Lazy Sunday

I had a great day yesterday. I started teaching an English class to teachers from the area. I wasn’t looking forward to it because my first session with them did not go smoothly. I expected them to have a higher English level than they did and we clumsily stumbled through the hour and a half in frustration.

This time I went about teaching in a different way. I had originally tried bringing in an article to read and discuss. This time I brought in a list of vocabulary. I chose the topic, primary education, because they are all primary school teachers. I figured that way, while in their own classrooms; they could glance around the room and remind themselves of the different words we went over.

After class I went to my Moudir’s house for lunch. He wasn’t there but I sat for hours with his wife and daughters, dozing in and out, while watching the Moroccan equivalent of American Idol. When I felt rested I ventured into town and stumbled across a couple of trainees. I sat with them for a little while, doing my best not to corrupt, scare, or mislead them in anyway. They were good company and I appreciated sitting with them for a little while.

On my way home I started to feel kind of weary. I think it stemmed from the fact that I had been around PCVs for the last few weeks straight and in good PCV company at that. As much as I love my own little, sacred, apartment I wasn’t too sure I wanted to go sit by myself there contemplating what to do with myself.

When I walked up to my door, my Moudir was sitting out front. He was polishing a pair of shiny, silver, suede (?) shoes. I sat down next to him and he started telling me about this pair of shoes. They were a pricy pair of shoes ($32), from Ouarzazate. They were a worthy investment however, because he has had them for three years and has taken good care of them.

That same morning he took the back pockets off of a pair of his daughter’s pants. He sewed them back on to the side of the pants. I squirmed as I watched, thinking…if you do it that way you are going to sew up the whole pant leg and she wont be to put them on. Silly me. This guy knows how to do absolutely everything. He sewed those pants right up, good as new.

After he finished polishing his shoes he brought out some grapefruit syrup he had made. You mix it with water…a nice touch of flavor. He explained how I could do it with lemon as well.

Next he got his guitar and started playing. Some days he takes apart computers and puts them back together. When my power goes out he shows me how to fix it. When the kids get rambunctious he whips them into shape. He went to school to be the director of a youth center with an emphasis on sports. So, I asked him, “Where on earth did you learn how to do Everything?” He explained that after he finished his studies, he was unemployed for two years. He likes learning and he held many different jobs during that time. A friend invited him to work for his company in France as a Mr. Fix It but he said he had everything he needed right here in Morocco.

As he played his guitar, a neighbor woman came out and joined us. And then another and then another. It began to get dark and bats started to circle around head. As the sound of the women’s gossip grew louder my Moudir slipped away into his house.

After he disappeared out came the kiddos. Little girls that wanted to draw surrounded me. I gave them each small, flash card, size paper and a pen. They copied the titles of the books they were writing on, to the paper. M_O_R_O_C_C_O. P_H_R_A_S_E_B_O_O_K. It was quite an achievement, writing the French alphabet, left to right. I tried to get them to sound out the words they were writing. MO RO SSO. I explained the difference between C and S but I don’t think it stuck. I’ll try again today. When they got bored with that…mostly because there was no light to see what they were writing, I brought down a coloring book, crayons and a flashlight.

One of the older girls brought over a candle. We melted some of the wax on the slab of cement in front of my house and stuck the candle in it. How many times that coloring book almost went up in flames, I can’t say. Soon boys surrounded the coloring book too. I was grateful to have one of my young English students deciding who got to color when and with what. I jus sat back and watched. They each wrote their names at the bottom of the page they colored. Some of the kids were so diligent about staying in the lines, other were just excited about the colors and didn’t particularly care where they ended up on the page.

Finally Mom’s began to corral their children. I promised the coloring book would still be there tomorrow. I went up to my house, not feeling so alone after all. Actually, feeling really excited for the lengthening days, warm breezy evenings, and a summer full of sitting on my slab of cement, hanging out with the ladies and children, chatting with my Moudir and listening to the strumming of a guitar. I never thought I would crave hanging out with Moroccan’s and my community as a whole. Alhamdulillah.

The Dar Chebab

A Dar Chebab is a youth center run by a Mudir (the director.) Mudirs contribute to their Dar Chebab’s to varying degrees. Some Mudirs feel their responsibility is solely to unlock the Dar Chebab at the hour of opening and to lock it up in the evening.  Others feel more inclined to organize activities. Associations in the area take on the responsibility of organizing most activities. If there are no associations collaborating with a D.C. to set up activities, then there aren’t any.  

The Moudira (female Moudir) at our Dar Chebab has been very friendly and forthcoming with information, although it seems inflated with positive characteristics and bled of any negative characteristics that might exist.  That said she has been very cooperative in letting us take charge of the activities we wanted to do in the D.C. in spite of the knowledge that we would only be there for a couple months.

Our main activity so far has been to establish a Friend’s club. Our goal was to create a safe space for both girls and boys to hang out, work on homework, play games, practice English and make friends. For us it was an opportunity to learn Darija, explore the culture of Moroccan youth and to get some experience teaching and interacting in such an environment. 

There have been several diligent students that actively participate and others that just come to play and check out the new Americans.  An average of 20 people come a day, a nice number easily distributed between the 6 of us trainees.  We start with an energizer, some kind of game to “energize” people and get them excited to learn. Recently it has been tossing a ball around and introducing ourselves, or saying our favorite subjects in school. After that we usually break into smaller groups of 5 to 10 and talk about culture or work on homework. At the end of this week we hope to facilitate a discussion about Maps we had the youth draw the first day we were at the D.C. That explanation will follow.