After last night I slept in until 10:30. It seems my host family is way more chill than others. While Katrina had to fight with her family to let her get out (others couldn’t even stay out past curfew – when the sun went down around 8), my family was cool about me staying out late last night. I asked them when they would prefer I return, and they encouraged me to stay late and experience Morocco. Score.
Around 11:30 I had breakfast (as lunch doesn’t normally come until 2). While we were eating, a family friend came over. Welcome Mohamed, the conspiracy theorist. Mohamed was very friendly, and spoke English, but definitely bought into the stereotypical Hollywood stories. When he heard I was from Texas he started talking about how they all are Cowboys replete with hat, whiskey, and bar-fighting. I got him to agree that, the stereotype was more in the past, but then he continued. He told us how McCain would make America worse, and how Obama was better. Fair enough, but he continued. He told us that if Obama gets elected, he will be shot, “Just like Kennedy, bam!” Of course, the ‘reason’ he will be shot is that his dad is Muslim. Apparently, such 'connections' are also the reason Princess Diana was shot. That killed me. We tried to get the point across things weren't that bad, but he wouldn’t have anything contrary. It was pretty depressing.
On a lighter note: Tomatoes on sunburn! Wow, the miracle product from Morocco, Nezha first put some on Kass, who got it the worst of us two, and later myself. After about 10 minutes, it feels just like Aloe Vera, and even got less red.
Unfortunately, I think swimming yesterday gave me swimmers ear. These next couple of days won’t be that fun if it doesn’t go away. An ear infection is the last thing I need, when I can barely even make out the differences in ‘s’ between ‘sah’ and ‘sa’.
I wandered around for a while, and found the local church, which apparently has masses in English, French, and Korean (who knew?). I wandered back to the internet café by Hotel Berlin, where I met Geoffrey and Modolu. I returned at 7 to go to the jazz festival, and along the way, a highschooler tried to sell me hash, and he looked like he had taken a little too many free samples. Hemsa, Kass, Shay, and I met up with their classmates Michael and Caitlin and one of their brothers who led us to Chelah. We took petit taxi’s (the blue mobile’s) to the jazz place, running 10 DH a taxi.
While at the festival I saw Rachel, who was there with her salsa dancing friends, and Naomi and Kristen, who were with their aunt. We entered the festival, which was actually a concert, on the last song of the opening act. They were from England, and this piece was about a spider who lived in their garden. They were my favorite. After them came a French group that opened with a spitballed piece done on the fly. I didn’t like it very much, and the rest of the group felt the entire set the drummer overpowered the songs. The next three songs were pre-made by the band, and they were much better. This group was led by a trumpet player, who actually left for a smoke in the middle of the set. It totally added to the effect, though the guy was pretty snobbish despite. The next two guys to come up were on a mandolin and percussions. The percussion fellow opened by playing a gong with a violin bow, and afterwards moved to bongos, windchimes, a cymbol on a string, and a drumset. They were major talented (Hemsa’s favorites) and definitely had the whole Middle Eastern flare to them. Unfortunately the previous band came out to jam with them. They started off pretty good, so long as they stayed with the mandolin player’s beat, but then the trumpet guy tried to lead, and it just sounded like noise. We left as the beats slowed down, and walked downhill back to the house for “macaroni and cheese” (by that I mean pasta with grated cheese on top) to receive a well deserved rest.
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