Back at our Home Away from Home: 5/20/2025

Today was our first full day back in Meknes! We got up early to head to our morning class and started the day with breakfast with our mom. She made us some delicious msemen, a type of Moroccan pancake, and served them with nut butter, chocolate spread, and honey to go on top! They have become my new favorite Moroccan breakfast.

We then walked to our learning center and crossed the busy streets with twice as much confidence as we had on our first day in Meknes. Now that we have spent more than a week in Morocco (I still can’t believe it) we started off class by sharing what our initial definition of “culture” was, and how that has changed during our time here. At the start of our trip, most of our class defined culture as the set of traditions, language, values, and beliefs held by a group of people that makes them unique. However, after spending time with our host families and learning about the history and traditions of the country, our definition of culture has grown considerably. Rather than defining culture as the unique aspects of a people’s day to day life, some students, myself included, came to a realization that due to colonization and increased globalization most cultures all around the world have exchanged and share customs and beliefs, so rather than focusing on individual aspects like language, religion, food, and family dynamics, culture is better defined by how all of these practices and values work together to create the “lens” through which different groups of people see and navigate the world.

Picture of us in our classroom

After wrapping up our class lecture and discussion we took a break before moving on to our next topic. Throughout this whole trip my favorite part of touring the new cities and buildings is looking at the striking architecture. During our break I took a couple minutes to work on a drawing of the Hassan II Mosque we saw in Casablanca.

Me working on a drawing during break

After regrouping we looked at where the group landed on the various scales of the Beliefs, Events, Values, and Inventory (BEVI) survey. As a group there were areas where we all grouped around the high end, like “Meaning Quest”, and others where we were spread out like “Identity Diffusion.” We all had a group discussion as we made guesses on why that was. Hearing about everyone’s life experiences and sharing my own, made me feel closer to the group than ever before.

After all our class discussion and an introduction of our service-learning project for tomorrow, we all went home to eat lunch with our homestay families. Our homestay mom made us some very delicious chicken Tajine with bread and watermelon on the side.

A pony we saw at the square just outside the Medina

After lunch, a group of us went to the Medina of Meknes to continue looking for gifts to bring back home and gifts for ourselves. Someone in our group was looking for some decorative boxes and we had a very nice interaction with one of the local vendors who took us on a trip around the Medina trying to find what we were looking for (the boxes were secured!). We also looked through the very beautiful pottery and bought some pretty spice holders.

Some very beautiful pottery being sold at a stand in the Medina

We then headed back home and enjoyed dinner with our homestay families, wrapping up another day full of learning and exploration.

Signing off,

Andrea G.