First Full Month in El Jadida

Hey guys, Jennifer here. This is a street I walk almost daily on to get lunch during my lunch break. 
It’s been 1 full month of living here in El Jadida.

Sorry about my tardiness about blogging.  Not having Wi-Fi at the apartment as well as not having a strong reliable Wi-Fi at work makes it difficult to daily blog.  I figured I would try out monthly blogging or at least blogging when I can - we'll see how that goes.

A lot has happened since I have arrived to El Jadida post-CIEE Rabat orientation - I’ll make a blog post about that later, inshallah.

Instead of having one massive post, I decided to break the topics down and figured out what was worth blogging about. 
Future random posts will be about:

• Mixing French and Darija
• Doctor Visits
• Taxis in El Jadida
• Moroccans and Sugar
• Being a white woman in Morocco
• The ALC
• Sexual Harassment
• Body Language/Personal Space
• Snack Shops & Sandwiches
• Helpful tips

Gosh I better get to work after looking at this list…

FIRST MONTH IN A NUTSHELL
To be honest, my first two weeks here were physically exhausting and painful since I had gastroenteritis and my stomach and intestines were inflamed. That made teaching my first week extremely difficult, but I managed to survive! I was able to find a great doctor here, who even spoke English and see what the healthcare system is like here in Morocco. Other things include:

• Adjusting to Morocco: It's very easy for me to adapt to new surroundings, so I didn't have a difficult time in doing so. Sure there are differences from USA and Moroccan living but I will post about that later. Moving into my apartment was very easy as it came furnished. Just had to do a mega cleaning/scrubbing before we were able to unpack fully.
• Finding places to grocery shop/get food: this was also easy as our apartment is near a few helpful shops. I definitely miss some of the food I could easily find in France and USA but there are also things here I know I know will be hard to find elsewhere!
• Teaching English: I know this is exactly what I want to do in my life, be an ESL teacher, since I love what I do here. It is such a humble experience to teach my language and culture to Moroccans. I have students ages from 9-35 years old, not all in the same class/level of course. 
• Discovering El Jadida: I have not really managed to explore or meet anyone outside work since I work 6 days in a row. I have managed to eaten almost everything off this one cafe's menu as it is close to where I work, luckily it is cheap to eat out here in Morocco.  Hopefully I will be able to find time to learn more about my city in the future weeks, inshallah.

Everything else I will put into mini-blogs as I don't want to repeat myself - if you know me, I don't like to waste time and want to be efficient. 

Also, I would love to educate you all about what it is like living in Morocco.
I often get asked, "What is it like living in a Middle-Eastern/Muslim/African country?" which I don't know why people can't simply say 'Morocco', so if you have any questions or would like to know anything specific about my daily life here in Morocco, please DM me and I would love to make a blog about it, if it will only continue educating people about Morocco.

 

Have a good day!
JF