My first real exposure to the non-white (as a majority) world was in JFK airport waiting on line to check into Royal Air Maroc flight AT203 non-stop to Casablanca. It felt as if I was standing at the cross section of the world; I saw people with lighter skin than me and dressed as if they just stepped of a Parisian runway, then African women dressed in colorful, flamboyant garb that is their trademark passed through my line of sight, until I finally laid eyes on the covered heads and thick dark mustaches I had been expecting. I heard people speaking everything from English, to French, to Arabic to Spanish to African dialects, and I had never felt like I had stuck out as so different in my entire life. I suppose this is why I’m here; to occupy my observational post as an outsider (like a good anthropologist), and when appropriate, engaging and immersing myself in the people and culture I have studied from the far reaches of my books and scholarly journals. I wish I could be more specific about “people and culture” in this inadvertent narrative of my personal and academic goals for this trip, but for now I am only certain that I will try to understand something about this part of the world by being here. As of yet, I have no sweeping conclusions to speak of, but it’s only the airport.