Ramblings, some finds, and a little bit of home

I have been away this past week, working at an english immersion spring camp down on the coast, just a wee bit south of Casablanca. The experience was amazing and one that I look forward to experiencing again during summer camps. The kids are awesome and it was fascinating to see how they bonded after just one week together. The last day was filled with tears, hugs, and exasperated goodbyes even though they were all returning to houses withing a 15 kilometer radius from one another. Perhaps its my hardened, individualized American exterior, but I was awestruck that kids would show this much emotion after just one week. However, it does highlight the more familial based society here. By the end of the camp everybody thought of our group, quite literally, as one big happy family. America has the Brady Bunch, but that is nothing compared to the familial society here.

As I said, camp was amazing; however, I too felt my pangs of homesickness. About halfway through camp I experienced a huge desire to go back to my town, see my kids, hang out in my coffee shop, and walk around the valley. It was the first time I really felt like this place was my home. I was missing it like a desert misses the rain or a dessert misses the cherry on top. And now that I am back it feels great. I'm getting back into the swing of things and have a newfound desire to make english lessons fun after having spent some time creating activities at the camp. Additionally, I may have just found my grail, if you will.

Before I explain what I literally stumbled into I need to tell you about the Peace Corps YD set up in Morocco. Each volunteer is assigned to a specific dar chebab. They go to that dar chebab, teach english and then involve themselves in other youth development projects through different associations that work at the dar chebab. Unfortunatelyt, my dar chebab is small. I have been pinned into the corner of only teaching english on the very valid point that there is not any space to do other activities. Conseauently, because there is no space outside associations do not come into the dar chebab and do activities with kids. This has made it difficult for me to do anything with the youth besides teaching english.

Last night I was rambling around town. I had no real intention of doing anything other than ending at the cafe for a nightcap of warm milk and louisa. On my walk I ran into a bunch of people I know and started talking to them. They asked me questions about what I am specifically doing here and what I want to do here. I told them I was teaching english but interested in doing more youth development oriented activities. It turns out that these folks are all part of an association that actually does work. Most recently they have bought and delivered goats to the poorer people in the countryside in the hopes of creating a goat cheese cooperative. However, they are also interested in forming some projects for youth. They see that youth spend too much time on chat and not enough time working their minds in other areas. I was invited to their association meeting, talked about goats, and then discussed development in general.

To me this feels like a huge breakthrough. I finally have some idea of the specific associations in my town and know who to talk to if I want to initiate a project. Also, I've been invited to all of the future meetings of the association and a fieldtrip to see the goats in the countryside. They want me to look at their project and tell them any ideas I have. I don't know anything about goats, but who knows, it will definitely be fun to check out. Additionally, building good and strong connections with this group of people now will make it easier to work with them in the future on possible youth projects. It was a great night. I never made it to the cafe, but the stimulating conversation on development, goats, and some of the problems of this area certainly were better than any warm cup of milk I've ever had.

Peace