bad dream

i’ve got a question... do you all have bad dreams? you know, disturbing ones. even nightmares? i generally do NOT. the mefloquine’s been giving me more vivid dreams, but that’s all. last night, though, i woke up to an all too disturbing/vivid image... not a nightmare, really, only a fragment of a dream... of me killing someone else.

before i knew it i was up and the combination of energy, shock and guilt/regret that was making my heart beat faster was too real. as close to scary as any of my dreams have been for as long as i can remember. so strange!

i’ve heard of people really flipping out while on mefloquine... but that’s another issue i suppose. just wanted to share/document my little BIG experience from last night. i pray it never happens again.

aho!
Mohamad
9/18/2001
Wum

shocking dream

12/5/2001:
OK... the other day i took an afternoon siesta. was tired from getting up too early for suhur [pre-dawn meal] and sleeping late after taraweeh [evening prayers].

it was Saturday afternoon. i had a bad dream. seemed like i was in the house here in Wum. mom was in the kitchen. cooking, i think. i was just outside in the living room trying to iron something.

for some reason, there was water on the floor. i knew that. still i reached for the outlet to plug the iron in. i was thinking to myself this isn’t such a good idea. but i went ahead. and it happened. i felt the buzzing in my head. even my body shook.

but my wits stayed with me. i tried to ground my feet to the floor to no avail. i wasn’t cursing or screaming but i can’t remember if i invoked God’s name. the dream ended as soon as the current seemed to stop running through my body and i realized, at the very least, i was alive.

words

9/8/2001:
there’s this essay in the World Wise Schools (WWS) Handbook entitled Better Remember This. by an RPCV from Kenya. it’s beautiful and inspiring. there are many great essays in the handbook. PCVs seems to have a way with words. indeed, the last essay in the book is about words and it ends thus: “speak to clear your throat of all the stories welling up inside. speak for the sake of peace. keep the conversation alive.”

i’m uplifted by the stories. the shared experiences put in such eloquent words. at the same time, they make me want to stay here and do good but also to go elsewhere (the North or Morocco) and feel more at home. i’m not sure if that last part is accurate. i’m not sure if i’d feel more at home in either of those places. i imagine the longing for more familiar places and people is a typical step in this adjustment cycle.

it’s confused for me though. i don’t’ want to go home. i want to go to a place like Morocco. but who says that’ll make it better? or prefect. and maybe, like my recruiter said, i should stop trying to make it perfect and just let it be. and yet part of me is already writing hypothetical letters to Peace Corps Morocco and talking to our CD about the feasibility of it all. patience Muhammad. patience. don’t try to make it perfect. just let it be. and if it won't, then see what you can do. and we’ll see...

...this went into my Peace and Freedom journal. it should’ve been written in there in the first place. the WWS Handbook also made me want to write to my brother Omar. to tell him about the strange dream i had last night. the 2 big ugly fish i caught in my room. how i was scrambling to find something to knock them over the head with. the small rolling pin i found in his room that just wouldn’t do the trick. or maybe it was my futile efforts that were the problem???

and that vivid image of the fish flopping around on his bedroom floor gasping for air—or, more accurately, gasping in air. that noise of their wet, slimy flesh flopping around on his floor like wet flip-flops. or rain drops. wait! i’m up. it was/is raindrops. it’s been raining all night and the sound of water coming off the roof and splashing down into the mud filtered into my dream. oh... and that reminds me, i forgot to take my mefloquine yesterday. huh...