The whole point of me going to Morocco was to do some volunteer work. Amidst all of the traveling and having a ball, there was some actual work wedged in between.
Volunteer work is one of my passions. I don’t think I could function without it. I’ve spent most of the past few years giving up a bit of my time for others. It’s not meant to benefit me at all, but it always does in the end.
When I first signed up for childcare with IVHQ, I kind of assumed that I would be just watching kids and playing games. In a way…I kind of was. But what I wasn’t prepared for was teaching English to children that could only speak Arabic and couldn’t even read in their own language.
When we got to the school, we had a short orientation, and the owner of the school, Mama Anissa, told us that the kids knew their alphabet and then proceeded to tell us to get to work. We walked into the classroom, expecting to assist the teacher already in there, but she walked to the back of the class and never said another word.
This is Mama Anissa’s Garden, the school we worked in. Not much of a garden anymore, the street was just torn up right before we got there, and Mama Anissa wasn’t too happy about that. Said that she had lost some students because of it.
These are my students. They’re a rambunctious group, they are. But I grew to love them. In all honestly, I still don’t know most of their names (Arabic is hard!).
It was hard work, teaching these children. And I wish I had had more time to spend with them, trying to assert certain words and phrases into their repertoire, but I took what I could and made the most of it.
They did learn “Duck, Duck, Goose” and “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.”
And we taught them simple opposition words, like “Up!” and “Down!”
So not all was lost, right?
We also tried to reteach the alphabet.
And sometimes..when you lose all energy and control of the class, you just dump out crayons and let them go to town.
But at the end of the day, you feel like you accomplished at least a small something. I am so grateful for the opportunity to teach those kiddies. I will miss them all.
Mary Jane xx
