When I got home, everybody had many questions for me about my trip. Most of the questions revolved around food, Spanish men, and camels. Everybody always asks "what was your favorite part" or "what was the most memorable part." This question can often be stereotypically answered by saying I loved riding a camel on the African coast. Or the most memorable thing being standing on the walls of the Alcazar looking across at the Cathedral and the Giralda all lit up at night. But after a conversation I had with a member of the Merrimack community yesterday, I want to be able to answer the question "What stands out the most about the trip?" My answer to that comes after a little thought and reflection. At Merrimack I studied Psychology and Sociology and accepted a fellowship position to work with the Greater Lawrence Community Partnership for Children starting in July. So my passion is working with kids. 
What stands out for me the most about this trip was the children we were able to meet and spend time with. We spent a day with the program Hope for Sale, and the kids were just so happy to have us around. We spent a solid 45 minutes at one point just taking pictures with all of the kids who were from 5- 16 years old. It was just so awesome to see that we made their day by just hanging out, singing songs with them, and taking a few pictures. ---
Later on in the week, we went up to a mountain villiage to see how differently their lives were as opposed to city life. And we basically added 13 more people to their family. Immediately, they welcomed us in to their home. A few different families from the villiage were there and there were about 6 or 8 kids around. None of them spoke English, but I got to sit in the living room and play hand- clap games and laugh with them. The kids thought it was so funny to climb on me like a jungle gym and their laughs when we tickled them could absolutely lighten up your day. We spent the day there and then the older 2 girls took us on a hike up more of the mountain side. Of course all of the kids came along, and at least 3 or 4 of us had a child hanging on for a piggy back the entire way. We walked and walked and finally came across the most beautiful view. (below is me, and my piggy back passenger- to the right- with the amazing view of the mountains behind me)
What stands out to me the most about this trip were the kids that we got to touch the lives of. Granted we only spent a view hours with them but it was so humbling for them to be so happy to spend time with us laughing and playing games and running around. Our Moroccan Exchange leader, Katie, said to us as we were driving away from the mountain town that it was so much more important what we did with the kids, rather than bring them gifts and toys. We were able to spend quality time with them and then when we left we were able to collect up some money and donate it to the community program in that village to help the kids learn and stay active. Our presence, instead of presents, is what really counted. At the end of the day, these kids really touched our lives as well. We had traveled thousands of miles and seen the biggest, most intricate sights that Spain and Morocco had to offer us. But what stands out to us the most are these little balls of energy that opened their arms to us and found their way into our hearts.
As a class at Merrimack, we were just 10 strangers. We didn't speak much to each other or to answer our professor for that matter. But through this trip we all learned so much about ourselves through getting to know each other that by the time we were on our way home, we were planning reunion dinners at my apartment and laughing and constantly joking with each other. 
Throughout this trip we met so many people of so many walks of life. We met guys that went to Rabat University and had so much to say about the government and their love (or dislike) for the King. The guys in the picture above spent the morning talking with us about diversity and really got us all to thinking how we can be sheltered even in our college community at Merrimack. We talked a lot about the diversity push on our campus and about how some members of our group would never ever speak to one another if it was not for this trip. It was amazing to talk to these guys and amongst ourselves to address issues with introducing yourself to the other and opening your mind to other cultures.
Our group spent 2 of the most culturally shocking weeks of our lives together. We rode camels, we got lost almost everyday, we lived in Moroccan homes. We had an opportunity to reflect back on the trip on our last night in Morocco and we got to discussing how far we had come as a group ourselves. We joked that back in the classroom at Merrimack, we all sat seperately and didn't talk to each other at all. We discussed the stereotypes that we developed of each other, say nothing about the cultures we were about to indulge in in Andalucia. 
But this trip really taught all of us how you cannot judge a book by its cover. So much of my learning about cultures on this trip came from within the group. I learned about different religions, different eating habits, and different country origins. It was an amazing turn around to see how close our group got over the span of 2 days. All of the sudden we were all laughing and joking and really acting like we had known each other for years. 
While in Spain we got to eat some incredible dishes. We had sardines, shark, croquettas (which are essentially little tatter tots with mashed potato and a meat), octopus, cheeses, mushrooms, and we discovered a love for olive oil. Spain is famous for its olive oil. They use it to cook everything and eat it with everything. Every meal, there were loaves and loaves of bread and by the time we discovered the olive oil, we stopped asking for butter for our bread. The olive oil was delicious.
My favorite dish (I think of the whole trip) was something that we got offered most of the meals. This Moroccan soup was a combination of tomato soup and minestrone soup. I thought it was so delicious. We obviously had bread to eat it with (and a spoon, not our right hands) and it was just so authentic and made you really feel the culture. It also made me so full that I barely had room for my meal. 
We will be dominated by traveling for the next few days. But we are all starting to miss home (and our mommas.) This has been an amazing experience for all of us and we have learned so much about our own culture by experiencing ¨the other¨ but we are truly blessed to be shipping off to Boston soon. Ohh, Boston you´re my home...
Today we toured thru the old medina in Fez. It has over 9,000 streets and is was so intricate in the pathways we had to take to find the things we were looking for. We ended up in some very awesome places of worship and very awesome places of commercialism. Once down a few winding pathways, we found ourselves walk out into a fabric factory. The men were pushing out hand- made pabric of all types and sizes. There were rugs and scarves of wool, cotton, and silk. They were so gorgeous and authentic. A very neat place for us to end up because it was not touristy at all. 
Next we found ourselves going up a tiny stairway, thru 4 backrooms, across another hallway and ended up out on a balcony. As we looked down we saw the most amazing site:
We were at the leather tannery of the city of Fez. This is where men soak the leather in the different colored dyes for months at a time to get the rich, authentic colors. The smell was so outstanding that they had to give us each a branch of mint leaf to hold under our noses. Definitely a cool site considering when we researched this area of Northern Africa, we found many pictures of this site. Seeing all of these sites for the real thing, up close and personal is just another aspect of this trip that is indescribable by words. 
One of the most inspiring things we have done so far down here was volunteer for an organization called Hope for Sale. Sale is the 2nd biggest cities in Morocco and is one of the most poverty- stricken and drug- ridden cities in Africa. We joined up with this association to help out for the day. 
We painted a mural on a hospital wall. We cleaned up trash off the streets. And we also cut grass at a local park. All of the local community members and children were working right along side us. It was amazing to see how our presence really inspired these kids to care about their own community and want to make a difference. It really made our trip worth it. 
Our home-stay families fed us amazing Moroccan dishes and helped us dress up in Moroccan attire (just for pictures- not to wear out ha). We went to a hammam and we shopped and got to see the city lit up at night. There is a 9 day long music festival that we came into. The night we arrived: Shakira was in town... go figure. We weren't allowed to go but still, gave us something to talk with all of the locals about. 
After we left Tangier, we were driving to our next destination and Katy (our Moroccan exchange leader) woke us all up as we were parking near a beach. Suddenly we looked around and all realized that there were camels waiting for us. What a great surprise! We all got to ride camels on the African coast. How many people can say that they have had this experience before? I certainly will tell my grandchildren about this. And anybody else that I talk to for that matter. ha
Tonight we did the most typical spanish thing you can do... we climbed up into the mountains and went to a flamenco dancing show in the caves of Granada. The dancers were so good and so authentic. We had such a great time. The dancing is so fast- paced and the men were just as good as the women!
