The Outside World

A closeted introvert and a natural homebody, I’m inclined to stay in and read a book. My day-to-day experience in Morocco has only reinforced this practice. When I have no scheduled work or social engagements, mustering motivation to go out can be difficult. There is no public domain for women, so there’s no need to suit up. In the privacy of my own home, I don’t have to don appropriate clothing. I don’t have to switch language gears or throw up mental shields against prying eyes, catcalls, and stray hands. 

Engaging mentally with a different culture gets easier with time. After a year and a half in Morocco, the switch is quite immediate. Honestly, getting dressed is the biggest deterrent, especially when I have to wear long sleeves in 110-degree heat. I’d prefer to slip in between the pages of Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov; I hear Russia is rather cold.

Sometime last spring, my friend Kyla convinced me that I needed to get out, far out. My three-week holiday in Vienna this July was the first time I had left Morocco in 16 months, and it was not easy to shed the habits I have developed:

It was hard to leave the apartment at first.

Unaccustomed to showing off my legs, I tugged at the bottom seam of my sundress.

But no one stared at me.

Except when I responded to them in Darija, murmuring bismillah or shukran.

Yet soon I found myself staring right back because I discovered it wouldn’t invite repercussions.

And suddenly I was the one who couldn’t stop staring: the books in English bookstores, the flowering gardens, the pristine streets, mango ice cream and poppy-seed bagels, bikers galore, menus, the movies, a cold, dark stout, Klimt.

I didn’t stop looking, even when it was impolite: the couple kissing in the park, the girl in the too-short skirt, the friends drinking beer together on the platform, the man I heard speaking Arabic on the train.

I had to call the Peace Corps office this week to inquire about an upcoming training. Mourad and I were easily diverted from business when he asked about my recent vacation: How was the culture shock? For the first time, I felt I could appropriately summarize an experience: I spent time outside, I said.

But even with the change in scenery that Vienna offered, I still sought to escape. I bought five new books, and I read all of them.