Theatre and Puppy

The past few weeks have been busy ones. Work has picked up, and an increasingly large amount of students have been showing up to my classes. I have also been getting an increased number of requests to teach English, guitar, and theater in various locations. In addition, I have been busy with personal projects, such as training for the semi- marathon in Marrakesh, which I plan on running in late January.

Theater in my site has proved to be much more of a challenge than I had anticipated. The largest obstacle is in the demographics of my students. Thus far the vast majority of them have been girls, all between the ages of 15-20, and all very conservative (not the most receptive group of participants for the performing arts). Thus, on top of the language barrier (in most classes I have had to do all the translating of complex game/scene instructions myself) I have the barrier of getting them to break outside of the conservative, non-creative box that many of them seem to be trapped in.

I start each class with a few warm-up exercises, such as "the ball of energy". This particular exercise(compliments of Peace Corps skills transfer) involves creating an imaginary "ball of energy", and passing it around in a circle from person to person. When played correctly, each person in the circle does something unique with the fake energy, and passes it along to someone else. As easy as it may sound to pretend to have a fake energy filled ball, it is an very, very difficult task when presented to the conservative Muslim women in my community. As a result I begin this activity, as I do many of them, with stressing the importance of acting fishkil(weird) or hummak(crazy) in order to be good at acting. To illustrate my point, I act over the top when doing these activities (ie- running around the room like a maniac with the fake ball of energy, or pretending to eat it and have it shake around in my head before spitting it out and passing it along). This example setting, when repeated, seems to gradually work with getting them to be more and more creative and silly (although some of them or undoubtedly freaked out by such behavior).

Now that I have had 4 class sessions full of theater games focusing on different acting skills(improvisation, acting of emotions, and trust games) I feel that we are ready to start planning some plays. Our next big project is to create several skits about human rights (human rights day is coming up) and have a competition for members of the community to come watch. Planning of this will begin this Saturday, so only time can tell how it will turn out.

On a completely different, non-work related note, I got a puppy! I understand that this could have been very bad decision, yet after finding her there was just no way I could have not taken her in. I found her curled up under a rock by herself while biking with a friend this past weekend in the Ziz Valley. She looks clean and healthy, and could very well be the cutest thing that has ever come out of Morocco. After spending a good 20 minutes struggling with my cognitive dissonance, I made the decision to take her, put her in my backpack, and ride away. After consulting with a friend for a name, I've decided on Ziz(zeez), from where I found her. I have had her for 3 days now, and am still torn as to whether or not this was a good idea. I suppose only time will tell, although I am already feeling better about having a friend living with me here.

I must now go and practice for the marathon that awaits. I have the entire desert in my backyard as training grounds, and am happy about finally having the time and space to train for such a thing, and put in my personal best. Until next time...

Proud to be an American...and a Virginian

It finally happened. After eight painful years of waiting, and the past two years watching the campaign obsessively, real change has taken place. No more "George Bush!" when someone hears I am an American. No more pretending to be Canadian. No more exhausting explanations of how just because there is a "democracy" in America it doesn't mean that all Americans are in support of the current administrations decisions(at least not as many of them).

After staying up until 5am Moroccan time this morning to watch his acceptance speech, the reality of change has struck me, as it has struck America. Well done Obama, Mr. President. Well done American people. Well done Virgina. And well done humanity.

A Wedding To Remember

Yesterday I experienced what I believe is a perfect depiction of the ever present integration process in the Peace Corps.

It was the first day of my host sister Kadija’s wedding, which, like most Moroccan weddings, is a multi-day event (4 days in this case) of the same thing every day. The celebration began in the early morning with a cow slaughter, which I conveniently slept through. I arrived at around 11am, going straight to the men’s house (in Islamic weddings the men and women are always split up), which consisted of a room full of elder Berber men chanting verses from the Koran. Not seeing any members of my host family present aside my 95 year old host grandfather,(who’s dialogue with me usually consists of nothing more than him pointing at questionable hunks of meat and grunting, indicating that I should eat it) I decided to explore elsewhere in search of a recognizable face.

Fortunately I ran into my host brother who was busy running around preparing the first cow feast of the day, and offered to help cut up cow liver as to give myself something to do. I spent a good hour sitting outside of the house of men, cutting away as men in jelabas walked in, shook hands of familiar faces, and each looked at me as if I were a tap dancing dog(a white guy cutting up a cow liver for a wedding probably looks even more atypical). The anonymity of my presence was cured once I saw my host father, who immediately came up to me and said “fin kayn l howli?” or “where is the sheep”? Ah yes, his favorite joke, constantly insisting that I bring a sheep to the house to slaughter. Parents...

This lunch, of course, was carried on in nothing but an expected fashion for a Moroccan wedding. The real integration began at nightfall. As I pulled up to the back entrance to the man house, a subtle feeling of confusion took over as I heard no noise coming from the house which I was told would be packed with people. I did however hear loud music and dancing protruding from the other house belonging to my host family (they are wealthy), which is separated by a spacious garden and a tool shed which must be walked through to get there. Naturally, I followed the music through the dark to the other house. As I approached, the music got louder and louder, along with the voices of women. Slightly intimidated, I crept up to the back door and stuck my head in to see what was happening.

The room was PACKED with woman; all dressed in flashy Berber garments, and all chatting and laughing, very much in party mode. Before I had a chance to turn around and make an escape, my 90 year old host grandmother noticed me standing diffidently at the entrance, and ran up to me like a bat out of hell. Not only was it a shock to see her run, but the mere fact that she acknowledged me was astounding, in that prior to this interaction the most her and I had exchanged were mere greetings, in that she only speaks Tamazight and we thus share no common language. Without hesitation, she grabbed my arm and dragged my inside, immediately grabbing the attention of all the women (roughly 50 of them), who proceeded stare me down as if I were the first white man they had ever seen (which for many of them I surly was).

Incarcerated by the death grip of grandma, I had no choice but to follow her into the next room, which had even MORE women in it, sitting in a large circle around two others, who were dancing in a way I had never before seen, strutting back and forth and shaking their asses in unison. Before they even had time to take note of my presence (yet still in plenty of time for me to take note of how much I didn’t belong there) I was thrust into the center of the circle with my grandmother, who at this point was yelling “shta!”, or “dance!”(Maybe the one word she knows in Arabic). I had no choice but to give in and dance, letting her lead me. Fortunately, the basic Berber dance is very simple, and requires just moving from side to side and lifting both palms, face up, to your chest and back down to your knees repetitively. The women started to howl and cheer much louder than they already were before I entered, giving me the feeling of a developing country male stripper. After what seemed like hours of this(yet was probably about 30 seconds), I saw one of my younger host sisters and made my escape, running up to her and asking where the men were and if she could please take me to them. It turned out that they were, in fact, still in the same house that they had been in before, only much quieter than the women. Before this night I had heard about the superiority of women’s section to the men’s during wedding celebrations, and seeing the two side by side gave this fact the utmost lucidity.

Upon entering the house of men, I made my way around the hoards to a back room where I was told to sit next to a giant man with a beard by my host cousin. According to him this man was basketball coach whom I was told I would speak with regarding doing some work with the local men’s team. I sat down amidst the 30 or so men in the room, and immediately heard the word “Merikani” whispered around throughout, accompanied by some glances and many blatant stares. This was nothing that was uncommon for me, so I did what I normally do, which was introduce myself and begin talking in Arabic to ease the awkwardness. Once some basic conversation had begun and food was served, things seemed to be going smoothly until the post meal prayer, during which I asked the bearded giant next to be about the basketball team, not realizing that the entire house had become silent and there want someone in the next room reading a verse of the Koran. It was as if to say “Hey, in case anyone here didn't realized it, I’m not a Muslim!”

While such occurrences are by no means an oddity in life here, I feel that the documentation of them of them is a necessity, in hope that one day I can look back on all of this and say “Wow...I really had some balls when I lived in Morocco.”

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...