Azulejos and the Alfama

An eternity ago I began to search which country I would go live and learn in for two years. I thought I was fully seeking God's will for my life, but years and maturity and wisdom have since shown me how young I was then. How self-serving I was. How I wanted God to acquiesce to my will instead of the other way around.

I picked one country after another, and each time, the door closed. After choosing seven countries, and the door shutting to seven countries, the program through whom I was going suggested I look at studying Arabic in Egypt. I remember them telling me how they thought I would flourish.

"You have an aptitude for languages. You'll learn Arabic well."

"You like adventure. You'll love North Africa."

"Your outgoing, energetic, story-telling personality will fit in so well among this culture."

But I was stuck. Sometime at the beginning of college I'd watched Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn, and decided I wanted to move to some cute European town, live in a cute little apartment with a balcony, learn a Romantic language, and go to the market to buy flowers on a regular basis. So stuck was I that I did not even consider their suggestion of learning Arabic in Egypt. Didn't pray about it. Didn't ask wise friends and family for advice. Simply said, "No thanks. Not interested."

Well, months later, I finally found an open door to get overseas and I went to Portugal. They were two of the happiest, most fun years of my whole life. God really blessed me in that time, and I'm still thankful for it. It felt like this little gift that He gave me.

The time since Portugal, and especially since I left California to move back overseas in 2004, has been difficult. I've often referred to those years as my own personal desert wanderings. (Click here for a small recap of that story, from when I left Marseille last summer.)

So why am I telling you about all that history from so long ago? Because when I landed here, in North Africa, two months ago, I couldn't help but laugh. The woman who said back in 1998 that she did not want to live in North Africa, nor learn Arabic, nor even hang out with Muslims...is joyfully living in North Africa, learning Arabic, and having a blast hanging out with Muslims. (Upon seeing me today, Mrs. Flower, immediately shouted my name to prove she'd remembered it without the cheat sheet--then stuck her hand down her dress just to get a laugh out of me.) But it isn't just the irony of my journey coming back around full circle.

In my first days, I noticed the tiles. There are painted tiles here--everywhere--and they look exactly like the Portuguese painted tiles called azulejos that were my absolute favorite thing there. I couldn't get over how much the tiles here look like my beloved azulejos from there. So I looked up azulejos on Wikipedia, and get this--they come from North Africa, and even the word azulejo, is from an Arabic word ( الزليج (al zulayj))! Somehow that escaped me when I lived there.

Then, as I began learning language, I noticed all the "sh" sounds that they've added into the dialect here. One of the most distinctive things about Portuguese is the "sh" sounds made for nearly half their letters. Portuguese even has the famous "inshallah" (if God wills it) in their language: oxalá. (oh-sha-la).

Well, now, after getting to be a tourist a few times recently, I've found that one of my favorite things to do is just wander around the medinas. A medina is the old town with winding, narrow streets, usually built within the walls of what used to be the fort that guarded the town. When I lived in Lisbon, my favorite thing to do was to wander through the neighborhood called the Alfama, because it was this glorious narrow, steep maze of streets, old houses, and a way of life from so long ago.

One of my favorite memories from Lisbon is the first time I wandered into the Alfama, found myself a little lost, and stated as much out loud to my friend with me. A kid, probably about five years old, ran up to us, gave a very dramatic and gentlemanly bow, and said, "YOU are in...(dramatic flair) THE ALFAMA! Welcome!" And ran off.

The medinas remind me so much of the Alfama that I went again to look it up. Sure enough...it comes from the Arabic word al-hamma, and the Lisbon neighborhood is left over from when the North African Moors ruled in Portugal. I found this interesting article that shows many of the other cultural things in Portuguese culture left over from when the Moors were living there.

The azulejos, the language, the Alfama...all of it made me sit back in wonder of my great God. HE KNEW the culture that my heart would love and thrive in...and even when I wouldn't accept it the first time it was offered, He graciously allowed me to go to the place that had enough of a taste of it that I would begin to hunger for more. I just can't get over how He was preparing me to love it here by having me fall in love with all the things that were Arab in Portugal.

And I'm humbled again that He's a God who gives second chances. He offered me the chance to be here so many years ago, and I refused to even consider it. And just like the wandering Children in the desert, I took the long way to get here. He literally took me through a desert at one point. While in Egypt in 2008, He told me my wanderings were over and I was arriving at Gilgal.

I camped out at Gilgal from then until two months ago, when I landed here. He was very clear upon my arrival...my long, out of the way, trialsome path to my Promised Land is over, and so is the time of sitting just across the way from it waiting to enter. Gilgal is a place that the wandering Children often returned to--but it wasn't the Promised Land. They had to leave Gilgal to go conquer their Promised Land.

Now is my time to conquer. Now is my time to enter, live, settle in, and have my milk and honey in the place that God promised me. The place He prepared me for way back when with azulejos and the Alfama. I am humbly grateful for this time and that I can honestly say--I love it here.