My program took us to Amsterdam in the early part of November.  Here are a few thoughts I wrote down then that still apply today.

Being in Amsterdam is a bit of a challenge.  For me, it serves as a reality check, and a way for me to figure out how it will be for me to return home.  In fact, this, above all else, is my biggest fear: how difficult it will be to reintegrate into what I call home.  When thinking about it, I’m surprised that this is something that I actually fear.  Don’t I always adapt well?  Don’t I always give 100% to everything that I am involved in?  What could possibly make me feel like I’m not going to be exactly 100% involved in my own life when I return? 

Perhaps this 100% is exactly what is causing me to feel anxious.  Since I give it all every time and in every situation, I have observed everything, absorbed everything, tried everything, lived everything, thought everything, and walked every way that I possibly can.  In Rabat, this has resulted in my embracing a critical but cautious love for the city and country.  I wouldn’t say that it is without flaws, but this understanding has grown over the course of a few months that I have become comfortable with the way it is and, most importantly, with the way I see it. 

On the other hand, Amsterdam has not been the same.  Perhaps because I don’t have the same amount of time, or have come in with low expectations, or have altogether not decided to be intentional and active about how I will analyze this place, I now find myself in a space where I do not necessarily enjoy this environment.  It might be the first real case of culture shock I have experienced on the trip.

Shocking, isn’t it, that I am most disconnected from the environment that is, in many respects, most similar to my home.  The liberalism, language, location, and culture are very close to what we have in the US.  But, perhaps because I was not prepared for the possibility of culture shock here, I have been taken by surprise.  It is a good thing that this has happened and continues to happen, because I am hopeful that it will be a precursor for what I am going to experience at home after returning.  I will now, because of this experience, be more prepared to ensure that I am fully engaged, to analyze my society in as critical and loving a way as I have been doing in Morocco thus far, and to achieve the balance that I will undoubtedly need between the ways that I have been and the ways that I will be. 

In the end, life is not supposed to be easy.  It pushes us, shapes us, and makes us.  This trip certainly falls into all those categories for me, and I will be a greater person for it.  I simply need to figure out how that will manifest itself upon my return and how I will need to embrace its challenges.  Home will have to become another place that I look at uncomfortably for a while, until I can see it for the beauties and uglies that it contains.  The trick will be staying as busy as possible for as long as possible.  Anything less will give me too much time to think, too much time to reminisce, and too much time to live in the past.  I can only hope that I will not, regardless of how much free time there is, be among the memories.  Here and now forever.

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