Ready to come home

December 9

2:30pm

It’s difficult being here in Morocco now because there is nothing left for me to do. I’ve never done well with idle time, as is evidenced by my non-stop American lifestyle, driving from one job to the next, to meeting, to rehearsals, to dinners and coffee shops with friends. I don’t like to stop moving. When I do, I become despondent. Such is how I feel now. I feel fat and lazy because all there is to do is sit in my hotel room and read a book. And type. And listen to music. I have done way too much of all of those things in the past month. I am ready to come home.

I want to practice piano. I want to go and spend hours at the gym, lifting and lifting and running and running until all my muscles give out in sweet blissful exhaustion. Then I’d go home and curl up and read a book, confident in the knowledge that I had done some good for my body and now could justify doing something good for my mind and intellect. I can’t wait to put on my dance shoes and beat my body into submission, forcing it to jump high and stretch far and point with unbeatable accuracy. I’m afraid of what my dancing will be when I get home. I might not watch myself for weeks — watching myself dance has always put a halt to any aspirations I have to actually be good again. Every day I’ll run for miles, stretch and practice piano, then trudge down the steps to the basement or drive across town to one of my students’ studios to dance. I need to dance. I’m itching to dance. I want to get the hell out of Morocco.

At this moment, though, I am actively trying to convince myself of the importance of these last few days here. I could finish The Poisonwood Bible, although I probably won’t, because it makes me depressed and want to leave here even more. I can go to the internet café and research Patrice Lumumba and Zaire, the former the first prime minister of the Republic of Congo, and the latter the former name of the current Democratic Republic of Congo. The only importance Zaire held for me as a child was that it was one of the cool countries because it’s name started with a Z. The name changed, and then I had to learn the mouthful “Democratic Republic of Congo”. I still have no idea how the change occurred — what political and social strife the country may have undergone in this supposed move to independence. So now I feel stupid and ignorant and I’m going to find out whatever happened to Zaire. I am ethically obligated to do so.

As I am ethically obligated to do a great deal many things when I get home. To say a great many things to a great number of uninterested people. That there exists a people here in Morocco who have been here since the beginning of time, a people who are stripped of recognition and rights by the Arabs. A people who wish to proclaim to the world that Morocco is not an Arab, Islamic country, but that over half the population is Amazigh. That the Arabs are ethno-centric and racist, that the original people of Morocco live with daily discrimination. This is something I need to say.

And I also should comment on gender relations in this country, on the difficulty of being a young, foreign and painfully blonde woman. This is what I’m most happy to leave — the oppressive and constant attention I get just for looking the way I do. I can’t wait to get home and blend into the background of my generally monochromatic life. America is too white, which is obnoxious because of fabricated politics of race and white superiority = complete bullshit, but which is partially why I’ve loved Morocco. Morocco is beautiful because of its wide and varied spectrum. But I’ve never fit into that spectrum and never will, and now I feel that my whiteness is oppressive and a burden. Even if I had worn a hijab or burkah, my skin and eyes would have given me away as something different. I don’t fit into Morocco’s spectrum. I’ll be glad to be home and to forget that I was remarkable.

It’s appropriate now to place a caveat at the end of this piece, because any American reading this who has not experienced Morocco or does not know how it is that I experienced it may well walk away thinking that Morocco is the last place in the world one might want to visit. This is not true. I love Morocco. I have friends in Morocco. I feel entitled to complain about Morocco because I, for three months, endeavored in earnest to make myself a part of Morocco. And I think I succeeded, to some small extent. I can exchange pleasantries, haggle in the marketplace, reserve rooms in hotels, talk about myself, my beliefs, where I’m from, where I live, and what I do. I made friends with taxi drivers, became a regular at a few cafes, went out at nights with Moroccan friends and was invited to several homes for couscous. I’m frustrated at my general inability to converse at great length in the dialects of this country, but I am returning home with Moroccan and Standard Arabic textbooks under my arms. I will, one day, return. Perhaps for a lengthy period of time, perhaps just to travel. Either way, I will be able to communicate with the people of this land. It is my goal.

I love Morocco... I’m just ready to come home and get back to life. There is so much to do, I’m stressing about it already, because I’m not doing it. I need to be home, and doing. But more than that, I need to learn to be patient and live in the moment and enjoy where I am, whenever I am. To a small degree, I have improved upon those anxious parts of my personality while I’ve been gone. But really, people never change the fundamental parts of themselves. I’ve worked to control and overcome certain disagreeable parts of my self, but even after three months abroad, I’m still me. Only now, I can say a few things in Arabic and have eaten enough Moroccan cuisine for a lifetime.

I’m getting off my bum and heading to Hilton Park in about an hour to do some long distance running. Maybe today I’ll push past my maximum of six miles. Smile. I can say that, too. In Morocco, I learned to run. I loved to run. I ran dozens of miles, hundreds of meters.