The Climb

I realize that you probably all got sick of my Kili pics because of the many posts, but just in case you didn't get enough - check out this video. I put it together to show mountains and what climbing a mountain is like to use in Julie's class for her unit on Landforms. Please excuse the music choice - I figured I'd get the kids to pay attention if I used something by Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana.

Not Your Average Class Party

The End of the School Year for Elementary School is always an important time to celebrate academic achievement and reflect on a great year together as a class. We reminisce and kids make plans to see each other over the summer. At my old school in the States, we often did this by signing each other's yearbooks and bringing in chips and soda to share. Sometimes, we even got cupcakes.

That was public school; this is private school. When one of the students in the class has an awesome pool, you must spend an entire day at his house for the end of the year party. Also, when the parent hires jumping castles and blow up slides, the school's Reading Specialist has to attend if only to check it out. My dear friend and colleague Jen invited me along to this awesome bash. It was quite wonderful because the teachers didn't have much to chaperone - there were over 12 staff members (lifeguards, maids, nannies, chefs, etc.) around to keep an eye on the kids.
The trampolines were a real hit! Even I popped up, threw on a harness and managed a couple of backflips. Someday when I'm rich, I'm getting one of these for my backyard.

After a delightful breakfast spread and a lunch consisting of salad, lasagna, fried fish & calamari, and other assorted treats, the household staff laid out bowls of candy under these tents for kids to load up on as they ran around swimming, jumping, and otherwise frolicking around the giant yard.

The parents didn't expect teachers to enjoy the candy bowls, so they had fancy cookies and strawberry juice prepared for our table.

Not a bad send off to the end of the year. I don't know how I'll get used to the standard chips & soda potluck again.

Village Dining

Hiking in the Rif Mountains is a beautiful experience. In Chefchaouen, we hired a guide to take us to God's Bridge and then to lunch in a local village. This is the village where we ate our lunch.

The village was pretty small, so we set up for cooking our lunch outside the village mosque.

While our guide chopped up veggies for our vegetable tagine, we got to relax and take in the village sights. This adorable kiddo was walking around the village carrying a bag of laundry soap. We also listened as the village boys recited the Quran. They practice 6 days a week for the whole school day, with the goal of memorizing the whole book. That is the only education they receive in the village.

Our tagine was cooked in this part of the mosque, where the water is boiled for cleaning before prayer. Non-Muslims are not allowed in mosques (besides the Hassan II Mosque in Casa, which is open to tourists), but we were able to check on our lunch and pose for pics by the boiling water in this part of the mosque. Note our lunch on the propane tank on the right side of the photo.

This was the final product - it was delicious! We ate in Moroccan style, by using bread to dig in (with our right hands, of course) to the communal dish.

The Imam came out with mint tea for us and Ahmed poured the tea for us. We were happy and full when we left!