Writing a Book

Almost a month has gone by since I arrived in Rabat and, frankly, I am still waiting for the city to feel like home. Balancing four classes, two internships, language tutoring, and attempting to make new friendships on top of mentally, physically, and emotionally adapting to Moroccan culture has proven itself a hard monster to slay. I don't want to convey a dishonestly romanticized picture of what cultural shock looks like in practice.

A quotidian crowded tram ride, constant racially under toned sexual harassment, suffocating humidity, and tears at my inability to pronounce Arabic words correctly due to a speech impediment have punctuated my first days in Rabat. But if these negative cultural growing pains are the punctuation in my metaphoric book, then what are the words and sentences themselves made of?

The inspiration to write this blog post came last night. I was slowly turning the pages of the reading for my Koran class as fatigue gnawed at my mind when my host sister, Naima, asked if I wanted to go out into the old medina to get my ears pierced. I’ll never forget our shared tearful laughter when I realized that as the jeweler pierced my ears, I squeezed Naima’s arm so hard I broke through skin. Afterwards, my host mom and an extended family member visiting from Marrakesh joined us as we walked down to the beach just steps away from our home. We took in the picturesque view of the ocean and the city of Rabat seemingly superimposed against the dark blue night, relishing each other’s company. A couple of minutes after I settled in my room with my dinner (served daily at 9 or 10pm!), my younger host sister, Sukaina, burst into my room and smothered me with kisses despite having just seen me an hour ago. She pulls out a notebook and asked me to help her with her French homework. Together, we wrote a simple letter to her friend in French, me dramatically reacting to her grammatical mistakes to make her laugh and her excitingly writing down each new sentence that we came up with. I never finished my Koran reading, and for the first time in my academically obsessed life, I was okay with that.

As I worked on my Arabic homework the next day in an empty classroom, the program coordinator came in to ask how my day had been. Five minutes later, we were in a heated debate about the relationship between religion and morality, profusely telling each other how much we loved and respected the other yet strongly challenging each other’s beliefs. A couple of Moroccan university students came into the room and joined us, adding their insight as our conversation transitioned from religion to veiling to the rise of slime on social media to our relationships with our siblings to our shared love of food and then to American politics. Before we knew it, we had been talking for two and a half hours. Afterwards, one of the university students confessed to me that that was the first time he had openly discussed Islam with someone other than his closest friends because he felt that Moroccan society didn’t always respond well to religious questioning or criticism.

I love conversations like this, filled with love, respect, laughter and shared learning. I love when my little brother, Youssef, who doesn’t speak any English beyond “Hi! How are you? I’m good!”, runs downstairs when he hears me open the door and leads me upstairs. I love seeing Sukaina and calling her “Mon petit bébé!” while we hug and she responds “I missed you!” I love playfully telling her “Hashooma!” (Shame on you!) when she sings dirty lyrics in English pop songs. I love walking into the CIEE center and getting a hug and a kiss from the staff before I go to class and another set as I leave to head home. I love my Moroccan friends, who show me new cafés and restaurants and text me every day. I love how many dinner and house invitations I’ve garnered in less than a month. I love how understanding my internship colleagues are when I mess up, sending me an exasperated “C’est pas graaaave” after my third flustered apology, and how they check in on me by sending me hearts when I tell them I’m feeling stressed. I love all of these things and more.

Not a day goes by where I don’t exclaim “Awwwww c’est très gentil!” in response someone’s kind words or actions and I am constantly in awe of the lengths that my host family (ask me about my toilet situation), the CIEE staff, my Moroccan friends and colleagues (and their parents?!), some of whom really don’t know me well yet, go to make sure that I am happy and thriving. It truly is reflective of the communitarian spirit of this country and I am HERE for it, in every sense of that phrase. Though I’m still trying to feel completely at ease here, I wouldn’t want to do it with any other community of people at my side.

So, let’s keep swimming (which I actually can’t do now that I have fresh ear piercings) figuratively!