Before stepping foot in Volubilis, I honestly had no idea that a Roman archaeological site of this scale existed in Morocco. Standing in front of the Arch, while the sun was hitting the stone and looking out over the green valley, I was floored by how beautiful it was. It was one of those moments where I realized how narrow your own perspective of a country can be before you actually travel there. My mental image of Moroccan history was mostly centered on Islamic dynasties and the French colonial era, so seeing these Roman ruins, built nearly 2,000 years ago, completely shifted my understanding of what Morocco was built on.
What really made the experience amazing was our tour guide. His knowledge was incredible. He wasn’t just rattling off textbook facts, but rather, he was giving us interesting facts about where terms such as “tie the knot” came from. Watching him work made me think about the role of higher education in Morocco today. From a historical and political standpoint, Volubilis represents Morocco’s long history as a multicultural crossroads. Long before modern borders existed, this was a place where indigenous Berbers (Amazigh) and Romans lived and traded. This “layered” identity is a huge part of the context for higher education development today. The government isn’t just building schools to teach tech or business; they are using education to preserve a national identity that is African, Arab, and Mediterranean all at once. Seeing how much pride our guide took in this history showed me that education here is so much more layered than I could have imagined.
