“Where are you from?” “America.” “No, but where are you really from?”

Moroccans are very curious beings. Topics including religion, ethnicity, age, relationship status, family details, etc. are things people commonly talk and ask freely about here. Some of these subjects are not usual conversation starters in America, some even to the point of being taboo. At first, I couldn’t help but feel as if I was being interrogated every day and it was hard to judge who to tell what to. Taxi drivers, store keepers, teachers, students, and family members alike are all people I run into on a daily basis who are determined to find out my story.

          The routine usually goes like this:

1) The Curious Citizen (CC) realizes I don’t speak Darija and my French accent is awful; therefore, I am an English speaker. 2) The next question he or she tries to answer is British or American? Usually CC can pick out my American accent and that answers that. 3) Now for my skin color, where can a girl with tanner skin and black hair (thanks to an intense henna session a month ago) be from? Taking all my physical characteristics into consideration, CC derives a couple of possibilities to explain my existence:  either I am American-Indian (not Native American), American-Pakistani, or of some Moroccan decent and I am here to learn my native tongue since my parents never taught it to me. 4) At this point, I usually answer, “American,” but that almost never flies with CC. 5) He or she is now unsatisfied and wants to know why I look and talk the way I do and “American” just doesn’t exactly explain any of that. 6) Here, I start to talk about where my parents and all are from (except for the creepy non-stop-look-in-the-rear-view-mirror taxi drivers) of my heritage and that either just finished our conversation or it triggered more questions. 7) Follow-up questions will now include Why are you here?, Are you a Muslim?, You are not married, are you?. 8) And this is when I try to dodge and weave anything that may be on the too personal side.

          Sometimes these conversations are all in English or French or Arabic or a little bit of everything. Misinterpreting things or just not understanding one another happens a lot, but it’s just one more thing I feel like I’ve gotten used to. A good amount of these interactions have been positive experiences for me. It’s refreshing to talk to people who are genuinely interested in who I am and what brought me to Morocco. But there have also been those times when I feel as though I’m being judged or mocked and the feeling that I was being too nice or too honest. I guess living here for five months already has made me accustomed to people being curious about me and in most cases I know how to react. Now I am just worried that I will go back to America wanting to know people’s origins and life stories at the get-go.