Life As A Basketball Player... A Study of Fleeting Glory

Last night I played an intense, hard won game of basketball. The AUI "Snowqueens" played a home game against the nearby town of Meknes. The score was 14-10.

Now, for those of you who suffered thorough watching me play two and a half seasons of High School Basketball (Roger and Glen: thanks for being my biggest fans), may find it hard to believe that I would ever place a sneaker on a college basketball court. Let alone be on a College Basketball team. Let alone get to play in an actual college game. But let me list some of the fundamental differences between AUI Basketball and Basketball as we know it in America.

Practice is twice a week. Attendance is not exactly mandatory.

I have never spoken directly to my coach. He only speaks French.

At the game last night, there was no clock. A score keeper kept the time, and the score was displayed on paper.

Members of the opposing team wore hijabs. As do some of our team members.

We didn't need to tuck in our jerseys.. because the jerseys didn't come with shorts.

The Boys team is the AUI Wolves. The girls team is the Snowqueens. The school mascot is the Lions. I think.

Fouls were not reported, and rarely called. I discovered the effectiveness of a well-placed elbow.

AND.. wait for it.. THE BEST PART:

At the boys game, which was after ours, they needed a ref. Out of the crowd, they picked my good friend to referee. He has never reefed a game, or even played the sport. He also may have consumed a substantial amount of alcohol beforehand.

Ah.. Good old B-Ball. Even if things are "different" here, I still enjoy myself in the sport. I would also like to thank Coach Vic for patiently teaching me to dribble, shoot, and play defense. I never thought it would come in handy here!

AUI... In Reality

In the past six months, I have encountered almost every stereotype about Morocco there is. I have also recently been amused by the Facebook craze of "in reality" posts that are popping up. So, for your pleasure and to minimize your reading time, I present to you my life at Al Akhawayn University.. In Reality. 

STUDYING IN MOROCCO

Where Tourists Think I live

Where Ignorant People Think I Live

Where Children Think I live

Where The Food Network Thinks I Live

Where I Actually Live

Photos From Agadir

The 6th of this month was a holiday, the Eid Al-Mawlid or the Prophet Mohammed's Birthday. We spent it in Agadir, a beach town in the south of Morocco. Here are some photos (only a few of which I took). 

Talkin' Fashion

Hijab /hijab/

Noun:

1) A head covering worn in public by some Muslim women

2) A religious code the governs the wearing of such clothing

My friend recently began to wear the Hijab. It was an extremely personal decision, one that she put much thought and prayer into. Talking to her about her choice, I was confronted with the many misconceptions people have about the veil. So on this lovely Friday afternoon, I will blog the following:

Myths about the Hijab:

It is forced upon women.

            Never, not once, have I met a hijabed women who said her parents/father forced her to wear the veil. I have talked to Kamal, the father of a nine-year-old girl. He stated he would never force his daughter to veil. He was much more concerned with her upbringing than with what she would wear on her head.

The only way to wear the veil is the “traditional” way.

            Here there is a girl here who wears not a scarf, but a beanie cap that she put all her hair into. It is her form of Hijab. My friend I mentioned earlier wears it with her bangs showing.

Wearing a Hijab doesn’t mean a woman is always conservative.

            Just as a girls purity ring doesn’t mean she will save sex until marriage, hijab doesn’t always equal “purity”. My roommate and I were discussing girls that wear Hijab, tight pants and cleavage-bearing tops. I have witnessed girls in Hijbas drinking in clubs.

A Hijab in not a Burka.

            The Hijab is simply the scarf. Although in Morocco you do see women fully covered, with only their eyes showing, that is not technically a hijab. It is much more common to see them with the scarf and conservative western-style clothes, or a scarf and a Jellba.

Ultimately to veil is a personal choice, and really gets far more attention than it deserves. People don't debate about a Christians right to wear a cross or rosemary around their neck. Why should the Hijab be different? For more myths and funny stuff you can watch this video. This girl is adorable and hilarious. 

(almost) Everything I love about America

Homemade Salsa, Ranch Dressing, Burts Bees Chapstick, Alka-Seltzer Cold Plus, The Clintons... 

Thank you to my family!!! I miss you all, and your support means the world to me. 

Lessons of Travel

“…But I must freely confess, that the many virtues of those excellent quadrupeds placed in opposite view in human corruptions, had so far opened mine eyes, and enlarged my understanding…”

            -Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift

Just like Gulliver, I have been on a journey. I have yet to encounter Yahoos, Laputa, or the people of Lilliput, but I have changed my perception of the world. Traveling has transformed how I think about life, and how I view myself. I have complied a (partial) list of things I’ve learned while traveling.

Accept kindness from strangers… With caution of course. In Rome, if it hadn’t been for that guy who claimed to work in “Hard film” I might never have found my hostel. If it hadn’t been for the old man in Sweden who loaned me his phone, I may have waited at the train station for hours. These little kindnesses are huge parts of my travels.

  

   Check your pockets. Make sure you have everything. Keep track of your stuff. This is obvious, but becomes more so when your only access to food, water, and shelter is contained on your person. Traveling gives you a new appreciation for your funds, even if sometimes you are living only on bread and cheese.

   

        Some of the best sites are not in any guidebook. My favorite place in Berlin? A café. My favorite place in Prague? A random street with a perfect view of the Prague Castle. I’ve found the importance of viewing the day-to-day life, and observing the everyday surroundings.  The way people dress, their language, their interactions with each other oftentimes fascinate me far more than “Lots of old stuff’.

       Budget. Then pad your budget. Had it not been for my “backup” funds, (thanks mom!) I would have been in several less-than-desirable situations. I did manage, for the most part, to keep within my budget however.

     

      Trying to learn some words, especially “please” and “thank you” is a good way to meet people,. It’s fun to be able to stay “Tack!” in Sweden or “Danke sehr” in Germany. The well-known “Pog Mo Thoin” (kiss my ass) in Ireland was slightly less useful, but good to know.

       It’s ok to enjoy your own company. In Europe I traveled both alone and with people. Both were great in their own ways, but I met far more people when I was alone. And if I got tired of those people, I had no obligation to hang around them.

I feel these adventures have given me a new appreciation for where I come from and the people around me. I’ve gained a better idea of who I am, and of human nature in general. That’s all for now... Check back soon for weekend photos! 

Friendship

If the phone rang, and you knew it was a good friend. And you knew that friend had done something very, very bad, let's say killed someone. Would you pick up the phone, knowing that it could potentially harm your life forever?
(DISCLAIMER: this is a hypothetical situation. No one is dead.)

I just had the most fabulous chat with a good friend. We made pasta and watched about 5 minutes of Grey's Anatomy (until someone got into a life-threating accident because there was a car-sized hole in the street. Seriously people?).  Then we just chatted. About life, about our friends, about politics, about religion. We laughed at stupid stuff, worried about things we can't change, and compared wardrobes. It was just a thursday night, nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary. But as I walked back to my room through the snow, I realized it WAS something special.

Out of my "casual" friends back home, I feel I have lost many of them in the past few months. People who don't bother to check in, who didn't wish me a Happy Birthday. Living here, I've realized those people are not the ones that matter in my life. They've floated in and out and barely been missed.

But there are a few people who have stuck. Those are the people that, even though they life an ocean away, still matter to me. They leave me messages saying things like "Only the bottled water" and "Go on a safari!".  Those are people that I saw this winter and it was like nothing had changed. Those are people that I haven't seen in ages, and I know that it won't. They keep me updated on their lives, and I genuinely want to know how they are doing. Even though they cannot entirely relate to all the craziness that has gone on in my life in the last six months, they care about it. They care about me. Moving abroad showed me who those people are.

And then there are people I have met here: people from all over the world, people whose lives and backgrounds could not have been different from my own. An Air Force Cadet who is like a prettier version of GI jane, a hippy from Alaska, an All-American/All-Moroccan girl raised in Florida. A Boise State fan from Casablanca, my sweet, ambitious, belly-dancing roommate, my Italian girls who always made sure I told them I was ok. They have changed my life in the smallest ways, and opened my mind to completely new ways of thinking. Moving here showed me how much those people have to offer me, and how many of those people the world has to offer.

Friendship isn't about where you grow up, what color you are, or even what language you speak. It's about knowing who you would pick up that phone for. I've gotten a much better idea of who I would pick up that phone call for. And I would tell them that we will put the body in the pig-pen.