One week

Tuesday marked the end of my first week in Morocco. Orientation was vaguely reminiscent of college orientation, minus the awkward icebreaker games. The Center for Cross Cultural Learning (CCCL), which runs my program, did its best to give members of the program a crash course in all things Moroccan. My greatest adventure resulted from an activity ominously dubbed “drop-off.” Our program leaders put us on a bus, drove around in circles, and then dropped each student off individually, tasking them to observe an aspect of Moroccan culture and make it back to the program headquarters without a map. I made it back, but not without learning a valuable lesson that will remain with me for the rest of my time in Morocco.

Orientation ended on Sunday, and with little fanfare, I was thrust out of the protective bubble orientation provided.  That evening I moved in with my home stay family.  We live in a modest apartment on the edge of the medina—a part of Rabat dating back to the sixteenth century.  My family is small by Moroccan standards. Unlike other participants in my program living with large families and sometimes their relatives, I reside on the edge of the medina with my home stay brother Saad and his parents.

Moving into a family with little working knowledge of their language is a terrifying thing. Saad’s parent speak French, modern standard Arabic, and Darija, the Moroccan dialect of Arabic. Fortunately, my brother, Saad speaks good English, so I’m not totally on my own. Even so, Moroccans have an affinity for languages. Walking through the crowded streets of the medina at nighttime, one can easily overhear a Moroccan  transition in one breath between French, Darija, Modern Standard Arabic, and the Berber (nomadic mountain tribes) tongues.

I didn’t expect to bond with my home stay brother over American music. But within five minutes of my arrival, Saad and I were sitting in his very traditional Moroccan saloon, strumming his guitar and covering western rock songs (Green Day and Third Eye Blind seem to be extremely popular here). Saad was one of fifteen students from Morocco to study in the states for a year, on a scholarship funded by the US State Department. Consequently, he’s well accustomed with our customs. His appetite for American pop culture is insatiable, and I can tell that he hopes to return to the states one day.

That’s not to say that my experience isn’t authentic. Meals during Ramadan are plentiful, boisterous feasts. Because I’m not fasting (with my classes it would be difficult), I’m up to four meals a day. My hosts insist on pushing unbelievable quantities of food on me, to which I rub my stomach and mercifully moan shabet (I’m full) and safi (enough).

Life in Morocco without the language is a humbling experience. Normal, mundane tasks take on an extra degree of difficulty. I’m slowly gaining proficiency in Darija—that is to say I can count to fifteen, order in a café, and recite the first four letters of the Arabic alphabet.  I’m a little short on sleep right now, and definitely outside of my comfort zone, but look forward to the hidden surprises and challenges each day brings.

Ramadan

I’m here. Travel from home to Morocco was lengthy, but otherwise smooth. Islam is a pivotal part of Morocco, and with the onset of Ramadan Monday morning, the city has been transformed. Five times a day the city reverberates with the call to prayer. The voices of Muezzins (priests who sing the prayers) echo throughout the city, their melodic chants of “Allah” piercing the humid air. Sundown and the fourth call bring the end of a day long fast. After a feast, everyone walks the streets, packing roads and alleys lined with vendors hawking their wares. People stay out late into the evening, sleeping for only a few hours until sunrise, when they wake up for a pre-dawn feast. And so the cycle begins again, continuing until roughly the end of September.

English is not predominantly spoken here, so my interactions are frequently embarrassing but often hilarious. An inquiry at the reception desk about where the trash can in my hotel led to a tour of a rather pleasant “terrace”, but sadly one without a trash bin. The keyboards for computers in the Internet cafes are different too—the keys are rearranged, and have both French and Arabic on them. They also require one to write from right to left, no easy feat in English.

Open

Why Morocco?

Much of the African continent is getting in boats again, this time heading north instead of west. At unprecedented rates, Africans are immigrating to European Union countries—many chief perpetrators in the slave trade centuries ago. Economic opportunity abroad and a lack of it at home is pushing Africans from their native lands, causing them to consider “what is worse, the risk (of the journey northward) or a life similar to death?”  Brutal civil wars and ineffective governments have ravaged the continent, making a quality of life on par with Europe impossible for all but a select few.

Northward migration from Africa to Europe is not a new phenomenon, but as European nations have tightened immigration policies and reduced quotas, the paradigm has shifted. Illicit human trafficking networks have been created, funneling Africans into Europe and radically transforming many African economies. African nations have lost their greatest intellectual minds as they shove off from their continent’s coasts in ramshackle boats, hoping to gain a life of greater opportunity. Africans willing to risk the dangerous journey encounter measures taken by governments unified in curbing the tide of immigration, but in disagreement about specific methods. Those that avoid repatriation are faced with a continent in perpetual discourse, largely uneasy with African migrants presence but wary of an economic dependence on the labor they provide.

The introduction above is from a paper I wrote in the fall of 2007 on the influx of Africans illicitly migrating from their homelands to Europe. My interest was sparked by a brilliant, two-part photo essay on modern African migration entitled Kingsley’s Crossing. A curiosity about parallels between the North American immigration debate and the situation in Africa and Europe led to a research paper on the African exodus for a history class that fall semester.

Combing through African newspapers, academic papers on the mechanics of migration, and personal testimonies by those affected by the mass migration to Europe, I became enthralled in the subject matter. Long after the paper was done, I was left pondering questions raised by my brief investigation. Why does migration evoke the worst of human tendency? Or, conversely, what do immigrants offer to their new homes?

But why am I studying abroad in Morocco? Simply put, Morocco is at the nexus of the illicit trafficking of people from Africa (and often, Asia) into the European Union. The nation has a history, much like the sub-Saharan state of Mali, of sending its citizens to Europe. Moroccans began immigrating to French held Algeria in the 1830’s for seasonal work. World War I necessitated the labor of Moroccans, leading to the recruitment of “ten of thousands of Moroccan men for factories, mines, and the French army.”  Morocco is reliant upon the remittances generated by its citizens living overseas. Much of the country immensely profits from smuggling migrants into the European Union, too. Consequently, it’s a fantastic place to examine the cross currents of one of mankind’s most enduring and controversial behaviors.

“What is Worse, the Risk Or a Life Similar to Death,” Inter Press Service, May 16, 2007.

Hein de Haas, “Morocco: From Emigration Country to Africa’s Migration Passage to Europe,” Migration Policy Institute, October 2005.

Opening Note

I promise that future posts won’t be as involved or long as the previous one. I leave in three days (Monday) for Morocco.  Thus, my life is dominated by running last minute errands, closing up my freelance photography business, and cramming my belongings into a backpack. My outbound flights take me from Washington D.C to New York, New York to Paris, and then finally Paris to Rabat. I’ll touch down in three capitals in less than twenty-four hours before finally settling in my new home for the next four months.