That's Morocco

 I was irritated because I woke up on Saturday morning at 7:30, the only day that I can sleep in.  I tried falling back asleep and after about five or ten minutes of simply lying there in that weird state between sleep and not sleep, I heard a noise near my window.  I turned just in time to see a LARGE black bird flapping its wings near my window.  Then it kind of fell into my room, right on my bed.  Both of us made weird noises.  He made one like he had flew to the wrong place and I made the noise where your breath is taken away and you can’t really say anything, just a weird terrified grunt.  I pulled my feet away from the bird in a panic and it managed to flap its wings loudly and it flew back out my window.  I could not fall asleep because my heart was racing so fast.  I closed the window after that.  No more birds for me please.

Sometimes I set weird goals for myself.  This past week I discovered a delicious bakery only about a block from where I live.  My goal was to become a regular—the kind where the workers would eventually have my order ready before I came, and they would give me a free sample here and there.  I am proud to say, that I am definitely on my way to accomplishing that goal.  The lady who works there smiles and seems excited to see us every time and she has started speaking to us in Arabic.  We try to respond as best we can in our broken Arabic.  She also gave us a free sample already!  The bakery only opened about two weeks ago and I think we are their most regular customers.  The chocolate filled croissants are delicious and I am sure I will probably gain some weight—probably not a bad thing for me actually.

This morning I went to church for the first time here.  I have been trying to figure out where it is and what time Mass is celebrated.  I am so glad that I went.  All parts of the Mass were in different languages.  Although the majority of it was in French, there were also parts in English, Polish, German, Italian and Latin.  I thought it was kind of odd that practically everyone knew the parts in Polish.  Who knew there were so many Polish people in Agadir?   And, the church was packed.  It was really neat to see that so many people from all over the world who speak different languages could come together and celebrate something they have in common.

After church we found out some unfortunate news.  We would not have electricity or water for the next 3 days.  Apparently they are working on fixing something in our apartment, but they did not feel the need to mention that to us.  So that is pretty cool.  Luckily our friend Driss is letting us use his apartment, only a couple of buildings away.  When Kristen mentioned that she was surprised that no one had slipped a note under our door that we would not have water or electricity, he simply responded with “That’s Morocco.”  Interestingly enough, we have been hearing that expression a lot, which always makes me laugh.  For example, when we went to the water park and it seemed like you could easily fall off the water slide and die, he said, “That’s Morocco.”  Now I use that expression a lot as well because it is applicable in so many different situations.

Drinking Mint Tea and Being Tall

Over the past couple of weeks I have discovered a few things:

1.                  Sometimes I am really helpless when pouring my own tea.

2.                  I am too tall for certain things here.

Kristen and I went to a cafe late at night with our friend who lives in Morocco.  I ordered mint tea because I would have stayed up all night if I ordered a coffee.  When I got the tea, I didn’t know what to do.  They served me a teapot, a cup with some mint sprigs, an empty cup, and a plate of large rectangular sugar cubes.  I thought I would just put the mint right in, but my friend took the tea from me first.  If I shoved the mint in, I would force some of the tea out of the pot.  My first mistake.  He poured a little bit of tea into the empty cup, then put the mint in, then poured the tea back in and added the sugar.  Then he handed it back to me.

            It’s traditional to pour a cup of tea several times and then pour it back into the cup in order to mix all of the ingredients for the best possible tea.  Since I knew this, I poured my first cup.  I attempted to pour it back into the pot.  Somehow I missed most of it and it ended up on the tray.  My tea was snatched away from me again.  Oh well, I will get it eventually.

            My second discovery is that I am too tall for some things, like attempting to blend into society or walking in general.  People stare at me a lot because I am tall and I don’t even look a little bit French.  I don’t mind the staring, but I can’t tell if people are talking about me or not.  I guess it’s better that I can’t understand anything they are saying.  Next, I can’t walk down a sidewalk properly.  The bottoms of the trees are cut so low that I am always running my face into branches.  I am constantly ducking.  At least my agility skills are improving.

            I began teaching this week.  After a confusing start of not knowing exactly what to do, I am beginning to get a handle on things.  I am working with all age groups.  In the mornings I am with the 6-9 year olds in a Montessori classroom.  Some kids know a lot of English and some have no clue what is going on.  I read a story to them in English and they asked me questions in French.  Nodding and smiling has become my signature move.

            The main subject that I am teaching is science and I just finished my first lesson.  I am doing a unit on melting points and boiling points, so we read an article about ice cream.  They learned lots of new words and they understood some of what I was saying, but I am realizing that this is going to be a huge learning experience for everyone because all of the kids are at very different points in their English education.  I think with a few months’ work, though, a lot of them will be rapidly improving and forming simple sentences.  I hope for that at least!

            The kids are funny and I have to ask “What?” a lot of times to them and they have to do the same to me, but by the end, we usually figure things out together.  We are able to reach a common understanding, which is the most important part in the end because that lets us get things accomplished.