For the last nine days of December, I was back in the USA to celebrate Christmas with my family. It felt great; in fact, it was a relief to be there, in many ways, for various reasons.
For one thing, I've found being a Christian in Morocco to be more challenging than I would've expected it to be. During my conversations with Moroccans, sometimes they ask me if I'm Muslim. I reply that I'm Christian, and often they reply that I should be Muslim, or with some equivalent sentiment. In this context, I often feel like they're not interested in learning why I'm Christian. Indeed, I had one such conversation on my way to this cyber today, which underscores the very feeling I am trying to express in this paragraph. Being around people who don't share my faith, and who aren't interested in learning about it, consequently I feel like I'm not part of a faith community in the town in which I live. Consequently, when I'm in the town, I don't feel supported in my faith by the other people in the town.
It was in this context that I was quite emotional at Christmas Mass on Christmas morning. I was beyond relieved to be around other Christians. People, I'm sure, often say and do things, and think that in doing those things, that they have no effect on others. And I suspect that some of the people singing in that church on Christmas morning didn't think that their song could have been as supportive as it was. But just listening to others singing Christmas hymns on Christmas morning, I felt so supported and nourished, as a result of knowing that I was surrounded by people who share my faith in Jesus Christ. I was reminded, in an immediate sense, that I am part of a Christian community, even though while living in my current residence in Morocco, I am geographically removed from it.
I also was as emotional as I was on this visit because of other restrictions in my life here in Morocco. Life here in Morocco is challenging for women. How, you might ask, does that affect me, since I am a man?
For one thing, insofar as Moroccan women are expected not to interact with men in the same ways that American women interact with men, I have altered how I interact with women here in Morocco, from how I interact with women in the USA. I interact with women differently here in Morocco than I did in the states, but that doesn't mean that I'm used to the restrictions--or that I endorse them. In the states, many women supported me emotionally in ways which women cannot do so here. In the states, I would meet up with female friends for coffee or meals. Here in the conservative town in which I live, Moroccan women are rarely seen in cafes. In fact, unless they're going to someone else's house, going shopping, or to the hammam, they're generally not going out, but instead staying home. In the states, I was used to female friends greeting me with hugs, and I was used to greeting them with hugs. Here in Morocco, men are expected to wait to see if a Moroccan woman extends her hand to shake hands, a gesture short of a hug. In this context, I certainly don't have the type of conversations with Moroccan women, with the attendant emotional trust, confiding and support, which I enjoyed in the states.
In another sense, I'm affected emotionally by how women here are treated. I don't enjoy hearing about women being harassed. Usually when I hear about a woman being harassed in Morocco, it's a female PCV who has been harassed. Female PCVs are called "gazelles" and other demeaning terms by men who catcall them. One female PCV was treated like a prostitute: a car would roll up next to her and she was asked to get into the car. Not only am I disturbed just hearing about what is said to these women; I'm also disturbed by how they're affected by being treated in these ways. At least one female PCV left Morocco because of such harassment; another confided to me that she is considering leaving Morocco, and ending her Peace Corps service early, partly because of such harassment. While I listen and try to lend support, I feel that there is little I can do to actually make the situation better. Accordingly, at times PCVs deal with frustration over such treatment.
Add in the homesickness. Yes, I still get homesick, homesickness which is brought on in large part by living in a culture which feels as foreign as it does, homesickness which is brought on also by not being able to communicate that well in one of the languages here in Morocco, and which is brought on also by being the only American living here in this town. I feel that no one else living here in my town can really understand my situation.
Consequently, I don't have the emotional support here in my town which I feel that I need. And in addition to the challenge of a lack of emotional support, it's also culturally inappropriate for me to show my grief or sadness around Moroccans when those emotions arise in me.
Thus during my visit back to the USA for Christmas, I was emotional at times. I was letting out a lot which had been pent up in me, even though when I am alone in my apartment here in Morocco, I cry whenever I feel that I have to cry.
I have thought about why this visit was so much more emotional for me than my visit back to the USA in July last year, when I returned to the USA for my friend Rob's wedding. I've thought that just before that visit, I'd had about a month where work was slowing down at the dar chebab, or youth center, where I do most of my volunteering as a PCV. Thus, when I returned to the USA in July last year, I had had a dry spell of work which lasted only one month. However, when I returned to the USA five months later, in December, for Christmas, I'd had a long, slow patch workwise: except for Summer Camp, which lasted about ten days in the end of July and the beginning of August, I had very little work to do for a period of five months. For that reason, I think that this visit was more challenging. Just before this visit, insofar as I had been less busy, I had been facing the challenges in a more direct, and less distracted way, since I hadn't been working as much as earlier in the year.
I've also thought about how I have been living here in Morocco for 15 months. Despite how I have been living here that long, I still feel conscious of how foreign and different life here feels to me. I still feel so challenged by it for the reasons I've mentioned above. Perhaps it is as hard as it is because I know that it is still challenging, because I know that it hasn't gotten as smooth and easy as I would have liked it to be.
Given that I have been experiencing these challenges, I am all the more grateful to have gone back to the USA twice during my Peace Corps service. Some PCVs don't go back to the USA for a visit at all during their 27 months in the Peace Corps.
I think that because of all these challenges here in Morocco for me, my visit back to the USA at Christmas flew by. The time with my folks and my sister down south went quickly. Then my time up in New York with more family members also sped by.
Before long, I was back on planes flying back here to Morocco. I was glad to have a long layover in Zurich. I left the airport and walked around the city, taking in the wonderful sights of architecture there in the city, including some magnificently constructed churches. After four flights, I landed back here in Morocco.
I was very glad that when I landed, my friend Melanie from the USA was here in Morocco, where she had already been vacationing for several days. She drove us south in a rental car she was renting, and we visited Cascades d'Ouzoud, a spectacular series of falls northeast of Marrakech. She drove us down to the town in which I live, and she stayed here in town for one night, at a hotel I had helped her to find some weeks ago. Then she drove us up to Marrakech, and we parted ways the next morning, as she drove north to continue her vacation, and I headed back down south to the town in which I live.
In retrospect, I think that her visit brought into sharper relief many of the aspects of life here in Morocco which I find challenging. Hearing about how she was treated during her travels before I met up with her, I was reminded of ways in which I find life challenging here in Morocco. She told me of how, rather than speaking with her, Moroccan men would speak to her traveling companion, who was a man with whom she had been traveling before I met up with her when I landed back in Morocco. She also related how some Moroccans had been very aggressive with her in asking her for money: one woman in Marrakech, who had drawn henna on my friend's hand, pushed her body into my friend when my friend didn't want to give her more money for the henna. For one thing, I didn't enjoy hearing about how my friend had been treated. But also, listening to her, I was reminded of much of what I don't like about life in Morocco.
How have I been reacting to feeling these emotions? I've been taking my own advice, partly as I set out in a previous blog post, entitled "Tips for PCVs and PCTs," which I wrote in August 2011. In that blog entry, among other things, I wrote about how I deem it important to immediately acknowledge one's feelings. So, once my friend and I parted ways and I returned to town here, when I was feeling down, I thought about how I was feeling. I thought, "I am feeling homesick and sad." Next I thought, "It is completely normal for me to be experiencing these feelings." And after that, I thought, "Literally thousands of other PCVs around the world are either feeling this way right now, or they have felt this way at other points during their Peace Corps service." Once I had evaluated my situation in these ways, immediately I felt better.
And then I thought, "OK, this is great that I feel better; but what am I going to do about going forward? From where am I acquiring my strength as I move forward? How am I going to derive meaning in my daily life amidst these challenges?" And when I asked myself these questions, I was reminded that even though I may not see entirely why I am here, there are reasons why I am here which I cannot see. I thought of a Scripture passage which I especially like, 2 Corinthians 4:18, which advises, "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen..." There are so many ways in which we, as PCVs, just like everyone else in life, can have positive effects on others' lives. Yet we won't see all of those beneficial effects. Thus there is all the more reason to go forward in faith. We have our own ideas about how we can be helpful, and productive, and good; and then God has God's own ideas about what we can do, how we can help others. As Abraham Lincoln noted, "The Almighty has His own purposes." So I remind myself that events sometimes might not unfold in my life exactly as I had envisioned or hoped they would occur. I also remind myself that there are beneficial reasons, often unknown to me, why events happen the way that they do.
For one thing, I've found being a Christian in Morocco to be more challenging than I would've expected it to be. During my conversations with Moroccans, sometimes they ask me if I'm Muslim. I reply that I'm Christian, and often they reply that I should be Muslim, or with some equivalent sentiment. In this context, I often feel like they're not interested in learning why I'm Christian. Indeed, I had one such conversation on my way to this cyber today, which underscores the very feeling I am trying to express in this paragraph. Being around people who don't share my faith, and who aren't interested in learning about it, consequently I feel like I'm not part of a faith community in the town in which I live. Consequently, when I'm in the town, I don't feel supported in my faith by the other people in the town.
It was in this context that I was quite emotional at Christmas Mass on Christmas morning. I was beyond relieved to be around other Christians. People, I'm sure, often say and do things, and think that in doing those things, that they have no effect on others. And I suspect that some of the people singing in that church on Christmas morning didn't think that their song could have been as supportive as it was. But just listening to others singing Christmas hymns on Christmas morning, I felt so supported and nourished, as a result of knowing that I was surrounded by people who share my faith in Jesus Christ. I was reminded, in an immediate sense, that I am part of a Christian community, even though while living in my current residence in Morocco, I am geographically removed from it.
I also was as emotional as I was on this visit because of other restrictions in my life here in Morocco. Life here in Morocco is challenging for women. How, you might ask, does that affect me, since I am a man?
For one thing, insofar as Moroccan women are expected not to interact with men in the same ways that American women interact with men, I have altered how I interact with women here in Morocco, from how I interact with women in the USA. I interact with women differently here in Morocco than I did in the states, but that doesn't mean that I'm used to the restrictions--or that I endorse them. In the states, many women supported me emotionally in ways which women cannot do so here. In the states, I would meet up with female friends for coffee or meals. Here in the conservative town in which I live, Moroccan women are rarely seen in cafes. In fact, unless they're going to someone else's house, going shopping, or to the hammam, they're generally not going out, but instead staying home. In the states, I was used to female friends greeting me with hugs, and I was used to greeting them with hugs. Here in Morocco, men are expected to wait to see if a Moroccan woman extends her hand to shake hands, a gesture short of a hug. In this context, I certainly don't have the type of conversations with Moroccan women, with the attendant emotional trust, confiding and support, which I enjoyed in the states.
In another sense, I'm affected emotionally by how women here are treated. I don't enjoy hearing about women being harassed. Usually when I hear about a woman being harassed in Morocco, it's a female PCV who has been harassed. Female PCVs are called "gazelles" and other demeaning terms by men who catcall them. One female PCV was treated like a prostitute: a car would roll up next to her and she was asked to get into the car. Not only am I disturbed just hearing about what is said to these women; I'm also disturbed by how they're affected by being treated in these ways. At least one female PCV left Morocco because of such harassment; another confided to me that she is considering leaving Morocco, and ending her Peace Corps service early, partly because of such harassment. While I listen and try to lend support, I feel that there is little I can do to actually make the situation better. Accordingly, at times PCVs deal with frustration over such treatment.
Add in the homesickness. Yes, I still get homesick, homesickness which is brought on in large part by living in a culture which feels as foreign as it does, homesickness which is brought on also by not being able to communicate that well in one of the languages here in Morocco, and which is brought on also by being the only American living here in this town. I feel that no one else living here in my town can really understand my situation.
Consequently, I don't have the emotional support here in my town which I feel that I need. And in addition to the challenge of a lack of emotional support, it's also culturally inappropriate for me to show my grief or sadness around Moroccans when those emotions arise in me.
Thus during my visit back to the USA for Christmas, I was emotional at times. I was letting out a lot which had been pent up in me, even though when I am alone in my apartment here in Morocco, I cry whenever I feel that I have to cry.
I have thought about why this visit was so much more emotional for me than my visit back to the USA in July last year, when I returned to the USA for my friend Rob's wedding. I've thought that just before that visit, I'd had about a month where work was slowing down at the dar chebab, or youth center, where I do most of my volunteering as a PCV. Thus, when I returned to the USA in July last year, I had had a dry spell of work which lasted only one month. However, when I returned to the USA five months later, in December, for Christmas, I'd had a long, slow patch workwise: except for Summer Camp, which lasted about ten days in the end of July and the beginning of August, I had very little work to do for a period of five months. For that reason, I think that this visit was more challenging. Just before this visit, insofar as I had been less busy, I had been facing the challenges in a more direct, and less distracted way, since I hadn't been working as much as earlier in the year.
I've also thought about how I have been living here in Morocco for 15 months. Despite how I have been living here that long, I still feel conscious of how foreign and different life here feels to me. I still feel so challenged by it for the reasons I've mentioned above. Perhaps it is as hard as it is because I know that it is still challenging, because I know that it hasn't gotten as smooth and easy as I would have liked it to be.
Given that I have been experiencing these challenges, I am all the more grateful to have gone back to the USA twice during my Peace Corps service. Some PCVs don't go back to the USA for a visit at all during their 27 months in the Peace Corps.
I think that because of all these challenges here in Morocco for me, my visit back to the USA at Christmas flew by. The time with my folks and my sister down south went quickly. Then my time up in New York with more family members also sped by.
Before long, I was back on planes flying back here to Morocco. I was glad to have a long layover in Zurich. I left the airport and walked around the city, taking in the wonderful sights of architecture there in the city, including some magnificently constructed churches. After four flights, I landed back here in Morocco.
I was very glad that when I landed, my friend Melanie from the USA was here in Morocco, where she had already been vacationing for several days. She drove us south in a rental car she was renting, and we visited Cascades d'Ouzoud, a spectacular series of falls northeast of Marrakech. She drove us down to the town in which I live, and she stayed here in town for one night, at a hotel I had helped her to find some weeks ago. Then she drove us up to Marrakech, and we parted ways the next morning, as she drove north to continue her vacation, and I headed back down south to the town in which I live.
In retrospect, I think that her visit brought into sharper relief many of the aspects of life here in Morocco which I find challenging. Hearing about how she was treated during her travels before I met up with her, I was reminded of ways in which I find life challenging here in Morocco. She told me of how, rather than speaking with her, Moroccan men would speak to her traveling companion, who was a man with whom she had been traveling before I met up with her when I landed back in Morocco. She also related how some Moroccans had been very aggressive with her in asking her for money: one woman in Marrakech, who had drawn henna on my friend's hand, pushed her body into my friend when my friend didn't want to give her more money for the henna. For one thing, I didn't enjoy hearing about how my friend had been treated. But also, listening to her, I was reminded of much of what I don't like about life in Morocco.
How have I been reacting to feeling these emotions? I've been taking my own advice, partly as I set out in a previous blog post, entitled "Tips for PCVs and PCTs," which I wrote in August 2011. In that blog entry, among other things, I wrote about how I deem it important to immediately acknowledge one's feelings. So, once my friend and I parted ways and I returned to town here, when I was feeling down, I thought about how I was feeling. I thought, "I am feeling homesick and sad." Next I thought, "It is completely normal for me to be experiencing these feelings." And after that, I thought, "Literally thousands of other PCVs around the world are either feeling this way right now, or they have felt this way at other points during their Peace Corps service." Once I had evaluated my situation in these ways, immediately I felt better.
And then I thought, "OK, this is great that I feel better; but what am I going to do about going forward? From where am I acquiring my strength as I move forward? How am I going to derive meaning in my daily life amidst these challenges?" And when I asked myself these questions, I was reminded that even though I may not see entirely why I am here, there are reasons why I am here which I cannot see. I thought of a Scripture passage which I especially like, 2 Corinthians 4:18, which advises, "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen..." There are so many ways in which we, as PCVs, just like everyone else in life, can have positive effects on others' lives. Yet we won't see all of those beneficial effects. Thus there is all the more reason to go forward in faith. We have our own ideas about how we can be helpful, and productive, and good; and then God has God's own ideas about what we can do, how we can help others. As Abraham Lincoln noted, "The Almighty has His own purposes." So I remind myself that events sometimes might not unfold in my life exactly as I had envisioned or hoped they would occur. I also remind myself that there are beneficial reasons, often unknown to me, why events happen the way that they do.
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