Ten Years

Ten years ago the war in Iraq started.  I received a text message shortly thereafter in my Peace Corps site in Morocco telling me to travel to Marrakech to join my fellow volunteers in a hotel I've since forgotten.  I'd spent the 48 hours prior to this message writing letters in phonetic Arabic and French to various students and friends in my city.  I'd said a clumsy, ineffective goodbye to my classes, never really believing that I'd not return. Surely there wouldn't be a war. Surely, even if my country did go to war, it wouldn't reach its fingers to my dusty, ugly street in Central Morocco.  What use did I have for thinking about a war? There were lessons to plan. Maps to paint. Languages to learn.

I received the text and somehow word spread. Somehow my Moroccan friends ventured over, knocked on my door, asked if I needed help. Some of my students said they would stand by my door, just to be safe. Safe from what? All of the sudden I felt threatened by something larger, something full of shadows.

I walked to my adoptive family and told Leila the news.  She was brushing her teeth and her gums were bleeding.  She kissed me a dozen times, eyes full of tears.  I kept telling her I was sure I'd be back.  I told her not to worry.  And I told her that everything in my apartment was divided between her family and two others. Even now, I wonder how I had enough Arabic to communicate so many instructions, so much grief. Passion makes the brain move faster, I suppose. I left her my clothes, my jewelry, my scarves, my kitchen wares, just in case I was unable to come back for a long while.

And a long while has been ten years...