We woke up this morning to the lovely banging of something under our cabin, but luckily it woke up in time for Global Studies. I guess both Rosario and I were really tired because we both slept through the alarm. Global studies was really interesting. One of the professors, whose name I cannot spell, gave a speech on Islam and women. It was super interesting. Who knew that the Taliban started because people got mad because women were getting raped. So when they came to power, they put women under house arrest so they would be protected. Also, the robes that women wear to cover themselves with were a form of protection from men. She was basically saying that women are coming a long way and that there was a quiet revolution going on with the women of Islam.
After global studies, they showed a documentary called “I Love Hip Hop In Morocco.” It was about the hip hop culture in Morocco and how it is really influencing the youth. It was really cool how the US Embassy in Rabat got money to help put on this music festival to help Moroccan understand the “urban” culture of the US. It is amazing these people speak Arabic, French and some English as well.
We were stopped in the Strait of Gibraltar for quite a while today refueling. We were just hanging out in the middle of the water with land around us. One part was Gibraltar – technically the UK, one part was Spain and we could barely see the coast of Africa off in the distance. The fact that we could see that all at once is pretty incredible.
Later on, I taught Rosario and Jennifer how to play pish-posh before meeting Mackenzie for dinner. She then told me that we leave for our camel trek in the morning. I totally thought that we were leaving the day after tomorrow, but apparently not. After dinner, we finished our card game and headed to our cultural pre-port. Dean Bob gave a quick power point on Morocco. Then Kareem, a work-study student who is Egyptian and a Muslim from NY, gave a informative speech about Islam and Ramadan. We are going to be there while Ramadan is going on (it started on Aug 22.) He said there was no need to cover our heads unless we go into a mosque. Also, we just need to be respectful of eating and not do it in public or broadcast it because some could see that as disrespectful. We also learned that the language of business so all the vendors speak French.