Life in the Microcosm

My first full day in Morocco was what you’d expect of a first-time expat’s experience: exhilarating, overwhelming, anxiety-ridden, and empowering. Lots of emotions were happening all at once, making me feel utterly exhausted by the end of the day. Until, unexpectedly, I got my second wind and ended up hanging out with new friends on an apartment balcony, talking and laughing until midnight.

View from my apartment balcony!

I received lots of good advice before leaving the USA—

“Travel turns you into a little kid again, in a sense. Everything is new, and everything is exciting. Enjoy it.”

“Be gentle with yourself. You’re going to experience a lot and you’ll make mistakes. Roll with it.”

“Live every day as if you’re traveling somewhere new. Even in your own neighborhood, you can find new sights and experiences if you keep your eyes open.”

—and it is helping me so much. But even the best of advice can’t fully prepare you for the newness and unfamiliarity of counting out money you don’t recognize and shaking because there’s a line of people behind you and you’re feeling so awkward about it and please take my money and let me escape merci beaucoup madame salaam— or the utter elation that rushes through you when you make it safely back to your apartment with all your goods, and you feel as though you are climbing a mountain and yes, you are tired, but your strength is growing with every step.

Right now, I’m living life in the microcosm. My apartment and my neighborhood are still being mapped out, and each venture beyond them can be terrifying. But I keep branching out and expanding the map of my life in Morocco, and it is done by walking down the street when I am scared, or paying the lovely cashier lady at the grocery store, or haggling with a taxi driver about the price I will pay to go to Marjane (like Walmart). Every one of these exercises in personal fortitude works like a repetition with a dumbbell: it makes me stronger after it breaks me down a little bit.

Good humor, humility, and an ability to shake off a bad experience are qualities and skills I will continue to develop while living outside the USA, I can see that clearly. But let’s just take it one step at a time. It’s been a fun day and a half so far!