knight errant

Tales and reflections of a UCF knight teaching English abroad.

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New year, new blog!

I’ve done some rebranding for 2018 as I move into my next adventure: a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail!

You can follow along with that and access all my travel and TEFL content to date at my new domain here: https://www.tefltrekker.com/

Thanks for the support and happy new year!

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Journal Entries from the Camino Fisterra (3/3)

October 20

Today it was almost dark as I left the albergue at 8:30am. It was barely drizzling. I walked across a little bridge and along a road as the mountains materialized in the distance. Windmills stood atop them, whisking the gray clouds, weirdly silent for something so massive. Quixote wasn’t so crazy, I thought. Or else, maybe it’s just that I am, too.

 October 21

The sun came out today and it felt like a miracle. It was new, it was creation, it was the very first act of God. I walked through 48 hours of rain, and the sunrise struck me like a blow. It made me think of Noah, and how he would have felt after 40 days of apocalyptic rain, when for the first time after, he saw the sun.

I stopped looking at the kilometer numbers on the waymarks today. They weren’t counting down to a goal anymore. Today was the goal, it was the reward. Every step today was beautiful. Green woods spangled with sunbeams and the ocean, the ocean from every angle. I’m at the end of the land now, the end of the earth, on the Coast of Death (really. La Costa da Morte), and I feel like this is the beginning and end of everything, as if the entire universe and all of time could exist in a single moment. Everything is now, and now is everything.

I’m getting sunburnt but I’m not ready to go back to the town yet and catch the bus. I can’t imagine going inside. Sun on my skin, open air on my raw feet, this warm rock that I’m sitting on, the sound of the blue and white ocean and of three conversations in three difference languages drifting from the other people clambering around here on this little peninsula.

I don’t think my toes will ever forgive me for the last four days, but the rest of me is deeply in love with right now.

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Journal Entries from the Camino Fisterra (2/3)

October 19, 2017 (continued)

… Later, it began to rain, and for a while I appreciated the novelty of it, and my outlook in general was optimistic because my joints had loosened up from the pain and stiffness of the first couple kilometers. The drizzle was a price I happily paid for this glowing emerald green, tunnels of green moss and green ferns and green trees.

…As the path got steeper and the rain came down harder, my ipod battery died. I distracted myself by pushing to pass the couple walking a hundred meters in front of me. I wanted to have other hikers close behind as I ascended the biggest mountain of the trip. I imagined my t-shirt/poncho combination proving insufficient, my legs cramping or else tripping and falling, my body going into shock, dying of hypothermia in 48 degree weather on top of a hill in Galicia.

The adrenaline from this fear pushed me over the mountain in rain that fell in slanting sheets. And even then, I was enjoying myself. I felt daring. I felt the strain as the kilometers accumulated, 25, then 28, and my body rose to the challenge, appalled by my choices but complying.

But the last few kilometers were rough. The wind had slackened when I was descending, but the rain was still pouring, and I could feel my shoes *squish* with water every step. My knees burned hot, then cold, then numb, then back to hot again. I worried that I was punishing my body in not just an athletic challenge, but in a demand so unreasonable that the damage might interfere with my plans for the AT next year.

“Good job, knees,” I said. “Good job, feet. Good job, lungs.” I hoped positive reinforcement, aloud out there in the rain, might convince them all to keep going. I almost dreaded stopping, trading numbness for the inevitable retaliation that would follow when I gave my muscles and joints enough time to breathe that they could complain.

When I finally, finally, finally made it here to the albergue, I nearly cried in relief, and continued to make involuntary little whimpering noises as I pulled off my spongy boots and slid my spongy feet into my sandals.

Since then, the stiffness has begun to set in, but honestly, it’s not even as bad as yesterday. This isn’t the biggest reason, but a major part of why I love hiking is getting to observe just how far I can push my body, like a science experiment. I see it in a new light, like a marvel of nature, without all my usual resentment of it for not being beautiful enough or thin enough or symmetrical enough.

I don’t know. Anyway. Good job, legs. Good job, feet. Good job, physical, tangible me.

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Journal Entries from the Camino Fisterra (1/3)

I was able to take a week off in October due to some overtime the month before. I flew into Porto, spent two days there, and then took a bus up to Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. Santiago is the destination of thousands of people who undertake the Camino de Santiago every year, a historically Catholic pilgrimage and one of Europe’s most popular modern-day hiking routes. My mom and sister and I completed the 790 kilometer French Route of the Camino in 2015, but we did not have time to complete an optional extension of the route that connects the cathedral of Santiago to the Atlantic Ocean at a place called Finisterre. The lighthouse on the peninsula at Finisterre was once believed to be the westernmost point of Europe, or as the name suggests, the end of the world.

My plan was to spend four days walking from Santiago to Finisterre, take the bus back to Santiago, and the following day take the bus back to Porto for my flight to Casablanca. I didn’t really appreciate how ambitious this plan was until I was walking. It turns out that 92 kilometers is a lot of ground to cover in four days on feet that are only accustomed to strolling around 5 kilometers of flat city streets in any given day. Nevertheless I love mountains and forests with a simple certainty that I rarely feel about anything else, and so despite a lot of blisters and torrential downpours, I can’t imagine a better vacation.

For this post, I thought I’d share some notes and stories from the journal that I kept during the trek.

 October 19

I’ve been on the Camino for two days now. I waffle between doubt and delight and I feel like I’m drifting in and out of my physical body. I’m always /aware/ of myself, of my knee and my ankle and the pebbles in my shoes and the appendages that once were pinkie toes, but sometimes I notice them acutely and painfully, and other times I observe them in a detached way, the same way I observe strangers.

The weather is windy and rainy, but I’m keeping dry with a massive black poncho, because Decathlon only carries sizes Large Man and Tiny Child. I like it. It’s less sweaty than a raincoat and I glide along the path like a cheerful dementor. “Beautiful day, eh?” I said to another hiker taking shelter under a bus stop. It was supposed to be a sarcastic, empathetic joke, but I kinda meant it, too.

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December Update!

The blog has been dormant in recent weeks because life has been fast-paced and full of change, and that’s not changing any time soon. My time in Morocco is winding down. I participated unsuccessfully but still enjoyably in NaNoWriMo for a second time, I finished teaching my last classes at work, and I had some friends visit from America. We traveled around the country for a week, cramming in almost all the touristy things that I hadn’t done yet. And now I’m packing, because in two days, I return to the USA for the first time since October 2016.

The plan for 2018 is to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail. After that, who knows? But probably teaching English somewhere in the world, possibly Morocco again… we’ll see.

I’m planning to do some re-branding of the travel blog in the New Year to include more of an outdoor adventure focus, but for now, here’s an idea of posts coming up:

Thoughts and Sketches from the Camino Fisterra (92 km in Northwest Spain, 18-21 October 2017)

The Great Moroccan Goodbye Tour

(1/6) Casablanca

(2/6) Marrakech and Ouzoud Falls

(3/6) Ait Benhaddou, Ourzazate, and Dades Gorge

(4/6) Merzouga and the Sahara

(5/6) Fez

(6/6) Chefchaouen

Christmas Gift Ideas from Morocco

And more!

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Porto

Porto is my favorite city.

Granted, I’m still not particularly well-traveled when it comes to major European destinations. I’ve never been to Paris or London or Venice or Prague. There are also whole continents I’ve never set eyes upon, and whole regions back home in the United States that I’ve never visited. So I have an admittedly small sample size of cities for comparison.

But it’s hard to imagine someplace better.

Porto is built upon the steep banks of the river Douro a short distance inland from the Atlantic. It’s most famous for its wine, but there are numerous other attractions, such as the architecture of the medieval quarter, the beautiful Livreria Lello, and the Majestic Café. Perhaps my favorite thing in Porto is the massive Ponte Luiz 1, the bridge designed by Eiffel that spans the river and accommodates road traffic, the metro line, and pedestrians.

But there’s something intangible about the city itself that I find deeply appealing. It’s a touristic place, certainly, but not to the extent of Barcelona or Rome. Instead it’s more affordable, walkable, livable. I stumbled across a Wall Street English while I was there on this trip, and I even went inside to ask if they hire Americans and not just EU citizens. (They do. So who knows, maybe…) I think my feelings for Porto are due in equal measure to the city itself and to my individual experiences in the city.

The first time I visited Porto was in April of 2015. I was traveling throughout Portugal with a friend for Semana Santa, and while sipping a coffee in the Majestic Café where J.K. Rowling once scrawled notes about Harry Potter on scraps of napkin, I spotted two good friends from my Master’s program in Spain. It was a complete coincidence, but we went on to spend the rest of the trip together and enjoyed a delightful day and a half.

This time, I was traveling alone, but I stayed in a fun hostel called Nice Way. There, I met people to have dinner with each night. Conversation flowed back and forth between travelers from America, France, India, the Netherlands, and Scotland. A young Brazilian guy picked up a guitar and was joined by a Japanese man who had lived in Brazil, and together they sang one song after another in Portuguese, much to the delight of the local staff of the hostel.

During the day I explored the city on my own. At a bookstore, I bought a sketchbook with a cover made of cork and the English version of The Book of Disquiet, written by Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa. It rained off and on, but it was a blessing because much of the region was suffering from wildfires that clouded the air with reddish smoke.

My second morning, I packed up and took a city bus to the bus station, where I would catch an intercity bus up to Spain. I’d been told at the hostel that it was unnecessary to book in advance, but when I asked for the 1pm bus to Santiago, I was told it was sold out. I bought a ticket for the 4pm bus instead. My initial annoyance faded as the weather improved and I spent a beautiful unanticipated afternoon walking around, relaxing in two different parks, and wandering through an art gallery. A few extra hours in Porto, I resolved, was certainly nothing to complain about.

At 4pm I boarded an almost empty bus and we started North to Galicia.

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A #lion seen in the Atlas Mountains, during a flight on the Casablanca-Dakar air route. The photograph taken by Marcelin Flandrin in 1925 is the last visual record of a wild ‘Barbary’ lion of North Africa

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Learned about the Atlas lions at the Rabat zoo recently. This is such a cool photo!  Trying to imagine hiking Mount Toubkal in the High Atlas if there had been a risk of lions around, the same way that hikers in the Rockies have to take precautions against grizzlies. Not sure I would have felt been brave enough to be out there!

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Adulting in Morocco

Nobody likes paying bills, but it’s the kind of thing that makes you feel like a real adult, for better or for worse. It’s not enjoyable, but it’s also a reminder that you’re existing and taking care of yourself, and some days that alone can feel like an accomplishment. This is especially true in a foreign country.

When I lived in my first apartment here in Casablanca, my roommate included utilities in the rent she charged me, and she took care of everything. When I first moved in with Karen and Gwen, Karen did the same. But since Karen moved to Marrakesh, Gwen and I have been sharing each individual expense, and we also share the responsibilities for arranging to meet the landlord or going to the utility company office to pay our electricity and water bills.

The first time I paid my utility bill was so characteristic of life in Casa that I figured I’d share it here. Here in Morocco, the public electricity and water company is called Lydec, and they have offices throughout the city where you can go to pay the bill that’s delivered every month.

First of all, the address on our electricity bill isn’t even our correct address, because addresses in this country are like the djinns—they exist in the collective conscience of the population, but if you actually try to get evidence of them on paper, all you can find are scattered, unreliable traces. Despite the error, the bill somehow finds its way to our building every month, and this time it was delivered on a Friday. The due date of payment was the following Thursday. This was problematic for us, because Gwen was in America, and I had my travel route for work from Monday-Thursday. There was no way I could pay it on time, so I could only hope that they wouldn’t charge us a fee for paying a day late.

On the Friday morning after the deadline, I tried to google the Lydec office’s address, because I only had a vague idea of the location, but as we’ve already established, this effort was futile. “Did you mean Lidec, Book Publisher, in Montreal, Quebec?” Google suggested helpfully. As it happened, I didn’t. So I wandered down the street, rehearsing in my head the Darija I would use to ask someone.

And yet, sure enough, I stumbled upon the office. The hours were posted at the entrance, and I was lucky. On Fridays it closes at 11:15 and it was 11:05. The man outside said something to me in Darija, which I did not understand, but when I hesitated, he waved a hand and said “Siri, siri!” Go on, go on!

I went inside and there was a ticket machine to get your number to be served, which surprised me. Most of the buttons were out of order, which didn’t. I pressed the only functioning one, took my ticket, and waited two or three minutes before my number appeared on the screen. I didn’t have to throw a single elbow to hold my place in a disorderly line, which was a breath of fresh air to my unassertive American soul. I greeted the lady in Arabic, and she responded to me in French. When I gave her my bill, she scanned it and told me the amount. No late fee.

So I paid and left, reflecting on just how Moroccan the experience had been—to establish a tight deadline, but then say “mashi moushkil,” no problem, and not enforce it at all. In these circumstances, I was grateful, and I walked down the road to a café, wondering why I’ve chosen to live in a country where such little things are so complicated. But even though the morning had me rolling my eyes, when I walked out of the Lydec building, I also couldn’t help smiling. This flush of accomplishment at something so small—that’s why.

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Trekking Toubkal (2/2)

The following morning, our alarm woke us at 3:30am to dress and eat breakfast. When I crept downstairs, I found the Moroccans huddled around a table, eating Suhoor, the only food or drink they would consume before undertaking more than 30 kilometers of hiking that day. Charlotte and I ate our own breakfast, and then we began the steep climb to the summit in utter darkness. The first hour passed as if in a dream, scrambling up and up and up over rocks and occasional swaths of snow, illuminated only by the small circle of light from our phones. We could only see a couple meters in any direction, but as the glowing lights of the refuge shrank behind us and below us, I had an eerie awareness of the invisible yawning space in one direction. I suspected with my fear of heights, I would find this stretch of trail more intimidating on the way down when I could see it.

As dawn approached, the darkness paled to gray and then the summits of the peaks opposite us gradually materialized. Then as the sun hit them, they were painted with a warm pink light.

We had reached a series of switchbacks now, and at each turn I would pause to breathe and to marvel at the progress of the sunrise. We climbed and climbed and climbed. Periodically we had to scramble over loose scree that threatened to slip out from beneath your boot and cascade down the slope like water. We crossed patches of hard-packed snow and scrambled among boulders the size of cars. Then more switchbacks.

Eventually we reached the ridge line, and the views opened up around us. However, the summit itself was still some distance off to our left. We continued until I thought we had reached our goal, but instead we had only reached our first glimpse of the summit itself, up until now obscured by the nearer face of rock. We could see the pyramid summit sign, but that peak seemed to be on the other side of empty space. But Hamid pointed out the trail to our left that dipped below the ridgeline and followed its crescent-shaped path around to the summit.

At this point, my nerves were shot. The path looked so steep and narrow that I sat down, momentarily panicked, unable to imagine myself covering the last few hundred meters. I mumbled that I would wait for Hamid and Charlotte here, but luckily they both dismissed my nonsense and talked me to my feet. “Don’t look down,” said Hamid. “And don’t stop.” Pretending that I could still only see as far as the light of my cell phone, I kept my eyes resolutely on the trail immediately in front of me. Ten minutes later the path opened up, and we had made it.

The summit of Toubkal is wide and nearly flat, but the sheer distance that you can see in every direction, including down, almost hurts your eyes. I was struck by the difference between here and Casablanca, where buildings obstruct the view anywhere you look, and your brain never has to process input from more than a few blocks away. It was dizzying. It was amazing.

We took photos from every conceivable angle and then sat and rested for a while, taking it all in. Hamid clambered atop the summit sign and posed, arms outstretched, for one of my favorite pictures I’ve ever taken.

It had been cold on the shady trail, but here at the top, the sun kept us warm despite the thin air. After the challenge of the ascent, the twenty minutes we spent alone at the summit of Toubkal were some of the most gratifying of my life. I could have spent all day up there, but Charlotte and I had a train to catch that evening, and we still needed to descend to the refuge and walk another ten miles back to Imlil.

We followed Hamid back down the mountain. We exchanged greetings and encouraging words with several groups of hikers on their way up. Once the sun rose above Toubkal’s ridge line, the temperature increased dramatically, and I was glad we had completed the full ascent in the shade. As I expected, some stretches of the trail were harrowing by the light of day.

It was about 11am when we reached the refuge. We rested, ate lunch, and gathered up our belongings. It would be a long walk back through the valley to Imlil, but generally downhill. The weather was beautiful. The warm sun seemed incongruous as we walked past heaps of leftover snow on the creek bed, like spring and summer had haphazardly overtaken the valley and forgotten them there.

This trail was the more popular route between Imlil and Toubkal, and we passed several creek-side juice stands and souvenir shops. The juice was welcome and delicious, but the t-shirts, pottery, and nick knacks struck me as odd, because anything we bought we would have to carry. Throughout the afternoon we also crossed paths with lots of hikers on their way up to the refuge. It still never felt crowded, but I could imagine that outside the month of Ramadan, the relaxing trail might feel more like a busy thoroughfare.

After a long afternoon of hiking on tired feet, we crossed a rocky riverbed and found ourselves among the small villages of the Imlil valley. In another forty-five minutes, we made it back to Imlil proper, where a shuttle was waiting to take us back to Marrakesh. We bid goodbye to Hamid and Hamid and thanked them for making our trek such an incredible experience, an impressive feat that they had accomplished while fasting all day long. Exhausted, we napped in the van and then settled in at the McDonalds at the train station for a few hours. Due to Ramadan, the trains were infrequent and all the other restaurants were closed, so we ate McFlurries and used the wifi to reconnect with friends and family and share pictures from the journey.

After three and half hours on the train, we finally arrived in Casablanca around 11pm, almost 20 hours after waking up that morning. Collapsing onto my bed in my apartment, it was hard to believe that earlier that day I had stood on the tallest mountain in North Africa, over two miles higher in the Earth’s atmosphere than where I was now. It was a challenging and triumphant experience, and I am so, so grateful for the opportunity.

Thanks for the adventure, Jbel Toubkal.

[ucfknighterrant-blog]

Trekking Toubkal (1/2)

On a Friday evening in June, my friend Charlotte and I hopped on the train to Marrakesh, but our eventual destination was the highest point in North Africa. The summit of Jbel (Mount) Toubkal is 4167 meters or 13,671 feet above sea level, nearly double the size of the highest mountain I had ever hiked before. It’s a popular trekking destination among Moroccans and foreigners alike, but since it was Ramadan, we didn’t anticipate much of a crowd.

We spent Friday night in a hotel near the train station in Marrakesh, and at 8am, we met our shuttle driver. It’s a little over an hour to the village of Imlil, at 1800m in the Atlas Mountains. When we arrived, we were ushered up to a rooftop terrace where we self-consciously drank mint tea while our guide, who was fasting, explained the route to us. Many hikers complete the trek in two days, out and back on the same trail up the valley. However, we had three days, which meant we could make the journey in a loop that would let us see more of Atlas Mountains and acclimate more gradually to the elevation. That day, we would scale a pass at about 2500m and then descend into a valley to sleep in a refuge. Sunday, we would scale a pass at 3600m and then descend to sleep at the Toubkal base camp refuge. And Monday morning, we would summit and then return all the way to Imlil via the more direct trail.

We set out mid-morning, four people and one mule. It was me, Charlotte, our English-speaking guide Hamid, and another guide with less English, also named Hamid, who drove the gray-whiskered mule piled high with our provisions for the next three days. The weather was hot at first, but as we approached the first pass, dark clouds gathered and it began to rain. At first, the cool drizzle was pleasant, but the rumbling thunder had me on edge as we ascended the increasingly exposed mountainside. For a few minutes, it hailed. But just as our teeth began to chatter with cold, we reached the pass and took shelter in the little mountain hut there.

Then conditions improved just as quickly as they had deteriorated, and Hamid and Hamid prepared us a tasty tajine lunch over the hearth in the hut while Charlotte and I spread out our wet things to dry in the sun. The view from the pass was breathtaking.

After lunch, we followed a narrow trail carved into the steep mountainside. It wound down from the pass through fields of purple-tinged boulders and mint-green shrubs and twisting prickly trees. Herds of goats and sheep crossed our path, but not a single human. Eventually we reached a valley with a tiny seasonal village on a vibrant green terraced hillside. We were the only guests at the refuge that night. The clouds and thunder returned and the temperature plummeted, but bundled up in layers and cocooned in our sleeping bags, we spent a pleasant night in the lonely valley.

The next morning we woke up early. After breakfast, we started uphill. The mountains that loomed over us looked impassable, but Hamid assured us that after a 1300m climb, we would find ourselves in a pass overlooking the neighboring valley. There, we would glimpse Jebel Toubkal itself for the first time. For the first part of the morning, we walked alongside a rushing creek. Upstream we found two different waterfalls. As the sun gradually crested the peaks to the east, we left the stream behind and began a series of switchbacks, occasionally interspersed with a flat stretch cutting across a steep scree slope. 

For the first time I began to feel the effects of the elevation, finding myself winded after just a few minutes of walking. We took frequent breaks over the next few hours as one switchback blended into the next. Eventually we reached a ridgeline that gave us beautiful views back in the direction we had come, and shortly after that we made it to the pass. Far below us, there was a green valley, and directly opposite loomed Toubkal, still decorated with scattered patches of snow. 

We ate our lunch and took naps in the sun before we eventually threaded our way down from the pass on a narrow trail that clung precariously to the mountainside. Clouds floated up the valley like parade balloons, level with us or below us. Exhausted, we reached the refuge after about 8 hours of hiking. I was expecting a small stone structure like the previous night, but this refuge looked more like Winterfell. It filled up gradually throughout the evening, all foreign hikers, some with Moroccan guides. We wrapped ourselves in our sleeping bags early and set our alarms for 3:30am. The next morning would be summit day.

[to be continued]

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Scenes from the North of Morocco

Tangier, M’diq, and roadside views in between. (And 6m under the surface of the Mediterranean!)

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Residence Evil: The Quest for the Carte de Sejour (3/3)

April: I had a fantastic trip to Italy with my parents at the beginning of April, which meant I jumpstarted my 90 days as a tourist once again. Upon the landlord’s return to Morocco, after a lot of phone tag, we managed to secure a day and time to sign a new contract with the landlord. He canceled the day before. Something had come up.

The following week, we actually managed it. We signed the new contract at the muqata. I walked across the street to the photocopy shop, made copies, and returned to the muqata to have these copies legalized.

May: Could it be? Could I finally have everything I needed? I traveled the following Monday-Thursday for work, but on Friday morning, I arrived at 9:00 sharp at the police prefecture. I only had to wait about 45 minutes. The contract was deemed acceptable, my medical certificate was deemed acceptable, the background check acceptable, everything… except that I needed legalized photocopies not only of my passport information page and entry stamp page, but also of my most recent entry stamp, which was not on the same page. Furthermore, I needed my C.V. written in French and a legalized copy of a recent utility bill with my name or my landlord’s name. I pointed out to the officer that my new background check expired in just three days. It was Friday. “Get these things, and come back on Monday,” he told me. Monday was my very last chance, or else I would need to send home for a third background check.

I left the station, made copies of my passport at work, and arranged to meet up with my roommate to get the utility bill. It was in Karen’s name, who was not on the new contract, since she was moving to Marrakesh soon. I wasn’t sure if this would be a problem, but I had the copies made and legalized anyway.

On Monday morning, the expiration date of my second background check, I arrived at the prefecture at 9:08. At 11:58, I walked out again with a tiny scrap of paper in my hand… my receipt for my payment! It took almost three hours, but my documents were accepted, I was interviewed (in French!), and I paid 100 dirhams and was told to come back in a month for my recipice. I felt like celebrating, but they had still only accepted my application. Who knew if they would approve it?

That was the 8th of May.

June: On the 8th of June, I arrived at the police prefecture at 9:00 exactly. I didn’t find the correct office immediately, but after asking around, I eventually sat down at a desk and presented the woman with my scrap of a carbon receipt. She studied the number, nodded, and started tapping away at her computer. I figured this was a good sign, and I sat in silent anticipation for about 5 minutes until she glanced from the computer to me, and then produced a heavy file folder. She flipped through it and then handed me my recipice.

It was done.

I mean, not really. The recipice is still just the receipt, and the wallet-sized plastic card will be ready in another three months.

But still. It’s a legal document. I can travel in and out of Morocco with it. Or better, I can not travel every 90 days, and I’m not overstaying as a tourist. I can open a bank account if I want to. I no longer need to carry my passport with me on every work trip for the hotels.

As I reflect on the process, there are plenty of points in the timeline when I could have made better decisions, either by asking more astute questions or being more observant or proactive. Perhaps the takeaway is really “GET EVERYTHING IN WRITING.” Regardless of what worked in Spain, I shouldn’t have moved into that apartment without an official contract. I should have insisted on a printed list of requirements from my job. (I did eventually get such a list, in February, but it turned out 6 of the 11 items were outdated and incorrect, so it wasn’t very helpful.) I should have noticed the medical certificate error when I was still at the doctor’s office the first time, and requested that she write out another copy. By taking these steps, I could have avoided some of the hiccups in the process.

But now that it’s over, I don’t regret my first choice of apartment, because it resulted in my friendship with Fadwa and my current living situation with Gwen. The prise en charge fiasco and the medical certificate make for a good story. And at least now the FDLE is really, really sure that I don’t have a criminal record. Plus, I have my CV in French, for any future job opportunities in a francophone country. (My own lack of conversational French is a mere detail.)

Tl;dr, The process of getting my Moroccan residency definitely tested my patience and persistence. I even remember texting my mom “I never thought I would be homesick for the DMV!” But eventually, after ten months and ten days in Morocco, I finally have that piece of paper. As they say in Casablanca, hamdulilah! (Thank God!)

[ucfknighterrant-blog]

Residence Evil: The Quest for the Carte de Sejour (2/3)

[January]

… So, I was zero for three.

I ordered another background check online from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. They would send it to my parents, who would send it to Morocco. Meanwhile, I brought up the contract issue with my roommate. She said that the landlady would not want a legal contract because it would mean she’d need to pay taxes on her rental income. After all, she was a family friend. My roommate encouraged me to ask around for other possible solutions.

When I tried this, I was told at work that I could get an alternative piece of paperwork called a prise en charge, whereby the legal owner of the apartment or someone officially renting the apartment could basically certify that I lived there with them. When I brought this up with my roommate, she said she would ask the landlady about it, but then she was traveling and would not be able to do so for a couple weeks. During this time, my 90 days as a tourist were about to expire, so I spent an impromptu weekend in Madrid to restart my tourist visa once again.

February: Back from Madrid, I set about tracking down these three pieces of paper. The landlady agreed to do the prise en charge, but only after meeting me. She lived Meknes, but she and her husband would come in two weeks. Two weeks later, they didn’t show up. When my roommate called them for an explanation, they said they didn’t want to take the risk of being held responsibly in the event I was actually an illegal Christian missionary. Despite our assurances that I had not attempted to convert anyone, they said they didn’t want the trouble after all. Thus, it became clear that I would need to move.

By the end of February, I had received my new background check, gone to the doctor for a cursory health checkup, and moved into a different apartment with two friends. I thought I was close to obtaining my three pieces of paper. However, we encountered another hiccup. My friend and now roommate Karen, who was on the contract for our apartment, could not do the prise en charge for me because her own passport had expired, and her carte de sejour renewal process had stalled. She was in limbo, stuck in Morocco, unable to travel home to South Africa, while she waited on the Moroccan police to approve her carte de sejour and the South African embassy to locate her eight-month-old passport renewal application. Due to her temporary lack of legal ID, we could neither get the prise en charge nor add me to her existing rental contract.

March: Eventually, Karen’s carte du sejour was issued. We quickly wrote up the prise en charge and took it to the muqata. We were told this document could only be done at our neighborhood muqata, which it turns out is not the one closest to our apartment. So we went to the other office. This one approved the documents, but refused to legalize the copies of my medical certificate because of a tiny error the doctor made and then corrected in the handwritten “7” of “2017.” This resulted in a second trip to the doctor’s office, where I waited 45 minutes to simply get a faint stamp over the error, affirming that the doctor herself had made it, and I hadn’t falsely altered a medical certificate from 2011 or something.

After this second doctor’s trip and yet another visit to the muqata to have the stamped medical certificate legalized, I was finally ready to take my documents to the police. During the first visit to the prefecture, we were told that we were too late to be helped. (They supposedly accept documents between 9 and 12. It was 9:45.) A quick glance at the list on the wall also showed that I needed three notarized copies of my passport and contract. Not two.

I secured the additional copies and arrived at the prefecture the following business day at 9:05. My friend and colleague came with me to help with language. After an hour and a half, when we reached the front of the line, we were told that the prise en charge was not actually valid. I explained that the director of my company had told me it would work.

“Well,” said the officer to me in English. “You tell him that the police said it will not work.”

So now it was clear that I truly needed to sign a legal rental contract. Conveniently, our landlord was in France.

For three weeks.

And so we waited.

[to be continued]

[ucfknighterrant-blog]

Residence Evil: The Quest for the Carte de Sejour (1/3)

Working outside of your home country is not for the faint-hearted.

This isn’t because moving is hard or learning languages is hard or immersing yourself in another culture is hard. Don’t get me wrong—these things can all be difficult—but the real reason is The. Paperwork. Is. A. Nightmare.

I mention this to underscore my good news: I finally have my official Moroccan residency.

How, you ask?

Well buckle up, reader, because this is going to be a wild ride.

Total time between arrival and official residency: 10 months, 10 days.

The timeline goes like this:

Pre-arrival: I was asked to bring my passport, diplomas and certificates, and a background check, and to have a recommendation letter sent as a pdf to my manager.

August: When I arrived in Morocco, I was given a bit of assistance at work in searching for apartments online, but for the most part they left me to my own devices. I met a young Moroccan woman from Meknes subleasing the extra bedroom in her apartment. I asked about a contract, but was told that because the landlord was a family friend, there was no contract. She said this is very normal in Morocco. This should have been a red flag right away, but I was feeling rushed. My job provided ten nights in a hotel and those were quickly ticking by, so I moved in. After all, I had subleased in Madrid without an official contract with the landlord, and that hadn’t interfered with my visa or residency there.

In August I also signed my work contract and was accompanied to the muqata for the first time, where we had the contract legalized. The muqata is sort of like a DMV, but instead of specializing in motor vehicles, they handle contracts and notarization of all kinds of official documents. We had copies of my diplomas and passport legalized there as well. Legalization involves lots of stamps and signatures on the photocopy itself, as well as sometimes signing in a large spiral bound register, since most of this process has yet to be digitalized here in Morocco.

September: I was asked for “the original” of my recommendation letter. This, of course, did not exist, because I’d been told to have it sent in digital form directly from my reference to the manager. When I explained that I had never seen the letter nor did a hard copy even exist, I was told patiently, as if I were a child, “But the original, Sibley. Give me the original letter. The one on paper.” Thus, it became clear that this nonexistent hard copy was necessary, so I had to get back in touch with my old department chair and request that she print the pdf, sign it, and then fax it to Morocco. (Thanks Lauren!)

At this time, I offered my background check to our office administration and asked if there was anything else they needed. It was given straight back to me, and I was told they would let me know if they needed other documents from me.

October: As autumn wore on, I heard new friends talk about the process, mentioning things like contracts and medical certificates and unknown French words and acronyms like “recipice” and “ANAPEC”. Once again, I asked about it at work. They said that the process was taking so long because the owner of our franchise was out of the country, so my work contract still hadn’t been signed and sent to the labor ministry in Rabat. But I was assured once again that they would tell me if they needed anything else from me. I went home for my brother’s wedding in October, which restarted my 90 day tourist visa, giving us more time, so I wasn’t worried. I thought I had submitted everything I needed, and later, when they mentioned sending someone to Rabat to check on the process, I thought we were almost finished. Any day now I would be told that my carte de sejour had been approved.

Oh sweet, naïve, little past-me.

January: Less than two weeks before my second 90 day tourist visa would expire, I met a friend for lunch who told me about her struggle to apply for the carte de sejour, and how she had to move to a new apartment in order to get a rental contract. She asked me if I had encountered the same problems. I shrugged, and repeated what I had been told. I had given my office administration everything they needed, and they were taking care of it. I assumed that because they hired multiple foreign teachers every year, they had the process streamlined enough that it was practically automatic.

That very same day, when I returned from my lunch break, I was given the good news. My paperwork was back from the Ministry. “Now to apply for the carte de sejour, you just need to take these papers to the police station along with your background check, medical certificate, and rental contract. Do you have those with you today?”

Come again?

I hadn’t been told I needed the medical certificate or the rental contract. I did have the background check in my work folder, so I produced that, at least. “But Sibley, this isn’t translated. Why didn’t you give it to me before so we could have it translated?”

You may recall, earlier in this tale of trial, that I did give it to them. Twice, in fact. Both times, it was given straight back to me. On neither occasion did anyone mention a translation.

Furthermore, as I recalled my conversation from lunch, I looked at the date. It was close to six months old at this point. My friend had mentioned that they’re only valid for 90 days.

Well then.

I was zero for three. And things were just getting started.

[to be continued…]

[ucfknighterrant-blog]

Instagram and honesty

I’m a big fan of social media. Living so far away from my friends and family, I appreciate the way the internet allows me to stay connected and share my unconventional experiences with the people I care about. However, I do impose certain limits on what I choose to put online. We all roll our eyes at that one friend, the oversharer, who posts pictures of every meal and whiny status updates about life’s normal inconveniences. No one wants to be that friend, so many of us upload only our most noteworthy photos, with captions devoid of any negativity.

But then we risk becoming that other friend, the one who only posts beautifully edited vacation photos with statuses about how grateful she is for her amazing life. The highlight reel friend. It’s natural to share the best parts of our lives, but this has its own set of drawbacks, and I think these are much more insidious than in the case of the oversharing breakfast-photo friend.

If you have a lot of highlight reel friends, it’s easy to feel dissatisfied in your own life. Where do they get the money or the vacation days to have those adventures? Why can’t I look that good in a swimsuit? Will I ever be in a happy romantic relationship like them? Of course, we know we shouldn’t compare ourselves to others. We know, intellectually at least, that everyone has problems, and no one’s life is Instagram-worthy all the time. But knowing doesn’t always prevent feeling dissatisfied.

If you are the highlight reel friend, it’s easy to focus too much on constructing the image of a wonderful life for yourself. At best, this can be a distraction from actually living your life, and at worst it can lead you to be disingenuous, deliberately hiding your problems from friends and family because it might put a crack in your shiny façade of #blessed existence.

I’ve noticed a pattern in my blogging and social media habits throughout the last couple years of teaching abroad. When I first arrive in a new place, I write a lot about daily life, but once I settle into my new routine, I tend to write primarily about my travels outside of my city of residence. The mundane stuff during the week isn’t interesting. Plus, sometimes it’s hard, and I find it difficult and draining to write about. And besides, I can hardly share the negative stuff without seeming like an ungrateful brat. I mean, come on. How can you complain if you live in the Caribbean, or in Madrid, or in Casablanca? But even if that’s my rationale – trying to avoid the boring and/or whiny bits, not deliberately trying to make my life look awesome—it’s still made me feel a bit misleading.

For example, I recently uploaded this photo to Instagram.

It’s such a clichéd Instagram pose that I almost didn’t share it. But at the same time, I really do think it is beautiful and cool, and the cheesy arms-wide-open pose does reflect the wonder that I felt at such incredible scenery. So I posted it, along with a goofy Princess Bride reference to hopefully show that I’m not taking myself too seriously. But that gorgeous clifftop moment was just one part of my week. I was in the midst of traveling for my job, and in addition to that photo, I also encountered some frustrating obstacles at work, spent a night drenched in sweat in the Moroccan heat because the air conditioner was broken, fretted about late charges on my electricity bill because I wasn’t at home in Casa to pay it on time, and felt crippled by loneliness when I thought about how almost all my friends in Morocco have left for the summer or for good. You know, all that normal, messy, human life stuff. I’m not trying to say “oh, woe is me!” but rather attempting to acknowledge that the images that I share are, for better or for worse, “curated”.

At least, that’s is how John Green describes it in the video that I’m linking at the bottom of this post. His video about “framing” our experiences is what prompted me to write about this topic… that, and my nagging fear of being less than genuine. In the vlog, John says “This is my life, but it’s not all my life. And if I can remember that about myself, then maybe I can start to understand it about other people.”

The cool thing about the internet and social media is that you have complete control over how you present yourself and your experiences to others. I try to be thoughtful and earnest and hopefully kind of funny, but I think in my efforts to avoid negativity, I can paint a skewed picture of my life. So as I try to get back into regular weekly writing habits, I’m going to make an effort to be more open and frank about both the exciting and the mundane parts of life in Casablanca. And when I think about other people, I’ll also try to remember that all of us are a lot less polished and a lot more complex than we could possibly capture in an image, no matter how well-edited.

Thanks for reading, and DFTBA.

[ucfknighterrant-blog]

Family comes to Casa

When my parents and I arrived at the sleek new Marrakesh airport, we hustled to get near the front of the line for customs. Our stress was unnecessary, because the process was much quicker than in Casablanca, and we soon made it out into the Moroccan sunshine. We had a harrowing van ride to the Medina, and I enjoyed watching my parents’ reactions to their first experience in North African traffic. I had booked a small riad online that looked beautiful in the booking.com photos. However, I was starting to get nervous when the shuttle driver instructed us to get out of the vehicle and follow him down the winding streets past stray cats, piles of trash, and even through a tunnel. I figured we were in no danger, but I think both my parents were convinced we were being kidnapped by the time our guide halted in front of a door that was about five feet high, in an alley so narrow I could place my palms on the walls on either side.

However, in true Moroccan fashion, we ducked through that doorway and found ourselves in a small paradise. The proprietor was an enthusiastic Moroccan guy who spoke English with a puzzling Russian accent. The riad was undergoing some repairs from heavy rain, but that just added to the charm. Altogether, we felt as if we had stepped into the Moroccan version of my mom’s favorite movie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. We relaxed and drank tea on the rooftop for a while, then ventured into the medina for dinner. The word medina means “city” in Arabic, and in Morocco, it refers to the traditional center of a city, typically marked by narrow streets and colorful souks, or markets. The Marrakesh medina is something of an assault on the senses. It can also be a physical assault, too, if you’re not careful to dodge the speeding mopeds and the children chasing soccer balls and the occasional donkey cart. I enjoyed sharing this aspect of Morocco with my parents, perhaps more than they enjoyed it themselves. We had tajine for dinner and then went back to the riad.

The next day, we wandered the medina once again, and then we took a taxi to the Majorelle Gardens. These gardens are a lovely, shady oasis of green and blue in a city that is otherwise sunny and red and brown. Then, I bargained with a carriage driver and we had a fun horse-drawn journey back to the riad.

That afternoon we took the train to Casablanca. It felt so special to welcome my parents into my apartment and share a couple of days of my real Moroccan life with them. We ate a huge breakfast at Sqala, walked through Casablanca’s slightly less chaotic medina, stopped for a drink at one of my favorite cafes, and even took a tour of my job’s offices. Unfortunately, my mom was injured stepping off a crumbling curb, and her sprained ankle kept us mostly homebound for their last 24 hours in Morocco. As a nurse, she was able to judge that the injury did not require immediate attention from a doctor, and I was thankful that our vacation did not involve navigating a Moroccan hospital. We still managed to see the Mosque Hassan II, and we celebrated my birthday at home with my roommates Gwen and Karen.

It was hard to say goodbye when it was time for my parents to leave, but I’m so thankful that I had the chance to share my weird little life with them. I think it was great for them to see Morocco for themselves. Now, instead of fretting about me living in a Muslim country, which concerned them before, they’re just worried about me getting run over a car. Which, if we’re being honest, is the true danger of living in Casablanca, Morocco.

[ucfknighterrant-blog]

Ramadan in Morocco

What is Ramadan?

Ramadan is the 9th month of the Islamic calendar and the time when Muslims celebrate the revelation of the Quran to the prophet Muhammad. It’s also a time to do good deeds, reflect on spiritual life, and empathize with the poor. Ramadan is observed by fasting from sunrise to sunset every day until the end of the month, which is celebrated with a holiday called Eid al Fitr. The dates of Ramadan change every year because Islam follows a lunar calendar instead of the solar calendar, so the month begins about ten days earlier each year. The exact dates of Ramadan and other religious holidays are determined by observing the phases of the moon in real time, which makes scheduling a bit interesting. As a holiday approaches, my manager will say “We are off on Tuesday, but maybe Wednesday. We'll know by Monday night.”

What does fasting entail?

Here at least, fasting means abstaining from food, drink, substances like nicotine, and sexual intimacy from sunrise to sunset. Fasting is a requirement for all Muslims, with the exception of children, people with serious illnesses like diabetes, and pregnant, nursing, or menstruating women. The fast is broken at sundown, signified by the evening prayer call, with a meal called Iftar. Before sunrise in the very early morning, there is a meal called Suhoor, which includes a lot of complex carbs and water in order to sustain the person throughout the coming day.

What’s Ramadan like in Morocco?

Before the month began, I’d heard mixed reports about Ramadan in Morocco. On the one hand, it’s a festive month with a lot of great food, but on the other, people are hungry and sleepy and suffering from nicotine withdrawal. I’ve done my best to go into the month with an open mind, and it turns out both sides are true. But overall, for foreigners at least, Ramadan is pretty cool. As a Christian in Morocco, I’m not expected to participate in the difficult aspect – the fasting—but I am welcome to partake in the fun aspects. These include the shortened working hours and many tasty “breakfasts”… in Darija, Iftar is called “ftour,” the same word used for your morning breakfast during the rest of the year.

I have greatly enjoyed sharing ftour with my Moroccan friends and colleagues, other foreigners, and various combinations of the two. Perhaps the best culinary experience was when the other foreign teachers at my job and I were invited to break the fast with our colleague Amine at home with his wife and children. The traditional first bite of food at ftour is a date (the ticket inspectors even passed out free dates on the train when Charlotte and I were traveling to Marrakesh during the evening). From there, we ate harira soup, msimen with dried meat called khlia, a super sweet fried pastry called choubakiya, stuffed chicken, and delicious fresh-squeezed juices.

Ftour at Amine’s

Most people work only 6 or 7 hours per day during Ramadan, and at about 5pm, there is an intense rush hour as hungry, exhausted people hurry home for ftour. The traffic in Casablanca, which is already alarming, becomes downright hazardous. Many people are irritable, and I’ve witnessed a few shouting matches. However, in general, most people are pretty stoic about the fasting, and they don’t complain about it except perhaps as an excuse for mid-afternoon sluggishness or absentmindedness.

In a city like Casablanca, it’s only slightly inconvenient to be a non-Muslim during Ramadan, because some food establishments that cater to foreigners remain open during the day. Other restaurants are closed until ftour time, and any establishment that sells or serves alcohol is forbidden to do so throughout the entire month. In smaller cities like those on my work route, you need to plan ahead and bring your own food if you don’t want to fast, because very few places prepare food during the day.

I did fast for one full day to better understand and empathize. I woke up and ate some fruit and drank water at about 4am before sleeping until 7:30 to begin my day. I was hungry throughout the morning and early afternoon, but it was only seriously uncomfortable from about 2pm until 5pm, when my grumbling stomach was eclipsed by my caffeine headache, thirst, and exhaustion. However, once I made it to the beach at 6pm where I would break the fast with my friends at the surf school, the distraction of volleyball and good company helped me power through until the 7:48pm prayer call. At the sound of “Allaaaaaahu akbar!” we devoured a delicious eclectic meal of traditional Moroccan ftour foods… plus pizza, chicken nuggets, chips and guac, and smores. For me, with a sedentary job in mostly air-conditioned spaces, fasting was not particularly difficult. I have a deep respect for the toughness of people who fast through their physically demanding jobs, particularly outdoor ones in Morocco’s summer heat.

Waiting for the sun to set on the Atlantic so we can eat ftour at the surf school

As Eid al Fitr and the end of Ramadan approach, I’m looking forward a greater variety of lunch choices, but I will miss my reduced work hours and the sense of community that is built around sharing so many meals together. I have my reservations about some of Morocco’s Ramadan policies (which are plenty accommodating toward foreigners like me, but not so much toward Moroccans, who have very little freedom of choice in the matter), but overall I have enjoyed learning about the practice, and the evenings I have shared with friends this month will be some of my favorite memories from Casablanca.