Chocolate, postcards, and internet

1 Happiness is chocolate, postcards, and internet.

2 Happiness is anytime the indoor temperature falls between 40 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

3 A note passed from a student to me. During class. That only says "love u."

4 A "roommate meeting"

5 Not needing to worry about matching my clothes in the morning

6 A shower

7 Happiness is the sunshine, that feels ten times more intense, and makes everything glow like magic.

8 Happiness is leaving my house in search of bananas only to have a man pulling a cart of bananas cross my path ON my doorstep.

9 Listening to my neighborhood kids playing soccer in my street at 1am.

10 Using a western toilet.

11 Happiness is being able to give my best friend IT classes, and living in culture where she is not afraid to accept such a gift; in fact, it only feels appropriate after all that she and her family have done for me.

12 Happiness is henna hands.

13 Passing the same set of little markets every time you walk a street, with the same people working them all the time. And knowing when somebody feels lazy, because their store is closed.

14 A donkey. Carrying... anything.

15 Happiness is expressing the same sentiment in several different languages, however poorly; it really makes the moment several times more poignant.

16 Hosting elaborately ceremonial dinner parties

17 Public transportation

18 Being able to type again after having just cut fingernails for the first time in several weeks. ^.^

19 Modern dance with 9 Moroccan girls between the ages of 12 and 18, in the open-air cafeteria patio on the roof of my school.

20 Happiness is the excitement of being out in a familiar and exotic medina all evening and returning home to left-over tagine, my mom's prayer shawl, and the smell of spices still clinging to my clothes.