Berber Culture

While on WWW*, I experienced many things within the Berber culture, but this one stood out the most was riding the Mules. On the third day of our trip we rode the mules, many people, including me, were looking forward to this because the previous day we had hiked for nine hours and so this meant they didn't have to hike today.They thought that it would be a more enjoyable day, after the mule ride, many still think that, but I disagree.

This ride, for me, was uncomfortable, bumpy, dusty, and all together unpleasant. Right at the beginning when I was getting on the mule it shook violently which lowered my confidence. Then as it walked to the area which some people who had already gotten on their mules were waiting it walked right up next to the edge, also spooking me a little. The ride up the hill wasn't too bad apart from the fact that the motion from left to right and back again wasn't very pleasant. It was when we got over the top of the hill that the not so nice part began. On the way down you would slide to the front of your mule if you didn't hold onto the back of the saddle, and the reach wasn't a very comfortable position, second, this is when my legs fell asleep and so trying to move around was hard. When we reached the bottom my legs were in lots of pain (that comes when you try to move around with sleeping legs) and so I wanted to get off. As you might imagine, this is a bad decision with sleeping legs, and I almost fell over the moment I touched the ground. I decided to walk the rest of the way to lunch, and after lunch we were going to walk anyway. I decided that day that mule rides were not my deal, I much prefer other modes of transport such as cars and bikes.

Comparing Life

Intro

Nate is my name and swimming is my game. I am American and I have lived all over the world. I have never lived in Greenland or Australia, but have been to Burma. I like to eat Guinean foods, and I love bacon pasta. Other than swimming, i run, bike, play baseball, water polo, surf, and ripstiking. My favorite subjects in school are math, French, IT, and band. Living around the world you learn that life is different in different places.

Comparing Life

Living in the Philippines was very different to living in Morocco because of the different schools, neighborhoods, and what you could do in your free time.

In the Philippines we lived in what they called a village, but what is essentially a gated community. In the Philippines there is a strong social structure, there is the rich and the poor. The rich live in these “villages” and the poor live in slums, everyone is trying to change this but the very rich don’t really want it to change, there are three or four very rich families and they pretty much own the city. We were lucky to get a nice house in a good neighborhood and go to a very good international school.

In Morocco, the neighborhood that we live in is a pretty rich neighborhood, but it isn’t like the philippines where there is a clear barrier. We live in a pretty big house with a large garden, and are well situated so that nothing is far.

The school that we went to in the philippines was huge. There were two thousand students K-12, a football field, a track, one auditorium, one theatre, three swimming pools, four tennis courts, four gyms, a ping pong area, one area only for basketball, two soccer fields, and two big elementary school playgrounds. In our grade there were one hundred and fifty kids and six different classes.

In Morocco the school compared to the one in the Philippines is very small. It also has grades K-12, but only consist of four hundred and fifty kids, not two thousand five hundred. At the school there is one soccer field that doubles as a baseball field, one field that has tables and a small soccer field, two small playgrounds, one gym, one basketball court, one swimming pool, one baby pool, one gymnastics room, one weights room, and one auditorium. In our grade there are forty people, so there is quite the size difference in school.

In the Philippines in my free time I could go on bike rides around the neighborhood, go for a swim, or go to our friends house who lived just around the corner.

In Morocco, I could play ping pong, badminton, basketball, or I ride my ripstik, a kind of skateboard. No friends live very close to me, so i usually only go to their house on weekends.

I can’t choose which country I like better because they are different in their own ways, but I enjoy them both very much.