Last major experience of Morocco:

The flight from Casablanca to New York was late. I sat in the terminal and listened as people tried to find out what the holdup was. The employees couldn't say. It was supposed to leave at 12:25, but it was now 1:00, and so we were given coupons for free lunch at the cafeteria. The schedules said that it would now leave at 2:10. At 2:10, we arrived back at the terminal, only to learn that they only put a time because it was required, and that they had no idea when things would be fixed. This did not make any of the passengers happy. I stepped into the middle of the crowd.

"Look," I said, "If they were cancelling the flight, they would have told us. There is nothing we can do, so we may as well just calm down and wait."

The passengers sat down, and I started conversations with them. I learned that there was another Peace Corps volunteer on the flight, who had served in Gabon in the 1980's. There was a married couple who worked as nurses but moonlighted as travel writers. There was a buyer form Korea, and there was a business man who needed to travel through America and was going to drive from New York all the way to Indianapolis. It was interesting learning of these people.

Another hour passed, and we learned that the other flights were going on as scheduled. Many of us asked why we couldn't take those, but then I mentioned that it makes more sense to just keep one group of passengers waiting than to simply shift the times for everyone. They eventually agreed. I took out my laptop.

"Okay," I said, "Why don't we listen to the sweet and sultry vocal stylings of Mrs. Billie Holiday?"

We played the music for a while. But as six hours rolled by, many of the passengers couldn't take the wait any longer. Before I knew it, we were marching down the terminal, chanting our demands of information. People yelled, people surrounded offices, and the employees went into hiding. And then we were surrounded by the Moroccan police officers. I pulled lightly on the shoulders of some of the Americans nearby.

"We may not want to be near this right now." I said.

But the police officers simply directed us back to our terminal. Oddly enough, the moment the protesting started was the moment the airplane was fixed. We learned that the first airplane had malfunctioned, and they found a second one, but it, too, malfunctioned. Our flight was seven hours late, but fortunately, I had such a long layover in Raleigh that everything balanced out in the end.

First major experience of America:

I stood in line at the customs in JFK in New York City. All of the side conversations are in English, and I can understand them all. The ability to hear things in one's native tongue is very emotional when you haven't been able to in a while. It was also relieving to realize that I didn't have to put effort into listening anymore, and the ability to understand came naturally.

I had wondered when I would have my breakdown, the moment that I realized that my Peace Corps service was truly over. As I stood in line, a commercial came on the many televisions that hovered above me. Americans, all smiling. A Hispanic woman in a wedding dress in front of a fountain; a young shirtless boy swinging from a tire swing in the Midwest. Two brothers looking off from their porch in the South. A Muslim women in hijab smiling in New York. This was it. This was the moment when my throat shut, it became difficult to breathe, and the tears formed on my eyes. I trembled as I watched the faces flash on the screen. There are so many different faces in America, there are so many different voices. But the all say the same thing. The smiles say "freedom". The voices say "freedom". We are so many different things, but we all have this in common. This is our culture. Freedom. Freedom of expression, of religion, of belief, of speech, of assembly, of self identity, of making whatever you want to be of yourself. This is America, not religion, not race, not sexuality. Freedom. This is the UNUM to the E PLURIBUS. This is what is meant; we are physically immigrants, but we are spiritually home. We are many, but we are one, combined through the action of the recognition of freedom. I cried in the terminal, and the tears fell from my face to the passport that I held in my hand.

First major experience back home:

I returned to Pensacola, and had set up a dinner and drink session with some friends. We ate at Red Robin, and I ordered a drink. The ability to drink in front of other people in public is now always a little strange to me. The portions in America are ridiculously large, the amount in a restaurant in America is almost as much as what is served at an Amazigh wedding. I am going to have to learn how to eat enough for two to three people, I guess. We finished, and two of my friends had to leave because they had to get up early to go to work. Work I thought, getting up early? Crap... I continued to the bar with one of my friends.

When I was young, Emerald City was considered the fun club to go to, and The Roundup was the place where the old people went, "where the trolls went", as we would say. I expected to be able to go into the bar and see my friends sitting at the same table they always sat at, and I would order a Cape Cod and we would catch up. This did not happen. I walked in, and all of the faces were new. All of the faces were so young to me. Nobody recognized me, either. I managed to find one face, the bartender, who was happy I was back. But the friend and I went into the main room and watched the show. They have drag performers here.

I watched as one of the performers appeared that I knew. But she performed a new song, Candyman from Christina Aguilera. She used to sing Whitney Houston and other big voices like that. The crowd was polite, but it wasn't the same as she used to receive. Then another, younger performer appeared. Tiny, thin, and young, she walked around the stage to Katy Perry. The crowd went wild.

"What is this?" I asked.

"Well," my friend said, "This is a college town. These are the students. This drag queen is at the college, and she brings in a new crowd."

"But Penny Holiday?" I asked about the older performer.

"She even had to buy a new dress. Its competitive now."

"Where is everyone we know?" I asked.

"They go to The Roundup now."

"What?"

"Yeah. They don't want to be around the young college kids anymore. They just want to sit and relax with the locals."

That's what we call it now. The Roundup is no longer where the trolls go, but where the locals go. I'm not a troll, I'm a local, who just wants to relax. I know I'm young, but I have lost my youth. I'm older, it's true. But when did it happen? When did my friends shift from the techno music and dancing of Emerald City to the laid back, older atmosphere of The Roundup? I left Pensacola at the border age, the hazy period where I was neither; but now, upon my return, I find that I am now firmly in the latter camp.

I am older. I am not cynical, but neither am I naive anymore. But having this experience has turned me into somewhat of an outsider now. My friend noticed this.

"Why don't you change your blog from "me graves in morocco" to "me graves in america"? You seem to have a different view than everyone else."

"Maybe I will," I said, "Maybe I will."

I am about to be on my way to Rabat. I will be back in America by the end of this week. I have reached the end of my service in what is known as ‘medical separation’. This pains me because I just started English classes and the association I helped start is just getting off of the ground, but it is necessary for my health. I remember, when I first arrived, that I would write my blog as a series of lessons. Though they aren’t fully lain out that way, I was able to cull a series of lessons from them, which I will share with you, dear reader. They aren’t in any order of importance.

Lesson 1: Do not be afraid to ask questions. Asking questions is how we learn about things. It does not make us stupid; it makes us curious. We have been taught to be self reliant, but this is a lie; everything is interdependent; everything relies on one another. The best thing to do in order to relieve ourselves of doubt is to be willing to ask question.

Lesson 2: Do not be afraid to answer questions. One of the kindest things you can do to help someone is to open their eyes to knowledge. If many people ask you many questions, it can get tiresome, but understand that they ask you the question for a reason. On the flip side, do not be afraid to say ‘I don’t know’ if you do not know the answer. To pretend you know the answer is even worse than lying, because then it becomes a lie that you believe, as well.

Lesson 3: Just because someone gives you an answer you do not like does not mean they did not understand the question. I wrote about this in March of 2010. So many people in life assume that the things they believe are automatically correct. Therefore, when they ask a question of someone, they tend to expect a certain answer. When someone with a different worldview does not give the expected answer, the asker is upset. Learn how to learn answers.

Lesson 4: Words are powerful. I remember writing about the power of words in April of 2010. During the election of 2008, people threw around the word ‘madrasa’ to describe Obama in an attempt to paint him as un-American. This is a tool that people use to keep us fighting one another, to make us sound foreign to one another. The truth is that we all share the same values deep down; we simply use different sounds. These values may sound different when we use the sounds of our mouths, but if we listen to the sounds of our heart, we will see that they all sound the same.

Lesson 5: In May of 2010, I wrote of how we are more powerful than we think. A few years ago, I had never left my hometown, with the exception of vacations with family and the occasional trip with friends to New Orleans. It was not expected for me to last this long here, but I did, and I have created wonderful things here, and have witnessed Moroccans create wonderful things here, too. On the flipside, it is important to understand that even though we are more powerful than we think, we do have limitations. Events have become stressful for me, to the point where I am not effective as a volunteer. Rather than let pride force me to stay, and not provide the best that I can, I am left to admit that I have reached the end. There is nothing wrong with this.

Lesson 6: The more we speak, the more likely we are to start saying things we will regret. It is strange how easily that right speech is undermined by idle chatter, gossip, and complaining. It is important to understand and control what you say, even if that means remaining silent most of the time. To speak only when necessary is itself necessary in order to reduce the likelihood of negative speech.

Lesson 7: I spoke in May and June of 2010 about my first bus experience with another volunteer. I was charged for her seat, too, because the bus driver assumed that we were married and I was paying for both of us. I did not understand the language, and so I assumed that he was just trying to rip off the foreigner. I have learned since then that people are not like that. People in the world are inherently good, and rather than assume the worst in everybody, it is far better to assume trust, and only be proven wrong. This allows your heart to be more open.

Lesson 8: There is a difference between being alone and loneliness. most people tend to confuse being alone with loneliness. Loneliness comes from not wanting to be alone. Aloneness, on the other hand, is merely the pleasure one takes when one knows oneself. One is able to plumb the depths of one's own consciousness and being and see within themselves the attributes of infinite numbers of people.

Lesson 9: Bureaucracy sucks. However, it is necessary. I know that when I return, I will have to get my license renewed, but after living in Morocco, where it took me two weeks to get signatures and stamps back in October 2010, I think I can manage a Florida DMV.

Lesson 10: I know that, sometimes, we want so much to believe that the bad events we witness - wars, violence, inequity, injustice, propaganda - are the result of some conspiracy, and that there are people who are all good and people who are all bad. But the truth of the matter is that we are all heavenly bodies, drifting and drifting and drifting in an almost infinite sea of emptiness. Every interaction is a glorious burst of light in that blackness, even if our limited consciousness cannot comprehend it that way. Every event, every moment, every interaction, regardless of whether or not we want to believe it is good or bad, is simply that - the collision of heavenly bodies. This is the truth that I have learned, and with all of my heart and all of my being, I don't think that truth is something that I can ever let go of, or that can never let go of me.

Lesson 11: Princess Valencia Carmina is a perfectly legitimate name for a camel. Likewise, Queen Elizabeth Montanegro is also a perfectly legitimate name for a gecko that climbs into your apartment every night and likes to climb in your hair, and Oh-My-F*%king-God-It’s-Going-To-Kill-Me is a perfectly legitimate name for a camel spider the size of your hand that makes you shriek and run out of your bedroom and keeps you awake until 4:00 AM because you’re too scared to walk past it in order to get into your bed.

Lesson 12: In January of 2011, during a New Year’s in the desert, I said, “During the day, we have the illusion of a blue covering above us. We have the same thing on a cloudy night. But on nights like this, we have no protection from it. The infiniteness of it all. When we can’t see it, then we can pretend that all of our little fights that we have over religion, race, sexuality actually mean something. But now, looking out at these things, these lights, and knowing that it is so great a distance that it would be impossible to reach them, nobody can help but realize just how petty and stupid all of those fights are. But the funny thing is that even though mankind has been able to look up and see all of this, they continue to do it.” What I want to say is that our differences are pettier than we think.

Lesson 13: ‘Success’ is a very loaded term. We think of success in monetary values and in figures and facts. The truth is, success is mainly ineffable and experiential. I have learned that such little things can be successes: picking olives with your village all day, climbing a treacherous mountain to go to a wedding, discussing Buddhism to a Muslim, traveling from town to town working at festivals, and eating a lunch a Moroccan has provided, even if you aren’t hungry. These are all successes in their own way. They opened me up to new experiences. The same can happen anywhere. Go sing karaoke, go backpacking, take up a hobby you were interested in but never had the time. Any attempt is a success.

Lesson 14: The Ayacana Sutra is the story of the Buddha being requested to teach. The analogy of the lotus was used. We are each both the Buddha and the lotus. We all have something to teach the world, just like the Buddha. Likewise, we need to wait until we are ready to teach, like the lotus that has arisen out of the pond and opened its petals. Take a deep breath, you have time. Don’t worry.

Lesson 15: Facebook is going to become a necessary evil. Everyone is on Facebook, and without a Facebook, I will not be able to communicate with people in the future. Employers are looking more and more at Facebook accounts, so I will need one, of a Linkedin account, or whatever the devil they call it is nowadays. However, since this is now necessary, you may as well learn how to control yourself when expressing yourself. The internet’s memory is very long, as is our regret at an unwise action.

Lesson 16: The ability to express oneself should be sacrosanct. In June of 2011, I wrote of individuality, and I have to admit that the ability to be myself and be understood has been a source of stress for a while. I am an individual, a unique one, at that. I have learned that I value that ability very highly, much more so than I did before I left.

Lesson 17: I cannot comprehend how people can expose themselves to only one point of view and then claim that as ultimate truth. I cannot understand the so-called "Real American" who never leaves their hometown and waves little plastic flags made in China at Independence Day parades, without even questioning what their responsibilities are to continue to contribute to the ideals of equality, justice, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Lesson 18: Freedom is the ability to control one's own destiny, without barriers placed by a foreign entity. I have learned that everything and everyone that I have been taught was a foreign entity is, in fact, simply a potential extension of who I am. Even my ego is a foreign entity, and beneath all of my so-called personality is an emptiness.

Lesson 19: After my trip to America in August, I have learned to always have a backup plan. This reduces stress, and the likelihood that you will end up vomiting on a train at 9:00 PM in Marrakech. This also reduces stress when you call your mother from a payphone in Los Angeles telling her that you won’t make it home, only to have the phone cut off mid sentence.

Lesson 20: You cannot save everyone. You cannot help everyone. You cannot force help on people who don’t want it, and it is arrogant to believe that simply because some people in the world do not live like Americans, then they must be miserable and in need of our help. People are generally happy in their lives, and the amount of material things that they have plays no part in that. In truth, it is those who have many things that can sometimes be the most miserable. Like the Buddha and the lotus, you teach when you are ready, and others learn when they are ready.

Lesson 21: It is all right to know when to quit. It is wise to learn when your journey has reached the end. I have learned that lesson, painfully, by trying to force myself to deal with my emotions on my own and letting my pride get in the way of my health.

Lesson 22: This one,perhaps, is the most important lesson that I have learned. Without it, none of the other lessons are able to be learned. The final lesson is this:

Know yourself. Because if you don’t know yourself, then how can you be yourself? If you don’t know yourself, then how can you love yourself?

So that’s it. Twenty months, twenty-two lessons learned. I think that’s good enough. “me graves in morocco” is reaching its conclusion. I believe it is a good one, and one that I will always look back on with an overall sense of happiness. There may be an epilogue when I return; we will see. I have missed my family, and I have missed life in America. I have missed being able to fully be myself. But I would never change anything, I especially will never forget nor regret the time spent here. So, I wish you peace, love, and all of that, but I just need to remember to offer a little of that to myself, sometimes.

Love,

me graves

I went to the youth center to teach my morning Engish class. Most of them are beginning English, so for my first lesson, I decided to teach pronouns. I listened to them echo my words: I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they, me, you, him, her, us, you, them, my your, his, her, its, ours, yours, theirs. They say the words, their eyes are glazed over. It hadn't quite connected that these words are used to describe things and the subject pronouns are the English verb "to be". The verb "to be" has no Arabic equivalent, so I try to break it down into simple sentences for them: I am a teacher, you are a student, the teacher is me, this is my book, this is our classroom. I thought of how religions would use old languages; the traditional Tridentine Catholic Mass used to be spoken in Latin, but the feeling of saying words one does not know makes one uncomfortable, so they changed it in the 1970's, Buddhist practices are in Sanskrit. We have the translations, but saying the words in the old language rings hollow at times. This is the meaning behind sounds being so silent. In a way, it feels like a thick sheet of glass has bene placed between the speaker and the listener, an unpassable chasm and spreads between the divine and the mundane. The class finished, and I hoped that at some point, the connection would sear itself into the minds of my students.

When the class was over, I sat outside of the youth center and listened to the sounds around me. The sound of people speaking a language they did not know was replaced by the sound of the wind in the trees, and small birds flying overhead. It is autumn, and a cool wind finally began to blow through Errachidia. As I sat there, I wondered how these seeming small sounds can become so loud. I sat and waited for the other two volunteers to come. We had promised the week prior to go to the house of one of my students for lunch. It was now 11:30, and neither of them had shown up. One of the volunteers hadn't called me in a few days, while the other had said an hour earlier than he would show up. The student asked me where everybody was, and I answered I do not know. My phone beeped and I read the message from the volunteer. HEY ON SECOND THOUGHT I THINK IM GOING TO SKIP LUNCH HAVE FUN. I had no money on my phone, so I asked him to at least call the other volunteer to see if she could come. He did so, and later I received a message saying that she didn't want to come. I left the youth center with five men who speak only Arabic and French. The two volunteers who cancelled spoke Arabic, while I spoke only the dialect that none of them really knew.

I sat in a large room, ten by twenty feet, painted green and adorned with red couches. Now it was my turn to listen to words that I did not understand. I emptied my mind and tried to pay attention to the sounds that left their lips. I was able to guess that they were speaking of Gaddafi, of Libya, and of other places in Africa. I could offer nothing to the conversations, and so I remained silent and listened. We went through courses of salad with tuna, chicken, beef with plums, a plate of fruit, and finally a dish of cold couscous with buttermilk. I have returned to vegetarianism, and so the host had made a special plate of vegetable couscous for me to eat. He kept apologizing to me, but I simply replied "no problem." He was able to understand that much of the dialect. Because I could not contribute verbally to the event, I decided to focus my attention on eating the bites slowly. The rice in the salad had a hint of lemon in them, the tomatos had acquired the sourness of the onions. The couscous wrapped around my teeth as I tried to chew, the baked carrots were sweet, and the cucumber had become tart. The pomegranate seeds exploded as I bit down on them. The buttermilk couscous dish provided a strange taste of both sour and savory. Finally, after my host apologized to me yet again about meat, I replied in my dialect, "No, the kindness of your heart is as large as the ocean." Someone tried to translate, but it didn't connect. In Morocco, I learned, feelings are felt through the liver, not the heart.

As the conversation continued, I began to imagine what it must have felt like to be Catholic in the 1960's, knowing that something divine was taking place, but that I had no way of understandingt it. The chasm between myself and the Arabic speakers grew; the sheet of glass grew thick. I have been trying to learn Arabic, but knowing how little time I have left here, and how much energy I used learning the dialect, makes concentrating on it difficult, at best. The sounds once again took on the characteristics of silence, and my mind kept telling me to simply smile and look around the room, tilting my head occasionally as though I had managed to understand a word or phrase, saying "mm hmm", laughing when others laughed. There are so many other characteristics to communication beyond the mere sounds of words. The lunch completed, we made our way back to town.

Tonight, I teach a yoga class. The exercise classes are not as successful as the English classes. I have yet to have a student express interest in either yoga or pilates. I have learned, instead, to be satisfied in the aloneness of the room, the meditative bamboo flute music I play usually permeates the room, but occasionally I hear the sound of birds outside, and when the wind picks up at night, I can understand that the earth is sighing, as though to say, "This is simply how things are."

The woman sits at the corner of the market, holding a child. The child is crying, and the woman is holding out her hand, asking for dirhams. Footsteps on concrete. Men call for items from the vendor. They walk by her, looking up into the sky or focusing on their cell phone conversations. Children play in the street outside as rain falls lightly on the concrete. They kick a plastic soccer ball back and forth. The baby continues to cry. Someone walks into the market and passes the woman. Apples are bought, as are cheese and bread. Someone walks by the woman, stops, then turns around, goes to the vendor, and buys milk. Footsteps past the woman with the crying child. The bag of milk is dropped. The woman tries to thank the person, but he places a finger over his mouth, telling her not to make a big deal out of it. The person walks away as the woman rips open the plastic bag of milk and feeds her chlid. The crying stops. Someone walks away, feet crashing against the pools of water that have formed on the street.

1. Declaration

Sunrise. Shadows are dissolved by the light.

Colors seep back into the valley, just

like paint on a blank canvas. A living

canvas, this pastoral, evoking peace.

And I am buried beneath it; a kind

of death, I suppose. Like shadows, the way

they all simply disappear when the real

world reemerges from its sleep. Each one,

each shadow, retreats into Earth’s loving

embrace. Darkness, it seems, can never last.

But light does not seem to be eternal,

either. How do you want me to answer?

Is there a question that I must answer?

Is the answer related to the light?

Is this the same light that came from the last

night, and the night before that? I have just

one question. If I can have just this one,

I will agree to become the living

embodiment of your truth, the same way

water will reflect all things, when at peace.

Like sky over ocean, an eternal

reflection of each other, in loving

union. The truth we share will be that kind.

The question: how do I know which is real?

2. Prayer

After the bombings, I was told that real

Muslims know fighting is not the answer.

“My Lord is Most Merciful, Most Loving.

It is man who turns away from the light.

Even the word Islam translates to peace.”

I nodded, looked to the sky, to the last

of the evening light. I have been living

here for over a year, and I think, just

as when I first arrived, people are kind.

All people can be kind. This eternal

truth - that when people see themselves as one,

they know that they can act no other way

than with loving kindness - it is that way.

“Prayer," he said, “Is how to join the real

light of God. To join in that eternal

bond.” Then, as if to serve as an answer,

A child gives money to a beggar. Just

a dirham, but still an act of loving

kindness. Today, it is nearing the last

days of spring. The summer will bring the light

of longer days. I watch as, one by one,

children riffle through the various kinds

of ice cream. They will only be at peace

once they find what it is that they want. Living

here, I see it is the same as living

in the US. One child stands in a way

that says my father doesn’t have that kind

of money to buy ice cream, but the real

parallel appears when she holds the light

ice cream. Her friend sees, and the eternal

reaction she makes is one of loving -

she pays for it. The girls smile. This answer

to a question that finally brings peace -

all acts of kindness are prayers. Each one

is a desire to see each other just

as we desire to see God. Joined, at last.

3. Alms

And the first of them will say to the last,

“Because you did not care for the living,

you will endure punishment.” There is one

man who sits in the same place on the way

to souk and asks for money. The answer

I always hear is “May Allah be kind.”

Everywhere I turn is an eternal

line of beggars. I know that they are real

people. (At least, I act as though I just

treat them like they are real.) It gives me peace -

the thought of them is too heavy. A light

heart is needed to continue loving

life, and a loving God in a loving

world would not allow injustice to last.

But still, at times, between moments of peace,

I see them in my mind. Countless living

people, lying in dirt. This is the real

world, the world that I have allowed. This one

world is made by us all. This is the kind

of world that we want, and in this way,

we say, “Poverty is how we see light

in ourselves. With no possessions, we just

have ourselves and Allah.” As I answer

the beggar, I accept this as eternal,

For how can I support this eternal

line of people suffering? What loving

can I commit to them all without just

raising my arms in defeat - in one last

show of forfeiture? I know of no way

to remedy their problems and bring peace.

Sometimes, I feel I can’t bring even one

instant of hope to those who are living

in this world. My thoughts become an answer

to those unable to see that the light

within all of them is still just as real

as the light in us. May Allah be kind.

4. Fasting

It is the leaving behind of these kind

of things so that, once we reach eternal

life, we are prepared to embrace the light.

The things that we believe we are loving

today - fine clothes, physical things, living

in comfort and without want - these are just

distractions from attaining lasting peace.

Because God is both the first and the last,

all else are simply shrouds that hide the real

nature of things. We attach an answer

to them, not knowing they are in the way

of the answer. All things are part of one

existence - God’s. Upon learning this, one

finds it is easy to give up the kind

of things that others think are the answer

to their problems. One sees the eternal.

Seeing that nothing of this world will last,

one gives up these things and chooses the light,

instead. We learn how to love others just

as God does. It is a kind of loving

insofar as they are nothing, the way

one loves the refraction of light from real

jewels. The complete spectrum of living

is within it, and to know it brings peace.

5. Pilgrimage

“You must accept the religion of peace

before you learn the details,” is what one

man said to me while riding to Fes. “Real

faith comes before you know something.” That kind

of belief seemed impossible. Loving

the knowledge that I can know the answer

for questions is needed, for me, as light

is needed by life. And for eternal

questions related to ways of living?

I could not even understand the way

that mindset works. But then, during a last

call to prayer, I lost consciousness just

before dawn. I dreamed that I was standing just

before a black stone. I remembered peace,

watched white sails as they would float on the way,

surround the blackness, and were absorbed, one

by one, into the black, the eternal

hole that was once just a stone. Which was real,

I thought, and how can I know the answer?

I awoke to see light. It was the kind

of brightened light that takes place at dusk’s last

moment, meaning the dream I was living

had lasted but a moment. But, loving

that moment, when black joined white, dark and light

were joined in loving embrace, and the light

and all things, just as they were, were at peace.

At last, I thought, I could see those living

that way. It was never about the one

right answer, but the right kind of question,

whose real answer lies in eternal black.

A group of volunteers came to Er Rachidia to celebrate and spend time together. However, throughout the course of the weekend, we found it necessary to go to the watering hole in a nearby tourist attraction, Meski. As we stepped out of my apartment to head to the taxi stand, we immediately felt the intensity of the heat against our faces. After a few months of temperatures well over one-hundred degress Farenheit, we had gotten used to the dead heat of day, but there was something different about this heat. I could feel the coming humidity of a possible storm. It was this heat that left the streets of Er Rachidia empty for most of the summer.

The taxi ride was pleasant. As I finished my cigarette, I let the wind stamp out the butt and I placed the remnants in my backpack; I refuse to be an inconsiderate smoker who throws the butt onto the ground. We passed village after village for a few minutes, and at each entrance a small water fountain greeted us. These are the fountains that people typically use to clean their hands, feet, and faces for ablutions. The villages all lined the east side of the street, the deserts leading up to the Atlas Mountains lined the west side. Camels walked through the bushes alongide mules and children. In the taxi, most of the volunteers sat in the back. I sat up front with my sitemate. I turned to him and noticed that his eyes were moving back and forth, as though he were trying to read something with his mind.

"You're thinking of something." I said.

"No, not really." He replied.

"All right, then."

I turned back to the road, held my hand out, and left the force of the wind raise and lower it. My hand sliced through everything - the trees, the houses, the camels, the children - until it finally sliced through the pillars that marked the entrance to Meski.

The watering hole is within the valley of Meski, and it required us to travel down a steerp set of stairs that had been carved into the valley rock. We paid the five dirhams to get in, and we found a place in the shade to sit where the owners had drilled metal beams into the side of the valley for a tarp. My sitemate had just returned from America, and he had brought back with him some bacon, so we all decided to have BLT's for lunch that day. Knowing Islamic policy on pork, we made sure to sit in a corner where nobody could see us.

"Who all is going to go swimming?" Someone asked. The men raised their hands, as did most of the women. I didn't like the idea of taking my shirt off in front of large groups of people, so I decided to stay beneath the tarp. One of the women in the group was wearing a two-piece swimsuit. The people of Meski, being used to living in a tourist town, are used to this sort of thing. Nonetheless, it didn't take long for all of the men, who were dressed in no more than two inches worth of clothing, to notice this woman swimming. I looked around the watering hole, at the men, as they stared at her. To be honest, however, the same thing happens in America, but because the men and women are intermingled, it doesn't get noticed as often. Men naturally stare at women. Men can't help themselves, it is hardwired into their brains to look at women this way. I then noticed the women who stared at the female volunteer. The women of thew village all wore long dresses, complete with long sleeve shirts, neck coverings, and wide-brimmed hats. Knowing the culture's desire for light-skinned people, I could think of two reasons for this. The women here are simply trying to avoid as much sun as possible, and they don't want to be looked at that way. I remember a Moroccan once saying that she doesn't feel like a prisoner wearing the hijab. It is when she shows her flesh that men treat her like an object.

I sat there, watching the others play in the water, and opened my book of poetry. I took a drag fom my cigarette and began reading "The Gift", by Sharon Olds.

If I could change one physical thing

about myself, I would retract those tiny

twilit lips which appeared at the mouth

of my body when the children's heads pressed out

I read the words, took another drag of my cigarette, and looked out at the watering hole. The female volunteer didn't notice the men looking at her, or, if she did, she din't make it look like she cared. This is what it's like to live wholly within one's element, I thought to myself, thinking back on the last time I had ever felt like that. It was when I was writing. Hours could pass, and I wouldn't even notice the sun's light creeping along the edge of the desk.

A few moments later, the volunteers came up to me. They had finished swimming and had decided that it would be a good time to try to get home, before everone tried to rush home. We climbed the stairs to the main road and found a taxi right away. The humidity of the coming storm had passed, and the skies were completely blue.

Later that night, the others were sitting around the parlor, enjoying themselves, and I went to the other room to have a cigarette. I took out another cigarette and watched as the trails of smoke twirled up through the middle air shaft, into the night sky. They snaked around the metal gratings of the rebar; free of any shape, they could get around anything that tried to hinder them in their attempt to escape the ventilation shaft. My sitemate came up to me.

"You're thinking of something." He said.

"No, not really." I lied.

"All right, then."

I decided that I would spend this Ramadan in America. Since this blog is dedicated to my service in Morocco, I decided to not publish any blog entries while I was in America. I have just returned to Morocco, where I will begin a new part of my service, the concluding few months, in which I will be in a new site, with new responsibilities. I look forward to describing to you all new observations that I will be making from a fresh perspective.

Love always,

me graves

I fasted for Ramadan last year. A month without eating or drinking during the day, and at night, the food consisted of sweets and candies and juices that served to provide energy for the next day. Everything is closed all day, and throughout the night, people wander the streets. Nobody works during Ramadan. Needless to say, I decided to travel to America this year. Knowing the way things work in Morocco, I decided that the best route to take would be the 8:30 CTM bus directly from Er Rachidia to Casablanca, and then to wait in the airport for about 8 hours until my flight was to leave at 6:30. I have been waiting in airports before, so this was no problem, and it would be welcome to know that I got there in time. I walked to the CTM station and bought my ticket. It was July 26th.

"Hello. I would like to buy a ticket to Casablanca on August 2nd."

"August 2nd is during Ramadan. You're traveling?"

"Yes. To America."

"Okay. Here's your ticket."

I went home, glad that I would be able to make it to America so easily. The day came, and I made my way through the street to the CTM station half an hour early. My suitcase dragged behind me, and my laptop banged against my side. I made my way to the CTM station, where I saw two men who sat in front, occasionally beginning to nap. I walked into the CTM station and asked them when the bus would arrive.

"What bus?"

"The bus that goes to Casablanca this morning at 8:30."

"There is no bus that goes to Casablanca today."

I showed them the ticket that I had bought the week before. They laughed to each other and pointed at me and to the ticket. I realized that I was on the verge of a blackout, I began to get tunnel vision, my breath suddenly stopped, and I began to mutter to myself without realizing it, something about the two men who stood in front of me and various methods that they needed to be destroyed. I had to get out of the CTM station, and fast. I found myself walking from the CTM station to the souk bus station. There was a reason why I preferred to ride via the CTM station instead. Souk buses don't run on schedules, bus simply begin their journey with a final destination in mind. It may stop at any village or city, or it may simply travel straight through. It may travel the direct route to the final destination, or it may simply meander through cities in the opposite direction, depending on who got on the bus at the time. I had to take a bus from Er Rachidia to Marrakech, and then find a way to Casablanca myself. This souk bus in particular, in order to get to the northern city of Marrakech, had to first travel southwest to Beni Milal, and then northeast to Marrakech, making what could have been an eight hour trip into a ten or eleven hour one.

I'm happy to say that the bus did leave Er Rachidia on time. However, due to the fact that a lot of people were so tired due to not eating during Ramadan, they had to stop for longer periods of time at the cities they stopped in. For instance, a stop in Midelt, which usually lasts about fifteen minutes, had to last about forty-five minutes so the driver could take a brief nap. What should have been a half hour stop in Beni Milal became an hour and fifteen minute nap break. I looked at my watch in Beni Milal and realized that had they not changed their mind about the CTM bus (they are apparently allowed to simply change their mind as to whether or not a bus does or does not have to work.) I would have been nearing Casablanca at this time. Instead, I found myself traveling to the other side of the country in order to find a way to get to Casablanca. I realized that I had to take a train from Marrakech to Casablanca if I were to get there at all. I checked the times and realized that the last train leaves Marrakech at 9. I had a few hours to get there, and at least would be able to get to Casablanca at around midnight, which would give me a little time to rest in the airport.

I felt that, until I discovered that sunset would occur a half an hour outside of Marrakech at 8. The bus stopped at a small cafe outside of Marrakech and everyone got out, eager to devour the food prepared. Granted, the food was delicious, but I couldn't eat very well knowing that due to the complete unaccountability of travel schedules, I may not be able to get to America at all. We had reached almost 12 hours on what could have been a ten hour trip, or a seven hour trip had the CTM buses ran. I managed to shove some sweet food and soup down and ran back to the bus.

I finally reached Marrakech at about 8:45. I had fifteen minutes to get to the train station. I ran out of the bus station and to the taxi stand, but I found that surprisingly, this series of taxis were in strike. Why they were on strike I do not know, but what I did know was that I was beginning to black out again, and I needed to get away from these people as soon as possible, otherwise, my actions would lead me to a place I really did not want to go. Luckily, I found a cameo, a tricycle type vehicle with the equivalent of a red rider wagon attached to the back. I threw my stuff into the back and hopped in. The man was wearing a New York hat, and I immediately felt like Indiana Jones traveling through the streets of Tokyo.

"Short round, get me to the train station, now!"

I threw dirhams at him, and in my fantasy, I imagine him shouting, Okay Dr. Jones, hold onto your potatoes! The traffic was heavy in the city, and the driver dodged the traffic and wove into and out of the cars. We ran through red lights and stop signs in order to get to the train station. I looked at my watch. It was 9. I heard the sound of a whistle and leapt out of the cameo. My roller suitcase was upside down, but at that point I didn't care. My laptop banged against my side, and my stomach began to turn on itself. I reached the platform just as the train began to roll out of the station. Normally, if a train starts to move, that means it was missed. But in Morocco, One only missis the train once it has finally left the platform. I sprinted to the nearest door, pulled it open, threw my laptop into the train, and then my suitcase, and then I pulled myself into the train just as the platform dropped from my feet. For a moment, one foot dangled outside the train,but I pulled my body into the train, fell to my knees, and threw up sweets and soup all over the floor. I knew that I would finally get to Casablanca with a little time to spare.

I then realized that most other volunteers tell me to travel just before Ramadan instead of during it. Now I knew why.

1. Blackouts

I was making the final adjustments to my vacation schedule the other night when it happened. The lights went out, the wifi internet stopped working, and the music that usually plays every night in the street went silent. What was strange was that it would happen at around the same time every night; the power would go out for about fifteen minutes starting at eight o'clock, come back on for another fifteen minutes, go out again for half hour, and then remain on for the rest of the night. For some reason, however, I had connected the power outages with the construction that had been going on.

In hindsight, it should have been obvious that wasn't the case since they usually stop construction work around seven, but it never occurred to me that the power company would just choose certain parts of the city to not have power for a specific period of time. I talked to Dipesh about it, and he told me that they were called rolling blackouts. I had heard of the term before, but I wasn't familiar with the actual meaning of it, nor had I connected it with what was happening.

In America, we take for granted that, so long as we pay our electric bill, any time we flip a switch there will be light. But this was the first time that I had actually experienced the fact that electricity, as with other forms of energy, is finite and has to be measured out. We understand this in America - that we need oil for cars, coal and other catalysts in the creation of energy, but there is enough energy in America so that it is always available. For now, at least.

This night in particular, I was making final preparations for my vacation to Los Angeles to be with David. The plan was that we would stay at his parents' house for the month of August, except I would fly home at some point for the week. The power had turned back on when I got the message.

"Marcus, I have some bad news."

"What is it, David?"

lights go out, internet dies.

"Shit."

"What is it?" Dipesh asked.

"David has some bad news."

We waited for fifteen minutes. The lights came back on, and after a few minutes, the internet started working on my computer again.

"What is it, David?"

"We can't stay at my house for August."

"What do you mean?"

lights go out, internet dies.

"Damn it!"

"What?" Dipesh asked.

"We can't stay at David's parents' house. I don't have the money to stay anywhere else."

"These blackouts seem more frequent tonight. I wonder why."

We waited for half an hour. I lazily pick up a cigarette and light up. I know it's a terrible habit, but fortunately, the stress is only here, in Morocco, so I will stop when I return to America. Finally, the lights came back on, and the internet started to work again.

"What do you mean we can't stay at your parents' house? An extended motel would end up costing us another 2000.00 dollars."

"I know, I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do? You aren't mad at me, are you?"

lights go out, internet dies.

"Oh damn it!"

I know that there are numerous sources of renewable energy - wind, solar, hydro - but so far, none of these energies are taking off in America. It is only now that the country is doing anything serious about mileage standards on vehicles. Apparently, most Americans seem to equate the fact that we have a responsibility to not destroy the earth and keep it habitable with socialism. I bet that if rolling blackouts were to return, we would find a huge market for these other energies within moments. The lights came back on, as did the internet.

"No, of course I'm not mad at you."

"Are you sure?"

I began to type.

"No, it's just that we're having rolling blackouts, so I don't know when-

Lights go out, internet dies.

"..."

"You're simply accepting it now?"

"May as well."

"You do realize that you've lit up a cigarette about every time the internet went down, right?"

"Shut up, Dipesh."

By this time, the brief exchange that should have taken about five minutes has gone over the course of over an hour. A friend, Princess Leia, once gave me a piece of advice; no matter what else life throws at us in America, we'll always be content with the fact that it's not happening in Morocco. It's true, I can no longer think of anything that could happen in America that would make me very frustrated. Traffic jam? Meh, I was driving too fast anyway. Long line at the grocery? I'm just glad they know how to make lines and go in turn. Taxes? That means I get to use the interstate, the library, the police, the firemen, and the EMTs. The lights come back on and the internet works.

"I'm sorry, there are blackouts."

"I have great news! I talked with a friend and you can stay with her."

"That's great. Okay. I'll talk to you later. Bye."

"Bye."

I turn off my computer and stare at the wall. I shuddered to think about what would happen to the developed world if, heaven forbid, an electromagnetic pulse were to erupt from a nearby supernova that would cause electronic devices to fail. Much of the developing world would be able to get along just fine, but as for America, Europe, and the rest of the developed world, most of our lives are dictated by electronic devices. All of our money is electronic, placed in banks, stocks, and other bytes of information that float around. If the power went out, we'd be left with basically nothing. And our farms are based on electronic devices now, except for small family farms. It would be so disastrous for us if that were to happen. I think I am going to reread my old boy scout manual at some point to refresh myself, and perhaps look into properties where I can learn to grow my own vegetables.

You know, just in case.

1.) Cheese: I never realized how delicious cheeses are, but after sampling some Spanish cheeses earlier this year, I now look upon my selection of cheeses in Morocco, and, well... this is how I begin to feel.

When I go to Los Angeles and back home next month, I will have to go to a wonderful little shop that I know that sells Parmigiano Reggiano, just the popular parmesan cheese from Italy, but still, delicious, especially when paired with a nice, dry Pinot Grigio.

2.) Personal automobile: Obviously, since my driver's license expired, I will have to get that renewed before any driving takes place. I miss this because it is a freedom that many people in America take for granted. The automobile industry has contributed greatly to the American identity, I feel, because it instills a sense of freedom. We have the ability to travels great distances, to see so many things, because we have access to individual cars. Just to be able to go see some friends back home.

3.) World of Warcraft: My name is Ikeene Stridersoul. I am a tauren druid whose goal is to destroy the Mauderon of Desolace to avenge my mother's death, and to find the rare glomsblood to make the elixir that she was hoping to make for my father. I will use my alchemy and herbalism skills to make it so that my father will love me again.

Roleplaying is something that I definitely think is the strangest thing that I miss. But I love it.

"If there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot, signing resolutions of independency with the one hand, and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves." ~Thomas Day, British abolitionist, 1748-1789As surprising as this sounds, trust has always been an issue for me. Life has always been a balancing act between my Buddhist self that views humanity through an ultimately optimistic lens and my ego self that sees the reality of people as they utilize the kindness of others only to further their own self interests. Of course, their is a heavy influence of empiricism in Buddhism, as well:

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”It is this heavy empiricism that makes me naturally question radio and television personalities like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Rachel Maddow, and Keith Olbermann, not to mention the slew of charlatans under the guise of religious authority. I cannot simply accept what people say as true. In America, however, anybody that you ask about where they get their information will undoubtedly respond with either "I only watch Fox News", or "I only listen to NPR", or some other claptrap that insults the most basic nature of my being. I cannot comprehend how people can expose themselves to only one point of view and then claim that as ultimate truth. I cannot understand the so-called "Real American" who never leaves their hometown and waves little plastic flags made in China at Independence Day parades, without even questioning what their responsibilities are to continue to contribute to the ideals of equality, justice, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

What does this have to do with freedom? Well, what is freedom? Basically, freedom is the ability to control one's own destiny, without barriers placed by a foreign entity. America obtained freedom when they fought the British Empire. Women obtained freedom when they fought for universal suffrage. Racial minorities obtained freedom through the Civil Rights Act. the LGBT community is in the process of obtaining freedom with ENDA, and the repeals of DOMA and DADT. But freedom is also a more fluid entity, because one can only control one's own destiny when one has the full spectrum of information available to them to make an informed decision. Sadly, most Americans don't comprehend that most of the American so-called "media" are business enterprises, whose goal is not to give unbiased information, but to sell a product. In America, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, are corporations, whose goal is profit, not truth. These corporations create a worldview for its demographic customers viewers, so that, in turn, those viewers will be ripe for influence for that corporation's desired governmental outcomes and products. Do you ever notice how the same television programs have the same commercials? That is not an accident - the "news stories" and "social commentary" have all been pre-tested on people. These people are not imparting the freedom of knowledge, but are brandishing the whip of ignorance. And what worldview are these corporations trying to impart? Regardless of political ideology, the message is the same:

What you have (Medicare, Your Money, Freedom of Religion) can be taken away. You are not safe. Group X (Liberals, Islamic Terrorists, Christian Bigots) through the means of (taxes, infiltrations of government, hatred) You cannot fight them as you are. You are insufficient in some manner. That insufficiency comes from not having such and such law (which by the way, benefits our company, but don't focus on that). You are not alone. You are part of Group Y (Real Americans, Patriots, Enlightened). But in order to be part of Group Y, you must buy these products (Gold, Ford, Apple, Christianity, the Democratic Platform). Everyone else is your enemy. We will continue to give you the truth. You can trust us. Do not question us.The empiricist in me has learned that all of our physical and religious differences are superficial. The empiricist in me has also learned that most people are frightened, or have been taught to be frightened. Religious conservatives have been taught to be frightened of LGBT individuals who want to force everyone to have sex with animals and children, secular liberals have been taught to be frightened of troglodytic Christianists and Islamists who want to impose Biblical and Sharia law. Americans have been taught that all Muslims want to stone women, Middle Easterners have been taught that Americans want to take over the world. We have all been taught to be so frightened. And when we are frightened, we gladly sit beneath the whip that our masters hold. Many of us are frightened to leave the pain of that whip because we have been taught that when we go too far from that whip, we are then without the protection of that whip. The holder of that whip, while keeping us as slaves, also protects us from those who want to take what little freedom we have been granted under that whip.

But the truth is that everyone wants the same thing. Everyone wants to be free to obtain happiness and free to avoid suffering. By recognizing that connectedness to each other, we can then be free in the ultimate sense of the word. We no longer feel fear, we no longer care whether or not we have such and such product or such and such ideology. And when we lose that fear, we can then see others as they really are, as every major religious figure has said that they are - all connected, all deserving of the freedom to obtain happiness and avoid suffering. We no longer feel the need to keep up with pop cultural trends or products, we no longer feel the need to see others as threats.

Certainly, terrorism exists, and I have never denied that. But many of us do not even know what terrorism means anymore. People have been taught that anybody can be terroristic in nature. Islamic terrorism, Christian terrorism, Eco-terrorism, Progressive terrorism, Conservative terorrism - everyone has been taught that anybody who disrupts the corporation's profit margin disagrees with the viewpoint that you have been taught is potentially a terrorist. So many people have been taught that the answer is to eliminate those people, when the answer should be to find out why they believe what they believe. In almost all cases, one can find a group of people who have been taught to fear, and at the top of that group, there will almost always be an individual or group of individuals who profit from that fear.

Freedom is the ability to control one's own destiny, without barriers placed by a foreign entity. I have learned that everything and everyone that I have been taught is a foreign entity is, in fact, simply a potential extension of who I am. Even my ego is a foreign entity, and beneath all of my so-called personality is an emptiness. I have no need for Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, or any other conglomerate to tell me their version of truth. I know that beneath all of the so-called terrorism and threats to my security are simply people vying for power or struggling against fear. This struggle is the nature of the baser instincts of humankind, and I have no need to struggle against it anymore.

I am free.

The association that I have formed with a group of Moroccans held its first event on July 4th; the event was a look at the history of Independence Day and our continuous relationship with Morocco. Morocco, being the first country to recognize America as a sovereign nation, is an especially important relationship that America has, due to it being an Islamic state, it being close to Europe, and its unique position as a syncretic country that combines the cultures of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. As I studied the history of Independence Day, and our subsequent relationship with Morocco, I began to ask myself what it meant to be proud of one's country, and what it meant to obtain freedom. I wrote an article exactly one year ago about about being a liberal patriot, and I feel that it defines what I believe to be the American culture, but I didn't expand on how I actually define patriotism or freedom.

I have never been the type of person to be "proud" of a America just because I was born there, I need to know the why. From what I have always seen, most Americans show their patriotism during Independence Day parades, waving plastic American flags that were made in China while military personnel walk by. To many people, making any criticism of America, and even more so its military, is equivalent to treason, and an almost hanging offense. But do we really appreciate our veterans? According to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans,

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) states the nation’s homeless veterans are predominantly male, with roughly five percent being female. The majority of them are single; come from urban areas; and suffer from mental illness, alcohol and/or substance abuse, or co-occurring disorders. About one-third of the adult homeless population are veterans...

VA estimates that 107,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. Over the course of a year, approximately twice that many experience homelessness. Only eight percent of the general population can claim veteran status, but nearly one-fifth of the homeless population are veterans.With numbers like these, one would think that any self-respecting country would devote resources to combating this social ill; after all, our veterans sacrificed their lives, limbs, and mental stability just so we could wave our flags. But with every budget debate that has occurred, rather than using our wealth to help those who have made these ultimate sacrifices, we instead sacrifice them so that we can keep our taxes low. When given a choice, social services have always been the first so-called "entitlements" to go - mental health facilities, substance abuse programs, housing programs for the poor - all of these programs that actually help these veterans are instead sacrificed in support of trickle down economics, the belief that the fewer taxes rich people pay, the more money trickles down to the poorest of Americans. I cannot fathom how anybody can claim to be patriotic only to support politicians who would rather let veterans die on the streets rather than establish a decent living wage, housing, and health programs to ensure that they are treated with the dignity and respect that they deserve.

In international media, most of the articles revolving around American budget debates focus on the fact that so many people are so willing to cut services with the neediest among us. Even when I do force myself to read American media, the same outcome is evident. Most people refer to these programs as "entitlements", as if supporting the least among us is a luxury, not a necessity. From this, I have to conclude that Americans aren't proud of America as a single entity, but are instead proud of themselves for being American. As I stated in a previous blog, America is unique among other countries. Most countries are defined by a common ancestry, religion, race, or some other physical attribute, but America is unique in that what unites Americans is not a physical or religious trait, but an ideal. I believe that ideal is found within the Preamble of the United States Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[note 1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.And in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of HappinessThe fact that an ideal, instead of a religion or physical characteristic, is the link that binds us is both positive and negative. It is positive because it means that all human beings in America, whether they are from Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, or South America, whether they are male, female, or transgender, heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual, whether they are Atheist, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, or Muslim, are all endowed with the right to those qualities listed in those two statements. It is negative, however, in the fact that it requires Americans to view each other as equals. Sometimes, this can be difficult. It can be difficult for people to see someone who is physically different from him or her to view the other as equal. Racism, sexism, xenophobia, and other traits that serve to separate us from one another are bred into us from an early age. It is biological, and to fight it requires us to fight very dark, very deep-seated negative qualities that reside within us. Many people, I have noticed, cannot fight those dark impulses within them, and so feel no remorse by the fact that there are fellow citizens who experience hardships because they do not feel a connection to them. How many speeches have we heard in America that talk about so-called "Real America", as if there are people in America who don't deserve to call themselves Americans. The truth of the matter is that we are connected. A country is only as strong as its weakest member. We are only as successful as our most downtrodden of citizens. We are only as good of a country as the one who is least cared for. We are in this together. The ability to recognize our unity is what differentiates a country from a simple collection of people.

Living in Morocco, I have noticed a sense of community. I feel that it is made easier due to the physical and religious aspects that they share. Again, it is easier to feel a connection to someone when they share physical and religious characteristics. America is the most religiously, ethnically, and physically diverse country. That doesn't negate the fact that we are all still connected by an ideal that transcends petty physical and religious differences. Americans used to be taught that we are better than that, that we are capable of looking past their superficial differences and seeing, instead, the common qualities that bind us.

Living in a developing country for as long as I have, I am finally able to see this about America. It is this that I hope to bring back to America. I am patriotic. I am proud to be an American, but I am proud of that because I want to strive to see the commonalities that all Americans share. It doesn't matter if you can trace your lineage back to the Mayflower, or if you are a first-generation immigrant. None of these physical characteristics matter. That is the difference that I see. Many people who claim the mantle of patriotism while supporting cuts to the social services for the least of their brethren are not proud of the greatness of America - they are proud only of the greatness of themselves.

Moroccans are going to the polls to vote on a series of constitutional amendments and reforms.

The vote, which represents the first constitutional referendum under the king's 12-year rule, has been described by one Moroccan newspaper as "a date with history".

The king himself has described the reforms as: "A decisive historic transition."

"I support the king, he keeps Morocco safe. It is not like Algeria and Yemen, it's stable here," Rachid Aboul-Hassan, a cab driver in the capital, Rabat, told the AP news agency.

"There are problems here, but we are taking small steps, slowly."

Under the draft constitution, the king remains as the head of state, the military, and the Islamic faith in Morocco, but the prime minister - to be chosen from the largest party elected to parliament - would take over as head of the government.

The reforms, the king has pledged, would reinforce the independence of the judiciary, boost efforts to tackle corruption, guarantee freedom of expression and gender rights and make Berber an official language, alongside Arabic.

Read more on some questions regarding the reforms here.

From the Q&A page, a list of key reforms:

1. The king will select a prime minister from the party that wins the most seats in parliament. At present, the king can make anyone prime minister.

2. A reference to the king as "sacred" in the constitution will be removed, though he will remain "inviolable".

3. The prime minister will be the head of government, not the king, and will gain the power to dissolve the lower house of parliament.

4. The prime minister will preside over the Government Council, which will prepare policy before presenting it to the cabinet.

5. Parliament will have more oversight of civil rights, electoral and nationality issues.

6. Women will be guaranteed "civic and social" equality with men. Previously, only "political" equality was guaranteed.

7. The Berber language will become an official state language along with Arabic.

Again, simply posting without commentary. Peace Corps rules, you know.

Work with the Moroccan-American Association for Human Development and Cultural Exchange (MAAHDCE)

The association that I created with some Moroccans and fellow PCVs will have an event to mark Independence Day. This is going to be a great opportunity to explain to kids the history of the American holiday as well as compare it to the Moroccan Independence Day, which celebrates the return of their king from exile and the freedom from Spain and France. We will also talk about the relationship between America and Morocco going all the way back to the founder. Did you know that Muhammad III was the first leader to recognize America as a new country? Hopefully, this will lead to other PCVs doing cultural events. My hope for this association is that it will become the group for PCVs in the Er Rachidia area to go to when they want to host such an event. Later, I hope that we can partner with the private schools here that teach English with American schools so that they can talk back and forth through Skype sessions.

Work with Dar Chebab Medina in Er Rachidia

As I have stated before, most of my work is in Er Rachidia proper now. Before the summer break, I would hold weekly meetings for the general health club. It made for a very slow work week. In September, I hope to increase that to in between four and five days a week. My hope is to teach conversational English with the current English teacher there two days a week, and then to teach a combination of yoga, pilates, and general health each day. Depending on what I can get, I will do them all over a five day week, or just vary which class I teach on a specific day of the week. I finally feel like I'm useful. I know that people have said that the changes that I am making are far more deep than I realize, but I like the fact that I have a schedule now.

*****

This is coming on a final countdown, sort of, I suppose. I only have 44 weeks left. It's just coming by so quickly, especially when I factor in that I'm sending in a request to travel to America for the entire month of August. When I return in September, it will be only 35 weeks. I hope to visit some friends in Pensacola at some point while I'm in America. It will be great to see how people are doing.

Morocco reforms to cut monarch's powers

King Mohammed VI proposes constitutional changes that will whittle down his powers, but keep his role as power-broker.

Morocco's king has announced a series of proposed changes to the country's constitution, including amendments that would strip him of some of his political powers.

The changes, announced by King Mohammed VI in a live address to the nation on Friday, will be put to a referendum on July 1.

"We have managed to develop a new democratic constitutional charter," the king said, adding that the constitution "enshrines a citizenship-based monarchy".

The proposed amendments would provide for the strengthening of the authority of the country's prime minister and parliament.

The prime minister would become the "president of the government", and would be able to appoint government officials - an authority previously held only by the king.

The new "president of the government" would also be able to dissolve parliament, the king announced, another role previously accorded only to Mohammed VI.

The new constitution ensures the prime minister is selected from the party that received the most votes in election, rather than just chosen by the king.

The reforms also strengthen parliament, allowing it to launch investigations into officials with the support of just one-fifth of its members or to begin a censure motion against a minister with the backing of a third, rather than needing the unanimous approval demanded by the current constitution.

The judiciary, which has long been criticised for lacking independence, would be governed by a supreme council composed of judges and the head of the national human rights council. The justice minister would not be on the council.

"We encourage a parliamentary authority that is ready to make sure that parliament makes final legislative decisions," the king said. "This parliament has the ability to question any official in the country."

However, the king would remain a key power-broker in the security, military and religious fields.

The king will continue to chair two key councils - the Council of Ministers and the Supreme Security Council - which make security policy. The prime minister can chair these councils, but only using an agenda set by the king.

Continue reading

I cannot make a comment either for nor against this, because I am a Peace Corps volunteer.

After a month of somewhat heavy spending consisting of new furniture purchases, I realized that my account had reached zero a few days before the next paycheck. Most volunteers go through this at some point; their account reaches zero before the monthly living allowance comes in, and so they are forced to break out their American debit card to get by. Fortunately, the conversion makes it so that one can purchase enough cheap foods for a month with the equivalent of 20USD. Unfortunately, I had already spent a good deal of money to buy a plane ticket to Los Angeles for August, so the thought of breaking into my American account was less than ideal for me.

I decided to finally use the lentils that I had received from another volunteer. In order to be sure of how to cook them, however, I decided to look up the method of preparation online. I had tried to make lentils before without looking up the method. I had assumed that one lets the water boil, places lentils in boiling water, then lets simmer for a while until done. I needed to be sure, this time, so I looked up recipe after recipe. They all read basically the same: LET WATER BOIL, PLACE LENTILS IN BOILING WATER, COVER, LET SIMMER 15-20 MINUTES. As I gathered what I needed, I was reminded of another volunteer, a young man who is using his time in between teaching at the youth center to become a body builder.

"A few weeks ago, my regimen consisted of eating three cups of lentils a day. They're so easy and cheap to make. You just put them in, wait, and they come out."

I laid out the tools before me: cup of lentils - check, pressure cooker - check, water - check, laptop to read instructions - check. Apparently, it is approximately 2-1 water to lentils to make sure that the lentils are prepared properly and don't dry out. As the water turned to boil, I slowly poured the cup of lentils into the pressure cooker, covered the lid, set to simmer, and sat down. I imagined what would happen. I remembered the other volunteers lentils.

"Oh, this thing? I just whipped them up and just threw these spices onto them, oh psh-shaw, they're not anything special."

But they were delicious, and he knew it. The lentils danced on my tongue, they swam in the small broth mixture that was left over. They enticed me to grab another spoonful, and the spices delicately combined on my taste buds to create a flavor that I had not tasted since before I had left for Morocco. The first time I made lentils, they drowned in the sludge of water, salt, and pepper that remained from the water. The second time I made them, they ended up dryer than when they were placed in. But not this time. This time, I made sure to compile all of the recipes that I could to get a consensus on how to make lentils. I would make these lentils the best lentils that I could possibly make. All the while, I kept hearing the volunteer's voice, as though he were looking over me.

"Oh, this thing? They're not anything special."

I stood over the pot, and as soon as the fifteen minutes were up, I opened the pressure cooker to check on them. The smell of popcorn immediately burst into the air, and I watched as some blackened lentils dotted the sides of the pressure cooker, and other lentils inexplicably burst and turned into what I can only refer to as pop-lentils. I held another cup of water in my hand, but simply drank it when I realized that nothing would be able to save them. I picked up the pressure cooker, leaned it over the sink, and poured out the water. I would collect the lentils and throw them out once they cooled.

I can't cook lentils. Bless my heart, I try. Oh how I try. I can try making up a recipe, or I can follow recipes to the minutest of details, but I can't make them. It has nothing to do with learning or watching, I physically cannot make them. It is as though the pressure cooker, lentils, and water become tainted when they interact with my pheromones, or maybe I am missing a genetic marker that lists its purpose specifically for cooking legume based meals. But I am incapable of making lentils.

And I'm okay with that. We each have gifts, skills, talents and abilities that make us unique and who we are. I am as genetically incapable of cooking lentils just as Mitt Romney is genetically incapable of showing empathy for the poor or as any Democrat is genetically incapable of having any spine to take a stand on issues, and that's okay, it's simply who I am. I have many other talents that I can continue to pursue throughout my life. We all do, and maybe living life is just about looking into that pressure cooker to realize just how much of a disaster you can make of things sometimes. Sometimes, what you put into the pressure cooker of life will be a book or a play, or maybe it will be a gift at sports, or maybe even the ability to raise a wonderful family. Sometimes, it just ends up being burnt lentils. But that's okay. Just empty the lentils, and try to find another recipe for something you can do, something that's more who you are.

For now, though, I think I am going to get some pizza.

"I always find it funny that people will go over to these countries thinking that they're going to improve the lives of these people. What ends up happening is that the villagers teach the American much more than they learn."

"Maybe that's more of the point of Peace Corps now - to serve as a sort of cultural exchange for Americans, except we're the only ones who are exchangable."

"I'm sure you'll be fine." ~from an earlier blog post, "A Conversation at Weatherford's"

I remember first coming here, and thinking to myself that my main focus was on working the first goal of Peace Corps, which is to help local people meet their need for trained men and women. The other two goals, teaching locals about American culture and teaching Americans about local culture, were going to be ancillary. After a year here, I think I am pleased with the work I have done with first goal thus far.

What I hadn't expected was just how much I would be doing of the other two goals. I had no idea just how much of my experiences would be relaying information about America to Moroccans. I had no idea that people would be so interested in how things work in Morocco. I also never knew that my individuality would be questioned so blatantly. Just the other day, I was buying some items to decorate my house. I went into the store and bought some fake long stem flowers with the buds on them, but the vase didn't match it. I saw a smaller blue glass jar that would look interesting.

"You can't buy that." The woman at the front said.

"I beg your pardon?" I asked.

"You can't put flowers in that. It's not a vase."

"But I like how it looks."

The woman huffed and turned around, knowing that she wasn't going to win the argument. I stood aghast at how much of a fight she put up. I explained it later on to D_____, as we were painting my parlor room blue. I like the color blue. I have blue cushions to sit on, and I have white tablecloths. I told him that I wanted the feeling that when we entered this room, we were flying in the sky in clouds.

"Most people down here paint their houses red."

"I know, but I like blue."

"Blue is the color used up north."

"Everyone has red. I am not like everyone."

"It looks good. It looks like up north."

D_____, an Anglophile, understands individuality in the same way most Americans know about Europe. They've never been there, they've never actually experienced it, but they read up a little bit on it, so they have a vague idea about it.

"You see, D_____, in America, a house is an extension of one's personality. I am a peaceful person, I am a Buddhist, so I want these things to be apparent in my house."

It's a two-way street, however. In Morocco, the stores all have the same items, and the items with which there is a choice, the choice is limited. The expression of individual personalities is difficult in that regards. But is it the lack of variety that enables the lack of individuality, or is it the collective culture, which focuses on everyone being alike, that makes the need for variety in stores unnecessary? Is the lack of variety also due to the culture of non-materialism, or is it merely economic? There are so many questions, and so few answer that I have still. Obviously, if you ask a young Anglophile Moroccan and an older, more religious Moroccan the same question, you will get a different answer.

Right now, though, I tend to lean towards a combination of the two. The answer, I feel can be answered once I return to America, where these individual options will be readily available to me. I don't really consider myself as ever having been materialistic. Here, however, I do not have access to things, so I am used to not focusing on buying things or diversifying my experiences in food or entertainment. I like to think, however, that I will go back to seeking to carve out an individual identity when I return.

What I have noticed here, though, is that the younger generation is definitely more Western in that regard. The emergence or ska, punk, emo, and other genres of culture are seeping into the kids, and their hair, their clothes, and their mannerisms are reflecting that. People want to be themselves, and so it is possible that the lack of individuality is simply due to lack of things. I feel that there are definitely going to be some major changes to the world once my and the next generation gets into power. I can't wait to see it.

Tracy left for America the other day. She was a Fulbright student living in Morocco with her husband and two cats. I arrived at her house that night and was greeted by the Moroccan family that she spent time with. It was strange, looking at the house that she had been living in for the past eight months, to see the boxes on the floor, the emptiness of the main salon and the kitchen, and the cats bundled up in carrying cages. tracy had made small boxes of things for everyone who we call, "The Er Rachidia Family", a group of Fulbright scholars, Peace Corps Volunteers, and Moroccans who spend a lot of time together in the Er Rachidia area. I was thrilled when I learned that Tracy had given me what, to most people, would be a few years' supply of American, Asian, and English teas, and to me, would probably be drunk nonstop within a few days.

"I'll try to keep in touch!" I said.

"How?' She asked, "You don't have Facebook."

"We'll send you a message when you get into America." Another Volunteer said.

"Yes."

"Marcus, maybe if you get back on Facebook, one day, we can get back in touch."

"I can send emails."

As I stood to the side and watched as Tracy tearfully said goodbye to each person, I truly felt that we were some family saying goodbye to one of its members. I wondered about my decision to leave Facebook. I still stand by it.

Another thing that I had noticed was the mother of the Moroccan side of our family. She normally was much more energetic, but tonight, she sat silently in the corner of the room and stared off into the distance.

A few days later, I went over to this woman's house. The main salon was slightly smaller than Tracy's, but the paint, though older and more worn, was the same yellowish-gray color. Red cushions surrounded a small wooden table, and kitten wrestled on the floor and nibbled on chicken heads that her son got from the butcher.

"Salam." I said, "Labas?"

"Labas, Hamdullah." She replied, but she still had that strange look on her face.

"Labas?" I asked again, with more emphasis.

She sighed. I watched as she began to pick up small objects to clean up the parlor. Even though she turned away from me, I knew what she was thinking. I know what sadness looks like, and I know what it does to one's face. Sadness softens one's face, as though it wants to fade away and not be seen. It whitens the silhouette and drains it of color.

"Tracy tdu s Merika."

"eyeh." I replied.

She sighed again, held up a small photo book, and then began to cry. She reached down, pulled up the bottom of her headscarf, and then wiped the tears from her eyes. She handed me the book, and I opened it to the picture of her wedding day, where she was leaning against a wall while her husband looked on. As I looked at the photograph, I noticed how their faces, filled with happiness, had more shape than the face of this woman who sat before me. I leaned over and sat the book on the cushion where she normally sat, and watched as the woman's face slowly took shape again. She realized that, in a way, there was always going to be a part of Tracy here, in this salon, in the form of memories that the two of them shared.

In Buddhism, I have been taught about accepting the inevitable when it comes to relationships. The Buddha taught that one should view all phenomena as though it were a feather landing in your hand. You keep your palm open, so that it can land, and let it remain open, so that when the time comes for it to leave on the next gust of wind, it doesn't poke you or get damaged. There is a part of me that is grateful for this teaching, but sometimes, it makes me wonder if I am unconsciously separating myself from something that is utterly human. I like Tracy, and I hope to keep up emails with her, but I know she has a life to live. We all do. Sometimes, our lives bring us together for a while, and sometimes, it slowly separates us. That doesn't mean that we can't enjoy the time we spent together. I want to make use of every moment that we have. I don't want to live my life assuming that someone will always be in my life. I don't want to take those moments for granted anymore. Any one of us can be separated from one another in a multitude of ways - work, falling out, a move, and yes, even death. Accepting that, I feel that I am accepting a very real part of existence. And it makes me feel as though I am appreciating every moment that I have.

The summer heat had just rolled into Errachidia. We had just finished a dinner of American salad and Moroccan pizza, and were sitting around the table, listening to Lisa Gerrard. A volunteer sat by the open window, skyping her mother while the rest of us tried to carry on a conversation.

"Who is this woman singing?" A Moroccan asked.

"Lisa Gerrard," I said, "her voice is typically used in movie soundtracks."

"Her voice is really deep and loud," He said.

"Yes, her voice demands that you pay attention to it."

Lisa Gerrard's classical singing voice is considered contralto, the lowest of the female singing voices. The contralto's voice is close in range to a male tenor's voice, and thus, a female contralto's voice can double for men's singing parts, as well. I learned this and thought to myself, Is it because of the deepness of her voice, the sound waves sounding like that is a man, that she is able to command attention? If I remembered correctly, in high school, I was considered a tenor. I never really tried to draw attention to myself in high school, and for that, I was considered to be "off", or worse.

In Morocco, men have to yell. Even in the early morning, they have to yell so that they can sell their wares. Walking through souk, even if someone is standing next to me, the store owner has to scream out as loud as he can, the prices for everything. When at the bus station, I can hear the names of the cities that the bus is driving to from many feet away. It makes sense here because even though there are signs that tell the times that buses are going to different cities, they aren't reliable. It's as though every man is trying to draw attention to himself in some way. I want to tell them all that yelling throughout the entire day, coupled with the constant consumption of tea and cigarettes, eventually destroys one's voice.

Nowadays, my voice is slightly lower than in high school, but I never raise my voice to be very loud. People have described it as "airy", and "soft". Once, I went into a cafe that had other people. There was a woman there, along with some men. There is no concept or order or lines in Morocco, so everyone simply pushes as best they can to get to the front, regardless of who got there first. I noticed that I and the woman were trying to get the attention of the man at the counter while he was focus on on the stream of men who would come in, shout out their order, toss change onto the counter, and then leave. The man at the counter never looked at neither me nor the woman. After a while, I finally decided to lower my voice, which is something that I always hate to do. I shouted out what I wanted. Just like that, it was as though the man at the counter finally saw me standing there. It was as though I finally existed to him. It's funny how having a man's voice is so beneficial for everyday encounters.

Another difference that I have found in my voice is when I try to teach something. I find that when I use the voice with which I am comfortable using, there is hesitation for the men and women I am trying to teach. But when I lower my voice, they seem to understand that I know what I'm talking about. Maybe my real voice just sounds unsure of itself.

This, as well as my body language, is such an important key to interact properly with people. Maybe it is because they see a man, they expect to hear a demanding voice, and they expect to see an aggressive stance. The handshake is also something that I never understood. The handshake is supposed to be an act of friendship, but they way men grip each other's hands, I can't help but wonder if they would rather it be a sign of aggression. Even in America, men subconsciously shake hands as though they are in some sort of death grip competition. In Morocco, when I look at men's hands, I can see the muscles tighten and assume they are just trying to have some sort of strength competition, but when they shake women's hands, there is no tightening. They are actually greeting each other.

Everything about men seems to be designed to allow for them to be noticed in any way possible. Their voice, their body language, their interactions. Men are in most positions of power. Men control much of the economy. Men are more often seen in media as the lone soldier, the lone avenger, the lone hero. In many ways, I hit the genetic jackpot of the white male born in America. Aren't I fortunate?

I arrived at the hotel at nine fifty, and told the taxi driver that my parents would be out quickly, and that they promised that they would be fine this morning. After all, they had only arrived at two o'clock that morning, and who wouldn't want to wake up less than eight hours later after spending thirty-six hours on a series of planes and in a series of airport terminals? I walked through the lobby and into the main courtyard, where the pool greeted me. I looked into the pool for a moment; it was lined with blue tiles and the rippled reflected in them, sending waves of bright yellow cutting across the bottom of the pool.

At the back of the pool was a small cabana lined with drinks that I promised myself I would utilize at some point during my parents' stay. I left the main courtyard and walked down the small walkways covered not with buiding but with roses that had been trained to form an arch overhead. The bushes that lined the walkways were rosemary, and I immediately thought of the year's worth of dinners I had missed from David. The rosemary combines with the roses to form a pungent aroma of sugary and savory. The combination was very successful at keeping flies away, it seemed.

I arrived at my parents' door and knocked. And then I waited.

and waited.

and waited.

Finally, I pulled open my phone after a few minutes of waiting and called some volunteers to ask if they wanted to hang out with my parents at all. The door opened after a few minutes of me standing out there. My mom was disheveled from just waking up. It was the first morning in Paris all over again.

"We haven't even taken a shower yet." My mom said.

"Just put on the same clothes you had on yesterday."

"What?"

It was at this point that I realized the main difference between me, a volunteer, and my mom, a tourist. Fortunately, they agreed, and within a few minutes we were in the taxi with me to get into the town center. Later that afternoon, we met up with D_____, who invited us to his house for snacks and to see the casbah with his family was from. In an hour, we were in another taxi, on our way to the small village outside of Errachidia. We walked through the remains of the casbah. Then, my mom spoke of a dream that she had.

"You know, I had a dream that one of us came across a snake. It was a cobra. So we need to watch out."

"All of the snakes in Morocco are poisonous," D_____ said, "So we may not want to find them."

"Oh." Mom replied.

I had walked over to the edge of the casbah at this point, and looked out an old window at the fields that stretched beyond the horizon. D_____'s family has tilled the soil of this land for generations. I thought. I still find it so amazing at how deep the roots of families in Morocco go. Moroccans can trace their lineages all of the way back to time immemorial. Technically, with the advances of genealogical sciences, anyone can trace their families back to whenever they want. but it's not the same. Yes, my family's roots have been traced back to include Cherokee, Hungarian, Irish, Welsh, and even Roma ancestry, but it's only on a piece of paper; they're names, only names, apparitions of people who once existed and whose commonality I share only by DNA, not by any true family history or true connection.

It is this that I envy with Moroccans, and most other countries, as well. Most other countries are a monolith of one ethnicity or identity, making the search for a family history much easier. America is a combination of races and ethnicities. Don't get me wrong; I'm happy to be American; I'm happy that I live in America, and that I have access to all of the benefits that entails. But America's roots are fibrous; we are spread out thinly and shallowly. The roots of Moroccan identity are like the tap root; they dive deep into the darkness of the earth, making it immovable, sturdy, dependable. It was at this point that I realized that I want that. I want roots. I want to be able to tell my children who we are, where we come from. I want to pass along my granny's quilts, my grandmother's afghans, my mom's chinaware. I want them to have the tangibility of their existence in any object possible.

It was also at this point that I realized that I was being watched.

Technically, it is called the Macrovipera deserti, but most people simply call it the desert adder. I know that this is the species because I was one foot away from its body. Two things surprised the group, which consisted of me, D_____, M_______, my mother, and Joe. One, if jumping backwards were an Olympic sport, I'm now certain that I could at least make some sort of qualifying round. Two, my parents realized that whenever they hear the high pitched shriek of a girl, they can include me in the list of possible sources. In the distance, dogs began to bark in response to the high frequency sound waves emitting from my lips. The snake remained motionless.

"I knew it!" My mom yelled, "My dreams are prophetic."

My grandmother once talked about us being part of the medicine man tradition of the Cherokee. That, combined with the druids of the Celts of Wales, and the gypsy Roma, made me support my mom's hypothesis. However, at this juncture, I felt it more important to simply back away. D_____'s reaction at this juncture, however, was to throw rocks at it to make it go away. Fortunately, I was able to back away from it without it even acknowledging my existence. At that point, I was willing to embrace fully the Irish part of my heritage.

I arrived at the airport at one o'clock in the morning and ran a mental checklist to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything. Hotel reservations? Check. Camel Trek Reservations? Check. Things to do for the two days before the Camel Trek? Hmm... In Morocco, I have learned that there isn't really a need to make plans; nothing is ever set in stone, so things will change and either won't happen or will happen later. One of those things that happened later was the arrival of my parents' plant. Would my parents be able to accept that fact here when it took me a few weeks to get used to it? In all honesty, there are still times when I think to myself Why can't there be actual hours on these stores? Besides, my parents' hotel had a pool, AND a bar AND a hot shower. What else would they need?

I felt the airport building shake as the double-propellor plane began to touch down in Errachidia. The airport in Errachidia works two days out of the week. On Friday early morning, a flight comes on from Casablanca, and on Monday early morning, a flight leaves to Casablanca. One would think that with two flights to handle per week, that would leave a decent amount of time to work on having those two flights arrive and leave at decent hours. I waited at the entrance to the tarmac and noticed that there were two metal detectors, and that one of those metal detectors was pushed to the side. I imagined a conversation that I could have had with security about this.

"Should that be at this small hallway so people have to go through it?"

"Yes, but that would probably take more time for them to get through."

"And this other one, I'm guessing it's not plugged in, is it?"

"It is, but why would they go through that when there's more room on the side without it?"

The dialogue that I created in my mind was probably far from the truth, but there is still a part of me that yearns to recognize that carefree attitude that marked so many images to the small town airports pre-9/11. I remembered an old Jeff Foxworthy joke about small town airport security and the image of an old sheriff leaning in a chair, saying, "You got any guns or bombs in that bag? You ain't a terrorist, are ya?"

I heard voices on the tarmac. In a few moments, I would be face to face with my parents, whom I haven't seen in fourteen months. Have I changed at all while I was here? What will they think? Have my mannerisms or body positions changed during these months? My hands were sweaty. I couldn't wipe my huge smile off of my face. I was tired when I got into the airport, but now, I was wired.

The door opened, and my mom appeared, her once brown hair a much brighter blonde; she had begun getting highlights. She seemed so much more radiant than I remembered. She dragged a little suitcase behind her and had her camera strapped around her neck. She was followed by Joe, whose hair and mustache were still the same brilliant grey. It was strange to see such radiant skin on people. After a year of seeing mainly olive skin tones, focusing on such white faces stood out. The passengers walked past the metal detector an into the lobby.

"Where is our taxi?" Mom asked. I pointed to a small taxi that I had spoken with someone about using beforehand. We made it to the vehicle, and at that moment, the driver with whom I spoken to told me that he forget that he was already there to pick up other people, and that we wouldn't be able to use it after all. Sounds about right, I thought to myself. Fortunately, there was another person staying at the hotel that my parents were staying at, and there was a large van there to pick her up, and he said that we could come, too. IT would just be a few minutes.

"How long will it take?" Mom asked.

"A few minutes. Maybe five, ten, fifteen, twenty, or thirty." Joe looked at me with a blank stare for a moment.

"What?" I asked

We got into the van and drove off after only fifteen minutes, and I was amazed at how on top of their game they were. Only fifteen minutes of waiting? That's unheard of. My mom looked out the window of the van at the kids who were walking the streets at about two o'clock in the morning.

"What are these kids doing?"

"Hanging out."

"Isn't there school tomorrow."

"Yes, and they might go. There is a big graduation test happening." Mom gave the blank stare this time.

"What?" I asked.

Morocco, as I have said before, is a nocturnal town. Stores are shuttered through the day, but once eight o'clock rolls around, it comes alive. The streets are filled with so many sounds, so many footsteps, that it becomes a beautiful cacophony of different lives. My parents, however, were more interested in getting to the hotel. We arrived there a little after two o'clock, and I asked my parents when they wanted me to pick them up for the day in Errachidia. I wanted to show them a souk and some other volunteers that I have gotten to know and eat at one of our favorite places.

"It's really late. I can just come at noon or maybe one in the afternoon." I said.

"No, we'll be fine," Mom replied, "You just come to pick us up at ten."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

My trip with David, whose trip from Pensacola left him quite tired, as I painfully recalled, came quickly to mind.

"No, come on. We'll be fine."

I recently attended the Rose Festival in Kelaat Mgouna, a town just outside of Ouarzazate. Similar to the Wedding Festival, The Rose Festival is like a very large souk. Unlike the Wedding Festival, where the focus is on wedding supplies and other items, the Rose Festival is, obviously, focused on the rose products of the Dades Valley Region. The roses here are particularly pungent; a delightful experience for most people, but an exercise in masochism for those with allergies to everything. I, of course, fall into the latter category.

Nonetheless, I did take some time to browse some of the wares of the local artisans to buy a necklace for Mother's Day.

I went there as a Peace Corps volunteer, and my job was to help the local organization teach about AIDS to the local men. According to recent evaluations by AMSED:

An estimated 25,500 people were living with HIV in Morocco in 2009, or 0.11% of adults. Among vulnerable groups in some regions the rate exceeds 5%. 46.2% of all new cases in the past five years were in two regions alone - Sous Massa Draa and Marrakech Tensift Al Haouz. HIV is mainly transmitted through sex (92.3%), of which 87% is heterosexual transmission and 5.3% sex between men. Morocco’s HIV epidemic appears to be growing, especially among young people and women. Women now account for 47.9% of infections.

Morocco is a very peculiarly positioned country; it is not quite a Middle Eastern country, due to it's Amazigh population and comparatively liberal policies, nor is it quite Europe, due to its Islamic influence, nor even African, due to the Sahara and the Atlas Mountains. It is its own combination of all three. We are fortunate that the country is willing to admit that there is an emerging problem with AIDS and STI issues, but we are also at a disadvantage with our freedom to speak openly about the main transmission of these infections, namely, intercourse. I remember sitting in the tent, listening to our peer educator speak to the men. He usually spoke in Arabic, but occasionally, he would break into the Tamazight language. This gave me an opportunity to catch some of the things he was saying. Every once in a while, he would turn to me and ask me a question about how easy it is to transfer AIDS through exchanging needles and sharing razor blades. I explained to him that the virus that causes HIV does not live outside of the body for long, and that there are other modes of transmission that are more likely to causes infection, like sex. He then began to talk about condoms. He explained some parts of the process, but then I finally grabbed a condom that was hidden behind a board and actually demonstrated the process of putting on a condom.

I felt happy that I was able to explain this very important tool in keeping safe, but I was also a little disappointed that the main topics that everyone is willing to talk about is sharing needles and razors. The topic of sex finally came up in the discussion, and I remembered a poster made by some boys for the SIDA Competition we held last year. The picture was of a man chasing after a women. The woman was dressed provocatively. Her shadow, however, was a depiction of a demon. The poster then went to the man later, very sick in a wheelchair, and then an image of a tombstone. The first thought that came to my mind was that the image portrayed women not as people, but as temptations for men, as though their only purpose in life was to make men stray from a holy life. I continued to listen to the conversation, and I wondered why they portrayed the women in such a manner. I understand that these kind of societies place emphasis on traditional gender roles, but I never understood why there seemed to be such an antagonism towards the sexes. In America, we have the so-called "Battle of the Sexes", consisting of politicians who want to control the bodies of women through legislation, but in comparison, America looks like a child's kickball game; here, it's an all out war. Men and women are separated for so much of their developmental years. I can't even imagine what life would be like if I had only male peers with whom to associate. My life was already difficult enough in the south; to be completely isolated from women, the only people with whom I really identified, would have killed me.

Another aspect of our job was to help guide men and women to get tested. Testing in Morocco is very low and sporadic, so the numbers, in my opinion, are not very reliable. It is similar to using interviews from people in Los Angeles and New York and then saying that all of America is like that. Any instance where testing can be encouraged is welcome, and we guided both men and women to it. I found out two things at the testing; of the sixty people tested, five showed positive results, a statistic of approximately 8%. That knowledge terrified me, and it still does. I thought of how often the men here go to prostitutes, and with how many men each prostitute has had sex. There are so many times that I wish I could just stand on a corner and tell that to every man who passes by without having him walk away from me. I also found out that there were police waiting at the testing center arresting some of the women for being sex workers. I can only assume that they were women, because, of course, only women can be found guilty of sex work.

I felt used, I felt betrayed, and I was awake all night for many nights, thinking to myself, "Did I encourage one of those women to get tested? Did I just unwittingly ruin the life of a woman?" All I wanted to do was help empower women, and now, if I played a part in the elimination of any freedom that they had, I don't know if I cold live with myself. It makes me feel dirty to know that I could have played a role in reconfirming the patriarchal structure of this country. It is wrong to use people for your own political and selfish benefit. They had no right to use me like that.

The sad thing is that I wish I could say that this sort of inequality is limited to developing nations. But I know it isn't true. Everywhere around the world, there are men who blame women for the violence perpetrated against them. Even in Canada, there is a notion that women who want to take control of their own sexuality deserve violence.

"I'm not supposed to say this," he told a group of students at an Osgoode Hall Law School safety forum on January 24, but to prevent being sexually assaulted, “Avoid dressing like sl

What I don't understand is how a sex that claims traits like "taking responsibility" and "strength" can both take advantage of women and then have the gall to shift the blame to the victim. This takes place everywhere, not just here. I don't understand men. I don't understand their psychology, and I don't understand the way they speak to each other. I can only hope that one day, we will be able to consistently hold an enlightened view of women and of men. Because the encouragement of these characteristics in boys not only does violence to women, but also to men. When you create barriers between the sexes, you create barriers inside of each group, as well. All people are individual creations. All people have their own unique qualities that should be encouraged. By respecting each person for who they are, they, in turn, will learn to respect others for who they are, also. With self respect comes respect for others. When you respect others for who they are, you no longer fear them, but can appreciate them for what they are.

Yes, I still feel frustrated over what happened, but I should know by now that this fear of women is universal. I only hope that one day, they will lose that fear.

Then the Blessed One, having understood Brahma's invitation, out of compassion for beings, surveyed the world with the eye of an Awakened One. As he did so, he saw beings with little dust in their eyes and those with much, those with keen faculties and those with dull, those with good attributes and those with bad, those easy to teach and those hard, some of them seeing disgrace and danger in the other world. Just as in a pond of blue or red or white lotuses, some lotuses — born and growing in the water — might flourish while immersed in the water, without rising up from the water; some might stand at an even level with the water; while some might rise up from the water and stand without being smeared by the water — so too, surveying the world with the eye of an Awakened One, the Blessed One saw beings with little dust in their eyes and those with much, those with keen faculties and those with dull, those with good attributes and those with bad, those easy to teach and those hard, some of them seeing disgrace and danger in the other world.~Ayacana Sutta

My abilities to speak Tamazight, the local dialect, are still at intermediate level. The men in my site travel a lot for work, and because of this, the site is considered one of migrant workers. I talk to the women sometimes, but, as I have described before, talking with them about maternal health issues haven't been very successful. This inability of mine to teach this issue is due to my inadequacies, not theirs. Nevertheless, it makes working in my site more difficult. I am able to impart some cultural exchange, notably, issues regarding religion. Obviously, I cannot speak of all of my personal experiences there, so even that is somewhat limited. This leads to the question, "What have I been doing in Morocco this past year?"

I have been working a lot, actually, but it has been in the big city, Errachidia, where I teach SIDA and general health issues at a Dar Chebab to local teenagers. This is what I feel competent teaching. Because they speak English, I feel more comfortable teaching these topics, as well. This is where I am. I had requested a site change, but was denied, due to the paperwork involved and the need for a cultural exchange at my own site. I am happy with this, and have, in fact, turned my home into a makeshift "Buddhist retreat center" for travel-weary volunteers.

The story of the Ayacana Sutta, or, The Sutta of the Request, speaks of Buddha not wanting to teach due to the difficulty of the teachings. It is Brahma who requests that he teach the dharma to the world - without Brahma, we would have no dharma. The analogy of the lotus is used in regards to his ability to teach. There are some lotuses whose petals are still submerged, and some whose petals are still within the mud. But there are some lotuses whose petals have just broken the surface and are able to understand the dharma. It is these beings who the Buddha must reach out to and teach.

Likewise, the circumstances in which I have found myself compel me to continue to work in Errachidia, because of my students ability to understand me, and my understanding of the topics that I teach. I did not receive training in America to teach maternal health. What I do know is HIV/AIDS awareness, STI awareness, and stress relief techniques through meditation and basic yoga. To act as though I am an expert in any other topic would be both unwise and immoral on my part.

The question remains, however, whether or not my continuing to travel to Errachidia will continue to benefit my students, and whether or not I will be able to expand my language abilities to feel better trained speaking about this topic in my own site. After all, the words "meditation", "karma", and "chakra", don't exactly translate easily into Tamazight, as I have also noted in prior blogs. The attempt I made before didn't turn out very well, but I must continue to work on it. As long as I feel that I can contribute something new to the community of Morocco, I will stay here.

Soemtimes, I like to think of the story of Brahma and Buddha from a different point-of-view; that of the lotus flower. I am not the Buddha, but a lotus. Because of what I have learned and trained for, the pollen inside of me is unique. The environment in which I find myself, however, contributes greatly to whether or not I can open the petals and reveal the pollen inside. It is here, in Errachidia, that I truly feel that I can open and spread my knowledge. Maybe, one day, I will rise up in my own site and feel comfortable opening up to the villagers there. But for now, I hope that teaching the English class here is enough.

Near the bottom of the Du Ziz valley,

among the pink oleander, the palms, and the sand,

an abandoned house stands in nearly constant shadow.

The thatched roof of shattered bamboo lets rain

stream down crumbling mud walls, staining windows,

and finally pooling onto the floor,

seeping into cracks in the cement floor.

Once, I stood in front of this house in the valley,

and peered through the holes in the windows.

Wind whispered around the house and loosened sand

from the ceiling, creating the illusion of golden rain.

Everywhere, there were shadows

of many shapes due to the collection of debris. Twisted shadows,

some lying prostrate on the floor,

others reaching the roof, as if to climb out to touch the rain,

or to simply escape this dark part of the valley.

The sounds of the wind combined with the sounds of the sand,

calling out to me through the window.

You, they rasped, come away from that window.

Come in, have tea. I took my place among the shadows,

the ghosts of men in black djellabas. The wind and sand

continued to sigh at me as I settled onto the floor.

I was the first house in this valley.

I was here before the palms, before the rain,

before the river that was birthed by the rain,

that same river just outside my window.

I was filled with life. I brought life to this valley,

but now, inside of me there are only shadows

that spend endless hours on the floor.

Everything that was mine has been emptied. More sand

fell from the roof and onto the sand

that lined the floor. Soon, there would be more rain.

This debris is not mine, but it is inside of me now, covering the floor.

People pass this house, children throw rocks at the windows

that hit the shadows. The shadows

don’t notice it anymore. I cannot leave this valley.

The rain had now reached the valley.

As I left, I looked back in through the window

at the shadows, still prostrate on the floor, among the debris.

I am teaching an English Spring Camp. There is me and then there are four other volunteers. We have thirty students, and I am responsible for teaching the intermediate students. So far, the lessons have gone well. Teaching lessons is the easy part for me. It is during free time that difficulties arise. The students want to know so much about us and our country. One day, after lunch, I sat down by myself, and three young boys came up to me.

"Teacher, are you married?"

Can't tell them I'm engaged, I thought, Mustn't tell them.

"No, I'm not married."

"But do you have a girlfriend?" One of the boys asked.

"No," I said.

"Why?" The boys get quiet and lean forward.

In Morocco, it is difficult for young boys to understand how an older man cannot have a girlfriend. Quite frankly, before this relationship, I had resigned myself to live by myself for the rest of my life. Now, I am in one, and that thought brings me more happiness in my life than I have ever had before. I hate not being able to talk about my relationship, but that's how things are.

"Sometimes," I began, "There are people who feel called to go into the world and help others. I am busy spending time with all of you. I have no need for a girlfriend right now."

The boys look to each other.

"Have you ever had a girlfriend?" One of the boys asked.

"One, a long time ago."

I stood up, said goodbye, and left. I walked across the courtyard while the wind blew at my face. Did you really have to make up a part about a girlfriend? You could have talked to them about not needing anyone in your life. Then I thought about my relationship. What would I really be doing had I not entered this relationship?

I used to imagine serving in the Peace Corps and then moving East, to an Asian country, to spend my days in a monastery. I like how Buddhist monasteries are able to make their monks and nuns look similar just by shaving their heads. It is as though they are able to almost eliminate their gender altogether. The thought of not having to worry about gender roles or people thinking of me as a 'man' or a 'woman' is refreshing to me. Now, I thought of my relationship and realize exactly what I would have had to give up to do that. As each day goes by, the thought is only reinforced that I want only this life.

VATICAN CITY (RNS) A Vatican official told a United Nations body on Tuesday (March 22) that people who openly object to homosexual behavior are at risk of losing their human rights when they are prosecuted or stigmatized for their beliefs.

Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi, at the U.N Human Rights Council in Geneva, stated that the persecution that he feels for his belief that homosexuality is intrinsically disordered is a violation of his human rights. In Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, it states that, "Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.".

The Buddha once said that when meditating, a technique to use is to focus on how precious the human life is. He used the analogy of a blind turtle, swimming in an ocean, who only comes up for air once every thousand years. Floating on top of that ocean is a small golden yoke. The Buddha stated that it is more likely for that turtle to rise to the surface with his head in that yoke than it is for a spirit to be born as human. From the Buddha's teachings, he has stated that he has only been able to teach the dharma to the human realm. The beings that inhabit the Hell and Hungry Spirit Realms are too focused on their own suffering to hear the dharma. Likewise, the beings of the Heavenly Realm are too focused on their material rewards to hear the dharma, and the beings of the Demigod realm are too focused on taking over the Heavenly Realm to listen to the dharma. It is only in the Human Realm, where there is a balance of suffering and pleasure, that its beings are capable of listening to and understanding the dharma. Even the beings of the Animal Realm, who share our plane of existence, are too focused on finding food and avoiding becoming food to hear the dharma. To be human is to be closest that one can be to attaining Enlightenment that one will achieve in eons.

In this case, there is a human right at stake. That human right is to have the ability to see one another as beautiful beings. It is to look at another person and to have the ability to empathize with that person, to view that person as one views himself or herself. Throughout history, however, we have shown, time and time again, that this proximity to Enlightenment is still very far by comparison. The Inquisition, the Holocaust, World Wars, terrorism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, racism - these are but a few of the many ways in which humans take away their own human right of empathy and ability to attain Enlightenment.

It is easy for us to see the victimhood of those who are killed by others. It is easy to feel remorse for the downtrodden, the racial, religious, sexual, and gender minorities. But what many people fail to see is also that the perpetrators are victims, too. How many times have we seen instances of pastors belittling the homosexuals, only to be caught (literally) with their pants down? How many other instances are there that we find the diaries of people who gun down their school, only to see that the world they created for themselves is like a well of darkness and fear that is so deep that they see no light?

My cousin died seven years ago this month. He was seventeen, and driving out of his subdivision with his girlfriend. He was killed because two guys decided to race their trucks down a busy highway. It is such a ridiculous way to die. I do not have the ability to forgive those two men for what they did - nobody does. The actions that they took not only took two human lives, but they took a son and daughter from parents. They took away a man and a woman; a man and woman who nobody knows what they would have done, but if their past was an indication, it would have been beautiful. Their karmic retribution is already taking place. For almost 2600 days, those two men have had to wake up, every day, and know what they did. I do not know if time has dulled what they feel. They may have been responsible for what happened, but they have become victims, too.

I agree with Archbishop Tomasi. I do believe that he has lost a defining right of humanity in his belief that certain people, because of how they were born, are intrinsically disordered. He has lost his ability to view those people with loving kindness. He has lost his ability to see a mass of human beings as beautiful creatures. And as the years go by, and more and more people regain their human right to view homosexuals just as they view everyone else, the world that people like Archbishop Tomasi are creating for themselves is only going to become darker and more frightening. He may be responsible for creating that world, but we must never forget that he, too, is a victim.

Read more at the worlds of me graves

On Pain

by Kahlil Gibran

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses

your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its

heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the

daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem

less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart,

even as you have always accepted the seasons that

pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the

winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within

you heals your sick self.

Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy

in silence and tranquillity:

For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by

the tender hand of the Unseen,

And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has

been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has

moistened with His own sacred tears.

I taught myself to ignore the countless beggars that flank the entrances to the markets. It was difficult to do at first, but I told myself that I can't support all of them, and I can't favor one over the other. I began by learning how to ignore the men. They are walking around, talking and joking, I thought to myself, they can find some way to fine some form of manual labor. I then had to teach myself to ignore the children. They should be in school anyway, I thought, school is free. Then came the women. This was the most difficult. Most of the women here have no other means of employment. I had to teach myself to ignore them by pointing out their sheer numbers. If I were to give even a dirham to only the women, I would have no money for rent or food. I can't give to just one, because the others will see me, and I will be surrounded. The children and men would then see me as an easy mark for money.

I guess for all of my talks about the ideals of liberalism, I am no less stingy than the average WASP that I rail against. I know the story of The Star Thrower and of How Avalokiteshvara Attained Her 1000 Arms. I understand, at least theoretically, how one dirham can buy a woman a banana here, but my issue is at the fact that I vacillate between feeling that she will use it wisely or not. I also know that regardless of what she buys with the dirham, be it used wisely or not, it is not my place to judge, but my duty to show compassion towards. I have, for a long time, said that regardless of others' actions towards you, it is your actions towards others that determines your character. But I feel at times that simply throwing money at the problem won't help; it is an institutional issue, one that needs to be address not with change in one's pocket, but change in one's heart. Then again, it could simply be the mental gymnastics of someone who wants an extra dirham for a soda.

On Tuesdays, I go to the youth center for my weekly health class that I teach to some English-speaking students. This is part of my project that I am heading, along with someone from the Youth Development and Environment sectors of my organization. I entered the youth center as usual, when I came across A_____, the English teacher, and the man who wanted some English books that I have so he can read in order to learn about lengthy dialogue.

"Hey," I said, "I do have some novels in English for you. I'm not sure if it is what you are interested in, but there are extended dialogues in them."

"Thank you so much," he said, "I love English books."

He told me about Kahlil Gibran, a Lebanese author who immigrated to America and is the author of many poems and a novel. He is widely regarded, I was told, as a major literary figure, and I should know about him.

"Do you know what I love about English novels?" He asked.

"What do you like about them?"

"I love the stories and how I can escape for a while in them. I read these stories as much as I can. It is great to dream about the lives in the stories and leave this place for a while. People here are trapped. They cannot do anything. We have skills and desires, but we are like birds with broken wings who cannot fly."

A_____ noticed a change that took place on my face. I could feel that he knew my eyes began to glaze over, but he continued.

"I know that people in America and Europe cannot bring us back with them. But you come to me with these books and give me this great gift of these books. You let me imagine better things. You are like angels to me."

I stood back for a moment. I noticed how the sun sunk below the horizon, creating more shadows in front of me. The sky slowly turned to black. I kept thinking about the beggars. Maybe that man does walk with a major limp and cannot find work. Maybe those children are turned away from the school due to the number of children with homes who do go. Maybe those women do know how to be responsible with the dirhams they receive.

A_____ went into the library to teach the English class, and I went to the other side of the youth center to teach my health lesson. It was about blood pressure, and how even slight problems with the heart can disrupt the entire body. The students enjoyed themselves. Afterwards, I left the youth center and watched my shadow, so much larger than myself, against the wall of the youth center. A_____ may think of us as angels, I thought to myself, but I don't see the wings yet. I know that one of these days I will truly believe that I am doing good in this world, and that I am making a difference. Maybe when I look back on my life, I will realize that, in my own way, maybe I am throwing at least one starfish back into that ocean.

Milestone update blog entries typically consist of a brief overview of the writer's story. The instances of when they first arrived at their post, the beginning feelings of nervousness, the initial embarrassments, etc., are all rehashed and the morals are briefly listed alongside of them. However, I do not feel the need to start from the beginning, because I have it all here in my blog.

Therefore, I will only give an update of how recent events have shaped, and will continue to shape, the rest of my service. I have been doing small projects since I came here, instructing village children to wash their hands, writing up small discussions for maternal health, but I haven't had any inspiration that would lead to a project that I felt I would be able to use to define my service. There is nothing wrong with not having a large project, as many of my bosses have told me. Sometimes, drinking tea and eating at people's houses will leave a longer lasting impression than any project, they told me. I, however, prefer to have something that I can point to and say that I did something; this is simply part of who I am.

For the past few months, I have been going to a youth center in Er Rachidia. It began last year, during winter, when I went there as part of an HIV awareness campaign. I contributed to a skit competition. The students decided they wanted to continue the club, but with a general health focus. We got together and decided that we could have a small health fair in May. I would come into class every week from February through May and teach topics regarding health, and the students would lead the health sessions on that day in May. I went to my coordinator, who turned it into a week long festival to coincide with the Er Rachidia music festival in June.

As a part of the festival, Peace Corps will have full run of the youth center for the entire week. Not only will health lessons be taught, but we will also have Youth Development and Environment volunteers come in and give their own lessons. My project has blossomed into a Peace Corps showcase, and I could not be happier. If successful, this health fair will continue every year.

It is funny, that upon reaching the year point, that I would find myself finally with a project. I have told family back home that I could not see myself doing another year of simply going to houses and drinking tea. I had said that if I didn't have anything by then that I would leave at Mid Service Medicals. Before this project, before the yawning realization that I would be leaving here before I know it, I felt as though I were merely drifting in this culture. But now, as I approach the edge of the upper bulb of the hourglass that is my service, I feel a sense of narrowing inside of me. Before, within the bulb of the beginning of my service, all of my activities seemed disconnected from each other. But now, I feel that everything that I have done so far has, in essence, prepared me for this time.

Once this project is over, it will almost be July. The issue becomes just waiting. Nothing is done from July through the end of October due to the heat and Ramadan. Once that is over, I will have my own time for Halloween, Thanksgiving, birthday, Christmas, and New Year's, so none of the other volunteers will be available for us to work on anything large together. Once January gets here, it will be too close to work on anything large. I will work, obviously, but the projects that I work on will be much smaller in scale than this.

So, as they say, like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.

The dust storm brought with it the spring. The sky was devoid of clouds, and the sun shone above the store buildings in downtown Er Rachidia. I watched as children roamed the streets. Because of the protests and the holiday of Muhammad's birthday, the children were out of school. Men lined the streets hawking their wares that were laid out on an old blanket. From down the street, I could smell the restaurant preparing shawarma for lunch. The buses' horns blew continuously throughout the morning as passengers traveled to the surrounding cities.

My coffee had just arrived by the time D_____ showed up. D_____, the Moroccan who is usually used by the new volunteers as a language instructor, wanted to develop an association with me and another volunteer to "encourage cultural exchange and human development opportunities between Morocco and America". This meeting, however, wasn't focused on business.

"I think I'm going to give up on some bad habits." I said.

"Why do you want to do that?" D_____ asked.

"One, it costs money," I began, "And when I wake up the next morning, I usually think to myself, "So, you really paid money for that?""

"Okay," he said, "But are you just going to stop buying it, or are you stopping completely?"

"Well, I'll just have to take it one day at a time," I said, "I've reached a point where I'm beginning to think that it does nothing but bring empty happiness."

"Empty happiness?" He asked.

"Yes, empty happiness. A happiness that doesn't last. It's not the same happiness I seem to experience when I meditate."

"So, you're still Buddhist?"

"Yes, I am."

"Well, think of it this way," D_____ said, "With your habit, the empty happiness goes away after a few hours, but I've seen the empty happiness of religion in followers, but that empty happiness lasts their entire lives."

"So you think it's like the opiate of the masses?" I asked.

"That's a good way of putting it."

Two women passed by; each held the side of a souk bag filled with vegetables. I looked down at my coffee and began to stir. For a moment, the sounds of the street seemed to leave the cafe, leaving only the sound of my spoon clinking against the glass. A man walked by, and D_____ pointed him out to me.

"Hey, that man is like you." D_____ said.

"Really?" I asked, "Here?"

"Yes. Sometimes the children throw rocks at him. When I see it, I usually go up to the kids and tell them that he is human, just like them."

I began to drink my coffee.

"That's one thing I like about America," D_____ continued, "There is freedom. People can believe whatever they want. They can be whoever they want to be."

I looked down the street again. My mind traveled to six years ago. I was on a beach in Florida with friends. We had just left a restaurant when I heard someone shout in the parking lot. Even though the rest of the words were a blur, I remember that word they used. It had since seared itself into my brain. I reached the parking lot just as two men knocked down the third man, shouting that word over and over again. My immediate reaction was to jump in and try to pull them away, but they pushed me aside. I spun around and watched as a crowd had formed around us. Why aren't you helping? I thought as I watched their blank faces, he is one of us. The faces in the crowd remained blank, cold, indifferent, as though they weren't witnessing a beating, but were Romans sitting inside the Colosseum.

I remember the glass bottle I found, and I remember the sound and feeling of it breaking over one of the attacker's head. The most vivid detail that I remember though was their eyes. The look in their eyes wasn't an anger one sees at another human, but an anger one sees directed at a dog that did something bad, or a car that won't start. Their anger wasn't directed at the man as a person who needed to be killed, but as a thing that needed to be destroyed. After I chased them away, I remember looking down at the man. He was now just a pulp; blood streamed down his face, a tooth dangled in his mouth, and his clothes were torn. I remember crying as I held him. I remember being told, you saved your friend's life, and I replied, I don't know him. I remember the look of confusion on some of the people's faces, and I remember the anger welling inside of me, not at the attackers, but at the people who surrounded me that night.

As my mind returned to the cafe on the corner of the street in Er Rachidia, I turned to D_____.

"What is one thing you don't like about Islam?" D_____ asked.

"Are you familiar with Sufism?" I asked in an attempt to alter the subject.

"I knows about them." D_____ replied.

"I like the Sufi. When I read the Quran, it reminded me of Christianity very much. In Islam, mankind is seen as a completely depraved creature, something not worthy of grace, much less life. It is only through God that mankind is saved. Christianity and Islam share this in common, the belief that mankind is inherently worthless without God. In Christianity, this is called total depravity."

D_____ leaned forward and nodded his head in agreement.

"The Sufi are different," I said, "In Sufism, the belief in the fitra is ever-present. It is the understanding that God is the fitra, the source of all wisdom. God is complete fitra, complete wisdom. All living things contain within themselves a piece of this fitra, this wisdom. The seeming depravities exist like shrouds that cover our fitra, but our inherent nature is this holiness, this wisdom, this fitra. In Christianity, this is called the inner light. In Buddhism, this is called Buddha nature."

This is, and always has been, my favorite religion discussion to have with people. Whether people embrace their culture to the point of denigrating others, or whether they denigrate themselves to embrace a Western worldview, I feel that discussing this concept, and the connection that they have with each other, helps people realize that there is no need to unify cultures or religions, nor is there a need of dominant cultures. It is akin to believing that the cultures, in their essence, are like this pureness, and the negative expressions that we find - racism, xenophobia, terrorism - are all shrouds that cover them. The positive expressions of these cultures are present in all cultures, just as the negative examples are found there, as well.

I left D_____, and returned to the Fulbright scholar's house, and imagined what it would be like to alter my memory of the event that occurred six years ago. Maybe there was no attacker, there was no victim, there was no mass of bystanders. There was only fitra and shrouds.

Er Rachdidia 3

We played a game after dinner that night. We placed love themed adjectives in a hat and had to write nouns that best described that adjective. Some of the words included “lust”, “throbbing”, “passionate”, and “fleeting”. The nouns written made it clear that many volunteers had so far been celibate. For the most part, the game was humorous. Then the word “unconditional” came up. I tried to be clever and state that a volunteer’s hair after two years of not bathing was “unconditional”. The note cards were opened, and the room became silent as a card was read.

“Marcus’ love is unconditional,” the reader said.

Tinghir

“The purpose of VSN training,” the trainer said, “Is to use active listening skills to allow the volunteer to come up with a solution to their own problem. Break up into pairs and try to use what we learned. You can use your own problem.”

I walked up to the roof with my partner, and we discussed my problem. I didn’t know what to do in my village. My village is decent, the people are nice, but I haven’t had any major work. After a year of drinking tea, traveling, and socializing, I began to feel like I was useless. For this session, we were to use the three steps to come up with a solution: fantasize any solution, find out which of those solutions is realistic, and then create a plan.

“Well,” the volunteer asked, “What is your ideal situation?”

“I want to move to Er Rachidia. In Er Rachidia, I teach kids. They are different than adults. I can be myself and they don’t judge me. They don’t call me weak or useless. The adults do.”

“Okay, keep going.”

“I want the men to understand me. I don’t hate them, I just can’t stand how they talk about women and prostitutes. I don’t fit in with men.”

“Go on.”

“I want the women to stop feeling threatened by me. I want them to know that I like cleaning and laundry and doing dishes. I want them to know that I feel more kinship with them than the men.”

“Okay.”

“I want to do something with my service. I don’t want to just be a social misfit who drinks tea the entire two years. I don’t want to be useless.”

“Okay.”

I looked out over the roof of the house. Women wandered through the fields, carrying baskets of food. I never fit in with men. It’s a strange feeling to be told that you should identify with certain people, only to find that they aren’t like you at all. It’s a strange feeling, to notice the mannerisms and behaviors, even to the point of voice inflection, and realize that you are not one of them. It is as though there is a glass wall between you and everyone else.

As I thought of it, I became angry. I have sacrificed myself all my life. I sacrificed who I am, how I identify, and every other aspects of my life just so that I could make others comfortable around me, both here and in America. I can’t keep doing that, and if people don’t accept that, then they won’t be in my life.

Er Rachidia 4

It was cold as we left the Fulbright student’s house. It was a clear night, and I watched the stars of Orion and Canis Major. It was late, and the only sounds were our shoes hitting the road. I thought back to the dinner. Everyone loved the pizza, so I made sure to limit the amount I ate. Another volunteer had bought a nice cake at the restaurant in Er Rachidia. I knew there wasn’t enough for everyone, so I let the others have it. My friend turned to me as we walked down the street.

“Marcus,” my friend told me, “I am the one who wrote that card for “unconditional”.”

I looked up into the night sky. It wasn’t the fact that someone had written it that bothered me. It was the fact that it won. Everyone at the table looked at me for a moment and nodded their heads before the judge declared “Marcus’ love” as the winner for “unconditional”. Yes, I’m Buddhist. Yes, I tell them about meditation and how my ultimate goal is to be a Bodhisattva. I don’t know why it makes me uncomfortable. Maybe it’s because I don’t see myself as having reached that point yet.

I get angry. I get frustrated. And yes, I do tell myself that anger and frustration are to be utilized in a positive way, and to ultimately be supplanted with love. But to have someone outside of me identify me as having unconditional love makes me feel like I’m a fraud. Have I earned the right to have people tell me that I’m a good person? Do I really express my love and kindness unconditionally?

It’s strange, how one can have such opposing thoughts in a short period of time. In Esaouira, I felt transcendent as I pretended to fly over the Atlantic. In Rabat, I felt as though I was being crushed by the people. In Tinghir, I felt like I needed no one to tell me how to live my life. In Er Rachidia, however, when presented with the possibility that I am a good person, I withdraw.

Conclusion

I’m going to stay in my village. I need to let the men and women there know that just because I don’t match what they think of as a man I am useless. I need to let them know that it’s fine that I clean my house, that I cook and do laundry, that I read and write and sing. I have no right to impose my culture on them, but they have no right to tell me that I am living my life incorrectly. I am who I am, and they can accept that, even if they do so with curiosity.

I’m going to work in Er Rachidia more. I can speak to kids there and teach health lessons. I just met with some and we created a curriculum through May, until my family comes to visit and I visit Los Angeles. By the time my current schedule is complete, it will be down time in this country, and everything will shut down for a few months for Ramadan. By the time I need to make another schedule, I will be close to ending my service. These things will fall into place. I will go where I am needed. If I am needed in Er Rachidia to fulfill goal one, then so be it. If I am needed in my village to fulfill goals two and three, then so be it.

Because there is nothing to be attained, the Bodhisattva, relying on the Prajna Paramita, has no obstruction in his mind. ~The Heart Sutra

Er Rachidia 1

Throughout most of January and February, I have been traveling to many different cities for medical and training reasons, so I have been a lonely. My travels have taken me from the coastal city of Esaouira, where I ate a lunch of fresh caught fish and squid, to Rabat, the cultural mecca of Morocco, and from Tinghir, where I was trained as a VSN counselor, to Er Rachidia, where I usually go for souk. I decided to celebrate Valentine’s Day in Er Rachidia at a Fulbright student’s house in Er Rachidia. Two other volunteers and I made pizza for the party, and I decided to form the crusts into heart shapes. As I kneaded the dough, one of the volunteers noticed that I was staring off into the distance. She asked what I was thinking, and I said nothing, but I was really back in Esaouira.

Esaouira

I was told that Esaouira had a Portuguese feeling to it. The streets were narrow and curved to the sides, and the buildings were all white with blue paint accents, faded from the sun. Laundry hung on lines on the roofs, and shutters hung on by single screws and flung in the wind. We had just bought 12 dirhams worth of gellato, which is Italian ice cream.

We sat in the courtyard of the cafe, just outside of the city square, where children ran back and forth as they avoided the seagulls. Just past the railing was the Atlantic Ocean; we listened to the sound of the waves as they crashed against the rocks and citadels. White foam shot up into the sky, and sometimes, young women laughed as they neared the railing. I looked up into the sky and watched as the gray clouds moved west, smooth as waves. I stared so that I couldn’t see any buildings and pretended that I was flying over the Atlantic ocean. I imagined that the light rain that began to fall was the foam from the waves.

Everyone at the table laughed as a cat leaped from the ground to someone’s lap. I immediately saw how dirty it was, but he began to pet the cat. I saw how fat it was, and assumed that it had done this many times before, the result being scraps of food. As we stood up to go, he had cat hair on his coat, but he said it was all right. Two young men in the cafe pointed at him and laughed.

The next morning, I woke before the sunrise. I climbed the stairs to the roof and watched as the sun rose over the city. I turned around as looked out over the Atlantic, where I saw ships arrive with fresh fish. I thought to myself that the only thing between me and America was water.

We wandered the shopping area that day. Tourists haggled with vendors but ended up paying double the normal price anyway. silly tourists, I thought, stop thinking in Euros. Seashell beaded necklaces hung at the entrances to the stores. The smell of potato sandwiches and seafood wafted through the air. We decided to sit in a seaside restaurant and eat there. We chose the fish we wanted, and they cooked it right in front of us. I could tell that the building had previously been used as storage, because the chairs and tables were crammed together, leaving little room for any new arrivals to enter. The amount of grease and oil covering the fish and squid ensured that it would go down quickly. We left the cafe and returned to our apartment.

For the entire time, I didn’t feel like I was in Morocco. I heard so many languages being spoken that I wasn’t sure what type of place I was in, but I knew that I never wanted to leave.

Er Rachidia 2

The pizzas were done. We stood in the kitchen and toasted to ourselves for the beautiful work. As the rest of us prepared to leave, I pulled out the Valentine’s poem I had written a year earlier and reworded to fit the occasion. There was a knock at the door, and the Fulbright student came in. He said he needed to use our oven. We wrapped our pizza, and continued to get ready.

Back in the main room, I turned to the window and watched as Moroccans continued on their daily routine. They don’t have Valentine’s Day here, I thought. And then I remembered that in a few days was the Prophet Mohammad’s birthday. Looking down onto the street made me think of Rabat.

Rabat

Everyone has a balcony in Rabat, but they are used as clotheslines and storage units. Shirts flutter in the wind, rusted satellite dishes rest in the corners, and boxes of things line the walls. At the hotel I am staying in, there is an inner courtyard. people run back and forth through it to get to the other sides of streets more quickly. I sit in what can be described as a hostel style room. The paint on the walls was peeling, and the light above me hummed.

Before leaving, I took a shower. There is not hot water where I live, so bathing is a treat for me, especially in winter. The steam rose from the floor to the ceiling, until the entire room was one massive fog. In that hotel, however, there was no warm; there was only cold and hot. It didn’t matter; I needed to get clean. I emerged from the bathroom, and the fog rose from my skin as though I had just emerged from some other world.

The administration building was across town. I needed a taxi. The thing about riding in a taxi in Morocco is that even if the driver uses a meter, I have no way of knowing the city streets, so I don’t know if he is taking a direct way or a scenic route. After a day here, I had already paid three different prices to get back and forth to the same places. When I arrived at the administration office, I noticed the surveillance cameras at the edges of the walls. A metal door was the only way in. I rang the bell and was ushered in through the metal detector to the courtyard, where I saw a volunteer reading a book on the grass, surrounded by white, purple, and blue flowers. The administration building used to be owned by a lord, or some other powerful figure.

The medical session was successful.

I returned to the hotel and decided to get dinner. I had heard of the many great restaurants in Rabat, but because I was by myself, I decided it would be better to stay near the hotel. There was a McDonald’s nearby, but when I walked in, I could barely move from the mass of people. As I went in further, a very familiar feeling crept up on me. My breathing became very shallow, and it became more difficult to move. I managed to make it to the counter to place my order. It wasn’t until after I received my food that I noticed my hands were white from gripping the counter. I saw only a mass of faces in the restaurant, and wondered why I had to come to such a busy place. I left McDonald’s as quickly as possible, and as I breathed in the fresh air, my pulse finally slowed down, and the color returned to my face. I decided I would wait to explore Rabat until I had someone to enjoy it with.

Sitting in the town cafe, I notice

that it seems to serve two customers;

the people who enter through the front doors,

and the birds who fly in through the windows.

But the birds always appear suddenly.

I never see them waiting on the pane;

they just immediately flutter in.

the time is always the same every day.

bus arrives, then I walk to the cafe,

set up my laptop, and give my order.

Mother and child enter. Call to prayer

from the mosque across the street starts the day.

Shadows inside the mosque window rise, fall,

rise and fall, rise and fall, again, again,

the bird flies in, breaks my concentration.

I turn to the mosque; the shadows are still.

Turning back to the bird, I watch as it

ticks its beak against the white tile,

pecking at pieces of bread. All the while,

the men, finishing prayer, fill each seat.

The cafe grows louder from men's voices.

I unplug my laptop, prepare to go.

As I leave, I look out at the window.

A bird flies in and sits where I once was.

Go To Part 1

My landlord has an olive press. I never thought of pressing olives before, but I’m sure if someone had said the word “olive press” to me, I would have thought of something like a big juicer or a big panini maker. In my village, the olive press consists of two separate machines, actually. The first machine is a large shallow bowl with a large stone wheel with grooves in the center. When the olives get smashed under the wheel, the liquid falls down the grooves, and what is left is a large pile of mashed olives. The wheel is turned by way of mule. The second machine is a large basket inside of a metal squeezer. The mashed olives are placed inside the basket, and the squeezer is turned so that it mashes all of the liquid out of it, where it pools into a container buried halfway beneath the ground. Once the liquid is drained, the remains of the olives are placed back in the shallow bowl, where they are pressed again. My landlord told me that they transfer the mashed up olives back and forth about three times. They make about one thousand liters during the initial picking, which can bring in a lot of money for a village of one hundred people.

I watched as my landlord and his brother “worked” the machines. (By work, I mean told the mule to keep moving.) I watched as the mule walked in circles around the bowl, and I saw that she had a patch over her left eye. My landlord told me that it was to keep her from getting dizzy. I nodded my head and looked back at the mule. I wondered how long of a memory she had? It was her left eye that would be able to stay focused on one point, namely, the wheel. But that eye was blinded, and so she always saw a carousel of events on the outside circle of her experience. I wondered if she remembered me every time I was in her field of vision, or if I was a new person to meet every time. Did she always think the chicken coop was filled with new chickens, or did she knew them? Did she recognize the woven baskets that lined the mud brick wall? Or did she remember it all and instead try to find new things with each go around? Maybe she noticed that I was in a different position from the last time.

My mind wandered. I knew that somewhere, there was an analogy in what was happening. That’s when I thought of the Buddhist Wheel of Life. Every being is trapped on the wheel, but we all are blinded to that fact because of ignorance. My life is like the mule, and the olives are our karmic actions. We keep the wheel moving, and our karmic actions all get crushed under the wheel: black olives, red olives, green olives, full olives, shriveled olives; they all eventually get crushed by the wheel. Rarely, an olive will fly out of the bowl, where it will simply whither away. Sometimes, the mule will stop, and that’s when karma stops. Our actions no longer serve as a continuation of the Wheel of Life, pressing our karmic actions into further lives, just as when the mule stops, the wheel no linger presses the olives.

I then looked at my landlord, who wore a saffron colored jump suit. I have realized that my mind either settles deeply on something, or it flies madly about like a flag in the wind. I watched as he circled the bowl, over and over again, only to shout at the mule every few minutes. I imagined him as a gyoja of Mount Hiei. He has been doing this every year since he became a young adult, just like his father did, and his father before him, and do on and so on, in an uninterrupted chain of time going back generations. He was literally walking in his father’s footsteps. I imagined him moving around the bowl, his shouting to the mule became his mantra, the mantra filling out an invisible rosary. The gyoja of Mount Hiei, in order to become an abbot, must complete both a 100 day and 1000 day challenge that consists of running in between 40 and 84 milometers per day. If they cannot complete this challenge, they must commit suicide by stabbing or hanging themselves. I imagined my landlord, thinking that this wasn’t just a job, this was an integral part of his life. An unbroken chain of life starting with his ancestors. But was his way to enlightenment to continue the path, unreservedly, or was it to stop the mule entirely? That was where my analogy broke down.

time passed, and the landlord’s mother came out with some deep fried bread and tea. He stopped, as did his brother, and we all sat down together to eat and drink. As the oil soaked bread slipped through my fingers, I thought to myself Maybe you don’t need an analogy for this. Maybe this just is. Maybe your landlord is just pressing olives. Maybe the mule is just being a mule. Stop complicating things. They finished and got back to work. I listened to the sound of the wheel, the heavy stone against the bowl, the sound of the olives being squished, and the sound of the mule’s hooves hitting the dirt. I stayed for a little while longer, and went back to my own house.

Maybe that’s why my meditation has been hitting a wall, lately. Maybe I have been trying to hard to find a connection to everything that I do not stop my mind enough to appreciate the separateness of things. At least, that will give me a new exercise for meditation in thew coming days.

I made a resolution to be more social with my village this year, so I went out to talk to my neighbor, who informed me that January is olive season in Morocco. My neighbor told me that he was going to the president’s field with the other men. Remembering my resolution, I agreed to go with him. The sun was just beginning to rise over the mountains, and when I got there, I saw that the men were already hard at work. In my village, it is the men who go out into the fields, buckets, tarp, and bamboo shoots in hand, in order to collect the olives. I watched as a small group of men climbed the trees to it the branches with the shoots. The olives that were lose then fell to the ground, onto the newly laid tarp. Another group of men would carry the tarp to another part of the field, tie it to a tree so that it hung, fill a bucket with what fell, and hurl the contents of the bucket at the tarp. Only the olives would make it to the tarp; the leaves and small twigs fluttered to the ground in between the thrower and the tarp. I was in the group that hunched over and picked up the olives that either did not make it to the tarp, or the ones that fell from the tree while the other men were moving the tarp.

I was not expecting to do work like this here. To be honest, a lot of what has happened in Morocco falls under the category of “unexpected occurrence”. Running back into my house at night when I see a dog running towards me, stuffing my face with fresh bread deep fried in oil, listening to men talk openly about prostitutes - events like these are not exactly what one thinks of when they are told that they will be teaching health in rural Morocco. Nonetheless, I remembered my resolution, and if this is what the men are spending their time doing, I will make sure that I am there with them.

I sat at the edge of the field and picked the olives, one by one. At first, I started to think of how much faster this is done in America where we have machines to do this work for us. I listened as the men chatted idly with each other: how their days were, how their families were, funny things that happened to them while in town. These little sentences that they repeat to each other, I have learned, are important in their own way. Every now and then, they will turn to me and ask me, “How are you doing?”, “Are you tired?”, or, “How is your family?” Of course they already know the funny story, and of course they now how their families are doing - They all live next to each other. I knew that the things they say to each other are second nature. My religion, however, teaches me to try to talk only when necessary, and to try to make what I say mean something. I respond with quick answers, saying that my family is wonderful.”, or, “No, my muscles don’t hurt because in America I did yoga.”

After a few hours, it was time for lunch. The president pulled out a pressure cooker that one of the women had brought from the house and revealed boiled vegetables and chicken. I looked down and saw that my hands were dirty, so I went to the nearby river. The water was ice cold, but I started washing my hands. The men asked me what I was doing, and I explained that my hands were in the dirt with animal feces and bugs. Of the people that were there, half decided to join me and thoroughly wash their hands, as well. A little bit of goal one, I thought to myself, accomplished.

Later, after I had been hunched over for a total of five hours, my mind finally began to quiet down. I stopped thinking of how things are done in America. I stopped thinking about the idle chatter. I began to view my mind as the field. In meditation, the goal is to settle your mind so that you can find the areas of ignorance. Each black spot of ignorance needed to be cleared much like the little black olives needed to be cleared from the field. Sometimes, I would lift up a pile of bamboo and find a black olive hidden there. Another few hours passed, and then men began to notice that out of the time I had been there with them, I had barely spoken a word. “You don’t talk,” they said, “Are you all right?” I looked up at them. “When lips are quiet,” I said, “the mind is quiet. When the mind is quiet, there is peace.” I don’t know if what I said made sense to them, but I did notice for a moment that the talking died down a little bit after that. At least, for a few minutes. I noticed that there were very few olives left on the ground just as the sun was beginning to set along the mountainside. Cats began to appear in the fields, looking for mice, and the women started walking along the road by the fields. I heard people whisper some things, one statement that stood out was, “His family gave him a Quran in English.”

I want to be thought of as a good person; that’s one reason why I do what I do. Sometimes, however, I worry that thinking along those terms is a selfish reason. Most of the time, I like to think that I do good things because it simply is the good thing to do. Other people need help, so you help them; it is a simple formula that does not need to be complicated. But sometimes, I find that there is a little voice inside of me that says, Look at you, you are so much better than everyone else You came all the way here to live a simple life. How great are you? You sacrifice so much to be here. I wish I never had to think those thoughts. I wish I could always think unselfishly. But the truth is that I am still a human being. I’m not enlightened, yet. I feel like my meditation seems to have hit a wall a lot, lately. But I suppose this is as good as I can be for the time being.

For the record, I try not to listen to that voice that tells me what a good person I am. So what if I am here in Morocco, picking olives and telling men to wash their hands? My sisters are raising good, intelligent sons. My mom is a police officer. They all tithe at church. I like to think that everyone in my life is trying to live their lives according to their values. My values simply led me here. It says nothing about me being better or worse than they are. We’re just trying to be true to ourselves and our values in life.

We left the fields just as the moon was beginning to rise over the mountains. There were no lights on in any houses, and the moon and stars cast a blue light over everything. I walked over the riverbed stones to the other side of the village, and made it to my house in time for tea and then bed.

Go to Part 1

We left the dune at sunset. I was a little upset when I realized just how quick and easy it was to get down compared to the length of time I spent climbing up, but was also glad to finally be back on somewhat solid ground. We could smell the tagine cooking in the makeshift kitchen. Even came, and that was when we looked up and saw the night sky. In the desert, without any light pollution for miles, every star shone and lit the ground around us. Even familiar constellations became new with the advent of the stars surrounding them. I sniffled.

“I love it when I can see in a clear night.” A volunteer said.

“There are times when I hate it.” I said.

“What do you mean?” He asked.

I looked over to him as I held back a tear.

“During the day, we have the illusion of a blue covering above us. We have the same thing on a cloudy night. But on nights like this, we have no protection from it. The infiniteness of it all. When we can’t see it, then we can pretend that all of our little fights that we have over religion, race, sexuality actually mean something.”

I looked back up. A meteor flew through Pegasus.

“But now, looking out at these things, these lights, and knowing that it is so great a distance that it would be impossible to reach them, nobody can help but realize just how petty and stupid all of those fights are. But the funny thing is that even though mankind has been able to look up and see all of this, they continue to do it.”

The volunteer looked at me, not speaking but also nodding his head in agreement.

“And we continue to believe that we are at the center of this. These constellations are made up of stars that aren’t even close to each other. Sirius in Canis Major isn’t anywhere near the other stars of the constellation, and yet here we are, placing importance on it. It’s all just so... stupid.”

We finished the evening with the Moroccans leading us in song and dance that lasted until midnight. Then I heard the volunteers.

“10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1... Happy New Year!”

I looked up at Sirius for a moment and headed into my tent. I had made it. I knew that I needed to do everything I could to help see just how little our differences meant in comparison to everything around us. We are this tiny planet at the edge of one galaxy, and rather than appreciate these beautiful differences that make us into an elaborate garden of humanity, we choose instead to root out what we call weeds that are merely different flowers. Muslims and Christians are unable to recognize their commonalities right now, but one day, they will. I know it.

I fell asleep to the sound of fireworks in the next campsite. Outside my tent, I could also hear the foghorn like sounds of the camels, and the sighing of the sands, once again saying, we have seen all of this before. You were not the first here, nor will you be the last.

Go to Part 1

I should have realized that climbing a sand dune was not like climbing a mountain the moment I set my foot down and my shoe disappeared into the sand. The difference became obvious. When one climbs a mountain, it is expected that where one places one’s foot will be the place it stays. Climbing a sand dune, however, does not afford that luxury. I noticed that no matter how far I placed my stride, my foot would always end up sinking back down halfway or more.

Another difference is that when one climbs a mountain, one can stop and be safe to assume that they would simply continue where they left off. Not so with a sand dune. I noticed that when I took my first break the small bush I had passed a while earlier had managed to climb up to meet me.

After the first twenty minutes of this, my legs decided to tell me what they thought of me. As I trudged through the sand, I began to get sharp pains in my thighs and calves. No, I thought, I can’t give up. I looked behind me, and there was Princess Leia, a few feet behind me.

“Reach for me!” I called out to her. Princess Leia looked up, smiled, and struggled a few feet to clutch onto my hand. Rather than pull her up to me, however, we ended up in a middle ground between the two of us. The actions of the people ahead of us had caused a mini sand avalanche, and distinct sound emerged from the dune.

“It sounds just like water.” I said.

“You’re right,” she replied, “it does.”

“It’s like we’re climbing a waterfall.”

I thought of everything I went through to get here. Not at this dune, but in the Peace Corps. Over a year’s worth of tests, interviews, and evaluations. I had been through weddings that lasted until sunrise and funerals that lasted for days. I had been through so many bacteria and diseases that I considered myself a microscopic Noah’s Ark. There have been times when I wanted to go home. All of my insecurities kept bubbling up into my mind. You can’t even get a project going in your site, I thought, You shouldn’t even be here. What would I do if I gave up now? What would I do if I couldn’t climb this dune? What would happen if I went home?

I turned back to the top of the dune, my strength restored, and continued upward. My eyes began to pop out of my head from the strain, and my legs were on the verge of mutiny. I climbed, one step at a time, with the river of sand flowing beneath my feet. I listened to the sound of the sand and remembered a dawn I spent on a beach with a friend before coming to Morocco. The ocean waves and the sand made the same noise. Everything was continually breathing out, sighing, as though to say we have seen all of this before. You were not the first here, nor will you be the last. Some volunteers had already made it to the top, and I could finally begin to make out their faces as I inched closer and closer.

“You can do it.” They called out to me.

The only sounds I could muster were low growls. I leaped forward and strained to reach the top. Finally, I made it. The sand flattened and I could finally rest. I had done it. If I could climb this dune, I could do anything. I could serve these entire two years. I will serve these entire two years.

Continue to Part 3

The story begins, as all great stories do, in the middle of the Sahara Desert on top of a camel named Princess Valencia Carmina.

A group of volunteers decided to spend the night in the desert for New Year’s Eve so that we could, on top of our experiences so far, have a memory that would follow us throughout our lifetime. I should have realized that something was wrong with Princess Valencia Carmina when she began to stumble right away. I couldn’t help but notice that the other volunteers’ camels all had a majestic look to them. I looked down at mine and saw the drool that formed along her mouth, the patches of fur in random places due to either genetics or illness, and a look in her eyes that made me wonder whether she had all of her mental faculties.

One by one, the camels stood up to begin the trek into the desert. Princess Valencia Carmina, unable to recognize that the sudden growth on her back was, in fact, a human being, lurched forward, causing me to yelp out to my fellow volunteers. Throughout the two hour trek into the desert, I realized that my saddle continually slid forward, which was odd since she had that large hump to keep it on straight. Needless to say, I ended up at the desert campsite with a distinct swagger.

The campsite lie in the shadow of a large dune; it was a series of tents held together by blankets and rope.

“This is similar to the Moroccan houses,” Princess Leia said, “except made of canvas instead of cement. Each tent would be where a family slept.”

I had no choice but to agree with her. In my site, most families have their own homes and at most are connected by one wall. I nodded and fell down onto a small blanket with the other volunteers and closed my eyes so that I could settle my stomach that was still queasy from the four by four drive across the bumpy roads and the ride on the motor skilless camel.

Before falling asleep, I decided to look at my phone to set an alarm. That was when I noticed that I had no bars on it. In hind site, I should have expected this. I felt bad, though, because I had promised David that I would call him to wish him a happy new year. Now I couldn’t even explain to him that I wouldn’t be able to.

A little while later, I heard a commotion near me. It was the other volunteers.

“Come on, let’s go climb that dune.”

I lifted my hood, turned my head, and looked at the dune next to the campsite. What the heck, I decided, how hard can it be?

Continue to Part 2

We had a SIDA awareness commpetition at the beginning of December. The competition consisted of two parts: a poster making contest and a skit competition. The students in my group won the poster making contest, but we came up just short of winning both. The judges really liked how my group had characters that you could fully get into, rather than simply people stating facts about HIV/SIDA. My group wanted it to be in English, so they told me to write it. This is what I came up with for them. A series of five monologues that focused on the lives of the people infected as normal human beings. They wanted to portray that SIDA isn't a judgment, and that anybody can get it. I put the English level at above average because most of the students were in an English club, and I was also able to use this experience to give them a broader vocabulary. I wrote these in a day, and they were given four days to work on the lines. They made me incredibly proud.

The SIDA Monologues

The User

I just wanted to feel... alive. To feel something inside of me. I wanted it to run through my veins like a wild dog in the desert, like a cat through the city streets. Don’t judge me. You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know what it’s like to have a dad who beats you without mercy... to have a mother who doesn’t have the courage to stand up and protect her own children. I had to escape.

One of my friends introduced me to heroin. I remember the needle piercing my skin like ice, the drug running through my veins. I wasn’t just a dog running through the desert... I was Cerberus at the Gates of Hell. I wasn’t just a cat running through the city streets... I was a lion in the Serengeti.

A few months later, I felt sick and went to the doctor. I told him I shared a needle. The doctor tested me for VIH. It came back positive. I thought it was just a sex disease. The doctor told me that it passed to me through my friend, through the needle.

Yeah, VIH passes through semen and sex fluids, but I didn’t know it passed through blood, too.

All I wanted was to feel alive. To have a life inside of me that I could want. But this was the only life I could have, and I didn’t want it. Who would?

I didn’t tell my friend. I told him that I wanted more heroin, and he gave me enough so that I could have more animals running through my veins than were on Noah’s Ark.

I still remember the feeling I had as I injected needle after needle into my veins. Everything running through me. I pretended the animals were like my own army, fighting the VIH in me as I fell asleep.

The Razor

My dad said becoming a man meant learning responsibility. Allah tells us that being responsible is required to be a good man. In order to learn responsibility, I had to get a job.

My family was never rich. My brothers all got jobs when they were my age to help support the family. My dad always traveled to other cities for work. And now it was my turn. In order to get a respectable job, I had to shave the beard that was beginning to grow on my face. I remember him taking me into the bathroom. I remember looking at the razor blade that I would share with him and my brothers. I watched as the blades moved against his face. And then it was my turn.

I thought I was learning responsibility. I thought I was a man. I thought I was a good man. I went to school. I went to mosque. I fasted for Ramadan. I didn’t deserve this. Did I?

The doctor said that I got it from the razor. That was the only explanation. But that couldn’t be possible. We’re a good family... we’re a good family. The doctor said I had a responsibility to tell my family. But it couldn’t have come from my dad. I had to have done something to anger Allah. My dad is a good man. He taught me how to be responsible. So it was my job to be responsible, too.

I didn’t tell anyone. I got sicker, but I kept going to my new job. I couldn’t tell them. They would fire me. Good Muslim men don’t get SIDA. I was a good man. Just like my dad.

He was traveling when I died. My mom was praying to Allah as I was laying on the ground, too weak to walk to the hospital. But I couldn’t tell her what the doctor told me. I had to be responsible.

The Mother

Muhammad, peace be upon him, said that a thankful tongue, a soft-hearted wife is a friend of yours in religion.

I had faith that Allah would bless me with a child after my first night with my husband. I had faith that Allah would bless me with a loving husband, and a wonderful child. I thought about this when I was in school, and when I went home. Allah blesses those who bless others.

I was a virgin on my wedding day. I knew that being a good Muslim woman meant doing anything that I could to make sure my baby would be healthy. The doctor suggested, as a precaution, to get tested for any diseases, including VIH. I said yes.

I didn’t understand how I could have gotten a positive test. But that didn’t matter to me. I knew that what mattered was my child. No matter what was inside of me, I knew I had to do what I could to not allow this to get into my child. Even if that meant losing the one man that I loved. I knew what I was in the eyes of Allah.

So I told him. I waited for his response.

He got tested, and when the test came back positive, he told me about how he had sex one time before me. He said it had to have been from that woman. But he knew what Allah needed of men, so he stayed. We went to the doctor together, and he gave us medication to keep the baby safe.

After the baby was born, I couldn’t get access to the medication. I know it was painful for my husband and child to watch me die. But even though I’m not with them on the Earth, I know that my husband and child will be all right. Allah knows what I am. Allah blesses those who bless others. And Allah has blessed me with the ability to continue to watch over my husband and child as they continue with their lives.

The Rich Man

Everything has a price. Everything.

I got into this business because I wanted to see the world. I wanted to own the world. Going to the doctor was required for my job. I explained to the doctor that I was going to be a very rich man and I would be traveling everywhere. The doctor asked if I was planning on having sex. I said what good is having this money if you can’t buy the finest women? He explained to be that in order to be healthy, I needed to think about the ABC’s: Abstinence, Being Faithful, and Condoms, but I didn’t need anyone’s help; not friends, not family, and not this doctor.

I had sex with women in France and Spain, even Portugal. I kept getting more and more money. But the women never seemed to fill a gap that I couldn’t name. I kept trying to find more women to fill that gap, but none of them could do it.

When I went to the doctor for a checkup, he tested me for VIH. When the result came back as positive, I shrugged and asked him how much the cure cost. He said that there is no cure. There were medications, called antiretrovirals, that could slow the spread of the disease, but VIH was not going to go away.

I got angry. I wanted to find the woman who did this to me and kill her. But then I realized that I couldn’t even count the number of women I had sex with, much less remember their names. I tried to find a detective to help me find them. I could buy it. Everything has a price. Everything.

I lost my job. I watched as my bank account slowly dwindled to nothing. I lost my house. I couldn’t understand why Allah did this to me. I couldn’t go on living this life. I killed myself, thinking that the pain would end with my life. But now I am here.

Everything has a price. Everything.

The Child

I like to think that together, we can solve any problem.

I had VIH my entire life. My mother told me that I was infected one night while breastfeeding. She said it was an accident.

When I was a child, I remember watching a wedding. I remember it because the thought that went through my head was that I would never have that. I would never find anyone who would love me like this. I would never get married or have children. I would never be normal.

But that wasn’t true. My doctor told me that people living with VIH and SIDA can live long, meaningful lives. I’ve used antiretrovirals my entire life. My viral load is undetectable. The doctor said that as long as I was honest with people, I would find someone who would love me for who I am. He gave me hope.

No matter what I am on the outside, I know that the light of Allah is something that is inside all of us. It connects us to one another. It makes us all one. I decided that I would tell people my status. People needed to know that VIH is not a judgment, it is not a punishment for a sinful lifestyle. It is a disease. It doesn’t discriminate. But it is a disease that, if we work together, we can fight and defeat.

I remember the night I died. A group of boys started it. They told me that only prostitutes get VIH. I tried to explain my story, but they kept calling me names and then they kicked me to the ground.

But even as I died, I still thought of Allah. I saw the light of Allah in each of them, even though they let prejudice blind them to the light of Allah in me.

One day, I know everyone will see it. Everyone will see that shining light. And we will see that we are all in this together. That is what we need. Because together, we can solve any problem.

The User

I wanted to feel alive. But being alive means having hope and faith that no matter how life appears, things will get better.

The Razor

I needed to learn responsibility. But responsibility means knowing your status, and getting friends and family tested.

The Mother

What matters is our children. Though we were not long for this world, our children will go on through our actions.

The Rich Man

Everything has a price. Everything. Be abstinent. Be faithful. Use protection. All human beings have worth.

The Child

Together, we can solve any problem. In order to work together, we have to know that we all have worth in the eyes of Allah.

All

Together, we will fight. Together, we will win.

I try not to focus too much on American news anymore, for a few reasons. I have access to international news organizations, (I apparently had no idea what objectivity meant until I looked outside of America for my news needs; niether do American news outlets.) American "news" is lacking in substantive reporting as compared to other news organizations around the world, (but if I want to learn any insipid and vacuous information on Sarah Palin or any other pop princess, I know where to turn.) And according to American news organizations, Muslims are categorically incapable of doing anything good at any time ever, unless it is to convert to Christianity and condemn Islam on a whole.

Living here with Muslims in Morocco is what made me really notice the third issue. I do not miss American news outlets, so I feel no need to ever turn to them to reconfirm my observations.

I was sitting in the bus station in Casablanca, waiting to go home, when a young Moroccan teenager sat next to me. He was learning English so that he could study engineering in America. He was applying for scholarships from both countries so that he could go to school, learn, and then return so that he could help his country become a better place for all of its citizens. I asked where he wanted to study. He told me that he didn't want to go to a small place because he was scared of Americans.

"They burn Korans over there. I do't know why. I didn't do anything to them." he said.

"Some Americans burned Korans, or tried to." I replied, "But a lot of people that are in our generation understand that we are all connected and that we all have a shared responsibility to each other."

"I see that," the young man said, "The generation before us... is very scared of something. But I don't undrstand it."

"Me neither."

"So," he asked, "Are you Christian?"

"No, I'm a Buddhist."

"Really? I've never met a Buddhist."

I explained some of the concepts of Budhism to him, and he explained the concepts of the five pillars of Islam. I told him about the four noble truths, and he told me about Mohammad's divine revelation. Throughout the entire exchange, we both felt a muntual respect for one another. We both knew that we weren't there to convert the other person, but to share a piece of ourselves with each other. It was a beautiful experience. But I have noticed that Muslims here are genuinely curious and interested in other religions. They seem to thirst for knowledge of things outside of their own world. At least, the ones I have met. Then again, it could be that I have an unthreatening demeanor to myself, and so they feel more open to discuss these things with me. Either way, I find that when I go into a conversation with an open mind, then the other person in the dialogue will respond with an open heart.

“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.” ~Paul McCartney

I woke to the sound of the kids pounding on my door. The moment I stood up, I knew what was about to happen. I open the front door, and there are the kids.

"Come on, it's happening."

They ran back to my landlord's house. I grabbed my camera and followed them. The night before, I had promised my landlord that I would take pictures and get them developed as a gift. I told him that I make not have a sheep, and I may not be able to make good food, but I can help give them something.

I made my way to the front porch of my landlord's house. A pool of bright red blood already stained the cement from the first sheep. I looked at its body as it lie still on the cold porch. I watched as they dragged the second sheep to the front door of the house.

"Come on, get a picture." The kids said, laughing and pointing at the sheep as it struggled to stand against the weight of the two men holding it down. I held up my camera and pointed it at the sheep.

"In the name of God." My landlord said.

He dragged the knife across the sheep's neck. I heard a gurgling sound, like some thick fluid passing through a straw. The sheep's eyes widened, the blood immediately ran down the wool and pooled onto the cement. I watched as it trembled for a moment, and was then still. It kicked around again, its hind legs thrashed in every direction possible, and then it was still again. I watched as its eyes darted form side to side, and then came to rest on me. I tried to move to get out of its glare, but its eyes remained fixed in mine, as though it knew I was an intruder there.

"How long does this last?" I asked.

"About ten minutes." he said.

The children pointed at the sheep and laughed. I looked at one of the older boys and thought to myself, "Had the Bible story of Abraham and Isaac (or in this case, Ibrahim and Ishmael) been a little different, you wouldn't be the one laughing, oh firstborn." I turned back to the sheep, whose flailing continued to grow weaker as minutes passed. I heard the air pass through its windpipe.

I thought of my grandfather's breathing machine. In Kentucky, I would always sleep in the parlor right next to it. I knew that as long as the machine worked, he lived.

I watched as the sheep's eyes became still. It was as though a thin cloud suddenly formed over it. The eyes glazed over, and its pupils expanded until all that was left was blackness.

The kids came over to me and looked through my camera at the pictures I had taken. They were especially fond of the ones I had taken of them with the flailing sheep in the background. My landlord and the neighbor began to prepare the sheep. They grabbed the legs and sliced open the knees. I heard the snap as they broke each of its legs in half so that they could hang it easier. I heard the sound of the skin detaching from the rest of its body, the sinews stretching out like thin spiderwebs. I never realized just how thin and frail a sheep's body was, nor how much of its heft was attributed to thick wool.

I watched as my landlord began to tear open the sheep and pull out the organs. The small intestines burst through the opening at its stomach, as though they had been unwillingly trapped inside of it. He pulled them out, little by little, and coiled them around his hand like a rope. The stomach emerged, as did the liver and other organs, until all that was left was a hollow being.

Flies had arrived at this time, and the smell of fresh flesh and entrails filled the air. Streams of feces puddled onto the floor. I pulled out a spare bottle of hand washing soap to utilize this experience as a need for proper hand washing.

The entire process to kill, skin, and disembowel a sheep takes about an hour. But when it was all done, the women took the remains into the kitchen and began to make lunch. I went back to my house and uploaded the pictures onto my facebook profile.*

I went back to my landlord's house for lunch. The women brought out a large plate of couscous. On top of the couscous was a large hunk of freshly killed meat. I found myself dipping my bread in the sauce and picking up the beans and potatoes, but for some reason, my hand didn't want to go near the meat. After repeated entreaties from my landlord, I finally picked up a piece of meat and put it in my mouth. I tasted the skin of the sheep, and the pieces of flesh separated in my mouth like bits of string. But my throat refused to swallow. I had to smile and nod my head to hide the gagging that was taking place.

I have always known, where meat comes from; I am not that naive. But there is a difference between seeing little packages of red colored substances in plastic wrap in a supermarket and watching the process itself. Even the photographs don't do much justice. They don't allow for the sound of a sheep drowning in its own blood, or the rapid movements of the eyes. They can't quite capture the flailing as it move slower and slower, and then stops.

I am going to Paris soon. When asked about what I wanted most, I used to respond, "Bacon cheeseburger and pork." But now, I think I'll settle for a nice glass of white wine and a fresh salad.

I have chosen, due to the nature of the pictures, not to post these pictures on the general website.

I remember when I first applied to Peace Corps I kept imagining myself either on some deserted island, teaching people about water purification or helping them cope with some foreign disease that travelers brought to the indigenous people, or in an African grassland, running from lions or teaching about AIDS beneath a large tree to children excited to see an American. When I had my interview and was told that I would be placed in a Middle East program, which would have either been Jordan or Morocco, I was torn. Morocco sounds cool, and is near the desert, so I would be helping nomads and perhaps teaching women about literacy. Jordan, on the other hand, was near so much Christian history; not to mention I would have had an opportunity to witness the Israeli-Palestinian struggle firsthand. When told I would go to Morocco, I looked up more details on it, and decided that living the desert life would be cool. I imagined no water, no electricity, and certainly no internet. Little did I know that the 21st century was embedded everywhere around the world. Nowadays, not even the smallest mountain village escapes the ongoing updates of facebook and twitter.

I was doing laundry and dishes when I heard the sound of knocking on my door. I opened it, and there stood Majid and Ismael. They asked how I was doing and whether or not I could help them with something.

"Sure," I replied, "But I need to finish my housework first."

By this time, I know why the men laugh when I say that I, a man, need to do dishes and laundry. They said to meet them at two at Ismael's house, and to bring a camera.

I arrived at Ismael's house, where I was advised as to how I would put my Peace Corps service to good use.

"We need you to take pictures of us for our facebook account."

"Beg your pardon?"

"Yeah, we are having difficulty with that."

At that moment, I was happy to know that my skills at noting irony were bring put to good use in the Peace Corps thanks to the taxpayers. Technically, this falls under the category of goal one, which is to provide technical skills to local citizens of the developing country. And what is more important nowadays than having a profile to serve as a means of networking? This is something that I've learned to tell myself every time I go to someone's house to upload video games for the local children or to create profiles for the young men, though once I did manage to help my host mother find information on how to sew her own jellaba.

Anyway, I took them around the village, and that's when it started. Back in America, I loved taking fun pictures of people and nature. I think it is because I secretly wanted to be a photographer. The two men were confused at first with how seriously I seemed to be taking the project, but once they saw the pictures, they were more than excited to put them on their facebook. Here are a few samples:

Quick update, also: this is the week of one of the biggest celebrations in Morocco. Eid Kibir, the reenactment of the slaughtering of the ram by Abraham in the Bible. I will have pictures of that, as well, so keep in touch.

Ichram told me to take her picture as she held up her newest drawing. She had been coming to my house for the past few days to draw while I worked on cleaning my house. As she finished her drawing, I was flinging out the last bits of sand and corn husk from the cement floor into the courtyard. Ichram came out of the salon.

"What do you think?" I asked. "Did I do a good job?"

"Yes," She replied, "You sweep very well."

My landlord's wife comes in.

"Yunz," she asked, "why haven't you come to get bread?"

"I'm sorry, I'm still trying to eat all the bread you gave me last time."

"All right."

She walks out, with Ichram following behind her moments later. I'd say community integration level is set to indispensable.

Whatever you do in your life, know this. The door of my house will always be open to you.

~Ajahn Brahm, on loving kindness

I returned home from IST at three o'clock in the morning after riding in a souk bus for about ten hours. I had two volunteers stay the night with me so that they could get some rest before finishing their travel to their sites, which would have taken another three hours. The two of them awoke to hot tea, omelettes, and fruit. They left, and I was left alone.

As I stood at the doorway and watched them hike up the hill to the main road, I looked around my village. The dried husks from the corn were blowing around in the wind, and the sun had risen but was covered by a string of gray clouds. My freshly shaved head, not used to exposure, tingled. When asked by other volunteers why I shaved it, I would reply, "I was too attached to it. It's a Buddhist thing; you wouldn't understand." and then laugh.

At IST, I was in a group dedicated to discussing maternal health. I was in that group because I wanted to get ideas on how to speak with the women in my village. I was the only male in the group; but rather than give me advice on not being threatening to women, the other volunteers instead told me that I have a unique opportunity to speak with the men.

I began to think about that again, as I stood at the open door of my house. Would the men be receptive to the message? Would I be able to convince them that pre- and post-natal health was important for men, also? I wasn't sure, but I began to feel better knowing that I finally had a goal to reach in my service; it was something for which I could actually see results, instead of the vague notions of the "second" and "third" goals of Peace Corps.

I went back into my house, but I decided to leave the front door open. I went around my house and opened my windows that were covered in spider webs from me being gone for the past week. I opened my back door, and the entire house was filled with air and light. corn husks blew in and through the main foyers. I started with my dishes that I had left unwashed when I left for Marrakech.

I little while later, I heard a knock on my door. Two little girls, Ichram and Selma, stood at my door, looking down at their feet.

"May tramt?" I asked.

"Chips." they said.

I looked back to my kitchen and decided to let them in. I told them that I didn't have chips but that they could have fruit. I sent them to my salon and set out a bowl of fruit, colored pencils, and a large piece of paper and told them to draw while I finished working. Once the dishes were clean, I returned to the parlor, where I found that they had traced their hands multiple times and filled them in. They looked around the room and pointed to another poster that I had been working on. It was my poster of the food pyramid, and so I took the time to teach them about the five food groups and why it was important to eat the fruit I gave them. Their mothers knocked on my door and took them back, but I secretly think they were relieved that I had watched them for that time. It was late afternoon by that time, and it was beginning to get chilly, and so I started to closed my windows again for the night. I watched as the mothers hiked up the hill with their daughters in tow.

It's funny how completely different a village acts towards me once I simply open my door. Before IST, I would usually have my front door closed. People would pass by it and pass by my windows, sometimes greeting me, but most of the time, not. I thought about how much I had just felt like part of the community, to where the mothers didn't get angry, upset, or frightened by the fact that they little daughters stayed at the foreigner's house. Had my door been closed that day, I'm sure the girls wouldn't have knocked.

There were times before IST that I truly worried if I was going to do anything productive; I had made a vow that if by May of 2011 I still felt like I was wasting taxpayer money I would return home. But now, I know that I have been productive. Moroccans trust me with their children. Just that one action lets me know that I have changed their opinion about Americans. I don't think their opinions were negative, but maybe if they hear another Moroccan talk about how bad Americans are, they'll think of me and confront him.

That's how you change the world. That's how you create peace. That's how you keep the door to your heart open to everyone.

P.S.: My camera disk was destroyed by a virus, but I have another one, and will get a picture of the drawing the girls made.

We are reaching the six-month point in our service. The job quoted as "the hardest job you'll ever love" and the one that I went through a year and a half to get is already a quarter of the way complete. I have been to festivals, weddings, a funeral, and a baby naming ceremony here. I have congratulated fathers giving away their daughters, consoled villagers at the loss of their grandmother, congratulated a mother on her twins, and have been almost trampled by men wanting a closer look at American women giving blood pressure tests. Though I am able to speak with people in my village, for some reason, the villagers and the nurse in the next village 3 kilometers away still are unable to understand me, nor I them. Also, because I speak the dialect of the rural people, I am pretty much unable to communicate with people in any of the major cities of the country, which makes traveling difficult, unless I have with me a volunteer who speaks Moroccan Arabic.

The Peace Corps' three goals: to provide need to communities, to help locals understand America, and to help America understand the local people are being fulfilled by the volunteers, all within their own unique idiom. The volunteers are beginning to establish themselves in their communities; some have started English tutoring (mine fell through, though I may begin a one on one approach with a neighbor.), while others have started SIDA clubs and drama clubs. Others, who have discovered that their sites aren't conducive to their skills, have taken up work in nearby villages. For instance, a health sector volunteer is beginning to work in youth development.

I was told at the onset of my service that I needed to expect many false starts for projects that I had in mind, much less for projects that were suggested to me by local authorities. The English Club was my Rays' idea, issues regarding maternal health and nutrition were my nurse's idea, the meditation poster was my idea. For the past six months, my "successes" can be counted as thus:

1.) Created a maternal health poster and explained it to my nurse, who, in turn, now explains it to the local women.

2.) Created a food pyramid poster and explain it to children who come into the clinic each week.

3.) Assisted at a booth for the Wedding Festival in Imilchil, where I taught nutrition and anti-smoking.

4.) Assisting another volunteer with a SIDA-Health Club class in Er Rachidia that will culminate with a drama competition.

5.) Going to a weekly English Club meeting in Er Rich.

The rest of my six months of service has included observations that I have made about the culture of Morocco, which I have relayed here, thus fulfilling one of the three goals of Peace Corps, and also which I do hope have provided some insight as to the lives inside an Islamic culture. Of course, if there are any topics you are curious about, do not hesitate to write a comment on my blog, and I will respond with a blog entry, email, or chat. I have also spent those six months interacting with that culture, infusing my little Buddhist quirks into the monotheistic system that takes place here. The responses have ranged from simple denouncements, such as "Oh, you have a picture of your God on your computer. Our God is above that.", or, "I understand. Buddhism has a lot... not everything... that Islam has. That's nice." This is fulfilling another goal of Peace Corps. Though there are still times, due to my almost painfully introverted personality and the localized nature of the language that I learned, when I feel utterly and irrevocably useless. However, thanks to the latter goals of Peace Corps, I feel that acting as an intermediary between these two distinct cultures is performing a great service. My hope, of course, is that if my readers feel that my observations are worthwhile, then they will tell others about it, thus ensuring that they expand ever outward.

My experiences here with the local people have, without exception, been positive. The local police are charming and helpful, the children as mischievous here as my nephew in America, and even so-called "religious zealots" are no worse than the average Baptist on the streets of my hometown waving a Bible. My interactions with them always bring my memory back to one place, as though it serves as an anchor to my life and constantly pulls me back to it, regardless of the nature of the waves in the ocean of my being. I remember, once, in October of 2005, while in school, in an elevator in a library at the University of West Florida, I met a young woman named Amber. I remember that I had read an article earlier that day where, somewhere out in space, there was a collision of heavenly bodies. But it was more than that. It was a collision of three heavenly bodies. For two things to collide in the infinite vastness of space is already an improbable event, but to have three bodies end up at the same place at the same time? I remember riding down the elevator. Normally, most people would not engage in any conversation if on the same elevator for just a moment, so I was slightly shocked to hear her say, "Hi."

She was going to graduate from school that spring. And it was at that moment that I realized that we were two heavenly bodies colliding with each other. Even if it was for only a moment, we had touched; our beings, that which we are, had touched. Our energies passed through one another and for a moment - we were one. Even after we separated, I knew that neither of us were the same. We each had each others' energy within us, to be carried off and passed when we would inevitably collide with other heavenly bodies, and so on. I remember thinking that the crashing of heavenly bodies is a miraculous event. But whereas the miracle out in the vastness of space is how rare the collisions are, in our own worlds, the miracle is how common it is.

Supernova from Glenn Marshall on Vimeo.Every time I see another Moroccan, even if I cannot communicate with them, that is the feeling I want to generate. I want so much to express the utter, ineffable miraculousness of the meeting of the heavenly bodies that I see here. The light that I see in them is the same light that I have seen in people in America.

I know that, sometimes, we want so much to believe that the bad events we witness - wars, violence, inequity, injustice, propaganda - are the result of some conspiracy, and that, there are people who are all good and people who are all bad. But the truth of the matter is that we are all heavenly bodies, drifting and drifting and drifting in an almost infinite sea of emptiness. Every interaction is a glorious burst of light in that blackness, even if our limited consciousness cannot comprehend it that way. Every event, every moment, every interaction, regardless of whether or not we want to believe it is good or bad, is simply that - the collision of heavenly bodies. This is the truth that I have learned, and with all of my heart and all of my being, I don't think that truth is something that I can ever let go of, or that can never let go of me.

And, to be honest, I don't think I ever want to be separated from that truth. Being here, in a completely different culture, has not even shaken that belief, but rather, has only confirmed it.

Go to Part 1

taxi ride #6

"Think we'll be done by noon?" I asked.

"Sure, I mean we need a stamp," she replied, "It can't take that long to get a stamp, can it?"

We walked into the Department of Education with our forms in our hands, where we were greeted by the same older man from yesterday. After telling him what we needed to get done and reminding him that we were there yesterday, he led us to the same room. In that room, we were greeted by the same older man.

"I have a very, very bad feeling about this." I said.

After telling him what we needed to get done he led us to the same room as yesterday. In that room, we were greeted by yet another older man. After telling him what we needed to get done he led us to yet another room.

I find it odd that people here are able to be frustrated with my memory of their language, and yet they can speak three languages but not remember that two foreigners walked into their offices repeatedly the day before.

In the final room, there was a new guy. This man looked friendly, as though he was happy that he had a source of income. We told him our story of the day before, about the number of taxi rides we took, about the traveling back and forth to get everything correct. We handed him our forms, but he hands them back.

"Did you know that this one is only a photocopy?" He asked.

"Yes," I said, "Because the Department of Health gave us the photocopy and kept the original for their files."

"I need an original."

The PCV and I smile. It was the type of smile you give when you don't know what else to do. It was the type of smile you give when you need to keep your teeth together.

"You two look really friendly." The man said, "I like you."

"Of course," We said.

taxi ride #7

"Do you think we should mention to the Department of Education that we all are in the same commune?" The PCV said.

"I don't think we are."

"Well, the forms all say the same commune."

"It has to be right," I said, "Why would he write the wrong one on there? The previous guy just forgot to update it from the previous form."

We look at each other, certain only in our uncertainty.

We arrived at the Department of Health and walked back to the office, where we were greeted by the same women from the day before. We show her the photocopy form.

"Oh, this is a photocopy." She said.

"Yes," I replied, "You made the photocopies and kept an original here. Now we need an original."

"Why would we keep a copy?"

"I don't know," I said.

My voice had taken on a new form this day; it was as though every time I opened my mouth, not only words came out, but pieces of my soul. I felt an empty feeling with each repeated word.

"Well, let's look for it."

She looked for it for a while, and then we gave her an idea.

"Can't you just stamp this one again?"

"No."

After a few more minutes of looking, I stand up.

"Is there any reason why you can't?"

She comes over, takes the paper, and has an idea. She fold the bottom of the paper where the stamp was, photocopied the original, and stamped the form.

"But now the stamp from SIAAP over the corrected commune is photocopied."

"That won't be a problem."

taxi ride #8

"Are you sure we shouldn't have gone to SIAAP just to make sure?" I asked.

"Do you really want to do that?" She asked.

"Does it matter at this point?" I replied.

"No." We both said.

We arrived at the Department of Education, where we simply walk through the front gate without speaking to any of the secretaries. As we make our way through the breezeway to the back room, we are stopped by the first man, who we told our story again.

"Oh, he won't be able to sign those." The man says.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"He's not the delegue."

"So," The PCV said, "The guy we've been speaking to... the guy whose been giving us all of this hassle... isn't even the guy who would have been able to help us in the first place?"

"I'll take you to the delegue."

We walk through another building into a large room. The delegue takes our forms. The PCV and I look at each other and sigh. Our journey was near its end. I felt a little like Dorothy as she stared through the woods at the Emerald City.

"Why is this commune written on here?" The delegue asked.

Damn poppies.

"What do you mean?" The PCV asked.

"Your town isn't in this commune. Actually, none of the towns on this form are in the commune written here."

"So," I asked, "The guy at SIAAP just wrote down a random commune on our form?"

The delegue made a list of the communes that each town goes into, and told us to go to SIAAP to get it corrected. Only then can he sign the form.

taxi ride #9

"It's 11:30 AM." I said, "I hope we have time to do this today. Everyone leaves at noon."

We stood at the entrance to SIAAP. Our wrinkled and dirt covered forms, photocopied to near oblivion and covered in the blue ink of the stamps, rest in our hands. We walk into the main room, where a new man greeted us. A man who hadn't yet heard our story; a man whose ears had not yet been tainted with the events of the past two days. We hand him the forms and explain that we need the new communes written on it. We point to the room where we knew the whiteout was so we would save time. The man shakes his head. By this time, the words spoken became a blur, and meaningless string of syllables. Needless to say, I managed to pick out two verbs in the sounds. I heard the verb "to go back" and the verb "to start over", but the PCV and I simply stare back at each other and point to the commune section of the form. It was unfathomable to think that we would start over. We knew what that meant. But he didn't budge, so we turned around and left SIAAP.

Albert Einstein once said that "Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work”. Javier Pascual Salcedo said that “Bureaucracy is the art of making the possible impossible”. To people whose dealing with bureaucracy go no further than the DMV, these quotes are mere words. But I have learned the actual truth of them. Here we were, two PCVs, working over 2 days in order to get one stamp placed on three pieces of paper. Hidden within the words of Einstein and Salcedo were the bitter scissors of bureaucrats whose only joy in life seemed to be to hack away at the blooms of our progress.

taxi ride #10

"Mission abort?" I asked.

"Mission aborted." the PCV replied.

We arrived at the bus station to go home. As we sat in the bus and looked around, our eyes met.

"So, let's recap." I said, "Everything that we have just done. Every event... every taxi ride... every conversation... every moment of being led through rooms and breezeways and halls... all of that. And what do we have to show for it?"

We held up our forms that at this point were nothing more than pieces of tattered paper, and laughed uncontrollably in the bus. The Moroccans stared at us, unsure of why the two Americans were laughing so hard. The bus filled with the laughter of the defeated souls, the twisted utterances of two souls lost in the labyrinth of bureaucracy, the final breaths of the idea that was once to go into town and get one stamp placed on three pieces of paper.

I had a fellow PCV stay at my house for the past two days because we needed to go into town in order to get a document signed by the delegues of the Department of Health and Education. In order to teach at the school, we need to get signed permission by both departments. This is a good thing, as it makes sure that the schools know that it is not simply some stranger coming into their schools and talking to the children. We woke up early on Thursday at 9:00 AM. We already had the stamp of the Department of Health, and all we needed was the stamp from the department of Education.

taxi ride #1

"Think we'll be done by noon?" I asked.

"Sure, I mean we need a stamp," she replied, "It can't take that long to get a stamp, can it?"

We walked into the Department of Education with our forms in our hands, where we were greeted by an older man. After telling him what we needed to get done he led us to a room. In that room, we were greeted by another older man. After telling him what we needed to get done he led us to another room. In that room, we were greeted by yet another older man. After telling him what we needed to get done he led us to yet another room. Finally, we were sitting at the desk of an angry looking man, the type of man who, in a country with a 10% unemployment rate, seemed angry that he had to wake up in the morning just so that he could sit in an open office next to a breezeway all day. Both the PCV and I were smiling, our minds filled with what we would do for dinner to celebrate getting our objective done. We hand him our papers.

"I can't sign this." He says, "Your town isn't in my province.

"I beg your pardon?" I asked.

"Yes," He continued, "Your town is in the new province.

"No it's not," I said without any hesitation, "I am south of the new province."

"No, you're in the new province." He said, handing me back the paper.

"Look," I said, my voice getting higher, "My town is in your province. The delegue of Health said so. My bosses said so. Everybody that I have spoken to says so. Are you telling me that everyone else is wrong?"

"Your town is in the new province." He said.

"Come on," the fellow PCV said, "Let's go back to the Department of Health to fix this."

taxi ride #2

"Well, what do we do?" the PCV asked.

"That man is lying to us, or he simply didn't want to do his job." I replied.

"So, we'll go to the Department of Health and tell them what he said."

"Sure."

We enter the Department of Health, where we are greeted by a woman, who tells us to sit down.

"How can I help you." She asks.

"We have a little problem," I said, showing her the form, "We have to-"

"You need to go to the Department of Education," she said, "We already signed this.

"Yes, you did," I said, "The problem, however, is that the man there won't sign it because he says my town is in the other province."

"Oh," she said, "Yeah, it is."

"I haven't told you the name of my town yet."

"Oh."

I told her the name of my town and where I would teach. By this time, another man walked into the room and overheard our discussion.

"If your town is in another province, then you have to go there to get a signature." He said.

"Thank you," I replied, "But my town is in this province."

"Oh," he said, "Yeah, your town is."

"I know." I said.

I handed him the paper, and he points out the problem.

"Yes, all towns listed here are in this province, but someone wrote the wrong commune beneath them."

I thought back to the week before, when we originally got the forms with the other volunteers. I remembered that the group of volunteers before us were the group from the commune that was now on our forms.

"So," the other PCV said, "We need to go back to SIAAP to get the commune corrected?"

"No," The man said, "You need to go to this province."

"But we are teaching in this province. The commune written down is a mistake."

"Oh, well okay. So why didn't the man at the Department of Education sign it? The towns are all in this province."

The PCV and I turn to each other. It was now 11:00 AM.

"Okay, so if we go back to the Department of Education and the man says again that my town is in the other province, what do I do?"

"He won't do that because your town is in this province."

"Just in case," I said, the form trembling in my hand, "Just in case he does give me a problem, who should I call?"

"I don't know." The man says.

"Is there someone here I can call?"

"Oh, we don't talk to that Department." The woman said.

"What about me?" I asked, "Can I call if there is a problem."

"We don't have a phone here for that."

The PCV and I looked at the corded phone on her desk 7 inches away from her hand, and then we look at the phone on the desk next to her.

"How about that phone," I asked, pointing to the phone 7 inches away from her, "Can I have the number which calls that phone right there?"

"No."

"Okay." I said, and walked out.

taxi ride #3

"Okay," the PCV said, "We'll call someone in case he gives us the same problem."

"Sure," I said, "I'm sure that will help."

We walked into the Department of Education with our forms in our hands, where we were greeted by an older man. After telling him what we needed to get done and telling him we were just here and knew where to go, he led us to the same first room we came to when we arrived earlier that morning. In that room, we were greeted by another older man. After telling him what we needed to get done and what room he needed to take us to, he led us to the same second room that we went into the first time. In that room, we were greeted by yet another older man. After telling him what we needed to get done he led us finally to the room in which we needed to go. I turned to the man who led us there.

"So," I said loud enough for the man who denied us the first time to hear, as well as the people in the breezeway, "My town is in this province. I was right when I came here the first time that my town is in this province?"

"Of course." The man says.

I turned around, walk into the room, and smile at the man whose anger seemed to only increase.

"I just wanted to make sure," I said.

We handed him our forms, and he looked over them.

"I can't sign them." He said.

"The commune?" The PCV said in a prophetic voice.

"Yeah, all of the towns are in this province, but the commune isn't."

The PCV and I look at each other, take the forms, and get up. It's funny, we weren't angry; we were taught that this is what Moroccan bureaucracy looks like. After much searching, I managed to find an artist's rendering of the process of bureaucracy

taxi ride #4

"I say we just buy whiteout and rewrite the name of the commune in it." the PCV said.

"No, I'm sure they'll need to do something official to it. We have to go."

We arrive at SIAAP, where we tell our story to the man in charge. We show him our papers, and he tells us to wait a minute while he gets what he needs to fix the problem, leaving us alone in the room.

"You know," I said, "I'm surprised we aren't angry about this."

"Yeah," She replied, "I think it's because we're in the Moroccan flow of time now. When things get done they just get done. Or not."

"It's almost noon," I said, "Everyone's about to leave for the day. We'll have to come back tomorrow and finish this.

"Yeah, I mean after this we're so close. All we need to do is take the corrected form to the Department of Education first thing in the morning."

The man comes into the room with his hands empty. He walked to his desk, rummages through it, and pulls out a bottle of whiteout. The PCV and I look at each other, our faces contorting so that the laughter doesn't burst out of us. After he covers up the first commune, he writes the name of the other commune on top of it. The PCV and I look at each other, but are relieved when he pulls out a stamp to make his work official.

As we leave SIAAP, we both look at each other and laugh uncontrollably as we walk down the street to hail a cab.

taxi ride #5

"All right," We said, "We'll try again tomorrow."

I sat on top of the roof of the volunteer’s house, facing the morning sun. The others had not yet awoken, and I did not want to waken them with my music. I always find that if I start the day with my fifteen minute song “Om Mani Padme Hung" that I downloaded from buddhanet.net, I have a good day. I opened the iTunes, and turned it on. As I sat down on the plastic rug that the volunteer keeps on the roof, I already began to feel the plastic ridges dig into the side of my foot as I sat in the half lotus posture. Whereas most Pure Land practitioners of Zen face the West when meditating or performing prostration in order to face Amitabha’s Pure Realm, I tend to face East, in the direction of the Pure Land of the Medicine Buddha.

Before I began, I looked around me. I was surrounded by buildings made of mud and cement, topped with wrought iron balcony railing. Every building was unique and of different heights. I imagined for a moment that they were like the people of the city; they were different sizes and contained within them different things. Animals yelled in the distance. I am told that in Pure realms, every begin within that realm always sings mantras. Ravens cawed in the distance - I imagined they called out o-o-o-m. Donkeys cried on the streets - I imagined they called out ma-ni-i-i-i. Doves and other birds chirped in their nests they had made on the roofs - I imagined they sang pad-me. The people in stores called out - I turned off my ability to interpret and imagined they all said hung. I was ready.

I closed my eyes and began to breathe through my nose. I imagined the other volunteers as they slept downstairs. As I breathed in, the dark energy within them emerged from every pore of their body as black smoke. It traveled through the rooms, up the stairs, and onto the balcony. It began to form a black pearl in front of me. Every being, regardless of where they appear to be on the path, is on the path to Buddhahood. I imagined the people in the buildings next to me, still asleep, and soon, the black smoke seeped through the plated glass windows, snaked past the wrought iron bars in front of the windows, and floated through the air and onto the balcony, where it joined with the black pearl in front of me. People were already awake in the city; I imagined the line of men as they leaned against the walls that lined the major streets of the city; I imagined the women as they towed their children through the souks. I imagined the children as they threw stones at foreigners and played soccer. Black smoke emerged unnoticed form their nostrils, floated through the streets like fog, climbed the walls of the volunteer’s house, and joined the black pearl.

I imagined that my consciousness leapt through the sky. Above the country of Morocco. Throughout Morocco, black smoke rose through the air and formed a black pearl. I saw Mauritania and Algeria and imagined they they, too, formed black pearls above them. Country by country was slowly becoming a Pure Realm in which the practice of compassion could flourish. May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness. The black pearls of North Africa joined together to form one pearl. May all be free from sorrow and the causes of sorrow. All of Africa, from Morocco to Lesotho, from Egypt to South Africa, was freed of the black smoke of dark energy, the black smoke itself formed black pearls, and they joined together as one. May all never be separated from the sacred happiness, which is sorrowless. I looked north, towards Europe, and saw that a black pearl had formed above it, as well. I looked east and saw Russia, the Middle East, and Asia, slowly purified of its dark energy. Across the ocean, Australia and North and South America, too, had black pearls that floated above them. May all live in equanimity, and live believing in the equality of all that lives. My consciousness fell through the air and landed back on the balcony in Morocco. I watched as eight black pearls floated through the streets and landed on the balcony. They, too, joined the pearl in front of me.

I imagined that within my body, my seven chakras began to turn and work together; my crown chakra glowed like the full moon over Casablanca; my third eye chakra glowed like grains of sand in the Saharan sun; my throat chakra glowed like the valley that I live in; my heart chakra glowed like a freshly opened flower; my solar plexus chakra glowed like a spinning whirlpool in the hot springs; my naval chakra glowed like the waves of the Atlantic; my root chakra glowed like incandescent atoms. They all worked together and sent white light throughout the ten directions. I breathed out and watched as the black pearl disintegrated into nothingness.

Some people ask whether or not simply imagining people being enlightened really has an effect on children in South Africa. I like to imagine that when I look around, and see that everyone around me is on the path to enlightenment as well, it changes the way I treat them. That, in turn, can sometimes change the way that they treat others, also. The effects expand like ripples in a lake, and throughout time, everybody is affected. Even if the timeline extends beyond the borders of my own life, I like to think of these things as eventually happening. One day, this universe, too, may become as I imagine it. One day, this universe will be no different than Amitabha’s Western Pure Land or Medicine Buddha’s Eastern Pure Land.

Until that day comes, I remain here and imagine that the crows caw om, the doves chirp mani, the donkeys cry padme, and the people call out hung.

I rode the transit bus up to Imilchil, where the Wedding Festival took place. As I looked out past the weeping willows that lined the dirt road and the aspen trees that lined the gardens that each family owned, I looked out at the crooked rocks of the mountains. As the dust rose from the street, I looked out at the mountain closest to me and saw that the rocks created a combined red and orange color. The mountain behind it was purple, and behind that was a blue mountain. Behind that, I saw the peaks of the final mountain, grey in the distance. Finally, the mountains that remained disappeared into the mists and clouds of the sky, which themselves formed more mountains that hovered above me.

“The interesting thing about the aspen,” Princess Leia said, “Is that they are all one tree.”

“Really?” I asked, “I can make a poem about that. Something that connects the aspen tree and the families here. The families don’t move far away, and by being close, that makes them stronger.”

“Yes,” Princess Leia said, “But if something happens to one tree, it messes up all of the others.”

“I see.” I said, “Then the analogy is apt.”

Once a year the people of the various mountain tribes in the Atlas Mountains converge at a special meeting place for the Imilchil Moussem. This special meeting, which takes place in September, is primarily a massive souk where 30 000 or more Berbers gather to sell and trade their possessions. However, the gathering is not merely an exercise in financial expertise - it is also the place of the largest wedding fair in the country. The tradition was started when officials during the colonial area insisted that Berbers assemble once a year to register births, deaths and marriages.

We continued to the Wedding Festival, where we and some other volunteers were scheduled to give blood pressure tests. Not knowing how to test blood pressure, however, left me with the job of keeping children occupied through the day. I laid out a sheet of paper on the table, set out colored pencils, and let them take over from there. I decided that I wanted to make the lessons have an organic feel, so I waited until they drew something related to health – a man smoking a cigarette would lead to a discussion on why not to smoke, or a soda can would lead into a nutrition discussion – all in all, that portion went exceedingly well.

Throughout the festival, however, it became clear that the white Americans who knew the Berber languages and Moroccan Arabic were the center of the show. Our tent was deluged with countless Moroccans, mostly men, throughout the entire festival. Some of the people think it was only for the fact that there were women at the tent; however, I do believe that a good portion of them had good intentions.

Another fact about Moroccan culture is that they have no concept nor need for lines. When in a public setting, there is no such thing as first come, first serve. The order in which one is helped is determined by how hard they can shove through everyone else. This isn’t considered rude, and usually, when an older person or women appears, the strong men will usually work to push that person up to the front. Nevertheless, in order to keep some semblance of order, there were always two people standing at the entrance to the tent. Of course, to stand against a tide of Moroccan men is as foolhardy as trying to stop the ocean by standing on the beach. The Moroccan men slowly pushed their way further and further into the tent, until all of the volunteers were pressed against the back wall. I had remember something that Princess Leia told me while walking through the kilometer length souk. She told me that I needed to be more assertive. So, I took a large step forward, cupped my hands around my mouth, and shouted.

“Can we please just try to make a line of people? Please?”

Suddenly, everybody looked at me as though they had just witnessed the rudest event in their lives. I looked at the other volunteer who stood as the guard.

“Is it asking too much that we put a little bit of order to this?”

“It’s nothing to worry about,” he replied, “They’ll so it how they always do it.”

I looked at the Moroccans, who all still stared at me. I decided that now was a good time to go to lunch. I ducked out of the back of the tent and walked down the road. I didn’t shout out of anger, but out of a desire to see some order. And yet, I found myself trembling. I knew that I was experiencing the physical sensations of anger, but I refused to allow myself to feel that in my mind. I was certain that what I did was not done out of anger, and yet my Catholic upbringing forced me to feel guilty about what happened. I sat down at a nearby tent, where I ordered a half kilo of chicken, and went over to the corner of the tent and sat down.

A few moments later, a group of men sat down next to me. Being Moroccan, it was only natural that the strangers would begin to talk to each other.

“Bonjour.” One of the men said.

“Oh no,” I replied, “I’m not French. I’m American.”

“Oh yes. Very good.” He replied in English.

“You speak English?” I asked.

“And you speak Berber?” he replied.

We continued on for a moment in Berber, the three other men simply listening. Again, being Moroccan, the subject turned to religion. Of course, being interested in pursuing a Divinity Masters when I return to America, I jumped on board. Unlike most of the other volunteers, I am enthralled with the concept of proselytization. I grew up in the South, which is known for its numerous churches and proselytization attempts.

“Are you Catholic?” he asked.

I’m not sure what was a more discomforting theory; the theory that here was a man who could correctly guess the religion of a white person’s childhood, or the fact that my Catholic guilt has somehow created a physical characteristic. However, here I was, sitting high in the Atlas Mountains, discussing religion with four Berber men. During training, we were advised to tell people that we were Christian when asked this question. I could make this an easy conversation.

“No.” I said, “I am a Buddhist.”

The first man’s eye widened, and I wondered if I had made a mistake. But instead, he simply turned to his three companions and started talking about Japan and China, and I knew that they knew what I was. Of course, they had probably never met a Buddhist before. The questions continued.

“You’re Buddhist? As in Asia?”

“Well, Buddhism has spread throughout the entire world.” I said.

“I see. So, when do you pray?”

“When I see the sun and when I see the moon.” I said, trying to be as poetic as possible.

“Oh, so you pray to the sun and moon?”

“Oh no. I mean when I wake up and before I go to sleep.”

“You know, there is a saying in the Koran,” he said, “People pray to the sun, but it disappears. Then they pray to the moon, but it disappears, as well. Allah stays always.”

Okay, I thought to myself, don’t be poetic. Just try to explain it. You have one shot. You can do it. I knew I had to give them a good impression of Buddhists. I found that being the first representative of a faith is stressful. This is especially true when you don’t yet have the words for such phrases as “I vow to abstain from partaking in harming living beings,” or, “taking things not freely given,” or “Right Intention”.

“How do you pray when you wake up?” They asked.

“I pray when I wake up, may all people have happiness, and may all good things that I do spread out into the world.”

“And when you go to sleep?”

“May all people have happiness, and may all good things that I do spread out into the world.”

“And when you eat?”

“May all people have happiness, and may all good things that I do spread out into the world.”

“I see.”

“I do that because I understand that all things are one.”

“All things come from Allah?”

“Well, from what you believe, yes. But look,” I tear some pieces of bread, “Imagine these being good things. This is giving charity. This is helping someone with chores.” I then moved the pieces of bread away from me and in front of them. “When I do something good, and give it to you, it becomes part of you. What is good in me is now good in you because we are one.”

The men nodded their heads. We continued to muddle through some phrases and terms, and finally came up to another concept.

“Have you ever heard of the fitra?” I asked, naming a Sufi concept.

“Yes.”

“In Islam, every human has within them a divine nature called fitra, correct?”

“Yes.”

“In Buddhism, every human has the ability to become Buddhas. It is called Buddha nature.”

I wanted to use the finger pointing to the moon analogy,. But I remember my last attempt to use an analogy of the moon.

“In Islam, Allah is like a light that lights on everything. Everything has this divine nature. Because that divine nature inside of us is the same as Allah, it leads one naturally to Allah, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Everything comes from Allah, therefore everything is naturally light, and not darkness. Things that we do that seem bad are only so because when we act in that way, we are actually turning away from God. We think we see darkness simply because we turn away from the light.”

“Yeah,” the man said, nodding, “That’s right.”

“Buddhism is the same.” I said, hoping to get it right. “Our Buddha nature is like a light within us that guides us to an even greater light.”

“Well,” the man said, “Buddhism has a lot of what Islam has. But not everything.” He held his finger up as though he needed to specify that he wasn’t relenting, but that my explanations satisfied him for the time being.

I finished my meal, and left the tent to go back to work. I felt proud of myself – I didn’t given in and simply say I was Christian. I stood up for who I was and what I believed, and I did it in a way that, rather than being adversarial, was based in a spirit of mutual respect. I felt the Buddha would be proud of me. And that’s when I remember that it had been a week since I actually performed my morning prayers. Of course, when I realized that, the Catholic guilt quickly picked up the slack, rising in my body like the dust rose above the tents surrounding the mountain in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere, I thought, is a perfectly fine place to be.