Greetings from the other side

We landed in Casablanca at 7:30AM Morocco time this morning. That was 2:30AM Eastern time. I didn't sleep on the plane, so I'm running on pure adrenaline and hope at this point. So far so good.

Even in my first hours here I've gotten a preview for what this experience will be like. All of the people in my program took the same Royal Air Maroc flight direct from JFK to Casablanca. Because it is the national airline and because Morocco is a multilingual nation, all of the crew instructions to the passengers were made three times once in Arabic, in French and then in English. In the cabin were TV screens that displayed a map of our progress. These too came in three different languages. Interestingly there were several discrepancies between them. As we taxied at JFK, the English map of North America displayed all the usual major U.S. cities: Houston, Chicago, Miami, and New York. When it changed to French, the emphasis shifted northwards to Canada, the map showing Ontario, Montreal and Quebec City. Strangely, the Arabic map featured New York, Miami and Abilene, Texas. I wonder what Moroccans have to do with Abilene. Or, rather, how would an Abilene Texan feel about being left off the English map and featured on the Arabic map?

Multilingualism is a fact of Moroccan life. Before the French arrived in the late 19th century, most Moroccans spoke Arabic or Berber or both. Colonization introduced the French language, and it has persisted since the country's independence in the 1950s. Two summers ago I remember listening to my Moroccan host mother talk to her friend over tea, her sentences a jumble of French, Arabic and Berber.

This will be a busy week, we have orientation and then a trip to the south of Morocco to visit the Sahara. I'm excited to get started!

PS: spell check just highlighted all of the words in the post because it's in English and not French