Category: travel

is it necessary?

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I had booked a trip to New York City with my best friend. She applied to graduate school there, so we were hoping to get a glance at her potential future home before uprooting her life in the fall. Not to mention, it would be a fun getaway from the hectic craze college semesters throw at us students these days.

We were going to stay at a friend’s place in Brooklyn. We were going to eat our way through the city, embarking on yet another food tour together, sharing each plate for maximal tasting opportunities. Neither of us have been there before, ready to take our Big Apple virginity. But look at it now, the national hot spot for the novel coronavirus pandemic. All those compact apartments, the shoulder to shoulder rush hour in the metro, the bustling beehive of a city now a petri dish for the pandemic to flourish. We probably won’t make it to the City for some time now, much less beyond my living room.

COVID-19 has thrown the world for a loop, challenging governments and daily routines worldwide. It has revealed the true nature of governments’ motives, their priorities, how they view the importance of the health and well-being of their people.

This virus also shows how connected the world is in 2020. It shows how something starting in a city across the globe can infiltrate my personal life in just a matter of weeks. Before, we could hop a flight and be anywhere in the world in a matter of hours (or days depending on your destination). Before, we had to consider things like the US State Department’s safety of the country, the water quality to prepare how we were going to stay hydrated, the tourist traps we did not want to get sucked into. We could go pretty much anywhere our wallets permitted.

However, travel as we know it has changed. To travel right now raises an ethical question: is it necessary? Nonessential travel has posed the largest spreading factor of the virus, making it barred from continuing. Travel even outside our homes poses a threat to some in our community. Moving about our normal days is different in and of itself, making travel a trivial luxury that can be done without for the time being.

Alright, so our trips got canceled. That is certainly never something anyone wants to face. All that time and anticipation gone because of something out of our control. It is sad, I’ll give you that. But to make this time more bearable for us all, we have to improvise. We can sit in our living rooms and drink a glass of French wine while reminiscing over our photos gallivanting through Paris last spring. We can watch “The Sound of Music” to pretend we are in the rolling hills of Austria. We can make gumbo to get us sweating like we are in the humid southern sunshine.

My living room certainly isn’t Central Park or the Brooklyn Bridge, but for right now, it’ll have to do.

a link to the story on Souvenirs’ website can be accessed here

An Ode to Abdul

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I wrote a piece from my travels to Morocco for an online piece for Souvenirs. 

by genevieve vahl

We wake up early after our late arrival into Tangier. We ask the concierge at our Ibis Hotel to call us a taxi. Wait outside, we were instructed. Three women, outside, waiting. A taxi driver approaches us. Our taxi? Maybe not. 

Assuming optimistically that this taxi was our taxi, coming to take us along windy mountain roads to the Blue City, we are ready to load our bags.

“WAIT!!” the concierge storms out of the hotel, headed straight for us. “You wait for my MY taxi.”

Maya, Olivia and I listen in shocked obedience. The concierge retreats back into the hotel. 

No time passes before the same taxi driver pursues our business again. The three of us look at each other in hesitation. The concierge shoos the incessant driver away again, and again, and then again. Three times this driver pursues us, and three times he was dismissed. 

The concierge reemerges on his own this time, now insisting we go with the driver he has been turning away—Abdul. Do we go? We don’t really have any other option. He wasn’t the right guy, but now he is? We reluctantly trail behind the driver to his car. 

Abdul and concierge seemed to have realized the blip in communication and reconciled their differences. The three of us held a lot of trust in these people, to have us in our best interest, in their understanding aligning with our own. To look out for us. And that they did. 

Abdul soon became our northern star, pointing us in the right direction, on our own time. He provided us the transportation and knowledge to his country. Thrilled to witness our first exposure to the natural and cultural beauty he admires deeply.

A father and a husband in the midst of Ramadan; a taxi driver getting us through the Moroccan countryside. Winding mountain roads with sheer faces, plateaus, coastal mountains. Lush green rolling expanses, blue sky spotted with shadow casting clouds. Abdul points out the natural beauty in our 360-degree views. 

Abdul pulls over. “It is beautiful here, you need picture.” We trust his judgement and get out of the car, welcomed by a glacier blue mountain lake. So familiar with the landscape, Abdul knew we needed that memory. The three of us grateful for such a moment we would have just coasted by.  

Driving two and a half hours there and two and a half hours back is a long commitment for a taxi driver. Driving us all the way to the mountains, dropping us off and then driving all the way back to the city with no passengers to pay any fare is a lot of business time Abdul committed to us. Abdul got us to Chefchaouen safely, with a local’s touch. 

I am so grateful right now, I thought in Abdul’s genuine empathy and generosity. A fatherly tenderness, with a friendly approach. A prideful man without nationalism. Appreciative of his surroundings. Abdul, the light leading our way. 

The approach into the Blue City is one for the books. A city built into the mountainside. Steeper than you think. Our taxi climbed to the edge of the city, to our hostel. Stepping out of the van, the hustle of the market flies by us. Vegetable arrays lay across tarps, a rainbow of puff balls decorate the locals’ straw hats to shade the beating African sun. 

Abdul huddles us together. 

“Tuesday. Ten in the morning. I will be back to pick you up. Meet me here.” We shook on it. Then, Abdul is gone. Lost in an instant amongst the bustle of market locals. 

We were left in the city to walk, to eat, to reflect. Active presence. Sitting on rooftops, surrounded by mountains people seem to think are negligible in their photos of the Blue City? But Chefchaouen would not be Chefchaouen if not for the mountains. The scaling tectonics caress the city. At the foot of the rising face, we breathe, we appreciate the mountain breeze and revel in the silence. Two days we drift through the city, then Tuesday arrives. 

Maya, Olivia and I rise in anticipation for our reconciliation, trusting word of mouth; an anxious concept in our digital age. Bags packed and out the hostel door to arrive promptly at 10. We stumble onto the road, all three heads on swivels looking for our friend. 

Abdul emerges from down the road, tea in hand with a smile wiped across his face. He greets us with a warm good morning. Our mutual trust affirmed. Relieved, we depart. Our descent leaves the gradient of blue behind us and then finally out of sight. To Tangier we return. 

Tangier is Abdul’s home, his city. A place he knows more than most. We rest while the green pastures roll alongside the windows back toward the coast. Abdul suggests more stops of natural beauty essential for a proper Moroccan experience. An adventure he will lead us to. Not a tour that would breach his terms as a driver, not a guide. But places he will take us to and we will experience ourselves. In agreement, we passed through downtown Tangier, off to the ocean. We ride a two lane highway out to vast beaches along the Atlantic. Another moment Abdul knows must be captured: Maya, Olivia and I standing along the road, with the beaches below us and the ocean roaring beyond. The salty wind whipping our hair and scarves in a giddy cheese. 

Next, to a mosque. A white minaret atop a cliff over the Atlantic. The ice blue ocean, white in its crashes, compliments the purity of the sacred space. Then, to the point where the Atlantic and Mediterranean meet. Two majestic bodies of water colliding their salt water phs. Now, the Caves of Hercules: a cave ‘shaped like Africa.’ Its acclaim less important than its natural extravagance, Maya, Olivia and I bask in our luck while looking out at the ocean in the dark cavern. 

Abdul’s guidance brought us to majestic wonder spots. Every stop we left in more awe than the last. Important natural beauty we would have otherwise never been able to experience without Abdul. His guidance always in our best interest, always humble in his generosity. Money wasn’t enough to relay my gratitude for his service. Something he did not have to do, but wanted to so we could see the beauty in his country the way he did. A four hour experience from his heart. We ran in and out of his taxi like little kids on a family road trip. Stops to capture the moments we all were sharing together. With Abdul, because of Abdul. 

Again promising his prompt arrival to take us to the airport at an ungodly hour, we get back into his van one last time. We are quiet in reflection and exhaustion. We drive through the city in the early hours of the morning. People were playing games and running about during their only free time: sun down. We admire in passing, nearing our departure. 

Abdul closes the trunk behind us. Maya, Olivia and I strapped with our backpacks, anticipate how we can ever honor this man’s graciousness enough. Abdul guided us forward, never insisting, only leading. Like the North Star, he guided us on our own journey, interacting with the places and people he led us to. A relationship that will timelessly inspire my interactions to come.  

Edward Herb Hands

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the published version can be accessed here.

by genevieve vahl 

We approach a large building, with white columns and high ceilings. Bleak like the rest of former East Germany. Olivia, Devin and I arrive at the performance art piece we were recommended. We took two metros and walked a mile to get to the far east side of Berlin.

Walking through the entrance, I got spritzed with herbal water. Mint, cilantro, parsley steeped in water, blessing my arrival. A group of about 50 people are sitting in a half circle, directing their attention to the artist in the middle, cutting the ends off herb bundles; the source of our baptismal mist. He was stacking them very intentionally, placing each as if to lay to rest. 

Coming in late, we take a seat. Droning, beat altering ambient music hypnotizes us. For 15 minutes, I lock in with the concentration before me, around me, sharing the common understanding of respect, when I feel a tap on my shoulder. 

“You can join now.” 

A sleek buzz cut man with golden skin and piercing blue eyes squats next to me. I look at my two friends. They, not taking it as seriously as this man’s eyes were telling, giggle in question. 

“What?” I inquire.  

“You can join now,” he says again, as if granting us a privilege. He has something in his hands, intended for us to receive. I stick my hands out immediately. My friends hesitantly follow. The peaceful proctor before us puts two white rubber bands on each of our wrists. His work is done, and hopscotches away through the crowd. Olivia, Devin and I look at each other, questioning what we’re about to get into. 

The ambience continues to shake my body as we now stand in a circle. Our herbalist begins explaining his performance: A ritual we are all participating in. A moving mediation he will lead us through. A time for us to put everything outside the room to rest, and lock into the next 45 minutes. We are all instructed to grab two bundles of herbs and return to our place.  

“Attach the bundles to each of your hands using the rubber bands. One at the top knuckles, the other, around the wrist, palming the leaves.” The room fills with rustling of people’s bushels, snapping rubber bands against tender skin, questions mutter under people’s breaths. 

“These are your new hands,” the artist says. “Look at your hands. Get to know your new hands. Feel yourself, get comfortable with your body in these new hands.” I touch my face, I hug myself, stuff my nose into my fragrant grip. Everyone wiggles, rubbing dewy herbs over ourselves, smiling at one another, vulnerability glowing. 

“Now that you are familiar with your new hands, we begin.” 

We are instructed to put our head on our neighbors back. Ear to spine, connected as a circle. Our comfort levels with strangers multiplying by the second. 

“Reach your right arm out. Raise it. Lay it across the right arm of the person you are leaning on.” 

We are now all connected in a wreath of herb people. 

“Now hum.” 

Everyone wakens their vocal boxes. The room of 50 strangers leaning on one another erupts into a roar of vocal cord vibrations. The woman I was leaning on harmonized her hum to the collective. Instructed to close our eyes, we locked into the voice box we had our ear to. 

We all rose, back to standing in our circle, all a little more understood. A tone had been set, literally. 

We split our circle into two lines, each aligned with someone across from us. “The person across from you is going to be your partner for the remaining time together.” Paired with a woman from England, we lock eyes, entrusting vulnerability in one another. “One of you is the giver, one of you is the receiver. Both people will fulfill both roles, so it doesn’t matter who goes first.” 

I start as the receiver; receiving from Lauren. As the giver, Lauren wore a small beanie, cuffed above the ears, like Berlin alt wear. Long strands of hand strung beads twirled with every head movement, gems and sequins decorated the cap. 

The artist leads us through movement and meditation. The givers shift energies around the receiver. They touch the receivers with their herb hands, up and down our bodies, faces to knees. I felt the air moving around me. At one point, being fanned by Lauren’s herbs and another my face compressed by her respectful touch. 

An experience testing each other’s respect. The giver and receiver respecting each other, trusting each other enough to fall into the meditation together. 

“Receivers bite the herbs.” I bit the bushel for a mouthful of plant. Pure. Raw. Moist. I chewed the herbs, digested the herbs, one with the herbs. My eyes, closed. My feet grounded, cemented. The droning ambience still controlling my breath and rhythm. Only feeling the shifting air from Lauren’s intentional movements, following the directed actions, while installing her own compassion into my treatment. My brain was finally to rest. Everything else was out on mute, and the moment enveloped me.  

Then… A thud. Followed by rustling. Noises uncharacter for the depth we have submitted to the meditation. Confused, I opened my eyes. Concerned faces and worried energy scurry past me. My dear Devin passed out behind me. 

Shocked, I froze. Devin lay there on the ground. Head cocked, eyes wide open. I could not move. She had a knocker on her forehead the size of an egg. I have never seen a bodily reaction manifest so instantaneously. I felt as paralyzed as Devin looked on the ground. 

But I quickly snapped into reality. Olivia and I were Devin’s only people in this situation, the only ones there for her, her support system. In a different country, where we do not speak the native language. With an aesthetically terrifying wound. Fight or flight kicked in. 

We got Devin ice and space. We gently thanked the artist and group for the experience, and removed ourselves to fresh air. A doctor coached us, convincing us Devin’s knocker is better than no reaction. A concussion left the three of us spooked, yet relieved by the support and care we received. 

People are good. People want to help, they care. We were probably with the best group of people to be surrounded by in such a startling situation. They turned out for support; they wanted to help us get Devin what she needed. To get her back feeling stable again. Without them, the situation would not have been held together as calmly and smoothly as it did. I am thankful for people, for the understanding of the common social good. Because we all hope people will turn out for us when we are in a dire situation, too.