This afternoon, as I have many times before, I found myself walking by one of the mosques as the call-to-prayer sounded loudly around me from the speakers on the minaret. I’ve mentioned this experience elsewhere, but it’s worth mentioning again. In fact, it’s one of the first things I think you notice about this country if […]
Sharing Cultures Workshop
So, my tutor here, Driss Laayadi, has become a good friend and confidant, and earlier today, he and I held a “workshop” at the high school with over sixty students, five Americans (including me), and two English teachers. It was a huge, huge success, so I thought I would write up a little bit about […]
Remembering.
A year ago today, my grandfather died. A year ago, everything sort of set in motion, and if you’d told me then that I’d be here, in Morocco, where my grandfather lived for nineteen months, well, I wouldn’t have believed that. But as it were, next Tuesday, I will have lived in this country for […]
Morocco Reforms.
This article made national headlines even in America today. Just wanted to share. Avery and I were sitting eating a delicious tajine (and I bought a tajine plate earlier today so I can cook my own) at the restaurant when they interrupted a “regularly scheduled broadcast” to show Mohammed VI standing with his son and, […]
Education is Power
When I was attending Wabash College several years ago, there was a visiting professor in Political Science named John Agresto who actually left the college in 2003 after receiving a call from President Bush asking that he come to Iraq to serve as the “Senior Advisor to the Ministry of Education.” Agresto left America a staunch […]
Post-Pre Service Training, or everything I needed to know to execute a cool project
It’s been kind of a long, tough week. Actually, that’s an understatement. Let me back up. Everybody knows my love for Wabash. My undergrad was kind of a tight-nit community, a bubble of sorts. We called it “Camp Wabash” as a joke because it felt more like summer-camp than it did like college. So, naturally, if you’re […]
Seeds
all along the field where the wildflowers grow I test the dirt beneath my feet as though it were a snow, freshly fallen, careful steps I go, I go, I go, and hope the dust will settle there, will settle down below, behind me now, those steps are made I know, I know, I know […]
The Adventure of the Buta Gaz Tank that Set on Fire
How’s that for a title, eh? First, I write this for any volunteers in-country or out-of-country using buta tanks; learn from my almost deathly mistake. Actually, I’m probably exaggerating a tiny bit. I don’t think I was ever at risk of dying, as I hear there’s supposedly an emergency shut-off valve inside every tank (which works, what, […]
Some thoughts on a rainy afternoon on a train from Oujda
It’s not very often that I get to just write out the mundane things, but the mundane things are sometimes the best memories I want to hold onto, just for me. I’m sitting on a train in Oujda waiting to leave, and there’s pellets of rain slapping the windshield pretty viciously. Thought I’d kill some […]
Dar Yanayer dyal Fouad, the January House
So, you’ve seen (per the last post) the “moving van.” I thought I’d share a bit about what happened on move-in day and then a short video of what my new pad looks like all finished and furnished. I got pretty worried that I wasn’t going to be able to move in on “move-in day,” […]
