The Wedding Festival: "So a Buddhist walks into a tent..."

I rode the transit bus up to Imilchil, where the Wedding Festival took place. As I looked out past the weeping willows that lined the dirt road and the aspen trees that lined the gardens that each family owned, I looked out at the crooked rocks of the mountains. As the dust rose from the street, I looked out at the mountain closest to me and saw that the rocks created a combined red and orange color. The mountain behind it was purple, and behind that was a blue mountain. Behind that, I saw the peaks of the final mountain, grey in the distance. Finally, the mountains that remained disappeared into the mists and clouds of the sky, which themselves formed more mountains that hovered above me.

“The interesting thing about the aspen,” Princess Leia said, “Is that they are all one tree.”
“Really?” I asked, “I can make a poem about that. Something that connects the aspen tree and the families here. The families don’t move far away, and by being close, that makes them stronger.”
“Yes,” Princess Leia said, “But if something happens to one tree, it messes up all of the others.”
“I see.” I said, “Then the analogy is apt.”

Once a year the people of the various mountain tribes in the Atlas Mountains converge at a special meeting place for the Imilchil Moussem. This special meeting, which takes place in September, is primarily a massive souk where 30 000 or more Berbers gather to sell and trade their possessions. However, the gathering is not merely an exercise in financial expertise - it is also the place of the largest wedding fair in the country. The tradition was started when officials during the colonial area insisted that Berbers assemble once a year to register births, deaths and marriages.

We continued to the Wedding Festival, where we and some other volunteers were scheduled to give blood pressure tests. Not knowing how to test blood pressure, however, left me with the job of keeping children occupied through the day. I laid out a sheet of paper on the table, set out colored pencils, and let them take over from there. I decided that I wanted to make the lessons have an organic feel, so I waited until they drew something related to health – a man smoking a cigarette would lead to a discussion on why not to smoke, or a soda can would lead into a nutrition discussion – all in all, that portion went exceedingly well.

Throughout the festival, however, it became clear that the white Americans who knew the Berber languages and Moroccan Arabic were the center of the show. Our tent was deluged with countless Moroccans, mostly men, throughout the entire festival. Some of the people think it was only for the fact that there were women at the tent; however, I do believe that a good portion of them had good intentions.

Another fact about Moroccan culture is that they have no concept nor need for lines. When in a public setting, there is no such thing as first come, first serve. The order in which one is helped is determined by how hard they can shove through everyone else. This isn’t considered rude, and usually, when an older person or women appears, the strong men will usually work to push that person up to the front. Nevertheless, in order to keep some semblance of order, there were always two people standing at the entrance to the tent. Of course, to stand against a tide of Moroccan men is as foolhardy as trying to stop the ocean by standing on the beach. The Moroccan men slowly pushed their way further and further into the tent, until all of the volunteers were pressed against the back wall. I had remember something that Princess Leia told me while walking through the kilometer length souk. She told me that I needed to be more assertive. So, I took a large step forward, cupped my hands around my mouth, and shouted.

“Can we please just try to make a line of people? Please?”

Suddenly, everybody looked at me as though they had just witnessed the rudest event in their lives. I looked at the other volunteer who stood as the guard.

“Is it asking too much that we put a little bit of order to this?”
“It’s nothing to worry about,” he replied, “They’ll so it how they always do it.”

I looked at the Moroccans, who all still stared at me. I decided that now was a good time to go to lunch. I ducked out of the back of the tent and walked down the road. I didn’t shout out of anger, but out of a desire to see some order. And yet, I found myself trembling. I knew that I was experiencing the physical sensations of anger, but I refused to allow myself to feel that in my mind. I was certain that what I did was not done out of anger, and yet my Catholic upbringing forced me to feel guilty about what happened. I sat down at a nearby tent, where I ordered a half kilo of chicken, and went over to the corner of the tent and sat down.

A few moments later, a group of men sat down next to me. Being Moroccan, it was only natural that the strangers would begin to talk to each other.

“Bonjour.” One of the men said.
“Oh no,” I replied, “I’m not French. I’m American.”
“Oh yes. Very good.” He replied in English.
“You speak English?” I asked.
“And you speak Berber?” he replied.

We continued on for a moment in Berber, the three other men simply listening. Again, being Moroccan, the subject turned to religion. Of course, being interested in pursuing a Divinity Masters when I return to America, I jumped on board. Unlike most of the other volunteers, I am enthralled with the concept of proselytization. I grew up in the South, which is known for its numerous churches and proselytization attempts.

“Are you Catholic?” he asked.

I’m not sure what was a more discomforting theory; the theory that here was a man who could correctly guess the religion of a white person’s childhood, or the fact that my Catholic guilt has somehow created a physical characteristic. However, here I was, sitting high in the Atlas Mountains, discussing religion with four Berber men. During training, we were advised to tell people that we were Christian when asked this question. I could make this an easy conversation.

“No.” I said, “I am a Buddhist.”

The first man’s eye widened, and I wondered if I had made a mistake. But instead, he simply turned to his three companions and started talking about Japan and China, and I knew that they knew what I was. Of course, they had probably never met a Buddhist before. The questions continued.

“You’re Buddhist? As in Asia?”
“Well, Buddhism has spread throughout the entire world.” I said.
“I see. So, when do you pray?”
“When I see the sun and when I see the moon.” I said, trying to be as poetic as possible.
“Oh, so you pray to the sun and moon?”
“Oh no. I mean when I wake up and before I go to sleep.”
“You know, there is a saying in the Koran,” he said, “People pray to the sun, but it disappears. Then they pray to the moon, but it disappears, as well. Allah stays always.”

Okay, I thought to myself, don’t be poetic. Just try to explain it. You have one shot. You can do it. I knew I had to give them a good impression of Buddhists. I found that being the first representative of a faith is stressful. This is especially true when you don’t yet have the words for such phrases as “I vow to abstain from partaking in harming living beings,” or, “taking things not freely given,” or “Right Intention”.

“How do you pray when you wake up?” They asked.
“I pray when I wake up, may all people have happiness, and may all good things that I do spread out into the world.”
“And when you go to sleep?”
“May all people have happiness, and may all good things that I do spread out into the world.”
“And when you eat?”
“May all people have happiness, and may all good things that I do spread out into the world.”
“I see.”
“I do that because I understand that all things are one.”
“All things come from Allah?”
“Well, from what you believe, yes. But look,” I tear some pieces of bread, “Imagine these being good things. This is giving charity. This is helping someone with chores.” I then moved the pieces of bread away from me and in front of them. “When I do something good, and give it to you, it becomes part of you. What is good in me is now good in you because we are one.”

The men nodded their heads. We continued to muddle through some phrases and terms, and finally came up to another concept.

“Have you ever heard of the fitra?” I asked, naming a Sufi concept.
“Yes.”
“In Islam, every human has within them a divine nature called fitra, correct?”
“Yes.”
“In Buddhism, every human has the ability to become Buddhas. It is called Buddha nature.”

I wanted to use the finger pointing to the moon analogy,. But I remember my last attempt to use an analogy of the moon.

“In Islam, Allah is like a light that lights on everything. Everything has this divine nature. Because that divine nature inside of us is the same as Allah, it leads one naturally to Allah, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Everything comes from Allah, therefore everything is naturally light, and not darkness. Things that we do that seem bad are only so because when we act in that way, we are actually turning away from God. We think we see darkness simply because we turn away from the light.”
“Yeah,” the man said, nodding, “That’s right.”
“Buddhism is the same.” I said, hoping to get it right. “Our Buddha nature is like a light within us that guides us to an even greater light.”
“Well,” the man said, “Buddhism has a lot of what Islam has. But not everything.” He held his finger up as though he needed to specify that he wasn’t relenting, but that my explanations satisfied him for the time being.

I finished my meal, and left the tent to go back to work. I felt proud of myself – I didn’t given in and simply say I was Christian. I stood up for who I was and what I believed, and I did it in a way that, rather than being adversarial, was based in a spirit of mutual respect. I felt the Buddha would be proud of me. And that’s when I remember that it had been a week since I actually performed my morning prayers. Of course, when I realized that, the Catholic guilt quickly picked up the slack, rising in my body like the dust rose above the tents surrounding the mountain in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere, I thought, is a perfectly fine place to be.

Sonnet: aynna da d ligh s souk,‭ ‬da yash ghalgh

I chose a Shakespearean Sonnet for this poem. The Shakespearean Sonnet is typically used whenever the topic regards love, both obtained and unrequited. This love, however, is more of a universal love that I write about.

aynna da d ligh s souk, da yash ghalgh

da d tddugh souk ku simana,
nnag da ssagh lhwayj afad ad snugh imnsi.
welakin,‭ ‬wi lhwayj ur ghursn lma3na
aynna ur tlit da didi.

gan ghas lhwayj.‭ ‬lhwayj azrqi,‭ ‬lhwayj azggagh‭;
mddn da msawal d da tiddrn ldunitnsn,
ur da sin hat da yash‭ ‬taghufigh.
kulshi da t3ayad am‭ ‬digi‭ ‬tillas.‭ ‬welakin,

aynna da tfrrajgh mddn,‭ ‬da tighiygh ad inniygh
tayri digsn alnsn.‭ ‬okan‭ ‬digi‭ ‬tillas‭ ‬ur da yi tbrrsh
d t3ayadgh‭ ‬3mmrgh s asid awd. da 3llmgh
hat aday ad inniygh tayrinsn d ad tswargh‭ ‬tayrinsh,

kulu ldunit da t3ayad‭ ‬digsn‭ ‬ibayn
sg kuyan asidnsn n tayrinsn.

Translation: While Here at Souk,‭ ‬I Think of You

I come here to souk every week,
where I buy things in order to make dinner.
However,‭ ‬these things have no meaning
while you are not here with me.

They are only things.‭ ‬Blue things,‭ ‬red things‭;
people speak to each other and live their lives,
not knowing that I am missing you.
Everything‭ ‬becomes like darkness in me.‭ ‬However,

while watching people,‭ ‬I am able to see
the love in their eyes.‭ ‬Then the darkness‭ ‬in me doesn‭’‬t hurt
and I become filled with light again. I learn
that when I see their love ‬and I imagine your love,

the whole world becomes clear
from everyone‭’‬s light of their love.

Ramadan Challenge: The Clinic

caveat: the power in my site went out. These have been posted at a later date.

I decided to start going to the clinic a week early. Not doing anything in my house was beginning to take its toll. Throughout the month, I had done two main activities; writing my novel and reading Buddhist scriptures. I enjoyed the silence the days gave me; In America, during my days off, I would sometimes go the entire day without speaking a word. But I knew that I wanted to start early. I have only eight more weeks until in service training (IST), and I wanted to get a good handle on the situation at the clinic before I go back.

I had created two main posters to teach to the women when they go to the clinic. The nurse had told me that the women go on Wednesdays for vaccinations and pregnancy checkups. Using that information, I decided to create two projects; one with five basic health lessons and one for a pregnancy meditation to reduce stress. The nurse told me that I would talk to the women while they waited in the clinic.

In reality, regarding the situation at the clinic, I had told the nurse that I would start going after Ramadan, but after repeated knocks at my door of people telling me that the nurse kept telling them that I never came to the clinic, I decided to go the week early. The nurse told me that on Wednesdays he opens the clinic at 8 in the morning, so try to be there early. I woke up early on Wednesday morning, packed up the lessons with the speech and my laptop, and hiked the one and a half miles to the clinic. I arrived at 7:45, where I saw the locked doors to the clinic. I sat on the steps and waited. The nurse, who lives next door, awoke and opened the doors to the clinic at about 8:30.

I went inside and opened the lesson posters I had made. Though he liked the first poster, he was confused about the meditation poster. He pointed out the words that I wrote on the poster and said that I wrote them wrong. I replied that I would make sure to tell my host family that they don’t know how to write their own language.

Throughout the day, women came into the clinic. However, I didn’t think that there would be a pack of children with each of them. All of my prepared speeches were based on me talking to the women. The women, actually, went inside with the nurse and I was left with the children. On my first poster, four of the five lessons were addressed specifically to pregnant women. The only lessons that I could really give was in regards to the healthy foods. So my elaborate five lesson plan turned into an introduction on the benefits of twenty types of food to children.

The nurse came back into the waiting room with the women and told me to talk to them all about the other poster. I began to talk and made sure that I tried to stay with the speech as much as possible. Throughout most of the speech, though, the nurse and the women kept laughing at each other, and the children just stared blankly at me. The nurse told me that I spoke with an American tongue. Had I not been upset, I would have replied that I see with American eyes and smell with an American nose, too.

The nurse closed the clinic at around 11:30 and invited me to break the fast with him that night. He actually wanted me to eat with him right then because since he was diabetic, he didn’t have to fast. I told him I was fasting, and that is when he invited me to break the fast that evening. His wife told me that since my landlord owns a big field to pick figs and peaches for them before I returned. I said yes and went home.

I returned at about 6:30 that evening with figs and pomegranate in hand because the peaches were gone. I was let into the house, the call to prayer took place, and we sat down to eat. During the conversation, the nurse pulled out his pipe, stuffed it with marijuana, and offered me some.

“No thank you,” I said, “I don’t smoke.”
“Oh, you gave it up for Ramadan?”
“No, I don’t smoke period.”
“Oh, but you smoke cigarettes?”
“No, because I’m a health teacher.”
“Oh, well the previous volunteer used to smoke. Some of the children in our village saw him in another town.”
”Well, I don’t smoke.”
“But yes,” The nurse said as he turned to his wife, “Everybody loved him. He knew four languages; Spanish, English, and French, and he learned our language quickly.”
“Doesn’t he know German, as well?” I asked.

This has become my standard response to every time someone complimented the previous volunteer on his language skills.

“I’m sure he knows German, too.” I continued, “Maybe Italian, too.”
“Maybe. Everyone loved him, didn’t they?” he said, taking a puff, “Not you. You’re worthless.”
“Yes,” his wife agreed, “You’re worthless. You don’t know anything.”

In America, people invite guests to a dinner party, only to insult them the entire time. It’s called a roast. However, in America, they usually tell the person being roasted so that they can have a chance to write a rebuttal speech. Also, in Morocco, people in the villages tend to throw around those two sentences regularly. I normally don’t go a day talking to people without hearing “You’re worthless,” or, “You don’t know anything,” at least once. I hear it multiple times on days that I’m very sociable. I wonder if that has made me enjoy the silence of Ramadan even more.

“You know I only open the clinic Tuesday through Thursday?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied, “I remember. You go to Er Rachidia on Monday and Friday for your insulin shots.”

Because I’m not the one who smokes marijuana, I thought, so my memory isn’t shot to hell. But rather than comment back, I finished dinner and said goodbye to my gracious hosts.

It was nightfall as I walked the mile and a half back to my house. I thought about the conversation the nurse and his wife had about me in front of me. It’s strange how flippantly the people her use those two sentences. While I studied psychology, I learned that if you repeatedly tell someone that they are useless, they eventually believe it. If the people here use those sentences so often towards each other, I wonder whether or not it has had an effect on their psyche. I, on the other hand, am actually used to people not having a lot of faith in me.

In high school, my English teacher never wanted to look at my creative writings to give me any guidance. Rather than point out that she looked at other students’ works, I took my stories back and burned them in my backyard.

In college, I had professors who didn’t care to debate my ideas, but instead replied with pithy sayings such as, “I don’t know why you’re wrong, I just know that you’re wrong.” Rather than ask for an argument, I learned how to be quiet and write what they wanted to read, rather than tell them my ideas.

Before my banking job and before coming into the Peace Corps, my nicknames at my other jobs included “Princess” and “Trixie”. Rather than swipe back, I learned how to work in the freezers of restaurants, clean salad bars by myself, and put on a smile when I heard my nicknames as they started from the managers and moved down to my fellow employees.

I heard that in the Peace Corps, the people on the medical staff like to make a list of who they think is going to leave as an early termination (ET). I don’t doubt that I’m on that list.

I am fortunate, though, that I have always been just oblivious enough to not really put any import into what people around me say. Looking at my life, I know that I have become successful. I’m in another country, doing my best to teach health to people. I’m obviously already successful at teaching about the benefits of foods. If I can have faith in myself with that, maybe I can have faith that I can learn the language and being useful here. If I can have faith that I could write a novel, maybe I can have faith that it will be published.

And maybe, if I can just keep having faith that, regardless of what people around me say or do, they are inherently beautiful and good people, then maybe I can have faith that eventually, those people will see the same light in me that I see in them.

Ramadan Challenge: Buddhaficiation Fail

caveat: the power in my site went out. This is posted at a later date.

I decided to participate in Ramadan this year, but with my own spin of events. In addition to observing the fasting times, I decided to follow the eight precepts of Buddhism that one undertakes during holy festivals. Those eight precepts are to avoid the following:

1.) Harming living beings.
2.) Taking things not freely given.
3.) Sexual misconduct.
4.) False speech.
5.) Alcohol and drugs.
6.) Taking untimely meals.
7.) Grotesque dancing, singing, music, or movies.
8.) Use of jewelry, perfumes, or high seats.

Numbers two through eight were easy, though I wonder if Beetlejuice and Eddie Izzard: Dress to Kill fall under the grotesque category. My problem was with number one. I can’t even count how many ants I’ve washed down my drain while doing dishes, nor can I imagine how many animals I’ve tread over while stumbling around outside at one in the morning looking for the bathroom. But I had two instances in particular that make me realize that I have a lot of work to do in regards to compassion, loving kindness, and equanimity.

One of the first nights of Ramadan, I had two friends over. I had the windows open to let in fresh air. During the course of the evening, however, the children of the village began to press their faces against my windows. I decided to close the windows. I usually hang my towel on one of the windows in my room so that it, too, can air out. I grabbed the towel as I usually do and flicked it before closing the window. But for some reason, the towel felt like it had weight to it. I closed the window, turned around, and learned the reason for it. On the floor was a scorpion, approximately four inches long, not including the tail. Princess Leia came into my room to discuss the sleeping arrangement and sees the scorpion, too. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling at the time; I knew that I was following the eight precepts, and technically, the black scorpions aren’t deadly, and it was just sort of lying there. It wasn’t that I didn’t want it dead; I couldn’t think of a way to guide it to the front door. Princess Leia, on the other hand, instinctively grabbed the rock that I use as a door stop, crushed the scorpion, and proceeded to ask about the sleeping arrangement.

The second incident took place the day before the twenty-seventh of Ramadan, referred to as the “Day of Power”. No, everybody does not get to finally eat during the day to regain their strength they lost; it is a day of serious prayer, where families try to read the entire Qu’ran in one sitting. I was sitting in my room on a cushion on my floor because of me not using the high seats. Suddenly, I look to my right and see another scorpion headed towards me. Was this a relative of the previous scorpion, ready to fight me to restore his family’s honor? Was this a lover of the previous scorpion, willing to send itself on a suicide mission in order to be with his beloved? I don’t know. What I do know it that I was determined to not kill it this time. I sat quietly and watched it for a while. Finally, the scorpion lost interest in me, turned around, and walked away from me. Of course, the direction it headed was to my bed. I didn’t get much sleep that night, because I kept looking at my bug netting to make sure that it wasn’t trying to climb up into my bed. Fortunately, it didn’t, and I managed to get to sleep.

However, something did wake me up in the middle of the night. I awoke to the sound of scratching on my window. Already unable to calm down, I lifted the net, slipped out of bed, ran across the room and flipped on the light. The scorpion was nowhere to be found. What I did see, however, was a camel spider crawling along my window, losing its footing, and landing on my bug net in the location just above my pillow. I stood and watched as it slowly made its way down the net and onto the floor; its eight protrusions pulling the brown mass of twisted arachnid body towards me. I took this time to curse my family for having me watch Arachnaphobia when I was a small child.

I remembered the night of the scorpion. I thought if I could teach myself to let a scorpion go, then I can let this creature go, too. I continued to stand there for about half an hour and slow down my heart rate, but nothing worked. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I have seen scorpions and spiders like this all of the time, and have been able to let them go. But this was my bedroom. I needed to get some sleep. I know its psychological and that the creatures can get into my bedroom beneath my door, but the fact that I knew it was right there stopped me from sleeping.

I heard a knock at my door and let in my landlord, who was carrying a bowl of couscous. I thanked him, grabbed a spray can of bug killer, and went back to my room. My landlord followed me and watched as I sprayed the spider until it stopped moving. He then shook his head and grabbed something to carry the spider outside. He told me that there was nothing to fear, and that those spiders don’t bite people.

There is a saying attributed to the Buddha that I will paraphrase. In darkness, the fool mistakes a rope for a snake. I couldn’t have known the spider posed no problem, but that shouldn’t have been my concern. I had made a promise to not harm living beings, at least for this month, and I failed at it.

As I watched my landlord continue to shake his head at me, two thoughts ran through my mind. One, the men in my site don’t seem to be scared of anything, and the fact that I do get scared of these things, while they don’t have any emotional reaction, bothers me for some reason And two, I wondered if one of the spider’s family members or lovers would come back to face me like their cousins of the scorpion family did.

Ramadan Challenge: Emptying the Water

Ramadan is a month of purification, where we release ourselves of the mistakes of our past as well as the fears of our future, and instead embrace the sanctity of now. God, being the author of time and therefore is also being both completely within and throughout time, is that ineffable now; that fluidity which allows for what we call free will.

Imagine our existence as a hot spring in snow. We have within us the ability to take any patch of snow and place it into the hot spring, where it will become fluid, and evaporate into the sky. The hardened snow around us is every potentiality that we can conceive, frozen in a specific point in time. We can take any patch of snow and place it into the hot spring, where it will activate and flow throughout the hot spring. The hot spring, then, is the fluidity of free will, and the potentials that we chose create the water that surrounds us. Once that patch of snow has melted completely and its essence has swum its course, it is then released into the sky as vapor, a mere trace of what it once was, to join with all of the other patches of snow that have been melted. All that we do is connected like that water, and we are in that hot spring; we have the ability to choose from any patch of snow of potentiality from anywhere around us; this is what is meant by embracing the sanctity of now.

I have often wondered what I will do when I return to America. Will I continue working in a health related field, somehow? Will I go to work for the Department of Health and Human Services? Will I study for the GRE and try to go back to school to get my Masters in Psychology? Will I return and live an anonymous life, similar to the one that I lived before I left everything that I knew to come here?

I had spoken with someone back home about what I should do when I return; we will call him Stitch. I want to do something that will bring me alive. Something that won’t drain my spirit as my previous jobs have. I want to heal. I have always felt that need burning within me. At first, I wanted to be a doctor, so that I could heal people’s bodies whenever physical illness took over. However, the idea of simply healing bodies seemed pointless to me. All bodies in this world, in the end, fail us. I then moved toward psychology, so that I could then heal people’s minds. I believed that the power of the human mind could assist in healing the body. It has been shown that many illnesses can be traced back to mental stress. However, even the mind can fall prey to illness, and any attempt to heal the mind was not addressing the root of said illness in need of healing.

This is what brought me to where I am. As I sit here, I begin to think about Ramadan. To go back to the hot spring analogy, Ramadan, then, is the month where we have the ability to empty out that poll of our now-ness, and then look around us, and refill it anew. We have the ability to use our free will to refill this spring with potentialities of pure snow. I look around me as I sit in the hot spring. Above me are the mists of the past, filled with my Catholic upbringing. I feel the water around me of the Buddhist teachings that I swim in. I look around me and see snow of Islam around me.

I told Stitch that I was going to pray. And I feel that I have been doing that. I have always been open to exploring new religions. I am a seeker; that is what I do. I have always felt soothed by the Catholic mass; I miss it. But just as much as I am soothed by the song of Catholicism, I have been intrigued by Islam. Upon further investigation, however, I have come to the conclusion that the theological implications of the creator God concept still force me to appreciate the teaching of the Buddha. Even to accept the fact that there is an author of existence both within and throughout existence implicates it to the nature of the creation. I cannot relegate the questions of theodicy to a simple phrase, nor can muster the strength to go around repeating, “This is the best of all possible worlds.” Even if I were to entertain my own theodicy argument that I made regarding the illusion of time, space, good, and evil, I am then left with the theology of said creator god being as illusory as the ego, which was my original position.

I told Stitch that I wanted to go back to America to continue religious studies. As of now, however, doing it from a Christian perspective doesn’t give me the aliveness that studying the nature of existence through the Buddhist perspective does. And as of now, I cannot see myself converting to Islam. But I hope that, in the end, I will be able to pursue a form of study that allows me to continue my desire to heal. Making people come alive is what makes me come alive.

Ramadan Challenge: Technical Difficulties

For the past few days, the internet has not worked at my site. At first, I was worried that the cause was due to my computer somehow erasing the memory of the password on the modem that I had bought from a previous volunteer. For those who know me, you undoubtedly guessed correctly that the first thing that I did when I received the password on the small slip of paper was to throw it away as soon as I entered it into my computer. Of course, when my modem stopped working, I had assumed that some karmic seed had come to fruition, and my next course of action that would determine my future karma would be to: 1.) Go into town and buy another modem, 2.) Take my computer into town with me and test the modem in another place, or 3.) Throw my modem across my bedroom and stomp around in a comical manner in front of my open windows for the neighborhood kids to see.

Fortunately, both for my karmic bank account and my Moroccan bank account, I chose option two. I went into Er Rachidia and tested my modem at the bus station, where Buddha be praised it worked. This realization carried within it good news, great news, bad news, and worse news. The good news is that there is no problem with my modem. The great news was that I did not have to spend hundreds of dirhams, both on a new modem and purchasing the month of service on said new modem. The bad news was that it meant the problem was with my own site, which is something out of my control. The worse news is that because it is Ramadan, I can probably expect it to be fixed in about another week. Had the problem been my modem, I would have had to buy a new one due to the fact that the previous modem is under a contract in the previous volunteer’s name. I’m sure that everything will work out well in the end.