It’s hard to encompass the idea of exchange in to a single paper, no matter how long. My experience in Morocco has been like no other. I have become part of a family, made friendships that will last me a lifetime, and most importantly, I have learned so much about myself as a person.
Moving to vastly different country with very different values and customs makes you seriously appreciate what you have back home, and what things you come to realize are values that you cannot let go of. As I have lived here, I have noticed that family plays the most important role in life. Back in the states, family is the most important thing to me, although we express it in a different way.
As opposed to many “typical” Moroccan families, my host family didn’t often show their love and affection towards each other. Despite consistently telling me that Moroccans don’t go off and do their own thing in their own rooms, that is what I continued to see day after day. My host brother, who has maybe spoken a total of 20 words to me since I’ve arrived in Morocco, spends all of his time playing video games on the computer. My host dad, despite being the sweetest man I have ever met, was never really around, and has a very distant relationship to his children. My host mother, on the other hand, is always doing everything to make this family function. With her Quranic radio station playing out of her portable radio, she moves from room to room, cleaning and making the house a better place to live. So in terms of spending time together, I had to become accustomed to not spending much time with my host family; the little time we spent together was cherished and the memories were stored away for a time in which I would want to recall them. I do truly love my host family, all of their quirks, and am so grateful for everything they've done for me in these past 8 months.
Secondly, the daughters relationship to her father. In the states, I have what I like to think is a rather close and good relationship with my father. We talk, laugh, hug, go on adventures, among many other things. Here, I noticed that my host sister occasionally but very rarely spends time with her father. Girls in general are expected to be closer to their mothers, rather than their fathers. Therefore, I have been lacking a father figure for the entirety of this year, and it’s an interesting thought. I would often sit in the salon and talk for hours with my host mother about religion, life, what i wanted in life, and many other personal topics. The only conversation I can remember with my host father in which we scratched more than the surface was at the very beginning, in which we spoke about Bill Clinton and what I thought of Obama. Regardless, having my host father’s presence even if it is a scarce one, has been a valuable experience and part of my exchange.
I could go on and explain more about how my life in the United States is vastly different from my life here, but then I would feel as if I had kind of lost the idea and meaning of exchange. It’s not to continuously compare what I had and what I have, but rather to try and understand what I have gained and lost from this exchange, and how the country and culture have made an impact on my life that I will take back to the United States. As for now, I can only recognize the fact that I have changed. I don’t know how, and I don’t know which aspects of Moroccan culture initiated these changes. Then again this is why exchange never really ends, because you will spend your whole life understanding what exactly changed you; that’s the beauty of exchange.
No comments:
Post a Comment