المغرب (Morocco). A country in Africa. A country that's population is 99 percent Arab and 99 percent Muslim. A country that borders both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea. A country more unlike my own than any I had yet visited. But what a visit it was! 
Also, during lunch we had the opportunity to meet with two Moroccan students. We had quite an interesting discussion during lunch. First, our female student (also a teacher of English at a high school) explained her hijab (headscarf) to us. We learned that she chose to don the hijab at 14 (a decision she made on her own, not forces upon her by her parents). She said that in the Koran, Allah decreed that women should wear this headscarf (as well as the modest clothing included by the term “hijab”) as a physical representation of their modesty. Our conversation then crossed a wide variety of subjects. We learned that there is a new law regarding women’s rights, which rises the marrying age for women from 16 to 18 and requires a man to ask his wife before he marries another wife (as he can have up to 4 wives). Many Moroccans see this law as a step in the right direction. We also learned that, though a man must be Muslim to marry a Muslim woman, a woman need not be Muslim to marry a Muslim man. We then discussed arranged marriages and here tension rose between our two Moroccan students. The boy spoke in favor of arranges marriages and seemed to think that the best manner for finding a wife. He said that after 3 years of dating a girl she would be boring and marriage would not appeal, so arranged marriages are better. He also made a comment that an unmarried girl of 27 was old and her chances of finding a husband were slim. Here our females student fired out, “So I am 27 and do not yet have a husband. Are you declaring that I will not find a husband.” This girl has completed more school and now works as an English teacher at a high school (and is still unmarried at 27). Our male student shied away from his statement and begrudgingly said that she would probably find a husband. Finally, our talk rounded off with a discussion of homosexuality. The Islam religion is very against homosexuality and thus – there are not many people that are openly gay in Morocco. Our female student said she had never known Anyone who was gay in her life. Our male student guessed that a fellow student was gay (because of his nice clothes and feminine behavior). He said that no one was openly gay and this guy just seemed a little different. He claimed to have no problem with people being gay but he didn’t think it natural. He refused the idea of “being born gay” and insisted that the media is to blame. “How would he decide to like boys if he never saw it before?” He said again that he had no problem with it, but didn’t seem likely to be friends with a gay person. This concluded our lunch discussion.
From here, we left Tangier on our bus and drove along the coast to Asilah. We arrived at the Asilah beach at sunset and had the opportunity to ride camels along the beach! It was awesome. I nearly lost me seat with the camel rose and was surprised by how high it is to be on a camel’s hump. But the ride was lovely, though short. The camels were tied camel to camel in a line and we rode a couple hundred feet down the beach and back – the baby camels running with us in the pack to stay close to their mommies (cute!). We then walked around the artsy Medina (old neighborhood) of Asilah in the dark. We saw many walls painted with colorful murals and we went out to an ocean viewpoint (too dark to see the ocean, but the lights of the city were pretty).
From there we drove on toward Rabat. We drove past a shanty town in the dark. Alicia told us that Morocco is suffering hard economic times as the population of young people grows and work is scarce. As we drove through Rabat, we saw boys playing soccer in the streets. We arrived in the neighborhood where our host families lived and walked to the meeting place. Lauren and I were placed in the same homestay and soon our “host father” Hassan came and took us the short distance to our house. There we met his wife Alicpia. They were a little sleepy (as our flight had delayed our arrival). But they were very welcoming and kind. Their home is lovely. The walls are all tiled in blue and white. The living room has a sunroof because this room extends up through the second and third floors to the roof. Their upstairs neighbors have windows that could look down into the living room – which was a little strange – but I guess they know their neighbors. We put our things in the pretty furnished room Hassan showed us – two twin beds with purple sheets – and slipped off our shoes and into the slippers they provided. (They host students fairly often). We then were led into the beautiful dining room. It was draped with red and gold curtains and there was a build in Moroccan-style couch with deep red cushions lining three sides of the room. We removed our slippers (customary whenever walking on carpet) and sat down to dinner: delicious Moroccan veggie stew, mini-paninis of meat and cheese, dates and a sweet honey/sesame seed dessert (that reminded me of wine cookies that my Italian grandma makes). Wonderful! We went to bed tired after a busy day of travel and sightseeing.
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