Discomfort and Education

“Bonjour”. This is the soundtrack of my life. It usually starts with the first person that I see when I leave my house and follows me up the 3 kilometer dirt road to the center of our village like a curious bird chirping at a safe but ever more intrepid distance. Along the way, this bird and I pass through 3 neighborhoods (called duwars) until finally entering the central duwar, which we call “souq” or “lxhmees“. The dual name derives from the fact that this is the location of the weekly souq market occurring every Thursday. In the local Berber language, we call Thursday, “lxhmees”, which comes from the Arabic word for 5 (xhmsa), because Thursday is the fifth day when counting from Sunday (which apparently, the Arabic world does). There are certain times and places along the road where the chirping turns into a chorus of French, which in rare cases borders on taunting. Sometimes, the Berber language is used in lieu of French for these events, but there is no expectation of reciprocation, and these outbursts are often punctuated by chortling. Though I make this same journey back and forth at least once everyday, I am no less a spectacle now than the day I first arrived. At least three days a week, I “work” at the sbitar (health clinic) where hundreds of townspeople have witnessed me talking with and assisting the doctor and nurses; I go to souq every week; I live with a host family who has introduced my to many relatives and friends; I walk around the fields and stop to help the workers; I work with two separate language tutors at least 3 times a week; I go to the post office twice a week to check my mail box; I sit in the outside patio of the cafés like the rest of the town men; I have been to numerous random houses for tea, I am teaching the doctor how to play the guitar; I have visited the schools; and I regularly go to the cyber (internet cafe);but STILL, I am no local. Grown men still sometimes stare at me as I pass with their jaw dropped ignoring my salutations. Not even in middle school did I feel so out of place. I am simultaneously celebrated and ignored; an invisible spectacle. And perhaps because I have never been one to draw attention to myself, this is a particularly trying scenario for me. I constantly find myself in the spotlight being forced to perform with little or no warning; like the other day when I accepted an invitation to the nightly adult Arabic literacy class only to find myself attempting to read Arabic words scribbled on the chalkboard aloud to the class even though I don’t speak Arabic and can’t read script. Or the time that I visited the local middle school and was spontaneously whisked into a classroom of approximately 40 students and 5 or 6 teachers and asked to introduce myself and explain my purpose for being in Morocco using the local language despite the unfortunate fact that I haven’t figured out my purpose for being here in my own language yet (This event was, of course, followed by cake, soda, and a large photo session because all the children wanted to have their pictures taken with the foreigners).

Early on, I stopped trying to explain to people that I don’t speak French because they continue to speak French regardless of what I say. At first this was a perplexing verity, however a few weeks ago, I gained some perspective on the matter. I was walking on the same road I take every day, when a big white SUV came to an abrupt stop beside me. A French tourist sitting in the passenger seat rolled down her window, leaned out, and asked me something in French. My immediate response was “samHiyee, urfHmug Fransawee” which in TashelHite, means “Forgive me, I don’t understand French”. Now why did I respond to a French tourist in a fancy white SUV with my limited mountain Berber language, when it is very possible we both speak English? Because I am accustomed to pulling out TashelHite when I am talking to somebody who doesn’t speak my native tongue. Likewise, the people of Morocco, invariably rely on their French to communicate with people that don’t speak there native tongue. And to be fair, the children here, who are responsible for the majority of the French outbursts that I endure, are probably excited for the opportunity to practice the language that they are so vigorously studying in school. Just last week, the final-year high school students in morocco took an exam to see if they will be given government money to go to college. Education in Morocco is technically free all the way through college, but in order to get free admission to Moroccan college, you must first pass this test (called the Boch), which is continually being made more difficult, one; because sending people through college is expensive, and two; because a growing number of Moroccan college graduates can‘t find work. The odds are against these students. None of the test sections are in there native language. Many of the sections are in Arabic, some in French, and at least one in English. Of course, these are the luck ones who were able, because of intelligence, geographic location and socio-economic situation, to attend school up until this point. My town for example, will not have a high school until 2012 which means students who want to go to high school will have to live in boarding schools in the next town 26 kilometers away. Then there are many children who stop school because their family situation demands that they work in the fields or stay at home and cook. Others, on the other hand, simply aren’t capable of learning in the difficult multi-lingual educational environment that relies heavily on rote memory. Sitting in the small wooden desk at the madrassa (elementary school) trying to learn how to read Arabic script, I was struck by how difficult it was to learn just because of the bad acoustics of the echoing cement-walled building, even in a class of adults with modest attendance, not to mention a large class of boisterous children. So with reverence to these facts, I try hard not to blow my top the fiftieth time I hear “bonjour” each day. Instead I stroll on by, respond warmly in TashelHite, put myself in ridiculous and uncomfortable situations, and try to act like I live here (which by the way I do)!