I’m on a Boat… Look at me!

I can’t believe 5 days have already passed! Had a great day at school teaching counting with beans!  I wanted to do something tactile where the students could practice shapes and counting. I bought from a vendor in the market in the Medina. They loved it and really focused on their counting and various formations. 

But when we started to cleanup and more of those beans began to drop and fall on the floor the cleanup madness began. There could be no bean left behind and all children were scrambling under the table to grab beans like a bunch of Hungry Hungry Hippos! Remember that game? There was no getting them under control again until every pea on the floor was found! 

After that we did some more number identification practice (using the latest set of flashcards I made), read a book, and played matching one last time which is a favorite of theirs. 

I’ve also had my best assortments of fruits at preschool this week. Yes, I was given both snack and lunch; I feel so honored!

Today I had no Darija language lessons! So I had lunch at home for the first time which was really good. Some fish balls in a red sauce! I need to find out what that is called.

After lunch my roommate and I decided to venture out for kayaking in the Bouregreg river. We took a nice walk through the souks and over to the shore where we took a small boat over the river for 2.5 Morrocco Dirhams (about 25¢). Because the weather was bad we didn’t do kayaking but after the weather cleared went with a sailor and guide that our local coordinator recommended. The river was beautiful; many of the landmarks of Rabat like the Medina, the newly built theater, the under construction bullet building (need to get the name) and the Tour (tower in French) Hassan can be seen from the river. 

And thank goodness for my roommate! She took all the photos while we sailed and always knows which way to turn. Literally…  she says things like “Oh it’s the one with arches where the cats sleep in the window,” like someone who grew up in the Medina! Meanwhile I’m there thinking “door number one, number two.. or door number three? “ 🤔 and contemplating how far I should go before whipping out Google Maps. 😬

We wrapped up the evening with dinner at home which was delicious! Beets were on the menu and these pastries, which I loved. 

And now I have an Arabic keyboard on my phone because our hostess joined us and Google Translate was my trusted aide again! We all had a nice conversation. I’m beginning to see a huge dependency issue here… with me on Google. It doesn’t really go both ways, so I don’t know how I feel about that. Anyway …

سلام ليلة سعيدة