Safety in Morocco

We know that a lot of people are worried about our safety while we're in Morocco. Since, again, we're a little cooped up today, A and I found a few statistics that we thought might help:

The violent crime rate (which includes murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and larceny) in the United States is 3503.8 per 100,000 people. In Morocco, it is 19.94.

In the U.S., there are 39.2 rapes per 100,000 people. In Morocco, there are 3.59.

In the U.S., there are 3,025.4 thefts per 100,000 people. In Morocco, there are 7.05.

In the U.S., there are 5 murders per 100,000 people per year. In Morocco, there are 0.4.

So yes, while it's absolutely true that bad things can happen anywhere, I was being quite sincere when I said that we're a lot more worried about all of you back in the U.S. than we're worried about ourselves. We're actually quite a lot safer here.


On a lighter note, just as I was finishing this post, the man who runs our riad invited us to his home for dinner tomorrow night. We like him quite a lot, so we're very excited.

Also, classes start bright and early tomorrow morning. We're looking forward to the class part, not so much to the "bright and early" part. Still, it will be nice to feel a bit less like lazy bums...