Update of everything from the last week or so.....time flies

Forgive me friends...it has been 9 days since my last post.  Mea Culpa.  I will try and condense these crazy days into as few words as I can.  If I am able, I will also try and post some pictures.


The days with the girls:


Went to the hamamm with the older girls on Friday and they were wonderful about walking me through the paces and they even gave me back rubs since I managed to do something to my back.  Got my hair hennaed.  My facebook page has pictures.


This continues to be an amazing experience.  The week flies by and I crawl into bed each night feeling exhausted but so fulfilled.  My day begins at about 9 and I now see girls for English and French (we have dropped the computer stuff) throughout the day.  In addition, in the evening from 8-10 I stay around and help the girls with homework.  They all gather in the little salon around 4 tables and do their homework.  It gets very loud and animated as you would imagine. We also have been practicing We are the World each night from 6-7 as a way to wind down at the end of the day.  Tomorrow I will post stuff on the singing stuff.

Asmaa,Khadija and Souad

Mouna and Sabira

Their schoolwork: Very strange.  Their French work is easy reading and have questions that bear no resemblance to the reading.  Also, they all have workbooks that have been written in so it is hard not to use the answers in the book even though they are usually wrong. They have NO conversation in class and never get to hear French except from the teacher, so I have been trying to get them to speak to each other and have downloaded some French audiobooks for them to listen to.  However, they HATE French so much it is hard to keep them motivated. For some of the girls, they are so far behind on their French, they cannot even answer basic questions let along read the texts.Their English books are full of grammatical mistakes and vocabulary that is needlessly complicated.  They also mix British and American spellings and word usage. But they plug along and most of the girls are doing pretty well.  We even have one or two that have gotten the highest marks in the school!


The girls:
It is impossible to describe all of them so I will just start to give you a flavor.  Two of the girls, Khadija (there are 6 with this name here) and Chaima  have invited me to visit their families for a weekend and i will be going in the next two weeks.  It should be an amazing experience and I am honored to have been invited.  Several other girls have also indicated that they want me to come too so we see.

Chaima: This girl is an amazing French and beginning English student and is in her third year of college (middle school) here. Aside from being beautiful and wonderfully outgoing and affectionate, she is one of the best students in the school.  Unlike many of the parents of these girls, Chaima's parents are very supportive of her education and she may even be able to fulfill her dream of becoming a French teacher instead of being married off to some old guy.  It is really difficult to teach her in the French class because she is always on top of my grammar!
Khadija Ait Hmad: 2nd year lycee student, Khadija has been with EFA since it opened in 2007 and she is amazingly good in English and bad in French.  She lives in a little town up the mountains so I guess that I am going to see real Amazigh life when I go there. Her mother died last year and her father has remarried and she and her step mother don't get along so we will see.
Asmaa: 12 and a budding movie star....she loves anything that will bring her attention and she is cute as a button.  She won't begin English in school for another two years but she is already speaking it in franglais.  She has received the highest marks in the house and the highest marks in her grade.


The greatest hope is that these girls, all of whom say that they want to go to University, will do so.  If not, then at least they will be able to go home, get married and educate the next generation.  It seems so hard to believe looking at them that some of them will be married in a few years.  A girl who was here last year didn't come back (she was 15) because when she went home for the summer she was told that she was getting married and moving to Casablanca.  She calls the house often and talks to the girls about her exciting life with her 48 year old husband.  He apparently has enough money to help the family and so they are very grateful and by all accounts, he seems to be a loving husband. Legal marriage age in Morocco is 18 but in the rural villages where child brides have a long history, it is hard to break the tradition.  And so the parents just lie about their child's age on their birth certificate in anticipation of an early marriage.

My daily life in Asni so far

Today was the first day of a regular week for me and I am exhausted already.  Here was my schedule:

• up at 7:30, breakfast (with my new french press coffeemaker purchased in Marrakesh) and the usual breakfast of bread and Vache Qui Rit cheese (which I will be sick of by the time I get home) and some Nutella that Gretchen purchased in Marrakesh.
• Met with girls in 1/2 hour blocks from 9-12 with breaks to take Gretchen to the taxi (she is going to Organane which is a place even smaller than Asni), to put up a wash (and dry the sheets in the wind on my rooftop home). 
• Lunch at 12:30 during which I reread Antigone (Jean Anouih) in French in preparation for my 1:30 meeting with the 11th year girls. Lunch is always the big meal and we had a beef tagine and more bread and lots of tea.  Oh, and a banana. These girls are getting ready to take their Baccalaureate exam in a fe.w months and have  been with the program since its inception in 2007.
• 2-6 continued meeting with girls in 1/2 hour blocks with time out to pee and to check e-mail on my 3G connection because once again the internet was out.  
• 6-7 I crashed on my bed in my little room and tried to figure out what I was doing here ...only kidding.  
• 7 pm dinner of pasta with butter and a hard boiled egg.  Dinner and lunch without Latifa and Gretchen, so I sat in the kitchen with Latifa the cook and Mina the cleaner and we just smiled at each other but couldn't communicate.
• 7:30: --whenever I get to sleep: while I usually spend time with the girls checking to see if they need any help with homework, I was too exhausted so I just went up to my room. Need to figure out the schedule for tomorrow and adjust the work that I am going to be doing with the girls.

My teaching/coaching/helping:  I work with groups of girls, supposedly all in the same grade on various things.  One day we will schedule French review and another English and another time on the computer.  We also play games and they just come in to the computer room and hang out. So I have a sort of schedule for the week and the girls scheduled to come in but this is Morocco and everything changes and everything is disorganized so some times some girls show up at their appointed times and sometimes they don't and sometimes they show up with their friends.  But they are always smiling and happy and anxious to interact in some way.  There is such a variation in their preparation level that it is difficult not to have to do a plan for each group but I think that is going to be overwhelming so I think that I will just try and gear my lessons to each class...there are 5 levels.  Tomorrow or the next day I will write about the girls to try and give a picture of what their life is like.

Right now I have to go to sleep but only after I have reviewed the present perfect tense again (had to do it for my students in Rabat too)in English and verb tenses in French.  Oh, and I have to revise the whole schedule for tomorrow since it changed again.

Also tomorrow we are having a visit from The International School of Berne Switzerland.  Apparently I have to make a presentation to them about Education for All and the homes and the girls so that I can make a begging pitch.  No one told me that this was part of the job but anyone who know me knows that I can talk anytime and anywhere :-).

A quiet weekend

My first weekend in Asni and the girls are all gone.  They go home every weekend after school on Saturday.  After working so hard during the week, they go home and work all weekend cleaning the house, helping with the cooking etc.  Their parents pick them up when they come into town for the weekly souk (huge market) in town.  As they all left the house there were lots of kisses...left cheek/right cheek and then a little giggle.  One of the girls, Asma, who is the best student in the school and is 12 always calls me Ann Lopata.  When I told her she could call me Ann, she said that she liked Ann Lopata better.  I will post pictures of this cutie pie in a later blog.


Speaking of pictures, I am going to post most of them to Facebook because it is much easier to post them and I don't want to be double posting (is that like double dipping? ). Those of you who aren't on facebook....send me an e-mail (if you are 21st century enough to do that) and I will send you the link that will enable you to view the pictures.  May figure out a better way to do the pictures in the future.  I will see.


So Gretchen and Latifa and I stayed in the house for the weekend. We went to the souk in the morning with everyone else.  A souk is somewhere between a farmer's market and a flea market.  The one in Asni is famous and people come each Saturday for their vegetables etc.  Everyone gets dressed up in their jellabas and meets with their friends etc.  Interestingly, mostly men come to buy the food.  The women stay home and cook I guess and the men have the money anyway. Gretchen and I were the only non Moroccans among hundreds of people and Gretchen's blond hair makes her stand out even more.


For dinner, Latifa made Moroccan pizza with tuna (yes Roy...they even have tuna here) and of course we had the obligatory mint tea.  For most of the day we just hung out...I sat on the roof in the sun and read.  It was all very relaxing after a busy week.


Today the three of us went into Marrakesh to do errands.  There isn't much that you can buy in downtown Asni where there is now a bank (opened two days ago), a cafe, two little groceries, and mobile phone store, a butcher and not much else.  I will take pictures at some point.  We even now have sidewalks which have been installed the last week.


The journey to Marrakesh began with the three of us cramming into a taxi with 3 other people and the driver.  Although seat belts are required in private cars, apparently we are allowed to sit on top of each other in taxis.  For 15 durham (about 1.75 dollars) we went about an hour into the big city of Marrakesh. We went to a large mall which, like the Margane mall in Rabat, could have been anywhere.  Wifi was free throughout.....there was a modern Carrefour department store; a Benetton etc.  I very happily bought a french press since we have only been having Nescafe instant each day.  


Then we went to the city center which, since I have now been in the medina in Marrakesh three times, I have now mastered.  Latifa had to go to a fabric store to buy new slip covers for the sofas in the salon.  Everything in Morocco takes about 3 hours longer than you would think that it would so we waited about 4 hours for the fabric and the payment etc. Meanwhile we had....you guessed it.....mint tea. Bought an arabic children's writing primer so that I can learn to write the beautiful script of the language...now if I could speak more than a few words i would be so happy. The weather was beautiful and it was Marrakesh at its best....


Tomorrow I will write about Latifa and the daily schedule in the house. My roommate Gretchen is leaving and will be moving over to one of the other houses in an even more remote area about 15 minutes away by taxi...everything is by taxi.  So I am losing my other American but have been schooling Latifa in American ways so perhaps that will do.
Here is a picture of Latifa at the fabric store, studying her mobile phone which everyone clutches in their hands at all times.

The elegance of rural life

Today I got to experience rural life in Morocco.  We lost both electricity (hence heat and lights and most importantly, internet) and water.  So we were freezing in the house and I was supposed to do computer work with the girls and Gretchen and I couldn't check out e-mail or wash our bodies or even see down the several flights of stairs from our rooftop room to the kitchen (to have a cold breakfast).  When we got downstairs, all was calm.  There is where inshallah comes in handy. We just waited out the day in our gloves and coats and ofcourse, it came back on about 4 PM. But it will probably go out again tomorrow.


Today was wonderful with the girls.  They are so enthusiastic, particularly about English that they wanted extra time scheduled.  I felt so loved :-).  Being here is already so much more than I imagined.  The girls are like sponges and each one is sweeter than the next. It breaks my heart to think that some of them will be married off to some old guy when they finish school....such a waste.

It will be hard when they are away for the weekend though, and I am not looking forward to long periods of time in the house by myself since Latifa (the housemother) goes to Marrakesh each weekend.  Met some of the Board members today and they invited me to visit them in Marrakesh where they run a riad so I might do that.  Also thinking of a possible revisit to Essouaria for the weekend.  We will see.


Gretchen and I went for a walk up to the incredible Richard Branson hotel about 45 minutes up the road.  When I hit the lottery I am coming back to Morocco....an apartment in Essouaria and a weekend at this place.  Elegance beyond belief.  For some reason can't post pictures to this blog....will look for other options.

Asni and beyond

I am now in my little room on the roof of the house in Asni, having arrived yesterday to freezing cold weather.  The house is lovely but so cold that I have to wear long underwear and a vest or coat in the house.  At night, I am snuggled in my bed with all my wonderful Moroccan blankets and am very toasty...and the water in my bathroom is hot, so who could want anything more?  The girls here are wonderful and enthusiastic and love to babble in whatever language they want to try (usually Tashelhit or sometimes French) and they are just like teenage girls everywhere....they sit in corners and giggle with each other and they love Facebook and music (although mostly Berber music).  Many of them dress very modern without their hajabs but when they go home they always wear them.  Many of the girls take our their rugs and pray during the day, but most don't.  They work very hard on their studies and go to school from 8 am until 6 at night with breaks in between for lunch and some other activities.  I have sessions scheduled with different groups throughout the day and while we are just at the introductions stage, I can see that it is going to be very challenging to adjust to the different groups.  Some of the girls who are 12 and 13 are just beginning English and the older ones who are 16 and 17 have studied it for a while. I even had to review the present perfect with a student.


I brought material for friendship bracelets which are a big hit as are the two versions of Bananagrams that I brought.  Still not sure how much English I will be doing and how much french.  They work so hard in school, I hope that we can just have fun with some of the language classes.  I am scheduled with the girls for 1/2 hour blocs in French/English and computer.  I think that the computer is mostly going to be Facebook related but we will see...perhaps I can have them research some things. 


The other American volunteer, Gretchen has arrived from Ohio and will be staying with me here for a few days and then going on to the other house in which she will be working.  


In the next few days I will write more about things here and what life is like for these girls who live in a house with running water, their own bed, their own bathroom and TV and computers and then return to their families on the weekends wear their life is so different.  One big issue remains what they will do after they complete school...still for many of them, getting married is what they dream of..it is hard to break habits.  Anyway, more in the next few days

On the way to Marrakesh again

Through the wonders of modern technology (my 3 G modem) I am sitting on the train on my way to Marrakesh where I will be picked up and taken to the mountain town of Asni to do my  two month stint with the Berber girls.  After three weeks in modern Rabat working with fairly strong English speakers, this is really going to be a challenge  but I feel up to it.  It was hard to leave my house and friends in Rabat...in such a short time we all became close and we made plans to meet up again in Essouria in a few weeks.  I will post pictures of people and places (including some from my Fes post) when I get a stronger internet connection...doesn't work with this 3G onesome  and hopefully that will give people the flavor of my life here.


Friday was my last class with my students and there were lots of hugs and kisses to go around.  I will really miss them although some are now my facebook buddies and e-mail friends.


Chefchoan (or Choan) this past weekend....beautiful weather, blue skies and lovely blue buildings.  We took a 5 hour bus from Rabat which stopped for dinner and then arrived in the town at night.  We then walked through the medina to our hostal which was the cutest and one of the nicest places I have ever stayed.  We had a triple room and I even had a loft bed.  We also had our own bathroom and shower. The whole weekend, including hotel, bus, breakfast, lunch and two dinners cost us about $80 each!!! The town was lovely and easily walkable although since it was hilly it was a lot of walking up and down.  And Chefchoan is in the Rif mountains....known for its active cultivation of hashish so the entire town has sort of a backpacker/alternative lifestyle feel and smell....sort of like Essouraria but with a more pungent odor.  Reminded me of Mykonos a bit but of course it is full of mosques and people speaking Arabic.  Speaking of language...Spanish is the second language in this town and our French was useless.  We had to resort to hand signals and ofcourse having some dirhams doesn't hurt in the medina...lots to buy.'


Then back to Rabat on Sunday and lots of goodbyes....drinks (yes, drinks!!) at our favorite tapas restaurant to celebrate my last night. Spent my last night in Rabat watching the finals of the Africa Cup...very exciting!!!

Oops. Time flies

When I looked back at my last blog I saw that I had said that I would write the next day but here it is 5 days later.  I will try and fill in what has happened and perhaps add some pictures if I can.  My camera battery died when I was in Fes this weekend and so, since I didn't bring an adapter plug, I had to make do with looking at other's pictures.


I said that I was going to write about the staff here:  there are three program people Mohamed (ofcourse), Khadija and Abdellah.  All three of them worked with the Peace Corps for many years before coming to work for Cross Cultural Solutions.  Both Mohamed and Abdellah are in their 40s and both are fairly religious Muslims.  They even have marks on their foreheads (I thought that they were smudges) from praying 5 times a day.....a guess hitting their heads on the ground maybe?  Women don't have these marks (and some men) because I guess they use rugs.  Anyway, Mohamed is the Director of the program and Abdellah is the program manager so he arranged all of our work placements and keeps up with how things are doing.  Abdellah in particular is very easy going and funny. He has given us classes in writing Arabic which is incredibly difficult but beautiful. Mohamed has given us classes in Islam and helped us with our arrangements for weekend trips.   Khadija  is a wonderful, funny, bright and independent woman.  She is  in her 30s and isn't married.  She manages the house and the house staff and also gives us cooking lessons and Arabic classes.  She is the wonderful mix of religion and tradition that you find here, particularly in the cities.  She wears a hijab (beautifully coordinated with all her outfits) but is also in no hurry to be married and "have some man tell her what to do". What I like the most about her is that she doesn't take herself seriously and is always fun to have around. I will take some pictures tomorrow and try and post them when I post the pictures of Fes.  Other members of the staff are Aisha the cook ( Khadija  was the first wife of Mohammed the Prophet and Aisha was the 2nd.....so we have Mohammed and both of his wives staying in the house :-). 

Abdellah

Khadija

Mohamed

Fes:
Went to Fes last weekend and Gwen and I arrived on Saturday to meet Mary who had gone the day before. When we arrived at our cheap hotel outside the medina, Mary was hysterical because the hotel had no hot water or heat....she was really yelling at the desk clerk as if he could understand her English better if she yelled.  Gwen and I were a bit more pragmatic about the situation....it was a cheap hotel and we only had one night and at least there were no bed bugs and we had our own bathroom.  


We then settled into our little triple room and the three of us set off with our guide, Saida through the medina.  One cannot possibly negotiate the Fes medina without a guide unless you want to never be seen from again.  Saida was great and it was a nice change to have a woman as a guide.  Although I had been through the medina before (hence my carpet story from last year), there were still things I hadn't seen.  We saw several medrasas (Koranic schools) which are no longer functioning so we could view them.  In Morocco there are only two mosques that non Muslims can visit....one is in the town of Agadir I believe and the other is the new incredibly over the top Hassan II mosque in Casablanca.  Otherwise, unless you can "pass" you stay out!! Same goes for Koranic schools....can't go into functioning ones if you are not Muslim. Saw the vats of leather dye which smelled as bad as last year (they use pidgeon shit to soften the leather) and I bought a beautiful leather jacket for which I thought I negotiated well and I love.
After a wonderful meal of brochettes (skewers) of lamb, beef and chicken and a gorgeous assortment of other Moroccan delicacies at a little tiny restaurant that Saida took us too, we headed out of the medina.  Saida's husband picked us up with her two daughters and we all crammed into the car for a ride to the train station to get our return tickets for the next day.  At that point Mary decided that she couldn't stand it anymore and headed back to Rabat for a warm shower and heat.

Our first hotel lobby

Gwen and I remained in Fes and spent the next day exploring the Mellah (Jewish quarter) and saw the old synagogue which is no longer used but is a Unesco World Heritage site.  Only downside of the trip through the maze of the Mellah was that our guide,a lovely old man who just appeared out of nowhere to help us with directions (this is a warning sign)  gave us the "can you give me some money for my poor children at home" bit.  It seems that everyone in Morocco has numerous starving children who are in need of constant food.  This is NOT my favorite part of the Morocco experience. I guess I will get used to it after a while but it gets to the point that you are afraid if someone is doing you a favor that they will then always expect money....not good PR for the country.  Few beggars but lots of shysters.


Gwen left in the afternoon of the next day and I moved to a different hotel in the newer section of town, right next to the McDonalds.  Yes, I went in....it was packed and there were no tourists....and they had something called a McFondue!!! My hotel was much nicer than the cheap one in the medina and it had a spa so I had a massage and a hammam (traditional turkish steam bath in which water is constantly thrown over you while they rub every bit of dead skin off your body) and of course, a pedicure.  So then I was all dressed up with no where to go so I went back to my room to watch arabic tv and try and figure out what they were saying.  And I did have a beautiful view of the city from the balcony. 

view of the city from second hotel

Next day I left and return to Rabat, relaxed and ready for another week of teaching. We didn't teach last Monday because it was Mohammed (the prophet, not the one who directs the program)birthday and there were celebrations all over town although mostly people just seemed to be enjoying the day off.


By the way, the trains here are great.  They are clean, run on time and go most everywhere.  I've done both first class and second and although first is preferable for a long trip, second is still very nice and clean...you just aren't guaranteed a seat.


This week's teaching has been mixed.  I have had the most fun with the group that I have had since I started.  We laughed over pronunciation efforts and tried to learn the present perfect tense.  Tomorrow I am meeting with several students at a cafe to discuss music....both the effect of westernized music on Moroccan culture and to just have fun with songs....they gave me a list of the songs that they wanted the lyrics to and we are going to read them tomorrow: We are the World; Hotel California, Let it Be and a Mariah Carey song that I can't remember.  No satanic music although a bunch of the guys are really into hip hop and some mild rap.  And they LOVE Cat Stevens here since he used to live in Essouria for many years and because he became a Muslim.....they definately love it if you become a Muslim. I am really going to miss this group...and we have become e-mail and facebook friends already.


This weekend is Chefchoan and then I go to Marrakesh and mountains on Monday.  Gwen, Alana and I are going to take the bus tomorrow (5 hour drive) to the north.  Chefchoan is supposed to be very beautiful with its blue buildings and Mediterranean feel.  The people there speak more Spanish than French so we will see how we do with our little bit of Arabic lessons and Alana knows some Spanish.  Chefchoan is also in the Rif mountains....an area well know for its main agricultural product.....kif...otherwise known as hashish.  We have been warned not to purchase any so I think that I will stay clear headed for the weekend.  My camera is now working so I should have some nice pictures and Gwen and I are going to go for a long hike.


Wow.  This is long and I haven't even added the pictures.  Will try and do that tomorrow since I am exhausted tonight.


Bought a 3G modem today so that I can access the web in my room in Asni but I think I will bring my computer with me tomorrow and allow myself some blog time during the 5 hour ride.

My teaching experience

Thought I would take a little time out and elaborate on the information I previously gave concerning my teaching assignment. Some of it my repeat previously given info since I can't look at both posts at the same time and eliminate overlap.  So just bear with me if you have heard some of this before.  One of the other volunteers,Marie (who is from Texas by way of France and Rwanda) and I are driven to an organization called Feminin Pluriel each morning and meet with students from 9:30-11:30 Monday-Thursday.  I usually have about 10-15 students who show up. On Fridays, since the organization is closed,  I have been meeting with several of my students in a cafe down the street to practice conversation skills etc.


While Feminin Pluriel was established to provide intellectual opportunities for Moroccan women, many of our students (and the best ones in my class) are men. Most of the men are young...in their 20s and the women tend to be a bit older.  We split up the groups into beginners and advanced and I have been working with the advanced students.  Generally their skills are very good and they are much more advanced than I thought they would be so I am frantically trying to remember the perfect progressive tense etc to review it for them.  I thought that I would only have to be doing this sort of thing in French with my students in Asni...eek...English is hard!!!  


Last week I had my best student, Mohammed (ofcourse....every male here is named Mohammed) for a private meeting which was great.  We just went to a cafe and hung out.... Tomorrow's group will be more varied since a number of Marie's students want to join my group at the cafe so we will see how it goes. With the young men and women it is easy to have general conversations on popular music and even world events....less so with the older ones.  What is difficult about the teaching is that the students do not come regularly since for many of them, they are just trying to fit in the class with their regular work and they come on their day off or during their lunch hour.  This creates problems of continuity within the group.  I have had to introduce myself and tell my life story so many times......poor Mohammed, who has attended every class, is tired of hearing it!


Most of the students are well educated.  This week I had several teenage students in my class since school is on break for the next two weeks.  Generally they have skills which challenge the others.  


It is interesting to watch the interpersonal dynamics in the class.  I have a 16 year old girl who is very self assured and modern with very strong English skills and I have a 67 year old retired teacher whose English is OK but she constantly interrupts and speaks French to all the other students.  I have 25 year old male mechanical technician (Mohammed....above) who is very respectful and well behaved  and religious and a 20 year old University law student who is constantly joking around and needs to be reminded that we are in class. I have young modern woman whose husband is an American citizen (Moroccan by birth) and lives in Chicago and she is preparing to go and meet him there in June (when it warms up) and her friend who is a very traditionally dressed and quiet young woman.  Most of the women are or have been working in professional positions (arabic teacher, elementary school principal).   Some of the women wear headscarves (particularly the older women) and most of the young men dress in tee shirts and jeans.  It is just very interesting to me that the most motivated student (Mohammed) is probably the least educated of all of them.


Another Moroccan characteristic seems to be an inability to tell time......I begin class on time and students come in and out as they wish.  They are very respectful but clearly this is the norm...they arrive late and may leave early but while they are there, they attend to the task at hand. 


Anyway, they are delightful and I am going to miss them all when I stop working with them at the end of next week.  Some of them are now my Facebook friends and some are just e-mail friends but hopefully we will all stay in touch in some way.  I hope that I have been able to make a bit of a difference in their lives...in both their language skills but also in their knowledge of the larger world outside of Morocco.  I know that they have already made a difference in mine.


Tomorrow: my classes and the staff here....Fes (not Fez) on Saturday-Monday.