I Hate Chalkboards, But I Used One To Do Something Cool.

The classrooms in Tahnaoute all have chalkboards. In fact, all of my fellow Fulbrighters have reported that they also have chalkboards in their classrooms. This could be a Morocco-wide phenomenon.

I hate chalkboards. They always look dirty. The chalk dust gets all over my hands and dries them out. At the end of class I will inevitably have chalk all over my hips, thighs, knees, backside, or all of the above.

But, I was able to do something cool with a chalkboard last week. I wrote in Arabic.

The students didn't understand the English word "perseverance" in their textbooks, so I wrote the Arabic equivalent on the board.

I wish I could say that I figured out the Arabic equivalent all by myself. Then I would be a linguistic rock star. However, the truth is that Brahim wrote it down for me, and I simply copied it on the board.

For the record, I want to state that I recognized all of the letters, and was able to write them correctly on the first try. The students applauded. I beamed.

I feel quite proud of myself. :)

Learning to Write in Arabic- Part 2

On November 6th we went to this bookstore. It's a small shop with a window. You tell the man what you want, and he gives it to you through the window. Kind of like a walk up bookstore.

The bookstore sells the textbooks used in the Moroccan school system (they are standardized throughout the country). There are probably other books in the bookstore, I just didn't recognize them (because 1. the titles were written in Arabic and 2. I didn't have my contacts in).

I bought some things to help me learn to write in Arabic.

This is a basic Arabic alphabet book. It takes each Arabic character and shows pictures of words that begin with that character. There are dotted examples of the character to trace.

Written Arabic is kind of like cursive English: there are different ways to write each letter depending on what it connects to. For each character I have to learn the beginning, middle, and end character, in addition to the character as it looks when it stands alone. Yikes!

This is the second book I bought.

It is similar to the first one without all of the pictures. Brahim calls it my Grade B book (the first book he calls my Kindergarten book).

I'm hoping to be able to learn the letters well enough that I can start sounding out words by myself. Right now written Arabic only looks like swirls and curlies to me. That can be problematic in a number of situations, trying to decide which bathroom to use among them.

Wish me luck as I try to eradicate my Arabic illiteracy! :)

Learning to Write in Arabic

This is my name in Arabic. I wrote it myself.

Note to readers: Arabic is read from right to left!

This is Steve's name in Arabic. There is no 'v' sound in Arabic, so I had to settle for an 'f' sound. Steef...Steef...Steef. I like it.

As you can see, It took a lot of practice before I was able to write Steve's name. Even after all my practice, my Arabic penmanship is not very good. Although, Brahim tells me it's better than my English penmanship. :)

This is my first name written in calligraphy. It was done by Brahim's brother Achmed.

These are some of Achmed's sketches of my name in different versions of Arabic calligraphy. Quick sketches. Wow.

Moroccan Arabic- Lesson 1

Brahim tells me that I must learn Moroccan Arabic from scratch. I only have six weeks, but I'm going to try to learn as much as possible (hopefully I won't forget all of the Inupiaq I've learned).

Here's a start:

no = la (short a, like in laugh)

yes = eeyah (long e, uh)

thank you = shukran (shook-ran)

Khadija was delighted when I thanked her for dinner using shukran. That was nice encouragement. ")

Why? Why, why, why, why?

I’m the only American Fulbright teacher in the Moroccan program that doesn’t speak French. The Moroccan teachers speak at least three languages. Raise your hand if you think that occasionally Angie feels a little bit foolish. (Insert me raising my hand here.)

I need to learn another language! Every time I travel I think that. One of the biggest regrets of my life so far is that I only speak English. I took two years of Spanish in high school. . I was really successful at first, but then I didn’t understand. I stopped. I only wanted the credits so I could get into college. What a lame reason! Getting into college was important, but what about the greater reason? What about being a citizen of the world? What about being able to communicate with people across the world?

What was I thinking? Sheesh.

I’ve done a little better this year as I’ve been working to learn Inupiaq. I need to do even more.

Hey all you kids out there! Don’t be like me! Learn another language!