It's been a difficult day, but I
promised this last entry, so I will deliver. I am currently sitting
in my roommates house in Casa. Although Casa is by no means my
favorite city in Morocco, her house in beautiful and her parents are
very welcoming. Here are the final two parts of my closing entry.
Part Three: The Last Two Weeks
My final two weeks in Morocco could not
have been better. I'm glad I did not take off right away when finals
finished- there were too many goodbyes to say all at once, and too
many places I wanted to take a final look at. I'm also glad I did not
stay longer, especially since my ATM card broke the day before I left
Ifrane. I managed to exchange the American cash I had been hoarding
all year, but another week would have been virtually impossible.
Lesson learned: Always have backup cash. Beyond that small
inconvenience, our journey was fabulous. Highlights are as follows:
FINALLY riding a camel. It only took
me nine months what most tourists in Morocco do in five days, but no
complaints. The ride itself was tall, uncomfortable, and slightly
smelly. I don't think I'll be going into the camel business any time
soon. The Sahara however, was surreal. The sheer enormity of the
shifting, golden sand made me feel as if I were in a picture. It
amazed me to think that people actually traveled across such a place.
It was great fun to climb the dunes and play in the sand.
Driving a stick-shift car thorough the
high Atlas. After camel-time, we rented a car and headed for the
ocean, stopping in pretty desert towns along the way. Since only two
of the five of us could drive a manual, I drove about a third of the
time. Some of the roads were far scarier than any I had ever seen:
tiny strips of pavement full of sharp turns and switch-backs. The
difficulty of the drive was compounded by the fact that EVERYONE in
this country flashes their brights at you to warn they are coming. By
the end of my first and only night drive, I wanted to smash
something. We returned the car without a single mishap, and I am a
better and more confident driver because of it. (PS- Thanks Chuck for
teaching me to drive a manual last summer!)
Couch surfing. (www.couchsurfing.org)
Ok, I didn't want to tell you guys (mom, dad) that I was doing this,
because I knew you'd worry. But it turned out wonderfully, we met
some amazing people (a Kung Fu Instructor who let us into his class,
and a guy in Sidi Ifni who made us tea on the beach). There were five
us, we were safe, and it was a wonderful experience.
Saying goodbye to Marrakech. I consider
the fancy apartment I discovered there back in November my Moroccan home. After a week on the road, it was great to relax in a
familiar neighborhood, drink fresh Orange Juice, and witness the
spectacle of the Djmma-Al-Fina one last time.
Laying on the beach. I spent the second
week with two of my favorite girls, laying in the sun and getting our
tan (ok, sunburn) on. We found a beautiful, clean, and
harassment-free beach in Oulidia, and it was everything I wanted
after a week of intense travel.
To sum it up, my last two weeks here
were everything I wanted: beaches, camels, road-trips, and great
friends.
Part Four: Saying Goodbye
Yesterday I said goodbye to four more
of my good friends, and it was even more difficult than I imagined.
Two of them I hope to see again very soon (viva la Portland! :D), the
other two it may be awhile. I'm finding goodbyes are no less
difficult, but I do prefer an efficient system. When the time comes I
like a quick chat, a good hug, a few laughs, and occasionally passing
them a small note, filled with the things I find to hard to say. I
will miss the people I have found in the
I also want to (hopefully) iterate what
I think will be going on in my mind when I come home. I have been
away a long time: ten months of travel, of a strange culture, of
everything being completely different from how I lived before. It has
come to the point where I can picture home (my family, my friends, my
favorite places), but I have trouble picturing myself at home. Adding
to this is that one week from now I will be in a new house, in a new
city, with new roommates and a new job. I have been away from those
things for so long, I have trouble picturing what they are like.
I expect to be home and feel many of
the things I felt upon coming here: slightly confused, quite scared,
and on occasions a bit unhappy. It has nothing to do with the people
I will return to (I can't wait to see all of you. Seriously. On a
scale from one to bacon, my excitement to see my friends and family
is a bacon-point-nine). I think my feeling will have much more to do
with the word re-adjustment. Therefore, please be patient with
me. I am not the same person that left, but I hope to be better, more
focused. If nothing else, I'll have more stories, and I want to tell
them to anyone who will listen. I may follow up with the blog through
the total re-adjustment process, but I will have many other exciting
plans and challenges that await.
As you may know, I spent the last
three months in Africa. A wondrous, magical place. But as shadows
lengthen across the KBHR window, thoughts turn to homecoming.
Journey's end. Because in a sense, it's the coming back, the return
which gives meaning to the going forth. We really don't know where
we've been until we've come back to where we were. Only, where we
were may not be as it was because of who we've become. Which is,
after all, why we left.
-Bernard Stevens
Northern Exposure
