for my grandmother

When I think of Nana, I can almost smell shelves of books in the Tomball Public Library mixed with roses and cigarette smoke.  My grandmother recently passed away, fulfilling one of my biggest fears when I left for our Peace Corps service: losing someone I love dearly and being far from my family as we grieve.  My earliest memories of our time together involve trips to the library.  I swam in the glossy children’s books section while she chatted with her librarian friends who always had books on hold for her.  From our first trip, I was sold: as they were for her, books became a friend, a mentor, a gateway to every place I wanted to see. 

I didn’t fall for plants as quickly, though.  It wasn’t until the past few years that I tried digging my hands in the dirt as she did.  And while I wasn’t able to keep our Confederate Jasmine alive, much less grow any roses, I was able to grow green beans and spinach right in our backyard.  I’ve been caring for a sage plant for nearly three years, moving it wherever I moved.  Not normally a patient person, I attribute my willingness to sit around and pick hornworms off tomato plants to her.  Willingness isn’t the right word.  I found joy in it.  Running home to play in my garden during my lunch break was often a highlight of my workday.

My grandmother was a storyteller.  Sitting on the back porch together, mosquitoes circling us in the heat, she told of how she worked at a movie theater when she was a young woman.  The way she described flirting with young soldiers catching a film on their night off made me imagine her as an Ingrid Bergman character right out of an old film.  It sounded so glamorous to me at the time.  It still does.

Nana “got” me when others didn’t.  When I tossed around ideas of studying abroad, she immediately responded with, “Do it.”  It was the same way whenever I brought up spending the summer in New England, moving to California, joining the Peace Corps, anything.  Nana said “GO” when others said, “Why don’t you think about it a little more.”  Her support, her instantaneous support, kept me moving, kept me brave.

So while she isn’t here anymore, in some small way she is.  Her stories have settled in my heart.  They’ve settled into the pages of my books and the soil of my gardens, and they’ve helped shape me into someone brave enough to create my own story.  As I turn pages, I hope to continue to find her.

Dar Luby Home Tour

Thinking about coming for a visit?  Or simply curious about what our Moroccan house looks like?  This post is for you.  Before we left for Morocco, I spent a ridiculous amount of time googling what typical Moroccan houses looked like.  And, as true for everything in Morocco, there really isn't a typical.  Languages vary, daily schedules vary, food varies, people vary, and houses vary. 

But here is a little peek into ours.  This building below contains our apartment and 3 or 4 others.  

First, the salon.  We have been very lucky to become friends with a British woman in our city.  She has lived here for 12 years, but she is about to depart on a 1-year sabbatical.  With grateful hearts, we agreed to "watch" some of her stuff for her while she is away (otherwise, it would be in storage).  So, for now, our little place feels pretty full.  But, in a year, we probably won't be posting any more home tours on our blog.  The salon is where we sit to eat our meals (when it's not Ramadan!), and these couch-like things also serve as guests beds when we have company.  The windows open up to our little courtyard.

Here is the courtyard and our clothes-drying rack.  We have a small plastic table and a few chairs that we can bring out there to enjoy our breakfast.  But, we try and keep them out of the sun as not one but TWO plastic chairs have collapsed under us--- likely weakened by sun damage.  It's hot here, y'all.

Next up is the kitchen.  With the help of our Moroccan friends, we've purchased the things we need most: a refrigerator, a stove-top, a couscoussier, a tagine, and more.  With the help of our American friends and family, we've been able to stock it with some much-needed jars of peanut butter.

And here is our bedroom:

And next, here is our desk area, where we diligently try to study languages every now and then.  As you can see from our study thermometer (which I happily spent lots of time coloring), it's not going as well as I'd like.  It's hard.

Last, here is a peek into our restroom.  Should you come to visit us, you must know that what you see below is what you get.  

And there is a shower in this room, too.  The toilet is the drain, so don't drop the soap.

I've saved the best for last.  Roof-top view of our beautiful city.  Perfect for sunsets and star-gazing.

Everybody Fast Now

Ramadan began today in Morocco.

Correction: Ramadan began at sundown today in Morocco. Scientifically, it's the sighting of the sliver-iest, crescent-iest moon that marks the beginning of the holy Islamic month. We didn't head up to the roof last night to see for ourselves -it was overcast in our parts- but I took my newsfeed's word for it that Ramadan was upon us, and we stayed up late to eat a midnight meal of toast and drink an extra liter of water in preparation for our first day of going without.

So we fasted and tried to stay prone for as long as we could, and it wasn't until four o'clock in the afternoon that we left the house to visit our old pals at the Gendarmerie. Passing a café, our mistake was evident: Moroccan men aplenty casually drinking tea and coffee and soda -behavior which I'm told can get locals arrested during Ramadan- and for once we were gawking at them the way they gawk at us.

In the evening, we met up with some friends. We had thought we'd been invited to break the fast together instead of just ordinary kaskrut (not that an ordinary kaskrut in Morocco is a reasonable amount of food; imagine the sugar high you'd get after downing a personal baker's dozen of donuts). They were delighted by our mistake, and we got a lot of mileage out of laughing at ourselves about it. Charming Moroccans with helpless stupidity is the sweet spot of every Peace Corps volunteer.

But after we sat down to the fully-laid table, with cups of mint tea on our lips our friend Fatima said, "Wait!" Why not wait for the evening call to prayer, she suggested? Otherwise our day of fasting wouldn't count (Islam does allow for this kind of spiritual transferring-in of credits for people who can't fast during Ramadan for reasons of health and cleanliness -by which of course I mean menstruation). We agreed that it made sense to wait until the call sounded, but as we set down our glasses, we realized a terrible thing: everyone around the table was going to push pause on kaskrut to fast these last few minutes with us.

We tried to backtrack. The six-year old son of our hosts and his friend stared daggers at us, then longingly at the pile of sweets out of reach. We insisted they start without us. Our friends waved us off. It would be just two or three minutes now, they told us. Then passed the longest thirteen minutes of staring silently at one's own hands in recorded history, the day's hunger superseded completely by this eternal awkward delay. Finally the muezzin erupted to put us out of our misery and our hostess jumped up and brought us dates, the traditional Ramadan breakfast. Everyone watched with great satisfaction as we tore out the pits and savored those first bites.

And it was sweet, narcotically sweet -not just the dates, but the strange tenderness and solidarity that we were shown, that Moroccans keep extending us, whether or not it's Ramadan, whether or not we're doing it all wrong. We aren't planning to fast -or even stay in Morocco- for the entire month, but it's nice to know that during the time set apart, when the whole country is supposed to be turned on its head, some things won't change. So I smiled and chewed my dates and decided to keep my mouth shut about the gallon of water I'd drunk when we got home from the gendarmes. I don't doubt at all that it still counts.

Visitors! A sneak-peek.

The Lubys have landed and gone, and there's a big hole in our hearts right now.  Lots of stories about their visit to come, but, in the meantime, here are a few sneak peeks to hold you over.

Before the Lubys came, Pete and I furiously prepared.  We thought about items they might need/want, and we set about to finding them.  It was exciting to imagine them here and to pick up things like extra coffee mugs (we had two, now we have four!) and house slippers.  And while it was fun to make preparations, it was even more fun to see how adaptable and easy going Dan and Theresa were.  We never found normal, human-sized cups,  but they happily slurped water out of the tiny, standard-issue Moroccan glasses anyway.

Up for any and every adventure.

In addition to some solid quality time with good, good people, this visit allowed us to see just how integrated we are into our community.  Most of the "events" we had planned with Dan and Theresa revolved around our new friends:  meals that slipped into naps, spontaneous tea, cooking lessons.  Their visit also forced us to use our Darija in situations when we might have just walked away.  We bargained harder than we'd ever bargained before at those markets in Marrakech.

As mentioned, there are more stories to come.  So many good stories.  Keep checking, and start planing your visit.

Headed up the mountain.

Dan shops for eggplant at the souk.

Pete bargained hard for that teapot. I was so proud.

Special guests in our English class!