By ahblackwell
I’m currently on a plane en-route to Paris. In about five hours, I will land at the Charles de Gaulle airport where I will catch my connection to Rabat. Once at the airport in Paris, I will hopefully meet up with several of the participants in my program who are on my flight to Morocco. My arms are sore from bag-carrying and I am exhausted from standing in lines all day, but I cannot sleep because I’m far too excited. Instead, I am passing the time by reading, Morocco: The Islamist Awakening and Other Challenges, by Marvine Howe.
The book was assigned as a suggested pre-departure reading, and it’s a great way to get pumped up for my semester in Morocco. The book covers Morocco’s history, both social and political, through the eyes of Howe, who is returning to the country after having parted from it for many years. Reading her illustrative descriptions of the deserts past Marrakech, the much cooler and closed-in passageways of the Middle Atlas mountains, and the shining and attractive coastal cities has me ready to run out of the airport and into the arms of Morocco, land of magic and mystery and my new home for the next three-and-a-half months. I realize that some of the images I’ve conjured of the country must be romanticized. I know the Morocco that is portrayed through film screens and captivating books is not a full picture. That is part of the reason why I am enjoying Howe’s book, so much. She encapsulates the beauty of the country while also reflecting on its heavy heat, its dense streets, its poverty, its internal conflicts, and its long struggle towards independence and a new identity. Despite contradicting images and my nervousness towards living in such a different culture for an extended period of time, I have no doubt that this semester will be one of the most fulfilling, difficult, and rewarding experiences of my life. Rabat, and the entirety of Morocco, for that matter, is a wide melting pot of Western and Eastern, Christian and Jewish and Muslim, Spanish and French and Arab, European and African and Middle Eastern. No doubt I will encounter the beautiful images that have been painted by the West; however, I plan to see Morocco for all it has to offer. And I will do it, not just through the pages of books such as Howe’s, but through my own eyes and ears and released inhibitions.