Let It Shine

            In some ways the two weeks since my last post have raced by, in others the time pretty much stood still.  In some ways I had some really rewarding work, in others I felt like I wasn’t doing anything all that important and was missing my main purpose.  In other words, it was a normal two weeks.

            You may recall that as of the last post the English Language Spring Camp in my site had been cancelled so I was heading down to work at another in a city far to the south named Taroudant.  Taroudant is located in the Souss valley, a prosperous region famous for Argan trees and the oil which comes from them.  People use argan oil both for consumption and cosmetically and worldwide it only grows in a small part of Morocco, making it an extremely valuable export for that region.  While the argan crop, along with extensive citrus farming, has brought a lot of wealth to the region it has also brought a lot of problems.  Most female Peace Corps Volunteers find that the very worst harassment they experience is in the Souss.  This is largely because of the large migrant population of young men that comes to work on the farms.  These men, disconnected from the communities they live in and with no fear that word of their misdeeds will get back to their families, behave atrociously around young women, both Moroccan and foreign.  Despite this there is a preponderance of female volunteers in the region because in most of the region parents are so conservative that they won’t let their daughters attend the Dar Chebab if there is an American man working there.

            Taroudant, as a large city popular with both tourists and more permanent expatriates—including former French President Jacques Chirac—is itself immune to some of these problems, though by the standards of larger, touristy cities Taroudant and Agadir, the other large city in the region, are notable for harassment.  Nestled in a beautiful part of the valley just south of the High Atlas, the city’s stunning red walls have stood for almost a millennium, though apparently the surprisingly organized “old” city owes this organization to an 18^th century sultan who razed the city when it rose in rebellion against him.  The camp took place on the campus of one of the city’s large high schools, which conveniently had a dormitory attached for the students.

            Taroudant is about twelve hours south of me, and travelling down I stopped to spend the night in a friend’s site.  We were both invited to a party at the local high school for students in the ACCESS program, which she works with.  This was my first interaction with ACCESS, which does not have a branch in my town.  ACCESS is a program run by the American Embassy in association with the Moroccan Association of Teacher’s of English (MATE).  It allows promising young students extra opportunities to learn and practice English and to learn about American culture.  The students’ English abilities really shocked me; although my friend’s site is not much larger or wealthier than my own even the least advanced ACCESS students were miles ahead of the advanced students in my town.  Admittedly this is a special group singled out for their ability, but it was still shocking to see how valuable even a little extra emphasis on actually using English was for the students.

            The next day my friend and I travelled down to Taroudant, and in the course of travel we both get some very interesting phone calls.  Mine came first, actually just after we’d gotten back from the ACCESS party.  My mudir informed me that, by official order of the ministry, at the last minute our camp was back on.  I, of course, could not go back, as it was I was already half the way there, and while with me the Taroudant camp had a ratio of about 30 students to every one American the camp in my site only had 12 students total, something my counterpart could (and did) easily handle on his own.  My mudir, to his credit, was very understanding and did nothing to try and guilt me into coming back, though I still did feel a little guilty all through the camp.  My friend’s call came the next day, when we were literally minutes away from the city and her mudir informed her that there would be a camp in their site!  Now this was far more ridiculous than mine, because while my mudir and I had planned and then had to cancel a camp for lack of students, her mudir and she had never talked about having a camp in their site.  When I’d been in his office the day before I was introduced as “the other volunteer I’m travelling to Taroudant with.”  She even had her schedule hung up on his wall, saying she’d be gone for two weeks for the Taroudant camp.  Despite all this he expected her to drop everything and come back to work a camp starting the next day for which they had done zero preparation.  Needless to say she refused, and he then tried to get her in trouble with Peace Corps, who very nicely phoned her to inform her that they had informed her mudir he had no right to expect this last minute camp.

            These last minute, “let’s have a camp” decisions plagued Peace Corps Morocco this break.  Most times the interaction between the mudir and the volunteer fell somewhere in between my mudir’s, “ok, I messed up, see you in two weeks” response and my friend’s mudir’s angry response.  Regardless, I think it demonstrated a major problem in Moroccan planning.  A great number of mudirs—mine thankfully not among them—seemed to think it was possible to design an entire camp the day before it started and they hadn’t even bothered to inform their volunteers there would be a camp, even when the volunteers asked so that they’d know if they should stay in their sites or work at another camp.  The Peace Corps did a great job standing by volunteers in our efforts not to cave to ridiculous expectations, though of course in most cases we would have made a problem either way, had my friend and I returned to our sites the ministry’s darling Taroudant camp couldn’t have functioned.  Hopefully next year the ministry will remember this fiasco and try to work things out ahead of time.

            Once actually in Taroudant the camp went very well.  We had six Peace Corps Volunteers, one coordinating the camp and five to work at it along with a large and helpful Moroccan staff.  We volunteers were expected to run an English class everyday, run a “club,” and help the Moroccan staff with their activities, which ran around ours.  I taught the advanced class, which was far and away the most advanced group of students I’ve worked with in Morocco.  Many of them were part of the Taroudant ACCESS program, and one has even received a YES scholarship to study for a year in an American high school.  While she was easily the student with the best English I’ve worked with in country my most impressive student was actually a little boy, just 13 years old, who had much better English than pretty much any student I’ve worked with outside of this camp.  Students don’t usually start English until they’re 14 here, sometimes later.  His English was so good I suspected he must have lived abroad for a while, but when I asked him he told me no, it wasn’t that, he just watched a lot of American and English movies!  Another girl, just 15, said most of them had learned that way.  Our class was a discussion-based class focusing on good citizenship.  It was one of the most fun things I’ve had a chance to teach here.  They were a great group of students and it was a real pleasure working with them, though by the end of the camp they were all exhausted since I’m pretty sure not much sleeping took place in the student dorms.

            My club was less successful.  For the clubs we worked with a different group of students every day.  Mine was on environmental education, specifically repeating the first lesson of the CLIMB program using a game to teach environmental codependency and resource management.  Some days the group of students I got was really interested and we had a great session, but other days the students couldn’t have cared less about the environment.  In the Moroccan led activity time I usually helped out with the music club.  Three of the Moroccan counselors were professional musicians.  They taught the kids the basics of reading music, notes and rhythm and taught them a few songs including, oddly, “This Little Light of Mine” (hence my title).  These Moroccan activity times were my favorite part of the camp.  The Moroccan staff was extremely professional, friendly, and talented there, making a nice counterpoint from the ridiculous ministry battle we’d had in the days leading up to the camp.

            After the camp ended getting home was a challenge in itself.  We spent the day after camp in Agadir relaxing on the beach, but when we tried to leave the next day we discovered that the buses only leave from there very early in the morning or very late at night.  The next day we backtracked to Taroudant and left from there, but somehow the three hour trip to Marrakech ended up taking ten, so it was too late to get home then.  On the third day of travel I finally made it home, but even then there was a little bit of Peace Corps work.  After one stop the bus was overcrowded and I saw a woman with a young child standing, so I did what I thought was the only decent thing and gave her my seat.  She and the assistant driver had a quick discussion, wherein she argued I was very nice and he argued I was very crazy.  After awhile another seat opened up, but since this bus was constantly a little too full I found myself standing to give a seat to some woman or kid throughout most of the ride.  The assistant driver and I became good friends, after awhile he started calling me the assistant’s assistant and joked that I was doing pretty well, but it would take at least twenty days training to master the art of being an assistant driver.  The great success came later in the ride, when the bus was very crowded and two mothers with young children were standing.  I gave one my seat, and then a young Moroccan man a few seats up gave the other his seat.  I guess that makes me a chivalry development volunteer!