“Are you happy here?”

“Yes of course I’m happy. Aren’t you happy living in America? I am happy because this is my home, where I belong.” The response of a woman who had lived in the Moroccan mountainside of a poor village for 40 years regarding her happiness is the moment that I fully understood. Understood what it meant to be happy, what it meant to be a Moroccan. The past five days of my life have opened my eyes to a new life, a new sliver of the world.  My IES program took our group to Morocco for 5 days, and I got to experience and see things I never thought I would experience in my actual life. Probably the most profound aspect of my trip was learning about the Muslim culture; my stereotypes were shattered and I was welcomed into this foreign country with hospitality and an unexpected, genuine kindness. I felt surprisingly comfortable, and ultimately I could see and feel the love that flourishes from this country.

However, the first day of our trip we actually didn’t cross the border into Africa. The first day we went to Gibraltar, which is a British territory. The people of Gibraltar literally spoke “spanglish” and it was neat to hear the people a mixture of English and Spanish, some with a British accent. Gibraltar is the smallest territory/country I have ever been to, and it pretty much is a big mountain.  I learned at that one point this rock was UNDER the ocean! That’s crazy to me, because this rock was a legit mountain now! We went on a bus tour that drove us around to see all the main sights of Gibraltar, like the point where we can see Africa and Europe in the distance, which was beautiful! It was so cool to be able to see both continents at once! I wonder if there is anywhere else in the world that one can do that. Then we went to St. Michael’s cave, which had many stalagmites and stalactites, and a cool theater that hosts small concerts. My favorite stop on the bus tour was the dwelling of the wild monkeys! We were driving along the curvy mountainside road and all of a sudden there are probably about 50 monkeys just walking on the edge of the street, in the street, on the mountain, and on cars! As we drove closer, a mother monkey and her baby walked by, and a monkey pounced on the windshield of our car, Rise of the Planet of the Apes style, which produced a sufficient amount of shrieks from all the girls on my bus. We were able to get out of the bus and walk around and take pictures of the monkeys, and one actually walked onto my shoulders! It just sat there for a while playing with my hair, and he actually felt pretty cozy just straight chilling on my shoulders. Eventually he got off and climbed back onto the bus. That was a very exciting moment for me because I love animals and it was so cool to have a wild monkey on my shoulders! Later that night, we went for a hike up to the top of the rock of Gibraltar! It took us about 2.5 hours to do the whole thing, and it was one of the hardest hikes I’ve ever done because it was extremely steep and my ankle was pretty sore. But getting to the top was worth it! We arrived at the top right as the sun was setting, and the whole sky looked like a watercolor painting, with splashes of neon pink, lavender, and periwinkle. Below, the city twinkled and beyond I could see Spain and Africa. The view was very magical. When we finally got back down to civilization, we went to a traditional British pub for dinner. I tried a pie called Banoffee pie, which is a mixture of banana and toffee, and that is now one of my top 5 favorite desserts. A very sweet way to end an amazing day.

The next day we finally arrived in Africa! We took a ferry across the straight of Gibraltar from Taifa, Spain to Tanger, Morocco. We got to walk around Tanger for about an hour, and I definitely experienced some culture shock in the very beginning. I felt like an alien to all of the locals; everyone was staring at us because we were clearly different. There were barely any women on the streets, and I didn’t know how to act. There was a good amount of litter and stray cats. We walked through a market and it was very different than I expected. Kiosks lined a straight hallway, that sold olives, vegetables, chickens with their heads cut off, fish, fruit, nuts, anything. There were actually a lot of olive stands. The condition of the market was on the bad sad, with stagnant puddles, a stench that made me wrinkle my nose, and many flies. I wasn’t allowed to take many pictures because many Moroccans don’t like to have their pictures taken. After our walking tour of downtown Tanger, we went to an NGO that benefited women. We learned that women go here to learn how to read and write, and to learn some basic skills, like how to sew or cook. We talked for an hour with two local Moroccan students who explained to us a lot about their culture, dating, and religion. We ate couscous and drank mint tea. It was very interesting to learn that the Moroccan kids like to do the same thing as American kids! I felt so much more comfortable talking to these students because I realized that people around the world really aren’t that different.

I have so much more to write but not enough time so I will finish my blog when I can!! 

Location: Gibraltar