A Blog Entry for the New Year

I am still a Peace Corps Volunteer and I am still in Morocco. I’m terrible at updating my blog. So what am I doing? I work Tuesday thru Saturday at the Dar Chebab from 2:30-6pm. Some days I teach English, other days I play ping-pong, soccer, or volleyball with the kids. I like tutoring at the Dar Chebab although lately with most of the girls it feels like I'm a walking dictionary. I tried teaching English classes but with the school schedules and my limited access to a classroom with a whiteboard it is hard to set up a schedule.

At the end of December I was walking the post office and I see all the gendarmes (police) in front of it. I didn’t really think anything of it but then the post office was closed for a week and I began to wonder because I was hoping for some packages: two from Peace Corps (one with books and the other with the always important prescriptions) and one from my mom (was really craving some gum from the US it just isn’t the same here). I started to ask questions and found out the postmaster had gotten arrested for stealing over 4 million dirhams. After a few more questions I found out that all the mail was stopping a few towns over, a town that by public transportation is not all that easy to get to. So don’t worry, I still get mail so please don’t stop sending it. I love getting mail and it makes the trip to the post office worthwhile.

In the beginning of January, an association (Youth for Youth) from a nearby city came with the Delege of Youth and Sports and put on a program at the Dar Chebab. The great thing is they were all in their early 20s and although we spoke a mix of broken English and Darija I actually felt like an adult. In my site, I'm usually with a group of old women or groups of 13 year olds. At the end of the day when they were handing out the prizes I got to be one of the "adults" handing to the kids and congratulating them (the others were my acting mudir, the presidents of the associations present, and the delege) I felt important until they wanted me to say a few words and I completely froze. I finally had gotten better at public speaking in the states but here being unprepared in a different language I was not ready for it. It all worked out and the delege talked for me.

I am hoping to move into my own house soon. It’s a small apartment above an internet café with two rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. I’m excited but now I’m just waiting for the landlord to fix the roof before I can officially start moving stuff in. I can’t believe that the first time I will be living on my own I am in a different country.

I have a small notebook that I write down new words or phrases I learn. I was reviewing my notebook with one of my counterparts at the Dar Chebab when she pointed out that my notebook was a compilation of 5 different languages if you include English. Most of the words were in Darija (Moroccan Arabic), then French, then Tashelhit (the local Berber dialect of Arabic) and finally Modern Standard Arabic. It’s times like these I really wish I could find a tutor to help work all of this out, so I’m not mixing languages every time I talk.

And that's it!