I'm writing from midair on the way to Bogota! I'm delighted to be traveling to South America for the first time ever as part of the Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms program. This U.S. State Department exchange will allow me to learn about the Colombian education system and culture. I have so many hopes for this amazing adventure, but I also have a feeling that it will surprise me in many ways.
In addition to setting foot on a new continent for my lifetime, I'll also be counting South America as continent #4 for this week! It was only 6 days ago that I woke up in Lyon, France (Europe). With a connecting flight in Casablanca, Morocco (Africa), I landed that night back home in Washington, DC (USA, North America). I'm so thankful that my Fulbright trip to Colombia -- by pure chance -- didn't overlap with our European vacation. And what fun to have the chance to zip to different corners of the globe!
Layover in Casablanca
I know it's flimsy to count an airport visit as actually seeing a place, let alone a continent as huge and diverse as Africa. I say four continents in one week more as a fun exaggeration than a real sense of travel. That being said, I did try my best to soak up the cultural experiences, as well as the views out the window, that this itinerary afforded me. I also did literally "set foot" in Morocco, since we deplaned using stairs. Cheating, I know.
Gazing down at Morocco, I was struck first by the shape of the coastline, with blue waters meeting the land in a fluff of white. Then, in all directions I noticed the uniform tan color of the ground, except for spots of irrigation. I could make out settlements (towns? villages?) contained by rectangular walls, like shoeboxes, each with a mosque tower poking up from one edge. As we neared the airport, I could see the tall buildings of Casablanca through a haze, and then the airport, with wide palm trees scattered around the grounds.
As an ESOL teacher, I always find it powerful to be surrounded by a foreign (to me) language. This helps me briefly empathize with my students and their families and reminds me that English is not dominant everywhere. On my Royal Air Maroc flights, everything was in Arabic and either French or English. I recognized one word of spoken Arabic - "shokran," which means "thank you," having been taught it by a student. But all of the writing was opaque to me, without so much as a single letter I recognized, and even the direction of print (right to left) being different to my brain.
Airports have always fascinated me. Their general uniformity allows differences to stand out more starkly. Just like any other I've traveled through, this airport had a duty free, art displays, and a Starbucks. However, it also had men's and women's prayer rooms, with shelves for removing your shoes, thick rugs, and Islamic calligraphy; an incense and perfume shop with beautiful smells; and passengers traveling to destinations all over Africa and the Middle East. I grabbed a camel-shaped Morocco magnet for my classroom, and then moved on to another flight, and another continent.
The world is large, with many different cultures and societies. But nowhere is more than a plane ride away. Travel exposes us to differences, but simultaneously reminds us how much we share, especially in our current age of globalized connectivity. And people everywhere are, well, people.
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