Schweeya

     Hi. So it’s been awhile. How are you? It’s hard sometimes to remember to write when things feel so normal and commonplace. It’s a blessing and a curse I suppose to be able to adapt so easily. Maybe the excitement/exoticism is gone or maybe I just deal well with change. Either way, we are happy and content here. Life is good.

    We have been here a little over seven weeks and a lot has happened. We’ve settled in, been wined and dined, got a good feel for our surroundings, ordered a lot of delivery, bought some necessities, seen a bit of live music, ridden in a lot of taxis that try to rip us off, played the daily game of frogger in the streets, enjoyed the markets, learned how to use a French washing machine, perfected very little French, made new friends, taught three weeks of school, vacationed in Spain, and seen very little outside of Casablanca.

School so far has been pretty chaotic, fun, funny, challenging, and ridiculous. Don’t be fooled though I’m having a great time. My students are for the most part under the level they should be, while mastering talking, shouting, name calling, moving around, distracting, and disarray. Nice though to be at a place where students ask questions and want to participate. I definitely have my work cut out for me.

    I’m teaching 6^th grade math and science, which is split in to two classes of 15 students each, and also teaching 8^th grade math to 26 students. Ivy is teaching 3^rd grade to a room of 14. The elementary teachers def seem to have more work and responsibility. The staff at the school is great and for the most part very helpful. The administration has our back and is pretty damn supportive, so that’s awesome. The apartment building we live in is full of teachers that we enjoy being around, so socializing is not an issue. We should be moving into a brand new amazing huge school, a bit out of town, sometime in the next semester of school. More school stories to come.

    Lastly, Ivy and I just returned from a week in Spain with 3 other couples from the school. It was amazing. School was off for a week because of the Eid Al Adha, which is maybe comparative to our Thanksgiving. Lots of sheep and goats sacrificed to honor the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his promised son, before God then intervened to provide Abraham with a lamb to sacrifice instead. A good time to explore countries around Morocco we were told. So Wednesday after school we took transport to the capital city of Rabat, where we then took a quick hop on to Madrid. About an hour and a half flight. We spent a day around Madrid enjoying the city and the Renia Sofia museum before taking a 5 hour bus ride to Granada. Granada was incredible. Such a cool feel and so much to see and do. Granada has a long Moorish history so there was a lot of Moroccan/Arabic influence on a lot of the city. We stayed in a part of town that was full of Moroccan restaurants, hookah places, and Moroccan shops. The Alhambra is a huge castle/palace area that was built in the 7^th and 11^th centuries atop of a hill overlooking the city. Really cool. From there we took a bus to Nerja on the Mediterranean coast. It was a very relaxing and odd end to our vacation with its Truman Show vibes and over 60s vacationing crowd. Nice beaches and good eats. We Airbnb’ed it the whole vacation and I was very happy with our accommodations. 

Week four of school begins tomorrow!