At the moment that a trip out of the country switches from being in the dreaming future to being real and imminent, I begin wondering if it's too late to back out. There's something about setting aside a shirt that I know I will not wear until I'm in Morocco that makes me realize how under-prepared I am to go to Morocco.
I've felt the same feeling with every trip out of the country for the past two years. It seems like I should be used to it by now. But somehow it always hits me as a surprise.
I want to go to Morocco. I want to take two classes that are taught entirely in French and one class in Arabic. I want to stay with a Moroccan family and experience Rabat. I'm not sure I was ever really looking forward to the one-week trip to Senegal that happens midway through (mosquitoes are terrifying!) but it will certainly be an experience. I chose this program because I thought that it sounded like a fun, interesting, and unique experience. I want it.
Some of it has to do with my contact with my host family. The program I'm studying with provided me with a name, address, and phone number and encouraged me to call them. So I did, making sure to account for time zones so I was calling in the evening and not 3 A.M. I got a man who had no idea who I was, or what IES Abroad was.
I tried a few more times over the next few days, but got a mixture of no responses, responses where I couldn't hear anything (or be heard) and then one more person who had no idea who I was.
Eventually my father took pity on me and tried calling. He got someone who spoke a bit of French, knew who I was, and encouraged me to call back between 7 and 9 and their daughter, who spoke English would be there. Great!
So a little after 1:00 I tried again. I got a woman who didn't seem to understand anything I said. I had the name of my host family, so I asked if that's who she was. “Naam.”
“No.” “Niet.” “Nein.” “Non.” It seemed like a relatively consistent pattern. So I hung up.
Immediately afterwards, I googled and learned my first two words of Arabic. “La” is no. “Naam” means yes.
I made my father call the next time.
After the phone was passed from my future host mother to my future host father and my father to me back to my father, we eventually figured out that the reason he was replying to every question with “neuvaire” was because he wanted us to call back at 9:00 when his daughter would be there.
I needed chocolate to try anything again. Finally, I got through and managed to connect to my host sister. After a few more struggles with technology and spelling (we couldn't find each other on Facebook. Or e-mail. But she could tell me her cell phone number, and I could text my e-mail address and Facebook link and she could respond to those) we finally had alternate forms of communication.
And after that whole ordeal, I've never done anything with that information. After responding to confirm that she had the right e-mail address, we haven't sent each other any more messages. So I don't know quite what I'm walking into with my host family.
I don't know much of what I'm walking into, actually. And 3-4 months ago, that was the appeal. I'd be doing something different from what I've done before, and different from what most people have done. And for a while, I was questioning that decision. The familiar might be dull sometimes, but there's a comfort there.
And now? I'm not sure if I'm completely ready, but I'm about as ready as I'm going to be. At this time tomorrow, I'll be on a flight to Paris. My suitcases are packed, my room will be clean once my bags are removed from it, I'm as ready as I'm going to be, and that will have to be enough.
