frustrations and hopes

24 October 2008
Thoughts on a Macalester magazine… today, I looked out my front door and saw some ominous looking clouds, moving our way fast. I got dressed in a hurry, because I wanted to make it to the post office: maybe the package from home had arrived! The rain clouds were moving in quickly, but I got to the post office and back just as the first drops of rain began to fall. With a package!! In it my mother had thoughtfully supplied newspapers and magazines to read. One with the headline: “DOW falls 778.something points on the delay of the relief package.” Other similarly dire headlines accompany… the other newpapers were from tamurtinu (my land/place/earth/floor), Mount Horeb, which instead sport headlines about building referendums and such. And then there was the Macalester College magazine, most of which is devoted to pages and pages recognizing the many, many folks who donated money to the school in recent times. Bravo-alik! (means what it sounds like: bravo or good job) The rest of the magazine was stories about faculty, alumni and current students. Touting their successes and how Macalester helped them get there. Some people went on to work for Morgan Stanley, or become a professor at another esteemed college. And then there are the current students. So full of promise, excited about life and passionate about what they are studying! That is why I loved Macalester, that attitude. A mentor of mine once said she loved working with Mac students because “You are going to change the world!” Takes some living up to! Not that I ever minded a challenge, though. J There is truth in what she said. Some examples: one of my fellow alumni is Kofi Annan. One of my good friends from Mac is going to be a doctor, another already has her Masters degree and is out there traveling the world and chasing down job experience so that she can use said Masters degree, others are scientists, teachers in hard places, after school volunteers in the city… suffice it to say, looking around me and seeing the company I’m keeping, it encourages a little introspection.
Am I doing good where I’m at? Is this what I wanted it to be, am I satisfied that I am using my time well? In other words, am I “living up to it?” Well, I don’t know if I can answer that last question with certainty—time will tell—but I am satisfied that this, living in Morocco, and trying to be a little catalyst in a little town in the most overlooked region in northern Morocco, is well worth my time, my effort. So many of the women I talk to don’t know how to read or write, and not because there aren’t schools. Most were kept home by their parents. Parents who sent their boys (or, at least, most of their boys) to school, where they could learn and do some good, while keeping their girls at home. Where they are safe (from what? Boys, maybe), where they are needed (yes), where they belong (…), and where they will live their lives (most likely true). And now, their husbands tell them, “no, no I cannot spare you for an hour or two to go and learn to read and write. You must make my tea and my dinner and take care of the children and the animals and clean the house and the clothes and keep us all alive and healthy!” And maybe they tell themselves the same thing, and put their desire to learn aside in the pursuit of raising good, healthy children. Which is honorable. What is more honorable is that they are not often bitter about this… it is also sad!
I hope to help people here, all people, to see the value in education! In the basics, so that knowledge of healthcare and nutrition and changes in laws (like marriage laws) spreads and works its good work. And even more, so that people understand what is going on in the world beyond what the TV tells them. And even more, so that the people of this village understand the multiplicity of value that a forest holds. Not just firewood, not just fruit and nuts, not just shade, not just beauty. No! Erosion control, flood mitigation, the slowing of desertification—in other words, safety and livelihood security! (Would that I knew all of THOSE words in Tashelheit…) In a village that has claimed the only semi-flat ground in the middle of a treeless, steep slope, anything that keeps the flashfloods at bay and the soil on the ground should be highly valued. Education! How important! Not memorization, but knowledge integrated and made one’s own. And applied. I guess that’s what I’m trying to do here. Apply what I learned at “dear, old Macalester.” Wish us luck, say a prayer; we shall se what we can do with these rocky slopes!