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.
Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts
July 29, 2008
January 20, 2008
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.
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.
December 14, 2007
Kiss and Tell
Birthdays are always a little trying for me. There’s the pressure to celebrate, to appear popular in some way. There’s the constant distance between my family and me. And in the past there was always the fear of an unwanted phone call from my estranged father - a guaranteed argument and tears all around.
On the other hand my family does an amazing job at making me feel quite special. Phone calls, cards, presents, and expressions of love are in abundance every 14th of December. My mother makes a point of calling me as near to 9:29 AM PST as possible, simply because that’s the time at which I was born.
Traditionally, birthdays are not celebrated in Morocco. Indeed, many people don’t even know when their birthdays fall. It’s a hallmark of our individualist culture that we expect to celebrate the birth of a single, normal person.
Needless to say today was rough. I missed home all the more, and waiting until 5:29 PM GMT to talk to my Mom seemed unbearable this morning, as I sat knitting a hat and trying to do yoga in a culturally appropriate manner. (Impossible. Bending over and sticking your butt in the air is never culturally appropriate, but for some reason it’s OK to do on the roof in full view of the entire community . . .)
Things started looking up at lunchtime, when I learned how to eat cous-cous (sksou in Tashlheit) with my hands. I know it seems impossible, but really it’s not. It’s just really messy and involves having fewer qualms about messiness than I have. This new technique caused me to eat much slower than usual (it’s possible), but my host sister, Habiba, was so excited to see me try it that it lifted my spirits - emotional eating at its best.
Later I went into Oz to check my mail (walu) and my email (bzzef). And there were tons of well wishes from all of you! Thank you! Not only do I have the best family in the world but also I have an amazing group of friends back home. I don’t know what I would do without your support.
On my way home, my Mom called, which made me feel tons better. After we finished talking, I entered the communal fields and ran into three little girls that are friends with my host niece, Ikram. We greeted in the normal way by grasping hands and kissing on the cheek. Then I greeted their mothers, whom I had never met before, in the same way. It was one of those rare moments when you treasure something totally mundane. I must give and receive dozens of kisses everyday, but these were special somehow. Maybe it was because we weren’t in a home (where it’s mandatory to greet this way) or because the girls were so happy to see me. I’m a complete stranger to this community. All they know is that some crazy American wants to learn Tashlheit and ask them lots of questions about household goods. But in those brief moments, and as I overheard the girls explaining who I was, I felt like I had connected with my community in some small way. Not a bad birthday present.
On the other hand my family does an amazing job at making me feel quite special. Phone calls, cards, presents, and expressions of love are in abundance every 14th of December. My mother makes a point of calling me as near to 9:29 AM PST as possible, simply because that’s the time at which I was born.
Traditionally, birthdays are not celebrated in Morocco. Indeed, many people don’t even know when their birthdays fall. It’s a hallmark of our individualist culture that we expect to celebrate the birth of a single, normal person.
Needless to say today was rough. I missed home all the more, and waiting until 5:29 PM GMT to talk to my Mom seemed unbearable this morning, as I sat knitting a hat and trying to do yoga in a culturally appropriate manner. (Impossible. Bending over and sticking your butt in the air is never culturally appropriate, but for some reason it’s OK to do on the roof in full view of the entire community . . .)
Things started looking up at lunchtime, when I learned how to eat cous-cous (sksou in Tashlheit) with my hands. I know it seems impossible, but really it’s not. It’s just really messy and involves having fewer qualms about messiness than I have. This new technique caused me to eat much slower than usual (it’s possible), but my host sister, Habiba, was so excited to see me try it that it lifted my spirits - emotional eating at its best.
Later I went into Oz to check my mail (walu) and my email (bzzef). And there were tons of well wishes from all of you! Thank you! Not only do I have the best family in the world but also I have an amazing group of friends back home. I don’t know what I would do without your support.
On my way home, my Mom called, which made me feel tons better. After we finished talking, I entered the communal fields and ran into three little girls that are friends with my host niece, Ikram. We greeted in the normal way by grasping hands and kissing on the cheek. Then I greeted their mothers, whom I had never met before, in the same way. It was one of those rare moments when you treasure something totally mundane. I must give and receive dozens of kisses everyday, but these were special somehow. Maybe it was because we weren’t in a home (where it’s mandatory to greet this way) or because the girls were so happy to see me. I’m a complete stranger to this community. All they know is that some crazy American wants to learn Tashlheit and ask them lots of questions about household goods. But in those brief moments, and as I overheard the girls explaining who I was, I felt like I had connected with my community in some small way. Not a bad birthday present.
October 31, 2007
Day by Day
This is probably the first time in my life that I’ve been content to take life one day at a time. Most of my control-freakiness has been (almost) entirely swept away by the simple fact that everything is out of my control! I don’t get to choose where I live or what my projects are, and I don’t have nearly enough knowledge to make an informed decision about those things anyway!
Here’s the dry version: We split our time between two communities, a large city we refer to as our Seminar-Based
Training (SBT) site, and a tiny town we refer to as our Community-Based Training (CBT) site. The vast majority of our time is spent at CBT, where a group of six of us spend mornings learning language, and afternoons interviewing our artisan and formulating action plans. Right now I'm working on a product development project, to help our artisan make picture frames that are more appealing to Western tourists (see left). At night we go home to individual host families in order to practice our language further and get a bit of sleep. At SBT all thirty-eight of us live in one place, and attend seminars on health, security and technical training for ten hours a day.
Here’s the fun version!: Imagine everything I described above with a lot of crazy tangents thrown in! We eat candy for breakfast! I'm not kidding! Our current passion is learning the Michael Jackson Thriller dance. I’m not kidding. We’re pretty good. Beat It is next. We also spend a lot of time killing flies, avoiding wasps, recounting dreams, eating candy bars, and listening to Christmas music (Mariah Carey’s cover of All I Want for Christmas is You in particular).
Right now I’m also a little worried about my family. Due to the catastrophic fires in Southern California my aunt and uncle were evacuated from San Elijo Hills, which is near Carlsbad in northern San Diego. They are safe and sound at their best friends’ house in Orange County, but I didn’t find out until a couple days ago. My mom and grandma are safe and sound because they’re nearer to the coast and closer to the city proper. My cousins east of L.A. are also safe, according to the last news I received. But there are also hundreds of thousands of people who are scared and displaced, and many who have lost so much. My heart goes out to my hometown. Thanks to everyone who inquired about my family. I’m so isolated here that I actually wouldn’t have known about the fires if you all hadn’t shown your concern. Shukran bzzaf! And lots of love, too.
Here’s the dry version: We split our time between two communities, a large city we refer to as our Seminar-Based
Training (SBT) site, and a tiny town we refer to as our Community-Based Training (CBT) site. The vast majority of our time is spent at CBT, where a group of six of us spend mornings learning language, and afternoons interviewing our artisan and formulating action plans. Right now I'm working on a product development project, to help our artisan make picture frames that are more appealing to Western tourists (see left). At night we go home to individual host families in order to practice our language further and get a bit of sleep. At SBT all thirty-eight of us live in one place, and attend seminars on health, security and technical training for ten hours a day.Here’s the fun version!: Imagine everything I described above with a lot of crazy tangents thrown in! We eat candy for breakfast! I'm not kidding! Our current passion is learning the Michael Jackson Thriller dance. I’m not kidding. We’re pretty good. Beat It is next. We also spend a lot of time killing flies, avoiding wasps, recounting dreams, eating candy bars, and listening to Christmas music (Mariah Carey’s cover of All I Want for Christmas is You in particular).
Right now I’m also a little worried about my family. Due to the catastrophic fires in Southern California my aunt and uncle were evacuated from San Elijo Hills, which is near Carlsbad in northern San Diego. They are safe and sound at their best friends’ house in Orange County, but I didn’t find out until a couple days ago. My mom and grandma are safe and sound because they’re nearer to the coast and closer to the city proper. My cousins east of L.A. are also safe, according to the last news I received. But there are also hundreds of thousands of people who are scared and displaced, and many who have lost so much. My heart goes out to my hometown. Thanks to everyone who inquired about my family. I’m so isolated here that I actually wouldn’t have known about the fires if you all hadn’t shown your concern. Shukran bzzaf! And lots of love, too.
August 21, 2007
Family Holidays
My grandmother’s birthday is a lot like a national holiday. People stay home from work, plan elaborate celebrations and experience a general feeling of warmth and happiness. That’s just the kind of woman she is. Yesterday she turned seventy, which is actually an appropriate “grandma age”. People always say that she is a “young grandma” like it’s odd to have a grandmother that works full-time, drinks Wild Turkey, keeps me out until 3 AM and insists on going to Disneyland at least twice a year.
Her youth-in age and spirit-has been a tremendous blessing in my life. And as I prepare to leave home yet again, I’m reflecting more and more on how my family has shaped me. As the matriarch, Grandma has set an incredible example of how to blend affection with resilience and perseverance. I hope that I can reflect those attributes to my new friends and colleagues in Morocco over the next two years.
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