Rabat – Having handed in a midterm paper on the strengths and weaknesses of various theories and typologies of transnational immigration, I am coming to the groundbreaking realization that I am already five weeks through my 15 week program.

Time has simultaneously moved faster and slower than ever before. I have experienced more in these past five weeks that in the previous year, and I would like to think that it has made me grow up a lot. I am beginning to make conversation with my host family in broken Fus’ha (Modern Standard Arabic) and I have mastered the 28 letter beginner alphabet. I have spoken with Moroccan immigrants in Holland and Moroccan policy makers in Rabat in an often misguided attempt to understand global immigration policy. Perhaps most importantly, I have gotten to know an amazing and inquisitive group of American students from all over the country.

I have had moments of homesickness, moments of feeling lonely, but for the most part I have felt so welcomed into a culture so different from my own. I have learned to love the odor of the mom and pop pet shop across the street from my window, welcoming me home every night to the warm smell of feline urine. I have learned to live with a different set of table manners, and laundry detergent so strong that my shirts stand up on their own after being washed.

I miss cold cereal late at night eaten with friends. I miss fresh vegetables and humus. I miss the comfort of my own bed and a dog without rabies. Morocco is a beautiful country but it is also a profoundly difficult country. Nothing goes according to plan, nothing happens on time. Dinner is eaten at 10pm, except for when it is eaten at midnight. We typically have Tagine, except for the nights when I am presented with nothing more than a plate of sautéed pickles and told: “kul, kul” (eat, eat).

Morocco is also an incredibly energetic country. The air in the Souk buzzes with at high frequency 24 hours a day. Pushing through a crowded street while a man clears a path behind his ram, another man revs the engine of his motorcycle behind you, a shopkeeper screams hugely inflated prices in your ear and the smell of boiled snails enters you’re nostrils. All the while every mosque in the country blares the call to prayer over loud speakers high above the crowded street.

The train ride from Rabat to Tangier entailed a quintessential Moroccan experience. Five wide eyed American students boarded a train headed for the coast. The train was an hour late, and we found ourselves huddled in a small circle near the bathroom, which empties directly onto the train tracks and reeks of week old piss.

Our tickets were for the first class cabin, a compartment is reserved for us and one other lucky guest. Unfortunately, when we arrive at the door of the compartment, our seats were taken. Flustered and overheated we migrated to the bathroom and draw up a plan of attack. The only reasonable response was to present our tickets to the voyagers in our seats, but this proves difficult.

You might expect that our seats had been taken by a group of boisterous Moroccan teenagers, looking to get a rush of adrenaline. The reality is that a family has moved into our compartment. An older gentleman in a suit calm checks his email, a mother and her child play a game to pass the time. Not only were these people probably more deserving of our seats, but they made the whole interaction painstakingly difficult. They pretend to not understand, even when we speak Arabic. Confused and uncooperative, the interaction takes a few minutes before we finally free our seats.

As soon as we sit down the mood changes. The family that we just kicked out is all smiles, suddenly happy to meet the American tourists. It’s all just a game. Of course our seats were taken. There is nowhere else to sit, and the compartments are air conditioned. Of course they pretended not to speak French or Fus’ha, it almost gave them a first class ticket for the price of second.