I feel like I’m in need of a proper update and not just random little writings because I really haven’t since Ramadan (April!). The reality is not much has happened since then work wise but I have been in the throes of summer, traveling about, having lots of free time (even more than before), and visiting home. I’ll probably be bouncing around chronologically but just pretend it’s all in order so that I can get more out there.
Post-Ramadan, work majorly slowed down. The kids who were showing up before started coming much less or not at all, my high school conversational class stopped because they were studying for their BAC exams to get into college and pass high school. I tried to set a fixed schedule and post that on to our dar chabab’s facebook in the hopes that it would make attendance more consistent but it didn’t do much at all. My youth center has this crazy gaming room for some reason with five gaming PCs and five PS5s, an initiative made by the king to equip youth centers with video games, namely the newest FIFA game that the PS5s come with. On Saturdays I started to open the gaming room to the public and had kids come play roblox and FIFA but that only lasted about two weeks before things got interrupted by soccer gala type events, Eid celebrations, etc. I spent Ramadan planning a photography workshop with one of the volunteers who takes pictures for events in town. I made sure to give us enough time to plan it and set the date because I know better by now that if I were to try to do anything on an American time frame no one would show up and it would go poorly. We circulated information about the class and two weeks after Ramadan ended we met twice a week over the weekends for two weeks until we had covered the entire curriculum and they had had the chance to practice with our personal cameras as much as they wanted. The issue was that besides two of the girls who came the six students we had seemed to only be there to get their picture taken and had no actual interest in what we are doing. So a success that I was able to put on the workshop with the help of a local but not a success in being able to actually interest the kids in the curriculum despite the amount of on hand practice we did. The women I had been teaching english to became busy with work and taking care of their children. I mounted a men’s english class after having several people I knew in town ask me if I could teach them. I set the time and reminded them as much as possible up until the date. The only two who showed up were my neighbor (love him) and my friend Brahim who I already semi-tutored privately at the cafe while he taught me Shilha. My neighbor didn’t show up again and Brahim and I went back to meeting at the cafe instead, make things more casual. The reality was that people aren’t as interested in English as they seemed to express or else they would have come more consistently. I originally thought that my students were forgetting we had class so I would remind them when I saw them on the street, as well as new kids. I would still find myself sitting in my classroom alone reading my book. Group chats with students didn’t change attendance much either. One day, walking back from the Dar Chabab, I saw that the women’s center was open. I thought to myself that this was my chance to find some work again. I introduced myself to the director and explained that I could teach english or help with other things. She informed me that they were in their last week of meeting. They were going to close until October at the end of the week. It was only the middle of May. I have sort of thrown the towel in in terms of teaching English, at least for the summer. I can’t say I’m too interested in teaching it anyways. I do find some enjoyment teaching grammar, more advanced english, the short stories and discussions that my high school kids did for a couple of weeks, but conversational english isn’t the most fun when you find yourself having to cover pronouns and basic introductions for the millionth time. I should admit though that I had a group of kids, a family of three, who were the only ones who showed up consistently. I can say that their english improved for sure and they became more comfortable speaking it as well. Most days during Ramadan and after Ramadan they were the only kids to show up. Towards the end we just began to play fun games amongst ourselves like relay races outside, egg toss, tag, freeze tag, zombie tag (can you tell that they really liked playing tag?). They were a really cute bunch of kids. I hope they come back after summer. I did feel bad for them when other kids would attend class who were starting from square 0, not square 1. We had to really slow down the pace of the class which bored them a lot, and since they knew all the answers when we opened up the class to participation the other kids would just let them answer instead of trying for themselves.
Thankfully, it was time for me to go on vacation. I went back home to visit my family in Houston for my sister’s high school graduation. It was an event that my parent’s had told me I needed to be back for as soon as I had accepted going into the Peace Corps. I spent a little more than a week back home, eating, enjoying seeing my family, watching movies, and eating even more. I was never not full but I had to make sure I ate as much of the food that I can’t get here in Morocco. It was a really sweet time. It made me realize how much more I missed them. I knew I missed them, but I didn’t think I would cry when I met my mom and sister in the baggage claim or cry saying bye to my dad when he dropped me off at the airport to leave. The flights to and from were brutal 24 hour trasnochado epics. I’m not very good at sleeping on planes anymore, a skill I hate to have lost.
When I made it back, I spent a couple days incredibly lazy, moepping (?) around, bummed out because it seemed like I wasn’t going to get to go to Spain like I had planned at the end of June and my plants had died and I still had no work and I had no personal projects to work on anymore — my main goal while being in Morocco had been to finish a fiction book I had been writing a couple months out of the year during school to practice writing which I ended up really enjoying and believing in and finished it after non-stop writing between January and May (I finished by my deadline of going to visit home!) — and I wanted to continue my life here in Morocco but with my family and friends instead of being alone here. But, I began to slowly pick my routine back up, dropping some of the things that seemed like too much at the time like cleaning my apartment weekly and waking up at a reasonable time. I read a lot. Went to the dar chabab; read some more; watched soccer games at the cafe; began to go to the gym with one of the volunteers who lives close to me, getting absolutely worked by our Moroccan friend who owns the gym; and cooked a couple of new things, General Tso’s chicken, ramen, falafel, arepas in Morocco (I brought back two 5lb harina pan bags); and looked forward to Eid Kbir, my trip to Essouria, and then to Spain (it did end up happening). I tried to help out the soccer coach in my dar chabab with soccer practices because it is the only thing that seems consistent at the youth center. The first week I tried he had given me the wrong time and by the time I made it to the youth center they were already finishing practice. The next time the kids who had been in my photography workshop wanted to work again and were very enthusiastic. The only time they could do it was during soccer practice so I conceded and said we could meet then. Flash forward to the next day and only one of them shows up and we end up canceling it after waiting for an hour. Then the soccer coach revealed to me that they won’t meet for the rest of the summer. Oof. It’s alright because I started to play basketball with a group of guys a couple of times a week. I’m almost always picked first despite being complete ass at basketball. I am much better at basketball than the majority of Moroccans since they don’t really play much here, but definitely not good enough to be first pick. We play 3 v 3 first to score 4, rotating the losing team out. Some games I go MJ game 7 and other days I play like an absolute dud, but it’s fun.
Most people in my town travel for the entirety of summer once the kids finish school to go somewhere cooler, be with family, or go to the beach. Kids go to government funded sleep away camps. It is sort of up to us as volunteers to find work volunteering at one of these, but I haven’t had much success in landing work at the beach one near me. I have been rather fortunate that it isn’t very hot in my town for some reason. It seems to be a this year thing but the temperature hasn’t gone over 96 or 97 and was in the mid to high 80s most of June where as other places an hour from me are hitting 115. It might have to do with the fact that I’m way closer to the coast, but most of the people in my town are also surprised it isn’t hot yet. Texas is much hotter and humid so this is easy mode. I’m in my element. Even without AC, my apartment is manageable as long as it doesn’t go over 100. I had a glimpse of that in May and that was awful.
Outside of my apartment, I spend most of my time at the cafe watching soccer, hanging out with local friends, and exercising. Inside of my apartment, I read, watch a lot of tv, cook, and I was scanning my old film while learning Shilha. I’m a little done with learning Shilha. I know enough to say really basic things but not to converse much, and enough to pick up on words here and there. I don’t really want to dedicate more time to looking over the same words so I’ll just practice when I hang out with other Moroccans who primarily speak in Shilha like my host family, my friend Brahim, and the soccer coach. It’s time to go hard on Fusha. All this time is so good for learning languages. My plan is to spend the summer learning Fusha. I already know the alphabet and can read but I just don’t understand what I’m reading, only picking up on words that are the same in Darija. One of my high school students gave me two children’s picture books and I have been using a free class on Al Jazeera which has audio, vocab, and practice questions. I want to learn Fusha to be able to watch or read the news of the Middle East. It seems like a useful skill to have in the journalism I want to do since I already know one of the dialects. The goal after that is to maintain it by watching and reading the news and then getting my French up. Then I will be unstoppable.
I just returned from Spain, and before that Essouria. They were both amazing times. I’m excited to hopefully be able to travel around Morocco to do some camps the rest of this summer and then when my friends visit from the US in mid July. I’m feeling very productive.
There is so much time to do so many things.
PS: I just realized I have never mentioned my cat. I got him right after Ramadan. One of the best decisions I have made since being here. Great company. His name is Maruja, a Spanish chocolate that is delicious and which I have never seen outside of Morocco. I thought he was a girl for the first couple of weeks before I took him to the vet. Who knew it was so hard to gender a cat. He is my ideal cat, just like a dog except he goes to the bathroom by himself and you don’t have to walk him. He is very cuddly and clingy, sometimes too much so, but better that then a cat that hates you and never wants to be in the same room. I’m still struggling to train him to not get on the dining table or kitchen counters but all in due time. At least the mauling has stopped.
Qué lindo este blogpost!!!