You know that moment when you’ve been lounging on the beach all day, confident in the powers of your factor 50 Soltan, and you wake up from a delightfully warm and sunny nap during which you dried out from your recent refreshing swim in the sea, you turn to your friend, a contented smile gracing your lips, and she says “ooh your face looks a bit red Hannah. Maybe you’re just too hot?” Please tell me I’m not the only one that really hates that moment. The mood swiftly turns from thinking you’ve been the picture of beach beauty, to realising that you’ve been more the picture of a beached lobster. This conviction is later solidified when looking in the mirror jist before tumbling into the inevitable cold shower, where the removal of beach-attire reveals the full damage of the day. It’s a good job there’s nobody in Morocco that I want to be attractive to.
Our trip to the beach today though, in all other respects, was the best yet, being the first day of Ramadan here in Morocco. As I write, most families are making their ways to restaurants across the city to eat after Day One of the fast. A good side-effect of this for us today was that the beach was practically empty! Since the people observing Ramadan can’t even drink water during daylight hours, most of them very sensibly avoid too much sun. Result? Only one creepy man paying any negative attention to us all day! Alice and Charlotte have just gone out for dinner to sample Night One of Ramadan, which by all accounts is like going out on Christmas Eve. They have been commissioned to take many pictures and return with suitably splendid reports of what it’s all like. I’ll make sure I report back tomorrow for you all – there’s no way I could let you miss this chapter of incredible experience! Having said that, Rebecca and I are slumming on the sofas at the moment, opting to recover from our Day of Doing Nothing. It’s a hard life.
But, once again, it was so nice to just unwind and prepare for our last 4 days here (can we believe it?!). It feels so weird to think that this time in just 5 days I’ll be sleeping in my little bed back in Moulsecoomb, safe and snug, at the end of such a great adventure. I’ve learned and seen so many things, even beyond what I can put into words to share with you all. But there is still plenty of time to build ever-more of this cheesily “unforgettable” trip.
Please forgive the shortness of this entry – I’m late for an appointment with my aftersun.
More tomorrow!

Hannah

About Aimee Hannah Mccallum

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 :)