My Dead Phone.

Yes, my phone is dead. There is no way around it.

On Friday night, I awoke at 4:30am in a panic. I heard someone knocking on my door, which never ends to scare me, even during the daylight hours. First, I am afraid of the dark and second I live alone meaning that any knocking which happens involves me getting enough courage to get out of my bed and ask who it is. Thankfully my friend Aiesha started yelling "Cara, Cara, nkr nkr, tga Aiesha." (Cara, Cara, get up, get up, its Aiesha). So I went to the door and her and two other ladies were standing there in the dark asking me about the power.

My electricity has been going off and on for the past few days and it just so happened that the women woke up early to cook bread but the power was out.

After they asked a bunch of questions and I finally shooed them away, I went to the bathroom. After finishing my business, my source of light in my dark house, my phone, fell into the bit-lma (bathroom) hole. Since I didn't want to stick my hand into a bit-lma hole blindly, I went and found a candle but in the meantime my phone has completely submersed itself in the hole that was full of pee and water and God only knows what else.

Remembering the tricks I learned after dropping my phone in many pitchers/ glasses of beer, I immediately took my phone and put it in a bag of rice, hoping to suck the moisture out but after two days in the bag, I had to pronounce the phone dead.



The Moroccan women were not content with my American methods so they proceeded to rub hair product on it, throw it around and spray it with something, all with no luck. After I had stumped the women, we took the phone to the town phone "repair" man, but he was stumped to. At this point, we all agreed that my phone was lost.

This phone has been quite a trooper for me, surviving many falls and brushes with death in Morocco as well as putting up with my Mom for the few years before I got it. I am sad to see it go.

Now that I am phone-less, people have started to take pity on me. I am currently in the process of negotiating a new phone in exchange for some old clothes with a women in the village. I am hoping that comes through, at least for the time being.

For now, I sit in my house with no internet and no phone, hopeful that we don't have to consolidate with all of the uproar in Egypt since I will have no way of knowing! Thankfully, Sami and Dave have offered to contact my counterpart to relay the message to me and I can see it now.

Knock on the door. Some Moroccan child outside.
"Cara, someone called and said you have to leave"
"Where do I have to go?"
"I don't know, maybe Agadir or Tiznit."
Then my immediate reaction into panic.

Lets just hope this doesn't happen.

I am hoping to get a phone soon but if it doesn't happen, know friends that my lack of response is not due to my ignoring you, its due to the fact that the Moroccan toilet ate my phone.

Total score:
Moroccan toilet: 1
Cara's phone: 0

Weddings.

Rain, rain go away is about all I can think about these days. We have been super spoiled up until now about with the sunshine and warm weather in the south of Morocco. Unfortunatly (or maybe fortunatley) the rains have begun and the temperature has dropped. I had to wear a coat outside yesterday, crazy I know. I suppose I can complain about how the rain seeps into my house, makes a lot of noise on my dorito bag roof (aka covered in plastic and sounds like a dorito bag) and prevents me from wearing sandals but it is also quite required for the greenery that I am hoping to see this spring. The rain brings plants and we can definetly use some more of those in the desert landscape of rocks and cacti that surround me.

In the midst of the rain, we had a wedding party!

There are a few things about weddings that never cease to amuse me. I have posted on weddings before (the traditions and culture) so I won't bore you with those details again.

Things that never cease to amuse me at weddings:

1. How many people attend (and fit) inside of the "venue" aka house of a family member. There were easily 75 women that ate dinner, another 50 or so men. When it came to "dancing" time, there were easily 300 people on the roof of this tiny house. Since Moroccans have little to no concept of personal space, sitting on top of each other on the ground is no issue. This is a little harder for the American who doesn't like to be touched but I usually just try and sit near the outside, yesterday though I was unsuccessful.

2. The seperation between men and women (including the bride and groom). The bride and groom look like they can't stand to be in the same room as each other and spend exactly zero minutes talking, flirting or acting in love. The seperation also bleeds into the rest of the population. Men eat somewhere different than women and only the young boys are allowed to cross over the unmarked barrier seperating men and women. When it comes time for the dancing, all men and women gather together and form something that looks like a middle school dance. Women all together on one side, joking, laughing and having fun, men on the outer edge looking sad that no girls will talk to them. Yesterday I made the mistake of accidentally sitting and facing the men instead of the wall and I was quickly corrected by the 200+ women sitting around me.

3. The definition of beauty. I am well aware of the definition of beauty and how it differs from culture to culture but Berber beauty, I haven't caught onto yet. Here's the best picture I can paint of a Berber bride. A woman, dressed in a long white bag, belted with a rope at her waist. Her face is covered in white powder, to make her look as "white" as possible, her lips are in the darkest color of red/ maroon lipstick available and her eyes are completely covered in a heavly lined with black pencil. Her head is covered with many layers of decorations including horns, rows of coins and ribbons. Her neck contains about 7-8 huge neclaces with other assorted decorations. Her arms are adorned with bangles from the wrist to the elbow. The whole outfit is put together with a large white scarf covering her whole upper part of her body, including her face. It is quite a sight but frankly, the women love it and the men act as though they have never seen anything so beautiful.

4. The throwing of perfume on everyone. After the eating is done, the treats are given out and the dancing is about to begin, the entire crowd is doused in perfume. Its as though a tidal wave of perfume runs over the crowd. They take large bottle filled with cheap perfume and wave it over the crowd, much like the priest in a Catholic church does with the holy water. Every person, men included, leave covered in a potent perfume smell that lasts weeks after you leave. My hair still smells like it, even though I washed it out last night.

5. How many people can fit around one table. Moroccans eat by sitting around a tiny floor height table where all of the people either sit on the floor or on pillows, cramming as many people around as possible. Yesterday, I ate at a table with 14 other women, around one tiny table, with one tajine. Sometimes I long for the days of individual chairs around a table.

6. The "rock star" status I get. This is one that is both flattering and annoying at the same time. Despite that I have lived in this village for 9 months and know EVERYONE in it, whenever I walk into a room the people look at me like I am ET entering the house or some rock-star celebrity they all know. It is a strange feeling to have every single person in a room of 300 people looking at you at one time. This rockstar status is cool because it means they don't hate me, but is also crazy because Mrooccans stare with little to no concept of the "rudness" involved. Maybe after year 2, they will stop staring but somehow I doubt it.

I need some Kool-Aid and some Red Hot Riplets.

As a tribute to Nelly's song "Red Hot Riplets" I too feel like I need these things right now.

The good news is that I have booked my flight home, will get vacation approval in Tiznit this week and be back to America in no time.

Thankfully, due to some accrued vacation days and good timing, I will get to be home nearly the entire month of May. There are FAR too many things I am looking forward too and too many people I am looking forward to seeing!

It should be an epic month and as my mom reminded me today, less than 100 days until my American mid-service much needed break.

For now I will go back to festival working and LSAT studying, while trying intently to focus on anything but the excitement of going home!

Life. Unscripted.

Here a few life updates, for those interested.

- It started raining and now its cold. Its not "cold" like snowing cold, but its pretty chilly. My poor house lacks any insulation at all so yesterday to get out of the rain and cold I turned my room into a fortress moving everything in there, including my heater and oven to try and warm up the room. It was pretty successful.

-I have discovered that I am basically in love with all things Leonardo DiCaprio. I have a bunch of his movies and watch them on repeat. Just another facet of my nerdy side.

-I booked my ticket home in May. I will be home almost the entire months. Hilights will include Mother's day, Claire's graduation, Claire's graduation party, some visits from long lost and greatly missed friends, a trip to Chicago, a few golf outings and lots of domestic beer.

-LSAT studying is going well and despite my denial, I am not going to score in the 98% tile but I think I will do well either way.

-There is a big festival in Tiznit this weekend, the first one in Tiznit I have been too. I am here setting up now and looking forward to seeing a lot of friends that I haven't seen since the last festival. The women I meet are just awesome and I can't wait to see them again.

-Eureka (on the Sci Fi channel) has to be one of my favorite shows of all time. If you haven't seen it, google it. Its awesome.

-We hosted a co-op from Layooune today, they were cool and had me talk to some relative that speaks English. It was cool to hear about what life is like in Layooune especially since the police were shot.

-I leave for London in 2 weeks. Crazy I know but I am REALLY looking forward to it.

That is all for now!

Its party time.

I haven't really posted about life post-Madrid mostly because nothing exciting is happening, until yesterday. I have been LSAT prepping most hours of the day, spending the rest of the hours watching TV shows and cooking. After about six straight days of being chained to my desk, I left Tiznit and headed home. When I got home there was a party.

The co-op decided to host a dress up/ fashion show/ dance party next door. We made amalou, henned our hands and danced to Pitbull. Yes, Moroccan women danced to pitbull.

Here is some proof of the party!