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

When I Love You

Don't worry, Little Heart. I love you even in the dark.

I love you in the light of day,
safely tucked into the crowd.
I love you in the summer's shade,
when breezes run along the ground.

I love you as the clouds grow big,
brooding and alive with rain.
I love you when the results are rigged,
contempt's cup full, its dregs you drain.

I love you when you're sick and sleeping,
or when you're numb from grief's hard blow.
I love you when you're lost, and it's raining,
surrounded by country not your own.

I love you when you don't remember home.

I love you when the electric's dead,
the bulbs are blown,
the house is cold.

I love you while the stiff wind blows,
when you feel useless and alone:
when you watch too much TV, and make bad decisions about what to eat, and hate yourself for it all day long, dreading the hard work that hangs over your head.

I love you, Little, Feeble Heart.
I love you even in the dark.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

Riddle Me This...

How do you teach about the separation of church and state without recommending it? I have a certain affinity for it, as a matter of fact.

It becomes necessary to talk about the interference of the church and state when teaching about the Middle Ages. I was an inch away from going off on my usual rant regarding the separation of church and state when I realized... I am living in a Muslim country.

That is to say, this is not a Muslim country in the same way I'm from a "Christian" country, but in a way that has laws that dictate religious observances.

So I stopped abruptly, mid-lecture, and said we'd pick up there tomorrow. Right now it's 8:38 PM, and I'm planning tomorrow. It occurs to me that I spend each school day creating new riddles for myself to work out in the evening.

God, what will you do with cities?

Leave the dirt.
In it grows
our only hope
to live again.

Pavements crack.
Buildings fall.
Rain and wind
shall do their work.

Have no fear
of all we build;
even evil
will have its day—

invasive weed
soon stripped away—
trees shall grow in its place.

---

I walk through this brown city, and think how lovely it could be if only we would leave it alone to grow some green. If only we would leave the dirt to build up on the sidewalks, filling up crevices: little greens would shoot up, and slowly tear the asphalt apart. In a few years, the city would be unidentifiable, and we would have a real place to live. 

Forgive me. I know I can't have it both ways. It's just, we seem to ruin all we touch; instead of guiding and stewarding the earth, we try to conquer it, as if we hate it instead of loving it. 

All cities do not have to be "a paralysis" a la James Joyce. Moroccan designers, builders, craftspeople, rich people, green-loving humans with souls who haven't known peace: BUILD US A PARK IN CASABLANCA.