Forward

I had a week until the deadline.

It's something I should've put much more thought into, but I suppose I always just thought I knew what I wanted. I sat at my desk in 228C scrolling through hundreds of options. My roommates are scattered about the room doing the same. Italy, Chile, New Zealand, Argentina... what does the name of a country really tell you?

In the end, the decision to go on this trip was a bit like jumping off a diving board when you're a kid. The longer you stand at the top, the higher the board seems to get. If you can work the courage to jump off, your part is finished and gravity takes over.

To-dos, documents, and phone calls. Names, requirements, and immunizations. For the past few months, I've been running down the length of the board. It's almost time to lift my last toe off, but if I've learned anything in the last year, it's that things work out when they need to.

It doesn't seem like enough stuff for
three and a half months, does it?

I leave for Morocco in two weeks.

A small area between my dresser and my desk has become a chaotic pile of necessities for the trip. A small pharmacy, backpacks, contact solution, cameras, and I don't think the pile is even complete. I guess that's what the next two weeks are for.

I am participating in a program run by the School of International Training (SIT). It is a Journalism and New Media program and will include multiple parts.

The first part will include a home stay in the Medina (old town) of Rabat. An intimate and complex web of narrow streets, my cohorts and I will be immersed in the daily life of a Moroccan family. While living there, I will be taking courses in the Center for Cross-Cultural Learning (The CCCL), also in the Medina.

Courses will include Intensive Language Study of Modern Standard Arabic, Contextual Studies in Journalism: Morocco and North Africa, and Field Ethics of Journalism in Morocco. During that time, the group will embark on excursions throughout the country, as well as a short village stay in the Sbaa Rouadi Commune.

For the final month of the program, I'm on my own, researching and creating a feature-length story about the topic of my choice as part of the Independent Study in Journalism course.

And lucky you, getting to kick back and read about the whole thing...

I invite you to join me as I leap from this diving board. Who knows? Maybe we'll learn something.