This past month has tested my flexibility, patience, and cultural adaptability. Many things happened this month. I finally started teaching, I began taking French lessons, my best friend from home visited and we traveled to the Sahara Desert, the Fulbrighters met up in Casablanca for our own Halloween party, and I finally made a Moroccan friend who happens to be a Fulbright alumna. It has been full of ups and downs, some days where I am excited to be living in this country and others where I yearn for the structure of home.
Perhaps the most difficult part of this past month was the trouble that I have had with my landlord. I moved into a beautiful apartment on October 1st with a view of Tangier’s port and a sliver of Spain. I am able to watch people work out on the roof at night, and it is ideally located right by the medina. While it is loud outside at night, I am able to walk to the market to buy fresh vegetables, walk around the corner and buy 10 cent pastries for breakfast, and I have a community of store and restaurant owners who know me by name. It is almost the ideal accommodation.
However, for a few days this month (7 to be exact), my landlord’s brother stayed in my apartment. I was told it would be one day while I was in Marrakesh, but it soon turned into an event where each day I would think I could move back in, only to be told that he had not yet left. This was a fun exchange for 5 days, while I had a guest visiting. I learned that “tomorrow” to some Moroccans actually means “in 3 days” and have had to put up more boundaries so that it wouldn’t happen again. Last week, I was asked again if the wife of this brother could stay in my apartment, to which I responded harshly. I’ve been told by my landlord that once I sign the contract tomorrow inshallah, that I will have full control of the property and that family cannot stay here. While this interaction has been uncomfortable, the closeness of the community here adds a layer of security that living in a large apartment building would not provide me with. I also can’t resist the view.
This experience of feeling displaced has put a damper on my stay here in Tangier. I’m someone who thrives on structure, schedules, and consistency. Although I have spent months abroad before, I do find myself developing homesickness and missing “American” things like milkshakes, Trader Joe’s, and the ability to yell at men in their native language when they harass me. Luckily, I have spent a bit of time with Alia (a current Fulbrighter in Rabat) and my parents will be visiting me next month. I know that culture shock and adjustment is a process, and right now I am in the stage of frustration. Hopefully I will enter the “adjustment and acceptance” stage next month.
Regardless, there have been many positive things about this past month. I somehow walked into a Moroccan Andalusian Music Choir and was able to sing along because I can read MSA, an intimate experience I couldn not have had if I hadn’t studied Arabic and befriended a shop owner who runs the musical association 30 seconds from my apartment. I met the Gnawa legend Abdellah El Gourd and learned about his countless tours throughout the world. Courtney taught me how to make mujadara, I started my Spanish, Arabic and Darija tutoring with the wonderful Zhor, and I’ve thus resisted taking a street cat into my home. Tangier is always full of music, street performers, art exhibits, lectures, and intersecting locals, and I think, unbiased of course, that I am living in Morocco’s best city.
