Anzio Beach by Edward Reep

Above:  bombs fall in the harbor at Anzio Beach in World War II as Edward Reep paints on the spot.

To start at the very beginning we’d have to go all the way back to WWII.  My dad enlisted in the army as so many people did in what is now called the Greatest Generation.  My father, however, was an artist, and while he was trained as a soldier and an officer at Camp Roberts and Fort Ord in California, he was asked to be a war artist.  This meant that he fought the war with paintbrushes as well as guns.

In a previous post, where Ben Clarke recalls how my dad saved his father’s life by rushing onto the battlefield and rescuing him, you can read what it meant to be a war artist.  That’s not what this is about.

This is about the amazing chance my husband and I had to see all the paintings and drawings my dad did in Italy, which are now property of the Department of the Army.  The story gets a little convoluted here and I’ll spare everyone the details. Suffice it to say that through a series of coincidences, odd circumstances and luck, we made contact with the Army art archivist in Washington D.C. and were able to see her during our visit.

We rented a car and drove to Fort Belvoir and again realized how grateful we are to live in Bakersfield, California where the air is bad, the literacy rate is low, but the traffic is light and it’s easy to get around.  But it was nostalgic to visit Fort Belvoir because my parents were married there in Chapel #6 in 1941, and in the ’70s we drove to Fort Belvoir and took our picture outside of Chapel #6.  Today, the fort has been restructured and that little chapel is no more.

So.  The art.  It was a thrill to be in a state-of-the-art building full of art that was not just art but primary source historical material.  It is truly priceless.  The army cares for its art meticulously and with reverence and respect which was comforting and reassuring. The real thrill was seeing my dad’s work.

This work has been reproduced in books and lent to various galleries across the country for shows but for the first time we saw it all and it is spectacular.  In the same way that a black and white photo is oddly more realistic than a color photo, even though the world is in color, a painting of the war can seem more realistic and emotional than a photograph.  Seeing the body of work all together was emotional, and knowing it was my father’s work elicits feelings I can hardly articulate.

My pictures are distorted because the paintings were flat, but I’ll show some anyway and explain.

The Bath

This painting is very well known and popular.  This particular soldier wanted a hot bath and had gasoline dripping over an open flame to heat water.  My dad was afraid it would blow up any instant!  The painting was shipped home during the war, shown in New York, and Eleanor Roosevelt came to the exhibit. She paused in front of this painting, which was captured by the Movietone News.  When my dad’s parents went to the movies in Los Angeles, they were surprised and so proud to see Mrs. Roosevelt, whom they greatly admired, looking at their son Edward Reep’s painting!

These are all from the Italian front.  The soldier bathing is in Anzio.  These soldiers are on a normal patrol, if anything can be called normal in war, and the army archivist mentioned how interesting she found it that artists could capture the natural beauty that existed among the horror of war.

The Italian winters were harsh.  Tents and guns were painted white to blend in with snow.  Supplies had been stashed and buried with cans put on sticks so they could be located, but the cans were painted red.  My father feels this is one of his finest war paintings.

This painting is of the front line.  Dad said that since seeing the movie All Quiet on the Western Front, he had wondered what the front line was like. He described the final scene where the character Paul is back on the front lines and sees a butterfly, a thing of beauty.  He stands to see it better but is too exposed and is shot and killed.  And here it was.  The Front – a line with white tape stretched across it, mines on the other side. Allies on one side, Germans on the other.

This very powerful drawing is of a mule train in the Apennines in Northern Italy.  It was cold and wet; the mud was 14 inches deep and very sticky.  Dad fell face down and almost could not free himself.  He thought he was going to die there.  Finally, he managed to free one nostril enough to breathe and then was able to calm down and work himself out.  He had to draw and not paint because the watercolors would freeze overnight and melt in the mornings.

The leading art critic of the time called Dad one of the six best pen and ink artists of his day.

These are only a few of a large and remarkable body of work.  My husband and I consider this visit a highlight of our adult life and a privilege.  How lucky we are – how lucky I am – to have this history as part of our lives.

You can learn more about the war art program and combat artists, or about my dad Edward Reep’s art and experiences in the war  here- A Combat Artist in WWII

or here – They Drew Fire

The beginning for me was back in the late 60s when I was a student at UC Berkeley.  The array of opportunities before me was staggering, all of them out of the classroom.  I could become an activist, a protester, an anti-war demonstrator; I could become proactive in the political system and work towards change in society.  I could support the Black Panthers.  My husband and I lived a block from People’s Park. So what did I do with this panoply of possibility?  Not a thing.

I was young, naive and I didn’t understand what was happening.  I missed the civil rights movement because I was in high school in California and we couldn’t imagine what it was like in the south.  I hadn’t followed the Vietnam War, so I sat that out. By the time I realized it was something to pay attention to, I was too far behind.  I was newly married and all I really wanted to do was have a baby.

As the years progressed I understood, so when protesters took a stand at  Zuccotti Park in New York and became known as Occupy Wall Street, I paid attention.  I wanted to see for myself.  I knew I couldn’t spend more than a couple of days, but they were important days for a couple of reasons.  One, I felt history was unfolding that could turn into one of the seminal moments of our century, like Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964, or all the events of 1968 were in the last century. I was not going to miss this one.

Second, I wanted to see for myself so when I read the press accounts, listened to the commentators and reporters, and read what citizens had to say, I would know how to judge it for myself.  Recently TIME Magazine named the protester as their Person of the Year, and I feel better for having caught on to this movement early.

I made a sign that I rolled up in a tube and took with me.  It said “Remember the Constitution? We the People, in order to form a more perfect union…promote the general welfare…”  And then, “WE are the people, not Wall Street and not corporations.”  And I got flak.

People stopped.  Why do you hate us? They asked.  Why do you hate everyone who works on Wall Street? Why do you hate corporations? I tried to explain that Wall Street, the 99%, the 1%, the word “corporations” are symbols because my sign could not say “We are the people, not Wall Street except of course for people who are employees or middle managers and not robbing us all by creating things like hedge funds that produce nothing of value, just money for the already wealthy and I don’t hate corporations but am bothered by the Supreme Court ruling that says corporations in essence are people too, and have rights under the first amendment and can spend as much money as they want on campaigns, so now corporations will be able to buy power and elections more than ever as if they haven’t already held power through their lobbyists,” and so on.

I can’t say all that on a sign.  So the words are symbolic.

Then people would dismissively say, well, what are the demands?  What do you want?  And I would answer that I didn’t think it was important in the beginning to have well articulated goals because what was happening was a groundswell of discontent with the status quo.  THAT was the message.  There was massive discontent throughout society all over the world.  Here, we were upset that corporations were raking in record profits while the rest of us were hurting; executives were making billions of dollars while their companies paid well less than the 35% corporate tax rate; big banks got bailouts and quickly recouped their losses, paid the government back, and made more money than ever.  But people were still losing homes. People were losing homes while big banks subverted plans to help stave off foreclosure.

The concept of general welfare was lost. Lobbyists were buying Congress and Congress was selling, operating on some fuzzy principle that made self-preservation and enrichment more important than governing.  Our elected representatives were not for The People, they were for themselves.

For years, while teaching a leadership class in eighth grade, I told my students that the gap was widening between the poor and the upper class, and the middle class was in danger of disappearing.  I told them that that was a factor in fomenting revolution.   Revolution doesn’t mean guns and fighting all the time; some of the most successful revolutions are non-violent. Revolution means taking a stand and sticking to your ground until real change occurs.  I was told I was exaggerating and nothing like that would happen.  But here we are all around the world – revolting.

So the groundswell of discontent was enough for now.  Let the people regain some power.  It doesn’t matter that occupiers have different interests – political, financial, environmental, and so on – it’s the sense of fairness in all endeavors that is paramount, having a voice that is listened to and acted upon.

Then people referenced Democrats and anarchists and the homeless and the kitchen sink.  No, I said, this isn’t about Democrats and Republicans.  The Tea Party movement arose from a groundswell of discontent also.  Take the most extreme Democrats and Republicans and they will intersect on the other side of the circle.  We are not all that different.  Maybe Republicans gravitate to the Tea Party and Democrats to Occupy Wall Street, but it’s all a reaction to discontent with the status quo.  The Republican primary is also indicative of a groundswell of discontent.  It’s, as my friend Pat Johnson said, like the game Whack a Mole – one candidate is smacked down while another bounces up.  People can’t decide who they want because no one is measuring up.  Discontent.

So, I went to New York and spent some days at Zuccotti Park and this is what I saw.

I saw people waking up in the morning.

I saw people at the encampment being fed.  No one was turned away.

Although organization was loose, I saw that everyone agreed on the need to adhere to some basic rules and standards.

Lots had been said about how dirty everything was, but it didn’t look that way to me.  There was a concerted effort to keep litter at bay and keep the park cleaned up.

People were prepared for basic first-aid needs.

A big library sprung up and I must admit I wasn’t sure why; but at least reading and learning was felt to be important and that is something in short supply in today’s society, where ignorance is often celebrated.

There was inclusion, not exclusion.

There were workshops and meetings and assemblies so people could understand and discuss what was happening.  Much fun has been made of the general assemblies and how impossible it is to get consensus, on why a leader is needed, but our country wasn’t founded with the snap of a finger.  It took a long time to sort out leadership and issues and words.  It’s not easy work.  It will take time and hard work and courage on the part of whichever members of Congress can summon some to get this worked out too.

AND there were the people.

There were Asians and blacks and Hispanics and whites.

There were students.

There were veterans.

Sirius radio was broadcasting.

There were drummers and I confess to not quite understanding why drumming was necessary and it did become annoying – but it also added to the urgency and the atmosphere.

There were LOTS of people – full-time occupiers and working folk who came on the weekends to lend support.

There were retired people too – because I was one of them.

There were tourists going by in buses.  Zuccotti Park, previously unknown by everyone including most New Yorkers, was now a destination.

There were people giving haircuts and giving out clothing for those who needed a change.  Other people helped with laundry.  It was an instant community.

There was a makeshift altar for those of all faiths to have a moment of peace.

There were families.  Young and old.

Pretty much normal people.  Not a bunch of weirdos.  Of course there was the occasional weirdo or extremist, but that happens anywhere you go.  That was the exception.

There were also passers-by who were not just gawkers, but talked to people to understand and learn.

There were supplies and places to make posters.

There were union members.

There were incongruities, like this fellow whose guitar case and songs spoke of old-fashioned protest while the person he was with filmed with an iPad.

There was organized entertainment.

And there was humor.

And of course, there was law enforcement.  From what I observed, much of the cost incurred by law enforcement agencies was self-inflicted.  This was clearly a peaceful, non-violent occupation by intent and self-policing.  Law enforcement was way out of proportion to what was happening.

I was there three days in late October.  I was lucky I was able to go and could afford it.  I didn’t make a big difference; me being there was just one more body in the crowd those three days, one more protester holding a sign.  But I did something at least.  I tried to understand if nothing else.  I took a stand.  I’m proud of being there and holding a sign, which is way out of my comfort zone.

I wish everyone would take notice and think about it, not jump to conclusions and be judgmental.  We have a rare opportunity right now to take back the country.  And I think that’s exactly what this is about – taking back the country from the lobbyists, the big corporations whose tax breaks never gave anyone a job (in my opinion), and our own congress who for the most part are not working for the interests of the people.  They’re working for the interests of the rich, and they get rich while doing it.

I have not written a post for over four months.  Why? I had nothing to say.  But now I do because I received an amazing email yesterday from someone named Ben Clark.  If I didn’t have a blog, he would not have found me on the internet, and I would not have received his account of this amazing story from World War II involving both of our fathers.

I have permission to share his email.  The video he refers to is this:

The man he refers to is my father, Edward Reep.

And my father tells the story also in a book that he wrote:

Here it goes.

Susan I must start by telling you about my father. His name was Martin Clark.  My father was a boxer as well as a soldier.  He was a world class fighter and was actually promoted to fight Joe Louis the Brown Bomber…

He (Martin Clark) would laugh when telling his stories He told us many stories over and over again, and my friends would come to our house and listen again and again to his telling of his days in the war.  I remember these stories as if they happened to me.

One of his stories was the account of how he was injured at Anzio Beach.  He told us all hell broke loose and every one was scrambling for fox holes.  He was hit in the leg and later discovered that he (his leg) was almost amputated by shrapnel.  His account was as he was laying there a jeep drove up and someone carried him to the back of the jeep.  During that moment he was also shot in the leg.  As the jeep drove down the beach they hit a bump  in the road and one of the men stated that he thought my father was dead.  My dad stated, “The hell I am.  I am not dead.”

56 years later I was nursing a neck injury.  It was Sunday and I could not find my remote; then on PBS came a video about an artist who sketched the war (They Drew Fire).  As I watched I learned of your father who in the beginning tells of the story about a group of men who were in a theater tent that was hit by a mortar.  He stated that he hid  through the night and the next morning felt ashamed and that he was a coward.  He also stated that from that point on he would seek to redeem himself by going to the frontlines.

Now the tape moves to Anzio Beach and as I listened I thought that it would be interesting to hear another perspective about the place where my father almost died.   Your dad said the same things, that all of a sudden all hell broke loose. Then your dad stated, “Then I saw this poor son of a gun with his leg nearly blown off.”   So against his captain’s orders, he left his fox hole and went to the aid of this soldier, not caring for his own safety.  He assisted a medic in getting the soldier to the jeep, and as they drove down the road your dad said they hit a bump in the road and he said that he told the driver he thought the soldier was dead. At that moment the soldier stuck his head up and said, “The hell I am. I am not dead..”

At that moment I was coming out of my recliner, I could not believe what I was hearing… I wrote down the number and ordered the video tape.  I later watched it and discovered your dads phone number via the internet. I finally summoned the courage and called him.  When he answered the phone I told him my name and that I watched his video on PBS. His first words to me were, “I was such a damn coward”…

OH NO, I told him respectfully that I believed that the man he risked his life to save by leaving the fox hole was my father.  I described how he would have looked at the time and your dad agreed it sounded exactly like him. I explained that there was no way he was a coward in my book, and that he was a brave man.  I could tell your dad was choking up a bit so I promised to write him a letter.

 I went on to write you father a letter explaining that because of his bravery my father made it home to his wife for 47 more years of adoring marriage, and that he had four more sons after that injury, of whom I am the youngest of the five.  My oldest brother was a cadet at West Point, my next brother served in the Green Berets, My third brother was in the U.S. Navy, and my other brother and I are family men.  All of us have college degrees and two have masters.  My father up until 2003 lived in Merritt Island, and he lived to see his great grand children.

I attribute the single fact of my existence to one lion-hearted, selfless man:  your father.  I reported this coincidental sighting of the video to a friend/reporter who followed up with a story.  But your dad, like most men of that period, did not say much.

All I can tell you is Captain Ed Reep is my hero. He not only saved my dad’s life but his actions set in motion the life of a family tree.  Surely God was directing your father’s steps that cold January day in Italy.

As for you mom, my heart goes out to you; my father suffered dementia also, and I was vigilant by his bedside the evening he entered into the Kingdom of heaven.

Susan if your father is still alive, please tell him that I think about him every day and that I thank the Lord for him. I just wanted to reach out to you as your dad has been on my heart for many years.  As I searched for him I came across your website.  It gives me great pleasure to share this story with you.

I hope you have a very peaceful and joyous Christmas season.

Peace,

Ben Clark

What a gift Ben gave me with this email.  He gave a gift to my dad also, who is 93 and sill living independently (more or less).  I printed the email and took it to him.  When he got to the part about Martin Clark enjoying 47 more years of marriage and having five sons, Dad was overcome.    He said that maybe he had done something worthwhile in his life.

And Ben found me because of my web page.  That in itself is reason to continue my blog.  Being “found” can lead to unexpected treasures.  I’ll try to write another post before four more months have passed.  Maybe I’ll find my voice again.

In keeping with my “BLUE”mood, and as Creative Every Day’s BLUE-themed month draws to a close, I have one more item to share – another poem.  After writing I was Robbed Yesterday and The Algae Woman, it was as if my mind had cleared and the mood lifted.  Writing is indeed therapeutic.

The Algae Woman

The Algae Woman

I have become the algae woman.

I’m that person out by the pond every day

As golf carts roll by and the regulars look.

I’ve become the weird one, that woman,

You know, always out in her yard.

What the heck is she doing?

I’ll tell you what she’s doing,

Besides removing algae from the pond.

She’s wondering if she’s old.

She knows she’s the algae woman and doesn’t really care.

Isn’t that a sign of getting old? Or is it just getting careless.

She goes out first thing in the morning in her nightgown

Just to see if there’s any new water lilies.

She figures if a golfer goes by, he won’t even notice it’s a nightgown.

That’s old-person thinking, but at least she’s thinking.

Or she’s careless, or just doesn’t care.

She’s noticing that everything seems like too much trouble.

Is she just old chronologically, or emotionally, or what.

Is she slowing down, or has she chosen to slow down.

There’s a big difference.

But should she care?

Plagued with questions that shouldn’t be asked,

She’s thinking, sorting, observing, saying no thank you.

She’s snipping. Cutting notices from the paper.

Tai chi, yes, she should get back to that.

Concert, yes, she wants to see that.

Drink recipes, she wants to learn umbrella drinks.

Snip snip snip.

The stack of notices sits on the table until finally,

As always, she throws them away.

Why did she cut them out anyhow?

Everything seems like too much trouble.

She stays up until midnight,

But staying out past eight sounds awful.

She doesn’t like to drive at night, but that’s nothing new.

Last year she got lost coming home after dark

On a route she’s driven hundreds of times.

It’s just a whole lot of trouble.

Is it wisdom or age?  Maybe both.

Shooting for wisdom though.

It’s supposed to come with age.

This she cares about.

She thinks about this.

So that’s what she’s doing, that woman by the pond.

She’s pulling out algae.

She’s me.

I’m the algae woman,

But removing algae isn’t as simple as it looks.

Creative Every Day – the theme is BLUE

My father Edward Reep is an artist.  I was looking at one of his paintings that hangs in my living room – The Blue Guitar.  Why not do a short post on this painting?  If you were up close and could read what it says, you’d see this excerpt from Wallace Stevens’ poem The Man with the Blue Guitar.

The Blue Guitar by Edward Reep

Just for clarity – painting by Edward Reep; poem by Wallace Stevens.

The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.

They said, “You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are.”

The man replied, “Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.”

And they said then, “But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,

A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are.”

Karen Patricia Stevens Reep circa 1938

Mom in her garden last year

Begun June 14, 2011

My mother is dying.  It’s so bizarre.  First everything is fine, then there is pain, then a fractured pelvis is diagnosed, and then dying – in the space of two weeks.  Activity is frantic as caregivers are lined up, the house rearranged, and a story line develops that changes three or four times by the end of the day.  Death moves quickly when one has decided to die.

Mom is heavily sedated right now – thank goodness.  We called Hoffman Hospice yesterday since hospice nurses are always amazing, always available, and always knowledgeable.  I knew deep inside that she wouldn’t make it, but mostly, Mom needed pain control and that’s one of many things hospice does well. Part of me thought, if the pain can be controlled…but the other part remembered… she’s not eating.  She doesn’t want to eat.  She doesn’t want to be alive.

Neither my mom nor my dad has ever wanted to live in an incapacitated manner.  When mom was first home from the hospital, she realized she couldn’t move or walk without great difficulty and extreme pain, and she said she can’t live like that, she’s just a big lump, she doesn’t want to live like that.  And I knew she meant it.  Maybe if we could have gotten the pain controlled earlier…but thoughts like that are futile because it was what it was.  A fractured pelvis can take up to a year to completely heal, and months until the severe pain goes away.  Mom wouldn’t be able to do that.  She always said it, and she meant it.

Mom actually asked me how long it would take to heal and I told her the bone can take a long time but the pain should be able to be controlled and might go on for a few months, but not as bad as now.  She said, “Susan, I know I can trust you.”  In retrospect, I realize she was deciding whether to live or die.  She knew that asking Dad was impossible since he’s 93 and has loved her deeply for almost 70 years; she knew asking my sister was impossible since she is so emotionally invested that she’d just be encouraging. Not that I am not emotionally invested, but it’s different. I marvel at Mom’s clarity in this as she’d suffered from dementia for years and couldn’t remember one minute to the next. I’m glad I didn’t know the burden that was placed on me until afterwards.  Burden is perhaps not a good choice of words, because Mom would never have intentionally burdened her children with anything.  I’m glad I was truthful even though I made it a little rosier than it would have been in reality.

Yesterday and today, at least this morning, Mom kept telling my sister and me how much she loves us.  Over and over again.  She’d say, “I love you.  I love you so much.”  Every time someone visited, like Daniel, when he left she said “I love Daniel so much.” She was emphatic, making sure we really understood.  She was saying her goodbyes and I knew it. She repeated to herself over and over, “It’s going to be all right, it’s going to be all right,” by which she meant it was ok to leave us, she was comfortable that Dad would be taken care of and we would be all right.  She was convincing herself that she could safely leave us.  This, too, I understood in retrospect.

This morning she described a beautiful green lawn she was seeing.  She was looking for Grandma Betty, her mother.  She was reaching out with her hands to things invisible to us.

My mother-in-law did that when she was dying, and a dear friend did that when he was dying.  I read about it in a hospice booklet but now that I’ve seen dying people do it three times, I believe it. Dying people reach out to the unseen and recognize people who have passed before them.  Reconnecting.  Being helped over to the other side.

So my mom is dying.  She’s on the hospital bed that was delivered today to her bedroom.  She’s on oxygen, and when that was delivered this morning I said, “Oh, we’re not going to need that.”  How fast things change.  Within hours.

Mom’s been suffering from dementia and her personal hygiene hasn’t been good the last few years.  Now she’s as clean as a baby.  The “bath” nurse came.  To move her to the hospital bed, hospice called the transportation team who knows how to do these things incredibly gently.  Josh, the wonderful equipment guy, brought the bed and oxygen.  Another nurse came and spent hours with us.  And then the “bath” nurse came.  Who would have known?  She very gently bathed mom, washed her hair with real water and real shampoo, carefully put lotion on, and even filed her nails.

Tonight the “tuck in” nurse is coming to make sure everything is set for the night.  Our night caregiver, Katie, will be here and we were all going to sleep at home in our beds.  Now, that’s impossible.  I will – I can hardly hold my head up now.  But my sister is coming back – once it became clear what was happening, no way would she not sleep here.

While this was going on we were in a race to get our sister who lives in Alaska here in time.  She had been planning to come on Saturday, but it all moved so fast and we realized she had to come – now.  She got here by Wednesday afternoon; my husband raced to LAX to pick her up and get her here in time, and although Mom was not responsive when Janine arrived, I know she could hear and was aware that Janine was there.  Janine had all day Thursday with her because Mom died on Friday June 17. (the link is to the obituary).

We have Sharon, someone dropped in our laps from heaven I think.  She took care of a relative of my friend Pat in Utah and was highly recommended and she was available.  How quickly we came to depend on someone who was a stranger just days ago.  And Katie – she’s just 18 but she went from being someone new to a member of the family just like that.

Mom’s respirations are slow now.  Partly from the morphine, but mostly because her body is shutting down.  Looking at her, I just feel an overwhelming sense of relief and gratitude that the unbearable pain is gone.  I’m fighting off the sense of loss that is trying to creep in.  I don’t want to feel it or deal with it until I’ve done what needs to be done and can collapse.

To be continued…

Note: so many people have been asking about the photographs – I’ve combined some in a book called Blue: Photographs from Spain and Morocco.

Part of the plan on this trip was to visit Mark’s sister Dana and her husband Bishop who live in Sevilla.  We awoke way too early at Dar Jand to catch the early ferry.  Andrew kindly walked us through the medina down to the port where we boarded the fast ferry to Spain, watching Tangier recede in the distance.  Arriving in Tarifa, we took a taxi to the Comes bus station, which turned out to be two bus benches and a shed.  Hmmm – we had a couple of hours, lots of luggage and nowhere to go.  There was a small café across the street so we maneuvered everything in there and settled in, buying tapas  (not very good) for lunch and several coffees to justify taking up their space.  By the end, we were almost best friends.  Which was not easy because no one in Spain seems to speak anything but Spanish!  We’re used to people in Europe and even Morocco speaking several languages.  We kept speaking French, which was a little odd because English is our language, but after two weeks in Morocco, it just came naturally.

We both grew up in California with a large Hispanic population, but every Spanish word we knew evaporated.  Even the easy words!  Nonetheless, we made it onto the bus and were met in Sevilla by Dana and Bishop, who of course speak English.  We walked to their apartment, which is centrally located in the heart of Sevilla, easy walking distance to the historic core of the city.  They had a great array of tapas for us – olives, cheeses, and what is said to be the best ham – the Iberica Bellota – made from pigs who forage for acorns.  We were hungry and grateful for the munchies followed by minestrone soup.  We chatted a while and they walked us to our hotel, the Amadeus Musica.

Sevilla street

Dana and Bishop’s apartment is on the third floor of a modern building – the third being the top in this case.  The living room has a floor to ceiling window so it feels light and airy.  Many of the streets are lined with orange trees and we were there at just the right time to enjoy the heavenly aroma that is like no other.  The oranges are bitter, used for making marmalade, and that’s why they don’t get stripped from the trees by the populace.  Because otherwise who could resist?

We settled in and collapsed until they picked us up for a walk around the Santa Cruz barrio, the old Jewish quarter.  Bishop is a font of information – he really ought to be a tour guide because he knows every bit of the history and every detail of the architecture.  We just couldn’t take it all in.  We hadn’t expected our two weeks in Morocco to be as arduous as they were, so our brains were mush.

Note on the Amadeus Musica – our hotel.  There were instruments everywhere and each room had a CD player with a whole raft of opera CDs.

Interior Hotel Amadeus Musica

Alley our hotel was on

The streets were packed that night.  ‘Twas St. Patrick’s Day, heartily celebrated in Sevilla.  Of course – why not? Any excuse for a pint, funny green hats, and a party.  We settled for ice cream (at least I did) and early bed.  The promenade was just getting going, but we don’t seem to be able to stay up late anymore, and even 9:00 p.m. is a little early to be out on the plaza. Also, my stomach was hurting and I was getting a blister.

In fact, after two weeks of no ailments large or small, in Sevilla I had a bad stomach, a blister on top of a toe on my left foot and underneath another on my right.  My knee (I have condromalacia patella) flared up and every step was agony.  That made it hard to truly appreciate that amazing city.  And it was beautiful, relaxed and comfortable.

Giralda at night

Plaza by the cathedral

We visited the cathedral, which doesn’t have a name other than the Sevilla Cathedral.  It is built on the site of a mosque and the minaret is the only part of the mosque that remains.  The first 2/3 of the tower is the minaret from the 1100s, but when the Christians prevailed over the Moors, the mosque was converted to the cathedral and the top of the minaret to a bell tower called the Giralda and topped with a weathervane.  It’s the largest gothic cathedral in the world, complete with flying buttresses.

Flying buttresses, Sevilla cathedral

Here’s some information on the interior, and I’d like to credit the source but I don’t remember it, although judging from the translation it may be a brochure I picked up:  The most spectacular part of the interior of the Seville Cathedral is undoubtedly Retablo Mayor, the golden altar of the church, the main chapel.  This masterpiece was designed by the Flemish master Peter Dancart who worked 44 years on the reliefs, since 1482.  The altar was finally completed in 1564 with other artists.

Christopher Columbus was buried in this church and his tomb is impressive.

Christopher Columbus tomb

There is also a crown with 11,000 jewels and the largest pearl in the world (forming the body of an angel),

Crown with largest pearl in the world

as well as a beautiful reliquary depicting the crown of thorns and said to contain a piece of the true cross.  Although I have no idea how one would verify that.

Interior, Sevilla cathedral

We had a late lunch of sorts and the best part was the menu.  Some of the translations reached a new level of hilarity:  “in a mess of mushrooms of season” and “small cauldron of deer” being two examples.  If you click on the photo, it’ll enlarge.  Then just arrow back to return to the blog.

Hilarious menu

Another place we visited during our three days, as I limped along, was the Real Alkasar, a former Moorish fort that became a royal palace (the upstairs is still in use as such).  The Alkasar is one example after another of Moorish plaster carving, tile work, and carved wood.  It’s truly beautiful.  The best part is the gardens – which we couldn’t see because I could not walk at that point and had to get off my feet.

Tile detail in Alkasar

Interior courtyard Alkasar

Exterior of Alkasar

Front wall detail

Blue plaster carving Alkasar

Ceiling detail Alkasar

We also enjoyed the Plaza de Espagna, which was built for the 1929 Iberia/America exposition and is now used as government offices.

Plaza de Espagna

Plaza de Espagna

There are insets along the curved wall (first photo) for each section of Spain.  I think they are equivalent to counties.

Dana, Mark and Bishop

Plaza de Espagna

Fans for sale at Plaza de Espagna

Maria Luisa Park, a short walk from where we stayed, is enormous, full of birds and blooming plants, shrines, fountains and pools.

Maria Luisa Park

Maria Luisa Park

Maria Luisa Park - retouching a tribute to a Spanish writer.

In one plaza, kids feed the pigeons, but they are not ordinary pigeons.  They are Paloma doves, all white, and live only in Sevilla.  They were a gift from the Philippines during the 1929 exposition.

Paloma doves

The public transportation system in Sevilla is excellent.  There are busses, streetcars (electric trains) and bicycles.  All over the city there are bike racks.  You buy a card, kind of like a subway pass, and when you need to go somewhere, you insert your card and grab a bike, leaving it in a rack at your destination.

Bicycles that can be taken from one rack and returned to another

I wish we had things like that here.  In the United States, our transportation systems were built around the automobile – at least in the wide-open spaces of the West.  Some of the big cities like New York, Washington D.C. and others are compact enough to have good subway systems, but the cult of the car isn’t letting go yet in the West.

Sevilla is where flamenco got it’s start and it’s THE place in Spain to see a flamenco show, so we did at a little place called Los Gallos.

Los Gallos

Judging from the backdrop on the stage, I think Los Gallos means the fighting roosters or the roosters.  We didn’t know what to expect, but the two-hour show was magnificent.  Accompaniment is not only guitars, but men clapping their hands in the most wonderful rhythms, making different sounds depending upon how their hands strike each other.  The costumes are extraordinary and the dancers – well, I don’t see how they could have been any better.  From what we could tell (not understanding the words when there were songs), it’s all about flirtation and lost love, or having been done wrong by a man.  It was a great way to cap our last evening.

It was time to go to Barcelona and Gaudi-land.  Dana and Bishop met us early and we took a cab to the train station.  We said our goodbyes, which was kind of sad, and hopped on the bullet train to Barcelona, our last destination.

To Barcelona on the high-speed train

Last stop ahead

Time for the last big drive, Al Hoceima to Tangier.  At this point I believe we were regarding this as a strenuous trip because we had NO IDEA how much driving would be involved.  As we left Al Hoceima, the countryside was beautiful with orchards in bloom, wild lavender by the road.

Orchard outside of Al Hoceima

Some of the hills looked like the farms along The Three Gorges in China – multi-colored and terraced.

The weather was gorgeous and there were people alongside the road gathering herbs.

We passed fascinating haystacks.

Haystack outside Al Hoceima

We passed prickly pear in full fruit, but we noticed something alarming.

We were going up.  We had forgotten about the Rif.  We were driving Morocco’s third major mountain range.  But the weather was lovely, we could still see the Mediterranean – how bad could this be?

Bad is the answer.  It was getting colder and I did not have my long underwear on.  The car heater of course was still broken.  And it was foggy, then raining.  We passed patches of snow up on a hill.  I took a picture, thinking, “Ooh, I’ll show the kids how high we were and how close to snow!”

Snow in the distance

You might be asking yourself right now, as I am asking myself, what do the kids care if we are passing snow?  We have snow all the time at our cabin in Alta Sierra.  And the kids aren’t little either.  The youngest is 37.  Old habits die hard.  So when we passed snow at the side of the road, I took a photo of that also.

Closer patches of snow

If I’d had my crystal ball with me I would have known that in a matter of moments we would be driving through a snowstorm.

Snowing

Yes, for about 1½ hours.

Visibility was low.  And snow was starting to coat the roads.

The snow starts to stick

Snow is beautiful, one must admit, even in the midst of it.  The trees were turning white.

And then rain.  The road tricked us – we’d be descending and Mark would say, “We’re out of it now, going down.” And we’d go up again.  Each time, Mark hopefully said the same thing, and finally, at last, the snow and rain and fog were gone and we were out of the Rif.  We’d seen the snow plows going up to 7,000 feet, where we had been, and where the roads had been awful.  It registered now why Joaquin had said, as we drove away from Casa Paca, that the roads probably hadn’t been fixed yet since winter.  This place gets torn up each year from snow and ice and rain.

And all of a sudden, as if we’d never been through rain, fog and snow, there were wildflowers.

Tangier

So.  Tangier.  We lived there for six weeks in 1971 during our Peace Corps training.  And we were going back.  The American Legation, where we trained and lived, was the first property the United States owned on foreign soil, and it is currently the only National Historic Site not in the United States.

George Washington and King Mohammed I had correspondence back when, trying to solve the Barbary pirate situation.  And thus Morocco came to be the first country to officially recognize the United States as an independent nation.  We couldn’t wait to see it again.

But we needed to get rid of that rental car which meant find the airport.  Signage had been pretty good throughout the country so I just said to Mark, let’s drive into town and we’re sure to see an airport sign somewhere.  Now understand that “town” has gotten a whole lot bigger and we drove a very long way, before, on the verge of desperation, we saw a sign.  We knew we couldn’t go very much farther without landing in the Atlantic Ocean, and we knew the airport was south of town near the coast, but nonetheless, we were beginning to look for airplanes and what direction they were landing.

Walking happily into the airport to the car rental desk, eager to tell them about the lack of oil and the squeaky brakes and the lack of heat, we found – no one.  There was one person in the whole array of rental car agencies and he said, oh, they aren’t here, just put the papers under the window.  OK? OK, we did, and found Andrew from Dar Jand who was picking us up, and we were on our way to the medina.

We wanted to stay in the medina since the Legation was in the medina and it would be like old times, sort of.  On tripadvisor I found Dar Jand.

Dar Jand

And a plug for tripadvisor – it was invaluable.  I got most of our lodging based on recommendations on tripadvisor, and none of them were in the guide  books.  Unless it’s Rick Steves, I don’t really trust those books like Frommers and Fodors anymore.

Andrew and Janet – the JAND of Dar Jand, are an American couple who own a quirky, four (or was it five) story place in the medina.  Janet spent five years renovating it while Andrew was still working in the states and I am in total awe of what she accomplished.  When she arrived she spoke no French or Arabic, and she says now she’d never do it again – had no idea just what she was in for.  But she did a fantastic job.  Honestly? It was nice to be with Americans and speak English.  Andrew showed us where everything was, including the laundry.  We’d been three days in the same clothes and I mean all the same clothes and were desperate for something clean.

View from Dar Jand - Medina Rooftops

How was it that we knew that medina inside and out once?  It’s a rabbit warren, a maze, it tricks you into walking in circles.  But we’d had the adventure squeezed out of us by now and lacked the energy to care about where we ate or what we saw.  We just wanted to be there.  And visit the Legation.

Medina steps outside Dar Jand

Andrew gave us directions, we set out, walked in circles and got lost.  Someone offered to lead us so we knew a tip would be in order, which was fine with us.  It’s a way of working, it provides a service, and everyone we saw in this country worked hard.  We wondered about how unemployment is defined.  Are people selling their vegetables in the souks considered unemployed? Or people selling on the side of the road?  What kind of living do those people make compared to the cost of living? One thing is clear, I expect to the population in general as well as outsiders: the country runs on tourism.  It’s only 10% of the GNP and that’s hard to believe.  The unrest in the Arab world isn’t good for Moroccan tourism, although Morocco is completely safe.

So we were happy to pay our self-appointed guide to reach the legation.  Jerry Loftus, the director of the Legation museum, met us and actually got pretty excited when he realized we really truly had lived there during a Peace Corps training.  We were searching for our room; when we lived there we had the best room of all since having a two-year-old daughter gave us privileges. Where other volunteers bunked together and shared bathrooms, we got our own room and bath!  We did not just have any room, however.  Ours had a secret door with a hidden area that one could escape to if one didn’t want to be found.  And I don’t think it was for getting “alone time.” Perhaps the area could be treacherous.  We explained all this to Jerry but we couldn’t find the room.  I knew in my head exactly how to describe it, and now we’ve found that Jerry is actually living in that room – but since he has not found the secret door, he didn’t match our description to his room.  It may not be there but then again…it was a secret.

Jennifer outside of our room 1971

How did Jerry figure out he was living in the room? We sent him old photos after our return, which he was happy to have, room identified or not, as there is very little in the way of records for that time period.  He did bring out a very old, very crude scrapbook that someone had given him, and Jerry wondered about the photos.  We knew who the people were because it was our training group!  (By saying “very crude” scrapbook, I’m not disparaging the work of whoever made it – but it sure makes a stark contrast to all the technology available today.)

Scrapbook in legation

Little by little, the Legation is being restored and the museum enhanced.  There are copies of letters between George Washington and Mohammed I – difficult to read with the florid script of the day but thrilling nonetheless.

Courtyard steps 1971

Legation courtyard 1971

Dining room American Legation today

Dining room during Peace Corps training 1971

Jenny at kid's table 1971 - on the balcony

Legation balcony today

Exterior Legation crossing over alley

A neat feature of the American Legation is that it spans the road in the medina.

So it was over.  We’d seen what we came back for – Oujda, the Legation, Tangier, and points in between.  Tangier was the most different of anywhere.  A tourist in Tangier used to feel like a gladiator thrown into the pit, set upon by people offering to sell you goods, guide you, or pick your pocket.  It was not so much like that now, blessedly.  Plus, many shops do not bargain anymore, which is a huge relief no doubt and makes the tourist experience livable.  So many of Tangier’s tourists make day trips from Spain, and to have one’s first experience of Morocco seem like a hell-hole can’t be good for extended tourism.

Tangier is also feeling more like part of the country.  Hassan II did not like the North and never set foot in Tangier, which left them the poor stepchildren of Morocco.  Mohammed VI, however, has a residence there, visits, and it’s made a terrific difference to the populace to feel like they count.  That, at least, according to our host Andrew, and if I’ve misremembered, I offer apologies.

Here are a few pictures of our wanderings in the medina.  Everything is interesting, colorful, exciting.

Purple wall, Tangier medina

Blue wall, Tangier

Blue passage, Tangier medina

Inside a holistic herb store, Tangier medina

Medina port, Tangier

Now our zip was completely gone.  We were ready for Spain.  We’re getting old and organized tour groups are looking better and better; but we couldn’t have seen all we’d wanted to without driving the country and it was worth it for sure.  We’d been on camels, in planes, cars, taxis and trains in a little over two weeks.  We found a country we loved that had developed incredibly in 40 years yet still retained its character and heart.  We headed through the medina to the port to catch a fast ferry to Tarifa  to the bus for Sevilla.  We got one last look at Tangier as the ferry pulled away.

View of Tangier from ferry

We’ll be back.  Next year is the 50^th Anniversary of the Peace Corps in Morocco so chances are good we’ll attend, then go to Agadir and spend a week or so at a beach resort and spend time with Krim.  As soon as we recover our energy from this trip, it’ll look a whole lot better for a return.

Next – to Sevilla.

The Fruits of Mark’s Labors

Forty years ago we set out with our two-year-old on our great adventure – joining the Peace Corps.  We were just burning up with the idealism of the late ’60s and our desire to make the world better.  Mark heard a radio ad recruiting for architects and planners (he is an architect and planner) so we applied.  One day we got a phone call from Dick Holbrooke (yes, the Richard Holbrooke who just died, the master diplomat).  We were each on an extension when Dick asked us, would we like to join the Peace Corps and go to Morocco or Tunisia?  Yes, we would.  We hung up and raced to the bookcase to find the atlas.  Where was Morocco anyway? We had no idea.

We went, and right now let’s get it out of the way – the question I am always asked, What did I do in the Peace Corps?

This is a loaded question for me.  My husband is an architect and planner, and we were invited into an architect/planner training.  I was called a non-matrix spouse but promised I (and the other non-matrix spouses) would be given a job once in our final destination.  I pretty much didn’t have any formal skills at that time and didn’t have a teaching credential, but the Peace Corps knew that and said something would be available.  We were assigned to Oujda, Morocco, which made us very popular since Oujda was the least desirable location and we requested it, getting everyone else off the hook. After being somewhat angry for months about the lack of a job and the lack of action by the Peace Corps office to get me one, I realized it wasn’t going to happen.  Mark had been so valuable as an architect/planner that they wanted us and probably only had a vague idea of what to do with non-matrix spouses.

I started asking around on my own, trying to find some sort of meaningful activity but I wasn’t able to.  Part, or most, of that was political.  Oujda was at that time a small town on the Algerian border.  (Now it’s a bigger town on the Algerian border.) Women were treated passably well but they didn’t work at anything I could do without taking a job away from someone else.  Everyone thought we were CIA agents anyway, so I gave up the work idea and focused on being my own little personal good will ambassador.   And had a child.

See why this is a loaded question? I never know what to say when people ask me, “What did you do?”  So we were there just because of Mark, and it would be important that his work counted for something.

We went, and Mark spent two years in the office of planning and housing, as well as in the field, making site plans.  These are plans to guide the development of towns –  analyses of where housing should go, where the mosque should go, where business should be located – so that infrastructure can be utilized more efficiently and a town can be a pleasant place to live.  The theory behind this was good: the government did not want to see mass migration to the cities and the development of shanty-towns; they wanted people to live satisfactorily in rural areas.  By and large, this strategy seems to have worked.

Mark kept copies of all the site plans for 40 years and now we were going to see if they had been effective.  We were driving through Zaio, Taforalt, Sidi Bouhia, and Mt. Arrouit. We also wanted to drive through Berkane, the town fellow volunteer Mike Zelinski worked on for his entire two years.  First, however, we headed to the Gorges of Zegzel, where we had been on excursions so long ago with fellow volunteers and our friends the Krims.  We left Oujda, headed for the night to Al Hoceima, with these stops in between.  It was going to be another long day.

First stop: Gorges of Zegzel – we drove to the Grottes de Chameaux (cave of camels) and it had changed for the worse.  Whereas water used to gush from the opening into a pool where people swam, no water was gushing now and the pool was concreted in.  The cave entrance looked blocked inside with debris.  Forty years ago, you could walk through huge rooms and come out at another end.  That was disappointing, but at least we found it!

Grottes de Chameaux in 1973

Grottes de Chameaux 2011

Picnic in Gorges of Zegzel in 1973 - with mint tea

Look in the back right and you’ll see the Butagaz bottle.  It wouldn’t be right without mint tea.

When we went on these picnics or to the Gorges, we needed to fill up on gas.

Filling up at the Shell Station 1973

We headed on to Taforalt to see what changes 40 years had wrought.  This one was funny.  A housing tract had been constructed right where Mark had indicated on his plan, but it was a design unlike any we’d seen in Morocco!  More like Swiss mountain homes.

Housing development Taforalt

Not the style you’d expect, but at least they followed the plan.

We were hungry and had arrived at a traffic checkpoint, so we asked the soldier/security police/whatever he technically was where we should eat.  We had a little chat about how we used to live there, etc. and went off for lunch.  We were just a tad worried because we had all these city plans spread around in the car as we were talking to the officer, but I guess he thought we were harmless.

Outside town there is a strip full of butcher shops, cafes, and individual tagines sizzling on grills.  We each got a tagine, which surprised the waiter – I don’t believe very many non-Moroccans end up there!

Lunch in Taforalt

We had tagines for lunch

Sidi Bouhria was the next stop.  Mark was able to orient himself with the plan and found that it had been of some use. The mosque was right where it was supposed to be.

Sidi Bouhria

We stopped in Zaio and again, plans had been used.  The town had developed just as it should have.

Zaio

Zaio

Still lots of room for growth, but I think it’s incredibly gratifying to know that two years worth of work in the Peace Corps did actually amount to something.  The towns aren’t exciting to look at in the pictures, but when you think about what it represents, and when you  picture the slums and shanty towns in India, for example, you can really appreciate the forethought of Hassan II, never mind his other shortcomings.

Mt. Arruit had developed more than any of the other towns.  This next is a picture of Mark and others from his office taking a look at the site for Mt. Arruit.  There’s pretty much nothing there.

Mt. Arrouit 1971

This is what it looks like today from the same vantage point.

Mt. Arrouit today

On to Al Hoceima

Our trip down memory lane was finished and we pressed on to Al Hoceima.  Since we didn’t want to rush visiting the little towns, we again were in a race against dark, plus we were tired, hungry and grumpy.  We missed our turn and went into the thick of town – it was still light then.  But Al Hoceima was crowded, full of one-way streets, bumper-to-bumper traffic.  It was the wrong time of day to be there for sure.  By the time we got it all sorted out it was dark and we blindly drove out of town searching for the correct turn.  How we did it I don’t know because we ended up in a residential neighborhood high on a hill, but I reasoned that what goes up must come down and it did.  Where was Casa Paca?  Apparently I was to have called Joaquin at Casa Paca for him to meet us and guide us to his guest house.  But I didn’t.  We did see a sign:

So we thought it would be a piece of cake until we found ourselves winding up a road – not even a road, a rock path – up and up and up.

Road in the daytime

No lights, pitch black.  We thought we were horribly lost and were going to turn around when we saw what looked like a parking lot prepared for three or four cars.  We stopped.  It was Casa Paca.  It was dark.

I called “hello, hello” and as we, despairing, were about to drive back down the hill, a voice called, “Susan?”  Saved.

It was Joaquin, who had given up on us.  We were the first guests since Christmas (Casa Paca is on the Mediterranean and guests just don’t go there in winter.  It’s a beach place.) We went in.  I said, “Do you have any food?” I must have looked awfully frazzled, because he and his wife whipped up a dinner of the most tender and flavorful grilled steak, grilled zucchini, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, and homemade French fries.  I will forever be grateful to this wonderful man.  We wished we had more than one night to stay, but it was just a stopping off point on the way to Tangier.

Casa Paca

Joaquin built this place just about on faith.  He had constant doubts if anyone would want to come there and watched his savings evaporate as the house took shape.  He did a wonderful job – really thought out all the details to make guests comfortable – and it’s been a success.

Casa Paca Patio

The door on the left is our room. From our room we looked out on the Mediterranean and two interesting things: one a fortress, and the other, a big rock.  The fortress is a Spanish garrison with very high walls and the only way in or out is by helicopter.  The other, the rock, is Spanish territory and if you look closely you’ll see a Spanish flag.  This apparently is hotly contested land.  Maybe someone can enlighten me as to why Spain just can’t give the rocks to Morocco.  Not too long ago there was a little skirmish here.

There are a couple of towns in Morocco that are part of Spain, Ceuta and Melilla, both on the Mediterranean coast.  I’m sure Spain strategically is happy to have the towns and even the garrison, but those two rocks?  Really.  If I’d waded over there I’d have been in Spain!

If anyone is ever in that part of the world, I’d recommend Casa Paca.

Casa Paca comfortable sitting room

Joaquin takes pictures of all his guests and puts them in the stairway.

Now, our pictures will be up there also.

With Joaquin at Casa Paca

Next, we cross the Riff Mountains and go to Tangier, our last stop in Morocco.

Now began the search for our dear friends, the Krims.

Krim Family

Where are the Krims?

We walked up and down streets looking for the Krim’s house with no luck.  We were great friends with Mohammed Krim, his sisters Safia and Zahor, and his parents.  Oh, we had some delicious meals at their house, me eating with the men since I was a foreigner, Jennifer running back and forth between the dining room and the kitchen.

Jennifer spent more time with them than we did – they adored her and she was an independent sort.  She’d spend the night at the Krim’s, Mark or I would walk over to get her, and she’d usually ask to spend the night again!  She’d often stay several nights in a row.  They would have her carry the bread to the communal oven and go to the store to get the milk pail filled.  Remember, she’s only three years old.  Once, right before Aid El Kbir (the biggest feast of the year that concludes Ramadan), she was there when they slaughtered a lamb in the backyard.  I was horrified – oh, poor Jennifer, having to see that, etc. etc.  It didn’t faze her a bit.  (I just this minute looked online to make sure I spelled Aid El Kbir correctly (I did) and found out the holiday has a Facebook page.)

The day we left Oujda, Mark went into the Royal Air Maroc office because Krim used to work there.  I thought he’d transferred to Casablanca.  We found out he’s in Agadir, retired from Royal Air Maroc and has something to do with a travel agency so we think we can locate him now.  But according to the folks in the airline office, the family home had been torn down – no wonder we couldn’t find it.  No public oven, everything changed.   When our Peace Corps service was finished in 1973, we bought our tickets from Krim, who was an agent for Royal Air Maroc, for the return flight to the United States.  We were to land in New York but the plane didn’t have enough fuel to circle as long as was necessary, so it was diverted to Washington D.C.  We landed in a terrific thunder storm; the pilot came out of the cockpit and said that had been a close one (just what we wanted to hear, but we were aware of the tough landing). Customs agents were called back to the airport, it took forever (they were home, asleep), and we were beyond tired.  But we were closer to Raleigh than we would have been in New York so we asked if we could change our tickets and fly straight from D.C.  That is when we found out Krim had booked us – sold us a ticket! – on Braniff, an airline that no longer existed!  The airline industry must have suffered a change between the booking of the ticket and the actual flight. Finally, Eastern Airlines (which now no longer exists) said they would honor our tickets and let us fly out from D.C.

Back to the present

Back to Oujda and the present day: We found Mike’s old apartment…(Mike was our fellow volunteer in Oujda.)

Mike's apartment, 1972

Looking up at balcony of Mike's old apartment, 2011

which overlooked Place Mohammed V (I’m calling it Place Mohammed V but I think I’m wrong.  I’ll correct when I find out.).

He lived in the only building with an elevator for which we were so grateful, because he was on the 7^th floor and it would have been  hard to walk up that many steps with a baby buggy – or to leave the buggy at the bottom trusting it would remain there!  We did feel relieved when the creaky old elevator made it, however.  We never got stuck.  The building looked just the same and the lobby looked just as run down and the elevator door looked just as untrustworthy.

The Souks

We could have entered from the square with the post office and the old Palais de Justice or through the walled medina.  We went by the post office.

Oujda post office, 2011

Here’s the post office in 1973.  When we were about to take the photo, this huge group of kids gathered (they’d been playing on the steps) and arranged themselves for a photo as if they did it everyday.

Oujda post office steps 1973

Time for the souks

Time to tackle the souks.  This is where we had a real difference of opinion.  Mark wanted to head off in one direction but I was sure it was another way.  Positive.  The only thing was, there was a wall around the medina that I did not remember.

Medina wall, Oujda

Medinas usually have walls, but if I had walked into this medina so many times, would I not have remembered a wall?  Was it put up later for appearance sake?  When we went in, we did find more covered areas than had been there before, so perhaps the souk had been “modernized” to give it more livability and a more traditional appearance.  I don’t know, and we didn’t ask anyone.  We went in.  All along we were debating if that was the real medina we used to go to, but then we saw the butcher shops.  Yes, this was it.  I was positive.  The layout of the stalls was a little changed, but they were the same.  No, Mark thought, it wasn’t right.  After we got home and Mark looked at the photos, he agreed that indeed the butcher shops were the same ones.  The lack of refrigeration hadn’t changed.

Medina meat market 1973

Medina butcher 2011

In fact, it makes you wonder if we have over-regulated the heck out of our country.  In Morocco, and many other countries I suspect, meat sits out all day.  People just cook it well-done.  Eggs are not usually refrigerated. In fact, when we lived there, we never refrigerated our eggs, and we had a refrigerator!  For some reason that currently defies logic, we kept them on top of the frig. The egg man would ring the doorbell each week, Jennifer would greet him and speak to him in Arabic; we’d bring a bowl of water to the door and put the eggs in one by one.  If they floated, they were no good and we didn’t buy them; otherwise, they were fine.  To this day I float the eggs if I’m not sure if they are still OK.  We didn’t refrigerate yogurt and neither do the French people (The French owner of Maison Do made her own yogurt and didn’t refrigerate it.).  We bought yogurt drinks all over Morocco from refrigerator cases – but if there was any operant cooling, it wasn’t detectable.  We survived.

Back to the medina.  There were the usual cases of cookies and cakes oversaturated with honey and overrun with bees.

Pastry case with bees inside

There were vegetables, fruits, dates and olives everywhere.

Oranges, Oujda medina

Olives, Oujda medina

I would guess that Moroccans consume as many fruits and vegetables per day as Americans do in a week.  It’s funny how that works – we found this to be true 40 years ago in Morocco, and we’ve found it the last 2 ½ years here since we’ve been getting local, organic fruits and vegetables from Abundant Harvest:  when produce tastes better, one eats more.  It’s really quite simple.  In America in the name of efficiency, crop yield and progress, we’ve bred the taste right out of our produce.  Little by little I think we’re understanding that and starting to buy local and organic.  In fact, if we were to put tasty produce in school lunches, it just might be consumed.

We had a great time wandering through the medina and of course showing our photos everywhere we stopped, even if it was just to ask permission to take a photo.  We went in one area where some kids were playing soccer – their goals were marked by egg cartons with rocks on top – but someone sort of official looking guy came to chase us out, telling the area was forbidden.  I think restoration was going on at a local building, maybe a medersa, and they didn’t want folks around.  It just seemed better not to inquire.

Soccer in the medina

Sunday afternoon was market/socialization day and the streets were packed with food and people.  There were vendors of everything from what you’d expect to the old “junk souks” we remember.  Want to buy a door that had been used possibly beyond the use of the wood itself?  Available.  Want a cell phone that couldn’t possibly work, but then used parts are there also?  Available.

Cell phones in the souk

How about a broken toilet seat?  Why not? Snails?

Snails in the souk

Sardines? Pottery? Baskets? Jewelry? Plastic? White ceramic dishes?

Anything? All there in abundance.

God I love souks.  Outside the walls, people were squashed together, laughing and socializing.  We were zonked and went to the hotel, which was right across the street from the medina entrance.

About our dinners – not much to say.  Unremarkable. We realized we’d had so much home cooking when we lived there that we were spoiled.

One other Oujda note: We visited Sidi Yahia Oasis when we lived there and it was so exotic!

Sidi Yahia, 1972

It was a holy pool of sorts, a natural spring thought to have fertility properties if I remember correctly.  Supplicants tied banners to trees for good blessings, and there was a big festival once a year during which there was a fantasia. (A fantasia is an event where horsemen charge as fast as possible and discharge fire-belching guns into the air when they meet.)

Fantasia 1972

John the Baptist was buried at Sidi Yahia – but then, if he was actually buried all the places he’s claimed to have been buried, he must have been chopped into little pieces.

We wanted to see the Oasis again so we just drove in the right direction trusting we’d find a sign, which we did.  We also found a demonstration and wished we could have understood what the speaker was saying.  Lots of people, no one seeming unduly upset, lots of police.  Anyway, instead of countryside between Oujda and Sidi Yahia, there was…city.  Wow.  And the spring had been turned into a lovely fenced park, which did negate some of the former charm.  Also, a cemetery nearby that I remember primarily for graves that were little more than mounds of dirt, was a full-fledged packed-to-the-gills graveyard.  So the best we could say about that venture was that we found it.

Cemetery in 1972

Cemetery, 2011

We have to go

Time to leave.  We felt oddly sad and nostalgic, as if we were leaving our home.  Both of us were taken aback at how intense that feeling was.  Yet the day ahead held adventure: we were going to drive through all the little towns that Mark worked on, and we had the original plans he did to compare to what actually had taken place since.  We would also drive through the Gorges of Zegzel and see if we could find the places where we’d had picnics with the Krims (picnics that involved a butagaz burner because a meal without mint tea at the end just wasn’t a meal, picnic or not).  It was going to be another long day, but there were no mountain ranges to drive through (the Beni Snassens, where Gorges of Zegzel are, didn’t really count as a mountain range), and it was going to be one of the most important days of the trip.