My family, probably like most lovely families of the western world, has many traditions that I associate with the Christmas season. This is the first Christmas I have spent away from my family, and, sadly, there is no Christmas to be noted in this area.
One of my favorite and most notable traditions in my family household is the reading of the Tall Book of Christmas on Christmas Eve. The Tall Book of Christmas is indeed about three times taller than it is wide, and is an anthology of short stories, poems, and songs about Christmas. It's definitely intended for children under the age of 8. However, every Christmas eve my family gathers around the tree by the fireplace and takes turns reading our favorite stories from the book, converging to the final story, Twas the Night Before Christmas. At this point, my dad takes the book and my mom, Rachel, and I all try to recite as much as we can from memory. I think we've improved over the last decade or two.
Without my family here, I decided to bring my traditions with me, and do what all westerners do and force my traditions upon others.
I teach three different groups of students, and in our math classes, we talked about how snowflakes are formed, and looked at some photos, and discussed the different rotational and reflective symmetries. Then they made paper snowflakes (with the correct angle of rotational symmetry, 60 degrees) while I read them (or recited) The Night Before Christmas. Only one class called me out and made me give the words to someone else to monitor my progress, but I got myself through the first half to the description of Santa, and then mixed up where his nose, cheeks, and mouth were supposed to be described. I like to call it artistic license. I made a Picasso of Livingston's original poem. That's good, right?
Christmas was well celebrated, among friends, both Moroccan and American, both Christian and Muslim, both students and peers. To all my loved ones at home: I miss you, and have thought of you much these weeks. May your season be blessed, and your time with your loved ones be dear. I wish you all the greatest of joy, be it with those next door or those who are far away.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Mountain Village
At the end of the school term, the half day marks the last day of the grading cycle, rewarding our six weeks with an extra afternoon of weekend. This always becomes an extra half-day AT LEAST of grading, but it's fun to have the break in the schedule.
After grading for several hours on Friday, my fellow teachers and I departed for the wedding of one of the Moroccan employees to another Moroccan teacher. Najet and Morad had been engaged for some time, and they invited all their family, friends, and coworkers to the wedding ceremony. The Moroccan wedding ceremony involves everyone sitting on froshes around one or more central areas where snacks are served. A live band plays traditional music, and everyone dances for several hours. The bride and groom emerge together, get their photos taken with their guests on the elaborate wedding throne, and leave. Another hour of dancing follows. The bride and groom process through the room again, in different but equally elaborate and royal attire. Their friends crowd around them to take pictures, they leave, and the Arabic dancing resumes.
The fifth dress was accompanied by a headdress the size of five people, and the bride and groom each sat in small hexagonal platforms, and were lifted by their friends. The sixth dress was a white gown, in a semi-American style, and was accompanied by a beautiful cake. The bride and groom fed one another cake, and they were so sweet together.
After the wedding, Ethan and I left for the Mountain village of Taghassiline, where his friend Rachid and his family live. We stopped to buy a carpet and walked around the town a bit, and I left to make couc-cous with Rachid's sister Souad and his cousin Khadija, and his mother. While out to buy the cous-cous supplies, we discovered the store closed! "It's not a problem," said Rachid, and walked around the corner to rap on a door. "I know the guy." He knocked several times, to no avail, and started calling "Mohamed! Open up!" When this was met with no reply, he lofted a rock in the upper open window! "I guess he's not home," he concluded after a minute.
We found another place to buy our cous-cous supplies, and Souad explained the process as all the women helped to mix and pour and stir. All preparations were done on a blanket over the dirt floor, since their house has no furniture, but the cat was happy as this meant the cookpot was set on the floor. The cat immediately huddled beside it. We put the cous-cous on to steam for the first step and retreated back to the warm room. The warm room was devoid of furnishings besides dozens of blankets and a television. The blankets stacked on the floor to make the sitting area during the day, and spread out to make the family bed for the women at night. After the cous-cous dinner and an evening huddled together beside the fire, I slept here, between Souad and Khadija.
It was nice to be so welcomed into their lifestyle.
After grading for several hours on Friday, my fellow teachers and I departed for the wedding of one of the Moroccan employees to another Moroccan teacher. Najet and Morad had been engaged for some time, and they invited all their family, friends, and coworkers to the wedding ceremony. The Moroccan wedding ceremony involves everyone sitting on froshes around one or more central areas where snacks are served. A live band plays traditional music, and everyone dances for several hours. The bride and groom emerge together, get their photos taken with their guests on the elaborate wedding throne, and leave. Another hour of dancing follows. The bride and groom process through the room again, in different but equally elaborate and royal attire. Their friends crowd around them to take pictures, they leave, and the Arabic dancing resumes.
The fifth dress was accompanied by a headdress the size of five people, and the bride and groom each sat in small hexagonal platforms, and were lifted by their friends. The sixth dress was a white gown, in a semi-American style, and was accompanied by a beautiful cake. The bride and groom fed one another cake, and they were so sweet together.
After the wedding, Ethan and I left for the Mountain village of Taghassiline, where his friend Rachid and his family live. We stopped to buy a carpet and walked around the town a bit, and I left to make couc-cous with Rachid's sister Souad and his cousin Khadija, and his mother. While out to buy the cous-cous supplies, we discovered the store closed! "It's not a problem," said Rachid, and walked around the corner to rap on a door. "I know the guy." He knocked several times, to no avail, and started calling "Mohamed! Open up!" When this was met with no reply, he lofted a rock in the upper open window! "I guess he's not home," he concluded after a minute.
We found another place to buy our cous-cous supplies, and Souad explained the process as all the women helped to mix and pour and stir. All preparations were done on a blanket over the dirt floor, since their house has no furniture, but the cat was happy as this meant the cookpot was set on the floor. The cat immediately huddled beside it. We put the cous-cous on to steam for the first step and retreated back to the warm room. The warm room was devoid of furnishings besides dozens of blankets and a television. The blankets stacked on the floor to make the sitting area during the day, and spread out to make the family bed for the women at night. After the cous-cous dinner and an evening huddled together beside the fire, I slept here, between Souad and Khadija.
It was nice to be so welcomed into their lifestyle.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Morning Call to Prayer
The mosque close to my apartment has the most intricate, beautiful call to prayer just before dawn. This video doesn't do it justice; it layers several levels of harmony. The view looks down on the street from my window.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Layers
It got cold shwia. Not very cold, just a little, the kind that if you stay outside all day you start losing feeling in your fingers, or getting little chills, without really realizing that the temperature's dropped. The only thing is, the buildings here are cement, with no heat or insulation country-wide. Inside is actually a couple degrees COLDER than outside. I took my students outside yesterday for nature study because it was warmer there. (And we painted a cool tree, so that wasn't the ONLY reason.) In one class, we played a game that required the students to have ordinal numbers, so I declared that the number 1 person on each team would be the person wearing the most layers. The number 1 students were all wearing 4 layers. To school, in the middle of class, so this is not including winter coats and scarves for the most part. Mostly the students (and teachers) wear our winter coats through 2nd or 3rd period, then it warms up enough to drop down to 3 or 4 layers. Still, I can't believe this is winter! I may go to the mountains over Christmas just so I can see snow and be convinced.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Smithsonian
If anyone gets the Smithsonian magazine, look up an article in the September 2009 issue by Susan Orlean, called "Where Donkeys Deliver." It's all about the donkeys in my city, and it's very well-written. I don't know why I hadn't particularly taken note of the donkeys everywhere here, but they are used in the Medina (which is a foot-traffic-only city) for every kind of transportation that can't be done by people. The worst insult in the Arabic language is to call somebody a donkey. Anyway, the article is worth reading.
Monday, November 30, 2009
The most striking images so far...
I've been pondering a way of successfully blogging about this weekend's events, and I have decided to describe it to you to the best of my ability, with complete honesty about my trepidations.
My concern is in the over-empahsis of traditions that are foreign in our culture, and highly ritualistic in nature. I fear painting a picture of the people amongst whom I live that turns you who may be reading my blog away from them, and away from seeing the compassion and hospitality with which they live their lives, and the common ground that we share.
Were tourists to be in my country on Saturday, they may have been quite shocked. This was the Eid Kabir, the "big feast," and the biggest of all Muslim holidays. It commemorates the time at which Abraham at the last minute did not sacrifice Ishmael, but instead killed a sheep. Every year, many families in my country commemorate this occurance by sacrificing a sheep. The theology behind it seems fairly complex, in that most of the Muslims I have spoken with have explained it slightly differently. To some, it signifies obediance to Allah. To others, it is the cleansing of sin. The sheep is sacificed, and the skin used for rugs and clothing, the organs made into dishes, some of the meat eaten, and the rest given to the poor.
Now that you understand that this tradition has an origin based in a very relatable aspect of faith, and that the outcome is one of generosity and prosperity and wastelessness, let me describe the scenes of the weekend.
I spent the weekend in Chefchaouen, a town whose name means "see the mountains."
The city is mostly a walled Medina like Fes, so the city is closely crowded together in one concentrated area with no suburbs. Did you know suburbs were an American phenomena? I always assumed all cities had them, but many cities here are closely gathered around one point, and then they stop. It reminds me of the old caravan circles of the westward-bound settlers of America.
Chefchaouen is painted blue. It used to be green, because green is the colour of Islam, but the large influx of Jewish refugees who took over the town in the middle ages sometime painted over the green of Islam with their own blue. The town was left this way because it is so distinctive. The whole city is red clay, whitewashed, and painted periwinkle or cerulean blue. During my late-night walk on Friday, I saw three different groups of 1-4 women outside (around midnight) with sponges tied to sticks to scrub over the walls with blue paint by moonlight.
On Saturday, the streets of the blue city ran with red blood. The rivulets of red pooling down the steep mountainside between the cobblestones, ofsetting the blue of the rest of the town... unforgettable.
Each family sacrificed their sheep with the gathering of the family outside after morning prayers, and slit the throat. They skinned it, washed the organs, and burned the heads. For the rest of the day, the streets were dappled with makeshift wire campfire contraptions supporting sheep heads. There was a very distinctive smell, and the air was clouded with smoke.
Amina invited me to feast at her house the next day, and her family prepared an amazing lamb and prune tagine. She showed me the remains, what was essentially a skeleton, of her family's sheep, hanging from the doorframe leading from the kitchen to the courtyard.
I do not want this experience to overly emphasize the "us and them" aspect of the culture in which I live. I think the most important aspect of loving others is finding the common ground, and the fact that it is present in all - we all have more in common than we have apart. This particular experience, however, made me extraordinarily grateful for the Truth that I have managed to find.
My concern is in the over-empahsis of traditions that are foreign in our culture, and highly ritualistic in nature. I fear painting a picture of the people amongst whom I live that turns you who may be reading my blog away from them, and away from seeing the compassion and hospitality with which they live their lives, and the common ground that we share.
Were tourists to be in my country on Saturday, they may have been quite shocked. This was the Eid Kabir, the "big feast," and the biggest of all Muslim holidays. It commemorates the time at which Abraham at the last minute did not sacrifice Ishmael, but instead killed a sheep. Every year, many families in my country commemorate this occurance by sacrificing a sheep. The theology behind it seems fairly complex, in that most of the Muslims I have spoken with have explained it slightly differently. To some, it signifies obediance to Allah. To others, it is the cleansing of sin. The sheep is sacificed, and the skin used for rugs and clothing, the organs made into dishes, some of the meat eaten, and the rest given to the poor.
Now that you understand that this tradition has an origin based in a very relatable aspect of faith, and that the outcome is one of generosity and prosperity and wastelessness, let me describe the scenes of the weekend.
I spent the weekend in Chefchaouen, a town whose name means "see the mountains."
The city is mostly a walled Medina like Fes, so the city is closely crowded together in one concentrated area with no suburbs. Did you know suburbs were an American phenomena? I always assumed all cities had them, but many cities here are closely gathered around one point, and then they stop. It reminds me of the old caravan circles of the westward-bound settlers of America.Chefchaouen is painted blue. It used to be green, because green is the colour of Islam, but the large influx of Jewish refugees who took over the town in the middle ages sometime painted over the green of Islam with their own blue. The town was left this way because it is so distinctive. The whole city is red clay, whitewashed, and painted periwinkle or cerulean blue. During my late-night walk on Friday, I saw three different groups of 1-4 women outside (around midnight) with sponges tied to sticks to scrub over the walls with blue paint by moonlight.
On Saturday, the streets of the blue city ran with red blood. The rivulets of red pooling down the steep mountainside between the cobblestones, ofsetting the blue of the rest of the town... unforgettable.
Each family sacrificed their sheep with the gathering of the family outside after morning prayers, and slit the throat. They skinned it, washed the organs, and burned the heads. For the rest of the day, the streets were dappled with makeshift wire campfire contraptions supporting sheep heads. There was a very distinctive smell, and the air was clouded with smoke.
Amina invited me to feast at her house the next day, and her family prepared an amazing lamb and prune tagine. She showed me the remains, what was essentially a skeleton, of her family's sheep, hanging from the doorframe leading from the kitchen to the courtyard.
I do not want this experience to overly emphasize the "us and them" aspect of the culture in which I live. I think the most important aspect of loving others is finding the common ground, and the fact that it is present in all - we all have more in common than we have apart. This particular experience, however, made me extraordinarily grateful for the Truth that I have managed to find.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Independence Day
In 1956, after nearly 50 years as a Protectorate, Moroccan people from all regions unified under late King Mohamed V (grandfather of our current king, who is in my town this week!), which caused him to be exiled. The people rallied in protest of the exile of their monarch, and he was returned to them from exile, bearing the Declaration of Independence. This holiday is not celebrated in any particular way now, except that we have a day's vacation every year in commémoration.
The 18th of November was a Wednesday this year, which I find to be the best day of the week to have a vacation. Ethan's birthday would be the following day, so we took the opportunity to celebrate when we could. Five teachers grande-taxi'ed to Ifrane, a pretty mountain town (with the original Atlas lion sculpture) and had Malawi with one of his Berber friends. We got delicious malawi with honey, and took some in a bag for lunch.
Ifrane was chilly, being a mountain town, but very set apart from other residences.
With the sun shining down on us as we left, we found the day perfect for our cross-country 17km hike to the next town of Azrou. The desert shrubs made the going difficult sometimes, but we made it out into the farmland between the towns, open golden fields, shepards leading their flocks to graze, and locals wrapped in whatever garments they had of every colour stading out against the sunny earth.
Ethan found his compass in a book of maps, and we wound our way through the low
mountains without losing our bearings, and without being eaten by any of the mangy guard dogs that ran from forever away to bark at us. We arrived in Azrou just after sunset, when the light was fading fast and we were just thinking that we would like to be at our destination. We took a bus back to Fes and stopped in the Medina for tagine at Ethan's favorite rooftop cafe.
Ethan and I decided to walk home from the Medina, and the others caught the red petit-taxi's. From the Medina, the old walled part of the city, you walk south through the old Fes J'did, and the old Jewish quarter, and then you arrive in Fes Nouveau, the more modern part of the city, where there are streets with cars. As we were entering Fes J'did, and turning off onto a back-path, suddenly the town went dark.
There was a power outage in the entire Fes J'did and Mellah.
The residents spilled out of their houses, since it was after dark and their houses would have had NO light, and there was some time of bustle as they ran back and forth with torches made of crumpled paper or cardboard tubes, or ran for their motos to turn on the headlight. Gradually the town settled down again, with the magic that a power outage inflicts: the people resumed their work, but left open their doors and windows to catch whatever starlight they could. As we walked through the narrow streets, we could see the flickers of life pinpointed by the fires of candlelight. In the darkness, in one window was a candle next to a woman working her embroidery; in another door was a man by a lit buta tank tallying the books from his day at the hanout. It was like having life highlighted for us in a soft glow that seemed very appropriate for this country, and we were bit dissapointed 20 minutes later when the streetlights limped back to life.
The 18th of November was a Wednesday this year, which I find to be the best day of the week to have a vacation. Ethan's birthday would be the following day, so we took the opportunity to celebrate when we could. Five teachers grande-taxi'ed to Ifrane, a pretty mountain town (with the original Atlas lion sculpture) and had Malawi with one of his Berber friends. We got delicious malawi with honey, and took some in a bag for lunch.
Ifrane was chilly, being a mountain town, but very set apart from other residences.
With the sun shining down on us as we left, we found the day perfect for our cross-country 17km hike to the next town of Azrou. The desert shrubs made the going difficult sometimes, but we made it out into the farmland between the towns, open golden fields, shepards leading their flocks to graze, and locals wrapped in whatever garments they had of every colour stading out against the sunny earth.Ethan found his compass in a book of maps, and we wound our way through the low
mountains without losing our bearings, and without being eaten by any of the mangy guard dogs that ran from forever away to bark at us. We arrived in Azrou just after sunset, when the light was fading fast and we were just thinking that we would like to be at our destination. We took a bus back to Fes and stopped in the Medina for tagine at Ethan's favorite rooftop cafe.Ethan and I decided to walk home from the Medina, and the others caught the red petit-taxi's. From the Medina, the old walled part of the city, you walk south through the old Fes J'did, and the old Jewish quarter, and then you arrive in Fes Nouveau, the more modern part of the city, where there are streets with cars. As we were entering Fes J'did, and turning off onto a back-path, suddenly the town went dark.
There was a power outage in the entire Fes J'did and Mellah.
The residents spilled out of their houses, since it was after dark and their houses would have had NO light, and there was some time of bustle as they ran back and forth with torches made of crumpled paper or cardboard tubes, or ran for their motos to turn on the headlight. Gradually the town settled down again, with the magic that a power outage inflicts: the people resumed their work, but left open their doors and windows to catch whatever starlight they could. As we walked through the narrow streets, we could see the flickers of life pinpointed by the fires of candlelight. In the darkness, in one window was a candle next to a woman working her embroidery; in another door was a man by a lit buta tank tallying the books from his day at the hanout. It was like having life highlighted for us in a soft glow that seemed very appropriate for this country, and we were bit dissapointed 20 minutes later when the streetlights limped back to life.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Rabat Ville
It feels nice to come home to Fes. I enjoy traveling, but I am just now beginning to enjoy the feeling of coming back to someplace familiar. Today, I am coming back from the capital city of Rabat, where many of the teachers spent the weekend for a 'conference' with the teachers of the big school in Casablanca. It was wonderful to get to see them again, or in some cases to meet them for the first time after hearing so many stories about them!
We stayed in a hotel right on the beach in a little town about 20 minutes outside of Rabat, and spent so much time out on the sand. Abdul and I were the only ocean-swimmers, but Gwen and Anna did get in the water! There was a lot of good quiet meditation and down time, and time for us all to build up one another and share our stories and experiences. It was relaxing, but felt very cut-off from my country.
We took the train home. I love the train. I also immediately connected with one of my local friends to plan a get-together for tomorrow night. Rabat proved highly helpful for the science classes in terms of samples gathered from the tidepools and coraline algae (which the students are drawing tomorrow), so a big thank you to Abdul who led the sample-gathering expedition.
It was fun to be on the beach on the western shore and think about Steve and family directly across the ocean in New Jersey.
We stayed in a hotel right on the beach in a little town about 20 minutes outside of Rabat, and spent so much time out on the sand. Abdul and I were the only ocean-swimmers, but Gwen and Anna did get in the water! There was a lot of good quiet meditation and down time, and time for us all to build up one another and share our stories and experiences. It was relaxing, but felt very cut-off from my country.
We took the train home. I love the train. I also immediately connected with one of my local friends to plan a get-together for tomorrow night. Rabat proved highly helpful for the science classes in terms of samples gathered from the tidepools and coraline algae (which the students are drawing tomorrow), so a big thank you to Abdul who led the sample-gathering expedition.
It was fun to be on the beach on the western shore and think about Steve and family directly across the ocean in New Jersey.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Spain
Last weekend was the weekend of Green March, a Moroccan national holiday. In the 70s, King Hassan II organized hundreds of thousands of Moroccan citizens to march south through Morocco to take back the Desert. To celebrate this reclaiming of our territory, the weekend is a national holiday, and schools are given Friday (and usually Thursday) off!
I've now been in my country for three months, and I have yet to have the government complete the transactions on my paperwork for my carte-du-sejour. Due to immigration laws, I had to leave the country before the three month mark, in order to re-enter and start over on the deadline to get the carte-du-sejour.
During this long-weekend, all the other new teachers at my school and I decided to go with the thriftiest option and hop across the boarder to Spain on a Ryanair jet for the steep price of 2 Moroccan centimes, fractions of dirham which are fractions of dollars.
The best part of the weekend was actually taking a personal day Thursday and leaving on the train to Nadour Thursday around 2am, a four hour ride, with Ethan, 3aisa, and Jona. We took the train to Nadour, and discovered that the train secretly continued to the next town north. Having the day before our plane left, we took the train past Nadour, through beautiful golden towns.
The cold weather has not sapped any of the golden luminescence of the land, but makes it look richer and more inviting, and is more deceiving. The cold is far from the bitter frigidity of New York, but is a continual permeation, like Chinese Water Tourture. Indoors are just as cold as outdoors. The train was just as cold as outside, or colder. When we pushed out way through the rusted doors of the train that barely granted us admittance, we were happy to drink in the sunlight. We ate a lunch of traditional Moroccan food - there is no other kind - of egg in oil with Moroccan spices, eaten by picking up bits with scraps of khubz bread.
The four of us trudged past high fences and walls with shards of glass embedded in the concrete like snaggly, crystal teeth. We stood at the end of a line of Moroccans in heavy winter djellabas, scrunched between a wall and a rough metal barred barrier. Someone saw our passports and waved us forward, and we were admitted into a different line. The Americans got through in minutes.
Over the boarder of the North African coastal Spanish city of Melilla, we had only to walk several blocks from the boarder to leave the Moroccan cultural influence. I uncovered my hair and pushed up my sleeves. The men took off sweaters and stood in the sun in T-shirts. We found a park to sit outside, and I played on some soccer goals and playground equipment and was generally child-like and undignified.
On the way back to Morocco to catch our flight, we passed an outdoor market where women seemed to be buying unusually large quantities of items. We heard the sound of tape, and saw a group of women with their over-djellabas pulled up around their chests to allow rows of sandals to be packaging taped to their bodies to smuggle them back across the boarder. We would witness this much this weekend.
We were among the 23 people on the full-sized Ryanair jet, on the pilot flight from Nadour to Madrid, and 3aisa's friend Theresa picked us up in the airport and dropped off Ethan and I at the house of the couchsurfer we were staying with. We went out walking the city, spent some time in Plaza del Sol, sampled lots of tapas, and went salsa dancing. The following day, we enjoyed sleeping in, picnicking in the landscaped green park, and walked the downtown of Madrid. In the evening, we had Mexican food and went out for more tapas and drinks. All the meetings with the other folks in our groups failed due to lack of ALL means of communication, and our attempt to see a movie in English ended in both of us being swarmed by employees. I think they didn't want us to enter the theatre late. I'm still not sure.
Saturday, we had time to visit some beautiful cathedrals and have one more picnic and a walk through the park before metro-ing to the airport. We met Jona and 3aisa at the airport, and enjoyed a seemless transport back to my city, through airport, petit taxi, by foot, grande-taxi, and finally train. The guys slept most of the transport (it was very late), and I got time to study on my own, read, and observe the people around me. I got some good tips on a variety of smuggling that really shouldn't be effective. The women taped so much under their djellabas that they were round. They could've rolled.
It was fun to come home to Morocco. I enjoyed Arabic being a relief to my ears after Spanish, and it made many aspects of this culture seem much less frustrating. This week at school has been smooth sailing.
I've now been in my country for three months, and I have yet to have the government complete the transactions on my paperwork for my carte-du-sejour. Due to immigration laws, I had to leave the country before the three month mark, in order to re-enter and start over on the deadline to get the carte-du-sejour.
During this long-weekend, all the other new teachers at my school and I decided to go with the thriftiest option and hop across the boarder to Spain on a Ryanair jet for the steep price of 2 Moroccan centimes, fractions of dirham which are fractions of dollars.
The best part of the weekend was actually taking a personal day Thursday and leaving on the train to Nadour Thursday around 2am, a four hour ride, with Ethan, 3aisa, and Jona. We took the train to Nadour, and discovered that the train secretly continued to the next town north. Having the day before our plane left, we took the train past Nadour, through beautiful golden towns.
The cold weather has not sapped any of the golden luminescence of the land, but makes it look richer and more inviting, and is more deceiving. The cold is far from the bitter frigidity of New York, but is a continual permeation, like Chinese Water Tourture. Indoors are just as cold as outdoors. The train was just as cold as outside, or colder. When we pushed out way through the rusted doors of the train that barely granted us admittance, we were happy to drink in the sunlight. We ate a lunch of traditional Moroccan food - there is no other kind - of egg in oil with Moroccan spices, eaten by picking up bits with scraps of khubz bread.
The four of us trudged past high fences and walls with shards of glass embedded in the concrete like snaggly, crystal teeth. We stood at the end of a line of Moroccans in heavy winter djellabas, scrunched between a wall and a rough metal barred barrier. Someone saw our passports and waved us forward, and we were admitted into a different line. The Americans got through in minutes.
Over the boarder of the North African coastal Spanish city of Melilla, we had only to walk several blocks from the boarder to leave the Moroccan cultural influence. I uncovered my hair and pushed up my sleeves. The men took off sweaters and stood in the sun in T-shirts. We found a park to sit outside, and I played on some soccer goals and playground equipment and was generally child-like and undignified.
On the way back to Morocco to catch our flight, we passed an outdoor market where women seemed to be buying unusually large quantities of items. We heard the sound of tape, and saw a group of women with their over-djellabas pulled up around their chests to allow rows of sandals to be packaging taped to their bodies to smuggle them back across the boarder. We would witness this much this weekend.
We were among the 23 people on the full-sized Ryanair jet, on the pilot flight from Nadour to Madrid, and 3aisa's friend Theresa picked us up in the airport and dropped off Ethan and I at the house of the couchsurfer we were staying with. We went out walking the city, spent some time in Plaza del Sol, sampled lots of tapas, and went salsa dancing. The following day, we enjoyed sleeping in, picnicking in the landscaped green park, and walked the downtown of Madrid. In the evening, we had Mexican food and went out for more tapas and drinks. All the meetings with the other folks in our groups failed due to lack of ALL means of communication, and our attempt to see a movie in English ended in both of us being swarmed by employees. I think they didn't want us to enter the theatre late. I'm still not sure.
Saturday, we had time to visit some beautiful cathedrals and have one more picnic and a walk through the park before metro-ing to the airport. We met Jona and 3aisa at the airport, and enjoyed a seemless transport back to my city, through airport, petit taxi, by foot, grande-taxi, and finally train. The guys slept most of the transport (it was very late), and I got time to study on my own, read, and observe the people around me. I got some good tips on a variety of smuggling that really shouldn't be effective. The women taped so much under their djellabas that they were round. They could've rolled.
It was fun to come home to Morocco. I enjoyed Arabic being a relief to my ears after Spanish, and it made many aspects of this culture seem much less frustrating. This week at school has been smooth sailing.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Internet Cafe
Hey all,
Just when you have a routine down, technology reminds you that Africa runs a little diffrently. Our internet and computers at the school are temporarily, but indefinately, out of service.
It's made lesson planning more difficult, and has also made me very greatful to my own fifth grade teacher, who placed so much emphasis on my penmanship. My students have been recieving photocopies of my own written worksheets. Hamdullah that the photocopier still works!
The plague has been sweeping the school this week. We have had about half attendence in the high school, both among teachers and students. The school even funded some preciously expensive 1oz bottles of hand sanitizer for each classroom to help prevent the spread of the disease. I don't know how much this helps, but my students love going through "santizing patrol" at the start of each class. They always remark on how expensive the bottles are, and seem proud that the school would spend that on them and their health.
Yesterday during nature study, I took ill myself, and spent the day at home today. I have a germ that has yet been unintroduced to the school (I don't know where I would have picked it up if not from the school), and I thought bringing that to the students in their states of many weakened immune systems would be self-defeating to everyone's education. After sleeping most of the day, I feel recovered.
Tomorrow my portion of the Rennaisance program begins, with a ballet class after school! I'm excited to spend more time (and time that is less formal and authoritative) with my students. I even have two volunteers from the seventh grade to assist in classes for the first two weeks while we do ballet.
My language studies have been going well, and I have gotten to the point of holding enough basic conversation to be able to briefly (and simply) discuss more important issues in Arabic. Though my main concern here has been with my students, it's nice to be able to respond to the taxi drivers who ask if I am Muslim in a way that positively reflects my culture.
The local guy at the next computer over is now more interested in my computer screen than his, so I'm going to sign out. Post me lots of messages to read next time I come to the cafe!
Just when you have a routine down, technology reminds you that Africa runs a little diffrently. Our internet and computers at the school are temporarily, but indefinately, out of service.
It's made lesson planning more difficult, and has also made me very greatful to my own fifth grade teacher, who placed so much emphasis on my penmanship. My students have been recieving photocopies of my own written worksheets. Hamdullah that the photocopier still works!
The plague has been sweeping the school this week. We have had about half attendence in the high school, both among teachers and students. The school even funded some preciously expensive 1oz bottles of hand sanitizer for each classroom to help prevent the spread of the disease. I don't know how much this helps, but my students love going through "santizing patrol" at the start of each class. They always remark on how expensive the bottles are, and seem proud that the school would spend that on them and their health.
Yesterday during nature study, I took ill myself, and spent the day at home today. I have a germ that has yet been unintroduced to the school (I don't know where I would have picked it up if not from the school), and I thought bringing that to the students in their states of many weakened immune systems would be self-defeating to everyone's education. After sleeping most of the day, I feel recovered.
Tomorrow my portion of the Rennaisance program begins, with a ballet class after school! I'm excited to spend more time (and time that is less formal and authoritative) with my students. I even have two volunteers from the seventh grade to assist in classes for the first two weeks while we do ballet.
My language studies have been going well, and I have gotten to the point of holding enough basic conversation to be able to briefly (and simply) discuss more important issues in Arabic. Though my main concern here has been with my students, it's nice to be able to respond to the taxi drivers who ask if I am Muslim in a way that positively reflects my culture.
The local guy at the next computer over is now more interested in my computer screen than his, so I'm going to sign out. Post me lots of messages to read next time I come to the cafe!
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Volleyball Tourney
My school is one of several "American" style schools in the country. We are the newest, and as such, we have had to fight to establish our place with the rest this year. From a bright pink school that is a gutted version of a large house, my students have been indignantly training for a volleyball tournament to which we were denied access. Over a week, our founder telephoned the other schools, repeatly requesting a chance - and receiving the same answer. Finally, the school in the capital city agreed to play us in an unofficial tournament.
We took the opportunity to rally our students, and talked up the tournament for a full week and a half. Our gym teacher Morad knew a volleyball player who came to train the students every day after school. We had official try-outs - although, with about 6 students per grade, everybody who wanted to be on the team made it. We even had the gravel shoveled to the side of a 10x20m rectangle in the gravel lot so we had an official court!
The tournament buses (actually two vans, filled with players, chaparones like me, and fans) left Saturday morning to make the 5 hour drive to the coast. It apparently was supposed to be a 4 hour drive, except that the local in the front seat didn't believe that any white people knew their way around. Abdul and Katie, two teachers at my school who used to teach at the capital school, tried to give directions - and were not heeded. We got there. Shwia b'shwia.
The school was amazing. My spirits were sinking as we walked in to the indoor gym area at the other school. They had a wood floor, a net, a SCOREBOARD. Their team had matching uniforms and kneepads, and they were practicing passing drills with their two coaches. Country mouse, city mouse?
After yelling with the students a bit and taking over most of the bleachers, Abdul and I left to find lunch for the students. We walked off the campus, immediately swallowed by the wonderful close atmosphere of the country, which had been walled out from the capital school. We walked to the local market, and bought ten kilos of meat while standing delicately in between the skinned bodies of our choices that were dripping blood from the ceiling. We took the meat next door to the griller to have him make it into 43 grilled sandwiches, and then needed to collect 30 dh exact change from each student. Oh, headache.
Abdul and I arrived back at the tournament to victorious yelling; the girls team had won their first game! I sat with some of my seventh grade students, and they led me through one drum-session on the bleachers of our school's funky-remix-type song. The girls played so well together; I was so proud of the teamwork they developed and the grace they showed one another and the other team! They won their second game, too, by quite a good margin, thus winning the tournament for the girls!
The boys, too, played well, although a select few of them had not mastered the teamwork that the ladies exhibited, and so not all the plays made were strategic. I had to leave to pick up the lunch, and thus did not witness the full tournament by the boys.
The day was concluded by pick-up games of soccer, basketball, volleyball, sprinting, and American football. Basically, we just wanted to play on the grass that the capital school has. I had a great time with my students in a less structured environment than the classroom, and I got to interact more with the older high school students that I don't teach. The shineyness of the capital school made me appreciate many of the rusty aspects of my school. It may not be as ritzy, but it has personality and charm.
The day was an excercise for me in narrowing the power gap between student and teacher. I sat with several different students on the bus, in closer physical proximity than I would dream of in America, discussing all sorts of issues and concerns of theirs, on a very non-authoritative level. I sang kareoke on the bus. The students came up with a game of impersonating teachers and guessing who was whom. Mostly, everybody behaved maturely and repectfully of everyone else the whole day; they all made me very proud.
We took the opportunity to rally our students, and talked up the tournament for a full week and a half. Our gym teacher Morad knew a volleyball player who came to train the students every day after school. We had official try-outs - although, with about 6 students per grade, everybody who wanted to be on the team made it. We even had the gravel shoveled to the side of a 10x20m rectangle in the gravel lot so we had an official court!
The tournament buses (actually two vans, filled with players, chaparones like me, and fans) left Saturday morning to make the 5 hour drive to the coast. It apparently was supposed to be a 4 hour drive, except that the local in the front seat didn't believe that any white people knew their way around. Abdul and Katie, two teachers at my school who used to teach at the capital school, tried to give directions - and were not heeded. We got there. Shwia b'shwia.
The school was amazing. My spirits were sinking as we walked in to the indoor gym area at the other school. They had a wood floor, a net, a SCOREBOARD. Their team had matching uniforms and kneepads, and they were practicing passing drills with their two coaches. Country mouse, city mouse?
After yelling with the students a bit and taking over most of the bleachers, Abdul and I left to find lunch for the students. We walked off the campus, immediately swallowed by the wonderful close atmosphere of the country, which had been walled out from the capital school. We walked to the local market, and bought ten kilos of meat while standing delicately in between the skinned bodies of our choices that were dripping blood from the ceiling. We took the meat next door to the griller to have him make it into 43 grilled sandwiches, and then needed to collect 30 dh exact change from each student. Oh, headache.
Abdul and I arrived back at the tournament to victorious yelling; the girls team had won their first game! I sat with some of my seventh grade students, and they led me through one drum-session on the bleachers of our school's funky-remix-type song. The girls played so well together; I was so proud of the teamwork they developed and the grace they showed one another and the other team! They won their second game, too, by quite a good margin, thus winning the tournament for the girls!
The boys, too, played well, although a select few of them had not mastered the teamwork that the ladies exhibited, and so not all the plays made were strategic. I had to leave to pick up the lunch, and thus did not witness the full tournament by the boys.
The day was concluded by pick-up games of soccer, basketball, volleyball, sprinting, and American football. Basically, we just wanted to play on the grass that the capital school has. I had a great time with my students in a less structured environment than the classroom, and I got to interact more with the older high school students that I don't teach. The shineyness of the capital school made me appreciate many of the rusty aspects of my school. It may not be as ritzy, but it has personality and charm.
The day was an excercise for me in narrowing the power gap between student and teacher. I sat with several different students on the bus, in closer physical proximity than I would dream of in America, discussing all sorts of issues and concerns of theirs, on a very non-authoritative level. I sang kareoke on the bus. The students came up with a game of impersonating teachers and guessing who was whom. Mostly, everybody behaved maturely and repectfully of everyone else the whole day; they all made me very proud.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Quarter-pennies
I have a plane ticket to Madrid. I got it (round trip) for a quarter penny.
Here's the story. I don't yet have my carte du sejour, my working visa, in this country. ...so, every three months, I get thrown out. Every three months, all of us have to leave the country for a day, then re-enter. Ridiculous. We are traveling on the weekend of Green March, the holiday commemorating the date in the 1970's when soldiers were forced to march into the desert to claim it as our own. All the new teachers, and some of the returners, will be traveling to Spain over the long weekend on a FORCED vacation. And we can do all sorts of crazy h'shuma stuff like wear short sleeves and go salsa dancing.
My roommates are awesome. The other day, we played for about a half hour with a dishtowel. I don't know how it started, but we were washing up after having dinner with Abdul and Ethan, and Candace threw the towel at Suzanne, who swatted it to the floor. Instant fun! The event was repeated, and it wasn't long before we had our singular red dishtowel out in the living room, all three of us swatting and kicking and diving back and forth. We thought it was hysterical, and it was the best toy in the apartment at the time.
Abdul and Ethan were playing backgammon. They were not amused.
But the squatty-potty is less stinky after Candace dumped bleach down it daily all week.
Here's the story. I don't yet have my carte du sejour, my working visa, in this country. ...so, every three months, I get thrown out. Every three months, all of us have to leave the country for a day, then re-enter. Ridiculous. We are traveling on the weekend of Green March, the holiday commemorating the date in the 1970's when soldiers were forced to march into the desert to claim it as our own. All the new teachers, and some of the returners, will be traveling to Spain over the long weekend on a FORCED vacation. And we can do all sorts of crazy h'shuma stuff like wear short sleeves and go salsa dancing.
My roommates are awesome. The other day, we played for about a half hour with a dishtowel. I don't know how it started, but we were washing up after having dinner with Abdul and Ethan, and Candace threw the towel at Suzanne, who swatted it to the floor. Instant fun! The event was repeated, and it wasn't long before we had our singular red dishtowel out in the living room, all three of us swatting and kicking and diving back and forth. We thought it was hysterical, and it was the best toy in the apartment at the time.
Abdul and Ethan were playing backgammon. They were not amused.
But the squatty-potty is less stinky after Candace dumped bleach down it daily all week.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
T.I.M.
Well, it is. I guess I'm not giving away too much.
We had a faculty meeting this morning to discuss the joint opening of the school's first official extra-curricular activity! We have a volleyball game coming up against another school, but that's not a regular activity; we put together a volleyball intermural specifically for this game. My poor seventh graders were stoked for the match, but the only team the other school wanted was the high school team. Rats.
Anyway, this new extracurricular is called the Renaissance Program, and it's a hodge-podge of whatever each teacher feels they can contribute. I love to dance, so I'm going to be teaching dance after school once a week. Somebody's doing drama, somebody readings in French, somebody science experiments. We've really gone from NO extracurriculars, to about 10 - as many extracurriculars as there are teachers.
Also at the faculty meeting, the founder of our school (who is still very much in charge of its development) decided she wanted some classroom time, and had a drawing for one of the teachers to take a day off. Aicha won the drawing, so she gets a day off where Michelle will teach all her classes. Only here. I have to admit, I laughed when I heard the proposition, but I would've been happy to have my name drawn, too!
EQUATION OF THE DAY!
________________________________________________
It's a good day so far. The equation of the day was tough today. One of the seventh graders solved it, but none of the sixth. See if you can get it.
14102009.
Today is the 14th day of the 10th month, year 2009. Take the 8 digits, 14102009, and make a valid equation by placing one "=" and any other operations you want between any digits you want. Here's the kicker: you can't rearrange any of the digits, or insert or remove any.
So, you could say,
. -14+1^(0) = 12 - 0*9
(The "^" means raised to the power of). Except it doesn't. -13 doesn't equal 12. Make it work! It's a challenge! *throws down glove*
We had a faculty meeting this morning to discuss the joint opening of the school's first official extra-curricular activity! We have a volleyball game coming up against another school, but that's not a regular activity; we put together a volleyball intermural specifically for this game. My poor seventh graders were stoked for the match, but the only team the other school wanted was the high school team. Rats.
Anyway, this new extracurricular is called the Renaissance Program, and it's a hodge-podge of whatever each teacher feels they can contribute. I love to dance, so I'm going to be teaching dance after school once a week. Somebody's doing drama, somebody readings in French, somebody science experiments. We've really gone from NO extracurriculars, to about 10 - as many extracurriculars as there are teachers.
Also at the faculty meeting, the founder of our school (who is still very much in charge of its development) decided she wanted some classroom time, and had a drawing for one of the teachers to take a day off. Aicha won the drawing, so she gets a day off where Michelle will teach all her classes. Only here. I have to admit, I laughed when I heard the proposition, but I would've been happy to have my name drawn, too!
EQUATION OF THE DAY!
________________________________________________
It's a good day so far. The equation of the day was tough today. One of the seventh graders solved it, but none of the sixth. See if you can get it.
14102009.
Today is the 14th day of the 10th month, year 2009. Take the 8 digits, 14102009, and make a valid equation by placing one "=" and any other operations you want between any digits you want. Here's the kicker: you can't rearrange any of the digits, or insert or remove any.
So, you could say,
. -14+1^(0) = 12 - 0*9
(The "^" means raised to the power of). Except it doesn't. -13 doesn't equal 12. Make it work! It's a challenge! *throws down glove*
Friday, October 9, 2009
Mid-terms
We are officially halfway through the first of the six terms that comprise this school year, so I'm working out grades to send home progress reports. It's more difficult without any form of technology. Even the report cards at the end of the year are handwritten - a printed spreadsheet that gets taken around to each of the teachers, who fill in the appropriate cell on each student's paper. I had a meeting with one of my student's mothers today, seeing as he is (like too many of them) failing both of my classes.
It began awkwardly, due to the extreme language barrier, and the fact that our translator was her son. I believe completely that he was translating what I told her about his progress, but I'm also sure that he was making excuses to her at the same time. Who wouldn't? It was a hard thing I was asking him to do, and eventually Najet came over and took over for him.
Our apartment was cleaned yesterday by Louisa's hadema, and most of the power-tool work has been done this week. I think we're on our own from here, which is fine with me! We're beginning at a higher standard than my apartment last year in the states, and the place here has great potential. We've killed 3 roaches so far. Tomorrow, a senior girl I'm friends with is coming over to teach me to make Chicken Tajine. I'm excited; I never cook anything. The khobz bread is so delicious I rarely eat anything non-sandwich-ed.
I'm nervous for my students. I want them to succeed. As their teacher, I should be able to make that happen. But I can't MAKE it happen. I struggle with wanting to negate this assignment, or delete that zero. The lack of work has consequences, and I need for my class to teach them that. Teachers at home, any suggestions?
It began awkwardly, due to the extreme language barrier, and the fact that our translator was her son. I believe completely that he was translating what I told her about his progress, but I'm also sure that he was making excuses to her at the same time. Who wouldn't? It was a hard thing I was asking him to do, and eventually Najet came over and took over for him.
Our apartment was cleaned yesterday by Louisa's hadema, and most of the power-tool work has been done this week. I think we're on our own from here, which is fine with me! We're beginning at a higher standard than my apartment last year in the states, and the place here has great potential. We've killed 3 roaches so far. Tomorrow, a senior girl I'm friends with is coming over to teach me to make Chicken Tajine. I'm excited; I never cook anything. The khobz bread is so delicious I rarely eat anything non-sandwich-ed.
I'm nervous for my students. I want them to succeed. As their teacher, I should be able to make that happen. But I can't MAKE it happen. I struggle with wanting to negate this assignment, or delete that zero. The lack of work has consequences, and I need for my class to teach them that. Teachers at home, any suggestions?
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Light of the World... or in our apartment
Here's the greatest story of the week:
We have all been doing our best to set up our new place so that it's relatively homey. The first steps were things like shower heads (ok, we still haven't gotten those installed) and garbage cans. Dishes. Keys. LIGHTBULBS.
In this country, there are two kinds of lightbulbs for sale: plug in and screw in. Safi.
The problem was that our light fixtures are very tall and a bit broken, so we couldn't see which kinds to buy. No problem, asked the guardian of the building, and he pointed at the screw-ins. It wasn't the screw-ins. We were visiting the hanout at 10pm when we discovered we had no lights in our house.
We returned triumphantly to put them up in the dark, so I broke out the headlamp. I got laughed at, of course, wearing my headlamp around the house, but I could see! I love those things.
Well, then we had the problem of getting the bulbs into the sockets, being three reasonably petite women. Here's how it played out. Check the variety and creativity here!
In the entrance hall, the walls were too far apart to climb, but nothing would fit to stand on. We have an extra frosh stand (it's basically a base of planks with four short legs (6"?) and a few cross-beams of about 2x4 size. We propped the frosh stand against the wall, and climbed the cross-beams like a ladder while Candace and Suzanne held it up against the wall for dear life. Balanced precariously on an up-ended piece of furniture, I could just reach the socket.
In the living room, no walls were near the socket, so a new procedure was needed. There's a wobbly table, and we put an end table (these are the only two pieces of furniture in the house besides the froshes and beds) on top of the wobbly table. Standing on both tables on my tip-toes, the light went in.
The kitchen was easy. The counter got me to the right height, then it was just a matter of straddling the big room with one foot on the counter, and one on the fridge to plug in the bulb.
The hallway was a repeat of the frosh stand, except it didn't quite fit so we rebounded off of it to wedge myself between the walls. Then I could stay long enough to get the bulb in place.
In my bedroom, there was nothing to stand on (my bed is about a foot off the ground), no nearby walls, and no room to carry in the table. Eventually, Candace went up on my shoulders to plug in the light. Suzanne stood in front and braced our leaning tower, and we were SO CLOSE. Standing next to the bed, we scuffled the mattress off to one side and stepped up onto the frosh-stand. Quite a picture.
In Suzanne's bedroom, we stacked the taller girls instead, with Candace up on Suzanne's shoulders, but it still required us to drag the extra frosh stand into the room, since Suzanne's bed had fallen apart earlier that day.
Shwia b'shwia.
We have all been doing our best to set up our new place so that it's relatively homey. The first steps were things like shower heads (ok, we still haven't gotten those installed) and garbage cans. Dishes. Keys. LIGHTBULBS.
In this country, there are two kinds of lightbulbs for sale: plug in and screw in. Safi.
The problem was that our light fixtures are very tall and a bit broken, so we couldn't see which kinds to buy. No problem, asked the guardian of the building, and he pointed at the screw-ins. It wasn't the screw-ins. We were visiting the hanout at 10pm when we discovered we had no lights in our house.
We returned triumphantly to put them up in the dark, so I broke out the headlamp. I got laughed at, of course, wearing my headlamp around the house, but I could see! I love those things.
Well, then we had the problem of getting the bulbs into the sockets, being three reasonably petite women. Here's how it played out. Check the variety and creativity here!
In the entrance hall, the walls were too far apart to climb, but nothing would fit to stand on. We have an extra frosh stand (it's basically a base of planks with four short legs (6"?) and a few cross-beams of about 2x4 size. We propped the frosh stand against the wall, and climbed the cross-beams like a ladder while Candace and Suzanne held it up against the wall for dear life. Balanced precariously on an up-ended piece of furniture, I could just reach the socket.
In the living room, no walls were near the socket, so a new procedure was needed. There's a wobbly table, and we put an end table (these are the only two pieces of furniture in the house besides the froshes and beds) on top of the wobbly table. Standing on both tables on my tip-toes, the light went in.
The kitchen was easy. The counter got me to the right height, then it was just a matter of straddling the big room with one foot on the counter, and one on the fridge to plug in the bulb.
The hallway was a repeat of the frosh stand, except it didn't quite fit so we rebounded off of it to wedge myself between the walls. Then I could stay long enough to get the bulb in place.
In my bedroom, there was nothing to stand on (my bed is about a foot off the ground), no nearby walls, and no room to carry in the table. Eventually, Candace went up on my shoulders to plug in the light. Suzanne stood in front and braced our leaning tower, and we were SO CLOSE. Standing next to the bed, we scuffled the mattress off to one side and stepped up onto the frosh-stand. Quite a picture.
In Suzanne's bedroom, we stacked the taller girls instead, with Candace up on Suzanne's shoulders, but it still required us to drag the extra frosh stand into the room, since Suzanne's bed had fallen apart earlier that day.
Shwia b'shwia.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Moving Day
The new apartment is finally rented, and moving day was on Saturday. I'm struggling here to keep my words optimistic... Some of our furnature was to be supplied by a man who is moving out and selling us his things. This was actually our only furniture. The apartment has a lot of potential - it currently looks very spacious, and it's on the fourth floor, so the rats won't climb up the toilets. I think there's not a lot of work to be done before we get water, and even mention of a water heater getting hooked up, insha'allah.
But there's a lot to do. For example, the deadbolt on the door has been punched through, so there's a small hole in the outside door, and no dead bolt. We are actually not even staying there yet; we went back to our old apartments for another day or two. Please keep me in your thoughts. It looks to be a busy week.
But there's a lot to do. For example, the deadbolt on the door has been punched through, so there's a small hole in the outside door, and no dead bolt. We are actually not even staying there yet; we went back to our old apartments for another day or two. Please keep me in your thoughts. It looks to be a busy week.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Layer and Stink
When I met the other teachers over the summer, a teacher who had worked at my school for several years came to speak with us. He told us that, in country, we should do as the locals do: layer and stink. It gets cold in the winter, and the modesty codes require layers of clothing. And nobody showers much.
The local public bath houses are called hamaams, and for many, this is their only way of cleaning. I think I see why people don't have showers.
My shower broke today. I have only had cold water, which has only been a problem at 6am when everything is cold. Today, I turned on the water and the hose attached to the shower head snapped. Water went everywhere. Except on me.
Thankfully, Candace and Suzanne just had their shower fixed from a similar condition last week, so I was able to beg a shower from their place.
It was the first warm water I've had in over a month. Hamdullah.
The local public bath houses are called hamaams, and for many, this is their only way of cleaning. I think I see why people don't have showers.
My shower broke today. I have only had cold water, which has only been a problem at 6am when everything is cold. Today, I turned on the water and the hose attached to the shower head snapped. Water went everywhere. Except on me.
Thankfully, Candace and Suzanne just had their shower fixed from a similar condition last week, so I was able to beg a shower from their place.
It was the first warm water I've had in over a month. Hamdullah.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Eid al-F'tour Long Weekend!
Huzzah for getting both American and Islamic holidays!
The month of Ramadan ended Sunday, with the traditional huge feast and family visitation, so both Monday and Tuesday are given off from school, because none of our students would have shown up anyway. With the four-day weekend, we Americans decided to have some adventures!
Friday evening, I ended up venturing out by myself (before the F'tour) to wander the Mellah between the new city and the Medina. It's close enough to be a fast walk, but has fun winding streets and bustling markets. I had some of my first positive experiences with strangers (particularly males, because almost ALL experiences with local men are negative.) in talking with the shopkeepers, and it was great language practice.
I walked home down Hassan Tanni, the big boulevard in my city, and noticed nothing out of the ordinary. The following morning, I set out with Suzanne, Candace, and Ethan, and Hassan Tanni had a funny smell of lacquer. All of a sudden, there was a lion! Surrounded by gawkers, a bronze lion on a rectangular base covered in bronzed grass had been plunked down in the center of the boulevard! We stopped to take our pictures with him, and to speculate on his purpose. Of course, we had to poke various parts to find out what was still wet, and Suzanne came away with some of the gravel that was embedded in the bronze-coloured goo stuck to her palms.
-- We had a nice walk around the Medina, traveling Bab (door) to Bab. The Medina in my city is apparently the oldest walled city that has been inhabited since its establishment in the 8th century. It was interesting being there with the four of us after walking in smaller groups. We got a lot of hassle by kids wanting to be our tour guides. Ethan told them he was our tour guide, and they mostly believed him. He knows the Medina well enough to be a guide. I bought a kilo of fresh figs from the fruit-souk for the US equivalent of $1.50. Sooo tasty.
The plan was to meet at my place for F'tour before the salsa party, but the message didn't get out to all involved. I hosted my first semi-official F'tour, with milk and dates, figs, khobz and cous-cous, and Ethan brought malawi from the F'tour stand near his house. Candace had already eaten, and rested up for the salsa, and Abdul was running late, so Ethan and I stood around outside, unable to enter the apartment above suspicion with just the two of us! Oh dear! Suzanne came over, and we all figured three people was close enough to the culturally appropriate gender requirements... plus we were hungry.
The salsa party was lots of fun, if pretty tame. I had about 10 people come, and taught a short routine, and then we just put on music and danced - well, a few of us danced. We've already decided on having another one, just so more people come and feel comfortable with it. It was great to get in some dancing, and everybody did so well, but I missed all my Schenectady dancers! We ended up partying until about 4am, although the last several hours comprised significantly less movement and more chatting from the couches. An eventful and exciting day, and church seemed very early the next morning...
The month of Ramadan ended Sunday, with the traditional huge feast and family visitation, so both Monday and Tuesday are given off from school, because none of our students would have shown up anyway. With the four-day weekend, we Americans decided to have some adventures!
Friday evening, I ended up venturing out by myself (before the F'tour) to wander the Mellah between the new city and the Medina. It's close enough to be a fast walk, but has fun winding streets and bustling markets. I had some of my first positive experiences with strangers (particularly males, because almost ALL experiences with local men are negative.) in talking with the shopkeepers, and it was great language practice.
I walked home down Hassan Tanni, the big boulevard in my city, and noticed nothing out of the ordinary. The following morning, I set out with Suzanne, Candace, and Ethan, and Hassan Tanni had a funny smell of lacquer. All of a sudden, there was a lion! Surrounded by gawkers, a bronze lion on a rectangular base covered in bronzed grass had been plunked down in the center of the boulevard! We stopped to take our pictures with him, and to speculate on his purpose. Of course, we had to poke various parts to find out what was still wet, and Suzanne came away with some of the gravel that was embedded in the bronze-coloured goo stuck to her palms.
-- We had a nice walk around the Medina, traveling Bab (door) to Bab. The Medina in my city is apparently the oldest walled city that has been inhabited since its establishment in the 8th century. It was interesting being there with the four of us after walking in smaller groups. We got a lot of hassle by kids wanting to be our tour guides. Ethan told them he was our tour guide, and they mostly believed him. He knows the Medina well enough to be a guide. I bought a kilo of fresh figs from the fruit-souk for the US equivalent of $1.50. Sooo tasty.
The plan was to meet at my place for F'tour before the salsa party, but the message didn't get out to all involved. I hosted my first semi-official F'tour, with milk and dates, figs, khobz and cous-cous, and Ethan brought malawi from the F'tour stand near his house. Candace had already eaten, and rested up for the salsa, and Abdul was running late, so Ethan and I stood around outside, unable to enter the apartment above suspicion with just the two of us! Oh dear! Suzanne came over, and we all figured three people was close enough to the culturally appropriate gender requirements... plus we were hungry.
The salsa party was lots of fun, if pretty tame. I had about 10 people come, and taught a short routine, and then we just put on music and danced - well, a few of us danced. We've already decided on having another one, just so more people come and feel comfortable with it. It was great to get in some dancing, and everybody did so well, but I missed all my Schenectady dancers! We ended up partying until about 4am, although the last several hours comprised significantly less movement and more chatting from the couches. An eventful and exciting day, and church seemed very early the next morning...
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Ana ferhenna, andi henna!
Thursday night marked Leila al'Qaddem, the night of power in which Muslims celebrate the night of the imparting of the Qa'ran to Muhamed.
Tony and I went to the family in Sidi Bujita for f'tour with them, and they were lovely and welcoming as always. Visiting homes feels more regular now, sitting on froshes to chat, watching Ramadan TV, playing with the kids as they run around. The meal was delicious, with hirara soup, four kinds of bread, and a communal dish of something like pea soup with spices and oil that we dipped the bread into to eat. We had apple milk, a thick drink like a milkshake; and, of course, dates and shebekia.
After dinner, their neighbor Wafie stopped by, who is a henna artist. She mixed powders and water and some liquid from a small bottle, and stirred the henna up like a big bowl of cookie dough - but it was green. She used a medical syringe with a
fixture attached like a ball pump to swirl the henna around in beautiful patterns that she improvised as she went. She began learning henna when she was very young; she's always gone to school for it.
Tony and I and Khadija and the little daughter all had henna painted, and then had to sit for the next hour with our hands up in the air and fingers stretched! One of the men put us in the taxi home, so we wouldn't have to open the doors. Even after the wet paste dried, it them began to crack off our hands. We had a time of it trying to open our multi-keyed door when we got home.
Tony and I went to the family in Sidi Bujita for f'tour with them, and they were lovely and welcoming as always. Visiting homes feels more regular now, sitting on froshes to chat, watching Ramadan TV, playing with the kids as they run around. The meal was delicious, with hirara soup, four kinds of bread, and a communal dish of something like pea soup with spices and oil that we dipped the bread into to eat. We had apple milk, a thick drink like a milkshake; and, of course, dates and shebekia.
After dinner, their neighbor Wafie stopped by, who is a henna artist. She mixed powders and water and some liquid from a small bottle, and stirred the henna up like a big bowl of cookie dough - but it was green. She used a medical syringe with a
fixture attached like a ball pump to swirl the henna around in beautiful patterns that she improvised as she went. She began learning henna when she was very young; she's always gone to school for it.
Tony and I and Khadija and the little daughter all had henna painted, and then had to sit for the next hour with our hands up in the air and fingers stretched! One of the men put us in the taxi home, so we wouldn't have to open the doors. Even after the wet paste dried, it them began to crack off our hands. We had a time of it trying to open our multi-keyed door when we got home.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Jabel Zalagh
The hamaam did not happen, but I did meet up with some of the other teachers for a girly movie.
Saturday, Ethan, the other math teacher, and I hiked Mt. Zalagh, just north of the Medina. It was great to have a mountain (or at least an exciting hill) within walking distance of the city. We walked down through the medina and out over farm fields and empty land. The summer has not been kind to the ground; the top layer of mud dried and cracked, so walking on it was like being on a thin layer of ice that continually cracked under every step. We saw the coolest selection of vicious plants - tall mean white plants that looked like paper barbed wire, and bright purple thistles, whose flowers lived despite the rest of the plant having shriveled and browned in the heat, and large fan ferns that looked like they could be functional fans, but had tiny thorns along the stalks.
Also saw tons of cool lizards, a cave with some big white grubs, and largish songbirds with distinctive white flags on the underside of their wings, which I have still not managed to key out.
We ran into a little boy on a donkey while we were crossing the only thing that resembled a stream. Ethan was attempting to jump rocks that had been spaced a bit too far apart, and the boy jumped off the donkey, into the stream, and pulled a few more rocks into place. He offered us donkey rides and followed us, chatting in Arabic, until Ethan told him that we lived in the city and were actually not tourists. The boy pointed out his home, and rode off.
We saw several houses that looked like well-packed haystacks, with a hole hollowed out of one end. The king enacted a program to get electricity to all houses, but many of the people are too poor to afford it, so the silent lines come right to their houses, but no power goes through that part of the grid.
Several groups of children were out in the open dry fields, playing soccer or just clustering in the shade. They all wanted to talk to us, to tell us not to go up the mountain because the Djin that live in the wilderness would get us.
We decided to risk the Djin.
The last bit of the hike got much steeper, to the point of using hands to scramble, at one point along a ridge that was left when a sort of quarry was carved away on either side. We scrambled over rocks, and saw lots more cool lizards and big beetles. After only two false summits, we were rewarded - not by a summit plate - but by a big metal structure with four legs, maybe 20 feet tall, which is apparently what marks the summit here. We climbed it. Ethan's taller than me. I got stuck on top.
The view was amazing: we could see about 30-40 miles before the sun-kissed land disappeared into a haze of sand and clouds. Our city looked so ancient and secretive, and the golden hills were dotted with organized grids of olive trees.
And both of our cameras were dead.
We sat to rest on the summit. Ethan did some kakuro, which is awesome because his book has puzzles he's finished from all the interesting places he's been, and I did some tai chi on the mountaintop, simply because I could. (I felt pretty cool.)
We were thirsty on the way down, and went much faster despite trying a new route. We got back to the medina just in time to buy food and get home for F'tour. I F'toured with Candace and Suzanne, who have said that we'll have to take a trip up Zalagh another weekend. I'm holding you to that, girls!
Saturday, Ethan, the other math teacher, and I hiked Mt. Zalagh, just north of the Medina. It was great to have a mountain (or at least an exciting hill) within walking distance of the city. We walked down through the medina and out over farm fields and empty land. The summer has not been kind to the ground; the top layer of mud dried and cracked, so walking on it was like being on a thin layer of ice that continually cracked under every step. We saw the coolest selection of vicious plants - tall mean white plants that looked like paper barbed wire, and bright purple thistles, whose flowers lived despite the rest of the plant having shriveled and browned in the heat, and large fan ferns that looked like they could be functional fans, but had tiny thorns along the stalks.
Also saw tons of cool lizards, a cave with some big white grubs, and largish songbirds with distinctive white flags on the underside of their wings, which I have still not managed to key out.
We ran into a little boy on a donkey while we were crossing the only thing that resembled a stream. Ethan was attempting to jump rocks that had been spaced a bit too far apart, and the boy jumped off the donkey, into the stream, and pulled a few more rocks into place. He offered us donkey rides and followed us, chatting in Arabic, until Ethan told him that we lived in the city and were actually not tourists. The boy pointed out his home, and rode off.
We saw several houses that looked like well-packed haystacks, with a hole hollowed out of one end. The king enacted a program to get electricity to all houses, but many of the people are too poor to afford it, so the silent lines come right to their houses, but no power goes through that part of the grid.
Several groups of children were out in the open dry fields, playing soccer or just clustering in the shade. They all wanted to talk to us, to tell us not to go up the mountain because the Djin that live in the wilderness would get us.
We decided to risk the Djin.
The last bit of the hike got much steeper, to the point of using hands to scramble, at one point along a ridge that was left when a sort of quarry was carved away on either side. We scrambled over rocks, and saw lots more cool lizards and big beetles. After only two false summits, we were rewarded - not by a summit plate - but by a big metal structure with four legs, maybe 20 feet tall, which is apparently what marks the summit here. We climbed it. Ethan's taller than me. I got stuck on top.
The view was amazing: we could see about 30-40 miles before the sun-kissed land disappeared into a haze of sand and clouds. Our city looked so ancient and secretive, and the golden hills were dotted with organized grids of olive trees.
And both of our cameras were dead.
We sat to rest on the summit. Ethan did some kakuro, which is awesome because his book has puzzles he's finished from all the interesting places he's been, and I did some tai chi on the mountaintop, simply because I could. (I felt pretty cool.)
We were thirsty on the way down, and went much faster despite trying a new route. We got back to the medina just in time to buy food and get home for F'tour. I F'toured with Candace and Suzanne, who have said that we'll have to take a trip up Zalagh another weekend. I'm holding you to that, girls!
First Week of School
Hmmm it's the weekend. (Ok, it was when I started this post on Friday, when the internet punked out on me.)
There may be a trip to the hamaam tonight, and a mountain walk tomorrow, and lots of planning Sunday.
The week at school went well, and improved as it progressed. The students have gotten accustomed to my routine... and warning system... I haven't managed to give out any detentions in the first four days, but a handful of students expired their last warning. Apparently I've acquired a reputation for being strict, which is just fine with me for the first week. I realized this week a strange quirk of teaching: it may be the only job where you don't want to have a good first impression. Better to appear strict at first so you're taken seriously (especially at my age), then prove yourself cool and fun in a few more weeks.
Many of my students are extremely bright and very hard workers, and they're all quirky and lovable in that unique student-y kinda way. Hamdullah. It's going to be a good year.
The school's only printer has been out of ink since Wednesday, and will be fixed tonight (Friday) insha'allah. That will be good to have again. Science classes remain a challenge without it.
Candace and Suzanne have also had adjustment weeks. They were surprised (as was I) at the level of English-skills some students possess or don't possess; this presents a more dire problem in the elementary school. They are spending lots of time planning English activities like songs and picture books, and I love to listen to them plan together. They are really gifted teachers and I'm lucky to be 'living' with them.
Our housing situation may change in two weeks, insha'allah. We are waiting on the director's carte du sejour, so he can rent the apartment in his name as our contract stipulates. I enjoy staying with Tony, so I am in no rush.
There may be a trip to the hamaam tonight, and a mountain walk tomorrow, and lots of planning Sunday.
The week at school went well, and improved as it progressed. The students have gotten accustomed to my routine... and warning system... I haven't managed to give out any detentions in the first four days, but a handful of students expired their last warning. Apparently I've acquired a reputation for being strict, which is just fine with me for the first week. I realized this week a strange quirk of teaching: it may be the only job where you don't want to have a good first impression. Better to appear strict at first so you're taken seriously (especially at my age), then prove yourself cool and fun in a few more weeks.
Many of my students are extremely bright and very hard workers, and they're all quirky and lovable in that unique student-y kinda way. Hamdullah. It's going to be a good year.
The school's only printer has been out of ink since Wednesday, and will be fixed tonight (Friday) insha'allah. That will be good to have again. Science classes remain a challenge without it.
Candace and Suzanne have also had adjustment weeks. They were surprised (as was I) at the level of English-skills some students possess or don't possess; this presents a more dire problem in the elementary school. They are spending lots of time planning English activities like songs and picture books, and I love to listen to them plan together. They are really gifted teachers and I'm lucky to be 'living' with them.
Our housing situation may change in two weeks, insha'allah. We are waiting on the director's carte du sejour, so he can rent the apartment in his name as our contract stipulates. I enjoy staying with Tony, so I am in no rush.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Well, somebody would've been fired by now!
First day down!
Little by little, the school year is coming together, which is crazy because it's already started. We made it through the day, as our director said, with nothing but the usual school-start incidents. We had several classes running on a slightly different schedule, at least two classrooms double-booked, half the computers not yet in the school, none of the textbooks in yet, and all of the teachers given different information about where and when to leave/meet students for various classes.
*sigh of relief*
In America, this would never be allowed. We'd all be fired. But that's just not the way it works here - and it really does work. Differently, but it does.
Keep my students and our communication in your thoughts. Today, I taught the words "policy" and "assignment." To teenagers. The language barrier may be more of a hindrance than I expected, and I want so much to be able to communicate with them freely.
Little by little, the school year is coming together, which is crazy because it's already started. We made it through the day, as our director said, with nothing but the usual school-start incidents. We had several classes running on a slightly different schedule, at least two classrooms double-booked, half the computers not yet in the school, none of the textbooks in yet, and all of the teachers given different information about where and when to leave/meet students for various classes.
*sigh of relief*
In America, this would never be allowed. We'd all be fired. But that's just not the way it works here - and it really does work. Differently, but it does.
Keep my students and our communication in your thoughts. Today, I taught the words "policy" and "assignment." To teenagers. The language barrier may be more of a hindrance than I expected, and I want so much to be able to communicate with them freely.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Medina Tours
School starts tomorrow. This weekend I began living up to the vow to learn my way around the city by walking the Medina with the other math teacher, who actually knows all the neighborhoods and districts. I was quizzed on the nine Babs (doors), 
and saw the one area of outside in the city that belongs to the women: the streetside on a big hill overlooking much of the Medina, where women line up in pretty djellabas to sit on the cardboard they bring (because there's no grass anywhere) to watch the sunset together.
There are many streets that dead-end in the Medina, but I did find one street, the 'secret passageway,' that appeared to dead-end, went into a building - where the foot traffic continued - up a set of spiral stairs, down a hallway, and suddenly turned the corner and was a street again. There is no such thing as an even set of stairs. All stairs are a bit varied in height, and most are really steep spirals. Walking on the inside of the spiral results in falling two stories. Walking on the outside results in not falling only if you're careful. I might see a reason for the shorter life expectancy. Or the causation may go the other way - since Morocco has fewer elderly, they see no reason NOT to turn their homes and streets into obstacle courses for the young.
and saw the one area of outside in the city that belongs to the women: the streetside on a big hill overlooking much of the Medina, where women line up in pretty djellabas to sit on the cardboard they bring (because there's no grass anywhere) to watch the sunset together.There are many streets that dead-end in the Medina, but I did find one street, the 'secret passageway,' that appeared to dead-end, went into a building - where the foot traffic continued - up a set of spiral stairs, down a hallway, and suddenly turned the corner and was a street again. There is no such thing as an even set of stairs. All stairs are a bit varied in height, and most are really steep spirals. Walking on the inside of the spiral results in falling two stories. Walking on the outside results in not falling only if you're careful. I might see a reason for the shorter life expectancy. Or the causation may go the other way - since Morocco has fewer elderly, they see no reason NOT to turn their homes and streets into obstacle courses for the young.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Missed the Boat, but Had a Party on the Raft
My computer is working again, hamdul-li'lah!
Our in-service days at this pink school were great. Got lots of good information, and everyone was really cooperative. Very little will be ready for the first day of school, but it will insha'allah be ready for next month-ish. I can get classroom plants, and maybe a nifty lizard or big bug.
Tonight was a meeting with the ex-pat church. I chose some songs to play on the guitar, and Candace and Suzanne and I were all going to leave straight from the school and head down to the medina together in a cab. When we left the school, Abdul, the high school science teacher, came with us; we thus had too many for a taxi seghera. The cab drivers flip out if you try for more than 3.
Candace and Suzanne headed out to the Acima to get foods, and Abdul and I walked down to a hanout, figuring we'd all meet up at the church-group. I gave our taxi driver the name of the parking lot nearby, and walked through the tunnels and narrow streets along the path I remembered... from my one trek there... I got us close, and Abdul got us closer by asking some men on the street where the Americans lived. We didn't realize how close. They rang the doorbell, but no one answered. We assumed it couldn't be the house, and stood at the nearest building waiting for someone we knew to walk by (the streets are only a few feet wide. We'd see anyone else coming for the meeting).
After 20 minutes of Abdul chatting with local video gamers, we realized no one else was coming. We sat on a step to nibble our Hanout food, and chatted with some more people. Two teenage boys stopped to talk with us, and after enough conversation on the step, invited us to their house for F'tour time.
The house was many more twists through the Medina - Abdul said the medina was built to confuse invaders and soldiers - through some streets I couldn't fit through with my guitar next to me, and up many steep crumbling stairs. The living room was small and lined with froshes, and two young women, probably also teens, were watching the special Ramadan programming on a small TV. We spent the evening talking and sharing F'tour food. One of the girls was working on an amazing knotted creation that would eventually be tied so tightly as to be almost a fabric that would make an ornate red and gold pillowcase. All the craftspeople are so talented! Zachariah used my guitar and played some Arabic songs, and sang in French. He also knew part of an American girl-pop song, which got laughs from his dad.
He walked/taxied us both back, dropping me off at my apartment first, and I went in to tell Candace and Suzanne I was alive. As it turned out, we were at the house! The meeting was not at the house! We were supposed to meet at some cool scenic ruins, somewhere near this hill. Candace and Suzanne said they were beautiful, and it was fun meeting outside, but the local beggar children harassed them the entire time. They said they'll take me back later.
Our in-service days at this pink school were great. Got lots of good information, and everyone was really cooperative. Very little will be ready for the first day of school, but it will insha'allah be ready for next month-ish. I can get classroom plants, and maybe a nifty lizard or big bug.Tonight was a meeting with the ex-pat church. I chose some songs to play on the guitar, and Candace and Suzanne and I were all going to leave straight from the school and head down to the medina together in a cab. When we left the school, Abdul, the high school science teacher, came with us; we thus had too many for a taxi seghera. The cab drivers flip out if you try for more than 3.
Candace and Suzanne headed out to the Acima to get foods, and Abdul and I walked down to a hanout, figuring we'd all meet up at the church-group. I gave our taxi driver the name of the parking lot nearby, and walked through the tunnels and narrow streets along the path I remembered... from my one trek there... I got us close, and Abdul got us closer by asking some men on the street where the Americans lived. We didn't realize how close. They rang the doorbell, but no one answered. We assumed it couldn't be the house, and stood at the nearest building waiting for someone we knew to walk by (the streets are only a few feet wide. We'd see anyone else coming for the meeting).
After 20 minutes of Abdul chatting with local video gamers, we realized no one else was coming. We sat on a step to nibble our Hanout food, and chatted with some more people. Two teenage boys stopped to talk with us, and after enough conversation on the step, invited us to their house for F'tour time.
The house was many more twists through the Medina - Abdul said the medina was built to confuse invaders and soldiers - through some streets I couldn't fit through with my guitar next to me, and up many steep crumbling stairs. The living room was small and lined with froshes, and two young women, probably also teens, were watching the special Ramadan programming on a small TV. We spent the evening talking and sharing F'tour food. One of the girls was working on an amazing knotted creation that would eventually be tied so tightly as to be almost a fabric that would make an ornate red and gold pillowcase. All the craftspeople are so talented! Zachariah used my guitar and played some Arabic songs, and sang in French. He also knew part of an American girl-pop song, which got laughs from his dad.
He walked/taxied us both back, dropping me off at my apartment first, and I went in to tell Candace and Suzanne I was alive. As it turned out, we were at the house! The meeting was not at the house! We were supposed to meet at some cool scenic ruins, somewhere near this hill. Candace and Suzanne said they were beautiful, and it was fun meeting outside, but the local beggar children harassed them the entire time. They said they'll take me back later.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Lappy EKG
Candace and Suzanne hosted F'tour last night. We made some pretty impressive food, and by 'we,' I mean Candace and Suzanne made some pretty impressive food. I made spiced cous-cous, and they cooked up chicken with vegetables. We had heavy loaves of khobz broken on plates (how American, plates!) to eat with, and a big bowl of fruit salad! Amy and Emily came over with some friends, and we ate and talked and played games. It was a good time. And we could all speak English, which was a nice change.
Before the cannon-call, I put my computer in the corner on the floor, where I figured it would be out of the way. Here's the fun part: today, Candace discovered it in a pool of water.
It's a two-minute mystery. What happened? Go.
Well, actually I can't answer any questions, except that it has yet to precipitate, and the curtains weren't wet. The current most plausible theory is that a pipe broke in that corner of the room. There's been a puddle there since. My poor lappy is hanging in there, making all kinds of angry noises. I'll let you know if it makes it through to recovery.
...
We had our first faculty meeting for the elementary school today. The secondary school folk are supposed to be arriving tomorrow, insha'allah. I got two classrooms set up that I think will be mine - they were the science and math rooms last year. The math room is really pretty, but absolutely bare. The science room has about 20 posters of human eyes and the planets, and I think all of them are about a decade old at least. I brought a few with me, and I'm going to assign some projects in the first few weeks of school that involve making posters we can hang up. I've done a lot of independent work in the last week or two,
with the complete knowledge and dread that, when the appropriate authority figure arrives, I may have to throw it all out. On the plus side, I found an awesome kids' book of science experiments I can use, provided I can find some basic chemicals at the Acima...
Before the cannon-call, I put my computer in the corner on the floor, where I figured it would be out of the way. Here's the fun part: today, Candace discovered it in a pool of water.
It's a two-minute mystery. What happened? Go.
Well, actually I can't answer any questions, except that it has yet to precipitate, and the curtains weren't wet. The current most plausible theory is that a pipe broke in that corner of the room. There's been a puddle there since. My poor lappy is hanging in there, making all kinds of angry noises. I'll let you know if it makes it through to recovery.
...
We had our first faculty meeting for the elementary school today. The secondary school folk are supposed to be arriving tomorrow, insha'allah. I got two classrooms set up that I think will be mine - they were the science and math rooms last year. The math room is really pretty, but absolutely bare. The science room has about 20 posters of human eyes and the planets, and I think all of them are about a decade old at least. I brought a few with me, and I'm going to assign some projects in the first few weeks of school that involve making posters we can hang up. I've done a lot of independent work in the last week or two,
with the complete knowledge and dread that, when the appropriate authority figure arrives, I may have to throw it all out. On the plus side, I found an awesome kids' book of science experiments I can use, provided I can find some basic chemicals at the Acima...
Saturday, August 29, 2009
F'tour with Khadija
Last week, Tony's friend Khadija had a baby boy. The traditional Moroccan baby-naming ceremony was this week, which I attended with Tony. It was quite an adventure since the only language anybody spoke was Darija (except me and Tony; thank God for Tony!!)
We arrived in the Medina in the morning, and Tony introduced me to the family and all of their adorable children. I love Moroccan kids - the cultural norm is to pat and kiss children all the time, no matter who you are or how well you know them, so most Moroccan kids are super-affectionate. The youngest son was riding on the sacrificial ram. The men wrestled the ram down the street and up to the roof. We women sat in the salon and chatted for an appropriately long time, then joined the men on the roof for the sacrifice. The women (about 15 were present) started a cry, which was answered by Khadija, the baby's mother. The men slit the throat of the ram. To my understanding, the ram is sacrificed in the baby's stead, to protect the child from bad spirits... but my Arabic still needs a lot of work, so forgive me if I am slightly off in this explanation.
Actually, please post a correction!Khadija then dipped her finger in the blood of the ram and put a dot on the baby's forhead, and he was christened Yaasir.
Because of Ramadan, there was no feast, but the party continued all day. Tony and I had errands to attend (like taking care of Eduardo's cat!!) but we promised to return later.
We returned to Khadija's around 5h30 for F'tour, and encountered a room full of women to greet with kisses and children to be tickled and cuddled. It was very active. We took F'tour together, which was a delicious red soup with meat from the ram, dates, shebekia (delicious pastry that actually doesn't have almonds!), and milk mixed with ground strawberries. The women F'tour together in one salon with the children, and the men in another. I fell in love with an adorable curly-haired girl who was scared of my blond hair, but came around to sit in my lap eventually.
We sat in the salon for some time, talking, and just sitting. We Americans are the point where we can follow conversations in Arabic, but aren't really able to form the sentences to respond. It's an interestingly irritating experience to sit with such kind people, and feel so close to them because of the stories they share, but to be essentially mute.
Around 10, the chilren took us up to the roof to look out over the nighttime Medina, lit up with old-fasioned lights that glowed yellow interpersed with the newer bulbs of whiteish-blue light... there's really no way to describe how beautiful it was, like looking over the ruins of a city come back to life. One little girl told a very long and animated story about the wedding of some of her stuffed animals - it reminded me of Rachel and I and our beanie-babies. It's nice to know some of those kid things transcend cultures and hemispheres.
Around midnight, the party for Yaasir began. We all got dressed up - many women went to the salon, and every djellaba had either sequens or extensive beadwork or both, in layers and layers of bright silks. About 70 women were at the party downstairs (the men were upstairs reciting the Qar'ran over the baby) sitting in three salons. After greeting everyone, we sat, and everyone stayed sitting for the rest of the night. I sat next to a student named Salma, who (YAY!) spoke French! I felt such relief at being able to communicate fluently with someone! We talked about growing up Muslim, and her experience in fasting, and the strengths and weaknesses of the Moroccan public school system... she was wonderful.
Around 1am, we all ate again, about 20 women to a plate. There was soooo MUCH food! Eventually Tony and I escaped, since she left for Rabat on the 6am train. The party was such an experience in hospitality. I hope to stay in contact with this family as my Darija improves.
Monday, August 24, 2009
hitting a car
Suzanne said I should blog about this.
Feel free to laugh at my expense.
I have passed yet another milestone of someone living in my city. Traffic is crazy though we have yet to see any accidents. Really, everyone just has really good control and depth perception... the number of lanes on any given street is questionable, plus/minus 2 in both directions, and street signs are just suggestions as to who has right-of-way. Foot traffic crosses streets anywhere possible, and often it´s necessary to go one lane at a time.
You are truely local when you´re not afraid to get your feet under the bumper of car. As I was on my way home before F´tour time, I crossed, judging how fast the car in front of me was going so I could walk behind it. I then looked right to make sure no other car would zoom past and kill me.
Meanwhile, because I´m blond, or maybe just because I was there, the car in front of me stopped to call out to me with the three English words they knew. And I walked right into the back of the car.
I hit a car today. On foot. I think I showed that car who was boss.
On another note, Suzanne and I saw a car out the window today that was less than ten years old and clean enough that the paint colour was visible. We were impressed.
Feel free to laugh at my expense.
I have passed yet another milestone of someone living in my city. Traffic is crazy though we have yet to see any accidents. Really, everyone just has really good control and depth perception... the number of lanes on any given street is questionable, plus/minus 2 in both directions, and street signs are just suggestions as to who has right-of-way. Foot traffic crosses streets anywhere possible, and often it´s necessary to go one lane at a time.
You are truely local when you´re not afraid to get your feet under the bumper of car. As I was on my way home before F´tour time, I crossed, judging how fast the car in front of me was going so I could walk behind it. I then looked right to make sure no other car would zoom past and kill me.
Meanwhile, because I´m blond, or maybe just because I was there, the car in front of me stopped to call out to me with the three English words they knew. And I walked right into the back of the car.
I hit a car today. On foot. I think I showed that car who was boss.
On another note, Suzanne and I saw a car out the window today that was less than ten years old and clean enough that the paint colour was visible. We were impressed.
YYAAAYY SCHEDULE!
I now have a teaching schedule, that has changed, I think, insha`allah, for the last time.
I´ll be teaching maths 6, 7, and 8, and science 6 and 7.
And and and... The sixth grade science lessons are longer, for whatever reason, since sixth graders can´t sit still even for 45 minutes, so every Friday we get to spend half the class doing ecology, which has a separate kinda curriculum, and will basically be like a break in their normal science lessons. So we get to study cool African birds for the first half of the year, and vines for the second half. AND. We have all these COOL vines here. Bunches of the American flowering shrubs, over here, grow as VINES!! We´re going on nature walks. I don´t know where... I´m excited.
I´ll be teaching maths 6, 7, and 8, and science 6 and 7.
And and and... The sixth grade science lessons are longer, for whatever reason, since sixth graders can´t sit still even for 45 minutes, so every Friday we get to spend half the class doing ecology, which has a separate kinda curriculum, and will basically be like a break in their normal science lessons. So we get to study cool African birds for the first half of the year, and vines for the second half. AND. We have all these COOL vines here. Bunches of the American flowering shrubs, over here, grow as VINES!! We´re going on nature walks. I don´t know where... I´m excited.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Ramadan and Medina
Yesterday we went down to the Medina, the old city, for a tour. Our tour guide led us through the gates, past the old University, where the river was redirected (when the river was there) and past the four essentials for an old Medina town: a Qar'ranic school, a mosque, a public fountain for water source, and a public bakery, where people could bring their pastries to bake in the public oven. Nowadays, the public bakery also has workers who bake bread and pastries to sell, since most people have ovens in their own houses.
This is the apothecary in the Medina, where we bought some tasty cooking spices. He also offered soaps, fragrances for any use, and herbs and spices he said would cure a variety of maladies.
The city is the artisans' capital of the country. Handicrafts of all kinds can be found around every corner, with each street lined with hand-painted pottery, hand-stitched embroidered cloth, hand-sewn clothing, hand-punched bronze, and hand-dyed leather. Our tour guide told us that this is the city of over 50 different types of handicrafts. It's easy to believe.
The craft stores are interspersed with shops selling foods. Burlap bags overflow with beans, dates, and exotic dried fruits. Boys push rickety carts of prickly pears, whole animals hang from meat-hooks, fresh vegetables hang in cords like Christmas garlands, strung together on reeds. Through all this sun-kissed hubbub thread women in brightly dyed djellaba robes and beautiful silk headscarves - usually not matching in the American sense - like the jewels on a golden ring.
Eventually I'll get used to this. I have about 300 pictures to my name already.
Friday, August 21, 2009
La, ma-andHum'sh khobz.
We had 3 days of Arabic lessons on arrival, and now those are over. We have enough language to read the street signs, if there were any, shop and the hanout, the corner grocery stores which have enough room in them for 3 people and the shopkeeper, and are stacked floor to ceiling with goodies of everyday varieties. We can do some basic bartering, which is done for everything here, including groceries at the hanout! It's a way of showing that you value your time with them, that you would bargain for a good price instead of just paying so you could leave quickly.
Yesterday we visited the Medina, the old city, for the first time. Most of the city is still from the seventh century, some even older. This was actually the first town founded in the whole country - I don't know why, since it's not a coastal town, but it used to have a nice big river and lots of little tributaries that made the soil very good.
So I don't illustrate the wrong picture here: I am in a city. The sun-kissed land does not mean I'm in the African bush, there is traffic and bustle and (often) toilet paper. It's a very different city than anything in America, though, and the Medina is the extreme example. There are no cars within the downtown Medina streets, and the streets are only a couple feet wide. There are awnings built over it all to keep out the strong sunlight, and every square foot lining the street is filled with a different kind of merchandise. Vendors holler about their wares of exotic fruits, hand-embroidered tableclothes, pottery, etched brass, whole animals for meat... It's all so colourful and bustling and noisy.
For breakfast I had mango juice and peach-grape yougurt. Everyone loves Danon here! Ramadan starts tomorrow.
Yesterday we visited the Medina, the old city, for the first time. Most of the city is still from the seventh century, some even older. This was actually the first town founded in the whole country - I don't know why, since it's not a coastal town, but it used to have a nice big river and lots of little tributaries that made the soil very good.
So I don't illustrate the wrong picture here: I am in a city. The sun-kissed land does not mean I'm in the African bush, there is traffic and bustle and (often) toilet paper. It's a very different city than anything in America, though, and the Medina is the extreme example. There are no cars within the downtown Medina streets, and the streets are only a couple feet wide. There are awnings built over it all to keep out the strong sunlight, and every square foot lining the street is filled with a different kind of merchandise. Vendors holler about their wares of exotic fruits, hand-embroidered tableclothes, pottery, etched brass, whole animals for meat... It's all so colourful and bustling and noisy.
For breakfast I had mango juice and peach-grape yougurt. Everyone loves Danon here! Ramadan starts tomorrow.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Golden Land
The trip to northern Africa was long but uneventful. I left Friday night and arrived Sunday afternoon, losing a lot of time in layovers, and even more in time zone migration.
The land is beautiful. Flying in, it reminded me more of my Mee-my's town in Illinois than anywhere else in America, with wide spaces of land sectioned by a loose grid of small roads. Unlike Illinois, where there is usually at least one house per large farm area, Africa just has a lot of space. There were miles of road and flat land with no development at all. The buildings were clustered in groups of 3-10 houses, with a low wall around them. There are short walls everywhere here; maybe more walls than houses.
The most beautiful part about the land is the light that shines from everywhere. The palette of colors defines new shades of gold - the trees (all of which are 15 feet tall or shorter) are dark green-gold; there are endless fields of white-gold grasses; even the roads are dusted with enough sand to make them dusky gold.
It's beautiful.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Supplies, Skunks, and Slushies
We went downtown today to the 'teacher store.' Mostly it was for the elementary teachers, but it was amazing to learn how much we have to bring to our classrooms. I got a couple posters, a gradebook, and some little science gadgets, but the elementary ladies were left grabbing tons of English flashcards, word charts, calendars, name tags, paper, stamps, stickers... I think my students will be making a lot of posters this year.
The other night, while sitting outside the internet cafe, I felt something brush my foot. I looked down and saw the BIGGEST, freakin' huge, giganTOR skunk ever. He wuffled loudly at my feet for a few minutes, then bounded off toward the nearest trashcan. Guess I know how he got so big.
This is for you, mom: Candace and I stopped at the gas station to get cool drinks on our walk home. I got a mango-coconut slushie. She got something with kiwi and... pomagranate? Every gas station here has at least four exotic slushie flavors. Yay California, where it's always slushie weather.
The other night, while sitting outside the internet cafe, I felt something brush my foot. I looked down and saw the BIGGEST, freakin' huge, giganTOR skunk ever. He wuffled loudly at my feet for a few minutes, then bounded off toward the nearest trashcan. Guess I know how he got so big.
This is for you, mom: Candace and I stopped at the gas station to get cool drinks on our walk home. I got a mango-coconut slushie. She got something with kiwi and... pomagranate? Every gas station here has at least four exotic slushie flavors. Yay California, where it's always slushie weather.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Wearing Hijab - a culture lesson summary
A few of the teachers heading to my school and I decided to wear the hijab, the headscarf, this past week, as a test in cultural sensitivity. We all want to respect the Muslim sense of modesty, although, as foreigners, we will not be expected to wear hijab on a daily basis overseas.
The rest of the teachers here knew our intentions, but those who did not immediately changed their demeanor when we had our heads covered. I received stares ranging from curious to hostile, and several comments. One woman went so far as to catch my arm in passing and stop me to inform me that it was tragic how “my women” were forced to hide themselves in such a way. Even as a Christian woman, I must admit I took offense.
In the short time that I have studied Islamic culture, I have come to have great respect for the people I will be teaching in the coming year, and I wanted everyone supporting me back home to understand the culture I am entering with my eyes.
Islamic behaviors are based upon the respect of God (in Arabic, Allah) and preserving the honor of their family. Men and women are careful to betray “not even a hint of immorality,” because any rumors would affect not only the individual, but also the family that raised him. This results in the conservative dress and the careful relationships between men and women. Men and women are never left alone together, and truthfully rarely build friendships with single members of the opposite gender, because it would lead to temptation or shame. The Muslim dress arises from this desire for purity, and many Muslims find it freeing to be able to be themselves without worrying how they look in the latest fashions. They see American dress as constraining, because it boxes women into selling their attractiveness or sexuality, like lining them up in a shop for men to browse.
The Arabic word ‘Muslim’ means ‘one who is surrendered to God,’ though it is conventionally used to describe followers of the Islamic faith. Islam teaches the respect and profession of the one true God, regular prayers, giving of alms, fasting, and a pilgrimage to
For all this information, I have to give a shout-out to Louisa, who has done a fantastic, informative, and culturally sensitive job telling us about Arabic culture, the difficulties we may encounter, and the ways that we can rise to the occasion and reveal ourselves to react in a way that is ‘delightfully different.’
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Packing
Hi friend,
Welcome to my story! In the coming year, I will be traveling to Northern Africa to teach middle school math and science in a small international school. This is a path towards which I have been led for several years, and I'm thrilled that the details are finally falling into place! I can't wait to meet my team members and the students at my school; I go with the purpose of being an Inspiration in their lives.
~Laura
Welcome to my story! In the coming year, I will be traveling to Northern Africa to teach middle school math and science in a small international school. This is a path towards which I have been led for several years, and I'm thrilled that the details are finally falling into place! I can't wait to meet my team members and the students at my school; I go with the purpose of being an Inspiration in their lives.
~Laura
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