Ever since we got back from Post Pre-Service Training, I've been trying to set a personal and professional goal for myself each week. This week's personal goal was to work on the blog. After all, getting this blog turned into a book/movie a la Julie and Julia is one of my potential roads to fame following the Peace Corps. Theoretically, my life in Morocco should be more interesting than stories about a woman learning how to dress a chicken and what-not, so I feel fairly confident that this blog will eventually be somehow transformed into a bestseller. Anyway, I bring up this whole blog thing so that you'll notice that I've added a list of things you can send me. I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life, but I'm sure sending things to a lonely, bored Peace Corps Volunteer is good karma. And before you complain that I haven't given you my address, it's on Facebook. Or you could just ask me. I'm online like all the time.
Anyhoo, on to an actual story. Today is International Women's Day, and though my plans to do a larger event for the day fell through (don't ask), I resolved that I would make today's English lesson be about IWD. As I so often do here, I walked in there thinking everything would be easy and people would be excited about whatever I'm talking about just because I'm excited about. Unfortunately, my English class is comprised of solely 15-year-old boys - perhaps the demographic group least likely to care about discussing International Women's Day. Getting them to read the short paragraph I had written was like pulling teeth. During a particularly frustrating 10 minutes, they pretended to be thoroughly confused by words which are cognates in French. "Yes, boys, the English word 'access' is the same as the French word 'acces,' 'international' in English is 'international' in French, etc." And yet I consider today's class a success. While I doubt the boys will remember much of what we talked about today, they are, at least, aware that today is some sort of holiday for women. And what's more, we made it through a whole hour of class with no one making strange body sounds, which is a rare accomplishment. As they say here in Morocco, "chwiya b chwiya" (little by little).
I've never been good at wrapping up blog posts with some great philosophical statement (something I need to work on before I get my book deal.....) But I leave you with this thought today: I ate SO MANY French fries today, because I'm a woman and today is my holiday and I couldn't think of any other way to celebrate. And yeah, it was kinda a lame way to celebrate something, but it was also kinda an awesome lunch. I have no regrets.
Anyhoo, on to an actual story. Today is International Women's Day, and though my plans to do a larger event for the day fell through (don't ask), I resolved that I would make today's English lesson be about IWD. As I so often do here, I walked in there thinking everything would be easy and people would be excited about whatever I'm talking about just because I'm excited about. Unfortunately, my English class is comprised of solely 15-year-old boys - perhaps the demographic group least likely to care about discussing International Women's Day. Getting them to read the short paragraph I had written was like pulling teeth. During a particularly frustrating 10 minutes, they pretended to be thoroughly confused by words which are cognates in French. "Yes, boys, the English word 'access' is the same as the French word 'acces,' 'international' in English is 'international' in French, etc." And yet I consider today's class a success. While I doubt the boys will remember much of what we talked about today, they are, at least, aware that today is some sort of holiday for women. And what's more, we made it through a whole hour of class with no one making strange body sounds, which is a rare accomplishment. As they say here in Morocco, "chwiya b chwiya" (little by little).
I've never been good at wrapping up blog posts with some great philosophical statement (something I need to work on before I get my book deal.....) But I leave you with this thought today: I ate SO MANY French fries today, because I'm a woman and today is my holiday and I couldn't think of any other way to celebrate. And yeah, it was kinda a lame way to celebrate something, but it was also kinda an awesome lunch. I have no regrets.
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