The Bernard Mejean Fund for Girls' Education

I’ve been wondering whether studying abroad is defined as much by the fact that we leave as much as the fact that we arrive. From the moment I stepped off the plane, there was an invisible countdown in the background. Even if I wasn’t consciously thinking about going home, I always knew I would. I wonder how that changes the way I experience this place. Do I appreciate small moments more because I know they’re finite? Does knowing I'm going home to a life of relative comfort change the way I move or experience things here?

People who live in Morocco, or anywhere for that matter, don’t experience this country with an expiration date. They build lives here without constantly measuring time against departure. I, on the other hand, move with the knowledge that this chapter will end. That awareness makes every experience feel both more precious and more distant at the same time.

There is a privilege in knowing I can leave when things seem difficult or uncomfortable. I know it's temporary. It’s easy to study another country’s problems when you know you’ll return to a different life; it’s much harder to remember that the people experiencing those challenges don’t get to “study abroad” from them.

I’ve also been thinking about what version of Morocco I’m actually seeing. I move through this country on a specific itinerary, guided by specific people, visiting communities that have agreed to be visited. There’s a version of this place I’m getting, and there are versions I’m not, and I don’t always know where the line is. That’s not a criticism of the program, it’s just an honest thing to sit with. Every place I’ve been to has been meaningful, but being taken somewhere is different from finding it yourself, and I think that distinction matters even if I can’t fully articulate why yet.

I think part of it has to do with intention. When you’re taken somewhere, someone else has already decided that this place is worth seeing. They’ve chosen the route, the conversations, and the stories that will introduce you to the cooperatives, villages or tree nurseries. This isn’t inherently a bad thing; in many ways, it’s a privilege. Without those introductions, I wouldn’t have met many of the people I’ve met or learned about the projects we’ve seen. At the same time, I wonder what I miss from experiences outside of the ones set up for me. Every itinerary is, by nature, selective. Every introduction leaves something else unexplored.

I’ve started to realize that an itinerary isn’t just a schedule, it’s also a story. Every stop suggests something important about this country, whether that’s agriculture, public health, the cooperative, or community development. Those are all worthwhile things to learn about, but they’re also choices. There are countless other stories unfolding across Morocco that aren’t part of this trip. That doesn’t make the experiences we’ve had any less meaningful, but it reminds me that every program, just like every traveler, constructs its own version of a place.

Realizing this has made me more interested in paying attention to how I’m seeing it. Every experience is shaped by the circumstances that create it. If I had come here on vacation, I would probably leave with a completely different impression. If I were here for a semester, or working here, or simply passing through on my own, my understanding would look different again. None of those experiences would necessarily be more truthful than another– they would simply reveal different parts of the same place.

I think that’s something I’ll carry with me beyond this trip. It’s easy to assume that our experiences speak for themselves, but they never really do. They’re always influenced by where we go, who we’re with, what questions we’re asking, and even what we’re expecting to find. This experience has reminded me that learning about a place isn’t just about collecting observations; it’s also about recognizing the lens through which those observations are made.