Morocco

Arrive in the imperial city of Marrakech where you’ll check into a hip riad in the heart of the old medina. Enjoy a welcome meal of tajine and watch the city come to life after sunset prayers and relish experiencing Morocco during this time.

• Customisation Example: Shift the focus of the program to female empowerment and uniting girls and women to be change agents throughout the world. Explore Islam from a female perspective and examine traditional women’s roles in Morocco and the Middle East.

Spend the next three mornings in workshops with local Islam experts. Engage with university professors, Quran scholars and religious leaders called imams. Discuss gender roles and Islam with a female imam, known as a mursheda. Examine the role of the media in furthering stereotypes. Interact with a local student of a similar age to get a more nuanced perspective from your Moroccan peers. Learn the historical and cultural significance of Ramadan, the month-long religious observance that requires Muslims to fast.

• Customisation Example: Add a desert excursion and camel ride to experience a different part of Moroccan culture. Take a break during your camel caravan to sip mint tea in a Bedouin tent and learn about these nomadic people.
• Customisation Example: Add a language component to your trip with formal language lessons to start each day in Arabic or French.

Head to Sbiti Village in the Ourika Valley to get exposure to a different aspect of Moroccan and Muslim culture. Settle into your guesthouse and tour the village. Start exploring the role of religion in rural life and compare what you’ve seen and learned about the urban areas to this small Berber village.

• Customisation Example: Extend your trip by several days by adding a service component to your trip. Participate in English language enrichment activities with children in a local school, help with an infrastructure project, or assist farmers with their harvest to get a better sense of what day-to-day life is like in a rural Moroccan community.

Wrap up your time in Morocco with a final group discussion before a Rustic Ties end-of-program ceremony. We genuinely hope your time spent here, the experience you’ve shared and the things you’ve reflected on will stay with you for a lifetime. Catch your flight home after some final group photos and high fives from Team Morocco.