Citizen of the World

Loving the Life I'm Living

May 26, 2018

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It's been a couple of weeks since I’ve written a blog post, but I am happy to report that it is because of a good reason. I have been busy. My last post was lamenting how lonely I have felt since coming back to the states and getting a desk job. It turns out, a lot of people feel the same way! Since writing that post I have been so busy reconnecting with old friends that I haven’t spoken to in a while and making new friends in unexpected places that I haven’t had much time to sit down and write. Finally, a good problem to have! I have always passively believed that what you put into the world is what you will get back, but I hadn’t expressly tried tested this theory. Recently I divulged to the world that I wanted to make more meaningful connections in my life. And what do you know? They arrived at my doorstep!

Last weekend, I saw one of my younger sisters get married, and throughout the ceremony and

the reception I was reminded again and again how lucky I am to be back near my family and able to

witness milestone events. That was one major drawback to living abroad - despite all the new friends

and experiences, you miss out on the important things because you are so far away. I have my beef

with Iowa, but I have to admit that watching all my little nieces and nephews grow up in real life,

instead of through long-distance social media, will be pretty cool.

At this particular wedding I finally got to meet them all, and see some other family members I haven’t in years, since some of them live as far away as Oklahoma. They are all so beautiful and healthy and being surrounded by loving family brought a lump to my throat for pretty much the whole evening. I feel incredibly lucky right now. I got used to feeling so alone when I was traveling...which i suppose is my own damn fault. At least I have a lot of cool pictures and memories. And I do still want to travel, but for now I think I’ll stay here and explore the town I’m in.

Making New Friends in an Old Place

May 08, 2018

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Prickly Pear - I used to buy these from street vendors and eat
them right there with my hands, seeds and all.

I recently had a serious bout of soul-searching and one of the things that came out of

that was my blog. Specifically, to be more authentic and to post more on my personal blog.

So over the past week I agonized over what to write. After all - people actually read this

(which is terrifying honestly). What I realized, after running countless ideas through my head, was that I

could just write the truth. Exactly what is going on in my life. So here is my attempt to be true to

myself and create readable content all rolled into one post!

Recently I have been struggling with making connections with other people around me.

I work with lots of perfectly lovely people, but I haven’t really made any sort of deep friend

connections. (Outside of work, there aren’t many other places I could meet people.) I

started to really sit back and consider my interactions, and how frustrated I have felt, and

why. I have noticed that people tend to stick with other people like them. For example,

there are a lot of moms (my age!) that I work with. They apparently hang out with other moms.

They also don’t really talk about much else when I ask about their personal lives.

This is a wonderful quality to have...as a mom.

I am not a mom. I do not wish to be a mom any time soon.

And that really puts a barrier between me and the people around me, because I think common

ground is hard to find between myself and this particular subset of people. I think these types

of people aren’t particularly interested in a friendship with me because of the fact that I am not

“settled down.” I am interested in makeup, I absolutely adore traveling, I have a love/hate

relationship with exercise, and my biggest ambition is to be extremely well-read and a writer.

Those aren’t really group activities (mostly), unfortunately. So I am going to have to stretch...and

keep stretching... and move way outside of my comfort zone.

I used to be very active in Taekwondo and salsa. Those are wonderful places to meet people.

Taekwondo, because everyone is a little bit of a weirdo, and I just always felt comfortable there.

This is something I will get back into, but I have a specific timeline in my mind. And salsa,

because you literally have to dance with another person, and that just forces you to interact

with another person. Unfortunately there is not really a community for salsa in this area...so

I will have to keep thinking to figure out how I can jump back into that.

While I was abroad it was so easy to make friends. There are a few reasons for this, I suspect.

For one, no other expat that you meet already has a set of friends. They are already open to

meeting new people. I mean, they did leave their home country to set out in the world to

experience all it has to offer. For another, there is something about shared hardship that

really brings people together. Living in a different country, where you passably speak the

language and learn new cultural conventions daily through humiliating mistakes, is that hardship.

You laugh over a bottle of wine with a new friend to keep away the tears about the fact that

you can never show your face in a particular store after asking for a some "fuck" instead of a

popular soft drink. You connect over an extremely uncomfortable 100 degree train ride that

breaks down so many times that a 2 hour trip ends up taking 8. You can't help but become

close after walking around til the early hours of the morning in the freezing Spanish winter

because you can't find your way home.

Wine/Vin/Vino: A Catalyst of Friendship

How do you bond with someone when there is no hardship? Not even mild inconvenience?

Sometimes I worry that living in the Midwest will make me soft.

So what do I do?

For now, I will continue to try to make connections I suppose. This blog, for example,

is as much for me as for anyone else. It helps me feel connected to the world. I feel listened

to. I feel heard. I can see from my reader stats that at plenty of people do hear me. I was

discussing this with a close (figuratively, she actually lives really far away) friend, and she

suggested to me an app that is similar to Tinder, but for friends. I have discussed with a

few other friends in this same situation - having people you are close to very far away, and

having people close to you feel far away. This seems to be a common phenomenon within

my age group, from what I can gather. So at least that makes me feel less alone in this.

Its funny to note that other people feeling alone makes you feel less lonely.

We’ll see how this week goes.

Re-acculturation of me: Learning to live in my home again

April 29, 2018

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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry

and narrow mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”
~ Mark Twain

I read this quote and I find that lately, I have fallen into these traps, of prejudice and narrow-mindedness in some small way, when I struggle to find meaning in the place in which I find myself. After so many months in the same town, I feel a distinct need to get out, and not only that, but that what I have outside my door is less than what I got used to when I was far away. I struggle to remember when I returned, why I pined for the friendly mannerisms of the people of Iowa when I finally found myself back at home. I find that I have to remind myself that this place is a place many people not only enjoy, but un-ironically love. I can’t quite bring myself to love this place right now, but I’m open to it. I see this quote in the context of my life, in the fact that I feel that when I become to sedentary, I stop seeing the good in the world around me. In my experience, the only cure to this feeling is to see somewhere else. They say the grass is always greener on the other side, but for me, seeing the other side is the only way I can appreciate my own yard.

circa 2016

Hola

January 31, 2017

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[this is me trying to work out how I feel about the near-constant sexual harassment]

Walking back to work through the dusty streets of Rabat, I cross the street to avoid a group of young men a block in front of me. I don't even need to look at them, it happens automatically by now. As I walk past the construction directly across from them, they call to me "Hola....Hola!" Okay, so that wasn't as bad as it could have been, nothing gross, but I remark how I must look differently as they are trying Spanish with me, because I usually get plain English. Still, I can see wolf-like hunger in their eyes as I pass.

I turn the corner and dodge two unsmiling women walking in suits and enter the building where I work. I teach at a small center that prepares Moroccan students to take American standardized tests, and its on the fourth floor of a building overlooking a busy intersection. I wait years for the elevator to take me up to the unlit hallway outside of our rented space. I use the key I grabbed on my way out the door the last time and quietly slide open the door, expecting classes to be in session. "Hola," my boss calls.

Me very tired but very happy, a few months back, about to dig into a tagine.

Growing Pains

September 12, 2016

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Growing Pains

Today was Eid al-adha. I woke up to the sounds of several sheep who had temporarily taken up residence in the houses of my neighbors. They bleat maybe because they can sense their fate as the traditional meal later on in the day, or maybe they just don't like being cramped up inside. The sun was bright but it was crisp, and I felt how it had somehow turned into autumn here in Rabat. Gone are the days of 100 degree afternoons in my tiny, 7th floor apartment. Here now, is the autumn. In the Midwest where I am from, it is my favorite season. Here in Morocco, the leaves don't really change like they do at home, and it doesn't really ever get too cold. A normal day averages in the 70s, though it does get a bit chilly at night. And pumpkin spice will not be abundant, something I can't believe I will miss this year...

Lately I have been reflecting a lot on what I have done in the past year. Yes, as of 11 days ago, I have been here in Morocco for exactly one year. I say to myself, as I always do when I take the time to reflect back on my life, that I can't believe I am where I am today, and that so much unprecedented change has taken place. I still stop myself sometimes, and just take it all in - the sights, but mostly the sounds. The street sounds are so different from what I had come to be used to in the US. Here, you can hear the people calling to each other, talking loudly on the phone, eating, drinking, and laughing, and today, sheep baaing. It's still so surreal at times, but I am trying to organize everything inside my head, to make sense of it all.

Over the summer, every one of my American friends has slowly drifted away, back to their respective countries to pursue higher education or a different life, and I have been left here on a raft with no oar. I have made several Moroccan friends, and I have a boyfriend whom I am very close to, but I currently don't have a best female friend within a telephone call. It's been a little rough, adjusting to life like this, but I am making progress on my own personality along the way. Learning to make friends as an adult in a different country....and learning to be okay alone has been one of the hardest things about this experience. Growing pains are hard. But I believe the reward will be worth it, and I hope to become a person that I can be proud of. For now, though, I will continue to try to extend myself in order to find growth and figure out where I am, and where I want to be.

Here is a man going around the neighborhood collecting skins from the slaughtered sheep.

Unwilling sheep delivery.

A mule I saw on a mountainous road trip.

Ceuta (Septa) Trip - August 2016

September 03, 2016

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Here's a map of the region I visited pulled from Google

Ceuta (Septa) Trip - August 2016

Recently I traveled to the North of Morocco, because I needed to leave the country in order to renew my visa. For these visa trips over the past 11 months that I have been in Morocco, I have traveled to Amman (for a conveniently-timed Fulbright enrichment trip), Milan, and Madrid. This time, I decided to stay in North Africa and check out the autonomous Spanish city of Ceuta (or Septa, in Arabic). Check out the map above to see where it's located- as you can see, it's bordered by Morocco on one side and separated from the Iberian Peninsula on the other side by the Straight of Gibralter.

Here is a street of Tetouan at night

Ceuta is a "low-tax" zone and Moroccans living in surrounding cities, such as neighboring Tetouan, are known to cross the border frequently to do some shopping. And, like every city in Morocco, stores seem to have lots of promotions going on this time of year. In doing my research for this trip, the official Ceuta tourism website boasts of this notoriety as a shopping destination. I also noticed in this research that there is not a lot of information out there about this tiny enclave/exclave (I think in this case both are correct). For example, I found only a handful of places to stay in the way of hostels and hotels, and fewer restaurants. (Maybe this is due to my lack of expertise in Internet-research...or their lack of Internet presence.)

Anyway, as I had decided to travel by land for this particular excursion, I took a train more than 50% of the way, to Asilah, and a bus the rest of the way to Tetouan. I went with a friend and we purchased tickets on the 1:30 AM train, which was supposed to have us end up in Tetouan around 9 AM. (Tickets for this journey one-way cost us 175 MAD, or just over $18 USD). In fact, the train ended up arriving to Rabat (our starting point) at 2:30 AM, but we actually ended up at our destination not too much later than originally intended. When we boarded the train, sleep-deprived and irritated for having waited an extra hour outside in the middle of the night, we were shown to our seats in the dark train. Our seats were in a certain compartment on one of the cars, but we found a family asleep in our assigned seats. The father swore up and down that he had tickets for those seats, but when he produced them for our less-than-helpful attendant, it turned out that they were for the exact seats in the same compartment...in a different car. To make a long story short, the family refused to move and as it was nearing 3 in the morning we decided to suck it up and take their slightly crappier seats in the other compartment.

Here is a picture of a beautiful mosque near the border to Ceuta

This was not a sleeper car, so we were forced to sleep sitting up between jerks of the train as it stopped in every train station. At one point in the night I came out of my groggy state to realize that the train was completely stopped, and completely silent, save for the incessant sunflower seed eating going on in the seat next to me. Outside the window it was pitch black, and you could see only the cigarette cherries of the train workers and various passengers who had stepped off the train. I don't know if this was a scheduled break, but I just tried to go back to sleep. This happened about three more times, and I was too tired to care much about what was going on around me.

So we arrived at Asilah sometime in the wee hours of the morning and boarded the Supratours bus to head to Tetouan. We ate the homemade sandwiches I had brought along for breakfast. I think I fell asleep with my eyes open at this point but at least I had my glasses on.

We arrived in Tetouan a while later and headed to a cafe near the bus stop. We ordered some coffee and used some wifi to find a place to go in Ceuta. Then, we walked toward a petit taxi, which took us to a grand taxi (about $1), which took us to the border between Tetouan and Ceuta (17 MAD for each rider) (or Morocco and Spain). Getting into Ceuta was really smooth, and there was tons of foot-traffic and actual car traffic at the border. It seemed that the cars didn't move once during our entire process of passing border control.

The first thing we did was go to Plaza de Africa, because that is supposed to be the major city center in Ceuta. It was almost completely deserted, but it was Spain and it was so beautiful. It's right on the water, and has a pretty cool Andalusian-style church dating from the 1700s, Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Africa. We went to a tapas restaurant, which we later learned was a chain of restaurants, at about 10:30 in the morning. Everything was pretty cheap, a few tapas and 4 beers cost about 5 euros per person.

Then we walked for a few hours and went in just about every shop we saw. There were a lot of familiar names, but all of the clothing seemed more...decorated than what I was used to seeing in Morocco, or the U.S.. Everything just seems to be overloaded with detail and noise.

We lunched at a Chinese restaurant and had decent food and a really nice view. After this we headed to get some ice cream and sat outside eating it with a bunch of smokers speaking Arabic. It was getting late in the afternoon so we decided to begin the long journey home.

Me at the first tapas place, bright and early!

I was stopped at the border trying to go in to Morocco, and after talking to about six different people they finally gave me a visa. (On a separate train trip within Morocco I was accused of being a spy, which I find hilarious, so maybe I just have a suspicious look or something.) This is so wierd...but apparently they don't like it if you don't even stay the night in Ceuta, and they really don't like foreigners using this border as a way to renew their visa, as apparently this is common. I should note that I have never had anything like this happen when I go in and out of mainland Spain, or any other places I have gone, and I have heard of these issues with other travelers, so this is definitely unique to the border at Ceuta-Tetouan.

The view from our seat at the restaurant.

The trip home was long and painful, and when I finally got home around 4 the next morning, I decided to never do that again. At least not in one day.

Until next time!

Chefchaouan Trip Summer 2016

July 27, 2016

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Map of the area I traveled in - the Rif Mountains (thanks google!)

Recently I went on a trip to Chefchaouan and Akshour. I'll start by giving you some background information on these cities and then I will get into my travel shenanigans.

Chefchaouen //

A shot of the (hash) fields surrounding Chefchaouan

Chefchaouan is a little city found in the middle of the Rif mountains in the northwestern region of Morocco, and it's known for being blue. Literally everything is painted blue in the city - all the buildings and houses. For a time it was controlled by Spain as part of Spain in Morocco (the only Spanish Morocco left is the autonomous city of Ceuta, which I have visited, but that's a story for another day), but in '56 it was given back to Morocco with the independence movement. I have been here several times in the past, but this visit was by far the most memorable. The trip was a total surprise - I had been having a long course of bad luck (being robbed, finding a terribly brazen mouse in my apartment, not sleeping, and the terrible heat on top of everything making everyone miserable), and my SO suggested I join him + friends for a weekend getaway to relieve the stress. In short, it worked.

Everything. Literally. Blue.

I took the train to Souq al-Arb3a, and I hopped on the bus the rest of the way to Chefchouan. We stayed in an adorable little hostel owned by an equally cute older Spanish woman who lived there with her dog. By day we walked the blue streets and looked at little shops, and by night we sat in cafes to people watch and enjoy the sounds of the waterfall. We stopped into a shop that sold specialty handmade Argan oil and soap products and picked up some soap (orange and mint scents) and some scented Argan oil.

The little Argan shop we went to was magical!

100% Argan oil + soap

Akchour (Akchour) //

The second day we were there we went on a day trip to Akchour for a hike up to Pont de Dieu.

Akchour, near Chefchaouan, is also located in the Rif Mountains and is famous for its beautiful waterfalls and Pont de Dieu (Bridge of God). There are two major waterfalls, as well as a handful of smaller cascades, and most hikers don't trek all the way up to the natural bridge, but we were feeling gutsy that day and did the whole trek. It took us about 4 hours or so and included stopping to swim and have a tajine at a little mountainside "cafe". We filled our water bottles with a natural spring coming out of the side of a mountain at one of these little cafes (which are really just tables and chairs set up and tajines are cooked all day in the sun over an open fire).

I look relaxed but I was freezing from the shins down - mountain water is COLD.

Enjoying the view of the famous Pont de Dieu! I don't know what is going on in this picture but it's hilarious. And yes, those are matching water shoes - necessary for this kind of hike where we waded through knee-high water and hopped across makeshift bridges made of felled trees.

Finished up the day with a selfie :)

After this trip, my life felt a little more zen, but I know that it's temporary, and I will need to get up and go again sometime soon!

xo,

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