We Drew a Map of the World

I cannot read maps. I get lost in malls. I suffer almost-panic when I'm called upon in the passenger seat to be the navigator. There is a disconnect in my brain between the world I see in front of me and the flat, impersonal scratches one sees in an atlas or by way of dear, helpful Google Maps. It's a mess for me and my mind experiences the prospect of unraveling that mess with a loathing that's hard to describe to the map savvy. I've always preferred directions in written form.  Turn left at the stop sign. Turn right when you take the exit. If you feel the need to draw a picture, you can assume I'll be late.

A common first project for Peace Corps volunteers, especially for those tasked with teaching, is the world map. You have a grid to work from and together with your students, their parents, any number of curious on-lookers, you slowly begin to sketch the world. In training, I was skeptical of my ability to spearhead anything resembling a map. And while I had a shiny new bachelor's degree, I worried I'd confuse the country names in some disastrous, offensive way. But I needed a project.  I needed a way to get messy with my students, connect with the boys in a silly way, and carve out time with my shyest girls, as we wondered how cold Antarctica must be.

This experience strikes me now with a rib-crunching blow. These were students whose families loved me when I was all alone in a country very different from my own. They always knew I was a Christian.  They knew I covered my hair out of respect, not out of any deep understanding of their religion. They knew I fasted for Ramadan out of curiosity, not devotion. They took care of me because of their innate goodness, the joy that permeated their homes, the warmth that made them quick to give and quick to smile, and their faith, which taught them to love and show kindness to strangers. This is what I know of Islam. This is what I know to be true.

When I think of Islam, I think of paint.  I think of a wall in a rundown youth center that slowly resembled the world. I think of tea and laughter. I think of friends who walked me home after a long day. I think of warm bread, mint, cumin, and heaps of golden couscous on Fridays. I think of cool hands on my hot forehead, when I was too sick to get out of bed. I think of babies held and kisses on cheeks and the gut-deep chuckle of old men. And I think of goodbyes.

The recent executive action against refugees, against Muslims, against immigrants in total, has me thinking of that map. How arbitrary those lines seemed once we sketched them on the wall. Some I knew to trace the line of a river, of a mountain range, some soft demarcation made by God. But most I knew to be the creation of men. As if the line built a home, built a place worth living, built space with some superior context. The lines felt unnecessarily powerful, and so unfair. Maybe I should forgive my mind for its inability to unwind that madness.  Maybe my mind fights the lines on purpose, maybe the confusion is a gift.

To see my country, my combination of lines, deepen those divides, draw them with such hatred, wrap them in religious and cultural superiority and call them "security," only strengthens the feeling I had 15 years ago that the lines must be among the darkest of God's heartbreaks. The God I believe in loves without any care of the lines we're born between. God drew the world, drew the color, drew the mountains and rivers full of life, drew the perfection of Eden and the wood of the cross, drew the people that would wander every inch of creation, drew faces of every shade, voices of every pitch, bodies of every strength, minds of every depth, drew love. We drew the map.

Signing My Name

I've always been proud of my service in the Peace Corps. And it's important to me to use that experience, living in and being loved by an Arab Muslim community, to improve relationships stateside between Christians and Muslims, Americans and new immigrants. Islamaphobia frustrates and, at times, infuriates me. Hatred boils my blood. So signing my name to this was a given. Full release here: https://lookaside.fbsbx.com/file/2016%20RPCV%20Islamophobia%20letter.docx?token=AWyoaz-T2IYk__iA_bjCeFItZg-BpnnLPW4dCUh9iPxh7XMOXk-GwttOmYBkBCVpM4y7vaXFk5q9hGcM6_eO3ITr-qbnCV9MNE_p7h6SPoHrkg

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...

Peace

The current non-spring in Minnesota has had me thinking of prior springs in warmer locales.  Most notably, of Morocco.

Morocco has been on my mind more often of late due to the recent bombing in Marrakech.  And that news, coupled with my perpetual chill up North, has made me lonely for a specific rooftop years ago.  I'd be curled up on a thin, floral mattress ( ponj) with a well-scribbled journal, listening to drums, eating sugared peanuts (cowcow hlloah).  I'd fall asleep that evening listening to a nearly-defunct CD player try to play Beck's Sea Change album and I'd awaken the next morning to meet friends for eggs (beeda), fried onions and tomatoes (bsla oo matesha), and hot, crusty bread (khobz).  It's strange the words that stay with you.  Loved foods, greetings, blessings, goodbyes, "does the taxi meter work?", "poor thing," God, family, thirsty.

When I first saw the photos from the bombing site, my thoughts were self-serving. I hope it's not Cafe Toubkal.  I loved that Cafe.  As if the specificity of my love should grant a certain handful of human beings grace over another handful.  Toubkal is safe, so I've learned.  The cafe that was bombed was a second story restaurant, Cafe Argana, which overlooked D'Jemaa al F'na.  I ate there once or twice when Cafe Toubkal was too busy (Toubkal was cheaper so it got the bulk of my Peace Corps "salary").  I have no endearing recollection of Argana, other than a particularly spicy mustard for the pommes frites, but I have memories of that square, the hubbub of all those cafes and that market and those taxis and those drums, that make Argana feel like a particular blow to my psyche.

At least 16 people are dead, courtesy of a supposed suicide bomber, perhaps Al Qaeda.  The cafe was targeted, I'm sure, due to its penchant for attracting tourists.  At any given time the likelihood of killing an American or a Nationality-friendly-to-Americans would be high.

I never thought the purpose of Peace Corps was to bring about any sort of enduring change in a volunteer's village/locale.  Build a well, maybe. Draw a world map. Teach some kids the lyrics to a lot of Cat Stevens songs. What exactly does that do? Essentially nothing.  But the "Peace" part of it, in my mind, has a lot more to do with forging friendships, telling jokes, breaking bread, helping and being helped. Especially in countries like Morocco, where the anti-American sentiment can run very high, I think the most peaceful thing I might have done involved simply convincing a few dozen people (more?) that I was, in fact, nice. Nice. Kind. With parents who worried about me. Aversion to dried goat meat. Disaster in the kitchen. Altogether harmless and normal.

It continues to break my heart that the part of the world I so fell in love with, that northwestern corner of Africa, must be torn apart by violence.  I say "must" because it does seem to be a foregone conclusion.  Morocco is the most westernized of the Arab countries, the country in the region with the strongest ties to Europe.  It struggles to balance that embrace of Europe (to the point of discussing EU membership every once in awhile) with a deeply-rooted, deeply felt pan-Arab brotherhood. In the midst of seeking to provide more rights to women, more freedoms to all in some minor contexts, it has also voiced disapproval of terrorism and Al Qaeda more vocally than other Arab regimes.  It has supported American efforts to pursue terrorists abroad and, for that, Morocco is punished.  The bombs in Casablanca in 2003, now the bombs in my favorite square in my favorite foreign city, they all seem to be a warning to a country desperately trying to move forward while maintaining cultural and religious authenticity. 

Because I believe in God, a good, just, loving, full-of-Grace God, I have to also believe that the areas of the world rocked by religious and political violence can somehow, someday, move toward peace.  While it is impossible for me to picture a Morocco at this point that is immune from such attacks (is any country immune?) due to its precarious positioning between Allah, Peace, and Progress, I have to believe that my inability to imagine it does not make it truly impossible. 

I also have to believe if the world were simply more connected, not by facebook or iPhones or email or texting, but by physical connection, that the world would be capable of greater peace.  Hate comes so much easier when you can shape an enemy in your mind without any regard for truth.  But if you walked their roads, sat in their cafes and ordered their foods, watched their Mamas play with their babies, listened to their prayer calls or their hymns or the sound of their children skipping rocks in their rivers...

I just have to believe that bombs would be harder to throw. 

One of my favorite sayings in Moroccan Arabic was an exchange of "thank yous" that occurred fairly often.  Like any language, different types of "thank you" required different responses.  But there was one that particularly moved me.  After saying, "shukran" (thank you) for some good deed or help or assistance, sometimes the response I'd receive was "la shukran allah wajeeb."  I'm not sure how to directly translate it.  But it's essentially, "no, do not thank me, it is what Allah expects/requires."  I think God requires that response to all images of human suffering.  I think for every bomb, every flood, every tornado, every war, every rape, every murder, our ache for another human being, no less a child of God than ourselves, should require no thanks nor interpretation.  My hope is that over time, in tiny human-sized increments, we might connect with one another enough, Christian and Muslim, to recognize that God expects love of us.  Not bombs.

A Big Hard Sun

...O, there's a big
A big hard sun
Beating on the big people
In a big hard world

When I go to cross that river
She is comfort by my side
When I try to understand,
She just opens up her hands

-Eddie Vedder, Big Hard Sun

Recently I serendipitously stumbled upon an old, scratched-beyond-recognition CD from Peace Corps days. In the Marrakech souk there are myriad stalls of pirated music. We frequented one in particular and fed our American need for newness after weeks or months of hitting repeat on CD players. For Christmas a fellow volunteer, David, gifted me with a CD of Beck's Sea Change. I was a moderate Beck fan at the time, but David said I'd like it and the power of a crush can make a woman believe anything.

There was nothing to talk me into with that CD. I was in love from the first play. One song in particular, Paper Tiger, just bought me and kept a hold of me throughout my Moroccan experience. I would lay for hours when the electricity would go out (often), leaving me in the dark and restless, listen to that haunting melody. Especially as the war inched closer, I played it more often. It wasn't until later in my life that I first experienced the agony of panic attacks, but I think some of those evenings waiting for news of attacks, news of evacuation, I think there were moments in those evenings that Beck and his Paper Tiger nursed my fetal positioned, journal-clutching, self into believing it would all be alright. I don't think I ever panicked in Morocco. But I think my heart broke often, and some evenings that song just felt like a blanket. A road somewhere pretty and warless, a road that led somewhere expected, no surprises.

I listened to the song again, perhaps the first time I've heard it all the way through since leaving Youssoufia. It's odd, I know I've given the CD to others, or burned that song in particular onto many a mix for ex-boyfriends or friends going through breakups. But I think it was habit, and subconscious acknowledgment that it was a song that comforted me once. I listened to it again and became reacquainted with the notion that the senses are time capsules. I could feel the hardness of concrete beneath my feet, the cold of it when I'd roll onto the floor from my inch-thick mattress. I could smell the cumin wafting from the family that lived above me, feel the condensation on the inside of my walls that dampened everything I owned. I could feel the heavy bruise in my stomach, the hopeful knot of anxiety that rose with every day--will we go to war with Iraq before Thanksgiving? Before Christmas? Before Easter? Should I tell my students now? Who should I leave my kitchen goods to? Does it matter? Does any of this matter at all? I could feel it all, and hear the happy, resigned sighs of my Moroccan self. The girl who wanted to stay but knew she would not be so lucky.

In the past few months I've had Eddie Vedder's soundtrack to Into the Wild on steady repeat in my apartment. "A Big Hard Sun," especially, has been on the type of rotation that would probably drive anyone other than me insane. Much like my former Paper Tiger obsession, or Closing Time, or Hurricane, or Sunday Bloody Sunday, or La Marseillaise...

I am waiting for no war. I am happy in most of the ways that matter, and anxious only in ways and for reasons that I think are fairly healthy. I enjoy the world I've tucked away for myself. And so I wonder, years from now, when I stumble on Mr. Vedder and his Big Hard Sun, when I play it again for the first time in a decade, what will I remember of these months. What will reawaken in my gut, what dreams will I remember, and what will I recall as the underlying thesis of these moments?

In a couple months it will have been seven years since my unexpected and unappreciated evacuation from Morocco. Seven years and yet there are moments, songs, smells, that remain visceral in a way I cannot adequately describe. I wonder what moments will be the moments I cannot adequately describe 10 years from now. And if those moments are hard to pick out, perhaps it's time to start making them, make sure my Big Hard Sun era is easily, excitedly, happily recalled.

Memory

I was having trouble writing for work and so began to write for fun (how else do you get rid of a Block?). I initially emailed this to a friend but thought I'd post it here, too, for posterity's sake. Just a memory of a place I would occassionally rather be...

I didn't intend to be in Marrakech alone. I'd traveled there many times to join other volunteers, and that time was no different. I packed my small bag and walked to the taxi stand outside the village, the sand still angry and sharp after the previous day's storm. I called out for a cab to 'Maraksh' and half a dozen men started yelling their price, some exorbitantly high, and some suspiciously low. I picked the cab with mostly women, paid my fare, and climbed in, preparing myself for the requisite poking, questioning stares of strangers. Red hair always gave me away.

The cab ride was always two hours or so through dry, almost dead-looking countryside. I don't know if I will ever be able to adequately describe the color of Moroccan dirt. A pinkish, clay color that mixed with eons of Saharan sand and black, black crumbled rock. The red of carpets was a near camouflage to the ground the prayer rugs graced, and I remember aching for green, for leaves, for the cool of fresh grass. But in my slice of Morocco, red dirt was God's palate of choice.

The cab wound East from my village, ending at a huge cab stand on the outskirts of Maraksh, where I gathered my things and found a second cab to take me into the city. The discussion was always the same:

Rashida: Salam Ealaykom (blessings and peace)
Cab: Wa ealykom salam (blessings and peace to you)
R: Labas? (is everything well?)
C: Labas, hamdollah (everything is well, thanks be to God), ntee? (and you?)
R: Kolshi bekheer, hamdollah (everything is good, thanks be to God). Bgheet mshew Jma El Fna (I'd like to go to the main square)
C: Enchallah (if God wills it)
R: Enchallah (if God wills it), wash le magana kdhem? (does the meter work?)
C: Khdeem (it works)
R: Waxa, yalla (ok, lets go)

The cab ride to the main square was always different, never the same route, as we always had to dodge a donkey cart or a fruit stand surprisingly set up in the middle of a road. This time, midway through the ride, I received a text from the two friends I was meeting, one was ill (ah, parasites) and the other had missed the one bus out of her village for the day. I was officially in Marrakech alone. I left the cab with my requisite blessing and thanks, the smell of roasting nuts and the bang of drums drowning the tears that would have cropped up at the prospect of exploring my favorite, terrifying city alone for 3 days. I made my way through the twists and turns of an alley to the inn I always stayed in, the Sindi Sud, where for $2 a night I could unwind my sleeping bag on the roof and sleep under the stars, the sounds of the night market booming below me.

After storing my things and inquiring if any other Americans had stopped by (no luck, only a German), I emerged into the city I'd never explored on my own. I walked to the cafe overlooking the square for a late breakfast of eggs and bread and thick, black coffee with cream. The drums never ceased in the square. But their rhythm was never disturbing or overly loud, it was a drumming like heartbeats, with the peppering of shouts and price wrangling and the squeal of a stray cat under somebody's cart. After breakfast I wrapped a long shawl around my head to hide the shock of my red, Western hair, and ventured into the souk, the overwhelming market of cloth and food and trinkets that never ceased to swallow me whole. I wandered, shooing away most vendors with better Arabic than they expected from a blue-eyed tourist, and found myself lost near a pile of fermented olives being sold by a child no older than 7. I bought olives and bread and almonds from her, slid them into my bag for later, and set out to find a carpet seller.

After inquiring of several smiling, suspicious vendors, I found the carpet hovel of SiMohammad, who welcomed me in with a tray of mint tea and disgusting cookies. Moroccans are excellent cooks and I ate the most delicious foods of my life while living there, but the cookies were occassionally sawdust with sugar. He was a tiny man, wiry and dark, with clear hazel eyes and a long cream jelaba (robe). He was very religious and so would not touch me, when I offered my hand he sweetly placed his hand on his heart in greeting and I knew my unmarried touch was sinful to him. But his demeanor was warm and friendly, and he asked how I came to wander alone. We talked as much as we could in my broken Arabic and his broken French and after a half hour of laughter and his enjoyment of my pronunciation of several words that were probably offensive, he allowed me to wander his shop, pointing at the rugs I loved, asking their price. Soon he discovered my price range, my color choice, my length preference, and within minutes I bought a long, beautiful Berber rug, tucking it under my arm and promising blessing upon his house as I Ieft.

I sat down against a wall to eat my olives and almonds, watching women dye cloth in huge vats of dark, shimmering liquid. They pressed the huge strips with large wooden poles and, seeing me watch them, they waved and welcomed me and let me sit near a vat and listen to them sing. The sting of lye or vinegar in the dye made my eyes tear and the insides my nose burn in the first minutes, but over time the heat of the day, the cool of shared orange juice, and the laughter of children pushed the vinegar away and I layed down near an old woman knitting socks to sleep.

By the time I woke the sky was darkening, so I began to stumble my way out of the souk, moving always towards the sound of drums. When I emerged, night had arrived, dark in its way, but bursting with independently strewn lights across the square. Each light danced on skewers of meat, fresh fish, frying potato, hot bread stuffed with fat and spices. I sat at the first table I could find and ordered a dish of meat I, to this day, could not recognize. I ate and chatted with a French couple next to me who were shocked at my solo exploration, and impressed by my easy ordering skills. I recommended they stay away from the fish sold by the one-legged man unless they enjoyed the bathroom of their hotel quite fiercely.

I bought msimin, hot layered bread with pockets of olive oil and sage, and began to walk back to the inn, tired and ready for sleep. I climbed to the roof and unrolled by bed, tucking my new rug beneath my head as a hard, souk-smelling pillow. Cool desert air blew in from the Sahara and the shadow of Mount Toubkal was thrown in relief against a sky lit equally by stars and market lights. I fell asleep to the heartbeat of drums.

Melancholy in Minneapolis

Now that I am no longer a Louisiana resident but a Minnesotan who longingly looks out car windows searching for snoball stands and jazz brunches and beads, I find that my trips back to New Orleans have become increasingly bittersweet. The longer I spend away, the more permanent the move feels. And the more I accept that moving was right, but that "right" is not necessarily supposed to feel good.

When I moved here I thought I would go back. At least, I think I thought I would. Or, if I didn't think that I'd return, that wasn't something I allowed myself to admit. New Orleans became a city I could only survive by myself. I could love it, love living in it, but I would never thrive, never do anything but survive its myriad temptations. I'm not saying I had a drinking problem or anything anyone needs to raise their eyebrows at. But New Orleans was entirely too comfortable for me. It fit me the way only Heaven should fit a person. The only time I truly grew in that span of time was when school forced me to think and the city forced me to leave. I could spend hours, days, years, in the Quarter, doing nothing but eat and write poetry and listen to jazz. And I suppose there are many who happily embrace that life. But it would have drained me eventually, that level of ease. Ah, the Big Easy, I'd never thought of that until now...so, so incredibly true. An ease that sucks you in and, for some, keeps sucking until any individual drive just disappears. But I've never been good with middle ground, moderation. New Orleans was the BIG Easy for me, it could never be the Moderately Easy, so as to leave room for personal success, passion, growth.

A colleague at work commented before I left that he thought it would take a good while longer before Minneapolis became more of a Home than New Orleans (here's your shout out, Stu). He's definitely right. While I can accept that New Orleans was never a Home for the long term, it was the first Home, after Morocco, that I made myself. And while there were elements of it that were emotionally and physically unhealthy, it was still a Home I was loathe to leave. I always felt remarkably understood in New Orleans, not only by the friends I found there, but by the city herself. So bright and battered and somewhat crazy and overly romanticized and silly and broken and gorgeous and terrifying and unbelievably strong. Not to put too cheesey a point on it, but She was all the adjectives I either attached or wished to attach to myself. So She was easy to love. Impossible to leave.

I will never feel in Minneapolis what I felt in New Orleans. Without a Jackson Square to curl my toes into and beignets to devour and perfect, perfect jazz floating down the river, Minneapolis has no hope in convincing me that she's a worthy replacement. But the longer I am away from New Orleans, the more I love to visit her, daydream about her, pretend she loved me back. The longer I'm away, the more anxious I am to love a city that pushes me and makes me slightly uncomfortable, a city that cocks its head at my accent. I don't have any immediate plans to leave Minneapolis. But if ever I were to leave this city, I want to love it enough to miss it.

Where to?

I've been living in my apartment for nearly a year. It has served me well, despite being entirely too far from my current job. I want to move soon and have yet to decide where in the Cities. Somewhere cute, somewhere convenient, somewhere old, somewhere with orange ceilings.

Invariably, when I start to think of changing apartments, I think of all the apartments I've had before, in all the cities I've loved (and loathed) before. And such thinking makes me start to wonder if maybe I should be exploring apartments in other cities, other countries, places to surprise or inspire myself. I'm not bored here, or unhappy. But some part of me feels the need to stomp around somewhere new. Moving every couple years became a habit and I suppose, seeing as I've lived here for two years come June, my body is simply feeling the itch.

I have wondered if that drive, that need to go "somewhere else" and do "something else," would go away or fade once I found some magic, happy place. But I think that's where the searching comes from, not out of any unhappiness, but out of finding comfort. I start to worry if, in becoming happy, I've also become lazy.

C.S. Lewis has a brilliant quote in 'Til We Have Faces, "It was when I was happiest that I longed most...The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing...to find the place where all the beauty came from." I don't like to think I suffer from a grass-is-greener problem, constantly seeking something "better" as compared to what I feel my experience currently lacks. Because I don't think my need for change and new perspective is a search for "better" as much as it is a search for something new, different, unexpected, beautiful.

I spoke with a friend about this once, a friend who is much less prone to uprooting herself (in the physical sense). When I worried aloud that perhaps there was something exciting out there that I was missing, some country I would love living in, some river I should fish in, some job I should attempt and probably fail at, she wondered back ,"Have you ever lived somewhere without an expiration date? Why can't that be an adventure, too?"

Every place I have lived since graduating from high school has had a deadline. Virginia ended after college. Morocco ended with the Iraq War. Kansas City was a hiccup, a time-killer while I applied to law school. New Orleans was never supposed to end but after Katrina, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have some idea in my mind that even that lovely city was not forever for me. When I moved to Minneapolis I expected to be here two, three years, tops. I could not imagine myself happy, long term, in a city that is not in the South. I just could not embrace the idea of investing in a city that could never feel like Home.

I still feel like that, honestly. I still can't picture living here for years. Can't imagine owning a home here. Raising a family here. But perhaps it is healthy and mature and becoming-an-adultish to experiment with not stamping an expiration date on a city that has done nothing but make me content. I love my job, love being near my family, love the Spring after months of cold, love my church, love some dear, new friends. And even if this is not a forever type of city, even if there is another city in the cards, perhaps it's okay to just let that come in its own time. Perhaps burrowing in, making a home here, doesn't have to be something I do while I wait for my Real life to begin, the one in the Real city, with the Real happiness.

This is real, too. Just new, different, unexpected, beautiful.

That's Right, Dubai

I had a hard time picking a photo for this post. The pic of me in front of the mosque? Me with the camel? Me with the hookah? The indoor ski slope? Me with the head scarf? The row upon row of gold at the souk? The pic of my dad in front of the world's most expensive hotel (built on a manmade island shaped like a palm tree)? I settled on this one, a mild sandstorm forcing me to squint with the Burj Al Arab, marketed as the most luxurious hotel in the world, shining hazily in the distance.

I think the difficulty itself explains a lot about my impression of Dubai. On the one hand, it is a phenomenal city, an experiment in marketing that seems to be working. On the other hand, it can feel quite cold and superficial. There is a difference in displaying exuberant wealth when the package is older. You can see ridiculous displays of money in New York and London, Paris and Moscow, anywhere really. But the cities that encompass that wealth have been growing and shrinking and growing again for generations. The wealth you see displayed in New York somehow makes sense because it is seen in juxtaposition to extreme poverty and a huge middle class. Some people succeed more than others, perhaps at the cost of others, it simply makes sense based on human nature, the marketplace, Darwin, or whathaveyou.

But Dubai is not encompassed by any history of innovation or growth. It was born, as it is known today, thirty years ago. It was nothing but a desert outpost until the discovery of oil (and not its own oil) and only in the last decade has it mindfully marketed itself as the playground for the Middle East, a hub of tourism and real estate shenanigans that would make your head swim. It has no foundation of historical fits and starts to prove that it has learned its lessons, experimented with a few models, test driven a few market ideas and arrived at a successful plan. To a certain extent I simply trust the wealth in other cities more because I know that it has survived longer. It has prehaps gained and lost twice its value in the past two years, but if it's still surviving? I respect that. Dubai just seems like a bubble begging to burst.

My only other comparison for an Arab culture is Morocco. And Morocco I knew very well, so I hesitate to compare them too harshly because I know I do not know the UAE so well. But there was very, very little in Dubai that reminded me of my village in Morocco. And the starkest comparison is religious. I am a Christian, not a Muslim, but there is a common root there that begs respect. Because I come from a faithful, religious family, I always took comfort in the devoutness of my village and the constant reminder of God in the prayer call. There was never any doubt that God ruled every moment, that every human plan was worthless without His guidance and approval, that there was Good and Bad to be done everyday. In Dubai I never heard the prayer call. My dad says he heard it, but I never did. Even our tour guide told us multiple times that the vast majority of Muslims in Dubai do not actively practice, their wearing of the scarf was more cultural than religious, the rules of Ramadan were routinely broken. Even if that were the case in Morocco, nobody would have ever said as much and they certainly wouldn't have said it as a point of pride, as if secularism was a goal they had in mind. I do find it sad that one of the richest (for now) chunks of the world has become so by somewhat turning its back on religious heritage. Belief in God and financial success are not mutually exclusive. There are, of course, elements of Islam that remain permeated in the culture, despite the secularist bent. Because 85% of the population is made up of expats, it's easy to allow alcohol at the hotels, etc., and to deny it elsewhere. But even that is somewhat disturbing to me, to profit from the sins of those outside your faith. That seems to be a sin itself.

I don't want it to sound like I hated Dubai because I honestly loved it! It is a conflicted, tumultuous, ugly, gorgeous city that is birthing itself in a sea of money and make-it-or-break-it expectations. I have never seen a place so determined to build itself exactly in the manner it sees fit, not bending to outside forces, but simply deciding what it will be and doggedly chasing that goal. The number of cranes littering the skyline is testament to that determination. I simply worry that that determination is a bit blinded and empty, a worry that will probably be proved or disproved in the current financial climate. Dubai is in debt and being rescused by its oil-soaked capital, Abu Dhabi. That doesn't spell disaster but it is a kink in Dubai's real estate-heavy armor. How big a kink remains to be seen.

The problem, or the power, behind Dubai's potential is that it is 100% self-made, which I find fascinating and inspiring. We should all be so sure of our success. I only hope that that assurance is justified. How fantastic if it is!

What's In a Name?

I assume everyone has this experience. Everyone has childhood nicknames, familial nicknames, names they choose for themselves, names others choose for them. I am no different in this regard. I have been Rachel, Daisy, Jajel, Dachu, and Sabu, courtesy of my family. And I have been Rachel, Rae, Carrots, Innocent One, Rae-la, Rae-Rae, Rachy, and Red, courtesy of my friends. I was Rashida often in Morocco, courtesy of Hassan, and my Moroccan mama in Youssoufia concocted her own pronunciation that, by best spelling, was something like Rah-shett. As an adult, Rachel and Rae have been my key monikers, and as I have arrived, oddly, in a city where I'm addressed as both, I feel the need to differentiate the two.

It isn't to say that I prefer one over the other, that one is more "me" or more appropriate. But the impact of each is singular and to a certain degree the names describe different people (eh, I'm trying to avoid sounding schizophrenic right now), hence, a brief history.

Growing up, I was never thrilled with my name. Part of this was largely due to an unfortunate similarity with a certain aging movie star. I was also quite frustrated that my parents would name me after a character in the Bible that, by my estimation, has to have one of the most tragic stories around. Loved desperately by Jacob and yet denied marriage for years, and then, when she finally weds, she's barren for years and years. The image of Rachel throughout the Old Testament in the prophecies and in her own story is an image of a woman weeping for unborn children. Ouch. In the end, she is blessed with sons, but there was always one aspect of the story I found very upsetting, late blessing notwithstanding. At no point in the story does it say Rachel loved Jacob. Nowhere. She is well-loved. But did she love back? She is beautiful. But the only emotion the Bible grants her is despair. Sad stuff. So, while I'm happy to be named Biblically, I always wished I'd had a name with a happier story. Although, I'm having a hard time at the moment coming up with many "happy" female stories in the Bible. Esther? Sarah? Mary? I don't really feel like an "Esther"...

Rachel suited me fine and carried me through all of high school and college (with the occassional "Rachy" thrown in by one dear friend). But Peace Corps rearranged me. Rae started out as a practical compromise. There was another Rachel in my training group and it was easier for everyone involved if somebody went by a nickname. I don't know why I picked Rae, as nobody had ever called me that before. But there was something awesome and short and perky and powerful about it and the English major in me loved the pseudo play on "RAY of sunshine". Yeah, very nerdy. As soon as I introduced myself as Rae, it simply stuck. It felt good and right and like Rachel was the name I'd been born with, but Rae was the name I grew into. And I suppose, due to it beginnings in the desert and its eventual flourish in New Orleans, Rae will never sound quite right up here in the cold. It needs heat, humidity, and crawdads. Or a noisy, drum-laden souk during Ramadan.

"Rae" continued to be my name of choice throughout law school. I can't think of anyone in New Orleans who ever called me Rachel (unless they were mad at me). And for the first few months of life in Minneapolis, I continued to use it. But at some point in the transition, "Rachel" reemerged, restaked a claim. Much of it must be because of my proximity to my family. My parents have always called me Rachel and when my siblings aren't calling me a nickname, that's the default. I'd forgotten how nice my full name sounds, that the saying of it somehow completes a picture that "Rae" only shines a light on. I've gotten used to hearing my full name again, and I don't feel as annoyed by the sad Biblical connotations anymore either. A silly thing to be offended by, to be named after someone so "well loved".

And now, for the first time, I have friends who call me both. I don't take that to mean that Minneapolis is some sacred, special place where everyone "gets" me. Far from it. But I do think I've grown into being more of myself here, something that would have happened eventually elsewhere, too. Rachel no longer frustrates me in its old fashioned-ness or its likely comparison to a certain B-list actress (okay, the actress thing does tick me off sometimes). And Rae no longer feels like the uber-treehugger, peace corps-ish "other" me that was hard to reconcile with the bits of Rachel left behind.

I say all this because someone recently asked me if I preferred Rachel or Rae, as they'd heard me called both. And this is my answer. I have no preference.

They're both me.

Half Life

This week I went to the icon exhibit at the Russian Museum of Art. While I was walking around the education area, reading about egg yolks and gold leaf, I realized I went to Russia almost exactly 14 years ago. Exactly half my life ago. My sister was barely two. My brother was almost nine. I was a handful of months away from my first seizure. I'd had my first kiss. I hated my haircut and was obsessed with one green sweater, which I wore as often as possible.

It was my first trip abroad and I was in a small town in Russia, Tver, for three weeks. I was never homesick. It's probably the longest span of time I've gone without missing my family. I just remember being incredibly happy to be surrounded by so many odd, cold, new things. I sang my host little brother and sister to sleep with the same songs I sang to my sister back home (mostly showtunes) with only one change. My Russian siblings loved The Lion King so I sang Hakuna Matata to them several times a day, and it was their favorite lullaby. I can still picture Kolya and Nastya, curled up in their bunk beds, tiny and happy, saying "Hakuna Matata! Hakuna Matata!" and I would sing it over and over again until Mama Trushikova came in and told them to go to sleep. The sister, Masha, closest to my age spoke some English but we mainly spoke in French. Looking back, I wonder how that was possible. At that point I'd had a little over two years of French and yet I remember having long, incredible conversations with her. I suppose a lot can be communicated regardless of mutual confusion over verb tenses.

The icons at the museum reminded me of Russia very little. I only went to one church while I was there and I remember it feeling crowded and glaring and gawdy. I think the church bored me, honestly, and I wish I'd paid more attention. I had a crush on one of the Russian students and I believe that took up the bulk of my brain space.

The Russia I visited was less about the country and more about my own realization that the world was huge and exciting and I needed to be in it in as many ways as possible. I needed to see and do everything, be everything I could think of, taste everything I could never pronounce, and write about it whenever I could find the words. Since traveling to Russia, I've also studied in France and England, traveled to Hungary and Austria and Mexico, and lived in Morocco. I'm headed to Dubai in a month.

I think my wide-eyed 14 year-old self would be impressed by my passport and experiences thus far. And I imagine, in classic teenage fashion, she would expect even greater adventures to come.

I would hate to disappoint her.

Favorite Spaces

I asked a friend a couple days ago to tell me his favorite place abroad and his response inspired me to think up my favorite spaces, stateside and in the whole wide world. And here they are, in no particular order, totally subjective and based purely on the company involved, the daydreams had, and the presence of sunny skies on the day(s) visited:

1. Favorite beach: Essaouira in Morocco. The blue and white of the boats sticks with me, as does my first and only camel ride, which occurred on the sand outside the city.

2. Favorite mountain: Roan Mountain, Tennessee. Family is everything.

3. Favorite mountain range: The Atlas in Morocco, specifically, the pass between Marrakech and Ourzazate.

4. Favorite large city: Marrakech, London

5: Favorite middle-sized city: New Orleans, Bath (England), Tours (France)

6: Favorite small town: Elizabethton, Tennessee

7: Favorite place to get lost: the souk in Marrakech

8: Favorite breakfast place: That one cafe in Bath with the crazy good eggs and sausage

9: Favorite lunch place: Reginellis in New Orleans, Hanout to the left of the second street in Youssoufia, Morocco with the hottest bread and freshest sardines, Imos in St. Louis, Sims in Little Rock, The Flying Fish in Little Rock

10: Favorite dinner place: Muriel's in New Orleans, Delachaise in New Orleans, Leila's kitchen in Morocco, Cunetto's in St. Louis

11: Favorite snack: sweet peanuts and fresh steamed chickpeas in Morocco

12: Best shopping: Magazine Street in New Orleans, the section of the souk in Marrakech with the crazy lanterns and yarn, the dye section of the Fes souk

13: Best nightlife (bars/pubs): Bath, New Orleans

14: Best theatre: Fox Theatre in St. Louis

15: Best place to swim: waterfall on the road to Hana, Hawaii

16: Best place to have a great time even though you have no knowledge of the language: Vienna

17: Best cheesey tourist location: Big Ben, Buckingham Palace

18: Best cheese: Tours, France, and the Porter's Cahill at the Delachaise in New Orleans

19: Best wine: Tokaj, Hungary

20: Most terrifying/exciting car ride: cab between Marrakech and Ourzazate

21: Prettiest scenery: Alaska, driving to Denali

22: Best place to breathe deep: Audobon Park in New Orleans in the spring, top of Pinnacle Mountain in Arkansas, square outside the theatre in Tver, Russia, with a bit of snow in the air

23: Most beautiful sounds: "Allah Akbar" prayer call during Ramadan in Marrakech ("God is great" translates for any faith), Caroline singing in the car, when my mom calls me "Honey", morning on the Roan, slap of running shoes on pavement, rain on my window in New Orleans, wind at Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, sound of a bat hitting the ball at Busch Stadium

And there are more favorites tucked away, I'm sure. But this is a good start.

Another September 11th

I suppose every generation has their moment. Their "where were you when...?" question. I was 20 on this day seven years ago , standing in my room at the sorority house, wearing my new camel-colored sweater and rolling my hair. My roommate, Christina, had already left for class and I was watching a rerun of Designing Women when the program was interrupted for that first message. I thought perhaps the pilot was drunk, and I was angry at him. How could he be so careless, so cruel?

I kept watching, of course, and I remember hearing televisions in other rooms, and knew other girls were watching the same thing. But nobody knocked on my door. I didn't hear any cries of, "hey guys, are you watching this?!" Perhaps we were all waiting for the explanation, the acknowledgment of incompetence or drugs. And then the second plane hit and I heard someone somewhere cry out. Did I cry out, too? I don't remember. I kept watching, and at some point I called my Mom.

I tried to call a dear friend, Francis, who was living in New York at the time. In my mind, all of NYC was burning. Hordes of demon planes were crashing everywhere and surely Francis would be hit. But nobody could get through to New York that day. I wandered across campus to the library to find Christina and by the time I arrived the Pentagon smoke was flying. Or was it the White House? I forget what we thought at first. Was the White House gone? No, that plane crashed. But the Pentagon...

I don't remember much of what followed, besides the candlelight vigil, the prayers, the worry that maybe this changed everything. I didn't realize, of course, that Sept.11 would set in motion the political moves that would eventually lead to my evacuation from Peace Corps. When I left for my service in Morocco months after the 11th, my dad mentioned a concern about Sadaam Hussein, Afghanistan, but I had no sense of the threat. Looking back, my parents must have been more than a little nervous to watch their wholly naive firstborn jaunt off to an Arab country less than a year after the news blasted Arab faces across the screen and called them murderers. I wasn't afraid in that context. And I had no cause to be. My villagers, my host families, my Moroccan friends, they were all some of the kindest, warmest people I've ever met. Some of them were angry, maybe mean, but no more so than any angry American. And I loved Morocco more than I've loved any other place on earth, save one, save New Orleans.

A week or so after the U.S. invaded Iraq, I was riding a taxi, alone, with a police escort, from my village east of Esfi to join my fellow volunteers at a hotel in Marrakech, where we watched the news and waited for the end.

Seven years is a long time. I've heard a million times that Sept. 11 changed America forever. America lost her innocence. America will never be the same. I would agree with that sentiment, but it's fairly obvious and painfully cliche. I don't think America is worse off due to Sept. 11, anymore than she is worse off due to other tragedies, other natural disasters, other wars. Losing innocents, burying those that should not have died, that is a pain that inspires broken hearts and vehemently powerful brotherhood. If there is anything Sept. 11 says about America today, it is that we own our history, we hold it and treasure it, and then we walk on. We build. We grow. We fight. We potentially elect the first black president or the first female vice president. We have things to be proud of and we are not quiet in our pride. And I think that says something about the backbone that was not broken on the 11th. There is something to be said of our blood, of a country built on the shoulders of men and women who largely came here with nothing and built something out of the dirt. Of men and women who were shackled here against their will and who broke free, rose up, and became as much a source of success of this country as the descendants of those who owned them. We, as a country, are used to rising from ashes, we have built and rebuilt a country on the graves of innocents, honoring their lives by building, growing, and building again.

Both

I found this written in a journal I never got attached to (they're like people, journals, some of them just don't fit). It isn't dated but I imagine it was written in Kansas City, when I was still trying to fathom how I'd ended up in Kansas after what felt like a small eternity in Morocco. I should have written more...

I couldn’t breathe some mornings. I woke up in various training locations (a shared room in Fes, a camp-like dormitory in Rabat, a family stay in Immouzer) feeling as though a pack of wild dogs sat on my chest, pressing my lungs with their weight and threatening various arteries with their jaws. Bee stings ran through my veins, tears made my nose run, and then I’d close my eyes for the split second I allowed, and decide to survive the day. The scariest moments are always in the beginning, when you don’t know where you’re headed, when the language is still gibberish, when the stares at your red hair are still new and disturbing. The beginning is full of companions, fellow Volunteers, and they cushion the daily assault of culture, toilets you “flush” with an expertly tossed bucket, stares, discomfort, and fever. They are your anchor and you, their halfdead dinghy.

I sometimes wonder if it happened. If I walked the souks of Marrakech and Essaouira and Youssoufia and Safi. If I bought those scarves from the crippled man in Fes or if I picked them up at the mall in town and wished my way to Morocco. If I fasted for Ramadan and broke fast with that soup and those honeyed cookies and those perfectly boiled eggs. I wonder if I loved it as much as my heart tells me I did. And can love really increase so much? Exponentially? Or is that only regret?

The feeling is different now, missing Morocco. When I wrote in that journal I could barely contain my loathing for my life, the way it had ended up. I hated Kansas City then, hated Megan for making me stay, hated my President for forcing me there after finding a home in that village. I was angry more than I was sad. The sadness came later and sank in only when I started law school and realized the freedom I sacrificed for this education. But I'm not so sad anymore, I don't think. My life feels like mine again, and not some accident or consequence of outside action I could not control. In all its mistakes and missteps and adventures and surprises, my life feels like something I built. So now missing Morocco feels like a part of my day, a part of my life. It no longer consumes every perspective, it's just there. Like a scar. Or a favorite sweatshirt. Both.