Introduction
Just me admiring the flowers in the garden outside of my host-family's house. Beautiful gardens with blooming flowers and orange trees are the Moroccan equivalent of fresh-cut grass and a white picket fence in America. Despite the dry heat and limited water supply, every home that can afford a garden creates a mini paradise outside their door.
During the summer of 2017, I hopped on a plane to Morocco and didn’t return until 2 and a half months later. I was excited to travel outside of the country without my family for the first time and was eager to spend Ramadan in a Muslim majority country. I was thrilled to know that I didn’t have to silence the adthan (call for prayer) on my phone, and that everyone in the whole country would be praying and eating at the same time as me. While studying abroad was not quite the experience I thought it would be, it was still an experience that I believe has made a lasting impression on my character.
As our summer came to an end, many of my peers found themselves a more independent person than they previously were. Others found a passion for travel while others thought of themselves as more open-minded and culturally literate. I on the other hand, found myself numb toward my experiences but at the same time, extremely frustrated the more I thought about the social injustice parallels happening in my own country as well as abroad. For a long time, I wasn’t able to piece together everything I saw, felt, and experienced. Now as I look back, I realize that the similarities in my experiences both abroad and at home is an example of how connected the world actually is. It made me realize that any effort in advancing one issue such as women’s rights, environmentalism, or poverty must consider its effects on the entire world as well as how each of these issues are overlapped with one another.
For a long time, America has been seen as the leaders of the modern world and to some extent, it still is. Everyone has their eyes on this country. This became clear to me after being asked “How did Trump become president?” multiple times during my two months in Morocco. As Americans, we are in a position of privilege and influence and we must use this platform wisely in shaping how we want the world to perceive itself and its future. In order to do that, we must continue to seek knowledge, and learn to listen to those who may have different perspectives than our own. We must look carefully at our individual experiences and evaluate the source of our pain and problems as well as our comfort and joy in order to create better lives for ourselves and help others to do the same.
“Life isn't just about taking in oxygen and giving out carbon dioxide.”
-Malala Yousafzai
Feminism
It wasn’t until I visited Morocco when I saw some truth to the stereotype that “Muslim women are oppressed.” Yes, we are. But, not because we are Muslim, it is because we are women. All around the world, women are expected to be silent in the presence of a man. We are expected to be submissive and our bodies are often sexualized and objectified. If a woman says “No” to a man, she risks her life. Violence and oppression against females isn’t just a Muslim problem, it is a woman problem and most of all, a problem of the entitlement men perceive as a result of living in a patriarchal world.
In Morocco, I saw a woman being slapped in the face and told to shut up in the middle of the street while everyone was watching. My classmates were catcalled on countless occasions and on one occasion, my roommate and I were followed back to our hotel in Agadir even after telling them to stop. In my Victimology and Criminal Profiling classes at UF, I learned that women in America are far more likely than men to be victims of severe physical intimate partner violence ( 1 in 4 women compared to 1 in 7 men). I also learned that up to 75 percent of women who are killed as a result of domestic violence are killed after they gather the courage to say “No more.” This entitlement that men have over women can be seen almost every day in the news. All you have to do is search “Man shoots ex-girlfriend/wife” and you will find many cases of intimate partner violence taking a deadly turn. Here’s just one:
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Perhaps the one thing that frustrated me the most during this trip was being told that Muslim women cannot be leaders. What is the point of me even attempting to get an education if I can’t use it? Why does my religion advocate for seeking knowledge but, tells me that I cannot use my knowledge as efficiently as a man can? Here’s the journal I wrote the week I learned that this was a belief that most Muslims take to be religiously mandated.
A few months after returning to the United States I read the book “Women in the Quran: An Emancipatory Reading by Asma Lamrabet and found the answers I was searching for. Perhaps the Prophet Mohammed, my religion, and God did not give man a greater status than women. We were just told by men that they did. After reading this book, I realized that our religious texts were interpreted by imperfect men throughout history so of course, the common readings of the Quran will be through the lens of a male who is so deeply influenced by the traditional patriarchal society that something that does not have a patriarchal meaning will be interpreted as such. I highly recommend reading this book for anyone having doubts about Muslim treatment of women and especially to any Muslim woman struggling with their faith and asking themselves “Why am I serving a God who doesn’t consider me an equal believer as my male counterpart? Why did God give me free will, and the ability to speak and think for myself if I am to be punished for using it?”
Environmentalism
After seeing piles of trash at the sides of the roads in Morocco and the determination of one of my classmates who gathered everyone’s plastic water bottles to take to the only recycling bin we know of at the train station in Fez , I realized that the one thing that I definitely take for granted in America is our sanitation system. Once our waste is in the trash can or recycling bin, it is out of sight and out of mind. While I never actually considered myself a wasteful person, living in the United States where almost everything comes wrapped in plastic automatically makes an individual amongst the most wasteful in the world. When I returned to the U.S for the fall semester, I took a class called Islam and Nature. While my intention for registering for this class wasn’t entirely for the environmentalism involved, it really did make me more conscious of how much I consume and how much waste is produced because of it. In this class, I learned that Islam has a lot to say about protecting the environment, conserving water, and not consuming excessively. I just hope that one day I can play a bigger part in being able to clean up the mess that humans have made in this world. I also hope that the crystal clear waters of the Riff Mountains in Northern Morocco will always be there for the people to enjoy.
The clear waters of the Akchour Cascades about 45 minutes away from Chefchaoen. I also had the best Chicken Tagine in Morocco here!
Poverty
Being the daughter of first generation immigrants from third-world countries, I grew up listening to my father and mother talk about how hard their parents worked for them to simply have something to eat. I grew up learning to appreciate every grain of rice I was able to put into my mouth. When I was 5 years old, my father took my sister and I to Bangladesh to visit his family. This was my first encounter with poverty in its most extreme form. There were children walking around without clothes selling pens, chocolates, or water to foreigners everywhere you go. There were old men with crooked smiles and missing limbs begging for something to eat and there were mothers carrying their newborn babies on their backs as they worked in the rice fields. Compared to the people in the slums of the city, my father’s family was much more well-off in their village even without electricity and access to running water. I was young, so I thought it was fun having to use lamps to see at night and eating by the leftover firewood that gave the atmosphere a unique “camp” feeling. Bathing in the pond everyday was like having a swimming pool in your backyard! It wasn’t until I went back to a developing nation (Morocco) when I learned to appreciate the hardships that my mom put herself through in order to keep us fed and in school. I also appreciated the fact that I live in the US and that going to school didn’t mean I have to starve and that even though we didn’t exactly own a house, we weren’t living on the streets. Click the button to read my reflection on poverty that I wrote while I was in Morocco.
Ramadan
My biggest motivation for choosing Morocco as my study abroad destination other than for learning Arabic was that it was a Muslim majority country and that I would be spending the month of Ramadan there. I was excited to see how people from a different ethnic background celebrate and if there are any exciting festivities that happen during the month. As it turns out, Moroccans don’t celebrate Ramadan much differently from my own family. They wake up before sunrise, eat breakfast, pray, go back to sleep, continue their day as they normally do, cook, break the fast, pray, read Quran and go to the mosque for Taraweeh prayer, and then come home and repeat. I loved the feeling of living right across from the mosque in Morocco but, there was something missing. I realized that the one thing that makes Ramadan special for me is becoming closer to God with my family. Although I was surrounded by people of my own faith, being away from my family during this month made me feel very alone. This is where I recognized my biggest personal growth during this entire experience. I was eager to get away from them but, this Ramadan made me extremely grateful toward being able to spend time with my family and have a meal with them and pray together every day for an entire month.
Just some appreciation for my beautiful family since I missed them so much last Ramadan!