Morocco through a lens

A photo essay

By Holly McKelvey

Wandering through unfamiliar streets can be in terms breathtaking and mundane; amidst the new sounds and smells there is always something unexpectedly familiar, tying you to the world you inhabit when you're not on the move. Even as you marvel at the unfamiliar beauty of it all — the foreign outlines of a new city's architecture, the wafting aromas of foods you have yet to try, the bustle in the streets that moves to a different beat from home — the mind finds itself adapting to this new space, gently nudging new pictures into familiar frames, allowing all this newness to slip almost imperceptibly into a new sense of normal.

It is this redefinition of normal that allows us to ease ourselves into others' shoes; by stretching our definition of what daily life looks like, we more readily accept the inhabitants of worlds both subtly and wildly different from our own. As scientists and non-scientists, as artists or writers or other working individuals, as students, we broaden ourselves and our scope with each step we take away from our comfort zone. So get out there. Be uncomfortable. Adapt, absorb, grow. Explore.

Holly is a graduate student in Environmental Management at the University of Kiel, Germany, where she cycles a lot, drinks tea, and enjoys the brief lapses of sunshine. She can be reached at mckelvey.holly@gmail.com