"mixchel in wonderland...err...maybe lalaland is more apropos"

So, there’s that feeling that you need to go backward to go forward.  (Or, is it forward to go backward?  I always mix that up.)  I’m nearly five months into this thing, and it feels like I’m just getting the hang of things.  Then, of course, something happens to make sure I don’t get too cosy with that feeling.  Either externally or internally, I still feel like I’m upside down.  Not that I’m complaining.  Rightside up is so overrated.

I’m doing things for the first time in a long time that I really shouldn’t be doing anymore.  Like running out of gas.  Yup.  Haven’t done that since I first started driving.  I’d love to blame it on a different kind of gas gage than I’m used to, but really, I just have less brain power available than I did even before making this move, it’s all so loaded up with newness.  I wish the goofiness stopped there, and I’d like to tell ya all about it, but I seeing as how I really like being here, like writing this blog, and some of what I have to tell ya about will just have to wait for the book deal.  (Okay, that might be a wee bit presumptious of me.  So, how about I tell you over coffee one of these days, okay?) I just hope that I get my head on straight soon and remember some basic, universal principals on how adults should function.  In an Islamic country. Oh, yeah. That would be good.

Lucky for me, there are many welcoming, kind strangers who have been generous enough to let me lean on them.  Help getting my bricked iPhone fixed, getting my curtains fiasco straightened out, haggling for furniture, waiting for furniture, advice on getting a car (Yay!  I might have a lead on getting a car!  And...no...I won’t have to do it all by myself.)  Help in getting myself home, when, errm, I wasn’t exactly able to on my own, errm.  Thank you, shukran, a thousand times over, to the generosity of strangers, nay, new friends, expats and locals alike, for steering me in the right direction countless times.  

I am slowly getting things set up for a life here.  It’s taking a long time.  Mafi internet still!  (No internet!) No tv either, but hey, I haven’t had that for twenty years, so that one doesn’t bother me much.  Maybe I’ll write more without something else to numb my already short-circuiting brain.  I am routinely calling to complain, but it isn’t doing a lick of good.  (Routine is good for getting brain power back. I’m supposed to know these things.  That piece of paper that says “Masters” on it says so.  But I was kinda hoping for routine more, oh I don’t know, life affirming, than calling daily to bitch and complain.)

The Curtains Fiasco.  I am in the process of buying curtains, yes.  There is a lot of boring that supplements the fun.  Yin and yang of life, right? Curtains, you might agree (unless you are an interior decorator or a real homey sort), land smack dab in the center of “boring.”  With a rather bland thud, I might add.  Not even a good juicy splatter or a glass-shattering crash.  Hoo boy, not this time, though!  Not boring.  Not a comedy!  More of a trajedy, really.  

It all started back in the good old days of my good intentions.  The same good intentions that said I should tip even if it isn’t a tipping country.  Many, many expats are not as fortunate as I.  (Many are significantly more.) But, you know, I wanted to keep to good juju flowing.  I wanted to give a little side “gift” to someone who may need a little extra for doing me a favor.  So, on some advice that the man had done a decent job with their curtains, I decided to ask him to help out in my place, too.  Seemed fine.  Gullible me.  I made the first mistake.  Gave him some money up front.  Seemed okay.  He called, we agreed on colors.  (“Whatever you do, make sure it’s not shiny or gold or floral.  It won’t go with anything I have.”)  Fast forward to coming home, to gold, flowerly, and yes, very shiny curtains, 500 dirhams later, and he, refusing to fix the problem.  I ended up threatening to tell his boss that he had done this.  A dangerous and bold threat over which he could lose his job, and subsequently, his residency visa in this country.  Didn’t know I had it in me. Suddenly, the curtains CAN be returned after all.   Funny how that works.  Yet, I still have the darn things.  I’ve almost given up at this point.  Meanwhile, I bought ready-made ones, asked for help from someone at the apartments.  Cheaper and way, way easier.  Live and learn.  I feel like a fool, but the only true fool is one who repeats the mistake.  My only mistake was wanting to believe I could trust.  Sad, sad day, when the words of others who have heard this story seem like wise advice, “don’t trust anyone with your money.”  Geez.  What an ugly reality.  Even sadder when they ask which nationality the person was, only to confirm their suspicions.  I hate stereotypes, but I sure hate them worse when someone of the culture proves the negative stereotype right.  Big, massive, enormous, UGHH. Still, if you’re moving here soon, email me and let me know which hotel you’ll be in so I can do some healthy warning against trusting the employees that seem so trustworthy to do sidework.  Please, for your own sake, do it. Besides, it’s illegal anyway to do work outside of your contract.  You can get in trouble for hiring someone to do it, too.  Safe side?  Just don’t.

When things like this happen, you really take inventory of your values, and you realize that so many of them are just the privilege of the lifestyle/class/culture you are from.  Things like helping those with less, organic vegetables, taking vitamins, going for dental cleanings, picking up your own trash, things that are so obviously “responsible” in my native world are not the same in a different context.

The Arab teachers seemed embarrassed that I would kneel to the floor to pick up a pencil.  There are servants for that.  You do things like that, you risk making their jobs moot.

Organic?  Only on imported, packaged things from the US and the UK.

Vitamins?  Why?  Did a doctor tell you that you are dying?  

Dental cleanings.  Just get a new, full set.  They’ll be prettier anyway.

Tip people?  They will sense a bleeding heart, and see how much they can get out of you.  

I can still only half-understand, or half-buy in to this mindset.  I do get that I need to be more flexible with my understanding of things, though.

Sometimes I seriously feel like I’ve become a massive version of myself. The experiences are so rich!  I’m writing again.  I can see that book on the horizon.  I’m writing poetry and short stories more often now.  I love that.  Doing a lot of introspective work.  Don’t love that so much, but it needs to be done. Keep reminding myself that in the end, I will be a better person for it all.  Other times, like with the curtains experience, I shrink down.  I mean that emotionally and intellectually. As always, leaving behind loved ones is super hard.  Hard not to feel like the decision is a selfish one. Same feelings as always, I guess it’s just more pronounced in such a shiny and colorful new backdrop.  

And again, like little Miss Alice on her journey into a strange new land, I keep getting distracted by more interesting things. (Playing in the desert, visiting lands I’ve never seen, trying things I’ve never tried.)  It’s hard to remember the goal.  (Umm...wha’ was it again?  Oh yeah, debt control, saving money for the next step of the journey.)  Yeah, but truthfully, a big part was travel and adventure, so I’m not truly that far off my mark. Besides actually owning a piece of real estate somewhere some day (mountain town?  lakeside? Buenos Aires? Palapa bar on the beach in Central America?) and helping out at home when I can, travel is my only goal.  New experiences.  Constant classroom of life.

For instance, I’ve learned that here, the shisha (called hookah in western places, which is the pipe and not the stuff you smoke), isn’t smoked by caterpillars.  It is a nice diversion, though, even if it might be better with enormous talking insects (no cockroaches, please).  (Anep, grape, is good.  Rose is my favorite, still. I like the Lebanese style, where the smoke journeys through an orange before it gets to your lungs.)  

I do get a lot of “Who are you?” questions.  I’m not allowed to be from the United States.  Not acceptable.  I don’t mean that in a political way.  It’s just that no one believes that anyone is actually from there.  I try to explain my heritage as best as I can, but it’s hard when you don’t really know yourself.  Sometimes I say that I’m “Mexican, but not from Mexico.”  Sometimes, I say I’m native.  Yes, sometimes I do.  Sometimes, I say I might be part Lebanese or Syrian, based on my mother’s last name.  I think what people see that make them wonder is my olive skin tone.  I really don’t think that comes from the European or possible Middle Eastern genes.  I think that’s truly native of the Americas.  Some people still want me to be “Spanish,” which I have never considered myself.  Since all those fancy p.c. nomenclatures that we take on during our higher education years are simply dismissed by people living in this part of the world, maybe I’ll just start saying that I’m Aztec.  Tee hee.  I like it.  

These nights, I think I see a Cheshire grin in the sky.  Here, the cresent moon is a sacred thing which appears on mosques everywhere.  I don’t have any valuable insight about that, though.   Have I mentioned how beautiful the Arabian sun is?  Can I just mention it again? Every single morning, and every night, it is astounding.  Hard not to stare right into that luminescent blood-orange sphere.  As much as I love the sunsets back home with colors that can sometimes rival the aurora borealis, it’s the sun itself here that is gorgeous, distinct, like something out of a movie. (I’ll get right on it.)

At this point, I wouldn’t be totally surprised if a white rabbit with a stopwatch lead me to a nonsensical tea party.  

(But, I lead myself away from the nonsensical tea party that’s stuck back in the USA.  I’m so, so sorry, Americans!  I’m so disgusted with all the ignorant and violent language being hurled back and forth.  And violence.  Tucson.  You  are in my heart.  Ms. Giffords, I send you healing to come back as a stronger peaceful warrior than you already were.  American health care system, I send you healing to create means to treat the mentally ill. I cannot help but remember a local woman who a few years back disappeared.  She had been so active in the community.  Then, something happened and she became mentally unwell, homeless, and uncared for.  I don’t know what happened to her.  I know community people tried to help.  I think family might have tried.  And yet, where is she?  Is she taken care of now?  Is she still alive? Why isn’t there a place for people like her, and for that awful, sick young man who held the weapon at that supermarket, to heal, to be safe? To keep the rest of us safe? So, so heartbreaking.)  

But, anyway, back to Lala land in a hotter desert on the other side of the planet.

And, as distractible as I am right now, and without a ton of foresight left (hey, maybe I’m just learning to fit in), my path is taking wild tangeants.  See now?  There is reason behind my having virtually no target with my writing today.  It was planned.  Well, okay, indulge me, we can all pretend that it was.  Imagination is good for the brain, right?

As screwy as I feel, and as unsure of my future as I ever was, it’s quite a ride.  And, in my defense, I have not once locked myself out of car or apartment, like a few friends I know of.  (Hotel room doesn’t count.)  Oops.  Hope I didn’t just jinx myself.  

Hey, what’s that there?  A little cake? (Some of the Arabic treats are super tasty.)  A bottle of something liquidy? (Is it chai?  Turkish coffee?  Arabic coffee?  Local honey?)  What do you think, should I have a little taste...?