Christmas 2002

Dear Family and Friends,

For our family, last year's highlight was of course Marisa's marriage to Arthur. Many months of planning went into making their wedding the wonderful day that it was. And this year's highlight, you ask? Marisa and Arthur will be making us grandparents in April 2003! We have already enjoyed ultrasound pictures (the wonders of modern technology-to be able to see the face of your yet unborn grandchild), Marisa's growing tummy, the faint kicks of tiny elbows and feet. And we look forward to much more next spring. Fortunately, Marisa likes her second trimester much more than her first, during which she was the victim of the infamous morning sickness, which we all know does not happen only in the morning!

After the blessed event in April, we are looking forward to another big event: Emily's becoming a medical assistant in the May/June timeframe. She put her plans to become a teacher on hold and started vocational school in San Diego in October. She is doing fabulously well, coming home with mostly A's on her tests and loving the curriculum. We are very proud that she was able to identify what she wanted to do and find a school to get her to that goal. With her charming manner and great social skills, now augmented with medical knowledge, we are confident that she will make an excellent doctor's assistant.

Although the events of 9-11 of last year had only minor effects on our lives compared to many people, they did result in Lynn being grounded in Chicago on her way to New York that week. Thanks to the help of a number of good friends and relatives, she made her way to Northern Wisconsin to wait for Philip, who was able to join her once the planes resumed flying. A bigger impact on our lives was whether or not we would be able to go Morocco as planned to visit our niece Corinna in the Peace Corps-or even whether Corinna would still be there. It was the subject of much discussion in the winter and spring following 9/11. In the end, over the objections of many friends and relatives, we went anyway to Morocco (and Spain) in May. It turned out to be a most wondrous trip in many ways, not the least of which was our visit to Corinna and her Berber village in the Atlas Mountains.

Southern Spain was a good introduction to Morocco, with its many Moorish castles, palaces and former mosques, the remains of 900 years of Islamic rule. In many cases the monuments in Spain are better preserved than in the Moorish homelands. In Morocco, we enjoyed the typical tourist attractions in Fes/Volubilis, Marrakesh, and Rabat. But we had come to Morocco to see Corinna in her remote site of Ait M'Hamed in the Atlas Mountains, four hours northeast of Marrakesh.

As most of you know, we ourselves had spent two years in the Peace Corps in Micronesia in 1968-1971. We were anxious to see how our two years compared to Corinna's experience. First of all, it was an extremely emotional experience just to see Corinna's face and hold her in our arms-we met in the lobby of our hotel in Marrakesh, as agreed upon via email and letter. With her as our tour guide, we felt much more relaxed-we just let her do all the talking and negotiating. You negotiate everything in Morocco-too bad our bargaining skills are so rudimentary! She negotiated an intercity taxi to Azilal, three hours away, and from there another ride to the market town of Ait M'Hamed. But we were not finished yet. We met Corinna's host family at souk, the weekly open-air market where her landlord Chifoor has a food stall. Then we walked an hour-first uphill, then across a plateau, then finally down and up to her mountain-side home. Although we were prepared to rough it, it was still an eye-opening experience to remember again that many people live quite well without electricity or running water.

We were quite warmly received by Corinna's family and many friends. We experienced a bit of how she lives on an everyday basis by staying in her house, eating what she eats, walking to her well sites, visiting her friends. The experience was similar to our own of thirty years ago, and we were pleased we could still carry basic possessions on our backs and sleep on the floor as we did then. One difference between our Peace Corps experience and Corinna's was the availability of water-we had had plenty with a pipe from a catchment into our kitchen, while hers is brought up the hill in large jugs on a donkey. We are very proud of how well she is integrated into her village, her work in sanitation, her language and cultural skills. But most of all, this visit to a remote village where we were warmly welcomed made our visit to Morocco much more than a string of visits to historic albeit exotic sights, where we were often accosted by would-be guides and people trying to hustle us out of our money. Thank you, Corinna! Spain and Morocco Journal

After our relatively short visit to Wisconsin following 9-11, we resolved to return a little later this year to enjoy the fall color. Unfortunately the fall color was late this year, and again we only got a taste of it. The trip was memorable for other reasons. Phil's Mom joined us and attended her 60th high school reunion. And Marisa (with Arthur) also joined us for her first visit to the area where both her Ritter grandparents had been born and raised. Having grandmother along made the trip very special for Marisa as we drove past sites of old homesteads, visited graveyards, and met a few of our many relatives. We had such a good time that we are thinking of returning to Wisconsin next fall. With our luck the leaves will turn early next year!

Those are the highs of our life since last we wrote two years ago. Fortunately, there have not been that many lows, with the exception of our losing this year two of our beloved cats: Mocha, our great mother cat, last spring, and Coco, one of her first kittens, this past month. We hope the same for you, too: many highs, not so many lows. From all of us, happy holidays, world peace, and a great 2003!

With love,

Lynn, Philip, and Emily Ritter
Marisa, Arthur, and Baby Reyes

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