Culture Shocked

"You see, I told you it would only be a couple of seconds and you'd be back here."

I hadn't realized I was holding my breath until I exhaled at the sound of Jason's voice from the used book counter. I had been back in America for just over 14 hours and my first shift at work was about to start.

The night before I arrived in Seatac while it was still dark. My sister and brother-in-law settled me in their house, where we chatted for a few minutes before I passed out on their couch. By morning they were gone. I had two dogs to walk and needed to navigate my way from West Seattle to the University district. While walking the dogs a car pulled up along side me and a strange woman asked me for directions- in English. I smiled and apologized for not being able to help her. By the time she drove off I remembered my iphone had google maps, but it was too late.

After leaving Burkina, I'd flown to Casablanca where I spent all 20-odd hours of my layover in the airport. I didn't have a lot of money left and I did have several very heavy bags, and Casablanca isn't on the list of Moroccan cities I feel comfortable navigating on my own (as I've never been outside the airport.) I elected to stay inside, linger creepily near electrical outlets, and watch some episodes of True Blood the delightfully awful TV show that Chev had gotten me hooked on and Rob had allowed me to steal all 4 seasons off of his hard drive. I watched TV, I read, I drank coffee and ate croissants. For all of its charm, the Casablanca airport is not a vegetable-friendly place (I found menus that included salads but no single place that actually had the ability to make or serve a salad.) By the time I got to Spain I was in desperate need of the salad, tortilla and tomato juice that I spent nearly half of my total worth in Euros on. I had about 12 hours until my flight, so I found a cozy place to sleep and watched some more True Blood. At this point, I should add, the only white people I've seen since I left Chev are either vampires, shape-shifters or Anna Paquin. I'd also had very little sleep on some very hard floors and quite a lot of dramamine. So when an Iberia Air employee with an unfortunate combination of pale skin, gaunt cheeks and really unflatteringly dark make-up took my boarding pass, I had a brief moment of hesitancy about getting too close to her.

My blood happily un-sucked (to my knowledge) I boarded the plane to Chicago. It was a long flight, half-empty, and the kind British woman in my row relocated to another row so that we could both stretch out and sleep. The food they served me (vegetarian meals being, apparently, synonymous with vegan) was almost exclusively vegetable, a welcome change from airport food. I arrived in Chicago, surrounded by the unusual chatter of English. While I'd gotten quite good at tuning out the chatter of Arabic, French, and any number of Burkinabe languages, English was such a strange combination of unfamiliar and stunningly comprehensible that I couldn't tune out the thousands of conversations I could suddenly understand.

The first test came just after customs. It was a small, brightly-lit place selling vegetables and eggs on round bread rolls with holes in the middle. I ordered my sandwich, and approached the cashier. He said some numbers to me and I handed him a small gold rectangle with some numbers on it. I eyed him suspiciously waiting for him to reject this clearly made up form of payment. He swiped the card through his computer and handed me my receipt. I continued to stare at him with deep skepticism so he added a slightly confused sounding "have a nice day?" I moved on, consuming my bagel in a corner and cursing O'hare for being yet another airport without free wifi (thank you, sea-tac, for making me a spoiled brat of a traveller.) Then I remembered my cell phone had internet and would actually work since I was no longer overseas. This stunning revelation entertained me for most of the rest of my 8 hour layover.

Before boarding my last flight home, I remembered that America Airlines doesn't believe in feeding its customers. I gathered my things and abandoned my corner, heading to my gate, the lovely K-4. There, next to the gate, was the single most beautiful sight I've ever seen.

In glowing, alien-bright letters, it said Burrito Beach. I almost cried with joy as I ordered my veggie burrito, while the annoyed woman working the counter glared at me. I had waited all summer for this moment.

Jason came around the used book counter and hugged me. He wasn't a dream. I was really home. From there I went to each department, strangely feeling like I'd both been gone for years and never left at all. Coworkers hugged and questioned and complimented me on my tan. One particularly perceptive friend noted that I looked like I'd figured out some important things while I was away. I hope she's right.

I've been back for about two weeks now, and I've had a total of two days off since then. I wanted to work as much as possible (being both completely broke and in need of a new apartment.) Most of my belongings are in boxes in my sister's basement and the idea of going through them is just too exhausting to manage. I'm finally starting to get over the culture shock of being back. Every time I see one of my classmates from Morocco I can feel myself getting calmer, more relieved. It isn't that I'm not happy to see my friends back home, but sometimes the whole summer feels like I dreamt it, like I was only gone for a few seconds, and seeing Kristi or Devin or Ryan or Zoe reminds me that, at the very least, it was a dream we all shared for a little while.

Last post from Africa

Shivering in an air conditioned room, I'm so adjusted to heat now 85 feels like sweater weather.  The moon is almost quarter full again, Ramadan long forgotten and my stomach full, oddly enough, of Chinese food. I'm just a few hours away from heading to the Ouagadougou airport and flying home.

I know that when I step off of the plane in Seattle I will be swept up in the return to my old routine. I will be overcome with the urge to resume the life I once knew as the person I once was. Habits are so much more convenient than choices. I will forget this adventure, or it will dull to the abstraction of a barely-remembered dream.

There are certain things I would like to remember, certain changes I would like to cling to, certain parts of this experience I hope to carry with me into whatever I return home to.

I want to remember the streets of Fes, the classroom where we studied, the Arabic (and Darija) that I learned. I want to speak it often and well.

I want to remember the moment I realized my classmates had become my friends, I want to keep each of them present if not in life than in memory.

I want to remember: the stars in the desert at night, the feeling of heat radiating off of the sand, the colors and the voices and the music. The oceans in Tangier and Asliah and Essouira and the cool blue walls of Chefchaouen. The long train rides across the country. The Riad, Ali, my host family, Khadija, Moustafa, my hanoot friends, the cafes and the cats.

The musketeers. The fantastic four. The sisterhood, the bro code, Jan & Rashid. Rabat and Sale. Our nicknames, our inside jokes, our hypothetical conversations. The sound of the prayer read through Sahoor, the warm companionship of Iftar.

Paris, little North Africa, more shabab. Park naps and shopping and museums and picnics and bartenders.

Burkina. I want to remember the red, red roads and the blue skies in Gallo. I want to remember the lightening storms the days of rain and reading and silence, the bike rides, the sunsets, the food we shared and the food we made for others. I want to remember the waterfalls, the people who put us up for the night, the chatter of Moore, the transit house, new friends I may never see again. I want to keep the calm person I've become and the optimism I wish I could pack home in my suitcase. I want to hold on to this feeling like it hasn't been a year since I last saw my best friend, so that the next year without her doesn't seem so long.

On this trip I have gone through 6 months worth of contact lenses, 5 pairs of shoes, more hairclips than I can count, 2 water bottles, 11 books, 3 pairs of sunglasses and the first few seasons of sex and the city (long story.) I didn't publish my book or finish my novel. I did learn some French, despite my best efforts to the contrary.

I have regrets, but fewer than I did when I left home.

I have friends who love me and friends I love, many of whom I doubt I'll see again.

 (I got my heart broken, but just a little and ever so politely.)

I walked on the beach with one of my favorite authors. I saw the Mona Lisa and a couple hundred more paintings I liked even more. I've been "married" to at least 5 different men, and I now have more sister wives than I have sisters.

I spent more money than I had, I lost my apartment and I decided firmly on two mutually exclusive plans for 2012 (peace corps and law school.)

I did not learn to love olives, despite my best intentions.

I lost my grandmother.

I found out I'll be getting two nieces or nephews.

I've missed home so much it hurt and hoped I'd never go back in the same breath.

After 7 years, I finally finished my degree.

Somehow it is September now.

I'm getting on a plane.

BIKE TOUR!!

So a bunch of crazy PCV's decided to bike about 1800km (about the distance from NYC to Orlando.) My best  friend is one of the permanent riders/organizers of this madness, so when I decided to visit her for the first week, I naturally got added to the list.

Just to be totally honest- I haven't ridden a bike since 2006. Chev took me on some short rides in her village and we biked around Ouaga quite a lot but I haven attempted anything near the 60-80km distances we'd be covering each day. In the Bukinabe sun. But I figured Chev wouldn't ask me to do anything that would actually kill me, so I went along with it. Here is a rundown of our days:

Day 0: We didn't actually start the official tour on Tuesday, but we did bike about 10-15km from Banfoura to Karfiguela. This was my first encounter with muddy dirt roads (we're in the southwest which is the rainy part of Burkina. Also it's rainy season.) We got our asses kicked by some locals at soccer (I have the blood blisters and a soccer-ball-patterened bruise on my thigh to prove it) and then we had amazing dinner at a restaurant one of the Karfiguela volunteers is helping to open. Rainstorms foiled our camping plans and we got to bed pretty late, falling asleep to the sound of monsoon rain and flashes of lightening.

Day 1: We woke up, biked 10 km, then had breakfast. I'm not usually the type of human who can function, let alone do physical exercise, before my morning cup of coffee. Luckily we arrived with only minor mishap, and continued on the rest of the way to Orodara. The countryside we're biking through is unspeakably beautiful (photos when I get an internet connection that will permit it) and cruising along actually didn't kill me, so I must have been in better shape than I'd suspected.

Day 2: Today we biked from Orodara to Bobo, which was about 80km and mostly up hills. I was having a pretty great time (aided by the copious amounts of dried mango we bought in Orodara) and the weather was lovely and mild all morning. Sadly the sun came out in full force after about the halfway point, but I think I managed to avoid getting too badly burned. I spent most of the day being chill and biking with Chev and Lauren (who have more fun and take biking less seriously than some of the more hardcore riders we're travelling with) but around 20km outside of Bobo a combination of my legs cramping up every time we stopped and the great music on my iPod made me want to bike fast. Really fast. As fast as possible. I cruised into Bobo all by myself with none of the PCVs in sight. It was about this moment that I remembered I don't speak French and can't ask the locals for directions and also that I had no idea where in Bobo (which is quite a large city) I was supposed to go. A smarter person would have waited for the others to catch up, but I knew 3 or 4 of them were ahead of me and figured I'd just see them and know where to go. FOOLISH. Half-hour later I was biking around in the blazing sun with a flat tire and no idea where I was. I managed to string together enough French to ask a few people, which had decidedly mixed results. Eventually I had the good sense to backtrack and found Chev coordinating a search party for me. It's been a really, really long day, but I also feel positively euphoric that I survived my two days of the tour and had so much fun doing it.

Ok, that's all till Chev and I are back in Ouaga and then I get to play the ever-fun game of living in airports. Photos will be posted soon, inshallah.

like solid ground for all.

Since arriving in Ouaga, Chev and I have been on a mission to make really, really good food. So far that's included a black bean and tomato quiche, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin saffron soup and today we're planning some chocolate oatmeal cookies. I'm also getting a decent taste of actual Bukinabe food- Benga and to (toe) have been my favorites so far.

We've also done a ton of biking. I haven't ridden a bike since I left Boise in the summer of 2006, so I was a little nervous about biking in the crazy, dusty, congested streets of Ouagadougou. So far I think I've done pretty well, I haven't died or caused any accidents. On Wednesday the bike tour commemorating the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps begins and we'll be biking from village to village about 40-80km per day. I think I can manage this, but it's really going to be tough. After the first two days Chev and I are spending the night in Bobo and checking out the sights before she takes me back to Ouagadougou and I begin my epic airport tour home. (I have layovers of between 12-22 hours in Casablanca, Madrid and Chicago. Yay cheap flights. Or something.)

If any study abroad students or potential study abroad students are reading this, I really want to suggest that every one take advantage of studying in a foreign country to do additional travel in the region. I probably would have come to Burkina even if I hadn't gone to Morocco, but it was much easier to already be on the continent.

Ok, here are some photos:

Am I a bad vegetarian or what? 

Team "The Lauren" brings Maroc to your Poulet

Beautiful Gallo

The only tourist in Burkina Faso

Ok, well maybe the only American tourist. Don't get me wrong- there are Americans. Military, contractors, NGO workers, ex-pats, missionaries and, of course, Peace Corps Volunteers. I think I might be the only American here just for funsies though.

I'm going to try to write about how I feel here but I think I should admit upfront that I don't think it's possible to accurately convey any of what I'm talking about in words. You should probably just visit Burkina and see for yourself. For starters, it is beautiful here. I spent probably several hours in Chev's village just staring at the sky in amazement, be it at clouds or sunsets or lightening storms or stars. The people are incredibly kind as well- people are slow to offense or anger and welcome me (even though I can't speak French or Moore) enthusiastically.

I think I'm happier here than I've been in a long time. I feel calmer, I feel more like myself, I feel joyful about everything from benga (basically rice and beans with salt and palm oil) to the prospect of biking 60-70km a day for the first couple of legs of the PCV bike tour. I find myself saying and thinking the Arabic expression "laisa mushkela" (not a problem) all the time. Something goes wrong? NBD. Something changes at the last minute or takes a million times longer than expected? Whatever.

I think I've arrived at one conclusion: I'm applying to peace corps. I still want to go to law school and I still have reservations about my age, but I don't think that I'm too old to spend a couple of years doing the kind of work that I've seen here before I start getting serious about a career. I know it isn't all fun and sleeping 11 hours because nothing actually opens during a rainstorm (true story)- it IS incredibly challenging- but I think it is the kind of challenging that brings out the best in me. So when I get home I'm going to apply to both peace corps and law school and see how I can make it work.

So since I last blogged, Chev and I spent way too much money in Paris, escaped (barely), and made it to Burkina Faso in the middle of the night. Her awesome friends and fellow PCVs picked us up at 3 am and let us spend the night at Rob's house in Ouagadougou. We went to Sapouy the next day to join in a going away party/chicken-cook off for another volunteer. I've been a vegetarian since I was 3, but one team was short on cooks so I joined in and helped spice, stuff and grill a chicken. (Photo proof will follow.) I didn't actually eat any but the people who did said it was pretty good. We stayed that night in Sapouy and went to the market the next day. After that we traveled about 20km to Chev's village, where we spent the last few days. Chev lives in village without running water or electricity. It was a pretty relaxed experience overall, but I can imagine without her to show me the ropes it would be incredibly overwhelming. (Needless to say, my already-high respect for Chev has gone up considerably.) We're back in Ouaga for now, relaxing in the relative luxury of a big city until the bike tour starts on Sunday.

I'll try to post some pictures or another update before I'm back in Seattle. 

Bonjour from Paris

Tonight the Mosque was full. Men spilled onto the sidewalk to pray, while merchants sold trinkets from blankets nearby. On the block near my hostel is a hamam, a shop selling couscous and kebab, two jallaba stores and an Islamic bookstore. Shabab selling cigarettes crowded us on every corner.

No, I’m not in Morocco. I’m actually in Paris. It turns out that Chev and I booked a hostel right in the middle of the Algerian/Moroccan/North African district of Paris. It’s nice to feel at home in the scent of familiar foods and spices, the sight of hijabs and jallabas, and even the sound of Darija.

We’d read reviews of this hostel which had warned us of “sketchy Libyans selling cigarettes”, suggesting that solo women travelers avoid the area. Chev and I viewed the possibility as humorous, in that it was both oddly specific and the presence of Arabic speakers promised, to me at least, that there would be at least some one in Paris I might be able to communicate with. When we got off of the metro and literally saw Libyans selling cigarettes (I wouldn’t go so far as to call them “sketchy”- they seem all right as far as shabab go,) we both burst out laughing.

Paris is a laugh. After a surprisingly delicious breakfast on a flight we otherwise slept through entirely, Chev and I landed in ORY and found the subway. On board, 4 kind Irish women asked how I was managing such a heavy bag and we got to chatting. They seemed as amused by our youth (I suspect they mistook us for much younger girls- one asked me if I’d had the tattoo on my foot when I left home as though implying I’d run away to rebel a little) as we were by the sight of 4 women older than our mothers traveling abroad together. We found our comically small hostel and enjoyed a few cafes before exploring the neighborhood and trying to repair my (sadly, hopelessly broken) shoes.

A note on hostels: I love them. Usually youth hostels are the best way to travel, the cheapest and most social. I’ve met some great people this way, helped and been helped by others about whom I know nothing more than age, first name and country of origin. Sadly getting stuck in a room full of inconsiderate, prissy girls really takes the fun out of the whole setup, and that is where I find myself tonight. While I’d still recommend hostelling to any student traveling abroad, tonight I have to acknowledge that there is some downside. Perhaps the last few days in hotels rooms with only my friends has spoiled me on sharing an 8x8 space with 6 (very loud, very inconsiderate and very odd) strangers.

Anyway, Chev and I have a full day of walking, exploring and eating planned for tomorrow. Photos of us being dorky in black and white will certainly follow once I get time to upload them. I hope you are all well and that my classmates who read this have made it back home (or on to your next adventure) safely.

Magic

I think sometimes that there is more magic here than in other places I have lived. Charms protect us from the evil eye. Dreams at some times of the night will come true. Certain animals are lucky. God is spoken of and to in almost every conversation.

The evening of the 5th, just before Iftar, I could feel her coming. It's been 13 months since my best friend Chev and I have seen each other- she's been living in Burkina Faso working for the Peace Corps. I knew she was due to arrive any moment, so I watched from the rooftop of my hotel until I saw her in the street. I ran downstairs and out the door and hugged her. Without knowing us or what was going on, the shopkeepers and people sitting in cafes outside started applauding and cheering for us. The magic began.
The next day, Chev, Kristi, Zoe and I decided to get henna, so we visited a henna artist/spice shop proprietor who, I assume, is the Moroccan equivalent of a witch. I adore everything about her, from her bright red henna-dyed hair to her slightly battered Jallaba. She paints us with Berber designs and stops every few minutes to tell tourists browsing in the shop what the powers and purposes of each spice are. If I were living in Morocco I would love to be just like her.

Over the next few days I fell into an enjoyable pattern of sahoor, fasting, iftar, and nighttime adventures with my ever-dwindling number of classmates. Yes, my heart is broken now, but it broke slowly and over a long period of time. This is good because I did not have any moments that were more than I could handle but bad because I had a new (and progressively more painful) goodbye almost every day. First Alex left, then the first of the Medinanites and then more and more in little groups until we took Kristi to a bus bound for Marrakech and kidnapped Beau to Rabat. He just left for London a few minutes ago, despite our best attempts to extend the kidnapping all the way to Burkina Faso. He was the last of the people I spent the last two months with and now he is gone. My heart is somehow broken exactly the same way all over again and, at the same time, so, so much worse.

But Chev and I are still together in a beautiful Riad. (If any one reading this is ever going to Rabat, the Riad "The Repose" in Sale is the single best place to stay. Don't think about any other place. Jan and Rashid are the two greatest people in Rabat so you should probably meet them.) We are going to Casablanca tomorrow to chill in the airport for longer than is usually appropriate and then on to Paris. There will be more stories to tell of the last few days, tonight I am just holding it together as best I can, assuring myself that goodbyes in Morocco will turn into reunions in Seattle after another round of adventures with my best friend.

Was it magic that made this summer go so fast? Was it magic that made so many strangers into such good friends? Tonight I feel like I will dream something to make it all make sense, that I will wake up tomorrow having closed the book on one part of this adventure and finally be ready to begin the next one.