When I landed in Casablanca, Morocco, I could feel the heat touch my face and the longing for water fill my body. As soon as we got through security and baggage claim, we were met with salesmen trying to sell us merchandise at the airport. We smiled at them and cried out “laa”, which means “no” in Arabic. At the airport, we boarded a bus that made its way through the city of Casablanca to a nearby hotel. During the ride to the hotel, we got a fabulous opportunity to see one of the biggest mosques in Africa.
Our hotels were nice and big and we had dinner and breakfast. In the morning, we took a diagnostic placement test for Arabic to place all of us at the right level. Then we traveled to the U.S. Consulate in Morocco. In the Consulate, we were met by a security officer with experience as a Green Beret and Special Forces Officer. He was a pretty impressive soldier with tours to Iraq, Libya, Iran, and Syria. He briefed us on the security threats in Morocco and what to do when faced with danger.
After the presentation, I was taken to my host family who were extremely hospitable and friendly. My host brothers Amine (22 years) and Taha (18 years) along with their parents live in an apartment. The host brothers live on the first floor while their parents are up on the second floor. I presented my host brothers with a Boston Marathon poster after which we went to the beach. Everyone stays up late in the night as it is the month of Ramadan. We walked on the beautiful beach where the sand felt extremely soft to my feet.
The next day, we began our Arabic lessons. We were instructed on Moroccan Darija the Arabic being spoken in Morocco. It has been heavily influenced by Berber, French and Spanish. While standard Arabic is used for official communication, Darija is the most commonly spoken language in daily life and naturally, we need to be able to converse in it. The instructor was quite good and had a very interesting manner about him. Attached is a photo of our Rabat group, taken this morning at the entrance of the Bridges Cultural Center in the Hay Riad neighborhood of Rabat.
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