Listening

Someone painted clouds on the sky today.

I recently arrived at my final site, and there are gratefully few Americans here. I love my countrymen (and women) deeply, but I can’t help but feel pessimism radiating off them like the desert heat. More on that later. This morning, I left the house to get a lay of the new land, I set out on my host fathers’ bicycle (wearing an EU approved helmet of course) to get a sense of the city and its people. My new home has at least 3 main roads, the third of which I believe upgrades us from town status to small city. However, it’s surprisingly quite easy to make mistakes when you can’t speak to anyone beyond a few phrases here and there.

My first mistake was when I decided to venture down the side road to get a look at the second (!!) health clinic I saw. Upon turning back towards the main road, two teenage girls on a motorcycle decided that they really wanted to get an up-close look at the foreign man on the bicycle. Thankfully we were all unharmed, but since my front wheel had turned into a pretzel I had to trek to the nearest mechanics shop and get the tire fixed before heading back home. Gratefully, they were pleasant about the crash (in America hitting foreigners on bikes is considered good sport) and I was able to get my ride fixed for a reasonable price (though the mechanics did have a few giggles over charging me double) to ride it back home within the hour.

After all that commotion, I realized that I have been spending more time than ever listening. Obviously, living abroad and learning a language, there has been lots to listen to recently, but beyond my context I am starting to think about listening differently. Active listening is difficult, especially when you don’t speak the language. During the 2016 election I started listening with the intention to better understand the internet memes I was seeing, and as a side effect I realized I really wasn’t understanding some of my course material (oops). Something similar happens here, when I have to listen actively to glean even the most basic understanding, I realize that I end up communicating much more by what I don’t say than what I do.

When I was back in training for the last time, before the swearing in ceremony, and the crash courses (hah), and the counterpart meeting (both of whom I am very much looking forward to working with!) I kept finding pessimism wherever I turned, though rarely in spoken words. Part of this is normal for politics, but beyond the usual partisan ruffling there was a deep and concerning trend of limitation, slumped shoulders, annoyed tones, indirect criticism….

What?? We’re on the other side of the second largest ocean in the world. Every volunteer that has done this before is laser focused and committed. Our counterparts are credibly competent compared to nearly any other nation on the continent, and there’s real a real willingness to improve lives here.

Plenty of good changes are possible here. Some of it will be from west of Morocco, some of it will come from the east, and most of it will come from within Morocco. I am sure it will be the same in the states. Still, I understand the pessimism in the change, the uncertainty, the distance, the climate. A few drops of rain fell on the orange sands outside, not even a tenth of an inch, but we still considered it a good sign.

Here, only God paints the clouds on the sky.