Dear Foreigners,
From our last statement we agreed that we might all move for a reason. Despite the number of countries you have been living in, there is always the first one which define your origins. This first country where you grew up, where you evolved as a kid and a teenager. This period where you settle down your person and your character. And this, will condition your entire existence.
I do remember strongly every moment of childhood. But apart from that, which is another story, I always found a link with my further origins, or the culture I had home which was slightly different than the traditional local one. “Could we be racist against our own camp?” was highlighting Tahar Ben Jelloun in his book “Partir”( Leaving). I always wanted to answer “Yes we can!”. Maybe this is one of the biggest irony when you are a mixed person. Before meeting conservators in a foreign country, we had to face first the rejection, to feel the difference from our own faction.
I always have been the kid “who knows how to speak French” in Morocco. THAT kid, who speak without a strong Moroccan accent. And have a crap Moroccan dialect. Always have been facing the question mark on people’s face “who is that person? Why is she (slightly) different?”.
Holidays visiting family in the countryside were as revealing as going in summer camp with the kids of my parents’ colleagues. I was never good at integrating a group I was forced to be in. I do remember leaving the Sanofi group to go with the older in the Coca Colas camp, meeting old colleagues of my parents, enjoying their admiration, and going back to the Sanofi hating one. To be fair, I would like to point the fact that the most educated persons were the more rejecting ones. In countryside, people are kind and tolerant. You are different, they are surprised because they ignored the existence of this kind of human being, but after the surprised effect, they will try to integrate you. Educated people, consider you as a threat, they reject you as a different person, because you do not match their preconceived idea of being. Well, that concerns Morocco.
Morocco is a beautiful country. Nature is awesome, people are welcoming and generous even in their misery. There is lot of sides that I do not appreciate which are out of the topic as well. But today I can recognise the beauty of my country. I can be at ease with my origins. I can answer with no complex “Morocco” when someone ask me where I am coming from. 6 years ago, it wasn’t the case. Probably because in England we are far from the Arabs’ immigration problem that France experience since the oldest wars. But as well because distance and real foreign experience defeat some links and strengthen others in the meantime.
I left Casablanca when I was late 17, spent my 18 birthday opening my first bank account in Bordeaux and organising my moving to the Freedom. Well, I would not be able to explain how I didn’t end up as a pimp or drug dealer, wasting my time in bars and failing at Uni. I don’t know how I have done it, but I did. I built my life, MY one, my real one, the one I have chosen, with no parental control, no social pressure, and no dictates. And it didn’t end up being a messy dodgy story. But all those years, I have been carrying so much my past. I just left. Like a thief. A thief who have stolen his family love and education, his culture’s values, and just turned his back ignoring their existence.
I had so many reason to leave. I had so many reason to hate this country, my experience, the mentality. And I forgot all the things that I loved. I believed in coming back to life in a parallel dimension. Which was true. Every country life is a complete parallel dimension. Mentalities are different, the life you live is different, even the way you think when you are inside different environment is different! And in my first moving, I was too young to understand or to be able to take a step back and have another approach about my past.
Then, this welcoming country which was France started appearing with its pros and cons. Yes, travelling is good for the soul, it makes you growing up, but makes you as well hating coming back.
And sometimes, this feeling of missing the country you visited is being that strong, that it gives you another reason to leave. This is how I left 6 years of my life behind me again, and face one of the most though and gentle experience by moving to London.
M.
dearforeigners 