Where Did The Weekend Go?

These days, it doesn't feel like I really have weekends. I work Saturday mornings for three hours and Sunday afternoons for three hours. I have plenty of free time every day of the week, but I have no 48 (or even 24) hour period that is completely free. In the end, it doesn't bother me too much, but it is a strange sort of sensation. Every week blends into the next.

The last month, I have had Mondays off, although I have used the day off to lesson plan. Starting today, though, I teach the "American Culture Club" on Monday nights. Students are allowed to come for free, but teachers receive extra pay to teach clubs. So some teachers go over the lyrics of popular songs or work on creative writing or direct dramas. I wanted to use the opportunity to help Moroccan students think about both the good and the bad sides of America.

So I'm starting my club with a section called "Dreams and Promises". We're going to read Langston Hughes' very descriptive but very manageable "A Dream Deferred" as well as selections from speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama.

I want my students to think critically about the much-touted "American Dream". It has been true for millions of immigrants, including everyone in my family, but not for everyone.

Here are some key parts of the three texts:

Dream Deferred – Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up 
like a raisin in the sun? 

Or fester like a sore-- 
And then run? 

Does it stink like rotten meat? 

Or crust and sugar over-- 
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags 
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

Martin Luther King, Jr.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!

Barack Obama

This country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that's not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that's not what makes us strong. Our universities and our culture are the envy of the world, but that's not what keeps the world coming to our shores.
Instead, it is that American spirit - that American promise - that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.
That promise is our greatest inheritance. It's a promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night, and a promise that you make to yours - a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west; a promise that led workers to picket lines, and women to reach for the ballot.
And it is that promise that forty five years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln's Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.
The men and women who gathered there could've heard many things. They could've heard words of anger and discord. They could've been told to succumb to the fear and frustration of so many dreams deferred.
But what the people heard instead - people of every creed and color, from every walk of life - is that in America, our destiny is inextricably linked. That together, our dreams can be one.

Green March Day

Yesterday I had the entire day off. Because I essentially work every day, it was the first day I hadn't been in to work since school started. The reason?

Green March Day.

In 1975, an International Court of Justice ruled that the Spanish colony of Western Sahara had some, but only some, ties to the old sultan of Morocco. King Hassan II gathered 350,000 unarmed Moroccans to the Moroccan-Western Sahara border to march into Western Sahara territory. They bore Moroccan flags, banners calling for the "return" of the Moroccan Sahara, and photographs of the king and the Koran.

The territory is still disputed. The Polisario, an independence movement supported by Algeria, is still somewhat active, although there was a cease fire signed in 1991. Relations with Algeria and the Polisario are still quite tense.

Because of the recent history of the holiday, I was expecting some sort of big patriotic displays. Instead, it was a bit like the Bastille Day I spent in France last year: except for a few things on TV, there were no real visible signs of the holiday.

I asked my coworkers about the meaning of the day, and they responded that it was just a day for relaxation...

...which is exactly what I did.

A Tale of Two English Language Schools

Yesterday I had the opportunity to volunteer with the Franciscan mission Le Pere for the first time. One of the priests, who teaches English, was engaged with another activity and couldn't teach. So I substituted.

As I entered the classroom, the discrepancies between my employer and this mission became clear. There was no TV or any other audio-visual opportunities for teaching aids. And instead of a nice whiteboard, there was only an ancient green chalkboard that was not very amenable to crisp, clear writing. On a positive note, the class size was about the same as what I was used to, around 20 students.

We were studying the present continuous ("I am learning", "you are learning", "he is learning", etc.) and negation in the present tense. In my teacher training, I was instructed to avoid as much as possible the teacher-dominated mode. Language learning happens best when students have many opportunities to practice, with each other and with the teacher.

So after using the present continuous in a few different contexts and explaining how it was formed, I gave the students a question to ask their partners using the present continuous. All of the students just repeated the question very loudly. Then silence. I was a bit baffled. I assumed that they understood that I wanted them to actually converse with their neighbors. But the majority of their instruction up until then had been in such a teacher-dominated, rote-repetition sort of mode that they didn't even understand that I was asking them to try to communicate with each other.

I acted out what I wanted with one of the students and they appeared to get the idea. So I asked them to do the same thing again, this time with more success.

Beforehand, I was told that the class was an intermediate class, but they were more closer to the beginner level where I normally work. So I lowered my level a little bit.

Rather than frustration, this challenge inspired me. I started thinking about what I could do if given more time to work with them.

After the class, as I was walking to my real job, one of the students ran after me. "Excuse me. Teacher. Teacher."

"Yes."
"Is it good your center?"
"You mean the American Language Center?"
"Yes, that."
"I think it's quite good. But it's also quite expensive."
"That's ok. I will go."
I smiled, shook his hand, wished him luck, and headed back to the new city.

A Moroccan Halloween

Transferring a holiday from one culture to another can often be an easy task. When I lived in France a few years ago, I threw a Thanksgiving feast for over 40 people, complementing the turkey and mashed potatoes with French baguettes, wine, and cheese. However, it is not always that simple, as Daniel and I discovered last weekend.

We had some concerns beforehand and so we discussed them with our Moroccan friends. Specifically, the neighbors had previously complained about noise after 11 PM, so we decided to start at 6 PM and go until 11 PM, rather than having a typical American party which might start at 9 PM and go until the early hours of the morning. We were also concerned about who would come. We didn't know very many people, and so we asked our friends to bring some of their friends and coworkers. We were hoping to meet some people our age, particularly females (who are often almost impossible to meet).

Saturday afternoon before the party, Daniel and I bought some candy, snacks, and drinks at the supermarket, and then we cleaned the house. I headed off to the Franciscan church for All Saint's mass. On the way out, I explained to the concierge that there would be some people would be visiting because it was an American holiday. My anxious explanation was met with the typical Arabic greeting on a holiday, mabruk, which basically means "congratulations". I tried to explain that it's not really a holiday you say "mabruk", but I don't think I got my point across. It's hard to explain the idea of a commercialized holiday to someone who has never really experienced it.

The Franciscan Church is the only Christian church in town, and so I have been trying to go when I have the chance. I have met the priests, who work at a mission in the medina teaching languages, and the few older French people who attend on Saturday nights (on Sunday morning a large number of sub-Saharan African students at the University of Meknes attend). The oldest priest in this Franciscan province gave the homily. He has been in Morocco since before Vatican II and before the end of colonialism. In those days, they mainly provided hospital care, because the local health care was so poor. But now it is much better, so they have moved into education, particularly language education. As he spoke of the Beatitudes (one of the readings) and living them out to the end, they took on a new meaning for me.

When I arrived back home, there were about 12 people in our empty living area: five Americans, our five Moroccan friends, and two Moroccans I had not met before. The one Moroccan who had promised to bring a number of his fellow students was busy drinking, seemingly oblivious to the disparity between what had been promised and the reality. The American girls had made Halloween signs, so I spent my first few minutes at the party putting them up.

Later Daniel and I started poking fun at him for it, and he responded defensively, "You don't know how hard it is to get people to come to something like this in this country!! Girls can't come out to houses their families don't know. A lot of the students went home for the weekend."

Around nine, about half of the people (including all the girls) left the party. The few of us who remained ended up turning to serious topics: the lack of jobs in Morocco and what we Americans thought of Islam. They left sometime before midnight and Daniel and I went to bed.

I would say that it was the most boring party I have ever thrown, but on Tuesday a spark of excitement was inserted into the party after the fact. I was reading a local magazine when I stumbled across a photo of one of the Moroccans who had come to the party. It was a reproduction of the cover of this week's Paris Match (more or less the French equivalent of People) with Rachid Dati, the former French minister of justice who is of Moroccan descent, along with a rap group from Meknes. The rapper who was second from the right in the picture had stopped by our party for half an hour to hang out and pick up his American girlfriend.

So, out of the ruins of perhaps the worst party I have ever thrown, I can snatch the claim that a celebrity came. I can't say that about any of my previous parties. No one who ever appeared on a magazine cover came to my parties in the United States or in France.

Thoughts on the Koran, Part 1

One of my goals in living in Morocco is to be able to read Arabic, particularly Classical Arabic. On an academic but also on a very real personal level, I am interested in the relationship between Islam and Christianity and how both interact with secular modernity. I tend to think that a lot of contemporary problems would not exist if we better understood these issues.

Yesterday, along with a friend, I worked through the Arabic of al-Fatiha, the first sura of the Qur'an. So I thought that I would post my translation and a few thoughts on it.

Sura 1: al-Fatiha
1. In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
2. Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds,
3. The Compassionate, the Merciful
4. King of the Day of Religion [the Day of Judgment]
5. It is you we worship and it is you we call on for help
6. Guide us in the correct way,
7. the way of religion, of those upon whom you have had favor and not of those upon whom your anger has come nor of those who have lost the way.

A few notes:
1) This sura uses a structure that puts the accusative (objective) form first in the fifth verse, thus putting God before those who worship him, even though those who worship him are the subject of the sentence. This mirrors grammatically the structure of the relationship between God and human: even in human action and agency, God is most important.

2) The use of the word 'Deen' ('Religion') is much broader than our current sociological use of the word 'religion' in English. It is comparable to Jonathan Edwards' 18th century use of "religion" (see his 30th Resolution, for instance). It is not just a set of beliefs and practices, but rather the true way, the way of God beyond any human creations). It involves the most important things we will have to come to account for at the Final Judgment. There is just a hint of the Islamic insistence on moving beyond idolatry (putting ultimate value on something other than God) to worship of the one true God beyond all those idols. We might compare this with Jesus' harsh rebukes of the Pharisees and their tendency to miss the forest of what God wants for the trees of tradition and rules. Jesus said the Prophets and the Law were summed up in two commandments: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and Love your neighbor as yourself. The importance of that love and worship of God as more important than all rules and traditions (and what should be the source of any rules and traditions we do have) is shared between Islam and Christianity. As a result, avoiding idols is another similar aspect between the two faiths (although some Muslims might argue that the way Christians make images or talk of God is idolatrous). How this God beyond idols is known and worshiped are different, but the uppermost goal is central in both faiths.

3) This Sura clearly divides the world into those who seek to worship the one true God (the action of seeking it being described using the metaphor of the path or way) and those who merit God's anger and have lost the true way. This parallels Christianity as well. The difference, of course, lies in what that path is and, in the case of Christianity, who it goes through (the person of Jesus Christ). But once again, the similarities in purpose are very strong: seeking the one true God and his way.


Disclaimer:
I am in no way a Koranic scholar (nor a real Biblical scholar for that matter). These are just a few observations from my very limited understanding of the Arabic and my observations of both Christianity and Islam. I more than welcome corrections and constructive criticism.

An Indian Summer on Steroids

For the last month or two, the weather here seemed impervious to Earth's shifting axis. While most places I have lived shift into fall sometime in September or October, my new hometown of Meknes, Morocco weathered on as if Fall were a state of mind. Temperatures regularly approached 100 and I sweated every time I walked anywhere.

But then November came. On Sunday night, while sitting outside at a cafe with my friend, I found myself rubbing my arms to keep warm. That night, a thick fog, strangely out-of-place here in Morocco, settled over the city. And then during the night, I had to wrap myself tightly into my recently purchased wool blanket to escape the chill. The trend continued last night; it rained. And today while walking to lunch at noon, for the very first time in my Moroccan experience, a daytime breeze felt chilly.

The high temperature is still in the 80s, but it is declining fast. I have been told tales of miserable winters, damp and soggy in houses without heat. I keep telling myself it can't be that bad. After months of sunshine and sweat, it is hard to imagine this wonderful country giving me anything else.

Insha'allah, Part 3

After last week's couscous, Didouche and his family invited us to lunch again. In correct Moroccan fashion, I answered "Insha'allah" to the request.

Once again, God did will it. All of us American teachers met and headed over to Didouche's house.

Instead of couscous, this time we had rfissa. But even though the food changed slightly, the hospitality did not change a bit.