Four days until Paris...

The group flight back to the States is tomorrow morning. I'm sticking around by myself for three days to hang out with my host family, then flying to Paris next Tuesday. I am beyond thrilled to see Europe, and Stephen...not to mention meeting up with Lisa and David in Paris. And I'm really excited about going HOME after that!! I have never appreciated Midwestern America more in my life. Milwaukee, Chicago, Twin Cities...I miss all of it.

Some of the things I miss are obvious, like real cheese aplenty (go Wisconsin) and showers and my friends and family, but some of them are strange. For example, I desperately miss orderly lines. Lines do not exist in Morocco. You can be standing at a hanut, ready to buy some bread, thinking you're obviously next in "line," and then someone will come and shove in front of you. Or in my case, because I am foreign and can't bring myself to shove Moroccan-style, ten people will take advantage of my passiveness and force their way in front of me. Even though I know it's a cultural difference and it's not considered "rude" the way it would be at home, it still makes me mad.

Okay, but. Despite the annoying lack of lines, and despite missing home, I also don't really want to leave Morocco. I wish I could have the best of both worlds. Or I wish I at least knew when I would get to come back here. I don't. That's life.

But to backtrack:

My ISP research got done, obviously. Then I spent a week (last week) traveling with my friends. First we spent a couple of days back in Northern Morocco, in Tangier. Then Essaouira, where we wrote our papers--we camped out daily at the one cafe that had outlets for our computers (we were an absolute spectacle; no one studies or uses computers at cafes here) and used the beach, the souk, and ice cream as a reward system. It was very effective. By Friday our papers were pretty much written and we had a few days before we had to be back in Rabat, so we hopped over to Marrakesh for a day just because. We went there during Southern Excursion, and I like it. I mean, yes, it's ridiculously touristy and the monkeys tied up in the main square make me want to cry, but it's fun and crazy, and the square has THE BEST orange juice and spiced tea. Marrakesh is just...an experience. It was fun to go back.

Now it's "disorientation" week and we are back at Hotel Majestic, the hotel just outside the medina where we stayed during orientation. It's funny, I remember being completely disillusioned about this place during my first week in Morocco, thinking it was a pretty crappy hotel. Now it seems positively glamorous.

Tuesday and Wednesday were our ISP presentations, attended by the other students, our academic directors (Lahcen and Abdelhay), and our ISP advisers. It was a bit nerve-wracking because we each had to present for 45 minutes, and a lot of people on this program are both ridiculously smart and ridiculously intense...but I was also genuinely excited to share my research. During my research, I got to talk to some really fascinating women and activists about what the new Mudawana means for this society--a lot, basically. In many ways it means real progress for women's rights--women no longer need their father's permission to marry, women who suffer domestic violence or other harm in their marriage can get a divorce more easily, men are no longer able to repudiate their wives on a whim, etc. Still, implementation and education (not to mention legal loopholes that still exist in the law) are major problems, so there is a lot more to be done. Which makes Moroccan family law an awesome field to study.

So yeah, my presentation was Wednesday. It went well, but as is the case with any academic semester, it was also just a huge relief to be DONE. For the past few days we’ve just been hanging out, relaxing, shopping for last-minute souvenirs, running errands, saying goodbyes…today we’re going to the hammam for the last time, then having a final group dinner at this restaurant/bar that serves excellent pizza. I can’t believe that people are leaving tomorrow.

I don't really feel like reflecting on what it means to be leaving and what I've gained from the semester. I've certainly been thinking about it enough, but that and ISP together have left me mentally exhausted. I'm just going to let my last few days be what they are.