All these emotions

I'm sitting in an airport in New York waiting for our flight to DC. I've been crying for the past 24 hours. I miss Morocco, I miss my family, I miss everyone and everything there so much. My host sister sent me a clip of my host mom saying something to me, and so far I've listened to it twice, and cried both times. If I listen to it one more time I won't stop the crying. I want to go back, I don't know how long I can stay in the US for. I miss Morocco, a country in which I think I changed more than I have ever changed in my entire life.

مغربية حتى الموت

I will be back, dont you dare doubt me. 

Final Thoughts

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. 

Khalas

I finished my Arabic course on Friday. We took our final and that's that.

It feels weird, having all this time and nothing to do. I really did enjoy my Arabic class, and we even finished Al Kitaab 1 so that's kinda exciting. Im relieved to be done, though. We finally finally have a break.

So in addition to buying souvenirs for my friends, I am in the process of figuring out what to pack and what to leave behind. I am essentially leaving all of my clothes behind in Morocco, because I have too many things to bring back. But it's ok, it just gives me an excuse to re-stock when I get to the states. Its a strange feeling, leaving a place that i've known as home for the past 8 months. No more stone floors, no more birds flying in and out of my room. Back to hardwood floors, back to large windows, back to pavements that aren't broken. I cant quite explain my feelings yet, so I will wait to write a mushy gushy post. But trust me it's coming. 

Why I'm so afraid of leaving

I think this was also why I was afraid of leaving home. I left a world I knew, a life I knew and had lived for 18 years. But now going back, I expect life to be the same as it was when I left it, even though I know, logically, that will never happen. I have left home, but just because I left, doesn't mean that life there has stopped.
I'm terrified of leaving because I will Marrakech in one way, and when/if I come back, I will expect Marrakech to stay exactly the same. But the reality is that Marrakech (and everywhere) is changing. People will have graduated, gotten married, moved, and life will have moved on. That is precisely why I am so terrified of leaving. I have learned to love Marrakech the way it is; 5 people to a moped Marrakech, Crazy Boys Marrakech, touristy crowded Marrakech...and I have learned to love the people here.

That is my main problem. If I could leave and Marrakech would stay the same, I would have no problem with it.

Teaching

Today was my last day teaching. I have learned so much from my students, so much I never thought I would learn. About my patience, my love for sharing knowledge and so much more. To know that I positively impacted these 6 students lives makes me extremely happy. Seeing them "graduate" today, seeing how far they've come from day one just makes me...well to be honest, it made me tear up. 
So thank you, thank you to my wonderful class for making my first teaching experience such a memorable and enjoyable one.

To the three girls in my class: I know you three are powerful young women. I hope that you use language to fight your battles in the future. Never settle for anything less, you girls are shining stars that can never ever be tied down. Follow your dreams

To the three boys in my class: You guys are feisty. You guys have an amazing passion for English. Despite not always paying attention, I know you guys love to learn, or else you wouldn't have shown up to class everyday. I want to see you all succeed, I want to see you all chase what you're passionate about. 

I will miss them dearly, they taught me all so much. Lastly, they taught me that teaching is a two way street, you cant teach without learning about yourself, and most importantly, how you're impacting the people around you.  

Research Essay

Today, I finally submitted my research essay. I worked on it for about 3 months, and it was all in Arabic. The topic I chose was the immigration process of Libyans and sub-saharan Africans to Italy and the racist tendencies of Italians. This topic was very complicated, but it allowed me to learn so much more about the MENA region as well as Italy.

In case you don't know, I am Italian, so this issue hits home for me. I really enjoyed spending my friday afternoons translating and researching (this is not sarcasm), typing Arabic and drinking good coffee. However, I am quite happy that this is done. Six pages are typed and submitted, the final result of my Arabic studies here.

I still have about 1 week and a half left of Arabic; I cannot believe how quickly this program is coming to an end. In fact, I do not want to think about it, so I shall not. Tomorrow I have my last English class. I cant believe the progress my students have made. Some of them came in with zero English knowledge, and now they know so much. The progress they have made makes me so happy inside, to know I was able to help them in some way.
Tomorrow will be an emotional day. Hopefully I'll be able to hold it together....

I have alot of feelings with regards to the ending of the program, but I don't know how to express them in writing. I will try, when I have more time. But now I need to go to sleep.

So until next time!

The past week of my life

The past week of my life has been a complete whirlwind.

We left for Fes last Wednesday early in the morning. We stopped in Meknes at about 5pm, and were placed into pairs (I was with Jordan), given 50 dirhams and a slip of paper with 3 tasks written on it, and were told to complete the tasks and then find our way to Fes on our own.
That was easily one of the funnest things I've done in a while. We completed the tasks which included taking pictures of various monuments including the empty zoo, and then found our way into a grand taxi (essentially old BMW that sits 3 people in the front and squeezes 4 in the back). We also met up with 1 other teams so we split the grand taxi with them and two Moroccans. The drive took about an hour, and we were dropped off at the train station in Fes, where we met up with another nsliy team. We then piled into another grand taxi and drove to the hotel. As we were driving we all serenaded the driver in arabic, singing the various songs we knew. I think we single handedly made his night.
The following days were spent exploring Fes and receiving two talks on feminism in Islam (we were lectured by two wonderful women who provided very different perspectives. I will elaborate in another blog post).

On the last day we went to Ifrane and visited the university there. The university is modeled after American universities. Also in Ifrane it snowed, like legitimately. It was wonderful.

After Ifrane, Will and I got on a train to Casablanca since we were going to participate in the USA-Maghreb Youth Debates. We debated for on a Moroccan team with two debaters we know from school. On the first day we had four debates, the topics were: 1.) The rate of  income tax paid by the rich should be increased (con) against an Algerian team,  2.) The natural resources of the Maghreb region should belong to it's people (pro) against another Moroccan team, 3) Prosperity is more important than freedom (pro) agains a Tunisian team and 4) Alternative medicine is a threat to public health (pro) against a Moroccan team. We won all of those debates aside from the last one.
The second day of debating was in Rabat, in which we debated three more times, the topics were 5) Globalization imposes Western Culture on the rest of the world (pro) against a different Tunisian team 6) the UN Security Council veto should be abolished (pro) against an American team. After that we learned that we made it to the semi-finals (since we won both of those debates as well) and in the semis we debated 7) The Arab Spring has positively changed the Maghreb (Maghreb meaning: Morocco, Mauritania, Libya, Algeria and Tunisia) (pro) against the same Moroccan team we debated number 4 on.
The final day, we learned that we made it to the finals (AHHH) and we debated: The ban on the Niqab is an infringement on one's freedom of religion (pro) against the Tunisian team we debated number 3 on.
After a wonderful wonderful debate (which part of you can watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw_3W9bXdtk), we waited anxiously for the results. When they were announced, we couldnt have been more excited, we had won! This meant that we had won the english division of the debate tournament.

We were over the moon, but I think that I was more happy that we had participated. I had gotten the opportunity to meet so many interesting and wonderful people who I never would have otherwise met. It was very fun, very interesting, and best of all, something that allowed all of these countries to participate in a dialogue that is so direly needed by the global community today.