I Heart Bouarfa!

Hello All!
I hope all is well in good old America! I know I recently updated my blog but I am just having one of those days that one should write home about!

Let me preface this blog with some important notes as I always sit down to write my blogs and realize by the end that most of you are thoroughly confused by my babbling. (Also I am starting to think in Arabic occasionally which is awesome for fluency although does not help with the English I am already losing.)

-My site for two years: Bouarfa (Pronounced Boo are fa)
-Hannah: My site mate who has lived here for a year already working at the Youth Center
-Kirsten: My site mate who started at the same time as me although is not in Youth Development but instead Small Business Development
-Nedi Neswi- women’s center
-Dar Taliba- A dormitory for kids who’s families live so far out in the country side that they do not have access to schools. Also acts as an orphanage for some kids.
-Delege- The liason between the Ministry of youth and sport and the nedi neswi. The ministry of youth and sport is what I work under.

Ok so today was just AMAZING!!! It was technically my first work day and I was so nervous but it ended up being awesome. At 9 I woke up and ate my usual cheese and bread with mint tea for breakfast. Then I walked to the Nedi Neswi to introduce myself to some of the girls and to meet with my new boss Zhara. Well when I got there I had no idea what to do. The language barrier is bad enough but ontop of that the Nedi is so organized that I have limited time to interact with the girls when they are not in class. (As previously mentioned they have computer science, hairdressing and sewing programs.) Anyway I went in with a good attitude and a scared face. I was shown around and then dropped off at the hairdressing station where the gals were dying a fellow student’s hair. I had such a blast! We all just sat around and talked and laughed for an hour. I showed them some pictures of my family and my brother Dennis officially got his first Moroccan Marriage proposal! Lol! Then to my pleasant surprise they insisted on blow drying my hair. Since I haven’t showered in 5 days and was feeling rather unattractive I jumped on it! They did an amazing job and continuously told me how pretty I was. I get a lot of attention here for being ‘pretty’ even from the women which at times I find comical cause the girls telling me this are just DROP DEAD BEAUTIFUL. Anyway it was so refreshing to feel so welcomed. When I asked the girls what they wanted me to teach them AEROBICS was the overwhelming majority. So if nothing else I will be an ‘over glorified pretty aerobic instructor’ for two years. Lol. No but seriously I will be teaching life skills, nutrition, women’s health and English but mostly I hope to end up as their friend and not teacher. I feel at times that they could teach me so much more than I can teach them.

Anyway then I went back to the police station to try to finish my visa issue but I will have to return tomorrow as I was missing a paper. Then I came home and cooked my own lunch in my AMAZING homestay families house and then headed to the delege with Hannah. When we got there, the person I needed to speak with was not there but I met some nice supervisors I may work with in the future. Afterwards we were walking home when Hannah offered to show me the Dar Taliba. Well it turned into and entire tour and meeting and I could not be more hyped about working there. The two guys incharge of the Dar taliba have been anxiously awaiting my arrival and made it VERY clear that they were excited that I was here. Basically the kids that live there go to school all day and then at 7pm are all locked in the dorms for safety issues. They have common areas, nice rooms, a few computers, a dining hall, and classrooms. At night time they socialize and occasionally have classes. With my arrival, I have to opportunity to do so many different things! I will start with English classes next month as there is a big holiday coming up where everything will shut down for a few weeks. Eventually I can add theater, art, music, sports etc. The ideas are endless and because of the set up I kind of have an automatic audience. The main person I will be working with is named Magid and he really seemed ecstatic about my arrival. Infact he came up with this amazing idea. For the 1st month what he wants me to do is meet every single student and ‘interview’ them and make a book profiling each child. It may be a lot of work because there are 112 students but I am really excited about it. Important to note that youth here in Morocco and that of America differ a lot. The age range at the Dar Taliba is 6 to 28 so my students are often going to be older than me. Tomorrow night they are having a small dinner/party to welcome their new teacher and that new teach is ME! Lol sometimes all of this feels so surreal.

After leaving the dar taliba I went to the cyber and received some great emails from all of you and now I am sitting in my room trying to ignore the cold and listening to the Christmas cd my sister sent me (thanks kel!) At first my site mate Kirsten and I were just going to pretend Christmas didn’t exist this year but as it turns out Hannah will be returning from Spain on Christmas eve with her parents who are visiting so we are going to spend Christmas morning together drinking hot cocoa and eating cinnamon buns and pretending like we are family lol. Certainly wont compare to Christmas with my fab family but beggars cant be choosers. J

Anyway thank you for listening to my obnoxious rambling about how great Bouarfa is lol I assure you this wont be the end of it. I will leave you with this bit of cultural exchange. Ever wonder how Americans are perceived in some parts of the world? Food for thought…Im my families’ bathroom there is an air freshener bottle with MARIAH CAREY on the front of it. She does however look like she smells great! Occasionally American television plays in my house this week two shows inparticular caught my host dad’s attention: ‘Dumber and Dumberer’ and MTV ‘Cribs’. Now he thinks EVERY house in America looks like Tony Hawks. Thank you pop culture…thank you very much lol. I tell you it’s a different world out here but right now I wouldn’t trade it for the world…or Tony Hawks house ;)

LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU ALL!
XOXO
Kris