There are other holidays??

So today was my very first Eid. In case you didn't know, it's a Muslim holiday where every family sacrifices a sheep to commemorate the day when Abraham sacrificed a sheep in lieu of his son Isaac.
So I got to see the slaughtering of 2 sheep. It actually wasn't as disturbing as I thought it'd be...or maybe I just tried to block it from my memory. Anyway, the most disturbing part was watching my host siblings and cousins go through the body parts and clean them. And I'm pretty sure my host dad ate the testicles for dinner tonight. There are currently 2 sheep bodies hanging in my kitchen. But the meat itself is very good. It has a unique texture and a fairly mild taste.
It's just a very different culture though.

Before I came to Morocco, I didn't know a lot about Islam. And I still don't, but I do know that they are very devoted to their religion. For them, religion isn't a personal choice or belief-it's a lifestyle. And I respect that a lot. For a lot of people in the United States, I feel like they can act so religious-by going to church nearly every week, posting Bible statuses on Facebook, whatever, but when you get to know the heart of their personality and actions, well sometimes it doesn't seem to match up with their beliefs. But here, people actually act in accordance to their religion and it's refreshing for a change. Or maybe I just have that illusion here, I don't know, but that's just how to seems to me. I guess I just got kind of deep, but religion can be a very confusing thing. But here it doesn't seem that confusing. That's also due to the history of Morocco and how closely knit politics and religion are though. I mean, I'm not going to convert to Islam or anything, but I just find it amusing how it's primarily characterized by its extremities when in reality the great, great majority of its followers are a thousand times more devoted to their religion than most Christians are, and are nothing like how the media portrays them to be.

Alright, I'm done with that rant. Anyway, tomorrow is Spain, and I couldn't be more excited! It will be a more than welcomed break from Africa. And Tuesday is Paris-a city I've been dreaming of since I first started studying French.
Life is good.

It's been awhile

So I guess I haven't really blogged for awhile. Since the last time I wrote on this thing, I've been to the Sahara Desert and a Berber village.
So the Sahara Desert was pretty amazing. It was a 4 day trip, a 10 hour drive from Rabat. We stayed in really nice hotels with not so nice buffets. After sleeping on Moroccan mattresses, which are almost as hard as rocks-no joke, any sort of hotel standard mattress was well welcomed. We got to ride camels into the sunset and climbed up a dune. The next morning most of us woke up before sunset. My friend Kati and I were walking in the dunes when a Berber (native Moroccan) man stopped us and told us that we needed to go out further to get the best view of the sunrise. So he took us out as far as we could possibly walk at 5 in the morning and we sat and just talked with him for an hour. He told us about his culture, that he could speak about 10 languages, and just about life in the Sahara. It felt so surreal, sitting on a dune in the Sahara while the sun slowly peaked over, listening to a Berber man ramble on.

This past weekend we visited Ain Leuh, a mostly Berber village. We stayed with families there. We were warned ahead of time that most families only spoke Amazigh and Darija and would probably only have a squat toilet, but somehow Kati and I lucked out and our family spoke English and French and had a Western toilet. We ended up listening to Justin Bieber and watching MTV with our 16 year old sister and her cousin and dancing to Gangnam Style on Friday night. On Saturday, all of us went on a 5 hour hike in the Middle Atlas Mountains. The first half hour was a challenge, to say the least, but after we warmed up it felt pretty effortless. We passed more sheep than I've seen in my entire life, and had tea with some nomads.

So it's safe to say that I've had some pretty crazy experiences already. Morocco has turned out to be everything I expected it to be and everything I didn't expect it to be. In two weeks I'll be heading to Spain and France, and I can only imagine what it's going to be like there.

Sunrise in the Sahara.

Our footprints in the sand.

I miss it already.

 The backyard of one of the hotels we stayed at.

 Experimenting with shutter speeds while in a cab.

 One of the houses in the village of Ain Leuh.

 The entrance to the same house above.

 The beginning of our 5 hour hike!

 An aquifer?

This reminded me of Lion King, except minus the trash.

 View from the mountains.

 The village of Ain Leuh. The trees in the photo are cherry trees-what this village is "famous" for.

 Now are pictures of my house in Rabat. It's beautiful, 4 stories and all. This is an open-air roof.

 Our first floor. We eat all of our meals at that table.

 A sink when you first walk into our house.

 A sitting room. We occasionally eat meals here, but not usually.

 The main living room.

 Stairs up to the second floor.