After life

"Don't cry because it's over. Smile, because it happened." - Dr Seuss

I'm sitting on my bed in my room. My mind is wondering somewhere else and I find it hard to concentrate on writing... Tomorrow it has been a week since I arrived back to Finland from Morocco. I'm still finding it pretty hard to describe my feelings. What should I write about my feelings since I can't put them in order even in my own mind. Confusion, that might be the best word for the moment.

The day when I arrived back home (why do I find it so hard to use the word "home"? Where is my home actually? That's the question I have been thinking ever since I came back), I felt like I had arrived to a foreign country. On the other hand, I felt like it was just yesterday when I had left, everything looked the same. The first day I was feeling pretty good: seeing my family after a long time, wondering everything around me like it was my first time in Finland, eating a good Finnish meal... yes, I felt like I'm going to be fine that I will get used to my life again. But the second day, the reality hit me. This is it, I thought. I'm in Finland now. My life in Morocco is over. Over. That really crushed me. I felt like I couldn't breath. I saw only strange things around me. Things that had been part of my life for 25 years but that looked so distant now, like I had never experienced them before. I was walking in my town and I saw only a few people on the street. I smiled to a stranger but she didn't smile me back. I felt like I had been sent to another planet.

Now, after a week, I'm starting to feel that I might adapt to the life style of this planet again. Morocco is in my mind all the time, but I don't feel so desperately sad anymore when thinking about it. I have started to work on my thesis again and today I went to the hospital where I start my internship on the 1st of August. I'm actually feeling really excited to start to do something that I really like! Also, I enjoy going out for a walk and see the beautiful nature around me. Yes, I'm really blinded by how green the nature really is! And even how disturbed I was by the extreme calmness around when I arrived, now I'm starting to respect it. After all, we don't need all that huzzle and buzzle all the time!

There are moments when I think, was I really in Morocco or was it only a dream? I wake up at night in my bed and it takes me a while before I realize where I am. I still get caught in sadness while thinking all the experiences I lived there and trying to accept that they are over now. Yes, they may be over in the present, but they live inside for the rest of my life. The thing that keeps me going, that gives me motivation to continue my life in Finland is the thought that I didn't say good-bye to Morocco. I hate to say good byes. That's why I always keep the hope inside of me that one day I will return to the place that I have left behind.

"You never really leave a place or person you love, part of them you take with you, while leaving a part of yourself behind.” -Unknown

Time to go

My last week in Morocco. I can't believe it. It was like yesterday when I arrived here almost five months ago, no matter how cliché it may sound. I remember the first days when I was walking in the town in Laura, confused about everything new I saw around me. I was wondering how I would ever got to know the town, how I would learn to find my way on its small streets that look the same. How I would learn to cross a street without getting hit by a car? How I would learn to be strong with people who are just trying to take advantage of me in and gentle with those who are sincere. Thinking about those first feelings, it puts a smile on my face. Oh yes, I did learn all that. And much more that I couldn't imagine, mostly about myself and about my way of seeing life and what is important in it.

I think I'm ready to leave with everything that this country has given me, in good and in bad. Lately, I have been thinking what I'm gonna miss here and on the contrary, what things I have been missing about Finland.

Things that I will miss from Morocco:

- PEOPLE, in the genuine way of expressing their feelings, may it be the positive of negative ones. I have been talking about Moroccan hospitality before and it's definitely the thing that I'm gonna miss the most. People inviting me, a stranger, in their home and yet making me feel as I were part of the family. Wow, could we ever do it back home?
- Imperfections. I have learned to see how imperfections can be so beautiful. Why does everything always have to be so nice and tidy around us? I find that it's much more interesting to look around and see things that are a bit (or a bit more) rough around the edges.
- Small markets with fruits, vegetables, clothes, jewelry.. everything you can imagine. What do we need supermarkets for??
- Cheap food, what a shock it will be to go back home and see the prices. Good-bye 1-2 euros restaurant meals...
- Fresh squeezed orange juice! And those little shops by the streets where you can buy different kind of natural juices, cakes, and fruit salads with ridiculous prices.
- prayers coming from the mosques, I might wake up at night in Finland and wonder what is wrong since I don't hear that familiar sound that in the beginning always woke me up at night.
-living next the sea and feeling it's smell and breeze when I go out.
-eating from the same plate with everyone with bread or hands. What a feelings of collectiveness! And what do we need a fork and knife for...? :)

Things that I'm looking forward to in Finland:

- Cool weather! I'm telling you, I'm sweating like in sauna now...
- Being able to walk on the streets without anybody bothering me, whisteling at me, wanting to start a conversation with me. Being able to sit on the bench without someone sitting next to me and asking me from I'm from, what I'm doing here, whether I'm married, whether I would be interested in getting married... Oh, yes, I need to be able to be alone for a while!
- Finnish nature. I might be blinded by everything green I will see around me as the Moroccan nature is looking pretty dead now since it hasnt been raining in ages.
- Finnish food. Yeah, I'm missing our brown breed so much! I might never wanna eat white bread anymore... Also I'm missing finnish candies (salmiakki, I'm coming...), cereals, musli, joghurts...
- Doing sports! I feel bad physically and emotionally that I havent been doing any sports here. Yeah, and that can be seen on my waist...
- Believe or not, I miss my studies and working, doing something useful and interesting. This vacation is over, and I'm full of energy :)


Spending my last week, my feelings are confused as you might imagine. I'm excited to go back home and find everything I left there. But I'm also wondering, will the things be the same as I left them? I feel that I have changed. I feel that my way of seeing things has changed. So, am I really going back to what I left behind five months ago? It makes me a bit nervious. What if I find it really hard to get used to my life in Finland? What if I'll be missing Morocco so much that I get depressed? What if I don't know where I belong? What I'm scared the most is that what if the feeling of restlessness inside of me will never go away and after being a week in Finland I will already be surfing on the net looking for plane tickets, voluntary work programs, anything that would get me away. Planning and dreaming. Hmm, my next destination, what would it be?

Changes

Hello my friends,

First of all, I hope you haven't stopped at coming to my website. I don't blame if you have, since there hasn't been any updates lately. I'm really sorry about that! Anyway, I'm still alive and going strong, I guess that's the most important thing, right? ;)

As I'm writing this, I'm at my very good friend's place in Rabat. Layla, I'm so happy to be here with you!! :) Layla has also studied in the university of Joensuu, but I didn't know each other before I went to France where she was spending a year as an exchange student as well. Yeah, world is small: I have to travel all the way to another country to get to know someone who has studied all the time in the same university in Finland. So, in France we became good friends and the next year we continued studies in Finland. Sadly, our ways got separated last year when Layla left Finland to finish her studies somewhere else. However, now we are reunited again since Layla has returned to Morocco for her holidays and I came see her at her home. In life, we often walk a long way along the same path but at some point our ways get separated as we chose different directions. But at the moment of every good-bye, why couldn't we save our tears and think about the next crossroad where our paths get reunited again, may it only for a moment.

Changes, there has been a lot of them in my life lately, which have taken me time and energy. Well, I guess most of you will heard about them from me later on, but let's just say that I've been thinking about my future a lot lately, especially concentrating on things that I want from my life. Letting go of the past and choosing new ways can be very hard. After all, how can we ever be sure, which way would be the best for us. In life, you just sometimes have to take risks and see where a new direction may take you. Sometimes you may regret and wish that you could go all the way back. Often, it's not possible, there is no coming back. But what there is to regret in directions that you took yourself and which course you can always change, often in a way that makes you only look back, smile and continue where you were heading, knowing that this direction is better for you.

There have been some other changes as well: I have moved with Laura into another apartement. We were having so many problems with the guardian who didn't want to let our friends enter the building. It was really frustrating to pay the rent and not having the liberty to do things. Well, of course we understand that things in this culture are different: normally men are not allowed to come to visit women and vice versa. There are some residence where this rule is very strictly applied, which was the thing in our case, but in some places there are no guardians at front door. Well, anyway, finally things got pretty tense as we got into a huge fight with the syndique (the chief of the residence, or whatever). I'm telling you, this women is crazy in her mind as she was shouting at us and saying things that were not at all approriate. So, we couldn't put up the situation anymore and we packed our things and found a new apartement the next day. It's also next to the beach and we have a great views from the windows. The apartement is smaller than the former one but we don't need so much space anymore as there's not so much time left. On the contrary, it has a really big living room, which is very nicely furnished with a mix of ancient and new style. And, also, we are allowed to invite our friends over, so the prison time is over now!

Here I am, continuing the path of my life. May it sometimes take me to bumpy roads and wish me to go back, at least I can be sure that walked it MY way.

Friday feelings.

Friday. Stomach full of couscous. The usual feeling of Friday.

Friday is the holy day for musulmans. Most of the shops, banks, etc. close at 11 am when men go pray in the mosque. When they come home, families eat couscous together that the mother has started to prepare already in the morning. Unfortunately, I'm not so lucky to eat delicious home made couscous every Friday. Luckily, restaurants have taken into consideration those that are not so talented (and lazy as well..) in the kitchen. So, Friday is the only day that couscous is served in the restaurants here. In the beginning, I was always waiting for Friday and couldn't wait that the couscous plate to be brought in front of me. Well, now the glory has pretty much disappeared. Sometimes it's a bit disappointing to notice that some things that seemed so special to me in the beginning, have started to feel something just normal. But there is another side of it also: when I have noticed that I've gotten used to something, it makes me realize every time that I'm getting more and more adapted into this culture.

We are back to our studies after the holidays we had. That means our Tour du Maroc has finished as well. From Ouarzazate, where I last time wrote, we continued to Tinghir which is a small town north of Ourzazate, on the Atlas mountains as well. We stayed there with a Moroccan couple and visited the area which was something really extraordinary. There were big canyons that were really impressive. The nature had a distinct reddish brown color that I had never seen in my life. One of the most amazing things here have been to see the kind of nature that I have never experienced before. As in Finland, we are used to seeing nature only with different shades of green. Here it has been quite opposed, especially in the south, brown colour was dominating in the nature and as well as in the houses. But I find that it can be very beautiful - in its own particular way. When we were sitting on the bus back to Marrakesh, crossing the Atlas mountains one more time, I was looking the views through the bus windows and everything I saw really made me cry in all the beauty that it kept inside: snow peaked mountains, desert, oasis, people living in their simple houses, children playing . I've never seen anything that sheds tears in my eye, touches my whole presence and makes me forget everything but that moment. Maybe I've never felt such a tranquility in my life.

Today we got a new family member with Laura. It's a tiny kitten that we saved from the street. It was in the middle of the road where cars were driving really fast, scared and confused. Amazing enough, it had not been hit by a car yet. Laura is the biggest cat lover ever, so she wanted to take the kitten with her. I couldn't say no. So, now it's here in our house, sleeping on Laura's bed and eating tuna. In the cat's paradise, I would say. We have no idea what we are going to do with him. Laura is already planning to take him to Finland with her. Sadly, there are many cats and dogs on the street. As animal lover, it's something very sad to see. Here people are not used to having animals at house. Well, I have stopped to feel so much sympathy for dogs after one bit my leg some weeks ago! But it was my fault that I was crossing a construction area that the dog was apparently garding. Luckily, the wound was not bad but I had to take three vaccinations against rabies, just in case since you never know what kind of diseased street dogs here have.

As for Friday evening, this is something very peaceful. We are staying at home with Laura and maybe going to see some friends later. Going to see friends on Friday evening, doesn't mean partying and getting drunk. It means passing a nice time with people, chatting and drinking tea. A simple life. Simplicity, that's something I have learned to respect here. Finding joys in little things - especially in the presence of other people, sharing things with them, laughing, exchanging ideas about life. Not needing a feeling of artificial happiness brought by alcohol and at same time, losing the sense of who you really are. Why would we need that? Here I have had learned more about myself than ever before and learned to respect myself as who I am. I have learned to listen to myself and that way, I know what I want from life - simplicity, that was all the time in front of my eyes, but I was just looking for it too somewhere too far.

Breeze from Sahara

Ouarzazate - the edge of Sahara. Snow peaked Atlas mountains behind me. Infinite desert in front. What a contrast! This is one of the landscapes that I've never seen before. I'm just looking everything with a foolish smile on my face and thinking: Wooow!

This week is holidays from school, so we decided to profit this occassion with Laura and left Tanger to go very far. First, we stopped for 2 nights in Rabat, the capital of Morocco, and stayed with friends from school. Rabat is pretty much like Tanger: a modern town with an ancien medina where you can feel how the town was like in the old days. When leaving Rabat, we had some problems because Laura got into a car accident with her friends. Luckily it wasn't anything serious, but I had to take a train to another town without her because we had made plans to stay with a family in Benguerir, a small rural town towards Marrakech. Laura joined me later on in the same evening. We stayed with the family for one night and enjoyed the Moroccan hospitality to the maximum measures! Eating, drinking mint tea, eating, drinking mint tea.. :D I would call that holidays! From Benguerir we took a grand taxi to Marrakech. For those who don't know what a Moroccan grand taxi is like, let me explain you, as it is something that doesn't exist back home! These taxies are Mercedes Benzs who take in 6 passengers and they won't leave until they are full. Really, I mean FULL. There are two people in the front seat and four in the back. So, it can certainly feel pretty crowded and if it's really hot outside, it might not be the most comfortable way of traveling! Another thing is that the drivers go sometimes like lunatics, so it can be pretty stressful. But when traveling in Morocco, it's hard to avoid this way of transport if you don't always want to wait for the next bus. I'm already getting used to it but I still prefer to take a bus, if possible.

Where was I... oh, yes, Marrakech. We stayed there only one night and didn't really go to see the town because we had both seen it before - I visited it when I was traveling in Morocco two years ago. Marrakech is certainly a typical Moroccan town with a special atmosphere. However, we find there to be too much hassle and tourists, so we decided to avoid it this sometimes. From Marrakech, we took a direct bus to Ouarzazate where we are right now. I must say that this route was pretty stressful for me. We crossed the Atlas mountains, the highest mountains in North Africa, and you can imagine that the road in the mountains was pretty curvy with an altitude of 2000m. Also, considering that moroccan buses are not always in a good condition... so, yes, I was praying the man upstairs to take us to our destination safe and sound! After four hours of travel, we finally reached here before yesterday and yes, it was worth it. This is really an extraordinary place with oasis, mountains, old kasbash (fortresses), and of course the heat of Sahara. We are lucky to visit this place at this time of the year since the temperature is only 30c.

Now I need to rush as our bus is leaving to our next destination... so, see you, somewhere, sometime.. You never know where you will find me next! :)

Warm visit from Finland

Salam alekum my friends,

guess who has traveled all the way to Morocco to see me?? My mom! Yes, she arrived in Spain three days ago and I went to meet her there. We stayed in Malaga overnight, did a tour in the town and took a boat to Tangier the next day. She is liking Morocco and wondering all the new things that she is seeing. Yes, I remember being the same way when I was visiting an arabic country for the first time (it was in Egypt three years ago - a trip that really made me fall in love with arabic culture with its tastes, sounds and atmosphere...). It's interesting that my mom is noticing many things -differences between Morocco and Finland that I already take for granted and that I'm used to. In psychology we would call it a process of adaptation! Mom is staying here three more days and then flying home from Casablanca where I'm traveling with her to make sure that she gets to the airport. I only hope that she will manage to find her connecting flight in London and get home safely!

I hope you spent a very nice Easter with your family and friends. For me, there wasn't really any feeling of Easter (only the chocolate eggs and candy that mom brought from Finland -well, that's the most important thing, right! :) However, we had three days of holidays from school because it was prophet Mohammed's birthday and moroccans celebrated that with their families.

I'm getting more and more convinced that this place is my home. I noticed this when I traveled to Spain to meet my mom. I took a boat from Tangier to Tarifa, which is only 35 minutes away from me. This was something that really opened my eyes. First of all, I learned how everything changes when you travel 20 km from here to another continent. It's like another world - new houses, less people, roads in good condition, people living their quiet, wealthy life and most of all, not a remarkable gap between the rich and the poor. You can see the coast of Spain from Tangier when the weather is clear -the coast which is a promise of a new, better life for many moroccans. Because of this, Tangier has always attracted people who want to cross the sea to Europe in hopes of finding the paradise there. Only for me, everything was contrary. As soon as I reached Tarifa and I was in Europe again, everything seemed so weird to me. I was wondering where are all the people? Why aren't people smiling to me? Why aren't people helping me when I can't find my bus? Why is the bus driver respecting all the traffic laws? Where are the sheep, cows, and donkeys beside the roads? Why is everyone in a hurry to get somewhere? Why does everything look so perfect that it can't be the reality of it? I felt sad when I looked Morocco from the side of Spain. I felt that's not where I should be. I should be on the other side. I wanted to get out of that "paradise". And the next day when I got back to Morocco, I felt I was at home and I could breath again.

Joys and sadness

This past week I've been going through quite mixed feelings. I can honestly say that I feel happier than I have felt for a long, long time in my life. It's all because of this country - the atmosphere and the people who amaze me by their hospitality and friendliness every time. But, at the same time, there are things in every day life that make me very sad. Maybe in the beginning I didn't see them well, or maybe I didn't want to. But after being here for a month, the reality of this country has hit me. One of the hardest things for me is to accept the big difference that exists between the rich and the poor, which I'm not used to seeing in Finland. The saddest thing of those, which I see every day, is the children that live on the street. In this area where we live, there are quite a lot of them. As this is a wealthier area of the town, these kids hang around here hoping to get money and food from the residents. However, we have been told not to give money to them as they would only buy glue for sniffing it. So, if we want to help them a little bit, it's better to give them food. Some mornings when I have woken up and looked through the window, I've seen something that really breaks my heart: kids sleeping on the ground without any blankets, just having a small fire to warm them up as the nights are still pretty cold. At those moments, I really hate the injustice in this world and feel so bad about the fact that I'm fortunate in my life... But it's part of this experience. If I want to live this experience to the fullest, I need to face those things even though it hurts. Like I wrote last time: every day here is a lesson about life. Seeing the reality here is certainly a lesson that changes my way of thinking. How cliché it may sound, but when I go back to Finland, I will appreciate things that I have taken for granted so far. And also, I will think twice before complaining about little things.

Maybe I'm one of those people who like to be shaked by the facts of life - whether in good or bad. Despite the misery I see here, I have started to think something these past days: I could actually live here! I never thought about this before. This thought came out of the blue one day when I was walking on the beach. It really stopped me. This is something I want about life.

As for studies, everything is finally clear. In the beginning I was supposed to do a psychological research, but then I finally decided to drop it as it would have taken too much time. I think it's more useful for me to concentrate on studying arabic and if I really want to learn it, I need to put it a lot of effort. Little by little, I'm starting to read it but writing it is more difficult. I have classes in both classical arabic, which is the universal language of all the arabic countries, and "darija" which is the Moroccan dialect spoken here. Every day I'm using some phrases that I have learned when communicating with people. It always makes a good impression on them:) People are always impressioned when I say something in their language, and they start to speak to me something really quickly, which unfortunately, I don't understand anymore... :D

On Saturday, we celebrated the international Women's Days as well as Laura's 25th birthday. It was really nice. We invited many people from school in our home and had a great party with them. Laura had ordered a cake from the bakery that said in arabic and french "Happy Women's Day, Jean Pierre 50 years." Heh heh! Actually we don't know any Jean Pierre, it was just a joke since there was no logic in it. You can imagine that the guests were pretty confused about it! Afterwards we went to a night club which was a nice experience for me since it's pretty different here than in Finland. There was a live artist singing arabic music and people were dancing so well. Wait until I get back to Finland and I will show you all the moves that I have learned here! :D I feel very lucky to have so many nice Moroccan friends that are really sincere and want only good for me. As for here, it's always good to pay attention to which people you should trust.

Ok, I think it's about the time for me to go to bed. I haven't felt very good today since there has been a weird feeling in my stomach the whole day (Kristiina, in Tanzania, I guess you know what I mean!:D) Oh well, it's only part of the experience, as I tend to say about everything! :)

Mselkhir, good night, my dear friends.