Exploring Medina AlKhadima for the first time

Genevieve Grant
Jul 1, 2016
3 min read

Since it's Ramadan right now and will be for the next week and a half, after settling in at my host family, getting to know them a bit, and giving them the gifts I had brought, I thought I might go explore the neighborhood before the sun went down. (Pro tip - hat's for the men of the house! I brought Seattle Seahawks caps for my host brother and father and they loved them! The smoked salmon, not so much... but to be fair, I agree.)

When I asked if it would be okay for me to go out and explore before sundown and iftour, my host mother said yes, so I went to my room to grab my purse so that I could head out. When I got out of my room, she was waiting with my host brother Mohammad, who had been driving when they picked me up from the school.

"Mohammad is going to go with you." Now, I have to admit. My instinct was that this was unnecessary and perhaps a little bit sexist, but I went along with it because what was I going to do? Get into an argument about feminism and independence with my host mom?! Not appropriate and definitely not advisable, especially an hour after I met the family.

About five feet outside of the apartment door, I was thanking God, Allah, and all the other deities for my host mom's suggestion that Mohammad come with me, for a whole host of different reasons (pun intended).

First of all, though I didn't fully understand this at the time, having a man, especially a Moroccan man, accompany you makes things a lot simpler, a lot more comfortable, and a lot more fun for women on the streets of Rabat. Instead of getting looked at for being a white girl alone, or being a white girl with another white girl, or a white girl with a black boy, I was with a Moroccan man. Granted, we still got looks. Just not so...intense of them. And not nearly as many.

Secondly, I had absolutely no idea where we were going. Not even a single clue where I was. Prior to this first outing, I could have told you where the Casbah is, where the ocean is, and where the main road that leads to the apartment is. But the Medina is full of winding, tiny, on foot roads that are completely un-navigatable to the untrained eye. Hopefully my eye will get a lot more trained by the end of the trip.

Third, my host brother Mohammad was a goddamn riot. He had a lot to say about Morocco, and all of it was interesting if not downright hilarious. The funniest joke I would hear the whole trip was told to me by Mohammad three hours into my time with my host family.

Upon seeing a sign for what I would come to know as the biggest Petrol station chain in northern Africa, OilLibya, I laughed, partially because it sounded like a pun on the name Olivia, or the arab-ized version I had heard, Olibbia. My host brother thought it was funny for an entirely different reason: "That's funny, yes? Oil, yes. Libya, not so much." I just about died right there on the sidewalk.

After that, we headed back to the apartment for f'tour ("breakfast" or in this case, "breaking fast").

Here's some pictures from that very first walk.

The spit I would end being one of my favorite spots to just relax at, with fellow students. First, the view of the Medina from on the spit, then the view of the spit from the Medina just before sunset.