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 :-).
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