I have begun to experience my life in tweet form, and it makes blogging feel a tad impossible. I end up with a few dozen stories that I’d like to share, each in 140 characters or less. Forgive me if this lack of focus is evident.
As my final project for the course I am taking here, I have been working on a short film for a development project. Today we got the last of our footage. Mostly. We still need little bits of “Around Fes” stuff, but we’re basically ready to start editing, which is great. We celebrated with delicious food and a shopping excursion whose all-around success is owed less to what we purchased, but the general excellence of the man we bought from. We spent around a half an hour in this shop, and I would have happily stayed longer if not for the fact that we have actual things to do.
It was an awesome day — it’s insane how much ground we covered. As a result, I have this whole, “OH MY GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE WE LEAVE IN A WEEK,” thing going on. Yesterday was probably the worst day I’ve had here, which, naturally, left me all, “HOLY CRAP CAN I LEAVE NOW KTHNXBYE.”
Aside from the occasional Pervy McDouchemeister cat-calling, people have been so incredibly kind to us. Today, for example, we were trying to get into a building to film and a meeting in-progress was stopped to (1) track down the man with the key -and- (2) spend thirty minutes talking to us and being interviewed. This kind of thing has been commonplace for us here. I’m going to miss that.
Even the sexual harassment gets bonus points for its formality; the other day it came in the form of, “I would like to have relations with you.” I regret, kind sir, that no such relations shall ever transpire and I must bid you adieu.
How am I supposed to go back to not being called beautiful every few steps? Or being called a Spice Girl? We hear it countless times throughout the day and it still makes me laugh. It’s such an odd cultural reference point, but so very fitting. Our little film team has this whole mini-UN thing going on: we have an American, a French girl, and a girl from Syria and Algeria.
Needless to say, my strictly-anglophone self can’t do a lot more than hold the camera (and edit! I get to be useful now!) but I have been having a blast filming things I don’t actually comprehend. Aside from how friendly everyone has been, I’ve learned a lot, and I’m excited to start sifting through the footage we have. I’ve never done anything like this, and as much as I have already learned about what to do/what not to do, I suspect seeing what we have produced so far will be that much more of a learning experience.
(Gratitude Sidebar: a former student of this class who is wrapping up a year-long Fulbright grant here in Fes to create a documentary on the water system here has been graciously giving up his downtime to help us and has been largely responsible for the learn-as-we-go moments we’ve had so far. Not that he’ll see this, but thank you, Joe!)
Anyway, this has been a kick-ass experience and I’m bummed that it’s so short (because it’s a good day; ask me again if I have another shit day. Actually, no, don’t, because I’d rather not turn into an ungrateful little shit because I had bad day.) Last night we went to a few different locations to check out Fes Festival performances. I’ve been loving the chilled out atmosphere almost as much as the music itself. At one of last night’s performances I was sitting on a carpet on the floor approximately six feet away from Björk. NBD.
In short, Twitter-ified form: I’m in Morocco. The people are amazing and the food is delicious. I’m learning a lot and having an epic time. Life is good.
(and I had 17 characters to spare.)
Obligatory cat photo