A Year in Fez: One Student’s Life in the Maghreb

Right now I’m sitting in JFK waiting for my flight to Casablanca. It almost already seems like I’m in Morocco already – the women have their heads covered with white or black scares. People speak Moroccan colloquial which sounds like a mutilated and unrecognizable version of the formal Arabic we learned in class.

My flight arrives in Casablanca at 6:40am tomorrow and then I’ll fly to Fez at 11am.

The first thing I saw when I got on the train at the Mohammed V Airport were slums. Corrugated tin roofs held down by rocks; garbage and cardboard used as walls. Dirty children throwing rocks at the train. They remind me a lot of the worst areas of the Palestinian refugee camp that I visited last summer.

Yesterday was the last day of Ramadan and the final day of fasting in Morocco. I discovered this when I tried to buy water at the Casablanca airport and there were no stores open. Then I figured surely on the train they would have water. On the first train the man across from me said that this train was too small and that you couldn’t buy water on it. I waited about 40 minutes at the Casablanca city station and so I hauled all my luggage out to the etrance and found that both shops in the station were closed. There was a vending machine but I didn’t have enough Moroccan coins yet. I continued looking for water on the next train, which was bigger and had compartments (like on the Hogwarts express in Harry Potter.) But the man across from me said that because its Ramadan, no food or drinks were sold on the train. I finally found a store that sold water when I got off at the Fez station, but at this point I had gone 9 hours without water. I have no idea how Muslims fast without water for even one day, much less a whole month. I felt like I was going to pass out – but then I figured it can’t be that bad if no one else on the train is drinking.