Caitlyn's Volunteer Trip to Morocco! : Cultural Expedition

Timing is everything. When I signed up for this volunteer program I had to give the earliest date I would be available to start. I said November 15^th only because that seemed like a feasible date to get everything done by. As luck would have it, that was also at the beginning of UBELONG’s Cultural Expedition in Rabat. The premise of the Expedition was to take people on short-term intensive cultural immersion and volunteer work. UBELONG just happen to be doing one of their trips in Morocco when I was starting. They invited me to participate in the weeklong venture where we would be focusing on the “Arab World; Outside The Headlines”. In other words, what was the real Morocco like? Its people, culture, history, beliefs, food and the countries current challenges were all topics we discussed with local professionals and students.

I had to pay this guy to take the photo so I'm posting it!

"What's that off in the distance? It's cultural learning!"

During the week volunteers work in one of the local NGO’s as well as participate in painting a school. I was assigned to work in the childcare program for the week with horde of 3-6 year olds. It was a lot of fun to play and teach the kids but also incredibly tiring after just one week. Major respect to teachers, especially those who teach the little ~~buggers~~ kids.

They're little and get distracted easily

"I know I'm pretty. Let's try this again. 1.2.3.4.5."

Painting the school was one of the highlights of the week. The kids who school we painted stayed after to hangout and help us paint. When we were done with the first round of painting we had an importune dance party and bonded over a random American pop songs (man do they love the Bieber).

Bees?

The part that really touched me was that when the work was done and the dancing stopped, the community had come out and brought us a feast of snacks and tea. That kind gesture of support made this whole trip even sweeter.

We really like our snacks

The kids and UBELONG at the school

After a week of volunteering, painting, cooking class, meeting new people and discovering Rabat we headed off to Marrakesh for the weekend.

Making a traditional Tagine in our cooking class

Family dinner at our Ryad

Marrakesh is a popular tourist destination as it hosts a very large market place for all kinds of goodies and trinkets (you might have seen the market on a recent episode of Amazing Race). We went on a walking tour of the city to see the gardens Jardin Majorelle and the old University.

I want this in my backyard

These were the dorms for the smart kids

It was all very cool, however I was not. It was over 70 degrees there and I was missing a Minnesota winter as I sweat through my long sleeved clothes. Six miles of walking in what I consider extreme heat (I can see my mentor and tour group rolling their eyes at me while reading this) later we ended up at the traditional Moroccan Hammam (aka bathhouse).

And now a step-by-step process with commentary on a Hammam bathhouse:

- Change into a swimsuit and robe in a small locker room. I feel like I’m back in gym class and everyone is trying to change while avoiding eye contact.

- Walk into a small enclosed steam room with benches, buckets, a tub of murky water, and two woman dressed and ready to undress you. God it’s hot in here!

- Take off swimsuit top and rinse in the shower that magically appears from the celling in the middle of the room. Yup, these are my boobs.

- Sit on hot bench. At least I got to keep my bottoms. When was the last time this place was cleaned?

- Woman comes over and covers you head to toe in good smelling soap. This kind of looks like slime and feels like slime, but does it taste like slime?

- Sit and wait for the rest of your group to be covered in ~~slime~~ soap. Still trying to avoid eye contact. I think I’ll just cross my arms over my chest.

- Rinse in the middle of the room. How can you not stare at someone as they are being forced into a shower two feet away from you?

- Lay face down on the bench. Hey now at least my boobs are covered. And yes that is cellulite – everyone has it!

- Get scrubbed down by woman with a loofah and soap. Seriously this is a brillo pad on steroids!

- Flip over and get scrubbed on the other side. And back to everyone seeing my boobs. Hey that tickles!

- Rinse off again. I think I’m missing at least three layers of skin.

- Sit back down on bench and wait for your friends to go through the same. Haha suckers, told you that does tickles!

- Woman comes and dumbs oil on head and washes it. Well at least this smells good.

- Woman dumbs buckets of water on head. I hope I look like those Herbal Essence commercials when they do this to me.

- Rinse again. Don’t open the door when I’m half naked!

- Put top back on and sit on bench. Man it’s hot. How long do we stay in here?

- Put feet in bucket of rose petals and flowers. I feel like a water nymph. Or more likely I am being prepared as a human sacrifice.

- One final rinse and dress in robe. Well that was fun. So sad it’s over.

- Get escorted to a room of lounge chairs. Guess it’s not over.

- Sit and drink mint tea. God I love this tea!

- Another woman comes and puts cucumber slices on eyes and cold cloth over it. They actually do this in real life!

- Another woman comes over and rubs feet. Now I feel like a movie star getting pampered because I’m so pretty.

- Go up stairs to a private room. Bye friends.

- Lie down on massage table. Alright, I could get used to this.

- 1 hour and a full body massage later. My snoring woke me up…

- Get escorted back to the small changing room. I’m floating.

- Get dressed. I don’t even care that everyone has seen me mostly naked anymore. I feel like a cloud.

Obviously I did not get a photo of this experience but here is something I found on Google that looks similar.

Welcome to your spa dreams full of slime and nakedness

Well what is there to say after an out of body experience like that? To sum up, we spent the rest of the day wondering the markets and buying treasures.