One

I have been in Morocco for almost two weeks now and have decided to start a blog, something to hold me accountable to documenting my time abroad.

My first two weeks in Morocco have been about settling in. I have an apartment about 10 minutes from my school, with a flatmate who walks too fast and has to duck to get into our door. The price is cheap, and the quality matches the price. It came furnished, but not really. We have beds in bedrooms, a bathroom and a hall-kitchen that consists of a sink, a propane stove, a hot water heater and a refridgerator. No table, no chairs, but we are comfortable and on the whole happy in our little abode. The redeeming factor for our little house is our terrace, it is bigger than the area inside the apartment. Our aprartment was an afterthought, added to the top of the house, so our terrace is really the old roof, but its nice. I have a view of our street, Abdelaziz Boutalib, and more sun than i could ever need. It is the perfect place to read and study, although there are a few distractions. Next door an apartment building is being built to look like the rest of the large 6 or 7 story apartment buildings on the street, our house is one of about 5 left in the neighborhood. The construction workers, who only work about 6 hours a day tend to give me funny looks as i sit and read on the terrace, wondering why I am not our working or doing something producitive like the rest of the city seems to be doing. My other distraction is a pair of little birds who live in the wall of the building that is being build next door. They seem to have moved in quickly. I wrote a poem about them and about my experienc of Fes thys far, they are as Fassi as it gets in my opinion.

Two birds live on my Terrace
their home is built upon a hole in the wall
of the building next door
that is growing every day
in a hole that is destined to be coverted
into the smooth, art deco-esqe facade
of the cheap "build it and they will come" style of Fes in 2007.
I have named them Fatima and Mohammed.
my little prophets, telling me all about the World of Fes
as their chirps wake me up with the call to prayer
while resting upon their favorite perch,
one of our landlady's 8 satellite recievers,
and they flutter back into their little house
not understanding the transience of their existance
yet just getting by
by snatching up the scraps from my sandwich

Fes is trying to become a toursit city, attempting to modernize while retaining its medival charm in the old city. Fes's modern ambitions and its historic traditions are clashing and leaving half of the city, the ville nouvelle, with a personality disorder, it doesnt know if it is conservative or liberal, new or old, or coming or going, this half of the city seems to be in its confused adolecent stage, unable to moadernize without money, and unable to make money without tourists and unable to attract tourists without its history, its hasnt figured out how to modernize without comprimising its history. The geography lover in me sees fes as a living, growing, developing entity without a plan, or maybe thats me. Hopefully, as I experience, and explore Fes and morocco, the part of me that is me and the part of me that sees fes will figure out how to grow up, and have a personality and future that can flourish.