Is It Really Necessary?

This morning I met up with a fellow PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer), Jim, who happened to be passing through the town where I live down here in the Sahara. I mentioned to him that earlier that morning, I had been recalling how I'd recently been in the Moroccan city of Errachidia. I related how I showed up to catch an early morning bus there and was told that it had departed a half hour before it was scheduled to depart. I explained to him that because it had occurred to me early this morning that that might have happened to him this morning, I'd sent him a text message asking him to appraise me about how his trip was going. He arrived here when he'd planned. Similarly, on that recent morning in Errachidia, I got on a bus leaving a couple of hours later than the one I'd originally been planning on catching.

Considering both of these journeys, that of my friend this morning, and my recent trip out of Errachidia, and how neither of us were all that much delayed, since we both got to our destinations when we wanted to arrive, I pondered that sometimes we can make things into a bigger deal than they really are. We can think that things matter more than they really do.

I got confirmation of this realization in another way today. When I finished washing my bedsheets this morning, I began to wring the water out of the sheets, since the spin compartment of my washing machine recently stopped working.

First, I acknowledge that I am fortunate even to have a washing machine at all. I am conscious of, and often note, how most PCVs around the world don't have a washing machine at their disposal. I thank God for this and the many other blessings in my life.

To further explain, once I had squeezed the water out of my bedsheets, had hung them, and then retrieved the sheets from the clotheslines on my roof this afternoon, I noted that it didn't matter that the spin function no longer works in the washing machine. The sheets dried in just as much time as they would have dried had I still had the spin function to use. I had despaired when it stopped working, partly because of issues I have in gripping things. But it turns out, now that it's gone, that it doesn't really matter that I don't have it to use anymore. It leads once again to the question, which can apply to so many things in our lives, "Is it really necessary?"

How To Stay Warm In Cold Weather

I live in Morocco, which has been called "The Cold Country With The Hot Sun" and "The Coolest of the Hottest Countries." It gets hot here in the summer, but in many places in the country, especially, of course, at higher elevations, it gets cold in the winter.

I certainly don't live in the coldest part of Morocco. But it does get a little cold here.

I'm a bit more challenged by the cold here than I'd be by the same level of cold in the U.S. In the states, I'd just go inside and turn on the heat. While I have a heat fan in my apartment, the last time I tried to use it, a little over a year ago, I blew a fuse, as I mentioned in my January 2011 blog post entitled "Lights Out." Furthermore, the fuse box is in my neighbor's apartment. Given that I don't always know when he's going to be traveling, I don't use the heat fan.

Thus I resort to other methods to stay warm, including drinking hot beverages. Recently I've been enjoying some Hot Love. It's German-made raspberry vanilla flavored tea, with a brand name of "Hot Love." I also thoroughly enjoyed some hot cocoa, using a tin of cocoa I received as a Christmas gift at the end of last year.

More commonly, though, I benefit from the oldest way of staying warm: I sit in the sun. I'm fortunate enough to have a roof on my apartment building on which I can sit in relative privacy. I go up there and read for hours at a time in the afternoons.

It's much more comfortable up there during the day than it is in my apartment. Around the clock it's been around 50° Fahrenheit in my apartment. Last month, it got down to 47.5° in the apartment. At night I sleep under three heavy blankets, in multiple layers of clothing both above and below the waist, while also wearing a winter hat and scarf. That way, I'm warm when I sleep.

I've also taken to growing more facial hair during the winter here. While generally I prefer to have less, rather than more, facial hair, for much of this winter, I've been sporting a beard, mostly to help me keep warm during the colder weather.

I often feel fortunate when I consider that there are PCVs living in even colder locations than me, including in Morocco. Here in Morocco, it snows in Azrou and Ifrane, and on many mountains. While I can't see any snow-covered mountains from the town in which I live, often when I leave town in the winter, within an hour I can see snow-capped mountains in the distance, reminding me that, while I may think it's cold, it's even colder elsewhere, including not even that far away.

Enjoying the Draconid Meteor Shower Under African Skies

Last Saturday night, Stan, the other Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) living in my town, and I went up onto his roof to watch the shooting stars of the Draconid meteor shower. I had read in a news article on the Internet earlier in the day that people in North Africa would be well-situated to see the falling meteors. I had also read that the best time to view the shooting stars would be between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. EST (Eastern Standard Time) on the east coast of the U.S. Morocco is located in the GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) time zone, so Morocco is currently 5 hours ahead of EST. Thus, I figured that the best time to watch the meteor shower here in Morocco would be between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.

Stan and I got up onto his roof around 7:30 p.m. I had read in the article that because the moon was nearly going to be a full moon, it would be reflecting so much light that we wouldn't see as many shooting stars as if it were a new moon. Indeed, when we first got up onto his roof, the moon was already throwing enough light that it was already obvious that we wouldn't have the best viewing conditions. Also, there were no clouds whatsoever in the sky, which on the one hand meant that our view was not obscured by clouds. On the other hand, though, that also meant that the moon was able to bring that much more light to us, thus making it more difficult to see whatever shooting stars there were.

Anyway, despite the brightness of the moon, very soon after we sat down in his plastic chairs on his flat, concrete roof, we started seeing shooting stars. While there were pauses when we were scanning the sky for shooting stars, I don't think we ever had to wait more than a few minutes to see a falling meteor. And this was given how bright the sky was. Between 8:10 p.m. and 8:20 p.m., we counted 18 shooting stars. I have to imagine that if the sky had been darker, we would have seen even more of them.

Despite how bright the sky was, I was very happy that we saw this one particular shooting star. It was by far the biggest and most impressive one I've ever seen. It was a bright, white, round ball, which had a trail of much smaller, and much less bright, pieces flying off of it. Interestingly, given how bright and large it seemed to be, it didn't seem to fade out gradually; rather, all of a sudden, it disappeared. Whatever the reason for its apparently rapid disappearance, I was very thankful to have seen it.

Stan and I also found this particular meteor shower notable because the falling meteors seemed to be located over such a large portion of the sky. Given that the shooting stars were spread over such a large part of the sky, sometimes one of us would see one of them, but the other of us would miss that particular one because of looking in another part of the sky at that particular moment. At the time when one of us missed one of them, of course the other one of us was disappointed to have missed one. However, in retrospect, the immensity of the scope of the meteor shower, which caused us to miss some of them, seems to have been another indicator of the magnificence of this meteor shower, for which I was very thankful, as a natural wonder and gift from the heavens, which we were able to enjoy simply by looking skyward.

Life Is Good

About a year ago, when I found out that I was going to be a Youth Development PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) in Morocco, I read a blog entry by a Youth Development PCV in Morocco. In it, she was consciously being grateful of the wonderful experiences she was blessed to be having. She wrote something very much like, "I'm on a roof in the middle of Marrakech. Life is good."

Early last night, when I was in Marrakech, I was on the roof of my hotel, enjoying seeing familiar places from a different perspective, admiring the beautiful, extensive and intricate tilework on the roof, and just being glad that the hotel in which I was staying had a roof for guests. Looking out across the city, I thought, "I'm on a roof, in the middle of Marrakech. Life is good."

On The Way Back

On the way back from Spring Camp to my town down here in southern Morocco, I took the train from northern Morocco to Marrakech. On the train, I once again enjoyed seeing lines of what looked like prickly pear cacti, arranged much as fences would be in the U.S.

I also noted satellite dishes on top of modest dwellings with concrete block walls and corrugated tin roofs. Usually when I am in Moroccan homes, which are typically those of poor people, there is a TV. But seeing from the outside so many satellite dishes on top of these simple dwellings, I was reminded of how frequently one finds televisions in Moroccan homes, despite poverty.

I also definitely enjoyed seeing some camels while riding the train. This time I saw only a few of them. Last month, east of the High Atlas mountains, I also saw camels, but more of them than I saw this month.

Once I arrived in Marrakech, I stopped at a cafe to quench my thirst. As I entered the cafe, it felt a bit surreal to note that a flat screen TV was playing a music video, "Learning To Fly," by Tom Petty, in its original English. I had grown a bit more accustomed to this perk by the time the next song, "Satellite," by the Dave Matthews Band, had started playing on the TV.

I was very happy that I got to attend Mass at a church that evening in Marrakech. It was all in French.

I was pleased to run into other PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) in Marrakech. As I was arriving at a hotel there, by chance I happened to rendezvous with other PCVs.

I went with one of my pals, Dipesh, to a big square there in Marrakech, where we had some fresh-squeezed orange juice, for only 4 dirhams (which is equivalent to about 50 U.S. cents) per glass. Then he and I went to a nearby rooftop cafe, where we had a great view of the square. We caught up on how we both have been doing, facing difficulties, adjusting to life in Morocco, coping with family and friends back home being so far away, and dealing with challenges in our work as PCVs.

He told me how my training site mates, Liz, Tory, Katy and Margo, with whom I trained for over two months when I first arrived in Morocco, were staying in a nearby hotel. I enjoyed showing up at that hotel and surprising them. I was especially entertained when one of my training site mates, Tory, upon seeing me, was so surprised to see me, that I felt that he seemed to be reacting as if someone had snapped his or her fingers, causing me to instantaneously appear in front of him. We caught up on each others' experiences at Spring Camp of the previous week, since we did not all serve at the same Spring Camp.

As usual, I took a bus south from Marrakech back through the High Atlas mountains. I was pleased to again see waterfalls flowing in those mountains on my return trip back down south.

When I arrived back in my town, I was rather fatigued from traveling, as well as hungry. Stopping by the hanoot (Darija for "grocery store" or "corner store") which I most frequently patronize, one of the proprietors handed me a glass of tea. He also gave me some peanuts to eat. He continued to attend to his shop as I refreshed myself. When he came back to the counter, seeing that I had stopped eating, he again encouraged me to eat. In his behavior that day, he provided a good example of typical Moroccan hospitality and generosity. Being as tired, thirsty, and hungry as I was, I was happy to receive his warm gestures. Experiencing such generosity, having established a connection with him, I was reminded why I am here, and felt further integrated into the community here. It helps that people have been as welcoming as they are. I appreciate their warmth, generosity and friendliness. And, it feels great when I relate it to you, as it reminds me that I am a Peace Corps Volunteer, which I have wanted to be for many years. I'm glad that I'm a PCV.