For this blog post, I was tasked with reflecting on my time in Morocco, and my impressions of this country in which I had spent two months. I think that all I really need to say is that even now that I’m home, I still expect to see Arabic on signs. I still expect the kind of hospitality that only exists in Morocco, and maybe I also expect to get hit by a crazy Moroccan driver while crossing the road.

Back when I chose to go to Morocco, I really didn’t know all that much about it, aside from what we learned in Arabic class. I was excited to go to an Arabic-speaking country, but in order to understand the people and their culture and history, I had to actually visit. I’m so glad that I did. There are so many things about my time in Morocco that I will always hold close to me; perhaps top among them are all the Moroccan friends that I made, especially from the visits to the universities – IQP students, you missed out!

I am also so glad to have met a certain Hicham who helped me with my project and became a trusted friend, and I’ll definitely miss our late nights sipping coffee by the train station and discussing all sorts of topics. Moroccans are well-known for being friendly to strangers – Professor Brahimi told us that possibly a million times! – but they’re even better to their friends.

One topic that my friend Hicham and I often discussed is the bleak outlook in Morocco in terms of employment, especially for college graduates. Although Hicham is a PhD student himself, he often expressed discouragement at the situation of the job market and the lack of initiative the government has shown in creating improvement. I already knew Morocco was not a perfect country, but Hicham’s comments tempered my impressions, and I think this was valuable to understanding where the country is headed in the coming years.

When giving a review of my experiences in Morocco, it only makes sense to either recommend or discourage other students to go in the future; I’m very glad to say that I highly recommend the HUA program at the Morocco project center. It certainly will not disappoint you. If you are going to experience the culture at any off-campus site, I think that Morocco is the best because people are so friendly and kind even to strangers, and that’s a model we could all follow. Before I left, several people told me I needed to be careful, and to watch out for pickpockets, and to not go to X place at night, all those sorts of things. But to tell the truth, I never once felt unsafe or threatened during my two months in Morocco. My experiences are my own, I do concede that, and of course men will have different experiences from women. But I think that people are overwhelmingly good wherever you go, and Morocco is no exception. What I’m trying to say is that of course you should watch out for your wallet when in Jemaa el-Fna, but don’t let fear prevent you from enjoying everything there is to experience.

More than anything, though, the best advice I could give to future Morocco HUA cohorts is to not go to Morocco with any expectations. Rather, I suggest you just experience things as they are, without imposing your preconceptions on them. This was another thing Hicham and I talked about; if you have expectations of someone or something, it’s easy for things to not end up the way you thought. On the other hand, if you go in and just let things happen, you’ll get a more balanced view. And that’s really important when going to a country like Morocco which is so strong in its history but also facing some economic and political difficulties, like I mentioned previously.

Even just being back in the country for one day, many of my friends have asked me how I liked Morocco. I tell them it was amazing and I loved it, and that’s certainly true, but it would probably take another two months to explain everything I saw and experienced. And it’s even more difficult because saying I “saw” something expresses a superficial concept, like I’m just an outside observer, but I think that living there for two months confers a slightly more nuanced understanding upon me. For example, you might see the protests in Rabat on the news, but that’s a more remote connection compared to what I discovered when I ran into them by accident. The ability to stay for two months and understand the goings-on in the city and the country over that period is certainly another strength of the Morocco HUA program which I am very grateful I could experience.

Even though I’m home in New York again, Morocco is now my home too. Despite all of its flaws, it’s difficult for me to say goodbye. So maybe instead of saying goodbye, I should say “see you again soon.”

The longer I’m in Morocco, the more the medinas of each city fascinate me. It’s cliché, sure, but the medinas feel more like a living creature than just a part of the city. They all have a different feel, different flavor, but somehow they all seem distinctly ancient in all the right ways. No matter what, you have to agree that they’re either a fire marshal’s best dream or worst nightmare.

Jokes aside, the haphazard placement of homes, businesses, and alleyways in the medinas are really the best part of their charm in my opinion. The neighborhood of Rabat where our dorm is located, Agdal, is laid out on a grid system and honestly is a little boring as a result. On the other hand, the medina is easy to get lost in and probably the best place to do so. It feels organic and unplanned, like the city crystallized around a single point. I think that’s what I love the most about it. It almost feels fake to visit cities like New York where things are meticulously laid out, because that isn’t how people think when they settle somewhere. They set up shop where there’s space and that’s it – no worrying about straight roads or consistent design. That’s another thing that fascinates me about the medinas – if there’s space, you bet that someone is using it. Even if there’s a shop that’s maybe a meter or two wide, somebody is making their living there.

It all goes to show that even when something isn’t planned meticulously from the start, it can still operate with enough efficiency and cohesion to achieve good results. In the US, we place so much emphasis on planning and organization. Here in Morocco, things are a little different, and that’s obvious in the medina. Prior to my arrival I read about the medinas and thought they would be the very image of chaos itself. But that’s not really the case: they’re more an image of harmony. I mean, even look at the concept of punctuality: in the US, it’s considered extremely rude to be even a couple minutes late to something, while in Morocco lateness is acceptable and sometimes even expected. And it’s not like life crumbles to the ground as a result, like some people at home would think if you showed up twenty minutes late to an appointment.

Another example of the haphazardness of the medina is the construction. The building materials are brought in on machines that I would describe as motorized wheelbarrows on which you can stand and drive; you’ll know when they’re coming because you hear the loud engine and the operator shouting “BALAK” to tell you to get out of the way. Once the materials are at the construction site, very few safety precautions are taken, at least in comparison to home in the States. The one that’s most obvious to me is that generally the construction sites aren’t blocked off in any way, and you can walk right through them. This would never fly in the US! And yet that’s the way it has to work in the medina here, because the streets are narrow and laid out in such a way that’s prohibitive to blocking off the construction zone and creating a detour. The most surprising thing to me is that it all works without a problem. For the most part, the pedestrians stay out of the way of the construction and vice-versa, and the normal activities in the medina go on as usual.

The idea of a (mostly) pedestrian old quarter is really foreign to me, which I think adds to the charm. For example, the medina in Fes is especially crazy, thanks to its massive size, some extremely narrow alleys, and plenty of low ceilings and doorways in the buildings. But slipping through the tiny passageways, you can feel the history of that place and of the Kingdom of Morocco. Tucked away in the medina of Fes is Al-Qarawiyyin University, the oldest continuously-operating institute of higher education in the world. You could stumble upon it by total chance, and yet still instantly sense the centuries that passed while people studied in that place. When I go home I’ll definitely miss that feeling of being in touch with something ancient, since our country is really young compared to most.

Despite the history innate in the medinas of the major cities, they’re not just gathering places for elderly Moroccans. In fact, it seems like people of all ages spend plenty of time in the medinas. Of course, you have lots of people who live there, but those who live outside the medina still visit, often with their friends and family – go there on a Friday evening and you’ll spot them walking around in the insanely busy, ridiculously crowded streets. With all the people there, it’s a little natural for me to ask: is there room for an American? Based on my experiences, absolutely. I’ve never felt anything but welcome in those centers of Moroccan antiquity. Speaking a little Darija helps, but more than anything, being friendly and polite helps to ensure you’ll get the same in return. Be kind, and others will be kind to you. Isn’t that more important than organization and planning anyway?

Any visit to the medina of Rabat will reveal to you a world of constant activity. You’ll find vendors selling street food, fruit, spices, djellabas, streetwear, shoes, electronics, teapots, art, and just about all the other things you could want when visiting Morocco. There are homes and hotels all over the medina, and restaurants for when you get hungry. But even with all the people who live in Rabat medina, there are yet more inhabitants that we don’t usually think about: the cats. Trust me, they are everywhere, and not just in the medina. Cats are all over Rabat and the other cities of Morocco. After the cats were mentioned briefly at the pre-departure orientation, I had a preconceived idea in my mind that the cats were just considered by Moroccans to be a nuisance like stray animals here in the US, but I was delightfully surprised to find that this is not the case.

The key difference between the treatments of strays in America versus Morocco is that in America they are seen as belonging to nobody, while the street cats here in Morocco are seen as belonging to everybody. There’s one cat in particular who I usually see on the way to class in the morning, an orange kitty who’s always hanging around outside the hanout. She has a little cardboard box with a bed inside which sits there on the sidewalk under the overhang of the building, and the mul hanout feeds her each day; I’ve seen people passing by give her scraps too. Moroccans often collect the leftover food from their meals, and instead of throwing it out or saving it for later, they put it outside for the animals on the street. Taking care of Moroccan cats is a collective endeavor, which I think could never happen in the US because we are (for some reason) so averse to collective responsibility and altruistic cooperation. The longer I’m here, the more I like the Moroccan way, since it helps to ensure that these beautiful creatures don’t go hungry, and overall I think that the street cats here are much better cared for than those in the US. Still, I’m a little sad that these cats don’t have warm homes and humans to bond with.

Most of my friends know that I love cats, so resisting the urge to pet every one I see here in Morocco has been a real struggle. The cat that lives by the hanout has a couple scars on her head, but is in otherwise good shape. Many of the cats here have at least some small wounds, which is indicative of a lack of veterinary care for them – no surprise, since they live in the streets, but still it’s saddening to see. I would feel guilty if my pets had untreated injuries, so I wonder if Moroccans feel the same about their neighborhood animals. We know of the bystander effect: unfortunately, sometimes things that are everyone’s responsibility end up not being taken care of at all, since each person thinks everyone else will take care of it. I’m not sure whether the bystander effect is actually a factor here, but at the very least there certainly is the potential for the communal method of caring for the cats to fail in this respect. I worry how many cats in Rabat are in awful condition and we just don’t see them.

In my opinion, the way Moroccans take care of their street cats as communities is a reflection of their hospitable culture towards guests. There seems to be a notion that since the cats are there, they have to be provided for – I interpret the collection of leftovers for the animals as symbolic of Moroccans’ respect for them. It gives me the impression that the animals are treated as neighbors, which is a little bit like the idea in the US that pets are members of the family. Similarly, when you are a guest in a Moroccan home, no expense is spared to ensure you have comfortable accommodations, plenty of food, and so forth. This is an extension of the Moroccan sense of community, in which neighbors just take care of each other; I feel like this isn’t usually the case in the United States. I also enjoy that the Moroccan sense of community gives a sense of belonging and collective duty to your neighbors – in the US, people tend to be too individualistic for that atmosphere to exist. However, my time here has showed me how important it is to work together as a community to care for each other, and the positive effects it can have for everyone involved.

Even the way that strays are perceived in each culture reveals something about the way Americans and Moroccans think differently. Americans often see stray animals as a problem which needs to be dealt with: the animals are considered a nuisance to the community and are collected either to be put in a shelter or euthanized. On the other hand, Moroccans see the cats as part of their neighborhoods, and as a result there isn’t really an issue to be dealt with, but the cats are taken care of to some extent. Ultimately, I can’t really see either method as perfect. It just doesn’t sit right with me to think of these animals as problems to the community; after all, they’re living beings, and I think that regarding the population of homeless animals this way fails to respect that status. I concede that it is nice to consider the potential for animals in shelters to find homes and loving humans, and animals in shelters can be spayed and neutered to avoid creating more homeless animals. But this doesn’t always happen, and the sad alternative is euthanasia because we can’t (or won’t) provide for the animals as a community. In this regard, the Moroccan way makes a lot of sense to me, since the cats are in general provided for with regard to food and shelter. But then again, the lack of veterinary care is a concern for Moroccan street cats.

I won’t pretend to know what the best way is to take care of the strays of Morocco and the US. But I do think that Moroccans’ sense of community and the benefits it brings to the care of their street cats is commendable, and I want to emulate that sense of community myself. I think that we don’t take enough care of each other in the US – certainly I’m no exception – and I’m committing now to being a better and more attentive friend and neighbor in my community at home.

Of all the things that went through my head prior to coming to Morocco, I can say with confidence that I never thought to myself “man, I can’t wait to be illiterate!” But… here I am, in a foreign country 3500 miles from home, and totally unable to read a solid 90% of written Arabic I come across. As an English speaker, I enjoy the benefits of knowing some vocabulary in French, but my situation for that language isn’t much better.

The strange truth is that not being able to read or write or speak the languages of Morocco has been simultaneously freeing and terrifying for me. From time to time, I worry about getting into situations where my level of Arabic simply won’t be enough to facilitate communication with Moroccans. For example, last week I was at the hanout buying spices to make dinner, and when the shop owner asked me what I wanted I realized I didn’t know the word for cayenne pepper. After trying to explain what I meant for a minute or two, I decided to just cut my losses and only buy cumin and paprika. It was discouraging to get tripped up on something so small, but it really reminded me of how little Arabic I know and how difficult things can be as a result.

Even more frustrating is when I’m talking to someone and they can understand my (basic) Darija, but I can’t understand what the other person is saying. It feels like we’re so close to good communication, but at the same time so far from actually making the connection.

But at the same time I think that not relying on being able to read, in particular, makes Morocco more beautiful. It’s easy to get caught up in signs or posters as you walk down the street, but if you can’t read them, it allows you to appreciate your surroundings as a whole instead of focusing on one thing in particular. As a beginning Arabic speaker in Morocco I feel more free from the constant commercialization we experience everywhere we go in the US, essentially because I just don’t understand the advertisements. Inwi’s texting me trying to get me to buy something? Guess what, I just plain don’t understand what you want! What I’m getting at is that in our society in the US, we place a lot of emphasis on reading things, while ignoring our other senses. I consider myself lucky that while I’m here I’m forced to rely on more than just reading, since it opens the door to experiencing the country in other ways.

Likewise, I’ve experienced a similar phenomenon during live interaction with Moroccans. Being unable to fully express your thoughts in words or to interpret those of others means you’re forced to take note of other signals from them: expressions, gestures, body language. I know I’ve become at least a little bit more attentive to these smaller forms of communication in the absence of the verbal form. It makes me wonder how much information I’ve failed to notice from these more subtle clues during my interactions with friends, family, and other Americans.

I’ve really struggled with the fact that speaking with someone doesn’t just come naturally yet in Arabic. I’m at the point of conscious ineptitude, which is a fancy way to say that I’m bad at Arabic and I know it. At home in the US, I can speak to my friends and family and nearly everyone I meet on the street with no problems, because English is at this point so ingrained in my brain that I almost don’t have to even think about it. On the other hand, speaking Arabic here is so much more exhausting than speaking English at home, because in addition to managing a conversation as usual I have to exert some real energy just to make the words come out. But I know that it’ll be worth it. I recall being in a similar situation when learning Spanish – it’s really easy to fall into the trap of translating phrase by phrase in your head, which slowed me down so much. I won’t pretend to be fluent in Spanish, but I’ve learned to stop trying to translate it to English but instead get in the mindset to think in Spanish. I’m really hoping that my time in Morocco will do the same for me with Darija.

I can’t talk about my difficulties with speaking and reading the language here in Morocco without saying that I have noticed that Moroccans truly appreciate it when you attempt to speak Darija or Fusha, even when you can only say a few words. I always feel at ease when my “salam” or “shukran” elicit a polite response from the Moroccans I see each day, and an actual sentence usually draws out a full smile from them. In the United States, I don’t think we get excited like that for people speaking English, and now that I’m the one who’s learning the local language I feel a little bad for not being as positive with English learners as Moroccans are with me. I don’t think I quite appreciated it as much previously, because it’s difficult to understand exactly how it feels when you haven’t experienced it yourself. That’s certainly something I’ll take home with me, and try to spread to my friends and family – as long as I can put it into (English) words.

Amir and I have made an inside joke out of imitating the tram announcer saying “ITTIJAH: MADINAT AL-3IRFAN”, but I want to point out that “ittijah” is a word that I learned by living in Rabat instead of in class or through the internet. And our little joke has contributed a lot to me remembering what it means. In some sense, I’m a blank slate during my time here, and I’ll have to learn Darija by experiencing it and by using it in my life here. It’s difficult to ride the tram without knowing what “ittijah” and “al-mahata al-qaadima” mean, so I learned them. That’s pretty amazing, you know, how easily we can learn things when we need to know them.

Besides, there’s so much to experience in Morocco that you don’t need words for. There’s history here that you can almost feel in the air, and Moroccan friendliness and hospitality transcends the language barrier. In the future I’ll strive to extend that same goodwill to those visiting the US for the first time, since I’ll have been in their place.

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.