Sept. 9th 2010

Welcome to my "home"!



Well, I share my room with a great young man I have not met yet. His name is Oliver! Marica and I are subletting a flat from Oliver's parents for a year. They are back in the states.
















I love my little room! It has Oliver's name on the door, a chalk board behind my headboard and a fun little table and chairs that I am using for my book shelf!


I love the colors, the light fixtures, the cute shaped windows

and I especially love the French doors in my room that open

out to a little deck where I dry my clothes!!

fourth part..

Just a few random shots.....

My little collection of shells from our beach walks....sea urchins, I beleive! Sitting on my window sill!




A sunset photo!




...and the local sheep in the parking lot! :)


...just another day in Casa! :)

Blessings,
Jill

part three of Wed. the 8th

Meet some of my adorable kiddos!!






We have Mariama! (She cracks me up all day!)







then we have Lila!














Next, meet
Zack and Asmine!


















Lastly, cute little
Amine!

Part two...

The first was the local cats eating fish heads!

Then on our way home one night we found a "mall" of sorts in our neighborhood.....
there are shots of me and the manikins and the store that had all the "plastic anything" you could want to buy.

One of them was of the day I got my first pay check....well, it's Africa, so something went wrong with the bank that day, so they paid us in dirhams in a brown envelope!! Oh well, it works!! :)

Lastly, Marcia and I celebrated with our first glass of wine since we arrived in Morocco! Quite a deal to buy a bottle of wine during Ramadan! :)

Sept. 8 - Wed - 2 more days of Ramadan!!

Ok......I'm going to send photos first....then send my writing....I'm having HUGE problems staying on-line lately. SO....I work for an hour at uploading photos, then type and then....internet goes down....


GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so, here are some photos!

Sept. 3 - Friday

Oh, I am sooooooooo happy it is Friday and we have the weekend to "regroup"!!! We made it through the first week. This week was three days because we started on Wed. Next week is four days because Ramadan ends on Friday of next week, so the parties will start on Friday!! Then the following week we will actually go all five days! .....a nice way to ease into the year!

We were all bushed at the end of this week! But we had a meeting at the end of the day with the new Middle School/ Temporary Elementary Principal. She is just arriving now because she fell last month and broke BOTH ankles...shattered one of them! Ouch!!

I'm bummed that I can't include photos tonight. I left the cord to hook my camera to the computer at school today....rats! I'm bummed because Marcia and I took some GREAT photos on our way home tonight. Marcia had heard we had an actual grocery store here in our little village (not just a hunut - a small store to get a few things....bread, milk, sodas...), so we drove around our little place here (Dar Bouzza) and looked for it. Well....we never found it if it exits, but we did see a lot of other very cool stuff. I'll put the photos on my blog tomorrow for you! I'm sure you'll get a kick out of them.

School went well again. I like my class. I miss my small class of 12 in Steamboat. Twelve is just such a wonderful number to be able to really have one-on-one time with each child all day long. I have 24 this year and it is hard to touch base with each one. The Middle School kids seem to be giving those teachers a hard time. Marcia (my roommate) is the one that got the art job I had applied for and she really has her hands full. First of all, she is just starting the elementary art program at the school. They have had Middle and High School, but nothing for 6th and down. They hired her and then sort of "forgot" that the class might need some art supplies....she started out with nothing and is slowly gathering a few. She is a real trooper! Also, she has the three yr. old class, through the 8th grade, plus one high school drawing class! That's 12 grades and 24 classes to prepare for......I'm thinking God was looking out for me by giving me 2nd grade!! :)

Speaking of Marcia, we are the only two living in our place. We like our little villa quite well and we are doing great together! We do most things together and enjoy a lot of the same things, so that is wonderful. She just got off Skype with her Dad a little bit ago.....he says hi to me when he calls too! It kind of makes me miss my Mom and Dad, but nice to know he is back home and thinking of us!!

Well, I'll hang it up for tonight and include photos tomorrow or Sunday for you. I'm meeting my co-teacher (Gail Shen) to work on lesson plans sometime this weekend and will get my camera cord then.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone! I LOVE hearing from you all...email, fb...however....soon we will get our phone hooked up and I will be able to call you that way too. Please know that I think of all of you often and miss you! xo Jill

Wed. - Sept. 1

I had a wonderful first day of teaching 2nd grade in Morocco!!! My kids are adorable and everything went pretty well!

Things I noticed today:

That parents (or nannies or drivers.....no sure who all of them were) come and take first day photos of their little ones just like we do in the states!! :)

That I panicked a bit when I couldn't get the attendance program on the computer to work right away!! (First time taking attendance that way!) But... another teacher came and helped me out!!

That my class thought it quite funny how I tried to pronounce their names!! I just laughed with them and did my best! :) Names are not like Bob and Sue....they are more like:
Yasmine, Nour Elhouda, Salaheddine, Mehdi, Yahia, Ghita, Fahd!!! :)

That walking in the "hall" is different than in the states.....we don't really have a hall in the whole building! The rooms all open to a covered walkway that is outside. When we turn to go around the side of the building we catch a wonderful breeze from the ocean!!

That they have wonderful lunches for the kids and teachers OR the teachers can order other things (pizza, hamburger, salads, fajitas......) The kids lunch today was roast beef, peas, bread, a cup of raw, shredded carrots, and apple and a bottle of water!! US schools....take notes....pretty healthy!!

That my class of 2nd graders was fine with me eating with them, but that another couple of teachers (4th and 7th graders) I talked with had students that asked a lot of questions about not eating/eating, fasting for Ramadan.... The rule is that children do not fast for Ramadan. Teenagers are encouraged to fast, but not made to do so. Girls having their periods are not expected to fast at that time, but to make up that time later....?? Tough thing for kids of any age to do and still go to school and stay awake to learn something!!

That the end of the day/pick up time is CRAZY!! They need a little work in this area.... They put the classes and teachers in this corral of sorts. Then the adults (some parents, mostly "drivers" or "chauffeurs") come to pick up some of them. Then some of them take a bus. When they get to the bus, the driver will tell them if they are to ride or not to ride.....then they come back and wait some more.....all a little crazy!

The end of the day COULD be a realllllly bad thing for me. The cafeteria people have cold sodas and huge home made goodies for sale every day at the end of the day. (BIG cookies, brownies and the like!!) If I would have had the money with me, I probably would have given in today....but....I had to walk up my two flight of steps to get money. By the time I got to my room I remembered Marcia and I walking the steps of our villa last night in place of a beach walk and thought to myself...."No, you don't need this goodie right now."!! :)

So, instead, I headed home and we went for a really long walk on the beach and we made a wonderful dinner of fresh tomatoes, fresh basil, mozzarella cheese, some oils and a pastry from the shop across the street AND a glass of red wine for dinner ( we bought this last night....QUITE a feat!! It's Ramadan, so that part of the grocery store is locked up. One has to ask them to unlock it, you give them your pass port, they take you into this dark room and you pick out what you want. Then they lock it up again and people give you funny looks all the way through the store! Marcia did all of this while I was trying to purchase some sharp knives for our kitchen!!.....bless her little heart! ) It tasted wonderful with our meal!!

NOW....I must go to bed. I'm EXHAUSTED!! :)