There's No Time Like The Present

Often when I'm at the Dar Chebab ("youth center" in Darija, or Moroccan Arabic) here in town, I find myself waiting for more kids to show up. Kids aren't required to come to the Dar Chebab; they just come if they want to come. While I mention certain activities or classes to them, they don't always come for such activities or classes, even if they say that they're interested in attending. Keep in mind that in Morocco, people very often indirectly respond to an invitation to an event which does not interest them. Rather than directly decline an invitation, very often people will either say that they will attend an event, or they avoid accepting the invitation.

With the Dar Chebab re-opening this week after being closed because it was the latter half of the summer, I began to feel a sense of urgency. Time has been passing, and as more time slips behind me, of course that means that there is less time left here in Morocco for me.

So, yesterday, when one boy, a regular at the Dar Chebab, arrived in the Dar Chebab, I brought him into a classroom and began an improvised geography lesson with him. I drew the globe, started filling it in with the continents, and asking him to name them. He could name them in Darija, but not always in English. Then I started reviewing the names of oceans with him.

Another boy, also a regular at the Dar Chebab, arrived soon thereafter. Within the continents I had already drawn, I was filling in the boundaries of countries, and dotting the map with various capitals. It seemed that they were more likely to know locations closer to Morocco, which of course makes sense. They knew all of the countries in "El Maghrib," the group of countries in North Africa. Thus they knew that Algeria borders Morocco to the east, and that immediately east of Algeria is Tunisia, that east of Tunisia is Libya, and that east of Libya is Egypt. They also knew that Mauritania is located immediately south of Morocco, and that Senegal is immediately south of Mauritania. One of them knew that the capital of Senegal was Dakar. They didn't know that the country of Andorra lies between France and Spain.

I always love teaching, even when it is impromptu. In fact, I think that I might love it even more then, because I am doing it when I didn't expect to be doing it, so then it's like a surprise benefit to be helping others. Thus I definitely enjoyed the geography lesson I just taught. However, also having had so little work recently, for that reason it also felt great to have just taught. I was glad to have had even just the two of them there to teach.

A Little More About PST (Pre-Service Training)

It recently occurred to me that there are probably gaps in what many of you know about my experience thus far here in Morocco. So, I figured that I should write a new blog entry.

First, keep in mind that I am not yet a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV). I am still a Peace Corps Trainee (PCT). After a few days of initial training with all of the other Youth Development (YD) and also the Small Business Development (SBD) PCTs, I and the other YD PCTs headed to Fes, while the SBD PCTs headed to a different place. Then we split into groups of five and six and headed to our small Community-Based Training (CBT) sites, where we have been spending most of our time. Every couple of weeks, we leave our smaller CBT sites and all of us YD PCTs meet for a couple of days of training together, then head back to our local CBT sites.

At our CBT sites, Monday to Friday, we spend a few hours each morning learning Darija, or Moroccan Arabic. Saturdays, we only meet in the morning to learn more Darija. Each day that we meet, we eat lunch together, after sometimes going out and buying our food at the weekly souq, or farmer's market, which is in our town. After lunch, sometimes our LCF (Language and Culture Facilitator, which is Peace Corps' name for our teacher) gives us a lesson about Moroccan culture. In the afternoons, we also go out and meet members of the community, including at the town's Dar Chebab, or Youth Center. During these interactions, we have tried to assess the state of youth in our community, what resources they have available, what they could use, and how they spend their time. By trying to find these answers, we hope to be better able to help the youth in our communities. Also, by gathering this information, and practicing this approach of gathering information, we hope to be better prepared to learn about our communities at our final sites.

That is, once we finish the nine weeks of training next month, we will leave our CBT sites and head to our final sites, where we will live over the next two years. At the end of this month, we will find out where in Morocco our final sites will be.

Actually, by the end of PST, a PCT has to pass tests, including on safety and security in Morocco, and on Peace Corps procedures and policies, as well as an LPI (Language Proficiency Interview). If a PCT passes all of these tests, then a PCT is sworn in as a PCV. We current PCTs here in Morocco will be sworn in as PCVs in mid-November.

In the meantime, our focus in the afternoon has been shifting somewhat, such that for part of the afternoons, we are learning about teaching English classes to youths. When we arrive at our final sites, we will begin by teaching English to youths. Later, we may also begin working on involving youth in a broader range of extracurricular activities, which may involve teaching English within the context of those extracurricular activities, which may be civics or geography lessons, sports, theatre, health or environmental education, or other activities.

When we arrive at our final sites, we will again be living with host families, as we have been doing during training. Then, soon after arriving at our final sites, we will likely find our own housing. It surely will be even more of an adventure when we head to our final sites!