The End

It's August 1 as I'm writing this post. It's an interesting date, marking the end of one month and the beginning of another, but also a few endings and beginnings for me.

Today marked the end of my "boot camp" experience. I felt surprisingly sad as I walked out of the clinic building this afternoon. Most of my classmates will be leaving town tomorrow (I'll leave Friday), and while for weeks I couldn't wait for it to be over, now I feel like the end has come too soon.

The flipside is that this marks the beginning of the second half of my graduate career in speech-language pathology. I have completed a milestone that I was waiting nearly two years for. I am much more able to imagine myself as a speech-language pathologist someday. Maybe someday relatively soon. And that feels pretty good.

This week also marks the official end of my Moroccan adventure. This week, T accepted a job at a community college in Maryland. Next Wednesday, I will pick him up at the airport in Omaha, and soon after that--if all goes as we plan--we will be driving out to Maryland to start the next chapter in our lives. So there's another beginning.

And with the end of my time in Morocco comes the end of Cornfields to Casbahs. I think I need to take a break from blogging during this time of transition in my life. If I find, after moving to Maryland, that my life is eventful enough to support continued blogging, I'll start a new blog, and I'll post a link to it on this blog for you, my seven faithful readers.

In the meantime, thanks for reading. Thanks for your support and for (occasionally) sharing your lives with me.

All the best, friends.

The crowd I've been hanging with

On risk-taking

I have been thinking a lot lately about risks. This is related to the very uncertain situation in which I find myself. In a nutshell, it is this: I am in the United States without a plane ticket to Morocco, and my husband is in Morocco without a plane ticket to the United States. He could buy a one-way ticket and bring all of our stuff with him to the U.S., but if he doesn't get a job offer, he'll have to buy two more one-way tickets, and we'll have to move all of our stuff back to Morocco. He could buy a two-way ticket and come here without our stuff, but then if he gets a job offer, he'll have to go back to Morocco, get our stuff, and then come back here and then move to our new (but still hypothetical) home.

Anything we do at this point involves risk, and we are not big risk-takers. The last big risk we took (and I'm still amazed we were ever able to make the decision to do this) was over two years ago when I quit my job without either of us having a job lined up. Soon after, T was offered the position in Morocco, and things turned out okay. But we were different then, and the economy was different then. I want to think that he could buy a one-way ticket and pack up our belongings and come here--now. That's what I want because I miss him terribly and because I'm ready to move on from Morocco. The universe doesn't owe us anything, though, and there's no reason to assume that one or both of us could find gainful employment here. If we stay in Morocco, we have an income, but I will stop making progress toward my new career. If we come here, we might not have an income, and T would stop making progress in his career.

It makes me think a lot about this poem. Choosing a path is always a risk, but we must choose nevertheless.

Pictures without words

...Because I don't have time, and because my voice-to-text program seems to have quit working.

Dad at Arrow Rock State Historic Site, Missouri

Japanese Garden at Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis

Part of the Lantern Festival at the Missouri Botanical Gardens

Birds inside the "Climatron" at the Missouri Botanical Gardens

Pineapples in the Climatron

More birds...I like birds...

Corpse flower

Greenhouse from the 1800s (somewhat remodeled, I'm assuming)

Hummingbird at Harmonie State Park, Indiana

Turtle at at Harmonie State Park, Indiana

Recent finds at the Bowling Green Farmers' Market

With several classmates after our tour of Mammoth Cave

Mammoth Cave photos are courtesy of my classmate Eve...

 

Ranger Rick...seriously!

On celebrating the Fourth of July in America

There are a lot of things I've wanted to write about over the last week and a half, but time is really getting away from me. So I guess I'll just start with the present: the Fourth of July, Independence Day in the United States of America.

The day isn't over yet, but my celebration of it is. And today I had the most traditional celebration that I can remember for years. It involved hot dogs and hamburgers and chips and potato salad and pie as well as people wearing red, white, and blue.

I celebrated the day with several members of my "cohort" here in Kentucky. It was quite different from my slightly ironic Fourth of July celebration last year, when I went out for hamburgers in Ifrane with a group of fellow Americans (although I didn't have a hamburger, of course).

We were all expatriates there. Here, I don't know what I am. I am trying to move back to the United States, but it's more because I want to find out whether or not I still want to live here than because I know I want to live here.

I'm lucky to have a friendly and inclusive group of classmates, but the truth is that I often feel left out, or out of place with them. I am experiencing more disorientation and culture shock than I thought could be possible after only two years of living overseas.

I am experiencing this at every level. Grocery shopping takes me forever. I'm shocked by the lack of pedestrians or bicyclists in this town (and I don't think it's just because the temperature has been in the 100s [Fahrenheit] over the last few days). I'm irritated by the number of rules related to safety (today the pool in my hotel is closed because the pH is off). I'm saddened by the ridiculous political divisions. I'm angered by the unnecessary costs of healthcare. I'm disgusted by all the unhealthy food. I'm bored by conversations about smelly armpits and leg hair. I don't know what this Magic Mike movie is, and I don't know when "frozen yogurt" became "fro yo.” I don't know when everyone in the country got a smart phone and a GPS and stopped being able to read maps.

I’m left now with a lot of open-ended questions and very little time to reflect on them (which is another disorienting aspect of being here). So: situation normal.

Happy Independence Day, everyone. May you be free to discover and celebrate your own definition of freedom.

On car breakdowns, father/daughter relationships, and being in Kentucky

There are a lot of things I didn't do that I should have done while I was in Nebraska. One thing I did, though, was spent time with my parents and with some of my friends. I only had one full day with my mom, and we spent that day doing things we don't normally do – like getting pedicures and shopping at the mall.

I didn't get nearly enough time with my mom, but I had a lot of time with my dad. In fact, weeks ago, we planned a camping road trip to get me from Nebraska to Bowling Green, Kentucky. (I'm here for five weeks doing a clinical internship as part of my Master's work in speech-language pathology.)

This was the plan: we would take my dad's truck and his new camper, and we would luxuriously spread out the approximately 16 hours of driving over a period of four days, arriving in Bowling Green on Saturday night or on Sunday morning, with plenty of time to get me settled before Monday morning (today).

As I've written before, though, planning is best thought of as a hobby than anything else. It isn't to be taken too seriously. Just about two hours out on our adventure, not far from Hamburg, Iowa, the engine of my dad's truck suddenly and quite seriously overheated. We got the truck and camper to the auto repair shop in Hamburg (the business name is "Risky Business"). Not long after that, it was clear that the truck wasn't gonna go anywhere unless it was pulled by a tow truck.

I have a tendency – or, at least, I used to have a tendency – to freak out in situations like that. Maybe it was the element of surprise (as my dad said, the truck was the one thing he wasn't worried about), maybe it was the stabilizing presence of my father, or maybe it was just the result of enough years of experience with things not going as planned, but I felt pretty calm at the same time that I genuinely had no idea how I was going to get to Kentucky.

We had the camper set up in Hamburg, but we decided that wouldn't be a very exciting camping location, and staying there wasn't going to get us any closer to Kentucky, so we had somebody tow the truck and take us back to my parents' house. It was sort of like starting over on a video game but with a pretty severe penalty (specifically, we now had no vehicle to get us to Kentucky and no obvious way to go camping).

I offered to try to buy a last-minute plane ticket, but my father, who had worked hard all week in preparation for his vacation, persevered with his dream. He promptly rented a van, and we loaded up all the supplies we could think of for car/tent camping.

I might write later about the actual camping, but the places we went to and the sights that we saw were really secondary to the experience for me. The truly unique part of the trip was having all of that time with my father. I felt that a camping trip of a father and his 33-year-old daughter was something unusual.

I'm writing about this on my blog because one of the things I feel I have gained during my time overseas is a deeper appreciation for and connection to my family, especially my parents. We talk about almost everything in my family, and while at times this can feel like an invasion of privacy, ultimately I am thankful for the closeness and openness we have with each other.

I'm also amazed by my father's dedication to the three women in his life. I realized after we got to Bowling Green that he has always been there when my sister and I have gone off to school (and in case you're wondering, between the two of us, we have now moved to a total of five different schools in five different states).

My dad was pretty exhausted by the time we got here on Saturday, so he stuck around on Saturday and Sunday nights and of course continue to help me by driving me around town to get groceries and other supplies. He was still here when I left this morning for my first day of "boot camp," and when I came back to my room late this afternoon, it felt suddenly very quiet and very empty.

It was at four o'clock this afternoon that it finally hit me: I'm in Bowling Green, Kentucky for the next five weeks. It's a place I've never been to before, and I'm here to learn something entirely new and difficult. I don't have a car and am dependent on people I just met for transportation. My husband is on another continent, and I don't know exactly when or where I'll see him next.

It's one of those experiences I'm sure you've had before, where a big, "future" event (at least, for a long, long time, you thought of it as "future") crashes suddenly and jarringly into the present. This happened on my wedding day (in a good way) and on the day I left for Morocco (in a, well, somewhat anxiety-provoking way).

So here I am--by myself for an extended period of time for the first time in my adult life. Wish me luck.

The other one

This is the bird I have left. I'm still now sure how I feel about that...

On convenience

Posted from the cornfields...

I have been thinking of multiple alternative monikers for the United States during my week here, and one of those is "land of convenience." I was thinking of this as I ate my dinner this evening: a sweet potato (a.k.a. yam) with cheddar cheese. It didn't even take me five minutes to prepare this dinner.

First of all, the sweet potato was easy and convenient to obtain. I got it at a large grocery store in Omaha, but even the two little grocery stores here in David City sell them. I suppose it's possible that yams are sold in Morocco, but I've never seen them, and I'm guessing they would only be sold in Rabat and Casa, both several hours away from Ifrane. The cheddar cheese nearest to Ifrane is at the Label Vie in Meknes (an hour away), and it is so rarely purchased that one must check it over for mold before buying any. Some people in rural America may have to drive to the nearest city to get "specialty" groceries like chickpea flour, tempeh, or chard, but generally, in the U.S. these days, one can find just about any grocery item one wants.

And virtually every community in the U.S. has grocery stores and "super" stores (like Super Wal-Mart) that provide "one stop shopping," something that is definitely not the norm in Morocco. To buy everything you need in one shopping trip seems almost impossible in Morocco, but to do it, you would need to go to several different vendors at the marché, to Label Vie, to Marjane, to the bakery, etc.

Another aspect of the convenience of my meal was that I barely had to wash the sweet potato because it was so clean. In Morocco, when we buy foods that were grown in the ground, they look like they were grown in the ground! Those of us who buy and eat fresh food spend a surprisingly large amount of time just cleaning it, something that isn't necessary in the U.S.

I haven't had a microwave oven since moving to Morocco, so if I somehow found a sweet potato there and wanted to eat it, I'd have to plan at least an hour ahead so I could bake it. Here, I cooked my sweet potato in three minutes.

On making couscous with Hafida

Posted from the cornfields...

Hafida and me

Last Thursday, the day before I left Ifrane, Hafida showed me how to make couscous. I was initially stressed by the thought of adding "cook a big meal" to my to-do list for the day before leaving the country, but it turned out that, by the time we were ready to start cooking, my bags were packed and I had very little to do anyway.

Those of you who have cooked with this semolina product before may be wondering, "What's there to show you? You just add some boiling water to the couscous and let it soak up the water and then do whatever you want to do with it." That's what I thought before moving to Morocco. I quickly learned that I had been doing it wrong all along.

When Moroccans talk about "making couscous," they are talking about a complete dish that consists of seasoned, stewed vegetables (traditionally onions, turnips, carrots, pumpkin, zucchini, and cabbage, plus chickpeas) and (usually) meat served atop couscous that has been thrice steamed above the stew using a couscoussier. This method makes the couscous light and fluffy as well as flavorful, since it absorbs additional flavor from the stew.

Moroccan society, compared to society in the United States, is still very traditional, so virtually all Moroccan families have couscous as the large midday meal on Fridays. Couscous is prepared in a very particular way, too, and I was lucky that Hafida was willing (although not entirely happy) to 1) make a vegetarian version and 2) leave out the tomatoes so a friend of mine with a tomato allergy could join us for the meal.

We didn't talk a lot as we cooked, but I still enjoyed the time with Hafida, and I enjoyed learning from her. I thought about how she must have begun cooking couscous with her mother when she was a very little girl, and that if she had a daughter (she has only one child, a son), she would teach her daughter in the same way. I thought about my relationship with my own mother, and about the things I wish I had taken the opportunity to learn from her when I was a young girl. Living in Morocco has helped me to become more aware of both the reasons why I appreciate the flexible norms of my own culture and of the things that can be lost as a result of that flexibility.

Just as we were finished preparing the couscous, our friends Lynn and Karen stopped by. We convinced Hafida to stay and eat the meal with us. She helped me serve the couscous Moroccan style, on one large platter from which everyone could eat. It was a great way to spend my final afternoon in Ifrane.

T was there, too; he took the photo.

Soon after I got to Nebraska, I tried to prepare couscous for my parents. I tried not to make too many changes, but I left out the pumpkin and chickpeas and tried using vegetarian "chicken." Mom and Dad said it was fine, but I thought it wasn't remotely as good as the couscous I had made with Hafida. I think this is due only in part to my lack of experience preparing the dish. What contributed to the deliciousness of the couscous I made with Hafida was the newness of the experience as well as the companionship. My theory is that couscous cooked alone is not as tasty as couscous cooked with a family member or friend.

But at least I got to eat my couscous with family.

Mom, Dad, and Pierre, ready to try my couscous (served in the tagine I brought with me from Morocco)