American students living in Moroccan homes | Al Jazeera World Documentary

[Music] it's so hard i can't say the k or the ein [Music] i'm originally from colorado in the u.s and i went to university in new york i had the chance to study abroad for a semester and i ended up choosing morocco because i already spoke french and wanted to learn arabic i was really excited to come to morocco i didn't actually want to go to morocco because i was studying the middle east and i didn't consider morocco as part of the middle east [Music] [Music] i did fill out a survey it was like do you want a family with small children i said no because i don't like small children you don't choose which family you get and i love kids i love pets i eat anything so they just put me with a family i don't really know how they made the decision so i had a host dad a host mom and then a two-year-old sister named muna [Music] [Music] [Applause] yes z my host parents were really cute i have no complaints about them i was expecting them to speak english because i got a piece of paper that says that they speak english which was fine because i had studied arabic for my first two years of college i could read it and i knew some vocab but speaking wasn't good [Music] i was loving them [Music] i'm a really bad cook no matter what gastronomy it is i'm not good at it i don't wanna i don't wanna poison anyone my mom was relieved because she she likes that saying that morocco was a good house and a bad neighborhood so she was all for it but back at my college i had a study abroad advisor who basically told us morocco is very conservative you can't show your collarbones like you have to be covered from here up or else you're gonna get like publicly groped and you can't walk with anyone of the opposite sex in the street even if you're just friends because people will think you're a prostitute um all this this stuff that maybe applies to other places but when i got to morocco i immediately realized that that was all she wasn't she didn't actually know what she was talking about she was before coming to morocco my entire knowledge of morocco was from academic projects so i knew some about moroccan literature or moroccan history or moroccan food but nothing about day to day life in morocco or family life in morocco my family was completely supportive of my choice and they were really excited for me they've always instilled in me a love of travel and learning about other cultures ever since i was little so they're really excited for me to be able to go abroad and ever since i was little when we could we would go on trips and it was kind of something i knew i always wanted to do and i always traveled when i had a chance so they were really excited for me not a lot of americans get to study abroad and those who do choose big cities in europe i think i was definitely one of the few but there were a few other girls from my university who also chose to come to morocco but we were in different programs okay for the program i did in morocco you had to do an application talking about why you want to come to morocco what you think you'll gain from the experience once we got to morocco they did a language test so that you could speak a little french or arabic but if you didn't speak any you would just start in a beginner course so it wasn't it wasn't like you couldn't come if you didn't speak any language you just started language classes [Music] [Music] how are you [Applause] [Music] it was weird to me that we're all eating out of the same plate the same tagine and also when we had couscous for the first time they gave me that milk stuff i wanted to say oh dairy is bad for my skin i have to like push it away from me and see la chacon the first time i saw my host family eating couscous with their hands just the first time i was like oh i don't know about that one i'm not gonna do that [Music] [Music] [Laughter] okay foreign [Applause] [Music] yes yes okay [Music] is the language barrier is tricky because i speak english and french and very little arabic even though i'm learning but my host dad speaks so french my host family in general speaks some french so it's a mix of my little arabic french charades a combination but in general i think you can communicate everything that's necessary mm-hmm a [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] when i was in morocco for ramadan it was in 2017 i was in rabat and i was living alone actually it was just after my program but i was still going to the organization every day so i fasted like everyone else and even though i wasn't with a family at that point so many moroccan families invited me to break the fast with them which was really nice and it was really cool to be a part of that people in my neighborhood never really got used to seeing me for some reason because every time i walk to school i would see the same people giving me weird looks because i was in the middle of this this market i got harassed a lot so i didn't like being by myself so i always did whatever my friends were doing i never went anywhere sometimes people in the medina would be rude to us and say like we don't need you here get out hey knees toes head shoulders knees toes one one two one of my favorite parts is playing with the two-year-old muna she just has so much energy and it doesn't matter if we don't speak the same language because she's two she speaks better arabic english and french than i do honestly so i can teach her some english words and she can teach me some arabic words um she has so much energy that there's always something to do with her whether it's running around the house singing songs i brought little stickers with food so she i say the food word in english and she says it in arabic sometimes so oh he's so cute so i just sent him some hearts i didn't think he was going to respond i just wanted him to know that i thought he was cute i didn't answer when he responded because i knew that if if we met he's gonna be disappointed maybe i don't look that good in person so i i didn't want to answer him oh foreign this one really amazing how much you can get in one place and all out in the open air the difference between moroccan soups and stores in the us i guess the main difference would be in the us everything has a fixed price where in morocco you have to ask and sometimes haggle foreign [Music] yeah i think one of the biggest challenges is when i met the souk alone and i asked for the a price it's way higher than the price they would give a moroccan even if i haggle it down and even if i speak in arabic my host sister they help and they tell me like no this is a reasonable price don't accept anything higher than this i'm getting i'm getting better at haggling and shopping in morocco in general [Music] so morning hong kong yes [Music] [Applause] you see yes gracias [Music] sibo we've got to go okay [Laughter] i'm so sweaty meal times were really weird to me when i first got home from my classes they had tea time and i was like this is cool i like cake and bread and then i just stuffed my face i was i ate so much because i thought that was my dinner and then at 11 00 p.m i was like ready for bed and then they were like morgan it's time for dinner and i was like what i'm ready for bed it was and then i had to get used to staying up late to eat dinner and then waking up early to eat breakfast but now i i really like tea time so i don't complain about it anymore [Laughter] um foreign um what's up [Music] [Music] from i mean found me on instagram because i had my instagram linked to my dating app profile so then he sent me a message on instagram and i was like oh okay he's actually interested [Music] the moment i realized that i actually liked him he wasn't just someone i was talking to was when he sent me a video of himself coming out of his apartment and all the cats in his neighborhood came running up to him because he feeds them [Music] so when i saw that video i thought like this this guy's really really cute and he loves cats and he used to model so maybe i should go on a date with him [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Laughter] this is there are so many words in darija and moroccan arabic that are impossible to say there's no vowels there's so many letters that don't exist in english wait okay [Music] let's go [Music] [Music] okay [Music] it's beautiful here so we did a lot of hiking walking around kind of a nice change of pace because we're always doing an activity but it's kind of nice just to be out out in the outdoors where people could talk and there's not other distractions or anything oh uh so he wanted to get married as soon as i moved here i don't that sounds like he's using me for for immigration it's it's that's what my grandmom thinks can you repeat it so so to most people that seems like way too fast and too soon and you're rushing it but when we met each other it was like we'd known each other forever that's how i knew he was my soul mate because i'm not the type of person to rush into big life decisions like that but as soon as i met him i i had this this feeling that i had known him for my whole life he was planning on renting a venue and having musicians and a bunch of dresses and stuff i didn't even go to my college graduation because i don't like being around lots of people but we ended up having a small party and i mean small and moroccan terms i didn't realize how big families are but this one i didn't have to talk to anyone i just sat there and like smiled and held my hands up for pictures with the henna [Music] oh uh um is that person never seen that [Music] what's up so [Music] okay so do you remember the first time we met yeah now can you tell me about it um you were in your brown jacket yeah and i told you i liked your jacket and i told you to walk on my left side because my right side is my bad side yeah that was weird and then we went to we went to the beach i asked you if you believed in aliens and you were like yeah yeah and then i kept asking you questions about it and you didn't know what i was talking about no i knew what you were talking about it's just weird to talk about aliens and our first it's interesting well not it wasn't for me that much i was interested in you like i wanted to know more about you but you were talking about aliens oh okay i'm sorry i didn't know um yeah do you want the strawberry stuff for the lemon for both no the strawberry oh before i moved here i had this vision that we were gonna live in morocco for at least five years i was gonna get really good at arabic i was gonna do research i was going to do all this stuff but living here as a responsible adult is a lot different than living here as a student who has a host family taking care of me women's american [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] you learn so much not being in your home country where you grew up and living abroad and experiencing a new culture a new language new way of life new perspective on things and i guess i wanted to stay in morocco long term because i started learning arabic i have only started learning about morocco in some sense so it's really great for me to live here and then help students have the same experience i did when i first got to come to morocco [Music] being in morocco definitely made me grow up i feel like i wasn't really awake until i went to morocco so i morocco really woke me up and it definitely changed my life in a good way [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: Al Jazeera English

Views: 66,964

Keywords: An American in My Home, American students living in Moroccan homes, Morocco, Al Jazeera world, al Jazeera news, al Jazeera live, al jazeera live tv news English, al Jazeera documentary, al Jazeera, al Jazeera English, morocco study abroad, morocco America, morocco american, Rabat, Arabic, American Student, Studying Abroad, United States, Documentary, Documentaries, Living Expat, Documentary 2023, Living in Morocco

Id: -jYwF_LPIHo

Length: 45min 10sec (2710 seconds)

Published: Wed May 25 2022