As funny as
this sounds, I did not wake up one morning and think, out of nowhere, “Gee, I
think I’ll go to Morocco* this summer.”
*There was one
morning where I woke up and thought, “I think I’m going to try to travel to every
single country in the world, even if it kills me,” but that is a very different
story. The point is, this was not a random happenstance.
I think there
have always been little indications that I might one day go to the Middle East.
From an early age, I was obsessed with Ancient Egypt. (Don’t get me started on
the late 18th and 19th dynasties unless you are looking
for your ear to be talked off. Seriously. Your eyes will glaze over.) I’m
pretty sure I went through an archaeologist phase, or at least that “I-want-to-dig-up-mummies-and-treasure”
phase that a lot of four-year-olds go through.
If I think
about it, this process began in earnest three years ago (2010), when, on a
particularly brutal early-November day, I got in the car, slammed the door, and
declared to my mother that as soon as I was an adult, I was moving to Egypt,
darn it, because it was just too cold.
(I’m from Wisconsin. It gets cold
here, if you don’t already know that. See: Stalingrad Winter. Okay, not really,
but close.)
The Official
Language of Egypt is, of course, Arabic, and I decided then and there that I
needed to learn it, because one does not move to a country without knowledge of
that country’s language. (It’s part of my Fear-Of-Being-An-“Ugly-American”
Complex, also known as the “Americans need to learn foreign languages instead
of expecting everyone to know ours” Syndrome. Or, ANTLFLIOEETKOS. I like
acronyms.)
A month
later, the Arab Spring began.
By January,
2011, it was in full force.
(I would like
to note here that any sane person would see revolution and bloodshed and think,
“Hmm. Maaaaybe the Middle East/Egypt isn’t the best place to be. Maybe I don’t
want to go there." Whether or not you’ve picked up on the hints, it should be
explicitly established that I am not exactly your average, sane human being. At
the sound of the Arab Spring I thought to myself, “Wow! Arabic is more
important than ever! I would still get on a plane to any of those places
tomorrow to learn. And surely, by the time I’m old enough to actually move there, things will have started
to settle down.” Yep. That’s me using my head. Anyways.)
In February,
I got my first book about Arabic.
I’d like to
add another note that it is hard to
try to teach yourself a language, particularly one outside of your native
language’s family. Meaning: I didn’t get very far. Nevertheless, I was still
determined to eventually take classes and go to the Middle East. (Yet another
side note: finding Arabic classes for kids in their freshman year of high
school is practically impossible where I live.)
That summer,
I learned that my cousin, Mara, (Hi, Mara!) was also interested in learning
Arabic, and we ipso facto became Arabic Buddies, which involved a lot of
talking about baklava, and not, perhaps, as much of the language itself as it
should have.
As you may
have inferred, teaching myself did not get any easier, and between school and
extracurriculars, Arabic again took a back-burner in my life. The desire to
learn it, however, never went away.
Fast forward
to September of 2012. (No need to bore you with my entire life story.)
I had this idea
floating around in my head: that I desperately wanted to study abroad. (Keep in
mind: at this point, I didn’t even know what want to study abroad meant. I thought I did, but I didn’t, not
really.)
Then, two very
big things happened in quick succession, as big things are wont to do.
First: I
received more information about the NSLI-Y program. A family friend (Hi, Deb!)
told my mom about the program because her daughter (Hi, Katie!) was a Turkey alum.
Second (and really,
this is probably the bigger of the Big things): I met an exchange student from Yemen
(! مرحبا رماح)
who shattered my world-view, and made me realize that this wasn’t a game, but
it was something that I had to
do.
There is one
precise memory that I would consider The
Defining Moment, in which I
realized that I had to study abroad,
and study abroad in a Middle Eastern country. Those sorts of things really do
happen, as it turns out. It’s not exclusive to the climactic comprehension of a
protag in novels, or the epic scene in movies where a beautiful montage of
scenes fly by as music crescendos and the character experiences the
long-awaited Moment of Realization. This happens in real life, sans the overly
dramatic music. (Not that my life is a movie. That would be creepy, and
Truman-Show-esque, and the TOK moment I’m having right now by mentioning
life-as-movies and the Truman Show is soooo not funny.)
Back to the
relevant stuff:
After that
moment, as I said, I knew that it was
imperative I do a study abroad, and it made me that much more nervous about trying
to achieve a NSLI scholarship. And so, with bated breath, I applied for NSLI-Y.
And then,
after for-ev-er of waiting, I came home on December 18th to find a
surprise in my inbox…that I was a semi-finalist.
So after
freaking out, waiting, an interview, a lot of paperwork, and a lot more waiting …
I waited some
more.
(We’re in
March of 2013, now.)
Mind you,
notifications weren’t set to come out until the beginning of April, but I was
freaking out. (Yes, I had multiple dreams about NSLI, both good ones and bad
ones. The freakouts were invading my sleep. And my life. And my journals. And
my parents’ lives. Sorry Mom & Dad. I was pretty much all over the place.)
So March 20th
arrived, and it was the one day that I didn’t check my email instantly upon
arriving home. I was supposed to be packing for a Model UN trip, but instead I
was on page 16 of Clockwork Princess
(intensely emotional book) eating cheese melted on chicken, put on bread, when my
mother called, “Genevieve, come here” very seriously.
I walked into
her room, saw the computer screen turned at me, saw “accepted,” “Arabic,” and
“Rabat” and … started screaming bloody murder. Yep, I am a happy-screamer,
people. So after rupturing my poor mother’s right eardrum and checking to make
sure that it was not some awful prank, my application process ended.
And here I
am, and it still feels surreal, and to be perfectly honest, there are still
moments when I start giggling randomly because I am going to MOROCCO!!! Which, if you’ve actually been reading the
last 1,155 words, you will know is an absolute dream come true.
It’s been a
long journey to the journey, folks.
But it’s been
a fabulous one. :+)
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