Sarah WallockCurrently writing from my residence in Marrakech, a beautiful hotel with lovely interior design and nice tiles and incredible attention to detail that cannot be found anywhere else. I am listening to alt-j and typing up my study guide for my quiz tomorrow. I am meeting with my group after this to prepare my midterm presentation for tomorrow. Today we had a morning of class, then I interviewed my Moroccan country coordinator for my final paper on ecotourism, then we visited a renewable energy company. After, my friends and I swam in the pool and ran around for a bit. Spirits started getting low after everyone had food poisoning, headaches or traveler’s fatigue etc. But it finally feels like things are upbeat again.
A couple more days here and then off to Bolivia! Time doesn’t feel linear anymore and I would not say it is going by fast or slow. It feels like time has stopped.
This is truly one of the strangest four months I think I will ever have in my life. I try to take myself out of my immediate scenario to realize the absurdity of it: Everything is planned for me. I make no decisions on my own, from what I eat at each meal to who I spend my time with everyday. It’s a required subscription in many ways. We move every 2 days (minimum) or 6 days (maximum) and live out of suitcases. In Morocco, so in the past three weeks, my alone time has probably only been trips to the bathroom. In contrast with the consistencies of our group and our thoughts and our limited clothing supply and our American centric lifestyles is the inconsistencies of new place after new place and new forms of knowledge and strains of thought and masses of new faces.
I am so lucky to be here and excited and looking forward to what is to come. There was a lot of uncertainty about what this trip would entail prior to departure and enrollment, but I guess it is about teaching you to roll with the punches and laugh off the little stuff and be acquainted with that uncertainty.
