I'm not dead yet!

It's been an age... again.
In October I updated for both August and September in the hopes that I would make a second update that month and bring myself up to even. Alas, the best intentions of mice and men, no? I do have an excuse though; the day after I updated the blog my site mate Yusuf and I had planned on using my laptop to show an inspirational video to students at the high school in celebration of National Women’s day. I had just turned on the evil magic picture box that is my laptop when the cord the goes from the wall to my charger started crackling and popping. Using my awe-inspiring intellect I assessed the situation: crackling noises + electronic equipment= no good. I had just unplugged the extension cord from the wall (I wasn’t willing the touch the sizzling cord) when the wires burned though the insulating rubber tube and started throwing sparks into the air.
I was alarmed but not surprised, the wiring in Moroccan cords is always a bit shoddy, the cord I purchased to replace that one makes the third I have purchased for this computer. Ironically the last one kicked the bucket around this time last year, too; I guess they only have a one year life span. Not that it applies too much to me: this time next year I’ll be celebrating the holidays with my friends and family in America! Can I get a woot woot? I’m still happy here and having the time of my life, but 26 months is a long time.
Not having a computer for the movie turned out to be alright that night because the teachers weren’t organized yet to show the movie. Yusuf was bummed by that, he had wanted to show the movie (You Can Dream: Moroccan Women who do) on Morocco’s National Women’s Day. Alas, it was not to be, it ended up taking three weeks before everyone was ready to show it.
On a much more inspiring note, THE DAR SHEBAB IS OPEN! Dar shebab being the youth center, huzzah! It’s been open about a month now and I could not be happier. Yusuf and I are both working there, for most youth centers as small as ours is it would be a bad idea to have two PCVs in so small an area; but for us it works like a dream. I don’t know if it’s because there really is that much work to be done or because Yusuf and I work so well together. Whatever the reason I feel so blessed to have real work to do and a schedule to follow. Alhamdullila. I think the big reason why Yusuf and I don’t get in one another’s way is because we have very different goals and different group we want to focus on. He’s interested in the older students because he has a lot of project ideas, and complex ideas to build up.
My focus is on the wee ones because the most tragic thing I’ve been seeing here is an absolute lack of creativity. Perhaps this is because my nearest and dearest are authors, artists, and scientists; and these fields all require large amounts of creativity. The fact is that everywhere I turn I see creativity wanting to show itself in the kids, but by the time they reach adulthood it’s been snuffed out. Isn’t that awful? I have zeroed my focus in on my fabulous budding artists teaching them to think outside of the box so that they are prepared to be innovative leaders of the future. At least that’s the twist I’m putting on it, in truth I’m the arts and crafts teacher for elementary age kiddos.
We laugh but these things are surprisingly new concepts to my little pets. I introduced the card game Uno to them the first day and we are still working out the skills of taking turns in order, matching colors or number, and NOT cheating. This is shocking but, as Yusuf pointed out to me, this is the first and only time a lot of these kids have had to follow these guide lines. Keep in mind they don’t have board games or things like that here, they have soccer and that’s a bit of a pell-mell game. Fact: played Uno for six months. Resumé reads: taught youths to work together, and encouraged rule following.
That sums up my role as a day care teacher, arts and crafts lady is ever so much more fun. It’s important to go slowly when building creativity, if you hand a student a coloring picture they will want you to tell them what color to make each thing. I once handed out coloring pictures of a boy and girl brushing their teeth (art md la (or no) I am a health educator, too) and everyone wanted to know what color the kids hair was and what color they should make the clothes. I said, “Whatever you want.” I was rewarded by blank stares. One boy decided to rebel against the norm (and, I think, me) and gave the boy green hair. I blew his mind when I said it looked good, he should color his hair that color. So it is that I have to take my art classes slowly, we began with origami, this seems like a contradiction but it’s not. These kids lack inspiration, not skill; they are all very talented it just needs to be encouraged. Origami is great because it requires step-by-step instruction, but it shows them something new made from something as commonplace as a piece of paper. I love it because it requires them to make the thing they want and it proves to them that they can do it themselves; from here I will move on to you can build ANYTHING yourself... but that won’t be for a while. We’ve spent the last three weeks making fish, cranes, frogs, balloons, and throwing stars- I’ve kept the x-wing fighters to myself, these kids are talented but lack the patience to make one of those.
Last week I also began to teach them how to draw anything they see. I tell them how to draw everything via circles, squares, and triangles, and I am beginning to see some branching out into creativity now. I’ll be standing at the white board showing them how to draw a dog or a cat (Trogdor is a favourite among the kids) and someone will call out, “Touria! Hassan isn’t drawing what we’re drawing!” I always say, “Hassan, what are you drawing?” And then I try to encourage the student (not always Hassan) and try to push the idea of free draw on other kids. “That is very nice Hassan. Does everyone see how he used squares and circles and rectangles? Isn’t that a very good picture? I think you all could draw your own pictures, too, if you wanted.” This is usually greeted by crickets, but I have hope.
Some of the older kids are even moving on to the 3-D pictures, the concept of a horizon line was kind of hard to explain but they caught on really quickly. It’s a wild paradigm shift for me; in America we associate brilliance with creativity; and a lack of creativity with general incompetence and even stupidity. In Morocco everyone know how to build a house complete with electricity and plumbing by the time they’re fifteen, but if you hand a fifteen year old a piece of paper and colored pencils and tell them to draw anything they want they won’t have a clue. So it is that I had thought it would take months to finally get to the point we could introduce the horizon lines, but they knew exactly what I meant when I said, “If you look down the road a really long ways everything gets smaller and smaller, yes?” Students: “Yes! And far far away it all disappears.” Me: “Yes! To draw that make a spot on the paper and that is what you use to draw your shape.” Students: “Like this?” Me: “Perfect! You are so talented. Now remember, everything has to go toward the spot, otherwise your pcture just looks funny.” I don’t care how smart they are, I’m not ready to introduce Picasso and cubism yet.
That has been my life up to this week. This week has been devoted to studying for the dreaded GRE, ack! I took the test this morning in Rabat, I had forgotten how stressful testing is. I’m relieved to have the test over with but I’m terrified that I failed. Mind you I had the same feeling of foreboding about my EMT exam and I scored a 95% on that, so don’t take my feelings as intuitive. The worst part about the exam, says she who no longer has it looming over her head, is the waiting for the results. I won’t be able to check my results online until mid December. Le sigh.
Well, dear and patient reader, we now come to the end of my update. Oghallah, I will have new and exciting tales to regale you with in my next update... which may or may not come in the December. By the way, oghallah is the the old Spanish version of enchallah-if God wills it.Old as in from pre- Spanish Inquisition when Spain were a Muslim country and, therefore, had a use for a Muslim phrase. There, now I have told you tales and given you a new fact, my work here is done!