Although I returned from my placement almost one month ago, it has been a crazy month so I am just now posting this. Overall, my experience in Morocco was good. I learned a lot about Amazigh women and how they are treated in Morocco, and it also inspired me to think more about women's rights. Not particularly the women's rights that a lot of groups in the States focus on, such as rebelling against shaving, modest clothing and considering "you guys" a sexist term, but actual important things like being ignored in court and legal matters, forced to marry your rapist, coerced into child marriage, and being heavily discriminated against in the education realm and employment market.
While I ended up not having much to do by the end of my placement, I did get the opportunity to interact with activists and women directly and learn more about these kind of situations and what they are trying to do about it. I met very inspirational people and I think that the length of time that I stayed in Morocco was perfect. Twelve weeks was an adequate amount of time to really adapt to the culture and the host family experience, as well as identify my biases. When I look back at my notes from my initial observations of Morocco, I can see now them from a completely different perspective, for which I am glad.
That being said, I ended up having a kind of sour end to my stay, as I began to get the feeling that the director of the program was more after money than anything else. Once I was in Morocco, he was attentive to any concerns I had but seemed to focus tremendously on bringing more people in than helping the students that were already there. I found out he was trying to get students to make large money transfers for him through their bank accounts, and he paid them back in cash.
During my last week in Morocco, I was walking at night with another student who was staying the same host family as me, at around 11pm. It was a sidewalk by a very fast road, and somewhat deserted at this time of night, while well-lighted. There was a man following us and we crossed the road and he seemed to go on his own way. About half an hour later, I turned back and saw the same man behind us, this time running. The next thing I knew, my friend was on the ground and the man appeared to have a cord around her neck. I couldn't believe that this was happening, and started yelling and hitting the man. We eventually made such a commotion that a car stopped, and the man ran off. It turned out that he was trying to snatch her purse, but for some reason the strap from her purse snapped and he started attacking her with it. Thankfully she was not hurt besides a few scratches from him, and cars started pulling up to make sure we were okay and we happened to be right across the street from the American embassy, who called us a cab. While this was a scary experience, we never walked alone at night again.
My last night in Morocco, I was trying to figure out how to get a ride to the airport, as my flight left pretty early, at 7:55am but I needed to leave my host home at 5am. My placement director offered to arrange a cab for me, but told me it would be 500MAD (about $60). That sounded extremely high and a local told me that the average price for an arranged cab was no more than 200MAD (about $23). I told him I would arrange my own ride and I never heard a reply from him. The near-mugging experience had just happened so I was wary of going anywhere alone at night. I asked my host family if they would take me to the airport, but for some reason I couldn't understand (this was in Arabic, and mine was not quite up to par) they wouldn't take me to the airport. I asked them if they could at least call and arrange a cab for me (so that it wouldn't be overcharged, if i asked I would get ripped off as a foreigner). They then told me that my placement director had instructed them not to arrange a cab for me or help me get to the airport. I couldn't believe that he would do that, and my host mom eventually had sympathy and arranged a ride for me. It ended up costing 200MAD, not the 500MAD that my director had originally charged me.
Aside from this negative and unfortunate experience with my placement director, Morocco is a wonderful country and I would like to go back and visit the friends I made, just not with the same organization. It is a small organization that is just starting up, but definitely seems poorly organized and just about making money and petty arguments. I would not like to repeat the same experience.
I am glad that I was in Morocco this summer and it absolutely changed my perspective on life and the way I view the world. I'm spending the fall semester in Turkey now and it is really interesting to have a point of reference from another Muslim country and be able to draw connections and differences. I learned so much Arabic from being in Morocco and am truly glad that I was able to participate in the Global Scholars program.
While I ended up not having much to do by the end of my placement, I did get the opportunity to interact with activists and women directly and learn more about these kind of situations and what they are trying to do about it. I met very inspirational people and I think that the length of time that I stayed in Morocco was perfect. Twelve weeks was an adequate amount of time to really adapt to the culture and the host family experience, as well as identify my biases. When I look back at my notes from my initial observations of Morocco, I can see now them from a completely different perspective, for which I am glad.
That being said, I ended up having a kind of sour end to my stay, as I began to get the feeling that the director of the program was more after money than anything else. Once I was in Morocco, he was attentive to any concerns I had but seemed to focus tremendously on bringing more people in than helping the students that were already there. I found out he was trying to get students to make large money transfers for him through their bank accounts, and he paid them back in cash.
During my last week in Morocco, I was walking at night with another student who was staying the same host family as me, at around 11pm. It was a sidewalk by a very fast road, and somewhat deserted at this time of night, while well-lighted. There was a man following us and we crossed the road and he seemed to go on his own way. About half an hour later, I turned back and saw the same man behind us, this time running. The next thing I knew, my friend was on the ground and the man appeared to have a cord around her neck. I couldn't believe that this was happening, and started yelling and hitting the man. We eventually made such a commotion that a car stopped, and the man ran off. It turned out that he was trying to snatch her purse, but for some reason the strap from her purse snapped and he started attacking her with it. Thankfully she was not hurt besides a few scratches from him, and cars started pulling up to make sure we were okay and we happened to be right across the street from the American embassy, who called us a cab. While this was a scary experience, we never walked alone at night again.
My last night in Morocco, I was trying to figure out how to get a ride to the airport, as my flight left pretty early, at 7:55am but I needed to leave my host home at 5am. My placement director offered to arrange a cab for me, but told me it would be 500MAD (about $60). That sounded extremely high and a local told me that the average price for an arranged cab was no more than 200MAD (about $23). I told him I would arrange my own ride and I never heard a reply from him. The near-mugging experience had just happened so I was wary of going anywhere alone at night. I asked my host family if they would take me to the airport, but for some reason I couldn't understand (this was in Arabic, and mine was not quite up to par) they wouldn't take me to the airport. I asked them if they could at least call and arrange a cab for me (so that it wouldn't be overcharged, if i asked I would get ripped off as a foreigner). They then told me that my placement director had instructed them not to arrange a cab for me or help me get to the airport. I couldn't believe that he would do that, and my host mom eventually had sympathy and arranged a ride for me. It ended up costing 200MAD, not the 500MAD that my director had originally charged me.
Aside from this negative and unfortunate experience with my placement director, Morocco is a wonderful country and I would like to go back and visit the friends I made, just not with the same organization. It is a small organization that is just starting up, but definitely seems poorly organized and just about making money and petty arguments. I would not like to repeat the same experience.
I am glad that I was in Morocco this summer and it absolutely changed my perspective on life and the way I view the world. I'm spending the fall semester in Turkey now and it is really interesting to have a point of reference from another Muslim country and be able to draw connections and differences. I learned so much Arabic from being in Morocco and am truly glad that I was able to participate in the Global Scholars program.
