The Lost Princess of Meknes

This is a story all about how I got lost in Morocco, got turned around. I’d like to take a minute, so sit right there, but if you’re my mom and dad please stop reading here.

So, yeah, today I got lost. It was bound to happen eventually, so I was a little prepared, but it still wasn’t very fun. I had to get a taxi by myself for the first time today, so I wrote the address on a piece of paper and practiced my Darija directions. I gave the address to the driver and he seemed pretty sure of where it was, and he dropped me off at the end of a street and said “C’est la rue.” which I was pretty sure I remembered means “This is the street.” Well, it was not the street. It occurred to me very quickly that I was looost. I asked several women my perfectly practiced “help” questions, but no one seemed to know where this address was. Finally, a woman offered to help, but her help was to put me in another taxi, the driver of which also got lost. So he dropped me off at a school, and a teacher who spoke some broken English offered to drive me around Combattants until I saw the women’s center. After a really stressful 35 minutes and few tears, I finally saw the sign over the gate for IPDF Meknes. I’ve never been so happy to see a sign written in Arabic in my entire life. I expressed my extreme gratitude to the teacher and my even more extreme apologies to the director. Luckily, by Moroccan time, I wasn’t all that late. To top the taxi stories of the day off, on the way home I had a driver who spoke Spanish and I got to have my first real foreign conversation since getting here. And, it was absolutely hilarious. He wanted to know if all of my American friends were married like me (I’m glad my engagement ring is an effective symbol), and asked me over and over to “Escriba sus numeros de telefono.” Don’t worry friends, I did not.

So, I survived my little ordeal, and after that I hoped at least I would be able to do something to help at the center that would take my mind off of my morning. Unfortunately, I’m having a little bit of trouble with being able to do useful work there. As my director had asked, I came up with a few ideas for programs I could work on and translated the list into French, but unfortunately she didn’t take to any of them. Today she asked me to organize the library, and due to my obsessive compulsive tendencies, that took up a good chunk of time. After, she said I had done enough and could go home. It was hard for me to accept that as a day well spent, but I tried to remind myself that anything the director doesn’t have to worry about is one less thing in the way of her accomplishing bigger goals. Still, I was discouraged that she didn’t like any of my ideas.

I had a meeting with the ELAP (service learning) director, Mouhsine, and he really did a great job of encouraging me. I told him how passionate I am about this field of work and how much I really want to make an impact for the organization. He was very understanding, and expressed that he wants me “only to be happy, and to choose the thing that is right” for me. So, tomorrow he will be coming with me to the organization to clear up some of the confusion that has been happening (which isn’t worth going into) and to help officially decide on what my project goals will be. He also told me that he has a plan B and a plan C – there is another organization that helps with women, and also a school for the poor that needs English teachers. Also, one of the other placements is a disability center for children, and there are a few children with individual issues like physical tantrums and uncontrollable behavioral outbursts that the other ELAP students aren’t sure how to handle. Conveniently, those are my specialty. Mouhsine said I may be useful there a couple of times teaching them techniques for dealing with the difficult behavior. So, after all of that, I feel so much more hopeful that I will be able to help in a meaningful way while I am here. All I really wanted out of this trip abroad was to be able to say I had made a change in the world and the world had made a change in me.

Mouhsine told us about how much he admires Americans mindset of "giving back." He said that in Morocco and other places, the idea of volunteering and community service isn't really a thing, but that American students have a strong desire to help others. I guess it was something I have never really thought of before, and I felt a small sense of pride in realizing that a lot of Americans do genuinely want to help and give back - especially my generation. There's hope in that truth.

The rest of the night I spent time getting to know my housemates better and practicing French and Arabic. I’ve made about twelve thousand flash cards at this point, so hopefully some of it will start to stick. Tomorrow I’m going to wake up early and spend the day studying before I go with Mouhsine to my placement. I’m determined, if anything.

Until tomorrow.