A Blog in Four Parts – Moroccan Travels

This is my final week in Rabat and I’ve been rather remiss in keeping you all updated on my travels and travails! In this case however I have a good excuse: my twenty one page final Independent Study Project was completed on time and defended successfully! As of 11:00 am my time, I am official over with my Spring academic semester in Rabat and now I have the rest of this week to enjoy the city and play the tourist. Of course, I haven’t just been cooped up in a house reading, analyzing and writing for the past four weeks! I’ve also been travelling around Morocco to see more of the country. Every weekend I went to a different city.
THE BEEHIVE

First stop: Fez or Fes as the locals trans-literate it! One of the most confusing parts of Arabic script is that there is no direct equivalency between the Roman alphabet we use and the twenty eight letters and fourteen extra alphabetical symbols of Arabic! I was lucky enough to find an affordable hostel right in the center of the medina and like any tourist destination, there were signs everywhere pointing to the most popular destinations. My hostel was about five minutes from Bab Rcif, the most central medina gate and thirty minutes from Bab Boujloud, the oldest medina gate. And to get from one to the other I would through twisting narrow streets lined with hanoots and crowded with people both local and foreign. There were no bicycles, no cars, no motorcycles. Heavy deliveries were made by donkeys and mules. There was a constant buzz and hum of activity.
As one of the only people at the hostel who spoke a language other than English, I became quite popular for the two days I was there! I also finally figured out how to bargain which was vastly beneficial! A couple people who didn’t want to pay for the organized walking tours from the hostel explored with me and when we went to the souks I gave them all a show of hard core bargaining! I managed to argue down the price of a camel wool djilaba for one of the boys by half and got half of the remaining presents for my family.

Despite having a very nice two days in a medina marked as a UNESCO world heritage site, i was a bit overwhelmed just by the sheer volume of humanity there. Everything was so built up that from a distance you might see the tall tower of a mosque but as soon as you got within a mile it vanished and more likely than not you would pass right by without recognizing it. The sky was a dream that you thought might exist. Maybe that is why Fez is also known as the artistic capital of Morocco? Under the French government Fez was the capital of Morocco but even though it may no longer be the political center of the country, it is the cultural center. I made a point during my stay to take a art and culture tour where we were told about historical sites in the city and shown amazingly beautiful homes where carpets and jewelry of all types were sold.

THE OASIS

The ancient medina of Meknes was very nearly the exact opposite of Fez. Where Fez was all narrow twisty streets that blocked out the sun, Meknes had straighter streets with fewer people and courtyards that were open to the sun. Instead of the new city being built right up to the walls, there was a vast green area. When I brought my lunch there, the sounds of the city faded away until the call to prayer was but a faint whisper on the wind. For the first time since the village stay in March, I couldn’t hear the incessant voices of people all around me, the blare of horns on a busy street, or the wail of sirens in the distance.
I also found a smaller courtyard in the new city right outside of the medina walls. This was a groomed garden with bushes and benches all around and horse drawn carriages. Across the courtyard was a wonderful little art gallery with handmade traditional clothing, carvings of wood small enough to fit into the palm of your hand or big enough to be the centerpiece of an entry way alongside hand carved furniture. There was also three-dimensional artwork such as paper-mache and metal/wood combinations meant to hang on the wall.

To emphasize the slower pace of Meknes, as I was leaving the art gallery and wandering through the courtyard, I saw two men playing cards. Both of the men were older and were sitting in the middle of the bushes on the grass. One looked like a business man wearing a suit jacket and slacks. The other was dressed more casually. Their shoes were off and a pizza box was their card table. I stood and watched for quite some time before they noticed me and when they did I asked if I could take their photo. They looked a little surprised but gave their permission and returned to their game.

GRAND CENTRAL STATION

Despite its reputation as a tourist destination, Marrakesh is my least favorite of all the cities I visited in Morocco. It seemed to me to be the most touristic, and the people were the most forward; especially the men. It is  only in Marrakesh where when I stopped to ask for directions and told the person no, I don’t want you to lead me there, I was ignored and when I was ignored the guy summarily asked me to pay him. This is a risk for tourists in any city in Morocco. 

Despite this inauspicious beginning, there were nice people in Marrakesh too. One shop keeper had just returned from time spent in Spain and was so delighted to practice his Spanish with me that he gave a a wonderful deal on some clothes to bring back to the U.S.  Another also gave me recommendations on where to eat lunch and which historical sites were the best to see…. Along with his business card and an admonishment that if I ever came back to Marrakesh I should call him and his wife would make a wonderful tajine for me. It is by far the most modern Moroccan city I saw other than Tangier.

THE PORT CITY

My final destination in country was Tangier. Tangier was by far the most so-called European city I saw. Along the beaches were streets of dance clubs and bars and restaurants. This is also the only city that I had a friend coming with me! We learned that we made ideal shipping partners as the stores we were interested in were the same types of stores and we’re both the type to ask the opinion of the other person we’re with before buying anything. I wound up buying the final part of my grandma’s present from Morocco there when a shop keeper took a shine to me and showed me how to recognize quality and which brands were the best and then gave me a huge discount. We didn’t see many historical sites, but as a coastal city of international importance we thought that just experiencing the ambience was sufficient as we celebrated being able to use our Spanish. Buying groceries and cooking up a meal at the hostel was also a blast!

Next stop? Good ol’ US of A. Colorado here I come! I fly out on the 11th to arrive just in time for Mother’s day, closely followed by my 21st birthday, my older sister’s birthday, and my grandmother’s birthday. After nearly four months in Morocco, it will be a wild ride. Reconnecting with friends, picking up the strands left behind in the US, and figuring out my final year of college are all on my to-do list. My first time in Boston, since hearing about the Marathon Day bombing is happening just two weeks after I get home, to talk to my professors and the students I volunteer with. I wonder how it will feel to once again be surrounded by people I have known my entire life, speak the same language as I, and have similar cultural expectations.  Most of all, I wonder how many, if any, of the friends I’ve made on this program will keep in touch. I know some of them are also heading back to Boston for college either this summer for summer courses or next fall for the first semester of their final year. However, others are headed straight to California to do the same on the opposite side of the country. We have all grown together this semester. We have laughed, cried, pulled our hair out by the roots from frustration over our ISPs (finished on time!), and most importantly matured. None of us are exactly like we were before we came here and that is a good thing. I have always been taught that to go through life unchanged means that you aren’t really living. I want to live.

I will post one more blog once I’m back in the states and just to keep you all waiting on tenterhooks, I’m promising to send along photos of all the presents I’ve mentioned in passing but haven’t identified throughout the semester! So long and talk to you soon!

Reevaluating Goals

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to join a tour alongside the western coast of Trinidad and Tobago. We climbed aboard a bus and chugged into the heart of Chaguanas, stopping at two famous Hindu sites: An ashram dedicated to Lord Hanuman and The Temple in the Sea. The walls, floors, ceilings, and each doorway trailed colors, intricate patterns rising into the sky. Hindu gods of every shape, size, and color from the Ramayana sat peacefully in the center of the temple, greeting visitors. Yet, even having been in Trinidad and Tobago for several months, I feel I have not even begun to understand the depth of the people here. Hinduism runs deeply within a large portion of Trinidad and Tobago’s population, but it is a religion about which I know very little.

I have also been exposed to the practices of the Spiritual Baptists. In particular, I watched a ritual of purification as a group of Spiritual Baptists bathed in milk and the waters of Maracas Waterfall. I have watched a group of men in traditional Rastafarian gear gather to enjoy each other’s thoughts on a sunny afternoon at the botanical gardens. I have seen trinkets celebrating the voodoo rituals (less common, but certainly established) in Tobago.

Despite my fascination will all these practices, I have not had enough time to fully learn about each of the groups that bring their own flavor to Trinidad and Tobago’s rich cultural stew. Still, I know that seeing these new rituals has opened my eyes to the fact that the world holds so much that I do not yet know. Knowledge is my greatest academic, professional, and personal goal now. I have a passion to learn about all these practices, and perhaps be able to value and utilize them in better understanding the patients with whom I will work in the field of medicine.

I feel that I will not grasp the full impact of my study abroad experience on my understanding of the world until I return to the United States and absorb the changes. Embracing the different cognitions and practices around the world is undoubtedly a great help in any career, and will help to build stronger relations between myself and others I meet. I am now, more than ever, eager to learn!

Carnaval – Part 3

The next night I found my way to an area I’d never stopped at previously… there was a roof constructed, over a small area, with a picnic table underneath, a long bench along one side, and a woodstove made of mud and brick opposite that bench.  That woodstove seemed like a relic from some past time lost to us today in the modern West, formed with clay from the earth by the hands of workers who loved this place, and designed for a concrete human purpose.   It wasn’t made by some machine in a factory line taking orders from a computer in the pursuit of generating corporate dividends… a different reality all together… They kept a good bed of coals inside the stove and cooked crispy little grilled cheese sandwiches inside a cast iron sandwich press.  The rain was gently drizzling outside, and people packed in underneath the roof to keep warm and enjoy each other’s company.  When people first arrived from the wet night, they’d stand close to the woodstove and rub their hands together, warming themselves up before retreating towards the picnic table or the long bench and joining in the conversations all around us.  Felipe brought a little battery powered radio and tuned it to a station playing some variation of samba, and everybody started dancing… one of the women wanted to dance with me, but I didn’t know the steps and she taught me, really quickly… “it’s easy,” she said, “just two steps to the left and then two steps to the right… but take bigger steps to the left so that we spin in a slow circle.”  And it was easy, and she was beautiful, and everybody was beautiful, dancing and smiling under the shelter of the roof, the wood-stove emanating heat, and the people emanating heat too, dancing together while others looked on, munching on crispy sandwiches and laughing in the night.

It was amazing, and I wanted to hide inside that moment forever, and I thought to myself how great it was the way that certain places can gather a community into itself.  Like that woodstove was doing in this joyful night – like the Greek temple did for the ancient Greeks with their daily religious rituals, like the medieval church did for the inhabitants of any given village, gathering the day to day life of the inhabitants into a meaningful totality.  But today, such locations, such locales, are few and far between, and they rarely exist as permanent organizing structures for day to day life.  Instead, we’ll find them scattered here and there in the wasteland of modernity.  Here at a music festival an alternate community pulls the temporary inhabitants into a beautiful caring relation, and the woodstove brings us all together spontaneously under the damp sky.

We finished out the night with a handful of people softly playing forró around the picnic table, and the next morning I found myself at the woodstove again, sharing a breakfast of fruit and nuts with the others.  We pattered around on some instruments, a couple people playing guitars and some hand-drums here and there, and we relaxed in the morning light, slanting sideways under the roof.  Eventually, as the sun rose in the sky bringing the temperature up with it, everybody was going down to the waterfall again, now 10 people going, now 4, now 12, and now 7 coming back up the hill, and now 5 returning, etc.  I went down and rinsed the sweat off under that crisp, cold water, and there was a great jam session tucked in between the rocks down there in the stream bed… a few djembes (a type of West-African hand-drum), a few digeredoos, a couple guitars, and some shakers, and they were blending in with the steady roar of the waterfall, and livening up the wilderness with their sound and with their smiles.

I headed back to the top and made my way to the kitchen, where people were sitting outside on the deck, playing music on guitars and singing along.  They were playing alot of American music now, songs that I knew all the words to, so I started singing along.  With many of these songs, the Brazilians don’t know all the words so they sort of mutter along to the melody at the parts they don’t know, but I would sing every word, and they were loving it… they asked me for more songs that I knew the words to and I told them which ones to play… they were learning the words from me as I went…

It was great fun, and went on for an hour or so, but then we noticed that a bunch of people were arranging themselves nearby the woodstove, which was right in the middle of the hill, above the lower cluster of tents and the row of wooden dormitories, but below the kitchen and the bar on the hill…. they were all dressed in crazy costumes, like Halloween in the U.S., but without the monsters and gory masks…. one guy dressed as Caesar with a white robe and crown of olive leaves, another as Bruce Lee, another as a character from street fighter, a slew of people dressed in the sort of typical flashy getup for Carnaval—and everybody had this orange dye smeared all over their back, and chest, and face, each in their own pattern… it came from the pod of a plant called urucum.  They had a ton of these pods, still on the branches that they’d harvested from somewhere nearby, and inside each pod was 30 or 40 little pouches of a natural orange dye… they were playing music in their own wild way, probably with 15 drummers, each one banging on a different drum, some with sticks, some with hands…. a handful of brass instruments, a trumpet, a sax, some others… a clarinet… a wild school of samba in the countryside… and we all started walking to the top of the hill and out to the red dirt road that brought us there.  We headed in the direction away from Munhoz, and I wondered where we were going….

Everybody was dancing to the music as we went, myself included, and I was learning how to dance properly, on the balls of my toes, taking many quick little bouncy steps as though running in place, but always on the balls of my toes, and back and forth with the rhythm, giving my calves a great workout in the process… it was a slow march down the great dirt road, winding through the trees and fields of rural Brazil, a great dust cloud rising up behind us as we went.  Once in a while a car came and had to get through, and everybody cleared a way for the car to pass, and reached their hands into the car to pat the people on the arms, and those people in the cars really got a kick out of it… Imagine the strangeness of this situation for a tiny little town four hours from any major city.  Here are all these maniacs playing a wild samba and kicking up dust in the country road, celebrating Carnaval without the strange hedonistic madness of that was going on in Rio de Janeiro at the very same time.  And suddenly I was reminded that the other Americans were in Rio, and I wondered what sort of a time they were having.  I was glad that I’d chosen to come to the countryside… and later on I learned that they’d had a bunch of drama, half of them’d had their cellphones stolen or lost, and there were 12 of them all in a one bedroom apartment, fighting and clawing for space.  Quite a different scenario than what I was immersed in at Munhoz, with the great expanse of the rolling hills, the waterfall for showers, the community of music, and the pure joy of the celebration.

We arrived at a little cluster of 5 or 6 buildings, and one of them was a country store, and that was our destination.  Probably 150 maniacs brought their great roar of music and talk and laughter to the store and only 20 or so people could fit inside while the music continued in the red dirt outside.  I was feeling hungry and dehydrated by this point, but they didn’t have much food without gluten, so I bought a jug of orange juice, a jug of water, and a big bag of peanuts, and I munched down a bunch of peanuts and slammed a glass of orange juice right away.  I put the orange juice and water and peanuts on the table so that everybody could have some, and I saw the woman I’d danced with the night before, and told her that her children and the other kids who’d come with her could help themselves to the juice and nuts and water.  I settled down on the concrete slab of the store, where it met the road, making a tall curb to sit on, and just munched on peanuts as I enjoyed the unfolding of the scene.  The music was still going strong, but I couldn’t see the majority of the people, they had gone around the corner now, and were taking a group photo, but I didn’t feel like getting up and getting in any photo… I just wanted to sit and enjoy this shared mood that we were all participating in.  There were still a good thirty people milling around by the front of the store, and I was happy staying right where I was.

After some time, I noticed that a truck was going back and forth between the site of the festival, and the country store, bringing loads of people back to the top of the hill each time.  I decided to catch a ride… I didn’t want to walk up the hill.  My ankle was bothering me because I’d twisted it the day before, so I piled in with a dozen other people and we all held tight for the rumbling ride to the top, passing by dozens and dozens of people who’d started the trek up.  The sun was settling low in the sky, and I headed to the deck by the kitchen to wait for the others to make their way back up.  That night passed like a dream.  It was the last night of the festival, and the reggae band that everybody loved the most played for over four hours, and I danced so much that my legs were sore beyond belief for the next five days after the festival.  In particular, those two days after, I couldn’t do more than hobble between my bedroom and the kitchen to get water and food and then head back to bed to read and rest.  Walking up or down stairs was out of the question, my muscles were so sore, my calves were done!  And my lousy old joints were throbbing with that old familiar pain… the surgeries, the Lyme disease, all that nonsense always comes back to haunt me.  It’s true that Munhozstock wasn’t really “Carnaval,” in the typical sense of the celebration… it was more like an anti-Carnaval, where Brazil’s counter-culture went to recharge themselves and see what community can feel like.

It’s true that the other Americans in the exchange program thought that I was kind of an idiot for missing out on the wild party of Rio, but I was thankful for the times I’d shared with all those amazing people in Munhoz, for the friendships that I’d forged at that little festival, for the celebration of life that it truly was.

Culture Shock in Trinidad & Tobago

Certainly, the first stage of entry into a new country (and new culture) is that of excitement. Trinidad and Tobago enveloped me in a variety of scents, the endless music on the streets through all hours of the day and night, and the hustle and bustle of the transportation system. It first dawned on me that I was no longer at home when I waved down my first maxi-taxi, climbed aboard, and perched myself beside a man napping in full Rastafarian gear (robes, headpiece, elaborate hair, and all). What a relief it was to walk off campus and encounter three different roadside street carts with juicy, brightly colored fruits calling your name. It was certainly not America!

The second stage is that of irritation and frustration as the differences sink in. This stage has only occurred to me in relation to food. As someone who is intolerant to gluten (found in wheat, rye, barley, oats, and spelt grains), it became difficult to find foods that I could eat without feeling ill. Trinidad and Tobago certainly has curried options, as well as callaloo, rice, fresh fruits, and channa. However, a KFC or Church’s Chicken can be found on nearly every corner. Fried foods, bake, doubles, roti, and pastries are a big part of the food culture. In my attempt to enjoy those aspects of culture, I found myself torn and frustrated.

After finding myself sick on multiple occasions, having attempted to try the local cuisine (trust me, it is difficult to turn down fresh fried and seasoned shark on Maracas Beach), the only solution seemed to be to hunt down foods that I could eat. Thus began my food travels, a great saga of cultural cuisine crafting. This story ends joyfully (and with a fully belly) in the heart of Port of Spain at The Panyol Place, a small family-owned Venezuelan restaurant. Venezuelan culture can be found dispersed throughout Trinidad and Tobago, certainly influenced by the vicinity of the large South American country. For this, I am grateful!

For the most part, I could not imagine being homesick while I hiked to the peak of mountains overlooking the rain forest  found myself under a natural arch with the beautiful clear blue waters swirling beneath my feet, and stood amidst a group of dancers throwing colored powder into my hair during Phagwa! Still, there have been times when I have become frustrated, strolling back and forth down the market street or through the mall, unable to find something I need. I realize that in the United States, particularly in the area of my home, I am incredibly spoiled by the ease of attaining something. I do not need to search far and wide or call multiple stores to find what I need, because everything is within grasp. Here, and in most other parts of the world, a little more effort is required!

I recently read the following quote:
“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.”

I am lucky to have understood this mindset prior to arriving in Trinidad and Tobago. With a flexibility of mind, it is possible to seamlessly adapt to any cultural differences, however initially frustrating. I feel I have accepted Trinidad and Tobago as the new norm, at least within the context of how I am currently living. I can only imagine how many differences I will notice upon my return to the U.S.A!

*Note: this graph on Culture-Shock shows the stages that many of our study abroad participants experience.  It seems like Sana is going through stage 4 (developing strategies to deal with difficulties and differences and adapting to the host culture).

Carnaval – Part 2

The first night passed pretty quickly… I didn’t know anybody, and my Portuguese still wasn’t too good, but it didn’t matter, I just kept having the same little conversation with innumerable people, about where I came from, growing up in the hills of New York and  moving to Arizona after 20 years when I was going mad in that little place, about why I came to Brazil, to learn the language so that I could return for graduate school and study participatory budgeting—the remarkable form of local democracy that only such an affable, beautiful culture as Brazil could have invented—and they did invent it, back in 1989, shortly after the military dictatorship was overthrown, and then the process spread to cities on every continent in the world and continues to gain momentum to this day.  Most people hadn’t heard much about it, and were interested to learn something new about their own country from this American.  When I wanted to meet somebody new, I’d just ask them for a lighter or offer them a cigarette, and then I’d repeat the story again, but each time it was different, because I was talking with a different person, and the conversation demanded a particular way of telling the story, not just repeating a script, and each time new details came out that I had completely forgotten about, and before I knew it I was having whole conversations in Portuguese, making friends with the best people from São Paulo, and thoroughly enjoying every moment.  Sometimes I’d just sit and listen to the sound of the soft music, rolling off the fingertips of a handful of people in the bar as they pattered away on their hand drums and gently stroked their guitars… and I’d listen to the Portuguese words of the people talking all around me but deliberately avoid understanding them just to hear the lovely melody of their language… and all that noise was filling the mysterious space between human selves, linking them all in a warm embrace, obliterating the distinction between the self and the other.

The time had come for dinner, and I parted with my newly made friends, and found the people I’d come to the festival with, and we headed over to the kitchen to wait in the great line wrapping around the veranda.  When I got to the cashier, I saw a few items wrapped in plastic and some fruit, but the main course was a soup that they’d made in one huge pot, a vegan soup—the whole kitchen was vegan—that was hopeful, “maybe it’ll be gluten free too,” I thought.  But the soup had gluten, it had been thickened with flour… I was horribly hungry now, I hadn’t had anything in my belly for hours, besides peanuts and wine, so I just meekly asked her what they had that didn’t have gluten.  She pointed to a couple sweets wrapped in plastic—little rice cakes of sorts—and I ordered three of them and an apple.  The chef saw what was going on from the kitchen, and came out to my table after I’d sat down with my friends, who were eating their hearty soup as I ate my sad rice cakes… I couldn’t understand her, my mind couldn’t focus, I was feeling lousy, thinking that I was going to starve all weekend, eating sugary rice cakes and miserable apples, and Fazzi talked to her, explaining that I couldn’t eat gluten… a pained expression rolled over her face and she told us that she’d make a special soup, just for me, without gluten.  “Ah!  What people! What a place!” I’m thinking to myself, ecstatic.  Fazzi too was impressed, “man, that’s Brazilian hospitality at its best!”  It was great, and after everyone else at our table had finished she brought out a whole pot full, and I scarfed down three big bowls out of that, and she insisted that I don’t pay for it today, but said that each day she would make sure that there was something for me without gluten available.  For breakfast, I’d usually have a big slab of cheese with a couple apples and a glass of milk and a coffee, and for dinner, she just started cooking the entire course gluten free for everybody.  I was in love with this place, with these people, with this country.

After some time, the main performance started up and everybody headed over under the great tent, and we all danced and sweated together for three hours before heading back over to the bar for a few more rounds of wine.  This time I found a set of bongos and set to work weaving into the rhythm with everybody else, and I was squeezing them between my knees so hard that night that I had little bruises on the inside of each leg when I woke up.  Eventually the bar slowly emptied out until it was just me and a few others playing music and drinking wine.  We stepped outside to have a cigarette, and to have a look around, and we saw seventy or so people gathered around the main campfire, which had been setup with massive logs laid around it as benches.  We headed over and the music continued there—dozens of people playing all sorts of strange little hand drums, one guy on a cajón, that wooden box that you sit on top of and slap in the front to get a variety of tones, incredibly deep booming ones in the middle of the box, and really high pitches tones when you slap the edges… and there was old Filipe, keeping that subtle rhythm on his triangle, hanging off to the side, carrying on some crazy conversation with a small group, sending them all into eruptions of laughter as he just calmly smiled and kept the rhythm with that beautiful little piece of steel… there were a couple didgeridoos and three or four guitars, and they were playing songs that everybody knew, so a great chorus of voices raised up into the night sky with the sparks and smoke from the fire, and I wondered how that old farmer on the neighboring hill was enjoying this Brazilian folk music… it’s probably a treat for him, once a year, they have this festival, and he gets to see a bunch of strange folks from the city, and listen to all that wonderful music.  This folk music, is called “forró,” but it’s pronounced “fo-ho,” and it actually derives from an English phrase “for all,” but with the slow speech pattern of the northern states of Brazil where the music had originated, where the sun of the tropics slows everything down, even the language, “for all” had been transformed into “fo ho.”  I played the bongo until my eyes grew tired and then headed off to the tent to get some rest for the day to come, the rhythm of the music resounding in my mind.

When I woke up, I opened up the door to the tent and laid back down, looking across to the green hill and its cattle, just as I’d imagined before… I laid there for ten minutes, gathering my thoughts, and munching on peanuts.  Then I crawled out and laid in the grass for awhile, closing my eyes and feeling the sun on my face.  After the rest of the gang woke up, we all headed up for breakfast, ate, and then headed down the steep slope to the waterfall… past all the tents on the hill below the kitchen, past the field of tall grass and wild flowers, past the little area that had been cleared for lumber when they built this place, and into the folds of the dense woods beneath.  Wooden steps zig-zagged down the slope, weaving between vines and trees and palms and all sorts of exotic plants, with insects and birds singing and swimming through the air.  I held on to the little rail that had been constructed out of saplings and made my way down.  The water was cold, cold, cold!  But it was so refreshing that I just stood under it for a good 2 minutes… the cold put pressure on my lungs and I had to make an effort to breath in a regular pattern… The sweat rolled off my skin, and flowed down the stream, and eventually into the Atlantic ocean, where it mixed with the sweat of all the people swimming in all the rivers in the world, and I thought of the kids in my home town, jumping off the cliffs into the Hoosic river as I had done as a kid, sweating into the eventual Atlantic and tasting the exhilaration of life with each jump—all rivers flow into the ocean, and all humans tap into the same life-source when they revel in the bliss of existence.  I scrubbed down my body and figured that this shower was good enough for me, and I hopped out of there feeling like a new man, and we headed back up through the vines to the bar above, passing by gentle jam sessions in every little space as we went, and there was a great jam session in the bar again, as always, and we played and felt wonderful.

Later in the night, people learned that I could play harmonica and they wanted to hear it. I pulled it out of my pocket, and they started a blues jam and I cranked out my woeful melodies for thirty minutes, but then put it away so that people wouldn’t get sick of its cries.  I remember one moment when we were playing a particularly wild part, and the guy on the ukulele was swapping melodies with me, we were going back and forth, tangling up our notes with each other and letting something new emerge among the driving rhythm around us, and all these cameras were swarming around, people were recording us playing this bluesey, funky number, me on the harp, a guy on a ukulele, two people playing guitars, four or five people playing a variety of hand drums, and Filipe on his trusty triangle.  I never saw any of the videos, and I’d rather keep it that way.  I prefer my memories of the feeling of the moment over the static, dry recording of the noise… any day.  A moment in a jam session can’t be captured by a video camera or microphone—these devices lose all the interconnections that you can feel when it’s happening, between the various musicians, between all the people who are humming or clapping their hands or banging their hand on the table to the rhythm, or just exchanging looks with the musicians, changing the course of the melody with their very presence.  It loses that glint in the eye of the guitar player outside the frame, of the smile on the face of the adorable girl rocking to the music across the room, of all the immense human connections that you can feel when you’re there inside that moment, inside that whooshing up of life and joy and beauty.  The same principal applies to life in general—stop taking so many pictures, and feel your existence for all its worth!

So I was wrong okay? I can get homesick.

Culture shock is something I heard about all the time in the International House at my university. I saw it first hand in my friends who were very far away from home. Prior to leaving the states for the semester my friends and family who’d studied abroad continuously warned me about how it would feel to be away from home. At the time I was convinced I wouldn’t be shaken by a life abroad. My school is a short two hour ride from home, but in the past year and a half I spent little of my time in my suburban Tinley Park.

When everyone asked me if I was afraid if I would get homesick, I always answered NO WAY. For most of the year I could be found in Central Illinois attending school, working a part time job, or practicing with the Gamma Phi Circus. I rarely left my campus except on a few visits to see my sisters at their university another hour and a half east or to return home for big holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving. Even though Central Illinois is just a few hours ride from the Chicago suburbs, it’s a whole new world. On my first trips down to school I learned to accept that I would no longer be surrounded by houses and forests as I am at home, but by vast seas of soy and corn. I was living away from home already I didn’t feel homesick then, how could Taiwan be any different? I asked myself as my departure date neared closer and closer. I knew getting away was exactly what I needed.

When I arrived in Taiwan I only felt a little homesick after scary experiences like watching stray mangy dogs wander the streets and almost being smashed by scooters. I got little jolts of homesickness once in a blue moon. My first month here was spent exploring Taiwan. I climbed mountains, visited temples, and even bargained in the most famous street markets in the country. I didn’t even have to start classes for a few weeks; it seemed I had all the time in the world. All my friends back home were jealous, and the new ones I made here just had more to show me. I was so happy I had the opportunity to see exactly why my friends and advisers were raving about Taiwan! Then things started to change. I realized my Mandarin wasn’t as good as I thought. I started to feel isolated from the people around me. It gets harder and harder every day not to miss simple things like the way people greet each other. It seems that nowadays even certain smells and sounds can make me feel homesick.

Today I walked down the street on my way home from class. It was a normal Taipei day. The sun was not shining and there was a steady drizzle of rain dancing across the top of my umbrella. I waited with a small crowd of other university students at a crosswalk, and then made my way towards a restaurant to grab a bite to eat. On my way something caught my eye, something I had never seen before. There was a stage built over night in the middle of a street next to my favorite dumpling shop. The stage faced a small temple that I had forgotten existed because it was surrounded by stinky tofu stands. On this stage danced a woman. Clad in what I would later find out to be traditional Taiwanese gowns. Her singing wasn’t anything I had heard before. It was more nasal sounds than anything. In addition I couldn’t understand anything because she not only sang through her nose, but also in a high pitch I didn’t know was humanly possible. My Taiwanese friend explained that she was worshiping the god of the temple by performing. That was why the stage faced the temple and not the street. The entire performance was all for a god. Even more he revealed that she was not singing in Mandarin at all, but in Taiwanese which has eight tones. Running into these types of instances reminds me what a different place I decided to travel. I am a little ashamed to say that I found the performance eerie – a reminder that I was not at home, but in a foreign culture where I did not understand the customs. I left the dumpling shop without my usual box of fried dumplings.

When I finally got home, I sat on my bed and thought to myself what did I get myself into? All I want is to stuff my face with a good Chicago style pizza, some Chipotle burritos, and some good hearty bread and cheese while not listening to music that I can feel ringing inside my skull more than hear with my ears. But I can wait. I’m content to ride out this phase of the culture shock roller coaster. Only tomorrow knows where I will find myself.

*Note: this graph on Culture-Shock shows the stages that many of our study abroad participants experience.  It seems like Brett is going through stages 2 and 3 (when differences become  irritating and homesickness occurs).  However, most students quickly recover from these phases, and Brett knows that tomorrow he will most likely find himself in another stage of the “culture shock roller coaster.”

MOVING OUT: STARTING THE FINAL STAGE

After two months of living with my wonderful host family, it is time to bid them adieu. The final month of my study abroad program is the ISP (Independent Study Project) period and in that period we are responsible for our own housing, our own travel plans, food, and other expenses. We were all a bit intimidated when it came time to find a house to rent! And of course, after two months of taking classes with the same 12 people, what could be better than getting a house together? Not all of us are living together right now as Alex is living with the guys from another program and some of the girls need to be in other cities for their research, but that leaves ten of us renting a beautiful house with one bedroom, two large salas with very comfortable couches if I say so myself, and a western style bathroom. It also has a fairly decent kitchen and sitting room! The best part however is that the house comes with a pet. Finally, I can wake up every morning to the shrill chirping of a bright yellow parakeet… Now I remember why I hated it when my little sister had pet finches in her room.

We had three days from the final day of class to the official end of our homestay. I spent those three days packing and bringing my stuff over one suitcase at a time, one bag per day to the new house. I explored to supermarkets for ingredients for food, and I looked up stove top recipes for my favorite treats that usually require baking. I waited until I officially moved out to go buy perishable ingredients and for dinner on my first night in the house, I made a nice rice pudding. Of course, before I could make the rice pudding, I had to find vanilla. In the supermarket, they had no flavorings of any kind. In the baking section, they had pre-packaged mixes, rose water, and orange blossom water. They also had vanilla sugar, orange sugar, and various types of chocolate. No pure or synthetic extracts of any type! I wound up asking the program coordinator how to say vanilla in French and Arabic and wandering up the streets in the medina to every singe spice vender…. Vanille? Vanille? La (NOT) sucre! Finally, right before I gave up and caught the bus to go down town to a big supermarket with an international section, I struck gold… or bean really. Gourmet whole vanilla beans! When I asked at the final vendor, they began to say no, then paused and fetched a bag from behind the register and asked if it had vanilla beans in it and lo and behold! I bought three whole vanilla beans for 36 Dirham… $1.50 US per bean. When I told my mom she started hinting that I should look up how to make homemade vanilla extracts since it’s higher quality than anything you can buy in a store and with the price of the beans here it’s way cheaper apparently! My mom said in the US vanilla beans cost about $5.00 per bean… I’ve never bought or used whole vanilla beans before so it was a new experience.

Next weekend I’m going to have my host family over for lunch so they can see where I’m living and sample some all-American food. I’m feeding them potato salad, coleslaw, rice pudding with raisins and toasted almonds, and southern-fried chicken like my grandma makes! Hopefully they like it! And hopefully I’ll be able to find all of the ingredients for this more efficiently and with less hilarity than finding the vanilla.

I’m down to exactly 32 days… and I have 26 days to write a 25 page paper on a migration issue in Morocco! I need to begin reading and researching and analyzing if I’m to finish it on time while also having the ability to start travelling and seeing more cities in this fair country. Until next time!