I had finally seen, in person, rather than in an arrogant one-sided New York Times or New York Post newspaper, what happens in other countries, first hand. Reading a newspaper's opinion on something persuades one to believe that the event going on happened the way the columnist thinks it did, which is drastically different than seeing the real occurrence yourself and deciding what you think is right. In April of 2017, I was in Morocco. I had just finished touring    the old cities and was on my way back to Spain, where I was staying, when the borders closed. Without warning, I was now unable to leave. 

After an agonizing twenty minutes, our tour guide informed us that smugglers had caused the border to close. I’d never heard of smugglers in real life before; it seemed like something that only happens in movies. I noticed people outside on the streets, hoping to leave the country, waiting and rioting. Women, men, children, rioted: yelling and throwing things at the police. Fights broke out, and people got hurt. People shouted curses at each other and at the police. People tried to steal the military guards' bikes and weapons. I’d never experienced anything like this before. It was interesting at first for me to see the Morrocans and see what they wanted, which was to leave their country, but it soon became frightening.

What shocked me the most was that nobody seemed to talk about what was happening; no newspaper, no television channel, nothing, and I was curious why. I decided to video what I was witnessing so other people could know what these poor people were dealing with. They were barely clothed, not well-nourished and angry. As I started to record video through the window of our tour bus, military police officers saw and immediately ran to our vehicle; I was confused, and they entered my bus screaming and shouting in Arabic. I was scared and overwhelmed. The bus driver started arguing with them and I could tell that he was scared; I didn’t know what was happening. After the police officers left, the bus driver told us, in English, that we were not allowed to film. They wanted to take my phone and I had to delete the footage. I now understood why things like this weren’t being spoken about in any mainstream channels or papers. 

Unfortunately, this traumatic experience was not yet over. As I was sitting on the bus watching this all, the bus suddenly started shaking. We were the only bus in the area. Locals wanted to hide under our bus to cross the border. Police swarmed around us, getting the men who loaded the underbus out. There were also women sitting in front of our bus, laying on the ground; they screamed that they would not leave if we didn’t take them with us or give them cash. At this point, our driver had been given the go-ahead for us to cross the border. Why were we able to leave and nobody else I thought? “Americano.” The reason was because they knew we were American and they were scared of the powerful America. Being American was a “privilege” and these people would do anything to be American as well. Living in America, everyone does not appreciate what we have, who we are and how our country will do anything for us. My experience at the border at Morocco caused me to realize that we should feel grateful, happy and fortunate. This encounter really opened my eyes to realizing what goes on, not just in Morocco, but other countries as well