Back to the Grind

Ramadan has now ended, which means that life has begun to pick up once again. Two weeks ago I began advertising for my new classes at the Dar Chebab. As I mentioned earlier, the majority of my previous students have now left for college, which meant new students were needed. This consisted of making fliers (in Arabic and English), along with going to 5 highschool English classes and giving what was essentially a sales pitch for my class(also in Arabic and English).

The outcome on the first day was good- about 35 kids showed up for the meeting in which I assigned classes according to levels, and voted on what kind of club we should begin with. I am now trying a different approach with my English classes(as desert time gives much room for experimentation) and will be having 4 different classes, each for a different English level, and each meeting once a week. The turnout for each of these classes has been surprisingly good, with my biggest class(2nd year English students) consisting of about 20 kids, and my smallest(advanced) consisting of about 6.

As of right now, there do not seem to be students interested in continuing the Tinejdad Times, although I plan on bringing it up again once we get things rolling a bit more. Instead they expressed a huge in interest either a music or theater club. While I would love to teach the guitar(the only musical instrument I have any knowledge of, let alone have here)I only have one. Seeing as how there is nothing for most kids to do on Saturday, the day in which I plan on holding the club, sessions are bound to have at least 15 kids or more...a bit too many to be handling my moderately expensive instrument form the states. So theater club it is.

In addition, like last year we will have girls basketball practice every Saturday, with hope that we can eventually get a team that is dedicated and motivated enough to travel to other towns and play opposing teams. While this doesn't seem like it would be that difficult of a task, convincing the parents of young Muslim girls to travel somewhere with a strange man has proven to be a challenge. I plan on working my Darija PR magic and am prepared to sit through as many tea times as necessary to get some girls mobile. Then the only thing left to do is learn how to be a good coach...

On a happy note of good company, I have been hosting 2 couch surfers from Denmark for the past few days. They epitomize a young, carefree traveling hippie couple, and it has been a pleasure showing them around and adding to my knowledge of Denmark(which has expanded exponentially in the past 48 hours). I will also be hosting 3 fellow pcv's from Gambia in a few days. Needless to say, it's good to be able to exercise my social abilities around people that I am able to be in my American element around.

That is all for today, however I plan on updating again shortly(within a week, inchallah), so you just hang on tight. Until next time...