Engaging With Those Of Differing Opinions: What’s Possible? What’s Effective?

I am filling my retirement with the intent to serve civic good. Engaging, in various venues and manners, in group decision-making.

Whenever you get a bunch of folks together, of course, to make decisions, to take actions, there will be differences of views. Different notions, opinions, perspectives.

How can one engage calmly and effectively with people with whom you are highly likely to disagree? 

At my best, I’m pretty good it.  A big key is helping lower others’ defensiveness by asking questions and listening intently.  Stating one’s own views is risky, even when asked.

At my worst, I’m annoying and overly contentious. Needing to prove my own points. Quickly rebutting others’ arguments.

But either way, I seem to be drawn toward exploring human conflict.   And in the last 72 hours… have I ever been running headfirst into that!

Specifics? You want specifics? Ok, here are some scenes from a life of contention. Views on parade.

The Israel-Gaza War

I’m poised to take on the position of president of Temple Beth Hatfiloh (TBH) in July.  So, folks are already coming to me asking questions, expressing opinions and requesting actions.

On Tuesday, a fellow temple board member called to say she wanted to talk. She told me about seeing war protesters at The Evergreen State College (TESC – my alma mater) occupy Red Square – that’s the name of the main campus plaza. She had read their posted demands that included banning academic programs in and about Israel and Zionism and divestment of institutional funds that involve Israel.  The former being a direct assault on academic freedom, the latter part of an international movement to isolate and condemn the state of Israel’s very existence, much like the anti-Apartheid movement applied to South Africa. She was upset about what she saw at TESC and other recent personal experiences that felt like careening antisemitism.

After our call, I decided to go over to Red Square to get a sense of the dynamic. I called a friend who lived near campus to join me. 

When we arrived, we saw a gathering of about 25 students. A boom box was blaring what I presumed to be Palestinian-Arab music, but otherwise the scene was peaceful and even serene. A handful of tents had been erected, and people were playing ball games and milling about.

As we approached the center of Red Square, a young woman in a red blouse came to us and asked if we had any questions.  She was calm and offered to explain what was going on.  This is what we heard from her:

1. The administration and protesters were negotiating terms for their withdrawal from Red Square.
2. She had heard that they had come close to an agreement which would include: 
   1. Removal of all TESC investment from “Occupied Palestine.”
   1. The university’s call for a cease fire in Gaza, a freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and the right of return for all Palestinians to their homes.
   1. Elimination of all academic programs in “Occupied Palestine.” No sabbaticals or student visits to the country. 
   1. Elimination of all programs that teach Zionism (e.g., what Professor Nancy Koppelman is teaching in her Many Israels class.)

I also ended up talking with another young man wearing a keffiyeh who was the one using his boom box.  He presented as soft-spoken and sincere.  In addition to what we heard from the previously referenced young woman, he said that it was his hope that all Israeli Jews with dual nationalities would leave Palestine.  He wasn’t clear what should happen to the other 7 million Jews. He said he hadn’t thought that question through. Then he asked us, in a hushed, almost insecure way, whether we were supporters of his effort.  I assured him that we wanted the violence to stop.

We parted his company. Never directly confronting his opinions or the protesters demands.

But that’s not the end of the story of Jewish-centered conflict.  For later that evening at the temple, a celebration of the end of Passover  – the Jewish Moroccan-based holiday of Mimouna – was set to commence. Jean and I had already decided to attend the event, but my concern for the safety of Jewish gatherings was elevated by world events.

While TESC’s scene was calm enough, violence had been breaking out that day at multiple college campuses around the country, topically centered on the war in Gaza. School buildings were occupied and clashes between Pro-Palestinian and Pro-Israel advocates were accelerating.

When we arrived at TBH, I told Jean that I wanted to stand by the newly built exterior gate and function as a greeter. I had misremembered that the temporary new protocol was to leave that gate open and to have the greeter function be at the main door. Our Rabbi Seth, who was providing the greeter function at the door, saw me at the gate and asked me what I was doing. We immediately got into a mini-confrontation about protocol, and whether the exigent circumstances did or did not call for heightened precautions. I backed down, but there was real tension there between us.

Later we talked it out and acknowledged that recent political events were increasing both our reactiveness.

The Mimouna event went off without a hitch. It was lovely and fun.

I did speak with Nancy Koppelman who was there. She showed me a set of pictures and narratives which were disturbing.  They were documents promulgated by the TESC protesters and included misleading and highly provocative language which was threatening to her and to anyone in opposition to their point of view. I offered support to Nancy who affirmed that she was not backing down from her academic freedom rights and responsibilities and would go on with her course. She said she had the administration’s backing. (Do check out her course in the above link.)

As it happened, I had spoken a day before with a past-president of TBH who suggested that Evan Ferber – the retired head of the local Dispute Resolution Center – would be a good person to lead a discussion of TBH member feelings about the events in the Middle East and their impact on our Jewish lives in Olympia.  I saw Evan at the Mimouna celebration and we sat down to talk.  I suggested that he lead a discussion and he replied that he and his daughter Eliana (a close friend of my son Zac) had just suggested such an event to Rabbi Seth a few days before.  I’m now hopeful that that will happen.  A gentle and productive way of expressing one’s feelings during a time of great conflict.

Port of Olympia Land Use Impacts on Downtown Olympia

I sit on the Board of the Olympia Downtown Alliance, where I represent TBH. ODA is a “Main Street” program which advocates for and provides services to downtown Olympia businesses, non-profits, and residents. I have been chairing the Vibrancy Committee, which, among other things, oversees our downtown guides, graffiti abatement, and maintenance service programs.

At yesterday’s board meeting, ODA was asked to weigh in on land use plans for the Port of Olympia property, which lies directly to the north of the ODA jurisdiction. As a former contract planner for the Port 35 plus years ago, I am aware of many of the complexities of Port land use decisions.

My input into the ODA Board discussion was to be cautious of staking too strong a stance ahead of what is now looking like some seismic changes in the internal politics and positions of the Port.  The conversation around the table was thoughtful and productive. I have been so impressed by the maturity and intelligence of ODA leadership, and for me, it has been fun to be back involved in city planning issues… something I left behind for the most part, when I joined State Parks.

Traffic Court

In March, I received a letter from Seattle Municipal Court, stating that I was given a traffic ticket for speeding in a school zone.  The notice said I had the right to appeal and provided me photos and even a video of my alleged infraction.

In looking at the video it was clear: the school zone flashing light started less than a second before I passed it on the road.  There was no practical means for me to even see it, never mind quickly putting my foot on the brake pedal to comply. I decided to contest the $236 ticket and the pre-hearing conference with a judge was set for yesterday.

The pre-hearing was held online and it was complicated to sign up for the visual connection.  But I finally did figure it out and eventually the judge and I were face-to-face on computer screens. Then, hilarity ensued.

The judge had extended difficulty bringing up my case on her screen.  She complained mightily about how the new system was much more complex than the old one. Eventually, she was able to bring up not only my case, but the video that showed my practical innocence.  Before dismissing my charges, we got into a lengthy discussion about the problems with the police review of electronically triggered violations which has escalated since Covid; about her life growing up in southern Illinois; about my grandson’s name – especially the Antolept part; and about her property tax burden in Seattle which annually approximated the cost of her initial home purchase. She would gladly retire, but the taxes were killing her. We laughed a lot. Dare I say, even flirted.

I sadly informed her that I needed to move on with the day.

Parks and Rec

I sit on the city of Olympia Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee (PRAC) and I Chair a separate Olympia Metropolitan Park District Advisory Committee (OMPD AC). The latter committee meets twice yearly and has a simple task: confirm that the tax allocations of the Park District have been budgeted properly to the city’s parks department. That’s it. A compliance observation function.

But I – and apparently only I – want the OMPD AC to also analyze the relationship between the budgeted funds allotted to Parks and the actual funds that should have gone to Parks if the revenue forecasts were accurate.  Follow that?  Doesn’t matter. Suffice to say, it somehow matters to me, and I received push back from staff and even push back from one other advisory committee member.

This request for additional information – which in my mind is a trust-building exercise and the core purpose of having the oddly established OMPD in the first place (again, too much detail to explain here) – is only one of the problems I’m seeing/causing with my city parks advisory committee responsibilities.  Tomorrow, I have a meeting with the Mayor and a councilwoman to go over a set of suggested changes to PRAC and OMPD AC procedures and department processes. I am (mostly) allied with a set of parks citizen advocates on this initiation.  I’m not at all clear that I have any agreement with the Chair of PRAC who has been absent for much of her tenure and has not responded to my repeated efforts to coordinate the upcoming meeting tomorrow that she too is scheduled to attend.

Did I somehow offend the PRAC Chair? Are my suggestions nutso?  Who knows?  What is clear is that when the objective of interaction with someone who is likely to disagree with you is to understand the other’s ideas and positions, that’s the easy part.  Having anyone listen to your ideas and hopes… much harder.

City of Olympia Security Guard

When one walks into City Hall for an evening PRAC or OMPD AC meeting, there is a security guard who lets you through the door.  Last night I decided to strike up a conversation. An older, heavy-set man in uniform, I asked him whether he was responsible for sitting there only when advisory committees were meeting at night, or every evening.  He said it was the latter.

He then got into a soliloquy about the nature and effectiveness of civic protesting. Not surprisingly, he was no fan of that kind of political action. A fair summary of his basic analysis was that the protesters were stupid, spoiled and counter effective.  I nodded compassionately and excused myself to go to the meeting.

Thai Restauranteur

After OMPD AC, I walked over to meet Jean at the Olympia Center where she was finishing her French class. As the students were departing, they saw me waiting outside and mentioned how wonderful Jean was as a teacher.  I concurred.   Then I took Jean out for a Thai dinner down the block.

The waiter, it turned out, was also the restaurant owner.  He had just purchased the restaurant in the last month and was in the process of upgrading its offerings.  He was a Vietnamese refugee who came to this country when he was ten. His early years in Vietnam were ones of great privation. Poverty, even difficulty in finding food, and a separated family (his mother came to the US first and then brought her children here years later) became drivers for him to succeed in his new country.

He has since gone back to Vietnam twice, witnessed extraordinary economic growth and prosperity there, was critical of over-regulation of business in the US, and was working from 6 in the morning to 10:30 at night every day to make it.  I suggested that some regulation was helpful but didn’t really challenge his basic thesis.

Oh yes, and the meal was beautifully presented and quite delicious. You learn a lot by just listening.

Becoming Saba

It was late summer or early autumn 2023, Zac called and asked if Jean was around.  I replied that she was downstairs on the computer, and he asked to talk with both of us.  I walked down with the phone, put it on speaker mode, and we heard both Zac and now Vicky on the other line. 

“Vicky’s pregnant,” Zac says with enthusiastic joy. We could hear Vicky laughing in the background.

I can’t remember exactly what happened next, but I think both of them said together, “We’re going to have a boy.”

It’s now six months later, and tomorrow morning Jean and I will fly down to Berkeley and meet our grandson for the first time. I’ve been doing a lot of welling up lately just thinking of this child, and the kvelling is ceaseless.

 Alden Antolept Sung Farber is three weeks old today.  His Hebrew name is Shai (‘ש) which means gift.  His Korean name is Sol (솔) which means a pine tree.

What’s in a name? Zac the journalist, and Vicky the museum curator, take words seriously.  Take identity seriously.  And any newborn baby, every newborn baby, arrives on the planet with a mixture of deep and varied heritages. So, Z and V thought a lot about what to name their child.

As I understand it, they just liked the sound of the name Alden.  But in addition, perhaps Zac’s closest childhood friend was named Alden. And while obscure and unintended, add the letter “i” and rearrange the letters and you have Daniel! (What?  Too far a leap you think?)

Zac’s grandmother, my mother, was born with the name Rivka Antolept. The first time I met Vicky was in New York City where my family was holding a worldwide Antolept reunion.  She thought the name was beautiful.  So, that part of the heritage was included.

Sung is Vicky’s last name and that of her parents. Farber is Zac’s last name. There were discussions about which would come first.  The notion of a hyphen was jettisoned early. They settled on Alden as Mr. Sung Farber.

Shai was chosen as a respectful remembrance of Zac’s grandma from his mother’s side. Shirley Putzer died just a few months ago at the age of 100, but before she left, she knew about the pregnancy.  Ah the power of identity! What Shirley wanted to know was whether the baby boy would have a ritual circumcision (known in Yiddish as a Bris or in Hebrew a Brit Milah).  Sure enough, I was honored by Z and V to be asked to officiate a pre-medical procedure Jewish Bris ceremony.

솔 (Sol), was chosen by his grandmother Olivia for the pine tree that grows green and straight like an honest scholar.

But there are more questions about naming than that of the newborn.  What of his relation to his parents? What of his relation to his grandparents? At his birth, Alden has five grandparents. Vicky’s parents, Yon and Olivia, have decided to go by the names Baba (grandpa) and Nana (grandma). Zac’s mom Karen has chosen the name Grandma. 

Growing up, I just knew two grandparents and I called them Grandpa and Grandma.  But as I explored options for myself, I learned that the common name in Israel for grandpa is Saba and for grandma Savta. Those are actually not Hebrew but the biblical-era language Aramaic. I loved the relationship between Yon being Baba and me being Saba.  So, I’m going with Saba!  Jean isn’t as fond of the alliteration of Savta but may go with that for consistency’s sake.  With her French language background, grand-mère is a possibility. We’ll see.

And we’ll soon see, indeed, our Alden tomorrow.  Here are some pictures to start the oohing and aahing.   I can’t wait to hold and snuggle him.

Political Science is not a science! – A Remembrance of Hy Resnick

I was sorting through my computer files, deleting duplicates, trying to
up its organization just a wee bit, when I chanced upon a eulogy that I
delivered at the funeral/memorial for Herman “Hy” Resnick. Hy was a
professor colleague of my father’s at the University of Washington School of
Social Work. He later became a true friend of mine, including even in his older
years, a ping pong buddy.

Below is that eulogy:

“Political Science is not a science!”  Thus spoke Herman (Hy) Resnick three weeks ago at our Post-Thanksgiving gathering along the Washington Coast at the Tokeland Hotel.   We were clustered around the hearth fire, in couches and chairs. Jennifer was wrapped under Hy’s arm.  Mary, Elizabeth and Phil were right there too, as were my sister’s family and my son. The fire felt warm and inviting.  We were talking and talking some more into the night.  And Hy, playing the role of intellectual provocateur, a role that was not foreign to him, was in his element.

I first met Hy and his family as a pre-teen.  He joined the small faculty at the UW School of Social where my dad, Arthur Farber, had been teaching for less than 5 years.  The faculty in those days seemed like an intimate club.  The families would visit each other’s homes.  The kids would connect with other kids, but even more, the professors would interact with us kids in respectful and fun ways.  And the names of faculty colleagues – Rino Patty; Moya Duplica; Cal Takagi; Hy Resnick – would playfully dance in my head even as the dinnertime conversations turned to the serious issues facing the school and the world.

What I grew to learn, was a keen sense that there was a hierarchy of professional and personal connections in that club.  And that hierarchy including Henry Maier, Ben Jaffe, Hy Resnick and Arthur Farber.  In personal connections, Hy and Mary and the kids spent time in our home and we in theirs.  Hy and I and Dad shared the joy and thrill of table tennis.  In professional connections, Dad and Hy became co-principal investigators in the Wallingford Wellness Project.  An intergenerational community health model that Dad had explored in his sabbatical year.  But frankly, Dad wasn’t the best at research, writing or organizational development – he needed Hy for all that.  And Hy was generous in his support to get the project off the ground.

There was something else that Henry, Hy and Dad had in common – they loved teaching. They cared about the teaching art and put effort and skill behind its practice.  Several friends of mine had Hy as a professor.  The picture you get from listening to a number of his former students is of a professor who was emotionally engaging… even demanding.  Many students came to simply adore Hy. Others he pissed off greatly.  Yet, he had a large cadre of devotees.  One friend of mine, upon hearing of Hy’s passing said “thirty years later and I still quote him more than anyone else I’ve met.”

So what made Hy so gifted as a teacher?  And so memorable as a mentor and friend?

Let’s start with his own words. Listen to the titles of some of his articles:

Managing change: An administrator’s View

Strategies of Change from the Top

Leaving Paper Trails and Other Survival Tactics

Manager As Change Agent

Influencing Upward

What Organizational Development Can Do For Social Work

Leadership and Change in Child Welfare Organizations

This guy wanted to change the world!  And his specialty was in change within organizations – organizations where people spend the majority of their waking hours.  That’s important stuff.  And what made Hy particularly important and effective, is that he approached the organizational work with strong insights… no, strong gut knowledge about the psychology of people. Hy grounded his deep caring for people and the capacity to see positive change, in his own modest beginnings as a butcher’s son, the youngest of five children, growing up in a household where, as Mary has written, “As long as there was a home in which to live, food on the table and clothes on their body, kids were seen as cared for. Hy was left alone to find his own way.“

He was fortunate to live within the city of New York, with its dedication to providing all a free college education. At Brooklyn College he found terrific educators who helped inspire him to achieve a Bachelor’s in psychology.  He started out immediately thereafter with an interest in psychopathology and play therapy. (Ah… THAT’s why Hy and Henry hit it off so well!).  This merged with a growing interest in the new social work field of “group work” where he pursued first a masters and later a PhD in the field of organizational theory and development.

Back to teaching.  All the theory in the world does not a great teacher make.  Hy had such a profound effect on so many students because they knew he really cared for them and would go the extra mile.  His 2- and 3-day retreats at the Bear Creek workshop center he and Mary created out of their home became for decades a great opportunity for learning and growth.

So yes, Hy was an intellectual provocateur.  (How many political scientists would agree with his assessment of their profession?)  But he was also an extraordinarily good listener, a wise and witty sage and a dear and dedicated friend.

Last week I received, upon Hy’s request, the 2015 UW School of Social Work Annual report called “Igniting Social Change.”  We had been talking at Thanksgiving about how to deal with the problem of a leadership that was more interested in self-protection and aggrandizement than in the mission of the organizations they purported to lead.  I wanted strongly to talk with Hy and get his insight on this question.  We had a good conversation about it and he suggested I read the brochure.

My conclusion: If there really is a heaven where leadership is getting too big for its britches and needs to be knocked down a peg or two, now that Hy Resnick is around, they would be advised to watch their step.

More Mexican Narratives and Photos

January 6 now has very different meanings on each side of the Mexican-United States border. In Mexico it is Dia de Los Reyes – Three Kings Day in English – known in much of Christendom as Epiphany.  It commemorates when three wise men were said to give gifts to Jesus and it kind of closes out the Christmas season.  In the US, January 6 is now seen as a different kind of epiphanic date, when there was a storming of the Capitol in Washington DC to try and overturn an American presidential election.

Juani and I flew into Mexico City on January 6, and made our way via “Executivo” bus to Cuernavaca, the “City of Eternal Spring.”  We got picked up at the bus station by Harriet Guerrero, one of the three founders and still leaders of the Cemanahuac Educational Community – a language academy that was celebrating its 50th anniversary on… yep… you guessed it… January 6.

Dia de Los Reyes in Cuernavaca’s zocalo.

Cuernavaca has played an extraordinarily pivotal role in the history of Spanish immersion language studies.  Ivan Illich (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich), a Catholic priest, theologian, philosopher, writer, uber-polyclot, and social critic, started a language acquisition program in the city in 1961 and at its peak Cuernavaca contained over 30 different Spanish language immersion schools. But now… it was way beyond its peak.  Perhaps five programs remain.

The reasons for this drop off in local language programs is likely multifold. Certainly, the accessibility and cost of online study provides that medium with financial advantages.  And in Cuernavaca in particular, there have been quite infamous and staggering examples of violent crime; crime that has swept much of Mexico but with a prominence and viciousness that has resulted in the town being labeled in 2015 as “the most dangerous city in Mexico.” https://insightcrime.org/news/brief/cuernavaca-now-mexico-most-dangerous-city/.  Incidences of violent crime, including crimes against political figures, have continued. Jean and I saw an “ofrenda,” a pictural memorial to the dead, along the pathway to the cathedral and wondered about the timing of the incidents.

But on the day-to-day experiences we had for our week in Cuernavaca, we didn’t “feel” it to be riskier than our last visit 21 years ago. The zocalo was lively, filled with children playing and seniors lounging. The famous 500-year-old Palacio de Cortes was recently restored from 2017’s major earthquake damage, and it contained beautifully displayed exhibitory in addition to the celebrated murals of the history of Mexico by Diego Rivera.

Palacio de Cortes, adorned, for some nutso reason, with a 19th or early 20th Century clock tower.

A small portion of Rivera’s mural at the Palacio de Cortes.

And the main public mercado (market) was its usual cramped and glorious cacophony of smells and sights and sounds.

The sign says “for the grace of God.” The mercado is filled with grace.

The sign says “WE HAVE TONGUE!”(OK… I added the exclamation point.)

Who eats all this bounty?

At Cuernavaca’s zocalo.

Street scene adjacent to the zocalo. Sure… why not take the City Tour? So we did. All guidance in Spanish.

Juani getting her bearings at the zocalo.

Greenery and lots of benches at the zocalo.

Used book sale weekends on the street.

We visited the local 500-year-old cathedral.

Whereas last time we stayed overnight with local families, speaking Spanish and sharing meals, this time the school provided us with a one-bedroom apartment immediately across the street from Cemanahuac. It was convenient, comfortable and affordable. We could shop for food at a local supermarket a ¼ mile away. A pharmacy, a pastry shop, corner panaderia (bakery), and restaurants were all even closer.  Once, we stooped so low as to go to the local KFC for chicken – in the same location as it was 21 years prior.

OK…. the KFC in Cuernavaca is a “poco diferente” than the ones in the US.

Plenty to buy at Sanborn’s, the local fancy department store.

But we settled for a meal in Sanborn’s garden restaurant.

Showing up the second week in January was clearly not peak season for the school. After language level testing the first day, Juani went 1-on-1 with Estella, a highly skilled teacher, for her five days of instruction.  On my first day, I was with another gentleman student who was far beneath me in Spanish ability. I had no problem with him being in my class, but he did, so we split starting the second day and I too when 1-on-1 with my wonderful teacher, Lilia.

For me, there was little pressure in the classes.  My learning consisted solely of efforts to remember at least some of what I previously had known.  And my objective was just to spend time speaking Spanish.  After close to four hours of pretty intense Spanish-only conversation, with a bit of grammar on the white board thrown in, I was exhausted each day. But I really loved it.  Juani had agreed to let me speak a bit of Spanish with her as well, so unlike my previous 2019 effort to learn Hebrew in Israel, I felt real success and my Spanish definitely returned.

Remembering my verb tenses… white board work with Lilia.

Juani too said that it was a productive learning experience for her.  Back home in Olympia, she is in a Spanish language group that reads Spanish books and talks about them. She is also teaching beginning Spanish at the Olympia Community Center.  So, the Cuernavaca experience was all reinforcing.

One of Juani’s priorities was to return to the restaurant Las Mañanitas for a fancy meal, outside amongst the peacocks and lush garden.  The restaurant (https://lasmananitas.com.mx/) is a Cuernavaca classic, named after the song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e6hNQPz4BA) Mexicans sing on someone’s birthday. It means, “The Little Tomorrows.”

Las Mananitas garden with peacocks prepared to unfurl.

Parrots and an unfurled peacock while we wait for our table at Las Mananitas.

Juani is happy to wait.

And the meal is served.

But for all the urban delights of Cuernavaca, the highlight of our time in Mexico was the chance to reconnect with our extraordinary teacher, Chepis, in the little town of Buenavista de Cuellar.  Back when we first met her, Cemanahuac had what it called a Rural Studies Program in this village in the mountains of the state of Guerrero.  In addition to language acquisition, we engaged in ancillary cultural programs, including salsa dancing, food preparation, folk music, herbal remedies, and making huaraches (leather sandals). Our time in Buenavista, which would include returns at different times with Zac and Adam, would be the finest experiences of all the various times we would engage in language learning and Chepis our closest emotional connection.

After our week in Cuernavaca, we took the bus out to Buenavista.  Chepis and her younger daughter Yaretsi (whom we talked about in the previous blog entry) greeted us at the bus station and we spent a few hours settling into our guest stay home with Yolanda, touring the town with Chepis and Yaretsi and sharing a meal. We were thrilled that Chepis remembered us after such a long time.

Buenavista street scene, with Juani, Chepis and Yaretsi.

Yaretsi, Yolanda, Juani y Chepis at Yolanda’s beautiful home.

Yolanda’s garden.

In Buenavista’s mercado. We had a delicious fruit drink from the business on the left.

Juani, Chepis y Daniel en frente la escuela en Buenavista. Pero ahora… esta cerrado. In front of the old Cemanahuac school in Buenavista, but now it’s closed.

Leaving Buenavista, the sign tells us to “return soon.”

We only stayed one night in Buenavista.  The next morning, we took the bus back to Cuernavaca, then on to the Mexico City airport where the plan was to stay one night at an airport hotel. While we had tickets for the flight out the next day, we didn’t have seats… and after a long and frustrating wait, they didn’t allow us on the plane.  So AeroMéxico gave us a free night in another hotel, covered our meals, gave us vouchers for another trip to Mexico, and we eventually made it back home, a day after we had planned. Quite tired, but really happy to have had such a lovely return to a special place in our lives.

Our Romanic Mexican Connection

Across El Zocalo, Buenavista de Cuellar, Mexico

I started writing this blog entry from a concrete bench at the edge of Buenavista’s zocalo. Jean was next to me, reading “El Invierno Que Tomamos Cartas En El Asunto,[1]” a book for her Olympia-based Spanish language group. Behind us was the town’s main church, still in need of some repair from the earthquake that hit the area seven years earlier.

Crossing in front of us was an exuberantly cheerful pre-teen girl in fine Sunday dress, skipping merrily, enhanced by the sounds of church bells gonging at the odd hour of 5:55pm. To our left were teeny bopper novios spooning, talking amicably, and kissing tenderly. Across the tree- and bush-filled plaza were two old men sharing the day.  And… ah it turned 6:00pm and the gonging returned.

Looking across to the far end street front, a business’s sign read “Magic Park.” And without a choice in the matter, a smile formed as I held back tears of joyful remembrance and gratitude.

Almost 23 years after first arriving in this small mountain town to study Spanish, and about 21 years since Jean and I were last here with Zac in tow, it did indeed feel like magic to be sitting there on a warm, almost hot, late January afternoon. And it felt oh so sweet. And a splendid kind of wholeness.

For Jean and I had just spent half the day with our favorite former Spanish language teacher Chepis and her 15-year-old daughter Yaretsi.  We stopped by her other daughter’s place of business, to briefly greet with a hug, Marta, whom we had last seen during a day at a local swimming pool when she was two or three years old. Big smiles all around in the Oxxo; the corporate abarrote (corner grocer store type place) where Marta was working.

The Spanish adjective for experiences such as this two-decade plus renewal of acquaintances is “preciosa.” The English cognate just doesn’t cut it.

A subsequent blog entry will describe our  recently completed 10 days in Mexico; the museums, beautiful and flavorful food, personal connections, and learning experiences in language school. But this entry provides a background on the origins and significance of this trip. And to do that, we need to move the calendar back some 24 years to an extraordinarily consequential 18 months in my life.

In the winter of 2000, I was a single father, holding a stimulating and challenging parks planning position with Washington State Parks, living in a pre-war 2-bedroom house in a pleasant Olympia neighborhood, and yet very much seeking major life changes. I had just helped transition my Alzheimer’s impaired mother into a nursing home. I had no female companionship, no significant other. The house seemed too small to invite another to share my life, and the job felt a bit dead-endish. I was lonely, and in particular regarding my mother, experiencing a deep sadness and sense of time’s limitations.

I began exploring the idea of building an addition to the house for a ping pong rec room and a second bathroom. Literally creating more space for fun and other people. I sought out companionship with personal ads. I even tentatively began looking for alternative state jobs.

A friend of mine, who was knowledgeable about real estate, suggested that for the same or less money constructing an addition, I could sell my home and buy another bigger one. No construction necessary. She pointed me to a large Westside Olympia home with space for a ping pong room, a view of Mt. Rainier, and a downstairs apartment with a separate entrance.  Within two months I bought that house, sold the old one, and was setting up a lovely home with room for a real family.

And then I lost my emotional bearing. In June, two months after I moved in, 12-year-old Zac decided that he would no longer participate in the residential placement schedule of my divorce decree with my ex-wife. He wanted no more of the two-home weekly back and forth. In retrospect, it was a fully understandable preference on his part.  Neither his mom nor I decided to enforce the decree. But very soon after I had bought this bigger house, I was alone.

In the summer of 2000, I applied for and was hired into a new job in a new state agency.  It was a career step up into management at the Department of Natural Resources.  And just a couple days before I was ready to stop the personal ad search effort, Jean reached out to me online. Turned out that both of us wanted to learn Spanish.

Our romance took off almost immediately. We certainly shared the link toward Spanish, but of great importance was that Jean was not only bringing herself to a relationship, she was bringing the potential for a real family, with Alex and Adam not just weekend and vacation sons, but children with whom I could help raise full time.

Two more steps need explanation to move us up decades to Buenavista’s zocalo significance.

By January 2001, Jean and I were clearly a couple on the way to commitment.  But between the demands of work, the emotional challenges of separation from Zac, and the painful loss of my mother’s identity, I was exhausted. I needed a break.

I had been working or in school full time for over 20 years. The job at DNR, while a great learning experience, did not feel like a good fit for my passions and skills.  And I wanted to put more energy and attention into my relationship with Jean and the boys. So, I quit my job.  I called it a sabbatical, but I had no job to return to. I just up and quit.

Except I had a plan and an intention.  My former colleague at State Parks, Rita Cooper, offered me a part-time contract position to help start up the agency’s first online central reservation system. It would be a two-month contract. I would then go in the spring to Mexico for 10 weeks where I would enroll in an intensive Spanish language immersion school in Cuernavaca.  During the final half of my schooling, Jean would join me, fulfilling both our goals of language learning and, for me, the final determination as to whether our relationship would be a lasting one.  I had said to myself – but not Jean – that I would only have us four move in with each other if I was prepared to make a permanent commitment to Jean.  I did not want Alex or Adam to experience an adult male figure going in and out of their lives. Nor could I bear the loss of children in my life.

And thus, the significance of Buenavista.  For the Cuernavaca school, Cemanahuac, had what it called a Rural Studies Program. Jean and I had prepared to appear as husband and wife before her arrival.  We bought wedding rings at a pawn shop in Olympia because we did not want the socially conservative Mexican families we were staying with to feel awkward about our loving presence.  Soon after Jean arrived in Mexico after her school year was finished, she joined me in learning in Buenavista. It was there where we studied together with Chepis. It was there that the foundation of my decision to bond permanently with Jean was made, because we not only pretended to be married to each other.  It felt surprisingly comfortable and easy to see us together forever. It was there where her name – for me – changed forever from Jean to Juani. And it was in Buenavista in particular, but the entire Mexican trip in total, where I reset the second half of my life with family, friendships, and purpose.

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[1]In English it means, “The Winter We Took Matters Into Our Own Hands.”

Some Extra Stories of Morocco and Spain – Part 1

Bluntly put, I haven’t kept up with the blog since the last half of the Moroccan/Spanish trip. Bummed out by the war between Israel and Hamas (with occasional fortes between Israel and Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Houthis as well as West Bank settler violence), it seemed small and not quite the point to finish off stories of our trip. Yet, there are some pretty cool pictures, pretty cool stories, a few oddities and… what the heck, let’s share a bit of fun.

Cousin Shirley insisted that we visit the “Blue City” of Chefchaouen, Morocco. Call it half way between Fes and Tangiers – a small town tucked into the Rif Mountains, at an elevation of about 2000 ft – Shirley raved about all the homes painted blue. To learn a bit about the town, here’s the Wikipedia entry ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chefchaouen). 

The reality for Jean and I, as we entered the tail end of our Moroccan visit, was that the place came across as a false – but pretty – tourist trap. The blue wash of the buildings apparently started around 1970 when one guy painted his steps and building blue, tourists started snapping pictures, and city officials thought they found an angle to bring in the masses.

Chefchaouen’s original painted house and front steps.

The result of all that painting is a distinctive community theme. It IS pretty. But it is not rooted in any particular religious or deeply historic Moroccan cultural tradition. Call it ship shape schlock.

A broad view

Kitties climbing.

For our trip, Chefchaouen provided an important transition. It was the first Moroccan town were Spanish, not French, was the secondary language. While we listened to music at a restaurant in the central square, our menus came to us in Moroccan Arabic and Spanish. We ordered our food in Spanish.

The stop was a short one in the Blue City. We were off to Tanger ( also spelled Tangier or Tangiers) on our last night in Morocco. Here are some street scenes near our hotel, followed by the marine port terminal where we took off to Spain.

The marine port in Tangiers.

Leaving Africa… far in the background.

The boat took us to Tarifa, Spain. From there, a bus (no additional charge) took us to the city of Algeciras where we caught another bus to Seville. It was there that we stayed a night in a hotel connected with the Yom Kippur services that I attended; previously mentioned in an earlier blog entry.

Highlights of our Road Scholar Spanish tour will be in a forthcoming blog entry.

So Long

Exactly five years ago, November 15, 2018, I sent a “goodbye and thanks” email to my colleagues at Washington State Parks on the eve of my retirement. All employees were allowed this singular indulgence and I had been keeping all such emails in a special folder I labeled “So Long” for years. I relished the opportunity to thank folks and deliver a personal message.

This Daniel’s Derekh blog was intended as a means of documenting my post-career explorations and was started immediately after leaving Parks and shuffling off to Israel for three months. A couple of days ago someone asked me about my previous work career and it triggered memories of that “So Long” email. So… why not document that part of my derekh (my path) here too? Below you can read it (with only tiny edits).

Dear State Parks colleagues,

Twenty-five and a half years ago I walked into Larry Fairleigh’s office as a dead-broke, 30-something, single dad without a job.  Larry decided to hire me as a Temp Planner 2 and told me that the first thing I had to do was set up a public meeting for a master plan of Rasar State Park.  “Great, I’ll get right on it,” I said, even though I had no idea what went into a state park.  I was pretty sure a campground, but I had to ask.

The rest, as they say, is history.

For about a dozen years, I’ve placed other employees’ retirement goodbye emails in a folder called “So Long.”  This folder now has over 100 entries.  Many are simple and matter of fact – just a couple of sentences of thanks and best wishes.  Others take the opportunity to make one last statement of State Parks philosophy, or to impress upon us an important insight or set of values. Some expand upon their reasons for gratitude.  And a few express a sickening loss – in particular during those horrible times when deep budget cuts removed so many of us from either our jobs, our hometowns, or both.

As I am about to leave State Parks, I reflect on how this institution has provided me an adulthood filled with meaning and purpose.  What we do and how we do it touches the lives of millions of people and safeguards an extraordinarily varied and vital set of natural and cultural treasures.  What a pleasure it has been to work with you to plan for the future of our parks!  What a privilege to advocate for Parks as we have fought for our share of the pie in the Legislature!  What an honor to meet with our many stakeholders and inform them of Parks’ needs.  And what satisfaction there has been in working with staff from virtually every portion of our agency, learning about our internal organizational needs, learning about each of our parks’ needs, and finding ways to improve our parks system and the wonderful recreation programs we manage.

I recently visited our smallest State Park – Ranald MacDonald’s Grave Heritage Site.  A simple, beautifully written monument stone supplemented with a couple of multi-colored interpretive signs – one in English and one in Japanese.  On the grave itself people have left small rocks, a Cherry Coke can with a rock on top of it, bits of jewelry.  The site took on greater meaning when I started reading MacDonald’s book. He told the story of his daring solo adventure in 1848 to Japan, where, as prisoner, he became the first native English-speaker to teach the language in isolationist Japan.  His story took on even more intimate meaning for me when I found out he was the bi-racial grandson of King Comcomly, the Chief of the Chinook tribe at the mouth of the Columbia, who met with Lewis and Clark. I spent over half a decade in Chinook territory, representing State Parks in the master planning of Cape Disappointment, designing Station Camp with the NPS and the Historic Society, creating the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park, and figuring out how best to represent the public interest while dealing with Maya Lin and the Confluence project.  Whatever would young Ranald have done?

And it suddenly struck me.  THAT is what state parks are for!  They are trigger-places for connecting with our region’s natural and cultural history.  They are jumping off places to provoke a desire to learn more about the marvelous, beautiful place we call Washington.  And to understand the interconnectedness over time and place of us all. So, I urge you, get out to our parks! And then dive deeper to understand your connection with them all.

Working for State Parks has kind of been a “Forrest Gump-like” experience for me.  I’ve visited all of our 125 named state parks and all 16 Heritage sites – and gotten paid to do it. How amazing is that!  I’ve been along for the ride – often more an interested observer than a central driver – to some of the most controversial or far-reaching stuff we’ve done these past 25 years: St. Edward Seminary preservation; Mt. Spokane ski area expansion; new parks at Rasar and Hope Island; the creation and implementation of the CAMP Program; and the Partnership Bill and other agency request legislation.  It has all been a completely lucky break.

Weirdly, looking back, I’m almost prouder of the noble failures – e.g., Seaview piano key preservation or the never named “Pluvius State Park Trail” – than the wins.  Ok … I’m also pretty proud of the 2012 State of State Parks Report to the Legislature.  If you want to understand what precipice we were balanced at then, and the fight we made to pull ourselves off that cliff, you can read it here.  It’s a powerful statement of defiance. Punched together by the Commission and Executive Leadership Team, we fought back against a mandate for zero tax support and won.  But enough indulgence.  The key thing is that for 25 years, work has constantly seemed consequential, and therefore rewarding. 

We’re in a better place as an agency than we were a few years ago. That is because the public loves their state parks system, we’ve had wise leadership, and so many of you have given pieces of your heart as well as your thoughtful minds, to all the tasks necessary to keep our system running. Thank you for being such wonderful colleagues and teachers. I will miss working with you daily to advance the public interest and our wonderful state parks system.   

At 4 p.m. on November 29 in the Moran Room, we’ll get together so I can have the opportunity to thank you personally. We’ve invited some former colleagues to come by, so I hope you’ll have a chance to say hello again to old friends.  I’ll be taking annual leave until the middle of January but may come in briefly from time to time until then to consult.  If you have any questions, feel free to reach me on my personal cell phone at 360-402-9983 or at my work email, Daniel.Farber@parks.wa.gov, which will be active until then. 

So Long, 

Daniel

“In the end, we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.” 

― Baba Dioum

An Historical Hinge

I am writing this entry on November 13, 2023.  Occasional readers of this blog may have been confused by the last few entries, referencing events of our Moroccan trip that took place nearly two months ago.

“Are you back in Olympia?” one friend recently asked. 

I explained a couple of blog entries ago that I have been struggling to both write new entries and more generally come to a psychologically healthy place given the horrors of October 7 in Israel and Gaza and all the subsequent compounding of horrors.

Prior to October 7, I had planned to do a presentation at our synagogue’s monthly Senior Schmooze session that I would call “Traveling Jewishly.”  I would talk about the Jewish history of Morocco and Spain, discuss Jean’s and my experiences and explorations of the Jewish sites and people we encountered, and show pictures along the way.  But someone asked me a few days ago whether I would have gone to the Jewish places I went to and been as upfront about my own Jewishness with the guides we followed if we were to do the trip now. I instantly felt the hinge of the October 7 event.  No, I don’t think I would do the same tour.  No, my own sense of safety as a Jew in Morocco and even in Spain would be different now.

Nevertheless, our experiences – especially my personal experiences and emotions – in traveling Jewishly on the recently completed trip feel important to document. So… here are a few incidences and perhaps insights that highlight the Jewish angle of the trip.

In Meknes

I informed our guide, Essam, that I was Jewish, and he brought us to a jewelry shop in the souk that he said was owned by a Jewish merchant.  The shop did indeed have a bit of Judaica mixed in with many non-Jewish pieces.

When Essam greeted the shop proprietor, he introduced me as Jewish.  The man suddenly began to tear up, opened his arms, and hugged me.  He explained that he was in the process of closing the shop in the next few weeks because he was moving to Israel to be with his extended family.  Then he switched gears to see what Jean wanted to buy.  He assured me that he would make an especially good deal for us.

Jean looked at some bracelets that she liked, but I informed the shop owner that we really weren’t in the market.  Soon, he separated me from Jean and we began a bargaining session – one that I honestly had no interest in being part of.  He poured me a cup of sweet tea.  We talked about Israel. And my protestations of disinterest in purchasing anything notwithstanding, I ended up indeed buying Jean a bracelet.

The thing is, of course, that that shop looked in no way like it was about to close.  The proprietor was extremely intent on bargaining.  And my best guess is that he was in no way Israel bound.  I doubt he was even Jewish.  To which I say, “THAT’S an authentic souk experience!”

In Fes

The city of Fes is one of the world’s most important historic urban centers. As various sultanates and empires conquered then lost the area now known as Morocco, Fes was at times the political, intellectual, or religious capital, and/or center for trade and commerce.  It still has what is claimed to be the oldest continuously operated university in the world and is now Morocco’s second largest city (nearly 1million inhabitants).  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fez,_Morocco

Like much of the rest of Morocco, there is an extraordinarily important Jewish heritage but few Jews remaining.  There were far more Jewish bodies in the cemetery we visited than living Jews in town. Wikipedia pegs the number now to be about 150.  Our guide in Fes, Khlefa, said that there are about 40 families living in the Ville Nouveau portion of the city.

But around the year 1150, and for ten years thereafter, the Jewish physician and scholar, Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides) lived in Fes.  He was said to have written his most profoundly influential work, the “Mishna Torah”, while in the city.  More on Maimonides later in this blog, as he was born in Cordoba, Spain, but chased out when Jews were forced to convert to Islam, be executed, or go to exile.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maimonides

The Jewish cemetery in Fes was larger and more orderly than the one in Meknes.  The lack of names on most of the tombs was said to reflect the abrupt and massive death of the population that occurred due to a pandemic.

There was also substantial monumentation to the significant Jewish personages in Fes. Note the three languages, French, English and Hebrew.

Khlefa did bring us to a couple of synagogues, which functioned now as historic sites more than actual sites of worship.  To me, their residual beauty spoke in wistful harmonies.

Inside Synagogue Al Fassiyine in Fes.

An historic synagogue restored.

Entering a restored – but empty – synagogue in Fes.

In Seville

I knew we would be in Marrakech during Rosh Hashanah. I also knew we would be in Seville during Yom Kippur. Fortunately, I found a progressive Jewish congregation in town that was open to Jewish travelers attending services. So, we booked the hotel where the Yom Kippur services would occur, registered and paid for the privilege of joining the congregation, and I was able to spend the day with fellow Jews fasting and praying on the holiest day of the Hebrew calendar. Jean got laundry done and was able to relax a bit and order restaurant meals in her mostly fluent Spanish.

The congregation in Seville was tiny.  For the High Holy Days, it brought in a rabbi from Barcelona to lead services. Attendance drew from a small set of American Jewish ex-pats living in southern Spain, as well as the few Spanish Jews living year-round in the area. 

Yom Kippur services were mostly in Hebrew and Spanish, but there were also English language siddurs available and some English translations throughout the day.  With the combination of my broken Spanish and minimal Hebrew skills, I surprisingly got by.  Also surprising for me was that many of the tunes – like I experienced in Marrakech – were Ashkenazi, not Sephardic.  In the land of Sepharad, there were almost no native Sephardic Jews!

Of course, we all know why the Jewish community is so tiny in Spain. As was described to us by a Road Scholar tour guide, in 1492, the King and Queen of Spain struck a deal with the Catholic pope.  The church would help fund Christopher Columbus’s expedition and others like it, but only if the Spanish royals would help cleanse their country of heathens. Thus was born the Spanish Inquisition, which, to my surprise included not only conversion, murder or expulsion of the Moors (Muslims) and Jews, but also the Christian protestants.

Throughout the rest of our visit to Spain, the results of the various successful efforts to rid the country of its religiously tolerant past was a constant theme.

In Cordoba

As the Jewish Quarter in Morocco is commonly called the Mellah, so is the name in Spain called the Juderia. And the reality is basically the same, but with more direct and effective tragic consequences.  The Spanish Jewish Quarters have no Jews because they were “inquisition-ed” out of them!

Cordoba is, however, a very significant part of the world Jewish story, as the birthplace of the aforementioned Maimonides.  Our Road Scholar tour guide took us briefly to the Juderia to see a statue of Maimonides and visit a tiny synagogue site.  Jean and I split from the group for a half hour around lunch time to return to the Juderia and run through a local Jewish museum.

Statute of Maimonides in Cordoba’s Jewish Quarter.

A tradition is to touch the foot of Maimonides and then press your lips to your hand. 

Inside Cordoba’s synagogue.

Cordoba’s Jewish Museum

Inside Cordoba’s Jewish museum.  “Casa Sefarad:  A unique view In the heart of the Jewish Quarter.”

It would be the last “Jewish thing” we would do on this trip. 

I will leave it for another blog entry to explore non-Jewish aspects of the last portion of our trip to Morocco and Spain.  But the retrospective context of Jewish loss in Sepharad and the current crisis in Israel and its effects on the entire world – not just the Jewish world – has left me profoundly troubled.

Buying and Dying in Meknes

There were no knock-off ornaments or false Romanesque carvings to buy in Volubilis. (I’m thinking back to some of that kind of thing at Mexico’s Teotihuacan – from Pyramid of the Sun and Moon fame.) Probably because it was in an isolated hillside national park, no one was hocking their wares.  Our drive away to a Meknes medina souk changed all that.  In souks, hocking is the main point. And the imperial city of Meknes, former capital of Morocco, is famed as an urban trade center for a productive and varied agricultural hinterland, wood carvings, woolen carpets and metallic trinkets.

Meknes is also known as the “minaret city” and a center for religious devotion. It’s Ville Nouveau – built during the colonial period – is known as “Petit Paris.” It is a lovely city. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meknes)

The abundance of a Meknes souk.

Jean grabbing a spicy picture.

The souk was not for vegetarians or the faint of heart.

Throughout our trip to Morocco, Walid would drive us to a new city or site, part with us for a while as a knowledgeable local guide would lead us through the local highlights, then pick us up again for the next drive.  For several – but not all – of the guided tours, we would be led to a particular shop, where the guide would have an ongoing relationship with the store owner and provide us an opportunity to purchase the store’s goods.  I’m not saying that there was a definite financial arrangement between each guide and the particular store owner.  I’m just saying that the chance of such an arrangement was likely greater than 98%.

In Meknes our guide’s name was Essam. Like all guides on our trip, I mentioned to him that I was interested in seeing what if anything remains of a Jewish presence in town.  The old Jewish quarters, known as Mellahs, are present in most cities of any size, and Meknes was no exception. (BTW…. Mellah is Arabic for “salt” which was the old means of financial exchange. The Hebrew word is Melech. The English word “salary” is derived from that function of salt.)  But while there are geographic centers of old Jewish life, there are few if any living Jews.

In the 17^th century, a plague hit Meknes. There was a need for quick burials of both Jews and Muslims.  Essam took us to the Jewish cemetery.  We saw lots of evidence of dead Jews on this trip.

Meknes Jewish cemetery.  For most of these unfortunate victims of plague, no names were provided on the gravestones.

After the plague, the cemetery continued to be used, including substantial monumentation for luminaries of the Jewish community.

Essam took us to a musical museum which included instrumentation of Jewish heritage.

A beautiful shofar (ram’s horn) and shawl.

Essam also brought us to both a carpet store and a jewelry store.  In the latter, Jean and I bought a bracelet and in the former a carpet.  The carpet now graces our living room. The bracelet on occasion graces her wrist.

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipPoIueFSiDTQKT6_BReBZR0cVoIKlww9aXETCjf

Off from Rabat and on to Volubilis

The back end of our Moroccan adventure started as soon as we departed Rabat.  We had experienced both the highlight and the core purpose of our trip – to return Jean to her Peace Corps roots.  And now we were classic Mediterranean region tourists hitting the highlight reel. Roman ruins?  Check.  Ancient churches and mosques?  Check. Jewish cemeteries?  Mournful, yes, but… check. Souk shopping and gourmet meals in carpet-lined ornateness?  Double check.

What remained distinctive, always remains distinctive, are the people. You just need to ask a bit then dive in and follow where the lead leads. 

Off from Rabat

Walid picked us up first thing in the morning and we quickly exited Rabat’s broad, tree-lined landscaped boulevards and made our way east into farm and grazing lands. Our first stop was the Roman ruin village of Volubilis. Adjacent to the ruins was a tiny hillside town, looking very much like a support center for tourists and surrounding olive groves.

Walid brought us to the ruins parking lot where we met Abdul Kareem who would be our tour guide. He was a local village resident and had been functioning as a guide for 33 years.  His father worked with French archaeologists at the site.

 Jean with Abdul Kareem, our guide to the story of Volubilis

Abdul Kareem was a Berber. Spoke six languages. French was his most fluent European tongue. And as we talked, it became clear that Volubilis was more than his job. It was his very personal heritage and pride.

A city’s expansiveness.  Volubilis at its prime, must have been extraordinarily wealthy and imposing.

Some of the ceramics restored.  The baskets of gold and silver… no where now to be found.

With even a modicum of interpretation it was easy to imagine the grandeur that was this place at its height.  Ornate ceramics, towering arches. Volubilis was ransacked by the Vandals in the fourth century and mostly destroyed by an earthquake and subsequent looting around 1750.  Like all of our interpreted guided experiences on this trip, much more can be known about the history and significance of Volubilis by checking out Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volubilis) as a starter and moving on to whatever level of research one desires.  Yet there is clear value in the analog feel of simply soaking in the actual place.  And delight in the personal, as Abdul Kareem demonstrated how Roman baths operated by climbing in a remnant of one, lying down and lounging as the locals must have done. Peel me a grape.

Abdul Kareem demonstrating the good life.