everybody's working for the weekend

I've been up to a fair amount in the last few days, but I'll at least touch on the highlights before I go to bed exhausted (which will also be explained).

1) Thursday night, three of us went out to Cinema Rif in the Medina to see the Moroccan film Argana, which was entirely in Darija, with somewhat worthless French subtitles (I wasn't wearing my glasses, and can't read and listen at the same time anyhow).  The movie was mostly based around a young man coming back to his village in the mountains of Morocco to discover that it's being financially oppressed in a neo-colonial empire headed by the man who appeared to be both the plastic-junk salesman at a roadside both as well as the mayor.  Anyhow, to get back at him, this man starts a labor organized production of Argan oil (a nut oil from the Rif), and, although he looses his leg, ends up righting the ills of the town.  Hurrah!  Also, the villain's henchman drank a lot and smoked a lot of marijuana, in a sort of Bill and Ted's comedic break style.  The best part of the film however was this creepy old woman who would periodically look intensely at the camera, and then say cryptic things about the weather.

2)  Yesterday, I ran out of my program money.  For the first time this whole trip, the US taxpayer was not paying for what I was doing, and I had to go to an ATM.  Naturally, I manage to pick the one ATM in the entire city that is entirely in Arabic.  So, going into this endeavor, I have these worries about the many warnings we received about how Moroccan ATMs will always eat your card, and yadda yadda yadda.  I would like to say that I successfully navigated this financial transaction in Arabic.

3)  I accidently bought a souvenir for someone yesterday, because I was looking at it in a store, and the owner came and out of curiosity I asked him how much it costed.  He told me 100 dirham (7 dirham is a dollar).  I didn't have immense interest in it, but thought I'd try out my bargaining skills, as I needed to hone them a little, so I started ridiculously low (30 dirham), and he scoffed, went to 85, and I said thanks but no thanks, and left.  As I was walking back down the street later, he pulled me inside and said that now, it's 60.  I said I was still fine, and made to leave again.  50.  I retold him 30.  He gave me 35.  At this point, I decided I kind of needy to get it was I was haggling over about 80 cents for what was actually a fairly nice object that was being given to me for $5.  So, someone now has a present.  Congrats.

4)  Today, Emily, Matt, Ariel and I went to Asilah, which is a small, former-Portuguese port town (by this, I mean that they founded in the 1600s, and kept control over it for about 20 years, so it's pretty much all Moroccan construction and history) on the Atlantic that's about 40 kilometers away.  We grabbed a taxi from here down there after some haggling, and had the guy take us to this famous beach there.  What we didn't know is that this beach was outside of town along a dirt road that began by winding through farmland, and ended up being a one-lane rocky road with a sheer cliff drop on one-side into the ocean.  Needless to say the beach was beautiful, and we spent most of our day there.  It even had the stereotypical Arab-world image of camels on the beach, and while I did not ride a camel, I do now have camel pictures.

After the beach, we grabbed a cab (surprisingly, and serendipitously, one can get a cab from this middle of nowhere beach) back to Asilah, which might be my favorite town in Morocco yet.  It's pretty small, but the entire town is gorgeous.  It prides itself on its arts festival every year, so the town is kept very clean, with white-washed and blue painted buildings along a sandstone rampart into the ocean.  Then, the town is also filled with murals from these festivals that just appear on random buildings.  After walking through Asilah, we had a delicious Spanish paella dinner, then grabbed a cab ride back.  And as I write this, I am borderline asleep, so photos will come tomorrow, as my computer is being kind of whiny about it.  That said, they are beautiful.  Get excited.