I've taken some pictures of my school and I'll write a little about it. Alif (American Language Institute in Fez) has classes in both English and Arabic. The English classes are at night and that's a much bigger program. The street fills with traffic as Moroccans come to take evening classes. The Arabic classes are during the day and I would estimate there are fewer than 50 students. We are at all levels. Classes are small. There are 5 students in my class: two nineteen-year-olds, one twenty-two year old, one twenty-six year old and me. Classes meet for four hours per day (two hours with each teacher) unless there are fewer than three students. Then, the number of class hours is reduced. Almost all the students are American. We had a Scottish guy living in the villa with us, but he only did a 3-week course, so he has gone home now. The school property is surrounded by a wall and there is always at least one guard at the entrance.
Inside the walls, there is the Alif Garden where students can study or eat lunch. There's a concession where I buy lunch every day. I alternate between tajine chicken with vegetables and tajine chicken with prunes. They also sell dishes of beans or lentils. Of course, everything comes with a basket of delicious Moroccan bread. Below you can see the garden with a group of my friends eating at the best table (most sun). Behind them on the left is the concession that sells the food.
And here is a picture of Karim and the ladies who cook. Karim takes our orders (in English, Arabic or French) and then delivers our food to us. None of us can figure out how he always remembers who orders what. The concession also sells: coffee (made in a very fancy expresso machine), tea with mint, fresh fruit juices and all sorts of tempting cakes. In the second picture, you can see Karim leaving the concession to bring a tajine to someone.
And, lastly, pictures of my class and my teachers. In the first picture, you can see Kestrel, Pierce and Nicole. Ozzie, our only guy, is absent. This is significant because Arabic uses a different word for you and different conjugation for whether you are talking to a girl or a boy. Ozzie hurt his ankle playing soccer. He lives in the medina. You have seen pictures of what the streets are like there in previous postings - extremely narrow and uneven. No car could possibly go down it and I can't imagine navigating those "streets" on crutches. So, he had to be brought home on a donkey. Unfortunately, no one has a photo of it.
This is one of my teachers, Abdelhafid. Note that he is wearing his winter coat in class. Although Abdelhafid lives in Ifrane, which is about an hour from Fez and is a ski resort (There is snow on the ground there now.) he says he is from the desert and likes the heat - not the cold. He has central heating in his house in Ifrane. Abelhafid is always happy and friendly and he is a natural teacher. He's also quite a world traveler. He has lived in the US (studied at JMU) and France.
And here is my other teacher, Sanaa. She's from Fez and says that people in Fez don't want heat in their homes (although she sometimes wears her coat when teaching, too.) Sanaa usually dresses especially nice on Fridays - often in a jelaba as you can see here. She reminds me a little of Mary Gibson - always nicely-dressed with lovely jewelery and very professional at all times.
And, lastly, pictures of my class and my teachers. In the first picture, you can see Kestrel, Pierce and Nicole. Ozzie, our only guy, is absent. This is significant because Arabic uses a different word for you and different conjugation for whether you are talking to a girl or a boy. Ozzie hurt his ankle playing soccer. He lives in the medina. You have seen pictures of what the streets are like there in previous postings - extremely narrow and uneven. No car could possibly go down it and I can't imagine navigating those "streets" on crutches. So, he had to be brought home on a donkey. Unfortunately, no one has a photo of it.
This is one of my teachers, Abdelhafid. Note that he is wearing his winter coat in class. Although Abdelhafid lives in Ifrane, which is about an hour from Fez and is a ski resort (There is snow on the ground there now.) he says he is from the desert and likes the heat - not the cold. He has central heating in his house in Ifrane. Abelhafid is always happy and friendly and he is a natural teacher. He's also quite a world traveler. He has lived in the US (studied at JMU) and France.
And here is my other teacher, Sanaa. She's from Fez and says that people in Fez don't want heat in their homes (although she sometimes wears her coat when teaching, too.) Sanaa usually dresses especially nice on Fridays - often in a jelaba as you can see here. She reminds me a little of Mary Gibson - always nicely-dressed with lovely jewelery and very professional at all times.
