Jett's Study Abroad Experience
Spring 2023
Spring 2023
,Alright, I suppose it's time to start explaining what I have been doing around the world for the last month and a half. Well, frankly I've been doing so much that I'm only going to be able to talk about roughly the first week in Morocco in this blog post, but I'll get right into it. Morocco: When I left on April 20th, I flew from London Stansted to Rabat, Morocco with a friend. When we were at the airport, we had nothing but confidence that this was going to be one of the smoothest trips we had done so far, and that we would easily be crossing North/West Africa off the bucket list. Let me put it bluntly, this trip did not go very smoothly; however, it must be said that I still had a very positive experience and learned a ton more from this trip than I could have ever imagined. The first city that we flew to was Rabat, Morocco, which also happens to be the less-touristy capital of Morocco in the upper coastal area of the country. The moment we landed down at the airport, we were both very surprised at the amount of green that was around as well as just how developed the area was. By the time we got through customs and had our visas stamped into our passports, we immediately started to encounter some issues. Being a country that still relies heavily on cash, our first order of business was to pull money out of an ATM, which seems simple in concept, but when all of the ATMs are labeled Bank of Africa and only have French as the language, it becomes almost impossible to get money. We were lucky when a kind gentleman helped us to pull out money, which also put us in a position where we were ready to call a taxi and head to our hostel. Overall, this portion of the trip was easy since we had money and the taxi took us right to where we needed to be. We were quite surprised when the area we were staying was in the most local street market we had ever seen, as we were easily the only tourist around and we looked very out of place. Fortunately, the owner of the hostel had decided he would come meet us and show us around, which really helped. After checking into our hostel, we decided the best thing to do would be to go get some Shawarma at a local Syrian restaurant and then buy some bottled water since Americans shouldn't drink the tap water in Morocco. The owner ended up walking us to the restaurant when he said something that really broke my heart. He asked us where we were from, and when we said America he said, "I'm so thankful you don't come to my country and think I'm a terrorist since I have a Muslim beard and show you Syrian food." As you can imagine, it was so painful to see how our discrimination in America effects people even when they live all the way over on the other side of the world. It makes me realize that while we sit high and mighty, it not only makes people hate us, but it makes them assume that we are afraid of them. When we got to the restaurant though, the food was excellent, people were looking at us and kids kept on coming up asking us what our names were and if we could give them any money. This was a common theme throughout the rest of our time in Rabat, so I won't go much more into detail, but just keep in mind that this type of people looking at us really continued for a good portion of our trip. The next day was our only full day in Rabat, so we mostly just did some sight-seeing. I want to point out that we learned that it is really important to look out for scams in the public/tourist areas. No one ever offers help for free, so just keep that in mind when people try to show you around or give you a unique experience. I'm not saying to tell them no if you want the experience, but just be prepare for them to ask for money at the end. I'm not going to bring up scams anymore in the rest of my blogs though, because I really don't want to draw light to the negative things that can often become a generalization of people in countries. I, of course, will always advise people to use caution in crowded/touristy areas, but remember that there are more good people than bad people in this world. Just because people look different from yourself does not make them less human. Each person you will meet is beautiful in their own way, and even the people who may try and scam have a story if you are willing to talk to them and treat them like a human being. Just remember where you are, the political/economic environment that you are in, and what makes people do what they do. But anyways, the things we saw in Rabat included: - A beach and pier overlooking the Atlantic Moroccan coastline - The Mausoleum of Mohammed - Hassan Tower - The Kabash of the Udayas - A celebration of Eid on the night that Ramadan ended where everyone was feasting to break their last long fast of the year. - Got some Syrian turmeric chicken and rice at the same restaurant as the night before The next day we had to take a train from Rabat to Marrakesh. This was an extremely interesting experience because we were easily the only tourists that were on this train and the entire ride was complete pandemonium. Pretty much we were two tourists on a train full of very excited local people. It was very fun, but we were also on pretty high alert simply because there were always tons of people right in our space and we basically had all of our stuff on us. When we got to Marrakesh though, we had the craziest taxi experience. I honestly believe that this taxi experience was one of the most weird and thrilling experiences of my life. Basically, when we left the train station, taxi drivers flock around you trying to get you to take their ride (keep in mind, Marrakesh has a ton more tourists than Rabat). We eventually found a guy who was a bit further away who offered to take us to our hostel for 100 Dirhams (about $10). I agreed, and he told us that he was parked a little way away, which meant we had to follow him. I want to stress that this was in a very public space so there really was no danger especially in broad daylight, but when we got to his car, it had no license plates, two windows were missing, the doors could only be unlocked from the inside of the car, and the inside was missing most of the interior. Even though it appeared that half the car was missing, and the car only moved at what felt like about 35 mph, we were on our way to the old city where our hostel was. When we started driving, it became very evident that the driver did not speak English at all but was expecting me to give him directions. Luckily since many of the words in French (the language he was speaking I think), are similar to that of Spanish, I was able to guess at what would make sense to him. So, for about 20 minutes, I was directing the 3 of us in an old janky car around a city that I did not know by using a broken understanding of a language I don't know. Believe it or not though, we made it to our hostel with no problem, which honestly was something I was very proud of when we got there. The rest of the night did not go as planned though, so what I'm about to explain is in no way me bashing on the country. I thought Morocco was beautiful and almost all the people we met were very nice, but the infrastructure is not as well-kept and advanced as most westerners take for granted at home. When we got to our hostel, we found that our room had no lights and no outlets, and the only place we could shower and have running water was down 3 stories in the building next to where our room was. To do things like charge our phones, we had to sit outside by an outlet and just wait, and when it got dark outside, we had to just sit in darkness in our room since there were no lights. The biggest lack of infrastructure though actually had to do with money. Keep in mind that you have to pay for everything with cash and that when we arrived in Marrakesh, it was Saturday night. We had just run out of money since we had to pay for our hostel and had decided that we were going to go find an ATM and then get dinner in the main square. We went to the only ATMs around and they were completely empty, and with no other choice, we were asking around about where to get money. We ended up finding out that the ATMs were not going to be filled until around Monday afternoon. This was somewhat scary to hear since we had no money, no food, and mostly no idea of where we were. After a moment of feeling screwed, I remembered I had about 5 dollars' worth of Turkish Lira, and my friend had about 20 dollars' worth of Euros. This meant that we were able to exchange our money at a currency exchange, which was annoying because you get ripped off at those, but our need for money outweighed our desire to save money. After that, we decided to get dinner which ended up being mint tea with couscous and chicken, which let me say, while most people may get scared away from traditional food like that, it was absolutely delicious and Moroccan mint tea is now one of my favorite things to drink in the entire world. This meal really marked the end of our issues as well, which was very nice. The next two days can really be summed up in two lists since it was mostly just sight-seeing. So, on the first full day in Marrakesh we saw: - Snake Charmers - Koutoubia (an ancient mosque) - Some huge narrow street markets that we explored for almost 2 hours and didn't even find the end of - Tons of horse and camel carriages - Bahia Palace - A really amazing French cafe called Les Tarbouches that served the most delicious mint tea of all (I will put a picture of the tea at the end) - Jemaa el-Fnaa (the main market square in the old city) On the 2nd day in Marrakesh we took a bus into the Atlas Mountains and saw tons of things including: - A small Argan Oil Production Center ran entirely by Moroccan Women - The highest road in Africa - Atlas Studios where movies like The Passion of Christ, Cleopatra, The Gladiator, and many more were filmed (The studio is located in the middle of Ouarzazate in the desert) - A UNESCO World Heritage Site called the Ksar Aït Benhaddou which is pretty much a giant city on a mountain made of clay buildings (Again, I'll include a picture) Unfortunately, after the day that we went into the Atlas Mountains, it was time for me to leave. Nothing too exciting happened here as I asked the hostel staff to arrange a taxi for me to go to the airport, and that was about it. The reason I couldn't stay another day is because one day after I got back to London, I was already preparing to leave on my next flight to Switzerland. Honestly though, I was only just starting to actually settle down being in Morocco by the time I had to leave, but I'm super thankful that I made the decision to go even though I did feel a little nervous. Even though it was a crazy trip, none of what happened deters me from going back there and continuing to travel outside my comfort zone. I never felt that I was in danger or in a unsafe situation. I really truly grew as an individual while I was there. I believe everyone should travel there and see what it's like because while it's a culture everyone knows exists, it's also one that most people don't give the time to explore.
1 Comment
kitsmom
6/5/2023 04:52:51 pm
I think I like your adventures more when things don't quite go the way you think they should. You give me hope for mankind! Having an open mind is definitely a gift!!
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July 2023
While I attend the University of Hawaii at Manoa, I was born in Littleton Colorado and grew up in a rural area. When I moved out to Hawaii for school, I quickly found my groove in Shidler College of Business as a triple major studying Marketing, International Business, and Quantitative Economics, and I was later chosen to be one of the Shidler Global Leaders. This and several other scholarships, including the Johnson Scholarship, gave me the amazing opportunity to go spend a semester abroad in the United Kingdom.
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