End of the School Year

Well apparently it has been a while since I updated this blog of mine.  It amazes me how time flies here in Morocco.  I have been in country now for over 15 ½ months, with only 11 ½ months until I finish my service.  Yikes!

After the taxi strike in April I returned to my site to finish up the semester at the middle school.  Thanks to a generous donation from the Church of the Holy Spirit Vacation Bible School program, I supplied the physical education department (and by physical education department, I mean the one part-time PE teacher) of the middle school with a dozen new soccer balls.  For kids who don’t often see new supplies and equipment come their way, it was a very exciting event.  Here are pictures of the kids playing with the balls.

My last lessons of the year revolved around trash education.  Although my community is very lucky to have a trash collection system in souk (a man in an open back pick-up comes around every Friday to collect trash from the old oil barrels placed throughout the community), trash awareness leaves much to be desired.  Before I decided to dedicate my last two weeks at the schools to trash, I consulted the commune, who is in charge of trash collection.  In doing so, I met a member of the commune who, 3 years ago, arranged a community-wide trash collection day to inaugurate the trash collection system.  He provided me with large trash bags and a place for the students to dispose of trash collected during my lessons.  The students were slightly horrified that I made them walk around town collecting trash, but had an overall good time, especially while learning how long it takes for different types of trash to decompose (or as I like to explain in tashelhit, how long it takes for the earth to eat the trash). 

 

The end of the school year coincided with the arrival of a new group of health volunteers to Peace Corps Morocco.  My region, Tiznit, is blessed with 3 new health volunteers, and 1 new environment volunteer.  Although it was very sad to say good-bye to some of my close friends who have now completed their service, meeting the new volunteers is so exciting!!  This weekend we are taking them to the beach at Sidi Ifni to enjoy a relaxing break away from their host families. 

 

The 1^st of May and 2^nd of May became two very important days for us girls down in Tiznit, Primero de Mayo, and Kentucky Derby!  I hosted a weekend at my house filled with margaritas, Mexican food, mint juleps and Derby Pie.  We sure know how to have fun out here in the country!