First couple days of Orientation...

The past two days here have been crazy, but I can already tell that the experience will be worth it. Day one was spent walking around airports, waiting for flights and realizing that I’m in Africa for the next three and a half months.

There will end up being a huge cultural difference and things will be interesting to get used to.

We are blatantly foreigners, and gain a lot of interesting looks from people. Luckily, within the Medina, they are used to American students studying at the Center for Cross Cultural Learning, and don’t tend to stare at us too much. The Medina itself is an adventure I’ll experience every day, crowded with tons of people checking out the vendors, who are either in the middle of the path, or in little cubbies that look like holes in the wall.

This morning I woke up at 5:30 to the call for prayer, and we hear it right before we go to bed too. Right outside the window of my hotel room I can watch the street vendors and listen to street music.  The combination of women that wear traditional dress and then the younger generations wear western clothing. We all continue to dress rather conservatively, keeping our shoulders and knees covered at all times, but that seems to be appropriate enough for walking around the city.

When I bought my international cell phone today, I couldn’t speak French, or Arabic, so I ended up getting charged more money than my friend who is mostly fluent in French. The balance of language here is interesting. The people speak Moroccan Arabic, but write and study Standard Arabic, but also are fluent in French, and a lot also speak Spanish.  It’s comforting to know I could always try communicating in Spanish until I get a better grasp, or any grasp at all, on Arabic.

So far, I can tell that this will be an experience that is going to cause me to be pushed outside my comfort zones a lot, but I think the growth will be a great thing overall. I’m looking forward to meeting with our host families on Thursday night, and getting more involved with the community. 

Here's a few pictures:

This is where I'm going to school :)

The fabulous few from the CCCL (Center for Cross Cultural Learning

The view from my room! :)