Freshman Orientation: on transience, insecurity, and being a newcomer

After over a week of living and studying at Al Akhawayn University, I have had my fair share of ups and downs, and so in some respects it is best that I waited to write so as not to post every crisis and euphoria, most of which were largely wrought by anxiety and little more. It should be noted that I was skeptical of coming here to study. My M.O. was check out the place, and transfer if studying here just wasn't going to cut it.

AUI is an elite, relatively expensive Moroccan university modeled after the English university system. Not unlike my alma mater, the campus is walled, well lit, and the green spaces are carefully maintained (though here you cannot walk on the grass). Classes are conducted in English (which is why I enrolled), meaning that Moroccan students speak better English than most foreign students speak Arabic, removing the immersion aspect of language learning (hence the skepticims). AUI is also located near, but not in, Ifrane, a resort town in the Middle Atlas mountains. Town is a good 20-30 minute walk away, and curfew is at midnight.

If a lack of exposure to Arabic was my greatest concern, then probably my greatest insecurity, as the week of international and newcomer (their term for freshman) orientation got underway, was the fact that I had at least five years on most of the students. I found myself increasingly uncomfortable when the "get to know you" phase of conversation reached the point of disclosing age. I don't know if I have ever so closely identified with middle-aged womanhood as when I wanted to answer these questions in French: "Je suis d'un certain age." The benefits of learning about exciting, new technological advances from the younger generation (read: Skype), were outweighed by this unfortunate insecurity.

The international students came from places as diverse as Sewanee State, University of Idaho, Sciences-Po, Ethiopia, Oxford, and West Point. Technically, we were categorized as being either international, exchange or transient students. I fall under the last category, which I assume means that, should I inexplicably disappear for some length of time, it will be attributed to those characteristics associated with being a transient student. The orientation, which included sessions on "Health, Travel and Safety" and "Adapting and Adjusting," left plenty of time for us to get to know each other, particularly before the Moroccan upper-classmen arrived.

Dinner, it turned out, was a difficult time. On the first night I went into Ifrane with a guy from Nebraska and a Polish fellow studying in Italy. The Nebraskan spent most of dinner talking about how tanned brunettes were really his type, and how to get around the rule barring alcohol on campus. The next night I sat at a cafeteria table with, among others, an Arab-American who blithely claimed that the Holocaust could not be confirmed. Later in the week, though I wasn't there, one of the West Pointers allegedly called another international student a lesbian. I can only hope that, liberated from the constraints of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, he was testing out his gaydar in a collegial manner. Regardless, I was feeling discouraged.

A couple of nights later, there was a dinner/party at the center of campus, for international students and Moroccan newcomers to get to know each other. Tables and chairs were arranged outside, and a turntable was set up nearby. As a transient student, I decided it would be best to arrive by myself. I truly felt like I was going to a high school dance, I was that nervous. I sat at a table with two young Moroccan men who weren't really talking with each other or anyone else. They welcomed me to their table and we had an excellent conversation that lasted until the DJ set to work with some dreadful rave music.

Ghassan and Wissam, it turns out, are "newcomer" roommates, and seem perfectly suited as such. Ghassan is gregarious in a slightly formal manner, while Wissam is very earnest, though friendly. Ghassan is from Rabat, the cosmopolitan capital; Wissam is from Khouribga, known for its phosphate mines. (One of two jokes in Arabic that I know is about the men of Khouribga, and it goes like this: they go from their house to the bus, the bus to the mine, the mine back to the bus, the bus to the bar, and from the bar back home. Only in Arabic all the nouns rhyme.) Ghassan is part of a delegation sponsored by the British Consulate that is going to the UK in the fall to promote cross-cultural understanding. Wissam is a fan of Real Madrid. Ghassan is studying literature and showed me his music collection, which includes Georges Moustaki, Enya and Air. Wissam is studying business and engineering and suggested that I join the math or science clubs to broaden my interests.

Both, however, eschew the campus cafe, where students are always hanging out and playing pool and arcade games, saying that it is a waste of time. Both, also, speak excellent English and ask me about the difference between the words to insinuate and to imply while I ask them about the Arabic words for to sleep and to wake up. In short, despite all of my insecurities about age, it turns out that I have most enjoyed, this past week, getting to know two 18-year-old Moroccan students. Part of my orientation to Al Akhawayn, it seems, has been reorienting myself to the experience of being a newcomer, and all of the enjoyable aspects inherent in that status.