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. 

Much to catch up on

I have a million things I need to blog about from Essaouira. So much has happened and nothing has happened. I need to write about getting henna from maybe a witch and dancing on a rooftop all night and discovering magic tea. I need to write about meeting up with my long-lost best friend and walking on the beach with one of my favorite authors (also a long-lost friend) and how crazy it was getting to Rabat. There may or may not have been some kidnapping.

I need to write about fasting and iftar and so many sahoors.

but right now I'm exhausted so let me just say I am safe, I am alive, I have made it to Rabat with Chev and the last of my classmates still joining us. (Kristi, we miss you so much!)

So I am going to sleep. I will write again soon, inshallah. We have a few more days in Rabat and then I'll be off to Casablanca for my flight to Paris and on to Ouagadougou.

More to come. 

Fes to Marrakech to Essaouira

The last few days have been a bit of a blur. Ramadan started, so I've been fasting all day. I was supposed to start yesterday but travel and other complications arose, so today is that brutal first day that is always the most difficult. Luckily I did manage to cut out coffee yesterday so I'm not withdrawing as hard as I was then.

Essaouira is my kind of town. There's the ocean, a fierce wind, friendly people and a general sense of chill. I could seriously live here and be quite happy.

We made it to Marrakech after a very long train ride (2 am- 10am) the last few hours of which I spent trouncing Beau at poker (he disagrees with this description of how the game went, but he needs to cling to his pride.) Marrakech was good, though I think we were all just a bit too tired to appreciate the medina tour and the general chaos. At one point a snake charmer put a snake around my neck and then took my picture. He asked for 200 MAD and I told him no, so he grabbed my arm and told me I owed him for the picture (the picture was taken with my camera which he grabbed off of my wrist when I had the snake on me) I handed him 10 MAD and thanked him and told him I was leaving and he grabbed me again. I yelled at my friends, who were having similar trouble with his colleagues, and discovered that having an angry-looking 6-foot Croatian friend has its perks, since the snake charmer allowed Beau to pull me away without any further argument. Oh, Marrakech. We all had coffee on a lovely terrace and then spent the night enjoying fancy food in the hotel.

The next day I overslept for Sahoor, the meal before sunrise in Ramadan, so I was in a pretty bad state. Eventually I realized that a. it was a waste to carry around the food I hadn't woken up to eat since it was too hot for it to stay good and b. I was travelling that day and even if it is the first day of Ramadan you don't have to fast if you are travelling. I decided to share the food with my friends and start fasting today. It was a good decision, since lugging around my huge backpack is not something I could have done while fasting (on a related note I'm going through clothes tonight and ditching a bunch in the hotel because I am not carrying this backpack across Burkina Faso.)

We arrived in Essaouira just as the sun was setting. This is a beautiful little beach town and we're in an incredibly cozy hotel that I think I like even better than the fancy kinds. We all went out for dinner and then I parted ways with the bunch going for drinks. I bought food for sahoor and went to bed early. A few hours later I heard my roommates come home, followed closely by every one else they'd been drinking with. Deciding it was a shame to be grumpy when every one else was so happy, I designated myself their sober guide and we all went swimming in the ocean at 1 am with minimal mishap. This morning we went on a Medina walk and explored the port. It's windy and cold (I actually got to wear my leather jacket last night and I still wasn't warm enough.) I'm basically in heaven.

Now it's time for a nap and a bit of shopping before iftar.

I wasn't going to talk about this.

There are a number of things I have trouble with. I'm quick to anger, slow to forgive. I hold on to the past. I cry too easily. I worry constantly. I fall in love at the slightest provocation and at the most inconvenient times. I also have a proud streak that manifests in the strangest ways. 

So I wasn't going to talk about what happened today because it hurts my pride. Because it makes me feel weak and because right now it's keeping me up at night. I wasn't going to talk about it even this afternoon when my friends asked me, but I did then, and it helped, and so I will do it again now and hope that it has the same effect. 

Today I was shopping in the medina and, while trying on a leather jacket in the shop, one of the shop employees started checking the fit on the coat and ended up sliding his hands under my shirt. Most of you who know me know that, if you had asked me how I  would handle this yesterday, I would have said a sucker-punch or maybe knee between his legs. (Add "perhaps a bit too eager for violence" to my list of faults.) Unfortunately I didn't react this way. I froze. I pushed his hands off of me but then I froze. Other employees came in the room. I didn't know what to do so I bought the coat and the bag I'd picked out and I told my friends I needed to get the fuck out of the shop. It really shouldn't surprise any one who knows my friends that they agreed without questions or arguments, that they stayed by my side when I asked them to and gave me water to drink and kept silent when I said that I needed it or that, later, when Beau finally got me to talk about why I was so upset, they comforted me without judgement and had turned my tears into laughter in short order. 

We drank milkshakes and coffee and talked about the sorts of things we usually talk about- variations on a hypothetical situation that tests our friendship and how we'd all handle it. 

I went home and watched bad romantic comedies all of which (oddly) involved female protagonists who, besides having romantic misadventures, are also lawyers. I think the universe, which had been whispering law school, is now actually shouting it. I've only been "graduated" (I technically haven't actually graduated yet I just don't have any more work to do.) for a day, but I feel more certain than ever that law school is what I want to do. (Not just because I think it will make my life more like a romantic comedy, I swear.) 

Tomorrow is my last day in Fes. I will probably cry. I will probably have a hard time fasting when Ramadan starts on Monday and I will probably take a long time to feel as tough as I want to feel again. But, as upset as I am, as angry at myself as I will be no matter what any one tells me otherwise, I am feeling better than I have in a long time. I think I know what I want to do next. I know for sure that I have people in my life who love me and who I can count on. I am going to the ocean in two days and I will spend the next week doing nothing but swimming. And, as I suppose was rather predictable, I am finally feeling like I might sleep. Goodnight. 

Can't give up actin' tough, it's all I'm made of...

I'm about 12 hours away from being done with college. Tomorrow I will take my last final. Maybe it's the intensity of the program, or just the intense nature of being abroad while doing it, but I'm feeling surprisingly emotional about all of it. It doesn't help that my heart feels sore like a muscle I've been overworking. I'm half in love with every single person in my program and constantly amazed by how close we've grown over such a short period of time. I'm about a week away from saying goodbye to all of them- probably some of them forever- and to my host family and all my friends in Fes. On top of this I just got the worst test score I've ever gotten in my college career, which isn't exactly the note you want to go into your final exam on. On top of all of it, I'm about to see my best friend for the first time since she went into the Peace Corps last summer and I can't wait.

So yeah. Emotions. I have lots of them.

I couldn't have gotten through today without my friends. For the walking buddy, the bear-hugs, the steadying hand on my elbow to keep me from sliding into the white board, the generous forgiveness of my ineptitude, the studying companions, the stories, the jokes and the smiles. Thanks, you guys. An education that has spanned 4 colleges in 5 cities and 2 countries over 7 years and more jobs, boyfriends, apartments, roommates and final exams than I can count is careening toward its end. 12 hours left as an undergraduate.

See you on the other side.

I will blog again.

I've been awol from this blog, in part because of the rather intense homework/finals/presentation schedule of the last week of my Arabic class and in part because I've been pretty down lately.

Before I get into all that, because this blog is intended to be about the financial aspects of studying abroad, let me mention a recent happy/strange happenstance that really turned out to be less awesome. The lovely people at Gilman International e-mailed me to let me know they were giving me $500 more. GREAT! Yay! Happiness (and a slight increase in my willingness to eat fancy lunches) ensued. Then I got an e-mail from my school's financial aid department reminding me that I was going to have the $500 deducted from other aid, and I needed to pay that to them right away. I'd be more upset about this but it still means replacing $500 of my loan with $500 of a grant, so I guess I still win? Anyway, just another reminder that winning scholarships often doesn't do much more than offset other forms of aid- there is a limit to the amount of money you're allowed to "earn" this way.

Ok. So now that things are winding down in Morocco (I have less than 2 weeks left with my program) I'm starting to feel an odd combination of things. 1. I'm sad because I will miss all of the great new friends I have made and my life in Fes. 2. I'm homesick because I've been away from my family for so long during a rather turbulent time for them/me. 3. I'm SO EXCITED to see my best friend in August and to spend a month in Burkina Faso with her. Because so many of these feelings are at odds with one another (I can't keep hanging out with my friends here AND see my family AND spend a month with my best friend) I'm trying to just keep them in three distinct boxes in my head and deal with them one at a time as they arise.

I haven't wanted to blog because I haven't wanted to admit that I'm having these feelings and because I've just been overwhelmed with work, and I didn't want my writing to sound like a list of complaints (the homework is really not unreasonable.. it's just sometimes hard to know how to budget "getting really sick from dehydration and spending a night vomiting and trying to keep the room from spinning" into my study schedule. These things happen.  Anyway, I'm off to do more homework and study for the test I have tomorrow. I will try to be better about updating (particularly once we're in Essaouira.)

A cemetery on my side

Priorities are strange things. This morning I heard a kitten crying loudly outside my room, and when I opened the door to leave for class, a skinny ball of furry stripes came darting through my legs and into the house. I picked him up (still wailing) and he curled into a ball in the space between my collarbone and my neck and began purring. I was pretty much done for. I eventually managed to get him off of me, and found him to be about 6 weeks old, very skinny with dark stripes and bright white oversized paws. He followed me (wailing even more loudly now) all the way to the taxi.

There have been several moments over the last few days when I thought I might actually break down and cry. So far it hasn't happened, mostly because I've been in company and well distracted. This kitten almost got me. All morning long I could still hear him crying at me, still see him circling my feet. I sat for the test, I survived the hour of class afterwards, and then we got to the break. I made my decision and set off to return to the Medina.

Frequently when I'm making these rash, emotional decisions, I look for signs from the universe (or God, if you prefer) that I'm doing the right thing. If you're a frequent reader of our class blog (or an ALIF student) you understand that it is usually impossible to get a taxi at the taxi stand near McDonalds. I walked up, asked the first driver I saw if he would take me to Batha and he sort of shrugged in an affirmative manner. I took this as a sign that my truancy was a good call.

Once back in Batha I bought some milk and went looking for my cat. After an unsuccessful search of the street, the neighborhood watch guy waved me over. I started to explain in Arabic and he said (in English) "You are looking for the very small cat? I saw you with him this morning." I told him I was. He smiled and pointed at the milk in my hand "You want to give him milk?" He asked this without a hint of disdain (I expected to get treated like a crazy woman.) Pointing at a hole in the wall he explained the kitten lives in there and that I could leave the milk with him and he would give it to the cat the next time he comes out of the hole. I thanked him and he seemed to understand how important it was to me.

My spirits lifting, I went back to class.

When we took a bus trip to Meknes a few of us played a car game that involved counting livestock and getting points for who had the most cows/sheep/whatever on their side of the car. The rule was that passing a cemetery took away all of your points, setting you back to 0.

I used to think that death, and grief, makes a person irrational, that suddenly the elevated importance lent to every relationship and every person in your life is just a side effect of profound loss. Today I came to the conclusion that I've been all wrong about this. The people I care about seem so much more important because this is how I should feel. Life and time will numb this, I will forget this feeling and I will go back to taking every one I love for granted too often. It is the sad fact of life that we are eager to be lulled into this faith that we will always have more time, that our last words will always get to be said and said well. Death takes this faith away. Right now, while I am still painfully aware of how false this faith is, I want to make sure that I live well, and honestly and that I tell the people I care about how much they mean to me. Right now I want to fix the things I can even if it is only one day of hunger for one very tiny kitten. I do not think this is a sign of misplaced priorities.

On death, without exaggeration

My grandmother died. I want to say something profound, something that will make if feel less like a sucker-punch, something that will make it ok for me to be in Morocco while my sister is so upset. I have nothing. Recently another student on my trip suffered a (I don't want to quantify grief but certainly an even more tragic) loss and I had this flash of fear for her being so far from her own family. Now I understand better than I want to. There was a moment today when I considered leaving. I don't think my family would want it and I think I would regret it. I feel helpless and motion might feel like help but I would arrive in Seattle and be just as lost for what to do.

My grandmother grew up in Nebraska and Wyoming on farms. She stopped going to school when WWII broke out. She married twice, adopted two boys and spent her life working and taking care of my sisters and I. When we came home from school, our parents were both working so she took care of us. She started to get sick a few years ago and she's spent the last few years in an assisted living facility in Nebraska.

I planned on visiting her. I never made it out there. Instead I came here. I swore to myself that I'd call her once a week. It became once a month. And then less. I didn't even call her before I left to let her know I was going to Morocco. This is the guilt of those left behind. Going home would do nothing, now. But I can't mourn here, I can't visit the places she took us as kids, I can't listen to her music or rehash old stories with my sister. She's not here. I want to be somewhere that still remembers her.

I can't go. I understand this, I understand intellectually.  I can't really think intellectually right now so I will let one of my favorite poets say what I can't really.

 

On Death, without Exaggeration

By Wislawa Szymborska 

It can't take a joke,
find a star, make a bridge.
It knows nothing about weaving, mining, farming,
building ships, or baking cakes.

In our planning for tomorrow,
it has the final word,
which is always beside the point.

It can't even get the things done
that are part of its trade:
dig a grave,
make a coffin,
clean up after itself.

Preoccupied with killing,
it does the job awkwardly,
without system or skill.
As though each of us were its first kill.

Oh, it has its triumphs,
but look at its countless defeats,
missed blows,
and repeat attempts!

Sometimes it isn't strong enough
to swat a fly from the air.
Many are the caterpillars
that have outcrawled it.

All those bulbs, pods,
tentacles, fins, tracheae,
nuptial plumage, and winter fur
show that it has fallen behind
with its halfhearted work.

Ill will won't help
and even our lending a hand with wars and coups d'etat
is so far not enough.

Hearts beat inside eggs.
Babies' skeletons grow.
Seeds, hard at work, sprout their first tiny pair of leaves
and sometimes even tall trees fall away.

Whoever claims that it's omnipotent
is himself living proof
that it's not.

There's no life
that couldn't be immortal
if only for a moment.

Death
always arrives by that very moment too late.

In vain it tugs at the knob
of the invisible door.
As far as you've come
can't be undone.

One of these things is a lie...

I recently found out that I probably have to be out of my apartment before I actually get home. This was upsetting and kind of stressful, but I'd just gotten to be sort of OK with it when I got an e-mail from a coworker letting me know that she and another close friend are quitting. I guess I didn't REALLY expect to come home from 3 months of travelling and find my life exactly the way I left it, but I'm only now starting to appreciate how different it will be. I won't live in the same place or with the same people. I won't have classes to go to, or the easy justification of "I'm still in school" to explain why I have no idea what to do with my life. I won't work with the same group, I won't have the same schedule, I will also (most surreally) have a book to promote. I was thinking about all of this while hanging my laundry on the terrace and I didn't feel as panicked about it as I probably should.

I think that I'm ok with the prospect of all of this change, largely because I won't be returning home the same person. Morocco (and the people I've met or gotten to know better in Morocco) has already begun to have some pretty strong effects on my personality. I'm calmer. I'm generally less concerned about things I can't control. I'm spending less time hiding behind my laptop and more time interacting with people (though I still do plenty of hiding behind my laptop, particularly when it's for the slightly more socially acceptable excuse of watching YouTube videos with my friends.) We have just under a month left and then I have another month of travel with my best friend in Burkina Faso. So maybe my life will be wholly unrecognizable once I'm back in Seattle, but, إن شاء الله, so will I. After all, I suspect that might be why I came here in the first place.

Now it is time for rooftop aerobics with my host sister and then dinner. Currently, I'm for sure not sitting in bed eating nutella with a spoon because that would just be silly and I am much too dignified for that. (Lie.)

(see Zoe's post about pre-dinner hunger and you'll understand.)

Crime in a foreign country

So I've already posted about how to be safe and minimize your chances of being a victim of a crime while travelling. One thing I probably didn't stress enough is that even if you do everything right, it can still happen. This morning two of my friends were walking to meet up with us for our weekend adventure in Asilah when they were accosted by two young boys with a big knife. On girl had her purse taken after trying to fight the kids off, but luckily no one was hurt.

I'm furious in a kind of useless, not-helping-and-non-specific kind of way. I'm upset that this happened to them and I'm upset that they were doing everything "right" but were still not safe in our own neighborhood. (Tourists we may appear but these are our families and our homes for the summer. We live here, we are not just snapping photos and buying souvenirs.) We got to experience the joy of hanging out in a police station (one which, I should add, had a really unsettling amount of blood spattered inside it) and filing a report. But I'm grateful to the host father of a different classmate, who helped the girls and alerted neighborhood security, to the police who helped us (and to the palace guards who helped us find the police) and to the residents of the neighborhood who helped the police in their investigation. We decided to catch a later train, so the weekend beach trip is still on. The only thing taken was cash, credit cards, ID and a camera (luckily NOT my friend's passport.) No one was hurt. All in all we've been very lucky, and I think even the girls who were robbed feel that it could have been much, much worse.

Still crime is a frightening and upsetting thing to experience. It can happen to any one at any time of day and under just about any circumstance. Being alert and prepared is the best any of us can do.

Bokononism

Today I went book shopping. I love book shopping, no matter what country I'm in. A friend in my program has never read Vonnegut and I found Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse 5 at the campus bookshop so I'm doing what I can to remedy this situation. (Luckily he didn't take much persuading. Normally with book suggestions I'd wait anxiously worrying about how my suggestion might be received but as I'm convinced this individual is a member of my karass I'm not too worried. Plus I have two other classmates looking to convert as soon as he's done with them, so I may have a happy bunch of Vonnegut fans in a few weeks, إن شاء الله

One of the great things about sharing Vonnegut with some one else is that I get to re-live the first time I read Cat's Cradle, after my older sister pushed it on me. I was so skeptical at first, but I converted quickly and read all of his writing that I could get my hands on after that. I don't think I realized how common the experience was until I saw Mr. Vonnegut interviewed by Jon Stewart, who said something along the lines of "as an adolescent he made my life bearable". Truer words were never spoken.

Later on in the evening I went to a religious book store to try to get an English/Arabic copy of the Qur'an. The man working at the shop told me to sit down and wait for him and then left the shop (and me alone in it) for a good 10 minutes. Apparently he wasn't too concerned at the possibility that I might steal anything. He brought be a very used but very beautiful bilingual copy so hopefully I can spend Ramadan working my way through it now that I have a better grasp of Arabic (I can't read it in Arabic, yet, but I will at least have a better idea of what the translation is getting at.)

Anyway, homework is beckoning and I am already exhausted. Busy, busy, busy....

Blogging instead of studying

I am not ready to write about the weekend. I don't think it can be done. I can't write about a place where red and blue and hot and cold and stars have no meaning because the words don't mean enough, because the words taste insipid at the sight of these things.

I met my camel as she lay down at the front of our three-woman caravan. She had scars on her face that looked like the word الله. (It was not, it just looked that way.) I named her Scar, and when I ask the other caravans how to say this in Arabic they think I mean "star". Star is the name a private-school girl gives her first pony. Star is not the name of my camel. She is not pretty or twinkly or in any way ponylike. She is Scar. She is what is left of injury after it has healed.

Her life is not easy. It is clear to see that though the guides are kind men who probably like the camels well enough, the camels have been ridden too often and too far, fed too little and too poorly to be called happy. I do not think the man leading me into the desert with no shoes is to blame for this.

Anyway, we arrive. I can see Algeria from the oasis where we camp. Algeria does not look that different from Morocco. We climb the sand, recklessly, gleefully, sliding and panting and collapsing not halfway to the top. We play like children because we are in the desert and the sand is soft like snow. We play because we have no studying to do and no work to go to and no host families to please and even the heat doesn't seem so bad here.

The drums start after dinner. The drums are played in a way that tempts the untrained ear to listen and understand, if nothing else, that these drums are loved by the hands upon them.

I slip out from the crowd, ignoring the long shadows reaching for me in the firelight. I turn to the hills, and walk until the darkness is too thick to see. The sand is warm. I am not afraid of bugs, anymore. I did not think I would ever stop being afraid of bugs but in this moment I am not.

Above me the sky is not even fully dark yet and already there are more stars than I remembered possible. The cloudy arm of a galaxy spans above me and no moon dims the imposible brightness of these ancient suns. I believe in everything. I believe in life on other planets. I believe in God. I believe that all of us are pieces of the same whole. I believe that I see you walking alone in the dunes north east of me and that you see me lying in the sand, believing. The desert has taken my understanding of what is possible and twisted it, dried it out and polished it bright and foreign and beautiful. I don't realize I am asleep until I feel my body jerk upwards, resisting.

Eventually I return to camp. We sleep outside, on beds taken from tents and placed below the sky. Sleep may be a strong word. It is still dark when we rise and decide to try and climb the dune, the rising mountain of loose sand that will not suffer our clumsy steps. We call it climbing but you would not know it from crawling, likely. I pull myself to the top and collapse, gasping. The sun has just barely begun to bleed dark blue into the black of the horizon.

As the sun comes up I feel the others sitting beside me and believe (even as the stars disappear slowly) that we are all still pieces of the same whole. We stay in this state of oneness for a while, until the sun is full above Algeria and it is time to descend. We do not walk down, we drift, float, sink, slide all at the same time. The camels are keening in the distance, impatient for the ride home. Reassured of the living (both yours and mine)I depart as eagerly as I arrived, waiting with the confidence of another for whatever will come next. We wind our way out through the dune and I wonder if happiness is something that can be found in the desert and, more importantly, if it is possible to carry it with me on the way out.

Into the dunes

I forget who it was who totalled our amount of travel time yesterday at around 15 hours, but the reasoning was sound. Between climbing sand dunes, riding camels, frequent stops followed by surprising amounts of traffic, if felt like we did nothing but move from place to place yesterday. Good thing I aim to be more nomadic, I suppose. I was surprised that I enjoyed the camel riding as much as I did, but I definitely preferred my camel to the van.

Two nights ago, after we arrived in camp, I wandered out during the drum circle to lay under the stars and listen from the dark. I don't think I've ever seen so many stars out at night. The milky way was gorgeous, the moon was too small to be seen, and there were even a few shooting stars. The wind (which my ALIF roommate said kept her group in tents almost the whole time last week) was just a low whistle in the distance. It was magic. Once I'd been out there for a while I began to drift off. A few times I woke myself up or other students' voices in the distance woke me up, and eventually some of the Amazigh guides found me. One sat down and we began talking in a mix of English, Arabic, Darija and Spanish. He asked me about my life in Seattle and when I told him it was beautiful in the desert he said it was his job. He does it every day, so he is used to it. He said he likes it sometimes, but also that he was sick of the types of tourists who came out to drink and do drugs and party all night long. I'm still having a hard time imagining how any one could get used to the beauty of the Sahara. Tourists must be really, really awful.

The next morning we woke up at 4 (the plan was 5 but I'm actually kind of OK with the ALIF jerk who decided to shout to all of his friends at 4 am) and climbed the biggest dune around. I thought I was going to give up at several points, but Kristi and Ryan kept me going. Getting to the top (almost 45 minutes later) was so worth it. The sunrise was incredible (I'll post pictures but my iphone can't do it justice.)

I hope this wasn't my last trip to the Sahara. It feels like the kind of thing that might be logistically difficult to pull off twice in one lifetime, but I'm going to try my hardest to go back one day, إن شاء الله

Photos:

Dear Diary,

Today it is hot. I gather with my friends in a cafe to complete the truly obscene amount of homework and then we are celebrating the end of our first portfolio (5-pages entirely in Arabic about one topic) by swimming in what is purported to be the single sketchiest swimming pool in Fes. Diary, if I should be caught up in a prostitution bust later today, please tell my mother that I was just innocently enjoying a swim.

I've been trying to stay within my daily budget goals, but lately have found the stress of our workload and the actually obscene heat have driven me to indulge myself more (air-conditioned cafes tend to charge more for coffee but what's an extra 5 MAD 4 times a day?) I really need to get back to my frugal existence. I also just spent $1,100 on a plane ticket from Casablanca -> Paris -> Ouagadougou -> Casablanca for the month of August. I have to say that's more money than I generally enjoy spending at once. So back to saving! Tons of homework is just no excuse.

Why, might you wonder, am I writing like a twelve year old? The answer is, I hope, the heat. Or the sheer amount of BPA I must be consuming in all of the super-heated (and re-used) bottles of water. I thought I was being so thrifty by keeping my empty bottles and refilling them at school every day, but I think it is giving me strange dreams, not to mention the bizarre impulse to write in a diary.

Either that or I've finally gone completely mad. This conclusion seems damningly permanent so I'm going to blame it on the heat. And the BPA, of course.

200 MAD well spent

I bought a modem. I couldn't help it. I know a vacation from constant internet access was actually a highlight of this experience for me, but the fact of the matter is I'm an addict. Also, using the school's wifi has become impossible due the prohibitively slow connection.

Class is really getting challenging. I do not feel at all OK about the test I took today, I have my usual amount of homework, plus a five page paper due Wednesday. I'm really stressing, but I'm also finding that I'm dealing with that stress in really irresponsible ways, like listening to Red Hot Chilli Peppers at impolite volumes in the Riad and chatting with my classmates instead of working. (This is one problem that I'm happy to admit to. I have rad friends here.)

This weekend we will take a trip to the Sahara desert. There may be Camels involved. I'm really looking forward to the adventure, and also to the sweet hotel pool. (Hopefully swimming will actually take place long before that, but we're still working on getting every one ready for that.) The next weekend we may go to Rabat. Many adventures are planned. I'm still trying to balance my need to maintain a good GPA in this, my final quarter as an undergraduate, and my need to enjoy the hell out of this trip as it is likely the last of its kind that I'll be able to take for a while. I've been a pretty good student my whole life and I've often sacrificed fun for the sake of my GPA. I don't want to make excuses- I understand that the primary purpose of this trip is to learn Arabic- but I am only recently coming to fully appreciate the temptations of letting my grades slip for the sake of a good time.

So now I have this modem, which will allow me unlimited internet for a month and which I am sure I will deeply regret buying once I stop sleeping to stay up and gchat or email or facebook or blog all night. Oh well. So it goes.

Garden of Simple

I was feeling pretty dizzy and unfocused the last couple of days. Yesterday morning while getting into a Taxi, a man grabbed the door and grabbed my arm. I had about enough time to look up at his very cut and scraped face and to register the glassy-eyed look of a drug user when the cab driver reached across me, pulled the door shut and slapped the man's hands away, shouting something I didn't catch in Darija. I looked over at the driver and said "La Afhim?" ("I don't understand?") and he didn't say anything. I realized later that this was actually kind of a terrifying thing, but I didn't feel scared. In fact I promptly forgot the entire incident, until today.

This afternoon I took a nap in the lovely garden outside of Alif. Afternoon naps = the best possible idea.

(This made me think about the Ani Difranco song "garden of simple" and that is where the name of this post comes from.)

Yesterday we had a class meeting and discussed various issues about our host families and our home stays. I think that most of us feel pretty lucky on the whole, and those who are having problems are finding them manageable enough, or at least better than the unknown. I didn't bring up something at the meeting, and I'm not even sure if I ought to now. I am having a difficult time ignoring the blatant disparity between my own opportunities and those available to my host sister. She's exactly the same age as me. She's also a college student. But while I'm given the biggest room in her house she shares one room with her mother, sister and brother. While she wakes up to make me breakfast, spends the evening cooking me dinner, and the time between shopping for food and helping her mother cook and clean, I get to spend the day studying, napping, shopping, and going to cafes with my friends. Her family depends upon the money they get housing students and so taking care of me & my roommate is how she helps support them all. She had a major exam this week and barely had time to study.

Back in America, I think of myself as pretty poor. I share a 2-bedroom apartment with 3 other girls, we all work for just more than minimum wage, I have no health insurance and I qualify for all kinds of need-based aid. This experience is really putting the relative comfort of what I consider "poverty" in my own life and what actual poverty looks like.

It's not fair. My host sister should have the same chances I do. She should get to travel, she should get to spend her days tending to her education. It's just not fair. I understand that we don't actually live in a simple world, but I think the parallels between Senna and I make this injustice more obvious to me. I don't know what to do with this emotion. For now I'm trying to participate more in the house work, and eventually the cooking as well. It isn't enough, but at least it makes me feel better.

So, I bought this Jellaba...

It's great. I love it. It fits me well, I probably overpaid, but whatever, I love it. I thought it would be great to wear around, but especially great to sleep in as defense against the mosquitos. I told my host family this and they went from being THE MOST EXCITED about my having the jellaba, to horror at the idea of me sleeping in it. "No, it is too nice for that." My host sister said. "It will wrinkle. You should only wear it on very very special days."

So I have a great Jellaba that I can't sleep in or wear outside except on special occasions.

What is a girl to do?

I think this weekend I'm going to try to get some more clothes. Zoe bought some awesome tunics, and I hope I can find something long-sleeved with a long skirt (but not so nice that my host family will object) to sleep in. The mosquitos are definitely still winning. No one seems to know what mosquito nets are or where to buy them (not even the Moroccan Wal-Mart, Marjane, had them) but I think that as the summer gets hotter and drier there will be less of them (inshallah).

Calm

Today I feel very calm. This is surprising, since I spent most of the day in very not calming activities, like getting a taxi in the sun, Medina shopping, getting my friends hopelessly lost in the Medina, more taxi negotiations, bargaining and trying to pretend my millions of mosquito bites aren't itching. Still, I think I'm over the adjustment period. Things that used to seem like major obstacles, like conversing in Arabic, not having exact change, bargaining when I know I'm getting ripped off, now seem like minor annoyances at worst and, in many cases, just second nature.

This cat gets me:

Yes, it's hot. But this cat and I are super chill today.

I really enjoy the way time passes here. I don't have to worry about rushing off to work after class (if any one from my work is reading this I miss you all and I can't wait to be back, I don't mean it like that, I promise!) And there's not even that much pressure to cram our days full of activities, both because we have so much homework and because even the simplest things we do here, like shopping or drinking coffee, have become unique experiences by virtue of them being in Morocco and conducted largely in Arabic. It is super relaxing.

My improved financial situation is definitely helping. My stolen debit card is finally returned to me, my financial aid package was better than anticipated, and the exchange rate for the cash I got out of the ATM was a lot better than what I got at the airport (even when considering the foreign transaction fee.) I allowed myself a little splurge today and bought a linen jellaba (a traditional Moroccan robe) to wear while I sleep (latest attempt to beat back the mosquitoes) and, now that I've realized how comfortable it is, really to wear pretty much all the time. It was about $45 (350 MAD) which is the most money I've spent on any single item here. It feels like a huge extravagance but it fits me like a dream so I'm not going to regret it. My main regret is not bargaining better (the guy started at 450 MAD and I would have liked to get him below 300) but oh well. I'm at least improving, thanks largely to Kristi's help.

Children. Kind of adorable.

Children! 

More children: 

These kids make me feel dumb! 

Cafe hopping until the Riad opens

The Riad, which is a general term for a traditional house with a garden inside and no external windows, is the study haven for those of us living in the Medina. Unfortunately it doesn't open until 4:30PM, which means that we have a lot of time to kill before it opens. Three classmates and I are chilling in a cafe in the Medina just waiting for the magic 4:30 to arrive.

Ok I gave up writing on my iphone, but we spent the afternoon in 3 different cafes, getting lunch, coffee, ice cream and bonding over high school stories. It was pretty great. Now we're in the Riad, but I'm having trouble starting my homework since it is so lovely and cool. Don't believe me?

Proof:

Clearly Beau, Kristi and Ryan are not having the same problem. I should probably actually get to work now. I think I've mitigated the mosquito problem somewhat (though I have to say it's really upsettingly difficult to buy mosquito nets here. No one seems to know what I'm talking about) with a plug-in thing like a glade air freshener only with pesticides. Sweet, sweet pesticides. Also the IPE office solved my financial aid woes by calling the financial aid office. My aid is posted and I'm actually in better financial shape that I'd possibly imagined I could be. (Burkina Faso, here I come!)

أنا آسفة انا مجنون

Ok, so clearly today I'm completely nuts. I can't stop crying whenever any one talks to me and I'm having a hard time even being polite. Not acceptable. Back home I'm usually a high-functioning insomniac, so being this unstable after one night of no sleep is pretty unusual. I blame the mosquitoes. Again, something I should be able to handle. I've gone hiking and camping and I've had mosquito bites. What's weird about these is that they hurt and they itch so badly I can't sleep. I'm definitely feeling super lame for being such a wuss. It has become an epic battle between my sanity and the mosquitoes. There can be only one winner. It's difficult to say who I'd bet on, at this point.

We had our first test today and I think it went pretty well. Actually my main source of stress is coming from the Office of Financial Aid. I have to say, if there is one thing I really dislike about UW, it is how often the administrative offices make you feel like just one of way too many numbers. Hi, number 0850233, we'll be right with you. Please wait 3-4 business days. I don't feel like this is how it has to be. For example, while traveling I had confusion about when and to what institution I was paying tuition. I e-mailed both the OFA and the IPE office. IPE not only replied right away, they sent two replies explaining where the confusion came from and assuring me that I was not totally crazy for wondering. OFA still hasn't responded to that e-mail. (IPE makes me want to write haiku I love them so much.) I understand they are probably short staffed and overwhelmed at OFA, and probably also staffed by wonderful, hard-working people who rescue puppies in their spare time. But none of that matters when you're thousands of miles from home and have no idea if or when you're going to run out of money. Their job is too important, the stuff they handle is just too personal to wait 3 business days for a reply. Ok, end of crazy rant. For now I'm going to chill with my classmates, do homework, and figure out my next attack strategy for the mosquitoes.

I might be addicted to gummi vitamins...

So there are a number of things I'm super glad to have packed. First on that list is my gummi multivitamins, which my mom got me from Costco and which taste like candy. Unfortunately, unless I want to OD on Vitamins A-D, I really have to stop eating so many of them. (The first step, I am told, is admitting that I have a problem.)

I deeply regret not packing sandals. Today I broke down and purchased some from the Medina. Yes, they are leather. Yes, I feel awful. But my plastic flip-flops from the super market broke after 2 days and I needed shoes. Also, as my fellow vegetarian Kristi pointed out, at least I'm supporting a local industry rather than buying more cheap imported junk from China. Maybe the lesser evil? Maybe?

I'm also glad I packed my under armour clothes. (No, I'm not being sponsored by them, but you wouldn't know it the way I've been dressing.) Every UA shirt or pair of pants I brought has been key for keeping out the sun/heat and keeping me cool while also sufficiently covered up. But what is really great is UA underwear. Hell to the yes. Sorry if this is TMI but you try living in this heat in regular cotton panties. No thank you. I am never wearing any other kind of underwear ever again ever.

Extra sunglasses. I lost my favorite pair three days after arriving, and luckily I have a spare that my dear friend Casi left in my room when she was visiting for the Obama speech. (Sorry dude, they're totally mine now :)) I'll probably buy another pair while I'm here just because I don't trust myself not to lose Casi's if I'm wearing them every day.

Cloth shopping bag. Yes, I hear you laughing at me. Yes, it is kind of a cliche Seattle practice, but it is so handy to have a bag with me to carry supplies from the store or laundry to the bathroom.

Oh. Speaking of laundry, today I learned how to wash my clothes by hand and then hang-dry them. Rad. I feel so Little House on the Praire. Only cooler. Also, I am vowing at this moment to wash my clothes once a weeks so that I never have to wash all of them at once like today. (Yes, any one who has ever lived with me, I see your skeptical looks. SHUT IT.)

In other news I'm getting eaten alive my mosquitoes and have already busted out my ultra-bug spray that I purchased for Burkina Faso. Distressingly, it doesn't seem to be helping. My family doesn't shut windows at night and many of the windows don't seem to shut at all, so there's no preventing the mosquitoes I suppose.

Other major purchases for the trip so far: A sweet hat. It's a bit country for the states but here I feel like Indiana Jones. Also, it keeps the sun off of my face. 

Meknes, Volubilis, and kicking Bill Gates' ass

Update: Pictures by Alex Z.

So last night my host family sister mention that her computer was broken, and asked if I might be able to fix it. I told her I couldn't promise anything, as it is a PC and I'm a Mac person. (This, by the way, is not a concept that translates well.) So I sat down to work on the computer and realized the whole thing was in French. I spent the first few minutes trying to change the language to English. That didn't work. I eventually grabbed my laptop and opened instructions in English so that I could sort of guess my way through the process. After trying literally everything I could think of, I was just about to give up, when I uninstalled and reinstalled the software for the USB modem for the third time and it decided to work. My host family cheered, hugged me, and tried to feed me even more (it was midnight.) I declared victory over France (to be fair, they surrendered) and Bill Gates.

This morning we went to Volubilis, an old bunch of Roman ruins, and then on to Meknes, for lunch and a tour of the old city and a famous prison. It was fun. I'll post pictures, and more detail, when I'm less sunburned and tired. For now I'm going to study (we have our first test Monday) and hit refresh on the Financial Aid page until Monday morning. If any UW summer students are reading this and are still in Seattle- have you heard anything from Financial Aid? Has any one figured out why it still isn't posted?

Ok. More to come. Bye. 

The human cost

Today we went on a tour of the Medina. It was amazing to see all of the markets, the chaos of the very narrow and very busy streets, the grandeur of the architecture and the friendliness of the people. Our last stop was at a tannery. Morocco is famous for its leather, and looking at the shops it is easy to see why. But the tannery dashed any hopes I might have had for buying the leather sandals I had in mind.

I usually don't buy leather goods. I'm a vegetarian, and I think that if I am not willing to eat an animal I should not wear it, either. I don't like causing suffering of any kind, if I can avoid it. Seeing the tannery made me realize just how much human suffering goes into the processing of leather. The men work one of the hardest jobs on earth, not just because of the physically taxing nature and low pay, but, I'm sure, because of the smell. As visitors, we were handed mint to help us manage just the brief tour we were given, but I'm sure that I simply could not handle working in such an environment. Forget the cows. How can I now go to a shop and haggle over the price of sandals, now that I've seen what people have to go through to make them? I can't. I'm sure if I had toured a Chinese factory or a clothing sweatshop I'd be writing about the immorality of my laptop or my scarf, but as it is this is what I saw, these are the images that will haunt me if I try to buy something. The overwhelming inertia of the whole system has me in one of those strange, dark moods. It is usually so easy to pretend that my privilege, my affluence, is not coming on the back of people exploited and impoverished by my lifestyle. Today I can't. I know it isn't realistic to believe that every one can be economically equal, or that every one should have an opportunity to go to school and sit in air-conditioned rooms and argue about politics or linguistic theory, but today, right now, I just can't get past the shame of living in a world where I get to have these things and so many others do not.

Sorry to be so depressing. I'm sure in a week or two I will have forgotten, and maybe then you'll all still get those leather souvenirs I promised you.  Right now I just have to sit a moment and wonder if this must be accepted because it cannot be changed, or changed, because I cannot accept it. 

Mystery skull & Money

Samiya and I have decided to walk to and from the Medina. Last night we found this skull on the way home. Any ideas what kind of animal it might be?

I have enjoyed walking to and from the Medina lately. It is good exercise and it saves money. Last night I calculated how much I can spend per day if it takes 3 weeks for my debit card to get here from America, and I need to keep my spending around 100 MAD (about $15) a day in order to make my cash last long enough. That seems easy enough. Since arriving in Morocco I've spent about 200 MAD a day, mostly because I've had to pay for big things like hostel stays, train tickets, and my Moroccan cell phone. These were one-time expenses and so I'm not too worried about keeping to my new budget.

I'd feel a lot better about all things money-related if UW office of financial aid would get around to posting the summer award amounts. I understand the people working there are going as fast as they can and that a number of factors are causing the delay, but it is really, really stressful. 

On food and feeling sick

I think it's pretty normal to feel sick when you travel. The combination of stress, new bacteria, new pollen and exposure to strange food and drink will leave most people feeling at least a little ill for a few days. I expected this. I did not expect to get a cold, particularly not in 5,000,000 degree heat (this is an approximation. I'm still not really clear on how Celsius works.) But my stomach is basically a rockstar and my sinuses are completely weak. I'm surrounded by beautiful sunshine and I'm sneezing and coughing and have a sore throat. LAME.

It could be much, much worse. My American roommate is so sick she missed class today. She's been getting worse and worse so she's finally going to see a doctor, hamdulillah. I hope she gets better. I'm not sure what is making her so sick, but she suspects it was some very very fresh unpasturized cheese. They tell you not to drink the water or eat anything raw (fruits, veggies, dairy, etc.) in the medina (the old part of Fes) because of some issues with bad plumbing and water contamination. I was drinking the tap water in the Ville Novelle, but since I moved in to my homestay I have started buying bottled water just to be safe.

As promised, here is a photo of my Lizard buddy:

Any ideas for a name? 

Sorry guys, the contest is over

I officially have the coolest host family.


I know, it was close there for a while, but I've got you all beaten by a mile. My host family consists of our mother, two sisters and a brother. Another American girl is also staying with us. I have a huge room (bigger than my whole apartment in Seattle) and for the most part I have plenty of privacy and space to study. There is also a lizard (possibly more than one) who lives in the room and eats bugs. Since I am very anti-bug I have decided to be very pro-lizard. (Though, should I find one in my bed, I will probably not react with dignity.) I will post a picture once he slows down enough to snap one.

Anyway, I hope it goes without saying that my last entry was full of needless worrying. I know some of my classmates have not been so lucky, and I hope that in time all of us will settle in to our family situations and every one will feel comfortable. Sorry to make this so short, but I have more homework than time. More to come, ان شاء الله !!

اليوم الأول من المدرسة

Isn't our classroom pretty? 

Today is a high-anxiety day. For starters, it is the first day of our classes which are two-hour blocks of intensive Arabic. It's basically the hardest class I've ever had in college, and also one of the longest. Add to that the stress of those who just arrived in Fes last night or this morning and haven't had time to adjust, the look ahead at our very demanding schedule of mandatory lectures/cultural experiences/field trips, and the prospect of meeting our host families tonight.

I've never been in a long-term host family situation. I'm very, very anxious about this, because I've lived on my own longer than most undergraduates and I'm really not used to having a family with rules and expectations to deal with on a regular basis. While I haven't met my family yet, culturally Moroccan families are very different than American families. If I'm having a bad day in Seattle, I can go inside my room and shut my door and listen to music. Here, that would be considered very bizarre behavior and possibly even offensive. It just isn't done. I'm a pretty solitary person by nature. I need my space, I need my silence and I need my privacy. I'm really not sure how well I'm going to be able to adapt.

That being said, a homestay is a great way to immerse yourself in the culture (and language) of wherever you study abroad. It will certainly help my Arabic skills and it will hopefully be a totally worthwhile experience. Host families can also help you save money, as they feed you for free and (in places where bargaining is standard) can haggle with vendors for you. I'm sure my host family will be lovely people and I'll be happy to know them. But that doesn't mean I'm not anticipating the whole experience with more than a little dread.

After class this morning we had a group lunch and now we're just relaxing and doing homework until 6pm. It is incredibly hot already today and it's barely 2pm. I'm trying to stay positive but I didn't sleep particularly well last night and so that isn't really helping my outlook.

Last night there were huge protests just a few streets over. We could hear chanting, but our professor called to let us know which area to avoid. It sounds like everything stayed very peaceful (thank goodness) as most of the previous demonstrations in Morocco have been up till now. It doesn't look like the English-language press is covering the demonstrations from yesterday at all but, should you see anything, send me a link. 

Parlez-vous français?

The answer is no. No, I do not speak French. Not even a little. My professor tried to teach me the name of our school in French, which is something completely basic like "Centre Amercain" and I still can't say it. I parley vooo non-freaking fransey. I knew I forgot something...

Devin, one of the students who also arrived early is having similar trouble. He and I were getting dinner last night while waiting for our classmates arriving by train and the waiter refused to give us the total in Arabic, he just kept repeating it in French. We made him write it down. Devin has been encountering this even more than I have, apparently. I'm not sure what it is, possibly that the Arabic we speak is formal and not really all that similar to the Darija (Moroccan Arabic) that every one speaks here. I think it also may be an indication of a certain level of education, and perhaps people are trying to assert their status. Which is totally lost on us linguistically-challenged Westerners.

The hostel agreed to check Zoe and Samiya in late, but not a moment later than 9:30. Since their train arrived at 9:10, Devin and I went to meet them to hurry the taxi-getting and Hostel-finding process that took each of us way longer than 20 minutes (despite being about 1km from the station.) We found them (and Ryan, who was sadly lost to us by virtue of a reservation at a different hotel. Ryan if you're reading this I hope you made it OK! E-mail us if you can!) and got to the hostel just in time to check them in. SCORE! (I can not describe the elation of successfully directing a cab for the first time EVER. Ask my roommates, I have trouble with cabs on first hill back home.)

Our colleagues successfully rounded up, we started bonding with the Spaniard and the German who also stay at our Hostel. Zoe quickly made friends with our hostel cat and then we all went to bed.

Before finding Devin, I'd gone out with Ustaadha Rania to get lunch, window shop, and figure out a route to the train station for later. Rania is Egyptian, which means she is more easily understood, and she has helpful insights about all of the things that suddenly became bewilderingly complicated, like crossing the street and saying "no" when strange men want you to eat in their cafe. I am so glad I made the decision to arrive early. I can't imagine jumping right into classes without these few days to settle in and adjust to the chaos around me. Rania and I found a delicious cafe and she helped get me a vegetarian tajeen:

which is basically the most delicious thing EVER. I could eat only that every day all summer and I would be a very happy girl. Luckily Zoe is also vegetarian (as is Kristie, who will be joining us later today) so I don't think I'll feel too strangely about it. 

Unfortunately I think I also saw something horrible yesterday. Rania and I were done with lunch and walking around, when we saw a motocycle crash. A crowd formed pretty quickly, and since neither of us could do anything to help, we kept walking. On our way back, quite a while later, the young cyclist was lying in the street, not breathing, with a piece of cardboard over his head. I assume he was dead. This is the first time I've ever seen any one die, which is, of course, upsetting, but I think I was surprised at how upset I felt seeing it. I don't want to turn some one's personal tragedy into a teachable moment (cause I'm not Oprah) but I just want to say to all of you that driving and motorcycling in foreign countries is not something you should do without experience and, when riding a motorcycle, always wear a helmet. 

Ok, with that, I think I am going to head out with the gang and have some adventures. Be safe!