THE CBT

CBT stand for Community Based Training... and that is what Im engulfed in currently. This consists of 5 hours of language in the morning and then community activities in the afternoon. For only having 3 language lessons we have already covered a lot of ground. Past, present, and future verbs. Infinitives and imperatives as well. Our noun database is growing exponentially with each day. We also have a good grasp of personal pronouns and adjectives. Its great though because the language classes in the morning are always comlemented by talking to the host family in the afternoon and at night. Despite the long dinner conversations, television is also big here. During dinner we will watch candid camera, soccer, sitcoms, or the quran.... there are whole channels devoted solely to the reading of the quran.

In the afternoons we have visited the gendarmes, got lost in the town, and gone to the cyber cafe. Im in a small village near fez and am having an amazing experience. The people here are so welcoming and accomodating. For example, as you may know it is ramadan. During this holiday muslims fast during the day and eat at night. I myself have been fasting the past couple days and it is pretty difficult. However, when we first arrived in the town it was impossible to fast. Everyone was offering us food at all hours of the day. In fact my first host family practically forced me to eat before they broke the fast. While I was eating they sat around and watched repeating the word kul, kul, which means EAT. This was one of the first words I learned here as it is probably the most used. After having experienced fasting, I do not think I would have the will power to watch somebody else eat. I suppose they were just very excited to have a new face in there house.

We are not quite sure what we will actually be doing here. The dar chebab in this town, according to the gendarme, is closed. So our first task might be to open it and draw people to it with a series of events: sport, theater, english classes, etc. We are meeting with the person who runs the dar chebab on Monday so I think we will have a better idea what kind of work we will be doing after that meeting. However, it appears that some members of the community are aware or our presence. On my walk to the language session this morning I met a local who is probably around my age. His english was excellent. He apparently knew what I was doing. He told me, out of the blue, that he was excited I would be teaching english at the dar chebab. He works as a mason in town and his favorite language is english. He looks like he could be a great asset to the dar chebab and someone who could teach english in the future, in shaallah. And so it appears we have at least one task ahead of us.

Currently, Im most excited for the end of Ramadan. Not because the fasting will end, although this will be a huge perk, but because Im going into the old medinat in Fez for the Eid el Fitr on either Sunday or Monday. Since we not yet sure when Ramadan will end, as it is based on the phases of the moon, the eid could fall on either day. My host family is taking me along with them for the huge feast and to meet the rest of the extended family. If their family is anything like mine this is bound to be an interesting, exciting, facinating, and wild experience. Anyway, I will try to update my blog after that with some pictures and hopefully funny, but most likely embarrasing, anecdotes.