A Sense of Purpose

            After months of little to no work and false starts these last two weeks have been amazing for my sanity.  My classes are really starting to get off the ground; even the middle school aged kids are starting to learn something.  Admittedly, I kicked all the bad ones out and got an almost completely new set, but hey, these ones want to come.  Actually, the great experiment is coming soon, I kicked all the bad ones out of class last week, but told them they’d be allowed back if and only if they behaved in other clubs and activities at the Dar Chabab, and all but one have my approval to return, so we’ll see if seeing that my threats to not teach them have some worth will fix the behavior issues.  My younger kids are adorable, and really eager to learn.  I think they actually helped shame the middle schoolers, after just two lessons the young ones had better English than their older siblings had after a month, based solely on the fact that they would listen and then get to play some learning games. 

My classes for older students are also going well, and I’m even starting to have some adult learners sit in on classes at the appropriate level.  My advanced students now understand the differences between Capitalism and Communism and I look forward to starting them on some history lessons soon (I’ve got students who requested I teach a conversation based course on history in English for their studies, it’s like a match made in Heaven).  My girls at the artisanal cooperative are working hard, and I think I’ll soon be able to take an occasional break writing lesson plans for them since a couple of the simpler intermediate lessons will do.  My intermediate students had a bit of a hard time with the essay I described a couple of posts ago, so I’m going to start working with them on fluency in writing.  I found an interesting suggestion in one of my teaching books that said that foreign language students often have an easier time speaking clearly than writing clearly because writing gives them too much time to think and make a direct translation where a loose translation doesn’t include the extra expressions of their native language.  The book recommended I try to have them dictate a short piece and have them write their own paragraph as they’re saying it.  It might end up being a train wreck, but one train wreck class is worth the experiment!

My clubs are also finally starting.  The chess club is a little looser than I wanted, so far no one has shown up when we decided to schedule it, but I still am able to give quick lessons and pieces of advice while playing with kids and watching them play at other times, and I’ve seen a marked improvement in one or two of them already.  The writing club met for the first time last week.  In theory I’ll be working with almost all the local English teachers from the high school and my tutor to teach this class, though at the first session both English teachers got sick and couldn’t make it.  While we’re advertising it as primarily a club for learning how to write creatively in English we’re also making it very clear that we will teach the basics of writing in any language, and we actually conduct classes in both English and Arabic and allow students to turn in writing in English, Arabic, or French (and theoretically Tamazight, but no one took advantage of that), so that all levels of English speakers can sit in on the classes, including absolute beginners.  The ones who choose to write in English will participate in an essay-writing contest for students of Peace Corps Volunteers across country and (if they win at the national level) around the world in February.  Then after that we’ll work on starting a literary magazine.  My next club will be a drawing club that should meet right after the writing club.  Since I know nothing about how to draw I’m just going to assist a couple of older students who requested it run it.

This facilitating role is actually an important part of the Peace Corps mission.  Obviously I teach my own English classes, and it makes sense that I’m the point person leading the writing club (for now, I hope to hand it off to the teachers and (eventually) to student leadership), but for things like the art club and other activities which I don’t specialize in letting Moroccans lead and do the work is very important.  It’s even more important when it comes to one off events.  My mudir wants us to host a SIDA (AIDS) awareness day.  His first idea was for me to lead it, but although I have Peace Corps materials in Arabic there is no way that my Arabic is good enough, nor is my knowledge about AIDS full enough, that I could answer questions beyond the basics should they come up.  I went to the local health center and asked if a doctor there would lead it, but they said that they don’t specialize in SIDA awareness and that I should talk with an organization in Khenifra.  When I told my mudir the local health center wouldn’t do it he cut me off and said it was alright, we’d just find a local girl with good English who I could teach the material to and then she would teach it.  He immediately left his office to go find one.  I was able to explain about the organization in Khenifra before things got out of hand and he said that would work too.  I met with them (the trip to Khenifra which ended my last post) and scheduled an event for early January since between my new clubs and their full docket the only other time was the day before New Years Eve, which neither they nor I wanted to do.  They themselves said no to Christmas since “it’s your holiday, why would you want to talk about SIDA on your holiday?”  My mudir was o.k. with this, though he doesn’t see the purpose in scheduling something so far ahead of time.  Don’t run away with the wrong idea; he’s a good guy and a hard worker, but like many Moroccans his sense of how to schedule and plan things well is a little underdeveloped.

Case in point, this last weekend we (he) organized an event for elementary school aged kids to draw in the Dar Chabab.  Since I was running around getting the SIDA event organized, getting the writing club stuff in order, planning classes, and starting to get work done for other future clubs and projects (with some luck the local music teacher and I will be getting some instruments for the school and Dar Chabab sometime in the new year), and since he has run these events before I was a little more hands off than I should have been in the planning phase.  We decided that younger kids would color in photocopies from a coloring book while the older ones would do more free form drawing, and I didn’t put up a fight when he said it would be better as a competition so we decided on prizes for the two age groups.  He found a couple older volunteers from my high school beginner English class to help supervise and we were ready to go. 

Come Sunday I arrived to find all the students in a huddled mass outside the Dar Chabab.  Two broke into a fight.  Since I’ve had to talk with one of them about fighting a lot I told him he wasn’t allowed in for the event.  The doors opened and as he started to enter I told him he’d be banned from all activities for the next week if he didn’t listen to me now.  He went in anyways.  Once I’d caught up with him inside I told him again he’d have to leave, and the mudir saw and asked what was up.  After explaining I quickly blocked my mudir from hitting the kid and said that I thought banning him for the week would be a better punishment, which he agreed to.  Yep, my mission to change the way people discipline children here has gotten to the point where I’m actively blocking them (at least when it’s not their own kids), and the amazing thing is, it’s working.  I could tell the kid appreciated it too, so maybe after a week to reflect I won’t have more fighting problems with him.

After that we organized the ninety or so kids who showed up.  My mudir led them in a rousing screech of the Moroccan national anthem and the younger ones got to coloring while he continued to lead the rest in a much more sonically pleasant sing along.  When the younger ones were done the older students voted on who’d done the best jobs (names were on the back of the sheets, so they couldn’t vote for their favorites) and we awarded the prized, though in a bit of confusion they’d somehow gotten switched so that the winner of the young kids got a ream of nice drawing paper meant for the winner of the older kids (she eventually got one too, but I didn’t really want to give nice paper to a younger kid who’d only colored in the lines, it’s quite expensive and they won’t appreciate it as much).  Then the older students got coloring.  Meanwhile a couple of artists from Khenifra had dropped by and were painting a mural on the side of the room.  I pointed out to my mudir that they were painting right where his wife normally hangs the black board for her Arabic literacy classes.  He laughed along with me and explained that they’d insisted that there was the best spot over his objections.  It’s a pity, cause it actually is quite nice.  After the kids were done these artists picked the winners for the older kids.

Younger kids drew in the lines

Some older kids were very topical

Now picture it with a blackboard on top of it

Older kids works

In short, it was a fine event with only a few hitches, and I’m actually glad I could see how the Moroccans run it this first time so that next time I’ll have some suggestions that they’ll hopefully find helpful.  I think the most important thing will be to stagger the groups’ arrival times, because ninety is too many screaming kids for even the biggest room in the Dar Chabab.  It would also have prevented the bullying fight outside since the older kid and younger kid just wouldn’t have been there at the same time.  Secondly, we should have the older volunteer helpers meet beforehand, so that I can give them a little training about how to talk and work with kids (not trying to shout them down when they misbehave, and no insulting a kid’s drawing).  Lastly, I think I’ll also try to push to make it a celebration of creativity rather than a competition; the kids will enjoy it either way and it’ll stop a whole lot of headaches (well, ok, maybe just mine) and heartbreaks (the kids).

After these last rather active weeks I took this Monday to relax (translation: write lesson plans, correct essays, and schedule meetings for later in the week, but hey, that’s easier than teaching lessons and running meetings).  While I was sitting in my third favorite café (third favorite because a pot of tea is an extra dirham, but it’s in the sun during the morning) a couple of Europeans walked back.  What’s more, I could hear their thick British accents so I called out hello to them.  Surprised that some random, heavily bearded man in a djellaba was calling them they stuttered out a bon jour and apologized that they didn’t speak French.  I said that was alright since I’m an American and they looked closer, laughing at their mistake.  They’re an older couple on a backpacking vacation and they’d just stopped in my town to grab a coffee as they went up the road to Azrou, so we sat around and chatted for an hour or so.  They said they’ve been to a lot of different third world countries on packbacking trips, and they’ve grown a little cynical about aid work after seeing a great many aid workers who stay in sites only for a few weeks or months, live in relative luxury, and never really form attachments to the community, but I’m the first PCV they’ve ever met and my level of integration really impressed them.  It was pretty much a text book perfect Peace Corps ad, two or three of my students saw us and stopped by to say hello, my host uncle went by, people were constantly waving at me, I was able to throw out some rapid Arabic and teach them a little about the country.  Not exactly Peace Corps goal three (teaching Americans about life in Morocco), but Peace Corps work nonetheless I think.

After they went off I finished writing my lesson plans and then went home to make lunch, but the neighbor across the way intercepted me and had me eat lunch at his place instead.  There have been a series of scheduling conflicts, so this is actually the first time I’ve been in their house.  I learned that his wife remembers a little English from high school, but wants to get better (hopefully she’ll be joining my beginners class and both their young kids will start coming to my other classes).  I also saw a rarity in Moroccan houses, a nice, small, personal library.  They have a series of books on the history of technology and the science behind natural phenomenon (opening one page I taught him how to pronounce Charles (in Charles Darwin); there is no sign for “Ch” in Arabic and the book used the sign for “Sh,” so he’s gone his whole life thinking it is “Sharles” Darwin), and another series of Quranic commentaries.  They also have a whole slew of French novels and encyclopedias.  It’s all the more impressive since they both dropped out of high school, but they are committed to both their son’s and their daughter’s education.  They are a sweet family and I’m glad I finally got a chance to sit down and talk with them.

So there you have it, the last few weeks of work to prove that I don’t just spend all my time sitting around contemplating the Quran and Islam.  Just one week more and some of my friends will be stopping by for Christmas and then New Year’s in the desert, so expect dramatic photos in a post or two.  Since I haven’t left you with a Joha story in awhile:

Joha was in the town square one day, and a group of people asked him if he knew how to play the guitar.  Joha didn’t know how, but he replied, “Yes, I do. I am a masterful guitar player—in fact, I am one of the best in the world!“

The people, expecting him to make such a boast, immediately produced a guitar and asked him to play it.  Joha took the guitar and started playing on just one string, and continued to play on just that string.  After a minute of this, someone finally interrupted him and asked, “Joha! Guitar players move their fingers and play a variety of strings. Why are you only playing one of them?”

“Well,” Joha replied, “those players keep on changing strings because they are searching for a specific one.  I found it on my first try—so why should I switch to another one?”

Heaven on Earth

            I’ve been thinking a lot about Islam lately.  It’s hard not to here, it pervades everyday life so much in a way that no religion does in New York and New England.  A couple of weeks ago I finished reading a translation of the Quran.  As with every other holy book I’ve read there were things I really liked about it, and things that I didn’t, but it’s not my place to discuss my impressions of a religious text from another culture which I can’t even read in it’s real language.  At least not perched here on my cyber soapbox.  So I won’t.  In the next few days it’s very likely that I’ll write about those impressions, and if you have any interest in my semi-informed musings feel free to e-mail me and ask for them.  What I will talk about, and gladly since it’s important to understanding Morocco, is how some—but by no means all—Moroccans conceive of their religion and how my reading the Quran was perceived here.

            The first thing I have to say is that actually reading the Quran, even in translation—which, it is important to note, does not count as reading the Quran to most Muslims—is a very, very different experience than reading about the Quran.  I took one course all about Islam in college, and a bunch of others where Islamic theology and philosophy came up, and I’ve been reading pretty voraciously anything about the Quran and Islam that I could since finding out I’d be coming to Morocco.  I knew how it is organized (by length of Sura (chapter), loosely, rather than by chronology or topic), I knew not to expect sustained story telling, even the Sura of Joseph, which tells that prophet’s whole story in one place, is told with frequent breaks and digressions, and I knew some of the important verses, but despite all that I knew I was expecting a text much more like the Jewish and Christian Holy books.  I didn’t expect so much repetition, and I didn’t expect all the time devoted to denying the divinity of Jesus, while confirming his important role as a prophet.  What I didn’t expect the most was how invested some people in my town got in how my reading progressed.

            As people started to learn that I was reading the Quran it would come up in conversation even more than it had before.  “You know, the Quran says this in Arabic, is that what your book says?”  “The Quran is beautiful, yes?  Even in English?  Ah, very good!”  “This is very important, because it is all true.”  People would ask me what I’d read that day.  Sometimes I’d know the Classical Arabic name for a Sura, more often I wouldn’t, or would only know a Darija word that obviously came from French.  My host mother burst out laughing the day I read the Sura of the Table, which, knowing full well I was wrong, I called Tabla.  She then taught me the classical Arabic word for table, but since I didn’t have a notebook on me I promptly forgot it.  Not that it matters; everyone here uses tabla.  Perhaps the most impressive moment came when one of my café owner friends asked what I’d read that day.  With no idea of the Arabic names I could only tell him that I’d read three Sura in a row, the middle of which is called Sad after the Arabic letter which begins it.  He immediately named the other two, and showed me them in the Quran he keeps at the back of the café.  He has the order memorized.  He’s not particularly religious, but he has the order of Sura memorized.  I think it’s from pre-school here, which seems to largely consist of repeating the Quran.  Other café owners would sometimes waive my bill when they saw I was reading the Quran in their café, and they’d almost always come over and talk about it a bit.

            Needless to say, the question of whether I would convert came up a lot.  Without fail I answered “God willing, but I need to study more,” which they think is a sensible approach.  People here generally believe I’m a Christian, though not a particularly devout one, and unable to give a more precise answer in Arabic I stick with that.  I’ve tried to explain the concept of secular Deism (not using that term, obviously) to a couple of people who speak English, as something closer to what I actually am, but I think that still just comes out as, not particularly devout Christian.  People here accept a non-devout Christian, though many of the people who care most about me say they worry about my soul.  There are plenty of non-devout Muslims in town, so they get the basic idea.

            Since I finished the Quran I’ve started reading a book titled Heaven On Earth by Sadakat Kadri.  It is a history of Islamic jurisprudence since the prophet and an analysis of the modern schools of thought about Islamic Law.  It’s an absolutely fascinating read, and now, armed with my fuller understanding of the Quran, what I’ve learned therein is a great conversation continuer with people who like to talk with me about Islam.  I mention things I learned from the book to show what I know, and then ask about their thoughts, and the responses have been even more interesting that what I learned about town from the Quran itself.

            In medieval Baghdad there was a fierce debate over whether God created the Quran or whether it was co-eternal with him.  And when I say fierce debate I mean fierce.  Thousands of people died over this as the competing positions won the ears of different caliphs and regional authorities.  Eventually the debate was settled when the last guy willing to say the Quran was part of God’s creation was executed (it’s a lot more complicated and interesting than that, but you get the point).  For people who care deeply about theology there was actually an important point here, if the Quran was part of creation it was mutable, just like the rest of creation, whereas even God wouldn’t edit a co-eternal Quran.  This then translates to whether religious laws are immutable or not, a debate that modern Muslims—and, for that matter, modern Christians, Jews, Hindus, and everyone else—are still having.  It’s something of a strange position, because many Muslims believe that verses of the Quran sent to the prophet later in life which contradicted earlier verses were the more correct versions.  The two views don’t completely contradict each other, because an eternal Quran would eternally have been meant to slowly ease people into Islam, but it’s a bit of a logical jump.

Learning about this medieval debate, I thought, might be a Godsend.  As the town Christian, some people ask me to explain the Trinity (or, I should say, to defend myself as a polytheist).  Well, here I had an answer.  In Sunni theology the Quran is God’s co-eternal word, separate from both Him and Creation but part of them both at the same time.  If that doesn’t sound familiar go read John 1:1.  It’s basically the same theological relationship as that between the Father and Son in Orthodox, Catholic, and many Protestant theologies, and just as many, if not more, people died arguing this fine point in Christianity.  To make sure I really got it (and to try out this defense of the thing I don’t believe which I still constantly have to defend) I worked out a suitable translation of how this debate works and went to ask a friend whose deep knowledge of Islam and the hadith (stories of the life of the Prophet) has always impressed me.

            I told him the truth, that this debate confuses me to no end.  He apologized, but said I can’t ask him about theology because he doesn’t really understand it himself.  He explained further that it’s not really that he doesn’t understand, it’s that he thinks these debates are meaningless, something that only God can know.  This actually is another medieval position, and one that makes me very glad my friend wasn’t in medieval Baghdad, because this group was oppressed too, despite being able to claim a fairly important founder.  The prophet Mohammed.  There is a hadith which says that a group of Jews in Medina asked the new prophet about his views on several theological conundrums.  I forget the first two, but the third was about the number of the sleepers—a group of true believers claimed by all three monotheistic faiths who are said to have fallen into a deep sleep in Roman times to be protected from persecution.  Mohammed replied that it didn’t matter if there were 3, 4, 5, 7, or 9 or whether or not their dog counted as one, that this knowledge was for God and that man should not debate theology.  It was a clever answer, because those particular numbers were the ones held by different major sects, proving that he was aware of the nuances of the debate but chose to stride above it.  Unfortunately in later years the people who actually chose to listen to him and ignore theology were summarily executed.  In defense of the people interested in theology they could also bring up hadiths where Mohammed does debate it.  Or point out that the Quran is full of it.  Regardless, I think Mohammed would have preferred we debate it calmly over tea, as my friend and I do, rather than by hacking each others’ heads off in the street.

            The conversation with my friend continued, and I argued that while I agree that arguing over theology is fundamentally pointless it is important to know about past arguments, and their implications, so as to understand modern thinkers with whom we may or may not agree.  Shifting then, he said he agreed, because only by understanding the others viewpoint could we hope to eventually talk with them and find a consensus, the closest point of view, he thought, to knowledge known only to God.  As he said this I couldn’t remember if it was Jesus or Mohammed who said “My community shall never agree to an error,” but in any case the sentiment was echoed in both religions for centuries.  The discussion soon shifted out of the theological realm and into doing social good—around this time it also shifted from an Arabic-English patois to just English.  In the end we decided that sometimes finding the consensus was the easy part, it was the arguments that led there that could be an issue, as in the case of providing easy access to contraception as opposed to promoting abstinence and fidelity.  Both groups want to see a reduction of the spread of STDs and unwanted pregnancies, but their methods are diametrically opposed.  It was quite the conversation!

            A few days later I had to go to Khenifra to do some work (I think I’ll devote another blog post in a few days to how work is going, quite well is the short version!) and as I was walking back to the taxi stand an older man I know from my town hailed me over to where he and a bunch of his friends were talking in a café.  This group doesn’t really have any real English abilities, but the man who called me over wanted to ask about one of the few expressions he knows in English.  Justice is Blind.  I was shocked he knew the expression, but as he explained it in Arabic I realized that he (and possibly the whole country) actually understands it as the opposite of how we understand it in the West.  To him it means justice is blind to the legality of a cause, though it can feel when money gets slipped into its palm.  He soon had me translate another favorite adage of his into English.  If you deserve peace prepare for war.  I think he meant only in a metaphoric sense.

            I didn’t press him, but from what I gathered some judge had decided against him in a civil case because the other party paid a bribe.  He was understandably upset, but his rant changed its flavor pretty early on.  We started to stroll around town (and fortunately ran into my tutor, because while I did understand everything the older man said to me I don’t think I’d post it without the confirming translations I got), and he told me that he’s jealous of American and European society, where people can advance according to their merit, rather than their birth.  This was, of course, not the time to disabuse him of his ideals of social mobility in the West, and in any case comparatively that myth is entirely true to a Moroccan.  He then told me that the Muslim world has a problem where it does not take enough care of its people, neighbors may be friendly to each other but they can’t afford to help each other in hard times and the governments won’t step in to help.  In America and Europe, he said, if people get badly sick, or fall on hard times they’re lives aren’t necessarily ruined forever.  Again, my own thoughts on the inadequacies of American public health and the social safety net have nothing compared to what is here in Morocco.  He went on to say that he thinks in the Muslim world a person is actually discouraged from reaching their potential, a competitor’s bribe or a superior’s apathy will mean that most people’s best work won’t be rewarded.  Then he said something which I don’t think I’ll ever forget.  “You Americans, you care about each other, your family and neighbors, and you reward people for trying their hardest and reaching their potential.  If you would just accept that there is no God but God and that Mohammed is His prophet you would all go straight to heaven, because you act more like Muslims should than most Muslims do.”  If people the world over, including and especially Americans, adopted his idealized America as a goal it wouldn’t matter what faith you were, because heaven would be on Earth.

A Brave New World

            I’m a Peace Corps volunteer out in the Moroccan countryside with no one to talk about art and literature with, which means I’m allowed a pretentious blog post title now and again.  I feel like I spend a lot of time defending my titles, perhaps because I have a knack for coming up with pretentious titles and a plethora of friends and family who’ll call me out on them, or perhaps because I can never think of better introductions and poking fun at my own pretentions is a time honored classic.  As it is a blog post I’m going to go ahead and say that it’s distinctly not an attempt to make the audience aware of the artificial, constructed nature of the written work.  H’m, a post structuralist analysis of my own blog is still a little too pretentious for my blood, so I’ll stick with my Shakespearean (Huxlodian?) title and get on with the post (cheap introduction trick achieved!).

             Actually, after this past weekend I really have no excuse for these pretensions since one of my fellow volunteers stopped by for a visit on his way back from training in Rabat and we spent quite a lot of time talking politics, philosophy, and other topics which I can never really get into with my Moroccan friends.  It was a well-timed visit too since my computer battery refused to charge all weekend.  Since I eventually got it working again by wrapping it in blankets and shoving it to the bottom of my sleeping bag I assume it is too cold to charge.  Glad I had someone else to talk to (and commiserate with about the lack of central heating).

            The big activity of our weekend was outdoors, were the weather was distinctly warmer than in my house.  Along with one of my Moroccan friends we travelled out to a nearby town and then climbed over a short mountain (one of only three or four around that isn’t snow capped at this point) into the next valley.  The view at the top was terrifyingly breathtaking, and I’ve got the photos to prove it.  We had a picnic lunch up there, where we were accosted by goats.  We left orange peels for them as an apology for getting in their way, which seemed to reconcile us and them.

You can see a typical "large town" for my region in the distance

That same town, in "View of Delft" lighting

Looking into the next valley

            The valley on the far side of the mountain is a world apart from my town.  While my town is still on a fairly well travelled main road the only way to reach the villages on the far side is by a dirt road so steep I’d be terrified to take any automobile down it.  We saw many more donkeys than trucks, though since the recent rains had made large swathes of road impassable mud that may be unusual.  Since my town is on the main road it has a much larger population than the mountain villages, many more amenities (though each and every house I saw in the countryside still had a satellite dish), and the central market for the entire region.  I never quite realized how cosmopolitan a place without central heating could be compared to the outer towns.  Actually, I was a little jealous of their mud brick construction, I’m sure their houses are much warmer than my cement block.  I know many of my students actually come from these outside villages to study at the school in my town and stay in rented apartments (for the boys) or in the girl’s dormitory.  I’ve been told that up there you don’t hear very much Arabic; they speak Tamazight, but we didn’t run into anyone except a couple of confused looking toddlers who didn’t want to speak anything and their mother, who just nodded, wished peace upon us, and continued with her business.

            In the next valley we saw a town that used to be a Peace Corps site when they had volunteers in other sectors besides youth development.  It is too small to have a Dar Chebab, but had plenty of work for health and environment volunteers.  These small Tamazight towns don’t get much from the central government (as I said before, they don’t even have their own schools or convenient transportation to reach schools), so it’s a real shame that the Moroccan government asked the Peace Corps to phase out its other sectors and focus on more developed places.  I’m sure the kids who can’t make it to my town for school would appreciate a local English teacher, and the health education would be invaluable, but I don’t think there’s a conceivable way I could even run a weekly program there, it’s too hard to get to (and we don’t share a common language!).

            Heading down the mountain towards this village we passed by the ruins of an old mosque and center for religious teaching (and education in general).  This ruin is called Zouia, which means religious learning.  My Moroccan friend said that this was a local intellectual and religious center about four hundred years ago, though all that remain now are some incredibly evocative, crumbling remains.

            It was interesting to hang out with my Moroccan friend and another PCV from a different part of Morocco at the same time.  My friend’s grandfather originally moved to this region from a town quite close to where the other PCV lives out on the edge of the desert.  He explained that in this region, at least in the bigger towns on the main road, there are a lot of people from the South because there is more consistent work up here.  Even many local families have mixed origins since some men go down South to find a wife.  I’ve heard claims that they do this because they think the women down there are more beautiful and more intelligent than the local women.  I can’t speak to that, but I do know that they are also considered more docile than the women from around here, most likely because they are hundreds of miles from their own families and don’t want to act out in the midst of their husband’s.  Regardless, that bit of local lore often belies itself; my students’ Saharan mothers who I’ve met are just as fiery as their local sisters.

            After a couple of fun though freezing days my friend returned to the desert and I got myself geared up for the coming week, which looks like it’ll be very exciting.  I’ve been using a book of translated Joha stories to help teach my intermediate students, and this week we’re going to get into one of the longer, meatier ones as a spring board for a class on writing a persuasive essay, a skill they’ll need for their bacc.  Last week I hit the present tense with my beginners at the artisanal cooperative and I was so excited about this weeks lessons with them where we can actually do more interesting classes that I wrote most of the lesson plans yesterday (I’m sure they’ll have to be edited when the realities of class kick in).  Actually just last week it occurred to me that I think I finally have a definition of what a successful service here will be.  Those girls at the cooperative work really hard, and it would be invaluable to them and to the cooperative as a whole if at least one of them walks away from my two years here with somewhere in the neighborhood of fluent English.  If they can combine English with some of the skills in internationally attractive product development and marketing that the association from Casablanca I wrote about in my last post is teaching them they might actually be able to expand their market out of this little pocket of Morocco.  Successful service will be giving as many of these girls as I can the English skills to do that.  Successful projects and classes at the Dar Chabab, where the students will need to start working a lot harder for fluency to be an attainable goal, will all be icing on that cake, inchallah.

            As usual, I’ll end with a couple of Joha stories, first the one I will be using in class today:

            For a while Joha served as an advisor to the king.  One day the king’s chef prepared a very tasty dish of eggplant and other vegetables.  As Joha and the king were eating, the king asked Joha, “Isn’t this dish the best you have ever eaten?”

            “Oh, yes, Majesty, the very best,” said Joha.

            “Then I want it served every day,” said the king.  But after ten more meals the king turned to Joha and said, “Take this away.  This food is terrible.”

            “Yes, indeed it is,” Joha agreed.

            “But Joha,” the king said, “just a few days ago you said this was a wonderful dish.”

            “Oh, I did, Your Majesty, but I serve you, not the vegetables.”

            The essay prompt is to discuss how they feel about Joha’s last line and whether they agree or not with the sentiment.  The other story comes from my tutor, who thought it was fitting in the cold weather.

It was a cold winter day, and a heavily dressed man noticed Joha outside wearing very little clothing.

“Joha,” the man said, “tell me, how is it that I am wearing all these clothes and still feel a little cold, whereas you are barely wearing anything yet seem unaffected by the weather?”

“Well,” replied Joha, “I don’t have any more clothes, so I can’t afford to feel cold, whereas you have plenty of clothes, and thus have the liberty to feel cold.”