6/9 "There is a Dog"

Both flights I had to catch from DFW to JFK to CMN sat me down next to two doctors also traveling to Morocco. This was fortunate, especially considering we were stuck for 3 hours at JFK before we could take off. Both men were with the Airforce reserve, and were going to do 2 weeks of medical mission work in Agadir. They and about 30 marines packed the plane. My neighboring doctor and I kept the time by talking about how he knows of a group who gets illegal aliens citizenship by training them for their exam (the toughest question being to write either ‘There is a dog,’ or ‘a cat’ – comprehension not being tested), and how he finds general medicine to be the most practical (after all, would you rather be stuck on a desert island with a specialist or a generalist). He spoke highly of my decision to go to Morocco, as any ability to adapt to an amalgam of circumstances will certainly come in handy in the future.

Fortunately, before boarding at JFK, I made friends with another student doing a six week homestay who was also separate from his group. He had significantly more Arabic training than myself (with a whopping 1 year), and thus when our 7 and a half hour flight arrived he stayed with me until I got my bags through.

After grabbing my bag I faced a fun instant challenge, find your group without the use of a phone or internet. I knew they had to have missed their flight as well (they also left from JFK) so I spent two hours reading the itineraries and guessing which they might have caught. After another hour and a half I spotted two ladies talking holding a sign with “SI” written on it. Hoping this was my ride I excused myself in French and found that, indeed, the last “T” resided hidden by her purse. With my exit route secured, I returned to my bench to finally take a breath.

The ladies disappeared for a while and returned with Kacey, a Chinese international student from Hong Kong studying in Yale. My first question after learning his name was whether he too was a beginner. He was. There is no faster way to make a friend. The group flight then arrived with only one member, Mely, a French speaking Poly-sci major from Texas who had a year of Arabic under her belt. After waiting another two hours we learned the group could not catch a flight from Madrid until 11, thus we left for the 2 hour drive to Rabat.

Driving along, the coast line jumps out on our left side. Instantly I realize how much of a walking country Morocco is. Though farmland stretches for miles beside the road, a sidewalk lies between and under several Moroccan’s feet. We make jokes about college life and “Casablanca” as we struggle against jet lag to stay awake.

I expected Rabat to be packed and I was not disappointed, but somehow, despite my expectations, I never actually realized what this would be like. We take our bags, seemingly heavier than when we packed them, up the winding staircase, and ask our multi-lingual hotel manager for the keys. After dropping off our bags we make a quick excursion to the local internet-café to let our families know we’ve arrived before returning to our beds for an earned nine hour sleep.