it's all in the little things

you might think that after travelling hundres of miles (24 pages away from boston in the atlas, a dear friend pointed out to me once), one would find themselves in a world hugely and startlingly different. the kind of difference that blows you out of the water and into culture shock - that oh-so-elusive state of...what?...denial? depression? some epehmeral thing we are warned about in orientation to be on our guard against as though it was more like one the of the stray dogs which wander about downtown ifrane rather than the relatively normal stage of human adjustment and adaptation that it is.

there have been differences here, to be sure. there are the obvious things like language and food and the more blantant aspects of culture like music and the bisou-bisou greeting and the omnipresent islam, easily found in phrases like ensha'allah (meaning "God willing") which can be tacked onto to just about any statement or 'hemdulillah (meaning "thanks be to God"), but you settle into those fairly quickly, or at least reconcile yourself to the fact that they're just that - different - and their not going anywhere, so you had best get used to them. pretty soon you don't really notice it anymore and you find yourself craving a bowl of b'sara (kind of like split pea soup but made with butter beans and lots of garlic) or tapping your foot to the beat of the chaabi music that is on in the taxis or reaching for a phrase only to find something in arabic coming out as really the only expression that quite grasps what you're trying to say.

i have taken a job as facilitator for the mandatory english conversation groups for all incoming students whose scores on the toefl placed them into the language centre in order to fully prepare them for integration into the all-english academic environment of aui. in these groups i find myself among young men and women - most only a year or so younger that me, if that even - and the forum becomes open for the airing of all sorts of inner sevles and life stories. like the young freshman who sat across from me this evening and didn't realize that i could easily discern the cracks running through his facade of tough guy/mr. independent as he shared how his life has changed in coming to school - the boy inside frozen in bewilderment upon returning home to parents who had moved on and begun a new life of sorts over his first semester of university. of the older graduate student who, in broken but earnest english, shared the agony of hearing his father claim to love his older brother - more successful in terms of profits and dividends - more than him.

i treasure these moments beyond my ability to communicate with words. it's been harder than i thought it would be, to dive beneath the surface of my moroccan peers and classmates. who are the people behind the meticulously maintained appearances - who really is that girl that comes to my 8 am class with every hair in place, make-up skillfully applied, and dressed in the latest fashions she bought in paris last fall, complete from her louis vuitton purse to her patent leather high heels, which must just naturally grow from her feet, because i've never seen anyone walk in heels so well. so i collect these moments of humanity out of my day, and these two and a half hours of english conversation every day, like picking daisies out of a field, a bit of a saving grace, reality and humanity at the center again, despite of the distance and the culture and everything.

it just goes to prove again that it's all in the little things...