Culture Shock Rocks

Just kidding.

This is now old news, but I let the thing molder in my drafts, afraid of something. Afraid of you.

I crossed the ocean to live permanently in the US. The point of no return was this January when I didn't renew my teaching contract in Morocco.

I had things to do:
make more money
be away from an inherently sexist culture (Sure it's bad here; it's worse there.)
be accessible to my family
engage in a culture

I hope this ordering of priorities is not accurate.

This land, this land that is yours and mine, has been mysterious and painful to me as I returned to it. For all I can tell over the past four months, the good things happening were not caused by me, and the bad things happening were not my responsibility to fix. My whole responsibility, especially this summer, seemed to be to watch and listen.

Watch at the Starbucks outside of JFK, where the plain-clothes cop raised his arm to get the creamer, and revealed his handgun sticking out of his jeans.

Listen to my niece's stories about our family over the last year.

Watch as traffic moves in a slick rhythm on a very fast highway.

Listen to the radio announcer tell who is to blame, and understand every word. Understand nothing.

Watch as the people I love reach out, and out, and out. And reach back. Tentatively at first.

Grit

I've been watching, and yes, rewatching a boot camp reality tv show. It is inspiring television, let me tell you! The recruits were forced to do a five-kilometer hike carrying a 180-kilo log. When they had reached their destination, the drill sergeant said, simply, "Do it again."

The camera crew asked one recruit if he thought it was unfair. "This is life," he said without malice; even with humor, he said that. His forehead sweaty, a rye laugh: this is life. I love that.

I don't often think I have a lot of grit. I can give up pretty easily. Even if I don't give up, I am prone to complaining.

But here are two times when I didn't give up recently, because I was thinking about how much stamina and humor the recruits on this show had.

1. When I was doing a really challenging section of workout, I kept going. Burpee-pushup-box-jumps. It's a real thing.

2. When I had to pay our internet bill, and tried no fewer than eight ATMs.

---

Here is where I catch myself. If I truly had grit, perhaps I would not go on to tell you the particulars of the inconvenience this entailed. But you cannot possibly grasp the difficulty of the situation unless I explain. Someone with grit may not need you to grasp the situation. But I do need you to understand, if I can make it happen at all.

Here goes.

We had not received an internet bill for at least two months. The reminders I had placed on my phone were not enough for me, and the internet was shut off as of yesterday evening. I boarded the bus headed toward the city immediately after work, and made a beeline for the Maroc Telecom where one pays for internet. This is distinct from the Maroc Telecom where one buys internet.

I had no Moroccan money, only US money, and needed to find an ATM where I could withdraw dirhams using my US bank card.

I walked from ATM to ATM looking for a working, international-friendly one. After covering two kilometers in walking, I managed to get 400 dirhams, plenty to cover the bill, from a BMCE kiosk. Ah, but pause! I had recently heard you could pay your bill at a Telecom kiosk nearby! This I attempted to do with my US card. No luck. I went inside. I'm sorry, no, we don't accept payment here, that one is 600 meters down the street.

Briskly walking back four blocks to the Maroc Telecom where we pay, the agent there told me we in fact now owed two months of internet, not one.

"OH!? Could I see those bills, please?"

"We don't give print-outs here. That one is 600 meters down the street."

"Forget it." Still, quite the pickle, considering my limited cash. We tried my American card, no way. I needed more cash.

"When do you close?"

"In 15 minutes."

"I will return!"

And I did. And I paid it.

If I had not been watching Special Forces: Ultimate Hell Week on repeat for the last two weeks, would I have had the determination to try two Credit Du Maroc, two Banque Populaire, one Societe Generale, one BMCE, and three Attijariwafa ATMs in my attempts to pay the Hydra-headed bill? I doubt it.

November Dedications

Wednesday, 1 
Today is dedicated to having enough.

Thursday, 2
Today is dedicated to Thor and the refugee Asgardians.

Friday, 3
Today is dedicated to that group of women who prays for me and laughs at my jokes. I thank my God every time I remember you.

Saturday, 4
Today is dedicated to the Enneagram.

Sunday, 5
Today is dedicated to Hay Hassani's thrift clothes. You are so reasonably priced. Thank you.

Monday, 6
Today is dedicated to Monica, who sees the Kingdom of God.

Tuesday, 7
Today is dedicated to the Apostle Paul, who preserved the Gospel from extra conditions.

Wednesday, 8
Today is dedicated to every bank everywhere that actually does their job. So, that would exclude my bank in Morocco, just to be clear.

Thursday, 9
Today is dedicated to Tyler, who sympathized with me at odd hours while I was grading instead of sleeping.

Friday, 10
Today is dedicated to "The Crucible" movie, which saved me from actually teaching.

Saturday, 11
Today is dedicated to the book Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

Sunday, 12
Today is dedicated to the taxi driver who spoke beautiful French, and encouraged me to keep learning.

Monday, 13
Today is dedicated to this carpet next to me. It witnessed my attempts to create two unit plans in one hour, and it remained beautiful.

Tuesday, 14
Today is dedicated to the parents of my students. Thank you for trusting me so much.

Wednesday, 15
Today is dedicated to the English department. During high-grading weeks, I sometimes feel like we go through war together... separately.

Thursday, 16
Today is dedicated to the "Time Until" app. Five days.

Friday, 17
Today is dedicated to naps. Naps on the way to work. Naps on buses. Naps on couches. Naps that save first my life, and others by extension.

Saturday, 18
Today is dedicated to Amicitia American School, Fes, who knows how to host graciously.

Sunday, 19 
Today is dedicated to Luke D., who made me laugh until I cried.

Monday, 20
Today is dedicated to the substitute who will have the joy or sorrow of my classes tomorrow.

Tuesday, 21
Today is dedicated to Tyler, who flew across an ocean to hang out for a few days.

Wednesday, 22 
Today is dedicated to couches, windows, and sunshine, and anywhere the three meet.

Thursday, 23 
Today is dedicated to you, Lord, who graciously gives us good things.

Friday, 24
Today is dedicated to a pair of cat earrings; to my brother and sister-in-law; to Tyler; and to the little girl selling tissues next to the train station.

Saturday, 25
Today is dedicated to "Stranger Things" and leftovers.

Sunday, 26
Today is dedicated to comings and goings; may God watch over them all.

Monday, 27
Today is dedicated to the working printers.

Tuesday, 28
Today is dedicated to sentence diagramming; I wish I had known how fun you were when I was in seventh grade, myself!

Wednesday, 29
Today is dedicated to G period. I look older because of you. But I love you, and will keep forgiving you right before class, at 1:40 PM every weekday, and right after class, at 2:30 PM every weekday.

Thursday, 30
Today is dedicated to Shanti and Nissa, who listened without judgment, and kept my phone through the night.

Casablanca Garden

The garden sits vacant all during the sunny parts of the day, save a pair of little, roaming turtles. I get home from work, and stop in to smell the roses quite often, but then I repair to my house, hungry, sleepy, needy for I don't know what.

The garden deserves so much better. The gardener and the landlady keep it in perfect condition. It's a trophy wife, always perfectly dressed; on the shelf.

"Mustapha at the Bat"

Let's talk about D period seventh grade. 

Try getting these kids to all be quiet at the same moment! I spend about 20 out of our 50 minutes together quieting them. But in the remaining 30 minutes, we somehow manage to cover more ground than any other class. I just finished inputting preparation grades, and these kids are statistically an absolute mess. Fifteen out of 22 kids forgot some essential piece of their supplies this week. 

I have never had to strain my voice to be heard as I have done with them. But I have also never seen such unexpected cooperation as I saw today. 

Youssef is the jewel of the class. The dragon and the jewel. He has an extraordinary aptitude for most things, and a lack of self-control that is just as extraordinary. I told him before we began today that we would be reviewing a story from last week. When that started, he was welcome to find an alternative activity: drawing or reading. 

"Here's the book you can read, here's the paper you can use; stay within this area."

I noticed him getting paper occasionally, as I began our review of "Casey at the Bat." They had read it last week, but their comprehension was still low. As I set the scene, I found that we were more than re-telling the story; we were re-reading. So I embraced the moment. I asked for a student to be Casey at the bat. 

"Hold your arms like this," I explained to Mustapha as I held an imaginary bat. Haytham insisted on being the pitcher. Mohamed insisted on being the catcher. Three umpires were suddenly named. We had an outstanding out-fielding complement. The audience, like all of Mudville, was riveted.

The pitcher found a wad of paper that at first I rejected as unnecessary until Youssef the Off-Task brought over a long, rolled paper bat he had been improvising since the beginning of class and handed it to our much-obliged Casey. Youssef somehow anticipated that we would be acting out the whole story. He had made a bat for the occasion. He had also nearly memorized the entire poem, and was able to fill in all the blanks I left. He became my dramatic reading partner. 

Every second I feared this thing turning into a gruesome riot. And every second this nutso seventh grade group surprised me. 

They acted out the entire poem in cooperation, then put away the bat and ball, retired their imaginary gloves, and sat down to answer all the forthcoming questions with perfect comprehension.

Later, maybe Youssef stole someone's phone. And maybe he didn't do that. I cannot say. But I can say that our class today was such fun.

Casa Loud and Casa Quiet

Yesterday was the big, big holiday, Eid al-Adha, the holiest feast of the Islamic calendar. I've written about it here before, too. Kind of like Americans obsess over turkeys on Thanksgiving, sheep are the distracting center of this holy day. Yesterday was all loud prayer and sheep slaughter in the morning, and all quiet fires and cooking throughout the afternoon.

Margaret and I stole around the block looking for a few sheep scenes. As we walked, we avoided the swinging machetes of men whose function all day was butchery. If the machetes weren't enough to identify them, their clothes were covered in drying sheep's blood (we assume), and they wore huge, satisfied smiles.

We also found merry gentlemen on the street corners, burning the skin off of sheep heads, cooking the cheeks and brains for later. All this is done with a similar ease as I recall the men in my family going out to fix something on a car after the Thanksgiving meal. Most sit or stand while one or two does something useful to the task. The difference in Morocco is that no one is holding a beer. But here are those men.

Cool guys burning sheep heads.

Later in the day, I was visiting a neighborhood outside the city, and I don't know how common this is, but some children had dressed up in the fresh sheep skins, and were dancing and singing for tips. It looked and smelled so strange. This photo makes it look like The End has come, but in person they were not the least bit intimidating.

Weirdo neighborhood kids after the Eid feast.

The feast having lasted all day and late into last night, Casablanca was a sleeping child at 8:30 this morning. As I walked home from breakfast with Margaret I realized I had never walked more peacefully through the streets. I opened the gate to our villa, and the sun was just beginning to shine on the roses in Habiba's garden. It smelled like heaven come down. The wind whipped up some dried bougainvillea petals on the walkway, and I heard a child laughing on the rooftop apartment of the mosque overhead. It was the sweet kind of laugh where you just know someone is tickling him.

Habiba is my landlady, and she keeps the most beautiful, healthy roses.

My heart is extra light knowing that the poor of the city are eating well this week, because families who can afford it buy not one but two sheep to slaughter, and give up to half the meat to the needy. Beggars are invited inside. The Kingdom come.

In other news...

• Margaret leaves for Jordan today; and what a wonderful time it was to laugh and chat freely while keeping her from accomplishing her schoolwork. Maggie is a friend from Lancaster, visiting Morocco between semesters in Jordan. And this is us holding Mexican flags at an American-style burger joint. 

Now you are a bit of two of my homes, Maggie!, Lancaster and Casablanca!

• With the holiday behind us, my students will be coming back to the city in time for the second week of school, making this Wednesday the de facto first day of classes.

Reset Button

What did it take me to get here, in Casablanca? 

The flight was less than seven hours, a red-eye from DC to Casablanca. I even had the great honor of being able to sprawl across three seats because by luck my row had not sold out. That afforded me three hours of low-quality sleep. Three hours of sleep provides you with just enough energy to stand in passport control for over an hour, but not quite enough energy to remember how to get to the train station from baggage claim. Missed that first train. Whatever. 

What did it take me to get here, in front of a computer with thoughts?

It took me some crying, a good video chat, dinner with friends, time in prayer, twelve hours of sleep, two cups of coffee, a load of laundry, two episodes of something on Netflix, and a banana. 

It was good to be in the United States.

It is good to be back in Morocco.

Caesura

After the senior class graduated on Saturday, June 3, I finally turned my attention to my languishing ninth grade class. They were languishing in part because it was the curriculum I developed the least, and in part because they are fasting from water and food during daylight for Ramadan.

For the last two months, I have felt as though I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to creativity. Though my stores of energy were bolstered by my love for my students and an obscene amount of caffeine, the year gets harder; that's all there is to it.

Today in the teacher's lounge, after the morning's finals, I found myself with two of my closest high school teachers, all of us grading. We commiserated a bit, but we all sensed that it wasn't helping anyone, and we were too tired to be angry or frustrated. Slowly, the conversation shifted, and that's why I'm telling you this. The complaints and the small talk were all the slow introduction to this miraculous moment where we started to talk about what we were going to change for next year.

We hadn't even finished grading our finals, and we were already on to the next batch of classes. We shared ways we would change our systems. We had new phrases, new activities, and new focuses. "That is just the very best part about teaching, guys," said Marie. "We get to change what doesn't work for the next year." (She teaches science, so I guess she knows all about variables and affecting outcomes.)

I know I would not have felt so hopeful if a few months' rest were not ahead of me. But when June 21 comes, and I close my classroom, full of boxes and empty walls, I'll know it's just temporary. Summer is not a full stop to my job, but a caesura. (I teach literature, so I know that caesuras are breaths in poetry; pregnant pauses between two phrases; time for the musician to arrange his lyre and form the next phrase; ... time to see his family and friends, and eat pork products, and sleep for days on end.)

So Angry

If I were you, there's no reason I would read this. We get enough complaining without searching for it.

This week, here's what makes me angry.

1. People defining themselves by traveling. Collecting friends like souvenirs. I see my hypocrisy. It will take years to remedy.

2. Dudes hollering at me on the street. Yesterday, as I was walking past Beausejour on a main road, I had just passed two young men when I heard that kissy noise every woman knows. I turned around, walked the few steps back to them, and shouted in English, "DON'T DO THAT. DON'T EVER DO THAT AGAIN!" I was livid. Jaw set hard, lips pinched, eyes wide and fixed; I curled my upper lip in disgust. They don't speak English, but the words didn't matter. They nodded, ashamed and uncomfortable.

I have been told to not make any eye contact, to keep my eyes down so as not to draw attention to myself in any way. It doesn't seem to matter. Men here (and in Pennsylvania, and lots of places) think a woman walking on the street is an easy target for their libidinous guffaws. Usually, I walk on for my own safety. But yesterday I had it in my head that I really could, and would, fight. 

3. Students who put forth an extraordinary effort in making excuses and arguing while their work remains incomplete or not begun. In the same category, a senior who shows up at their final and doesn't have a pen.  

I've Been Almost This Lonely Before

I remember the last time I was this lonely. It was my first year of teaching and being a dorm adviser at LMH.

• I never had enough sleep.
• I didn't hang out with people regularly.
• I always had grading hanging over my head. 
• I was responsible in part for the well-being of so many kids, and the job just never seemed to end. 
• I had no idea where to make boundaries. Of course I had to move all those boundaries over the next two years. 

It was all a bear of a task. What I remember, though, was feeling so lonely. I remember kneeling in child's pose that winter, crying out to God about how damn uncertain and tiring the whole thing was. Was I in the right place? Was I doing this right? How would I know if I was doing it right? Why do I feel so alone, God?It was the loneliest I had been up to that point.

This is a harder life in so many ways, but the fact that I have that experience as part of me makes this one easier. It's a lot of the same, but at least I've done some of it before:

• I never have enough sleep.
• I don't hang out with people regularly.
• I always have grading hanging over my head.
• I'm responsible for my own well-being, and I don't know what that looks like.
• I have no idea where to make boundaries.

Why not just solve one problem, and at least hang out with people more regularly?

It's partly because I need to make new friends to hang out with, and that is a slow process. Deep friendships take time, and shallow ones take energy.

I'm afraid of hanging out with only Americans, because, as I've already seen, they come and go so quickly. I've only been here for nine months, and already I've seen people leave who came here with me. That leaves local friends: Moroccan and other African friends who are likely to stick around. But there's the problem of the language barrier. And there's the problem of my disillusionment with Morocco stemming from the students I teach. It's not been a conscious decision, but if all Moroccans are like my students, how can I ever trust anyone? They lie to me like it's their job.

So, I'm lonely. But I'm not ashamed of it. It's like Jessica and the Reverend Mother, talking together in Dune... 

"I've been so lonely."
"It should be one of the tests," said the old woman. "Humans are almost always lonely."

A Check-Up for My Goals

I wrote down the reasons why I left Lancaster, with my kind housemates, my growing church, my endless opportunities for involvement in society, and my interesting job. The check-up is in italics beneath each reason for why I came here.

To learn to teach.
This is happening. 

To live near the desert.
This is true, but I haven't seen much of the desert just yet. When I came here in August, I wasn't sure this city wasn't a desert: dry, dusty, without a sliver of green. If the ocean hadn't been a half hour's jog away, I would have felt bereft. 

To live near the ocean.
I live near it, but see it so little. The sand sticks to your feet, and a few young boys walk around with their thirsty donkeys, offering rides along the water's edge. Men show off and proposition you and yell English phrases at you. 

Still, it's the ocean, and I will be going there tomorrow for an hour or so. I won't even bring a book, the waves are such good company. 

To escape the crush of scheduling (for which I took full responsibility).
This has temporarily, no doubt, solved itself. I spend my time teaching, grading, planning, and making food. It's a simple kind of busy, with far fewer deep relationships. 

To ask God how to stop being so angry.
I'm still pretty angry. I get the most angry about how women have such a raw deal the world over. I'm more impatient with so-called "women's issues" than I have ever been. Women's issues are men's issues, just like men's issues will always be women's issues. Regardless, anger is so often an outcropping of fear in my life, so I wonder what I'm afraid of.

To produce nothing, be known for nothing, be right about nothing, defend nothing.
This one was about me not building my own little comfortable kingdom. This is here to remind me that I am God's child, and that is enough. I don't need to see fruit to know that he loves me. 

To confront my loneliness, and befriend it.
I have found my loneliness. I have begun to look it in the eyes. We are not friends yet, merely occasional walking companions.

To be out of the country during the 2016 presidential election.
That happened, but it was painful on this side of the ocean, too. God, bless America. And Morocco. And...

To know Muslims.

Relationships take time and, for me, language. I love the conversations between Christians and Muslims: we have so much to talk about.

I have zero interest in meeting Muslim men, who frankly scare me; but I have lots of interest in meeting Muslim women. The Moroccans I know (though just a little bit) are my co-workers. I am mostly letting work take up that relational space for this year. You don't do everything at once. 

My Moroccan co-workers are understandably guarded in getting to know American teachers. Turnover is as high as you'd expect among young, American, traveler-teachers. For perspective, I'm far less a traveler than most of the Americans I work with. 

A Few More Moments of Grace

It feels like the world as I knew it in the United States, especially, is coming to an end. There are so many emergencies right now... with the promise of more trouble: patriots from Iraq are detained; a white supremacist will now be allowed to assassinate people with impunity. And it's only just begun.

The only peace I can find is in Jesus. Oh, he is precious, and he does not lean left or right: he never changes. We cry out to you, God, let justice roll like mighty waters. 

---

I have been asking God to show me the grace he's provided for the moment. Is it tangible, Lord? Can I feel it and see it, please? Because things look so hopeless.

Here are a few moments from last week that touched my heart:

1. Casablanca cold is different from Pennsylvanian cold. I prefer Casablanca cold, but hear me out. Though the weather bottoms out at 1*C, 34*F, the buildings aren't built to hold heat in. So it's hard to get warm when you do come inside. It's hard to explain how demoralizing that can become. There's no refuge. But we do get this spectacular rainbow over the ocean!

I'm wearing a knit cap beneath my hood, three or four layers on top, and two layers of slacks.
But look at the rainbow!

2. A new friend gave me a gift toward my upcoming vacation to France.

3. At the end of a seventh grade class on Friday, as the students prepared to leave, I thanked them for their attention, as I always do. Two of the girls came over to me and said sincerely, in practiced unison, "thank you for teaching us!" I regret not hugging them!

When All You Actually Want is a Cinnamon Roll

Today was one of those mornings when you're teaching seventh grade about imagery. You're introducing a bit of homework that isn't due for a few days and the thing you really have to do is a lot of end-of-semester grading. A lot. We're talking 80 essays due Sunday night, 46 more due Tuesday night, and a thousand little things you've put off grading until the end... and it's sneaking up on you, and you're pushing it away so you can teach class... but all you really want is a cinnamon roll with raisins. You know? What every teacher really needs is their* vice principal to show up with a cinnamon roll, and be like, "Here you go! Take a break, and I'll cover this class time. Enjoy that cinnamon roll, now!"

I mean, these cinnamon rolls. Everyone talks about them. It's inappropriate how often everyone talks about them. The problem has been that I'm teaching during the time when the cafeteria is selling them. Because of my split schedule, half middle, half high school, I teach through the break time when the rolls are for sale. In yesterday's meeting about a low-performing student, I even told this to the administration, because a whole day had gone by since I had complained about something.

You know that fantasy where someone comes into the room and trades you your class time for a cinnamon roll? That totally happened today. And it was both of my assistant principals who came into class, one to present the cinnamon roll, the other to whip everyone into shape after the oohing and ahhhing had subsided. I'm telling you, I left that room so fast, with my Kindle and my warm, sticky cinnamon roll.

Did I mention that my school is hiring?




*I'm using the form as a third person singular neuter on purpose, so would you cool it, already?

What I Use Language For

A few weeks ago, I called a gas delivery company to get a refill for our portable, gas heater. I know enough French to express that I don't know French, and was soon connected with someone who speaks English. The delivery guy would be here within the hour.

That hour passed rather nervously for me, and it's because a man I don't know was going to come to my house, and I was going to have to be present while saying almost nothing because I don't know enough words.

When he arrived, he disengaged the empty tank with his wrench, and installed the new tank while I stood around doing nothing, saying nothing. Those are trying times for me, because if we spoke the same language, a few lines of small talk would have filled in that gap very tidily. I would have woven words around myself, covered myself up with them: a dreamy, big scarf.

As it was, I stood, completely present—a person and present—whether or not I wanted to be. I felt both ridiculous and real. So I've thought about it, and I find I have a few main uses for words:

1. I can hide using words. One day, a long time ago, when I first started to hate my body (it's been a love-hate relationship ever since), I began to think that if I just kept talking, no one would see me. I can make a joke, and suddenly it's not that I'm beautiful, but that you see something other than sweatpants-uncombed-Saturday-morning me.

2. I can make peace using words. Because of my high anxiety about Trump being president, I find myself talking about morals rather more often than usual. I find myself answering long messages on Facebook and on WhatsApp from equally anxious people, but anxious from another perspective. (And the perspectives I trust admit to being complicated.) So far, we've disengaged while remaining friends.

3. I can teach you how to use words using words. But only to a point. Teaching is hard, but it's getting better and better.

Lighthearted Reflections on 2016

New Year's Eve 2016 found me with people I hadn't known the year before, so of course, we didn't have a shared ritual or even a basic knowledge of each other's lives beyond the scope of the past few months. So we created a ritual that I hope to take up again and again. We asked questions and told stories! Here is an abbreviation of what I shared.

Where were you on NYE 2016?
-My living room, Casablanca

Who were you with on NYE 2016?
-Janine, Stacey, Bria

What was the hardest you laughed in 2016?
-Possibly, some conversation with Stacey and Caty Mac on the bus
-Or, possibly Abby falling onto an occupied air mattress while attempting to capsize it

What was the best moment of 2016?
-Crying in front of a Rothko with Kelly in Chicago

What was an embarrassing moment of 2016?
-when the H & H delivery guy called me "Claire" in front of my co-worker after flirting with me for a few minutes

What day in 2016 would you live over and over?
-one of any Sunday that included the following elements: WEMF, House of Pizza, hiking, friends

What was your favorite song of 2016?
-"Sorry" by Bieber (I'm conflicted as to whether or not to apologize for this being true. The irony.)

What was your favorite movie/show of 2016?
-"The West Wing" show
-"Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" movie

Most memorable trip of 2016?
-Chicago with Krystle, Rachel, and Kelly
-Fez and Casa with Bethany, Janine, Sarah, and Derek

What was your biggest lesson of 2016?
-I have value as a person without doing anything more.

Who was the most influential person in your year?
-Betty

What was the bravest thing you did in 2016?
-Dating and breaking up

What was the kindest thing you did in 2016?
-... it's good to think on that one, but maybe not publish an answer, you know?

What was the best advice you gave, or the best conversation you had in 2016?
-SO MANY good conversations!
-I advised my seniors not to go straight to college. I'm waiting for parent emails to come in.

Care Packages

Out of the blue, an old friend of the family offered to send me some soap she makes out of goat's milk.

I said I'd love some, but that it can be expensive to send things across the ocean. She said she didn't care what it cost, it must be nice receiving things from the US.

I have re-read her message so many times, actually getting goosebumps from how special it made me feel for someone to say, "I don't care what it costs." Someone who owes me nothing, she just wants to bless me; and she doesn't care what it costs.

Thanks to those who have sent care packages, and spent time writing to me, or chatting with me. I miss you.

Victories

In our first weeks here, my roommate and I talked about our small victories. We were doing things every day that we had never done, or typical things that we hadn't thought about doing for years, but that were suddenly complicated by language and other barriers. We started writing these victories on a calendar, and posted it on the fridge. Here are my highlights from September to present:

9/26: taxied from school

9/27: zumba!

9/28: good hair

9/29: three good lesson plans

9/30: in bed before 10 PM

10/1: enjoyed a late-night party

10/2: 30-minute run

10/3: four hours of schoolwork on a day off

10/5: stayed in line at the butcher

10/6: small group

10/9: judged debate at CAS

10/10: paid electric bill

10/13: French class

10/17: rode on a dromedary

10/18: haggled

10/19: did nothing

10/22: hour-long talk with Mom

10/24: didn't take myself too seriously

10/26: first tutoring session success

10/29: bought a watch

10/30: [watch doesn't work]

10/31: exchanged money

11/1: took taxis from school, to the bank, back to school

11/6: called off work and wrote sub plans between throwing up

11/9: mostly didn't fight on Facebook

11/13: got involved at church

11/15: didn't mention the election to anyone

11/16: 41 parent-teacher conferences

11/18: bought a rug

11/19: successful baking!

11/20: read and prepared to teach Macbeth

11/21: subbed during a prep period and didn't get bitter

11/24: went to Ain Sebaa in the rain

11/25: six hours of Gilmore Girls

11/30: enjoyed the students

12/2: gave four lunch detentions

12/3: won Dutch Blitz

Implications

The vision of my workplace is to educate the upper class of Morocco, so that they can make wise choices to bolster Morocco to do good things. The idea is to raise up thinkers and problem-solvers in our entrepreneurial, pluralistic, accepting system, that makes room for genuine interaction with teachers and students.

What good things do Moroccans hope for their country? Well, the place could use better hospitals, and more of them. And if that, then it needs more money and more doctors and nurses. Making a stronger economy is going to take some creative ideas, collaboration, planning, ...literacy. American education can offer those tools.

I thought I was helping. I thought that by being an American teacher, just what they asked for, and fostering relationships with people of another culture, religion, history, this would be spreading the love of God. But right now, I'm afraid all they'll see is that I'm an American. I am an American.

Will my students shut me out because of what my country seems to think of Muslims?

Will their American education be useful to them, after all? Will American universities admit them? Will America give them a student's visa? And if they get into the country, will they be violated because of their skin color or their religion?

I'm asking because for the past week, they've been asking me. And I've come home and cried, planned, graded. I promise I'm being brave and circumspect. I'm not bad-mouthing our president-elect in public; I am only decrying his suggestion to stop Muslims from entering the country, and to keep a tab on all Muslims within the country. That's oppression. I stand against that. I stand beside Muslims, and anyone else who is being oppressed. (Did he miss singling out any minority? Well, today I'm talking about Muslims, who aren't asking for pity, I know, but I don't want them to ever have to.)

Here are some of the things I hope, in regard to international relations:

• I hope my students' very good dreams can still happen. 
• I hope Morocco and other Muslim countries won't give way to fear in the same way my country has, and start lashing out at me, an outsider of a different skin color and religion, whose country appears to hate them. 
• But if they do lash out at me, I hope the US doesn't get madder at them. Because they have plenty of grounds for saying we started it.

People First

1. People here are patient with me. Most people try to understand when I speak English, though they absolutely do not understand when I mispronounce French, which is absolutely every time I try to speak French.

2. People in cafes can stay in cafes for as long as they please, drinking only one tiny cup of coffee if they like. No one is shooing you away. No one is asking you for your seat.

3. People walk across the road, sometimes dangerously, and though I'm sure they do get hit, vehicles slow down (almost unreasonably, in my mind) to avoid hitting pedestrians.

4. People driving vehicles tend to use their horns to alert drivers in the right lane that they are passing them in the left. And while we're on the road, if you find that you need to make a right turn, but find that you are three lanes far away, ne t'inquiète pas: merge on over there, nice and steady-like. People will find a way around you.

5. People walking along the street fearlessly approach each other from opposite directions, neither indicating which way they'll move in order to avoid collision. And you find yourselves miraculously passing each other, barely touching elbows.

6. People who are accepting your payment may try to cheat you. If you catch them at it, smile and reclaim the money instead of yelling and getting heartsore. They were just moving into the space they saw, filling in the cracks.

All this to say, things are... negotiable. People are pliable. People are first. People people people.

Conversation Tips

Example #1
Stacey: What's your middle name?
Carolyn: Grey.
Stacey: I have gray sheets.

1. Nice job! You found something you have in common.

----

Example #2
Carolyn: I feel like a cat who needs to be kept in the bathroom for a while.
Stacey: ...

2. This is tricky. You've just said something that your conversational partner will find alarming because it's unusual. First, assume nothing. Don't assume the person is joking just because the thing sounds unfathomable. A smile and an understanding nod go a long way for those in-between moments.

----

Example #3
Carolyn: *&%$!!!
Stacey: Maybe hold back on the cursing until the call to prayer is over.

3. It's okay to be angry. Before spouting off curse words, look around for reasons why cursing might be a bad idea. The reason they're called curse words is because they're not appropriate for most situations, during the call to prayer and in front of a mosque, for instance, would be a bad time to talk about something potentially frustrating.

----

Example #4
Carolyn: Murder really annoys me. 

4. Remember, when you're annoyed, try to imagine if someone else in the situation might be more annoyed than you are.

----

Example #5
Carolyn: I think we're lost.
Stacey: We're not lost, we're just not there, yet!

5. Good work! See how a positive attitude can redirect your anxious thoughts? Keep going!