there's a little pen-and-ink drawing that sits by my computer on my desk, nestled between clay cups reminding me of the oppressed dalit in india, framed photographs of family and friends, and little wooden animals from west africa. it's such a simple thing, taking up only half of a quarter sheet of paper (which, i suppose would technically be an eighth of a sheet for those who might be counting).

amidst the clutter of pits of paper, books, nursing manuals, and yellow sticky notes, it catches the light of the lamp and reflects it back with the shining white brightness of industrially produced office paper. it's not much, but then i suppose it would never claim to be - the casual doodling of a dear friend. and yet even in its infinite simplicity, it holds so much. the memory of my friend linked to the memories of countless adventures galavanting in a country halfway around the world.

i wonder if god sometimes looks at us that way: look at that simple little thing, so small and individual in the clutter of the world, and yet such a profound reminder. a reminder of the infinite love which motivated the life, death, and resurrection of my son. a reminder of a time when we walked together in the garden such a very long time ago.

i'd like to think so...

an ever-present struggle

in this post-modern time, i look at the countless women who have gone before me and who have risked it all so that i could enjoy the rights and privileges that i do now. today is election tuesday, and women all over this country have the right to vote because lucretia mott and susan b. anthony laid aside all facets of social respectability to make the cause for gender equality one which could no longer be ignored.

and as i look around, increasingly frustrated by the blatant inequalities which still lurk in the dark corners of corporate america and the shadows of the public mentality, i feel driven to espouse an extremism which often leads to my own separation and isolation from the mainstream. feminism - just the very word evokes images of staunch (and really quite ugly) women, unsmiling in sepia-toned photographs; bra-burners whose long hair hangs severely parted and held away from their faces by thin leather cords; and extremists who nit-pick over word choice and scan media images with a fine-toothed comb.

my experience abroad in morocco opened my eyes to the subtle shades of grey encompassed within that word, "feminist." having previously considered myself part of the complacent middle-ground - caught somewhere between the far left and right, i suddenly found myself on the outskirts of social thought. my basic assumption that a woman can do and should be able to do anything that a man traditionally has done, my fundamental inheritance from all those staunch women and bra-burners, placed me in the camp of feminist extremism.

coming back to my own culture, my eyes are even more sensitive to those inequalities present here, and i have begun to feel more and more comfortable carrying that title: feminist. i believe in women. i believe in their rights. i believe in their beauty. and i affirm the divine and splendid within women, just as i affirm the divine and splendid in any human being.

but here's the struggle for me: how do i reconcile this burgeoning affiliation to the feminist movement with my deep desire for the "traditional" domesticity. how can i deny the pleasure that rose within me as i fixed the dress of one roommate, did the hair of another before they went out this evening, and then turned to set bread to rise for the dinner i am cooking tomorrow?

perhaps more pertinent is this question: why do i feel like the two are mutually exclusive...

cycling through

it almost seems as thougth "so long sweet life" would have been the more appropriate blog title, or at the very least, "so long sweet blog." i was, to be perfectly honest, a little shocked and awed to see that my last post was the 17th of august. now, as we round up to the end of october - with the leaves in shocking shades of reds and yellows and several bare branches reminding us of what is to come, august seems so very far away.

i'm halfway finished with the first semester of my senior year, and my feelings/perspective/outlook seems to flow through a repetitive progression which is quickly becoming a sort of weekly, or sometimes daily, routine. first there is the feeling of being overwhelmed - swamped with the sheer volume of work which much be accomplished in a single day, knowing that there are so many people with whom i have yet to connect but for whom i do care a great deal. then comes the feelings of being so "done" with college and with bc. ready to be a full-fledged member of the world, not trapped within the bc bubble where a false sense of maturity threatens to take hold of you at every turn. finished with the parties where people who really don't actually know each other get drunk so as to feel comfortable bumping into each other in a vague attempt to fulfill a deep need for human contact and interaction. but, low and behold, the last stage settles in - deep appreciation gilded with a tinge of nostalgia.

boston and boston college have been my home for that last four years almost - longer than any other stable place. i will miss my haunts - the coffee shops, the bookstores, the quirky independent theatres. i will miss the proximity to others that college affords, particularly when they are others who have won places in your heart by challenging you to something greater than anything you thought you could be.

biking back from the grocery store yesterday, i had an amelie moment. (amelie is a wonderful french film which follows the life of a whimsical girl who sees the beauty in small things and decides to lead her life motivated by the goal of helping others only to end up helping herself - it's one of my favorites. if you haven't seen it, watch it.) i was turning past the reservoir where there is a walking circuit, and i noticed a little elderly woman walking and suddenly raise her hand in greeting, a broad smile brightening her face. when i looked to where she was looking, i saw an equally little and equally elderly old man. dressed in a black overcoat and a scully cap, wating patiently at the end of the path.

i sped forward from where she was, feeling the weight of garbanzo beans, eggplant, cucumbers, and tomatoes pulling on my shoulders through the straps of my backpack. as i reached him, he turned to watch me pass. we made eye contact, and i smiled at him.

it was only a moment, and while my head raced on with the imaginations of who those individuals were - what their life has been and is now, my heart sang with the singular power of love. and while i know these experiences aren't limited to boston or chestnut hill, there is something uniquely boston about them, and that is what i'll miss.

so long, sweet summer

i feel like the "end of summer" cliche has been so overdone in many ways. just the words themselves conjure images of john travolta and olivia newton john crooning on the beach of some hollywood set and the melodies of countless pop songs float through my brain like an oddly composed summer medley.

but the end of my summer is approaching, and as ends of things are natural places for reflection, i have found myself thinking more and more this past week about the journey of my past year, much less the summer. i've been to africa and back. twice. i have learned to read and write a new language, smoked hookah for the first time, trekked through the atlas mountains, wandered the streets of paris, and spent the night in the middle of the mojave desert with a handful of friends and a myriad of stars as my companions. i have gotten a solid look at my future life as a full-time nurse (and i'm excited for it) as well as the beauty of living, just living and working - without papers or deadlines or exams to stress you out of your mind.

this year has also brought me face to face with the extreme hardships of poverty, and the tenuous place of receiving hospitality when you know that your host cannot possibly afford it. i have held an infant as it passed away, and held his mother when all was said and done. i have laughed until i couldn't breathe, and i have cried until i thought no more tears could possibly come. i have felt achingly lonely, and i have experienced the joy of being completely, deeply, and fully surrounded by human love. i have had my heart shattered, and i have learned how to live and love through it.

i have been taught a few basics of moroccan cooking, and some of the complexities of global development, environmental protection, and food justice. i have come to realize that there are freedoms present within this country of america for women and minorities that do not come so easily in other places, and i am still learning how to appreciate this state which issues my passport and this ambiguous thing we call "citizenship."

i have experienced boston fall, morocco winter, paris spring, and california summer.

needless to say, as i sit here and let these memories bubble up within my consciousness, i am bowed over by the diversity, and humbled by overwhelming gratitude. in so many ways, i am different from the lauren elizabeth fadely who, this time last year, was sitting at a coffee shop in east texas, only just beginning to fully process a summer spent in freetown, sierra leone.

and then, when i think about where i might be this time next year and all the settling and firming up of these subtle changes combined with new ones, i can't even see yet...well, i get a little overwhelmed - one of those mixtures of antsy excitement with a dash of deep dread, if you know what i mean.

all this to say - the point finally - is that while it's easy to get caught up in the varied myriad of memories, i seek to simply hold them, draw them into me, and look forward - with eyes clear and calm - toward the future.

camp reflections

its a cloudy, chilly night in san diego, and i'm back in the little blue house on oliphant street after a roller-coaster week out of the blue.

within the first week or so of being here, the chance to work as a counselor at a church camp in northern california. time went by, and with no response from the coordinator, the whole prospect got conveniently shelved somewhere behind putting in a garden, biking to the grocery store, and all the other random tidbits of life.

two wednesdays ago, however, the phone rang, plans were laid, and suddenly saturday morning at 6 am, heidi and i found ourselves waiting around on the point loma campus ready to load up and move out. the destination: eureka, ca and the blue slide mid-high teen church camp. fifteen hours of driving later, which included an hour and a half of circling sacramento thanks to an unexpected highway closure and an overnight stay in yuba city at the home of one of the most hospitable older couples i've ever met, we found ourselves at the edge of the pacific northwest - the palms replaced by pines, the cliffs and waves replaced by mountains and rivers, and the cloudless skies filled with the low, grey clouds that make greens that much greener and the blues that much bluer.

monday morning came, staff met, campers arrived, and camp ensued. stories upon stories could be told about the girls in my cabin (hailey, elizabeth, mariah, sarah, haley, and laura) or the awesome kids on my red team (sam, natalie, thomas, jordan, allison, kendra, and kaitlin) or the staff who, daily, exemplified god's unfailing love. days filled with dodgeball, arts and crafts, archery, swimming in the river, chapel times, and campfires.

but what i wanted to write about tonight, as i catch up on emails and stream the results from "so you think you can dance" on heidi's computer, was how incredibly touched i was by the reality of the lives of my campers. smack in the middle of humboldt county - a center of alcoholism, methamphetamine abuse, and marijuana use - the kids represented at camp were riddled with the after effects of these destructive habits, torn to pieces by abandonment, divorce, and the painful wounds they cause. out of the six girls in my cabin, not one of them did not carry the scars of the hate, anger, and despair embodied within parental fighting, divorce, peer rejection and the even more powerfully impactful abandonment and the foster system.

in reaching out to these little ones, proclaiming god's unconditional love and his everlasting faithfulness, the conventional words of comfort turned to ash in my mouth, and the tears shed in private were bitter, indeed. but in living through that challenge, i discovered buried somewhere deep within, a steel-like fiber of strength that i didn't even really know existed.

and now, as night has fallen a state's length away from my little dears and the episode currently streaming comes to an end, with the idea of catching up on some much-needed sleep looms to the forefront of my mind, all i can do is to surrender those lives to the creator which breathed them into being and remind my ownself of the words i offered them so often: god is faithful.

true living, thai, and tree-hugging

it's funny how much life can change in any given amount of time.

i arrived in san diego a little over a week ago now, and my whole world has revolved and evolved into the amazing existence i'm living now, centered around the little blue house at 3033 oliphant st, and the six lovely ladies that live here. reuniting with heidi, one of my oldest and dearest friends, has - of course - been richly rewarding, but i have unexpectedly entered into a deep and beautiful community which has, in so many ways, opened its arms to me in a way i never could have imagined.

the doors to the house are always open, and the cool ocean breeze sweeps through, carrying the ethno-indie music which always seems to be on throughout the entire house. the kitchen is open and wide, inviting excited conversation around bubbling pots of vegetarian goodness. motivated by social justice, solidarity, and sustainability, the lifestyles of the mighty little women of this new home have been hugely inspiring as i take time to dig down deep and reexamine my own choices and the power i have to create within myself a living witness to the values i have long proclaimed by mouth.

days previously filled with either the frustrating meaninglessness of lounging in the sun and hours of food network and discovery channel or the long hours of hospital shifts are now consumed by simple activities which leave me every day feeling more and more alive: painting; reading; cycling down to the pier, the coffee shop, or the beach; hiking through the glories that sounthern california's nature has to offer; and hopefully soon volunteering with the homeless women's ministry in downtown.

i can't remember a time in my past when i had this much freedom with my time and lived it with this degree of intentionality, and as i look forward to the future, which i have also been doing a lot of, i wonder if i'll ever have this luxury of unbelievably open summer days. but even as the foreshadows of anxiety regarding the overly dramatized "loss of youth and joy" that comes with graduation and my first real job or the year of difficult schooling that i first must overcome to even get to that place, i brush the dark tendrils away and realize that joy is not localized to a certain place or a certain group of people, but to a perspective and a life that is lived openly - something which translates to all situations although the trappings may change from place to place.

in the meantime - when i'm not philosophizing about life, because it really isn't the only thing i do despite the tendency of my blogging to be bent upon it - i'm content to enjoy the random moments that make life, life. like my impromptu thai lesson in the car today, when i changed the language on my friend's garmin, a gps direction-giver and way-finder. here is what i learned:

liang tsai = turn left
liang wa = turn right

or like the discussion that marte (one of the housemates) and i shared about the complexities of the label "organic" and the importance of "locally produced" in the quest for community sustainability as well as the general social justice implications of food and nutrition, courtesy of the book, animal, vegetable, miracle.

one can only hope that my amazing college roommates will be able to forgive me for returning to boston after a semester abroad and a summer in california as a "crazy hippie," but in the meantime, i'm loving san diego.

san diego here i come...

i'm sitting in a little coffee shop near my apartment once again - for the last time as far as i can see. but the feeling is bittersweet, unsurprsingly, as most transitions are.

in the past few weeks, i have fallen in love again with nursing. working full-time, one-on-one with great nurses in what will most likely soon rise to be the best hospital in the country (currently ranked 3rd), i awoke to that first passion that motivated me to choose nursing in the first place. the same one that had been stifled and squished almost into non-being by hours upon hours of oppressive lectures and a whole forest's worth of papers carefully explaining my nursing diagnoses and care plans, which i recently discovered, much my chagrin, you never really use in hospital nursing. i connected with countless patients, learned more than i can even describe, and most importantly discovered that i have something to contribute, bridging the gap between new-grad and seasoned nurse and charge nurse and doctors.

i interviewed and was accepted for a position and suddenly the reality of my impending independence and true adulthood has come crashing into my view. but i'm tacitly side-stepping these thoughts of total life overhaul and turning to san diego, displacing the swarming horde of what-ifs that for now at least are politely knocking at the edge of my mind.

on tap for my time near the border: decorating heidi's new space on less than a dime; volunteering with catholic charities; odd jobs around town; climbs and hikes in the nearby hills and parks; and hours upon hours of deep, soul-searching conversations. with all of the tumble of events that have blown my little life from here to there, i'm looking forward whole-heartedly to a few weeks of centered contemplation with a dear friend whose life journey has been inextricably woven into mine.

change is good...

transitioning, etc.

so i'm rounding up on three weeks being here in sunny los angeles - although to be perfectly honest, i've pretty much stuck to the west side of the city (westwood, santa monica, venice...), and i've just finished up my neonatal intensive care unit rotation. next week i start in pediatrics.

sometimes, when i think about just how much my life has changed in the last month, i almost have to laugh. a month ago, i had just left morocco - it's beautifully complicated culture that challenged me to step up every single day and embrace the differences in life that make humanity the beautiful conglomeration that it is. i was in paris with my roommate lauren sharing gorgeous days wandering the city of light and love, experiencing it from the ground level - walking everywhere, people watching, and just living without really a care in the world. and now i'm here, smack in the middle of westwood - that ucla bubble right next to beverly hills and the sunset strip - how did that happen?

my apartment is insanely nice completely furnished including a large kitchenette, a super comfy bed, and a leather couch. upstairs, on the roof, one can easily find the little pool and deck chairs for relatively private sunning any time of the day surrounded by high rises and the constant honking and beeping of traffic.

the hospital is only a five minute walk away making the morning commute ideal, and i wonder if i'm being spoiled for anything else after graduation...

work itself has been amazing. the ucla staff definitely deserve their ranking as the third best in the nation, and as a student, i have felt almost instantly welcomed on to the healthcare team - a sensation relatively lacking in my east-coast hospital experiences on clinical days. i've shared tender and intimate moments with my patients and their families. i've cried - at the birth of one infant and the tragic death of another. i've jumped into this experience with both feet, and i don't regret it for one moment.

but that same longing for something, somewhere else is still there. as i sit in the middle of this concrete jungle, surrounded by all of the cute little coffee shops and restaurants i could ever ask for, i long for something...something else.

it's hard to put it into words. part of it is the community from which i have been separated for quite some time. the last time i really felt this kind of loneliness (the kind when you're surrounded by heaps of people, but just not really known by anyone) was my freshman year at university. part of it is just a chafing at my environment. in a neighborhood that exists mainly to serve the ucla student population, the streets are full of people single-mindedly going about their days. i don't really know how to explain it, and at the risk of sounding like a huge hippie, i miss the earth. after spending the semester in rural morocco, whiling away spare time hiking across the countryside, overwhelmed by the grandeur of rugged mountains and stony desert plains and expansive fields of tender, green wheat, i feel constrained by the man-made structures around me. the few green spaces i have found seem all too engineered, carefully plotted and planned to be both economical and aesthetically pleasing.

in a place which prides itself on a freedom of mind and spirit, a liberality that extends to all areas of life, i feel oddly boxed-in - as if that freedom really looks like this and acts like that and everything else just doesn't quite fit in.

in the end, all of this essentially leaves with this odd sense of yearning, but for what, i haven't quite figured out. for friends? family? freedom? faith? i'm not exactly sure. but i'm looking forward, in some ways, to the journey i'm on to figure it out.

something i've been learning...

here's a brief synopsis of what i've been learning about these past few days - hopefully will find time for more of a concrete update sometime in here soon...

open your squeezed-shut eyes and see
just who i have called you to be

the one inside you
waiting to wake,
and be freed from these fears
and dream

the one whose thoughts i know,
whose heartstrings play my song
with echoes
of a soul-wrenching beauty

open your squeezed-shut eyes and see
just the one i've created you to be

your highest dreams
birds soaring 'cross the seas
your darkest fears
buried sheol deep
are known
you're mine and me

open your squeezed-shut eyes and see
just the love i know you to be

then you shall be radiant
at what you see;
your heart shall throb and overflow -
come, rest in me

leaving on a jet plane redux

from yesterday:

i had every intention of writing an entry about home sometime after my plane touched down here at dallas-fort worth international airport six days ago. but somehow, as it has a tendency to do, time went on, and now i’m here again – gate e37 – waiting for the plane that will carry me to los angeles and the next chapter of my life.

this morning when i woke up, the weight of leaving immediately settled on my shoulders, like the misty fog which shrouded our little house, a holdover from the heavy grey thunderclouds which dumped inches of rain on east texas yesterday. i spent the morning semi-frantically stuffing items of clothing and papers forgotten until the last minute into the one bag which i am allowed under the new baggage policy. some things have changed since i left the united states in january. all of my clothes, neatly rolled, were laid into my blue hiker’s pack, and i was amazed once again how well everything fit – some things haven’t changed.

before i knew it, though, it was time to leave, and i took one last good look around the home i was so excited to get to less than a week ago. when my plane from london touched down, i had jumped from my seat, jockeying for a space in the aisle before power-walking through the carpeted hallways of dfw, waiting fifteen or twenty foot-tapping minutes in agonizing anticipation, and finally throwing myself into the arms of my awaiting family.

an hour and a half later, over a series of massive texas highways, we arrived at that same house which i found myself leaving so quickly: the open kitchen, exhorting its inhabitants to “live well, laugh often, love much,” before blending seamlessly into our living room and my bedroom beyond, where it is neatly tucked next to the bathroom, with it’s green towels and red bicycles, and my parents bedroom in soothing lavender and deep purples. i’ve never been one to associate “home” with a specific place, and yet this little country house on the corner of mulberry and michigan has carved a little hole in my heart. maybe more because of the memories that we have made as a family there. maybe because it’s the first house, in the traditional sense of the word, that i have real memories of. regardless of the particulars, this space of peace and tranquility is also a place where i am deeply and truly known, and after a semester of wandering half a world away, that’s a really lovely feeling.

so here we are. all of that is to be left until i have another four or five days at the other end of my summer, in august, and i find myself wondering what in the world possessed me to accept this internship at ucla medical center. but even in the time it takes to write that sentence, i remember again my love of adventure, the exhilaration of change, and the promise of something new. my independent streak wells up within me, and i smile...

waking up

after crashing late last night, i was awoken (far too early) to my roommate's frenzied packing efforts. over the course of yesterday, boxes and bins and bags had appeared out of nowhere, been filled with something, laid in a somewhat scattered fashion around our room, forming a sort of low fort-like wall around my roommate's bed and unpacked possessions. this morning the last of it was thrown in. the shifting and slamming of boxes on our bare linoleum tile floor was my first sound for the day, and it spelled out an ominous reminder.

i remember when i came home from sierra leone, i felt as though i had passed from a sort of dream back into reality, or perhaps fallen from reality into sleep. whichever the case may be, my life in van, texas, boston, massachusetts, or wherever seemed completely disconnected from the two and a half months i had spent living in the little house on a hill in freetown, sierra leone.

as i sit now, surrounded by my packed bags and the last, sad-looking vestiges of my life here in morocco, i can't help but brace for the same feeling. but how does that work, exactly? the roots i have put down here are larger and stronger. five months worth of shared homework headaches and cultural fumbles and travelling adventures aren't as easily shifted to the side. modern technologies like email, skype, blogging, and facebook definitely make the separation easier - but you and i both know that however convenient, those forms of communication are nothing compared to the real face-to-face contact and experience of living life with any one particular person.

to be perfectly honest, the chances of seeing any of the other foreign exchange students is relatively high. concentrated, for the most, on the highly academic northeast corner of the country, travels for long weekends or big events is entirely feasible. but for the girls here, the moroccan students, with whom i have found a special connection...i feel helpless in predicting the future. and while i am so excited looking forward to the crazy, rootless life i have ahead of me in 2008, i can't help but yearn for that security of knowing that things can just stay the way they are.

i've also written before about the sucking, popping sensation of breaking bonds with people, pulling up roots, and saying goodbye, and i can't help but feel that again, so strongly, now.

friendly faces and countless adventures await me, as well as that long and beautiful process of unpacking this experience and realizing the fullness of how these past five months have wrought in me a unique change. i cannot complain, and yet...

i guess i just don't want to wake up.

home in essouira

so it's been a little while since i last wrote, and as i sit down to my computer once again, i realize that my two or three week absence is related to a few different things. first, after returning from spring break, i literally buried myself under a pile of books and worked on final projects and papers - a tactic which came in quite handy as finals approach and i actually have very little work left to do. second, i think i've hit a little bit of that dry spell. let me explain.

if you've made any change in your life (in this case, my location) for an extended period of time, you get to a point where the things that were so new and exciting and different and exhilerating and overwhelming at first have calmly blended into everyday life. it's a wonderful moment when you realize that seeing women in the hijab or taking a grand taxi ride or the crumbling medina of a city doesn't really register on your radar. so despite life perhaps feeling a little less exciting and despite the sensation that there really isn't anything to write about, i rejoice in reaching this point in my time here in morocco - it's become normal. it's almost become home.

this past week especially emphasized that fact for me. with a long weekend beginning on thursday, eva and i weighed our options and decided that, having faithfully attended all of our classes thus far, we could take the first half of the week off, relatively guilt-free, and explore more of morocco's south. a series of misadventures (including miscommunication over bus times and 42/105 degree heat) brought us to essaouira several days earlier than we had anticipated. it's been the happiest mistake of my time here thus far.

a unesco world heritage site and the backdrop for orson well's othello, the medina of essaouira is, like most medinas in morocco, a beautiful mix of crumbling decrepitness blended with functional livability. the upswing of european tourism has led to the refurbishment of many of the medina's riads, and we (for much cheaper than we ever imagined) found ourselves in a beautiful little apartment tucked away between the sea wall and the twisting allys and hanuts (corner shops) of a functional residential community.

i awoke every morning this past week to a veritable symphony of sound. the steady bass line of the crashing surf overlaid with the chatter of childrens' voices punctuated by birdsong and the occasional moto roaring down the narrow lanes. this was the morocco i had dreamed of experiencing and, suddenly, the idea of life here didn't seem so far away.

by the end of the week, i had developed little connections with the people in our community, little tendrils of relationship that - if given time and attention - could easily have turned into roots. the green grocer whose fair prices and smiles had drawn us to his stall in the first place. the ancient spice man whose hunched back and pristine white prayer cap placed precariously on his head made a distinguished and almost sacred space out of his heaps of brightly colored spices and herbs, delicately meteing out one dirham worths of cumin, ginger, cinnamon, and so forth. the corner bakery where a dirham bought you a round, rough loaf fresh from the oven. and the hanut owner who was the only store open early enough to pick up some breakfast eggs but who won my heart with his patient indulgence of my broken arabic.

rolling out on the grumbling ctm bus on saturday evening was definitely a sad moment, but i left with the calm assurance that i will make it back to 'souira some day. hopefully not too far away...

as i got back to the university and began the long and arduous process of sifting through a week's worth of emails and facebook messages and world news - i realized that there is an important part of home that i have been missing, too. it's the connections that i already have; those roots tying my heart with those of the one's i love that have been stretched almost to the breaking by distance and difference and non-existent communication. my brother graduated high school on saturday, and all i could manage was a quick message on his cell phone answering machine. maybe i'm ready to go after all.

whatever the case may be, i'm happy to have the memory of essouira fresh on my heart and mind as i get ready to leave this country that has so patiently and graciously hosted me these past few months (one bag is packed already), and i'm happy, too, to have something worth talking about to share with all of you...

tarmilat

so after having this blog for several years now, and using picasa for my pictures for almost a year, the two worlds have finally combined! here's a picture from my recent excursion to the little town of tarmilat, which lies just beyond the freshly painted roads and neatly manicured lawns of ifrane.

here, the community survives in houses built of stones, wrestled from the earth, and neatly stacked, one on the other, with rusted sheets of corrugated tin weighted down by used tires for a roof.

as the sun set and the cold, icy wind began to whip up from the north, i ruefully re-wrapped my arms around myself, and wondered why i had decided against that second sweater, now obliviously enjoying its snug home at the end of my bed. but then i look around me once again, and i see the weather-beated faces of the men, women, and children of tarmilat that never really get to leave the cold and who may not have the luxury of a second sweater they can choose to leave at home.

laughter rings out from somewhere, and we are ushered down to one of the stone buildings at the base of the rocky outcrop of a hill where we had been watching the sun set. before it gets too late, the women want to show us their looms, the ancient set-ups which produce the lifeblood of this small but stubbornly thriving community. a dimly lit room, warmed by a charcoal brazier - the workshop smells of sheep and sheeps' wool, and one look at the works in progress there tells the story of the hurculean effort that goes into a single rug or carpet.

stepping out again into the growing dusk, i stop for a moment and watch the daily happenings which continue around me, the work that has to be done whether or not twelve or so white foreigners have descended upon tarmilat. cows appear out of nowhere, and grudgingly - with much protestation - make their way into their byre for the night. minutes later, a crowd of sheep follow suit. as the last light fades, the women around me, with their multi-colored aprons and veils, seem more like hardy desert flowers, buffetted by the breeze, rather than young mothers and old grandmothers whose lives have been marked by the tell-tale pain and suffering that are the cousins of poverty.

but things are looking up for this little village. a relationship with the little church community at al akhawayn and other support has given them a market for their beautiful handiwork, and as we sat, eating our ftour meal of spiced coffee, dates, boiled eggs, shbekia (a honeyed pastry-like knot of deliciousness), and harira (a thick chickpea, tomato, lentil soup), we were told that the lights overhead (which were flickering a bit toward the end) were powered by the solar panel that the community bought together with their first proceeds. a small school has also been built, and there are plans galore of future uses for their growing profits.

at the end of the evening, as we navigated our way down the rocky hill under the light of a nearly full moon, i was relieved to see the university van and it's promise of warmth. climbing quickly inside, i said a quick "thank you and goodbye" to our gracious hosts and set about getting feeling back into my toes. a few minutes later, after arriving back to the university and making my way to my room, i sat on my bed with my second sweater around my shoulders, more than a little bit aware of my many blessings, and more than a little bit guilty to have allowed myself to forget them before.

finding the limit in fes

i've hit a bit of a wall; i'm not going to lie. i've reached that point where i'm beginning to become quite fatigued of handing over this life of mine to the grand "intercultural experience" otherwise known as "studying abroad," or, for me, "morocco." particularly as i sit in this tiny dorm room on this tiny campus in this tiny town so far removed from morocco proper, feeling a little more than queasy again from the cafeteria food.

i feel as though i'm suffocating under this culture a little bit, too. this past weekend after spending friday night glorying in the beauty of moroccan nature, camping in a sort of open-mouthed cave on a nearby hillside, and enjoying the scrubbing, steaming, exfoliating goodness of the hammam in fes, i was really on a high. i felt cleaner than i ever had in my life and a brief stop at a nearby patisserie to indulge in a raspberry-passion fruit tart with a hint of dark chocolate left me in legitimate feminine ecstasy.

we turned to the old medina to meet up with some guy friends, and that blissful moment suddently came crashing down around my ears - the pristine, crystalline beauty shattered about my feet. and perhaps i still haven't quite recovered...

all entrances to the medina, except for one small side gate, had been blocked off because of a festival that night celebrating the 1200th anniversary of the city of fes. getting separated from the other three girls in our group, shadea and i found ourselves suddenly in the midst of a writhing, tumultuous mass of warm, sweating bodies all pushing in opposite directions - some trying to get out, others trying to get in, and us - caught in the middle, simply trying to stay standing and in one piece. the story of the people crushed to death when the crowd rushed the football stadium somewhere in europe, i clung to shadea's hand and the swarm of people pushed from behind - somehow thinking that would be the most effective means of moving forward despite the fact that those in front weren't going anywhere.

and then the guy popped up behind me - the embodiement of all that i hate about morocco. without warning he was standing there, plying offers of "berber massage" in his high, accented voice dripping with inuendo and physical desire. in the next moment his hand was on my wrist, and then he was stroking my hand. without even thinking, i tore my arm from his grasp and responded with a blow to his chest (rather weak, i'm afraid) and a warning to "go away" sounding awfully high and sharp to my own ears - all my arabic, of course, choosing that exact moment to flee my mind.

and in the next moment he was gone, some kind angel of a man intervening and placing himself between myself and him - i don't even remember much of the rest, except that we managed to escape the worst of the crowd in the next few minutes. as the adrenaline faded from my veins, my heart beat slowed, but i was still shaking when we finally made it to the guys' hotel terrace ten minutes later - that moment of feminine ecstasy long gone, stolen away by the assault of a society still in the throes of the gender struggle.

i never have really considered myself a feminist, but since coming to this place i have begun to question my own perspective, and to be thankful for my own country. for my independence there, especially. the worst part about it, though, is that i'm getting tired of fighting, of having those conversations with my moroccan friends here, of having to arm myself everytime i walk out of the door. as i look at the women in the streets in the towns i visit, i wonder if i have any right, then, to judge them for failing to stand up to the system so long ago.

and yet there are still so many things that i love about this country, and when i say i've hit the wall in some ways, i can say in the same breath that i know i will miss this country, i will miss its people, i will miss those deeply challenging conversations and the constant invitation to abandon your plans and embrace the grace and beauty of flexibility and all of the unknown adventures that she offers.

so i take a deep breath. find that center of love and peace. and choose to bring that to the world i'm living in. because, the truth is, i'm a bit ashamed that i hit that man - that i responded to his negativity with anger, hatred, loathing, and violence. i shouldn't have given him the time of day. and maybe that's the thought of moroccan women. maybe they're just biding their time until that day when the mantle of oppression has cracked enough that they can throw it off in one fell swoop and stand victorious, celebrating the success of their patience, their endurance, and their silent protest.

i really hope so...

today

interesting event of the day: buying chicken. from a butcher. in another language. let's just say there was a lot of gesturing, broken arabic, broken french, smiling, and nodding involved. i really think the guy must have thought that i, ally, and eva were all fairly comical, especially when we all jumped when he whacked off the chicken's head with a meat cleaver. oh morocco...

frustration

i am frustrated. inside and out. you know the kind: that gnawing, eating-at-your-soul that makes you want to scream at the top of your lungs, jump up and down, and shake someone.

hard.

it has grown inside of me this whole semester as i push and pull and tug at my english conversation group members, practically begging them to talk, to engage, to have an opinion, to think. and the response is always the same: blank - that blank stare reflecting a blank mind that's so depressing i want to call the whole thing off.

this week, ally and i prepared a collection of protest music: billie holiday, bob marley, U2, the beatles, ani difranco, the decemberists...music crossing time and theme and genre; music inspired by an event, a social concern, or an idea like redemption. i've thrown racism, politics, religion, foreign affairs, abortion, stem cell research, family, gender roles, relationships at them.

blank.

i don't know how much more of this i can take...

food: body, heart, mind, and soul

i'm back in my room once again after a weekend of travelling, staring at this little blinking cursor - starkly black against the bright white screen - wondering what exactly to say.

it's not writer's block, per se...it's just that there are so many little facets to this past weekend that i'm not exactly sure where to start.

this past weekend i travelled with shadea (an exchange student from last semester) to chefchaouen, a picturesque town of blue and white nestled in the hillside of the rif mountains and more generally known the world over for its excellent hash and weed. it also happens to be the hometown of one of my good friends here, sarrah. it also happens to be shadea's favorite town in morocco, so when i heard that she was going there and that she was staying with the elmomoudis (or something like that), i tagged along.

to put it simply - this weekend was food. for every part of me, really.

the (many) amazing meals put together by sarrah's mom and their nanny/friend/household help/older sister, khalisa were incredible. from the fresh strawberries just coming into season to the addictive jben, a sort of fresh country cheese, to the perfectly cooked fish served with lentils and newly baked bread - it was all so wonderful, and a delightful escape from the tastebud-tiring fare of the on-campus restaurant.

sarrah's three younger sisters, hagar, marawa, and rema, were food for my heart. i didn't even realize how much i miss my little cousins until i entered the apartment and heard the girlish banter so typical of two little girls, aged eight and nine. hagar, a distant fifteen and extremely studious, provided a sort of calm in the middle of the storming younger ones who incessantly demanded shadea and i come up with all sorts of new gymnastic games which we could play in the family salon. that is, when we didn't have the television tuned to the music stations and were all dancing to the latest tunes out of egypt and lebanon.

needless to say, the non-stop arabic that flew around me, mixed with a heavy helping of french and spanish was definitely food for my mind. my little notebook is slowly expanding as pages and pages are filled with my new arabic words. like: jlbana (peas), aHsan (better), guli (eat!), and tawezzan (balance).

my travel time with shadea, from the long bus ride from fez to chaouen (pronounced shaowin) to the final taxi ride back to ifrane from fez today, was a series of twisting conversations. some of those beautifully deep ones where mind and mind, heart and heart meet and just are, laid bare before each other. a common practice with my friends and college community back home, i had been sorely lacking that same level of engagement here at al akhawayn where i find, more often than not, a crowd of young people too concerned with how best to make it from day to day by doing the smallest amount of work rather than a body of students hungering after truth and ready to embrace the tough questions that are blatantly staring them in the face amidst the poverty and dejection of the very neighborhoods of ifrane if only they would open their eyes. our conversations and that fundamental connection between two people which only serves to underscore your shared humanity was food for my soul - one i didn't even realize i was hungry for.

not to mention the beauty of chefchaouen itself, which is definitely beyond description. something about how the light of the setting sun is captured in the blue-washed walls of the buildings which crowd the old medina...

well, let's just say i'm already dreaming of going back.

there and back again, a nomad's story

a quick once-over my life would lead one to think that a rootless life - living in place after place consistently finding new homes and recycling the concept of community - is in my blood. a review of the past few weeks since i last wrote here would only confirm it.

here is a list of the places i have been since last writing: ifrane, meknes, casablanca, boston, charlotte, dallas, new york, midelt, rich, amellago, goulmima, ourzazate, marrakesh, safi, rabat, and back to ifrane. in fact, so much has happened that i hardly know where to start...

i travelled in a sort of whirling-dervish manner to the united states now just over two weeks ago. after a few days spent in boston, prepping for my truman interview and soaking up the glory of reconnecting with friends and eating such wonderful things as spinach and hummus, i jetted down to dallas. less than forty-eight hours later, i was jetting back to morocco. there are many tales to tell of my journey - stories of the people i met along the way and the craziness that is just so typical of travel. suffice it to say that my over-all feeling from the trip was that it was just too easy. too easy to cross so many lines of culture, language, development... a brief seven hour trans-atlantic flight brought be across the huge gap between the world i live in know and the world to which i will soon return. the world is so small...

coming back was definitely a crash landing of sorts, battling jet-lag and a nasty chest cold i dove back into an aui campus gearing up for the spring break holiday and cramming for midterms to get there. i jumped back into the middle of it, and three midterms later got to breathe the communal sigh of relief that was whistling through the campus, like the warm southern winds that had brought sunshine and warmth just in time for my return.

and then suddenly there was spring break and the loosely set itenerary of trekking and travel set up with ally and camille before i had left. again, many, many stories to tell, but i'll just put the highlights here - one per day:

saturday: arriving in the little town of amellago at the head of the tode'ghrost gorge and a sunset tour of the community agricultural co-op led by our gracious gite owner, moha 'ousri (or maybe it was his younger brother, hamed...)

sunday: our grand 17 km trek through the gorge itself, and then our surprise encounter with the amazigh (berber) poet, taos 'umar which led to an impromptu private concert of his politically charged and incredibly moving poetry (berber poetry is traditionally sung with or without accompaniment)

monday: morning bike ride through the goulmima palmerie and ksbah with our gite proprietor who i took to calling jedd (grandpa) hassan because of his incredibly generous and warm nature

tuesday: the epitome of flexibilty. travelled most of the day (after tactfully avoiding an offer of four thousand camels in exchange for camille's hand in marriage) intending to spend the night in another mountain town of taddert only to end up in marrakesh instead (there was some confusion when we wanted to get off, and then it was too late to make it back to the little sleepy town we had hoped for)

wednesday: waking up on a rooftop terrace in marrakesh to the bustling sounds of the medina below, spending the day hopping from garden to cafe to garden to cafe in various parts of the city, and topping it off with a delicious italian meal with an adorable elderly waiter who was more than happy to let us practice our arabic

thursday: awoken by rain and the creeping damp of rooftop exposure, it ended up beautifully sunny with the pleasant surprise of meeting up with eva and her boyfriend (visiting from holland) for lunch and an afternoon stroll through the souk (market). follow that up with a cup o tea in a terrace cafe and then a late night train to safi during which our compartment-mates offered us to stay with them in mohammedia with the promise of finding us good husbands...

friday: wandering through the potteries of safi, climbing the ramparts of the portuguese qsar, and generally enjoying the sea breezes as well as long conversations in arabic (with me only getting every other word) with a couple of the younger artisans over a cup of coffee in the ville nouvelle (that was after taking a picture with the giant tajine in the center of town...)

saturday: getting lost in various quartiers of rabat, wandering about all parts of the city new and old, and the easter vigil service at the cathedral downtown - a melange of cultures and languages including french (predominantly), spanish, english, and various sub-saharan african languages.

today: easter morning mass (in english), more travel, and then the joys of reconnecting with friends and hearing stories upon stories as everyone returns from their various adventures. when i saw the gates of al akhawayn, mixed emotions welled up inside: torn between the joys that being in this place brings and the tedium of this (at times) ridiculous bubble. as i sit at my computer and look at my bed next to me, i'm very happy and thankful. it's a definite upgrade from the over-stuffed mattresses, thin cots, and iron springs which have all graced my dreams this past week or so. but when i think about that vigor and life that sings in my blood at the thought of new places and new people and the limitless of adventure that travel can bring and how all of that is dulled here, like a colored photograph washed out by poor exposure, i sort of ache again for that open road.

but maybe it's true what they say. maybe you can't wander forever...

we'll always have paris...

so while i didn't see rick's cafe (which i hear is an overly-touristed place in any case), i did spend the weekend in casablanca, within the more-than-words-can-communicate gracious hospitality of karim and his parents.

here's a brief layout of our weekend:

friday:
leave ifrane and aui in the late afternoon
arrive in casablanca around 7:30 pm
meet karim's parents
drop off our bags
eat at a charming little italian restaurant named "luigi's" which just so happened to have a hummer with new york state plates on it - we're not in kansas any more :)

saturday:
sleep in a little
breakfast with the fam
tour of hassan II mosque (the only way non-muslims are allowed inside)
some sitting and reading in the sun on the seawall while karim ran errands and picked up eva
lunch with karim's family - really a feast consisting of a variety of salads, pastilla (a spanish-inspired dish of chicken and spices and nuts and honey in between layers of a special kind of pastry dough), and tagine
HENNA! - truly the highlight of the weekend - will definitely post some pictures of the beautiful artwork adorning my hands and forearms as soon as my camera battery recharges...
shopping (a football jersey of my favorite moroccan player and a pair of moroccan slippers)
coffee at a really chic japanese-inspired cafe that karim took us to
driving around the city at night
late night return to the house where we were greeted by a still-warm tureen of harira (a kind of soup), bread, cheese, and dates

today:
late morning departure from the house after some grocery shopping in the nearby marche
lunch out at a gorgeous restaurant called "la sqala" which is a renovated riad in the old medina which put us back late to ifrane, but definitely worth it
unpacking
gearing up for the crazy week ahead

casa is by far the largest city in morocco, and this weekend was different for me in that way to be sure. the past few trips have been to smaller citadels which can be easily navigated with one or two sights, a handful of recommended hostels, and a decent number of cheap eateries. casa, however, is really a teeming center of commerce and culture. many of the places that we drove through combined with the proliferation of french bilboards, shops, and signs made me think more often than not that we had travelled much further than the three and a half hours or so from our mountain perch of al akhawayn.

but this weekend was something else for me as well.

last week, in english conversation group, several of the students asked me how i had found morocco and moroccan people thus far. and it was kind of hard to say. i mean, i haven't had any really negative encounters, to be sure - but at the same time, i have met with more than a little of what could be called...resistence, or maybe distance - than i would have expected, and definitely more than would allow me to say that people have been outright friendly. there's always the feeling, compounded perhaps by french colonialism and religious tension and misunderstanding, that there exists a distinct and impermeable line between you (the foreigner) and the other (moroccan). this weekend, all of that disappeared.

i found myself carefully stitched into the fabric of life of a upper-middle class moroccan family. we sat on the couch together and watched television (albeit in french or arabic). karim's father practiced his english, while we in turn practiced our arabic, laughing the whole way through. we were introduced to extended family, shown pictures of weddings and cousins along with the standard baby pictures, welcomed with open arms, and sent away laden with gifts both material and immaterial. i left with henna on my arms and a jellaba in my bag, but with a heart full of a mother's love and a father's gentle teasing as well as promises for a swift return.

to put it another way: whenever i end up in a new place for any amount of time, i generally find myself mentally wandering down a checklist of sorts. one of the questions i ask myself is whether or not i could see myself living there in the future. before this weekend, i really would have said no. the cultural gap is large, and traversing the fields of language, custom, and religion on a daily basis has been exhausting, particularly when travelling away from the campus. but now, after seeing life from the other side, and experiencing the warmth and hospitality that can be found there, i have changed my mind.

at one point, after jason and i had finished our tour of the hassan II mosque, when we were sitting on the sea wall, i looked up from the book i was reading to find a young mom and her toddler son sitting just a meter or so away. she was pointing out different things, and he was watching the seagulls and the breaking waves with great joy, clapping wildly in response to the white foamy water below. i imagined their lives - pictured them emerging from a small but comfortable apartment similar to the one we had just spent the night in, and i realized that that life wasn't so terribly far away nor so incredibly difficult to imagine. not that i'm about to run off and have children just so that i can visit the ocean with them...but it made the country, the people, and that life somehow much closer and much more...real.

it's all in the little things

you might think that after travelling hundres of miles (24 pages away from boston in the atlas, a dear friend pointed out to me once), one would find themselves in a world hugely and startlingly different. the kind of difference that blows you out of the water and into culture shock - that oh-so-elusive state of...what?...denial? depression? some epehmeral thing we are warned about in orientation to be on our guard against as though it was more like one the of the stray dogs which wander about downtown ifrane rather than the relatively normal stage of human adjustment and adaptation that it is.

there have been differences here, to be sure. there are the obvious things like language and food and the more blantant aspects of culture like music and the bisou-bisou greeting and the omnipresent islam, easily found in phrases like ensha'allah (meaning "God willing") which can be tacked onto to just about any statement or 'hemdulillah (meaning "thanks be to God"), but you settle into those fairly quickly, or at least reconcile yourself to the fact that they're just that - different - and their not going anywhere, so you had best get used to them. pretty soon you don't really notice it anymore and you find yourself craving a bowl of b'sara (kind of like split pea soup but made with butter beans and lots of garlic) or tapping your foot to the beat of the chaabi music that is on in the taxis or reaching for a phrase only to find something in arabic coming out as really the only expression that quite grasps what you're trying to say.

i have taken a job as facilitator for the mandatory english conversation groups for all incoming students whose scores on the toefl placed them into the language centre in order to fully prepare them for integration into the all-english academic environment of aui. in these groups i find myself among young men and women - most only a year or so younger that me, if that even - and the forum becomes open for the airing of all sorts of inner sevles and life stories. like the young freshman who sat across from me this evening and didn't realize that i could easily discern the cracks running through his facade of tough guy/mr. independent as he shared how his life has changed in coming to school - the boy inside frozen in bewilderment upon returning home to parents who had moved on and begun a new life of sorts over his first semester of university. of the older graduate student who, in broken but earnest english, shared the agony of hearing his father claim to love his older brother - more successful in terms of profits and dividends - more than him.

i treasure these moments beyond my ability to communicate with words. it's been harder than i thought it would be, to dive beneath the surface of my moroccan peers and classmates. who are the people behind the meticulously maintained appearances - who really is that girl that comes to my 8 am class with every hair in place, make-up skillfully applied, and dressed in the latest fashions she bought in paris last fall, complete from her louis vuitton purse to her patent leather high heels, which must just naturally grow from her feet, because i've never seen anyone walk in heels so well. so i collect these moments of humanity out of my day, and these two and a half hours of english conversation every day, like picking daisies out of a field, a bit of a saving grace, reality and humanity at the center again, despite of the distance and the culture and everything.

it just goes to prove again that it's all in the little things...

one of those days...

have you ever had one of those days where you feel like there's so much potential - so many potential moments, potential things to learn, potential conversations to be had, potential moments to be lived - that you feel as though you would break out of your skin? the potential energy inside of you is stirring, and you feel the need to sing or shout or run or dance. instead, i sit and watch the sunshine stream through my window as i study arabic and political anthropology and current events and write emails and notes and letters, wishing with all of my heart that i could capture everyone in this one perfect moment, uniting them with me here and now, in this moment - transcending time and distance.

maybe this feeling is provoked by a stunningly clear blue sky after a week or so of rain and drizzle. or maybe it's the joy of getting things accomplished. or maybe it's the shot of espresso that i had an hour or so ago...

taza, tummy bugs, and truman

so, in keeping with the theme, this was an eventful weekend. after some run-around to nail down plans, eva, jason, and i headed out friday morning: destination taza, a relatively small city that's unique place in the valley between the middle atlas to the south and the rif mountains to the north have given it a rich history of essentially being trampled subsequently as various forces have invaded morocco from the east. tricked out in our hiking gear, we embarked in high spirits ready to catch a grand taxi to fez, a petit taxi to the train station, a train to taza, and a petit taxi to our hotel in the old part of the city, which sits two kilometers up a pretty steep hill from the ville nouvelle (new city) below.

upon arriving in taza, we went about settling into our room: a glaringly pink hotel that despite blinding you in the sun, had a genuinely friendly feel to it. the shuttered windows and doors opened inward to the sunny courtyard, giving everything an open and fresh feeling. fairly quickly we realized that our origional mission (mission spelunk - so named for the cave exploring we were hoping to do) had become two-fold. added now was "mission communication," as we struggled through our few words of arabic, and our handful more of words and phrases in french. here, away from the hustle and bustle of the big cities, the average person didn't really speak french, which didn't bode well for us. in the end, we didn't matter much, and survived fairly well, laughing our way through misspeakings and blunders of all kinds. although, i must say, it was really enjoyable struggling through and forcing ourselves to stretch our little language muscles.

friday afternoon and evening were spent pretty much bumming around the city, wandering in the markets, and having random conversations with people. i quickly learned the immeasurable value of the phrase, enshah'allah, which - loosely translated - means "god willing." as random residents of taza encouraged us to come back later and visit their restaurant or stay at their hotel or have lunch with their family living in a village only a few kilometers away, enshah'allah, a common phrase to be spoken here, quickly found its way into my vocabulary.

after being joined by tony late friday evening, we headed for bed in order to get up early saturday morning to tackly our main mission: mission spelunk.

saturday was a really enjoyable day, although it was also the day that turned abruptly downhill for me at the end. after grabbing a quick breakfast of harcha, a cornbread-type food served with honey, jam, or laughing cow cheese, and a cup of coffee, we headed out via grand taxi to the gouffre de friouato (frewato, as it's also known). by the time we arrived at the caves, i wasn't feeling the hottest, but after sitting for a bit while the bartering was underway for our admission and our guide, i was feeling better. so into the earth we went. 520 steps down (a kilometer of steps, we were told) and another kilometer or so into the earth - a magically different universe. damp, cold, and completely blac save for the few sqare feets illuminated by our torches (flashlights). i had to laugh to myself at the thought of what this cave would be like in the hands of a western tourist board: brightly lit, carefully partitioned off with a constructed walkway guarded by shiny silver railings double and triple certified to bear a certain amount of weight, neatly laid out with informative signs that offered the latest research on how stalactites and stalagmites were formed with gentle admonitions on the impact of humanity on this earth followed by a friendly reminder to recycle or global warming will get you!

instead i found myself crawling around on hands and knees as our billy-goat of a guide ran back and forth in front of us, laughingly encouraging us along, spouting of randon facts in his cheerful mixture of arabic, french, spanish, and english. my favorite part was at the salle des draperies, a point about a quarter of the way through the known part of the cave and our turning-back point. it was a big, empty, echo-ey chamber whose true granduer was carefully hidden by the inky blackness only penetrated by our weak pin-points of light as we crossed and crisscrossed the stony vault with our beams. at one point we shut off our lights, and sang into the dark, struck by the beauty of our returning echoes as if the cave itself joined in the song, adding undertones of centuries of age and wisdom. the moment was broken a few seconds later by the erruption of beat-boxing from jason and tony and a strobe-light effect from the torch of our guide. we all laughed together and then turned around to face the 520 steps back up.

the rest of the day was spent journeying back to taza, a mixture of walking, hitch-hiking, chatting with people, picture-taking, with a brief off-road hiking adventure as we ventured to explore the cascades, waterfall, in that area.

upon returning to our hotel, to make a long story short, i started feeling worse and worse, generally exhausted, nauseous, headachy, and as though some small creature was alternatively performing somersaults in my stomach and tying it into a series of small knots. not the best feeling ever, to say the least! i essentially crashed for the night, surrounded by my phone, water, and some various foods to tempt my appetite, curled up in my sleeping bag. everyone was so great about it - really considerate - and i was so touched when they came back early after dinner, and chose to chill with me in the room, playing cards and drinking a few beers, while i dozed in and out of sleep, alternatively getting up to throw up. thankfully, i stopped throwing up half-way through the night, managed to catch some genuine hours of sleep, as was back to 85 or 90% in time to travel back to campus sunday morning.

sunday itself was fairly uneventful - a rainy, cold day that made you wish for a fireplace, a good book, and a cup of tea. the only special thing to note, is that, upon returning to my computer and checking in with the rest of the world, i found an email congratulating me on moving on to the next round of competition for the truman scholarship - a u.s. federal aid competition that provides a scholarship for graduate studies. so stay tuned as i sort out everything with that...

midelt

wow. where do you even begin? do you start with the four hour bus ride/adventure from azrou to midelt? or do you describe the absolutely breathtaking image of the eastern atlas colored hues of purple and gold by the setting sun as you pulled into town? or how about the feeling of being accosted as you stepped off of the bus into the frigid night air - "please, please! english? francais? i know a verry nice 'otel - fameelee run!" - and the overwhelming relief of encountering a lovely police officer/angel in uniform.

how about how we whiled away the hours of the night sitting in the parlor/restaurant of the little pension we found with our berber family-proprietors and played endless rounds of scum (the card game) over a grand thiere full to the top with steaming mint tea goodness. or perhaps i should describe the little hostel itself, tiled from floor to ceiling in various shades of blue - cheerful, clean, cool, and best of all, very cheap - a mental note for future expiditions.

or should i start with our saturday adventure. the morning spent with the trappist monks who inhabit the only contemplative monastery in all of north africa, how we met one of the two monks that survived the abduction and killing of seven brothers from a now-closed monastery of the same order in algeria in 1996 - the most precious of old men, with stunning blue eyes, a thick, grey wool sweater covering his cassock and giving him a positively grandpa-like appearance. frere jean-pierre is his name, and perhaps it is enough to say that i feel as though i have spent a few moments in the company of a living saint.

or maybe you would be more interested to hear about the french sisters whose company we graced for several hours as we waited for the taxi to take us to tatouine. sisters monique (the veiled one who was full of life and funny quips about herself and those around her), theresa (the quite one who came in last and simply smiled), marie (the one who lives in tatouine and gave us the names of hassna and cherif who we should meet), and lucille (who welcomed us in, and particularly encouraged me on my profession of nurse - being one herself in past years). showing up at their door unannounced, these little ones of god welcomed us in with open arms, providing tea and coffee and cookies, a clean restroom, a comfortable place to sit and talk, and endless perspective about morocco (all in french - quite good practice for my comprehension), given the fact that the majority of them had been in the country for twenty years or more. needless to say, i didn't want to leave...

or perhaps the best bit of all is the stories of haddu and hassna - the berber women who welcomed us with open arms and showed us the meaning of true berber hospitality.

haddu was, for all intents and purposes, a mistake. our driver didn't exactly know where tatouine was, so he ended up dropping us off quite in the middle of nowhere. we noticed a small earthen home not too far away, so we headed in that direction to get directions. it seemed to be deserted, but after standing outside for a little bit, wondering (outloud) what we were to do, a woman surrounded by four little children, suddenly appeared. 'aji, 'aji! "come, come!" she called out, waving us into her dimly lit home. we found ourselves being led down an open corridor of sorts connected on both ends to the bright outdoors with several rooms attached forming the square building we had noted from outside. ushering us into one of the rooms, we found a cookpot, a squat, round table, and several flat woven carpets on the floor. before we knew it (literally) we were face to face with the family meal - honestly, probably their only meal for the day - and we were guests. i think we all reddened simultaneously, as we were floored by the generosity of this little housewife. it didn't matter that the tagine was mostly broth, or that the little bits of meat that she picked out and offered to us were mostly fat - i was utterly overwhelmed by the generosity of the woman across from me. we could barely communicate, by the way. she spoke berber, only a little bit of derija arabic (the moroccan colloquial dialect), and essentially no french. but her smile said a thousand words, and hopefully our offerings of bread, cheese, and clementines (our picnic lunch) sufficed to tell of our endless gratitude.

not much further down the road, we encountered hassna, the woman sister marie had told us about. in her home, too, we were keeled over by the warmth extended to us. we shared a second lunch of sorts: mint tea, bread, peanuts, almonds, cookies, and fried egg. i couldn't believe it, and was more than embarrassed to be taking so much from someone who obviously had so little. but in morocco, personal pride and dignity - especially among the berbers - is not something to be toyed with. so we dug-in, and hopefully ate enough not to offend while still leaving plenty for the rest of the household.

hassna spoke french, so we communicated mostly through camille (one of the exchange students here who is french herself). hassna regaled us with stories about the sisters, their contribution to the village, the dam, and their hope for electricity to power the little tv that they had set up in the corner as well as the bare light bulb that hung by a thin wire from the center of the ceiling. her small, ruddy face had the appearance of tanned leather, with several well-worn creases - laugh lines which fanned out from the corners of her eyes, creating a stunning appearance of both wisdom and beauty. when it came time for us to leave, she walked with us awhile (on her way to collect the cow for the evening), and demanded to know why in the world we had thought to get a hotel room in midelt for the weekend, when we should have known that we were more than welcome at her home. we smiled and thanked her profusely, appeasing her maternal nature with promises of le prochain - next time. i certainly hope that there will be...

after a few weekends of bumming about big and semi-big cities, wandering through markets and feeling as though money was simply draining out of my pocket with no real purpose and with no real enriching return, i treasure my jewel of a weekend. several students, when hearing about my plans to go to midelt, turned up their noses a bit at the prospect. "there's nothing in midelt," was their reply. i agree - the town itself is merely a crossroads and a pit stop for buses on their way south to er-rachidia or marrekesh. but just outside the city there are gorgeous mountains, and the heart of morocco - its beautiful people, both by adoption and by birth.

ashes to ashes

white-washed walls enclose the tiny space, illumined by four wrought iron sconces and one lone candle. music is reverberating about these walls, sent from the jet black piano, bouncing about, before settling on the ears of all those contained here. those that slowly but surely, one by one, file to the front of the room (only a few steps away) to bow their heads and receive this sign of human humility.

the small woman on my left catches my eye, we share a glance - a smile. the myriad of fine lines which crease her rosy face close together like a chorus of clapping hands, celebrating the clear blue eyes which shine from her face with overwhelming joy. she's french and speaks very little english. i'm english and speak practically no french, yet somehow, in that moment - we speak volumes. i see in her face the love and joy of god that i hope to reflect in my own. the excitement of this holy season, the anticipation of the lessons we will learn and the ways in which our lives will grow and be enriched by this coming time of self-sacrifice, penance, and simplicity. but more than that we share the joy of each other's company. two souls sitting side by side, no words between them, yet in perfect communion within the structure of the mass being said by that little white-headed fransiscan brother only a yard or so away, just beyond that row of people right in front of us. in morocco.

i wonder if, when she was my age, forty or fifty years ago, if she would ever have thought that she would be in this place, sharing this space at this point in time with a young, american girl and all of the other dozen or so people. i doubt it - but i have a feeling that in her mind there was no where else she would rather be. at least that's how i felt...

meknes and mountain air

it's the 3rd of february, and i can't believe that i have been here in morocco for a little over two weeks. the sheer difference of so many aspects of my life here draws me into that all-too-common feeling of "i've always been here." i'm beginning to find myself in the rhythm of morccan life here on campus: the two-kiss greeting, which by the way, i apologize in advance for when i return because it's already become habit after only two weeks!, the food, the language - words are slowly starting to creep into my vocabulary.

this weekend i went to meknes with tony, eva, jason, and sanae. we headed there on friday, early in the afternoon, checked into a budget hotel in the ville nouvelle, and then headed off to the medina to get lost in the old market and little alleyways. we came upon the place el-hadim as the sun was beginning to dip behind the old adobe walls turning everything various shades of rose and dusty gold. the little stands selling freshly sqeezed juice and roasted-meat sandwiches were busy as families turned out in droves to stoll up and down the avenues, make some last minute purchases, and watch their kids kick footballs around in the square.

we sat for a while with a cup of tea soaking up the last rays of sun, and i realized how absolutely fortunate i am to be in such a place - both physically, socially, economically, whatever - where i am able to have the experiences that i'm having. especially as i saw all of the people (the ones who weren't leisurely strolling) rushing from place to place. i wondered how hard they must have to work in order to just make it from day to day. it's probably the most uncomfortable part of being a "tourist" - essentially taking leisure at someone else's expense, even if you compensate them with money. it's just...weird.

anyway, we toured around for a bit, and then headed back to the ville nouvelle where we ended up camping out, so to speak, at a really lovely little restaurant called "le pub" where we sampled a local wine (meknes is the wine-producing capital of morocco, by the way). it was really lovely, and altogether just a really enjoyable evening: sitting, talking, accompanied by friends, laughing, and just enjoying life in general. particularly the dutch couple that joined us halfway through the evening, and the fact that around 11 pm we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by women that, by all likelihood, were hookers. well, that part was actually a bit depressing - but definitely a side i haven't seen much of in ifrane, although i'm told it exists here, too.

the next morning we got a slow and later start, stopping off at a cafe for a croissant washed down by thick espresso - delightful. then it was back to the medina where we repeatedly set off with the best intentions of making it someplace, repeatedly got lost, and repeatedly enjoyed it. each attempt interspersed with either a short sit and cup of tea in the plaza, a bite to eat, or a trip over to the mausoleum of moulay ismail - a moroccan historical figure who was the one that made meknes the imperial city it is today.

after a little bit we headed back, quite satisfied with our conquest of that little ancient town. one thing, though, is that it was so remarkable the difference of being down in the valley, breathing in the smog and dust which clogged the air and then getting out of the grand taxi back in ifrane. i could finally take a good, deep breath - and it felt so good. i definitely feel blessed, in a way then, to be studying here as opposed to in casa or rabat, despite ifrane being such a small town.

anyways, just random notes from the journey. i'm off in a bit to church over at the chaplain's home, and then tomorrow homework and reading and getting ready for the week. next weekend...who knows?!

a beautiful weekend

so this has been a ridiculously packed weekend.

yesterday, a group of us met up for an early breakfast and a day trip into fes. after trekking down to the grand taxi stand on the backside of the marche, piling into said grand taxi, and staring out of the window for an hour as the landscape of morocco whizzed by, we found ourselves on the side of a bustling fassi street, surrounded by heaps of people all extremely confident of their destination and the appropriate directions. we, on the other hand, gathered together to pore over our lonely planet guides and sort out the way to fes-el-bali, the old city whose walls contain the world-famous medina. needless to say, after a few moments time, everything was mzien (good), and off we went!

there are countless stories i could tell from my day there - like how we ended up in the middle of a residential neighborhood and took to a little bit of moutain-climbing to make our way back to bab bou j'loud or what the medina was like or about the pickpocket we encountered (and walked away with all of our possessions) - but the truth is, it's more than a little daunting to try to record all of that her. simply said, you must experience it for yourself - the winding corridors of vendor stalls with their propietors hanging out in the path eager to catch your eye and lure you inside - the way the adobe walls change colors with the shifting sun - the families who begin to come out at dusk to slowly walk the plaza and have a sit on the steps - the smells of roasted meat, candied nuts, and mint tea...it was truly wonderful in many respects.

today, again, was a bit of an adventure. a small group of us - tony, eva, stiv, ghassan, sanae, and myself - set out before the crack of dawn to walk the 20 or so kilometers from aui to azrou, the town next door. we had bought fruit and cheese and peanut butter and all sorts of things the evening before on our way back from fez, and armed with these things, our water, some money, and our cameras - we embarked on our walking adventure. we wandered through the countryside, stopping here and there for some breathtaking photos (check out my online album: http://picasaweb.google.com/lauren.fadely). all told, it took us about five hours, and worth every second of it.

now back in my room, and looking forward to the beginning of the week, one thing that stands out to me from both days of adventuring are the kids that i encountered. i really love kids, and they are easily my favorite part of any place that i go. there's something universal about children and their willingness to simply be themselves and accept others as themselves. i encountered some really wonderful kids in fes yesterday - like the group of thirty or so first graders who suddenly appeared out of nowhere and filled the little allyway i was walking in, surrounding me and those around me with their smiling and open faces. "bonjour!" "asalaam!" rang out in a chorus of voices as little hands raised themselves for high-fives and handshakes. or like the little girl, mounia, who i met today on the walk.

we came upon a group of boys of all ages playing football in a little pitch on the side of the road. stiv and tony stopped off to play for a while, and i found myself next to this little girl - not more than seven or eight - the only girl amongst this swarm of boys and delegated to the sidelines as the rest of them played with their makeshift football. i offered her a clementine from my bag, and she returned the favor with a wonderful smile. je m'appelle elle, i said. nothing - french was out. siimtii elle, i tried instead with the help of sanae. there - that was it. mounia, she replied. zwiin, i said in return - pretty. she flashed me her little white smile once again, and then one last time again as i waved b'asalaama when we later continued on our journey.

i would trade all of the silver and gold of fes for that beautiful little girl in a heartbeat. lets just say she made my weekend...

classes started and mosques visited

yesterday was my first day of classes, and here's the brief run-down:

8.00 - islamic civilisation - started off with a bang of sorts. time rolled around, and i was in class and then so was the professor...but no one else. we waited (and stared at each other or, actually tried not to stare at each other) for a few minutes before he threw a tantrum of sorts and cancelled class. extra hour and a half to run over to the library and check emails...

11.00 - arabic i for beginners - in a nutshell: the most fun i've had in class in a very long time. i have a little moroccan professor named abrihim, and he's the cutest, most adorable little old man i have ever met. in our first class we covered some basic greetings and learned to read and write the six vowel sounds and the three basic consonants. at the end of the lesson, we has our first complete word: bab which means "door" in english - practical, huh? i have to say, though, there's nothing more exhilerating than to see so clearly knowledge enter and take root in your mind.

14.00 - political anthropology - a relatively intense professor, but not anything out of the norm for bc. the class will be relatively easy work-wise, only five short papers, and a mandatory field trip to volubilis, the ancient roman city in morocco - how cool is that? what is political anthropology, you ask? it's apparently the study of the development of political structures, and particularly the aspects of the communities out of which they were born. i think it will be a really enlightening class...

15.30 - history and culture of the berber people - oh my goodness...professor peyron, of this class, might actually be in a dead heat race for my favorite professor, and it's a tough match. a lovely, ramblingly loquacious english chap whose provencal french father gave him that...whatever it is that makes french things french. the opening lecture consisted of eighty or so black and white photographs of his early travels in the middle and high atlas in the 1960's and his encounters with the amazigh (berber) people there that would spark a life-long process of learning berber language, studying and documenting their history and culture, and translating and commenting on berber epic poetry. my kind of guy, for sure. who else would say, "ah, here we are. some bucolic scenes of a similar vein..."

and i'm done with class! i rush over to the morocco-guinea football match, only to be tortured to death by the lack of the lead player from tuesday's match, soufiane alloudi. we could barely hold it together against the guinean defensive players who made me think i was watching american football by the way they rampaged the field. a painfully close 3-2 loss...

and today? today i spent the morning sorting out my silly bankcard who had frozen itself because it forgot that i had told it (the bank, actually, not the card itself) that i was going to be in morocco and that i was planning to use it from time to time. i mixed a little of my homework into the process, and then met up with eva and a moroccan student, sara, who had offered to host us for friday prayer at the mosque on campus.

i won't go into detail this time around, but let me just say that it was a beautiful, peaceful, enlightening experience. i sat silently in the back of the women's section, listening to the droning sound of the imam's arabic voice exhorting the students to a good and proper life, and watched the scarved and silent figures around me. there was no doubt of the devotion evident in their faces, and i was moved to see the love i feel for my lord and savior echoed in these women and their prayerful attendence to allah. as i have said to many people many times before, i do not ascribe to the thought that there is really only one mountain and many paths to the top - that seems to me to devalue, in a way, everyone's journey. but in the same breath, i acknowledge the reality that my finiteness does not allow me to possibly comprehend the mysterious designs of my heavenly father, and therefore i will not dare to assume a throne of judgement lest i be placed in front of it myself. what does all of this mean, exactly? i'm not even sure i know, but i do know that i had a really wonderful lunch (couscous and vegetable tajine) with this gracious student afterward in which we were both exceedingly open about our own faiths and our own prejudices, and it was a beautiful thing.

the afternoon brought a trip to neighboring azrou and my first taste of what morocco may actually be like once one leaves the european-villa-ed hamlet of ifrane, and that little amuse bouche puts me in a very good place for the experience of fes tomorrow...

football matches and footsore

i saw my first moroccan football match the other day. the africa cup of nations is currently underway, and the day before yesterday the campus was abuzz with red and green as the moroccan team geared up to face namibia at the stadium in ghana. one of the academic buildings (where many of the orientation lectures were held) was opened up, and the large screen and projector were put to good use as over a hundred students crammed in to the auditorium to cheer on their team. i've never experienced anything like it, and let's just say i absolutely cannot wait until the next football match in a few days' time. i'm not sure who we'll (because obviously i'm rooting for morocco) be playing - but it's bound to be an intensely energetic experience. from everyone jumping up and cheering wildly at every goal, to yelling shuk-pa (essentially "in the net" or "goal") repeatedly as the players neared their target. i'll definitely have to get in on all of the various songs for each of the players, most definitely upheld as prominent social figures - today i even saw a young student here whose hair had been cut to mimic one of the more prominent players, chamarkh. get excited...

last night, the orientation leaders had organized a sort of treasure hunt that would let the new students not only mix and mingle but also learn their way around campus. a hint given by one of the leaders would take you to a building where you would have to answer a questions about the university correctly before receiving another hint that would take you to another location, twelve steps in all. two other international students and myself joined up with three moroccan freshman girls: selma, nahjwa, and sahfa. what basically ensued was about an hour of running pell-mell all over campus, becoming completely winded on more than one occasion, and me really regretting my choice of black flats for shoes. but it really was so much fun, and although we missed winning by legitimately five seconds, it was well worth it.

today there was a group outing organized to take all the new students to michlifen, a ski area about an hour or so away from her, higher up in the middle atlas. it hasn't snowed here in a few weeks, so there was basically only a few patches of ice - probably not the best conditions for me to learn downhill skiing for the first time! i opted for a nice hike instead - heading up one of the dry ski slopes with a few of the international students. really gorgeous views. not having spent a whole lot of time in mountainous areas before, i still can't get over how absolutely clear the sky is, and the air in general, for that matter.

i've put the first of my pictures (all essentially from the trip today) up on picasa. the link is:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lauren.fadely in the album titled asalaam alaykum - check it out!

looking forward to the next few days, and my first travel adventure this weekend...

first adjustments and a reflection on growth

well, this is different.
i opened my web-browser and everything's in arabic. earlier today i got a new sim card for my phone, and now it is all in french. i don't know how to change either of them back, so i suppose the learning has begun!
so i have arrived, safe, sound, in one piece, with all my luggage.
things i have adjusted well to so far: the time difference (6 hours later than home), the altitude (5000 feet above sea level), the new faces (i think i have all the names of the other international students down), and the food (had a fantastic lunch during my excursion into downtown ifrane earlier today).
things still on my list of adjustments: language (the french here is much more difficult to understand and i'm completely lost in arabic), my room (i havne't quite figured out how to turn the heater on, so last night i slept in three layers of clothes, two blankets, and my sleeping bag), the culture (infinitely more complex than french and arabic put together!).
but, all in all, i must say i've had a really lovely day. i just have to shake myself every once in a while and remind myself that i'm actually doing this - that i'll be here for the next four months. that by the end of the semester that guy at the lunch counter in town will probably know my name and we might actually have a conversation without the facilitation of hatim or any of the other moroccan students. more than anything, with the well-coordinated orientation throwing me flashbacks of freshman year, i have to keep reminding myself that this is my experience for the taking, that god has placed me here for a purpose, and that i'm actually an adult in the middle of all of this, not some seventeen-year-old kid wandering on the bc campus full of dreamy fantasies of college, my own abilities, and life in general. now - a few years older - those fantasies haven't necessarily gone away, i still love to get mentally lost among the labarynthine choices and options and opportunities that lay in front of me. but i feel much...deeper - much more grounded, and while my head, to some extent, may find its way into the clouds from time to time, my feet are more than on the ground, they are oak tree-like, rooted, deeply and thickly. firmly attached and balanced by a foundation of faith, family, and friends.
i know that i will need that foundation, that rooting, as i stretch tall and grow wide in morocco; hopefully bearing fruit and blessing those here. i'm very much on the 'honeymoon' high of this relationship with morocco, its people, culture, and language, and i know there will be times of hardship and discontent, but i also look forward to that time of harmony which is in store with faithful persistence.

oh, and if you're reading this, then i guess you know i figured out which arabic button means 'post' :)

a flat tire, wal-mart, and love

i spent a good part of the day on friday out and about with shanna. we stopped first at rockwell’s, a local coffee shop, which perhaps isn’t so spectacular in the grand scheme of things but has won a special place in my heart with its free wireless, friendly staff, and generally quiet environment. being virtually internet-less at home has only succeeded in elevating the status of rockwell’s in my mind.

we decided to leave rockwell’s after some time in order to grab a bite to eat for a late lunch. after getting into the car, however, shanna realized that her left front tire had gone somewhat flat – or was at least lower than normal. so we made our next stop at the wal-mart service station next door. it was there that we met the couple.

they had pulled into the service station after us, and i only vaguely saw them through the semi-tinted windshield of their extra wide nineteen ninety-something oldsmobile. they appeared in the waiting room shortly after we had sat down, and i was completely struck by them.

for starters, neither of them looked particularly well. the husband was obviously suffering the ravages of some significant illness. surgical scars had altered his face, the skin of which was unnaturally reddened and peeling. blinded in his right eye by a milky-blue opacity, he kept his face lowered, revealing the thin mousy, brownish grey hair which had fallen out in patches. his wife was aged as well, worn by years of work and worry, but still with a round, friendly face. her silver hair was carefully curled and coifed, and she looked the picture of east texas in her flowery button down shirt and khaki pleated pants rising well above her navel.

looking up when they entered, i was naturally drawn to the man – torn between a deep curiosity to determine his condition, scanning his physical appearance from head to toe, making a quick assessment, and rifling through the roladex of possible diagnoses drilled into my head from semesters of nursing classes. in the tug-of-war which often characterizes human thought, i was also acutely aware that my stare might easily be misunderstood, and in the end i averted my gaze to the contents of the purse i held in my lap. not, however, before i saw this little old man bend over to speak and wave to a little blond darling of a girl, bouncing through her adventure of a day in pink and pigtails.

needless to say, both husband and wife ended up sitting only a few seats away in the generally cramped wal-mart service center waiting room. and, in typical east texas fashion, the four of us soon fell into conversation. we started off discussing the merits of the serviceman who had taken our keys and driven our cars away in a rather concerning manner, took a turn around the weather, and passed through stories from the holidays. after a few minutes of companionable silence (when once again the contents of my purse became objects of my intense interest), the woman’s voice once again broke into my train of thought.

“we’ll have been married forty-six years tomorrow,” she stated, with a glowing hint of pride in her voice – like the golden glow that remains after the sun has just dipped below the horizon.

“congratulations,” i replied, and once again i fell into my bad habit of staring. as i heard her describing their wedding day those many years ago, i saw them transformed into and young girl and her beau – healthy, dashing, and strong, a product of the iron-red earth. barely adults, they rushed headlong into marriage, intoxicated by love in all of its glory. married by a minister that almost didn’t make it to the church, they spent their wedding night in a freezing motel.

“i think you turned off the heat,” the husband had interjected, with his crooked half-smile, which i imagine had been broad and full in better days. “i think you just wanted to cuddle more.”

his wife had just replied with a girlish laugh, and i saw in her eyes the man her husband used to be and the overwhelming love for who he still is – the man she married all those years ago. it was beautiful, and in that moment, they were beautiful, too.

our names were called shortly thereafter, and shanna and i continued on to a late lunch and then to the rest of our day. i don’t know what happened to that couple, or how they celebrated their forty-six years of marriage on saturday, but i would like to think that it was a lovely day for both of them and that, more than anything, they were able to confirm the deep and everlasting love which bound them in marriage – the most intoxicating of foretastes of the unconditional and indescribable love that is our father god...