November 3

November 3. Village stay
7:00pm
Jesus Christ. It’s November 3.
I’m sitting in a mud/concrete dwelling in rural Morocco with a family with whom I can only marginally communicate, watching some hip hop music video. “I’m Ridin’ Big, Yo”?
I recently returned from peeing outside, where I pissed on my foot. I envision my subconscious causing me to be constipated this week. This is going to be a crazy experience.
I don’t even know when I meet up with my group. And I never would have imagined that I would find refuge in bad punk and rap music videos. Disgusting, but it’s about the only thing of any familiarity right now.

November 4. 2:30pm
I wish I could stop counting down the days until the end of this village stay, and further, to the end of Morocco. I love Morocco as I want to be home, and I am at peace in this hilly village as much as I want to be in a café in Rabat.
That’s a lie. I’d rather be using a toilet instead of peeing on my feet, I’d rather take a shower than have to endure twenty flies crawling all over my body, and I just breathed a sigh of relief when my Baba and his friend Brahim left the room. Now I sit alone with the TV on, with pen in hand and Ayn Rand’s We The Living in my lap. I fear my grandfather will enter the room soon and try to teach me new words. My throat hurts and I don’t want to practice any more “ghrayn’s” and “cha’s” (two Arabic letters that are difficult to pronounce). I want a break.

“The first thing that Kira learned about life and the first thing that her elders learned, dismayed, about Kira, was the joy of being alone.” We the Living, 46

[My aloneness has just ended because all the female members of my family have decided to keep me and the flies company. Here’s to keeping the joy alive...].

LUNCH

I have survived more familial relations, aided by a delicious meal during which I mainly said “zweeyn” (a catch-all term for anything good, or beautiful, or tasty, or delicious) and “mezyaan” (good) and made lots of satisfied runting noises. Those translate well.
Ic an’t wait until the discussion with the village men, when I can chew a piece of Trident Maybe afterwards I can go poo in the dry creek bed with some American friends, and we can congratulate each other on satisfying shits and on returning to the same spot we went poo last time.
My grandfather is watching everything I’m writing ACCCCK
All the funny cultural mistranslations aside, life here is quite nice and comfortable. If only I could find a way not to splash pee on my feet every time I urinate, it would be superb. Alas, the ground is so dry, I think the pee will just keep splashing me and that I will have to get used to it. (Sometimes I wish I was born with a penis).
And to bread. And to athé b’na’na’ (mint tea with a pound of sugar dissolved into it, resulting in a syrupy green liquid I’m supposed to enjoy). Because I will be drinking it, everyday, five times a day. God dammit.
I will be ingesting the same amount of sugar as is found in seven Coca-Colas. Oh well. Such is life.

Goddamn these flies

Later..........
I pooped I’m so excited

8:42 pm
Last night was perhaps the longest of my life. While sleeping, I dreamed an entire week and woke up with a pit in my stomach thinking I was in serious trouble.
In the dream not only had I managed to run away from the rural village, but I had also found Clay. I’m writing this 24 hours after I dreamed all of this, so the finer points of the dream are lost to me. I feel like I found Clay, but perhaps I didn’t find at all? Maybe I just found contact with Kentucky/ I’m not sure. All I know is that while I slept like a rock, my mind was journeying far and wide. I really miss Clay. That’s about all it boils down to.
Today was also the first time I was struck with a genuine feeling of missing Mom. I’ve missed her, but it was only today that my waking mind was flooded with a vision of her. I was meditating on the unfaltering (and almost oppressive) hospitality of Moroccans, and I thought of how Mom always welcomes my friends into the house and feeds them — how she’s an American and modern version of a Moroccan. She doesn’t force feed her guests like Moroccans do, though.
I miss her silly laughter, too. I miss laughing at nonsense with her — especially when Clay appears to find now humor in it whatsoever. That is perhaps the best part of our mother-daughter laughter: that I love it and will continue to love it despite the fact that it’s not funny to anyone else, especially Clay.
While living in the rural village for the rest of this week and trying to find conversation will by no means be easy, I think it will be fine. I pray that I don’t get sick; I’m fighting off my sore throat and runny nose.
The day has ended well, al-Hamdulilah, and that is partly thanks to the fact that Ayn Rand’s We the Living is now “wehzheeb” for “madrasa” (homework for school). I find nothing amiss in telling my family this. It allows me to escape the trials of communication, if only for a short while.
I pray that I never take a toilet, a phone, a computer, a friend, or english for granted again.

“‘Don’t you know,’ her voice trembled suddenly in a passionate plea she could not hide, ‘don’t yo know that there are things, in the best of us, which no outside hand should dare to touch? Things sacred because, and only because, one can say: ‘This is mine’? Don’t you know that we live only for ourselves, the best of us do, those who are worthy of it? Don’t you know that there is something is us which must not be touched by any state, by any collective, by any number of millions?’” (89)

“‘I don’t want to fight for the people, I don’t want to fight against the people, I don’t want to hear of the people. I want to be left alone — to live.’” (90)


“She said ‘no’ to the words he spoke, and ‘yes’ to the voice that spoke them.”
Isn’t that how it always happens...
how is it that we become enchantsed by those who perchance shouldn’t hold such power over us? but they do, and their hold is strong...
and oh, how we love them. and how easy it is to lose ourselves to them.