Kayla Nemirovsky
UMBC Faculty-Led: Global Experiential Learning in MENA: Exploring Morocco
Majors: Mathematics and Financial Economics
Certificate: Honors College
Pre-Departure Post
Hi UMBC!
I’m back again for another series of Abroad Blogs! You might remember me from my faculty-led program in Cape Town, South Africa or my semester-long exchange in Tampere, Finland. This time, I am going to be going on a faculty-led program to Morocco! We will be traveling during Spring Break and will be going to tons of cities including Casablanca, Rabat, Fez, Chefchaouen, and Ain Cheggag in the Atlas Mountains! I am so excited for this trip!
Spring Break faculty-led programs are a little bit different than the summer faculty-led program that I did in 2023. The biggest difference is that they are part of a Spring Semester class. This class is about Arab culture. I chose to take it because Arab culture is something that I had a lot of assumptions about and I wanted to develop an honest understanding of it. Also, obviously, I wanted the chance to go to Morocco and interact with locals. For most of this trip, we are staying with homestay and Amazighi families, and I am looking forward to the chance to really immerse myself in the culture, not just view it from a hotel.
We have spent the first part of the semester learning about different elements of culture that we will be interacting with once we arrive in Morocco. We also started an interview paper for which we will be meeting with university students in Morocco. We are meeting with students at two universities and we are paired with students at one of them for interviews. Last week, we met with our partners through Google Meet! My partner is named Wiam and she is 20 and studying to be an English teacher. We have tons of things in common, like we are both the oldest in our families and we like a lot of the same TV shows, like Bridgerton!
She is learning how to play piano, and she even played and sang Sailor Song! Lastly, she gave me some packing recommendations, like that I should definitely bring my jacket because it has been cold lately!
Speaking of packing, I have finally started putting together all of my clothes. For the last week, I have just had piles of “things to bring” scattered around my room. Now I finally took out my suitcase and backpack and have started putting things together. Since we all got a checked bag, our professor asked some people to take a pack of clothes that he has been collecting to donate to children while we are in Morocco. Originally I took a bag because I thought that I would have enough space. However, it turned out that my family does not have a suitcase in between carry-on and ginormous size, so I had to offload my pack of clothes to another student.
I am super excited to get on the flight on Friday! It’s only 7 hours, so not too bad. However, it’s through the night and we have a packed full next day, so I am hoping that I can sleep for most of it. Since this program is just a week, I am thinking that I can give a little summary of every day in my blogs, so stay tuned for the first half of our trip!