Blogging
From Abroad

After four months of living in Morocco, I am finally coming home to the hills of West Virginia! Studying here has essentially been a boot camp for diplomats and I have learned much about the world. Being away from Brittany, family, and friends for four months was quite difficult, but I became great friends with many international and Moroccan students during my time here. Of course, my writings only touched the surface of Morocco, Islam, and even my own experiences so take this blog for what it is worth. I’ve learned the danger of generalization after being told exactly what I, as an American, hold as my values and morals. But, to generalize (it’s hard to get away from), this has been four months in Morocco:

couscous, great friends, Islam, diesel Mercedes grand taxis, Arabic, marketplaces in towns, hospitality, French, poverty, postcards, letters, vomit, squat toilets, planes, trains, haircuts, Aguelmum’s, La Paix, library, political discussions, professors, Moroccan newspapers, monopolistic campus store and restaurant, green mint tea, café au lait, books, mountain climbing, diplomacy, negotiating, snow, sand, heat, cold, small black notebooks for languages and journal entries, no television, economics education, maps, languages, freedom/lack of freedom, tajines, hard work/leisure, Muslims, Ramadan, mosques, culture shock/understanding, adaptation, criminals, illegal immigrants, soccer with Moroccan kids, Le Monde, Google Translator and Google Earth, skipping American holidays, foreign affairs, Cipro, dirhams and Euros, fallacious logic, countering anti-Americanism, collective action problems, Moroccan/Algerian music, hammams, cheap hotels, mules and donkeys, portraits of Kings Muhammad VI and Hassan II, Skype, Ifrane, fellow travelers, ftour, Islamists/secularists, Torino, 2500 pictures, Five Pillars of Islam, four Arabic books, omnipresence of Security, other peoples? homes and towns, slaughtered animals on hooks, challenges, playing chess, adventure and exploration.

After finals and research papers, many of us went to Aguelmum’s, the local hangout for students at AUI, to celebrate and say goodbye. This morning, one of the Moroccan students who lives across the hall presented me with an ornate rug and wished me the best in traveling. Always hospitality here!

24 hours of travel to go. I’ll travel from Fes to Casablanca, over the Atlantic to JFK and finally to Pittsburgh. It has been an incredibly interesting semester but I’ll be happy to be back in the States.