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jillsbrain - jill perakis

jill perakis Partial poem by Walt Whitman:

Song of the Open Road

Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.
I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like, and whoever beholds me shall like me;
I think whoever I see must be happy.
From this hour, freedom!
From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,
Listening to others, and considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.
Allons! the road is before us!
It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have tried it well.

Allons! be not detain’d!
Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen’d!
Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn’d!
Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge expound the law.

Mon enfant! I give you my hand!
I give you my love, more precious than money,
I give you myself, before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

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Blogs & Travel Journals

by jillsbrain, order by Date newest first.

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One small story for your reading pleasure....I hope! An expat friend had told me that often the men in his village use the phrase "god is watching" with one finger pointed to the heavens. Usually this is used when people are discussing some sort of injustice or when gossiping about some infringement of social mores that someone village has committed. Well, it sort of stuck with me, this fear that 'God is watching'. One day I’m in the bus station buying a ticket from Fes to Chefchaouen for the following day. The ticket seller guy says that because of the computer [View Full Entry]

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808 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 0 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: April 14th 2009 | 122 Views | [diary=390580]


There is so much to convey and the 3 drafts for this entry just keep getting longer. In the interest of saving us both time, let’s shift the format to a quick overview: Morocco Tagine--small stew served in the little earthenware cook pots with chimneys filled with overcooked, mushy vegetables and meat. Cumin used widely, offered along with salt at the table--try it on your eggs at breakfast!!!!! Mint tea-try this too. Start with loose leaf green tea and throw in fresh mint-steep Pigeon-yum!! don’t knock it until you try it--especially if you see pa [View Full Entry]

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679 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 32 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: April 14th 2009 | 49 Views | [diary=389570]

setting up the market in the morning
Narrow streets of Chefchaouen
 central square of Chefchaouen

It may sound like this whole journey has been one adventure after another, but things can get mundane as an untethered knock-about. Each place a new ritual, like bathing from a bucket of hot water brought to my door each morning then finding something that resembles a hot beverage. Some days I discover there is no water today for bath or beverage, so better to just buy that bus ticket and get the hell out of Dodge (there is a whole generation of people who won‘t understand the tail of that sentence…). And thank god, often it is possible to wake [View Full Entry]

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1433 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 0 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: April 14th 2009 | 46 Views | [diary=390577]


If Latin America was a slow burn into my psyche and spirit, then Morocco is sky diving, crack cocaine, it is first love at 16. Simultaneously drunk from the grandeur and stimulus these landscapes provide and insatiably hungry for more, I wander and wonder when I will return. The soil is caked in my skin, the incense and perfume dance in my lungs and the muezzin-- ‘call to prayer’ a touchstone by which I measure the passage of time. Morocco may be stealing my heart. The Ourika Valley which is about a 45 minute drive south of Marrakech and is the [View Full Entry]

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562 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 32 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: April 11th 2009 | 33 Views | [diary=385521]

stunning colors red and green mountains
broad view
Mudbrick houses

Lots of photos! PLEASE make sure to see the ones at the end--Check out the camel ride into the Sahara.... I'm back in the love, feeling connected again with the positive energy that was in large part why I began wandering. Arriving in Morocco, I immediately felt relieved. Signs that things would be different appeared after meeting a kind woman on the train within an hour of my landing. Sakina now lives in the U.S. but was born and raised in Morocco; she answered many questions for me, taught me a bit of Arabic, reviewed the money with me, and offered [View Full Entry]

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679 Words | 1 Comment(s) | 41 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: March 10th 2009 | 177 Views | [diary=380185]

rues of Marrakech
vendor stalls...yummy scents
perhaps you would like to buy a sheep head?

Although I experienced many unpleasant events in W Africa, I did want to put up some photos I took that were irrelevant to the stories I’ve told. Some of these shots are very beautiful and I am glad to have had these little moments of bliss. [View Full Entry]

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48 Words | 1 Comment(s) | 39 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: March 6th 2009 | 123 Views | [diary=379377]

beach in dakar
beach
playing football on the beach

In the two week lag between my arrival and the proposed start date with Gamcotrap, my sentiment for the people began to change. Fed up with the hustlers of Gambia and the dire straights that the people living in ‘Senegambia’ face which creates this vile stew of corruption, shams, deception and subterfuge. My final attempt to ‘help’ backfired miserably. While in Gambia, after abandoning my plan to volunteer and go back to being a traveler, it was logical to at least give supplies to a local school. Armed with markers, crayons, pencils etc. I entered one of the dismal el [View Full Entry]

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857 Words | 1 Comment(s) | 0 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: March 6th 2009 | 76 Views | [diary=378172]


In Jill v. West Africa I admit defeat. I'm feeling so emotionally fragile, I may lose it at any time. Everything is in such disrepair that trying to accomplish anything in a given day is a frustrating nightmare. Without reliable infrastructure (internet, electricity, running water, telephone service) I have become frazzled and undone. On top of that, this particular area where I am staying (Bakau, Gambia) is infected by a social virus: foreign women coming mostly from W. Europe looking for men, which has created a sex trade. I cannot walk anywhere without being accosted (verbally, please don't [View Full Entry]

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1315 Words | 3 Comment(s) | 13 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: February 12th 2009 | 86 Views | [diary=372592]

Mama and her mother making our lunch
Ibu, me and Mama
The general concept is to cover the hair, one I only partially grasped

My life is stranger than fiction. The setting: Senegal, on the road from Dakar to St. Louis; on a good day about 4 hours by car. Today is not one of those. The cast of characters: Me, Maum, and her mother Hade. "Backseatman" and four other people in the car. Foreshadowing: the problem is one of language. Preface: I’ve been staying with a family of 10. “Family” is a loose term here, but for the sake of brevity, I will leave it at that. Hade is the mother of 5 children and Maum at 22 is one of her daughters. There [View Full Entry]

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1712 Words | 3 Comment(s) | 8 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: January 28th 2009 | 168 Views | [diary=367988]

views from the back seat
heave-ho
Yes, this is all really happening

Just a quick entry to bring you blog lurkers up to date. It was called to my attention by someone in the general public, that I did not explain in my blog what happened between Ecuador and Africa…I left it out because my friends know the story and they are my primary audience. I returned to the states after 5 mos of traveling because I was suffering from homesickness and wanted the comfort and hugs of friends and family for a few weeks. In Ecuador I had bought a round-trip ticket to the states, thinking that after I had my fill [View Full Entry]

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251 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 0 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: February 11th 2009 | 27 Views | [diary=371638]




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