Like a high school crush

The other day, after getting back from Morocco, Kate and I went on a fall-in-love-with-Granada-all-over-again walk through the Paseo de los Tristes and up into the Albaizín, where, of course, we fell in love with Granada again. It´s bittersweet because, truth be told, I should never want to leave this place, and yet I do. It´s got mountains, beach, personality, and Spanish :), but it´s not home, and I don´t see that changing.

Then yesterday, we hauled our sorry asses out of bed, got on the bus, geared up, and hit the mountain. My second day skiing this year. As Hemingway would say, qué obscenity día! After three weeks of rain, the clouds parted, the heavens shone with magnificent light, and I got a little bit of a goggle tan. I cannot deny that a decent chunk of my sanity depends on whether or not I can spend time on a mountain, preferably going really fast down a big snow-covered hill. I´m like a new woman.

Plus, I found out last week that Nico is coming to visit with his mom and sister, and that means that several of my favorite people will have shared with me a little of my life here, which sort of makes the transition back to my other life easier. I am hoping that I can go with them to Morocco and introduce them to some of my friends there. I feel like I really need the chance to say goodbye, and I am not sure if I will lead another group this semester. Then, I am thinking I will kidnap Nick (ala Spencer) and force him to stay and travel with me more. Hay que aprovechar mis últimas semanas aquí!!

Mike, an alum of the Morocco and the Alpujarra program, the first person to be trapped in our bathroom, and basically our adopted little brother, came back to Granada yesterday after four months of travelling around India, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. Last night we had a nice, mellow night, and I sucked up some of his good energy and some of the exotic fruit that he managed to get through customs. It was almost like being someplace tropical until we realized that we were still cold.

Today at Samia´s where I check my email every day, I started crying while reading about the Virginia Tech shooting. I think it was partly frustration about the recent bombings in Casablanca that sort of overflowed out of my eyes when I started thinking about how horrible all of this violence is. My Moroccan friends are scared because they don´t want extremists taking over their streets, they are afraid their jobs and economy will suffer, and they don´t want the world to equate those detestable acts with Morocco (or Muslims, in general). It makes me think even more about the difference between religion and politics, and how they both are used to manipulate public perception. How is it that the acts of a small percentage of people who call themselves Muslim come to represent more than a billion people, the majority of whom want to live a peaceful life without fear of being blown up as they wait for a movie. Why is different when it is the act of an Iraqi than when the person setting off the bomb is American?

I think about this a lot now tht home is in my periphery. I love where I am from, and I think the United States is an amazing place, both the people and the landscape. I have friends who have fought and will fight in Iraq, and who, I think, are being used as pawns in a really big, really important chess game. The players on the other side, like my Moroccan friends, are stuck in the middle of an economic and cultural minefield, and if they give in too much either way, they either have to compromise their culture, religion, and identity, or they are at the mercy of people who would have them stay permanently etched in stone and without the freedom to question or change.

Whew! The Little One (my roommate Andreia) is taking us on a marcha tonight. In English, we´re going OUT! So I should go and pretend that I am a rock star. I´m in Spain, dammit! Hay que aprovechar.

More later. Love H

More Asilah

Asilah

A nice city on the Atlantic coast, between Tangier and Rabat.

Hash hills

This is Chefchaouen, a beautiful town in the mountains that´s been destroyed by tourism. It´s never hard to find hash, and you can ask in pretty much any known language. Chaouen has a really interesting history, and was the place where the Jews who were persecuted in Granada fled after the inquisition. When they "rediscovered" it in the early 20th century, people spoke in ancient Spanish. It´s also nice because they paint dead-end streets blue, so when you get lost with a group of students (which you inevitably do), you can avoid making them backtrack for kilometers.

A Day in the Village

This is Fati, the most sassy grandmother you´ll ever meet, and I say this as someone who has several sassy grandmothers. We take students to her village, where they get the chance to play soccer, eat couscous, and hang out with the family--Aziza, Muhamed, Little Muhamed, and the baby, Anas.

The souk

This is the main market in Rabat, the city where we spend the most time, and a city which I love. This is near the area in the medina where my families live, and there´s always an adventure when you dive in.

At last count, there were 76 cats...

...at the eel pool in Chellah. They keep them well-fed on Whiskas. You can pay a dirham to see the man throw hard-boiled eggs to the creepy eels. I am realy hoping the Chellah magic doesn´t work on me. Getting knocked up right now is not what I need!!!

Now onto another continent...

One of my goals over the next couple of weeks is to get some pictures of Morocco and my friends there. I started the last trip, took four pictures, and ran out of batteries. This is the mosque at the Roamn ruins at Chellah, in Rabat. Notice the stork. Many people believe that coming to Chellah and feeding egg to the eels (more later), and generally basking in the storkiness will help them conceive.

The end of the road...

The dog lady

After our journey through the magical forest, we headed to Serra da Estrela, a mountain range that reminded me of Ireland or Scotland (could it be the rain?) We were adopted by two dogs, who stuck with us through several wet hours of bushwhacking until we finally made it back to town, where we were met by the nicest shepherd ever who wanted to make sure we didn´t get ourselves in too much of a pickle.

Enchanted forests

Our second day, we went to th Buçaco forest, which even comes with a beautiful, creepy haunted castle and a trail of penitence made by the monks that lived there before its current incarnation as a hotel. Lots of little cabins with ceramic, life-size depictions of various horrific, bloody Christ moments, only in some, the ceramic heads of the statues had shattered. Really gruesome. I don´t think I would want to be lost alone there in the dark.

Then came Portugal.

Man, I love Portugal. Really. It´s one of the most amazing places I¨ve ever been. This is Porto, where we began our Portuguese adventure with a glass of Port and some Portishead. No joke.

This is the part where I almost peed my pants.

It´s like Where´s Waldo. See if you can find the people in the picture. Then see if you can find exactly what they´re climbing across. Not so much really. I was maybe more nervous than I have ever been, but Spencer was maybe a little more nervous, and so I started singing one of our songs to get him across the part (not pictured) where you have to sort of jump across about six feet of open air where the path that you´ve been walking on just sort of... fell away. A few hundred feet into the raging river below.

More El Chorro

The view from one of our climbs, in between rain showers.

Málaga redeems itself

I am not a fan of Málaga (the city) because, as one lovely guidebook puts it, it sold its soul to the Devil, aka Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, the Great White North. It is almost impossible to speak Spanish in Málaga and along the Costa del Sol, and when people do speak Spanish with you, you´d generally rather they not. So when Spence told me we´d be climbing in Málaga, I was skeptical.
Then, after a long bus ride and Andalusian taxi adventure, we pulled into El Chorro. It was dark, and warm, and reminded me of being home. When we arrived at the climber´s lodge, we met lots of quirky climbers from pretty much everywhere but Spain, including Spencer´s wonderful friend Jack.
In the morning, this is what I saw. Along with lots of other really big rock walls. It was my first tim climbing, and I think it´s not a bad place to start. As long as I can skip the city, I´ll climb there again any day.

One day in February...

...a little Spencer happened to pop through my neighborhood. I kidnapped him at the bus station and forced him to go to the mountains with me. He fought at first, but eventually gave in to my devious persuasion.
Basically, we had one of those magical afternoons when, after finding yourself in a beautiful valley in the Alpujarra, on the trail between white-washed, storybook towns, you look at each other and say, "Are we really here? How did this all happen, anyway? Places like this actually exist. Joder."
Mind you, Spencer and I had spent a month together with 17 teenagers in Ecuador, which doesn´t technically count as travelling. More like exotic baby-sitting. But we knew from the start that we would travel well together, and so Spain was the start of our future travels. I convinced him within about 47 minutes to lengthen his trip and come with me and Kate to Portugal.

If your ovaries don´t get ticklish with this one...

...then they never will. This is Florina with her basket of oranges after a raging wind storm in the Alpujarra. She´s painfully cute.