Recently, I had to change my password at work. This is a painful process, because for the next several weeks I go through the states of password grief. First, there is denial: where my fingers and brain forget I have a new password until I have entered the old one and failed. Next is anger where I've still forgotten to use the new one and it ticks me off that I have to. Then instead of bargaining, I now move into waffling. I start to enter the old password and somewhere in the middle I stop, hit backspace a bunch of times and put in the new password. In place of depression we have inconsistency where I think I have it and for several days I do use the correct password but I really have to think about it when I reach the password screen. Then comes a day where I forget to think and use the old one. Not a linear process.
Finally we have acceptance where I intuitively use the correct new password. Two days ago I was in the waffling stage. I think I am the inconsistency phase now, but time will tell.
The password change doesn't happen often but there is another similar process that I go through more frequently. That is the change of thank you process.
We were in Albania for months and I got very used to saying falemenderit. When we then reached Italy, I kept saying falemenderit and had to correct myself to grazie. We were in Bosnia, Montenegro, and Serbia long enough that I got very used to saying hvala. This continued during our single day in Spain where I said a lot more hvala than gracias. And now I am in Morocco and trying to acclimate to saying shokhran.
Of course all the words change, but I say thank you the most often.
Speaking of changes, another changing element is time. Here, technology is a huge help. I entered the times that my classes for this semester were going to meet into Google calendar. I entered them in Eastern Time and it then shows them in the time zone I am in. But it also adjusts for all time changes. This semester, if we remain in Morocco there are three changes. The middle one is when the United States goes to daylight savings time. But what were the other two?
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| Mickey Mouse, wearing a Moroccan Flag cloak, and stalking me |
Morocco uses permanent daylight savings. But there is one exception. For Ramadan, they shift back to standard time. During Ramadan, Muslims fast while the sun is out. By shifting back to standard time for that month, it means that they break their fast with an evening meal earlier (on the clock. The sun doesn't care what we call the time.)
This year, Ramadan almost perfectly corresponds to March. So, on the last Sunday of February, the clocks will jump back. Then, on the first Sunday in April, they will jump forward again.
Guess what else. I changed my hair! That is to say I got a haircut here in Marrakech. My barber spoke some Arabic and French and, as I was to learn, Spanish. I only discovered that when another customer came in. Turns out, the new customer was from Barcelona. My barber felt compelled to tell him (the customer) that he (the barber) is a fan of Real Madrid. At one point in the haircut, before the man from Barcelona arrived, a woman said something excitedly in Arabic to my barber and they both ran out of the shop. I was the only one still inside. I suspected this was not the usual practice. When my barber returned he explained there had been a fist fight outside in the street. I'm not sure if my barber broke it up or just wanted to get the best view.
I decided to try an experiment at the barber shop. Everyone likes to ask where I am from. And everyone has an opinion about America, Americans, and American politics. I have little desire to discuss said topics in broken French. First, the barber guessed I was French but no. Then he guessed Australian. I guess I could have said yes to that. But instead I said I was Albanian. Why? My reasoning runs thus: nobody outside of the Balkan region seems to know anything about Albania. It is very unlikely the barber would know Shqip (their language) or anything about their politics. And I was right.
I told him Albania and he was trying to figure out where that was. He thought it was near Slovakia or Czechia. I told him it borders Greece. But at least he was in the right part of the world.
Yes, it was a lie, (though that is the last place in the world I lived for more than a month,) but a lie with no harm done and a bit of peace for me.
One more big change. We have two additional companions this week. Alrica's cousin, Ryan, and Ryan's wife, Michelle, are adventuring with us.
In fact, as I write this, we are riding through the Atlas Mountains. We are on a three day two night tour that goes into the Sahara Desert. When it ends we will be in Fes. I'm sure I will have more to report about the tour when we reach Fes. You know, unless my password changes or something.
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