The World We Share

We watched from our cottage as rows of arched terra-cotta tiles slid off the steeply pitched roof of the open-air bar, sliding off in perfect sequence. First one row would go, and then when it was gone, the next row would begins its journey, like soldiers marching across a parade field. The raging bay-water, just a few feet away, hurled itself against the up-tilted rock outcrop, exploding like wet fireworks. Beyond the shore was an endless procession of peaks and troughs of white-capped waves that terrified my seasick soul. [Ira Spector]

Upon hearing the words Hamdullah wa inshallah, Mark Apel is transported as if in a time capsule to the many times he and Yossef Ben-Meir, President of the High Atlas Foundation (HAF), uttered them in gratitude for the food set before them or in hope for something good to come of their efforts as Peace Corps Volunteers. “It makes you more mindful of the moment,” he remarked in a recent interview conducted by Ben-Meir for HAF. Mark was born in France, son of an airman, whose family returned to the U.S. where he grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Two months after graduation from Penn State in 1982, he joined the Peace Corps and came to Morocco. There, he was able to use his degree in environmental resource management and specialization in wildlife management as a fisheries volunteer. He had originally aspired to be a veterinarian, but his keen interest in wildlife, parks, and protected areas led him to this more holistic discipline. [Ellen Hernandez and Katie Bercegeay}