The Sheep

After recovering from my hike and walking mostly backward because it was easier then walking forward, it soon became time for Eid El-Adha (or Eid El- Kebir or Eid El Qorban). I have never actually celebrated this Eid, because in Iran it is customary for people who have made the pilgrimage to sacrifice a sheep. In Morocco, however, every family's goal is to save enough money to buy and sacrifice a sheep. A sheep costs around 2500 Durhams, around 270 or so Dollars.

Buying a sheep is no small task. Families often save for months, so that they can have enough money for their sheep. When I visited my host family in Rabat the weekend before Eid they had already purchased there sheep and were feeding it carrots and grass. My host sister seemed attached to the sheep as she would pet it and often talk to it. She told me she loved eating sheep, but she hated that the sheep had to be killed.

The American host student living with my family, had very strong emotions towards the sheep being sacrificed. She told me she had been a life long vegetarian until Morocco, because she thought it would be too hard to keep her vegetarian diet abroad. Having the sheep in the house and knowing it was to be killed was too much for her. She had requested to move out for those two nights to a hotel. How could I tell her that she would be disrespecting the family by leaving...In my opinion, it's a very American notion to think, I must take care of myself first and not worry about the repercussions.
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I returned to Casablanca ready to go back to school, having forgot about the sheep. On Wednesday my school celebrated Halloween. The students had the cutest costumes and to my surprise there are costume shops in Casablanca. So some of my students were superman, batman, and ladybugs. Right after we celebrated Halloween, I rode the train to Rabat where I was again reminded of the sheep and the impending holiday.

Third Grade Teachers Halloween Costume!

Due to the Eid our school gave us Thursday, Friday and Monday off. Most of my coworkers and friends were heading off to Italy and I was planning on going to Rabat for two days and then returning to Casa with my grandma to spend time relaxing and exploring Casa. Wednesday night was uneventful, but thursday I woke up did some reading, went shopping for some things my friends from Casa wanted (i've become the personal shopper for buying things from the old medina where you can buy things at great prices! A scarf was 20 durhams or 3 dollars! And pants for 80 durhams or 10 dollars!), and then I went to visit my friend's house in the Ouidaya. He is currently researching for a Fullbright.

Friday, I woke up to the sound of blasting Islamic music and my host sister calling my name at 9 AM. I was hoping to sleep in, but with the radio on right outside my room, I got up, changed my clothes and went downstairs. I said hello to my host dad and he told me (in Arabic): "It's not good to sleep on the day of the holiday." It was then, amongst other things, that I realized I have truly become part of the family. While the host student was allowed to do her own thing, I was not allowed to sleep in. I had to be awake like the rest of the family.

I had breakfast and then a man came to the house to kill the sheep. At that time, my host dad and brother took the sheep to the roof in order for it to be killed. The sheep had never made a noise before it was moved to the roof. Maybe the sheep sensed the impending doom. At that moment I conveniently went to visit my friends house again in the Ouidaya. On my way, I saw all the blood on the streets. It looked like there had been some sort of violent incident. Almost like a movie. There was no one on the streets minus a few men and there was a lot of blood. While I was at my friends house, some neighborhood boy's asked my friend if he had a sheep head and other things that they could cook on the street for him and bring back to him for a price. I returned back to my host family's house and had some sheep as a snack that were cooked on skewers like Kabobs.

Having eaten the sheep and ready to go pick up my grandmother I went to the train station and to the airport. Long story short, train times had changed and with God's help I made it to the airport just in time.

                                                   Sheep Skin Drying on a Rooftop in Casablanca

On Sunday, my grandma and I went to the Hassan II Mosque. It is a beautiful Mosque that is open for tours. The ceiling opens for Ramadan when the Mosque is really crowded. The opening of the ceiling helps to keep the place ventilated since there is no air-conditioning. We had a tour guide that spoke to us in English. After the tour, my grandma asked her how to get to a restaurant and she offered to drive us. On the way, she showed us where she grew up in the Old Medina. I asked her if she knew someone that could help me improve my Darija and she said no, and asked me if I knew someone who could help her daughter learn English. So I offered to teach her daughter English in exchange for her teaching me Darija. Its a great trade off. Hopefully she will call and I can improve my language abilities. Additionally it's great to know another Moroccan woman living in Casablanca. It's crazy how you meet people.

                                               Hassan II Mosque- Largest in Morocco & 7th Largest in the world

My goal for this upcoming month of November is to grow out of my shell and the English speaking bubble by interacting with more people in Darija. 

The Longest Hike

Hike the tallest mountain in North Africa? Why not!

Hiking trails in Wintergreen, VA that take an hour was not nearly enough preparation for the 7 hour hike to the half way point of the mountain and then the other 4 hours to the very top. The plan was to leave on Friday after school in one of the school's cars, drive to Imlil a town near the Mountain and then hike half way up to the Refuge spend the night and then hike the rest and then go all the way down.

That was the plan, but on the way to Imlil we realized we lost the paper directions. So we decided to use my iPhone that i recently got internet on. Thank goodness, I thought! But little did I know, there are two Imlil's in Morocco and we arrived at the wrong one around 10 pm. We arrived to one that was four hours away from the one we wanted to get too. So our driver decided to use Moroccan GPS, which consisted of stopping every half hour to ask someone for directions. Finally around 2 AM we arrive to our destination. It was a cute Riad in Imlil. The next day we left around 10 AM and started our hike. 4 hours into the hike, I felt like giving up. I was considering rolling back down the mountain and spending another night in Imlil. The hard hike combined with my cold that I was slowly getting over, made the hike seem endless.

Thank God for friends. My friend from Rabat offered to carry my backpack, but with his terrible balance, my friend and I thought he would legitimately roll down the mountain. So my good friend from school carried my back pack in addition to her heavy backpack the rest of the hour or two up the mountain. I don't think I will ever be able to repay the kindness she showed me that day. I was considering sleeping on the mountain and going down the next day if it wasn't for her help. My friend from Rabat was also great about encouraging me and helping me the entire way. The last hour was specially hard because it started to hale, rain and thunder/lightning. I was terrified I would get struck by lightning. I am never doing this again... I thought.

We finally got to the Refuge and my friend from Rabat and I decided to hike down the next day while my other friends hiked the rest of the way up and then down. All in all, I survived, but I realized hiking a mountain is not my ideal vacation.

The next few weeks after the hike were tough with my students. They like to tattle on each other, and bother each other a lot. I find myself struggling to decide should I try to discipline the students who are tattled on or should I ignore it so I don't have people always looking to tattle on others. This is an issue I am still trying to work with. My patience for their bullying is running thin, so the upcoming break is keeping me going :)

A Field Trip Gone Wrong

My students are becoming so attached. A little too attached. One of my students always finds opportunities to hug me or write my letters saying how much she loves me. One day while my students were at PE I walked into the bathroom, and found all my female students. They had been told by there PE teacher to quickly go to the bathroom. As soon as I walked in the door, my one student that has taken the bigest liking to me exclaims in a very thick Arabic accent, "My lOve is herre!" I love that my students like having me as a teacher, I just don't want them to become too comfortable with me and be so focused on making me like them that they don't focus as much on their work. This is something I will have to work on as the year progresses.

Last week, I had to pick up a package that my good friend sent me and had to leave during the school day. Getting the package took 2 hours (it was worth it though)! Apparently because of my last name they thought I was Moroccan so the process of picking up my package took longer. The substitute watched my class for twenty minutes and when I got back she told me that I had the worst class in the entire school...AND that my class is obsessed with me. The substitute had told me that when she had left the classroom, my class started to cheer that she was leaving. She heard them and came back and yelled at them for cheering and said that she could hear them...I had to muffle my laughter when she told me that story. In order to kill time when she returned to the classroom, she decided to play hang man with them. One of the words started with A and my students all thought it was Ahmadi. Despite this substitutes impression of my class as the worst class, I believe that my class is made up of so many unique individuals. Yes, my class can be hard to manage because of all the unique individuals, but I would not have it any other way. I also think that the students respect me in a way that they don't respect substitutes or assistant teachers. I remember my supervising teacher during student teaching always told me I was at a disadvantage student teaching, because I wasn't the teacher that they started out with from the beginning. Now I completely understand what she meant.

Today we went to Parliament in Rabat for a field trip to culminate our social studies unit on Moroccan government. I was so excited to go into a building that I had always seen so heavily guarded before. I enjoyed some quality time with my students on the transport over, even though my students got yelled at a few times by the substitute (same one) in the OTHER transport... agagin all I could do was laugh when my students told me she was yelling at them from the other car. However, we arrived to Parliament an hour early and needed to kill time. Thinking on my feet, I decided to take the students to the beach. I used to walk the streets of Rabat, and was not used to driving places so I had no idea how many one way roads there are! It took us a lot longer than I had anticipated to drive to the beach, so the students got out for two seconds, we took a group picture and then we got back on transport and went to Parliament. When we arrived, we met a tour guide who did not speak English. We thought because we were an American school it would be obvious that we needed an English speaking guide, but now we've learned our lesson. We were taken to a room where Parliament convenes. After 5 minutes of questions asked in Darija, we were told the tour was over. There was now walking tour. No explanation of the building. Again, finished early and with no place to eat (although we had been told there would be), I again thought on my feet and decided I would take the kids across from Parliament to a grassy area where the kids could eat. We finished eating, and made our way back to Casa in time for Arabic. Would I go back to Parliament again next year? Highly unlikely. Am I glad I went this year? yes.

This weekend I'm going with a few other teachers to hike Mount Toubkal in northern Morocco, I am both excited and nervous! It will be quite the adventure :)