After a mildly turbulent landing, I departed the Royal Air Maroc plane at the Mohammed V international airport in Casa Blanca. It was mid day, with spotty rainstorms, the sun dancing across the flat, patchy land. With signs in English and Arabic I managed my way to security. After an intense Arab man scrutinized my passport and information for a solid 5 minutes, he stamped it and I passed through customs. My first impression of Morocco was how strict and intense they were. There were so many checkpoints for passports, boarding pass, and stamps. As well as so many rules in the airport, and guards. It was a bit intimidating and not something I’m necessarily used to. 

My service wasn’t working, but I made my way to the train station below the airport. This is where I was meeting with a stranger who I would be living with for the weekend. Stranger sounds dramatic, but it was someone I had never even met, had only texted with, and had no idea what they looked like. The stranger, who would later become a dear friend, was Zineb, a Casa Blanca local who was a few years older than me, who I would be staying with for 5 days. But let me give some background, as to how I got here.

In high school I was a member of a non profit called Flourish Foundation, in their Compassionate Leader program. A program in which we all had a weekly meeting sitting and discussing altruism, ethics, mindfulness, cultural exchanges and meditation. We participated in meditations, activities and deeply immersive conversations. We would participate in service work throughout the year, with everything culminating in a trip abroad. These trips abroad were immersed with local communities, and we lived and worked with locals. Two trips were ran, one to India, and one to Casa Blanca. We fundraised all year for these trips, but the year I was going to travel abroad, Covid hit. I had wanted to go to Morocco so badly, and was so sad I wasn’t able to travel there, engage in a cultural exchange, and have meaningful travel of giving back. My favorite kind of travel, the non tourism kind. Since then, I haven’t stopped thinking about it, and Morocco, for many reasons, was still the top of my travel list.

So finally, after 5 years, the long wait was over. My friend Ashley, was also a compassionate leader member, and she was also studying in Spain. We immediately started dreaming about going to Morocco together and connecting with the same locals. We both wanted to do a homestay and meet locals, even if that meant skipping out on some classic Morocco tourist experiences like camel rides, seeing the dessert or Marakesh. So we facetimed our friend Noah, the leader of the Flourish Foundation, and asked him if he knew anyone we could stay with. He had a few connections who were around our age who lived in Casa Blanca, and they responded with immediate hospitality. One of them had moved to the UE and another we didn’t have the contact of, but Zineb responded instantaneously and welcomed us into her home. It was set, we would be hosted with her, and her family. 

Now, back to the airport. I had no idea who to look for. So after I passed the guards, and entered into the dim, small train terminal, all I knew is that I was looking around for a 20-something Moroccan girl. There weren’t too many people down there, but I couldn’t see the whole room. A girl was looking at me from a bench and I stared at her questioningly and intently. She stood up and hurriedly shuffled over to me. I began to start walking and knew it was Zineb! After our introduction and bisse bisse (which I awkwardly didn’t know was a thing in Morocco, thanks to the French colonization) we went and sat on the bench, and got to chatting. We had to wait another three hours for my friend Ashley to get in. So what I expected to be a short travel day, from Spain to Morocco, turned into an all day affair. We burned time by talking, sharing stories, getting to know each other, and her teaching me some Arabic words.

Finally my friend Ashley arrived, and we took the old, regional train into Casa Blanca. Looking out the rumbling, rattling train window, watching the clouds, I knew we would be greeted with a stunning sunset. Sure enough, when we got off the train in the large, modern central train station, the sky was showing the most stunning colors. Such a great welcome sunset in Casa. Then we had our first wild taxi experience. Which resulted in Zineb making the taxi driver stop, she told us to get out, so we got out, and went to find another taxi. The taxi drivers are very controlling and intense, and they even try to scam locals on taxi prices.

The city of Casa Blanca is so very dense. At first, while driving through the city, I just told myself it was the culture shock of a new city, and that it seemed so dense to me because it’s the capital city. However these feelings never subsided, only grew as I explored the city more. So I did some research, as I was so blown away (and overwhelmed) at the endless tall, weathered buildings. Sure enough the statistics were shocking! Casablanca is nearly three times as dense as Los Angeles, with about 25,000 people per square mile compared to LA’s 7,600 people per square mile. Pretty intense, I was constantly grateful to be staying with kind locals who were helping us navigate our experience there.

Neither of Zineb’s parents spoke English, which I hadn’t expected, because her mom had texted us in English a few times… all google translate I suppose! I learned a few words from Zineb that helped me get by in my interactions with her parents. Such as: Shukran (thank you), Afak (please), Salam (I loved this as a greeting because it translated to hello/peace), and a few others. But I was a bit sad I couldn’t deeply get to know them and their stories!

When we got to Zineb’s apartment, both Ashley and I were so ravenously hungry. We were traveling in Casa Blanca, during Ramadan, so everyone was fasting, and they were about to break their fast with Iftar. When we arrived they had a WONDERFUL Iftar spread laid out on the table. There was SO much food, and naturally, we assumed it was dinner, and filled up. Turns out this was what they considered “breakfast” during Ramadan and we would be eating dinner later, around 11:30 pm. It was so hilarious, because both Ashley and I turned and looked at each other, when they started talking about dinner plans for the night. We were so full and so tired. But we wanted to rally to do something that night. So we drove through the city towards the beach, to this big mall, to get some coffees and walk on the beach. We also drove by the Mosque. It was so grand and illuminated at night.

We walked along a stretch of beach at night. The waves crashing in the stormy sea. Then we got ice cream at the mall. Soon it was time to go back and have dinner. But to get to our taxi, we had to cross the very wide, very busy, very scary highway. Let’s just say pedestrian laws don’t really exist in Casa Blanca. For example, this very night we saw two intense pedestrian accidents. Just adding to my nerves. Every time we crossed the street Zineb insisted on holding our hands and reminded us to look out for cars. Which always made me laugh. She’s like the mother of the group. So we all joined hands and made it across the first part of the highway. One of the three of us was quite hesitant and it almost dragged the rest of us behind. I think holding hands did more harm than good. But we made us to the middle of the highway where cars were speeding by either side and not minding the lines at ALL. I honestly thought my feet were going to be crushed by cars. At this point, we were all laughing hysterically. And giddy. But we made it across the street and into our taxi.

Back at Zineb’s apartment, her parents had prepared a wonderful chicken Tagine. A traditional Moroccan dish cooked in a large traditional clay pot (a tagine). When I say I am so in love with the food culture and cooking in Morocco. I mean it. I loved the aspect of all sharing the main dishes, as well as the artisinal, unique, and efficient cooking pots and tea sets. We all ate with our hands, using bread to get our bitefull. I copied Zineb and swiped my bread and chicken into this black ish oil at the bottom of the pot. Instantly her parents and her started laughing. I was worried I did something wrong or offended them. But laughing, Zineb said, we’re laughing because you are just like a Moroccan! You reached for the best part of the dish, that we all fight over. Instantly I was sheepish and offered it to her. And they said no you should try it! Although it doesn’t sound good describing- it was truly one of the tastiest dishes I’ve had while traveling. The oil that was at the bottom of the pot with all the spices and a so was thick and marinated. We had fruit for dessert, from the fruit stall that was always parked out front of their apartment. And went to bed around 2am. All of my meals in Morocco were so memorable and unique, especially since it was Ramadan, and I partook in fasting (minus water) for two days.

The rest of the days followed a similar schedule, rich with food, culture and exploring. We took two day trips to a town called Rabat. Rabat was so lovely and opposite of Casa. It was trim, tidy, gaurded and much more queit. This is because this is where the King’s main palace was, so Zineb told us it was safer to be. There were these beautiful gardens there called Chellah, which was a Roman Archeogical site, and ancinet moroccon site. It was also filled with giant storks. It was so unique to be able to actually walk around and touch the historic sites. While in Casa Blanca we met and hung out with a lot of Zineb’s friends. They all spoke such good english and were very intelligent on current affairs and politics. I had so many great, intellectual conversations with them over Iftar.

It was heavily raining and storming most of the time in Morocco, but some of my best memories were simply driving around all together, Ashley, me, Zineb (and Zineb’s friend also named Zineb) blasting Moroccan music, with the rain pounding the windshield. Making friends in Morocco was a highlight of the trip, and I hope to go back and road trip with them all as soon as I can.

It was one of the most memorable trips of mine. It is always truly amazing to have a shared local experience while traveling. I cannot wait to return and see my Moroccan friends again one day.

Shukran Morocco!