Departure

As-salaamu aleikum! I am excited to be returning to my blog to record my newest adventures-- a semester abroad in Rabat, Morocco. As I sit in the airport in New York waiting for my delayed flight to board, snow is falling outside and the sky is darkening. I can't wait to get to the warm(er) weather in Morocco, where lows are in the forties instead of the teens! I'm thinking about all the advice that past participants have given me about life in Morocco with both anticipation and anxiety about everything from the giant spiders to the fabulous food. Hopefully I'll encounter more from the latter category!

I'm going on a program run by SIT that focuses on issues of migration and transnational identity. Although I've taken two years of formal Arabic, most Moroccans speak French or the Moroccan dialect of Arabic, which is very different from what I've studied. Fortunately, I will take intensive classes in both the dialect and formal Arabic through my program, and I hope to improve my language skills significantly. I'll be living with a host family in the medina, which is the old part of the city. I look forward to exploring the city and the rest of the country as well. At the end of the program, I have the opportunity to work on an Independent Study Project, where I will conduct in-depth on-the-ground research on the topic of my choice. I know I will learn so much in Morocco, about both myself and the world around me. Thank you for supporting me on this journey.