To be or not to be...

Today the taxi driver taking us from Essaouira back to my village was speeding, even by Moroccan standards. I couldn't verify it because his speedometer was no longer working, but I could tell by the way the car was shaking and by the centrifugal force we were subjected to when we hugged the curves. Despite the horrible safety record of Moroccan drivers, I sat calmly in the back, wedged securely between two other passengers, and read my book. I was glad for the quick pace because I was late for the aerobics class I teach. I had been on a tight time schedule; I had planned to make the trip to Essaouira for the meeting and turn around and come back. But the person I was meeting with had been 45 minutes late because of a taxi-related delay. So this was poetic justice coming to my rescue.

I looked up from my book from time to time and watched the familiar scenery speed by. I suddenly saw it anew, as if for the first time. I had the surreal thought that this strange and exotic world that had become my normal, like the blurry scenery I had begun to regard with disinterest, would soon be a thing of the past, a figment of my imagination. It occurred to me that I was possibly already starting to pull away in my mind, preparing myself to adjust back to life in America by finding a psychic separation between me and this world I had come to take for granted. Yet that is the last thing I want to do - leave before I am gone. I want to drink it up, every last drop, before the cup is taken from me forever.

As soon as the taxi pulled into my town, all such thoughts were pushed out as I rushed up the hill to class. Soon as I was jamming to the music with my four faithful attendees, throwing myself into the rigorous dance moves that had become our tri-weekly form of exercise. Enjoying the connectedness with the women in my class as we moved to the music, leading them yet fully together with them. Feeling their energy, their affection and respect, enjoying their laughter and feeling the inexplicable bliss, in those moments of comprehension, of truly laughing with them. I was fully back in the present and there was nowhere I would rather be.

I Believe I Can Fly...Be My Wind

High school is a confusing and stressful time for everyone. But for rural Moroccan girls, it is particularly so. They are relatively lucky to not be pulled out of school during elementary or middle school to help out at home, as becoming good homemakers is generally considered to be the most important contribution they can make to society. There is little incentive for families to invest in an education for their daughter which will, once she is married, merely accrue to the benefit of her husband’s family. Families who sacrifice to keep their daughters in school are taking a risk, and these girls feel significant pressure to succeed. But once they do succeed in school, and many do, they find to their disillusionment that the social and cultural pressure to forgo what few professional opportunities there are in order to become homemakers is often insurmountable. So despite heroic efforts to overcome their circumstances, they are right back where they started and find marriage and domesticity to be the only acceptable option.

As a Women’s Empowerment Agent in the Peace Corps in Morocco, I am working to give women the tools to free themselves from the societal and cultural norms which restrict self-actualization. This spring, three colleagues and I are collaborating with El Khir, a women’s association in the city of Essaouira, to plan a Girls Leading Our World (GLOW) Camp. Forty girls from high schools around the region will come to Essaouira for five days of intensive exploration of their moral worth as people and as women, their own belief in their power to determine their values and make their own choices, and ways that they can contribute meaningfully to the world around them. We will conduct sessions, lead activities and host guest speakers all with the goal of expanding the girls’ capacity to imagine and create healthy self-directed lives, challenging them to seek greater meaning in their lives beyond domestic duties and equipping them with concrete skills to be effective leaders in their communities. Which in the developing country of Morocco today is more needed than ever before.

In addition to the community contribution, it will cost us $4000 – or about $20 per girl per day – to implement this camp. If you are passionate about fighting for gender equality and eradicating oppression of women, nowhere can you do more good than in the developing Muslim world. Even a donation of $5 dollars will go far in enabling us to offer a girl a desperately needed glimmer of hope. Please help us make a difference in these girls’ lives so they can make a difference in their world. Click here to donate. https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=13-378-024. Thank you!

Just Chillin' in Morocco

I turn my head longingly towards the brilliant sun streaming in from the terrace door. Out there, the sun would warm me so thoroughly that after awhile, I would actually want to come back inside. But where I sit working at my computer, on the low sofa and table in our salon, I huddle in multiple overlapping layers to ward off the penetrating chill created by our cinderblock walls. This contrast has the effect of making me feel silly for – and frustrated by – the needless suffering of being so desperately cold only 10 feet from the possibility of being enveloped in warmth. What’s the point of the sun being so warm if it doesn’t heat the inside of your house?

Though despite being unnecessarily cruel in the winter, this odd architectural ability to somehow collect and hold in cold from wherever it finds it is a miraculous blessing in the summer. This common feature in Moroccan homes serves to mitigate summer but, inadvertently and unfortunately, magnify winter. Being indoors is the only way to escape the heat in the summer, but being outdoors in the sun - which, even in the winter, is relatively warm - is the only way to warm up when it’s cold. They say Morocco is the coldest country with the hottest sun. This is the closest I have come to getting an explanation for the thermal confusion Morocco seems to be beset with. 

In learning how to adapt to extremes and confusing manifestations of temperature – in a similar way to how I have had to adapt to other intersections of nature and society in Morocco – I have realized the extent to which it affects my life. I have never had, on a day-to-day and season-to-season basis, such a naked unmediated relationship with the sun. In the States, if it was cold in my house, I would turn up the thermostat. This was made possible by the energy of the sun but indirectly, through a long chain of events. Here if is too cold in my house, I go outside on the terrace and warm up directly in the rays of the sun. In the States, in order to dry my laundry, I would put them in a dryer powered by energy coming, again, after a long chain of events, originally from the sun. Here, if I want to dry my clothes, I hang them outside to be dried directly by the rays of the sun.

One might consider such integration into and direct dependence on the outside world to be an inconvenience, one that epitomizes the disadvantages of living in the developing as opposed to the developed world. Is the definition of luxury the extent to which one’s everyday life is removed from the effects of nature? Since living here, moreso than ever before, I understand and appreciate – at a visceral level – the advantages of being insulated from nature. When I come home from a muddy slog in the cold rain, there is nothing I want more than a warm apartment and a hot bath. But when this is not possible – when your indoor reality reflects or magnifies the outdoor one rather than provides a contrast to it – you realize the inescapability of your own powerlessness over your environment. 

But living at the mercy of nature – engaging in this intimate dance with the forces around me – has been a different kind of luxury. It has taught me humility, patience and gratitude. I have learned to disconnect my happiness from my physical comfort. I have had to adjust my expectations of the potential to compensate for unpleasantness in my circumstances, but have also discovered the satisfaction of innovation to mitigate the loss of creature comforts I used to enjoy. I have let go of the illusion that I can control my environment to suit me. But in return, I have been forced to notice the inherent adequacy – often bounty – of nature to provide for my needs. When I have to go out into the sun to warm up, it doesn’t feel like a quaint and fleeting antidote to inadequate indoor heating. Rather, it strikes me that that is what it is there for.