EID SIGHIR
Today was the last day of Ramadan, which means, after a month of fasting from sun-up to sundown, it was time to party Moroccan style! Everyone gathered around the TV the night before. No one actually knew if the fasting would be over that night or not, because the last day of Ramadan depends on the moon, so you have to wait for nightfall, let the powers-that-be decide if it’s a new moon, and if it is, a bunch of horns blow and they make a big announcement on TV (sort of like a Groundhog Day that actually matters).
The next morning, everybody got all dressed up in traditional jallabas, hats, and women did henna on their hands, and everyone went out on the town to congratulate each other on a month of fasting. The other volunteers and I got together and went around to visit each others’ houses. On Eid, people go all around town (and for that matter, the whole country) to visit friends and family, sit in their houses having tea and cookies, then move on to somebody else’s house. It felt oddly like trick-or-treating, except we actually went into people’s houses and ate our “candy” (Moroccan tea, which probably has more sugar than any Halloween candy you could find anyway) and took pictures with the families. Then we all went home, and passed out in a sugar coma.
It feels like a totally different country now that fasting is over. During Ramadan, people stay inside and sleep a lot—no one has much energy when they don’t eat or drink all day—so the streets of our city were usually fairly barren. But now, shops and cafes are open, kids are running around going to school—it’s like the whole place has woken up. It’s like as soon as I was starting to get used to this country, the whole place has changed! Seriously, it’s wild to see the daily schedule of an entire country (and a huge chunk of the world) change for a whole month. School hours change, mealtimes change, even the TV schedule changes. And let me tell you, the whole time we’ve been here it’s been drilled into our “culturally sensitive” minds NOT to EVER be seen eating or drinking in public (not that anyone would be upset, they understand we’re foreigners and go out of their way to tell us that it’s ok that we don’t fast—but it’s just the polite thing to do). Now I still feel like I’m doing something naughty every time I pull out my water bottle, or that I have to be sneaky when I buy myself a candy bar in the afternoon. It’s like “Welcome to
BRING ON THE STUDENTS / NOTEBOOK SUPER-VILLIAN
We started English Classes at our youth center, which are a bit more insane than we were prepared for. Peace Corps gave us a lot of workshops on how to make learning fun, interesting, and energetic to pump excitement into Moroccan students. I don’t know what Moroccan students they have been working with, because our students had enough energy and excitement to break through the youth center windows! (That’s foreshadowing by the way. Read on.) See, the kids have usually been sitting in school for 8 hours or so by the time they get to us, and once they get to the youth center, they DO want to learn English, but they’re A LOT more interested in socializing and having fun. So our class ended up being more of an exercise in classroom management than an actual English class. But the students had a good time, and hopefully they picked up a few things.
I was pumped up about the lesson, but then I noticed that my notebook was missing. I looked all around for it—almost certain that I had left it on the table of the classroom. As all of the students left, I came to the conclusion that I was trying to avoid coming to—one of my students stole it. It wasn’t a huge deal, I just had a bunch of notes on Moroccan culture and teaching pedagogy in there. It was all stuff I could easily replace. But it was more just the fact that one of my students stole it that bothered me. I even would have understood a bit more if someone would have stolen money, or a camera—something that was actually WORTH something. But nobody steals a notebook other than just to be a jerk.
It’s odd, because I’ve noticed that in the Peace Corps, sometimes something like that it all it takes to break you. It’s like there’s all these things that are pressing on us day to day—different weather, living with strangers, having to mentally juggle with conjugations EVERY time you want to communicate with another human being—that we don’t really notice are stressing us out, cus it’s just a constant weight. And then something that should be rather insignificant happens, and you snap. Then you just fall into one of those “Why am I here?” days. “How did I end up here? Am I actually helping anybody or just wasting my time? Do people even want me here? Why does everybody keep speaking to me in French even though I tell them I don’t speak it IN ARABIC? If I had stayed home I could be taking a hot shower or going out to a coffee shop right now. Maybe a freakin’ hug would make things better right now, but that’s quite culturally inappropriate, and I’m surrounded by strangers anyway, and oh my gosh I just realized I don’t think I’ve touched a human being in three weeks and four days and AHHHHH!” You know, that kind of thing. I’ve seen volunteers here get a question wrong in Arabic class and randomly break down into tears, which normally would be weird, but everyone understands, because we all get it.
BUT, then there are those all too “Peace Corps-y” moments that you think only happen in the official publications: The night my notebook got stolen, I was telling my host-family about it (mostly through miming and repeating what I think would translate as “My paper-book. On table. Then not. I don’t know. A student. It is where. Shame, shame. Bad. Smelly.”), and they said it was a big deal and that I shouldn’t just let it go (at least I think that’s what they said, they might have been saying “How have you been here with us for 3 weeks and you still don’t know how to make a coherent sentence?”) The next day, after class, I had my teacher come in and translate for me as I told the students that I had forgot my notebook somewhere in the classroom, and if anyone found it, I would be very happy and give them something nice. Of course, the students knew I was being overly nice, and told me someone probably stole it. They were all concerned, and genuinely upset that someone would do that to me. They crowded around me asking what color it was, what it looked like, and telling me they were sorry kids in their town were so bad and that they hoped I would still keep teaching them. Then, a little girl, who’s probably about 8, ran up to me and started chattering at me in Arabic. My teacher translated, and told me that the girl was saying that she saw the boy who took it and that she knows where he lives and she was going to go to his house right then and get it. Before I could even say anything, she was out the door. I still wasn’t too hopeful, I didn’t think a an 8-year-old could do much to persuade an evil super-villain-notebook-pilferer to return stolen goods. But she must have said SOMETHING magical, cus she was back in the door with my notebook in less than 5 minutes.
I was blown away! I didn’t think it could possibly be that easy, but there it was. I showered her with broken Arabic praises, and gave her precious American chocolate for her heroic efforts. Most importantly, it just picked me up so much that all of the kids had been so concerned about such a little thing for me. Then you have one of those reverse-breaking moments, when the tiniest thing—like the elatedly shocked look on shopkeepers’ faces when they tell you your bill in French and you count it back to them in perfect Arabic—that just sends you to cultural cloud nine for no reason whatsoever. Then you sit back and realize, “Darn it, all of those seemingly cheesy Peace Corps recruitment books are totally right. Stuff like this ACTUALLY happens!”
MY
I was having my nightly random Arabic lesson from my 5-year-old host sister, earlier tonight. We’ve moved on from her saying stuff that I don’t understand and me repeating it, to reading Arabic script. Out of children’s’ books of course. As I was plodding along, sounding out words like—well I would say like a 5-year old—but she reads a heck of a lot faster than me, I came to a startling realization. As she read the word “he is saying” she said “Tat-gul” instead of “Kat-gulm” and I was all excited that I was going to get to correct HER.
So I said “No, it’s Kat-gul.”
And she said, “Yes, Tat-gul.”
And I said “Nooooo. It’s KAT-gul”
And she said “That’s what I said, TAT-gul!” (Keep in mind this is all me attempting to argue with her in Arabic)
I came to the startling realization that she—as is common for a little kid—CAN’T DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN HER “T” AND HER “K.” I’ve been learning it wrong this WHOLE TIME! I guess that’s what happens when you hire a 5 year old as your language tutor and only pay her with games of “I put the big sheet on my head and you run away.”
A LITTLE TIP ON LANGUAGE LEARNING:
They tell you that when you learn a language you’ll probably make some embarrassing mistakes, but it’s OK. Keep trying. And if you THINK you know the right word for the situation, try it out.
HOWEVER, I’m finding that, in Arabic, if you can’t think of the word right away, and you kind of say half of it and then pause for a long time to think—at least for me—it usually comes out as a heinously inappropriate swear word. I’m gaining quite a reputation in our group as the guy who accidentally swears in Arabic in front of important city-officials. I always know when it happens, because my Arabic translator gets very red and starts giggling uncontrollably, then the whole room starts laughing. Then I laugh too, cus I’m glad they have a sense of humor about it rather than throwing me out of the country.
A STOMACH IN MY STOMACH
Well, in addition to chicken, beef, and lamb meat, in some parts of morocco, they do eat some more interesting parts of the body. I knew as soon as I sat down to dinner tonight, that we were eating something “interesting” because they had that “I bet you don’t know what you’re eating right now” look in their eyes, like they did when we had liver the other night. So I gave in and asked them what it was. They were quite pleased to tell me it was a sheep’s stomach stuffed with sheep meat and onions, and I was quite pleased to turn over their idea of squeamish Americans who won’t eat organs by asking for seconds.
It pretty much just tasted like meatloaf. But now, I’m lying in bed, imagining my digestion process and thinking about the interesting paradox that there is currently a stomach in my stomach. I mean, think about it. If my stomach can digest a stomach, why can’t it digest itself? Plus, the sheep’s stomach was stuffed with sheep meat, which basically means he ate himself after he died. This inherently conjures up an image of a sheep being fed its own leg BEFORE it dies. Which can be a really sad picture, or if you turn it into a cartoon in your brain—kind of funny. Now my stomach is starting to hurt a bit, and I’m wondering if it’s really MY stomach that is hurting or the sheep’s. The possibilities are endless…
OUR TALENT SHOW
In addition to teaching English, we were also supposed to do some sort of community activity in our youth center, led by the youths themselves. Seeing as we didn’t have a whole lot of time to get together, we decided to try and capitalize on the abilities our youth already have. Considering how much time they spend disrupting class with antics, general showing off, and more random synchronized music breaks than “
We announced it in class and got a few students who were interested in organizing to stay after and meet with us. The meeting mostly consisted of a bunch of people all talking at the same time—which seems like the norm in
So we set up some tables in a big room the next day and waited for things to get started. A bunch of kids just came in off the street and gathered in the room, but people were just standing around and chatting, so about half an hour into the chatting we asked one of our youth leaders if he actually had anything to show us and he said, “Oh, you want to see something now?” And we said “Umm… yes,” realizing they probably didn’t actually organize anything at all.
But then he got up onto the stage, clapped three times, and said a buch of stuff in Arabic to the crowd, from which I pulled out something to the extent of “The Americans want to see some theatre, music, and comedy, so come up here if you want to.” The following two hours amazed me.
To start out, one kid went and sat up on stage and pulled out a little leather bound pocket Koran. Keep in mind that the youth in our center talk CONSTANTLY—during class, during movies, during meetings—but as the boy (who was just another one of their classmates) went up on stage and opened the holy book, the room fell silent. He sat down, with his eyes on the little pocket sized book, and started to sing. He was reciting verses from the prayer book—put to a transcendent tune that echoed and shook the room as his voice wavered in pitch over the timeless script which is said to be the very words of God. To give a comparison, it almost sounded like a monk chanting in a cathedral, in the way it echoed off the walls against concrete and revered silence. But unlike Latin chanting, where the vowels are held steady and stretched out in a breathless continuum, the Arabic vowels bounced with a variety of pitches as they boy’s voice darted in an impossibly quick staccato from note to note—the holy words adorned with a melisma of pitches. It was truly breathtaking.
Then he just stood up, went off stage, and the real show started. After about 5 minutes of quick conversation, about 5 of our students got up on stage and started performing a skit for us, which they appeared to put together on the spot. But the kids’ stage presence was amazing. You could hear them clearly, they never stumbled for lines, they didn’t have their backs to the audience. They just went for it. It was all in Arabic, so I couldn’t exactly understand what was going on, but they were honestly hilarious. I was baffled, because they don’t teach theatre in the school systems here at all, and I usually see kids their age in
As all of this was going on, more and more kids started coming in off the streets. So the actors and singers just kept going. We didn’t have our language translator there with us, so we didn’t exactly have the capability to say “OK, this is good. But we actually wanted to have the SHOW next week.” So we just let it keep rolling. The kids got up to sing, act, and perform for almost 2 hours. We had planned to actually make a list and a schedule of who was going to perform the next week, but it was all so on-the-spot it would have been impossible. So when the youth center was about to close, and the kids started to leave we got them all together and said, “That was awesome. Can you just do this exact thing again next Wednesday?”
WE HAVE GIRLS!
Whereas we were having trouble getting girls to come to the youth center at first (it’s kind of seen as a “boy’s club”), lately they’ve been coming in droves. Apparently, I’ve been told it’s because they’ve heard that I play Celine Dion (the Titanic song) on the guitar and they come because they want to hear it.
So I just wanted to give Celine Dion a shout out (cus I’m sure she reads my blog), because although I’m getting quite tired of playing that song, she needs to know that she has done more for Women’s education in Morocco that she can probably imagine at the moment. Thank you Celine.
THE LAST DAY IN ELMENZL
Today was our last day in Elmenzl. We had our talent show (the REAL one) last night, and it was even better than the one we accidentally had at our audition. The kids did their skits again, but this time with full props and costumes that they managed to scrounge up on their own. And they also added dramatic silent scenes depicting stories from the Koran set to music. They even had audience participation songs! The only problem was, about half of the town showed up and our crowd was pretty rowdy.
Rowdy has kind of been the theme of our youth center lately. Word has gotten around town that we’re teaching and doing fun activities there and TONS of students are starting to show up, even if they have no interest in learning English whatsoever. It’s gotten to the point where we’ll have a classroom filled to the brim with 40 students or so and we have to start using the desks as chairs in addition to the extra chairs we have. Last night we literally had to close the door to the classroom because we couldn’t fit anymore students, but people kept coming in, so we put a chair in front of the door and had a student sit in it. Then we just tried to teach class with a bunch of people banging on the door. It’s getting a bit out of hand. There have been a couple of fights outside after class, and some kid even threw a rock through the window of the youth center because he got kicked out of class. Somehow we’ve managed to break 3 chairs too and needles to say, the director of the youth center is getting a bit perturbed with our popularity. The last few nights, when we haven’t had lessons, he’s just been closing the center early when things start getting crowded and we all just have to leave. So, while I’m sad to go, it seems like it’s about time—before things get even more out of hand.
We had a party for all of our host families. We served them tea, danced, and forced them to eat more and more cookies until they thought they were going to explode because that’s what they do with us at dinner every night. They loved it! And yes, they requested that I play Celine Dion…. I’m going to miss my family—especially my little teacher—and the kids at the youth center quite a bit. My permanent site (which I find out in a few days) has A LOT to live up to! My family told me I could come back at any time and that their house was my house now (which I understood, because they’ve learned to talk to me REALLY slowly) and that I had a Moroccan mom and sister now in addition to my American family. My host sister told me that all of the girls in Elmenzl were going to cry when I left, except for her. I pretended to get all indignant and ask why she wasn’t going to cry, and she said it was because I never played Celine Dion for her. So I promised I’d come back someday to visit and play it again… and again… and again I’m sure.
