It all began Monday morning, as usual. I woke up extra tired from my long weekend trip. School went quickly and at 12:30 we all boarded a bus to Casablanca. We listened to a new "Morocco Party Mix" cd that we'd purchased in Chefchaouen. We arrived in Casablanca at the Women's organization, "Soliderite Feminine". It is an NGO that helps single mothers by supporting them, putting them through a 3 year program, and providing childcare. The program provides job training and a job in the businesses that the program runs, suchas a restaurant, Hammam, and Daycare center. We got a quick tour of the Hammam and then got to meet the amazing women who started the organization. Her name is Aicha Chenna and she is one o
f the first women activists of her kind in the Muslim world. She is a large 60 year old Moroccan woman with a contagious spirit for life. She told us the story of starting the organization and her struggles since while her son translated. Single mothers are quite taboo in Morocco and elsewhere anduntil some recent reforms their children where not even given names just called X. Now some things have changed but single mothers are still looked down upon. Aicha Chenna explained that it is a deep rooted struggle to change the ideology of the people in the ways they think about women. In most cases this means even changing how the women themselves think so that they believe that they can support themselves and live successfully without the support of a father of husband. She has gotten many death threats and much criticismfor her work, some equate helping single mothers to supporting prostitution. On one tv talk show Aicha was on recently the reporter was giving her a hardtime for being so bold so she poured her water bottle onto the table to explain that sometimes the ground is so dry that to make a change, get the water to penetrate, you have to flood it with water. She is a revolutionary! To top it all off we then got to got to the daycare center and play with some of the most adorable babies of my life. I latched on to a little boy with the longest eye lashes I have ever seen and thick curly dark hair. Or should I say he latched onto me, he chewed on my fingers the whole time with his toothing gums. A room full of sweet cared for babies with twinkling eyes can really make your day :)
Mubarak has yet to meet protesters demands and leave the country thus Americans have been encouraged to evacuate and many study abroad programs such as AMIDEAST have decided to end the program for now. So about half of the students chose to come to Morocco and they arrived Wednesday afternoon and we were able to meet them.
f the first women activists of her kind in the Muslim world. She is a large 60 year old Moroccan woman with a contagious spirit for life. She told us the story of starting the organization and her struggles since while her son translated. Single mothers are quite taboo in Morocco and elsewhere anduntil some recent reforms their children where not even given names just called X. Now some things have changed but single mothers are still looked down upon. Aicha Chenna explained that it is a deep rooted struggle to change the ideology of the people in the ways they think about women. In most cases this means even changing how the women themselves think so that they believe that they can support themselves and live successfully without the support of a father of husband. She has gotten many death threats and much criticismfor her work, some equate helping single mothers to supporting prostitution. On one tv talk show Aicha was on recently the reporter was giving her a hardtime for being so bold so she poured her water bottle onto the table to explain that sometimes the ground is so dry that to make a change, get the water to penetrate, you have to flood it with water. She is a revolutionary! To top it all off we then got to got to the daycare center and play with some of the most adorable babies of my life. I latched on to a little boy with the longest eye lashes I have ever seen and thick curly dark hair. Or should I say he latched onto me, he chewed on my fingers the whole time with his toothing gums. A room full of sweet cared for babies with twinkling eyes can really make your day :)Tuesday I woke up to a double rainbow outside my window:) what does it mean?
Wednesday was finally the first sunny dry day we had in a while. It was also the day that 9 of the AMIDEAST Cairo students flew into Rabat. If you haven't been following the crazy historic events taking place in North Africa right now go look it up! It started in Tunisia a few weeks ago when a poor fruit seller set himself on fire after his cart was taken by military officials. This event sparked a nationwide protest that led to the exile of president Ben Ali after 23 years of power. Then sure enough the citizens of Egypt who have long been on the verge of revolution erupted into million people protests in hopes to oust president Hosni Mubarak. What is now a full fledged revolution in Egypt has turned violent with police and military trying to keep protests down and government planted pro-Mubarak supporters fighting anti-Mubarak protesters.
Mubarak has yet to meet protesters demands and leave the country thus Americans have been encouraged to evacuate and many study abroad programs such as AMIDEAST have decided to end the program for now. So about half of the students chose to come to Morocco and they arrived Wednesday afternoon and we were able to meet them.That night we had our first Intercultural Dialogue. Students from our group and Moroccan students get together to discuss topics of interested for a few hours about once a month. We decided on the topic of the internet, facebook, youtube, twitter, etc. The conversation proved quite interesting covering everything from privacy to popular youtube videos, from facebook stalking to dating and Islam.
Thursday was my first Arabic test and I totally aced it! Every night with my family this week we've been watching new coverage on Egypt. Friday came Insha'allah! After Arabic I went shopping with a new friend. We went to this store that we all call the second hand store although nothing is used just possibly taken from other stores?? Either way clothes are super cheap and I got some more cute clothes to supplement the frumpy clothes that I brought. For lunch we had a Cous Cous gathering at AMIDEAST to help welcome the new students. That night we all headed to Up Stairs again this time with almost our whole group and the new Egypt students. It was a fun, busy, crazy time and I finally made it home at midnight the latest I've come home since I've been here. I might noticed the slightest disproval of my host mother and I will be happy for the day when I can let myself in unnoticed with my own house key.
Safi, enough storytelling for now. Stay tuned to hear about our epic sleepover/lock-in at school on Super Bowl Sunday.
B'salama
Listen to your Mommy. Beware of kids with spoon(s) on their nose. Wonderful pictures and blogging.
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