How many Moroccons does it take to get someone out of a bathroom with a jammed lock?

Sadly, I know that answer… it was 4.  One to shout directions to me in Arabic from the other side of the door, one to start tearing the jam down with a crow bar and two to watch.

I spent the weekend with three of my housemates on a jaunt to the Sahara to ride camels and sleep under the stars… well not exactly under the stars as we were in a tent, but pretty darn close.  It’s hard to even begin to describe how magical the camel ride was and the sleeping out in the desert in the middle of no where, but I have to admit, when I returned to the house tonite, the first story that came out was me getting stuck in the small bathroom in my hotel room.

Because it was a 10 hour drive from Rabat to where we were going to ride camels and camp in the Sahara, we got there quite late so stayed in a local hotel, where we would board our camels the following day for our trek to the camp site.  The bathroom door lock was not quite up to par from the beginning, and I wouldn’t have even used it except it was the only way the door would shut and felt it was a courtesy to Mimi, my roommate for the evening.  So…. shortly after breakfast, I returned to the room to get my things, used the bathroom to ready myself for the trek and lo and behold, when I tried to unlock the door, it wouldn’t budge.  I fiddled around with it for a few minutes, when Simone (one of the other girls I was traveling with) knocked on the door to tell me they were ready to go.  When I told her I couldn’t get out, I heard her go down the hall shouting “….uh….we’re going to need some help here…”  And that is when the 4 Moroccan men showed up and started shouting directions to me in Arabic.  I wasn’t having any luck explaining to them that it wasn’t the door handle that was jammed, but the lock below it (honestly, I don’t know why I said anything as they couldn’t understand a word I was saying).    I was in there a good 15 minutes before I saw a crow bar rip apart the door jam to free the lock.

I have to admit, I was starting to panic a bit as the bathroom was quite small and I wasn’t sure exactly how they were going to free up the lock short of knocking the door down.  When the door was finally opened, and I saw the damage to the jam, I looked at them with a thankful, yet oh so apologetic look and they just shrugged their shoulders and smiled as if to say…”No problem, it happens all the time…” (which I’m sure is not far from the truth).

I was leery the rest of the weekend of bathroom doors with funky locks… and believe me, that includes most of them that I saw.  Between trying to hold doors shut with my foot, (yea, I know… it wasn’t easy) or leaning forward and holding it shut with my hand, I decided the easiest (and safest) route to go was to simply let it swing open and forgo the privacy, which I did and fortunately seemed to hit the public bathrooms when no one else did.

After a weekend of magic in the desert with a camel trek, a full moon and a night under the stars, honestly, it was the getting locked in the bathroom story that came out first to my housemates once home.  The rest of the weekend, I’m savoring and will share in pieces…

Our “Alibaba” inspired hotel restaurant…

Casablanca has Rick’s Cafe, the 2nd largest religious building in the world and STARBUCKS!!

We were without the internet in the house for the past two days and once over the initial… “now what?”… I’ve got to admit, it was nice.  Something happened that I remember fondly from my time volunteering in Perú and that is conversation.  The four 20 somethings in the house did not share that sentiment and not knowing what to do with their hands, their minds, their attention, they left the house for some night life.  Dee Dee, Mimi and I sat around and chatted… something I’ve missed. But now it’s back and we’re all connected, especially the 20 somethings, who appear to have regained their will to live.
I took the train to Casablanca today, a little over an hour away, with Mimi and Dee Dee this morning.
Our first sense of accomplishment came early with successful maneuvering through the prompts on
the machine where we purchased our tickets.  Suffice to say, it took several attempts but when tickets
(and even to the right place) and change popped out of the orange slot on the machine, there was a
unanimous sigh of relief.  People are very friendly and helpful here, although that help usually comes
in the form of French, not English.  Few (I can count on one hand), have been able to offer assistance in English, but I expected that.
The station as well as the train were both incredibly clean and modern, making for a nice, easy ride. The station in Casablanca was a beautiful surprise – almost like a large shopping center,  although most of the stores were closed.  Today is a national holiday for the Moroccans, which is why we weren’t working and could travel in the first place.  I’m learning that there are many national holidays in this country (we will have next Tuesday off as well…).  Today was the celebration of Morocco
taking Western Sahara from Spain.

Much to our surprise and delight, we were greeted with a two-story Starbucks as we made our way
up from the platform… a very welcome sight!  A  couple of sips into my coffee made me realize how bad the coffee at the house is.  It’s instant coffee that’s been boiled and is served with hot milk.  Tea doesn’t seem to be available unless it’s the traditional Moroccan mint tea, which is only served at
lunch at with far more sugar than I’m normally used to.  I don’t usually like to hit up the American sites when traveling outside of the country, but was very happy to enjoy a Starbucks this morning.

A welcome site…
The main attraction in Casablanca is the Hassan II Mosque, the 2nd largest religious building in the world after the mosque in Mecca.  It was completed in 1993 after 6 years of construction by
35,000 craftsmen and had a price tag of over half a billion dollars.  The price tag fell upon the people of Morocco, with even the children offering up their pennies to help pay for it.  We arrived 20 minutes too late for a tour, and really didn’t want to wait 2 hours for the next tour, so asked one of the guides if it would be OK for us to go in a bit late.  No.  There were no exceptions.  Dee Dee added that we were staying in Rabat and were volunteering in the orphanage (where her placement is).  It
was like Dorothy explaining to the wizard that we had come all that way…

“Well in THAT case….

I don’t think any of us like playing the “volunteer” card, but it is nice to gain the respect from the

locals when they find out why you are here.  Well played, Dee Dee. having private tour was nice.  I
must say, as elaborate, exquisite, grand, enormous and incredible as it was, I found myself somewhat
offended by the huge gesture of grandeur that this King built in his honor.  It was built BY the people,
but clearly is not FOR the people.  First of all, it was close to $10 to enter, so was clearly for tourists.
Although the call to prayer went off while we were there, no one was coming in to pray.  It felt overly large and far too empty.  Many of the rooms were for “show” only (our guide shared that with us as I asked..), such as the rooms for ablutions (where the  body is cleansed before prayer).  In a city with so much poverty, to walk into a large intricately tiled
room that’s only used as a display for tourists, seemed like the wrong way to spend so much money.  From what I’ve read, many of the locals feel the same way.  I am glad we went though, and was
happy to be able to step inside, especially given that it is the only mosque in Morocco that a non-
Muslim can enter.

Hassan II Mosque
Intricate tile… everywhere!
BIG door!!!
The other highlight was a delightful lunch at “Rick’s Cafe” (from the movie, Casablanca).  Although the food at the house has been wonderful, it was nice to have a leisurely lunch in a restaurant.  OK, maybe it was the glass of wine that added so much to the enjoyment.  There was a note on the bottom of the menu, by the way, to any Muslims that may be dining there that some of the dishes may have alcohol in them so one should check before ordering.  As Mohamed has said, alcohol is against the law here, but is available for tourists… and tourists only….(I think there is a lot of turning a blind eye that goes on around here…)
Rick’s Cafe
One last observation… I noticed small rooms at the train station, one for men and one for women, where shoes are removed at the doorway and people can slip in to pray during the calls to prayer.  I saw several men going in, but no women.  I asked some of my students about this the other day, and one of the gentlemen told me that it’s more important for the men to go pray than for the women.  I’m not sure how accurate that is, but from what I observed today, it seemed like the women were too busy tending to the children to slip into the rooms for prayer.  I suppose what has struck me the most about the call to prayer is that the women and the men pray separately.
We made it back to the house just in time for dinner, but I must say, I’m still pretty full from lunch.  Great day!

Tomorrow the language school is closed, so I will be spending time at the orphanage.  It won’t be easy.  That I know for sure.

The young man knows his adjectives! And the teacher has success…

Give it time and have and patience…

Today, during what became an impromptu study of adjectives, I had each of the 6 students come up with 3 positive adjectives describing someone they knew, without any repeating.  The next to the last student at the table described her best friend with these three adjectives:

1.  She’s beautiful
2.  She’s stylish
3.  She’s slender

The last student, a 20 something young man with a continual smile on his face and twinkle in his eye, had only one response when I asked him for his 3 adjectives, and it was:

“I want that girl’s phone number.”

And we’ve connected… the teacher and the students.

This is real learning.  We’re getting to know each other well enough that humor is beginning to filter into the lessons….

Today was a much better day.

Nothing to do with teaching today, just a photo I took that I liked…

 

 

English lessons for them, Arabic lessons for me, and we all go home happy… well sort of…

I really have no idea as to the impact I had this morning during my first day teaching English, but I
was given an exquisitely drawn rendering of my name in Arabic by the one student that told me
without words that she was not going to talk.  Instead, she carefully drew a very stylized version of my name in Arabic.  Every once and a while, I’d notice her looking up from her drawing, with a

grin or a chuckle at something I had said, so speak or not, I think she understood more than she wanted to admit, and was simply shy about speaking.

My name is in there somewhere…

There were 20 some students at the school, mostly all female (3 male students trickled in during the
course of the class, which surprised me, but I was told that men were allowed to come for the English lessons).  Although they all had different skill levels, the one thing they had in common was their desire to learn.  I was with another volunteer from the house, Kelsey, which made it a bit easier, if not to simply have someone to share glances of “what do we do now???”  We eventually decided that breaking into two groups of ten might make conversing a bit easier, and it did.  Because we didn’t know what their English abilities were going to be, we didn’t bring any materials with us so were winging it all the way.  I did, however, bring some photos I had of my family and my life,  as I thought it would make for a good conversation starter (although their abilities varied tremendously,
they all seemed to be able to understand most of what I said and string simple sentences together).

Shortly after passing the photos around, I noticed that the woman seated next to me had put her head down on the table.  I thought that perhaps she wasn’t feeling well, but soon noticed that she was
crying.  She explained to me that her son lived in California and she missed him terribly, and seeing
the photos of me with my children made her sad.  Of course I felt terrible and any momentum I had
made with my now smaller group of students, was quickly lost.  One of the other women gave me a glance and unsaid permission to go on as she would be fine.  Maybe this happens a lot?  I couldn’t help but remember something that Mohamed had told us the previous day and that was to never take the worth of our passport for granted.  In Morocco, you have to have a visa to leave the country, which has to be applied for months ahead of time, along with a $160 fee.  He said then you may or may not get the visa and don’t know until you are notified by mail.  Of course the $160 is lost either way (minimum wage is $250 a month, so a $160 fee is quite a bit of money).  This poor woman, working so hard on her English so she will be able to speak English for “when I’m in America,” may not even be able to get a visa in the first place.

I had just gotten started again with my impromptu teaching, when the same woman grabbed my arm
and pulled me closer to her and told me she had recently had an operation.  It took a few tries of her
telling me, but I was finally able to put it together that she had breast cancer, had recently had a mastectomy and had just finished radiation.  She may have found a friend, but I’m not sure sitting
next to me is such a good idea as I think she was trying to turn a classroom situation into “private lessons.”

I pulled out just about everything I had, as they patiently waited to see what I had for them next.  No
one, except for my new best friend, wanted to take any initiative on the talking short of the guy in my
class who was very interested in learning more about Las Vegas.  I’ve only been there once, but did my best to stretch out what little I had.  Oh,  and he wondered…”did I eat at McDonalds a lot??  This
was no easy feat today, and if I didn’t have something to tell them, they would quickly fall into spirited conversations among themselves… of course, all in Arabic.  I experienced several of those
awkward moments of watching myself as I tried to work my way back into the attention of everyone
that was surrounding me at the table.  And slowly, I’d be able to work myself back into visibility with anything I could pull up… “What did you do yesterday?  Wasn’t it hot??”   Sorry folks, but short of
asking you your favorite color, that’s all I’ve got.  I know it will get better.

Kelsey had a similar experience with her group, so once back at the house, we started pouring
through stacks of materials we found in a supply closet and were relieved to at least have something to work with tomorrow.  This is a free language school for the students and is staffed with only with volunteers.  I always wonder how much impact I’m really making during volunteer situations like this, but when Mohammad told us that if we weren’t there, they wouldn’t have class, made me realize
that we absolutely were making a difference, regardless of how inept I felt today.  Teachers, I’ve
always had the utmost respect for what you do, but that respect doubled today.

The rest of the group volunteered at the children’s orphanage or the children’s hospital.   After hearing
their stories, I know I made the right choice in my job placement.  Most of the children at the
orphanage were “thrown away” after birth by single mothers in order to avoid jail time, as giving
birth out of wedlock is punishable by law.  One of the other volunteers told me that most of them were severely deformed and needed complete care.  She also told me that the place was immaculate and that the children were very well cared for.

I remember the long quiet rides back to house after volunteering at my placement in Perú and today was no different.  No doubt, first and foremost on all of our minds was how fortunate we were that we were born in the United States.  It’s easy to forget that…

We had an afternoon of site seeing, with time inside the medina (the old walled town) an ancient fort
and our first glimpse of the ocean.  The colors were amazing.

 

One last thing… in the short amount of time I’ve been here, I’ve already become accustomed to the bells, that sound more like fog horns, that signal prayer time…  four times a day..

Arabic is hard…

This is what I learned today… (well, actually, I learned a lot more than this, but these are my stand out points…)

1.  Arabic is a very difficult language, but I had kind of figured that out before I came, so I’m not going to count that as one

1.  TRUE Argon oil (very popular here) comes from the Argon tree, which is only grown in one city in the world… Agadir, Morocco, which also happens to be where our house manager is from.  Goats climb the argon trees and eat the hard shell off of the nut, which then falls to the ground and is harvested.  I’m hopeful to be able to witness this… trees filled with goats.  Mohammad said it looks a lot like a tree full of birds, only of course they are goats, not birds.  Seems like something worthwhile to seek out.  I mean seriously… a tree full of goats??

2.  Bread is considered sacred (it is a very bread-centered diet here… again, died and gone to heaven on the food here…) so all bread scraps must be put in a separate container when we clean up our plates after mealtime.  The leftover bread is then fed to animals.  All other trash is thrown out.  No recycling (or at least not here…)

3.  If you are Moroccan, and want to get a hotel room with someone of the opposite sex, you must show proof of marriage.  It is illegal for Moroccans to share a hotel room unless married.  This does not apply to other nationalities.

Pretty good stuff.  This is a very interesting country and our in country manager, Mohamed is extremely personable and very knowledgeable.  He served in the Peace Corps, has a law degree, is fluent in several languages and has an incredible sense of humor.

 

She’s not in Kansas anymore…

You know you are far from home when you have to go through two other translations before you finally hear English, but are discouraged that you can’t understand a word of your native tongue that’s hiding behind a very thick Arabic accent with a whole lot of French influence.  And then there’s the signage, as beautiful as it is curious.

Yep, that’s me… Laurie Sunderland, reading from right
to left.

The journey to Rabat was long… not because it was all that far (a “short” 2 plus hour flight from
Paris), but because the biggest part of the flight, Boston to Paris, felt more like a KC to Albany run
given the size of the plane…knee to knee, elbow to elbow, bad food and generous pours on cheap
wine (ok actually free wine), all added up to a not so great experience, short of a lovely French
woman sitting next to me (seriously, are we ever so intimate with strangers but on a plane???) who was interested in what I was knitting and pulled out her phone to share photos of her recent knit projects.  Sometimes words aren’t necessary.  I love that.  I think I will need to keep loving that communication with few words in the weeks to come…

The house where I’m staying is small but very charming and efficient.  It’s also incredibly clean and I would totally feel comfortable eating off of any part of the floor, where, by the way, shoes are not allowed.  Barefoot all the way!  I will be sharing this small 2 bunks room with another girl
who I haven’t yet met, as she is away this weekend.  I’ve taken cues from her neatly stacked belongings and have tried to organize my things with that in mind.  I think she’ll be pleased with her new roommate’s organizational skills.  Not even knowing who will be in the bed a short 4
feet from mine is just one more curious anticipation that I find myself faced with right now.

Tomorrow, we ( the 4 volunteers who arrived today, including myself) will have our orientation, at which time I will learn more specifically what I will be doing during my time here. It sounds like I may be the only one at my placement at the women’s center as it sounds like everyone else will be working at the orphanage, but I will learn more tomorrow.  It is this unknowing, this going to bed with new sounds, new smells, and new sensations, that reminds me of why I love this so much, which kind of surprises my orderly, Virgo side.  It takes me back to so many first nights in 3rd world countries when I teetered between waking up in the middle of the night with feelings of “what the hell???” and not being able to fall asleep because I was so anxious for it to be morning when I’d be able to get a closer look at my new temporary home.

Those of us who were around tonite (only 4 of us) had a lovely light supper of lamb, rice, fruit salad, roasted fennel, Moroccan soup, homemade bread (which I smelled all afternoon baking), dates, pomegranates, and a combination of sautéed vegetables.  Not only was it a beautiful spread, but very tasty as well.

For now, I’m tucked comfortably away in my lower bunk ready to sleep off some of this jet lag.  I’m
soaking in the smells and sounds of this new city, this new country, this new continent and it’s feeling pretty amazing.  I can smell a hint of jasmine that is coming through the billowing curtains of my open deck door. Perfection.

I feel like I need to add a bit of a editing disclaimer… I’m not used to my new iPad combined with my blog site that’s totally gone French on me ( I definitely need to learn how to say “delete” in French and quit pushing that button.) This was quite a challenge for me to get this tiny bit of typing done tonite…I’m hoping I can blame much on jet lag but that may be hopeful. So ignore the obvious, including the creative indents that insist on being present regardless of what I do.  
 
Salaam from Rabat!

 

 

Going to the “BEYOND” part…

In a few days, I’ll be leaving the many comforts of home and stretching my travels a bit father than my usual 677 miles east or west down I-70.  I’ll be headed to Morocco, where I’ll be living in Rabat for three weeks.  I’ll be spending my time volunteering at the Feminin Pluriel,  a women’s center that uses social, cultural and educational activities as a means to help empower women.  That being said, I really have no idea what I will be doing.  The language barrier is a bit daunting to me right now, given that I don’t speak Arabic, and they don’t speak English. Several months ago, I did go through the motions of thinking I’ll learn some basic phrases in Arabic… I bought the book, turned some pages, got discouraged.  Then of course, there’s the whole Arabic characters situation, which although quite lovely on the page,  it’s all very unfamiliar and overwhelming.   I will never complain about the subjunctive tense in Spanish again.  The book tells me that with a vocabulary of only a few hundred words, I will be able to “survive in an Arabic speaking country and even communicate some thoughts.”  I’m still working on “good morning” (sabaahal kyayr) but am not sure how far the one phrase will get me.  Especially once the sun goes down.  I think I’ll bring my knitting.  That’s one thing I can teach without words.  And photos.  Pictures tell stories without words.

I’m going to call that “how to communicate without fuss or fear… instantly!” false advertising…

This will be my second volunteer trip with Cross Cultural Solutions organization (my first being to Perú) and my first time to Africa, which is feeling very far away to me right now…. 4,681 miles to be exact.  While preparing for this (ie packing, unpacking, rethinking then repacking etc.) I find myself teetering between feelings of excitement and anticipation laced with a bit of what the hell am I doing?  I’ve been down this emotional path before while anticipating the pathways to new adventures,  and whether it’s on a mountain trail by myself, or getting ready to travel to a foreign country for three weeks by myself,  where I don’t speak the language and know little about the culture,  I think a bit of fear and trepidation is good.  I believe it helps keep me safe.

People will ask me when I return home, what did I do? Did I help build houses or schools or develop programs that will live on long past my stay?  And I’ll answer just as I did when I returned from Perú.  None of those things.  But what I did do was…

I listened.  I held hands.  I accepted gracious invitations into homes that were dirt floored hovels and was invited to sit on couches that scared me because of the rodents that I’m sure were sharing the cushions with me. I danced to Peruvian music that I never could find the beat to and painted the thickened and dirty nails of grateful abuelas with old sticky nail polish while I held their hand in mine and recognized the thread of vanity that connected us both.  I listened to countless stories of abuse, fear and pain told to me by some of the strongest women I’ve ever met.  I laughed with them.  I cried with them.  I held their hand and accepted their affection.  I immersed myself into a culture that I thought I knew about before going, but really had no idea.

But what did you DO???

What I did was learn that the world is far bigger than the country where I comfortably reside and that there is so much to be learned from the handful of third world countries I’ve spent time in.  First off, how much we take for granted.  Clean water comes to mind.  I saw a lot of sickness that was a result of drinking the local water without adding bleach to it first.  Seriously.  Bleach.  While we run our water through filters that we’re told will take out the impurities, these people were adding drops of the same substance we use sparingly to whiten our whites.  Fortunately, I had the luxury of bottled water at my disposal, unlike so many in the community where I lived.  One of the first things my daughter, Emery, said to me during our initial stay in Perú, was how little the people we were volunteering with had, yet how happy they were and maybe, just maybe, they had a much better understanding of what makes a person happy than we did.  What a beautiful realization about life for an 18 year-old to recognize.  To see such joy on the faces of people who live their lives in a constant struggle to simply survive, was a tremendous lesson to us both on living in the moment and finding gratitude in the simplest of things.

I have no idea what to expect during my stay in Rabat, but am guessing many of the experiences will mirror those from Perú, which is what has attracted me to volunteer again with this organization.

Years ago, during my second attempt with college, I decided to major in anthropology after sitting through the first lecture of a cultural anthropology class.  Before signing up for the class, I’ve got to admit that I wasn’t even sure what the study of anthropology even was.   After making a definitive declaration that my major was going to be cultural anthropology with a minor in Spanish,  I was asked countless times what I planned on doing with such a degree. Teach Spanish,  perhaps?  I really had no idea.  Almost 30 years later,  it’s all starting to make sense.

Although I’m feeling a bit nervous and with no idea as to what is ahead for me in the African country of Morocco, or  “al-Mamlakah al Maghribiyyah” (المملكة المغربية), which translates to Kingdom of the West,  this feels exactly like what I’m supposed to be doing right now.

I look forward to writing my blog posts from Rabat, as much as both time and internet connection will allow.  So, for now…. as-salaamu alaykum – the most common Arabic greeting and one that thankfully gets shortened to “salaam”, which means peace be upon you.

Laurie

Apostrophes, ships and the 3rd grader who ended up writing stories about it…

Shortly after I shared my last blog entry about revisiting my first home with my parents as guides, my Mom emailed me with this:

“All that beautiful prose from the 3rd grader who didn’t understand apostrophes.”

My first reaction was feeling very honored by her words given that I was retelling her story about my beginnings in Colorado, as I was too young to have my own story.  Secondly, I was touched that she remembered the story about the difficulties I had with grammar in the 3rd grade, specifically with the placement of apostrophies.

For whatever reason, I have more memories from 3rd grade than any other in elementary school.  I loved my teacher.  I loved her shoes. I watched those cool red fringe-toed shoes walk up and down the narrow aisle of the temporary trailer classroom, demonstrating to a captivated audience how Indians would walk without making a sound… toe heel, toe heel, toe heel.  It was crowded in that tiny trailer classroom and maybe because the situations weren’t ideal, she was just a little more patient with us than a teacher in a normal-sized classroom would be.  One of my favorite memories was when the Sacajawea book would be pulled out every afternoon after recess and Mrs. Faires would read to us. I was mesmerized. I held onto every word and for the first time, the notion that school could be fun and interesting took hold.  She made that year of being crowded into the tiny temporary classroom one of my favorites, and even though elbows were bumped as we did out lessons in our pushed together desks and I just happened to be seated next to the boy who sweated more than anyone else in the classroom, I would not have traded those squeezed together conditions for a normal classroom.  It felt special for some reason… like we were special.  All that love went out the small louvered trailer window when the lesson on apostrophes and ownership began.

It’s not that I didn’t understand the the concept of ownership and placement of the apostrophe, it’s that I did not understand my Alabama bred teacher’s accent.  When she gave the explanation of “ownership,” what I heard was “on a ship,” which made little sense to me, especially given that I lived in Kansas and could count on one hand how many times I had actually seen a ship. Were ships really that important that they got their own apostrophe when used in a sentence?

After hearing Mrs. Faires’ explanation on apostrophes and possession, my conclusions were to use an apostrophe when whomever or whatever were “on a ship,” or “showed on a ship” as my teacher explained it.  I wasn’t sure what “showed on a ship” was, short of the visual of people on a ship, which was simple enough… or was it?  This all makes a whole lot more sense when I’m able to voice the words out loud and show that “ownership” sounds like “on a ship” when spoken with a heavy southern drawl.  I usually did pretty well with understanding new assignments in school, especially when they weren’t of the math variety, but my 8 year-old, wanting to please self, was beginning to get discouraged when worksheet after worksheet were handed back to me with an embarrassing amount of red ink on them.  Even the boy who sweated so much, was getting good marks and happy faces on his returned papers.  And then there was the amount of time it took me to complete the worksheets.  While the other kids seemed to breeze right through the sentences, without having to look up in thought or confusion, I would read each sentence over and over again while trying desperately to find the ship, the boat or out of desperation, simply the water in the sentence so that I’d have clearance to add my apostrophe.  It seemed to me to be a futile exercise as few, if any sentences, made reference to a ship or for that matter, any maritime reference at all, but none of the other students were questioning the absurdity, so in trying to fit in with my peers, I kept quiet and kept searching… for the ship in the sentence.

More than once Mrs. Faires brought me up to her desk and would explain the “on a ship” concept to which I would share my frustrations of not understanding what “on a ship” had to do with most of the sentences.  Of course in this now comedy of errors, she heard my words speak Southern to her and would explain, yet again,  that “on a ship” requires an apostrophe, hoping that eventually it would all make sense to me.  After failing exercise after exercise, some how, some way, someone who did not speak with a heavy southern drawl, put it together that what I was hearing was different than what my teacher was actually saying.  My Mom eventually shared the story with my teacher, Mrs. Faires, and I’m sure it gave her pause every year when teaching the concept of “ownership” to a new group of 3rd graders.

The one in the middle sporting the Bob Dylan look and the attitude smirk,  wasn’t about to admit to anyone that she didn’t understand why ships garnered so much importance that they got their own apostrophe… especially in Kansas for Pete’s sake!

I’ve got to wonder how long this would have gone on had someone not stumbled onto the problem, given that I was too embarrassed and too insecure to admit that I didn’t have a clue as to what the teacher was trying to teach me.  This insecurity would resurface again with my 7th grade Algebra teacher, who was from Brazil,  and spoke with a heavy accent.  The difference this time though, was that the rest of the class was hearing Mr. La Torre the same way I did, so would throw their hands up in question before I had to.  I ended up struggling with Algebra through college and have to wonder if I had had a teacher who I could understand and felt comfortable simply asking for help, would seeing the x’s and y’s still throw me into panic mode today?  Or am I simply more of a words person than a numbers person?  I’m grateful that my stumble with the apostrophes in the 3rd grade didn’t ruin me for the act of writing, the way x’s and y’s did for me in math,  as it’s been something I’ve loved and enjoyed for as long as I can remember.

Thank you, Mrs. Faires, for giving me pause and a smile every time I place an apostrophe, whether there’s a ship in the sentence or not.  And thank you, Mom, for not forgetting the story and continually encouraging my putting pen to paper.

 

Returning to my roots with the keepers of the stories at my side…

A few weeks ago, my sister, Robin, and I were given the tremendous gift of getting to step back in time for a few days and with our parents as our guides, revisited the place where we spent our earliest days – Evergreen, Colorado.

Although our time there was relatively short,  one would assume that we had lived there for decades given the many stories Mom and Dad have shared with us throughout our lives.  Because of the many stories and the joy with which they have been shared,  I grew up knowing  how very important this little mountain town was in my parents lives.

They were young, very young, 20 and 25, with a baby on the way (Robin) and were actually on their way to Oregon, simply on a “Why not?  It sounds like a nice place to live…” when they stopped in Denver to see my Mom’s parents.  While there, Dad found out that to teach high school music in Oregon, he needed a master’s degree (something that would come later and in Missouri), so they decided to simply stay in Denver.  Besides, with a baby on the way, it would be nice to have family nearby.  I love thinking about those carefree 20 somethings with a baby on the way pointing their car and trailered belongings west, without really having much of a plan.  Somehow it gives the many wing and a prayer plans I’ve had a bit more weight.

There were no teaching jobs in Denver, but while interviewing, a call came through from the principal in Evergreen with the news that the high school music teacher had not renewed his contract and through the perfect timing of a synchronistic moment, my Dad had a job and their plans to continue their journey west to Oregon were shortened to the short 30 minute drive west from Denver to the scenic mountain town of Evergreen.

Robin and I have both heard the stories, countless times, of our time in Evergreen, but to get to hear them again, with the soil underfoot, was truly a gift.  Hearing about Dad coasting down the mountain from Evergreen to St. Anthony’s hospital in Denver, my Mom in labor with me, made a lot more sense as we recently made our way down from Evergreen to Denver  – an easy coast of a drive that was a necessary choice on that day, almost 60 years go to the date, as the gas tank was near empty (he made it with fumes to spare, I’m told…).

Although Robin and I had tried to find the house we lived in when we were in Colorado  last summer,  our interpretation of Mom and Dad’s directions had us on the wrong end of the town, but with their keen memories and navigational skills a few weeks ago, we drove right to the house.  Both of our initial reactions upon seeing the nice house that sat off the road on 5 acres was… “wait… I thought we were poor” ….  Yes, they reassured us… we were poor.  They said it looked like the house had been added on to and that while it looked nice on the outside, the inside had needed work… work that Dad chipped away at when he had the gift of both time and money.   The furnishings were sparse and although Mom had a wringer washing machine, she didn’t have a dryer, so after washing the clothes, diapers in particular with two under the age of two, she’d hang them out on the line, where they would freeze dry in the arid air.  She’d then bring them in and lay them throughout the house to thaw.  For some reason, I’ve always connected with pioneer women and have sworn that I must have lived during that period of time in a past life.  This explains it.  I did.

As we sat in the drive and looked directly at our past, hearing the stories from the ones that created them, that piece of my past, that I don’t remember, became real and I understood where my love for mountains was born.  Dad told us that when Mom was pregnant with me she told him that she was not going to come home from the hospital until we had a flushing toilet IN the house.  Yes, these adventure seeking parents of mine were using an outhouse, not to mention transporting their water in  50 gallon drums.  Dad worked tirelessly at digging the leeching well near the house in preparation for my arrival, using a pick axe, a shovel and his favorite tool, dynamite.  And lo and behold, Mom had the flush toilet she had requested upon her arrival home from the hospital with me.  Simple times, but not all that simple of a request.  Still, every mom just home from the hospital with a new born and a one year-old to greet her, deserves the luxury of indoor toilet… and one that flushes no less.  It sure beat any “congratulations on your new baby” flower arrangement Dad could have gotten her.

My Evergreen, Colorado roots

Out of the many stories I’ve heard over the years, and my hands down favorite, I heard for the first time last year.  Because we were surrounded by evergreen trees, Dad would simply go to the woods behind the house to select the Christmas tree, then would drag it down to the house.  I believe it was my first Christmas (and if it wasn’t, I’m taking artistic license here) that Mom questioned the tree he brought home, wondering if he could have found a tree that was just a little bit prettier.  So, on his way home from work the following day, the perfect tree came into view with the lights of his car.  He cut it down, put it in the car and as he was pulling away, his car lights gave him a better view of exactly where the tree he had just cut down had come from… the landscaping in the front yard of one of the summer vacation homes in the area.  When I asked him what he did when he discovered what he did,  he told me that he couldn’t exactly put it back, so simply covered the stump with snow and drove home.  Given that it was a summer vacation home,  he had several months before the missing tree would be noticed.  No doubt some of that guilt waned with Mom’s overwhelmingly positive reaction to the beautiful specimen of a tree that would grace our small living room that Christmas.

“Now THAT’s what I had in mind!  It’s the PERFECT tree!”

Dad had set the Christmas decor bar high on this one…

I’m not sure how long it was before he came clean on exactly where the tree had come from and am betting that the following Christmas, it was back to the scrappy juniper Christmas trees.  All of our Christmas trees in those early Colorado days were decorated with pine cones that Mom had spray painted gold.  It was only in later years that I understood the significance of Mom insisting on adding what we thought at the time were “the tacky gold spray-painted pine cones” to our then more lavishly decorated trees.  It was a nudge to the memory of where they began as a family, and although times were very tough, they were also very good.

I love hearing their  humble roots stories – two kids with two babies eeking out a living in the mountains of Evergreen, Colorado.  Funds were so tight that when a job offer in northern Missouri came in for far more money and an unlimited high school band budget, Dad had to say yes.  He has told me several times that when they drove out of town for the last time on their way to Missouri, he had hoped for a rainy, cloudy day or at least weather that was over cast enough so that he wouldn’t have to see the mountains in his rearview mirror.  It was sunny that day.   To this day, I think both Mom and Dad would agree that it felt like the mountains were waving goodbye to them as they left them in the rear view mirror.

What a gift it was to return to those Evergreen mountains just as they had left them so many years ago and better yet, to get to return with the keepers of the stories.  Although I was always a part of the stories,  I feel a real sense of their connection to me now.

something I still enjoy.. playing in the dirt…

 

Mom and Dad… who still have a bit of that Colorado spirit in them….

 

Back in my boots…

As of yesterday afternoon, I’m back in the saddle…. or hiking boots, more specifically.  Feeling ready and anxious after almost two months of babying my injured shoulder, I ventured out on a real hike with boots, poles and a full camelback.  I hiked  Mt. Royal and although it’s not a long hike (only a mile and a half to the top), it’s not easy as during that short mile and a half, 1,500 feet of altitude are gained, translating to pretty much straight up with no switch backs.  This was a hike that I did several times over the course of my stay here last summer as it was literally right behind where I was staying so there was ease and no excuses in getting to the trail head.  It also became my measure of how much I was improving, which speaks to the Virgo in me.  My first time up was a miserable journey that took over two hours to get to the top and the last time I journeyed up last summer,  I had bettered my time to just over an hour – an accomplishment that I’m quite proud of.  While making my way down that last time and feeling quite smug with my improved time and generally efficiency, I passed my neighbor, jogging up the rocky trail and with still enough breath that he stopped to chat.  So much for my thinking I was “all that…”  I’ve learned while living part-time in this very physically active state that the safest person to compare yourself to IS yourself, otherwise you’re likely to be disappointed.

In keeping with the open and honest approach I’ve decided to take with this blog, I’ve got to back up a bit and do some re-wording.  I hiked Mt. Royal, but I did not make it to the top and I must say, it’s one of the prouder non-accomplishments I’ve had this summer.  It’s real hard for me to not barrel ahead when I can all but see the end, ignoring any physical or emotional signs that are telling me, “enough already!”  Well, yesterday probably within 10 minutes of the top, I experienced one of those “enough” signs.  Up to that point, I had been hiking like a 95 year-old woman in stilettos on ice with a tail wind… being very mindful of foot placement and with an eye on constant patrol for mud, or exposed roots or loose rocks, as I know too well that a quick slip can and does happen.  That’s the part that kind of sucks.  I rather liked that barreling ahead with an eye on the prize and full confidence that I’d summit without a scrape, take some time to revel in the beautiful views and with a proud pat on my own back, would make it down again.  No problem.  But knowing that accidents do happen has changed the way I hike – or at least I was changed for the inaugural hike.  I feel more apprehensive, more cautious and certainly more timid, yet still with the confidence that I can do it as I’ve done it before.  But I also want to do it in a manner that doesn’t require a trip to the ER.

I had to stop several times to catch my breath, totally normal, but by the time I was almost within shouting distance to the top, I started to feel a bit dizzy.  My town of Frisco sits at 9,097 feet, an altitude that can easily have an effect on even the fittest if not acclimated and that’s what I’m going to blame it on.  Having only been back in town for a little over a week, I called myself acclimated, but more than likely was not.  So when that feeling of apprehension, laced with a bit of dizziness came over me, I was very thoughtful of the messages and opted to abort the nearby summit and head back down.  As disappointing as it felt, at the same time I felt very grown up for having listened, very carefully, and followed through with what my body was telling me, which was go home… you already did most of it.  It’s OK.

By the time I got home, I had come to an easy place of peace with my decision and knew that honoring that slight twinge of a feeling was the right thing to do.  And so, in keeping with my hiking tradition of eat what sounds good post hike because I’ve earned it, I sat down to a plate full of spaghetti and several heaping forkfuls of sauerkraut because that’s exactly what my body was asking for… oh yea, and a cold beer…I mean two cold beers, to round it off.  And good it was.  I never falter on post hike refueling.   It’s truly one of my favorite luxuries of the sport.

Views of Frisco and Lake Dillon while on my way up…

 

The only non-climbing part of the hike… really…
Views for days…

 

The very majestic Mt. Royal (also the mountain I have a view of from most of the windows in my house).

Today, rather than revisit my not quite accomplished hike from yesterday, (which will happen and soon), I opted for big views, low physical expenditure.  And it worked… satisfyingly well.  The Lower Cataract Lake in the Eagles Nest Wilderness area never ceases to amaze me.  It’s not a hard hike as there’s little to no altitude gain, but it’s enough of a workout that I still get to savor the post hike accolades of feeling strong, committed and a little bit more in tune with nature than I was while driving to the trail head.  I’m not sure I can’t think of a better way to spend a sunny Sunday morning.

Accomplishments come in all sorts of packages and it isn’t necessarily the straight up journey to the top that has given me the most pride.  Yesterday it was NOT making it to the top that made me the proudest.  Next time…

Views around every corner…

 

Nature’s painting…

 

 

Wildflowers in full bloom…