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the other day the hotbox recieved a piece of mail from bank of america addressed to:

Theater Schmeater
4555 5th Ave NE
Seattle, WA 98105

who the heck is that? and does bank of america really think that’s a real person? i mean, come on. there’s no freakin way someone would name their child that. but then i remembered our dear friend scuba peter (peter richard johnson… you’d think his parents would have figured that one out). this is kind of like when i get a letter addressed to “Hna Duke” from chase visa. oh geez.

this weekend, i took a 16 hour wilderness first aid course with remote medical international at discovery park in seattle. so from 845 - 545 on saturday and sunday, i listened, learned, and practiced every aspect of wilderness first aid training that i could have ever imagined. and now, i have all the necessary training to help, treat, and possibly save injured, sick, and wounded patients in wilderness settings. oh man. what a trip.

on saturday morning i took the bus over to discovery park. i had never been there before and really had no idea of its enormity. i mean, geezus this place is big. i took what turned out to be the wrong bus, and ended up on the wrong side of the park, with 15 minutes to spare. so i wondered around for a bit, asking people if they knew where the education center was. i got a few points and people telling me “oh yeah, just follow this trail.” but as it turns out, being on the completely opposite side of the park, it took me the better part of an hour to get there. so, an hour late and a little nervous, i walked into a packed classroom and sat down. the two instructors (kate earle and steve guthrie) were exceptional. they were great teachers, relatable funny people in general, and above all worked tremendously well as a team. this was kate’s first time instructing a course, but steve has been leading these classes since 2001. since i was signed up for the course by one of their colleagues tom, my “boss” (i nanny for his kids), they were told to pick on me. as soon as they found out who i was (”you’re the nanny!”) they used me for many demonstrations from there on out; first announcing to the class who i was and explaining that they planned on giving me shit, they encouraged everyone else to feel free to do so as well. i responded accordingly, assuring the class that i could hang.

over the course of the two days, with the aid of our instructors and this colorful text book, we learned and practiced everything from complete patient assessment to taking vital signs; the signs and symptoms of shock to recognizing and stabilizing spinal injuries; head injuries to wound management; burns to the treatment of athletic injuries of all types (sprains, strains, fractures, dislocations); hypothermia to heat stroke, animal bites to anaphylaxis (aka bee stings… sounds like im medically trained when i say it like that), and acute abdominal illness. we were put in sample scenarios (with fake blood and amateur acting) where half the class would be lead into the woods and given a set of symptoms or injuries and the other half would have to find them, assess the sitch, and treat the patient. one scenario that we were given involved a patient that had been climbing a tree, fell, and was stuck in the tree with a possilbe broken spine. our group had to CAREFULLY remove the patient from his tangled position in the tree, all the while stabilizing his head, neck, and back. our group did really well and successfully got him to the ground without causing further damage. it was awesome!

the class was very diverse and full of people from all walks of life. an older couple in their late 60s or early 70s. a handful of 50-somethings. several 40 and 30-somethings. and a good number of 20-somethings. people who lead boyscout camps and summer day camps. people who took yearly camping trips with their families. people who planned to pursue a further career in wilderness training. and silly kids like me who just wanted the personal knowledge (and had their boss pay for the course).

after the course was over, i talked to the instructors for a while about other courses that i could take if i wanted (and planned to get a beer with steve really soon). and i think i do want. there is a wilderness EMT course coming up in may (and maybe at other times as well) that i think i am really interested in. the only problem is that the course (i think it is 10 days) costs almost $3000. but the up side is that if i can front the money for the course, it would totally open up tons of opportunities for jobs in the pacific north west. there are always teams of wilderness guides that need an EMT aboard and especially in this part of the country there would be lots of opportunies for work in that field. so we will see what happens…

i had such a blast doing this… and i really hope that i can do something similar (or at least use some of my new learned skills) really soon. rock n roll.

last weekend, rhino came up to visit (if you read the pervios blog, you’d already know this) and us bi-sexual girls went to Girl4Girl, a giant lesbian dance party. i have some bad vibes about Girl4Girl because the last time that i got all dressed up and ready to go grind on some lesbians was the night that slater died. but its been quite some time and i convinced myself that if i didn’t wear that same dress it would be alright (yeah, i’m kind of superstitious about things of that nature i guess). so we played a couple games of beer pong at the hotbox and drove downtown to the showbox (not the one on 1st, but the one over by safeco field). when we got there, it was pretty dead, but we decided that we’d have a couple drinks, and then get the dance party started ourselves if we had to. so we sat down, watched the (1) sexxy and (1) stripperesque dancers… and 1 Long Island Iced Tea, 1 Amaretto Sour, and 1 silly named shot later we were on the dance floor. jess, rhino, and i danced circles around each other and worked our asses off. so we grabbed our coats and went out for a breath of fresh air and a few more of carbon monoxide.

standing in the “smoking section” outside, blocked off by portable gates, we spotted a backpacker coming down the road toward us. as he passed we stopped him: “hey, where ya headed? what’s your name?” (it’s josh) and almost immediately after, jess and i looked at each other and asked in unison, “need a place to stay?” he was absolutely taken aback by our forwardness, but exceptionally grateful. we explained that we had just returned from backpacking europe and that if there was one thing we understood, it was the need for a warm couch, some friendly people, and a bowl or two to smoke. so jess and i went back inside to dance for another hour or so while rhino and josh chilled in the car a block away.

BACK IN THE SHOWBOX: + 1 JagerBomb. jess and i danced and danced and made out for a good… what? like 5 minutes. oh jessica… if you’re reading this, when you said “it had been too long” on my fb wall, i thought you meant it had been too long since we had made out. how long has it been? rome? sounds like i’m talking about the last time we ate brownies or something. anyways, love you.

at 1am (lame) the lights came up in the club and we stumbled to the car, all the while jess insisting that she’d “rather not, but can totally drive.” i didn’t believe it for a second. so when we got back to the car i asked josh if he could drive a stick. yes. and if he had a driver’s license. yes. so he drove us home. perfect. when we got back to the box we smoked a could bowls, talked about josh’s plans to make it up to alaska in the spring to work on a fishing boat, his previous travels, and whatever else struck our fancy. then we (josh, rhino, bookis, and i) played a few rousing rounds of my favorite game Catch Phrase.

in the morning, we all went to Beth’s for breakfast before rhino headed back to tacoma. i told josh that he could stay as long as he needed, that he was welcome to crash another night or whatever he wanted. in the end he asked for some help figuring out the buses to get down to the greyhound station. he has some family in portland and was heading there for a few days. so we took a group photo, hugged, and parted ways.

he was really an interesting, cool kid. and having him kickin’ it at the hotbox was totally chill. we’d be happy to have him back anytime… really. i hope that i see him again some day, and that his travels are safe, his feet don’t fail him, and his days are filled with fun in life on the road. gl, josh.

i’ve lived in seattle for going on 4 years now, and the best part about it is that i am still learning and seeing things in this city that i have never seen before… things that surprise and excite me. and this weekend i was surprised and excited by something really cool that i discovered: last week i was on my way to work on the 66 bus (i was leaving for work from the honeybucket and taking a bus that i dont normally take, a new route for me) that goes down eastlake and into downtown. with my forehead resting lazily on the window, bouncing along with the bumps of the university bridge, i stared blankly out the window, waiting for something… anything to catch my attention. and then, all of a sudden, there it was! the biggest, coolest treehouse that i have ever seen. and as the bus drove on down the road, i promised myself that i was going to check this place out, and explore it as soon as i could.on saturday, our dear friend steph (aka rhino) took the bus up from tacoma to spend Groundhog Day ‘08 with us and go to Girl4Girl. after a delicious breakfast at wayward jess, bookis, and i drove downtown to pick up steph. jess decided to take the scenic route down eastlake, giving me the PERFECT opportunity to do a quick investigation of the treehouse. driving down road i spotted it again, “there it is! STOP, jess!” SKIRT. we skidded into an abandoned parking lot under the freeway, pulled up infront of the treehouse, and got out. it was more perfect than i even imagined. from the pavement there were six or eight steps leading down to a small bridge across a muddy little impasse. this lead to a well constructed, 14 rung ladder that lead up to the treehouse. the treehouse itself is amazing. it is built into a wide spreading, branchy tree with plenty of limb coverage. in the center was a domed enclosure about the size of the inside of your average 4 door sedan, surrounded by a wrap-around deck, complete with lawn chairs, paper grocery bags, and plastic milk crates that clearly read “use by persons other than owner is punishable by law.”so i yelled up. “heelllllooo? is anyone hoooome??” there was no answer, but i still felt pretty weird about just climbing up. i mean, what would have happened if an angry little old woman came out with a sawed off shotgun and had no mercy on my intruding soul? so we looked around on the ground level a bit and discovered (you wont believe this) a MAILBOX. it was nailed to a nearby tree. it had a letter in it! and was labeled with stickers that spelled out “tui tui,” which i think is the cute way of saying “tree tree,” the obvious nickname for a place like this. so after seeing all we thought we could see, we made our way back to the car. and just before we shut the doors to drive away, he came out. a man emerged from the depths of tui tui. he must have been 40ish but was weathered beyond his years; sunken cheeks, skin the color of the seattle winter sky, and worn clothing that i can only imagine smelled of mildew and un-wed mothers. and THIS is how the conversation went:TreeHouse Man: “were yew yellin up here?”Me: “yeah. i just wanted to say hi.”THM: “you got a cigarette?”ME: “no, i dont. jess, do you have a cigarette?”(she shook her head, a little apprehensive about me talking to him)Me: “how long have you lived here?”THM: “about a year and a half.”Me: “wow, really? cool. is that part an enclosure? does it go inside?”THM: “yeah…”Me: “cool. okay, well, see ya later.”THM: “yeah. now get outa here before i call the cops… or worse.”we jumped in the car, and sped off (with delivery driver jess behind the wheel), leaving TreeHouse Man and Tui Tui far behind us in a matter of second. i was scared, but only momentarily… and now more than ever i want to get a tumbleweed tiny home. [if you've never seen these, please check them out. awesome.]

okay, so if i write a new post maybe people will stop criticizing me about my lack of recent blogging. i’m just going to do my best to entertain you, the reader. right now i’m doing something super fun… watching the oc (season 1) and taking a short break from coloring with sharpies with brittany and rashelle. i already colored a self-portrait, a picture for bookis, and a sign for my door that says to knock (it) before you try (it)… or is it the other way around? who knows what i’ll create next. so anyways, here’s one cool thing i did in the recent past:

on friday night, bookis and i went to the central cinema to see the iron giant. now for those of you who dont know… the iron giant is one of my favorite cartoon movies (and thats saying alot) made by WB in like 1999 or some shit. and VIN DIESEL does the voice of the giant (”no following”). the central cinema is at 20th & union in the central district, and its pretty cool… they run a new movie every week; wednesday through sunday with showings at 730 and 930. you can sit in booth style seating and order food and beer and popcorn with nooch (oh, and tofu pigs in a blanket… with some kickin’ mustard). its great! before the movie started, they played the most hilarious pre-feature cartoon shorts. there was one about a little knight and his braided-hair damsel in distress. one about a little frog who gets stuck spending the night in a haunted mansion with deceiving skeletal hosts. and a daisy-duke outfitted betty boop with toy soilders (man, that girl’s a slut). they were hilarious, and absolutely ridiculous. we’re pretty sure that in 200 years when the movie reels are dug out of storage, the population will be confused… to say the least.

overall it was super fun, and of course the movie was awesome. and to top it all off, bookis paid for me… does that mean it was a date? either that, or he was embarrassed to be seen with a girl who has to pay with rolls of dimes. yes, rolls of dimes.

last night was pretty tough. it was my last day of school yesterday, and after my final (and of course the monthly gathering of the kids in my class and our teachers for cervecas y tapas) i had to say goodbye to all those wonderful people. although i teared up a bit i didnt think i was going to cry. then, walking home by myself, wide-eyed and adoring granada, the water works started… and pretty much didnt stop. i got home and after some sudoku and a little siesta, the girls and i went to get churros and met a bunch of our friends there. we ate churros and talked and sat around for a few hours, taking up at much space in that little cafe as humanly possible… then outside for more talking and standing around, jess and i tearing up and hugging each other every few minutes (it made it so much better to know that we didnt have to say goodbye to each other). we hugged and kissed some people goodbye, and then TAPAS of course (jess, mad-E, gari, kelly, ryan, and me). we had a great time just having a few drinks and chatting, enjoying each other’s company. then more goodbyes, more tears. then home. we walked in and i went to turn on the tv to see what kind of fútbol was on: liverpool v chelsea. and believe it or not… THAT made me cry. i think it was just everything (saying goodbye and my LAST opportunity for churros con chocolate), but knowing that i cant just turn on the tv and be guarenteed a fútbol game really hit me kinda hard… and i couldnt stop. but thank granada my roommates where there. we watched the oc and ate trailmix and yadda yadda yadda… today was much better. but i sat down at the computer and started to feel sad. i browsed my blogroll and took a look at bookis’s blog, and was reminded of a special blog he wrote for me. including THIS magnificant picture. i feel much better! thanx bks.

so im sitting here at paddy’s, my favorite local irish pub in granada. i come here quite alot, hang out with the bartenders (paddy of course, niall, and tony), laugh at the local drunks, and meet random people who turn out to be really cool fuckers. for example, last night jess and i came out to paddy’s to have a drink or two (paddy is a cocktail artist and makes the best long islands around). whilst we were sitting here, getting drunk and chatting it up with tony, we met a funny, old english guy from birmingham named dave. he seemed like a great guy, and told us that if we came back for the liverpool game tomorrow (that would be today) morning then he’d accept the pleasure of buying us a pint. how could we resist?

so i woke up to a call from my friend elliott to see if i was going to come watch the game (what a good friend to remind me that i had a free beer waiting for me). i woke jess up to see if she wanted to come too, got my computer and whatnot together, and walked to paddy’s. when we got here it was pretty dead, but there was dave waiting for us. [as ive been sitting here writing, my friend jack comes around and starts to read over my shoulder. he's english by the way. he wants to be written about in this blog, so i'm going to give him that pleasure.... in a minute... just wait jack, GEEZ.]

so jess and i just sat around thinking about the beers that we wanted to be drinking, and dave brought us a couple of pints. it was perfect… just as i was thinking to myself, “man, my mouth is dry and the only thing to quench this thirst is a beer,” dave presented us with the best and only thing i could have wanted at that moment. so we buggered off our computers and chatted it up with our new british friend. hes a middle-aged character, hanging out in granada, obviously living his life to the fullest. he told us about his son who is fluent in spanish and studying to be a spanish/english teacher. then he pulled out this little tin box and told jessica to go roll a joint (of what he called pollen… basically like condensed keef) in the girls bathroom. so she did. and we walked down the street to the little plaza about a block away, sat on the city bench, and smoked (for my first time since morocco).

when we came back, i decided that it was time to approach jack. oh jack… where do i start? 6 foot 6. body of a greek god. brains like ive never encountered and the face of an angel. but he’s got the eyes of a psychopath. he was of course was here when i got here, yelling and screaming about the game. 4-2. (he wanted to make sure i included that score… the most important part of this blog, if you ask me.) since he had been a bit preoccupied earlier and i didnt want to get punched in the face or the like by interrupting the game… but i thought that it was safe since it was all over, and they had won. so we talked about worldly accents, beastiality, pedophiles, and shark attacks. what a thrilling conversation.

so now here i am, chatting on AIM for the first time in forever, watching more (unimportant, jack tells me) fútbol games, drinking pint after pint of amstel (its all i can afford), and getting lots of mixed nuts from niall, my favorite bartender. as the bar gets more and more busy, and i start to hear more and more languages all around me, i am suddenly struck with the realization that soon i will be back in the states… where everyone speaks english, you dont get free food with your beers, and shawarma is not around ever corner and always open. i will miss my favorite bars, cigarette machines, and all the amazing, wonderful, open, interesting people that i have had the pleasure of meeting here in granada, and all along the way.

now before i get too emotional and start crying (for the… 2nd time) in paddy’s i will have to sign off, and remember that i dont have so say goodbye to granada YET. i guess its time for another pint…

so i know i havent really posted anything lately, and i sure have been up to quite a lot… but now it not the time to tell you all of that. here a little story about something that i saw on the streets of granada today…

i was walking home from school this afternoon at about 3.15 or so, walking along the river, soaking up the sun, and humming softly to myself. i had had a rough morning and was thinking way too much about having to go home soon, so i was doing all i could to put a smile on my face when all of a sudden i saw something scarry and disturbing (which did not help my mood).

i came to the corner of bar and restuarant and saw several people standing around, talking in spanish (claro). as i approached the crowd i saw what was causing the commotion… a dead guy. well, i’m guessing that he was dead because he was flat on the ground, lifeless, colorless, and seemingly dead. people were talking in whispered voices saying things like “la policia” and “emergencia.” i slowed down and tried to offer my phone to someone to make the call, but they were already calling the police.

i stopped for a couple minutes just to observe the strange picture that i was seeing on the streets of my beautiful town. the man, a dark complected spaniard, was completely lacking color in his face. he was lying half on / half off the curb that rose a few inches over the paved road. his face lay flat on the concrete, a cigarette next to his white lips. i cant be sure if it was there before or if it had been in his mouth, but there it was… half smoked, lonely and begging to be finished. his cold fingers were spread against the pavement and his feet twisted in an unnatural way, legs sprawled behind his body. there was a motor bike and a car practially covering him, but it wasnt at all as though he had been hit, but maybe collapsed there between the vehicles. a man was trying to move the bike to give him some air and maybe try to do CPR. i was too depressed and saddened by this scene to stick around much longer, but i asked someone to make sure that the police were coming and headed the rest of the way to my house.

when my roommates got home, we were all sitting around in the kitchen and i told them this story… starting with the titular line “i think i saw a dead guy today.” they were startled but agreed that it was a perfect title for my blog.

so there you have it. weird. i hope that i dont see anything else like this in my last weeks in granada. its usually such a homey, lovely place. much amor…

welp, my parents (and auntie sarah and uncle craig) just left granada, and it was really the best time i have had with my parents in years. it was really amazing to be able to show them around my new home, impressing them with my spanish, and really talk to them as an adult, and have them drinking with me and talking to me as an adult, a real person, rather than their daughter.

dad and i met mom (much later than we had said, making her think that we had both died in africa) in málaga on sunday night and took the bus to granada. i dropped them off at the hotel and agreed to meet them after class the next morning. we spent the next afternoon at the cathedral (where i gave them a tour, repeating the things that i could remember from when marie and i got the audio guide a week or so before… and i think i did a pretty good job) and shopping in the albazín. that night, we went out for a couple tapas and met up with jess and maddie to have a few drinks. it was really fun! mom admitted to me that she smoked pot (LESS THAN A WEEK BEFORE SHE GOT TO GRANADA) with a family friend… and showed some interest in smoking with me, although that never materialized, which is fine. she also told me that her friend has been reading this blog (instead of the censored one) and saw the videos of me and jess “high on dope” in amsterdam. HAHA… (kirsten, if you are reading this.. that would be YOU. and i cant believe your girls saw those videos. that was not my intention…) we all got pretty sloshed and went home late. the next night was about the same. we met up with elliott peet and had a couple tapas at a little bar, where a guy was playing classical guitar, which my dad really loved. then the girls [jess, maddie, and gari (my greek roommate, who is studying to get her masters in nutrition)] met up with us and we had a couple more drinks and went to patty’s, the local irish bar. i met patty a few weeks ago and i wanted him to meet my parents because he’s hilarious and i thought he’d think it was cool to meet them… plus i though my dad would like to have a guiness and watch some fútbol. we had a couple cocktails and my mom told me she was about to be on her ass, so they went home. the rest of the night was cool… i got the phone number of a boy i have a crush on and then ran right into a glass door and bruised my forehead. how embarassing for me.

the next day, my aunt and uncle arrived in granada. it was like a little family reunion (but i was the only kid). it was great to have them here as well!! they are like my surrogate parents in seattle and i had been missing them alot. we went out for paella and churros con chocolate, and then went to bed. we pretty much bar hopped everynight after that, and went to a wine/olive oil tasting place one night too. we also went to the alhambra, which was pretty fucking amazing (although i must admit that, even though i dont know what beat the alhambra as one of the new seven wonders of the world, im not THAT surprised that it didnt win. it was really cool and beautiful, but its kind of just another castle, and i happen to think that it is MORE impressive from the outside than the inside… just my opinion, so dont flip out, alhambra lovers). we also went to mass at the cathedral (which was a bust) and hiked up past the city to a peak that overlooked the entire city, the alhambra, with the sierras in the background… now THATs what i call amazing… can a view win for one of the seven wonders?

then yesterday i had to say goodbye to all of them. it was really hard, although i know i will see all of them in less than two months. but it makes it really hard when i am so far away from my parents all the time and dont get to spend much time with them anyways. plus, when my mom and dad cry when they say goodbye to me, it really breaks my heart. and of course i was crying. and the walk home was really hard after saying goodbye. i had just had such an amazing week with them, and was really able to open up to them in a way that i never have before, so saying goodbye was terrible. and walking home afterward, all alone and sad, was horrible. and people kept staring at me because i was walking and crying. geez.

but oh man… memories for a lifetime. so thanx mom and dad, and sarah and craig.

after THE BEST TEST I’VE EVER TAKEN, i went to africa (morocco) with my dad, jess, and this girl from england, jennifer anne. it was quite the experience.

first of all, we had to meet my dad in algeciras, españa so that we could take the ferry across the straight of gibraltar. my dad had been backpacking in portugal for about a week and was making his way to spain to meet up with us. well, as it turns out, november 1st was a holiday and the buses, ferries, trains, etc were all messed up and had different schedules than normal so we ended up waiting for like 6 horus for him to meet us. this was all okay because i didnt really care… all i wanted was to see my dad! and when he finally got there it was amazing!! it was so awesome to see him, and of course i cried (i always cry). after some confusion and canceled ferries we got on the biggest boat that i’ve ever been on and made our way to ceuta (a spanish colony on the african coast, next to morocco). the weather was bad and the ferry ride was ridiculously rough. i ended up puking up the beer and sandwiches that my dad bought for me. oh well…

once we made it to the moroccan boarder, we were bombarded with the beginning of the craziness that is morocco. first we were approached by a man who was trying to scam us (like basically everyone else that we met) into paying him to “speed up the process of boarder crossing.” i was pretty sketched out and made it clear to everyone else that we probably shouldnt copy down our passport info onto these scraps of paper and hand them to a random, street-clothed moroccan man. i think they agreed, and we walked over to the boarded patrol to have our passports stamped. and it only took a few minutes, so speeding it up would have been a waste of money. once we got past the patrol we were in morocco, with nothing around; a dirt road, no street lights, no buildings, no stores, just a gang of taxis and 30 dudes trying to get us into one taxi or another. we ended up in an old, busted taxi with this guy named mohammed (im pretty sure thats what every moroccan man is named). we were stopped several times to check passports again and whatnot, and eventually were on our way to tangier (about an hour away by car). mohammed was an amazing driver, like a formual 1 racer, with no fear. he went around blind curves on winding mountain roads, while the headlights of his car flickered and the engine sputtered. the middle divider lines apparently meant nothing to him and he went from one side of the road to another with no concern for cars that might be coming… but i was never scared and i knew that he would get us there just fine… and he did.

after a night in tangier, we took a bus to rabat, the capital city. the bus station was a complete zoo, with 20 men trying to get you to buy a ticket with THEIR bus company (there were several to choose from, with no apparent differences or benefits in choosing one or another). the bus took a few hours, but once we got there we went straight to our hostel to get settled. the hostel, Rabat Youth Hostel, was really nice with seperate rooms for boys and girls and a really lovely atmosphere. almost immediately, we met two men from lybia who befriended us. Nuri, the son of an important diplomat of one kind or another, had been traveling and working as a lybian corrospondent for international relations (or something) for ten years. and abobaker, the son of a lybian farmer, who was studying to get his masters in international law. abobaker really took a liking to my dad and started to refer to him as “my father” and, after ignored attempts at flirtation with me, referred to me as “my sister”… hilarious. they invited us to eat couscous with them for the sabbath and then they offered to show us around rabat. we walked through an amazing street market with meat and animals brains sitting in the sun, and hundreds of people shopping; buying knock-off shoes and multi-colored scarves. after a lovely evening of traditional moroccan food, beer (which we had to wrap in newspaper so no one would know we were drinking it in a local restaurant), and coffee, we headed back to the hostel. there we met mohammed (yeah, thats right) a friend of nuri’s that worked at the hostel, and his dog (an amazingly sweet, well-trained german shepard) likka. we sat around drinking the best tea i think i’ve ever had (next to the cocoa tea that we drank while hiking the inca trail to machu picchu) and smoking joint after joint of moroccan hash. the boys were worried that my dad would not approve so they made me ask him if it was okay to smoke:

me: dad, you dont care if people are smoking hash, do you?
dad: no.
me: do you want to smoke?
dad: oh no… i havent smoked anything in 30 years

so we all sat around smoking while dad regaled us with storied of things hes smoked and drugs hes done throughout his life. my favorite story was when he was young and poor, he and his friends had heard that if you scrape the inside of banana peels, bake it, and smoke it you will get high. so they tried it and of course nothing happened. what a waste of time. haha.

while we were sitting around, abobaker (who is a member of an accomplished mens choir) agreed to sing a song (acapella) for us. it was incredible. it was a religious song of sorts (in arabic) about trying to get close to god, i think. it was really amazing and lasted for at least 5 minutes. it was really one of the highlights of the evening.

after dad went to bed, nuri told me the most intense, amazing story (after which he said that because of this, we must appreciate the beauty that we had right there… and of course the hash), which really made me think about my traveling and what i want to see in the world, what i want to get out of traveling, and what “seeing the world” really means. he told us that while traveling through africa, he stumbled upon a tiny village somewhere (whose name sounded ironically similar to cannibal). he said that it was already strange that he was there because the whole village knew each other and he was easily spotted as an outsider. all of a sudden he spotted something roasting over a fire, like a pig… but as he got closer he saw hands, feet, hair (it was a human). he was so scared and appauled that he said he ran from that place. he “ran for two days without stopping, without a want to stop.”

traveling is so beautiful and amazing but i forget that the traveling that i have done (expect for the limited poverty that i experienced in peru) i have been experiencing a very subjective sdie of travel. i hadnt stopped to think that in traveling (especially over the course of 10 years) one is bound to come across things that they would never want to see or which for anyone else to see. things that make the workld a strange and terrifying place. i saw that iwant to see the world: beauty and otherwise. but do i even know what that means? i dont think i have any fucknig idea. when nuri hugged and kissed me goodnight that evening, it sounded like he was about to cry, holding back tears. it really gave me a profound appreciation for the suffering and hurt that he must have seen over the years. what an amazing accomplished man.

the rest of the trip was pretty cool as well, although nothing compared to the time that we spent with these amazing people in rabat. we went to fés and spent less than a day there, seeing similar things as we did in rabat (an amazing market and interesting people) and finally headed back to tangier to take the ferry back to spain. the way back was a LONG and stressful trip, as we hurried back to málaga to meet my mom, who arrived on sunday morning.

i feel like i just barely scraped the surface of what we saw and experienced in morocco, but i wont keep you…