Finding a Nun in Morocco
I was lucky enough that my CBT (Cultural Based Training)
was close enough to HUB (where everyone in our region met up for lectures) that
my friends and I could walk. It was a lovely one hour away by foot that always
brought us to wonderful conversation. Now the traffic in Morocco is quite
scary, I don’t think it is as bad as the traffic in Peru, but it is bad enough
that Peace Corps does not allow us to operate vehicles or ride on motorcycles.
So far I have found myself late for a couple of different things due to the
fact that I have to wait 10 minutes in order to find a safe time to cross the
street.
On one of our walks to HUB as we were waiting for a safe
moment to cross the street my friend Ted brought up the fact that when he was
in Italy all he ever needed to do when he needed to cross the street was find a
Nun and go with her. This was basically the same thing when I live in France
and when I went back to visit with my friend Stacey. Nicole also had some fun
stories from when she lived in Cambodia. Obviously at some point we made it
across the street. Now here in Morocco there are no Nuns to help us cross so
most of time it is just a live game of Frogger.
Luckily most of time we are viewed as ‘miskina’ (poor
thing). When the first person ever called me ‘miskina’ all I wanted to do was
correct them. I am the luckiest person in the world why would anyone think of
me as ‘miskina’. Whenever we are spotted here in Morocco looking lost, confused,
or have just been standing too long to cross the street someone just comes up
and grabs your hand and helps you out.
On our epic adventure to get the bags the Peace Corps
shipped, before Jasmine and I got into the Grand Taxi one of the women had
already decided that we had no clue what we were doing and accompanied us the
whole way. Many a times when my Derija is just not up to snubs someone comes up
and helps me translate from English or French and then help me learn how to
pronounce it correctly. Today an old lady just walked right up took my hand and
crossed the street with me, because she saw me look both ways and she thought I
was scared.
It still bugs me when people call me ‘muskina,’ but living
here and having random strangers help me with the silliest thing like crossing
the street I feel less ‘muskina’ than ever. So far people here have been really
helpful. Yes, you do have to be careful most of the time, but every once and a
while your faith in humanity is restored as someone helps you with what would normally
be a simple task, but here is made 10 time more difficult.
Good morning how are you?
RépondreSupprimerMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because trough them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately it’s impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Paraguay? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Paraguay in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Calle Valencia,39
28903 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez