MOROCCO (Sept 9-14)

Within an hour of arriving in Casablanca, I was in love with Morocco.  The medina was alive and bustling with people selling everything from fruits and vegetables to stuffed camels made of camel skin to cell phones.  I spent quite a while outside the Hassan II Mosque, in awe of the geometric architecture and the power of the recitation of the Quran as it blared through the speakers scattered throughout the surrounding campus area.  The scale of the building and the sound was overwhelming.  It was right next to the ocean, and there were Moroccan boys jumping 15 feet off of a wall and into the water next to the mosque.  I don’t think that any of my peers were quite as affected by the beauty of that environment as I was.  Later (still only the first evening in Morocco) my friends and I ate “breakfast” for dinner, as the Moroccans around us broke the fast of Ramadan at sunset. 
        The next morning, I took a train to Marrakech on the way to the Altas Mountains, where I would visit Berber Villages.  As much as I loved Casablanca, I felt very negatively toward Marrakech.  In the medina there, I made the seemingly obvious revelation that everyone wanted something from me—my money—and they were prepared to go to desperate measures to get it.  Suddenly every brightly dyed object in the market became a trap, and here were my friends and I foolishly, even happily, walking into the danger.  But after an incredible dinner, my bitterness faded into a healthy dose of skepticism.
        On the third day, we began our journey into the Atlas Mountains.  Donkeys and mules carried our backpacks while we walked, led by a guide, through the hot sun and prickly underbrush.  All of the elements attacked my senses, yet the landscape was unbelievably beautiful.  There isn’t much in those mountains, a few picturesque villages scattered here and there, some abandoned.  After a while, would stop somewhere shady for a welcome lunch before continuing on.  We walked for most of the day until arriving at the house where we were scheduled to spend the night sleeping on the roof.  And so it continued for three days and two nights until we came out somewhere else in the mountains where there was a paved road and a line of buses waiting to bring us back to Casablanca.
        Those three days among the Berber Villages was outstandingly one of the best things that I will do on Semester at Sea.  But there wasn’t time to dwell on it because before we knew it we were back in Casablanca and then back on the ship and off to the next place.
        I saw Casablanca very differently after Marrakech.  I noticed how few women there were out at night.  There were just men sitting outside of cafes at tables all facing out at the street, watching us walk by.  But that didn’t stop me from finding one last mint tea (a drink that I will always associate with Morocco).  I began to come to terms with the identity of being a tourist.  I know that I will not fit into any of the places that we visit on this voyage, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t have authentic, meaningful experiences there.

There should be a video about the Berber Villages trip on the Semester at Sea website with my friends and I in it.