MEGA UPDATE!

It’s been way too long and some of you are starting to harass me with emails asking if I am still walking amongst the living. Time has been speeding by, and the months of March and April have come and gone already. Here is what I have been up to the past two months:

Spring Camp

New Program at Dar Chebab

Trip to Spain!

I was at Spring Camp for almost two weeks from the last week in March to the second week in April. There are spring camps all over Morocco for youth and the camp I participated in was an English immersion camp. It was collaboration between a Moroccan and American staff. The PC Volunteers were responsible for teaching English and leading clubs. I taught the advanced English class and my students were brilliant! We talked about utopia! Most of my students were between the ages of 11-15 and they really impressed me with their command of the English language. I also helped out with both the yoga club and the arts and crafts club.

The best part of camp was that 24 kids from my town attended. Only one of the campers was a student of mine from my English classes; the rest of the campers were new to me and it was a great opportunity to get to know them and get them excited about coming to the Dar Chebab in our town.

Now, because of the new friends I made at camp, I have a new program starting at the Dar Chebab. My weeks are going to be really busy from now on, which is great, and I am excited to get started. I am offering my English classes, as usual, but in addition to that, I am starting a fashion club, game club, jewelry club, girls’ aerobics, and music and dance club. The fashion club had its first official meeting last week. In attendance were four boys and five girls and we made designs for outfits by cutting up pieces of paper and gluing them together. There is one boy in the fashion club who I like to call my little diva because he is the reason the club exists. I am not sure where this fashion club will take us, but the kids have tons of ideas and I have a few as well, so it should keep us busy. I am a little nervous about dance club, because the kids want me to teach them "how to dance like hip hop" and I am not sure what that entails. But, I figure, I convinced myself that I am a skilled aerobics instructor, so why not dance, too? Eeek!

After less than a week spent at my site, I packed up my backpack again and took eight days of vacation! As a volunteer I accrue two days of vacation for every month serves, so I took almost all of my days and met my friend Jackie in Spain. We met in Madrid and traveled to Barcelona together. It was great to see Jackie after such a long time! It was my first time to Spain as well, and I was really impressed with Barcelona. Madrid was okay, but I thought Barcelona had more to offer.

Now, I have been back at my site for about a week and a half and am keeping busy with the new clubs. When I returned from camp, I found my Dar Chebab was under construction! My classroom had been torn down and in its place a newer and bigger classroom is being built. I am really happy about this, but currently, it is causing some problems because I no longer have a classroom to teach in and have been holding classes in a nearby Diabetes Association. Hopefully, the construction will end shortly, but it is hard to tell. People give me all kinds of answers and usually they involve the phrase "Inshallah" meaning "if god wills it." So, god willing, we will have a new classroom open next month! I am crossing my fingers! Come on, Allah!

Today was just an ordinary day in my town. I went to the Dar Chebab for fashion club and nobody showed up. Very typical. I stood outside waiting for about half an hour and then gave up and walked to the store. I love shopping in my town. There are hanuts (stores) on every block, but I have my favorite hanut that I visit weekly. It is my favorite because of the people who work there and also there is a really good selection there. I can find cereal, real cheese, tri-color pasta, and skim milk there. But, even if the selection was less, I would still go there, because the people are so friendly. When I enter, the man behind the counter happily greets me and as I make my way through the store, I am greeted by two or three other workers. Walking the ten feet to the back of the store, I am closely followed and handed a shopping basket, which is kind of special. No other hanut hands out shopping baskets. Then, as I stand in front of any of the four shelves, I ponder what I should buy while the workers stand loyally nearby. Today I stood in front of the tea selection and within 30 seconds, and was asked, “Do you want tea?” To which I responded, “Yes, but which one is zwin?” I know which one I want to buy, but I still like talking to the workers about the tea and which one they like best. Today I bought yogurt, cheese, tea, milk, tomato sauce, tuna and spaghetti. While the counter-worker totaled my expenses by hand on a piece of paper, another worker told me there was another kind of spaghetti that was much better and went back to retrieve the other kind. The grand total: 65 Durhams, or $6.50 US Dollars. Another great thing about shopping in Morocco is if for some reason I didn’t have enough money to pay for my groceries, they will just write down my total in a small notebook and whenever I want I can return and pay them. Some people only pay once a month or so.

On my way home from the store, I heard my name being called and turned to find a girl running towards me. I couldn’t remember where I had seen her before, but it soon came back to me. A long time ago I went for lunch at a girl’s house who lived an hour walk outside of town and this was her friend. After that day, every time I ran into Fahida, she would try to shanghai me into going to her house. Usually, I accept invitations for lunch, but bad timing has always made me decline her invitations. One time she got me as far as her front door and begged me to come inside, but I absolutely had to go to work. So, today was the day for lunch at Fahida’s house. She latched on tightly to my arm, not wanting to lose me this time, and we walked to her house.

At the house I was greeted by her mom, and realized I was in for a treat. I am still and probably always will be a bit of a novelty here and people are just amazed and thrilled when they learn I can speak and understand Arabic. Such was the case today. Fahida’s mom expressed her delight by petting my head, slapping me on the back, and poking my stomach like the Pillsbury Doughboy. After finishing lunch, she insisted that I didn’t eat enough and told me that I must have a smaller stomach than Moroccan people. I assured her, that I had a healthy appetite. Then, we got into talking about oranges, which is what everybody talks about here. My town is known for its oranges. Apparently, she works at the orange factory in town and ran out of the room to grab her hair net and sticker gun. She demonstrated on a bowl of oranges on how she wears her hat and how she puts the Maroc stickers on the oranges. She insisted I take a few of the oranges home with me. No matter how many oranges I have in my house, it is never enough! After the orange demonstration, she grabbed a photo album. This part I never understand: showing a perfect stranger all six of your photo albums. Every time there was a picture of her, she would grab the photo and put it right under my nose and laugh as she said, “that’s me!” It was kind of funny, but weird because she was a grown woman wearing a hair net with Maroc stickers stuck to her shirt. After picture hour, we sat on the floor and watched Fahida’s mom whip a towel at the flies. Now that the focus was off of the pictures, I once again became the center of attention. My stomach was poked again. Then my zits were pointed at and I was asked why I had them. Then my freckles on my arms were pointed at and asked why I had those. Then the hairs on my toes were commented on because they are blonde. Time for freak-show Jenny to get on home, I thought.

Trying to leave, I was adorned with oranges, bread, a ring, and a necklace. On the way down the stairs, Fahida’s mom grabbed her breasts and pretty much flung them over her shoulders. She is a very fat woman with very large and seemingly, noisome breasts.

After safely making inside my house, I retired to my salon for a post-lunch nap and was interrupted by somebody knocking on my door. I grudgingly make my way downstairs and found three little girls who wanted to bring me to their house and do henna on my hands. I had to politely decline because I needed to go to work in an hour. They are very sad and begged me for a drink of water. So, I let them in, they drank their water, and then they left. Back to the nap, I was twice interrupted by text messages and finally it was time to get up and go to the Dar Chebab to teach English.

This is just half of what an average day is like for me.