Guest Post: Mom and Dad in Morocco

After their visit in June, we invited my parents to write something about their trip for the blog. The following comes from my mom, Theresa Luby, a longtime Hospice chaplain, proud member of the Daughters of Abraham and all-around inspiration.

"If enlightenment is not where you are standing, where will you look?"

I thought I might look in Morocco.  Thanks to Pete & Britt, I was able to walk in their shoes ( or at least in the shoes they bought for me in the souk) and  experience some of the wonders of  Morocco, the Moroccan people and a culture of hospitality.

About the shoes.  If you saw their earlier pictures of Dar Luby, you'll understand why there are three different kinds of shoes.  First, there are outdoor shoes (the roads are dirt, unpaved and shared with donkeys, chickens, dogs, & very mangy looking cats etc.)  Those shoes are taken off as you enter the living space, where you slip into traditional Moroccan leather shoes.  Pete & Britt made gifts of these shoes to us when they welcomed  Dan & me to their home.

When it's time to make your "toilet" you slip into something a little more rubber and washable with non-slip soles (the perfect little number for a Turkish toilet).  If the family you are visiting has carpets, you might just go barefoot in their home.

In a recent Sunday Gospel I heard: "Into whatever house you enter, first say: 'Peace to this household.' If a peaceful person lives there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you...Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you..." Life in Morocco is closer to the world of the Bible than to 21st century North America.  Every where we went in Amizmiz, people greeted us: "Salaam Walaikum,"  " Peace be upon you." Every  household we visited offered us food and drink in delicious & splendid abundance. Like Abraham & Sarah who served three guests in the desert or Martha busying herself with hospitality for Jesus and her other guests,  Pete & Britt's friends treated us like honored guests.

Traditional kas-krut (snack time)

A plate of couscous

Their beautiful host mother & her handsome son served us traditional mint tea, which was followed by Moroccan chicken tagine with couscous & vegetables. After the meal they led us to another salon with couches.  They showed us with pride the wedding DVD of a nephew. In a Moroccan wedding, the bride changes her clothes seven times during the event. (Can you imagine? She has to "Say 'Yes' to the Dress" not once, but seven times!)  After all that food and all that wedding video, we were already three hours into our visit when sleep overtook us.  We felt terribly rude falling asleep, but our hosts seemed to take it as a  given that we would rest up for more food and socializing.  With the wedding DVD as inspiration, our hostess gave Britt & me henna hand tattoos. After naps, we were served a delicious coffee, cakes, and cookies.  We rolled out of their gracious, humble home full and happy, six hours later.

When we first arrived in Morocco, Peter & Britt taught us some useful phrases that Dan & I could use to navigate the social situations we would find ourselves in. Little did I realize that those phrases would help me when I got back home in Texas.  I went 5,212 (or so) miles to be able to connect with my next  hospice patient. She is a teacher from Iraq who fell ill while she was visiting her daughter in Texas.  The phrase that she uses most often is: "Hamdu-l' Allah,"  "Thanks be to God."  She is a person of great faith and accepts her illness as the will of God.

When I introduced myself to her daughter, I had to ask her to please repeat her name for me.  Even though we were speaking English, her Mother speaking through the Arabic translator, told me that when her daughter was born she wanted to bless God.  In Morocco, we had heard the phrase, "Bismillah" every time we sat down to eat, or upon beginning any new endeavor.  It is often translated as "In the Name of God."  Her daughter's name, "Basmal" comes from that phrase, "in gratitude for God's gift." 

Being with Britt & Pete is a blessing anywhere, but in Morocco, their graciousness and goodness shine more thoroughly.  It was a wonderful, unique experience. This week a friend shared a poem, given to her by her 94 year old mother-in-law that begins:

"I am the place where God shines through,
 For he and I are one, not two."

May it be so. Bismillah.

Visiting English class

Making msemen

a good year

Yesterday, I googled: should you clean fresh killed bird before storing in fridge or is it okay to refrigerate and clean later.

Sorry, chicken friends.  We had to eat one of you.

Today, I turn 28 years old.  The unclean bird is about to be pulled out of the fridge, cleaned, and used as a bacon substitute (I CRINGE to write those words) in this delicious avocado soup recipe for birthday lunch. 

It has been a crazy year. 

Last August 10, I celebrated both on the Catholic Community Adult Retreat and at home with friends over French 75s.

A month later, we were in Rocky Mountain National Park to visit our good friend.

A river runs through it: Pete's first fly-fishing lesson.

Sometimes when hiking, you have to get in the map.

We celebrated our one-year anniversary at Lost Maples State Park.

As the Peace Corps became a reality, I said goodbye to my job and my fabulous work family.

Luby wedding brought to you by many, many helping hands, including my RSL family.

I went to Miami with these lovely ladies and was grateful for such good college friends.  Can you believe we've known each other for 10 years?

Later that month, my siblings, my grandmother, and I surprised my mom for her birthday.

Before long, it was another magical Thanksgiving at the Renewal Center with good family and friends.

I snuggled with this adorable puppy as much as I could before we had to say goodbye,

And, as you know, we spent much of the winter on a farewell tour of some of our favorite places.

And then, somewhere between the insane stress of packing up our lives into a storage unit, becoming a single (and then zero) car family, selling everything on craigslist, saying goodbye to our little doggie, trying to pick out the highest-quality-without-being-too-expensive-wool clothes to take with us to chilly North Africa, and saying goodbye to everyone we love (thank you to everyone who came to visit us, who helped us move, who loved on us, fed us, saved us), we found our way into two seats on a Casablanca-bound airplane.

We moved in with a Moroccan family who treated us as their own.  They overfed us daily, and it was just the fuel we needed to survive hours of Darija classes in a cold classroom.  We became good friends with our little CBT group, lovingly checking in on each other when we find out someone had “the D.”  We ran through our little town in the early mornings past sheep, chickens, and olive fields with the same stride that carried us through our Fort Worth neighborhood. 

By April, we were in our final site, our home for the next two years.  We found a home and continue to make it our own.  Wifi helps.  New friends help, too.

A new friend: because of this lovely lady, we have a well-stocked house and lots of new friends.

Souk time.  You know you've married the right person for you when you roll up your sleeves at the exact same time as you suffer in the heat and try to remember the Arabic word for that spice you really want.

Pete’s parents visited us, and they gave us an excuse to see Morocco through new eyes.

We fled to Nice to escape the hot summer.

We witnessed our first Ramadan, and my host mom made me a jellaba.  I bought some fabric, handed it to her, and said, "I trust you" in Darija.  She did the rest, and I couldn't be more pleased.

Yesterday, we celebrated L’Eid with many of our new friends.  We ate two lunches, for real.  We had to make up for those few days of fasting, you know.

Breakfast #1.

Nothing about this year has been ordinary, nothing has been expected, nothing easy.  It’s been extreme in all sorts of ways.  And, in return, I feel extreme gratitude. I know I'm leaving out a lot of great stories and great people, and I apologize for that. Thank you so much for your support, love, and birthday cheer.

The wise and adorable NIck Miller proudly says, "I like getting older.  I feel like I'm finally aging into my personality."  I couldn't agree more. 

Apparently, this is what aging into my personality looks like.

what ramadan looks like, for us

How have we been spending the Holy Month of Ramadan?  A little of this, a little of that.  

We fasted at the beginning of Ramadan in solidarity with our community.  During the day, we hugged our fans and rested in our living room.  Episode after episode of Lost passed on our computer screen (we're not finished!  no spoilers!) as we avoided eye contact with our water bottles.  At the sound of the call to prayer around 7:45pm, we broke fast with new friends.  Slurping harira, spoonfuls of sellou, mouthfuls of shebakia.  Some evenings, we walked to “the piscine,” a pool/café in town that stays open very late during Ramadan (no swimming at night, just the ambiance of blue pool water).  We drank Sprite and practiced Darija in the moonlight.  And, then, the next day, we did it all over again.  It was fun to see our city, sleepy during the hot day, erupt at night.  There is energy in the air as people, men and woman alike, walk through town together under the stars. 

Then, France happened.  When I asked more seasoned volunteers how to survive summer in Morocco, everyone said, “Leave.” And Nice was oh so nice.   We slipped out of Morocco for a week and ate our way through the south of France.  Literally.  We found cheeses and mussels, macarons and croissants.  We spent the week walking around and holding hands in public (!).  We saw a movie in a movie theatre, and I used my college French to make us dinner reservations.  We ate ice cream at least once a day, and we spent lazy afternoons at the beach.  It was a much-appreciated break.

Oui, we'll take one of every pastry, s'il vous plait. 

Moules Frites!  Fries and Mussels! 

We went on one guided food tour of Nice.  We went on 23 self-guided food tours of Nice.

Climbing up for better and better views.

Long live the baguette!

Oui, we'll take the apartment in the middle.

Now that we are back, we aren’t approaching Ramadan fasting with quite the same zeal.  While fasting and then breaking the fast with our friends has been incredibly special, we also know that the best way for us to endear ourselves to this community is to improve our language skills.  And studying Arabic is hard to do when you are thirsty.*  So we’ve reintroduced coffee and small meals so that we can stay energized and motivated enough to do what we need to do.  I’m still receiving the occasional cooking lesson, and Pete is braving the heat and crowds in the late afternoon to pick up dates and other Ramadan goodies.   And, our kind friends still have us over to break the fast with them in the evenings.

Despite our decision not to continue fasting, we are finding this a time of spiritual renewal.  We’ve incorporated some of our own Catholic practices into our lives lately, and it has helped us think more about people we love and ways to approach our new lives here. I’m not going to lie: Morocco is tough.  Peace Corps is tough.  Leaving France after the most perfect week was tough.  It’s hot, hot, hot here, and we don’t have any meaningful work to do just yet.  But we have each other, we have you, and we are trying to take it one day at a time.

* It’s hard to do.  Period.  See the thermometer photo from a few weeks ago.  Not THAT much has changed.

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!