I'm a teacher!

I have survived my first 3 classes as an English teacher! I am exhausted, but I had a blast. This is much more fun than writing Java programs. It is incredibly hectic at the beginning, since you get less than 24 hours to plan your first classes and every teacher is clamoring for their syllabus, books, worksheets, videos, CDs, and photocopies at the same time. But the fact that all these resources are available does make the lesson planning much easier. My first day, Friday, was my marathon day - I teach for 6 hours in a row. It was a bit nerve-wracking and I didn't sleep too much the night before, but I went in feeling prepared which helped a lot. And I brought plenty of snacks. Otherwise I teach 3 hours a day, and am off Sunday and Monday, so I have 3 more new classes to meet with this week. So far my students are great, mostly high school age, very interested in English and why I came to Morocco. I have intermediate and advanced levels only which is nice. The biggest challenge was having a blind student in my advanced class, which the administration had not bothered to warn me about. This requires a lot of extra effort, for students and teacher alike, since all writing or reading exercises need to be dictated or read aloud. I have asked the director for some guidelines as to what services I'm expected to provide in this case.

In other news, Molly and I have decided to take the apartment in Oudaya! We meet with the owner today to get the keys, but probably won't move till next weekend, since we want to prolong our stay with the family. Our new apt has an open courtyard in the middle, so when it rains, it will rain inside too! This could be a bit tough in winter but the charm compensates for it. There will be an old lady living below us who speaks only Arabic and is interested in meeting us and even giving us some cooking lessons! This is a big plus for us since our main goal is to spend time with Moroccans and learn the language. There are tons of other foreigners (especially Italian) in the neighborhood who speak French or English, in case we need a break.

The latest on Balia is that she spends the days tied up, which is sad but still better than getting hit by a car. At least at night she gets to run around when the guard arrives for his night shift. She seems to like him a lot so I think he treats her well. I took her for a walk with Billy yesterday and we had an unfortunate run-in with a notorious dog in the neighborhood whose owner lets him roam the streets even though he is quite aggressive (a Doberman mix, I think). Well he and Billy don't get along and before I could turn back to avoid him, he and Billy got in a big fight. Some men on the street helped me separate them, but man, that dog tried to bite Billy's ear off. Luckily he had no injuries, but Nazha said he has been bitten by that dog before.

I came home the other night and spotted something wonderful in the garden. No, not a gnome, but almost as good: a hedgehog! I found out the next day that Naguib, the dad, had actually purchased a male/female pair for the garden. He and Nazha are very enamored with them, despite the fact that last time they had hedgehogs, they slit their throats and used the blood as an acne medicine (I wish I were joking). But she assured me that this time they would keep them as pets. They have been crawling into the house as well and leaving droppings, so hopefully they don't wear out their welcome. Another reason Molly and I are keen to stay for a week is that it's fun to be on hedgehog alert each night! If we look down from the terrace, we often see them scurrying around the patio, and even hear them munching grass.

I added a bunch more photos to the Picasa album so check it out.