a fresh outlook*

As Spring dawns on us, I thought I would give you a fresh update on all that I have been up to recently.

I am currently studying abroad in Switzerland, where there is not only an incredibly high concentration of succulent chocolate (it is no surprise that this country has the highest chocolate consumption in the world!) but also a dense presence of international organizations. Meaning that this is a country that revolves around its power to smooth and sweeten out the world’s problems, be it through a box of fine chocolate or through fine (at least, that’s what we hope!) diplomacy.

The first six weeks of this Study Abroad program I spent trying to cram legal cases into the back of my brain, which was often difficult to do when my attention was diverted by more exciting things like the Swiss ski slopes, or bythe daily protests that take place in front of the UN headquarters, or by good friends’ memorable visits. The last stretch of this program – the one I am currently on, and the real pull factor that brought me here in the first place – is spent interning at an organization here in Geneva, a placement that is virtually impossible for undergraduates to secure on their own. This being said, I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that I was placed in my dream org., working for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on an upcoming Forum on Migration & Development to take place in Athens next November. Of course, the role of intern is usually synonymous with the title of “Paper Filer” or “Coffee Fetcher”, but there are some glamorous parts to the job as well. Like, sitting next to the Greek Ambassador to the UN this morning and joking with him about the Greek origins of the name Stephanie... Either way, I am without a doubt getting a valuable first-hand view of the internal workings and politics of international organizations. And the real icing on the cake is the fact that my boss’ name is “Star” (… you can imagine the many corny jokes that I am just dying to drop. i.e.: “Are you from outer space, because your work is OUT OF THIS WORLD!!!!” – I might have to wait a while until I pull that one out of the hat!).

Although it is snuggled comfortably in the Alps, in a culture founded on peace-loving values where the streets are lined with more financial firms than McDonalds, it is easy to forget what goes on outside of Switzerland. Most strikingly, it is easy to forget who it is that you are supposedly trying to help, who it is that brought so many people to Geneva in the first place.

The group that I myself am working for, and one that constitutes a large proportion of today’s world’s demographic composition, is that of migrants. Technically speaking, most of us are in fact migrants ourselves, leaving home at some point to attend university or in search of better job opportunities in the big city. But there is an entirely different set of migrants that comprise this world who have relocated themselves not necessarily in the hopes to intern in the heart of Europe, but rather to escape dire economic, political, and/or social circumstances in their countries of origin. Whether it is thanks to war, tsunamis, or a looming economic crisis, these are the migrants that need - more than anything - to be remembered and kept under the spotlight. It is for this reason that I spent my Spring Break in Bosnia-Herzogovina. With a Peace and Travel grant paying my way, I strapped on a backpack and traveled solo via plane, train and automobile through the Balkans with the aim of looking at migration from a different perspective than the one I have in my cozy, overheated office in Geneva.

Most of you may not remember this, as you were probably fixated on your televisions with the hopes of catching the next episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch rather than to see the evening news, but Bosnia faced a devastating war from 1992 to 1995 where its three major ethnic groups went at eachother’s necks in search for recognition and outright ownership of the land. Bosnia is comprised of three major ethnicities: Bosnian Serbs, Croats, and Muslims, a composition that is rooted in its geography, being placed at the crossroads of historical and ethnic tugs of war. For centuries, this piece of land has been the heart of conflict. (And, tiny side note, the country is actually shaped as a heart!!!). Over time, it has seen vast migration movements from neighbouring powers, leaving a very diverse mark on the country. Eventually, the colourful building blocks that comprise this land collapsed like a Jenga tower. Millions of people died, were displaced, and were forced to flee – experiences that never fail to haunt you, as I was reminded of time and time again as I walked past homes still potmarked with bullet holes and buildings left rotting into decay.

During my backpacking travels, I visited a town called Mostar where a river separates the Croatian side from the Muslim side. I guess blood really is thicker than water, revealed when in 1993 the bridge that connected the two sides was detonated, symbolizing the fracture between the two sides. Fourteen years later, and the pain of it all still dampens the hearts and minds of Bosnians. I can't tell you how many taxi drivers or waiters I encountered who shared with me snippets of stories and shadowed memories of brothers being shot, of families being separated, and of towns being divided.

> My immediate response to all of this: "I can't even imagine . . . "
>> The reply of one woman I spoke to: "I hope you never have to."

On the upside (since this trip was supposed to give me some inspiration and validate my work in Geneva), a lot of good is being done in the field. I spoke to the head of an organization that is working to bring an end to ethnic segregation within the school system. I met with an International Prosecutor at the Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina who is bringing hundreds of cases against the very people who directed the war crimes that shattered the lives of so many. I helped some UWC students in Mostar teach basic math skills to gypsy children who are not allowed to attend local schools because of their minority status. And, of course, I met lots of people in cafés, on trains, and in random places where my lost-looking self attracted helpful passerby who would share with me – to varying extents, of course - their opinions on these issues.

I guess what I’m learning through all of this is that there is always more than one side to a story. The Bosnian story, in particular, has three stories (- at least where ethnicity is concerned). Meanwhile, Europe has many faces. It’s hard to imagine that the protected, secure enclave of Switzerland, with its wealthy rolex-sporting bankers exists on the same continent as war-torn Bosnia with its pot-holed roads and its backcountry lined with hidden mines leftover from the conflict.

Moral of my European adventure(s): perspective is key, and springtime only helps by shining extra light on it all .. !

Home for the Holidays

This holiday season I learned that “home is where the heart is, but not necessarily where the luggage ends up”. I stepped foot on Canadian soil for the first time in 7 months only to discover to my utter dismay that my luggage had not followed suit. Luckily the luggage in question was stuffed with summer clothes, so the frisky Canadian weather wouldn’t do a number on me. Thankfully, it arrived 24 hours later.

I spent my holidays with the Brown ladies, three generations of incredible women whom I look up to with total admiration. My Grandma, my aunt, and my mom (not to mention the princess of a Brittany Spaniel, Darby). Each are very different from one another but possess an inner sparkle that could outdo any fireworks ceremony on Parlement Hill.

Every time I go home, as comforting and familiar as it is, I tend to have a bit of a reverse culture shock. Yes, of course I was made, bred, and beautified in Canada, but the longer away from the track you are the, the more rocky your gallop is upon return (that was an intense analogy).

The first twoonie I held in the palm of my hand looked unreal, I had remembered it being smaller (or perhaps I’ve just gotten way too accustomed to Euros). I had forgotten what a HUGE deal hockey is in Canada, until I saw the results of the Junior League splashed across every newspaper (yes, overriding news of the Madoff scandal) and families gathering around TV sets to watch the game, as though they were circling around good ol' Saint Nick. Even the hum of Quebecois French startled me – it had been so long since I had last heard that strain of French that sounds as though it has gone through a meat grinding machine (not to say mine doesn’t sound like that either..).

I like to think that a little shock does the system good (the authorities at Gauntonamo Bay think so too).

Nevertheless, home was sweet and savoury just like I left it. My dearest family and friends and foods and hobbies (skating) were divulged in.

So now we are into a New Year, and I can’t help but think that if 2009 is as incredible as 2008 was, well then .. let the games begin!

My trip home was disastrous. I was deathly once I arrived to Charles de Gaulle airport. We finally piled onto the plane, and I dozed off, only to wake up what felt like hours later, STILL ON THE PLANE. I must have brought some flakes with me from Canada because it was snowing so much that ALL flights to and out of Paris were canceled for the day. This is essentially a recipe for disaster, since CDG Airport is one of the busiest in the world. Luckily I was furnished with a hotel and meal, but many unlucky souls did not receive this privilege, having to sleep under jackets on the airport floor for the night. To top this catastrophe off (yep, here comes the cherry .. ), the airport “misplaced” 40,000 or so pieces of luggage. NB: As I write this one week later, I am still without both suitcases. [Insert Jeopardy waiting tune].

But, let’s return to the positives of my catastrophic trips. I met some really cool characters on my travels this Christmas, and I’d like to share a little briefing of each of them.

• Cute couple in their 60s: He is French. She is Scottish. When chatting to one another, they go back and forth between English and French. They met on the ski slopes in Scotland (before global warming melted them).
• Hugo: a Brittish guy who studies WWII History in Edinborough. We shared a drink in the JFK Airport, cheersing to our fondness for Europe.
• Man from Indiana: We sat next to each other on a 7-hr plane ride. He was subjected to my bathroom schedule as I frequently squeezed past his knees. He works as an energy contractor on a US Army base in Iraq. His response when asked how he likes Iraqi food: “We only eat Americain".
• Jeremy: a professor at Savannah School of Art. Specializes in comics. Full-out American, decked out in Boston Red Sox gear. First time in Europe. We spent a lot of time together, in lines (waiting lines, canceling flight lines, rescheduling flight lines, reporting lost luggage lines).
  
• Sippi: Half Chilean. Half Brittish. Raised in Geneva. Professional Party Planner. We shared an Air France voucher-paid dinner together. Offered me one of his voucher-paid for coffees. Who’da thought vouchers would bring so much joy to one’s life!?
  

The Fringe Effect

My French stylist convinced me to allow her to fringify my hair. The bang is very à la mode in Europe, but then again, anything flies when it comes to European style. I tried to explain to her in French that my head might have difficulty accommodating this fashionista look since it's tainted with cowlicks (a word I never quite understood growing up... I truly thought for a while that a cow had licked my hair on some trip adventure to a farm). Unfortunately, I couldn't find a translation for this miserable hair condition, so alas, she went ahead with the chop. Pas de problème, I like a little Euro edge.

The Great White North (this time, it's not Canada!)

Russsssssssshia (said in a pronunced Boratian accent). The land of surplus mullets, fur, and fringe bangs, where every step is monitored, be it from the Russian police officers who pompously stroll around town or by the hostel receptionist who demands to see hardcopy proof of every move you’ve made in the country.

Bev and I arrived in Moscow Thursday evening. We had our first language shock as we tried to get ourselves to the train station via the metro. With its different alphabet and peculiar sounds (shh, chhh, zhh), we were hopeless little lost bunnies. Throughout the course of the next few days, our strategies improved as we learned to take photos of metro maps, zoom in to our desired destinations, single out the one person who looked like s/he would be sympathetic, and with a big smile splashed over our faces, helplessly point to where we wanted to go. That usually did the trick, and Russians were surprisingly quick to direct us on the right course. We even often ended up with personal tour guides, who with strollers or beer cans in tow, would physically walk us to our end points. Lesson Number One: Russians may look a little fierce at first, but they are quick to lend a helping hand.

Waiting for our overnight train to depart, we hid from the bitter Russian cold in a diner-style restaurant next to the train station. Warming ourselves up on (insert name of really good Russian food, because I can’t pronounce anything for the life of me), we had many surprise encounters with Russians. I’m not sure if it was the anxious reviewing of Russian words we were doing or the stark double sight of an African and a brunette, but something seemed to scream to the world that we were foreigners. So, one by one or two by two, Russians would discretely sit themselves next to our table, eventually mustering up a reason to approach us and spew out all five English words they learned in elementary school. That was all fine and dandy until we got to the last random Russian who really insisted that I listen to some incomprehensible Russian love song on his MP3 player. That was cool… for the first ten seconds. Then it dawned on me how peculiar and unsanitary it was to have some stranger’s headphones wedged in my ears. Moreover, there was no way I was going to be able to understand the depth - if there even was any, that is! - of the lyrics when half of them sounded to me like a baby gurgling underwater. So there the man went storming off, muttering words in Russian, blatantly offended by my disinterest in the compositions de l’amour of his people.

One 8-hour overnight train later and we arrived in St. Petersburg, former capital of Russia until after 1918 when Lenin thought it better to move the country’s focal point as far as possible from the European border (> to Moscow). Settling into our hostel, we happened across a strapping police uniform hanging up in the closet. Being the mischief-makers that we are, we closed and double bolted our hostel dorm room, and within a flash, we were hastily trying on the police blazer that appeared to have stepped off of a KGB catwalk.

St. Petersburg was a bit on the chilly side, but freezing fingers did not detract from its beauty. We toured the sites, from the Winter Palace to the Church of Spilled Blood (the History major in me was jumping off the walls at this point as I stood on the very ground where revolutions were sparked), then we opted for a restaurant where all we could do was close our eyes, point to a dish on the menu, and hope to an Eastern Orthodox saint that it would be a good one! (They all were, in fact). Our huge surprise of the night came as we were standing on the metro escalator, and all of a sudden I saw from the corner of my eye that Bev was hugging someone. Turns out this mystery of a person squeezed between Bev’s arms was EB, the only Wellesley girl studying abroad in Russia for the year, and chance had it that we would cross (metro) paths! So off we went with her to grab a drink at a local jazz bar with her fellow study abroad friends. I know I’ve said this a million and one times, but the world is a small, small place.

After some more sightseeing, we left for the train station again. This time, we were running a bit late, and ended up having to make a mad dash across busy St. Petersburg thoroughfare to make it to the station. Sweating profusely, with only one minute to spare, we made it on to our train, celebrating our victory in the Flapper-style restaurant coach with caviar and vodka. (We earned it).

While in Moscow, we stayed at Galina’s Flat, a homestay-type hostel owned and operated by Ukrainian babushka Galina and her many cats. On a bright Sunday morning, we surfaced from the metro stop, only to find one of many enormously wide boulevards (the Canadian in me noted the inefficiency of this layout being used in a cold country, where people should be squished as close together as possible in order to maximize warm electron circulation) separating us from the Red Square. Our only choice was to J-walk (or, Ж-walk, according to the Cyrillic alphabet). Once the traffic had finally thinned down, we made The Mad Dash – that is to say, a mad dash into the arms of a burly Russian police officer , who suddenly emerged from a booth, blowing a whistle and demanding to see our passports. From the tone of his voice and his relentless scolding of us, I could discern that he was not very pleased. Apparently, we were supposed to have used the underground tunnels for crossing. It also became clear (especially once a police car pulled up to the curb seconds later) that he wanted to haul us to the police station to sort out the penalizations there. As much as Bev and I wanted to work within the borders of the law, time was a-tickin’. We only had two full days in Moscow and there were many things to do and many people to see; we certainly did not have any time to spare on filling out administrative protocol paperwork. So, pulling out my handy black book of useful Russian phrases, I quickly found the “sorry” and “we are students” lines, causing Mr. Police Man to let us go with a reluctant wave of his hand (after that, I couldn’t help but slip in the “you are really nice” line in extreme thanks). Lesson Number Two: Russian police officers may look a little fierce at first, but they are quick to give up their battle if you manage to push the right buttons.

Off we went, more ready than ever to see Red Square. After passing by Lenin’s embalmed body and Saint Basil’s Cathedral (which, with its minarets that resemble upside-down Christmas ornaments, looks like it stepped off the set of the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory movie), we headed for a delicious meal at a Uzbekistani restaurant.

After a jam-packed day of museum hopping, we ended our final day in Russia by having dinner with a group of alumni (+ co.) from UWC-USA. We were three generations (classes of 1999, 2001, and 2006), never having overlapped, yet we shared stories and memories galore. Lots of ruckus later, Bev and I taxied back to our hostel to find Galina and her husband Sergei holding our taxi for us. Lesson Number Three: Galina may look a little fierce at first, but she is quick to ensure that we catch our taxi to the airport. With no time to spare, Bev and I rushed up five flights of stairs, grabbed our belongings without even bothering to throw them into our bags, and off we departed, back to la belle France. I woke up at the end of the flight (a little annoyed that I had slept through the airline breakfast) baffled by all that we had pulled off in the short period of five days.

la belle vie

No, I have not fallen off the top of the world – I’m still there, and after a long hiatus from blog-writing, I am back to tell the crazy, wonderful, often-times out-of-this-world stories from my journeys abroad.

Like fig season, Morocco came to a bittersweet end. My last week was jam-packed with great company and adventures. After my internship at the CCCL came to a sad conclusion (I miss it and the people already!), a group of my friends (the majority of whom had only just met and decided to partake the evening before at the party I threw for Kellye’s goodbye) traveled to the north of Morocco, specifically to Chefchaouen, a beautiful town of winding roads and outdoor cafés set in the Rif mountains. We spent the weekend hiking up mountains, plunging into waterfalls, cracking jokes in a 6-person squished car, and soaking up the Mediterranean rays. For the thousandth time, I encountered Moroccan hospitality as Oumiraou’s family kindly welcomed us into their vacation villa for the night, feeding us until abdominal explosion, after which point we sauntered down to the beach where we lay in the sand, covered by he blanket of Moroccan stars. The following day, Oumiraou drove us to Cepta, a Spanish city located on the African continent. There we pushed our way through herds of people as we tried to get past customs and onto “Spanish” ground per se. It was with conflicting feelings that we passed through – with thanks to privileged nationalities that were randomly thrown our way – a spacious corridor, while on the other side of a barbed wire fence, people crowded elbow-to-elbow with the aim of reaching the other side.

A taxi, a ferry and a bus ride later, we arrived to Sevilla, a beautiful town in Andalusia. Spanish tapas, sangria, and sun marked this short trip. In Cordoba, we met up with the former Wellesley Spanish TA, Laura (roll that R!), who gave us the grand tour of her lovely city, a city that once briefly served as the capital of the Muslim world. Leaving Sara, a Fletcher grad student who had been interning in Rabat, to continue her trip to Madrid, Chris and I caught the last ferry back to Tangier. The shocking Euro did a number on our wallets, and we really, more than anything wanted to return to our awaiting beds in Rabat rather than rent a room in Tangier for the night. Unfortunately, our situation was looking grim, as we had managed to miss all of the last buses and trains back to the capital. But with the mindset of “que sera, sera” (insha’allah), we ended up meeting an Italian-Moroccan who happened to be driving back to Rabat, of all places! After passing through the ferry customs, he parked his car, rearranged the overflow of Italian appliances and gifts he was bringing back for his family, and squished me and Chris in (I learned more about my physical flexibility capabilities in those following 3 hours than ever before!). We hit the road and arrived to Rabat in record time, where my summer jumped to an end.

Two jam-packed days and two overstuffed suitcases later, I was off to Paris where I transitioned into my Study Abroad program with a month-long orientation – which is to say, a month of wine tasting, museum hopping, and weekend excursions. Wellesley had us set up in these lavish apartment-style hotels in le quartier latin. Fenced off by the Seine with the Notre Dame as our backyard, it was definitely in a prime location. Amidst the museums and art galleries that we frequented, I rollerskated in front of Paris’ City Hall, dined on the top of the Eiffel Tower, selected exotic eau from a water bar, ate crêpes at sunrise, and met up with both new and old friends (from my former roommate to TZE girls to my high school prom date to Moroccan friends to UWCers to Wellesley Slater kids). Even the bout of food poisoning I suffered was somewhat exciting (and gave me a great excuse to curl up on bed with Alex to watch 4 hours of trashy, yet highly entertaining, episodes of The Hills).

Paris was bliss but I was ready to finally – after 4 months of living out of a hotel with no actual closet to hang my clothes!!! – settle into someplace that I could call home. One moment I found myself in the a north metropolitan part of France, and the next I was suddently in the villagesque South: in Aix-en-Provence, one of the quaintest, seriously most adorable towns I’ve ever been to! My good friend/roommate Bev and I walked into our apartment gasping with excitement at the amount of space & teal planked ceilings & huge windows & cute décor our place had. Just a two second stroll around the corner, et voilà - a fresh market selling everything from stalks of garlic to fresh prasscuto to basically every colour of the rainbow. Walking through town, you will see women on basket-perched bikes, old men with baguettes emerging from their knapsacks, and the cutest children on the face of this planet strolling by, tail-wagging dogs in tow.

Of course, I’ve been busy with taking classes at both l’Université de Marseille-Aix and L’Institut d’Études Politiques, but this is also the first time in ages where I’ve had the opportunity to relax, write, cook, sleep – savoury, in many more ways than one.

from one week to the next...

Believe it or not, I am finally entering the home stretch of my time here in sunny Morocco, wrapping up projects at my internship, making to-do lists of what I still need to see, do, and buy. Looking back at my time here, I can suitably categorize each week by the token person or place that filled it with his/her/its exciting presence via an entry or an exit. First was Week Sophia, then Week Krispijn, followed by Week Kamil, all commemorating their departures from Morocco. Then came Week Tangier, Week Marrakech, and Week Fes, marked by memorable weekend trips to each city. Without a doubt, this week can rightfully be labeled Week UWC. Of course, the central subjects of these weeks all overlap, fusing each into one truly wonderful summer in Morocco.

The same day that Chris touched down on Rabat soil, I met three Norwegian born and raised Moroccan/Turkish guys in my hotel lobby who wanted suggestions on where to go in the city. By invitation the following night, the trio accompanied my friends and I to Reservoir’s Tuesday Salsa Night. It just so happened that 2 of the 3 of our new friends were professional competitive breakdancers, so after the salsa swirling subsided, a few of their impressive moves were showcased on the dance floor. In the meantime, Kellye (the other Wellesley intern) busted out an Irish leg jig that would outdo any Celtic on the court. Nights like these, with a random assortment of friends (and dance moves!), capture perfectly the diversity of the life and the people here in Rabat.

As great as Rabat is, there comes a point when one must spread one’s wings and take flight from the nation’s small capital. Our so-called wings, in fact, are the train tracks of Morocco, an easy and affordable way to get around the country. Our destination two weekends ago was Marrakech, where my friend Samir picked us up from the train station and swept us off to the Bank al Maghrib’s clubhouse that puts its employees up for their vacation. We spent the entire day poolside, soaking up Marrakech’s intense rays. It is virtually impossible to do anything other than lounge around during the day, as the heat of this landlocked city is unbearable. Like the freshly-squeezed orange juice that you can conveniently find on the streetside, your energy is squeezed out by Marrakech’s blazing sun, leaving behind a lazy heap of pulp. Days in Marrakech only begin to ripen in the late afternoon, at which point people come out from hiding (or in our case, out from a really nice resort) and begin to flock the main square. Whether it is its history as the ancient location for public executions, the snake charmers that sit side-by-side cobras, or the blankets covered in herbs and healing porcupine quills, la place Jemaa el Fnaa exudes an aura of magic and mystery. A sense of marvel fills you as you sip Moroccan mint tea on top of a rooftop terrace that overlooks the maze of stalls and their ascending smoke. The cherry on top of our fabulous day was our trip to Théâtro, a discothèque that is la crème de la crème of the clubbing scene. Living up to its name, the club finds itself in an old theatre, and features tin men (no joke!) lighting fireballs to a techno music backdrop. The next day was just as magical, as we visited the well-known Ménara pavilion embedded in a garden of olive trees that marks most postcards of Marrakech, later watching a belly dancing performance with the surprise company of the Norwegian Moroccans we had recently met in Rabat.

From mystical Marrakech one weekend, to old-Fashioned Fes the next. I’m learning that although each Moroccan city shares a similar framework (medina > the Ville Nouvelle >. outskirts), they each differ greatly in character. Fes is the country’s oldest imperial city, founded in the 8th century. Its medina serves as its face, its creased wrinkles being the narrow and coiling pathways that reflect its epoch years. Donkeys pass pedestrians who have surrendered to the reality of losing their way in the medina’s beastly labyrinth. Despite deciding last-minute to visit this antiquated city, we were surprised by the immense hospitality we received. My friend Younus who is the receptionist at the Salon Esthétique that I frequent put me in touch with his brother who served as our tour guide for the day, inviting us (note that we had never met before) to his house where his sister prepared a delicious 3 course tajine meal for us. His uncle proceeded to give us a tour of a tannery, where the hides of camels, sheep, and cows are cured and transformed into the leather that is used to craft shoes, bags, and coats. Smelling the stench of dead beast and seeing the strenuous labour of barefoot Moroccans really tugs at your conscious, forcing you to consider the materials and sweat that goes into the birth of a product such as the purse that you so instinctively grab each morning on the way out of your house. Aside from the realities of animal slaughter and third world manual labour, we found comfort in our accommodations. A friend of a friend of a friend (that’s how it works here in Morocco) was hotel sitting and let us stay in an empty riad for a hugely discounted price. I’ve become quite accustomed to Morocco’s semi-shady hole-in-the-wall hotels – they are, after all, an essential component of any (regular/ starving/ cheap) student’s life. So staying in The Purple Room (yes-it had a name!) of a riad – a Moroccan house closed on the exterior, organized around a central patio and fountain – was absolute bliss, amplified by sunset wine and breakfast omellettes on the riad’s terrace, sandwiched between a good night’s rest on a (purple) canopy king-sized bed.

This past week was highlighted by some good old UWC company, something you can always count on as being memorable. Ghita (Morocco), Jorge (Guatemala), Jorge’s girlfriend (Puerto Rico), and I met up in Casablanca, where Ghita and her family were kind enough to host us for the night in her gorgeous house framed by blossoming trees of every colour. As my fellow UWCers know very well, the network of this crazy cult of a school is close-knit and assembles itself at random. Wherever we are on this earth, we tend to gravitate towards each other, sparking old memories and creating new ones. So here we were, 3 UWC-USA alums reuniting... in Morocco, of all places!

On to the next week, titled Kellye’s Last. The last this, the last that – one more chapter in a series of adventures.

no longer the new kid on the block

A little over halfway through my internship and stay here in Morocco, I can honestly call Rabat Home Sweet Home... even if home itself is, in all seriousness, a hotel named after Berlin (though it has no linkage - through its management or its clientele - to its German namesake). My room, for all its worth (20 USD/night, to be exact), has become my peaceful abode. A bed, a tiny bathroom, and a clothes rack that took ages to find hangers for make up my living situation. Before arriving to Morocco, I tried to Google Hotel Berlin with the hopes of finding some tidbit of information that would help paint a clearer picture of what was awaiting me. The only review of Hotel Berlin that I could find alluded to the possibility of the establishment serving as a double for a brothel. Whether or not it engages in shady business, I have the luxury of having my bed made every day for me and I have the safety of knowing that the main doors are barricaded shut with steel chain and bolt after 12:30pm. On late nights out, I ring a buzzer and say "c'est Stéphanie!" to have one of two brothers, either Hischam or Hassan, come barreling down the main stairwell to let me back into the homestead.

I'm on rather good terms with all of the staff here at Hotel Berlin. The cleaning lady gets a kick out of the high-pitched way I say goodbye in Arabic. The brothers enjoy confusing me (which isn't hard to do). And from Day One, the owner insisted that I address him using the informal French pronoun "tu" instead of the more formal "vous" because I was to consider him as a brother, if ever I needed help.

Home finds itself on one of Rabat's main streets in Centre-Ville, avenue Mohammed V. I am just a 2-minute hop, skip, and jump away from the walled-off portion of the city, referred to as the Medina. This is known as the âme de la ville, the soul of the city. Infused with colour, smells of roasting meat, stalls overflowing with fresh fruit, and vendors haggling passerby, the medina offers a taste of tradition. The further one ventures outside of of its walls, the more modern the neighbourhoods become. I'm sort of smack in the middle between Rabat's dual character, a short walk away from either of its surroundings.

I've been here long enough to have a favourite of everything. A favourite café, a favourite stall to buy yoghurt, a favourite burger joint, a favourite jazz bar... I know the times that strikes march past my hotel (see photo), and I even noticed that a member of the gym I go to who I had never said a word to recently got a new hair cut.

The point is, I'm comfortable here now. And I'm about to share thic city and all that it has to offer with one of my best guy friends, Chris, from Toronto who will be landing at the Rabat Airport any minute now. I scored him an internship at a language lab herefor the remainder of the summer, and on a whim he decided to pack up his belongings and re-settle here in Morocco for two months. This city just got a whole ton better!