Flying In

            Flying into Casablanca, the first thing you notice are the huge tracts of yellow and brown farmland outside of your miniature, double paned window.  Occasionally you see a patch of vibrant green, but these are few and far between.  Skinny, winding roads weave their way through the brown rectangles and connect little white squares to other little white squares that are scattered over the flat terrain.  As the plane descends, the white squares become larger and more compact until finally you find groups of them stacked up on each other in a style similar to that of a lego city built by a fourth grader with ADHD and a deadline.  If you take a second to think back to the city from which you departed, you will realize that this is not that.

            In another moment your airplane touches down in one of the brown fields.  The runway is lined with green palm trees that look like they were just imported from a movie set.  The people around you cheer and applaud, congratulating the pilot on his landing, though it didn’t seem to differ greatly from any of your previous experiences.  Perhaps it’s a cultural thing.  Or perhaps you slept through some earlier turbulence.  As the plane rolls along you catch a glimpse of what you assume to be an out of date factory that is currently under construction.  It is only after the pilot pulls up beside it and the flight attendant opens the exit door that you realize that this building is, in fact, the airport.  You grab your carry-on and head toward the exit, down a steep flight of stairs and out onto the tarmac.  The air is fresh and cool; twenty degrees Celsius and not a cloud in the sky.  The bus, however, is dank and stuffy.  Luckily it is a short ride to the airport entrance and the beginning of a two year journey.