On this time Last year

This time last year I had been in my village for a month and a half. I came to this region from the wet oak forests of the Mid Atlas. Compared to that lushness, the olive and almond foothills of the High Atlas seemed desiccated and dead. It was quite a change.

I had just moved into my own house. It was empty and cold, the bare stones echoing. I didn’t have two sticks of furniture… and it was raining.

Now as I sip a cup of tea and write this from my blanket-bedecked bed, my heater humming in the corner I think of how differently I see things. It is impressive how time changes perspective; how I could never see my valley the way I saw it back then.

Having lived here for over a year, I know that, despite the fierce sun, this place will be lush in it’s own time as the almond trees bloom and the wheat gets green and tall. While my house is still cold and echoes, it now has a working kitchen, plastic rugs that I picked out on every floor, and most importantly, a bedroom that I call my own.

So as time changes perspective changes. I have 300 days left of service. I wonder what new perspectives wait among them.