I awoke yesterday morning trying to make peace with the fact that I had hours and hours of clean-up to face. I really don’t mind the physical work and I really like the results, but I get tired of cleaning the same things over and over again. I never have liked repetitious work.
So I sat in the main salon drinking my morning coffee, eating some petit pain au chocolate and putting off the start of my day’s activities. Mehdi came to the door bearing gifts from his recent trip to Mecca. He gave Hassan a nice, traditional scarf and he gave me a small vial of perfume. I smiled to myself when I saw the label, “Channal 5”. We had our breakfast and then Mehdi went on his way. Soon after that, Hassan brought a man ‘from his area’ to the house and they began to clean the floors and walls. It was such a great help! After they left I still had a few hours of work, but nothing like I would have had if they hadn’t pitched in. So now, the house is back in order and the walls look pristine again. I have clean linens on the bed upstairs and we’re ready for visitors again. Too bad there aren’t any friends coming to fill our rooms right now. The economy and the cold aren’t helping matters. But things change and all I have to do is be patient.
Sometimes I am so grateful that I decided to come here when I did. I think if I had stayed in the U.S. I might have gone through the same amount of money with nothing to show for it for I would have had to rent a place and pay for insurances and the upkeep on my car. Those expenses alone would have depleted my savings significantly. And I’m not so sure I would have found employment to help with expenses. But here, I have a job, a fully-paid for house and minimal living expenses. No insurance (my health care is paid for through work), no car expenses (it’s all Hassan’s responsibility to keep the car running and insurance paid for now), and about $25 a month pays for my utilities. Of course I don’t have a landline telephone, internet, or television satellite fess to pay for. I keep things pretty simple. But I net about $12,000 a year and that’s enough to keep us going. We are cold in the winter, hot in the summer, and we drive a beat-up car. But we get by. We can eat breakfast for $2, share a nice dinner for $7 and I can take a roundtrip taxi to school for $1.50. That’s not so bad.
Every now and then I am struck by the wonder of the changes in my life. Here I am in Africa, teaching young Moroccans to speak English, restoring a house that is hundreds of years old, married to someone who has never been out of his own country, and immersed in a culture that is so different from the one I know. Living here has changed me. Not quickly, but inevitably I think. I am more tolerant, more adaptable and more appreciative of what I’ve got and where I come from.
Mehdi just came to the door again. He asked for a small glass for water. When I brought it to him, he filled it with holy water from Mecca. He told me to have Hassan say an invocation and then we should share a drink of the water. How lovely. What shall we invoke as we drink this holy water? World peace would be nice.
Presto, change-o. May the world know peace.
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