Deep Thoughts, Why Rain is Sometimes Awesome and a Swashbuckling Adventure

Typed December 14

I sit through a lot of events where I don’t really understand what’s going on. Apparently you can’t learn a language in three months, no matter how hard you try. Anyway, as if my mind didn’t already wander enough, it wanders even more when everyone around me is speaking very quickly and passionately in Darija. Some things I was thinking about:

I don’t totally agree with Jim regarding his lyrical choices in “People are Strange,” even though it’s one of my very favorite songs. Yes, people are strange when you’re a stranger and yes, faces look ugly when you’re alone. I don’t really know about women seeming wicked when you’re unwanted, but I’m totally with him on the bit about streets being uneven when you’re down. My ability to trip and the amount of crabbiness I’m experiencing at a given moment are directly related.

Jim and I schism at “when you’re strange, no one remembers your name, when you’re strange.” I totally disagree. Everyone in this freaking town knows my name. This morning I was stopped by three people who called out my name, only one of whom I recognized. Everyone knows my name and everyone knows my business. Yesterday I went out of town and the police called twice, once to verify my itinerary and a second time to see if I came home. If you do a ‘man on the street’ style interview and ask where the American is, I bet you a million dollars he’ll know.

Anyway.

The other thing I was thinking about was a tip my dad gave me once when I was trying to get into running (fail). He’s kind of a big deal—ran the Houston marathon in ’96. Ain’t no thang. He told me that runners, over time, learn to rest while jogging. They will run at a steady pace, then when they need a break they don’t stop or even slow to a walk, but jog. I could never really figure out how to do that in running, but I realized that in life I have been doing that for as long as I can remember. And by as long as I can remember I mean since probably high school. I always seem to have a to-do list (in my more neurotic days I had two or three to-do lists varying in levels of urgency) and if I’m not ticking things off of it I feel like I’m not a whole person. Idle time makes me nervous. For instance, today is my day off, and I spent most of it working on uploading photos from an event yesterday—until my internet mutinied—then lesson planning for the week. I run Tuesday through Saturday (dar chebab, meetings, getting things together for my house) and jog Sunday and Monday (lesson plans, studying Darija, organizing paperwork). I’m not comfortable enough here yet to REST rest—read, nap, journal—on a regular basis, which sucks because I read blogs of people in my stage and see that they are chilling out, visiting friends, catching up on their reading. Why can’t I ever come to a complete stop? You’d think after 23 years I would run out of places to jog. Or that I would have more interesting stories to tell by now.

So those are my deep thoughts for the day. Moving on to why rain is sometimes really awesome.

Rain is sometimes really awesome when it’s Monday morning and you don’t work on Mondays and can thus stay warm in your jammies.

Rain is sometimes really awesome when you have a host mom that makes hrsha (Moroccan corn bread) and coffee on mornings when it’s cold and rainy.

Rain is sometimes really awesome when you work at a dar chebab that’s far away from the neighborhood that stampedes of children come from. Muddy streets cut attendance considerably and make the activities much more manageable.

Rain is sometimes really awesome when you have snuggly blankets and work that you can do from your bed.

However, sometimes rain is not really awesome. Times when rain is not really awesome are:

When you live in a house with a big skylight, and the method of keeping rain out is covering the skylight with an old piece of metal with some holes in it.

When your bedroom window doesn’t close all the way.

When you are walking somewhere and get stopped by a creepy man who helped Peace Corps find your homestay family and now thinks he’s going to be given your hand in marriage as a thank you gift.

When your boots don’t have good traction in mud and every step may be your last.

Finally, a swift recounting of a swashbuckling adventure. I should mention no swordplay was involved, but at times I felt like it would be cool if everyone was speaking Pirate instead of Darija, which that’s why I use the term “swashbuckling.”

At dawn, I crammed into a rickety white van with my two counterparts and thirteen kids from dar chebab in order to go to a seminar on youth leadership and give a presentation about their group activities. The van safely seated maybe 8-10 people. No big deal, we had some minors sitting on plastic stools in the back, next to the back door that didn’t close all the way. Nothing to worry about, especially since no one’s parents signed any sort of waiver allowing their children to take this method of transportation. Yes, I was the picture of calm.

A cultural lesson: Moroccan youth, especially boys, like to bang drums and sing songs on road trips, even when it’s very early in the morning, their chaperone has not had any coffee yet, and the van has a tendency to break down frequently on windy mountain paths that make you think Gollum will pop out at any moment.

Hamdullah, we arrived safely (and on time!) at the seminar. We breakfasted on glorious coffee and baguettes then got started with some icebreaker games. One that I had never played before involved everyone taking off a shoe and putting it in the center of a circle. Then one by one each person had to pick a shoe and describe the person who wears it. It was really fun, and I’m glad my shoe got picked pretty early because I wanted it back (it was freezing).

The kids did a really great job presenting their activities. They had a slide show of photos set to music and even dimmed the lights for effect. Each one rehearsed his or her part and no one goofed off. I was very proud, even though I can’t claim credit for any of it, having only been in site a month.

Finished off the event with tea, cookies and a music circle. I got to show off my moves (read: was coerced into showing off my moves) and it occurred to me that dancing isn’t necessarily shameful in Morocco as long as the dancer feels humiliated and self-conscious the whole time. That’s probably why people don’t drink here.

The ride back home was much like the ride away from it, except this time one of my counterparts started singing “Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely” by the Backstreet Boys and everyone was totally shocked I didn’t know any of the words.

I think that’s enough for now…if I find myself thinking deeply again I’ll let you know.