From Phoenix to Rabat: October 2010

OKAY. YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE FACT THAT I'VE LITERALLY BEEN WORKING ON THIS POST FOR MONTHS TO GET RID OF THE GAPS AND CAPTION EACH PHOTO, BUT THE INTERNET JUST REFUSES TO SEE BINARY TO BINARY WITH ME.
*I apologize for the gaps and lack of captions. Inchallah I'll get back to it in the States when I have a faster, more reliable connection.*

I lived a week in Lutechina, an off-the-charts, tribal town near Boujad. It was something that made me realize how things were, how things could be, and why things have evolved the way they have. When asked for the toilet, I was shown a hill. When I asked what this tiny little structure was, I was told it was the shower.

I road a donkey to school and wore a headscarf to keep out the sun.

On the left: My fifteen year old sister, Hadija, holding my ten year old sister, Sana. Two girls who were shy but let me in. They gave me some of their only jewlery and refused to take it back.

Sana herding goats. I helped almost every day.

Left: Hadija and I in the field. Below: My host mother, Fatima, and I in our kitchen and living room. She sports these fascinating, facial tattoos that were once considered a sign of beauty. In the cities, many of the beggars have the same tattoos.

The last two days all of the Americans came to help whitewash the walls of the school. We also planted rocks around trees we'd cleared debris away from. Here is the Moroccan Flag's star under a flagpole. The children line up every day to sing the national anthem here.

A professional calligrapher was brought in to help color the school's walls.

Each of the American students who had artistic talent were offered to paint on the walls.

Adelade painted the girl with a headscarf speaking the alphabet. We paused at first because nobody was sure if we should even paint a girl. Then it was a matter of drawing a headscarf for the first time!

Kristin touching up Paulina's painting. One of the most amazing parts of this project was not only that our work was going to be permanent until it was eroded into oblivion, but it was such a compilation of everyone's hands.

Below: A Tree of Knowledge I drew.

Every morning when I woke from my blankets I slept on, layed on the ground

, this is the view of the light coming in that I saw. Gorgeous.

Lutechina means "Land of Drought."

A tree growing (objectively) in the yard of an abandoned house.

The abandoned house.

"Allah." Written on the side of the abandoned house.

Hamid, our French-speaking tourguide. Hamid sounded like Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was excited to give us a tour. We ended up running into several people as we walked. All of whom were related to each other. In this photo Hamid stands next to a well. His counsin had lost her two year old child because he fell into a well. The two most common causes of death are child birth and scorpion bites because hospitals are too far away.

Lots of turkeys shakin' their tail feathers.

Abdel the prankster. Known to hide in house corners and scare Americans in teh dead of night. Here we can view him wearing my glasses and Grace's camera. Little did we know that later that night he'd wrap himself in a sheet and pretend to be a woman.

This little girl sat outside of the Adelade's house as Hamid taught us Darija through French.

Sheepies!

The front of my house, facing the mountains.

Goats and sheep feeding from the trough my host siblings use as a swing.

Sana, Hadija, and myself. We played who was the shiniest and I won.

My host father, Bark, and Amin, the cutest little nine year old you've ever seen. Here we're seen playing who can look teh reddest and like they haven't seen a mirror in a week? Raleigh: II.

Kim's host father, Omar. This is right before we had a charged discussion with the village men. One just wanted to wear a headdress all day long, the others wanted to go off and build buildings and wear leather chaps. We eventually worked things out.

Me riding on the back of the 21st century. Just another day on my way to class. As much trouble as I had staying on the little guy, my 6'3" friend, Jackson, had a much more difficult time riding shotgun to his host brother.

Much to the amusement of the women of Lutechina, and to the humility-building of the Americans, we were taught how to weave a rug.

Throw up your "M"s for the Maghreb.

All the pretty ladies after our five mile, death hike. Similar to the death march through for four hours the snow in East Berlin at the beginning of FU-Best.