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.