Welcome to Morocco!

Madarba al Magreb, Welcome to Morocco!! Saalam, Saalam, Saalam...

As many of you may or may not know, I was accepted to partake in one of Wellesley's all-expenses paid summer internships in Rabat, Morocco to work for the Center for Cross Cultural Learning (CCCL) which operates alongside student exchange programs to arrange lectures, seminars, language classes, and excursions that deal with Moroccan history, culture, and religion. Exactly along the same lines as my majors (International Relations-History, French), this internship was a perfect match for my interests ---- not to mention the fact that I would be PAID to live and work in Morocco -- as I like to say: as if, as if, as if !!

In an "I-have-no-clue-what-I'm-getting-myself-into" fashion, amplified by the many family festivities and final essays I had lined up right up to the day of my departure, I said my goodbyes (for a year) and found myself for the now zillienth time filing through airport security lines and metal detectors. A few terminal changes, crusty plane meals, and passport stamps later, I found myself stepping into the (humid) Moroccan air.

Besides the time and weather difference, not a lot had changed: ... I still had no clue what I was getting myself into. As our good friend Shakes once said, Life is a stage. In this new technological era that we live in, I would beg to differ that life is more like a glam and glitzed Hollywood movie. That's at least how it felt when I came down the tarmac to find a chauffeur with a STEPHANIE BROWN sign, waiting to take me to the hotel that I would be staying in for the entire summer: It's been a little over 2 weeks that I've been here, and already I feel pretty adjusted to my surroundings and to my work. I was here just one day when 1 of the 2 brothers who man the front desk on a rotating schedule knocked on my door to tell me that I had a phone call on the line. Already having resigned myself to a lonely night of watching one of the 3 channels on my dinky television set, and having no idea who on this Moroccan earth could already have my number, I was by no means ready to go down to the reception to take the call. I asked Front Desk Brother #1 to ask whoever it was to call back in 5 minutes. Sitting there, a little disoriented to say the least, I was shocked when who walks into the front door but Sophia, a girl I had met only once on one of my visits to see my best friend Hillary at Smith College. Thanks once again to the power of technology - Facebook in this instance - Sophia had found out that I was coming to Rabat and knew which hotel I was staying in, and decided to spread some love from one All Womens College student to another by whisking me off into the life that took her 9 months to establish. Off we went to Le Pietri, a fancy jazz lounge where I was seated directly across from the Romanian star singer of the night... drastic change of events, to say the very least, that's for sure!

In the past 2 weeks I have been to more dinner dates, get-togethers, and discos than I ever would have imagined. It helped that this was Sophia's last week in Morocco so she kindly passed on her wisdom and advice (and cell phone!), as well as including me in her jam-packed and ridiculously awesome social schedule. I've met a TON of people through her, mainly European expats who are here in Morocco's capital working for the UN, UNICEF, schools, architecture firms, or for their country's embassies. It's a tight-knit community that is full of some super interesting characters; my closest friends here thus far include a Dutch boy who is on a quest for the perfect soil so that he can start an organic farm and export the produce back to Europe; an incredibly fun gay Polish guy who mysteriously manages to find romance in this supposedly conservative 'closed' society; a spunky 36-yr old Yemenese woman who is dating an American 10 years her junior, neither of whom share a language in common; a dashing French man who pulls off tophats and bright yellow petticoats and has a pet dog named Mochitto; a suave Moroccan guy who by age 20 already owned his own discothèque; and an eccentric American-born, Moroccan-raised, French-inhabited woman who brings a tote bag full of custome jewellery and clothes for the themed parties we have.

It’s an interesting crowd, to say the very least. Communicating in a mix of English, French and the local dialect of Arabic, we don’t always understand each other but the one thing that we can all relate to is being a foreigner in Morocco, and all the good and all the bad that that entails. It’s the common thread that pulls us together and we appreciate each other for simply being in (not to mention putting up with the oddities of) this country.

Morocco itself is a puzzle with pieces that continuously contradict each other. You’ve got 98 percent of the population that are Muslims, alongside a prostitution rate that is one of the highest in the world. You’ve got veiled women walking alongside women who really ought to have their horrendously chintzy and revealing fashion taste veiled. You’ve got a newly enacted Family Code that protects the rights of women, those of whom still face the torrents of street harassment (via cat calls) every corner they turn.

What I most love about this place is the rhythm of life: the streets and markets are bustling yet there is no real rush to get anywhere. People sit in cafés ALL day long. The word for 'yes' in Moroccan Arabic sounds like a sigh, long and relaxed -- just like the living. The other day, I walked past a group of rastifarian Moroccan teens who were drumming on a side street, and with perfect timing, they paused their beat to yell out "Welcome to Morocco". You're not supposed to respond to such street calls, but with this one, I couldn't help but smile