Hallo Ciao Maroc #08. Like one big family

Text by Oussama Zalghi

I was told to write about the exchange experience “HalloCiaoMaroc”, and to be honest I didn’t have any idea about what I should write, so I just decided to tack a pen and a paper and just go with the flow, and here I am telling you about my experience. 

The first group that came from Italy to Morocco came in the Summer of 2010, I really didn’t know what to expect, and I started asking myself a lot of questions like: how are we going to communicate or will it be hard to make some friends? But after two days, we were talking about everything; we were having fun and enjoying the experience. In Summer of 2011, the second group came, and it’s then when I met Sonja the most kind person I’ve ever meet. Sonja and Abdel had to work hard to make this exchange a successful experience. The guys from the second group were very friendly, and you could feel the connexion that we had. I still remember all of them, because we had such great memories. 

In July 2012, we then had the chance to go and visit Italy, South Tyrol for a week with the project, and I was really excited about it, because it was my first visit to Europe. It’s true that I was excited about the visit but I was also worried that the connection we had made in Morocco would be gone even if we had been in contact in the social network because a year had passed since we last had met. But actually I was very wrong! When we arrived to the place where we were staying in Brixen, the guys from the group were there, and we just started to talk and to laugh and the fact that we hadn’t seen each other for one year was deleted, and the connection between us was the same as before or maybe stronger. My host family was very nice. I stayed at Katia’s house, she lives in Terlano with her parents and her brother and her twin-sister Hanna which I didn’t have the chance to meet during the exchange. But last July she made a trip in Morocco with a friend of hers, Johanna, and it’s then when I met her. They were very friendly. Katia’s family just welcomed me in their house and I had some great time with them. I actually made some friends there. 

In this last June another group came to Rabat and this time I just didn’t care about what to expect and I stopped asking those stupid questions that I was asking myself before, because the previous experiences I had made with “Bassma Association” had been full of information and discovering new things as well as meeting new people. It doesn’t matter if we have different religions or traditions and cultures, the only thing that matters is just this chance to meet new people and to know more about them, a chance that not everybody has.

After all we are not as different as it may seem. During this experience, I once more met a lot of nice people, I made a lot of good friends, and I also met a “special” person which I will never forget. And just before I finish, I want to thank “Bassma Association”, “OEW Association”, “Office for Youth of South Tyrol” and all the people working to implement this project, that makes us feel like one big family!