working 9 to 5 (this subject is full of lies)

Back in early June last year, I went to Gibraltar and Spain for a week on vacation and came back to find that my students had taken their final exams and stopped coming to class. Which, fair, it's summer vacation. I spend a week or two sitting around the Dar Chabab (my last lesson plan is dated June 12, but I don’t think I actually taught it).  After a week or two of spending an hour every evening sitting in front of the Dar Chabab, I gave up and told my mudir I’d be back in September. The Dar Chabab was closed for July and August anyways, and I didn't see the point of walking across town if nothing was going to happen. Also, mid-June was the first of the really bad heat waves and I started spending my days in my apartment, refusing to wear pants. Pants were the worst.

I weathered the summer, mostly by refusing to wear clothes and drinking, I kid you not, about eight liters of water a day.  When September rolled around I started periodically visiting my Dar Chabab again, only it was never open.  I knew there was a regional meeting for PCVs and mudirs at the beginning of October though, so I waited until then to press the issue.

At the regional meeting, I gave my mudir a tentative schedule.  He said it sounded great and also, the Dar Chabab was going to be under construction for the next month.  Apparently, the solid walls surrounding the center, yard and soccer field were giving the Dar Chabab a bad reputation, and so the walls were being knocked down and replaced with a metal slat fence.  Come back in November.

I went to Italy at the end of October, came back with the plague (actually bronchitis and the start of four months of respiratory issues) and by the time I could stand up without getting dizzy, it was mid-November.  I drug myself out of bed and across town to Dar Chabab, only to discover that it was still under construction.  Very under construction.  Well, maybe they’ll do something about the bathroom situation (it was mostly used to store bikes), I thought.  By mid-December, I had been assured that the Dar Chabab would be opened by early January.  Or else.

My family came to visit over Christmas, and once they left I, once again, walked out to the Dar Chabab, which was no longer under construction, but was also not open.  I talked to my host family, who told me that the Dar Chabab would re-open after the Prophet’s Birthday.  A few days later, I ran into my mudir at souq and we hashed out a tentative schedule and I finally – finally – started classes February 13, eight months after I taught my last class.

Jesus Christ.

It wasn’t like I didn’t do anything during those eight months.  I worked at a camp over the summer and helped Peace Corps write a manual about language immersion camps.  I did a couple of projects at a friend’s school and helped my sitemate with her classes.  But the longer I went without working, the easier it became to just not leave my house.  I started skipping Couscous Friday and dodging invitations to tea and started to have more and more trouble speaking Arabic.  I wasn’t bored, because I don’t really get bored, but it wasn’t healthy and I wasn’t exactly happy.

I started out teaching three classes: a beginner’s class, an advanced class and a Bac class (high level grammar class for students preparing for the high school exit exam).  My core group of students from last year graduated, but I have a few return students and a whole crop of girls from the local high school who are absolutely fantastic and really dedicated.  (Of course, there’s also Fouad, a return student from last year who comes to every class, whether it’s the right level or not, asks me to teach him communication and then refuses to talk.  *sigh*)  I have a tentative schedule drawn up through early June and I’m really excited about my classes.

Then last week, two guys came up after my “advanced” class, which wasn’t super advanced (four students spoke zero English) and asked if I had a more advanced class.  Like, one that was actually advanced.  And conversation based.  And maybe not so full of children. 

“I *can* have that class,” I told them.  “Let’s ask the mudir when there’s a free room.” 

So Yassine, Abdallah and I went to the mudir’s office to schedule another class, and when the mudir started to make noises about how the Dar Shabab was too busy for another English class, Yassine took over and argued until we had a classroom.

Our first conversation class was yesterday.  I printed off an article about the effect of linguistic diversity on the Moroccan education system, wrote a bunch of questions in a vain hope of keeping the conversation flowing and hoped for the best.  I tried to teach conversation classes last year, but it was like pulling teeth to get the kids to actually talk and I was skeptical of actually getting students to talk for a full hour, much less have an actual debate, but we had an hour-long conversation about the roll of French and Amazigh in the Moroccan education system, the possibility of a secular government (Morocco is a theocracy; it’s possible to watch the King at Friday prayer on TV, I know because I watched him yesterday) and evolution (which isn’t taught in Morocco).

You can’t see my face right now, but it looks a lot like this. -->

Spelling Bee Morocco

Last year a PCV down south ran a spelling bee for his region.  He got local English teachers involved, and ended up having a regional tournament in Ouarzazate for seventeen schools.  MATE (Moroccan Association of Teachers of English) loved it and what started as a small regional tournament for just a few provinces is now a Morocco-wide competition.

My host sisters started telling me about the spelling bee back in December.  MATE and Jim Dana (the PCV) sent out a packet of information to schools across Morocco, including sample lesson plans, word lists and a copy of Akeelah and the Bee.  In January, schools across Morocco held individual tournaments, and last weekend was the district spelling bees.  The coordinator of the district spelling bee asked if my sitemates and I would help out, so last Saturday I was the pronouncer for the Kelaa District Spelling Bee.  It went really well, except for the one teacher who kept complaining about my lack of a British accent (which, sorry dude, I can get the southern out of my voice, but me trying to fake a British accent isn't going to make anything clearer), and I was really impressed by how well-run the spelling bee was and how well the students did.

There were three parts to the spelling bee: the novice team spelling bee (which was limited to ninth grade students), the general team spelling bee and the solo spelling bee.  In the team spelling bee, groups of three had thirty seconds to write down the correct spelling of a word, while the solo spelling bee was a more traditional spelling bee.  The winning word was typhoid, which I can spell, but it was the only one of the final round words I could spell.  The top six solo spellers and the top two groups will go on to the regional spelling bee in Marrakesh later this month, and there will be a national spelling bee in Rabat later this spring.


  Team spelling bee

Solo Spelling Bee  
The winners of the novice spelling bee.  They got metals, a trophy and an English dictionary for their school.  
All the spellers from the eleven participating schools.  It was a pretty good turn out.

Ridiculous Peace Corps Injuries

During the winter, I only bathe at the hamam because look, it is cold enough in my apartment that I'm writing this from inside a blanket fort so kudos to volunteers who are brave enough to strip for more than the five seconds it takes to get dressed, but I am not one of them, especially when once a week I can go to a bathhouse and have unlimited hot water and warmth and offers from strangers to scrub my back.  And sometimes oranges.  I love the hamam!

So, the water at my hamam is heated by a massive wood fire under the building.  (The fire also heats the public oven, so there's always the smell of fresh bread wafting out from under the hamam.)  Inside the hamam, there is a hot and cold tap in each room.  The cold water tap is hooked up to the town's water supply and the hot water is hooked up to the boiler under the building, with the pipe running along the outside of the wall.


Wood for the fire piled in front of my local hamam.
So, on Tuesday, I was at the hamam, waiting in line to fill my buckets.  The area next to the taps was really crowded and in a shuffled attempt to get out of the way so someone could get to her bucket, I accidentally leaned against the hot water pipe.  TURNS OUT, metal with near boiling water running through it is VERY VERY hot.  I only touched the pipe for a second or two before the SEARING PAIN IN MY ARM caused me to jerk away, but that was long enough to do some damage.  I poured cold water on it immediately and avoided washing the entire area, but by the time I was done, there was a decent sized blistered burn on my upper arm.

So yeah, that's the story of the time I injured myself BATHING.

Anyways, I've been really careful to not touch the burn and rubbing argon oil on it (at least that's plentiful here) and the blister had started to go down, and then last night I was flopping around in my sleep, as I am wont to do, and apparently I rolled onto my burnt arm and popped the blister and when I woke up, my entire upper arm hurt and the burn is red and angry looking.

So that's the story of the time I further injured myself sleeping.

So yeah, I don't even know.  It looks not great and it's partially an open wound at this point and I'm leaving town tomorrow and going to the desert and there's going to be sand everywhere and yeah.  Who injures themselves bathing?

Mural Painting at Ouled Zerrad

Remember when I use to write things here?  Yeah, neither do I. 

Last Saturday was my one year anniversary as a Peace Corps Volunteer!  I've been in Morocco for a little over fourteen months, but the first two months were spent in training and technically I was a trainee, not a volunteer.  I feel like I should be able to look back on the past year and take something away from it, some lesson or growth or change, but really, all I got is that I just washed my hair for the first time in two and a half weeks (don't judge, it's gotten really cold) and legitimately did not give a shit, so yeah, I don't know.  Maybe once I'm home again.

Anyway, I celebrated my PCVersary by helping with a mural painting project in one of the duwars (tiny rural communes) in the bled (countryside) near my site. 


Back in March, my sitemate Lucia helped an association from Ouled Zerrad write a grant to purchase art supplies for a mural painting project to decorate the middle school and the clinic in the duwar.  The event was suppose to happen in April, but ~things~ happened and the event didn't actually take place until last Saturday, which was a plus for me since I was busy during the original date.  Mike, Lucia and I got to Ouled Zerrad early Saturday morning and spent a few hours playing exotic zoo attractions for the middle schoolers while we waited for the event to start.  And look guys, I'm *used* to being stared at for being a foreigner where foreigners usually don't go, but I have never felt quite so much like an animal at a zoo before.  As we were being hemmed in on the porch of the middle school and Lucia and I were making wtf eyes, one of the association members leaned over and told us we were interesting because we were strange.

The associations invited a couple of artists from Kelaa and an artist from Casablanca to help with the mural paintings, and after introductions and breakfast, everyone walked out to the wall surrounding the middle school and watched them start to paint.  Unfortunately, there was a short rainstorm about half an hour after we started and the first few murals were a wee bit washed away. 



After the storm, one of the artists, an art teacher from Kelaa who is one of Mike's students, led us over to the clinic, a sad, abandoned little building with broken windows and no doctor or medicine.  He sketched out some pictures in chalk, and then put us and the kids to work painting.  I painted an apple and a flower!


We ate lunch with the association (three different types of tajine and spicy couscous - the food was *really* good at this event) and finished the last of the paintings.  In all, the association painted twelve murals at the middle school and the clinic, which isn't a bad way to start the (Islamic) new year.


Happy PCVersary to us! We've made it a year!
The rest of the photos are here.

Updates

Hi!  So, it's been a really long time since I wrote anything here.  I'd say I was busy, but that would be a lie.  Really, I was just lazy.  Pretty much all of these deserve their own entries, but since that's unlikely to happen, here's the past three months.

So, since I last blogged, I:

-- spent two weeks working at a camp for orphans in Rabat

-- fasted for Ramadan, which was long and hot

-- went to England and Wales to see Pru for a week and a half

-- went back to Rabat to help Peace Corps write a manual for spring camps

-- went to a moussem and a fantasia.

-- fielded a lot of worried phone calls from people back home who were worried about the protests in North Africa.  There have been a few, non-violent protest in Casablanca and Rabat, but things have otherwise been calm in Morocco.  I managed to freak myself out when the new broke about Libya, but then I sternly told myself to get it together because it's not like this was my first experience with sudden political tenseness.

-- had my one year anniversary in Morocco.  I spent the night at a party with some of my stagemates.  We drank a lot, and cooked dinner and talked about our summer vacations and our plans for the next year. We made a rule that anytime someone spoke in Arabic, they had to take a drink, which was really hard. I hadn't realized how much Arabic had slipped into my English conversation until I started trying to avoid it. We ended up just translating the God phrases into English and walked around the house shouting, "To your health!" and "My parents and yours!" and "If God wills it!"

-- had a tiny bit of a meltdown about the situation with my mudir (which is not... great) and oh God, what have I accomplished in the past year, what am I even doing here?  And then I pulled myself back together, because there's no crying in Peace Corps.  (That's a lie, there's definitely some crying in Peace Corps.)