Morocco Day 4: Rabat & Oualidia
Today we had to say goodbye to our homestay family and it was such sweet sorrow. We had to meet early at 7:30 am; our homestay brother and mom walked us to the bus and our host mom held hands with us and held her in our arms until we had to get on the bus. Our first stop was a maternity house in the countryside. We arrived (late) and when we stepped off the bus we were greeted by high security and lots of photographers, which none of us were expecting. We were also greeted with sweet mint tea and lots of cookies. We were all bit confused as to what we were doing there since many of us assumed we were going to get a small lecture and learn about the work they do. Alternatively, we were actually there primarily to have lunch - we hardly got any information from the staff there. Luckily, some friends and myself stumbled through some French to ask one of the midwives lots of questions about the work she does following the lunch. Apparently, using contraception is very normalized here and most women either request sterilization or take oral contraception, and the midwife was saying that there are few barriers for women accessing these, especially since it's all free. Interestingly, husbands support their wives taking contraception and their consent is not often a barrier. That being said, the midwife told us that husbands do not like wearing condoms so although they are encouraging their wives to take contraception, they do not take responsibility themselves for preventing pregnancy; the burden is entirely on the woman. She said that really only young, single people use condoms, not married couples. Unfortunately, the midwife said that doctors don't always talk about contraceptive methods in depth with women so I'm not sure how much women end up really knowing about the contraception they're taking.
After lunch we piled back in the bus to head to Oualidia. We were so behind schedule that when we arrived at a school there to help out with an eye clinic for young kids, we weren't able to help out at all. I was sad that we weren't able to do any of the activities we had planned and that we weren't able to help the doctors with the work they were doing. The silver lining is that we got to go right to the beach afterwards. It was slightly cold but we all ran into the water anyway. The waves were really nice and I wish it was slightly warmer so that we could have really enjoyed the water more. After we got out, we walked down the beach a bit and got to see the sunset from the other side of the Atlantic! The beach was stunning with a lot of large rock formations in the water against which the powerful waves crashed and created great "Little Mermaid" moments. On the walk back to the beach my toes froze but I got to take a nice hot (hand-held) shower in the hotel.
Our dinner started an hour late so many of us had filled up on the bread they kept bringing to the tables for the entire hour of delay. We had a meal of several courses - soup, salad, fish, and many sides. Finally it topped off with yummy lemon and sugar crepes. After dinner a bunch of us hung out in my and my friend's room. My friend and I were exhausted from staying up so late with our host family he night before and getting up so early but we managed to stay up till midnight when it officially turned my birthday. I am slightly ashamed to say we quickly went to bed about 15 minutes later but it was one wonderful long day.