Day One: Pitbull in Morocco?

            Compared to the flight from Boston to Paris, the flight from Paris to Rabat was a piece of cake. I ended up sitting next to Kate, another girl from the CCS program and we had a great time. They served us weird cold lunch (my 4^th meal of the day already) and I then I tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to make up for the three hours of sleep I had gotten earlier.

            Kate is a Middle Eastern Studies major at her school, hoping to practice her Arabic while she’s here. We were both pretty nervous to try to communicate in French and Arabic, respectively, but have made a sort of pact to try our best to speak the languages.

            The language isn’t the only thing that’s different here, though. Morocco is unlike anywhere I’ve ever been before. It has a definite Middle Eastern feel, with mosques and women in headscarves and the like. But on the other hand, some of the architecture is surprisingly modern, and the Moroccan youth are not unlike ourselves.

            The house is amazing. We’re in a little neighborhood with a beautiful backyard that supposedly has a few turtle inhabitants. More on this later. The house staff is amazing as well. Mohammed and Abdou picked us up at the airport and made us all feel comfortable from the start. The others are nice too, but I really need to learn their names. Volunteer-wise, everyone has quickly become friends. We all came from different parts of the country, and everyone is so interesting. I can’t wait to get to know everyone better.

            Backtracking a bit, on the plane to Rabat, Kate and I sat next to a guy and his many bandmates. Apparently, there is a huge music festival happening this week with international and Moroccan performers. According to this guy, whose “Evanescence-like band” will be playing at the festival, Shakira played last year and attracted over 100,000 people and a few years before, there was a stampede! It’s kind of a big deal. So when Mohammed proceeded to tell us about the festival, and we saw that Pitbull was playing tonight, we all knew we couldn’t miss it.

            None of us particularly like Pitbull, but we knew it would be interesting to see an American artist in Morocco. Plus, it was free. :) So ten of us took cabs to the main stage, having to walk the last half of the way due to road closings and massive amounts of people. It ended up being Kate, Anthony, and I at the show. This was most certainly a culture shock.

            For one, I have never been to an event that was so predominantly male. The girls present were most often accompanied by their fathers. Even dressed conservatively, I endured quite a few pinches and offers to dance. It is certainly not easy to blend in here. But overall, the concert was awesome. It was so funny seeing the Moroccan boys singing the Spanish words of an American singer’s song. Talk about a mixing of cultures.

            But the most fun came at the end of the night, when we headed back to the home base. The three of us hailed another taxi, and I ended up in the passenger’s seat. The drive was long and circuitous due to the road closings, and I spoke in French with the driver the entire way. It was so much fun! We talked about Morocco and the USA, Moroccan cabs, what we’ll be doing during our time here, etc etc. It was awesome! I’m so so glad that I was able to go out of my comfort zone and just talk. It seems as if I’m better than I thought. And this is only day one!!

            He said something to me that I found very interesting, and really symbolic of my initial perception of Morocco as a whole. When I told him I wanted to become a doctor, he said “God is my number one friend, and the doctors are number two.” Morocco is certainly rooted in deep tradition, but it’s growing progressiveness is unmistakable.

Until tomorrow, bonne nuit!

-Allie