Really Old Rocks

This weekend, we traveled to Volubilis; the ruins of an ancient Roman city. Its earliest of these ruins date back to 8000-6000 BC, and was that capital of Mauritania until it was incorporated into the Roman Empire in 40AD. (Translation in my mind: it's really, really old.)

I'm not sure if I gave the ruins all the appreciation that they were due (4 hours is a long time to be admiring ancient rocks), but as I was walking around Volubilis, all I could think of was how someday this would be me. Throughout my life, I am building monuments. Some of them are worthy, some of them are frivolous. Some will crumble and fall apart in just a few weeks, months, or years, others will last me a lifetime, others still may even outlive me. Which monuments are the ones that am I focusing on?

The world average lifespan is a little over 67 years (according to this) which means that I have 24,528 days to make my mark on the world (more or less).  Someday, when people walk through the ruins of what was my life, what impressions will they have? Will I have left positive monuments, or anything memorable at all?

Maya Angelou once said "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." The ruins that are left of me someday I want to be the ones that people can't forget, because they felt Christ's love through me. My aim has always been to be a girl who loves God and loves others, above any other aspirations I have in my life. Those are the the kind of monuments I want to leave behind.

I was also thinking, as our guide prattled on with interesting facts of life in Volubilis tons of years ago, of how fascinating it is that rocks last such a long time. Everything else about the city that once was is gone now--the cloth has frayed, the wood has rotted, the valuable items have been stolen. But the rocks, the things that were carved in stone, those are the things that have remained. Some of the rocks that I walked on or looked at this weekend have been there for more than five thousand years. Those are REALLY OLD rocks. But the rocks don't move, they don't break, they don't crumble and disappear into dust. The lyrics of an old hymn came into my mind...

"On Christ the Solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand..."

Everything that I own in my life is going to be gone someday. No matter how much money I make, no matter how famous I am, no matter what level of "happiness" I reach (by the world's standards)... eventually its all going to be forgotten among the ruins of my life. The things that will last, the things that will be remembered, are the things that are built in the Rock.

Til Later,

Updates, Reflections... and A Significant Lack of Toilet Paper

Sorry I haven't written anything new in a while! I've sat down and begun to write several times, but haven't been able to actually finish a post (hopefully until now).

Things are going really well, overall. I have settled into my classes here (Arabic II and History of the Arab World) and am developing my humanities project. I have made friends, Moroccan and other international students, and am building relationships with the others in my group. I have also done some traveling this past week (pictures can give you updates on that as well!) Last Thursday I went to an orphanage in Meknes, with a group of WPI students whose project is the development of an art and music program for the children at the orphanage. It was a beautiful place and I had a great time meeting some of the children and "playing" basketball with them ("playing" because basketball and I don't really get along so well..!)  Almost all of the orphans here are boys, girls get adopted quickly but boys are, I was told, considered more troublesome and thus are not as often adopted. It made me sad, but the orphanage seems like a safe place for them with a very familial atmosphere.

This weekend we went on our first weekend excursion, to Fez. It is the third largest city in Morocco and was an incredible place. One of the things that blows my mind about this country is how it has managed to remain so timeless. Wandering through the alleys of the medina, there are points where you wouldn't be able to say if you were here in 2013 or a hundred years before. The medinas are often what people think of when they picture Morocco, streets crowded with people and shops lining either side selling lanterns and carpets and spices. Occasionally we would have to press against the wall and let a mule go by, made even more difficult by the fact that it was often thrice its normal width (because it was so heavily laden with cartons of soda or piles of fabrics). Walking through such a busy and narrow place as a group of 20 Americans is quite the ordeal as well. We got our share of gaping stares and whispers, but we were also met with so much kindness. Our guide, an AUI professor, is friends with a man who owns an antique shop in the medina. We went there and looked around his shop, he shook hands with all of us and sat us down on couches; he couldn't say enough how happy he was that we had come and made us all steaming glasses of tea. Only a short time later, after buying a few things in another shop, the women who worked there asked us if they could make us tea as well.  From my experience, Morocco is far less hostile than it is hospitable...

We also had the opportunity, in Fez, to visit a Jewish synagogue. Although the percentage of Jews in Morocco is very small, Moroccans are actually a prominent part of the Jewish population (they are one of the main reasons that the Arabic Hebrew is considered "correct" over the European). I wish that we had been able to meet a Moroccan Jew while we were there, how interesting it would be to get their perspective on this country. Although the religious differences here are less prominent than I expected, I'm sure that for a non-Muslim living in Morocco is very difficult. Islam permeates so much of daily life here. An interesting thing that I have noticed, even in the cities, is that the buildings are never more than four or five stories high; the minaret (part of the mosque, like a church steeple) is always the highest point in a town or city. At one of the many vista points along the roads here, you can always see the minaret high above the rest of the town, and the sound of the muezzin's call to prayer permeates every street. My Moroccan cell phone has an application to give you an alarm for prayer times. There is no pork to be found, anywhere. Women, especially older women, are usually wearing veils (although here on campus this is not so common.) Although many of these things play out more as social characteristics rather than religious ones, it is just a few examples of the way that faith is integrated in the everyday culture. It makes me wonder how things would be if the gospel spread throughout this country. Would many of these cultural distinctions change? Would they need to?

At this point, I'm sure you're wondering about my odd choice of a title for this post.

So, every country has its quirks. Many people who have traveled to other nations for any length of time (particularly an extended period) come across these idiosyncrasies that don't really have an explanation, it's just the way things are. The discovery of these usually comes with some misadventures and cute stories to tell your friends when you get back home. A few of the ones that we have run into here are the sense of "Moroccan time" (similar to Guatemalan time, for anyone who has been on those trips!) Basically, things run at a much more relaxed pace here than in America. They also serve coffee in flimsy plastic cups and there isn't really such a thing as peanut butter. But one of the most prominent cultural quirks, in my experience so far, has been the significant lack of toilet paper in nearly every Moroccan bathroom.

I don't mean this to be gross, only to be frank. My first realization of this was when we stopped at a gas station on our way from Rabat to Ifrane and my friend Kirsten and I went to the restroom. Two of the stalls were "normal," with regular toilets, but two of them were literally just holes in the ground
(looking like this). I, of course, not knowing that they were different, went into one of these and was immediately at a total loss for what to do. I quickly went out and washed my hands, waited for Kirsten and saw that the stall she had gone into had a normal toilet, and used that! But I was grateful that Fatiha, one of our guides, had given me a roll of toilet paper "just in case." Since then, I have found that almost all bathrooms in public places, and even in the homes that we have visited, do not have toilet paper. All of us now carry around a package of tissues or even just a roll of toilet paper in our bags, because you never know whether or not the bathroom you will be using has any!

I know this is kind of a nasty thing to blog about! But the significant lack of toilet paper here in Morocco made me think about the many things that I take for granted in my privileged American life. This is a third world country, and although most of the areas that I have visited have been the wealthier parts, it is still very evident that people here do not have all the things that we are used to in America. Morocco has an illiteracy rate that is around 50%. Charity is an important aspect of the Islamic faith, but I have still seen poverty here.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I love helping people. Having been exposed to the developing world at a fairly young age (I visited Guatemala for the first time when I was 11, and was forever changed), I love and admire those that the world considers poor. I have learned so much from their patience, joy, and resourcefulness. But I am constantly getting caught up in material things, forgetting that the world is so much bigger than new clothes or the latest iPhone. I am SO BLESSED by God, He has given me far more than I could ever deserve. I only want to use it all for Him... "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matt 6:21) I want my treasure and my heart to be beyond the things that I take for granted and the things I wish I had. I want to be more conscious of the gifts that God has given me (even things like toilet paper!) and to treat everything I have as a blessing. Imagine how different my life would be!

I read something this morning that reminded me of how blessed I am:

If you have food in your fridge, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of the world. If you have money in the bank, your waller, and some spare change, you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy. If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million people who will not survive this week. If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the agony of imprisonment or torture, or the horrible pangs of starvation, you are luckier than 500 million people alive and suffering. If you can read this message, you are more fortunate than 3 billion people in the world who cannot read at all.

This really put things in perspective for me. Hopefully my ramblings and crazy analogies are making sense (I'm learning from the strangest things here!), and that you can take some time today to appreciate the "toilet paper" in your life--things you take for granted that not everyone in this world has, and treat it as a blessing!

Til later,