Writing Home Goes to the Rif

Jim and I were out of the country for six weeks this summer –six weeks!  We helped build a new home in North Africa, enjoyed sweet fellowship with the underground church there, strolled through streets of ancient cities, ate with our fingers, rode on nine airplanes, one high-speed train, four tour boats, a sketchy taxi or two, and countless subways.  We also witnessed a refugee landing on a sandy Mediterranean beach and, for the last two weeks, taught science to village kids in the Rif Mountains.  Here are a few snippets from my journal, as Writing Home went to the Rif:

July 11

Four days of camp accomplished – yay!  We have between 36-42 kids each day, but not always the same ones.  They range in age from little four-year-old Imed to three older girls, who are probably 16 or 17.  The most difficult part for us has been learning names, and I still don’t feel like I have more than half of them down.  Boys are easier, though, as we have seven Mohammeds.  Today they were all in the same group, so I just looked at the boys table and said, “Mohammed!”

Those microscopes that I was so thrilled to carry 6,000 miles with me have been problematic as there was no electricity on the first day, and too much electricity on the second day and the bulbs popped. However, we pressed on and prayed, and today were able to use them by rigging flashlights to shine through the staging.  Success!  Winging things here is decidedly more difficult than winging them at home.

July 12

The drive to the village takes about 20 minutes, and most of that is up, up, up the mountain along a dirt road.  This morning I passed one slow truck, a tractor, two kids on a donkey, and two more itty-bitty ones herding the family sheep down the hillside.  Melodie cautioned us to drive very slowly when passing houses and people, as the dust is nasty and we want to foster good relationships.  Therefore, it’s a pretty, leisurely, bumpy, beautiful drive each morning.  After we arrive, we five meet for prayer together before heading out to the classrooms for prep, and Melodie goes on her bus run to gather campers from another village.

Jim starts our sessions with explanations about biology, the food chain, photosynthesis and stuff like that…in English.  He’s getting good at charades and drawing marine critters on the white board!  The first day we talked about “living” and “non-living” for biology, and tomorrow we’re moving on to electricity (of which there may be none).

We have 40 minutes with each group, then we five run up to the house for a water/snack break while Melody entertains everybody for 10 minutes.  Since this month is Ramadan, we are careful to not eat or drink in front of the kids, whose families are fasting during the day.  Think about not eating or drinking anything from sunrise to sunset, in the heat and the dust, all month – and still carrying on with stuff that has to be done during the day – like harvesting your wheat and almonds.  A friend of ours calls this “cruel”, and I agree.

July 15

There are significant differences between learning styles here and at home.  Mostly I think this has to do with these being accustomed to doing what they’re told to do, instead of exploring on their own.  Some look through a microscope once and stop, thinking they’ve done what I asked them to do, what else is there?  A few would keep looking and wonder about the specimen, especially Jim’s live brine shrimp, which were a big hit.  Of course, some thought it was cool to just twist the knobs, without realizing they were there to adjust the focus.  How do you explain this to a kid who doesn’t speak your language?  I still don’t know.

Communication is a major issue at camp.  Simple commands like “listen!” and “sit!” go mostly unheeded because nobody understands me.  Arrrrgh!  My annual nightmare has come true!  My class is out of control and there is nothing I can do about it!  Plus, we all know that we’re being disparaged once in a while –sneers, raised eyebrows, and clandestine whispers are universal signs of trash talkin’ punks.

The experiments that I brought for us to do have been largely too advanced for everybody.  We’ve been simplifying everything — mostly because of the language issue, but also because nobody knows how to share, or to take turns. There is a lot of slapping and hitting between siblings:  an older sibling will slap and yell at a younger one to make him do the right thing.  We do frequently admonish — “be nice!”  Slapping is how parents discipline their children in this culture, so it is no wonder that they do the same to each other.

Earlier this week was “static electricity” and after the fiasco with the microscopes, I was thinking this would be a cinch.  How could rubbing a balloon on your hair NOT produce enough static to pick up shards of aluminum foil off a table? However, when the humidity is high, static electricity is difficult to generate – and we were on the brink of a thunderstorm.  Sheesh.   Thankfully, kid hair was a lot dryer than mine was, so it all came out all right in the end and we got  “ooohs” and “awwwws”.   Later we all realized that this particular activity looks like magic – rub a balloon on your hair, hold it over a table of aluminum foil scraps and bam! they leap through the air to your balloon!  Hard to explain that this was science…but it was.

August 9

Now we’re home, preparing to update our resumes to include “international science teachers” and preparing for the start of Writing Home classes in September!