Spinning between worlds

My thoughts aren’t fully formulated because obviously I haven’t had anywhere near the cultural immersion in Morocco that I had in Uganda, but I have been finding it fascinating what a completely different world it is here compared to Uganda/East Africa. I found it interesting the other day when Jason remarked that this is pretty much as he imagined Africa would be. This is pretty much the exact opposite of the Africa I’ve known, thus far. Uganda has more of a…whimsical feel to it. More dense and lushly tropical. Dirtier. Denser population. More subsistence farming, etc. Even driving out of the city to the rolling crop laden hills feels different, more spacious, organized. Which I think really drives home the point just what an immensely diverse continent it is. And even more so, the huge contrast between the Maghreb and Sub-Saharan Africa. I remember talking to people on the train the first day and they struggled to understand where Uganda was located (“north of Rwanda” helped), and more than one person boasted how much more “modern” Morocco was and how “undeveloped” the rest of Africa was. One girl referred to it as “black Africa” which a bit of a snarl and talked about how many of “them” were coming to Morocco. Interesting stuff that I could go on a lot longer about, but I’m pretty sure no one would continue reading (if anyone is) if this got much longer.