Well, I am indeed back...and for those of you who have kept track of me via blogger over the past year, you can see that my blog has morphed again. If you've come to read a bit about my experience in Morocco...scroll down or take your pick at some reflections over the past months on your right. But otherwise, it's back to just regular-Hannah reflections...
It is a week ago this evening that I arrived back in Indianapolis after a 3-flight/4-airport jaunt that lasted a little over 20 hours and got to me...Durham. Wait a minute...what? Yes, I know, it is all slightly confusing. I flew in immediately after 4 months away to Duke, where I went to staff training for the Duke Youth Academy for Christian Formation where I will be working for 2 weeks later this summer and which I'm quite stoked about. :-)
I got in with little trouble, though my dislike for the JFK Airport in New York did grow....BUT I did make it through all the airports WITHOUT ANY charges for overweight luggage! (cue, mental pat on the back) This I consider a major accomplishment after 4 months of being abroad and without a scale to weigh my luggage before i left, but which both clocked in at exactly 50 pounds each [US weight restrictions, not international]. So that was pretty much fantastic. :-)
Once I arrived in Durham, I was picked up by a very kind staffer who looked somewhat wearily at all my luggage but then took me to a hotel where I walked into a room and saw the most heavenly looking bed I've ever seen in my life! White comforter, 5 pillows of varying degrees of plumpness, air conditioning (which i promptly turned off, air conditioning, what's that?!?), and a tv playing Legally Blonde...aka paradise. I slept very well that night and then launched into staff training...which once I adjusted went very well. Though I think one of the best moments was sitting in the new Duke Divinity School Chapel...a beautiful beautiful room with huge windows looking out at trees and the sunshine and realizing that it was the first time I had worshipped in a real chapel in 4 months. I think that's when my body stopped thinking it was thousands of feet in the air and when my mind and heart started to realize that I was home...
Training was a whirlwind and before I knew it I was back in the airport attempting to fit my 3 carry-on's into 2 (one of which was still basically illegal) and onto my last two flights (which I must admit were the worst of the bunch) to home. By this point, I had caught a bit of a sinus cold and so was fairly miserable by the time I arrived in Indy to my family with their brightly colored "welcome home hannah" sign, new car, and tall siblings. :-)
This week has basically been one of getting over the aforementioned cold, reconnecting with a friend or two, putting in a bunch of job applications (so far unsuccessful), working out, catching up on sleep, seeing a movie or two (i.e. the midnight showing of Pirates 3), watching my sister graduate (cue big sister pride), and settling back into home.
It feels good to be home. Many have asked me whether I miss Morocco or whether I'm having trouble settling back in...but for me, I really felt like it was time to come back. I'm not sure whether my body just has what a "semester" feels like ingrained after being in a different place every semester for the past two years or whether I just experienced so much that it just felt like it was time to be home to digest it all and relax for awhile. I do not know. But either way, it feels like I'm in the right place and I'm grateful to have this time...
time to rejuvenate and reflect and discern,
and ultimately, (to explain the new title and theme)
synthesize all that i've learned and experienced and wondered and questioned into a new picture, a new frame of mind for my future (to steal words from some old pop song that I ran across recently that is perhaps not necessarily amazing music, but I found the words apt).
this seems appropriate going into my senior year...but also after the past year, a year with many changes, many new realizations, many mistakes, many questions, many crazy-wonderful experiences, even more blessings, and even more questions than i started off with...
...such seems to be the way of life.
feel free to check back from time to time to see my new thoughts and leave your comments...no blogger id necessary.
God's peace.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Ma-salaama Morocco!
Well...it is 10:18pm Morocco time and in about 5 hours I'll get in an Al Akhawayn van with all my stuff and head to the Fez airport...my time here is official done.
It's a little weird to say that. For the past few days I've realized that my time here is ending but I've been so focused on getting the papers and finals done and out of the way and then getting packed that its really only in the past couple hours that I've begun to realize that I'm actually leaving. Amazing how sitting and seeing packed bags in your periphery can do!?! Luckily, it feels pretty good. I mean, I've had a wonderful time here in Morocco, but I think I'm ready to come home for awhile too. So a bit bittersweet, but it feels like my time here is done for now, so not too sad either.
So, I suppose that is time for a few reflections?
For those of you who've read a few of my little posts throughout the semester you know that I've had a lot of wonderful opportunities, which I'm very thankful for. I've had the chance to do quite a bit of traveling around Morocco (Fez, Marrakech, Casablanca, Rabat, Kinetra, Tangier, Assilah, Sefrou, Meknes...) and had a few European adventures meeting up with friends in Madrid, Cambridge, and Paris...oh yeah and I can't forget my 48-hour jaunt to Cairo too! ;-) Just looking at that last is pretty cool. I had no idea what kind of traveling I'd be able to do while I was here, but I certainly think I made the most of it! It was very cool to see some of the different sides of Morocco, as well as see what it feels like living in this part of the world where it is completely possible to go to Madrid for a weekend on a whim! Though, I think my traveling bug is certainly satisfied for awhile...my body is already aching just at the though of 4 airports and 3 layovers in the next 24 hours...
I've had the wonderful blessing of finding a wonderful Christian community while I've been here filled with people from the states, international students here at AUI, as well as professors and their families, plus a Belgian and an Armenian to keep things interesting. ;-) That's certainly not something you necessarily expect when you go abroad, especially to a country where everyone is Muslim, to find a community there to welcome you, but that's certainly the case here. It's been wonderful to worship with them on Sunday nights and talk with them about faith and Muslim-Christian relations and life in general on Wednesday nights. We had the chance to go on a retreat together a couple of weekends ago and I was hit again by what a blessing that group has been.
Through our pastor Karen, we got hooked up with a couple opportunities that I'm really glad to have had. The first was teaching English at the local high school here in Ifrane two nights a week...such a fun experience. Got to use a little of my Arabic and hopefully help them a bit with their English. We had our last night last week...they swamped us with pictures and hugs and henna! It was a really great way to break up the school/travel schedule and also serve in a small way.
I guess the other opportunities I'm most thankful for were the opportunities to visit/learn about some of the hard issues here in Morocco. The school I've been studying at is a bit of a bubble...most of the students here are very well off...everyone speaks English pretty well. And while we got many opportunities to visit cities, even that is a bit more touristy, so sometimes it was hard to really know what goes on around us. But I had some opportunities to get out of the bubble which was great! I got to visit a women's center a couple of times here in Ifrane where women were working together on crafts and literacy projects...recently I got to go meet some of the women who live in a very poor area right outside of Ifrane and learn about their weaving cooperative...at the church retreat we got to hear about a couple's work with African refugees here in Morocco...I think all of those experiences helped sort of flesh out Morocco for me. I think one of the coolest things I've found being here is that there is a lot of complexity here - economic disparities between the rich and poor, intriguing political dynamics, religious practices, etc. I've liked getting different perspectives and learning about the country first hand. I like books...but traveling is more fun that just reading about a place....and its hard to get across the essence of place only through words.
Ironic, since that's what I'm trying to do here, eh? :-)
The essence of Moroco for me....hmmm...
...crowding 6 people + the driver into grande taxis for hours at a time...winding walkways through old medinas...shopkeepers telling us to come into their shops "I will make you good price!"...the call to prayer...seeing something ridiculous and uttering "T.I.M" (This is Morocco)...rugs, the special shoes, jalabas...couscous, tajine, freshly squeezed orange juice, harsha...the smell of spices that make my nose squirm as we pass...walking quickly pass the butchers/fish sellers in the market which display everything raw and hanging from the ceiling...dirhams...the essential Arabic phrases "humdillah" (praise God!), "saafe" (enough), "insha'allah" (God willing), "shukran" (thank you)...techno music and random American songs from the 90's...haggling and being told you're a Berber if you really go low...the ocean and the Mediterranean...the Middle Atlas mountains and the beautiful landscape that changes so rapidly (forests to rows of olive trees to cactus and desert to mountains)...the ridiculousity of Al Akhwayn University...henna...bright starry nights...trains with unmarked stations...the crazy mix of French and ridiculously fast Arabic with a bit of English thrown in...hospitality...the kiss-kiss greeting everywhere you go...the tss tss sound of guys trying to get our attention as we walked or the fantastic greetings we'd get "welcome! it has been long time since angels have come to our city"...
That's enough of that, if you're interested you can always ask me for more or what some of that means.
What else? Oh, that crazy thing called school. I started out very enthusiastic about my classes as I actually got to take a lot of classes in my subject area. By the end...not so enthusiastic. Two were great...Middle Eastern Politics and International Law (though I will remember that class mostly for the constant sparring match between myself and my professor about things like international human rights law). Two of my professors were not so great. Arabic was...frustrating because we didn't move very fast, but I did feel like I learned some. I'm glad to be done. And glad to have a different sort of spectrum of classes for next fall. But I did enjoy learning in an atmosphere where all of the examples were from the Middle East/North Africa region...so I learned International Law but from the perspective of Moroccans...Middle Eastern Politics with a lot more emphasis on the actual on-the-ground politics...that was really cool. And it was great to be in classes with a lot of other perspectives, one because they care about the issues because they are important to them, and two because most of my classmates grew up here so they had a lot of different perspectives.
Good friends...I had dinner with my "roommates" - my official roommate and her three friends who are always in my room - Narjisse, Nada, Faty, and Lubna...they're my girls. I so enjoyed laughing with them and visiting Narjisse's family...plus the random motley crew that is the group of international students here. People I probably would have never crossed paths with otherwise which made some days really hard...but a lot of days really interesting and very amusing. And hey i have some new perspectives on communities. And now I leave with friends from West Virginia to West Point to Idaho...much less here in Morocco. :-)
Ah, a good semester. Lots of great experiences (if you want to see pictures click on the link to the right) and fun memories...and now time for home.
Sort of. I fly into New York and then head to Duke where I have staff training for the Duke Youth Academy for Christian Formation which I'm working later this summer. So I get back into Indy on Saturday!
I hope all is well with you! Thanks for reading about my experiences this semester!
God's peace!
It's a little weird to say that. For the past few days I've realized that my time here is ending but I've been so focused on getting the papers and finals done and out of the way and then getting packed that its really only in the past couple hours that I've begun to realize that I'm actually leaving. Amazing how sitting and seeing packed bags in your periphery can do!?! Luckily, it feels pretty good. I mean, I've had a wonderful time here in Morocco, but I think I'm ready to come home for awhile too. So a bit bittersweet, but it feels like my time here is done for now, so not too sad either.
So, I suppose that is time for a few reflections?
For those of you who've read a few of my little posts throughout the semester you know that I've had a lot of wonderful opportunities, which I'm very thankful for. I've had the chance to do quite a bit of traveling around Morocco (Fez, Marrakech, Casablanca, Rabat, Kinetra, Tangier, Assilah, Sefrou, Meknes...) and had a few European adventures meeting up with friends in Madrid, Cambridge, and Paris...oh yeah and I can't forget my 48-hour jaunt to Cairo too! ;-) Just looking at that last is pretty cool. I had no idea what kind of traveling I'd be able to do while I was here, but I certainly think I made the most of it! It was very cool to see some of the different sides of Morocco, as well as see what it feels like living in this part of the world where it is completely possible to go to Madrid for a weekend on a whim! Though, I think my traveling bug is certainly satisfied for awhile...my body is already aching just at the though of 4 airports and 3 layovers in the next 24 hours...
I've had the wonderful blessing of finding a wonderful Christian community while I've been here filled with people from the states, international students here at AUI, as well as professors and their families, plus a Belgian and an Armenian to keep things interesting. ;-) That's certainly not something you necessarily expect when you go abroad, especially to a country where everyone is Muslim, to find a community there to welcome you, but that's certainly the case here. It's been wonderful to worship with them on Sunday nights and talk with them about faith and Muslim-Christian relations and life in general on Wednesday nights. We had the chance to go on a retreat together a couple of weekends ago and I was hit again by what a blessing that group has been.
Through our pastor Karen, we got hooked up with a couple opportunities that I'm really glad to have had. The first was teaching English at the local high school here in Ifrane two nights a week...such a fun experience. Got to use a little of my Arabic and hopefully help them a bit with their English. We had our last night last week...they swamped us with pictures and hugs and henna! It was a really great way to break up the school/travel schedule and also serve in a small way.
I guess the other opportunities I'm most thankful for were the opportunities to visit/learn about some of the hard issues here in Morocco. The school I've been studying at is a bit of a bubble...most of the students here are very well off...everyone speaks English pretty well. And while we got many opportunities to visit cities, even that is a bit more touristy, so sometimes it was hard to really know what goes on around us. But I had some opportunities to get out of the bubble which was great! I got to visit a women's center a couple of times here in Ifrane where women were working together on crafts and literacy projects...recently I got to go meet some of the women who live in a very poor area right outside of Ifrane and learn about their weaving cooperative...at the church retreat we got to hear about a couple's work with African refugees here in Morocco...I think all of those experiences helped sort of flesh out Morocco for me. I think one of the coolest things I've found being here is that there is a lot of complexity here - economic disparities between the rich and poor, intriguing political dynamics, religious practices, etc. I've liked getting different perspectives and learning about the country first hand. I like books...but traveling is more fun that just reading about a place....and its hard to get across the essence of place only through words.
Ironic, since that's what I'm trying to do here, eh? :-)
The essence of Moroco for me....hmmm...
...crowding 6 people + the driver into grande taxis for hours at a time...winding walkways through old medinas...shopkeepers telling us to come into their shops "I will make you good price!"...the call to prayer...seeing something ridiculous and uttering "T.I.M" (This is Morocco)...rugs, the special shoes, jalabas...couscous, tajine, freshly squeezed orange juice, harsha...the smell of spices that make my nose squirm as we pass...walking quickly pass the butchers/fish sellers in the market which display everything raw and hanging from the ceiling...dirhams...the essential Arabic phrases "humdillah" (praise God!), "saafe" (enough), "insha'allah" (God willing), "shukran" (thank you)...techno music and random American songs from the 90's...haggling and being told you're a Berber if you really go low...the ocean and the Mediterranean...the Middle Atlas mountains and the beautiful landscape that changes so rapidly (forests to rows of olive trees to cactus and desert to mountains)...the ridiculousity of Al Akhwayn University...henna...bright starry nights...trains with unmarked stations...the crazy mix of French and ridiculously fast Arabic with a bit of English thrown in...hospitality...the kiss-kiss greeting everywhere you go...the tss tss sound of guys trying to get our attention as we walked or the fantastic greetings we'd get "welcome! it has been long time since angels have come to our city"...
That's enough of that, if you're interested you can always ask me for more or what some of that means.
What else? Oh, that crazy thing called school. I started out very enthusiastic about my classes as I actually got to take a lot of classes in my subject area. By the end...not so enthusiastic. Two were great...Middle Eastern Politics and International Law (though I will remember that class mostly for the constant sparring match between myself and my professor about things like international human rights law). Two of my professors were not so great. Arabic was...frustrating because we didn't move very fast, but I did feel like I learned some. I'm glad to be done. And glad to have a different sort of spectrum of classes for next fall. But I did enjoy learning in an atmosphere where all of the examples were from the Middle East/North Africa region...so I learned International Law but from the perspective of Moroccans...Middle Eastern Politics with a lot more emphasis on the actual on-the-ground politics...that was really cool. And it was great to be in classes with a lot of other perspectives, one because they care about the issues because they are important to them, and two because most of my classmates grew up here so they had a lot of different perspectives.
Good friends...I had dinner with my "roommates" - my official roommate and her three friends who are always in my room - Narjisse, Nada, Faty, and Lubna...they're my girls. I so enjoyed laughing with them and visiting Narjisse's family...plus the random motley crew that is the group of international students here. People I probably would have never crossed paths with otherwise which made some days really hard...but a lot of days really interesting and very amusing. And hey i have some new perspectives on communities. And now I leave with friends from West Virginia to West Point to Idaho...much less here in Morocco. :-)
Ah, a good semester. Lots of great experiences (if you want to see pictures click on the link to the right) and fun memories...and now time for home.
Sort of. I fly into New York and then head to Duke where I have staff training for the Duke Youth Academy for Christian Formation which I'm working later this summer. So I get back into Indy on Saturday!
I hope all is well with you! Thanks for reading about my experiences this semester!
God's peace!
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Tarmelot
So, I'm taking a break from writing papers because well...we all need a break from time to time. I thought I'd tell you all about my experience yesterday visiting the community of Tarmelot which is literally right outside Ifrane (where AUI is located and where I've been living for the past 4 months).
If you've read my previous posts, you know that Ifrane is a rich resort town. Very clean, expensive (by Moroccan standards), and houses a university attended by upper-class Moroccans (its the only university in the country that you have to pay for). So in a way, its a little bubble away from the realities that is the life lived by most Moroccans. It's been interesting to be at AUI for the semester because it has meant I've been able to hear a variety of perspectives and begin to grasp the complexity of the economic/class/cultural situation here in Morocco. But at the same time, sometimes it gets hard to break out of the bubble and remember that the kids at AUI with their Hummers and clothes from Casablanca, Rabat and Paris...are the extreme minority.
Tarmelot is certainly the opposite. Just 5 minutes away from the university and within eyesight of the characteristic red roofs of Ifrane is a tiny little shepherding community located in a valley between rocky hills not very far from the high school where I've been teaching English. There are about 20 families...perhaps 100ish people? living there and have been since about 45 years ago when they were brought in from the countryside (some of them nomads) to raise sheep for the rich people in Ifrane.
As we turned off the paved road (two of the other international students, me, and our pastor Karen) onto a dirt road, we passed a tiny one room school house that they are just completing. The first school for the community - Karen was exclaiming "there's a door now...and a built-in cabinet!..." where they will soon have a full-time teacher from the Moroccan government to teach the kids and hold adult-education classes (only one of the women in the entire community is literate). Right now the only students who go to the school in town are the kids in the two families who are "rich" by Tarmelot standards...
A little ways down the road we soon got our first glimpse of the homes...made out of stone and cement with roofs made out of wood and covered with flattened tin cans to keep out the wind and rain. They sort of look like long hutches except made out of the stones that cover the hills where their sheep graze. We got out and were soon greeted by a number of women and children...a round of kiss kiss, kiss kiss (the French-style greeting) for us all with shy, warm smiles from the women and curious grins from the kids.
We first went into one of the houses where the women work...two years ago Karen and some of the high schools students/AUI students worked with the women to start a weaving cooperative to generate income for the women. It is now fully operational with the women organizing themselves, working their looms, buying the materials - Karen and the AUI student group Hand-in-Hand provide them with help to market the items...the entire room's perimeter is lined with homemade looms made out of think branches of wood with strings of wool coming down and rugs and purses at various stages of completion towards the bottom. The woman use some of the wool from their own sheep but also by some dyed wool in town for colors and contrast. Each women buys here materials and then gets income from her finished products when they sell. Their work is beautiful...
We went into one of the women's houses...apparently the gathering place because it is one of the nicest houses owned by the most well-off families, so there is electricity from a solar panel and a real roof made out of aluminum. The women laid out rug after rug after rug, with purses and blankets in between to show us. They were beautiful and good workmanship. Though you could tell they're still trying to figure out some details...Karen was talking to them and telling them that the purse straps might be a little long and you could tell they weren't taking her too seriously, until I put on the purse and the bag hit my knees... :-)
They brought us tea and sat around watching us and talking amongst themselves as Karen told us a little bit about the community and their struggles and successes. Clearly, the cooperative has brought a lot of opportunities for the women and given them a way to bring some extra income for their families, but also helped reinforce the strong sense of community between the families. It was so nice to sit there and watch their faces as Karen complimented their work or asked about how their families are doing. The toddlers squawking and walking around, one of them, little Abdu allah was practically a weeble, bouncing off of everything in sight and just grinning with delight. The young women our age smiling shyly...those are the times when it makes me wish I could really speak Arabic, and not just the ridiculous Modern Standard Arabic that I'm learning but the colloquial dialect.
It was a lovely morning and was glad to be able to make a couple purchases to support their project...its so nice to see what powerful change a project like that can make, and the importance of people like Karen and community organizations who provide the help to get them off the ground.
So that was Tarmelot...perhaps more thoughts on that some other time. For now, time to go write about Moroccan authoritarianism...
If you've read my previous posts, you know that Ifrane is a rich resort town. Very clean, expensive (by Moroccan standards), and houses a university attended by upper-class Moroccans (its the only university in the country that you have to pay for). So in a way, its a little bubble away from the realities that is the life lived by most Moroccans. It's been interesting to be at AUI for the semester because it has meant I've been able to hear a variety of perspectives and begin to grasp the complexity of the economic/class/cultural situation here in Morocco. But at the same time, sometimes it gets hard to break out of the bubble and remember that the kids at AUI with their Hummers and clothes from Casablanca, Rabat and Paris...are the extreme minority.
Tarmelot is certainly the opposite. Just 5 minutes away from the university and within eyesight of the characteristic red roofs of Ifrane is a tiny little shepherding community located in a valley between rocky hills not very far from the high school where I've been teaching English. There are about 20 families...perhaps 100ish people? living there and have been since about 45 years ago when they were brought in from the countryside (some of them nomads) to raise sheep for the rich people in Ifrane.
As we turned off the paved road (two of the other international students, me, and our pastor Karen) onto a dirt road, we passed a tiny one room school house that they are just completing. The first school for the community - Karen was exclaiming "there's a door now...and a built-in cabinet!..." where they will soon have a full-time teacher from the Moroccan government to teach the kids and hold adult-education classes (only one of the women in the entire community is literate). Right now the only students who go to the school in town are the kids in the two families who are "rich" by Tarmelot standards...
A little ways down the road we soon got our first glimpse of the homes...made out of stone and cement with roofs made out of wood and covered with flattened tin cans to keep out the wind and rain. They sort of look like long hutches except made out of the stones that cover the hills where their sheep graze. We got out and were soon greeted by a number of women and children...a round of kiss kiss, kiss kiss (the French-style greeting) for us all with shy, warm smiles from the women and curious grins from the kids.
We first went into one of the houses where the women work...two years ago Karen and some of the high schools students/AUI students worked with the women to start a weaving cooperative to generate income for the women. It is now fully operational with the women organizing themselves, working their looms, buying the materials - Karen and the AUI student group Hand-in-Hand provide them with help to market the items...the entire room's perimeter is lined with homemade looms made out of think branches of wood with strings of wool coming down and rugs and purses at various stages of completion towards the bottom. The woman use some of the wool from their own sheep but also by some dyed wool in town for colors and contrast. Each women buys here materials and then gets income from her finished products when they sell. Their work is beautiful...
We went into one of the women's houses...apparently the gathering place because it is one of the nicest houses owned by the most well-off families, so there is electricity from a solar panel and a real roof made out of aluminum. The women laid out rug after rug after rug, with purses and blankets in between to show us. They were beautiful and good workmanship. Though you could tell they're still trying to figure out some details...Karen was talking to them and telling them that the purse straps might be a little long and you could tell they weren't taking her too seriously, until I put on the purse and the bag hit my knees... :-)
They brought us tea and sat around watching us and talking amongst themselves as Karen told us a little bit about the community and their struggles and successes. Clearly, the cooperative has brought a lot of opportunities for the women and given them a way to bring some extra income for their families, but also helped reinforce the strong sense of community between the families. It was so nice to sit there and watch their faces as Karen complimented their work or asked about how their families are doing. The toddlers squawking and walking around, one of them, little Abdu allah was practically a weeble, bouncing off of everything in sight and just grinning with delight. The young women our age smiling shyly...those are the times when it makes me wish I could really speak Arabic, and not just the ridiculous Modern Standard Arabic that I'm learning but the colloquial dialect.
It was a lovely morning and was glad to be able to make a couple purchases to support their project...its so nice to see what powerful change a project like that can make, and the importance of people like Karen and community organizations who provide the help to get them off the ground.
So that was Tarmelot...perhaps more thoughts on that some other time. For now, time to go write about Moroccan authoritarianism...
Change can be Made!
Hey ya'll -
Hope your week's starting off great, if you have time check out this link: http://aidemocracy.typepad.com/
My internship director from the Middle East Institute (Spring '06), Lindsay Morgan has a piece featured on the blog (Americans for Informed Democracy) that I found really hopeful! A good reminder that we can indeed make change if we remain truthful and work hard.
The piece was posted May 11, entitled: "So you want to change the world?"
Check it out...
Hope your week's starting off great, if you have time check out this link: http://aidemocracy.typepad.com/
My internship director from the Middle East Institute (Spring '06), Lindsay Morgan has a piece featured on the blog (Americans for Informed Democracy) that I found really hopeful! A good reminder that we can indeed make change if we remain truthful and work hard.
The piece was posted May 11, entitled: "So you want to change the world?"
Check it out...
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