An eventful weekend- November 7

Friday- At school on Friday, the sixth graders had an election, where they were all running for principal for the year 2021. It was a fun and exciting project. Parents, the principal and the director of the school, the fifth grade class and other teachers came, listened to their speeches, ate some refreshments and voted. The party elected will be able to spend a day working with the principal. This was all very exciting, until the winner was announced. Once this happened, the rest of the class was very upset. We got back to the classroom and students argued that it wasn’t fair, that things should have been different, etc. I thought my teacher did a great job at letting students talk about their feelings for a while and then write about them. She also had them write about what they learned, what they would have done differently the next time, and what one of the other groups did well. Even after the journaling, students were quite upset however, I thought this method helped calm at least some of the tension.

6th grade elections!

The winners!

Voting

             After school, we learned how to make Milawi- a Moroccan fried bread with onions and herbs inside… basically, deliciousness. Then, we went to a woman’s house  for fellowship and I found out that she’s Colombian and, since she’s leaving the country, she gave me some flour to make arepas and Latin American chocolate to make hot cocoa. After this, I met some of my apartment-mate’s friends that live in Casablanca and they came over and we had dinner and went to bed.

Making Mlawi

One of the Arabic teachers who was teaching us to make Mlawi

The lady teaching us to make Mlawi, and one of the other staff members at the school

The principal making Mlawi

Saturday- Saturday morning, I went out for brunch, with my apartment-mate, her friend and some other teachers at the school. We had a lovely time and then walked to the school to show the friends around. When we got home, I planned some lessons, did some laundry for the first time since being here… Hamdullah (Praise the Lord!) and then we all went out to the Medinah (the old city).

                The Medinah is a difficult place to describe, for there are people everywhere crowding very narrow streets, walking along side motorcycles who might easily run a person over and donkeys that leave their remnants on the ground. There are little shops everywhere, some with clothes… many have shoes or jewelry or beautiful scarfs, some with various forms of food, some with uncooked meat, such as goat-heads, some with live chickens. It’s quite a fascinating place, that you really have to experience in order to understand.

                So, we spent the afternoon here and met a man that is a friend of a friend and was really enthusiastic that we knew his ‘best friend.’ We then stopped by a café and shared a camel-burger. This café was quite distinct, because it was very American, while still having a Moroccan feel to it. It was very relaxing and quiet compared to almost every place that I have been here. After leaving the café, we went and saw the palace and then, ate at a pizza place.

The view of the Medinah, from the terrace of the cafe

friend from Casablanca

drinking iced coffees

eating camel burger

The door to the palace (made of gold, glass, tile and wood)

Can we come in??

the handles to the doors... probably the size of my head

The courtyard of the palace

             I heard that the king might be in town, because even though Saturday was a holiday, things were decorated a lot more than usual, with flags and lights, etc.

Sunday- On Sunday morning, I sang at church- that was a real blessing. After church, a bunch of us went to the Medinah and ate at the same café for lunch. After the meal, we walked through the Medinah and some of us bought some things from the little shops. When I got home, I planned more lesson plans and then we went to a pumpkin party, where I spent time talking to other teachers from the school.

The tree trunk is on the other side of the wall... there is now a crack through the wall made by the tree.

The wall of the Medinah

One of the many beautiful fountains in Fez (the globe fountain). It's interesting that there are towns an hour away that have no running water.

one of the big streets in Fez

Teaching as Jesus Taught- November 3

I was talking this evening with my roommate, who teaches music at the school and she helped me to understand the students a little better. She explained that in the Moroccan culture, people tend to be quite aggressive with each other, because otherwise they won’t get their way. Many times the students will yell or push each other around and will do so with some of the staff as well. My roommate explained that they don’t do this with many of the foreign staff, not because they are foreign, but because they don’t yell back at the students like many of the other adults in their life do, so the students have learned that yelling at these staff members will not work in getting their way. There is one Moroccan teacher who is also not yelled at by the students. My roommate explained to me that she, unlike most of the Moroccan staff speaks gently to the students and encourages them, rather than putting them down.

Pictures of Halloween party

The captions are the wonderful work of Candace... the middle mouse in the following picture.

Three blind mice...

Three blind mice...

See how they run, see how they run...

The palm fronds came and scared them away,

Put them in jail, so they could not play...

but they broke out and decided to stay...

won some turnips... hooray!! (winners of apple-bobbing and feed the carrot to the horse)

Now the blind mice can see and fly!!

Trip to the Hanut- November 1

I made a trip to the hanut (corner store) all by myself! I had once before, but this time went a lot smoother, and I bought a lot more. I got yogurt, bread, eggs, and a soda pop using my very few words of Arabic and my little bit of French. It was quite an exciting experience.

Holy Spirit, Rain Down- October 31

And the rainy season begins!! It’s been raining all day, and this is probably what I should expect for the rest of my time here… wopps! I forgot my rain jacket. O well.

Yesterday, I spent most of the day, just moseying around; working on a few relatively insignificant projects.  Then, I was invited to go with two of the teachers from the school to a Japanese restaurant. I didn’t realize quite how expensive it would be, but that’s okay… I still didn’t spend that much if you would convert it back to American dollars. Anyways, it was an absolutely wonderful meal and then we went back to their house and watched a movie. By the time the movie was over, it was much too late to walk home, so I stayed over at their place and walked home early this morning. Their hospitality and warm friendship has been such a blessing!

Today, I got to church, and the worship was mainly in Spanish. Yay! The preacher then got up and spoke about Revelations 3:1-6, relating to the church in Sardis, that was doing all these great deeds and people all thought they were very alive in the Spirit. However, God says that they are dead in his sight! Rather than doing God’s work, they are doing their own work and forgetting to listen to the Holy Spirit’s guidance in it. I pray that the Holy Spirit would rain down on each of you and that you would listen to His call and follow it. Please pray the same for me, because I don’t ever want to go through life and find out that in the end God was not at the center of it all.

P.S. After I wrote this blog post, I went to get money at the ATM machine and then went to the old part of town with the girls I hung out with last night for a small Halloween party at the house of another one of the teachers. We had a really fun time- silly dancing, bobbing for apples, eating yummy food and playing ‘feed the carrot to the horse,’ instead of ‘pin the tail on the donkey’. The three of us went as the three blind mice. The taxi driver on the way home was really nice and spoke to us in his broken English as we tried to speak to him in broken French. I feel like I’m beginning to feel quite a bit more comfortable with the culture/ my surroundings here in Fez.

P.P.S. Today, when we were out looking for a taxi, I saw a sign with a scandalously dressed woman, and realized that there really isn’t much of that here. Most people dress very modestly and the posters/ signs are very decent- well, I guess there aren’t many big signs on the streets at all, now that I think about it. Anyways, that’s one thing that I really like about this place.

Things to know when in Morocco and other interesting facts- October 31

-As a woman, don’t make eye contact with men you don’t know… to them it means that you want them to talk to you. It is culturally inappropriate for a man to talk to a woman he doesn’t know, but they do anyways and often want more than just to talk.

-Don’t go out with your hair wet- that symbolizes that you are cleansing yourself from just having sexual relations the previous night.

-Don’t jingle your keys while in the street- that means you want someone to come to your house with you.

-If you go to a restaurant it is likely that they do not have a lot of the things on the menu.

-Don’t start bargaining, unless you really intend to buy what you are bargaining for.

-If you are making any transaction at the bank, you will need a passport or some kind of ID.

-If you have dark skin, many people will think you are Moroccan and try to speak to you in Arabic. If you are white and look American, they will try to speak to you in English. If you look Asian, they will pretend they can speak Chinese and make up Chinese sounding words.

-Don’t go out past about 8:30 unless you are with a man or in a car- people will think you are looking for ‘trouble.’

-Beef is one of the most expensive meats… it is probably better to buy chicken or tuna, unless you want to treat yourself. Pork is banned, unless you go to special stores, like the one that in Arabic means ‘forbidden.’

-Alcohol is prohibited by the Qur’an, but it is still sold in the stores.

-When the call to prayer happens, people do not get out their prayer mats and kneel on the floor and begin praying- they just keep going about their business as usual.

-The showers are just a big tub, with a faucet and a hand-held shower head. There are no curtains, so if you hold the shower head in the wrong direction, you’ll get the whole bathroom wet. The same is true if you were to shake out your wet hair the way the people in commercials do sometimes.

-The weather here is very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter. There is no snow, but there is also no heating in the buildings, and the buildings often get colder than outdoors.

-Things tend to be relatively inexpensive here, compared to American standards, unless you go to the fancy places.

-Each bill is a different color- like in Canada, which makes them easier to distinguish =)

-The traffic in Fez is fairly crazy, but not quite as bad as in New York or Colombia. However, if you’re a pedestrian, you really need to watch out sometimes. However, I’ve heard that the traffic in bigger cities of Morocco is more like New York city… a little more intense. Oh, and there aren’t really any distinguished lanes… people often drive in the middle of a couple lanes and make that their own lane, or the taxis will stop in the middle of a street and expect everyone else to just drive around them.

-Morocco is a lot like a mix between the Middle East and Southern Europe, but placed in Africa- it’s kind of got a mixed up identity, just like me.  =)

-This isn’t about Morocco, but a new trend lately has been that of couch-surfing, where you put a profile of yourself up on the web and you can have couch-surfers stay with you, or you can be a couch-surfer and stay with someone else. In an ideal world, where creepsters didn’t exist, I think this would be fun, but I’d be quite wary about trying it.

In a Strange Place- October 29

Today, I walked home from school by myself. Thankfully, I didn’t get lost and got home quite easily. I even stopped by a shop and bought some soda… how’s that for getting around without knowing the language!

At 6:45 today, I was supposed to meet someone who was going to take me to his house for a Spanish small group. I took a taxi (It’s kind of scary getting a taxi, when you don’t know how to speak to the driver, or exactly where you should be going) and I got to the place where I think we said we would meet. However, I waited for about half an hour and either he never came, we were at different places, or we just didn’t see each other. Many strange men looked at me and some tried talking to me, but I was told that it’s best to just ignore them, so I did. Finally, I got tired of waiting and I thought about taking a taxi home, but wasn’t sure exactly what directions to give him, so instead I walked to our principal’s house and she kindly drove me home.