I need to interrupt your regularly scheduled blog post for
an important announcement: THIS BLOG HAS OVER 1,000 VIEWS. I’m so excited and grateful
for all of you who have been reading and sharing my adventure.
Today, I got the chance to be “Mini Mouhsine.” A new group
of students arrived on Friday and started their placements this week, so they
are still getting adjusted to where to go and what to do. I went with Mouhsine (ELAP director) to a few different placements today helping with getting the new and old acquainted. And he sent me on a few wild goose chase type errands, but bought me a coconut soda for my trouble, so I think we're square. We also determined today that I now officially work in five different placements.
I think that proves I haven’t completely changed…
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| Mouhsine and his new personal assistant. |
I was very excited to finally get to go to the center I
talked about at the very beginning that houses both elderly individuals and
children whose families cannot afford to care for them. We got a tour of the
center today and my mind was brimming with ideas for little projects that I
think could really bring some joy to the residents. My first and favorite of
these is this: the walls around children’s area are currently plain white
cement with barbed wire at the tops, and I want to paint a mural there.
However, I am decidedly crap at all things artistic, so I talked to Mouhsine
about setting up a cooperative with the art club at Moulay Ismail university. Hopefully,
if all goes well, it will be a “foot in the door” way to get the Moroccan students
involved with the American students and doubly benefit the associations.
At the women’s cooperative this afternoon I had my first
English class with the ladies there. It was a genuinely new experience for me
to be teaching students who did not even know the alphabet. I also have a
newfound respect for speech pathology majors because it is absolutely mind
numbing to try and explain the difference between the “these” th sound and the “things”
th sound. Luckily, my students have a good sense of humor and I have no shame,
so any and all tactics were fair game. The class was a blast and I’m truly sad that I will only have one more next week.
Only twelve posts to go after this one! It’s amazing how the
time can pass so quickly and so slowly at the same time. I am being pulled very
firmly in two directions, which adds to it all the more. I want to be here
doing this work and I want to be at camp doing that work. I guess it’s at least
comforting that I won’t just be going home to do nothing. That would kill me after all of this.
Thank you again for sticking through all these posts with
me! Stay tuned for more of my awkward adventures.
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