andrea (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} mumblebee) wrote,@ 2006-01-19 11:29:00 |
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R.I.P. Gabriel
My family's cat of 13 years, Gabriel, died on Tuesday. My mom called to tell me yesterday afternoon. There was a delay in the connection. She never understands the delay and so she constantly asks me if I can still hear her and if I'm still there. She told me twice that he died and then asked, "Did you hear what I said?" It was awful. I really loved him, and he will be greatly missed.
I may be coming to the mature, dreadful understanding that the world is at once marvelous and cruel. (It is not only my cat dying that tells me)
I have boarded the scholar train for reals--after months of preliminary work toute seule (and some lazing), I have my first interview this afternoon, with a Moroccan writer of some acclaim. I'll have a second interview, with a literature professor, next week. Choo choo!
I like the idea of simultanously getting smarter, wiser, more experienced, and more articulate, and increasingly speaking like a teenager.
I wrote the rest of this a few days ago.
---------------------------
I am assimilating! Not only did I eat and like boolfaf (sheep liver wrapped in the lacy fat-layer from around the stomach), I now own a sweatsuit. Under normal circumstances, in the U.S., I would consider the wearing of excessive sweat-garb to be a clear indicator of despair. But here the sweatsuit is beloved. As far as I can tell, everyone owns one and wears it at all times while home and when running quick neighborhood errands. My oversized athletic gray jam is not the prettiest of the bunch but it does help ease the rainy winter cold. I can see my breath in my apartment. Reminds me of last winter in Kalamazoo and my hideous blue “sleeping sweater.”
I hope someone did this on purpose: last week in the medina I saw fake Von Dutch shirts for sale misspelled “Van Douche.”
Oh, and today I saw a minivan with “I LIKE TO MOVE IT” printed along the top of the windshield.
I spent my Saturday trying to make conversation with little boys. I volunteered at a daylong American Women’s Association-sponsored event for orphans, full of musical performances, celebrity appearances, chaos and clowns. Groups of orphaned children from around the country were bused in for the day. In between being impatient though familiar with and unsurprised by Moroccan organizational strategies (ex. 20 or so volunteers serving 300 people lunch from four buffet tables, carrying two plates at a time), I tended to a table of about 12 nine- and ten-year-old, mostly only Arabic-speaking, boys. They shouted their names to me, we played some got-your-hand games, I taught them the word “juice” as I served them and then they yelled it a lot, and we gave each other mischievous looks. I sat next to a small nine-year-old, Abdullah, and we chatted together quietly. He told me conspiratorially that the other boys were crazy. We kept an eye on each other all day, smiling. He sweetly kissed me goodbye on the cheeks and squeaked a little “B’saalama” when he left. And so I am adopting him.
On Sunday my new friend Adrianna and I went to mass. It was, apparently, World Day of the Migrant and Refugee. In the homily of the long service the priest named countries and had their representatives stand, then people shouted out their countries that hadn’t been named. Le Mali! (Many people) La France! (So many people that everyone laughed) Les Philippines! (A handful of people) L’Angola! (One person.) It felt important to hear the priest state the obvious, that we all in the room were foreigners to Morocco and we share that. And if being away from home hurts for me, an American kid with a cushy, temporary setup, I cannot imagine what it must feel like for any of the refugees in the cathedral.
Moroccan guys are after me! What am I doing?! Do I walk around with some look or movement or walk of openness? Something suggestive? Are my pants too tight and jackets too short? I don’t get it.
Living alone is a little too lone lately. Cooking-for-one can seem pathetic, and when I catch myself doing something absurd, like eating Nutella out of the jar or doing jumping jacks in my living room while watching part three of a documentary of the life of Natalie Wood (all three parts have inexplicably been aired on 2M, the Moroccan national TV channel, primetime), it’s not much of a stretch to imagine living my whole lame life in an apartment-for-one. I understand that it’s better to focus on the freedom of this time and the coolness of getting to have my own apartment in Morocco, but sometimes it’s just lonely, dogg, and I’d rather hang out with my parents and read magazines and watch BET in their condo. For life.
My family's cat of 13 years, Gabriel, died on Tuesday. My mom called to tell me yesterday afternoon. There was a delay in the connection. She never understands the delay and so she constantly asks me if I can still hear her and if I'm still there. She told me twice that he died and then asked, "Did you hear what I said?" It was awful. I really loved him, and he will be greatly missed.
I may be coming to the mature, dreadful understanding that the world is at once marvelous and cruel. (It is not only my cat dying that tells me)
I have boarded the scholar train for reals--after months of preliminary work toute seule (and some lazing), I have my first interview this afternoon, with a Moroccan writer of some acclaim. I'll have a second interview, with a literature professor, next week. Choo choo!
I like the idea of simultanously getting smarter, wiser, more experienced, and more articulate, and increasingly speaking like a teenager.
I wrote the rest of this a few days ago.
---------------------------
I am assimilating! Not only did I eat and like boolfaf (sheep liver wrapped in the lacy fat-layer from around the stomach), I now own a sweatsuit. Under normal circumstances, in the U.S., I would consider the wearing of excessive sweat-garb to be a clear indicator of despair. But here the sweatsuit is beloved. As far as I can tell, everyone owns one and wears it at all times while home and when running quick neighborhood errands. My oversized athletic gray jam is not the prettiest of the bunch but it does help ease the rainy winter cold. I can see my breath in my apartment. Reminds me of last winter in Kalamazoo and my hideous blue “sleeping sweater.”
I hope someone did this on purpose: last week in the medina I saw fake Von Dutch shirts for sale misspelled “Van Douche.”
Oh, and today I saw a minivan with “I LIKE TO MOVE IT” printed along the top of the windshield.
I spent my Saturday trying to make conversation with little boys. I volunteered at a daylong American Women’s Association-sponsored event for orphans, full of musical performances, celebrity appearances, chaos and clowns. Groups of orphaned children from around the country were bused in for the day. In between being impatient though familiar with and unsurprised by Moroccan organizational strategies (ex. 20 or so volunteers serving 300 people lunch from four buffet tables, carrying two plates at a time), I tended to a table of about 12 nine- and ten-year-old, mostly only Arabic-speaking, boys. They shouted their names to me, we played some got-your-hand games, I taught them the word “juice” as I served them and then they yelled it a lot, and we gave each other mischievous looks. I sat next to a small nine-year-old, Abdullah, and we chatted together quietly. He told me conspiratorially that the other boys were crazy. We kept an eye on each other all day, smiling. He sweetly kissed me goodbye on the cheeks and squeaked a little “B’saalama” when he left. And so I am adopting him.
On Sunday my new friend Adrianna and I went to mass. It was, apparently, World Day of the Migrant and Refugee. In the homily of the long service the priest named countries and had their representatives stand, then people shouted out their countries that hadn’t been named. Le Mali! (Many people) La France! (So many people that everyone laughed) Les Philippines! (A handful of people) L’Angola! (One person.) It felt important to hear the priest state the obvious, that we all in the room were foreigners to Morocco and we share that. And if being away from home hurts for me, an American kid with a cushy, temporary setup, I cannot imagine what it must feel like for any of the refugees in the cathedral.
Moroccan guys are after me! What am I doing?! Do I walk around with some look or movement or walk of openness? Something suggestive? Are my pants too tight and jackets too short? I don’t get it.
Living alone is a little too lone lately. Cooking-for-one can seem pathetic, and when I catch myself doing something absurd, like eating Nutella out of the jar or doing jumping jacks in my living room while watching part three of a documentary of the life of Natalie Wood (all three parts have inexplicably been aired on 2M, the Moroccan national TV channel, primetime), it’s not much of a stretch to imagine living my whole lame life in an apartment-for-one. I understand that it’s better to focus on the freedom of this time and the coolness of getting to have my own apartment in Morocco, but sometimes it’s just lonely, dogg, and I’d rather hang out with my parents and read magazines and watch BET in their condo. For life.
