End of the Semester

So, I have finally finished my semester here at AUI.  I feel I did pretty well in my classes, but not as well as I should have considering I only had four classes.  I kind of took this semester as vacation, I really didn't do much work.  But, I think this probably helped me enjoy my time here in Morocco more.

I have been staying on campus the last couple days, because I am waiting for CJ to finish with his work.  All of my friends have already left, and the campus is very empty.  Today I am taking my stuff to a friend's apartment in Ifrane so I don't have to stay on campus and then tomorrow or the next day I will head to Meknes to stay with CJ's family for a couple days.  After that we will go to Marrakech, where his sister lives, and perhaps travel some from there.  My flight leaves Sunday morning at about 7:30 (Moroccan time).  I will fly into Pittsburg Monday, May 26, at 7:30 am.  I'm really excited to get back to the States!  But I'm also really sad to be leaving here.

Now it's time to think about whether or not my time here has been valuable.  And of course, I believe it has, but in different ways than I expected.  Of course, it opened my eyes to the way the rest of the world works.  There were many things I experienced here, which I fully expected, but it's different to be actually experiencing it directly.  For example, I knew what people here wore, or what they looked like, but only from pictures.  When you see it in real life, however, it is completely different.  Seeing a woman with a scarf and a hijaab here used to amaze me, but now it's completely normal to me.  Its like living life in a National Geographic, but it's still just life.  The people are the same, maybe different customs and habits, but they are still people, laugh at the same things, and enjoy the same things.

I have also realized the importance of communication.  It's very different to be in a place where you may not be able to relay something you need to another person.  Of course, I have become resourceful with what I know and how to explain things solely through sign language, but this doesn't always do the trick.  And often, someone will act like they understand you, and you feel so relieved, only to find out later that they either didn't understand and just pretended like they did or they thought you meant something else.  The same thing occurs with people trying to communicate with us, they will say something and gesture, and one person in our group will catch one word, another will catch a different word, and we will all end up with different interpretations of what we think the person was trying to convey.  However, things always seem to work out in the end.  None of us died or anything!  And we always had food and a place to sleep!

I also think that my experience here will change who I am in the States.  I'm sure I don't know in what ways this will essentially change my life, but I do know one change that I think will occur.  I believe I will care a lot less what people think about me.  I have always been the type of person who just did what she wanted, but even people like that in the U.S. follow certain social structures that it has taken me my visit here to realize are social constructions.  For example, what you wear.  No matter what, people wear what their friends wear, or what fits into the group that they think they fit in.  I have been exposed to so many new and different styles here that my mind has really been expanded.  Sometimes I see someone wearing something here, and I just think to myself "No one in the U.S. would ever wear something like that."  These thoughts led me to thinking, "Why not?"  Just because it's socially not acceptable, therefore if you see someone wearing something that isn't socially acceptable (no matter what group you belong to), then they have "social issues" or "don't really get what's going on."  Now I realize how ridiculous that is because I see people here, who do know whats going on, wear those things.  I realize now that they are just social constructs of the U.S.  People may look at someone and make a decision about who they are, or who I am, but now I realize that I can wear whatever, and I will still be the same person.  I know it seems weird that it took a trip to Morocco for me to realize that, but it's more extreme than most people in the U.S. realize.