The U

Today I was supposed to do laundry. I have been putting it off for a few reasons. First, the hours of the two laundry facilities on campus have changed more than once even in the 10 days we've been here, so it hasn't been clear to me when I could do laundry. Second, the facility is, oh, I don't know, maybe a quarter of a mile away. I have no problem walking that far, but I've been procrastinating walking that far with a giant bag of laundry (especially since I've been paranoid that I'd get there and the facility would be closed because the hours keep changing). Finally, I know that some small thing will go wrong--I won't know how to use the machines, or I'll ruin one of T's work shirts. Something. I'm not being a pessimist here, and I'm okay with something going wrong, but I've still wanted to put it off.

So instead of doing laundry, I wandered around campus. The original purpose of my wanderings was to try to find a 4 kilometer nature trail that supposedly goes around campus. That purpose was not fulfilled. But I did get some pictures of campus. I focused on buildings that I haven't seen pictures of online, like the auditorium, which I think is a very interesting mix of Moroccan and European architecture:

People who actually know anything about architecture are invited to leave intelligent-sounding comments describing the architecture of this building.

All of the buildings on campus look like this one, with the red tile roofs and yellow walls. Actually, almost all buildings in Ifrane have a similar look. This is not typical Moroccan architecture.

Because all buildings on campus look the same, differentiated only by a small sign somewhere on the building indicating its number, it is very easy to get lost on campus.



Appearances are clearly important on this campus, so I was pleased to see a little "funkiness" in the form of artwork on a few of the buildings.

T is in building 10, on the second floor. He was busy working hard in his office while I wandered aimlessly around campus.

All of the computers on campus have French keyboards, which are just similar enough to QWERTY as to be rather confusing. The French keyboards can be reset as QWERTY keyboards, though. As long as T can type without looking at the keys, I guess he's okay.

 I thought I'd also post some pictures of the views from our apartment windows, to give you a better sense of the scenery.

View of student and faculty residence halls from our guest bedroom window.

View of another residence hall (which pretty much looks exactly like our building) from one of our living room windows. In the distance, we can see the auditorium.

This is the rest of the view from our living room window. In the distance is Michliffen Hotel, Ifrane's newest luxury hotel, which allegedly costs $7000 Moroccan dirhams a night--that's over $800 U.S.

School starts tomorrow for both T and me--he'll be a teacher, and I'll be a student. Tomorrow, real daily life in Ifrane will begin for us. This evening, as I hear the crows (which sound more like musical squeak toys than cawing American crows) calling to each other on the building rooftops, as the sun slowly moves toward the horizon, infuriatingly indifferent to the hungry and thirsty Muslim mouths waiting for its disappearance, I feel a strong sense of waiting, of suspension. Tomorrow I will begin to know what it will really be like for us to live here, when we will have to balance work (or school), and shopping, and laundry, and cooking, and all the daily things we had to do in the U.S., but that were done differently. Tomorrow!