Small Town Gal

First order of business…Thank you everyone for the great care packages! They were seriously amazing.

I have just returned from a long weekend in Meknes. Because Thursday and Friday were religious holidays here, I got the opportunity to travel more than on a normal weekend. So me and 2 other volunteers from my training group traveled to Meknes to see more of Morocco. We had a great time and enjoyed catching up with each other. It was nice to eat McDonalds (hey, you take what you can get), shop at Marjane, and take a hot shower in a TUB. But I can’t see myself having a Western experience like that again anytime soon. As we walked around the big city, pretty much all I could think about was how I didn’t seem to fit in here. I was like, “Let me just return to my little village.” And when I returned to my town, SiMo saw me walking up to the house and ran to meet me. He gave me a big hug and escorted me to the house :)

There was a language issue as well. The language I speak is Tamazight and no one I met in Meknes spoke it. They would get this disgusted look on their face like “why do you speak ShlHa (the Arabic word for the Berber languages)”. I was able to communicate fairly well with English and my shiwa Arabic so there wasn’t too much of a language barrier. I have always kind of known though that I am not a big city girl but rather a small town gal.

I have been told by a lot of people back home that they are amazed at how much I have changed. But the thing is, I don’t really feel like I have changed. The best way I can describe it is that yes, my life has changed because now I pee in a glorified hole, shower once a week at best, and eat with my hands. But I have not changed; I am still the same person. My life just has this another dimension to it. In my 22 years, I have many dimensions to my life from Panama City to Tuscaloosa to various traveling experience and now to Morocco and each one just enhances my life.

The two volunteers I traveled with to Meknes are not having the same experience I am having here. I know there is that well-known saying that says no two experiences are alike. While I agree with it, I hoped my friends would be enjoying Morocco and getting the same out of this amazing country as I am. And they are not. Their tone was more pessimistic than optimistic. Hearing them talk made me a little depressed. I want to be able to empathize with them because volunteers are each others support network in country but I cannot. But I realize that I can only listen and hope things start to turn around for them. Inshallah, they will.

Most Memorable Quote from Meknes:
(while eating at McDonalds)
Me: Do yall feel a little out of place here?
(as a stream of sophisticated people dressed to the nines walk by)
Other PCV: Well yeah, we are dressed like homeless people.

My Arabic name ‘Ilham’ means inspiration. Between that and the beautiful scenery that surrounds me, this place inspires me. I have been writing a lot and have lots of thoughts I want to share but until I find the proper wording to express them, they will stay with me on paper. Eventually, they will end up here for yall to see.

Until then…