Submitted by Ceara Stewart on the 2019 fall semester study abroad program in Barcelona, Spain…
Week 7 was midterms for all of us studying at UAB. Lots of studying was done and many cafe con leches were drank. All of my marks were good. The only class I have any difficulty in is Spanish. Over here it is way harder than what is taught at Delaware and with only a year of speaking Spanish it is quite difficult for me. But I’m learning a lot and speaking with my host mom and her daughter helps. Hopefully by the end of this experience, I’ll be able to answer the locals when they ask me directions.
Week 8 I was lucky enough to go to Rabat and Chefchaouen with Morocco Exchange! We left the day after midterms. We flew out of Girona into Rabat and that evening we had a huge dinner with our host families. Usually, only one member of the family speaks English and lucky for us it was a girl about our age so we had a lot to talk about such as boys and life for a girl in Rabat.
The next day, we toured the Mausoleum of Mohammad V and Chellah. We learned about the concept of a mosque and about the Roman history in Salé. After another huge lunch with our host families, we got private tours of the city with local university students. We discussed the many differences and similarities between our two cultures and it was really eye-opening.
That evening, we visited the Hammam or the hot baths that are used for bathing. It was a shock because all the woman bathe completely naked! Some of us got scrubbed down professionally with a weird brown soap, but our skin felt so soft afterwards. Before leaving the baths, we had a huge scare. One of the other girls started to feel faint and passed out from a lack of drinking water and the overpowering heat of the Hammam. She couldn’t leave to be taken out of the heat because she was only in her swimsuit. Luckily, there was an old professor on our trip who knew how to cool her down until our program leader arrived. She stayed the night in a clinic and was completely fine the next day. But it just showed us all how quickly things can turn bad even in the most relaxed of situations and that it is super important to drink water and tell others how you are feeling even if it is embarrassing, because it could save your life.
Saturday, we left Rabat and headed North. We stopped in a little town in Ouezzane and had the opportunity to shop for some food. I bought dates for super cheap! For lunch, we stopped in a little rural village in the mountains and had lunch with a local family. We had a long conversation about rural life in Morocco and what it means to raise a family and move up in society. It was an interesting experience to compare suburban to rural life and it was amazing to hear that parents are very content with their lives and everything they do is for their children to move up in the world and have better lives than them. That really made me miss home and my family.
That evening, we arrived in Chefchaouen and had a big group dinner. We stayed in a nice hostel and before bed we reflected on our trip so far. The next and last day, we got to shop around Chefchaouen and take pictures in the blue city. We got a personal tour from our Rabat guide who loves the blue city. That afternoon though, we had to say good-bye and we left for Barcelona.
Morocco has been my favorite experience since the start of this program. The ability to travel to an underdeveloped country and see how people live their lives and see how happy one can be with very little is such an eye opener to the way I live my life. I always thought I was underprivileged because I come from a lower class family and work towards everything I want independently. I’ve had a job since I turned 14 and I’ve been working towards my goals ever since and every trip I go on, everything I do is the money I earn and I’ve felt different from others because I can’t just lay back and let my parents pay. But going to Morocco, I’ve seen that my ability to even have a chance to work independently towards my dreams is something that sometimes isn’t possible elsewhere and it makes me proud of all my work, but it also makes me feel guilty because some people will never have the chances that I do. So I am overly thankful for the life I live, where I come from, and where I am going.
