Sunday 2 October 2011

Kids, carpets and Jedis

Here's to another week done and dusted, they seem to be flying by. 25 working days until our five day weekend. Yes, I am back to checking off the days. I had forgotten just how quick the weeks pass when working, especially in a job as varied as teaching. No two days are ever the same and kids, for all their annoying habits, always manage to do something entertaining. Or rewarding. Or stupid for that matter. Never a dull day.
Last week we had Open House. This is where the parents come to the classroom and you present to them your aims and expectations, plans for the semester and rules. It is always stressful and it amazes me how much fear I get at the thought of standing and addressing a room full of adults. Give me kids any day. They are far less likely to judge. All in all the evening went well. The parents were very friendly and seemed happy with the way things have been going. However one interaction reminded me of that old saying 'I'll believe half the things your child says about his home life if you belief half the things he says about what happens in school'. As with many other places in the world now, it seems that many parents will always take the word of their child over the teacher as their child would never do wrong.

The kids in my class are reasonably good to be fair. I now have ten girls and four boys which makes a huge difference to the classroom. After learning classroom management the hard way teaching large classes of all boys in Thailand, my time in Australia filled me with all these positive ideas about creating a warm and supportive classroom environment that would gently persuade children to behave appropriately. I felt that my days of being a drill sergeant were behind me, replaced by a more forgiving, patient and nurturing teacher. Sadly, as most of the elementary teachers have found, many of the students behave as if they receive little, if any discipline at home and have perfected the art of tuning out all instructions and requests of change from the teacher. Over the last few weeks I have found my inner drill sergeant reappearing. To be fair, this mix of firm but fair has seemed to have worked better than the gentle nurturing did. Now the class are able to behave and we can do all sorts of fun stuff. We have lessons outside, done hands on (and feet on) Science investigations and even made pictures you can feel by painting with sand. No they don't run wild I can plan cool stuff to do. 


 
It dawned on me recently that we are not getting out much. We are working 50 hours a week at the moment and have just had our second 6 day week in a row. We make it into town, to the marche, or to the Azrou at the weekends, but Monday to Friday afternoon we don't even leave the compound. We walk the 50 metres between school and home and that is it. I have never been in this kind of cloistered environment before. We are about two kilometres from the nearest shops and restaurants, and at the end of the day this seems a long way without your own transport. We buy all we need at the weekend and if we run out then we do without. This is a lot easier now we have a water filter and are not having to cart 5 litre bottles around. It's strange that we're not really getting cabin fever. The surroundings are beautiful and my favourite view is the one from my classroom, so the Saturdays in school aren't too much of a hardship. It's only when we go into town on Friday evening or for morning coffee in the square on Saturday or Sunday that we appreciate how nice it is to be out. Now the evenings are getting shorter and there is a crispness in the air going into town is even more enjoyable. The down-town area is unlike any other we have seen in Morocco so far. The central area is immaculate with masses of flowers, lawns that have spotlights shining through sprinklers each evening and enough artfully placed lighting to light from here to Fes if needed. In the mornings the cafés are the perfect place to kill an hour or two with fresh bread, pastries, great coffee and crisp sunny skies. Sitting there it always amazes me how many elderly western tour groups pass through. Morocco never struck me as a place to see coach loads of OAP's. 
 




















Last week we were lucky enough to have our first real Moroccan carpet buying experience. The neighbouring town of Azrou is famous for it's Berber carpets woven by women from the fleece of their own sheep. Down one of the narrow back alleys we were taken to a shop by our friends Sarah and Terry who had bought from there already. Walking down the dark narrow hallway, you enter a cavernous and ancient looking set of rooms that are piled up to 10 ft high with carpets. These vary from the antique handmade to the modern mass produced. The guy who showed us around had good English and was very patient with us. After studiously avoiding all but the briefest of glance in the direction of carpet shops up until now for fear of getting dragged into bargaining for things we didn't want, it was a bit overwhelming and hard to know where to start. We went into one of the small back rooms with carpets around every wall. After all the tales of wily salesmen we were a bit cautious when telling him what we were looking for. He was very easy going and quickly started pulling things out for us to look at. It didn't take us long to go from timid and restrained to pulling random stuff out from the bottom of piles every time his back was turned. By the time he came back with the obligatory mint tea, we had a pile of rugs about a foot high in front of us and Nick and Terry were wearing Jedi capes. The guy was really informative, telling us about the regions each carpet came from and showing us the 'signatures' that marked them as antique and expensive (usually cigarette burns or sun bleaching). Unfortunately most of the things we really liked were antique and more expensive. We have no interest in the age of it and quite frankly feel that if it has holes in it we should be getting a discount. Sadly most of those carpets aren't made any more and can't be bought cheaply. We left with a cheaper option. And a 6ft Jedi cape for Nick. Because you never know when you just might need one 
 
 

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