History in the making

I came across an old email to myself... I was several weeks into studying abroad in Morocco and had all my pictures deleted from the shared drive of a school computer. I was mad at the administration for deleting them just before I planned to burn them to a CD. I was mad at myself. This is what I wrote in that sad state:

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well, you just dealt yourself a defeating blow by relying on the pictures you have taken for your happiness and documentation of this trip so far. how will you ever remember the first two weeks of Morocco without the photographs, all 300 or them?

well, lets try to remember the pictures taken, because you sure had time to name a few last night and surely can remember the most important ones:

first of all, the photographs of steve's wedding, chicago and grandpa, wrigley field and the guys, then new jersey, on the farm and next to the river - in the jeep and then in dc. dana in her room, her room alone and us at the airport. you at the airports and train stations, in front of downtown amsterdam and throughout the city - playground, soccer field, boce ball, basketball hoops, the rivers, and in the airport - the red shoes and finally your room at AUI. the sunset there, and the first trip with friends to Azrou, one with jarrad at the cafe and at the small village where you ate couscous. the many pictures of ultimate and the views around ras el ma, the camp fire and lunch time, then the hike and friends and more frisbee and azrou again. at night, with faisal and wahib, then around campus with sola and andee, nathan and shara, the soccer game and you infront of the sunsets.

the pictures before morocco can be reached via matthew kurlanski, and also on dana's computer -- those are very important and extremely safe. the few that you sent via email to dana and bert are also safe, temporarily, on their computers and the couple ultimate pictures from email to email will show up, or other people will have them.

seriously, the pictures of morocco can be retaken. if you have to conserve the memory card for the camera for the remainder of the trip, then by god do it! the memories you have of yourself and friends, at the airports and in amsterdam will remain in your brain and journal for the rest of time - if you want them to. and, there is minimal documentation of some events that dana and [top shelf] now have and you should be thankful for that.

a big problem is the lack of documentation for the disbursement of the photos as gifts to people. elizabeth and her cd of pictures, people and their excited, new-to-morocco faces. in your head and the memory must stay.

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