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So Close, So Far Away

February 23, 2009

I don’t think I’ll ever understand the peculiarities of time and space. I tend to be a very practical person, interested in the theoretical only insofar as its real-life applications. But I have multiple friends who are philosophy majors, so maybe they can explain to me how my semester in Spain feels like somebody else’s life (and several years distant), how three weeks in Morocco seem like months, and how a country that at its closest is only about 10 miles from Europe might as well be on the other side of the world. It’s all a little much for me.

Since February 1 I have been in Rabat, the Moroccan capital. After an intense week-long orientation, I moved in with my host family and started classes. This is a very different program from Rollins in Asturias. For those who are interested in the program details, it’s organized through SIT (the School for International Training), which has study abroad programs all over the world, including several in Morocco. Mine is called Culture and Society. The components are: six credits of standard Arabic, a four credit seminar on Moroccan culture and society, a two credit class on fields research techniques, which prepares students for the final component, a month-long independent study project. But more on all this later; I have other things to write about.

I freely admit that the first couple weeks were difficult; Morocco is a hard country to get used to. I probably compared things to Spain a little too much—natural, but not particularly helpful. The hardest thing to adjust to isn’t the differences; it’s the way differences and similarities combine. It’s like hearing a remake of a song you know—variations on the old theme. It doesn’t sound bad, but every time you come to a part that diverges from the original it kind of jars you because you weren’t expecting it. That’s how I feel about Morocco.

I also never cease to be impressed at the amount the human brain can absorb. Since arriving I’ve assimilated information on the country ranging from debates on democratization, use of the hijab, traditional and modern Moroccan art, and Moroccan Jewish communities. I’ve developed a rudimentary knowledge of Darija (Moroccan Arabic) which, combined with my limited standard Arabic, a handful of butchered French, and creative use of gestures, allows me to communicate with my host family. And I’ve visited four very different sites outside of Rabat: Meknes, briefly capital of Morocco in the late 17th and early 18th centuries; Moulay Idriss, a small town named after the founder of Morocco’s first Arab dynasty; Volubilis, the ruins of a Roman city; and Fez, long regarded as the cultural and intellectual capital of the country and now one of my favorite cities in the world. All in three weeks. Crazy.

The one constant I’ve observed in this short time is that Morocco is a country filled with variety. You see it everywhere you look, even in something as elemental as geography. The region between Rabat (on the coast) and Meknes is fertile farmland, and all the colors—the green grass splashed with yellow, orange, white, and purple wildflowers under a bright blue sky—seemed more vibrant even than what I saw in Ireland. So much for the land of desert. Morocco does have desert—we’re visiting it on our trip to the south next weekend—but it certainly doesn’t make up the whole country. The same goes for the culture. From the Phoenicians to the Romans, from Jews, Arabs, and the native Imazighen (better known as Berbers), Morocco has been shaped by the interactions of many different groups of people, a rich heritage reflected in diversity of language, art and architectural styles, political and civil society groups, and in Moroccan cities themselves.

Now the question is: How will Morocco shape me?

Photo 1: Rabat
Photo 2: Moulay Idriss Mosque, Meknes
Photo 3: Volubilis

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