Wanderlust

The other day, I calculated that I have spent roughly half of the last six years out of the country. I have lived in France, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Morocco, and Jordan. It's been a blast. I've loved it, and wanderlust still consumes much of my waking day. Traveling has always drawn me- foreign lands were always just so much cooler than boring local politics and familiar art and songs.

When I interned in Jordan during the summer of 2010, I hiked Wadi Mujib in Jordan, a slot canyon with crystal clear water that gives (some) life to the Dead Sea. The canyon walls towered and narrowed above me and my friends, enclosing us in a geological wonder filled with life and coolness in an area normally so sterile and warm. We clambered over rocks and waterfalls, forged tiny pools, and had our feet picked clean by tiny fishes at the end. It was wonderful.

I returned to Provo following that indelible summer and, eager to repeat my slot canyon experience, hiked the Narrows with another group of friends. Again, the same closed space, the relentlessness of the timeless water wearing down the rocks, spectacular cliff walls, and so on. Again, it was wonderful. But, I distinctly thought to myself as we neared the end: why did I have to go to Jordan to experience this for the first time when something so similar was in my backyard?

The formation of that question has since marked me. I've spent years abroad and passed countless hours studying other cultures and languages, but how well do I know my own culture? Do I understand what makes my people, the Americans, the Mormons, the Juchaus, the neighbors, the classmates, the coworkers tick? Have I explored my backyard? It begs the question, can I truly understand others if I don't understand myself?

When I look back on my travels in Morocco, Jordan, France, and Israel, I realize that the greatest joys often occurred from the homecoming: from seeing friends and family again after a long absence. Of course, I missed my Arab/French friends and family, but I missed more my family and my friends. I've realized recently that my deepest joys in life do not stem from a thousand brief if meaningful acquaintanceships but rather from the deep, emotional attachments I form with family and friends. It's these experiences, so painful and raw at times, that have taught me about love, adventure, and the human experience.

Similarly, as I explore my own community through projects such as Humans of Provo, I find a wealth of human experience in my community, an area of study I had previously dismissed as too "common" and "ordinary." Art and culture and diversity can be found in our community; the whole gamut runs through my neighborhood. You can find what you want here despite the seemingly monolithic facade. A culture and a language that I speak fluently but do not understand fully is right here at my doorstep. I've come to realize that my culture is just as exotic and foreign to an Arab or an African as theirs is to me. Somehow, that ups the coolness factor of it.

Please don't misunderstand: my experiences in Jordan, Morocco, Israel, and France have opened me up in a way that no other experience could. I've learned about piety, ritual, and family from Arab Muslims, the joy of life and death from Africans in France, and skepticism from the French, to name but a few of the lessons I've gleaned abroad. I wouldn't trade that time for anything. And I still want to go abroad, to live abroad, and to expand my repertoire of the world's religions, cultures, and people.

 But, I recently can't help wondering if what I've been looking for- adventure, love, diversity, art, culture, the human experience- has been here all along. 

Music

This is a pretty random blog post, but it's something that I've been thinking about for awhile and been meaning to write down. 

I'll always associate certain music with different periods of my life. For some reason, there always seems to be some album or artist that speaks to me and my experiences of that time. There's a few gaps where I can't think of a good album to go along with that period of my life, but I feel like I can define quite a bit of my life by the music I was listening to at the time. Here's a brief list and some thoughts behind each one:

Summer 2009: Stars, Your Ex-Lover is Dead

- Fresh back from my mission, I was introduced to the Stars by a good friend, Kurt Daniels. A unique, light style but with heavy themes, far different and more eclectic than anything I had listened to pre-mission. A time of getting to know the post-mission me.

Summer 2010: White Stripes, Get Behind Me, Satan

- I had listened to the White Stripes before, but isolated out in the Badia, the raw simplicity of Meg and Jack White appealed to me and the fairly stark, simple conditions that I was living in. 

Fall 2010: Black Keys, Attack and Release

- Coming back from Jordan, where I was exposed to the Black Keys for the first time by Cyrus Roeddel, the continued rawness and difficulty of adjusting to post-Jordan life in luxurious Provo struck a chord within me. Besides that, it's just great music to run to. 

Winter 2011: Radiohead, In Rainbows

- I got in perhaps my first serious relationship this semester, causing me to reflect on my life, the relationship, and my imminent departure for DC and Jordan. Something about the esoteric, melancholic tones of Radiohead stood out.

Summer 2011: Local Natives, Gorilla Manor

- Aside from the fact that this was one of the four albums I had access to on my iPod Shuffle for the summer, the upbeat Local Natives matched well with a rather carefree summer spent in the nation's capital. 

Fall 2011: Andrew Bird, Andrew Bird and the Mysterious Production of Eggs and Armchair Apocrypha

- In Jordan, the abstract and almost incomprehensible lyrics of Andrew Bird combined with his globally influenced music went well with my difficulties in understanding the Arabic language and making sense of a very foreign culture.

Winter 2012: Mashrou' Leila, El Hal Romancy

- Fresh back from Jordan and ready to date, El Hal Romancy (The Romantic Solution) kept alive the spirit of the Arab culture that I had come to know and love. The combination of Western and Arab music traditions helped me retain the Arab world in my life while merging again into American life. 

Summer 2012: Wolf Parade, Apologies to the Queen Mary

- The raw, reckless, and rebellious sound of Wolf Parade, and especially their song "I'll Believe in Anything" fueled a summer of limited responsibilities, new friends, and lots of adventures. 

Winter/Spring 2013/Now: Noah and the Whale, The First Days of Spring

- I'll tell you after it's done.

Cycle

I went to the BYU Final Film Cut Festival the other weekend. Usually, the student films are so-so, but I was really impressed by the line-up this year. I particularly liked one film, Chronicle of a Country, and not just because it takes place in France. Essentially a series of vignettes, the film sets out to discover what happiness means to French people. A man tells of the most happy moment in his life, when he was on an isolated Pacific island. An older gentleman tells of his biggest regret in life. What really stuck out to me, though, was the segment from 5:10 to 8:09. It's not a story like the other two; rather, a woman discusses what a moment of unhappiness is. I don't feel like I can express it any better than the woman can, so here's a link to the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzjfKfxQTuI

I've lived such a transient lifestyle over the last seven years. Live somewhere for a few months, pack up, go on an adventure, live somewhere else, change wards, change groups of friends, change majors, start a job, get married, lose contact with old friends- the list goes on. So many people have impacted my life for a brief moment, but always, always, time pushes me forward towards other people, places, and events. People come and go, and while I still and will always value those relationships and those places that have molded me, in many cases, the moment passes and the situation doesn't last.

That moment of passing, when we move on to the next stage of life, is a certain kind of death. Not a physical death, but a death in that things can no longer exist as they once were. We realize that a certain way of living is over- we will no longer be in certain places, take certain classes, be influenced by certain people. And when that realization hits us, that deep sadness sets in, a sadness that is a longing for a life that we've become comfortable and familiar with.

That's simply what life is. It's not that we live and die once; rather, we live and die a thousand times before moving on to the next stage of life. It's the process by which we become better, by which we perfect ourselves. A little bit of our old self dies, only to be reborn into something a little better, a little more experienced, a little more capable.

It's quite beautiful. The sadness fades into a renewed, richer happiness when we move on to the next stage, and progressively our lives take on renewed meaning. We move forward with faith knowing that what we left behind has made us into who we are and given us a taste of life, and what lies ahead will refine us even more.

"It's the end of a cycle, but maybe it's the beginning of a new one."

Time

The other day, I accidentally left my phone in a friend's car for a few hours. When I walked up to campus later that morning, sans phone, I realized just how liberated I felt. I had no obligations. I couldn't check my e-mail to check the status on the latest Political Review issue coming out, or to make sure that my assignment was still due on Friday, or to see if I'd heard back from a job I was interviewing for.

I ran into a couple of friends who I chatted with for awhile. There was none of the usual sense of urgency in the conversation; I felt no pressure to go on to the next task for the day, mainly because I was blissfully unaware of the time. I took time to walk slower and notice the beautiful spring weather. I enjoyed feeling alive.

Our Western culture revolves around time. We fill our daily planners with time scheduled for meetings, homework, eating, volunteer time, and even social functions. We prize completing tasks in the most efficient, quickest way possible. We envy those who achieve renown early in life. We publish books and give seminars on how to cram as many activities into as little time as possible.

To make things worse, we place the most value on that which can be measured. The number of connections on LinkedIn. The number of likes on our Facebook posts. The number of baptisms. Our GPA. The number of shoes we have. The number of friends we have. Girls we've kissed. Girls we've dated. How long we read the scriptures. How many times we've read the scriptures. How many job interviews we've had. Starting salaries. Profits. GDP.

It's as if having more of all these things automatically makes us better people.

I totally disagree, but unfortunately, I am a product of Western culture, and so I often fall into the trap of more=better. I judge the success of my day by how much work I've done or how productive I've been as measured by how many tasks I've accomplished. In the busy routine of school and work, even social activities become boiled down into numbers.

However, how much of what is really important in life can be measured by numbers? I doubt very much that the Lord will look at our planners to determine the number of tasks accomplished, ask us what our GPA was, care very much about our ending salary, or even demand us why we didn't have too many baptisms on our missions. Of course, the Lord will hold us responsible for how we used our time; I'm simply arguing that we shouldn't let life become a numbers game.

How much of our time can we honestly say has been quality time, where we stopped to help someone, skipped a class to listen to an old friend, meditated about life, spent our entire scripture reading session on one verse, did something we liked just because we wanted to do it, read a book that wasn't required reading, visited our home/visiting teachees outside of the monthly visit?

Elder Uchtdorf sums it up brilliantly:

"Isn’t it true that we often get so busy? And, sad to say, we even wear our busyness as a badge of honor, as though being busy, by itself, was an accomplishment or sign of a superior life.

Is it?

I think of our Lord and Exemplar, Jesus Christ, and His short life among the people of Galilee and Jerusalem. I have tried to imagine Him bustling between meetings or multitasking to get a list of urgent things accomplished.

I can’t see it.

Instead I see the compassionate and caring Son of God purposefully living each day. When He interacted with those around Him, they felt important and loved. He knew the infinite value of the people He met. He blessed them, ministered to them. He lifted them up, healed them. He gave them the precious gift of His time."

It's something I'm trying to work on. 

Now

"...for behold,now is the time and the day of your salvation..." (Alma 34:31)

When I was younger, I once read a story from a book of Eastern European folk stories.

A young student once complained about the difficulties that naturally accompany life. An old lady appeared and gave him a ball of yarn, telling him that if he ever wanted to skip the more tedious parts of his life, all he had to do was cut the yarn and time would pass by in an instant. Bored with school, he cut the yarn and found himself done with his studies. When he was called into the army, he cut the yarn and found himself back at home; when his kids were giving him problems, he cut the yarn and found them grown; when his marriage was suffering, he cut the yarn and found the problems resolved. He used the yarn so much that he quickly arrived at the end of his life. However, he found only a sense of emptiness in his waning years. He hadn't really served his country, he hadn't seen his kids grow up, and he hadn't really cultivated his relationship with his wife. He had just skated by with his yarn, never being challenged and never really developing. In short, he hadn't really lived.

How often do we have trouble living in the now?
How often do we say to ourselves, "Oh, I just have to make it through this semester/meeting/problem/job and then I'll be happy. And then I can do all those things I've always wanted to do."?
How often do we "cut our yarn" by living in moments past or yearning for the proverbial greener grass on other side?
How often to do we stop to embrace our opportunities for good, service, and love that are always around us no matter the circumstances?
How often do we stop and simply enjoy the feeling of being alive and knowing that we are children of God?

Fortunately, I think the old woman came back just before he died and allowed the boy to go back through and live his life again. Or something like that. It seemed to have a happy ending. Unfortunately for us, we don't have the opportunity to go back and relive our lives if we're unsatisfied. There is no return policy for the inimitable gift that God has given us.

But fortunately (for me, at least), we can't skip any parts of it. And for that I am grateful.

Interview

Last week, I went to Denver for a job interview. The interview was divided into two parts: a presentation on the first day and an actual interview on the second. After the presentation on the first day, I decided that the job wasn't for me. However, I was a few hundred miles away from home and had a rental car, a paper to write, and a whole day before my flight left.

So I did the only logical thing: cancel my interview and go drive around in the mountains by Denver to find inspiration for my paper.

Did you know that Buffalo Bill was buried 25ish miles west of Denver? I didn't before I saw the exit 246 sign (or thereabouts) loudly proclaiming so. My paper would just have to wait. The $5 spent at the Bill Memorial Museum may have been one of the best $5 I've spent.

 

I felt really weird being in the museum alone dressing up like Buffalo Bill, but I couldn't resist putting on at least a hat and boots. Yippee ki yay.

 Buffalo Bill's actual grave.

So after Buffalo Bill and a great view of Denver, I found the beautiful little town of Idaho Springs a few miles down the road. In addition to being quaint and quiet, it had a hippy-ish, natural feeling to it that felt very comfortable. I thought it would be a good place to write my paper, but it wasn't exactly nature, where I felt my muses would most easily come to me, so after seeing a bunch of outdoor stores, restaurants, an abandoned train, and a sign for organic frozen yogurt, I decided to move on.

So, I drove up into the mountains. The views were amazing, but the roads were still pretty bad. At one point, I got my car stuck in a snow bank. Fortunately, I met some really cool people from Nebraska and Iowa on vacation who took me down to a nearby ranger station where we got a shovel to dig my car out. Meeting new people and bonding with them in weird situations is one of the reasons why I love travel. By the time I got it out, it was about 4pm in the afternoon, and I still had no paper written. Given that it was 29 degrees outside and windy, with the sun starting to go behind the mountains, I figured that nature probably wasn't my best ally in getting my paper done.

So I drove back to Idaho Springs, found a Starbucks that had a nice, homey feel to it, and started working on my paper. As customers came in, the employees greeted a lot of them by name and chatted with them about hobbies, families, and life. It brought home the sense of community and family that small town America has and which we often and unfortunately lack in Provo. As I was walking back to my rental car, the sunset offered a view too magnificent to pass up.

I didn't end up getting much done on my paper, but I didn't care too much by the end of the day.

Theodicy

And the Lord spake unto Adam, saying: Inasmuch as thy children are conceived in sin, even so when they begin to grow up, sin conceiveth in their hearts, and they taste the bitter, that they may know to prize the good.

And it is given unto them to know good from evil; wherefore, they are agents unto themselves.

In my religion class this week, I learned a new word: theodicy. Theodicy is the attempt to reconcile the the existence of evil with the existence of an omnipotent and all-good God. I don't have a definite answer for the problem, but I think I'm starting to get something of an idea.

The above scriptures teach us that evil is a moral necessity; it is through evil that we are able to prize the good. Through the light of Christ we can know the difference the between good and evil, but it's through the experiencing of evil, sorrow, and pain that we appreciate and have a testimony of what is morally good. 

I recognize that this has its limitations and doesn't explain the existence of holocausts, massacres, and a host of other evil phenomena. It doesn't make sense that people would have to live through such horrible things just to learn to prize the good. But I know that for me, at least, heartache, disappointment, and suffering has simply been a part of the schooling necessary to make me into what I am today. And for that I am grateful.

Change

When I was serving in Strasbourg, I got really bad stomachaches that kept me inside all day. The apartment was shut down a few months after I left it because of mold- I'm sure our water fights in the apartment after hard days of proselytizing didn't help that situation. In any case, about once a month, I would spend the day in bed trying not to concentrate on the growling, persistent pain in my stomach. My companion at the time had brought (against the mission rules) this book:

 

I ended up reading the whole thing. Not much stuck with me, but I do remember in particular bits of the section on Taoism. I couldn't tell you much about the religion, but one principle in particular stood out to me: the principle of impermanence, the idea that life is in a constant state of flux. We are like rocks in a rushing stream being tossed and thrown; if we try to resist, we will be worn down and eroded away. However, by constantly adapting and going with the flow, we will not only avoid the wear and tear of the jostling of everyday life, the motion of the river will take us somewhere (where exactly, I'm not sure the book specified). 

In any case, it's a principle that helped me on my mission and since. Change is the only permanent feature of life- we change jobs, lost contact with friends, gain new ones, find hobbies, grow disinterested in others, and so on. The cycle of birth, death, and rebirth within our lifetime is never-ending. That's not something we can change; if we fight it, it'll simply wear us down. Instead, we must do all that we can, trust in God, and enjoy the ride down the river.

Creation

I've decided that I'm going to start blogging everyday, even if it's really short. Actually, it's probably a good thing that it'd be really short. I have a really short attention span when it comes to blogs.

Tonight, some friends and I went to the Springville Art Museum. Because it was college night, we got in free. The coolest part was the stations they had set up to draw and do watercolor. I spent about a half-hour trying to draw my foot. Lately, I've felt drawn towards creating things. Arabic and Economics are great, but I don't feel that same satisfaction with them that I do when I write a poem or try to draw something. Art and creation allows us to make sense of the world. We are surrounded by innumerable shades of color and light. Do we understand them? Our senses take in so much, but how much of it do we really process? What are the light patterns and contours that make my foot look like a foot? How do my senses depict its dimensions?

I think I'll do more art these days.

Peanut Butter and Honey Sandwiches

I was sitting in Geology class the other day and, as usual, I took out my lunch to start eating. My friend gasped when she saw my sandwich and exclaimed: "Is that peanut butter and honey?!?" I (unfortunately) had to say no (it was my usual peanut butter and jelly), but her comment reminded me that I had lived on peanut butter and honey for the first eight years of my life. And then, reaching the age of accountability, I switched to peanut butter and jelly. I'm not trying to bash jelly, but let's get real: honey


And, get this- peanut butter and honey may actually be better for you. It might be time for a sea change in my eating habits.

The Moroccan Life

So I have conspicuously not been blogging lately, and it probably has something to do with the fact that life here is so great. I also recently realized that I've never explained what I was doing in Morocco in the first place, so I figured it would be a good time for me to explain a) why life is great, and b, closely correlated to a) what I'm doing here.

CLS (Critical Language Scholarship) is a government scholarship (which means that everything is completely paid for) to do an intensive study of the Arabic language for two months. We have (roughly) five hours of class a day, with a heavy emphasis on fusha, the written, formal Arabic in media. This means that I do a lot of this:

But fortunately, the government (or at least my site director) is big on us using our language in more practical situations and learning about the culture and country through personal experience. This means that we have lots of activities after class hours that get us out in Tangier and Morocco as a whole, which means that I spend a lot more time doing stuff like this:

Bou Inania Madrassah in Meknes

Tangier, Kasbah Museum

And going to places like this:

Rabat, capital of Morocco

Bou Inania Madrassah in Fes

Aqshour, near Chefchaouen

Chefchaouen

And eating food like this, since we happen to be in Morocco during Ramadan, the most holy month in all of Islam:

So yeah, that's why I haven't really been blogging too much. The experience has been great so far, and (I hope that) my Arabic has been improving a lot. More to come.

Holy hafla, batman!

So I've been working on this blog post for about a week, and trying to upload all these videos has been a massive headache, especially since I don't have much time to actually work on stuff like this. I was going to talk about CLS, the fun were having, and all that blah, but it's just going to be too long for one post. I'll update in a day or two and tell you how we have maids who clean for us, a cafeteria with free food, and a weekly stipend to boot.

For some reason, my first week in Morocco led me to a lot of musical activities. It was like one party (hafla, in Arabic) after another, and it was awesome. The video quality of these videos isn't super high, but the sound came through alright. So, sit back and enjoy some authentic Arab music.

So on Monday night (June 25), I went with Monica, Mari, and Youssef on a photo scavenger hunt of the city. We ran into this legit little club next to the Kasbah Museum with some old guys who graciously obliged us with some lovely Moroccan music (at the price of 10 dirham- about $1- as we found out as we were leaving). It picks up around 2:30 if you start getting bored.

On Wednesday, we went to the practice of Oud al-Ramel (literally, the "Sand Guitar"- sick name, right), which is the name of Houdaifa's family's band. They are awesome- super smart, super talented musically, and the nicest people ever. We had tajiin, a traditional Moroccan dish that was more less really tasty meatballs, at their house afterwards and discussed politics and Adele (with the little sister). Here's a clip from Oud al-Ramel:

So Friday night, Monica, Mohammed Ali (not the boxed, but he's a pretty big dude anyways), and I went to the second night of the Maharajan, in the Kasbah Museum. Check out the the Roman/Arab style architecture. The first group we saw was from southern Morocco and played a style of music called Malhun- it's, um, kinda, slow. It talks about a woman named Ghariita, or something like that. I didn't understand a word of it, but the guy ahead of me was getting a real kick out of it:

This next guy was just too legit to quit. We moved to an outdoor theater, were we cooled off a bit thanks to the breeze coming from the Mediterranean. Hailing from Pakistan, he jazzed on a double-reeded flute that played similar to a bagpipe: one reed made a constant note and the other whistled and whined as he used inhuman rapidity to run his fingers along the reed. Oh, and the drums are pretty cool, too.

The group below, the Hmadcha Brotherhood, is interesting from mainly a cultural perspective- the musical aspect is dull and repetitive to say the least. Apparently they're some kind of religious association that dates back to the early days of Islam and plans/does celebrations on important Islamic religious days. One of the most entertaining parts was the old guy (who you can't really see in the video) who couldn't keep rhythm with the others and who kept on yawning during the concert.

So if you don't listen to any other of these groups, listen to this one. Inouraz combines traditional Amazigh (Berber) music, complete with the gambri (a Amazigh version of the guitar), rubab (similar to the Easter rubaba, which is more or less a violin), something else from Iran, and one of the craziest drum sets I've ever seen (gourds, triangles, tublas, hands, you name it), and jazz music. I liked it so much I bought their cd. 

Finally, to round things off, we had a little action from across the straits, from good ole madre Espana in the form of flamenco dancing. Aside from the lithe and frenzied dancer, the guitarist was simply amazing. I could only dream of playing an instrument with that much versatility. The singers had a passionate and slightly annoying throaty sort of voice, but it really only made it that much better. 

Finally, the grand daddy of them all was Sunday night, the night of popular Moroccan/Arab music brought to you by Oud al-Ramel. The group is led by Rasheed Tsouli, the father of Houdaifa, one of our speaking partners. A violinist, he leads a chorus of 15-20 college students hand-picked for their abilities, a couple ouds, a guitar, a bass, several drummers, a couple other violins, a couple cellos, a keyboard, and a saxophone. Singing in this clip is his daughter Soukina, who does a duet with a guy from the group.

Parlez-vous francais?

So before I launch into another blogging spree, I figured I ought to let my faithful followers know what I'm up to (although I assume if you really are a faithful follower, you'd know what I'm doing). I'm sitting right now in beautiful Tangier, Morocco, on a government scholarship for a 8 week intensive Arabic study program. There's about 40 of us from all over the United States (including four BYU alums/students). We had a two-day long orientation in DC- it was wonderful to be back- and then flew out of Dulles International at 4:40PM on Thursday, June 22.

And that was just the beginning of our troubles. Our AirFrance flight ended up leaving Dulles an hour late, which means that we got into Charles de Gaulle at 7AM the next morning. The actual flight itself was pleasant; I sat next to a nice hippie lady who had done her fair share of traveling before settling in West Virginia. I also saw Jurassic Park, which I had never seen before. It was dece. Anyways, our connecting flight to Casablanca was at 7:20AM, so despite the "efforts" of AirFrance to hold our plane, we ended up missing up. That meant that there were 30 Americans (the other ten left through JFK) that needed to be put on a flight to Casablanca.

Enter French customer service, which is less than stellar to say the least. By this point, remember, most of us have just spent a sleepless night on a plane over the Atlantic (although AirFrance has pretty good food for an airline). So of the group of 30, only another guy who spent seven years living in France and myself speak French fluently, so we start talking with the AirFrance customer service rep to look for other flights. Because we're such a large group and the tickets are group tickets, it's tough to find us tickets to get us all over to Morocco together. Additionally, we have to wake up our poor coordinator back in the States to tell her what's going on, and she ends up calling us about once an hour over the next day to get things figured out (what a sweetheart).

So it ends up that AirFrance doesn't have any open spots to Casablanca for the rest of the day, but their partner Royal Air Morocco does. The catch: RAM doesn't fly out of Charles de Gaulle but out of Orly, which is the airport for southern Paris and happens to be a 1.5 hour bus drive south of CDG. Another catch: we can't fit all 30 of us on the same flight, so we have to split into two groups, one of 20 and one of 10. As one of only two French speakers, I go with the second group (of 20) to try and catch a 3:20PM flight out of Orly. The nice AirFrance lady fills out a form for us, which ends up taking approximately a billion hours to do. We figure we can make the flight if we can get our baggage in 10 minutes and head out. At least we get a free breakfast of lukewarm hot chocolate and a pain au chocolat out of it.

We make our way to the baggage claim and lo and behold, our baggage is missing. Thus begins round of negotiations numero deux, this time with the baggage claim lady. She speaks decent English, so I'm able to take a quick break from French. They don't know where our baggage is, as during the time it took to fill out the form our bags were shuttled off to somewhere else. This means that we miss the 3:20PM flight and have to go upstairs to find another flight.

Negotiations numero trois: Max from Martinique starts helping us after at first seeming completely uninterested in our plight. Erica gives him the glare of death, and starts helping us thereafter. As it turns out, there are flights at 7:20 and 9:20PM, both from Orly and both with 20+ seats. We decide to get the baggage thing settled and eat lunch (this time a fluted, jambon cru sandwich at Paul's, also brought to you by AirFrance). Max and I agree to eat lunch together in Martinique should we ever happen to be there at the same time.

We go back, and Boaz has the baggage thing under control. Most of the bags have been found in the four corners of CDG, and they are slowly being brought to us. At this point, some of the girls seem to be on the edge of a nervous breakdown. My brain has completely flipped from Arabic to French, and I can't form a cohesive sentence in Arabic if I wanted to. On the plus side, I can feel my French power bar recharging (think that Sims game or Scott Pilgrim or something).

Negotiations raqam arb3a: Max has gone for the day, and a nice looking French lady is at his desk. That is, after waiting for a half hour in line because her coworker decided to leave before her replacement got there, meaning there was one person at the AirFrance service de client desk for that whole time. We hit another snag: the 7:20 and 9:20 flights no longer have room for 20 Americans, so we have to split into a group of 6 and 14. At this point, it's 4PM, so the group of 6 has to book it right after she books us (nice, right?). Monica takes over negotiations at this point and performs admirably. She's a champ.

We head off to Orly, and I sprawl out in the backseat and sleep for an hour before being jolted awake by the stop and go of Parisian rush hour. I talk to a French dude who tells me that not only is it Friday (wait, it's Friday?!?) but it's also the last day of French school, so everybody's beating it out of Dodge to escape to Marseilles or wherever. We arrive in the nick of time after navigating an extremely confusing and surprisingly poor designed Orly airport. The RAM agents seem flabbergasted by the form that I bring them, but eventually it works out and the six get on their flight. I listen to the Fleet Foxes while waiting for the other 14 to show up.

We get through security without a problem, and our flight doesn't end up leaving until 10:20PM. We get into Casablanca around midnight local time, a full 24+ hours after leaving DC.

I think that's good for today- more on Tangier later.

Oh, but here's some videos of our mad rush:

Us trying to catch the connecting flight at CDG.

Everyone's just so happy!

Hakiim

Watching the news just doesn't do it justice- I didn't really get what was going on in Libya until I actually met some Libyan revolutionaries tonight, pretty ordinary guys who did some extra-ordinary stuff and really put their lives on the line. There are several thousand Libyans in Jordan these days for medical treatment from war wounds, which presents an awesome opportunity to get some inside information on the Libyan revolution. If only I could understand their Libyan accent better.

Tonight, I met Hakiim, who was a tugboat captain before the war in Misrata. When Misrata revolted against Gaddafi, he became a gun runner between Bengazi and besieged Misrata, supplying vital weapons to a city whose only supply lines were through the ocean. Following the liberation of Tripoli, Hakiim spent a day or so at home to rest before going to Sirte to finish the war. While driving a truck (I think it was a truck that had mounted artillery, but I didn't quite catch it), he was shot through the foot by a sniper. Two other bullets that would have hit him were stopped by the truck door. A couple months later, he is in Amman, Jordan, getting treatment for his injured foot.

Pictures will hopefully follow.

People who I (try to) talk to in Arabic in Jordan

- Taxi Drivers: Hit or miss group that rarely fails to provide an entertaining ride (as long as they don't try and rip you off), whether it's swearing at Palestinians out the window, telling you how they make more money in a taxi than in an office, or trying to sell you Catholic rosary beads.

- Security Guards at the UN: Smart, well-rounded, retired soldiers sitting in front of the UN Food Program building in Amman with nothing to do but talk to Americans about politics and their favorite 80s American TV shows.

- Shopkeepers at the crazy looking, mint-colored mosque: A bunch of lower middle-class, mostly devout Muslims who try to convert you to Islam while offering you processed mango juice with way too much sugar. 

- the Shabaab (not the terrorist organization in Somalia, but the Arabic word for young people): A bunch of crazy, hormonally repressed young adults who have never had a real conversation with a girl in their lives, never study even though they attend one of the premier universities in the Middle East, and like to teach Americans all the good Arabic swear words in exchange for a few English ones. 

- LDS Church members in Irbid: Pious, faithful, extremely small group of Mormons who just can't give up their Orthodox icons yet inspire you by their commitment to come to church week after week and slowing put their lives in line with Gospel despite serious cultural obstacles. 

Things I missed about Jordan:

- the organizational capacities of the Jordanian people. Drink tea with the shabaab, stare at girls, throw a plan together at the last minute, and pray that it works.

- Jordanians assume you are rich, bad-a Americans who live in a Hollywood type world with guns, girls, and pro wrestling.

- driving with a driver who has ice in his veins and slips through the most impossible gaps. I've yet to be in an accident.

- groups of shabaab who drive around and honk at every American girl they see.

- the fact that hygiene is a lot less important, meaning that I don't have to shower everyday and it is acceptable for my feet to be very dirty.

- the call to prayer five times a day.

- super friendly people always ready to talk with said rich, bad-a Americans.

Legit.

The next few months...

So, the next few months are just going to be a little wild. Just a little warning for all you faithful readers of a blog that doesn't write often (hopefully that'll change here shortly). After a wonderful summer in DC (hopefully a future blog can be devoted to that) at Development Gateway, I've got a pretty packed next couple months. Here's my itinerary:

--Leave tomorrow for Paris, arrive at Charles de Gaulle on Sunday morning.
--Spend two and a half days in Paris leaving in Vintage Hostel- it's gonna be legit.
--Leave for Amman on Tuesday afternoon, getting there later on in the day.
--Spent four months in Jordan and Israel getting my butt kicked by the Arabic language.
--Be home for Christmas.

Needless to say, I'm super excited about it all. Look for more posts shortly!

Mais, non!

Pour tous ceux d’entre vous qui aimez la musique indie, la langue française, et la folie, j’ai trouvé le groupe ultime : Malajube. Ok, c’est vrai qu’ils sont québécois (mes excuses à tous les vrais français, suisses, et belges), mais c’est la première fois que j’ai trouvé une chose pareille- le style de musique que j’aime ET le français. Je voulais afficher la vidéo mais c’est vraiment un truc bizarre (que j’aime bien sûr) au sujet de la suite d’un massacre viking ou je ne sais quoi exactement. Cherchez-le sur YouTube si vous osez.

Click here to listen to a goofy French indie song.

Why do I feel so good?!?

Friends and countrymen, one of the most exciting things of the summer happened today. Maybe the most exciting of my life. Here it is below:


$77, one solid chocolate treasure box, just about every dessert from Serendipity 3 in Georgetown, 11 friends from work and the Barlow, and a shot at glory. Twenty minutes later, the end game:
I had so much sugar during that time I'm surprised I didn't become a diabetic. Maybe my body just has a natural predilection for sugar- two uncomfortable hours and a quick jog later, I feel like I could take on the whole Empire myself. Or, maybe it's just those warm fuzzies you get after doing something great. Either way, I will sleep well tonight.

Jenni, this one's for you

So, it's a little past midnight, and I was about to go to bed, when I remembered that I promised Jenni Boyle that I'd start up my blog again (yes, it was that popular). And so I stayed up for fifteen extra minutes to keep my word. In fact, I'm even going to include a picture.

This is me on top of the world. I feel great. I feel good. Jordan was an awesome, wonderful experience that taught me a lot about what this world has to offer and what this world needs. I felt what it was like to not have constant access to the internet, an iPod, a nice gym, running, running water, a toilet, or clean clothes. Lately, at BYU, in addition to the million other things that I'm doing, I've gotten involved with an internship through Students for Social Entrepreneuring where we are helping a company involved in providing loans for poor students in South America.

I've recently found out about social entrepreneurship. Basically, you use markets and basic economic principles to provide services to the poor instead of just giving them handouts. For example, Vittana, the company that I work for, connects people around the world with students needing loans on their website, www.vittana.org. People can make a loan for as little as $25, and the students get the money to finish to school and eventually pay back the loans. It's an awesome concept- using the resources of normal people to help those who are less fortunate.

I'm seriously considering a career in international development. When I was on my mission, I decided that whatever I was going to do was going to be as close to missionary work as possible. Being involved in helping overcome the problems of the world- no matter how insignificant my efforts are- is the closest thing that I've found. Life is beautiful. Profitons-en.