My New York Times Most Interesting Place: Morocco
Last week, I applied for The New York Times 52 Places ‘Writer at large’ position. Their application requested a 500 word essay on “the most interesting place you’ve been and why.” This is my response, with a few old photos added.
The call to prayer wafted in to announce the morning, followed shortly by my alarm clock. Minutes later, late as always, I rushed out the door with my roommates.
We sprinted across Boulevard Zerktouni towards the imported Blue Bird school bus, as discreet as flamingos at a penguin party: two blondes and a long-legged black girl running with oversized tote bags, Moroccans honking and hollering as we passed.
Casablanca does not often top “must see destinations” lists. But in 2009, I became a temporary resident of the city to teach at the local American school.
For a year, I lived in the overwhelming seaport and fell into a love that was confusing and life-altering.
I established my adult identity in a city and country and culture far outside what was normal for my peers, both at home in Texas and from school on the East Coast.
After a lifetime in the comprehensible confines of classrooms, homes, and offices, I found myself in a viscerally foreign place, learning how to cook dinner and pay bills at the same time as I practiced speaking French with street vendors and tutored my wealthy Moroccan students in mathematics at their luxurious homes.
Saturday mornings were spent food shopping in the Maarif market; a long weekend on a flight to Europe and seeing the art & architecture I’d studied in college as an art history major; dating entailed navigating class, gender, and cultural expectations.
While home will always be my parents’ house and Fort Worth’s familiar TexMex cuisine, winter rodeos, and renowned museums, it also became Casablanca — bustling streets, colorful souks, cumin-flavored dishes, and remnants of a French colonial empire.
As time and politics go on, I could not be more grateful to have a deeply personal connection to a country like Morocco.
Muslims and Arabs are no longer abstractions of North Africa — they are my friends. Now, when people speak out against Muslim immigrants, I think not of terrorists but of Ghita and Souki and Omar.
I see Islam as a religion that is as complicated as the Christianity I grew up with and as beautiful as the visual canon I studied. It is the cool of a mosque’s tiles, intricate flowers and geometric shapes, the soothing call to prayer at sunset.
After Morocco, I moved to Sofia, Bulgaria, and found new features of place and people sinking into my psyche. I returned to the USA in 2011 to live in Austin and then Brooklyn.
And then, in June 2014, I quit my job as a digital design producer and hit the road: a trip that has lasted 3.5 years and counting. I have visited 45+ countries across five continents — travel is my life.
I feel a sense of composure in a commotion that reminds me of Casablanca, a bittersweet nostalgia for Bulgaria from a Slavic language, the thrill of tripping back into Italian.
This comfort of feeling slightly at home anywhere I go is rooted in Morocco, and the branches extend far and wide.
Katherine works remotely while she travels the world — on the road since June 2014.
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