I’m Lina, a student of Health Policy & Management at Erasmus University and here to tell you about my experience at NIMAR,so far. How I went from Gouda cheese, hagelslag and pindakaas to msemn, tajine, couscous and atay.My time in Rabat all started with this beautiful word called serendipity, used when one accidentally finds something good.NIMAR wasn’t initially the plan. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even know about NIMAR’s existence until three months ago.
3 months earlier
There I was, back home in The Netherlands after spending a week in Morocco, looking for a new minor to attend for the upcoming year. It was the second round to attend for minors and all minors that sparked my interest were already full. How on earth was I supposed to make a top 5 of minors when I could hardly find one that caught my attention? It didn’t help that my mind was still daydreaming about my week in Morocco as well. I wish I could go back. Different ambiance, different climate, different everything. Scrolling through the endless lists of minors still available, I saw Culture and Society in Morocco, a minor from Leiden University. How funny, I thought whilst clicking on the link, a minor about Morocco…
Pre-Morocco
I could have told you the long story, but I don’t think your attention span is that long . Long story short, after clicking on the link of the minor I read something about a 5-day fieldtrip to Morocco. Perfect, I thought, now I get to learn about Morocco and can get a little taste of it as well. Let’s put this minor as my number one ! well ! 5 weeks of Morocco then? Close, Lina, very close. 5 months! You will be studying in Morocco for 5 whole months! The 5-day fieldtrip was a reading mistake on my behalf, we will visit a southern village for five days.
The little taste that I wanted to get of Morocco just turned into a whole
meal!
In Morocco
I’m living in an apartment in Quartier Hassan, Rabat with two other students and although I initially planned on living by myself, I really like living with them. We walk to school together, get food together and overall interact more with each other than I would do with the students when I would live by myself. I was pleasantly surprised by this. Also, the walk to NIMAR is beautiful. How could anyone not love a place surrounded by palm trees and kittens. The course I’m most excited about is Darija, Moroccan Arabic. Being half Moroccan myself, but not really speaking the language(s), this is the perfect opportunity to learn it.
I’m excited for what else NIMAR has in store for me.