This Made Me Happier Than Average

Morocco + Christmas =



This is exactly what Marrakech is like. Really. Especially, the lighting yourself on fire part. Oh, but not the red hats; those are for Fes only.

It's too bad this is happening on my birthday or else I would be hopping around on those buses!

http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=12&id=25020

However did they choose the colors for the different "loops", I wonder? And who really believes art is a good "investment" these days? No one is going to make the kind of financial returns David Rockefeller made on his Rothko a year and half ago. Buy because you love it and can't live without it!

Also, come to my birthday get-together. Details to be sent out soon via email. Don't be Brooklyn-resistant.

Contradictions

Last winter, as I sat in a home made of dirt bricks, with a bamboo roof, ill from whatever parasites had infected me, and lacking heat or running water, I was very nearly driven mad by the contradiction of being in such a harsh environment, but still able to connect with my family and friends via wireless internet. (I am now experiencing this in reverse, as I chat online with friends that still live in Morocco. More than once have I read "My fingers are too cold to type! TTYL!) It was nearly impossible to imagine that the environment in which I sat could exist simultaneously as the one which I had left. Was I even on the same planet?

Trust art to address this issue. I just learned about the artist Filippo Minelli. Now a conceptual artist who uses graffiti and documents it photographically is not that novel, but his ongoing project Contradictions, speaks to me in such a visceral way, I barely even have the vocabulary for it. By visiting slums in the developing world and scrawling incredibly popular websites, such as Facebook, Myspace and Flickr, on tin houses, scrap heaps and run-down trains, he frames the incredible chasm between how people live in these environments and how, we in the developed world, spend a great deal of time in an alternate reality. Here's a quote from him from the Daily Dish:

What I want to do by writing the names of anything connected with the 2.0 life... [on] the slums of the third world is to point out the gap between the reality we still live in and the ephemeral world of technologies. It's a kind of reminder, for people like me..., I'm an Apple user and also have social-network accounts, that the real world is deeply far from the idealization we have of it...

What speaks to me most about is the tightrope many developing nations walk as they build technological infrastructures, which are vital to their efforts to attract foreign investment, but often neglect what we consider very basic infrastructure, such as rural electrification and water treatment plants. There simply aren't enough resources for them to do both, and foreign investment wins out because it ostensibly generates immediate revenues. A rural farmer simply isn't going to produce a larger crop because the government connected him to the power grid, but her sons can travel to the nearest large town to work for outsourced jobs from larger economies.

I doubt that Minelli's art "helps" anyone in the communities in which he works, but that's not really the point. You and I are his target audience. How we process the contradictions he highlights is the truly interesting aspect.

Life as a Waking Dream

Whenever I'm having a major mini quarter life crisis my grandmother always asks me: If your life were a dream, how would you interpret it? I know, it sounds a little funny, and it is, but sometimes it's a really useful way to step outside of myself and think about how to overcome any obstacles in my path. Other times, when there is no crisis, and I'm a bit bored, I pick out random themes that seem to repeat themselves. This week has been especially rich with oddities.

One of my (really awesome, friendly, funny) co-workers ordered a fox from Ebay. Not a live one, though. It's a specimen of taxidermy, on which she's writing her master's thesis. Then I met a man with the surname, Fox. And I've been thinking about the cute little kid in the movie, "You've Got Mail", that spells out his name, F-O-X, in this really adorable way. Ummm, the problem with this? Foxes apparently represent trickery and fire. And that totally connects to the fact that I burned my thumb pretty badly on some coffee and my favorite brunch place was closed last week after suffering damage from a kitchen fire. I don't think there are any consequences to all these silly observations of mine, but I will not be building any fires in my house like I did last winter.

Life has been relatively uneventful in the past week. I've made little progress on my room, which is a total mess and looks not too dissimilar to a war zone or, more accurately, my room in the third grade. I did attend a great lecture by Maira Kalman, a graphic artist and painter, who does tons of work for The New Yorker. She was personable, self-deprecating and incredibly smart. She also pursues whatever she wants, and fully admits that luck aids her talent. I like that kind of honesty.

This is Fabulous News!

Congratulations to Jimmy Carter, the countless educators on the ground and the people who have made small adjustments to their behavior to nearly eradicate the affliction that is Guinea Worm!

http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/jimmy-carter-and-george-w-bushs-future/

And to echo Kristof's thoughts: What will a former President Bush look like? Will he chop wood or help to save forests? The cynic in me says he'll probably spread the myth that zebras are vicious man-eating beasts that should never, ever be put on the endangered species list.

Experiments and Omens

In one last-ditch effort to blend into the neighborhood that is Williamsburg, I forewent washing my hair today. It was an inspired decision brought on by a combination of laziness and the odd looks I get at El Beit, a coffee shop on Bedford Avenue, for having obviously freshly washed, extremely wet hair. Where skinny black jeans had failed before, my slightly greasy hair succeeded. Though my super-smooth french press coffee didn't necessarily taste any better (it's pretty damn good to begin with), it was nice to not be stared at for maintaining basic hygiene.

Alas, this experiment will come to an end for two reasons. First, my head itches, and I have very little tolerance for discomfort of this nature. Second, I'm moving to greener pastures this Friday, where, yes, coffee shops still serve sustainably grown, organic, fair trade coffee in wasteful paper cups with plastic lids and cardboard sleeves, but where everyone appears to be freshly showered by 11:30 AM! They also appear to hold steady jobs, or at least feel obligated to appear friendly and ready for the day. In addition, these new neighbors of mine stay thin not by chain-smoking and shivering in the cold outside the eight hundred bars in the neighborhood, but by going to the gym, or, running outside. Perhaps the best thing about my new apartment in what is probably the second most yuppie part of Brooklyn, is that it's on the top floor, so I wont have to worry about crazy upstairs neighbors who throw combination stomp-karaoke-furniture moving parties at 2:00 AM each Wednesday. (I should mention here that my current sublet is actually quite nice, and my three roommates even nicer. It's just that the neighborhood is so not my speed - as you can see.)

There were, however, a couple odd omens this morning when I went to pick up my keys. First off, the G train arrived much too quickly, which made traveling to Bergen Street so easy as to catch me off guard. Then there was a crazy pigeon just hanging out on the exit sign above the platform. I assume he wanted the F train and was a bit irked by the abnormally efficient G. Then one of my favorite restaurants, Miriam's on Court Street, was on fire. OK, I didn't actually see any flames streaming from windows, reaching for the cold winter sky. But I did see three giant fire trucks, and many, many handsome firemen coming out of Miriam's, telling everyone everything was "OK now." Finally, when I went into a cute little bakery to have a pumpernickel bagel, there was an Andy Warhol look alike (face, clothes, hat, everything) sitting in the corner. He told me that he'd never seen me there before. And I said, "Well, I'm new to the neighborhood."

Congratulations to Karin & Ryu!

Amidst all of the craziness that has been my life over the past year, I've had a few really wonderful events to look forward to. Coming back to America, though unplanned, was nice. Eric and Katharine's wedding was a fabulously joyous event, and just this past weekend I celebrated the wedding of two more very wonderful, very dear people: Karin and Ryu. They had the kind of wedding I hope to have. It wasn't a crazy, aspirational wedding with doves and ice sculptures. Oscar de la Renta didn't design her gown (though I'm sure Karin might have liked that). And it wasn't held in some nineteenth-century mansion.

What made it so perfect was that everything was "them". It was held on a farm in Florida (where she's from); they chose every single song on the playlist at the reception; they did a cute little first dance; there was a bag pipe player during the ceremony (who doesn't remember the bag pipes at Convocation?), and they seemed genuinely happy. They even found ways to incorporate each of their faiths and backgrounds into the ceremony (their children will be Colombian/Japanese/Eastern-European/Jewish/Catholic). Also, they made the wedding party take pictures in front of the (very plush, very fancy) port-a-potty trailer. Personally, I enjoyed that part. Please don't knock the fancy port-a-potty trailer - there are mints inside. The cutest part was when Karin's parents took the stage and sang a little song they had written for the happy couple. I hope someone puts video of that on YouTube! And Ryu's dad already started putting on the pressure for grandkids during his toast!

Congratulations to Karin and Ryu!

A part of my vote on November 4th was for Michelle Obama, a woman I am quite proud to have in the White House for the next four years. (I imagine that this is how my grandmother felt about Jackie Kennedy.)

This is an interesting interview of an author of an unauthorized, but still quite glowing, biography, Michelle. (At least the last few chapters I read in a Barnes & Noble on Court Street were very positive.) She does an excellent job of making Mrs. Obama the illustration of the post-civil rights era (if that really exists in these Prop 8 days is another question) and culmination of many of its goals, if its primary goal was to have more Ivy League educated young women from the South Side of Chicago, that is.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/11/13/michelle_obamas_biographer_on_the_nations#

If anyone is wondering what Democracy Now! is, they should know that it's what people who listen to NPR say they actually listen to, so that they don't have to admit to being an "NPR listener," because that might make them sound "too, too," as Grandma likes to say.

The Yes Men

On my commute this morning I nearly knocked over a young woman handing out the New York Times. I briefly considered taking one, realized that I didn't have 35 cents readily available and figured I'd read it online. Underground, I saw the above the flap photograph of two helicopters flying over a mountainous region away from the setting (rising?) sun, with the headline "Iraq War Ends." Really?!?? Was Bush trying to steal Obama's thunder? Perhaps Michelle's amazing, power red dress made W. realize that he was no longer in charge and so he should try to be her new favorite person by ending the "dumb" war.





Oh, but how I was fooled! When I emerged on 1st Avenue I saw a pile of these fake papers. Too thin to be the real thing, too progressive even for the Salzbergers, too much fun for the morning edition, it had other hopeful headlines proclaiming a true cost plan to reflect how much environmentally unfriendly products damage society, a recall of all gas guzzling cars and, my favorite, that Harvard Business School would be closing its doors. (Sorry Matthew! You really belong in education, anyway!) It's turns out that it was produced by an organization called The Yes Men, which is a name I happen to love and find pleasingly ironic.

I don't usually like being tricked but this little hoax brightened my morning and made this very hectic, whirlwind day that much easier.

Flattering Criticisms, New Silly Neighborhoods

Something I had forgotten but rediscovered today is that New York breeds a certain kind of restlessness in me. I've been sick for three weeks straight and really should have spent this holiday in bed, surfing the internet and reading Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen. My favorite part so far is when the narrator, Leo, discusses an argument he has with his "authentic" wife, Rema:

But I did tell Rema that her response was ludicrously out of proportion. She must actually be worried about something else, I said. She had an endogenous mesallaiance, I concluded. She said she didn't know what a mesallaince as, or what endogenous was, and that I was arrogant, awful, a few other things as well. I liked those accusations and found them flattering and thought she was right.

What if all everyone liked the accusations you threw at them? What if they were grateful for the criticisms and harsh words? Maybe, just like Leo, we should find it flattering when people point out our flaws. It shows a kind of caring - an negative sign of affection. I don't think anyone outside of a book would really ever feel that way. And as an overly direct yet ridiculously sensitive person, I certainly don't, even though I'm always relieved to hear the absolute, complete truth. Well, I'm relieved after I cry a little.

That was sort of a tangent. What I really set out to talk about was my restlessness today, and how I worsened a slight cold by wandering in the freezing cold in one of the silliest neighborhoods known to man. I won't name it because I'll probably end up moving there (I'm awaiting landlord approval as I type), but you should know that it's in Brooklyn and it even has a really ridiculous name. It also happens to be the neighborhood my grandmother literally landed in when she migrated from Puerto Rico. She remembers the boat docking and then walking to a cousin's house near the water. They stayed for a little while and then moved to the neighborhood where I'm currently subletting, Williamsburg. Apparently, there were more (possibly better) cousins to hang out with over here. It's sort of a big decision to not live in Fort Greene, which I loved and still has a lot going for it. Unfortunately, the few times I've hung out there over the last three months I felt myself slipping into the same funk of last August, and, well, that's just not going to work this time around. Banish the funk!

Anyway, I wandered all over the new neighborhood and checked out the synagogue, perused the menus of a Japanese restaurant that makes a decent tuna avocado roll, purchased Dayquil and Nyquil at a gigantic RiteAid (one of three within like ten blocks; I told you the neighborhood is ridiculous), and bought a cup of coffee at a tiny cafe with a talkative proprietor with tons of opinions on art (thumbs up to Van Gogh and Basquiat; thumbs down to Jackson Pollock!) and who tipped me off to a Berber-speaking waitress at one of my favorite restaurants (which is run by his brother). I really hope she speaks the same dialect I do, and that I can actually remember some! And that she doesn't think I'm totally crazy for wanting to order falafel plates in Tashlheit. Maybe she'll be flattered, actually.

And by "aggressive" do you actually mean assertive?

This New York Times article was interesting to read post-election.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/us/politics/11south.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

There are still people who find the idea of African-Americans as assertive, equal partners in society as frightening as they did fifty years ago. Only now it's not necessarily about equal access to schools or jobs (except that it actually is even though there are laws governing that sort of thing) it's about the most basic respect on the street. Who moves to the right when you're about to run into each other? Who gets to speak up at town halls? The people interviewed in this article use the word "aggressive" a lot to describe how blacks will act now that we have a Preseident-Elect Obama. It reminds me in many ways how assertive women are often labeled bitches or Jews too pushy for doing very similar things they're male or gentile counterparts do all the time. And I'm actually quite worried about how this will play out in more rural areas, where even as recently as this year we've heard stories of forced confessions under police beatings and horrific lynchings of black adolescents simply for being "too aggressive" in schoolyard skirmishes. Yes, we've elected our first African-American president, but we still have a great deal of work to do.

True Story

I just got back from the BYFI Fall Forum, which was all about Jewish writing in America today. It's a topic that's been much-mulled over, and proclaimed dead by more than one person with way more credentials than me. But I found it kind of inspiring. There are three new authors whose books I'm definitely going to pick up: Dara Horn (BYFI '94!), Rivka Galchen (she grew up like me but in Oklahoma!), and Elisa Albert (she is vehemently NOT a Jewish writer). Little ideas for my own novel came to mind while I sat in the audience, but I think I'll leave them to rest in my notebook for now. Yes, characters will probably be based on you.

Oh, it's just a little chopped liver

Accidentally, I ate some chopped liver. This totally goes against my pseudo-vegetarian (aka pickiness) habits, which were developed in direct response to the massive amounts of meat I was forced to eat in Morocco. It's not that I had meat every day, mind you. It was expensive, and therefore a special treat. But because it was considered special and a yummy, nutritious treat to be savored it was served in heaping mounds with maybe a few olives thrown in. Entire chickens and rabbits just piled up on plates. I was grateful for the protein, but it's a little odd when you notice your neighborhood has far fewer sounds of clucking. So here in the states I've been sticking to fish (plants that move really) and tofu for my protein needs. I'm one of the few people who find the taste and texture of tofu appealing. So that's what I ordered at this little Asian place in my current Brooklyn neighborhood, and I just realized that what I was hoping was eggplant is actually liver. It's kind of like when I was presented with an entire rabbit to eat, I practically willed it to be chicken. It tastes like it!

Sorting it all out

When I was little my Uncle Oliver would throw me up in the air and catch me over and over again. It was my favorite game. It made me feel happy, cared for and exhilarated all at the same time. When Senator Barack Obama was declared the winner of Tuesday night's election, I felt all of these things. Finally, taking a leap of faith had paid off. All of a sudden a whole new world opened up. I shed a single tear, took some pictures with my friend Yaelle, called my mother, aunt and grandmother and texted everyone I knew. On the two hour ride through the subways to Williamsburg I saw the tired yet elated faces of my fellow New Yorkers. When I finally emerged above ground the riot police were blocking off Bedford Avenue while search helicopters saught stray "rioters" on side streets. Apparently, some people were a little too happy in this Obama stronghold.

Over the past few days a new feeling has settled in. When I was little the beach was my weekend hangout. My mother allowed me to swim alone, but always gave me a strict marker on my bathing suit that I wasn't allowed to go past. At the time Hawaii was one of those majestic places where you could see straight to the bottom of the ocean floor. It helped if you were interested in avoiding sea urchins and sharp rocks. Go out too far and you would injure your feet, or worse, get caught in a rip tide and be carried out to sea. On those rare weekends when my father was home he often decided that I needed to be toughened up. He would carry me much further out into the ocean, waaaay past my safety marker. So incredibly far, that I couldn't see through the water to the bottom (it helps to keep in mind that he was literally twice my height). I would hold onto him for dear life and protest quite loudly that he carry me back to shore. Sometimes he obliged me, but mostly he wanted me to explore and to see the world from a little further away. All I felt was the huge expanse of the sea ready to swallow me up, and take me away from everything I knew.

Those feelings of uncertainty, of the completely and utterly unknown are what have settled in. What does it mean to have an Obama presidency? What does it man to not have a Bush or Clinton in the White House? On a personal note, what does it mean to have someone like me in the presidency? Not just "like me" because he's biracial, but because he was raised by a single mother and his grandparents, plus he's well-educated, progressive, pragmatic and young. Yes, many of these things could describe President Bill Clinton, but, honestly I wasn't nearly as cognizant of his administration as I was of President George W. Bush's. The consequences of the latter presidency will stay with us for generations to come, no matter how amazing (or not) President Obama proves to be. I have high hopes for the next four (dare I say, eight) years, but I'm also full of the fear of the unknown. It's actually a positive fear in an odd way. That scared feeling you get when you sense your hopes are being raised, and you just hope to God that no one will bring them down, but you know someone probably will, so you hold back a little.

I thought that I would have carried the unexamined elation of Tuesday through at least today!

In other news: Williams beat Amherst in their 123rd match-up. I love my new job (more on that later). I love the new Trader Joe's in Cobble Hill (way more on that later). Karin and Ryu are getting married next weekend and I'm going to be a bridesmaid. (I bought gold shoes today - 30% off! I am so a recessionista.) I'm happy to be back in New York.

xoxoxo

Is anyone else incredibly nervous?

I've avoided TV and radio for the past three days (sorry, Rachel - you're still Rachel-tastic!), but all I can think about is tomorrow and the crazy consequences that are in store for our country if things don't go a certain (OK, my) way. Here's what I'm reading and watching to keep myself calm and hopeful:




and



Vote early and keep your fingers crossed. I'll be in Park Slope either celebrating or mourning. I have a special feeling about this one though.

Because I Love Numbers More Than You Realize

I am obsessed with this blog. (Thanks to Eric! [Or did Greg actually find it first?]) It's possible that I would enjoy it less if my guy were losing, but since he has a 92.5% chance of winning today, I love it. A lot. Also, the writers have a habit of making fun of the Drudge Report, which also makes me smile. "Drudge" is a word my grandmother uses to describe the stuff caught in the drain of the kitchen sink.

Today I'm going up north to spend time with my aunt and uncle before I depart for New York (again) on Friday. We'll probably watch MSNBC, eat In-N-Out burgers (even though I am 95% vegetarian now), and roam around Carlsbad. I'm not really sure, but I love spending time with them, and am sad that I won't be able to do it as frequently as I have over the past four months. Boo. New York, you better be worth it.

Vote! I did!

Today I went to the San Diego Registrar of Voters and voted early! After months of waiting and waiting I finally got to mark my ballot for Barack Obama. I am so happy!

Now if only my clothes would pack themselves . . .

And We're Back

Is anyone still reading this? Well, besides lovely Matthew, who occasionally looks up from his intense social calendar of tea, leather and mountain climbs to read about my silly musings on CostCo. If you are: thanks!

About eighteen months ago I decided that New York had given up on me. It's an intensely fickle city, full of itinerant freelancers and subletters. Most people I know are struggling to figure out their careers, and we're never sure if it's because we're under thirty or if because the city is just more difficult than other places. For some reason many New Yorkers believe that by simply existing in that space they are somehow "making it". Fearing that trap, I made a decision to leave, sold all my furniture, gave up a lease on a disgusting vermin-infested studio (thank you, Parkoff Management!) and jaunted off to Morocco. What a great idea that was!

Actually, it was. As difficult as my experience turned out to be--the lack of water, the parasites, the crazy host sisters who thought it was OK to gossip about my health and spend 8 hours in a too hot public bath, and the men who thought daily marriage proposals should be considered carefully (highest offer? 100,000 camels!)--it was worth it. I never want it to be thought that I didn't value my time in that place. The most important lesson I took from that experience, however, wasn't the three languages I learned, or the insights into a different culture, or how to make cous-cous. It wasn't even my realization that I'm somewhat of a change junkie. What I hope to always carry with me is the knowledge that I am my best and only true judge.

And so next week I return to New York, to work in my chosen field, in a position I've always thought I wanted. I hope it's true. It's work that I love and believe is important, in a place that I've always felt the most myself. I'm frightened that I'll fall into some old, very damaging patterns, that only serve to undermine my happiness. Mostly, I'm anxious about leaving my family again. Who will take me to CostCo and make sure I see the latest Hollywood releases? The wanderlust in me has been cured, though, I think. Everything else will follow.

My Grandmother Has a Crush on Jon Stewart

The television in my house is a hot commodity. Four adults with very different viewing preferences reside here. My mother will watch anything and everything on the SciFi Channel, including but by no means excluded to, Eureka, Dr. Who, Dead Like Me and some show about a man whose parents sold his soul to the devil when he was born. Rick enjoys WWF and Burn Notice. I enjoy anything on Showtime (Weeds and Dexter are probably my favorites), along with Lost and The Office.

My grandmother has always liked what we affectionately call "dead people shows." House, Monk, CSI, CSI: Miami, Law and Order, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Cold Case, NCIS, Bones and a myriad of other shows which tend to revolve around an illness or crime and wrap up their story lines within the hour. She despises Lost even though I've explained that the main character is a doctor, just like House, there are mysteries to be solved and a few people even manage to die. She's not buying it; she thinks the polar bear is ridiculous, and that a bunch of pretty people on an island should really "get a grip". She also doesn't find comedies funny. (Don't get me wrong, Grandma actually has a fabulous sense of humor; she just finds sit-coms inane.)

But while I was away on a recent trip to New York (yay!), as you may know, Senator John McCain named little-known Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. For some reason this has opened up a whole new world of television. She watches Countdown with Keith Olbermann and The Rachel Maddow Show with me. There are few objections when I watch the other news programs. Somehow the whole X chromosome ploy by McCain didn't win over my Grandma - a woman who once told me that Senator Barack Obama was smarmy, and that she didn't understand how people my age could be so enthusiastic about him. And tonight, after a lovely trip to CostCo for a three pound package of strawberries, I turned on The Daily Show, and Grandma admitted that "Jon Stewart is so cute." Obviously, this country is on the right track.

Places I've Been Carded in San Diego

It's sort of a running joke that I look like I'm twelve. I suppose it's because, at nearly 28 years-old, I have no (obvious) wrinkles, I smile easily, and I have a "sweet," "soft" voice. (I don't always appreciate these adjectives.) Since when does friendly equal youth? Especially considering the amount of complaining I hear about "today's youth". Here are just a few of the places I've been carded during my stint in lovely San Diego:

The Ralph's grocery store in Mission Valley
Legal age to purchase alcohol: 21.
Question from cashier to me: Looks like you have wine here. Who will be making the purchase today?
Answer: My grandmother.

AMC Movie Theaters in Fashion Valley
Legal age to view an R-rated movie accompanied by an adult: 17.
Cashier to my grandmother: I'm sorry but she really needs to be 17 to see this film.
My grandmother to cashier: Add ten years and you have her age.

The Point Loma Public Library
Legal age to obtain your own card without a parent's signature: 18.
Question from librarian to me: Did you bring your mom with you, hun? She'll need to sign your application.


Based on the reactions I've received whenever I reveal my real age, I'm beginning to worry that my driver's license will be confiscated by an over zealous librarian who is convinced that I couldn't possibly be closing in on 30 and that I must have stolen some nice old lady's wallet to obtain a fake ID. Not cool!

The one place I wasn't carded: The San Diego County Registrar of Voters. Apparently, they compare your signature in their database. What a relief!

What I Learned At the Bowling Alley Tonight

Some of you know that I was a dork growing up. Sure, I had friends, but I also watched Star Trek (both the original series and The Next Generation) and even attended an actual convention with my family in tow. The best part was when they showed us how the transporters worked. Cue ooh's and aaah's. My other claim to dorkiness? The bowling league in which I participated for about two years from the age of ten on the naval base on Coronado Island. No, we didn't have those silly short-sleeved polyester shirts. And I never got a crazy nickname. At my strongest I bowled an 85 and used a six-pound ball. If I broke a hundred that was amazing! I never used the granny throw, even though it seemed like an effective strategy because you got to use both hands.

Looking back on it, I think it's pretty silly that I was playing an indoor sport at the peak of my childhood in sunny Southern California. I rectified this as a high-schooler by taking up tennis and developing more tan lines than I care to remember. Despite the lack of tanning opportunities, bowling taught me excellent hand-eye coordination and perseverance by repeatedly showing me that no matter how hard you try sometimes the ball just isn't going to go your way.

To my surprise I still carry these lessons. My arm is straight and true, and my ball placement is fantastic. About a year ago, I bowled a 180 with an 8 pound ball, shaming my date, who seemed to think he was supposed to win because he was male and had paid for my shoe rental and the beers that should have made me throw poorly. No way, Jose. I've got skills.

Tonight was a slightly different story, under slightly different circumstances. I went bowling with my Uncle Val, who is crazy good (he got five strikes!) but not crazy competitive. He's encouraging and helpful, yet still let's me do my own thing. What I was surprised by was that I threw the 8 pound ball like it was nothing. My ball wasn't straight and true-it skewed right. That wasn't cool. So I upgraded to the 10 pound ball. Same thing. My score was in the toilet; I needed to adjust my form, but how? Could I, little Anjuli, The Little One, as my Aunt Lisa calls me, actually throw a 12 pound ball with control and grace? As it turns out, I could. I'm buff. Who knew?

Did my score vastly improve? Yes. OK, fine, it improved for one game and then my arm got tired and I was throwing all over the place. But the point is: I was much more powerful than I thought. Maybe all of that carrying of my own trash in and out of my site in Morocco actually worked out my arms. Or maybe it was wringing the water out of my hand-washed clothes?

What I've been thinking about since we returned from the bowling alley and finished our amazing In-and-Out burgers, is about how much I've changed. There are the more obvious psychological changes I've undergone - the stress, the regret, the pride, the excitement, the wonder - but there are also the physical ways in which my experiences have manifested themselves. Not only am I mentally stronger, but also, it turns out that I can lift heavier objects and run greater distances. I keep expecting to return to who I was a year ago because that's who I think I am. But actually, I'm a physically and mentally stronger, longer-haired, one-year older, some might even say better, version of who I was when I left. I didn't necessarily have to travel to Morocco to achieve all of that, but I tend to take the most dramatic approach to life. What direction I'll take next is still up in the air, but it's reassuring to know that I have this new strength to draw upon as I make yet another transition.

Washing Machines, CostCo and Roberto's

Now that it's been a month since I returned to San Diego, I'd like to say that I've completely readjusted to everything. Afterall, my entire life minus those ten months in Morocco has revolved around such modern day conveniences as hot running water (no boiling required!) and 24-hour Mexican food. And on many levels I have found my way back to my American self, unless you think the urge to reuse Ziploc bags and rinse and dry paper towels for later use is un-American. (Seriously, you can use them at least three times!)

Occasionally, at places like CostCo and Trader Joe's, I'm entirely overwhelmed by the sheer abundance and choice of products. To give you an idea, my family of four buys three different types of milk from CostCo: unsweetened soy for me, fat-free Lactaid for Grandma, and whole milk for my mother's partner, Rick. And we don't just buy one; my soymilk comes in a pack of three and doesn't expire for over a month. Compare this to the tiny, square plastic bags of milk sold once a week on Fridays to go with cous-cous in my tiny desert town. There was one kind (thick) and to make it thicker it was placed in a warm spot, such as an oven, so it would turn just a bit. Then it was re-refrigerated (if you owned such a machine, which I didn't) and served denser than a milkshake. Let's say that it was an acquired taste. I happened to love it, but that was after a slow, incremental three-month process of increasing my tolerance for the at first gag-inducing taste. (Yes, I was a trooper, but I was also hungry and willing to try many, many things at which I would normally turn my nose up.) Just walking through the dairy aisle at my local grocer is a lesson in variety and choice nearly unheard of in the countryside in which I lived. And it's glorious.

And perhaps that's one of the best parts of coming home - everything is fresh and new to me. I treat grocery stores like museums, and blueberries like a rare find. I'm sure I'll go back to taking these things for granted, but for now I'm enjoying the sense of wonder that comes with the rediscovery of basic amenities such as a hot shower and door-to-door transportation. The first week home was a series of waves of relief, slightly tinged with guilt, that basic things didn't have to be difficult. Now after a full month, I can proudly say I'm happy to be home.

On the Road Again

It began with a side of broccoli. There it was, sitting matter of factly next to the largest piece of meat served to me in about 10 months. I had just said goodbye to my community in TToot a few days before and to my best friends via text and phone. Completely overwhelmed and, to be honest, pretty damned scared about what the next chapter of my life holds, I ate the broccoli. And it was good.

Now I'm in Park Slope, Brooklyn for the next few hours (even travel out of Morocco is complicated!) trying to take in all the things that seem familiar yet are totally freaking me out. Why are bagels so big here? Why are there bagels at all, actually? And the iced coffee I just had is easily five times the size of a coffee in Ouarzazate. Everyone speaks English, which is like soooo cool. There are no plastic bags hanging off trees! And everything is so shiny and new!

I kind of miss my desert town, and I know that I'll miss the simplicity of the life I led, even though it felt complicated at the time. Coming home early was a very, very difficult decision, but ultimately the right one. And I'm happy to say that it feels good to be on familiar territory and to see familiar faces. Not to mention the incredible amount of support I've received from the Peace Corps in Morocco volunteer community, my friends here in the States, and most of all, my family, who has prepared a room for me and is eagerly awaiting my arrival in San Diego tonight.

There's a lot for me to readjust to, so I think I'll still maintain this blog. There are a lot of things about Morocco I wasn't able to share in this forum that now I can, and I'll need a place to process the whole experience. I hope you'll continue reading! And if you're anywhere near Park Slope right now come to the Tea Lounge!

p.s. Kudos to my good friend, Evan, for picking me up at the airport last night on extremely late notice, and to Eric, my favorite rabbinical student, for coming down to Park Slope as I type!

Ridiculous Fun in Agadir

Last week I attended my training group's IST, or Inter-Service Training, and it was amazing! It was so great to be back with everyone (minus a couple wonderful colleagues who have returned to the States for various reasons) and to learn about their communities and projects. Even with eight hours of sessions everyday, we managed to have a bit of fun. Those of us who live in the desert were particularly fond of the hotel pool! From right to left: Danice, Quigs, Anny, Megan (it was her birthday so she got to be the "swan"), Matthew, me (big splash, no grace) and Brian.

An Open Letter to the Flies of the Ouarzazate Region

Dear Flies of the Ouarzazate Region:

First, let me commend you on your persistence and willingness to live in harsh conditions that until nine months ago I could never have appreciated. The desert life, with its sand storms, lack of fresh water and growing threat of scorpions, is harsh. That you have thrived in such an environment warrants both my admiration and consternation.

For you see, flies, your success here in the Ouarzazate region has made you arrogant. Never have I formally invited you into my home, yet you let yourselves in at all hours of the day, buzzing from 6:00 AM to all hours of the night. Nor are we friends, yet you insist upon sitting on my lap, leaning on my shoulder and landing smack dab in the middle of my forehead. In short, flies, you’re ridiculously rude and I hate you.

These sentiments may come as a shock, dear flies, but they are long overdue. Besides the few angry outbursts where I murdered you with Newsweeks I never intended to read, I’ve been quite tolerant of your inconsiderate ways. Indeed, I was even mildly flattered that you appeared to admire my cooking so much that you multiplied exponentially at the dinner hour. That is, until I noticed you preferred the vegetable scraps to my tortillas made from scratch!

Enough is enough. You should know that I’ve employed a small lizard to eat you. So don’t be surprised when you come to an abrupt, slimy end next time you’re sunning yourself on my bedroom window. Perhaps it will teach you to give a lady some privacy.

All the best,
Anjuli

21 Simple Steps to Enjoying Yourself at a Patisserie in Rabat

Quite often I’m struck by the incredible amount of time it takes to complete simple tasks, such as making a deposit at the bank (1 hour 30 minutes), purchasing stamps (45 minutes), or obtaining a menu at a restaurant (25 minutes). On a recent trip to the capital, I was looking forward to the quick pace and efficiency of a large city. It turns out simple pleasures can consume a great deal of time as well! Here are 21 simple steps to enjoying yourself at a patisserie in Rabat.

1. Enter patisserie around the corner from the Gare du Ville, Rabat
2. Peruse vitrines of pastries, wondering if the thing that looks like a pear tart is, in fact, a pear tart, or if it secretly contains raisins for some reason.
3. Wriggle nose at thought of being surprised by raisins.
4. Ask in Arabic if there are brownies. Wesh kayn brownies?
5. Hear response in French, but pretend not to understand. Oui, il y a brownie.
6. Repeat question in Arabic. Wesh kayn brownies?
7. Hear exclamations of “A foreigner who speaks Arabic! My God will wonders ever cease? How do you know Arabic?” Whda rmi lli tkllmha l’3rbia? Tbark llah 3lik! Fn t3llemk l’3rbia?
8. Realize that you are utterly incapable of answering this question in the proposed language.
9. Explain that actually you don’t speak a lot of Arabic (Ana tkllmt l’3rbia shwiya. . .); you really know Tashlheit because you live in Ouarzazate (. . . walakayn ad sawlgh Tashlheit ashku ad zdghgh gh Ouarzazate).
10. Hear exclamations of “Holey moley! An American who knows Berber! God bless your parents.” Tbark llah 3lik!! Marikaniya wHda tkllm shlHa! Lla y-rHm l-walidim.
11. Ask again if there are brownies.
12. When told, “No, there are no brownies” order a pear tart despite aforementioned risk of raisins.
13. Pay cashier after server places tart atop a doily upon a tray.
14. Walk upstairs to find a table, making sure to find the one with the best view for people watching and the occasional suggestive, if accidental, stare.
15. When waitress approaches your table, ask for a café crème, prepared to repeat steps 5 through 11, substituting coffee for brownies.
16. Sigh.
17. Watch as waitress leaves with your tart, vaguely wondering if it was defective.
18. People watch, noticing that no one around you is speaking Arabic, slowly realizing that you exposed yourself as a country bumpkin downstairs.
19. Feel slightly relieved when waitress returns with your coffee and tart.
20. Raise an eyebrow when you notice that the tart has returned sans doily and now sits on a neat white plate with a fork and knife.
21. Dig in.

Go Ephs!

It was recently brought to my attention by two very good friends that this blog was linked to by EphBlog, the blog of my very own alma mater, Williams College. How flattering! My entry on the Big Feast in December was quoted. (Don't pay any attention to the posted comment.) But how embarrassing to have not have posted anything for nearly two months!

On another note: if there are indeed current Williams students out there wanting to “connect” with current Peace Corps Volunteers, please by all means, contact me. And, alumni, remember, there’s no upper age limit, so you still have time, too.

And, no I won’t be at the reunion in June! Five years! It somehow feels both longer and shorter than that. We’ve all done so much and most of us have managed to live in at least two or three different cities in just that little bit of time. My friends and I are a nomadic bunch, I guess. For those of you that are going please take a million pictures!

My Aunt, the Columnist

My Aunt Lisa has recently become a columnist for Lesbian Nation. It’s called Inner Visions and revolves around her spiritual gleanings from a life well-led and ever-evolving. I’ve spent nearly 28 years taking and following her advice (and, yes, occasionally rebelling against it), so I highly recommend checking it out. Click here.

Congratulations, Aunt Lisa!

Never Underestimate a Good Eggplant

Tonight I made an excellent eggplant concoction (eggplant, rosemary, tomatoes and olive oil over penne) in my oddly supplied kitchen in my oddly furnished house. Having moved in a little over a month ago, I have yet to buy proper utensils, and so I eat all meals with a spoon and improvise in the stirring of sauces and flipping of vegetables. My stovetop has one setting: burn. I don’t own an oven. Most of my protein consumption comes through peanut butter and processed cheese, and I think it’s safe to say that I’m addicted to bananas and honey. Occasionally, I dilute them with the aforementioned peanut butter or yogurt, but, really, why should I? Did I mention that I don’t own a refrigerator, either? Hence the processed cheese. The roof leaks (sound familiar to anyone?) and there’s a beetle that insists this is his home, even though I’ve carried him as far away as an entire city block. Are there homing insects?

Nonetheless, I love my new house. It may be temporary for reasons that I won’t go into here, but the wonderful comfort of privacy is at last mine! The only thing that wakes me up in the morning is my alarm clock or, if I ignore that and sleep in too late, my host sister inviting me for tea. I’m right next door to the association, so I can hear when the door is unlocked and I can at last go to work (usually around 4:30 PM). I don’t actually hear the lock being turned, but the braying of the lambs as my artisans traipse through the adjacent barn. I keep a schedule similar to the women’s, with the exception that I travel into Oz a great deal more to see my delegate, develop photographs of products, or visit with other volunteers. In the morning, I clean my house and make meals, and in the afternoons I go to the fields - not to pick clover, but to run. Yes, me, running. I’m a total scandal even though I wear long pants and sleeves. There’s something about a woman moving so quickly . . .

For a little while February was terribly unbearable (is that too dramatic?) but then I reminded myself that February sucks everywhere. Clouds and rain aside, it’s the longest month simply because we expect it to be so short! And now it’s March and we have a gloriously long weekend here (two days for the Prophet’s Birthday!). I’ll be at the beach actually being scandalous in my very hashuma bathing suit. High tourist season officially starts this month, which means my women will sell a ton of items at the hotel boutique (inchallah, as they would say). Also, my delegate just returned from the capital, where (inchallah) he presented some of my project ideas to the entire delegation. I promise to share them with you once I have approval. For now, know that I’m alive and well, and doing my best to be happy in my small part of the world.

WANTED

A humble, unfurnished abode with one salon, one bedroom, half-bath and kitchen. Running water and electricity preferred. Windows and roof access a plus. Less than 80 USD.

RECEIVED
Large unfurnished dwelling, with three bedrooms (two locked), full bath (but the shower doesn’t work . . . yet), large salon, gated and walled garden, fully tiled kitchen, unpainted concrete walls, stained glass windows, and walled roof. Running water (room temperature only) and electricity. Exactly 80 USD, depending on the exchange rate.

An Easy Guide to Communal Eating

Double-dipping is a classic faux-pas that I engage in every single day. It's not that I'm rude, or don't care about spreading germs. It's that I eat with my hands from communal dishes. I can count on one hand the number of times I've used an actual utensil in the last two months. Even at restaurants, I prefer to tear off a piece of bread and use it to scoop up vegetables and meat. (Lentils were quite challenging at first but now I have the hang of it. The trick is to smoosh them a bit in the bowl.)

Anyway, I highly recommend giving up utensils and individual plates. It makes for less clean-up and more of a shared experience. Just remember to eat only what's in front of you and don't stray into your dining companions' eating territories. It helps if you imagine a pie chart, and one of the triangles as your "area." Eat the vegetables first and don't touch the meat until your host divides it amongst his guests. (Yes, it's almost always a "him" who divides the meat.) If you're eating cous-cous it is appropriate to pour your sour milk directly into the communal dish and use a spoon. Make sure to tell other people that they aren't eating enough, even as they stuff their faces.

Zebras Eat People and Other Interesting Facts

Growing up in San Diego afforded me many, many trips to the World Famous San Diego Zoo (I believe that's its official name, just like San Diego's official tagline is "America's Finest City", which I've actually heard used in broadcasts in other cities). In third grade my class spent an entire week visiting the zoo, learning about the various animals, their natural habitats and diets, and the then-fledgling panda and gorilla projects. The Zoo and the Wild Animal Park in Escondido continue to be two of my favorite places to visit whenever I'm home.

I was unexpectedly reminded of my love for these places while watching television with my host family last night. Television is a nice, quiet way to bond with them and practice my Tashlheit and Arabic. I can make exclamations, such as, "Hey!" when there's violence, or we can laugh over the fact that we rarely laugh at the same moments during American films with Arabic subtitles. My favorite times are when what I think of as the Animal Planet of satellite TV comes on. (I have yet to find shark week in Arabic.) Displaying ten to fifteen second clips of animals, insects and plants (sometimes animals eating animals and plants eating insects) this channel provides zoning out at its best, providing the simple pleasure of watching nature without getting muddy or cold. Without voice-overs or subtitles, I like to think of this type of programming as universally enjoyable. On this particular occasion I decided to make a vocabulary lesson out of the program, because you just never know when you'll need to know how to say "tiger."

Zebras showed up first, and I learned that they were himar waHsi, which I repeated a few times because anything with more than three syllables trips me up. As the tigers (nimmr) came and went, my host sister said "himar waHsi ibbi l-middn rika kmmi d nkki." And I said, "Zebras? No, tigers do. The things with the stripes? They eat people? Noooooo." And my host sister said, "Yeeeeees." And I said, "Maybe, but I'm pretty sure they eat plants only, just like donkeys." (Donkeys are an excellent frame of reference.) And so I decided that actually she meant the tigers, but just to be sure I decided that I would ask my tutor.

My tutor confirmed that zebras do, in fact, eat people. Himar waHsi directly translates into "beasts of the forest." I had always thought they lived in tall grasses on the African plains (hence the silly striped outfit) and ate plants, but I could be wrong. Third grade was a long time ago, after all.

Later, when I suggested my friend Mia procure some lizards (tqllit) in Marrakech for her spider problem, I was told that lizards cause melanin loss in the skin, creating large white patches, and that they eat people, too.

I'll just have to stick with cats, I guess.

Some Self-Business Development

There are a few things on this blog you may have failed to notice through no fault of your own. This blog's layout is limited by my knowledge of html and time and patience to fiddle with various things. Also, Google has decided to switch most of my basic functions into Arabic. Does anyone know how to undo that? Back to business:

For those who love pictures please look to your right, there are three different slideshows. If you click on any of them you will be taken to Picasa and be able to peruse these images at your leisure. (Mom, you can even order pictures that you want!)

For those of you who love shopping or just giving your opinion on anything and everything please look at the third slideshow, "Don't You Want One?" particularly carefully. These are the products of the women's artisans' association I work with the most. By private email, please let me know what you think of the products. If you have product ideas of your own (especially those geared towards female tourists that utilize weaving, crocheting, or sewing), share those, too. No, you don't get a cut. If you want one of these items, let me know that, too.

Last, if you're looking to subscribe to this blog, scroll all the way down to the bottom and click on the word "subscribe" or "atom". This should give you the RSS feed and allow you to do whatever it is you do with an RSS feed. Man, technology used to be my thing!

Tomorrow my future house is going to be "checked" i.e. approved for safety and security standards. I've never seen the inside of it but I've been told that it is ihla bezzef, and exactly like my host family's home (which is, indeed, quite beautiful). I can't wait to have my own kitchen and put pictures on the wall. I'll tell you more about it when I actually have some facts at my disposal!

In other news, a family member is having surgery tomorrow. Please send safe, happy, healthy thoughts to Los Angeles.

Magically Speaking

August 14, 2008: I just found this entry from January in my drafts section. I must have been saving it for something, but I don't remember what. So here it is now!

January 18, 2008

Magical : beautiful or delightful in such a way as to seem removed from everyday life.

Magical is my everyday life. Rbia can unlock locked doors without a key, Nora and Habiba can translate "my Tashlheit" into "actual Tashlheit", Brahim can procure a house that once seemed impossible to find, and Ayub finds chairs and tea in any room of the house, including the roof. I don't know how to say it in Tashlheit, but I'm hoping that after a few months my community will just gradually pick it up and know that it expresses my delight/awe with everything they do.

There have been some serious ups and downs (way more of the latter than the former) over the past eight weeks. Having been wrenched from my surrogate family of trainers and fellow volunteers, I was dropped (OK, fine I was chauffered in a cab) into this tiny town, in which I appear to be the best thing since sliced bread. (Only there's no such thing as sliced bread here, so you can imagine just how great I am!) It's not that I do anything particularly special by any stretch of the imagination; I just happened to have been born outside of T-Toot. As everyone here has known each other since birth, my eating, sleeping, hygiene, and travel habits are all subject to intense scrutiny. Sometimes it's flattering that everyone in town knows my name, and other times it's intimidating that I can only remember about a third of the names I'm told.

At first I took the attitude that this is just something I have to "get through". Soon my homestay will be complete and there will be no one to see when I wake up, or count the number of times I brush my teeth each day. Everything will be different, I thought, when I have my own house and I can be independent. Then I realized how negative the idea of "getting through" something truly is. I had resigned myself to being unhappy for two months! In New York, I "got through" each workweek so I could relax with friends on the weekends, never totally enjoying the majority of my days. How sad is that? I had a moment of realization that I was in this totally foreign, exotic place and, yet, I had carried much of my old baggage across the Atlantic. To paraphrase Gandhi's words in a very different context: the change had to be within me, and emphatically not my environment.

So I began by thinking of all the things I take for granted at home, but that people here manage to do without on a regular basis. Properly working locks, a (mostly) universal language, and rental brokers are just a few examples. I've also decided to embrace my new-found celebrity. I do yoga on the roof and go running through the fields (to shouts of gawr! gawr! sit! sit!). I blatantly ask people what they did all day, if they seem to know more about me than I think they should. (If we've never shaken hands before, should you really know how often I've been to the hammam?)

My raised profile has had some surprisingly positive effects on my work. For one, it attracted a second English student, who in turn put me in direct contact with his mother, who is a member of my artisans association. Sitting in her living room, after my first session, we began to talk about the association, which I had been trying to gather for a meeting for nearly six weeks. Why wasn't it meeting? What was keeping the women away? Please, let me help you. I want to know what you need.

And, magically, the next day we had our first meeting. Hamdullah!

Consumption-sumption, What's Your Function?

Today's New York Times included a guest op-ed by Jared Diamond about the unsustainable consumption rate of the United States. (Which I will not link to because it mentions things I am not allowed to mention.) Obviously, the human impact on the environment is a hot topic these days, garnering Nobel Peace Prizes, countless headlines and endless redesigns of product labels. Oh, wait, that last thing - that's the problem.

One of the most difficult things I've had to adjust to in Morocco has been the rate of consumption here. And with good reason, according to Diamond, I'm accustomed to wasting at 32 times the rate of residents of developing countries!

Here, there is a nearly pathological resistance to waste. Even seemingly well-off families are averse to discarding a potentially useful plastic bag. (I've seen them hand-washed and hung on the clothesline to be reused again.) Candy wrappers, soda cans and gum wrappers virtually don't exist in homes, because individual servings are anathema to how most people function. Families eat from communal dishes (no plates) with their hands (no utensils) and they share one cup for water (fewer dishes to clean, but more "microbes" to pass around). Left-over food, like orange peels and bits of bread are fed to the animals. (Did you know that donkeys love orange peels and cats like bread?) The vast majority of people don't even use toilet paper! (Is that TMI?) The little bit of trash that is produced by the average family is mixed with palm fronds and burned in order to heat the communal bath, or hammam.

The down side of all this is that when there is no system for creating waste, there is no system for collecting it. The fields I walk through every day are strewn with plastic bags that flew off clotheslines, piles of half-burnt trash that was too hashuma to give to the hammam keeper (if you want examples of hashuma trash, please send me an email and I'll be happy to explain) and other random things lying about. No one appears to care, because it's not in their, well, backyards.

When I move in to my own home in February I'm curious to see how many of my old habits will return. Under the scrutiny of my host families, I have managed to produce only two or three very tiny bags of trash, which I take into Oz to discard with some semblance of anonymity. (Though, today, a group of boys started yelling "Peace Corps! Peace Corps!" at me. It must be the large, black sunglasses and unwashed hair that gives me away.) But I already have plans for eating yogurt every morning, and that involves individual containers and that involves trash. Oh, the shame! At least I have a lovely collection of plastic bags stowed away in my suitcase. That, however, is a habit I picked up from my lovely, American grandmother.

Hippity-Hop

The exciting inter-city souk bus ride didn’t happen. Nobody likes a girl unwilling to pay full-fare to Agadir even though she’s just going a third of the way to Taliouine, so I pulled a little maneuver we like to call “taxi-hopping”. It’s a delicate science, not unlike baking, of negotiation, proper mixing, and timing.

As I stood next to the dogmatic ticket salesman whose continuous cries of “Agadir, Agadir, Agadir” nearly brought me to tears, I overheard a tourist ask in French if the bus would stop in Taliouine. The dogmatic man replied “Yes, Agadir, Agadir, Agadir, you pay full-fare, Agadir, Agadir, Agadir.” Mr. Tourist promptly turned on his heel to ask another ticket salesman about his destination. Having waited an hour and half already in the hopes that the silly man wouldn’t sell all his tickets I cried (with only the slightest hint of desperation), “Do you speak English?” His lovely wife said, “Yes.”

Anjuli: Is Taliouine your final destination?

Helen: Yes. Are you going there, too?

Anjuli: Yes! Do you want to join me in a taxi? None of these men will sell you a ticket to Taliouine; it’s New Year’s you know.

Helen: Yes, sure, let’s go.

Hallelujah! Helen (actually Surinamese), her husband Jan (actually Dutch, not French) and I went outside to the grand taxi station to negotiate with the kurti, or coordinator/god of all taxi drivers. It’s a powerful position he holds. My fate has been determined by more than one grumpy, toothless kurti who insisted on 150 MAD for a 5 MAD ride. (Hence my clinging to the hope that the bus ticket salesman would relent.) Helen, Jan, and I negotiated a reasonable, though still inflated, price and piled into the backseat of a grand taxi that to the normal eye should hold a total of five passengers, including the driver.

Helen: We go now?

Anjuli: Ummm, no, we have to wait for the other three passengers.

Helen: Where will they sit?

Anjuli: Well, there will be two in the front passenger seat and four of us back here. We can’t leave unless they sell six seats. Hopefully, there won’t be any livestock.

Helen: Livestock?

Anjuli: Yes. If someone didn’t sell his sheep at market, especially because of the recent holiday, we might be joined by a sheep.

Helen: Oh.

Luckily, there were no sheep, and we were joined by three men (one of them blessedly small) who accompanied us to Taznakht. Wait, wasn’t I going to Taliouine? We’re taxi hopping, people! You can’t just go straight to your final destination. That would be a) efficient and b) boring. I know, I know it’s hard to keep all these towns straight (and, yes, they all begin with t’s and, really, they should preferably end in t’s), but bear with me.

When we arrive in Taznakht the six of us are swiftly piled into a station wagon. Ah, room at last. I can knit and eat oranges. Lovely. Oh, wait, no. They add two more men to the taxi, and we are all squished again. After paying the kurti, we watch the driver expectantly. The car is running, he is behind the wheel and he has even shifted into first gear. We’re on our way! Oh, wait, no. He needs to adjust the bags in the trunk. He returns to the driver’s seat and we begin our journey. Oh, wait, no. We only traveled about 5 feet. The driver kills the engine and gets out of the car. He returns with a jug of water and opens the hood. This is reassuring. I love a taxi driver that maintains his car. Finally, he gets behind the wheel, turns on the car, and we actually drive all the way to Taliouine, with only one teensy stop to pick up a suitcase from three children at a gas station on the side of the road. I didn’t ask what was inside.

In Taliouine I left Helen and Jan to join Anny and Matthew, my fellow volunteers and dear friends, who had arrived some time before me, having taken just one taxi from the opposite direction. Taliouine is famous for it’s saffron. It’s one of the only places in the world where it grows in large amounts and there is a huge farming cooperative just outside of the town. It takes about 200 flowers to generate just one gram of the stuff.

We didn’t see any of it. (Harvesting ended in November.) Instead, we spent the entire weekend talking, and reminding ourselves that we’re not crazy; we’re just products of our culture. (Yes, we’ve totally internalized Peace Corps training, but at least we’re aware of it, right?) It had been about a month since I had seen them, and I have to say they looked better than before. We’re all obviously sleeping more and eating better than we did during training. Matthew is learning the fine art of leather making (it involves pigeon poop) and Anny is exploring the world of underground goat cheese-making (goats climb trees here, so I’m not sure how she herds them together).

We also did some hiking (actually the German, wandern is more descriptive of what we did) around Taliouine. We forded a river, climbed a mountain, discovered Roman ruins, and drank tea with a nice lady that was so shocked that I spoke Tashlheit she almost dropped her baby boy. We also went to an amusement park, which had a rickety old Ferris wheel that I would love to tell you I was brave enough to ride. But I wasn’t. I’m afraid of heights. I did eat fried food, though, and we all know that that’s what amusement parks are really all about. Then we went back to our hotel room, watched Center Stage, which I’d never seen before, started Gone With the Wind, and then fell asleep as a happy little family. This is how I celebrated the coming the New Year.

Taliouine is officially my new second favorite sleepy little town, after my site, (codename: T-Toot) of course. It’s a little crazy to think that I’ve been in Morocco for nearly five months, and that it’s next year already. I wish you all the best in 2008. Leap years are always tons of fun. Make the most of that extra day!