I took the opportunity to arrive in Morocco early. After flying in to the airport in Casablanca, I headed to Marrakesh via train: a three-hour ride to my destination. I took a rear-facing seat in the train, and settled in for the journey. Across from me was seated an oum in her sixties or seventies. She wore a teal plaid hijab, and the wrinkles on her face nearly gave away a soft smile if you looked from the corner of your eye. For most of the trip, we both stared out the window at the Moroccan landscape – red earth, green vegetation, blue sky, and the constant sun – as we raced past it. One effect of facing backwards in the train – in addition to being scared out of your wits when a train unexpectedly barrels past on the neighboring tracks – is that you can only see what’s up ahead by the time it’s already passed you. On the contrary, sitting facing the front of the train, the oum across from me could see the landscape as it unfolded before her: a much better view, if you ask me. It occurred to me that this paralleled our perspectives on Morocco. As a foreigner in this country, I can only view things in a retrospective and reactive manner, that is, I can look at the history and culture of Morocco as they were in the past and as they are today, but I have no idea what comes next. The Moroccan people, on the other hand, can more easily see what is ahead for their motherland; they know the influential people and ideas that will come to shape their country in the upcoming years long before their influence becomes widespread, and this sort of insight only really comes from being part of the Moroccan community. I could really feel this difference between me and the oum on the train, even though we exchanged no words about it. Two months here won’t confer upon me the same level of understanding as she has, but I hope to approximate it while I’m in Rabat.

During my three hours on the train, the minarets of the mosques flew by with frequency only matched by the red-and-white radio towers. I was struck by a feeling that here was a country so steeped in its history and rooted in antiquity, and yet pushing forward toward futurism and connectedness. In Rabat, the new tram system can take you right to the walls of the centuries-old medina, and the new opera house is just a short walk away from the historic Hassan Tower and the mausoleum of Mohammed V. Morocco integrates the old with the new in a way that I think is unmatched anywhere else in the world, and I’m so excited to explore both facets of this amazing country.

The sound of the train constantly droned on in the background during my journey, a loud white noise that I can only associate with going long distances. And just like the sound of the train, my anxiety for the upcoming two months was at a dull roar in the back of my mind; I could push it out of my focus, but it was never entirely gone. As ridiculous as it may sound, the disconnect from my friends and family back home especially weighed on me. It’s difficult to keep in touch with your friends when you’re six hours ahead of them; their free time in the evenings at home is the middle of the night here in Morocco, so even with the power of the internet it’s like playing chess by mail. Furthermore, I worried about being “left behind” somehow by those back in the US, as if for some reason I’d fade from existence in their eyes. It didn’t make any sense when I actually gave it some thought, but it still gnawed away at me, little by little. I guess what I’m trying to describe is a worry that I’ll be lonely here in Morocco. But more than anything, it was just difficult to actually believe that I was in this place that I’d looked forward to for so long! It might have been the jetlag, but I definitely felt like I was dreaming during that train ride.

In addition to my constant state of worry and disbelief, I also felt sudden pangs of anxiety every so often in preparation for my trip. Like the fright I experienced when trains flew by on the adjacent tracks, these waves of anxiety about my upcoming two months in Morocco always hit me suddenly out of nowhere – just when things seemed under control, a new crest would hit. On a scale of one to “oh-my-god-what-am-I-doing-living-in-another-country-for-two-months”, these peaks were typically about a “yikes, what have I got myself into”. Looking back on my anxiety to first come to WPI is difficult because my great experiences at college so far have superseded any negative feelings I had before attending. However, I do recall experiencing similar anxieties then as I did before flying to Morocco, albeit on a smaller scale – it just feels so much more isolating to travel literally across the ocean, instead of a few hours from home! During my first days at WPI, I had the comfort of knowing that I was surrounded by other new students who were just as confused as I was, which is a luxury I won’t have in Rabat. However, it helps that I’ll be here with good friends and familiar professors. I won’t deny that there have been a few times in the past month or so where I’ve been truly worried about my journey in Morocco, but in my heart I’ve never doubted that I made the right choice to come here.

In more than one way, the purpose of my stay in Morocco is to explore the unknown. I’ve never lived anywhere outside of the United States for more than a couple of weeks, and certainly never integrated into a foreign community like I will in Rabat. Sure, when I came to WPI I had to integrate into a new community, but there are far more obstacles here in Morocco, especially the language barrier, so this will be a new experience for me. I only know a little of the Arabic language itself, but being in Morocco will improve my abilities at a much quicker rate than I could ever achieve at home. Furthermore, my research topic (a particular facet of the Jewish exodus from Morocco post-creation of Israel) is largely unexplored, and I hope that my work can shed a little light on it for others. I don’t know if the oum on the train with me had ever been to Marrakesh before. But this whole beautiful country, and the two months I’ll spend here, are certainly uncharted territory for me. All the better.