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It's always rewarding to receive a letter from a former student, particularly one so brilliant and this is no exception. But this letter is of interest because it reveals how young people who leave Morocco to study abroad sometimes feel about returning. This is an excerpt from the letter....

While reading your email I thought about my life here.. I do get to meet incredible people everyday and being here has probably been the best experience i ve had so far..at the same time i wonder to what extent this experience has changed me..i see through the eyes of people that all what i was before has been shaped by the pleasure of being away from the pressure of morocco..parents, expectations, norms..some of that followed me...however, i do feel more liberated ...and then the thought of going back there becomes a bit of a nightmare. Well I must say that i do have interesting things waiting for me in Morocco..internship, graduation..but above all..the thought of leaving again is what makes me feel more confident about what is waiting for me after morocco. I see my going back as a step to something greater, just if this was a period of preparation in consolidating my eternal beliefs in tearing down the walls of that disgustingly terrifying fortress of taboos..at least some of the walls I hope..I decided that the topic of my thesis would be an objective analysis of Morocco’s position in the Western Sahara problem. My thesis would probably be rejected and I would most probably end up being declined all favors from my father...which does not make my situation very easy for say... I have dreamed of freedom for such a long time...and I partially found it here...i say what I want without putting any kind of reservation on how my society thinks, or all what the shaped set of norms I was brought in pushes me to believe..And it feels good...and I do not want to loose this feeling...According to some, I will have to keep a low profile for a while until my say is valued.

But I ask myself: when would that be? When I get a PHD, when I get married or when I submit to the oppression? This whole idea of conformity makes me sick, and I want to leave before even going back. Life is incredible. My life has been a meticulous addition of musts and must-nots, and deep inside revolt was born...you once told me that I will set that country on fire...i do remember your words because they have been a source of pride and motivation for me in many different occasions..but I am afraid of having that fire eating up all the fixed comfortable facets of my life...you know..a loving family, a warm house to come back to on weekends..i am afraid that a compromise would not be possible..it would just be another lie in the melting pot of hypocrisy and a fake sense of right and wrong..and then I doubt..why am I doing all of this for? Am I only dramatizing my life because it is only in opposition that I exist? Can all these ambitious visions be a safe way of feeling better about who I want to be? Or am I really fighting for a change for the sake of making others have a better life? I was recently told by a dear person to my heart that I better not worry about myself because I will have a bright future, I will get to where I want to be...Where do I want to be? I want to be home...but home is not morocco anymore…it does not feel like home...home is where I feel safe, valued, and above all satisfied with myself…Morocco is everything but that...I cannot wait to discover where I will end up…I cannot wait to see this friend who is so confident about my future in ten or twenty years and prove him wrong, or right about what he sees as an evidence.

Should I talk about love? I will be 21 years old on the 12th of May and I think I already found love. But then again, the circumstances are not right and it all seems like a ridiculous joke of destiny..i said that life is incredible...I do believe it is...finding what some might call a perfect match and ending up not matching at all because of some absurd parameters such as time, space and people.. What comforts me is the thought of my mother saying..It is all good...It is all for the best..somehow she always managed to see the good in everything..I am trying to fulfill my part of faith in the incredible wisdom of god’s plan for me..it might all be for the best after all..because the best might be still to come..