Although it was warm today (in the 60s), the weather remains cold. Thanks to the meat thermometer sent to me for Christmas I have been able to see just how cold it actually has been getting. I always want to sound tough when it comes to cold, but the temperatures rarely are as low as they feel. There have been a number of frosty mornings, but generally the coldest it gets is in the mid 40s. For those trying to survive the Minnesota winter, I know that you are probably longing for these sorts of balmy days, but hear me out on this (I still want to redeem my reputation of being able to withstand cold). It is almost always at least 5 degrees colder inside than out. There isn’t much chance of escaping it. It is everywhere and we do everything we normally would do, like typing this blog, in it. It’s a bit like going camping for 4 months in late fall.
After three weeks of vacation, life is starting to swing back into normalcy. I have gone back to sitting at the cafes hoping for the spark that will bring a random conversation into a full-blown fire of learning. I’m back to hazy meetings with people, after which I’m lucky to have understood half of what was said and done. Back to running in the mornings and not eating chocolate and drinking beer every day. Normalcy is nice and its easy to wrap myself back up in the comfort of it, but I’m now coming to grips with just how little I have gotten done here under its allure.
Every 3 months, each Peace Corps volunteer is supposed to fill out a report describing all work related activities done within the previous reporting period. It was easy to pass the first one off as a freebee. We had been in site for only a couple of months, and I was happy to report that I had not yet done anything of great significance. This second one felt different though. It forced me to rack my brain in pursuit of the smallest, most obscure memories of activities that I could possibly shape to seem like active work. Endless meetings and café bullshitting unfortunately don’t count.
Put into perspective, its not surprising or all that disappointing that I have done so little, but its easy to get lost in the success of others and feel below par compared with them. I know that comparison is a frivolous pursuit without end, but I suppose it is human nature. I have been doing it since I was a kid. When I got an A and someone else got an A+, I wasn’t happy. The competitive spirit seems never to have left me, and as a result I am left feeling behind and lacking.
As it did when I didn’t get the A+ and the other kid did, the perceived lack of success has materialized a new resolve to be more persistant and ambitious. I hope that, as a result, it will ignite the same feelings in the people I am trying to work with. Most of the projects’ successes depend on the success of the local people leading them, and, in turn, my success in this area is entirely dependent on it too.
My biggest fear is not that I wont finish a successful project. I won't have a problem if that happens, because, as I said, so much is independent of me and my own ambition. I came here, in part, to work as hard as I can, not only to help those I'm working with to be successful, but also to help myself be successful. And confident. In order for those things to happen I have to know that I am working as hard as I can. I am through with the sit-back-and-wait approach. It's time for some action!
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
Christmas in Morocco
I suppose everyone has a memory of their first Christmas away from home and family. They remember where they were and what reason it was that resuluted in their being away. I imagine for some, it was a welcome change and for others sort of, well, devastating. For me it was neither. But it was strange.
In the weeks leading up to Christmas I took comfort in the thought that almost everyone, at some point in their life, for whatever reason, has to venture off on their own, even on a holiday deeply rooted in home and family. I took greater comfort in knowing that everyone who joins Peace Corps signs up to make these sorts of sacrifices.
Normally, by no decision of my own, I am forced into a Christmas “mood.” Musac (sp?) in the grocery store, displays at Target, and lights in the streets all draw forth old memories of Christmases past and force me to think about the Christmas present months before the actual day. Without trying, the holiday bears down on you in the States. But that sort of hysteria doesn’t exist in Morocco. At least not for Christmas. No Santas hohohoing their way through city malls. No shivering bell ringers by all department store doors. Nothing to suggest that the holiday exists outside the confines of our Western, Christian culture.
While, out of habit more than anything, I felt a slight empty space where all the hype was missing, it was almost refreshing to be away from it. Not to say that I didn’t miss my family and home more than usual (I definitely did), but, for me, it was nice to celebrate simply a holiday that originally celebrated the significant, but simple birth of Jesus, and later became a holiday for simple reunification of family and friends. While I didn’t have my blood family with me here, I did have some of my Peace Corps family. With them Christmas was everything it should be: simple, gratifying, and fun.
Many of my Peace Corps “family” went home for the holidays, but I was lucky to coax my neighbor, Socorra and another friend from the other side of Morocco, Isabel into joining me in Tafoghalt to celebrate the day. It was probably the plane tickets for the flight to Belgium from the Oujda airport more than my coaxing that actually brought them this way, but oh well. Anyway, to make up for the lack of Christmas spirit preparation, from the moment they arrived to the moment we left for Brussels, we spent almost all our time locked up inside; our Christmas stronghold against the indifference of the Moroccans outside. With some decorations, a few presents, and shared memories and some traditional foods of past Christmases we bolstered (in my opinion) a respectable amount of “cheer.”
If Christmas was a downsize of what I am accustomed to, New Years was quiet the opposite. The morning of the 26th we left Tafoghalt by taxi to make our way to the Oujda airport, all fostering doubts that the snowstorm in Europe and the general standard of Moroccan transport would allow us to make it successfully to Brussels.
We were forced to depart from the plan even before we got to the airport when the souk bus driver, thinking, as we did that the airport that had been in use for years was the one we were flying out of, dropped us off at that airport. As soon as the trailing exhaust of the bus cleared enough for us to see, we could all sense the eerie stillness of a recently abandoned place. The parking lot was empty, there was no bustle, and the few cars that we saw coming in we soon saw leaving again. Despite these omens, we continued walking from the highway where we had been dropped off to the front doors of the airport. Not until we got there were we informed by a nearby group of lazing gendarmes that this was now the “old” airport and that the new one about a mile and half away was now open. Oh, and no we couldn’t take the shortcut. They of course were too busy to help us further, so we started the long trek to the “new” airport by foot, sticking out our thumbs whenever a car happened by. As luck had it, we finally approached a guy sitting in his car (for the sake of PC it was an official taxi) on the side of the road, who without hesitation took us the rest of the way to the airport. Oh Morocco.
By the providence of God or Allah or whoever, we made it to Brussels with no further hassles aside from a flight delay, and on arriving we were fortunate enough to find our other companion from Fes and have Isabel’s distant uncle pick us up from the airport and take us directly back to his apartment. As it turned out, despite it being his and very nice, he didn’t actually spend many nights there so it was all ours for the week. So after a brief introduction and inauguration into Belgian beers and a tour of the place, he left us alone to our Belgian adventure.
One day we visited one of Belgium’s oldest and most traditional breweries, but, in large, we spent most of the week just wandering around, checking out museums and shops, and eating waffles and drinking beer whenever the whim took hold of us.
Towards the end of the week, after an almost devastating mix-up, my friend from home, Megan, joined us for New Years Eve and Day. No description of these last couple days is necessary. In the end, after having to pay Ryan Air 80 Euros for two forgotten pieces of printer paper (a lovely sendoff), we made it back to Morocco. I was expecting a sort of bitter departing from Europe and an even more bitter return to Moroccan life, but the opposite actually materialized. The 80 Euro fee was one last reminder that, although it is the culture that I am most comfortable with, we in the west let ourselves focus way too much on profit and business. We forget to treat humans like fellow humans. It is one of the most important lessons that Moroccans have been teaching me over the last year. As a culture they live life with a certain amount of pride and selfless humanity that we, in the west, seem to be losing to the pursuit of success and profit. At no time since I have been here has that been clearer than when I came back from Brussels. It’s good to be back!
In the weeks leading up to Christmas I took comfort in the thought that almost everyone, at some point in their life, for whatever reason, has to venture off on their own, even on a holiday deeply rooted in home and family. I took greater comfort in knowing that everyone who joins Peace Corps signs up to make these sorts of sacrifices.
Normally, by no decision of my own, I am forced into a Christmas “mood.” Musac (sp?) in the grocery store, displays at Target, and lights in the streets all draw forth old memories of Christmases past and force me to think about the Christmas present months before the actual day. Without trying, the holiday bears down on you in the States. But that sort of hysteria doesn’t exist in Morocco. At least not for Christmas. No Santas hohohoing their way through city malls. No shivering bell ringers by all department store doors. Nothing to suggest that the holiday exists outside the confines of our Western, Christian culture.
While, out of habit more than anything, I felt a slight empty space where all the hype was missing, it was almost refreshing to be away from it. Not to say that I didn’t miss my family and home more than usual (I definitely did), but, for me, it was nice to celebrate simply a holiday that originally celebrated the significant, but simple birth of Jesus, and later became a holiday for simple reunification of family and friends. While I didn’t have my blood family with me here, I did have some of my Peace Corps family. With them Christmas was everything it should be: simple, gratifying, and fun.
Many of my Peace Corps “family” went home for the holidays, but I was lucky to coax my neighbor, Socorra and another friend from the other side of Morocco, Isabel into joining me in Tafoghalt to celebrate the day. It was probably the plane tickets for the flight to Belgium from the Oujda airport more than my coaxing that actually brought them this way, but oh well. Anyway, to make up for the lack of Christmas spirit preparation, from the moment they arrived to the moment we left for Brussels, we spent almost all our time locked up inside; our Christmas stronghold against the indifference of the Moroccans outside. With some decorations, a few presents, and shared memories and some traditional foods of past Christmases we bolstered (in my opinion) a respectable amount of “cheer.”
If Christmas was a downsize of what I am accustomed to, New Years was quiet the opposite. The morning of the 26th we left Tafoghalt by taxi to make our way to the Oujda airport, all fostering doubts that the snowstorm in Europe and the general standard of Moroccan transport would allow us to make it successfully to Brussels.
We were forced to depart from the plan even before we got to the airport when the souk bus driver, thinking, as we did that the airport that had been in use for years was the one we were flying out of, dropped us off at that airport. As soon as the trailing exhaust of the bus cleared enough for us to see, we could all sense the eerie stillness of a recently abandoned place. The parking lot was empty, there was no bustle, and the few cars that we saw coming in we soon saw leaving again. Despite these omens, we continued walking from the highway where we had been dropped off to the front doors of the airport. Not until we got there were we informed by a nearby group of lazing gendarmes that this was now the “old” airport and that the new one about a mile and half away was now open. Oh, and no we couldn’t take the shortcut. They of course were too busy to help us further, so we started the long trek to the “new” airport by foot, sticking out our thumbs whenever a car happened by. As luck had it, we finally approached a guy sitting in his car (for the sake of PC it was an official taxi) on the side of the road, who without hesitation took us the rest of the way to the airport. Oh Morocco.
By the providence of God or Allah or whoever, we made it to Brussels with no further hassles aside from a flight delay, and on arriving we were fortunate enough to find our other companion from Fes and have Isabel’s distant uncle pick us up from the airport and take us directly back to his apartment. As it turned out, despite it being his and very nice, he didn’t actually spend many nights there so it was all ours for the week. So after a brief introduction and inauguration into Belgian beers and a tour of the place, he left us alone to our Belgian adventure.
One day we visited one of Belgium’s oldest and most traditional breweries, but, in large, we spent most of the week just wandering around, checking out museums and shops, and eating waffles and drinking beer whenever the whim took hold of us.
Towards the end of the week, after an almost devastating mix-up, my friend from home, Megan, joined us for New Years Eve and Day. No description of these last couple days is necessary. In the end, after having to pay Ryan Air 80 Euros for two forgotten pieces of printer paper (a lovely sendoff), we made it back to Morocco. I was expecting a sort of bitter departing from Europe and an even more bitter return to Moroccan life, but the opposite actually materialized. The 80 Euro fee was one last reminder that, although it is the culture that I am most comfortable with, we in the west let ourselves focus way too much on profit and business. We forget to treat humans like fellow humans. It is one of the most important lessons that Moroccans have been teaching me over the last year. As a culture they live life with a certain amount of pride and selfless humanity that we, in the west, seem to be losing to the pursuit of success and profit. At no time since I have been here has that been clearer than when I came back from Brussels. It’s good to be back!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)