Yes, today marks the beginning of my 26th year of existence. I am spending the occasion sitting by myself in my desert home (which I have finally returned to today after another traveling stint), nuzzled up with my propane gas heater, and moving very slowly because of the soreness that is still present after recently running the Marrakesh semi-marathon. The ol birthday wishes of "happy birthday old man!" sent to me from friends and family today seem to be slightly less humorous when that is precisely what I feel like.
Birthdays have never held that much importance for me, and I suppose that apathy is intensified when in a place where age is of such little importance. I am in fact so apathetic that I don't have anything more to say on the matter. So much for deep thinking...perhaps I'll have more to say next year when the feeling of moving forward is made more apparent through moving back to the motherland.
A more logical update on the past 6 weeks is coming up shortly, I promise.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Where to begin...
As so accurately stated by my father upon his recent visitation, there is so much that makes up my life here that cannot be conveyed through words. The past 6 weeks equate the epitome of this statement. In the past month and a half I have traveled around Morocco more than I initially thought to be possible in such a short period of time, and have been the busiest that I have ever been since arriving here. So much has happened, and continues to be happening at such a fast rate that I feel that simply looking back and attempting to document what has gone by will by no means do it justice. However, I must try.
I suppose an appropriate place to start would be with the visit from my family. I met them in late December in Casablanca with an ominous introduction that would set the pace for challenges in our travels. After waiting around for about 2 hours after their scheduled arrival time, I found my mother sitting by herself looking like a child separated from her parents in an unknown city. After approaching her and saying our hellos, she informed me that my father and sister were running around frantically trying to figure out what had happened to my sisters suitcase which had not shown up with the rest of the luggage. A few minutes later I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a very confused tourist frenetically walking in my direction...who of course turned out to be my father, with my sister trailing him not far behind. "Boy, am I glad to see you!" my dad exclaimed upon seeing me. "We lost Lauren's bag, and can't communicate with anyone, and have been running around for hours trying to find someone to help us without any success, and, well, this place is just hard to get around in!" And so the trip began...
We rented a car as our mode of transportation, which was an incredible luxury after a year and four months of relying on cramped, noisy, and unpredictable buses as my primary mode of transportation. The beauty of this country is objectively better when viewed through the eyes of someone who is not stuck in the fetal position. From Casablanca we went to Rabat, then Chefchaouen(the farthest north I have yet to go in this country)then to Fez, and then 8 hours south down to my neck of the woods.
While I thoroughly enjoyed exploring with my family (despite the constant parental-like protection that is required for someone who isn't familiar with the language/culture), the best part of the vacation was undoubtedly their time spent in my town. Introducing them to my friends and surrogate families of my community was like filling in the final gap of understanding that was needed for my existence here to make sense. It seemed to help illustrate the concept the I am in fact a normal person, from a family of other people who are similar to me, and I did not simply materialize out of the desert on a mission to help develop the locals (it turns out this is much easier convey when there are people to point to, rather than attempting to explain it using shaky Arabic).
The attempt of my family to integrate was undoubtedly hilarious...it was also interesting(and very humbling) to see what I must have looked like when I first arrived here. One example of this was when I casually mentioned to my female neighbor that my sister was about to go to the hammam (public shower house) for her first time. After telling her, she gave me a look of disbelief and said "but who will scrub her?" I replied, saying something along the lines of "well, I guess she's just going to scrub herself", and she looked at me indignantly as if I were an abusive parent. Twenty minutes later my sister was in the hamman with my neighbor, butt naked and being scrubbed like she had never been scrubbed before. Ah yes, diplomacy in its purest form.
Another struggle I encountered during the family's visitation was the illusion to my parents that I am 100% fluent in Arabic. This resulted in them giving me ridiculously abstruse sentences to translate, such as when my mom posed "could you please ask your host father about the water irrigation system to his farm? When was it installed and exactly how does it operate?" Or when my dad asked me to ask a wood maker if the wood in a certain object was inlaid. Granted, I was eventually able to convey the meaning of these sentences, although certainly not without sounding like an idiot(ie "Is there wood in the wood?)"
After our stint in my region, we pushed on to Marrakesh to celebrate the new year, and then onward to Essaouria, followed by Casablanca for the family to catch their return flight home. As worn out as I was after the previous two weeks of unceasing travel, translation, and general supervising, I was forced to push onward with it, in that a lady friend from back home arrived to meet me at the airport just a few hours after the family's departure.
Following another eight days of tour guiding (slightly less stress filled the second time around), I found myself physically and mentally exhausted beyond reasonable standards. Yet despite my fatigue, I knew that I had no choice but force myself to be resilient and become energized, for the half marathon that I had spent the previous 6 preparing for was only a week away.
The marathon in Marrakesh was a demanding, yet phenomenal experience. It was by far the largest race I have ever been a part of, with thousands of participants from all around the globe competing in the half and full length marathons. My self-given goal of doing extremely well in this race was abated when I ran the mile in about 6 minutes in a race against locals in my community and still received last place a few months prior(turns out Africans are pretty fast). Regardless of the daunting competition, I was able to do my personal best without any huge limitations. With thousands of viewers, lines of kids to slap the hands of as I ran by, and live music groups dispersed randomly along the way, simply participating was a feast for the senses and a fun challenge for the body.
The last thing I must add to this entry is something that disheartens me to have to write, but I must. I had to give Ziz away. As cute as she is, she was also very destructive, and very, very time consuming. With a month and a half of traveling, I was forced to keep her on the roof for much of the time, which was not fair to her or the neighbors whom she pissed off relentlessly. Raising a puppy is a lot like raising a child...in order to do it effectively, one must have the time, patience, and living space sufficient for the demands it calls forth. Unfortunately I have none of those, and her cuteness alone was not enough to supersede reality (well, at least not once I got a better taste for what the reality of having her entailed).
With the exception of a few non-exigent details of randomness, that pretty much brings me up to date. I am now on to yet another self assigned task of en betterment; studying for the GRE's. I am scheduled to take the test in less than two weeks, so am thus fully engaged in study overdrive. Along with wanting to do well on the test to increase my options for graduate programs, part of me wants to do well simply because there would be no excuse for doing poorly when living by myself in the desert, free of the distractions that one usually encounters.
For those of you who haven't given up on following this despite the hiatus, I appreciate your patience. Until next time...
I suppose an appropriate place to start would be with the visit from my family. I met them in late December in Casablanca with an ominous introduction that would set the pace for challenges in our travels. After waiting around for about 2 hours after their scheduled arrival time, I found my mother sitting by herself looking like a child separated from her parents in an unknown city. After approaching her and saying our hellos, she informed me that my father and sister were running around frantically trying to figure out what had happened to my sisters suitcase which had not shown up with the rest of the luggage. A few minutes later I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a very confused tourist frenetically walking in my direction...who of course turned out to be my father, with my sister trailing him not far behind. "Boy, am I glad to see you!" my dad exclaimed upon seeing me. "We lost Lauren's bag, and can't communicate with anyone, and have been running around for hours trying to find someone to help us without any success, and, well, this place is just hard to get around in!" And so the trip began...
We rented a car as our mode of transportation, which was an incredible luxury after a year and four months of relying on cramped, noisy, and unpredictable buses as my primary mode of transportation. The beauty of this country is objectively better when viewed through the eyes of someone who is not stuck in the fetal position. From Casablanca we went to Rabat, then Chefchaouen(the farthest north I have yet to go in this country)then to Fez, and then 8 hours south down to my neck of the woods.
While I thoroughly enjoyed exploring with my family (despite the constant parental-like protection that is required for someone who isn't familiar with the language/culture), the best part of the vacation was undoubtedly their time spent in my town. Introducing them to my friends and surrogate families of my community was like filling in the final gap of understanding that was needed for my existence here to make sense. It seemed to help illustrate the concept the I am in fact a normal person, from a family of other people who are similar to me, and I did not simply materialize out of the desert on a mission to help develop the locals (it turns out this is much easier convey when there are people to point to, rather than attempting to explain it using shaky Arabic).
The attempt of my family to integrate was undoubtedly hilarious...it was also interesting(and very humbling) to see what I must have looked like when I first arrived here. One example of this was when I casually mentioned to my female neighbor that my sister was about to go to the hammam (public shower house) for her first time. After telling her, she gave me a look of disbelief and said "but who will scrub her?" I replied, saying something along the lines of "well, I guess she's just going to scrub herself", and she looked at me indignantly as if I were an abusive parent. Twenty minutes later my sister was in the hamman with my neighbor, butt naked and being scrubbed like she had never been scrubbed before. Ah yes, diplomacy in its purest form.
Another struggle I encountered during the family's visitation was the illusion to my parents that I am 100% fluent in Arabic. This resulted in them giving me ridiculously abstruse sentences to translate, such as when my mom posed "could you please ask your host father about the water irrigation system to his farm? When was it installed and exactly how does it operate?" Or when my dad asked me to ask a wood maker if the wood in a certain object was inlaid. Granted, I was eventually able to convey the meaning of these sentences, although certainly not without sounding like an idiot(ie "Is there wood in the wood?)"
After our stint in my region, we pushed on to Marrakesh to celebrate the new year, and then onward to Essaouria, followed by Casablanca for the family to catch their return flight home. As worn out as I was after the previous two weeks of unceasing travel, translation, and general supervising, I was forced to push onward with it, in that a lady friend from back home arrived to meet me at the airport just a few hours after the family's departure.
Following another eight days of tour guiding (slightly less stress filled the second time around), I found myself physically and mentally exhausted beyond reasonable standards. Yet despite my fatigue, I knew that I had no choice but force myself to be resilient and become energized, for the half marathon that I had spent the previous 6 preparing for was only a week away.
The marathon in Marrakesh was a demanding, yet phenomenal experience. It was by far the largest race I have ever been a part of, with thousands of participants from all around the globe competing in the half and full length marathons. My self-given goal of doing extremely well in this race was abated when I ran the mile in about 6 minutes in a race against locals in my community and still received last place a few months prior(turns out Africans are pretty fast). Regardless of the daunting competition, I was able to do my personal best without any huge limitations. With thousands of viewers, lines of kids to slap the hands of as I ran by, and live music groups dispersed randomly along the way, simply participating was a feast for the senses and a fun challenge for the body.
The last thing I must add to this entry is something that disheartens me to have to write, but I must. I had to give Ziz away. As cute as she is, she was also very destructive, and very, very time consuming. With a month and a half of traveling, I was forced to keep her on the roof for much of the time, which was not fair to her or the neighbors whom she pissed off relentlessly. Raising a puppy is a lot like raising a child...in order to do it effectively, one must have the time, patience, and living space sufficient for the demands it calls forth. Unfortunately I have none of those, and her cuteness alone was not enough to supersede reality (well, at least not once I got a better taste for what the reality of having her entailed).
With the exception of a few non-exigent details of randomness, that pretty much brings me up to date. I am now on to yet another self assigned task of en betterment; studying for the GRE's. I am scheduled to take the test in less than two weeks, so am thus fully engaged in study overdrive. Along with wanting to do well on the test to increase my options for graduate programs, part of me wants to do well simply because there would be no excuse for doing poorly when living by myself in the desert, free of the distractions that one usually encounters.
For those of you who haven't given up on following this despite the hiatus, I appreciate your patience. Until next time...
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