Living in the Philippines was very different to living in Morocco because of the different schools, neighborhoods, and what you could do in your free time.
In the Philippines we lived in what they called a village, but what is essentially a gated community. In the Philippines there is a strong social structure, there is the rich and the poor. The rich live in these “villages” and the poor live in slums, everyone is trying to change this but the very rich don’t really want it to change, there are three or four very rich families and they pretty much own the city. We were lucky to get a nice house in a good neighborhood and go to a very good international school.
In Morocco, the neighborhood that we live in is a pretty rich neighborhood, but it isn’t like the philippines where there is a clear barrier. We live in a pretty big house with a large garden, and are well situated so that nothing is far.
The school that we went to in the philippines was huge. There were two thousand students K-12, a football field, a track, one auditorium, one theatre, three swimming pools, four tennis courts, four gyms, a ping pong area, one area only for basketball, two soccer fields, and two big elementary school playgrounds. In our grade there were one hundred and fifty kids and six different classes.
In Morocco the school compared to the one in the Philippines is very small. It also has grades K-12, but only consist of four hundred and fifty kids, not two thousand five hundred. At the school there is one soccer field that doubles as a baseball field, one field that has tables and a small soccer field, two small playgrounds, one gym, one basketball court, one swimming pool, one baby pool, one gymnastics room, one weights room, and one auditorium. In our grade there are forty people, so there is quite the size difference in school.
In the Philippines in my free time I could go on bike rides around the neighborhood, go for a swim, or go to our friends house who lived just around the corner.
In Morocco, I could play ping pong, badminton, basketball, or I ride my ripstik, a kind of skateboard. No friends live very close to me, so i usually only go to their house on weekends.
I can’t choose which country I like better because they are different in their own ways, but I enjoy them both very much.
