This week marked the start of our Independent Research Time, where we have three weeks to research any topic with the ultimate goal of writing a 20 to 40 page paper. They encourage us to really leave the nest and not stay with our host families, so I moved out of my host family’s house and into an apartment in the medina with five other girls. We have literally no obligations during these three weeks, which means we have a lot of time to do fun things. So this is going to be a post heavy on stories. I’ve decided I will tell one for each day, just to space it out.
Monday: This marked the real start of my ISP research. I’m studying homosexuality and gay organizations in Morocco, and on Monday, someone came to my house to be interviewed. For confidentiality, I didn’t feel like I could have a translator, and my interview subject only really spoke Arabic. Which meant I conducted an interview entirely in Arabic. I would say I understood about 60% of it, which I am taking as a big win.
Tuesday: Don Giovanni, the Mozart opera, was being put on at the national theatre in Rabat, and as one of my roommates is a music major, and another friend takes her name from the opera, we decided to go. It was only my second time at the opera, and I actually really enjoyed ¾ of it. The middle ¼ (beginning of the second act) kind of dragged, I’m not going to lie to you. But my story here has nothing to do with the opera. Rather, it has to do with what happened before the curtain even rose.
Pre-Opera selfie
I decided to find the bathroom, as I normally do before long performances. The National Theatre in Morocco is gorgeous and very fancy. I’m sure there are very nice bathrooms in it, but due to a language barrier, I think we may have been led to the less nice ones. Not that the bathroom was dirty, but none of the doors locked, which I found strange. I figured it wouldn’t be a problem, but me being me, someone opened the door while I was in the bathroom.
At this point in the story, you’re probably like, Bella please no one wants to hear this. BUT YOU DO. You see, the woman opening the door was wearing a beautiful, and fancy, white dress. After I left, embarrassed, I noticed she was standing close to the backstage of the theatre. And when the performance started, I saw that white dress again and realized that this woman was playing Donna Anna in the opera.
So yeah. An opera diva opened the door to my bathroom stall. How was your Tuesday?
Wednesday: This story is slightly less fun. Some friends and I decided to go back to the rural village that we had spent a week in about a month ago. I saw it as a good opportunity to see my host family again, and a nice break from city life, which I felt like I needed. And one great thing about Morocco is that you can get cabs to basically anywhere. But when I say cabs, I mean a gran taxi, which has five other passengers plus a driver. However, it was less than ten dollars for over three hours of driving, so I can’t complain.
Anyway, we had to take a cab from Rabat to Khmisett, and then we were meeting some friends to go from Khmisett to Oulmes. As we were all standing in Khmisett, a man came up and put his arm around my friend. All of us were on the phones with our host families, so we tried to just ignore the man. Then he went around, trying to shake people’s hands, before putting his arm around my friend again.
At this point, Italian Bella came out and pushed the man away while swatting his arm and yelling. I’ve always found that making a scene is a fairly effective way to deal with situations such as this. I even yelled at the man in Arabic!
That last part ended up not being so great, because while I thought I was yelling “Leave! Leave!” in the command form, I actually ended up yelling “He left! He left!” Which I’m sure confused not only the man, but everyone around us.
The village was so beautiful it was worth any weirdness in the travel
Thursday: I ate sheep intestines.
Friday: I finally got sick in Morocco (possibly from the sheep intestines). I would tell you more on that story but it’s a little gross.
Again, doesn’t matter. The village was beautiful.
Saturday: I don’t actually have a funny story from Saturday because I spent most of the day researching and playing Doge 2048, only one of which was a good use of my time.
Sunday: We intended to have a fun brunch for Easter, but I got an email at 10:30 from the person I had interviewed on Monday telling me that I could interview their friend at 11. So instead of brunch I dashed out to this person’s house and had a three-hour interview with them and their friend. See! I’m working*!
*Actually only an hour of this was an interview, and I spent the other two just talking to them because they were both incredibly interesting people. But still. I am kind of working!
Women Laughing Alone 