Pictures: FALL BREAK

This is not at all a timely update. I am sorry for that. Still, I hope you enjoy!

PART I: SPAIN

This part was with my program. We went to Cordoba and Granada to see the Arab/Islamic influence on this part of Spain (Andalusia, formerly Muslim-occupied Spain). The parallels to Moroccan architecture are amazing - medinas, riads, mosques, tile/mosaics. The cities had such a blended, interesting feel to them. And they were totally stunning. (For anyone who doesn't know - Muslims ruled most of the Iberian peninsula from around the year 720 - only about 50 years after the death of the Prophet - to 1492 when they were expelled, though their hold on the region had been declining for a while before that. So...they were there a long time, almost 800 years.)

Helloooooooo Spain!

Tarifa, southern Spain. Just got off the ferry from Tangier. That's Africa in the distance.  Looking out the window as our bus rode through the hills, on our way to Cordoba. (thanks for this photo, Rebecca Young!)

alley flowers in Cordoba

Islamic architecture in Cordoba - awesome.

The Great Mosque (now church) of Cordoba. There is so much Christian imagery right beside the Muslim. Very fascinating.  The building was originally a Visigothic church before Cordoba was taken by the Muslims, whereafter it became a mosque and truly glorious. When the Christians took back Cordoba they couldn't stomach destroying this mosque, so they transformed it into a church (which still functions as a church today).  It still has Arabic script everywhere, and the architecture and design is unmistakably Islamic. Unfortunately my lens couldn't get a much broader view. Look it up. 

more of the Mosque (also below)

Clearly a Muslim part of the church/mosque. No images of God or humans are permitted in Islam, so they make up for it in the the impeccably detailed plaster work (walls), wood work (ceiling) and tiles. So beautiful. 

Above: I can't remember which church these statues are from...they just looked really cool, and also very pagan which is intriguing...lots of moons and stars. 

View of Granada from the Alhambra (palace and fortress built by the Muslims in the 14th century)

gorgeous gardens

fall had arrived in Spain - those colors made me very happy

PART II: MALTA

I went to Malta with my buddies Kristy and Soha. 

This island is one of the most strange and befuddling places I have ever been. 

Quick overview of the country (with help from wiki) since I am betting you know nothing about it and forgot it existed, as was the case with me: Malta is located right in the middle of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, and is one of the teensiest places ever. The population is about 415,000. The country consists of Malta (the main island), Gozo, and Comino, as well as some other small uninhabited islands. What is fascinating about Malta is its history, which I knew ABSOLUTELY nothing about.  Until independence from Britain in 1964, essentially its entire history is one of occupation, and it has been occupied by just about everyone you could think of. The Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Sicilians, Crusaders, Napoleon, and finally the British (who ruled from 1814-1964). They all left their mark in different ways, and Malta feels incredibly intriguing but super jumbled and confusing as a result. The weirdest and most fun part for me was the language. Maltese is basically Arabic, and I had no idea about this when I booked my flight there. It is amazing how similar it is. It is also mixed with Italian, French, and other stuff. But it is considered to be a Semitic language, and the only one that uses the Latin alphabet. The numbers and days of the week are essentially identical to Arabic. Hello/welcome is "merhaba", "all" is "kul", "day" is "youm", "street" is "triq", "house" is "dar".....IT IS ALL ARABIC. I couldn't get over how crazy this language was - we Arabic students were geeking out hard. 

So, obviously the Arabs left a huge legacy behind in language form, even though they were only there for 200 years. But other than that, it seems that the Christians pretty much wiped out any other trace of them when they reconquered the island. So we are left with an very very religious (Roman Catholic) country whose language sounds like Arabic. Weeeeird. Despite how conservative and religious it is, it also has a huge partying culture among its youth - I know this because my hostel was right in the midst of all the crazy. 

I expected Malta to be this perfect, picturesque island nation that would feel like Italy. It wasn't really either. It certainly had beautiful parts, the coastline of course, and some cool architecture. But overall it looked kind of run-down....99.9% of the buildings are the exact same shade of beige, and most of them look very weathered, water-stained, etc. So, you have that image in your head, and then you read these insane figures: Malta has the happiest people in the world. Malta has the lowest crime rate in the world. WHAT@!!!? And then this amazing history: Malta has these ancient megalithic structures which are  some of the oldest free-standing structures in the world. Malta claims one of the earliest Christian populations in the world. And all of this doesn't seem to be well advertised or capitalized on - I knew nothing about Malta, and certainly had no idea it was this amazing or important. Not to mention, I went on a few tours which took us to all of these amazing sites, and all of the tour guides were awful, not very knowledgeable, and in general very uninterested seeming. MALTAAAAAA you are so weird!!

Anywho, I could go on for a long time about Malta. "Where are we" was the motto of our 4 days. While there I was trying so hard to figure out this place, I kept trying to put together the pieces of a puzzle that wouldn't seem to fit. The best word was...confused. 

Left: BEIGE. It was very dark/overcast almost the whole time we were there. 

St. Paul's Grotto. This is a cave under
a church where St. Paul was said to have lived
in 60 AD, when he was shipwrecked in Malta.
It is because of this that there is apparently
one of the oldest Christian populations in the
world in Malta.

Sadly they wouldn't allow me to take pictures inside the
catacombs. Anyways, back in the day St. Agatha escaped to
Malta from Sicily where she was being persecuted for her
faith. She apparently sought refuge in these catacombs (creepy).
Eventually she was captured by the Sicilians, her breasts were cut
off, and she was burned at the stake. 

epic

Rabat is a neighborhood in Malta. WHERE ARE WE. 

This is Mdina (...medina....), the old medieval capital of Malta - an Arabic name, but the structures are actually not from the period of Arab rule. I think the medina was built after the Arabs left. 

More Mdina. It is called the "silent city" - it was really dark and indeed, very silent. 

OoooooOOooooooooOOo

Here are some really weird things:

Malta is a strange place. Above, an example of one of the many wax religious figures I had the pleasure of seeing on this little island. This particularly frightening one is of the baby Jesus. I hope you can sleep tonight. And to the right, Kristy is holding one of the many prawn-flavored snacks we came across. This one is aptly named "Prawny."  

How crazy looking is this language!?

thanks Malta

PART II: PORTUGAL

Oh, Porto. You felt blissfully surreal after Malta, and you stole my heart. 

Soha, Kristy, and I met up with more of the group who had been traveling around Portugal while we were in Malta. 

Porto is built on hills surrounding the Douro river. This was just about the most charming place I have ever been.

right by our hostel, which was awesome by the way,
it was run by this young couple and their newborn
baby. they fed us breakfast during which they blasted
 Portishead, and they had an awesome movie collection.
Also the dad, who had Tourette's and was really sweet
gave us a ride to the train station.

this blue tile is all over Porto and give the churches
a very unique feel because of it. 

I took this sneaky picture rather than pay the 2 euro
to get into this part of the church. 

The Douro river, which opens up to the Atlantic
just out of frame. 

The leaves!!!!!!!!!!!! I have never been more happy to see Fall as I was in Porto. 

There was a lot of rad graffiti. 

And that was a taste of fall break!

Thanks for viewing, check back later for more photos.




love,
sonya

10/18 – 11/13 Eurotrip and the Return. Some things are becoming illuminated.

It’s been just short of a month since my last post.  I feel a bit guilty…this is something I keep promising to get better at, but I fear I keep coming up short in that endeavor.  Hopefully this one can make up for all those would-be posts that I didn’t have the time or the guts, or at least the words and the clarity, to write.

To be fair, I have been gone for just under 2 weeks on fall break, and before that was midterm week (which was quite breezy).

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A warning: This entry is going to consist of me sorting out things in my brain (or trying). I am anticipating it to be quite muddled and perhaps repetitive. Bear with me.

Break was wonderful. Pretty much a purely fun, extremely indulgent temporary escape from the realities and challenges of home.  It felt a little ridiculous, vacationing in Europe after living for 2 months in Africa. It certainly reminded me of my privilege in being here, the luxury of choosing to live here and having the means to up and leave. Break was all of these things, but it turned out to be a crucial period of reflection for me, something unexpected and very welcome. My time away, particularly in Portugal where I felt very at home and was able to do some serious thinking, helped illuminate things I’ve been long trying to articulate about my experience. Being away gave me the perspective I have been needing to formulate the things about here that have felt so tangled in my mind, so stuck. Thoughts that, because I have had trouble freeing them, had been stagnating, and causing me anxiety due to the fact that I've seemed unable to mull over and sort them as fully as I needed.

And I still don’t yet feel I have the words I long to have. But they are coming, gradually, and the slowness is teaching me patience and kindness to myself in a way I haven’t quite experienced it before. It is something stark, unapologetic, and necessary, and I feel that if I do not abide by it, I cannot survive; this sounds dramatic but it is very real. I am finding, slowly, this patience with my processing and growth with my own being-in-the-world, is something I feel I grapple with at some point almost every day. Patience with sadness, with uncertainty that sometimes verges on paralyzing, patience with days that jump from all of that to a deep, swelling happiness, leaving me feeling unstable and confused and helpless to these swift changes in disposition.  “Everything is gestation and then bringing forth”…in art and in life, for I am learning too that to live fully with all the awareness and with all the love that life demands, is to live artfully. “There is here no measuring with time, no year matters, and ten years are nothing….patience is everything.”

It is strange how much being here makes me feel like a newborn, or at least as close as I could feel to something that I can’t remember. It is disorienting, sometimes debilitating, and in ways and moments, wonderful. There is certainly wonder in all of it, in the happy moments and in the sad/hard, and from a distance at least I can appreciate the latter.  Seeing the difficulties as important and good, a reminder that life was never supposed to be straightforward (and that I came to Africa with this knowledge, that it was going to be a challenge. I think up until recently, however, I didn’t quite understand what “challenge” meant, the weight of it, and was still expecting that things should be easy), has been one of the biggest lessons, and one that I am certainly still right in the messy, sticky midst of.  Again, I am reminded: “almost everything serious is difficult, and everything is serious.”*

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During break, specifically in Porto, I felt content and settled in myself and in an environment in a way I haven’t felt in Rabat. I felt it almost instantly – calm, relieved, not at all tense or anxious. It jolted me, and I confronted something I have known for a while but have avoided coming to terms with, that being that I don’t feel at “home” here.  It is strange…I came here for a challenge, not to necessarily find a ‘home’, and while this was my rational expectation, and the reason I came – to be challenged and to grow from it – a part of me, a big part, was also expecting to love it, pure and simple, the way so many people report back from their study abroad experiences, “IT WAS AWESOME.” Well, it is awesome. It is beautiful, alluring, fascinating…it is also uncomfortable, bizarre, frustrating, sometimes infuriating, and many things in between these extremes. And often it just feels…normal. After all, I am living here, studying here, working here…I have, to a large extent, a routine. Not every moment is going to be shocking, either positively or negatively. And this in its own way something great - that I have adapted. There is not one word to encompass all that is here, certainly not a single generalizing and/or superficially positive word. If I had to pick a word, it would be something along the lines of...confusing/complex/layered/strange. “Awesome” will never be enough.

But anyway, who says I have to pick a word.

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So...why did Porto feel like home. I have been thinking about how impossible it is to have an objective experience of a place (or of anything, but let’s not get distracted). You are always coming from somewhere else that has affected you, a place with its own feel and its own people and its own personality, and you bring all that baggage to every new place you visit. "Home" is relative, it is a changing and dynamic concept. At this point in my life, anyway. So anyways, with that in mind, I think I connected with Porto so much for several reasons:

1) because it wasn’t Morocco, and I needed a break, for perspective and also just for a change…as much as I love the absurdities of here, they can begin to grate on a person.  (Rabat in particular is not my favorite place, which is something I’ve realized. Other parts of the country have touched and affected me much more than here. The city certainly has its gems – the ocean, ruins, the medina.. – but overall it is a typical capital city – not super interesting, not a ton going on compared to other cities in the country.)

2) Europe…obviously, feels easier, and more familiar. There is more English, people keep more to themselves as compared with aggressive and sociable Moroccan culture. So, big surprise, Europe wasn’t a challenge after Africa. It was easy, breezy, beautiful (that just happened, I am sorry).

3) Related to 1 & 2. Strolling the streets of Porto, I never once reflected about the fact that I was a woman (until I had this realization, obviously). This hit me hard, and I realized how much the constant voice in my head regulating my behavior on the basis of gender affects my general mood/attitude/disposition back home. This voice (in my own head or whispered in my ear by a strange boy/man) that keeps me acutely aware of how I am walking, if I am smiling too much/too little (which basically results in a continuous and unrelenting scowl, whenever I am walking past men, which is always), if I am getting too close to men and might be giving off the impression that I am inviting attention, etc. etc. In Morocco it is a very rare moment when I am in public and am not silently reviewing all of this in my brain.  I am constantly reminded and made aware that the space is not mine. (Of course this is due also to my being a foreigner, which is another, important, issue.) So, being apart from all this was quite a relief and I was able to breathe, walk, and explore with ease and a peaceful mind. 

4) There is some kind of magic about Porto. Even if it is impossible to fully and objectively experience something, there is something to be said for an innate attraction, however in the world it happens. For some unexplainable reason, that feeling when a place/environment can make you feel so at peace internally (even when you just arrived feeling like a mess). The anxieties that have been eating at me on and off all semester back in Rabat (about my experience, about my future…this is a big one…) seemed to fade instantaneously, or at least, I felt a peace with them that I hadn’t before. I’ve felt that strong of a connection to few places, and I felt it there. 

And it was, to be honest, somewhat disheartening to realize that I felt it in Porto, and not here. It was like I failed at my challenge to love Morocco despite and because of its challenges. But as I said earlier, I have to remember to appreciate what “challenge” means, that it is not an empty word.  The world is vast and multiplicitous and different, and of course I won’t have the same feelings, the same love, for every place. My feelings for Morocco are distinctly about Morocco. They are complex, and varied.  While gone I was able to begin sorting out, thoughtfully, the ways Morocco continues to challenge, the ways it is not for me, and all the things I love and appreciate about it. I am very glad I didn't choose to study in Europe, though it was a welcome respite. 

I was talking to a good friend** about the difference between internal balance and feeling balance in a place/the world.  What I’ve found is that balance in my environment definitely affects my own sense of balance and peace with myself. I felt that in Porto. But finding that internal balance itself is something that requires an arduous process, it has for me, anyway. It demands wrestling with and doubting yourself, having gloomy days. And this process I have found in Morocco. I don’t think I would have found a deep stillness in that beautiful Portuguese city if I hadn’t earned it, in a sense, here. If that makes sense. She told me this and I agree: the more strange and different and demanding your environment, the easier it is to find this balance – in which you confront yourself, and learn to trust yourself. While my process has been by no means easy and certainly is not over, at the very least I feel with certainty that I am learning, and I feel good about that.

I have had to eat many many slices of humble pie*** and accept and affirm my inability to understand everything right now, and the things going on inside myself, which really are the greatest mystery and the most difficult/serious and important to take the time to tackle.

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Coming back since break has been mixed. The trash, the catcalls, all feel more vivid than before.  But I also have a fresh pair of eyes for everything, the good and the not-as-good, which I have been grateful for.

It is getting colder, shwia b’shwia, alhamdulillah. It’s getting down to the low 60s later this week! I am ready I am ready I am ready.

It has been most wonderful coming back to my family here. Biria and Yacob are cuter and more affectionate than ever. (I have gotten so many bear hugs from grandpa lately!) And the FOOD. I am glad to be back to Biria’s home cookin’. It is prime pomegranate, orange, and avocado season currently, which is favulous. Yum yum yum. I am feeling quite at home and happy with my friends here as well. This weekend I’ll be heading to Marrakesh with the gang for my friend Taylor’s 21^st. Should be quite a time.

Just a few of the "salads" Grace and I get to eat every day. That eggplant (denjel in Darija) is the most phenomenal I have ever had the pleasure to eat. 

the best, reddest pomegranate that ever was. 

Will post pictures of break SOON! I have been working on this baby for several hours and it is going to take another hour+ to upload photos. Also, will talk more about Spain/Malta/Portugal and the saga of Halloween. So, check back in a few.

Thanks for being patient with this one.

Sending all my love across land and sea.

xoxoxoxoxoxo

sonya. 

THE PICTURE SHOW

Here they are, finally!

SAHARA

A building in the desert

driving to the dunes in land cruisers. this was pretty extreme. 

camels, chillin'.

sunset

BENSMIM 
(village in the Middle Atlas Mountains)

A beautiful, peaceful little town nestled in the foothills of the Middle Atlas range. My program was here for 2 nights, I wish we had stayed longer. Village life is slow and thoughtful, the people are warm and everyone says hello. 

My friend Taylor roomed with me in Bensmim. This was our bright little breakfast nook. Our window overlooked the fields below.  

Ran into this little guy walking through the orchards. 

Host mom Amina and little brother Aman.

fields, outside Bensmim

THE MOUNTAIN!!!!!! 
(Toubkal - High Atlas Mountains)

The crew, getting pumped before departure. We stayed the night in a small little town called Imlil in a wonderful little house with our guide, Mohammed, before hiking out to base camp the next day. Our morale is high now, it will go through many ups and downs in the next 2 days.

we walked out through several tiny mountain towns. 

 

Grace and Taylor*

We reached base camp after trekking just over 10 miles. We would spend the night here, and with the rise of the sun would begin The Ascent the next morning. We met some silly Europeans, ate good food, and snuggled in tents. We also had some unexpected snow that night. It was cold. 

6 am

Skip forward about 4 hours (apparently I forgot to take more pictures in the haze of my determination and exhaustion), and here I am on the 2nd highest peak in Africa** This was I think the most physically challenging thing I have ever done. The air was so thin, the air was constantly escaping me. It is also recommended to do the entire trek in 3 days - we did it in 2. But absolutely no regrets - it was one of the best things I have ever done. Being up there felt AMAZING.

 Enthusiastic Spaniards. We are pretty sure they ran up the mountain.

After reaching the summit, we needed to book it back to base camp and then back to Imlil all in one day, so we'd be able to stay the night in Imlil Saturday night and catch our train from Marrakesh (about an hour from Imlil) back to Rabat on Sunday....so we could go back to school Monday. We were walking from 6 am to 7 pm beginning before the sun rose and ending after it set. Over 20 miles that day (in total, we hiked over 30 miles in 2 days). It was a long, long day. My legs were DESTROYED. It is Wednesday and it is still a sight to see, watching me try to climb stairs. 

Things I will remember next time I climb a mountain:
1) do more than 150 calf raises in preparation.
2) buy real pants
3) stretch.
4) DON'T WEAR COTTON

These weekend trips have been spectacular, each one distinct and thrilling in its own way. But I have to say, the last one is winning out thus far. I still feel giddy thinking about it. 

This weekend will be a much needed break. I am going to relax, sleep, and get to know some new places in Rabat. Oh, and study for midterms. BOO. 

I have been thinking a lot about home and what it means. Feeling so lucky to be where I am and to have a place and people I love back home. 

Things continue to be hard and good all at once.

With LOVE. 

sonya.

* in MORDOR

** Next stop - Kilimanjaro! ha.