Under the Milky Way

Excited. Nervous. Unsure. Oddly relaxed. These were the main emotions I was feeling as I rode the shared taxi to my next destination—a rural Berber village in the High Atlas Mountains about 60 km south of Marrkech, a major hub for tourists. I was past ready to leave the tourist trail of cities, souks, and snake charmers and veer off into the local, village life that I have become so accustomed to in Malawi. Visible ahead of the car were layers of blue, hazy mountains with snow-capped ones peeking out from behind them. I felt like I was in the Himalayas, not in southern Morocco. As we approached the village of Marigha, which means “salt” in Berber and where I would be staying for the next week or so, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The road was twisty and full of turns like it’d been designed to make carsick people throw up, but the view was incredible. Being back in the mountains, I could feel my heart swell with happiness. There’s just something about those layers of mysteriousnes...

One week in Morocco has passed already! I have learned so much about Moroccan history and culture, but I still have a lot more to go. I’ve been in three different places since arriving- Casablanca, Essaouira, and Taghazout. Each place has been drastically different from the other despite all of them being on the coast. Across these 3 places and 7 days, I’ve seen a lot of beautiful sights, eaten a lot of delicious food, and met a lot of cool people. In Casablanca, I wandered around the big city with my couchsurfing host. The city was a bit (actually A LOT) overwhelming and intimidating for me, but my host, Khadija, helped me out a lot. Not only did she insist on cooking almost every meal for me, but she took me to a museum (where she translated EVERYTHING into English for me because they only had descriptions in French and Arabic), to historical souks and monuments, and to the major streets in the city to view architecture and other random things. The major takeaways for me w...

When I’m traveling around a lot, I find it really difficult to find time (and focus) to sit down and write. I journal in my little travel journal, but pulling out my laptop and everything seems a bit too much at times. Anyway, in the past two weeks, I’ve been in three countries—Namibia, South Africa, and Morocco (and Qatar for a quick layover but that doesn’t really count)! So things have been hectic as you can assume. But at last I’m in Morocco…after years and years of dreaming. People have been asking why I’ve always wanted to come here, and I tell them the same story. When my grandfather was in World War II (painting signs as a commercial artist), he was stationed in Casablanca for a time. When he returned stateside, he painted a bunch of photos of the buildings and environment from this area. Growing up, I saw these paintings around our house every day. Then when I got really into photography –and traveling—in college, I dreamed of visiting this photographer’s heaven; the...

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage” I found this fortune cookie fortune (that must have escaped from the collection of inspiring ones I keep in my wallet) on the floor as I was packing up my bags this afternoon and mentally preparing to leave Luderitz tomorrow morning. This decision, like many of the decisions during my time in Africa, came very last minute. And this fortune that I’d found absentmindedly while I gathered my belongings seemed oh so relevant for this exact moment. This morning I woke up thinking I would prepare to travel up to Maltahohe, a rural decaying town that we’d visited last month, to train a group of women on crocheting with plastic bags this coming week. Then, a few trips to the bank and dramatic realizations of a lack of money on the part of the guy I work for/with ruled this trip out of the question. Although I had done some private fundraising for the trip, he couldn’t afford the risk of missing out on business here in town to t...