Tie Two Birds Together...

I have just woken up. I figure it’s after noon but I could be wrong. I don’t wear a watch anymore and have no clock in my room. I’ll have to wait for the town clock to chime on the hour. The call to prayer just went off. That would give me a clue if I was Muslim and praying, but I’m not. I am fasting though. Today at least. The last day of Ramadan.

I am in Essaouira. I was in my village on Friday and decided to stay there this year for the end of Ramadan instead of going to Goulamime with the rest of the Tata volunteers. I told my family, when I left for Tata Friday morning, that I would return on Saturday or Sunday. I’ve been feeling some guilt lately for not giving my village the attention they want from me. So I was going to go to Tata to make them cookies for the end of Ramadan.

In Tata I decided I would also call K. I figured he had probably received my collage letter. But when I called, the phones were down. I couldn’t get through. This set me off and I felt like I had backed down in some way by dialing his number and the least I could get from it was to be able to talk to him. Instead...nothing. I started thinking of coming to Essaouira.

K’s mother just walked in to go on the patio clothesline.

This experience, part two of this love story, is beginning on a very good note. I decided to hang around Tata, to prolong my urge to hop a bus and see if the phones cleared on Saturday, which they did. He was glad to hear from me, said he had received my letter and that I am a genius when it comes to putting these things together. He said he didn’t have the patience to do it. He also said whoever saw him drunk in Marrakesh was mistaken because he wasn’t there. Essaouira, on the other hand, is quite possible. Not falling over drunk though. He has a reputation to uphold.

Saturday I wrote out a little note to my village family and gave it to a taxi driver to deliver to their house. I told them I was going to Goulamime. If I said I was going to Essaouira they’d be worried. I took a bus, then another bus and a grand taxi, twelve hours yesterday to get here. He knew I was coming but didn’t expect me until 6 or so, right before the call to prayer. I showed up at 4:30, walked right into his room, where he was watching TV cuddled up in bed. There, laying beside him, I realized how good it was for me to come now. The timing is perfect.

Before, we were having problems with the alcohol. More like I was having problems with the something that he considered more important to have than me. This led to power struggles. I would get needy at the same times he needed space and I am slow to learn how to keep my neediness and need for reassurance to myself. Displaying it results in the opposite effect that I want. They end up pulling away from me.

This is my goal this week, to practice self control, self assurance, and space, to not dramatize this one week as if it’s all that I have and to see that it is only a small portion of the picture. The big picture exceeds all borders and boundaries that I can not even fathom.

After breaking fast with dates, pasties, coffee, and soup, we went for a walk around town so he could shop for shoes. He kept reaching over and putting his hand around my waist, or a finger locked in my finger. I felt so alive and present in the crowded market streets. We came home to eat and then went back out for a walk on the ocean. He began talking about how so many people here know him and he doesn’t have a clue who they are. He said how all the young guys in this town give him more respect than he deserves, that everyone seems always more concerned with what he’s going to do next instead of what he’s presently doing. That gives him extra pressure. If he decided to run for mayor or something, he’d get the votes. They’re already trying to get him to run.

I said K, ya know, the way you live in Essaouira is much like myself in my village. Everyone’s always in your business, always keeping up with your whereabouts and what your doing. You’re the center of attention. Of course this is on a different scale, but he agreed.

It’s about 3:30 now. I’m on the ledge of a wall at the ocean. I just found me a stick. Every person that passed me had their own and so I felt I needed one too. Since all the rain the tide is high and has washed up all kinds of soot and sticks on the beach. Essaouira is usually a wide open long beach. Now there’s hardly any sand left uncovered to walk. I’ve never seen it like this.

At this moment, these past 24 hours, I’ve never been so content and peaceful, wholeheartedly in love with life. K and I can sit and look at each other and forget to breathe. Last night, laying next to him, wrapped up in his arms, both of us looking into each other’s eyes, I said to him, “I like you. I mean really really like you.” I’m not caught up in the relationship like I was before. We are both appreciating each other for being who and how we are, with our glorious imperfections.

Last night at a cafe having coffee I told him how I want to go on vacation, travel some. He agreed. He said, “We should take a week or so in March or April and go around the country.” I asked if he was serious because if he wasn’t serious I needed to make plans on my own. He responded, “Well I can go on my own, too, ya know,” and grabbed hold of my nose.

Maybe it’s that I’ve never been with someone that was really serious about being with me. He’s not thinking of how long we have before we may end, but instead what a long road it’s going to be. I don’t think we’re going to end. I never thought that before with anyone. I’m Miss Fickle Kitty.

He wants to buy another house in a small village outside Essaouira. I can see it from where I’m sitting. It’s at higher elevation and you can see all of Essaoiura surrounded by the port and ocean. He wants a place where he can have cows, goats, chickens, cats, and dogs, with no noise and few neighbors but close enough to Essaouira. He wants a boat to sail on for weeks at a time, months even.

Now? He has his art gallery in a big house--a room of rugs, a room of sculptures, a room of antiques. He has his exporting business, his friends from all over the world, his sense of humor. He has his beautiful smile and happy eyebrows, his wit, his love of beauty. He has his car rental business, his close family, his four new bikes, new satellite TV, new phone in his room, new refrigerator, and me. Maybe me. So far so good but I’m definitely a slippery catch.

It was well worth it to suffer through that last trip to Rabat without coming to Essaouira. No, I’m not forgetting the dark side of him. I’ve seen it. But through my last few letters and distance, he has seen it too--in himself. I can now remind him of it when he starts up, say, now dear? Your dark side is coming out again. Will you go away for awhile until it leaves?

What I would like is that he understand it’s alright to run away from me when he needs to. He can have the space he needs. He can also understand that he doesn’t have to go get wasted to do it. We were getting in a pattern thing these last two times. He, I believe, was overwhelme. I was making him have to reevaluate his whole life. He was fighting me with the alcohol. He was having to face that ugly face of his because I handed him the mirror. He resented me. It was my fault that he looked the way he did because I was the one that made him look. It seems this time he’s more secure. I’m more secure. We’re both here for each other where as we haven’t been before.

If you look at how my past is with boys and men, with the few relationships (hardly) I’ve had, and you set it next to his, they’re probably very similar. We’re both afraid of loving someone else. To love someone else means that we have to open still some places of ourselves that we don’t really want to look at. We both must realize that we are still two people with two lives.

“Tie two birds together, they will not be able to fly. Even if they now have four wings.” -Jalaludin Rumi

It's a slow recovery on the left side of my mouth. I had two impacted wisdom teeth pulled. They didn’t put me under, and the only pain medication I have is Motrin. My jaw won’t even open wide enough for a hamburger. That doesn’t mean I haven’t tried.

In a couple of days I’ll go in for the right side. There’s another impacted one there. I clearly remember the sound of them trying to pry it loose, breaking it finally into smaller pieces. Though I felt no real pain, I felt such pressure, and could hear everything through my head.

I’m taking this all in good humor. I have an awful hotel room and woke up this morning to a swimming pool in our room. The toilet next door must have leaked out all night long and left a good inch of water over the entire floor. If I only had a joint. If I only had a joint my life would be much better.

I’ve got a good story about my ride up to Rabat. It all started with the knock on the door at five o’clock outside the gallery. No problems there. I immediately fell back asleep in the passenger’s side of the van. Not long after we set off to Marrakech (I know because it was still dark), the guy (chubby with moustache) pulled the car over to the side of the road, got out, and looked at something. He got back in and drove on. Five minutes later he did the same thing, pulled over, got out, came back over to the door and stuck his hands through the window to turn the steering wheel. I figured it was something with the tires and went back to sleep. This continued as so for a while longer. He must have been analyzing all possibilities of the problem.

The next thing I know he does a speedy U-turn. We almost lifted up on two wheels doing it. We drove on in the opposite direction for a while, and when he pulled up to the closest town, he tapped me on the knee, and said in Tashlheit, “We’ll get you on the first bus we see.” No problem. Really. I was still half-asleep struggling to register and translate what he was saying anyway.

Low and behold, not but ten minutes later, a bus pulled up. He got out of the car to get my bags while I got out and dragged Suzanne with me. I asked him if he told anyone that we wanted on the bus, and, as he answered no, not yet, the bus revved and started to leave. Somehow my mind switched on and I started yelling at the top of my lungs in Arabic towards the bus, wait a minute, and made it on the bus to Marrakech.

January 26, 1996

I’m on the way to Rabat, now in Agadir, beachside with a coffee. I saw the most spectacular sunrise this morning. I didn’t want to go to sleep for fear I’d miss out on the changing brilliant colors. Behind the still black mountains began a fire red then gold to yellow and pink-bottomed clouds with purple tops. The sun seemed dangerous this morning.

I later woke up to greener fields than I’ve ever seen, a result of all the rain that’s been going on in every other part of Morocco. I pictured our bus on the map of Morocco, traveling the path of Agadir to Marrakech to Rabat, bypassing Essaouira. I went on to why it was that I was bypassing Essaouira this go-around. I imagined changing my mind and hitting that road, arriving at the gallery, and then....

The next forty-five minutes were an ugly daydream. After I snapped out of it I turned to Liz and said, I’m angry. I mean really angry, which means I’m also hurt. Anger usually follows hurt. With feelings like this, boiled over, it’s not necessarily the present situation that overwhelms us. It’s all the past events in our lives that have brought up these same emotions.

Dorian, there is something I can tell you. Look at how many people
you’ve known that you’ve seen change.
-Dad

I dreamed of ghosts. Over the center of a table was a small white worm, attached by its center, to the end of a silver chain. The worm hung in midair by the chain swinging like a pendulum.

I had been moving for some reason, all this furniture into a new home. Someone videotaped it because later we watched it. It was a movie of me moving furniture with an invisible ghost. He used his invisible hands to lift these tables, desks, and chairs through the air. Following behind me, as I brought pieces of furniture to the center of the room, would be another piece of furniture, moving in midair by nobody, then set down into a pile with all my belongings.

I had another quick vision before my nap, like the cat swallowing my hand. It was a long snouted weasel this time, attacking my hand with fine, razor sharp teeth. It would latch on to my fist, sink its teeth in and not let go. Each time I tried to shake it off, it would growl and shake its head about, much like a dog playing with a sock. It wouldn’t let go. Finally, with a hard flick of the wrist, it flew through the air, slammed into the wall at the other side of the room, and scampered back across the tile floor to my hand.

The Lists

Things We Can Do In Tata

1. Learn about medicine differently
2. Compare two healthcare systems
3. Health education
4. Experience truly rural traditional medicine
5. Live in a country where diarrhea is the number one killer
6. Live in a country with a king
7. Hear the call to prayer five times a day
8. Walk through a grove of palm trees
9. Be special because we’re white
10. Go to a hammam (communal bath)
11. Experience Ramadan
12. Participate in Berber dance
13. See nomads
14. Have to stop for camels on the side of the road
15. Take a land rover 50-km into the desert mountains
16. Speak Berber
17. Learn Berber and Arabic through daily life via context clues
18. Have our language ability determine our sense of worth
19. Have total reliance on a community

Things We Can’t Do In Tata

1. Rent movies
2. Practice our religion within a community setting
3. Tell people what religion we are
4. Go to a concert
5. Drive
6. Go out alone at night
7. Speak English
8. Have strong male friendships
9. Wear shorts
10. Wear jeans
11. Use a phone anytime we want
12. Understand everything being said around us
13. Date

What These Women Think

1. I am a virgin.
2. My father decides my every move.
3. My father is bad because my parents are divorced.
4. My mother is basically of no use now. She’s used.
5. I’ve never had a boyfriend.
6. I don’t smoke.
7. I don’t drink.
8. I don’t wear jeans.
9. I eat with my hands.
10. I wipe my ass with them too.

What These Women Know

1. I have three brothers, one sister.
2. I have parents but they’re divorced and my dad’s remarried.
3. I’m American and speak English.
4. I do something in the healthcenter but they don’t know what
5. I will live here for two years.
6. I’m not Muslim, but I’m fasting.
7. I believe in one God and pray in my head
8. I’m not married. I don’t want a husband yet.
9. I’m 22 years old, the oldest in my family
10. I have a lot of friends that write me letters
11. I can read and write and know a little French
12. I leave a lot and go to Tata
13. I don’t cook. I eat at the Karaz’ house
14. I’m not afraid of being alone.
15. I don’t wear this scarf at home.

What These Women Don’t Know or Don’t Understand

1. I shower at home everyday with hot running water.
2. I have a machine to wash my clothes.
3. I have a machine to dry my clothes.
4. I have a machine to dispose of my food.
5. I have a machine to make my food cold.
6. I have a machine to wash my dishes.
7. I have a machine to record my phone messages.
8. I have a machine to record my music.
9. I go to bars.
10. I party.
11. I’m very loose by their standards and would be kicked out of here in a second if they had a clue.
12. I date and sleep in the same bed with someone, sometimes. It’s my choice and I can say no and someone will listen.
13. I don’t hit kids when they’re bad.
14. I don’t take my shoes off before entering a room.
15. I swim and drive, wearing a bikini top and short shorts.
16. I play sports.
17. It’s impolite to chew with your mouth open.
18. It’s impolite to burp out loud.
19. I say “God bless you” when someone sneezes.
20. I support myself and don’t live with my parents.
21. My mother, my brother, and my father all live in different states, and Morocco is the size of one state.
22. There are people that starve in America and are poor.

23. I am in control of every decision I make and my choices are endless

Ramadan

January 22, 1996 village

It’s nighttime. Very to be exact. I keep wondering every once in a while how I’m holding myself together so well, not thinking about him as much as I expected to. I’m not thinking about smoking as much as I expected to either. I’ve just finished day number one of Ramadan, successfully fasting and ready to start again. I know that I will sleep wonderfully because I am again on my pallet with my pillow and teddy.

I believe my self-confidence is higher than it’s ever been and simultaneously I feel immense insecurity and paranoia. On the one hand I’m able to reach a perspective that sets all my life in the appropriate dimensions. On the other hand it falls like sand through my fingers, and remains only as an illusion.

January 23, 1996 village

It’s day number two and I’ve already cheated. I drank coffee and ate shebekiyah when I woke up. I went to the health center, then with S to the gardens to water his agree palm tree baby. Now Joelle and I are sitting on our tire rim chairs in R’s kitchen. I’m with a cat on my lap purring and asleep. Joelle is with Taslheit notebook. R’s beating an egg, making a cake. Her mom is leaning on the over supervising. Two birds are hopping along the floor teasing the other cat that seems oblivious, and this is what it’s like two hours before the Tinwichi, the evening call to prayer.

A tagine is slowly cooking on a pile of coals in a ceramic bowl. A whiff of wind just swept through and lifted the dust on the mud floor into the air. R’s mother, with tattooed forehead and chin, is telling us how upset she is that the Mexican soap opera changed time for Ramadan. Now it's on at 11:30 pm instead of 7:30 pm. The electricity needs to stay on until 12:30.

A group of children are playing outside, chanting what sounds like ring around the rosy, though that’s impossible. The sounds of baby goats crying for their mothers surround me. They won’t be back from the mountains until sunset. R’s mom is squatted on the floor giving orders. The cake is in the over. The harira soup is simmering on the burner. Water has come from the well to the black bucket by my side. Flies are buzzing my ears. Birds are chirping in the palm trees. R’s singing a happy tune.

11:35 pm

I can’t remember the last time I’ve laughed as hard as I have in the last two hours. With Zaneb on the floor and tears streaming from F’s face in the kitchen. Z told me a funny story about how one night the cow ran away, got out of the animal coop. They went looking all over the gardens for it. For hours, Z, Isleeman, and S, with flashlights, searched for the escaped cow. The whole time they were searching for it, it stood just outside their house, chewing grass. Z found it after she gave up first and went home.

Z and F have been giving me scenarios to role-play. They want to see how I handle travel in Morocco without knowing Arabic. We did this as we were lighting a big fire to use the coals for warmth. They’d say something like, what would you say if you got on a bus and someone asked you where you were going? Every time I attempted my Arabic response they would start laughing so hard they had to hold their sides.

Yesterday, when I was sitting in the kitchen, a full kitchen, getting the meal ready for breakfast, I said something to Joelle in English. Z said, only speak to her in Tashlheit. I said, well, maybe I want to tell her something that I don’t want you to hear. I thought I got her there, until about ten minutes later when Z and Fatiha started speaking Arabic to one another, simultaneously giggling and glaring at me. Maybe we don’t want you to hear either, Fatiha sneered.

M, her husband and my ‘brother’, has left me five cigarettes on the sink. He (language funny again) walked in the room to find me bundled up in a blanket between Z and his daughter. He said, in English, where would you like me to put your umm, water? He knew I knew what he meant. He obviously felt really guilty or careful that Z might understand his English.

Women like men

January 15, 1996 village

I’m happily overwhelmed. Everyone’s crazy here. That’s it. I walked into my family's house, saw too many men’s shoes in the doorway, and did a quick turn towards the women’s house. S ran after me and led me back and into the men’s room where the muldeer asked me to marry him. Whether I agreed or not didn’t really matter because he already decided who and whom not I could talk to. S, yes. M, no. The big guy that was visiting asked me what I did in perfect English. A minute after I sat next to him, enough to get halfway through Peace Corps goal number two, the muldeer announced that it was time for them to leave. I told him it was my business who I choose to talk to and that I was not, nor ever, would be married to him. He said, what about my son then?

Ever since I went to sleep last night I’ve been agitated by thoughts of K. Not good thoughts-- skeptical, mistrustful, jealous thoughts. Replaying old visits I began wondering where he had been every night he came in drunk at 3:00 in the morning. Now I’m wondering who’s bed he’s really sleeping in and all kinds of other grotesque thoughts that I don’t want to deal with. I’ve got just a slight doubt today. A thought I recently read went something like this: Even the most intelligent women can be fooled by lying manipulative men. Am I one of them?

Tfoo! I wish I could wipe him away. I think of him as this sort of special magician that is afraid of his own powers. He’s got some kind of powers. How did he get them?

It’s like, we all want things in life. We either find ways to get them or we fantasize about having it. What kind of man do I want? What kind of career? When it comes along and we see that it’s all we ever wanted plus all the other crud we never asked for, do we start dreaming up new fantasies to escape the crud, and therefore also give up all we thought we wanted? Or do we try to find it somewhere else without the crud? Is there always the crud? Perhaps.

I’m drinking a Coca-Cola and eating a mix of plain M&Ms, candy corns, and marshmallows, listening to good music in a good blanket. The sky is blue and the air is crisp. I’ve laughed myself to tears more times then I can count in the last few hours. What more could I ask for?

I saw Nadia’s aunt today. She asked how I liked her village. I told her it’s wonderful. Her reply surprised me after I said it seemed like my village. She said, eyeh, teemgahreen zoond eergazen. Yes, the women are like the men. Her friend replied with, eeshwoah ghaykan. It’s great like that.

Our village had a talent show at 7 pm, no lie. Most of the village was present. I mean we’re talking stage, lights, and microphone. The performers ranged from pre-school age to high school. After each performed their joke, song, or theatre, one by one, as they stepped forward and bowed, everyone clapped.

Trance Dance

January 8, 1996 Tissint, Tata

I had an image last night before I was fully asleep. I had an entire fist down a cat’s throat. But the cat was not gagging to get my fist out. The cat was gagging to suck my fist in, and I was at first calm about it but then felt nervous, afraid that I would (all of me) be swallowed by the cat.

Tonight Suzanne looked at me and said, “Dorian, this is a good story for you.” Which I already knew…

At one point I looked at Suzanne, her teeth about to chatter and tears about to explode in her eyes. I asked her to try and hold herself together and then maybe ten minutes later I looked at the black woman in her black wrap sitting across from me against the mud wall alley with tears rolling down her cheeks. I looked to my right and a black woman in her black wrap had it wrapped over her head and she was bent over on her knee and I heard her weeping. Which was hard, actually surprising to hear, with five drums being beaten by old black women around me, chanting and frantic outrageous trance dancing by three women wrapped completely up, face and all, being taken over by some force I’ve never seen before, some fierce energy possessing them, making old, achy, hardly able to move old women throw their arms about, shake their heads, scream, cry, pray, hit walls, fall on the dirt shaking, bubbling at the mouth.

Here lies Hajj Brahim

December 18, 1995

My stomach is full as well as my mind. Today was another good day. I think now that the rain has cleared and the skies are blue…it’s a metaphor for me I suppose.

Today I walked with R again up the riverbed before sunset to Hajj Brahim, the marabout, or saint’s tomb. It’s a white mausoleum structure dedicated to Hajj Brahim, of course, for being a magical man. Inside, in one of the rooms, is his coffin, covered with elaborate fabric and pictures on the wall of the King and what else I couldn’t see because the door was locked and the only view I had was through a small crack in the door.

Walking away, back from the edge of the gardens, I asked her why they built that for him. She said it all began when he went to become a Hajj, traveling to Mecca by foot. When he set out with three or four other men, he didn’t have much money. Not just money, he didn’t have much flour either, or oil for which to eat.

When these men came to a stopping point for their meal, Brahim was questioned about his handful (R reached down in the sand and pulled up a handful) of flour. How do you expect to last on this little bit of oil and flour on our long journey ahead? they asked. Why, you can help me, he answered. They shamed him, said that each man must be able to care for himself, and sent him home. He suggested that while they prepare their meals, he would think of what to do.  

After they prepared their meal, he, too, needed to eat. Seeing that the amount of water was surely too much for the amount of flour, they watched as he poured the handful into the vast portion of water. Miraculously the flour mixed in perfect proportion, just right for the dough. He had more of a meal than they did. They talked it over with each other and decided that there was a reason for this. God has a reason for him to go, for look at what he did. If we do not allow him to come with us, we will be going against God’s will. That’s how Hajj Brahim became a hajj. Eventually, after returning to the village, he became ill and died.

Do you wonder why they put it there, at the top of the gardens? R asked. They wanted to put it in a very important place. Seeing that the gardens are the most relied on piece of the village, and in the most danger of one-day being destroyed by a big flood, they felt it should be built in front of the gardens. After they constructed the marabout, when big floods came through, the flood path switched, moving way around the marabout and therefore protecting the date palms.

He is a difficult man, R said, but only for those that do badly. In Casa, the people from this village also meet for his birthday, as we will do tomorrow. One time, an Arab woman came to the party. As tradition holds it, they always make tagola on this day, here as well as in Casa. Never having had tagola before, she reached in with her fingers, ate it, made an awful face and said, “This stuff is awful, and this Hajj Brahim is nothing.” Suddenly, her fingers eekhdn. Well, I didn’t get that word so I don’t know what happened to her fingers. Judging by R’s tone, it wasn’t good.

Also, one time at the marabout, all the women gathered to make tagola. A woman sitting amongst them all stole some of the wheat and hid it in her clothes. When it was time to leave, something held her down. She couldn’t stand up. Only after she returned the wheat was she able to move.

We took another way home down another riverbed. In the middle are a small island and a very old tree, surrounded by bushes. This tree and bushes form a small semi-circle of shade. Inside this area sat a tagine bottom filled with rainwater. A few feet way sat an eggshell, broken perfectly in two, both halves laying next to one another. Spirits live here, she said. If you bring food and leave it here, when you come back it will be gone.

Do you notice anything else? she asked. I looked around. On one of the bushes, not really a bush, but a small palm of sorts, I noticed that many of the branches were tied in knots at the end. It was a whole tree of little knots. When you do something that people don’t approve of, something that you know you shouldn‘t have done, you take one of these branches, think about what it is you‘ve done, and tie a knot in the end of it. Tie a secret in a knot and the tree keeps it safe.

 

The bird is sleeping again tonight. I just got out of my nest with a flashlight to check. He’s resting on the same beam he usually does.

Tomorrow is Hajj Brahim’s birthday. The women will all go with their wishes and hopes and ask him to fulfill them. The men will have the words of the fkir trailing their thoughts as they watch these women treat Brahim as if he were God. People think he’s God or something, R said today. They need to ask him to ask God instead. He’s just a person, like us, she continued.

This is what the lecture was about at the mosque to the men. It is against Islam to ask a saint for things only God can control. Still, the women do it. They’ll do anything for a husband or a child.

I’ve now been here eleven days. I’ve broken my record for longest time in one place. Soon I will head out to Rosamond’s village for Christmas on Wednesday. Then I’m heading to Essaouira for New Years. Though K has not been my focus the past few days, he is still here in my thoughts. Jumping in very often. I only hope that I am being honest with myself about what is happening, and that I’m not tricking myself. I think I’m being honest. I must, because every time I run the circle of thoughts, I am secure with myself. As long as I feel my feet firmly pressed against this ground, this mud, this sand, this rock, I am safe. I’ve got wonderful people supporting me all over this world. There is always a hand to reach out to. Don’t forget that many people are thinking about you, not just one or two.

What is Normal?

December 16 village

I heard this on the BBC at 11:

A good-looking woman in uniform got off the plane swinging her pack over her back. When asked what she thought about going to Bosnia, she said, “Well, it’s our job. But I just got married and I hate to leave my daughter.”

I heard a knock at my door and didn’t answer. It wasn’t persistent enough. Though if it were I wouldn’t answer it anyway. I have become a hurricane that has demolished this room. Everything is everywhere, and will not be cleaned up until I’m ready to leave.

The bird perched up on the wooden beam sleeping tonight…this means something to me. I don’t know what yet, but one day I know it will mean more. There is a reason it keeps coming back.

I walked with R through the village to the riverbed at sunset. This is a place I’ve wanted to go for a long time now. I wanted to see if there was any sign of seashells as is such with Liz’s village two hours away, to see if this desert was once under the ocean. It’s like a moonscape looking uphill of this huge riverbed of cratered rock and two places of constantly flowing water, a spring of sorts. One day I will find the source.

R said, staring off to the distance at the women watching us, “They must think we’re crazy to be here at this time.” Jumping from one rock to another she said, “People don’t come here at this time of the day because ‘b’smila’ this is the time the spirits come out. Say b’smila (in the name of God). But we’re not afraid now are we?”

Walking back towards the village, off to the burnt-orange mud and green fields sprouting barley, I turned around towards the mountains. “It’s beautiful,” I said, “this red sky. Look! We don’t have skies like this R.” But then again, we don’t have the Sahara in the states either.

I told S today that this village is not normal. All the friends that have visited agree. It started when I used a God phrase to Mohamed and he said it was only used with children. Yea, here, I said, but if you go to Liz’ site, that’s all you’ll here. God phrase after God phrase. 

They’re polite there, he asked? Yes.

Yea, he continued, you think they’re polite because they wait to talk about you until you’ve walked away. Here, the people will say what they think to your face. They’re direct.

I said, this place is not normal. It’s wonderful, but it’s not normal. S asked for examples. This is the desert and yet it’s green. There’s always water. This is not normal. Most women speak Arabic as well as Tashlheit. This is not normal. Most women and children have visited or lived in the big cities. This is not normal. Half of the Elementary school is girls. This is not normal. All the village uses the health center. This is not normal.

Then M added. There is always alcohol. This is not normal. There are three bastard children living in this small village. This is not normal. We just had a fun run that included girls. This is not normal.

I told them about this last trip to Rabat, where I sat around a big table of twenty volunteers and three from USAID, one being the director. Three of us were chosen to give a general description of our villages. I went last. After they finished, they all agreed. My village is not normal.

It was nice to be able to express how I feel about the village to the actual people I’m talking about. I shouldn’t lock myself up in this room like I’ve been doing. I’m missing out on too much while inside these doors.

Further conversation with S about marriage after dinner. I said, I don’t think I can do it. Why not Dorian? Because marriage is forever S. Because I’m afraid the same thing will happen that happened with my parents. 

That’s just one example, M said sitting on the floor, pointing one finger up in the air. Ok then, I said, because I’m difficult. And why are you so difficult? asked S.

Because of how I am.

I know what you mean. That’s why you have to find someone like you. You don’t want a guy that doesn’t do nothin’. He needs a head, a good strong head. The body? Well, the body can always change. The head, no. He needs serious brains. He said, you need someone that has a good head and that is patient with you, someone that will go slowly. But the body? The body does have to work Dorian, and he grinned and continued. 

Women here.... yea, ok, he doesn’t have money. No problem. He’s kind of ugly. No problem. But if that man can’t get it up, they’ll run away. Divorce immediately.

M added, you know that’s one of the few ways women can divorce in Islam. Yes, I know, I said. How do you know? Fatima Mernissi. Oooooo, S says, now she’s difficult.

In My Nest

December 13, 1995 village

This is the true weather for a long bubble bath, light drizzle all day long with a slight chill to the air. I’m wrapped up in blankets. The little bird slept well and woke me up at 7:52, just in time to hurriedly get dressed, open the door, see the drizzle, close the door, take off my clothes, and nestle back into my nest.

Bridge over troubled water

December 12, 1995 village                                                                                                     

I am depressed today, not to the point of tears though that would be nice. I am getting sick too. I’ve got a scratchy throat and runny nose. I’ve been wondering today why I still haven’t moved into this house. Why haven’t I changed a thing since the first day I moved in a year and a half ago? Why haven’t I gone to get water like I was going to two days ago? I only have half a bucket left. Though I had planned on bathing, I’ve put that off for another day too. I don’t want to leave my house until it’s time to go to the my family's at 7. I’m falling into this pattern. I go to my house. I go to the my family's house. Nowhere else. Because…because because because.

All I want to do is read. After reading, all I want to do is sleep. Other than this I want to be in Essaouira.

I’m bored here. I don’t want to be here. I feel my time here is done and I think about how much time I have left before I can do what I want. This is never going to be home to me. Though I love it here, I don’t belong. I am thankful for this experience and know that I’ve gotten much more from this than I’ve given. The truth remains? A year and a half almost and I still can’t work like my job says I’m supposed to. I think this is what depresses me. Maybe I need to go visit Suzanne in the sister village. Maybe this is guilt. I feel guilty and I shouldn’t. I feel like I’ve failed at this because my motivation continues to cease to be.

 

Then again, I’m sick. Maybe that’s it. I’m in love. Maybe I’m in love. Even with that I’m depressed. I have all this energy directed towards a person I worry about having feelings for.

Another thing is that I don’t want anyone to know I’m feeling all this. I don’t want to even be around myself. Perhaps that’s the reason for the reading. If I read myself through this time it will pass faster.

I feel too simple.
No substance.
No dimension.
No Contrast and Texture.

I find this when I read beautiful writing that’s better than mine.
I find this when I stop smoking after a period of constant highness.
I find this in the season of winter.
I find this when settling back in after long travel.
I find this when I’m not satisfied when I get what I thought would satisfy me.

Don’t trouble the water, let it be.
Still water runs deep…
Like a bridge over troubled waters, I will lay me down.

I dreamed I was on Kabir’s ship, which had three levels and other boats of his docked on it. At one point he was asleep in one room and simultaneously awake and pacing the floor in another room. He was calm like a baby asleep and wired and working awake. I remember sitting next to his bed, rubbing his hair, thinking, “Is he white with black stripes or black with white stripes?”

This is real…for the past three days I have woken up to a bird flying around in my room. A small brown finch flapping about. Each time I have to go open the door to let it out. My question is this: where did it come from? How did it get in my room?

To K: Taken from Norman Rush’s Mating

I said: One thing about yourself that I think you don’t appreciate
Is the complexity of why people tend to accept things you lay out
For them as good ideas. Don’t get mad, but in a way your life work
Could be described as getting people to do things you regard
As improvements, better for them. You have great powers of getting
People to do things the way you want. Only partly is that because the things
You come up with are sensible in themselves. The rest of it has to do
With something benign about you, unusually so. You seem good.
You seem unselfish. Even people who are really at loggerheads with you
See it, although it may drive them even crazier against you when they do.
Also you look counter to what you are, since you look more like an
Unemployed wrestler than anything else, which incidentally
Adds to your power. What you are operates cross-culturally
For some reason.

This book I’ve just finished, all 480 pages of it, parallels the kind of love I’ve fallen into. A realistic, intelligent woman goes after a very smart man that has created his own utopian society. She struggles later with what she will do with herself eventually. Is she really to stay with him forever, in a small village in Botswana. She weighs the pros and cons, studies her life directions-what does it take to satisfy a life span? Can she possibly sacrifice the America that she was born into and which she does, in fact, despise, to be with this man in his world and perhaps, in a way, start anew?

My new friend, the bird, is sleeping in here again tonight. He doesn’t want the wetness and cold of the outside rain. This is night number two of rain. Real rain. This is the desert remember.

 

In the morning, hopefully, he’ll wake me up in time to meet up with R to go on our adventure. We’re taking the village goats and sheep to the mountains for the day.

Showing Teeth

December 8, 1995

I dreamed last night that I was in Marrakech at my second home. It was nighttime. I walked into a big convention of people and since I wasn’t comfortable with it all, I left. I suddenly found myself in Dallas, walking up the steep driveway to the wooden gate of the Pasadena house I lived in as a kid. I opened the door to the backyard and found a big burnt orange dog showing its teeth (much like Ancie, K’s dog). I walked right up to him and past him. Then we were all in the van with the family, even Matthew. We were on a trip somewhere because we had luggage. I reached into a Ziploc bag, got out my two favorite mixed tapes, and handed them to Matthew.

The scene switched again. I was at a party with other Peace Corps volunteers. Everyone looked very elegant, like we were fresh out of Miami Vice or Beverly Hills. I walked into an office with fluorescent lights to the far-left booth. It was a kind of architect’s firm. Separated from us was another glassed-in room like you see at radio stations, and behind the glass was Molly, laughing with another woman. I needed to change shirts so I looked around. It was clear. I saw no men. Just as I took off my shirt, Molly banged on the glass and pointed to a chair behind me. A black man was sitting there.

I woke up confused. I was in too many places and I didn’t stay long enough in one to get comfortable. For two days I’ve been contemplating on where to put this pen. In a letter to K? A letter to my mother? To this journal? Somehow I feel I’m waiting for the emotions to fade and I don’t think they will. I’ve been wanting to squeeze my eyes shut, shake my head back and forth to get this dream out of me and wake up. I’m still here though. It’s not a dream. I am falling in love. There’s no two ways about it.

When I was standing at that revving bus, something happened. I stormed out of the gallery determined to leave and not come back. I was sad about it but I had decided. I ignored his callings down the narrow street: “Dorian! Dorian! Come back here! Dorian!”

At the taxi, with K at my side, I got anxious. I couldn’t figure out why we were standing so long when there was a taxi right in front of us. I looked around. The taxi driver was playing wrestling games with another man on the curb, with no intention of hurrying, so I stuck my arm out at another taxi turning the corner and ran for the car door. K yelled, “What are you doing? This one’s first.”

I came back over, got in the backseat, and told K not to get in. The driver got in the front seat and told Kabir to get in. During the taxi ride to the bus station he told his side of the story to the driver. Whatever it was I couldn’t understand. My Arabic needs help.

At the bus station, determined to leave but thinking I’d have enough time to have coffee beforehand, I was a bit taken back to see the bus revving to go and the man reaching for my bags to put underneath. Then with K reaching out for me saying, “I don’t want to lose you. You can’t leave like this. It will only make it harder,” I got lost.

I went off in my own world there. Do I run away? Do I stay? I heard “I don’t want to lose you,” over and over in my head. Every time he’d reach for me I’d pull away and turn around pacing. He’d come back and lead me away. I’d pull away and turn around. Then the bus door slammed, the engine revved, and the bus drove off. I was left standing in an empty parking lot with K. We went for coffee.

We sat outside against a wall and drank our coffee, both of us facing forward. He turned his head to me. Then he looked forward again. “I love you,” he said. Then he made a face, like he ate something too sour and said under his breath, “No. Now how can I say I love you? I can’t.” He turned back to me, and said, “I love you.”

I enjoyed watching him desperate for a taxi to go home. Freezing with a short sleeve shirt on, he stood next to the curb while I sat up on a half wall next to a little girl. “You need one of those, that’s what you need,” he said, looking at the little girl with her head and elbows on her knees.

As a taxi pulled up, the little girl’s mother ran straight for it. So did another man. Kabir asked where the man was going. Then he asked the woman. He suggested they ride together since they were headed in the same direction. And the three of them got in. All the bags were on the top of the car. K yelled to take the woman’s bag off the roof, so the man did. “Put it in your lap.” So he did. And they drove off.

I wondered then how he was able to do such things, organize stranger’s lives and have them listen. He could have left them alone to deal with the taxi. Instead, he jumped right in and took control. He was shivering in the cold, with his hands shoved in his pockets, after the taxi drove off.

The next morning, when I walked into the courtyard, I looked at him in his office through the doorway. Sipping from his coffee he said, “You know what? This thing called Dorian and K. People are going to like this story.”

There's Plenty of Time

October 18, 1995 Tata

A new day and a new morning. I’m going back up to Essaouira in a few weeks. The world of K is a big plush sofa I could sink right into.

Meanwhile, I’m on my way back out to the village, waiting for the taxi to pick me up. I spent this last weekend on a vaccination drive in the mountains. We went to Aguinane, 48 km from my village, up into the Desert Mountains. It’s a two-hour drive down a rocky unpaved road. It seems like there’s nothing out there but rock and hot sun until you turn the side of a mountain and find a whole moving world of green. Three villages are set into either side of two mountains, with a palm oasis set into the crevasses of the two mountains, extending down into and covering the valley. The houses are two and three stories high, painted all different colors. There are power lines going from house to house and streetlights and satellites on rooftops. The men of this village work in France. No one’s hurting for food or clothes out here. Amazing how secluded they are from the rest of the world.

Like a Little Sister

At our training two weeks ago in Rabat, Liz told me, “You know? You should tell Diana what you just told me. It would really ease her mind. She seems really upset about it.”

At dinner earlier, Diana yelled over at my table, “Did any of them ask for your address?”

When I said no, she shouted, “I don’t know how you do it? You’re always able to do that. If that were me they would have all asked me to marry them.”

An hour before this, Diana sat far away on a couch in another room, watching what happened from the doorway. One by one, four men came into the small sitting area I was in, alone, writing in my journal. Within thirty minutes I was sitting in the middle of them all as they laughed at the diarrhea survey I was working on. Each one had introduced themselves as they walked up, one a professor and another from the ministry. I had turned what could have been an object of desire to that of little sister. By changing my perception I change the situation. I get respect. They listen to me. They share their feelings and lives without expecting anything from me.

I know that I’m quite open with my thoughts, open with my life, willing to share it with almost anyone that wants to listen. The reason I never liked fiction writing is that I feel like I’m lying if I make up a story that hasn’t happened, and if I did, that would go against my principle of honesty. Most people would rather make up a story than tell the truth. I would rather tell the truth. Maybe people sense that and because it’s a big deal in their eyes to reveal or expose themselves to the judgment of others, they give me a little piece of themselves they may not share with most. When I risk being vulnerable they trust me and risk vulnerability themselves.

A Man on a Bus

October 17, 1995 Tata house

I met a guy on the bus today coming back to Tata from Tissint. The guy said he was in a Berber culture organization. The Berber coming out of my mouth fascinated him. He pulled out a book from his organization, filled with articles on Berber culture and the history of Morocco. There was even an article on the Jews in Morocco, about the importance of documenting their history before it vanishes. He talked about the Berber alphabet and the symbols as I flipped through the pages of Tashlheit poems and proverbs.

As he explained this to me the men in all directions became interested. They began asking him more questions about the book and organization. They seemed like little children on their first day of school, so eager to learn more.

Almost every time I travel a similar situation occurs. A Berber intellectual comes into reach to bounce their thoughts off me. When they hear I live in a remote Berber village in the south, they immediately consider me a “daughter” of the country, and open up. The deep south of Morocco is the heart of the Berbers.

On one of my travels, a Tashlheit man told me that southern Moroccans control most of the income of the country. Most of them work outside of the south, further north or abroad. Another man told me once that the Berbers wanted to open their own bank but the king wouldn’t allow it. He feared the money would all drain from his banks. In the past two months I have been told by four different men at different times that Berber being taught in the schools, as mandatory, is just around the corner.

It’s strange sometimes to know some of the things I know. I’m not sure why I’ve been given the information. I’m sure there are those that want it. As there are fundamentalist anything, there are fundamentalist Berbers. I’ve asked the other volunteers down here whether they’ve noticed or heard any distinct opinions regarding the evolution of Berber culture and the revitalization of the Berber language. They said they’d never even thought of it.

Full of Yellow Butterflies

September 29, 1995

Things, well, if they could always be where they are right now, I would stay here forever. But I don’t think that will be. It’s a long road ahead. So long that it will still be going on after me, during me, and how long a road it’s been before now I don’t know.

Something has opened me up. I find I was full of yellow butterflies, now all tossing about and around me, covering their flapping wings over my body.

You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat.
So I did sit and eat.

-George Herbert

Goosebumps

September 15, 1995

Essaouira café square once again, having spent four days in Marrakech, four days in Rabat, and finishing it off with a crisp cool breeze that will liven me for the quick trip back. My hands are hennaed. Coffee hasn’t come yet. Now its come. Shoeshine boys are giving a little bitty guy wedgies, lifting him up into the air.

I have an English couple sitting behind me talking about something I wish I could understand. But with all the birds chirping in what looks like a magnolia tree, and the oodles of men chatting around me at their coffee tables, and the sound of drums, footstep, sandals slopping over the tiled streets, I can’t even hear my own language next to me. A crazy man is walking around with a sword-like stick attached to his back, held there by two pieces of rope. And women in full black hikes are pacing along with only their eyes showing through.

The air is cold. I can feel the goose bumps grow underneath my shirt every time the wind blows over me. The sun is down, and the lights are on, one by one along the row of cafes in this square.

Letter to Dad

August 31, 1995 village

Dear Dad,

I got the long awaited letter today and I wonder how it would have been had I not called you Saturday. I’m glad I didn’t have to find out that way because I believe it would have been harder to digest. I told S about it yesterday and word seems to have spread fast. The sheik, who I’m sitting with right now, just asked about you. I’m glad I’m in this village. It feels very much like home these days, and very much like family.

I haven’t slept in my house since I’ve been back from the states. It’s too hot, and the scorpions! Oh God! I found one yesterday under my pillow in my house when I went home midday to take a nap. I layed down on the pillow and thought hmmm, I should probably check things out since it’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve been home. It was four inches long and yellow.

It’s just me and the sheik. He just bent over and asked, “letter?” He’s now gone to see why a kid’s crying. Just came back in. I was thinking earlier how nice it is to see him play with his little kid even though he’s so much older. He’s got to be in his seventies. He really does take the time to give him attention, as do most people here. They seem to really love kids. Of course, here, there’s no such thing as child abuse. They’ll slap a kid in a second.

I’m on the roof with pretty stars tonight. It’s a half moon. The cornfields are nearing six feet tall and date harvest is close. I’d say we’re about a fourth of the way through now. In another month the flies will be unmanageable.

There was a Newsweek article I read today about twins born to a woman through in-vitro fertilization, but the clinic did a mix-up and one baby was black. I explained this somehow to R today and she understood. I guess my language is coming along.

The sheik just said hello and thank you. For what I don’t know. The clothes, maybe? I had three French guys stay at the sheik's Tuesday night. I know one of them from Agadir. He’s a friend with the PCVs there. Of course, once he came to the village, he became married to my girlfriend and the two friends were his brothers and they were married too. They had lots of kids and no interest in me. I’m still having to explain it, lying through my teeth. By dinner the sheik told them I was like one of his kids, pointing off to his son J. The Kayid was there too and said, low and behold, I had become Tashlheit. It was a great experience for the guys and a nice trial run to see if my village can handle male visitors. They can.

The sheik is going through the Newsweek, looking at pictures, occasionally testing the extent of my Tashlheit, demanding answers and explanations. The Oklahoma incident. China.

The doctor just walked in smoking the butt of a cigarette. He then threw it off the roof, sat down, and lit another. He says hello to you. He says if you want to be well, really want to be well, then you will do it yourself or something like that. Bad translation, sorry. The sheik just asked the doctor what was wrong with you because I told the sheik to ask S since I couldn’t explain it. The doctor started and then turned to me a little unsure. I said it was no problem. He could just ask S. He said, no. He won’t understand pancreas. Animals do not have a pancreas.

Tonight, and until this is all over, we’ll be thinking about you over here. You’ve been blessed a million times and I’m learning all the God phrases for sick people. It’s worth something.

I didn’t call you Monday. I don’t have an excuse. I’m scared, I guess. I think I’m going to Tata Monday and will call you then.

S just walked in, picked up the Newsweek, and threw it at me saying, “I don’t know English! I don’t want to know English. Tashlheit, French, and Arabic. That’s it.”

The doctor’s also drunk I now realize. In fact, I think S might be a little drunk too. He went off about how women are difficult. We should only be machines that pop out children. We shouldn’t think we’re equal because we’re always below men. Men are always above women. It’s nature...and see--men have the muscles. I stopped him fast, said, “and you have them?” He’s a stick. I have much more meat and could throw him down in seconds.

I hope you’ve enjoyed an hour in the life of Dorian.

I love you and am thinking of you often,

Dorian