By ahblackwell
Two weeks ago I packed up my bags and said goodbye to my host family and move out... and into an apartment only a few blocks away with five of my best friends in my program. All SIT programs end with a month of working on an independent study, and during the independent study time - deemed, “ISP time” - SIT recommends that students do not live in the comfort of their homestays, but that they spend their independent studies living on their own. Several of my friends and I decided to stay in Rabat to work on our research, and with the help of a Moroccan friend, we found a beautiful flat in the old medina that we decided to rent. Our flat is on the first floor of a medina house that has been renovated into a separate apartment with traditional Andalusian carvings and tiles on the ceiling and the walls. It is complete with a wide-open courtyard that stretches, roofless, to the sky. We have two bedrooms (ringed with traditional Moroccan wall-couches that act as beds), a bathroom with a real shower and hot water, and a kitchen that has a stove, a huge sink, a refrigerator, and beautiful stained-glass windows that let in the sun and the sounds of children playing “football” on our street. Our upstairs neighbors can be heard when they do laundry or watch late-night Moroccan television, but otherwise the space is incredibly private and cozy.
So far, my ISP time has consisted of a lot of cooking and watching movies, with some interviews and writing in between. Every morning we wake up early and make ourselves breakfast. After a few solid hours of working on our research, we make lunch and then settle back down for interviews and more research and writing. Our evenings have been filled with making elaborate meals from scratch, eating them while sitting on the floor of our kitchen (we only have two chairs and six people), and then watching various feel-good movies until we fall asleep on our claimed couches. Cooking has been one of the best parts of living on my own, in Morocco. But food shopping in the souk is by far the best part - other than living with five really great friends, that is.
Bokroune, the street that houses the major vegetable souk for the Rabat medina, is an extremely short walk from our house. We go there to buy fresh vegetables and ingredients for our meals almost every day. A bulging bag filled with carrots, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, cabbage, green and red peppers, and avocados is less than half the price that volume of vegetables would be at any supermarket in the U.S., and it is fresher and much more satisfying of a purchase. Pushing past dozens of other shoppers - medina moms in their jellabas with babies secured to their back, old men on bicycles, and young teenagers sent to pick up tomatoes for the tagine - we approach the vendor with the best looking produce, pile on as much as will fit into a plastic tub that the vendor owner then weights on a scale, tossing on a few more veggies to make it even, and hands back to us for a mere 20 Dirham. On the same street, we can pick up ricotta-type cheese that we refer to as “medina cheese” that tastes as though it came out of a goat about ten minutes before we bought it, fresh rounds of whole-wheat khubs, or thick handmade bread, and even chicken or fish. Today, Julia and I went to Bokroune to do our weekly Sunday grocery shopping, and we stopped to get some chicken. After indicating that we wanted a chicken that was already dead and relieved of its feathers, instead of the live white hens chirping in a cage around his feet, the vendor owner hacked a whole chicken into several pieces with a cleaver, removed the throat and other grotesque inside parts, and wrapped the meat in a plastic bag. After he handed a few soggy and stained bills back to us with a hand covered in chicken blood, the man said, “B’sahaa,” - “to your health” - and we went on our way. Before heading back to our house, we grabbed some tissues and toilet paper, which were the same price as our bulging bag of vegetables.
Our incredibly fresh and cheap ingredients have led to a lot of experimental cooking and intricate meals: Chocolate chip banana or banana ricotta pancakes with homemade peach and honey syrup, baguette french toast with homemade strawberry syrup, egg scramble with peppers and onions and cumin, chili with squash and lentils and chick peas and parsnip and carrots, spinach goat cheese and strawberry salad, hamburgers with caramelized onions and sauteed spinach on a sweet sesame bun, cole slaw, watermelon and mint salad, sweet and sour meatballs with cabbage, stir fry with lemon chicken, macaroni and cheese, and skillet chocolate chip cookies - all made from scratch. Alhamdulillah!
With only two weeks left in Morocco, I am beginning to look forward to returning back to the conveniences of the States. However, several things I am already sad about leaving are the accessible and fresh vegetables and fruits and foods that I get to choose from every day while living in the old medina. And, of course, I will miss cooking and eating on the kitchen floor with my five great roommates.