Remember how, many moons ago, I mentioned that our assigned workspace was closed? And how we were filling the days trying to integrate into our community? Well, that's been fun, but it's also been a little boring and little "what's-the-point-of-being-here-if-we-aren't-doing-anything?"-inducing. Especially since the center is still closed.
So we decided to take action. About three months ago, I had my first conversation with a Moroccan friend regarding an excellent film on girl's eduction and my desire to show the film at our local Dar Taliba. The Dar Taliba is like a dorm for female students who are from the mountain villages around our town. Since their small towns don't have a junior high or high school, they move to our town during the week to attend classes and then return home on the weekends. My friend, Sana, thought it was a great idea. For the past few months, we've been working on getting permission from local authorities to work at the Dar Taliba. It's the same in the US: you can't just show up at any junior high and say, "Hey! I wanna do a project here! Let me into the classrooms!" But it takes a little longer to get the ball rolling here. Sana has been a great help, and I couldn't do it without her translation skills (she speaks perfect English) and sense of humor.
This past week, we visited the Dar Taliba to meet with the girls for the first time. I introduced myself (in English and Darija), and we showed one chapter of the film. I was mega-nervous. My Darija is pretty terrible, and I wasn't sure how the a group of thirty girls, ages 10 to 20, would react to me. But, after the film and a short discussion, a few girls were eager to introduce themselves and practice their English. "Hi! My name is Hadija," one girl said after raising her hand. "I'm sixteen years old. And I love you!" My nerves melted away. These girls are cool. I plan to go back a few times a week to help them with their English homework. And, once a week, Sana will help me show one more chapter of the film and engage the girls in a conversation about the importance of girl's education.
I've also enlisted the help of fellow Peace Corps Volunteer Sarah, who's done wonders with the artisans in her nearby town. She came to visit us last week to help us chat with local women are engaged in artistic endeavors. Through world of mouth, we found our way to the headquarters of Couscous Omnia, a local couscous co-op run by a small group of women, all widows and divorcees. The women meet daily to make couscous by hand. We chatted with them a bit about their goals (sell more couscous!) and how their co-op works. Project one: I'll be lugging 30 kilos (did you catch that? I'm learning the metric system!) of couscous with me to a Peace Corps Thanksgiving gathering this week in hopes of selling it on behalf of the co-op.
In addition to the fabulous couscous ladies, I also met Fatima, the most famous carpet weaver in town. Her rugs are handwoven with wool that she dyes herself, and she determines the size by the length of her forearm ("This rug is 5 arms by 3 arms," she said, crawling down on the floor to demonstrate. "I can make bigger and smaller, whatever you want. Just tell me how many arms."). Each rug takes between one and two months to make depending on the size and intricacy of her design. I'm already imaging what sort of rug I might commission from her to take back home to the US. You can see more images of her work at the brand new (still under construction!) Facebook page for Zarabi Art (Zarabi means rug in Arabic, and Fatima's lovely daughter helped us come up with the name).
Like the gals at Couscous Omnia, Fatima would like to sell more carpets. Currently, all parties sell to groups of tourists that come through town. This means their sales are inconsistent at best, and they have limited exposure to outside markets. Wait, are you catching all this fancy business talk? I'm really putting my MBA, err, I mean, my MA in the sociology of religion to use. Sarah assures me that simply knowing how to use the internet and balance a checkbook is enough to make me a knowledgeable teacher of business skills. We'll just see how that plays out. In the meantime, a blog post Sarah wrote about the artisans in Amizmiz has already garnered the attention of prospective buyers, so my crash course in Business 101 just moved up in priority!
Pete is staying busy as well. In addition to carting around couscous and measuring rugs, he's doing most of the lesson planning for our English classes. Our classes meet between two and three times a week depending on a plethora of factors outside of our control. Our English students are our closest friends here, and spending time with them both in and out of class is a treat.
As I read over this post, I realize the title might as well be "New Friends," not "New Projects." A lot of things haven't worked in our favor since we arrived, namely our assigned work space being closed. But friends? That's something we are not lacking.
So we decided to take action. About three months ago, I had my first conversation with a Moroccan friend regarding an excellent film on girl's eduction and my desire to show the film at our local Dar Taliba. The Dar Taliba is like a dorm for female students who are from the mountain villages around our town. Since their small towns don't have a junior high or high school, they move to our town during the week to attend classes and then return home on the weekends. My friend, Sana, thought it was a great idea. For the past few months, we've been working on getting permission from local authorities to work at the Dar Taliba. It's the same in the US: you can't just show up at any junior high and say, "Hey! I wanna do a project here! Let me into the classrooms!" But it takes a little longer to get the ball rolling here. Sana has been a great help, and I couldn't do it without her translation skills (she speaks perfect English) and sense of humor.
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| My friend, Sana, and I in a picture that captures our relationship well. |
This past week, we visited the Dar Taliba to meet with the girls for the first time. I introduced myself (in English and Darija), and we showed one chapter of the film. I was mega-nervous. My Darija is pretty terrible, and I wasn't sure how the a group of thirty girls, ages 10 to 20, would react to me. But, after the film and a short discussion, a few girls were eager to introduce themselves and practice their English. "Hi! My name is Hadija," one girl said after raising her hand. "I'm sixteen years old. And I love you!" My nerves melted away. These girls are cool. I plan to go back a few times a week to help them with their English homework. And, once a week, Sana will help me show one more chapter of the film and engage the girls in a conversation about the importance of girl's education.
I've also enlisted the help of fellow Peace Corps Volunteer Sarah, who's done wonders with the artisans in her nearby town. She came to visit us last week to help us chat with local women are engaged in artistic endeavors. Through world of mouth, we found our way to the headquarters of Couscous Omnia, a local couscous co-op run by a small group of women, all widows and divorcees. The women meet daily to make couscous by hand. We chatted with them a bit about their goals (sell more couscous!) and how their co-op works. Project one: I'll be lugging 30 kilos (did you catch that? I'm learning the metric system!) of couscous with me to a Peace Corps Thanksgiving gathering this week in hopes of selling it on behalf of the co-op.
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| Hey girl, thanks for all of your help! |
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| Tell me: how is it possible that I live down the street from a couscous co-op and never knew it?? |
In addition to the fabulous couscous ladies, I also met Fatima, the most famous carpet weaver in town. Her rugs are handwoven with wool that she dyes herself, and she determines the size by the length of her forearm ("This rug is 5 arms by 3 arms," she said, crawling down on the floor to demonstrate. "I can make bigger and smaller, whatever you want. Just tell me how many arms."). Each rug takes between one and two months to make depending on the size and intricacy of her design. I'm already imaging what sort of rug I might commission from her to take back home to the US. You can see more images of her work at the brand new (still under construction!) Facebook page for Zarabi Art (Zarabi means rug in Arabic, and Fatima's lovely daughter helped us come up with the name).
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| Just one of many. What an artist! |
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| Fatima (my friend), me, and Fatima (the rug weaver). For fun, we pluralize their names and just call them "Fatimat." |
Like the gals at Couscous Omnia, Fatima would like to sell more carpets. Currently, all parties sell to groups of tourists that come through town. This means their sales are inconsistent at best, and they have limited exposure to outside markets. Wait, are you catching all this fancy business talk? I'm really putting my MBA, err, I mean, my MA in the sociology of religion to use. Sarah assures me that simply knowing how to use the internet and balance a checkbook is enough to make me a knowledgeable teacher of business skills. We'll just see how that plays out. In the meantime, a blog post Sarah wrote about the artisans in Amizmiz has already garnered the attention of prospective buyers, so my crash course in Business 101 just moved up in priority!
Pete is staying busy as well. In addition to carting around couscous and measuring rugs, he's doing most of the lesson planning for our English classes. Our classes meet between two and three times a week depending on a plethora of factors outside of our control. Our English students are our closest friends here, and spending time with them both in and out of class is a treat.
As I read over this post, I realize the title might as well be "New Friends," not "New Projects." A lot of things haven't worked in our favor since we arrived, namely our assigned work space being closed. But friends? That's something we are not lacking.
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