Why Do I Do This To Myself?

I was working on my presentation for my community analysis yesterday. As dusk began to settle, I took the earbuds off for a moment. I had been listening to a newly downloaded soundtrack of Silent Hill Homecoming. I enjoy ambient music while I work, but I understand that maybe the music of the horror survival genre isn't exactly meant for normal everyday use.

The family had gone out for the afternoon while I worked, as they usually do, and I had the house to myself. The first sound that I heard was that of a low rumbling beyond the mountains. I tried to think of when the last time was that I heard a plane come into the Er Rachidia airport. Unable to recall, I decided to go outside, when I saw this.

I watched for a moment, as the strange rumblings seemed to continue with the creeping edges of the fog that made their way down the mountainside like enormous white snakes. The mountains slowly dissolved into the fog, rounding out the edges until they became one amorphous entity. Behind me, the rumblings continued, and I wondered how the sounds of the plane were coming from an area when the airport is in another direction and there are no larger cities that I could recall that would allow me to place an origination for the sound of the plane to come from that direction.

As the fog continued to devour the mountainside, I watched as fog lights began to blink on, hazy at first but then they glowed brightly like yellow eyes in the coming night. The wind began to call out from the valley, the mountainsides forming a perfect empty vessel for the echoes of the wind. And then I heard the sound of children laughing. It wasn't a playful laughing of children enjoying life, it was the maniacal laughter of children who had just gotten away with something they knew was terribly, terribly wrong. Figures emerged from the fog like little black shadows, and I took a few steps back to run to the bathroom.

The light flickered for a moment of two, making my shadow appear and disappear a few times before finally the light remained on. The rumblings continued outside and I pressed the door closed as best I could. The spiders hovered above me, their legs dangling back and forth like black fronds. The frogs that had decided to hide in here appeared even more mutated than usual, their skin glowed an almost toxic green and their eyes looked as though they were trying to pop out of their heads. I decided it best to be as quick as possible in this room.

I started to go back into the house where some of the family members had come in for the night. By this time the street had been completely devoured, but two white lights made their way through the fog and towards the house. I watched as the same taxi from my dream the night before emerged, the flaking yellow paint revealing rust across the edges of the doors. From my room, where I had my computer music set to random, I heard the Theme From a Summer Place, the song that featured prominently in Stephen King's adaptation of Rose Red.

***
I think for the next few days I'm going to just listen to peaceful music and meditation music. Yeah...

Society as a Ticking Clock or Mobius Strip

She (let's call her Princess Leia, due to PCV rules about privacy, security, et al.) and I sat next to each other on the bus, both of us holding a hundred dirhams in our hands and prepared to pay for our bus seats. After travelling back and forth from my site to Errachidia, I know that the price is fifteen dirhams for each each. The man comes to our seats and takes my hundred dirham note and gives me back seventy.

"No, I need fifteen more dirhams." I said.
"Ticket to your village is thirty dirhams total."
"No, we aren't together." I said, surprisingly forceful.
"You are sitting next to each other. You two are married."
"No." She finally said, brandishing her hundred dirham note like a gun. "We are not married. I pay for my own. We go to different cities."
"You two Americans are so crazy." he says, to the laughter of the bus.
"It's okay," Princess Leia said, "I'll just owe you fifteen dirhams. He thought we were married."

I sat there, fuming, and then I realized why I got angry so quickly - I didn't even take the time to think about whether he thought we were married, but rather I immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was just trying to rip off two foreigners to get more money. But for some reason, that thought, too, unsettled me. Is it because I don't want people to have a false notion of who I am? Is it because I don't want my identity to be wrapped up in another person, and that association being the only thing someone knows about me? Granted, we are known by the company that we keep, but still, it was unsettling that living here, just because a man and a woman sit next to each other, it is automatically assumed that they are married.

I got back to my site and started walking around. I managed to speak with the president of our association here, and we started to walk around the town, where I met more of the men of the village and even was shown a potential house to rent. While in the village, I am used to dealing with only men, though - my lack of arbitrary language skills keeps our conversations to the point - and the few times that I have dealt with women have always been very limited. I wonder if after two years, this is going to affect the way that I deal with women back home?

That is definitely one thing I miss about American culture - the ability to associate with women. But right now, I am in the mood to ramble, so let's go further with this; let's look at both sides.

I have always found it easier to associate with women than with men - I'm not good at memorizing sports statistics or feigning interest in The Super Bowl or The World Series or The World Cup, nor am I adept at navigating the constant haranguing of each other that characterizes so many interactions between men trying to establish themselves as the Alpha Male. Granted, it is people in general that I find it difficult to connect with - sometimes it is even to the point where when I deal with people, I feel like I am not really there, or that there is an invisible glass wall between us and we can't really touch. But at least, when I deal with women I don't feel as obligated to prove myself to them.

But in Morocco, I deal with almost exclusively men. I don't understand a lot of what they say - and maybe that's the reason I don't feel like I need to prove myself now - but the culture that encourages this separation of the sexes seems interesting to me. The fact that some women walk around in coverings that don't allow me to see their faces, that some women stay inside, that some women won't really talk to me, it just makes me feel like in a way, they aren't supposed to be seen, like the goings on of the world are meant to be experienced by only the men. But then I go home and I see how my host mom and dad interact with each other and I can see a completely different dynamic. The women make the meals, the women interact with each other while the men are gone. The women find out the goings on of the community and tell it to their husbands at day's end.

It's like the world here is a ticking clock, and Morocco, there is an enormous face on the clock with innumerable hands - each of the hands are the men. But inside the clock is the gears, the things that make the surface of the clock actually move. The women are the gears that make the clock go, but the gears and the hands never touch. In America, that used to be the case, but now, America could be thought of as a Mobius strip in regards to women and men. The roles of women and men are no longer clearly defined, and this allows everyone to connected to each other in some form or another. But if a part of the Mobius Strip is destroyed, it is gone.

So we have two issues at stake here. In Morocco, the roles are clearly defined, and so it is easier to find your place in a culture and your role to keep it going. However, this makes two distinct worlds - one of women and one of men, leaving little room for individual growth. In America, the relaxation of gender roles allows individual growth, but a more chaotic society that can be a bit more confusing to keep working well.

I know that there are many worlds beneath the surface one - worlds of race and class and sex and education - but just speaking from a gender point of view and the abilities to associate with whom you choose, I can't help but wonder if men and women here wish they could look around the other side of the clock face. Likewise, I wonder if the men and women of America ever wish they had another side to look to and wonder about.

Now We Are Free, by Lisa Gerrard

I don't know why, but for some reason, when I hear this song, I am filled with a sense of being lifted up. Maybe for the fellow volunteers who are feeling down or like everything is moving slowly, just listen to the song. Maybe it will do for you what it does for me, too.

Distorted Mirrors

All actions of our lives connect to the actions of others, forming within them an inextricable link into each others' hearts and minds throughout space and time. I believe that most people inherently know this, but it remains hidden - this is where we get selfish actions and actions that harm one another. I myself obviously suffer form this, as well. The point is that this inherent knowledge can make it very easy to predict and understand what people will do, but not necessarily what a person will do.

I was watching Al Jazeera the other day in Er Rachidia with another volunteer - Al Jazeera is merely a news organization here, not a terrorist tool - when a show came on about Nicaragua. after watching a few minutes of it, I realized that the US was not coming our very nice in it.

"This news program seems a bit one sided," I asked, "Don't you think?"
"Yeah," He replied, "Nobody really watches it here except for the uneducated. Most people who use Al Jazeera as their primary news source don't really know about what's going on in the world. Think of it like the Fox News of the Middle East."

I thought of that, but not only that, but also other news organizations, like CNN and MSNBC. Every one of them has their biases. The coverage of elections, the coverage of issues, the coverage of Democrats and Republicans by rival news media groups. And then I thought about other things - the issues in Tibet between the Tibetan media and the Chinese media. I thought of our coverage of events in the Middle East. I began to see them as though they were merely distorted mirrors, reflecting the events using their own biases and preconceived notions. And then I thought of how people view them, and then view reports of the reports, distorted mirrors reflecting off of each other until the original image become unrecognizable. And then I came to another realization.

Wherever you get your news - it does not matter if you get it from one source or many sources - you are going to get a distorted view of the events that occurred. This is reality, this is truth. It does not matter if you use only Al Jazeera or Fox or Huffington Post or BBC - you can collect as many distorted mirrors that you want in the name of being "balanced", but then you are left with a collection of distorted mirrors rather than one. You can watch as many programs about how "Big Business" or "Big Government" is ruining your lives - you can read about the treatment of Tibetan refugees, the US Army, Socialists in South America - you can read about how Muslim terrorists or the Republican Party or Communists or gays are trying to upend the entirety of human civilization - and all you will have are distorted mirrors. You will surround yourself with distorted mirrors until your entire world becomes a hideous shadowy figure of what it truly is.

I want to break all of my mirrors. I want to break the distortions that I have been taught to believe in. I want to hear the sound of shattering glass on the floor. I want to see the world for what it truly is. I can only do that by looking around me, at what I myself can see. A person cannot personally experience the entire world, but we can look around us and see the commonalities that we all share - our loves, our aversions, our desires - and we can see things that are common to us all.

Try it. Try to not use a news organization for a day. No, you will not be "uneducated about your world". Do not be afraid of what others think. They may have picked up another distorted mirror that tells them that some group committed an unjustifiable injustice against someone, or that some group is doing such and such to some other group.

But you know what? I just watched a rock fall down the mountain in the morning sun. I watched it tumble from the top all the way down, knocking down little pieces of the mountain with it, and I know that mountain will never be as it once was. I experienced the world changing, little by little. I saw it with my own eyes.

What do you see?

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason, and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. ~Buddha

Black Friday, meet Souk Monday, kif kif

There is a familiar busyness to the people here in Morocco on souk days.

Souk days are the main shopping days here, where there are many more items available to purchase, and at somewhat discounted prices, depending on your bargaining skills. The streets congest with people, and you don't really move yourself, but rather float along the streets and shops like you are in an unstoppable river. At the end of the day - the last time I was there for about 8 hours - you leave the madhouse of the souk for the madhouse of the bus station where, again, you don't really move, but instead float among the river of people onto a hot bus packed so tightly that people are sitting in the aisle on stools that they just saved two dirhams on at the souk.

I remember as a child when my mom would wake up the family at about 4 or 5 in the morning the day after Thanksgiving so that we could go to the department stores to get all of the discounts on Christmas items. I can still taste the Cracker Jacks and the Hershey's Kisses that the stores would hide the discount papers in. The additional sugar gave us that final burst of energy we would need for the next few hours as we were moved by the river of people from store to store, and then from the store to the parking lot.

Needless to say, I don't go to any of the big cities on souk days.

Silence is Sound

We didn't speak this morning. Through the silence,
I watched you two look into each others' faces,
the steam from the tea glasses
rose through the air like ghosts.

Outside, stones within the mountainsides
rise and fall in the red rock form.
I think of Ouroboros,
the snake that swam through time,
eating its tail, choking on its words.

Behind the houses are rows of white bee boxes.
Here, there are bees singing continuously,
the sound echoes through the air like electricity.

People stand silently here as dawn breaks,
but the worlds around me speak.

One day, I will learn their language.

Right Speech

The Buddha taught us that the way to avoid suffering and learn compassionate detachment is to follow the Eightfold Path. One part of the Eightfold Path is Right Speech, which entails instructions against gossip, lying, and idle talk. Basically, the ideal man speaks only what is necessary when it is necessary. I must admit that this is sometimes very difficult for me to follow.

I bring this up not because I have finally perfected this, but because I seem to have found a way to help with this. I have discovered that by having to learn another language, being in this small village by myself, with people whose English is limited, I am forced to learn the basics of Tamazight - I do not have the time as of yet to learn the frivolous parts of the language. By doing this, I have found that I am beginning to follow this part of the Eightfold Path. It feels good, to know that the words that I say have purpose, to know that what I say is always something that must be met with action, rather than idle chatter.

Now all that I have to do is learn how to do it in English.

Existential Optimism

CBT is finished. I scored intermediate middle on my language test, which is among the highest. I had the chance to be selected to give the speech to my fellow volunteers, but the situation was such that I was but a single set of white orbs in a sea of other white orbs, bobbing up and down to the rhythmic waves of another person’s words. The training sessions are over, and when we go to our sites, it is for real - we will find ourselves in another ocean - the ocean of another culture, and it really is sink or swim. I don’t have a safety raft, I don’t have wings or any sort of device to keep myself afloat but my own mind and stubbornness to not give up. I am, in a way, free to decide how I will interact with my own community, and what sort of lessons I will give. I have always found it strange at how heavy freedom weighs on one’s shoulders.

It is strange, this feeling. Like I can do anything, but the fact of this knowledge sometimes paralyzes me. I am fairly certain that it was Sartre, maybe, who spoke of Existential Despair. That moment of your life when you seem to see beyond the people and things that you normally see and realize that every thing, every person, every action that you have taken or not taken, is all but a part of an interconnected whole, that in itself it also empty. Everyone’s actions, both mundane and supernatural, repeats itself utterly throughout all of time into ocean upon ocean, reflecting itself into itself throughout all of time. I believe Sartre described it in layman’s terms as staring into the void. In a way, I feel like I have been looking into that void the past few days.

However, I am not frightened by it. I look into the fact that we are all, in fact, empty, as a means of incredible hope and optimism. Yes, my actions, in and of themselves, are but a part of the whole interconnectedness of all beings around me. Yes, my thoughts are but the few drops that have fallen onto my mind from the fountainhead of another being. Yes, everyone around me is going to be waiting to see what I can or cannot do, and I am looking at everyone in my town wondering what they expect of me. And it is the fact of that emptiness, the fact that we are all in this together, so to speak, that makes me so very proud and happy to be here.

I can do anything. That ocean of one’s life can be completely disrupted by a single stone that sends ripples through itself. I can do anything. Somebody can just as easily disrupt the entire ocean of my being, to where my own reflection becomes undeterminable, and I am left with shards of who I once was. I can do anything. Even after it all settles and I think that the ocean of my being has become what it once was, I am forced to acknowledge that the little stone has forever altered it.

The same applies to anybody: You can do anything. You can become anything. All it takes is one little stone.

Will be a PCV soon

It is difficult to describe these past weeks. I can imagine it has been a while since I have posted anything. It’s strange how the days just seem to string together like this. It is not boredom, but rather that my life, up until this point, has been rather methodical and monotonous - wake up, breakfast, class, lunch, rest, go home, dinner, go to sleep. But every time it is so different than back at home. So, rather than talk about the monotony of the final days of training, I will focus instead on what is to come.


I passed my language test. I exceeded the tester’s expectations. I needed to probe more to determine whether or not that was a compliment. My days in our training town are coming to an end. Other volunteers are mentioning this, though, but ever since we visited our final sites, we all feel as though we’ve already left our current ones. Some of us will never see each other again, save for the occasional PPST and mid-service meetings. I am more than fortunate that I have found within our ranks a kindred soul. That, and I don’t think I would be able to do any of this without my red potion.

So, as it turns out, I think the president of my community’s association is interested in New Age type things. He is, of course, a Muslim, however; his forays into differing spiritual practices are academic or purely out of curiosity. He was interested in the yoga cards that I brought with me, and he is also interested in the fact that I am able to give meditation lessons. This leads me to my next point - I have a good idea as to what I will be doing when I get to my final site. Since the president of my association is interested in my teaching English and New Age things, I have decided that I want as a side project to teach some meditation techniques. I will, of course, not go in pretending to be some sort of expert, but some of people have expressed interest when I mention different meditation techniques, especially the loving kindness meditation. I begin to digress - I will teach some basic meditation and also start an English club. I serve about 8 villages all within a ten kilometer diameter.

So, while I am here, I will actually be able to finish another book, I think. I am so close to finishing my first book, I am so freaking excited you have no idea how excited I am. They are about to have their final battle and all of that, so it is rather exciting. I even have other books planned out. My fantasy books will go under my own name, but the non-fantasy ones will go under a pseudonym. I have also made it so that I have to run a total of 5 kilometers almost every day. This is for my own good. I am having my dad send me my running pants from home. I hope that the person I told will tell him. I will call, too, however.

When I get my internet in my site, I will be able to write more existential topics because I will be able to write at any time. Right now I can write about only general things since I don’t have daily access to the computer or internet. Love you all.