Whos got the right answer?
This old lady is just so inspiring! She comes everday
Samira handing out the text books
Samia doing her thing
Yes….. The meeting and subsequent implementation of the women’s literacy project has gone as well as I could have hopped for. 78 women attended the informational meeting! It was decided at the meeting that every Sunday the women that had never attended school would have class from 2-4p.m. and the women with roughly the equivalent of a second grade education would have class from 4-6p.m. each Sunday. I had to travel to Rabat and would not in the village the two weeks following the implementation meeting, but I felt that the teacher, Samira, would be able to start the classes without me just fine. Furthermore, I thought my absence might make the first few classes less bumpy for her: sometimes my presence makes people behave differently than they would if I were not there. I gave Samira the 1st and 2nd year teacher’s manuals and textbooks and got on the transit (an early ‘80’s big manual Mercedes van) to go down the mountain and start the long trip to Rabat.
I retuned from Rabat to find that Samira and the women had reorganized the classes. The amount of women that were completely illiterate and wanted to attend the classes was much larger then Samira and I had anticipated. We didn’t expect that so many of the older women (age 40+) in the village would be serious about learning to read and write. Originally, roughly 65 women and girls made up the 1st year group and only about 15 women made up the 2nd year class. The classes were reorganized so that the 1st year students would have class everyday. They reasoned that, with which I completely agree, it would be better to focus on getting the majority of the women caught up to the comprehension level of the 15 or so women ahead of the larger group. Once the larger group has covered the material in the 1st year textbooks the entire group of interested women can move on the 2nd year textbooks. Subsequently, the small group of women that would have comprised the 2nd year group will not have a literacy class available in the time being. Still, I only have one classroom and one Samira, and I think the solution that they came up with makes the most sense. I was really, truly encouraged to come back and find that they had reorganized the class schedule so that they were attending on a daily basis! Not to mention that there was such interest in the program: Samaria asked if it would be possible for me to get fifty more 1st year txt books from the Delegation of Education! I'll take that.
Also, and this has been the best part, the 50 women of all ages attending literacy class at the school everyday has created a positive buzz and excitement in the village. It’s something to talk about, it’s a new happing, it’s considered positive and funny, it’s been the porch talk and it’s definitely helped my popularity and clarified why I'm here.
As Samaria requested, I went to Ouarzazate to get fifty more 1st year textbooks. I had Peace Corps’ staff call the delegation of education to let them know I would be coming by to pick up the textbooks. When I got there the guy that gave me the books before (the same guy I mentioned in the previous blog posting) told me that they were completely out of 1st year and only had year two and above left. So, here I am, in this giant disorganized room full of textbooks, and now the men at the delegation are trying to give me books I didn’t want. I had already explained to them the women who needed the books had never been to school and required year one and I suspected they were pretending not to understand. So I called Samira and had her talk with the man: I knew she’d yell a little, which was going to be necessary. After I threw my flirty, yelling fit, miraculously, a second room was unlocked and a box of 50 1st year books was produced. The guy from the Delegation said that he had forgot there were more in that room or something, I didn't really listen; I knew he was lying and I had the books I needed. I decided it would be best to take a box of fifty 2nd and 3rd year books with me right then, while they were there in front of me.
I have attended the classes this week and I’m so happy to see how well it’s going. While the women have been meeting for three weeks now, this week was the first opportunity I have had to sit-in on the class on a regular basis. Prior to my visit, the group had been using 30 textbooks for the 65 women the class. I went Monday and helped Samira distribute the extra textbooks and observe. She’s doing an excellent job. I told Nadia that maybe God/Rabbi sent Samira to me/Ait Toumert. She does a great job with the women: she engages them and makes each take a turn answering, but she is patient and thorough. And she doesn’t put up with any nonsense from the clusters of giggly teengage girls. Her background and who she is make her the perfect person for this job.
Samira is educated and has taught women's literacy classes before (and it shows) in another village before marrying and moving to Ait Toumert. But she has lived here in the village for three years now. She is well liked, respected, part of the community, etc.... When I began planning the literacy program, I didn't know that Samira was living in the village. Last fall when I stared this project I approached a female teacher in the village and asked her if she would consider teaching the literacy classes. She gave me a bunch of run-around that eventually ended in her telling me that “mountain women can be difficult” and she didn't have time. Even though this teacher grew up in Kelaa, which is only a transit ride down the mountain, her attitude represents a type of classism among some Moroccans. Some think they're just more civilized. Really, I can't explain, but I hear it. People from cities that didn't grow up in the “bleed” as it’s called come up here or the middle of nowhere where there's women giving birth in barns, have a air of: let it be known, “I'm not from here, I'm not like these people, my family’s not from here, the government assigned me here and its not my first choice.” They feel compelled to explain this to me as though, they don't want to be judged as equal or grouped-in with these people in my foreigner mind.
It was after the things fell through with the teacher that Nadia informed me that there was a woman living in the village that “could do it”. I don't know why she didn't tell me that earlier. I'm sure she knew all along that Samira would be better suited and more willing to do it than the teacher. Besides being good at teaching the women, I can tell Samira really enjoys it. I don't get the impression that teaching the classes in anyway interrupting her life as a house wife, the house wife of a husband that lives in Spain at that. She's good at it and seems happy when she is teaching and certainly understands the need. I would imagine it is probably a nice and challenging change from the day-to-day. I'm just grateful for her.
This is why it works out wonderfully that Samira is from the village and considered so. Yes, she's educated and lived in cities before living in Ait Toumert, but she has lived here awhile now and her husband’s family who she lives with is from the village, she has her little girl, and does enough of the “women's work” to be considered “one of them”. Yet her professional handling of the class has really helped the way the project has been received by the women. That's what a good job she does. If there were no Samaria and I had to rely on a woman like the teacher I first spoke to, things might have fallen apart in that week I had to go to Rabat. I can just hear the explanation the women have would given me when I asked what happened. Why'd people stop going? - They’d say the teacher’s name, Ashia, hotly and then nosily spit on the ground. And that would have been all she wrote. Finding someone else that lived within walking distance that was capable of and willing to come teach women's literacy classes for free would have probably been impossible. After Samira and Ashia, there is only one other literate women in the village, and she doesn’t have the technical teaching experience Samira does or any teaching training for that matter and would struggle to handle the class the way someone with the confidence that comes from experience the way Samira does. So, with vary little help on my part the women put the literacy class together for themselves.
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