THE GREAT TRIP TO THE GLORIOUS AMERICA

Part I - A Good Guy in an Airport

by BRAHIM EL GUABLI, special guest writer
Ouazazate, Morocco

The Worldly is happy to present this new series by Brahim, which offers us collected insights into our American way of life, as seen and reported by someone visiting from a place and culture apart.

Going to America is perhaps the most fitting dream for every human being who wants to enjoy diversity. My travel to the United States as an exchange visitor was an opportunity for me to discover the world of Uncle Sam and confront my received ideas about it with the reality of the country.

The Visa is the “open sesame” to get to the U.S. It is a must to have this magical sticking colourful paper stamped on your passport. It did not take me long to get as I was an exchange visitor. The consular officer was really nice and asked me a few questions about my planned stay in the U.S. I was happy when he said: “Come back tomorrow to get your Visa”! YES. I am going to visit the United States for the first time in my life. I was full of excitement and wonders. How do Americans eat? What do they look like? Are their schools and hospitals like ours? How do American people react to Muslims? A lot of questions crossed my mind.

As exchange visitors we were six. We all belong to different NGOs from Morocco. Our program was to discover American NGOs and the work they are doing to develop their communities and cater to their needs. We had a lot of fun even if we did not know each other from before.

On June 2nd, we went to the airport. It was a different side of the airport. All the flights towards America and Canada take off form that area of Casablanca airport. I do not know the reason. But security measures were really strict. It is the first time I was asked to throw away the bottle of water I had in my hands. I did it. And so did my colleagues in the group.

The plane was on time. Not late even a minute. There was a very long line. It was a multinational flight. People from the U.S., Canada, Senegal, Mali and many other countries were all side by side on the same plane. We started our trip to America in a melting-pot plane.

Thirty minutes after the plane took off and the pilot turned off the safety belt lights, everybody started moving in the plane. It seemed to me like a big busy street full of kids, youngsters, and adults of all ages and colours. Next to me sat a man from Chad! His blue “Sahara-like” large djellaba and his ‘tarboush’ show a lot of African black pride. He started playing his music from his mobile phone. It was a mixture of Arabic, African, and French music. It was so delicious to listen to music in the middle of the sky of one’s way to the New World. This man reminded me of how as children in my small village, Tifoultoute, we would feel excited when we rode the donkey to run an errand for my parents. To show excitement we would just sing and sing loudly! The flight attendant came and unfortunately asked the man to stop his music, and with it the flow of memories in my mind. I started my internal questions about America again!

The first question racking your mind is this: what if the computer of Immigration has my name on it as a potential terrorist? What if a terrorist bears a name like mine? How is it going to be at the customs? Will I have to take off my shoes and my belt and everything made of metal to get through? What if I was stopped? But on the other side, the most beautiful questions cross your mind too: Will I fall in love with America? How many people will I meet? Will I have time to visit museums, parks, and all the historical sites America offers?

Horrible ideas are always part of the human life. From time to time I take a look at the people around me and I felt a lot of them having fears of flying except my African Torodi governor friend who is presumably used to travelling. He fell asleep all the way to the U.S. He just moved when he felt uncomfortable. I am sure that a lot of passengers who were scared of travelling were thinking what if the plane fell at sea. How whales would eat their bodies and they would just become memories in the hearts and minds of their families and friends. I did not have these sad thoughts! I knew I was going to America! I have faith in science! Besides, I am not better than millions of people that take planes every year. My brain then took me back years and years when people had to cross this dark sea in twelve hours or even more in planes that were less than one third equipped than this one we were taking. People for decades have been doing this! Our plane will get to there safely! And so it did!

Like Christopher Columbus! I told myself when I saw the first signs of land appearing to me “I found it!” I am officially in the sky of New York. The pilot is dextrously taking the plane to land at JFK International Airport. People were sad again. A lot of them hate the sounds the plane makes while landing. I could see two young American girls biting their lips and becoming so red. Fear is human but I don’t think it is justified in this era of science. The plane landed and everybody in their own language said a prayer to thank God for their safely and for landing at JFK.

The plane door opened! Everybody was rushing and running. I did not understand the reason. It turned out to be that customs in JFK are very strict and it takes a long time to get through.

When my colleagues and I got there a girl asked us, “Citizens, green card holders or visitors?” We all answered at once “visitors” and she directed us into a panel where all people with visitors’ visas had to line up and wait for a desk to be free. I was waiting and waiting more than one hour maybe. Then a Mexican American officer asked me to come to his office.

“Hello!”
“Hello.”
“Your passport please.”
“Here you go.”
“Why are you coming to the U.S.?”
“I am a guest of the American government. I am an international visitor from Morocco.”
“Where are you going?”
“Well! DC, Louisiana, Oregon, Illinois, and then NY and back home.”
“ Good! Sounds like an interesting program!”
“Yes, it is very interesting. It will shape my life and hopefully change lives of others back home.”
“You know that a J-1 visa doesn’t allow you to stay forever in the U.S.”
“Yes! I know.”
“You can stay one month after the program but you should leave the country and while leaving please give this tag back to your flight company.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Have a nice stay.”

I was not arrested! I am a good guy. No terrorist bears a name like mine. Thanks, God. I am a very good guy anyway. But whenever one stands up before immigration officers in any airport; there is always this little fear of the unseen. The computer did not say anything about me to the guy behind it. When he stamped my passport and wished me good luck, I felt happy and my heart started beating so fast. It was not fear of standing there for ten minutes in front of a computer and not knowing what this Pandora’s Box would tell the poor man behind it. It is the joy of being able to get into the country of all mysteries. It is a feeling I have never had in my life even when the plane landed in Marseilles in my first visit to France. It was a special feeling that was for a moment destroyed by the fact that our pharmacist friend was taken to another office for a special entry measures among which included giving one’s ten finger prints and being obliged to pass by the same office when getting out of the U.S. Otherwise, he would never be able to get back there. After forty five minutes Abdul joined U.S. and we rushed to our next connection flight to Ronald Reagan airport in Washington DC.

It was a crazy rush! We were loaded with our loads of luggage and a long flight from Morocco to JFK. We made it by just a few minutes. The lady was not nice at first and said the flight had left! But her colleague corrected her and asked her to let us in. We were stinking and sweating once inside the plane. Yet, we were having a lot of fun and speaking Moroccan Arabic.

The steward was talking fast in English and I told my colleague Said, as he doesn’t speak English, “I got you here! You did not get a word of what the steward said.” The couple next to him understood me and said they were Moroccans and I turned to smile at them! But they were too disgusted by these uncouth uncivilized loud Moroccans who came to pollute their America. I was sad for them as they missed a chance to smell the smell of their home country in us.

We arrived around 11pm at Reagan International Airport. We were so tired that all everybody needed was a place to stay and some food to fill their stomachs. At that instant I needed to sleep and all the way in the car with our two interpreters to our hotel was sleep. I could not wait to get to the hotel. I slept the whole way there. Our driver, a stout Palestinian American, opened the door and helped everybody take their luggage. We were at the hotel at11:30 pm. It was so late and hunger was knocking the doors of my bowels. After the hotel, the first place I visited in Washington DC was a little corner supermarket where everybody in the group bought some food for the night.

The next morning was a touristic visit of Washington DC. Our guide arrived on time and so did the driver Abdul. Everybody was ready to explore this worldly city like new invaders, but one person was not ready. It was the weather! It was so rainy and gloomy, yet this did not dishearten these fervent Moroccans from discovering this wonderful city.

The Islamic Center was the first site. It was built in 1940s as a response to the death of the Turkish ambassador to the U.S. When the ambassador died, there was no place to pray for his corpse the way it is obligatory in Islam. So the Muslim communities and the diplomatic missions bought this parcel of land and built a mosque on it. It is right by the house of Dick Cheney, Vice President of the U.S. and in a very rich area of Washington DC. The minaret stands up high in the air, giving the place of a very eastern aura. It makes the heart blissful and the mind wonder to see that in the heart of this democracy, a mosque stands and it is open to the public in a way that you can’t imagine back home. Christians, Muslims, and Jews and maybe other faiths meet everyday and dialogue with every breath at the doors of this universal mosque.

Ben, our Marrakshi guide speaks a flawless Arabic and being the author of a beautiful book about his city makes our visit of Washington DC a very special one. He goes beyond history in his explanations to discern the symbolism of everything from the mosque, to Capitol Hill, passing by the White House, and the Obelisk, and all the memorial statues of historical people that built America, and made it into what it is today. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial visit was one of these very intense moments of my visit of Washington. I sobbed in respect and to pay tribute to all the innocent people who passed away in that war. The way the memorial was constructed is also very symbolic. It is on the form of a way that starts normal and the more you go through it, the deeper it becomes and the more the names of victims you can read on the big black walls. The rain soaked all of us but the moment was so insightful and so soulful that we felt like these Buddhist masters whose bodies became numb to the ails because their minds have reached nirvana. My personal nirvana was remembering the nights I spent reading “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zin.

One of the symbolic things was the fact that Congress is built on a hill, while the White House is built on a lower level. This symbolizes Congress being elected by the people and being the legislative power that represents the people, and therefore has a higher level and more importance than the Executive branch that is represented by the White House.

Throughout my stay in the U.S., a lot of things impressed me and changed a lot of received ideas I had about this country. Things related to the people, to the infrastructure, to the facilities and services, and to the way of life in the U.S. in general.

The first thing that would impress a person, coming from a small country like me, is the extent to which America is grand. Everything in America is big and majestic. The buildings are so high, the roads are so wide, the airports are gigantic, the gardens are acres, trees are everywhere and cleanliness is a must everywhere. Every time I go somewhere my brain could not stop comparing “our” infrastructure back home to the one in the U.S. But an inner voice inside just calms me and says: “Brahim! Stop and enjoy!” because if I continued comparing two different worlds, I would not have been able to see the beauty and the depth of things and the values behind everything. Instead of comparing, I loved meditating on the values everything was holding inside. Comparing is like seeing the shells and meditating is delving into the essence of this society and its core values.

The core value that made America what it is, to my understanding, is work and a strong work ethic. This comes from the American Puritanism: free initiative and the sacred individual freedom. These are the cornerstones that built the American edifice, and I have met lots of people who are struggling from the bottom to reach the top. It is the American dream that I wish to see people in my country nourishing in the Moroccan way.

The second thing is the diversity of the American society. Everyone assumes that you are American. They never ask you where you are from, nor do they see you as a foreigner. It is totally different from what I have experienced in Europe where a person would not sit by you in a train or a metro even if there is an empty seat. People in America just sit by you and might even start a conversation with you. It happened to me in planes, trains, metros, and in restaurants.

Americans are a night-loving people. New Orleans and Chicago are cities of night life. This will be the subject of my next articles in the coming months.

Visit next month for the continuation of Brahim's journey!