GMT 11.08, Mecca 14.08. Cos that's how they do it here.
One of the most enjoyable things about travelling is actually being on the road. The destination, for me, isn't massively important, but I like getting there; watching the world go by through the windows of the bus, or plane, or train; the sense of detachment from the life left behind. I guess I got all the gypsy blood in our family.
So now I'm in Casablanca with not a lot to do before my next journey, and I'm grumpy, impatient, and irritable. It's raining in Casablanca. To be fair, it's been raining all over Morocco for 2 days straight, but the streets here are being dug up for the new tramline, so the resultant bog is particularly objectionable. I also can't wash my clothes anywhere - there's no machine in the hostel (which kicked me out this morning anyway when a tour group arrived) and I can't find the laundrette that the receptionist promised was on the street. A seemingly nice chap who offered to show me the way abandoned me in the middle of the souk with no idea where I was or where to go, so I'll just have to do the best I can in the sink and hope to hell when I get to India.
Have I enjoyed my time here? Indisputably, but it's not the country I imagined it would be. Arab culture is very difficult to get to grips with - in one way it's incredibly in-your-face; in another it's very inward-looking _ as reflected by the style of housing, and the fact that, unlike churches, you're not allowed to go into mosques here. The constant juxtaposition is odd, and I'm never sure if I love it or hate it. And also, I'm worth *way* more than 5 camels. It really isn't the sunset land of zellij tilework that I'd dreamed - that's there, but in typical Moroccan style, the beautiful is often right next to the building site, rapid development without regulation or conservation.
That being said, the dark circles under my eyes have disappeared, along with the puffy cheeks of incipient overweightness. I'm getting a lot of exercise walking, eating mostly good food, drinking water rather than wine, and despite never quite managing to sleep through the dawn call for prayer, finally getting enough rest to restore my shattered system; a useful side effect of going to bed early because it's not safe to be out at night on your own.
Like my body, my head and heart are slowly on the mend. I still have depressive days, and the tumultous emotions of the last 2 years (I won't enumerate the details, those who need to know have lived through it with me once already) have been slow to let go their grip on me. A new beginning before I left the UK seemed to make it easier, but all it really did was delay the inevitable grieving process until there was space to address it. Finally, around Essaouira, I cried myself out, wrote reams of emo that never made it to LJ, and woke up the next morning breathing a little more freely, as time and distance began to work their magic. Those experiences will always be with me, but in time I'll learn to live with them, just like everything else. And there's a lot to be thankful for, both in the past and (hopefully) in the future.
So where to now? I go on to India not sure how much more sorted I am. I still don't know what I want to do when I get back (although I think I might have to take the plunge and make a decisive break from academia, or it'll keep reeling me back in), or what I will be coming back to in any aspact of my life. The precariousness troubles me - on the one hand, it's more freedom than I've ever had before and the world is literally my oyster; on the other, I'm a person who likes having a framework to operate in, and doesn't deal well with complete carte blanche. I guess that if this trip will be useful for anything, it will be for teaching me to live one day at a time - something I generally suck at.
I guess it's called being human.
So now I'm in Casablanca with not a lot to do before my next journey, and I'm grumpy, impatient, and irritable. It's raining in Casablanca. To be fair, it's been raining all over Morocco for 2 days straight, but the streets here are being dug up for the new tramline, so the resultant bog is particularly objectionable. I also can't wash my clothes anywhere - there's no machine in the hostel (which kicked me out this morning anyway when a tour group arrived) and I can't find the laundrette that the receptionist promised was on the street. A seemingly nice chap who offered to show me the way abandoned me in the middle of the souk with no idea where I was or where to go, so I'll just have to do the best I can in the sink and hope to hell when I get to India.
Have I enjoyed my time here? Indisputably, but it's not the country I imagined it would be. Arab culture is very difficult to get to grips with - in one way it's incredibly in-your-face; in another it's very inward-looking _ as reflected by the style of housing, and the fact that, unlike churches, you're not allowed to go into mosques here. The constant juxtaposition is odd, and I'm never sure if I love it or hate it. And also, I'm worth *way* more than 5 camels. It really isn't the sunset land of zellij tilework that I'd dreamed - that's there, but in typical Moroccan style, the beautiful is often right next to the building site, rapid development without regulation or conservation.
That being said, the dark circles under my eyes have disappeared, along with the puffy cheeks of incipient overweightness. I'm getting a lot of exercise walking, eating mostly good food, drinking water rather than wine, and despite never quite managing to sleep through the dawn call for prayer, finally getting enough rest to restore my shattered system; a useful side effect of going to bed early because it's not safe to be out at night on your own.
Like my body, my head and heart are slowly on the mend. I still have depressive days, and the tumultous emotions of the last 2 years (I won't enumerate the details, those who need to know have lived through it with me once already) have been slow to let go their grip on me. A new beginning before I left the UK seemed to make it easier, but all it really did was delay the inevitable grieving process until there was space to address it. Finally, around Essaouira, I cried myself out, wrote reams of emo that never made it to LJ, and woke up the next morning breathing a little more freely, as time and distance began to work their magic. Those experiences will always be with me, but in time I'll learn to live with them, just like everything else. And there's a lot to be thankful for, both in the past and (hopefully) in the future.
So where to now? I go on to India not sure how much more sorted I am. I still don't know what I want to do when I get back (although I think I might have to take the plunge and make a decisive break from academia, or it'll keep reeling me back in), or what I will be coming back to in any aspact of my life. The precariousness troubles me - on the one hand, it's more freedom than I've ever had before and the world is literally my oyster; on the other, I'm a person who likes having a framework to operate in, and doesn't deal well with complete carte blanche. I guess that if this trip will be useful for anything, it will be for teaching me to live one day at a time - something I generally suck at.
I guess it's called being human.