I’ve seen a lot of things in my two weeks in Morocco. This country has so many good things and amazing people and places sometimes it seems like it’s more than just one singular country. You can look at an amazing view from the Kasbah only to be interrupted by someone selling you tissues for the equivalent of 10 cents in the US so they can survive. That’s definitely one thing that’s thrown me off in my time here. I’ve seen panhandlers and beggars and people trying to sell you things on the street but it’s more intense here. It could just be because I don’t speak the language and I don’t feel as comfortable but it seems to bother me more when they get angry for not giving them money. Which brings me to another hard thing about this country. For the most part in the US beggars and panhandlers are older people who you can clearly tell are not going to use the money to survive. But here it’s young children or women with their babies or elderly women with canes. How do you choose?

You can’t give everyone who asks for money your money because then you don’t have any. I usually will give the children money maybe that’s just my maternal side but I find to feel the worst for them. I’m sure they aren’t choosing to sell magnets, flowers, and tissues to survive they’d rather be acting like children.

Moroccan people are especially nice. They treat guests like kings and are nice and helpful during most interactions I’ve witnessed. Even interactions with police officers are different than in America. However Moroccan people stare. I can’t tell whether as a culture people just stare for a long time as opposed to American standards but its noticeably long. In America if you are staring at someone and they make eye contact with you, you look away- in morocco that is not the case. They will continue to stare even going so far as to turn around after you’ve walked past. It’s almost unnerving as staring usually doesn’t mean something good. I know that I obviously look different than most people here and I am quite obviously a tourist. But the way people stare is borderline rude. And then when they make no effort to hide the fact that they’re talking about me is really strange. Americans have a stereotype of being rude and obnoxious, but I would never openly talk about someone that has done nothing to me. But that could be a cultural or an upbringing thing.

The catcalling in Morocco is new level. Never have I been talked about so much. No matter how you dress or act the men here still have a comment some even go as far as following us for a short while. Even American construction workers have nothing on young Moroccan men. But even though I think they genuinely think we are your typical American floosy they don’t actually want us to respond to them they would have no idea how to react if we walked up to them to talk. Maybe we should do that one day as a social experiment see how they react if we don’t seem scared. Because I think that’s why they do it. Men need to have control. Its in their DNA and in a country like morocco where its not a great political or economic scene it’s their form of power. They know that we aren’t from here so we don’t feel totally comfortable or even safe at times. And they are from here they know the people the police the language the streets and they exert that over us.

Overall Morocco is filled with amazing culture and people peppered with the same sad problems every country faces.