubilis and Meknes. I played soccer with homeless/children from damaged households at their school. I took a trip to Safhi? I am not positive on the name and I hope to edit this before posting, but if not I will at some point. I went to a café and made many Moroccan friends that do not speak English. I took tests and did homework. I learned how to cook couscous and tea. I saw a lot of troubling things (that’s another post all together) and I bought 1 ½ kilos of jhmel meat (camel) with Ali. And, on Valentines Day, I went to an English school and watched student presentations (and did a little awful singing of my own).

It’s hard to imagine that I did not do much in the United States. However, I have been almost unnaturally busy. IES has kept us all very busy with activities, lectures, and outings. Each afternoon, from 3-5, we have lectures on topics such as literature in Morocco, history, Islam in Morocco, the Family Code etc. We learned how to cook things such as couscous (well, Clara was the only one that really took notes) and tea. The secret for great mint tea is boil water with a bunch of mint that have their stems cracked and add boatloads of sugar. Yes, there are no exact measurements. Just feel it out.

IES brought us to a school for students taken directly from the streets of Fez. Some of these children came from broken families and others were homeless. You could tell by looking at them that these were children that lived very rough childhoods. The children spoke no English and very little French. They were students from the heart of Morocco’s poverty. This poverty is nothing like in America where children live under a 20,000 a year threshold. These are the children that are living with under $365 a year. It’s impossible to comprehend. Even when you look at it, you can’t grasp the idea.

Volubilis was an outstanding destination to visit. It is a city created by the Romans and was a southern outpost for one of the largest empires of all time. The city still remains a picturesque location. It is a place that undoubtedly had large amounts of money put into it (and it still has remnants from its ancient past). We all had a great time visiting it. From the ancient ruins to a picture of Cody and myself acting as statues, the memories will stay with us forever.