The Whole Story - Part 2 of 3

The Middle

Soon after the party, Mohamed went back to the capital (a 14 hour bus ride away) and I officially moved into my own apartment. Life on my own was great and having Mohamed made it even better. In an odd way, being long distance was the perfect scenario.

hanging out in the capital

With PC headquarters also in the capital, I had to go there for medical visits, training sessions and other random activities. These events were all opportunities for me to see Mohamed and when I was there he was my tour guide. We spent days walking the city. It was freeing to be in a place where I didn’t know anyone and didn’t have to worry about people seeing us together. We could hold hands and go to cafes. We visited all of the main attractions and explored all of the places tourists would never go. I had an insider view of the city and loved every second of it.

Seeing the sights

When we weren’t out and about in the city, we were at Mohamed’s hanut (general store). When he was 11 years old, his family sent him to the capital in search of better opportunities. His uncles had a few stores and he moved in with them to learn the business. Soon after I met him, he opened a store on his own (he now has two!). His brother worked with him, but hours in the hanut business are long. He generally works from 7 am to 11 pm and is sometimes lucky enough to get a nap in the afternoon. When I was in town, I’d bring a book or my journal and occasionally reorganize snack cakes. The best part of life in the hanut was all of the delicious food that Mohamed would make for me. He’s an outstanding cook- even with just one pan and a tiny gas stove. I was spoiled.

Me in Mohamed's newest hanut

Since his family lived near my town, he also had a perfectly legitimate excuse to visit a few times per year. Being so sporadic, the sneaking around was minimal and we managed to be together without anyone in town finding out. I lived on the opposite side of town from my host family and the friends I hung out with, so there was never a chance of an unexpected visitor. I also lived in a building with three apartments, so as long as we didn’t go in or out of the building together, no one in town suspected a thing. It was almost as though the stars were perfectly aligned in our favor.
Mohamed hanging out with my host family

Hiking near my town

Being linked by my host family, I was even able to visit Mohamed’s village and meet his family on a few occasions. He has a great family. His mom, Khadija manages the household in the village while his dad works for a major tea producer in Casa- he spent most of his time away only returning for visits a few times per year. He also has three sisters- Fatima and Rkia (older) and Naima (younger). When I met them, all three were single living with their mother in the village, but two are now married and have small children. His two brothers are both younger and work with Mohamed in his stores.

Mohamed's youngest sister Naima at her wedding

When we weren’t together, we spent our time texting. Sometimes 30 messages in a day, but they were significantly cheaper than making calls. A text based relationship seems odd, but even so he was able to help me with my language skills and it never seemed like he was very far away. Knowing he was there got me through many difficult times and I’m not sure that I would have survived the full two years without Mohamed.

Thanks for everyone’s patience—Part three will be out soon!

and time whirls on

it's saturday afternoon and i'm lounging on my balcony enjoying the sunshine of the beautiful afternoon. i'm sitting on my gorgeous world market patio furniture. writing this on my sweet new work laptop. "stealing" the internet of an unknown stranger who hasn't secured his network.

my, how life has changed. this blog was created to share my experiences of life as a PC volunteer, but in an attempt to do more writing i'm thinking of transitioning it to a blog of all purposes. i don't know if anyone out there is still reading this, but let's give it a whirl!

my last post was way back in february and i was in the midst of a tumultuous job search. i was also still struggling with the transition back to life in america and i'm happy to report good news on both fronts. I accepted a job in Madison, Wisconsin and have been there for two months already. i'm going to save myself the trouble of mentioning the name of my new employer so that i can be free to speak candidly in the future.

For now i'm happy with the job and am looking forward to completing training and getting out there with a real project. keeping my fingers crossed to be assigned a client in a warm, sunny location as i will be traveling back and forth for the next year or so.

Madison is a very nice city. a medium sized college town with lots of restaurant diversity and constant things to do. i live next to the biggest park in town! with the weather growing nicer each day, i'm looking forward to getting out for some real exploration. any visitors are more than welcome!

i still miss the simplicity and routine of life in morocco. in the beginning it seemed boring, but i learned to entertain myself and quickly came to love and be comforted by the daily routine.

get up around 10
eat breakfast, clean, listen to the tv as i got ready for my day
an hour at the internet cafe
visit the home of one of my favorite women, help her finish lunch and eat with the family
teach women's english class
home for an hour to relax and prepare for my youth classes
go to the dar chebab to teach and hang out with my students
make dinner
watch tv
20 minutes of reading and off to sleep

ok, so that was just my wednesday/friday routine, but i think you get the idea. i was so relaxed, so non-stressed. nothing was too pressing, everything could be missed if need be. i didn't need to tell anyone i was coming for lunch, just to show up. it was glorious and now that it's over, i feel badly for not appreciating it more at the time.

i miss couscous on fridays. i miss wearing my glasses everyday because i had no one to impress. i miss sugary mint tea, lemon cookies and gossip with my best friends. i miss looking forward to a night with an american in the big city.

but america certainly has its perks. i no longer feel eyes all over me as i walk down the street. here i get to eat raisin bran crunch every morning and can eat salsa without having spent 30 minutes to make it. i can go out for a beer at any time, with any one. my friends and family are within a much shorter reach. target. i really love target.

my focus right now is on setting new routines for this new working woman life.

each life with it's own pros and cons, but honestly i'm still undecided as to which i prefer. am i meant to live out my days leisurely on the moroccan coast? or to rise to the top of the american workforce and use my frequent flyer miles to travel the world?

either way for today i'm happy to be enjoying the sunshine on my very own balcony in my very own apartment. stay tuned!

Limbo

My life since leaving PC has, to say the least, lacked excitement.

When I got back from Turkey I was exhausted and travel worn. In less than a week i suffered four flights (two of them international), a night in the Philadelphia International airport, and precious little sleep. I had nothing but dirty clothes and am proud to say that I actually threw away a pair of jeans in the bathroom of a thai restaurant in NYC. I had 11 pairs of underwear for 20 days of travel.

It was awful and thrilling. I couldn't wait for it to be over, but I thrived on the excitement and secretly didn't want it to end. I was tough. I was cool. life was exciting.

Then I went to Texas. Many people wondered why and to answer this question once and for all, I went to visit my mom, stepdad and brother who moved there a year into my Peace Corps service. My sister and her boyfriend went as well, and we spent a glorious week baking, sleeping and gorging ourselves on delicious foods. I felt more gluttonous than i had in years, literally.

Once my sister left, life slowed down to a snail's pace. I slept late and went to bed early. I watched the entire 2nd and 3rd seasons of lost, as well as hours and hours of Project Runway. I left the house only when I had to. Eventually i started jogging everday and was happy to be doing at least one thing each day.

oh, and the job search began. Once I finally forced myself to start this miserable process, i went at it like a feind. Within a week and a half I submitted 30+ resumes and thought I was on a roll. But the calls didn't come. In fact, I was quite shocked at the lack of response. Come on, aren't I a great candidate for a good job? Don't I have skills? and ambition?

Apparently not.

During this period of laziness, I did manage to spend a great New Years in San Antonio, as well as a fabulous night out in Austin. This was good for me because for a while I was actually scared that I would never be interested in things like 'going out' and 'leaving the house.' I was afraid that the person I was during that period was the new me.

Then I hopped back on the airplane and returned to Michigan. As frigid as it is here, i'm happy to report that I am greatly enjoying the snow. I've missed it. I also returned feeling much more like my old self.

I have energy, I desire to leave the house and hang out with real people, I crave for life to start again.

But I have nothing to do! no where to go! No place to unload this new found joie de vivre!

I've been back for three weeks, and the boredom has set in. I've gotten four calls and three interviews out of all the time I spent applying for jobs in Texas. I have no money, no job, and no friends left in the Mason area. I have no car.

For 10 weeks i've been unemployed, sleeping in, and wasting away the hours. 10 weeks is too long. I feel as though i've finally come to the breaking point, and that if i don't get some kind of direction soon, i may just snap. Or move back to Morocco.

Last week I was flown to Madison for an interview. This week I will find out the result of that voyage, and i'm hoping with every ounce of my being that I receive some good news. If I don't, well.....it's back to square one.

And I hate square one.

I miss my my moroccan life. While in my own eyes it was boring at times, in the eyes of the world I was living an exotic life. I spoke in a second language, ate incredible foods and was a world traveler. I made my own wine and had a hidden, exciting relationship. There was always somewhere to go, someone to see. I had little money, yet it was plenty and finances were nothing to stress over.

Now i'm a bum. a freeloader. In a country where i can do anything and be anyone, I can afford to do nothing, and to go nowhere.

My life contains absolutely no excitment.

travels in turkey

After finally and officially leaving Morocco after 27 months of service, you could say it was time for a vacation. I needed some time to adjust to the departure, to miss morocco like crazy, and to really feel ready to come back to the States.

My friend Mandy and I thought that Turkey would be a great place to end our Peace Corps chapter, and begin our new one.


Turkey is a pretty incredible country. It's 99 percent Muslim, but it's secular government creates an entirely different atmosphere. I always thought Morocco was pretty liberal, and in a way it is, but it has nothing on Turkey. In Istanbul especially, you could have convinced me were in in the Middle of Western Europe.


This is me at the Topkapi Palace overlooking the Bosphorus River. Istanbul is located on 3 different banks, and is the bridge between Europe and Asia. It's no wonder this land was so highly sought after throughout history. And you can see remnents from just about every empire somewhere in Istanbul or throughout the country.

In the Grand Bazaar i found the most similarities to Morocco. Merchants yelling for us to buy things and trying to pull us in to their shops. And of course the bargaining. I'd like to thank Morocco for my great skill at this and for the good prices I received here!

This is the front of the Aya Sofia. It was built a Church by the Emporer Justinian (i think) and later converted to a mosque by a Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Now it is a museum and the inside is just as incredible as the outside!



Wow! I've always wanted a Genuine Fake Watch!!





This is a shot of the Blue Mosaue, another incredibly famous building in Istanbul.



Inside the Blue Mosque. This mosque is actually still open for prayer. Tourists wait until after the time of prayer to go in and look around. so beautiful!



This is probably the best meal i ate in Turkey. It was incredibly good! I know what you're thinking, it looks so simple! This was eaten upon our arrival to the beautiful Selcuk in southwest Turkey.



In Selcuk you can find the tomb of St. John located in the ruins of his Basilica. The story goes that after the death of Jesus, St. John and Mary came to the ancient city of Ephesus to spread the gospel. We're pretty convinced that this dog (nicknamed Dudley) is actually the spirit of St. John still around to stand gaurd at the tomb.



These are the ancient ruins of Ephesus. A once thriving city during the Roman and many other empires. It was pretty incredible.



These are the toilets of the ancient city. Apparently they weren't very shy.

This is the incredible well preserved facade of the Library. It's absolutely huge and once held 10,000 scrolls. We took shelter here when it started to downpour.

After the rain we walked to the remains of Mary's church. I have never seen such an incredibly brilliant rainbow in my life.

This is the alter of Mary's church.

This region is called Kapadokya and is located in the center of Turkey. Due to volcanic eruptions, the entire region looks like it could be the moon and people once lived inside the rocks. Our hotel room was a cave built into the side of one.

This structure was once a Monestary. Complete with kitchen, church, and tons of other rooms.

Here we saw the Whirling Dervishes, and some traditional turkish dance.

During my two weeks in Turkey I took over 500 pictures, so obviously this post doesnt do it justice! But I hope you enjoyed a small taste of the incredible things I was lucky to see.

As for now, I'm back in America and ready to enjoy the Holidays with friends and family after missing two during my service. Then the job search really begins and where i'll end up....who knows.

the departure

my last week in taf was insanely busy despite the fact that i stopped working. making the rounds to see all my friends was a bit exhausting and i was constantly on the go with the visits, giving away my stuff, paying bills and more. and of course anytime that i said goodbye to someone, they would say 'but i'll see you again before you go right?' Enchallah [god willing] i would say. but of course it would be impossible to see all of these people again. no one likes goodbyes.

my last 24 hours in town were actually quite boring up until the very end. i thought i would really come full circle by spending the last night at my host family's house. so i said goodbye to my apartment and made my way across town with all of my stuff. the exact opposite of what i did just 22 months prior.

when i arrived, no one was home. awesome. so i went out to the cyber and bought a chicken for the next day's lunch. when i got back the family was there, but there was nothing special about this, my last day. i hung out with khadija and the new baby and everyone else, but i was quite shocked that no one seemed to care or notice that i was leaving!

the following morning was the same, everyone went about their business as usual and i felt a bit lost. i made one more round and said some final goodbyes, and my host sister gave me some very hastily done henna. i played hopscotch with my little host sis and neighbors.

the whole while i was totally uneffected by thoughts of my departure. i thought 'i'm not even going to cry! this is no big deal!' i ate a final snack with some of the family and then it was time for me to make my 6pm bus. i grabbed my stuff with the help of khadija, aicha, tati and neighbor girl noura and we started for the bus.

just about as soon as we left the house i felt a sudden and drastic change within. on the short walk to the bus it was all i could do to hold in my tears. 'i'm leaving....forever' whoa. we were a bit early to the bus, but it was no time at all until i was crying uncontrollably and so were my host sisters. we hugged and kissed and told each other how much we would miss each other. then a bit of calm as we continued to wait. then as it was time to board the flood gates opened again and we repeated the process.

tati [my 9 year old host sis whom i love to death] was having an especially hard time and that of course only made the whole thing more difficult for me. finally i managed to get on the bus and took my seat, still crying as we start to pass through town.

just as we start to leave town, i notice a big black cloud of women on the side of the road. as we pull closer they are all waiving their arms and yelling [of course this is not the usual behavior of a conservative berber woman]. the bus driver thinks maybe someone will be boarding, but i know better as i leap from my seat and sprint to the door.

crying now even more hysterically i jump off the bus and run into the arms of my very best friends. everyone is crying, no one can even speak we just hug and kiss and cry and cry. the bus beeps its horn and i know it's time to go. with a final goodbye i run back to the bus where the other passengers are staring at me as if i'm some sort of alien creature.

it took a good half hour on the bus for me to somewhat recover from this traumatizing departure. and the next 4 hours were spent in reflection of what had just occured.

when i left america in 2005 it was sad. the goodbyes were difficult and i questioned whether i was making the right move. but it was a timed goodbye. a goodbye for two years. a departure that was not permanent, but very short lived in relation to the average life. those goodbyes were a walk in the park.

the goodbyes i said that day were by no means temporary. they were forever goodbyes, and these are significantly more painful. indescribable really, but a bit like a bit of your heart pulled out. this piece will never be replaced. this piece is in morocco.

of course i plan to call and write and visit [and i will], but it will never be the same. i'll never again be living there, just down the road from a cooking lesson or unlimited cups of tea, cookies, and laughter with these incredible people. never again will tati show up unannounced at my door for an afternoon of popcorn and tom and jerry. nope, these are not timed goodbyes.

leaving rabat and my 'boyfriend' mohamed was equally painful, but i dont think i have the energy to go into all that right now.

i spent 27 incredible months in morocco and i'm so greatful for every second.

thank you mohamed, habiba, zaina, fadma, naima, mamass, naima, aicha, hicham, abdelfettah, youness, boubaker, said, dalila, ahmed, hasna, ayoub, nadia, ijou, saida, zahara, all my soccer girls, asma, asma, khadija, khadija, khadija, aicha, mohamed, amina, tati, senna, brahim, noura, houssine, mourad, oumayma, and so many others. you'll always be in my heart.

full circle...an odd experience

Interesting how life interferes and the next thing you know three months have passed. today is the 8th, and i leave for the capital on the 25th. For those of you who struggle with math, that leaves me with only 17 daysl left. 17 days!

This weekend brought my replacement for a visit. Yes, I will be replaced and hopefully all of my time, energy and work was not for naught. Her arrival stirred up all kinds of thoughts and emotions. exactly 2 years ago i too came on my site visit. I was shown around by my predecessor and was generally very excited and overwhelmed to finally see the place where i would live for 2 whole years.

It seems like just yesterday and at the same time so long ago. This time it was my turn to do the showing. I'm sad at the thought of leaving all of my friends and work with someone new, and yet so proud of what i've been able to accomplish and to be able to leave her with so much. On my visit i was able to see and carry-on one activity, and my replacement was able to take part in four. Girls soccer, english classes, youth and women's clubs, and the preschool class at the women's center. She met all of the people she will need to continue these activities and is really excited to begin.

She even plays soccer! The transition from me to her will be a smooth one and i'm really thankful for that. this town just may see sustainability yet!

not only does she inherit a town, but also a bike helmet!

The past two years have been full of ups and downs. depression, loneliness, diarrhea....i've been there. but i can't think of anything more fufilling i could have done with my time. the ups have far outweighed the downs and it's been an incredible learning experience.

I'm thankful for every day, every friend, every cup of mint tea. i'm thankful for the support i've constantly received from everyone at home and for my fellow volunteers who are now lifelong friends. I'm thankful for the laughter, the dancing, even the tears. i'm thankful that i've made it.

As for the future, well it is certainly coming at me at full speed. I've begun the job search and am feeling quite optimistic, but that doesn't make the process any easier. and every moment i spend thinking about the next step, i can't help but feel like i wasting the little time i have left here.

17 days to say goodbye.

boubaker aka 'bob' is one of my best students!

hanging out in the Youth Center

last spring i helped the preschool teaches write a letter requesting toys from an association up north. they came!