Thursday April 29th

SO BEHIND ON BLOG POSTS-

I have a lot of updates. So much is going on, but BECAUSE so much is going on, it's hard to keep this updated. I will try my hardest. Here is a small- kind of boring- post about my Thursday…

Thursday I had normal Arabic class and then our seminar. I had a meeting with my professor after our class and he was very helpful. We decided to focus my project on dropout rates in Morocco- reasons why students drop out, and what opportunities they have to re-enter the education system. It is obviously more in-depth than simply that, but I will tell you more about it as I conduct my research. He took it upon himself to schedule my first interview with one of his PHD students. I spoke with this student, who is a teacher in Kenitra (30 mins from Rabat) and he spoke to some of his students and collegues, and said that I can come to Kenitra on Monday to speak with them. I made an interview guide, but I am nervous about the language barrier. I have some more prep work to do, and I will keep you updated. This is particularly good because this is the start of my ISP project. I am not nervous for it, but it is good that I am getting a head start- especially because my mom is coming for a week during the allotted time that we are given to do research... After our meeting I surfed the internet, and then we had our second meeting with the “realtor” to find an apartment during ISP period.

He took us to the Oudaya to see the other option. The Oudaya is in all of the guidebooks “top places to see in Morocco” so it would be a lot of fun to live there. (SEE MAIN PIC) It is similar to the medina, but not as crowded-more residential. It is on the water, so it has a beachy-er feel. Some of our classmates happened to be visiting the first house that we visited and they were VERY protective “we got here first” etc. It was weird, and the house wasn’t even that great, so we moved on. The next house WAS great. The bottom floor was not big, nor was the top floor, so we decided to rent both for the 5 of us. It was less money than the house we saw on Wednesday. We made a contract and put down a deposit. THEN the realtor asked for HIS fee, which was 1000 dirham (1/3 of what the apt cost…). We went through a very funny broken French exchange with him. In reality, it was probably funnier for us than him because we refused to pay. Our other friends also used him to find an apartment, and they didn’t have to pay, so why should we? We called Megan (our friend) and she spoke with the realtor. He said that he was going to make her pay too. We totally threw her under the bridge, but we all held our ground and refused (we said we would when we put the rest of the money down… buying time). I was very happy at the end of our meeting, and anticipate a lot of “giggle fests” (Ali & Howie…). ISP is going to be a good ab work out.