Ruth and the Very Dead Chicken

So Thursday we went to the souk, which was immense - the pictures below don't even begin to describe the noise, the smell, the crowd, the colors, the intensity of it all. And in a couple of weeks we're going to be expected to be able to go to the souk, pick the best vegetables, and bargain for them - in darija. Ouf. I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

We had to go to our hub site Friday morning for the second of three rabies shots - a very interesting ride on the way there. Our teacher arranged for a grand-taxi to take - grand-taxis are white Mercedes, in which 6-7 people CRAM to go from point A to point B. So, we had 4 in the back, 2 in the passenger seat and the driver . We're all much more comfortable with each other now. We set off driving the 30km to hub, and about 12km away, the grand-taxi ran out of gas - in the middle of nowhere, 6 of us in one car, not going anywhere. So what do you do when this happens? Start pushing. That's right - we all pushed the car up this massive hill. Oh and we're at about 6000 ft where we are, so it was super hard work! Luckily for us, we were at a point where the rest of the road was downhill in to the hub site - so we coasted the remaining 12km in the car, with no gas! And impressively we were still on time for hub. Upon relaying this story to our host families, the general consensus was - oh well, that's Morocco! Oh, and our teacher, who had gotten in a separate grand-taxi to get to hub, passed us on the way, and apparently our taxi driver told him that we had stopped to take pictures and that we were fine - so he waved as he passed us by! Seems there are definitely going to be situations when you have to laugh otherwise you'll cry!

We have class on Saturday morning, just until noon - which is for language review, so basically one-on-one time with the teacher to assess where we are with the week's learning. I was told that my pronunciation is perfect! I'm a proud student right now. Until next week when I have to learn something new, and I forget everything I know.

In a moment, we're going to go and get a chicken - yes, a LIVE chicken, and kill it for lunch. More on that after the fact. Talk about fresh.

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Chicken is dead and in the pot. Pretty interesting - but there was no way I was going near that. It did run around for a while afterwards - that was awkward. There's some lovely pictures of our teacher holding a chicken head. Then five stray cats swarmed our front garden (where we killed it) looking for the chicken head to play with. They found it quick smart. I don't think I've every had chicken so fresh - about 90 minutes from alive to on the plate. No middle men here! And suprisingly it did not turn me in to a vegetarian!

R./N.