Past Review

Yes, here is a blog I wrote about my experiencees as far as culture and people are concerned: Do not ask yourself what the world needs, Ask yourself what makes you come alive. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive. -Harold Thurmon Whitmon Our Morocco Exchange host Alicia read us that quote during our trip, and it really touched me. I feel like being in Spain and traveling and meeting new people and experiencing worlds different from my own has really allowed me to come alive. It is amazing to finally be able to witness and experience the knowledge that you have studied and accumulated for years finally come to life. Knowing the Spanish language and using it in classes or to write papers is a completely different experience from using the Spanish language in the here and now: relying upon it to hold a conversation with someone you live with everyday, listening to it being used in family settings, developing friendships with a language that is not your own, having your teammate explain a drill to you in Spanish, receiving complements in Spanish, giving advice in Spanish, conversing with your waiter in Spanish, going to a movie theater and ordering popcorn and a coke in Spanish, understanding the movie on the big screen when the language that comes out of the speakers is not what you’re used to, being in a situation where someone else doesn’t know Spanish and you do and translating so that everyone is on the same page, learning about God in Spanish, singing worship songs in Spanish, talking to God during a Spanish church service and not knowing which language you should pray in and trying to comprehend the fact that no matter what language you use God will understand you, trying to feed a 2 year old by talking to them in Spanish, calming down a crying child in Spanish, writing journals about your experiences in Spanish. I truly believe that learning but more importantly forcing yourself to utilize a different language opens up doors to different worlds that you did not even know existed. Learning new views about the world, about relationships, about love, about life and death, or even about silly things such as the fact that Spanish people think cats have 7 lives not 9, or that in Spain because the sun is always depicted with a smiley face the moon is depicted with a sad face, can make you think about how you view the world and whether or not the way you have been taught something or the way you think about something is right or wrong, or if there even is such a thing in some situations. Being in Spain so far has opened my mind and has given me the desire to see people as they really are, without the influences of what I’ve been told about them. When we visited Morocco a professor there told us that because he has not met you he neither likes you nor dislikes you. I feel like many people if not all dislike people or groups of people that they have never met. The national religion of Morocco is Islam. Five times a day there you hear the call to prayer in every city. In Morocco I saw the knowledge that I had gained in my Islamic Culture class come to life. I lived with a Muslim family for two days and to my surprise it was not the differences that stuck out to me but the similarities. The families in Morocco eat together out of the same dish with their hands. They laugh, watch TV, and play with their cat. Inside their homes Muslim women do not wear the Hijab. They love their families and their husbands, they care for their families and cook fantastic meals. Our 16 year-old host sister Chaimaa showed us pictures of her parents’ wedding. Her mother was glowing and looked like a princess in the 6 or 7 dresses that she got to wear during the 3 day wedding ceremony. Her father looked nervous and excited to be taking home his bride. They were in love. Chaimaa, who has only been learning English for 3 months, told us about her club volleyball team and took us on a walk with her friends along the river. She laughed when she told me about her ex-boyfriend that her parents didn’t know about, and wanted to know all about my “love stories.” We listened to music that she had recorded on her cell phone as we walked, and she showed us dance moves that they do there while we watched Arabic music videos that weren’t any different from the ones they show on MTV. She looked up her favorite Arab rap artists for us on YouTube, and she is now my friend on Facebook. Our host brother was Ahmed who is 13 and loves Martial Arts and playing with his cat Lucky. He fights with his sister over who gets to use the computer first or what TV channel they’re going to watch. He speaks Arabic, French, and is learning English. Chaimaa knows classical Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, French and English. She told me that she really wants to travel, and hopefully one day will come to the U.S. She wants to visit California, New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., and Texas. I told her I hadn’t even been to all those places and she laughed. In Morocco I learned that when you’re at home, with the ones you love, with your family, you’re not any different from anyone else in the world. You laugh, share ideas, share secrets, share life, you love. I was able to strip back the stereotypes about Muslims that are forced upon us in the U.S. and see that we’re all people. Underneath the customs, traditions, identities given to us through religion, politics, the region we grew up in, the language we speak, we’re all human. The Invitation “It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive. It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or face it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty, even when its not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon. “Yes!” It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.” -Oriah M.D.