The first thing I get asked as an American student studying abroad in Morocco is “What were your expectations and how does it compare?”. Coming into Morocco, I tried not to have any expectations because I did not want that to influence my experiences. I still heard many things, and of course, I wasn’t completely unbiased. I had heard both positive and negative things from so many different places. Before I left, every person that heard I was living in Morocco for two months had something to say about it, even my dentist.
Not having a lot of preconceived ideas about the country made it so that not many things surprised me. One of the things I did not expect about Morocco is the similarities between India and Morocco. Both Morocco and India are developing countries with a lot of tradition backing them. In America, everything is comparatively new. The oldest things that are still standing are less than 400 years olf. In India and Morocco, civilization is thousands of years old. There is a lot of mixing of traditional old and rapidly developing modern society. Walking through the medina, you will see satellite dishes attached to buildings that are thousands of years old. The roads are insane and pretty disorganized. Walking down the street, you will see young people dressing in a reflection of the old and new societies. I have seen a woman in a hijab use the hijab to hold her phone in place while she was on a phone call. There is a lot of similarities in hospitality. Everywhere you go, you are offered tea and snacks. People will want to speak to you and ask you questions, and they are genuinely interested in you as a person. Although, that might just be because we are foreigners.
One of the biggest things I heard from everyone is Moroccan hospitality. When Professor Brahimi first told us the story about the girls a few years ago who got invited to the house of someone they met in the medina, I didn’t think that could ever really happen. I thought it was a rare case. However, just a few days ago we met several students from Mohammed V University. We were speaking for a few hours, and one of the most shocking things was that there were never any awkward silences. Frequently when meeting new people, I feel like there are several paused where people are scrambling to find something to talk about. When meeting with the Moroccan students, conversation flowed so smoothly the whole time. It never felt like I was searching for a new topic, and we easily moved from one subject to another. Even after only meeting for two hours, the students were so excited to meet us again and get our contact information. I shared my number with over ten students, and I have currently been messaging one of them to make plans to meet again.
We also became friends with someone at the Rabat Policy Forum. I was entering this conference with the thought of trying to network to find contacts for my research project. I really didn’t have much hope because my project is very unrelated to politics and policy. I did not get any contacts but we met Sara. We also had hours of great conversation with her and have plans to meet her again soon as well! As someone who usually struggles to make friends, it has been an interesting experience. Moroccans are definitely a lot friendlier than I expected them to be.I am looking forward to the next few months here, especially with making new friends and meeting more people!