Moroccan Culture Series
First Impressions

Bonjour !

But first, for those of you who don't already know, let me explain why we're here.

My husband and I both love traveling, languages, and other cultures, thus we chose careers that will allow us to move to a new country every couple of years. I of course work freelance on About's French Language site, and my husband is an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher.

We chose Morocco as our first country so that we could practice our French and learn Arabic. Casablanca just happens to be the city where he was offered a job. We'll be here for a year or two, and then go somewhere else.

Casablanca is a nice city with some lovely parks and very friendly people. However, it is unfortunately quite dirty. I'm actually looking forward to the rainy season - hopefully it will clean things up a bit. :-)

The folks at my husband's school bend over backwards to be helpful - in fact, they make me feel like they think we are totally helpless. They offer to change money for us, help us go shopping, etc etc. It's better now, but you wouldn't believe what happened the first morning. We wanted to get some money changed and they said to wait, they'd do it for us later. I said No, we need to get some money so that we can have breakfast. The woman loaned us some, but explained to us that this was a 200 dirham (about $20) bill, and how much change we should get back and even got a 100 dirham note out of her purse to show us what to expect. I couldn't believe it. I guess some Moroccans take advantage of tourists, but considering that my husband has traveled in almost 40 countries and I've been to 9 - I think we can handle ourselves.

The school found us a terrific apartment with lots of windows, a long balcony, and plenty of light. It has all modern (Western) amenities like a regular toilet, shower and bath, gas stove, etc. I couldn't have asked for anything more. I really didn't know what to expect; I was very surprised at how comfortable this apartment is. I was prepared for a much smaller, less modern place, but I'm delighted with this one.

Everything we need is within a few blocks: there is a dance studio down the street, my hubby's school is a block away, the American Cultural library is very close - it's really an ideal location.

Food is very cheap, taxis cost no more than $1.50 to go anywhere in town.

Other than that, there's the female thing. Even when I'm with my husband, some men stare at me openly, while others act like a normal guy from the US. Once in a while a guy will walk by really close to me and say something in Arabic, and a kid once hit me on the arm (not hard). I feel uncomfortable walking around by myself, but it's not too bad.

We haven't been able to start our Arabic classes yet, but hopefully by next week we'll have it figured out. The biggest hassle was getting the phone installed - it took 10 days! But now I am all set. We're very happy and definitely considering a two year stay.

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