Tiberias, Night 2

I'm exhausted, along with everyone else on the trip. We did a lot today, in the hot sun.

8:30 am: boat ride across the Sea of Galilee from Tiberias. Dr. Jones, in lieu of a worship service, decided to 'open up' and tell us how it is that he can exist as a religious person and a scholar of religion. It was much enjoyed and appreciated by religion majors and those who have had several religion classes and traveled with Paul, but fell on deaf ears for some of the freshman. Most of us, I think, acknowledged the importance of the words and the fact that he chose to say them. Some freshman unfortunately snoozed off. Oh well. Shane, Logan, David, Andrew Bramblett, myself and several others sat raptly, and emotionally. A few of us cried. After he finished his talk, he requested that we all join hands in a circle and stand in silence.
The circle broke up a few minutes later after "Shalom, salaam, peace", and then our well-intentioned tour boat drivers turned on "Lord, I lift your name on high" and other various praise songs. We all groaned. The music was inappropriate, abrasive, and incongruent with a boat ride across Galilee. Oh well. They meant well. (They had also meant well when they played the Star Spangled Banner upon our entry to the boat. We all had to stand with our hands over our hearts, trying to display the same decorum of the Israeli flag-raiser himself. hmmm......)
We landed near the Kinneseret/Gennosaur Kibbutz with the American flag flying and gospel music blaring. Hallelujah, praise Jesus.

10:00am We visited the "Jesus Boat" museum near the Kinneseret Kibbutz. The boat has been dated to the first century CE, and was discovered in the mud on the shore of Galilee during a drought. After twelve years of meticulous preservation, ít has its own museum, documentary, gift shop, and food vendor. It was really cool. There's no way to know if Jesus ever rode in this boat, so the "Jesus boat" title is more of a tourist gimmick than anything else, but it was still fascinating to learn about the preservation process for such ancient pieces of water-logged wood. Cool.

11:30am This trip is break-neck paced, so we unfortunately didn't get to spend too much time at Capernaum. The site was fascinating, though, with well preserved first and second century homes, and a fourth century white marble synagogue (possibly built on top of an earlier black basalt synagogue that could have stood when Jesus lived, and thus been a synagogue he would have entered while in Capernaum). The best part of the site is a modern octagonal church built on top of and surrounding a 1st century home, which is enclosed by a fourth-century "house church", and fifth century Byzantine church. Because of an inscription found within the house, and the church building tradition that centered on that exact site, scholars can agree that the house was probably the home of the disciple Peter. The "on this rock I will build my church" Peter. It was awesome. We only stayed at the site for about 45 minutes, but David Clifford and I at least wished we could stay much longer.

We took a quick detour to the hotel after Capernaum and picked up Josh Wenta and Kathryn Welch, who had been sick and throwing up earlier. (I think since we entered the Lexington Airport we've had about eight people sick. I don't know if it's contagious or just mass hysteria, but it's spreading).

3:30 We visited the site of Sepphoris, or Zippori. The city was major and large, nearby to the small and backwater Nazareth. Only about 200 people lived in Nazareth in Jesus' time, according to some scholars, so some have proposed that Joseph would have done most of his carpentry work in Sepphoris, and would probably have taken Jesus along to work with him. The city was pretty massive for its day. The homes we saw were huge and extravagant, covered in intricate mosaics and marble. The city also had a large theater, many synagogues, and in the later Christian (Byzantine) years many churches.

I could definitely type and talk more, but my time at the internet cafe is running out and I need to run back to the hotel.


Much love. I'm gonna hopefully get more dancing done before I crash for the night. 6:00am wakeup call tomorrow. Ack.

Tiberias, Israel

Globe-trotting again. We just got in from a day at Caesarea Maritima, Megiddo (from which we saw Mount Carmel, Mount Moreh, Mount Gilboa, and the Samaritan hills), and Nazareth. I had a great meal at the hotel (all the hummus I could stand), and then practiced dance for a while near the elevators on my floor. Two little Israeli boys sat on chairs and watched me dance for about 10 minutes. They kept trying to talk to me and couldn't understand why I didn't speak Hebrew. They giggled a lot.

Best parts of the trip: being able to read Arabic signs. I can't understand all of it, but I can read it. And at the Basilica of the Assumption in Nazareth (grotto church where the angel supposedly appeared to Mary, competing with another site at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Assumption) I could understand a good bit of the Arabic translation on the informational sign near the entrance. Pretty cool. I'm having trouble speaking, because the colloquial is so different, but I can communicate like a 1st grader now, as opposed to a kindergartner.

Wish I knew Hebrew, love the Arabic. And the historical/archaeological sites are incredible. Tomorrow we start on a boat across the Sea of Galilee, and end up in Capernaum, and Sepphoris, a town neighboring Nazareth where Joseph and Jesus probably worked as carpenters.

Tonight several of us are going to pour through the books of Kings and Chronicles to figure out exactly what is said to have happened in the sites we visited. So much to learn.

Having a great time. Love and miss you all.

I've been home for two weeks now...

And I'm happier than a clam.

I'll try to post a "debriefing" on Morocco sometime. I'm busy seeing people and spending time with the loved ones, currently.

For those of you who took the time to read everything I wrote in Morocco---- geeeezzz. Didn't you have anything better to do with your time? Thanks for suffering through all of it: the intestinal difficulties, the tears, the sappy silly stories about the boyfriend. Sorry you had to read a lot of what I wrote. I didn't know I had many readers... I just posted whatever I wanted to say. I'm sorry if I offended or bored, but it was my place to say things, good, bad, or infantile.

I hope everyone had a good Christmas! And an Eid al-Kebir Moubarak, which was December 20 for all my friends in Morocco.

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.

December 2

6:30pm

We are going crazy.

I am sitting in the entryway/bathroom of our hotel room, smelling the lovely odorous toilet. I can’t think, I can’t write anything intelligent, I don’t know what to do with my project.

I am distracted by Carly, who is sitting on her bed conducting “science experiments”: cupping her hands together and clapping spastically in order to determine “if my hands are louder when I cup them and clap the air.”

I laughed.

We’re stressed, we’re pissed off, we have inactive academic directors, laissez-faire (me) and micro-managing project advisors (Carly), our projects are entirely different from what we’d originally intended, my questionnaire subjects go on strike at their universities so I can’t interview them, Carly has hours of interviews to transcribe and edit, we both have to figure out how to structure our work, we want to go home right now but we don’t really want to leave Morocco, we want our projects to be over, we want to see our families...

and we’re conducting science experiments and listening to country music to quiet the demons in our heads.

In other news, I’m a bad-ass. I shoved a guy last night. He was harassing me and wouldn’t stop following me after I’d asked him repeatedly to go away, so I let go of Carly’s hand, and shoved him. He almost fell backward into a fountain as I yelled at him, “No! Go away,” in the fiercest voice I could. He was stunned and it took him five seconds to recover and start calling me a whole slew of derogatory terms in French. I didn’t care. He stopped following me, and that’s all I wanted.

I’m loaded up on caffeine (three café au laits), and I’m currently nursing a Coca-Cola Light. I plan on being awake, sitting near our damn toilet that won’t stop running, until I get somewhere with this ridiculous project.

I hope Carly keeps experimenting. It’s funny.

Happy birthday, Mommy.

“I thought if I cupped my hands together and forced the air out,
it would sound like a sonic boom.”

Rachid

This may or may not make it into my ISP.

I'll have to do some academic-type analyzation of it, if it is to be part of my project.

Whether or not it makes it in, it's kind of funny all the same.

---------------------------------------
“Guess who just passed us without saying hello?” Carly asked in a disgusted tone of voice used only when speaking about Rachid.

* * *

I met Rachid my second week in Rabat. He complimented me on the djellaba I was wearing, which wasn’t a djellaba at all, only a dress. He tried to woo me with his English and his charm; I don’t know why I gave him the time of day. I guess I was just in a good mood that night, and decided that I wouldn’t ignore this street harasser. Now I kind of wish I had.

After meeting him, Carly and I saw him and his various Italian-speaking friends a few more times. He knew that Carly spoke Italian, so whenever he wanted to meet up with me, he’d be sure to bring an Italian-speaker along. I wouldn’t go anywhere without Carly, and he wanted to see me, so there would always be another awkward Moroccan in tow. We made a strange quartet. Carly and I were never really interested in the guys, and Rachid always made his pre- and mis-conceptions of American women and us in general painfully clear. We would always have to “go Skype our families” or “do homework.” “Can we have coffee later?” we’d smile. Each and every time we avoided a coffee date, we thought that Rachid would get sick of our annoying and mischievous ways, but he never seemed to.

Once, we saw him in the medina with another white foreign girl, and he didn’t even have the courtesy to say hello. After he had walked past us, ignoring our existences, I text messaged him. “Better luck this time, insha’Allah.” It was a bitchy thing to say, but sometimes acting like a fifteen year old feels good.

* * *

Carly whispered to me, “Guess that text message worked.” I laughed under my breath, and then, who should walk up behind us, but...

speaking of the devil.

“Hi,” Rachid said. “Oh, hi,” I forced a smile. He was both sheepish and pissed — a combination I couldn’t pull off if I tried —, acting like we hadn’t wanted to say hello. “You didn’t have to walk by without saying hello.” “What? Us not say hello? You were passing us by.” Carly brought up the time in the medina when he had ignored us while he was with another girl. He denied all accusations.
Seeing an opportunity to use him as a research subject, I smiled coquettishly and apologized for the mean text message I had sent. While he said, “No, I liked it. It was cynical,” he kept referring to it and treating me like I was just-like-all-the-other-obnoxious-two-faced-American-girls. At least he got that right. I was being a two-faced American girl, but I found no ethical problem in this. He had been “shady” ever since we had met him, making fun of how we talked, our American-ness (which we tried to shed in no small way while attempting to assimilate into Morocco), and the 8:00pm curfews which our host families had imposed and to which we held strongly. We weren’t going to break our families’ rules just to have coffee with some mean, macho Moroccan. Sorry, Rachid. It wasn’t gonna happen.
He remained cynical the entire time he was with us. If he was still mad at me, why would he want to follow us to a café? “We’re going to this café to do homework,” I said. “You don’t have to tell me you’re doing homework,” he spat. “No, really,” Carly said. “We brought our computers so we could steal the wireless and do research on the internet.” He complained about never having coffee with me. “You can come, if you want,” I said, trying to smile against near impossible odds. “We are going to be working, but you’re welcome to come.”

The things we’ll do to obtain information for our ISP’s.

I tried to make small talk with him about his family, his life, his trip to the south. I asked him about his mother and brothers, to which he responded,
“What. First you send me a nasty text message and now you’re asking about my family?”
“I’m trying to be friendly,” I said. “If you don’t want to talk, I’ll do my work.”
“No, it’s fine,” he wasn’t even trying to be convincing. “It’s fine.”

He asked about my research, and I delighted in making him uncomfortable when I used the word “sex”. “Sex” is the same in French and English, so the people working and sitting in the café knew what we were talking about. Didn’t bother me to use the word, but his moody went from sour to bitter.
I told him I was originally interviewing young women, but decided that I needed young men’s opinions as well. “Well, you can ask me,” he said. “Are you sure?” I smiled. “Yeah, it’s fine.” Yes, I thought. I had my “in”. All I needed was his permission.
I showed him my questionnaire, and when he read the question, “Do you flirt with women in the street? Do you try to get their attention?”, I told him about how offensive we American women found street harassment.
“Why do you think Moroccan men do that?” I asked, in the most non-accusatory voice I could muster. “I mean, some of it is fine, but then there are the times when they grab us by the arm or step right in front of us, and that’s really offensive.”
“They do it because they want to pick girls up. Moroccan women like it,” he said, matter-of-factly.

I could hear Carly holding down laughter. She kind of snorted. I kept my eyes locked on him, and somehow managed not to laugh myself.

“Really? They like it?” I asked.
“Yeah. They don’t want to get picked up in bars, so they like to get picked up in the street. They’re just playing hard to get.”

In my head, I both chuckled and struggled to hold down the vomit. Ewwww, I didn’t like him.

The “interview”, if one could call it that, ended with him again questioning my new-found friendly feelings towards him. (At least he’s smart in that respect). I thanked him for spending time with us, and he glared at me while he said, “Everyone knew what we were talking about.” “Oh well,” I smiled back.
He went to the waiter and paid for his coffee (the waiter looked incredulous when Rachid didn’t pay for kulshee — all — of the coffees), and high-tailed it out of there.

I don’t think I’ll see him again. But at least now I know why some Moroccan men won’t ever stop harassing women in the streets:

“The women like it.”
Right.

November 29

November 29. 3:30pm

I rang the doorbell of the CCCL, and was let in by the nice lady at the front desk. I said “Salaam,” and made my way up the staircase.

Just as I’d started up the very first flight, Badrdine, my “bro”, bounded down the second flight.
“Bro I’m so glad to see you ”
“My sis,” he said as he extended his right arm to hug me. “How are you?”
“Kulshee mezyaan (everything is good),” I responded.
“How is ISP?”
“It’s great.”
“You’re making progress.”
“Yes.”
“I can see it in your eyes.”

‘You’re making progress.’ I wish I knew. I guess I’m making progress on my ISP, but as I write more and the days remaining in this research period decrease, I feel like I’m falling behind.

It’s almost harder being in Morocco now than it has ever been. I had awful boughts of “let me leave now ” all throughout September and October, but through them, I knew I wasn’t going anywhere for a while. I just learned to become part of Morocco.

Now, I am finally happy living here. I passed my friends Abdullah and Yassine while walking to the CCCL, and I was so glad to see them. Almost immediately after I entered the medina, I ran into Fati. I love seeing my Moroccan friends, because it makes me feel like I really do live here. Like I could belong in Morocco. I’m a regular at several cafes. I don’t even have to order in one of them; the waiter just brings me a café au lait.

I know my way around Rabat. I know the best grocery stores; I know where to buy expensive and cheap clothes. I know where to get the least expensive meal, the best coffee, the most amazing gelato. Hilton Park is my place to run, to walk, to exercise, to think.

I’ve run countless miles in Rabat. It’s home.

And I’m leaving my new home in 16 days. I miss Kentucky, but I’m already dreading the day when I leave and won’t see Badr, Nawal, Nabil, Rachid, Doha, Fati, Brahim, Carly, Zainab, Ikbal, and Asmaa... if not for ever, at least for a long time. Even when I return to Morocco in May, things won’t be as they are now. I might be setting myself up for a huge disappointment in May. I might expect too much out of my visit. I’ll never be able to recreate my SIT experience.

I’m determined to enjoy my last two weeks in Morocco. I just have to push the sadness of leaving Morocco out of my head and enjoy it while I’m here. Now.

“I’m alive,” he said to the boy, as they ate a bunch of dates one night, with no fires and no moon. “When I’m eating, that’s all I think about. If I’m on the march, I just concentrate on marching. If I have to fight, it will be just as good a day to die as any other.
“Because I don’t live in either my past or my future. I’m interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man. You’ll see that there is life in the desert, that there are stars in the heavens, and that tribesmen fight because they are part of the human race. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living right now.”
The Alchemist, 85. Paolo Coelho