After the roaringly successful weekend, full of colour and excitement, and full of memories ans stories, today arrived with little fanfare, with the alarm going off at 6am, and all of us nodding off during breakfast (which was excellent again, especially being free after a weekend of paying for every meal!).
Rebecca and I, having looked through the day’s vocab which included ‘she died’ and ‘may God rest her soul’ (maybe rather apt), had major lesson-envy of Alice and Charlotte, who had managed to swing doing henna for half of their morning class, and calligraphy for an hour in the afternoon. Getting to read in the tent looked a lot more exciting than reading paragraphs in Al Kitaab textbook! But to give the lessons their due, they did what they were meant to – we were getting some good, solid revision done before moving on tomorrow, and all the time we can feel ourselves getting better. It’s so worth the trip – it’s going great!
Nevertheless, after the first two hours of the afternoon’s long lesson, the boys couldn’t stand it any more. Every one of us was falling asleep in our verbs, and even after a cup of almost foolishly sweet shay, we could easily have napped instead of discussed the fictional Mahmoud’s hobbies in a weekend. So instead of napping behind their sunglasses like James had done for 20 minutes already (if you are still in school and reading this, don’t follow his example. It’s very very bad.), they skived off to see the Shella – ruins of something old, a 25 dirham taxi ride away from the school. You can’t say I don’t give you only the best information.
After surviving our revision class, we retired to a cafe for crepes. Again. And they were delightful after a day of toil! But more about food later…
We went shopping to a shop on that street called Etam with the boys, just to be girly. I’m rather like my dad when it comes to shopping, especially spur-of-the-moment – not usually interested. So I was standing around and mocking with Billy and James about smalls and white lace skirts, whilst the girls found pretty things all over the place. Alice bought a lovely little playsuit, which will look very nice in the bag until we get back to England. The blonde is enough without being that beautiful, thank you very much 😛
I can top off the day with one word – watermelon. On the walk home, we passed a little corner shop, with seven or eight enormous watermelons piled haphazardly outside. Getting excited, Alice and Charlotte went inside to buy one. Choosing the smallest, for one practical moment thinking about having to carry it, we paid (£2 by the way), and Alice heaved it into her arms, and off we pranced. Yes, we got many stares. Well guessed. But this time it wasn’t because we were different. It was just because it was funny. It managed to act as a round green talisman that pushed through the usual judgement and made everyone look at the little odd-but-happy group with affectionate smiles. Once home, we all tucked in, and between about 5 of us, managed to almost get through a sixth of this beast. I’m sticky and worn out, but we have had another great day in a list of many – a total of eight now. The time is going so fast, and I’m determined to squeeze every last drop from the experience. And from the watermelon.
Sweet dreams!
Hannah
I am a final year BA International Relations student at Sussex University, and I'm also studying the Arabic Language Elective Pathway. Alongside this, I am acting as a Student Language Ambassador, in hopes of convincing the world that a language is a beautiful thing :)
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