IST and Light

We are reaching the six-month point in our service. The job quoted as "the hardest job you'll ever love" and the one that I went through a year and a half to get is already a quarter of the way complete. I have been to festivals, weddings, a funeral, and a baby naming ceremony here. I have congratulated fathers giving away their daughters, consoled villagers at the loss of their grandmother, congratulated a mother on her twins, and have been almost trampled by men wanting a closer look at American women giving blood pressure tests. Though I am able to speak with people in my village, for some reason, the villagers and the nurse in the next village 3 kilometers away still are unable to understand me, nor I them. Also, because I speak the dialect of the rural people, I am pretty much unable to communicate with people in any of the major cities of the country, which makes traveling difficult, unless I have with me a volunteer who speaks Moroccan Arabic.

The Peace Corps' three goals: to provide need to communities, to help locals understand America, and to help America understand the local people are being fulfilled by the volunteers, all within their own unique idiom. The volunteers are beginning to establish themselves in their communities; some have started English tutoring (mine fell through, though I may begin a one on one approach with a neighbor.), while others have started SIDA clubs and drama clubs. Others, who have discovered that their sites aren't conducive to their skills, have taken up work in nearby villages. For instance, a health sector volunteer is beginning to work in youth development.

I was told at the onset of my service that I needed to expect many false starts for projects that I had in mind, much less for projects that were suggested to me by local authorities. The English Club was my Rays' idea, issues regarding maternal health and nutrition were my nurse's idea, the meditation poster was my idea. For the past six months, my "successes" can be counted as thus:

1.) Created a maternal health poster and explained it to my nurse, who, in turn, now explains it to the local women.
2.) Created a food pyramid poster and explain it to children who come into the clinic each week.
3.) Assisted at a booth for the Wedding Festival in Imilchil, where I taught nutrition and anti-smoking.
4.) Assisting another volunteer with a SIDA-Health Club class in Er Rachidia that will culminate with a drama competition.
5.) Going to a weekly English Club meeting in Er Rich.

The rest of my six months of service has included observations that I have made about the culture of Morocco, which I have relayed here, thus fulfilling one of the three goals of Peace Corps, and also which I do hope have provided some insight as to the lives inside an Islamic culture. Of course, if there are any topics you are curious about, do not hesitate to write a comment on my blog, and I will respond with a blog entry, email, or chat. I have also spent those six months interacting with that culture, infusing my little Buddhist quirks into the monotheistic system that takes place here. The responses have ranged from simple denouncements, such as "Oh, you have a picture of your God on your computer. Our God is above that.", or, "I understand. Buddhism has a lot... not everything... that Islam has. That's nice." This is fulfilling another goal of Peace Corps. Though there are still times, due to my almost painfully introverted personality and the localized nature of the language that I learned, when I feel utterly and irrevocably useless. However, thanks to the latter goals of Peace Corps, I feel that acting as an intermediary between these two distinct cultures is performing a great service. My hope, of course, is that if my readers feel that my observations are worthwhile, then they will tell others about it, thus ensuring that they expand ever outward.

My experiences here with the local people have, without exception, been positive. The local police are charming and helpful, the children as mischievous here as my nephew in America, and even so-called "religious zealots" are no worse than the average Baptist on the streets of my hometown waving a Bible. My interactions with them always bring my memory back to one place, as though it serves as an anchor to my life and constantly pulls me back to it, regardless of the nature of the waves in the ocean of my being. I remember, once, in October of 2005, while in school, in an elevator in a library at the University of West Florida, I met a young woman named Amber. I remember that I had read an article earlier that day where, somewhere out in space, there was a collision of heavenly bodies. But it was more than that. It was a collision of three heavenly bodies. For two things to collide in the infinite vastness of space is already an improbable event, but to have three bodies end up at the same place at the same time? I remember riding down the elevator. Normally, most people would not engage in any conversation if on the same elevator for just a moment, so I was slightly shocked to hear her say, "Hi."

She was going to graduate from school that spring. And it was at that moment that I realized that we were two heavenly bodies colliding with each other. Even if it was for only a moment, we had touched; our beings, that which we are, had touched. Our energies passed through one another and for a moment - we were one. Even after we separated, I knew that neither of us were the same. We each had each others' energy within us, to be carried off and passed when we would inevitably collide with other heavenly bodies, and so on. I remember thinking that the crashing of heavenly bodies is a miraculous event. But whereas the miracle out in the vastness of space is how rare the collisions are, in our own worlds, the miracle is how common it is.

Supernova from Glenn Marshall on Vimeo.

Every time I see another Moroccan, even if I cannot communicate with them, that is the feeling I want to generate. I want so much to express the utter, ineffable miraculousness of the meeting of the heavenly bodies that I see here. The light that I see in them is the same light that I have seen in people in America.

I know that, sometimes, we want so much to believe that the bad events we witness - wars, violence, inequity, injustice, propaganda - are the result of some conspiracy, and that, there are people who are all good and people who are all bad. But the truth of the matter is that we are all heavenly bodies, drifting and drifting and drifting in an almost infinite sea of emptiness. Every interaction is a glorious burst of light in that blackness, even if our limited consciousness cannot comprehend it that way. Every event, every moment, every interaction, regardless of whether or not we want to believe it is good or bad, is simply that - the collision of heavenly bodies. This is the truth that I have learned, and with all of my heart and all of my being, I don't think that truth is something that I can ever let go of, or that can never let go of me.

And, to be honest, I don't think I ever want to be separated from that truth. Being here, in a completely different culture, has not even shaken that belief, but rather, has only confirmed it.