>>Hi I'm Elyssa, and you're
watching Quinnipiac's A Day in the Life.
(music)
Hi everyone. My name is Elyssa
Wrubel, I'm a junior English
major and minor in psychology and
women's and gender studies and I
am flying to Morocco. This is for
my AN 200 anthropology class. It's
anthropology of Morocco. It's a
faculty led abroad class. So,
we're actually gonna be taking
a 10 day trip to Morocco. We're
flying into Casablanca first,
then we have a connecting flight
into Agadir. 
>>I'm Hillary Haldane, I'm
super excited to be taking this
fantastic group of Quinnipiac
students to Morocco. It's the
first time for all of them.
They're gonna have a wonderful time,
and I'm just really looking
forward to the adventure ahead
with this great group of students.
(music)
>>We have just landed in
Casablanca. Look at this
beautiful airport. We're about to
hit our connecting flight to Agadir
(music)
We basically have a few hours
of downtime so that we can
recover and then we're gonna go
get some dinner. We are here
during Ramadan. Ramadan is a
holiday in the Islamic community.
Those who are celebrating will
fast from sunrise to sundown. And
then when the sun sets, we break
the fast with this meal.
We learned that it also includes
fasting of the mind. It's kind of
this idea that you expel all
intoxicated thoughts from your
mind. So, it's really like a
spiritual cleansing holiday, and
it's known as the holy month.
We are back at the hotel. I'm
gonna get some sleep and we'll
see you all tomorrow.
>> Good morning everybody. It is
Wednesday. It's our second day
here. I just want to kind of talk
a little bit more about what
we're doing here and how this
course works. So we are taking
extensive field notes as we go
through our days. I have my field
notebook which you'll probably
see a lot of.
And then, while we're here, we
are supposed to be on a radio
silence kind of. So, no phones, no
social media. We're not allowed
to post anything. Just documenting
everything in our field notebook,
and of course, for you all.
Then, when we get back, we're compiling
an ethnography, like true
anthropologist. So, we get to pick
an aspect of Moroccan culture
that we find particularly
interesting. We could do anything
from the architecture, to the
food. I will probably do
something related to the gender
dynamics as I do, as a women's and
gender studies minor, but I'm not
quite sure yet.
And what we're actually
starting today, so, we are
partnering with the Dar Si Hmad
Ethnographic Field School. We are
actually going to be working with
them through the duration of the
trip. We're gonna be taking
classes. But, this field school
really focuses on conservation,
sustainability, as well as race
and gender dynamics. And so,we'll
be learning about all kinds of
stuff. I'm really excited to take
you guys with me.
We are now walking to the
Dar Si Hmad Field School. It's
about a 20 minute walk and we're
gonna get ready for our first lecture.
We just spent the morning
learning about Amazigh culture
The Amazigh people are the
indigenous population of North
Africa. And so, we learned all about
that this morning, and we are now
going to a museum that we can
look at, she said mostly jewelry.
Just some more things to gather,
more about their culture.
And Izzy is taking her field
notes.
Now we are going to visit the
original ruins of the city. So,
it's part of the original walls.
>>And so, this is the only city
with this long of a history in the
country that doesn't have an old
Medina anymore. And it's also the
reason why the Oufella has been
preserved. This hill has not been
developed and you won't see
apartment complexes surrounding
it because it's considered a
sacred site after the amount of
deaths that occurred here.
(music)
>>So, we are on an adventure. We
are going to discover the beach
because we have some free time
before dinner.
(music)
Greetings from Moroccan beaches.
>>Woo!
>>It's much clearer water than New Jersey, I do have to say that.
And the sand is incredibly soft.
So, surprise! We are on a camel!
>>We're on a camel!
>>And the girls are in front of us too. This is wild! 
Yes, yes! Oh my gosh. It's very rocky.
>>Oh my goodness. 
(music)
>>Good morning. It is day three. Today, we are going to do a crash 
course in Darija,
which is a dialect of Arabic that we're going to be learning.
(Students learning Arabic)
We are leaving Dar Si Hmad right now. 
We are headed to the market with
a souk, and we are going to do some observing.
You know, the marketplace is kind of like, 
they described it as like a microcosm of the city.
So, we're gonna observe all these different interactions. 
We're also gonna try our hand at haggling from the 
little Darija we learned this morning.
(music)
There are over 3000 vendors. There's all different kinds 
of things from clothing, to jewelry, to food.
Bargaining is a really important cultural element here in Morocco. You 
know in the United States, when we're purchasing things 
we interact with the good, but here, we interact with the vendor.
Okay, so, we are back in the hotel for good now. So, we had dinner and then 
we worked in partners to start talking about our ethnography projects
that I kind of alluded to before. Just to start brainstorming 
and getting an idea of what we want to focus on.
So, we're actually gonna get some sleep now because we have another
early morning tomorrow. We're starting, I think. with another Darija 
crash course. So, hopefully, we'll get to work a
little bit more on our Darija-- on our Arabic.
(music)
This is the promenade. It's the boardwalk where we
visited a few days ago that was kind of the Old City of Agadir.
Those were the original walls of the city,
and now this is kind of the new city.
(music)
Good morning. It is Saturday. It is day five. Today we are going 
to visit a farm.
So, we learned about the Amazigh people, the indigenous people of the
Northern African region. Today we're actually going to visit .
an Amazigh family.
>>Yeah, so, the reason that there is this sink is that in Moroccan,
the guest is not allowed to go inside the house because it is rude.
Like, you serve him everything in this room.
(music)
>>Good morning, everyone. It is Tuesday, it is day eight. We have just 
had breakfast at the foundation in Ifni, and today we are hiking up to their
fog collection project. So, it's gonna be a two...roughly a
two and a half hour hike up a mountain.
We are about 3900 feet up, about 4000 feet above 
sea level. And these are the fog catching nets. 
This is actually called the cloud fisher, and Tasnim is just gonna kind 
of give a little overview of how this technology works to harvest the fog.
>>And so, the idea was to take fog collectors,
which were previously made of reshal mesh,
which is the material generally potato sacks and onion sacks 
are made out of. And so, food safe material that is put up on rods 
like this. But the difference between that and this model
is that there are these bungee cords that move with the net.
So, in time of intense wind or when the clouds are flowing through very
intensely, they move with them and there's not as much water loss. 
It also means that there's not as much maintenance done on the part of
our staff to keep the nets up.
And there's very, yeah, there's very little maintenance, actually. So, those
are the major advantages of this in addition to, in general, more efficient
harvesting. So, if you come closer you can see that there are
these sort of hair-like netting that catches really, really tiny particles,
and on the other side, there's PVC, a food safe PVC, that allows the
condensation to drip down smoothly into the gutters.
>>And this is really interesting too. We were learning about this earlier.
This is kind of a biomimicry technology, and so, this is sort of modeled
after cacti and other plants that sort of have similar fibers 
and use that technology to kind of store water.
And so, I think that's really, really cool.
(music)
Good morning, everyone. It is Wednesday. It is day nine.That means it is
our last full day here in Morocco, and I am extremely sad. 
But, we are about to head to the foundation for breakfast.
And then we have a historical tour of Sidi Ifni.
(music)
Tonight, we're actually celebrating with Dar Si Hmad. It is the tenth 
anniversary of their Ethnographic Field School, which is really,
really cool because the first program that they hosted was with 
Quinnipiac.
So, it's very timely that we are here now and we get to celebrate that 
with them.
(singing Happy Birthday)
(laughter and clapping)
The amount of knowledge that I've acquired while I've been here is just 
really, really mind blowing.
So, I'd like to say shokran, which is thank you in Darija, to all of you.
Thank you so much for watching. It's been fun!
