Sunday, April 27, 2008

East or West Home is Best.




Today is Sunday April 27, 2008. Everyone in Kent State University ILEP group have their eyes riveted on the calendar these days as we count down to the trip back home. I have noticed that everyone is so beyond homesick, tense, and impatient. The days, however, are obstinate and are slow-paced and add to the mountain of homework we have. We have papers to submit, a portfolio to complete, reports to write, posters to make, lesson plans to prepare, presentations to give, and shopping to do to get ready for the trip back home.
It is strange how people even refuse to go out to cultural events. They prefer staying in their rooms, do their assignments, eat, and go to sleep. I enjoy learning about this American diverse culture though I want to go home like I never wanted to go home before.
Before coming to Ohio last January, I had known, from experience, I would be amazed for some time then I would start to get homesick and upset. From previous experience also, I know that once back home I will experience Reverse Culture Shock after the fist few days. I know I will miss many things I am used to and many people I met here. I will miss order, punctuality, smoking-free environment, taking many pictures, buritos at Chipotle restaurant, Jeorge Carlin and a bunch of other stand up comedians…I will be leaving my new home behind, the friends I made, my new family (Linda, Jennifer, and Rose and others), nice and helpful professors; and there is a good chance that I will never see them again. The thought of it makes my heart ache. I am a very emotional person, especially over people I love and respect.
I think I have shown enough remarkable fortitude for the last four months but this is too much for me. I want to go home and I am excited to go and I am looking forward to it because I miss my wife and kids more than anything else. They are part of me and I am part of them.
I have survived the chilly weather, the food, the culture shock, and everything that has been thrown on me and I want to go home. I enjoyed some courses, some cultural events, some friendships...yet, heck with the cheese, just let me out of the trap.
East or west, home is best.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

A Tribute to Nacer




Death is inevitable for every human being because “to God we belong and to Him is our return” said the Holy Koran. However, Nacer Amezian’s passing away affected me a lot. The terrible news of his death shocked and deeply saddened me and added to my homesickness in this ‘cold’ part of the world – Ohio, US. His death came at a time I hadn’t gotten over the shock of the loss of another Moroccan close friend yet – Lahcen Laabid, God bless his soul.
I met Nacer for the first time in Boston College in August, 2004. We were there to attend an educational program sponsored by the University of the Middle East (UME). He was the only Algerian in the group and he felt at home with us the Moroccans though he got on well with everyone else. My relationship with him grew up very quickly because we had many things in common that helped us do so, especially language. We spoke Berber, French, and English but we usually used Berber.
Nacer believed in the power of friendship and he was the only one from the twenty four members of the group who stayed in touch with me on a regular basis. We emailed each other and we phoned one another. I liked reading his emails because they were always peppered with that good humor he never lost.
Nacer was such a good friend and often wished the Moroccan-Algerian borders would open so that he could visit me with his family in my hometown.
He was such a loving and faithful husband and often told me that his wife was the center of his life. He was such an affectionate and devoted father who did everything for his children and whose eyes welled up with tears whenever he talked about them in Boston. I still remember how sad he felt one day in August, 2004 because one of his daughters celebrated her birthday in his absence. I learned the names of his three daughters because he kept talking about them all the time. His boy was still not born at that time. He emailed me and told me the good news when Yassine was born.
Nacer liked fun and enjoyed life. He liked to listen to Berber music. It was in his blood. I recall that day when we were about to leave an American bookstore and that Algerian Berber musical dance came on the radio. He refused to leave the bookstore until the song was over. He even danced for a few seconds there.
My heart is broken because I lost a good friend, a real friend, but “Every soul must taste death.”
My thoughts and prayers go out to his wife, his three daughters and his son. My sincere condolences go to his many friends and all those who knew and loved him.
Rest in peace Nacer you will be missed and remembered.
Noureddine

Friday, March 28, 2008

New Lost Generation


A few days ago while I was zapping through the TV channels here in the US, I came across a performance by George Carlin, the famous American stand-up comedian. I liked most –not all - his black humor on many taboo subjects, but what caught my attention as a teacher was his comments on children’s education and their upbringing. He made me look back at my childhood and compare it to that of my kids. I see today’s children as a new lost generation. They are so spoiled-rotten, and overprotected that they are almost unable to function by themselves in a world full of challenges. Our childhood was full of rich experiences of the real world but theirs is a four-wall ife.
Some people would argue that it’s safer and healthier for the kids to be protected from the dangers of the world outside. However, too much care produces kids whose maturity is delayed and who are emotionally and physically unhealthy.
Today’s kids are not given a chance to develop self-reliance. Everything in their lives is structured, planned, and organized by parents and tutors and kids are only pawns that follow directions. They are driven to school, taken to the soccer club or gym club or whatever, supervised by coaches, tutored by tutors and never given the opportunity to rely on themselves, to take the initiative, to take the risk, to take the bull by the horns as we used to do. The result we come up with at the end is crippled soft kids.
Also, most of today’s children grow up in small nuclear families, in big houses shock full of gadgets to occupy them. This is because selfish or busy - or both - parents have other fish to fry. They don’t have time to give their kids to talk with them, to share with them, and to love them. So, children are forced to stay at home and suffer the dictatorship of technology. TV, the internet, Ipods, and video games take care of the children. They teach them how to be violent, immoral, and dependent. They show them pornographic obscenities and steal their innocence. They erode their morals and values. These new surrogate mothers do nothing but undermine our children’s lives.
Besides, our kids are getting heavier and fatter because of the decrease in physical exercise and increase in caloric intake. Very few of today’s young girls and boys know how to play hopscotch, hide-and-seek, kick-the-can, and all the outdoor old games. These games not only made us sweat but also made us gain immunity and develop many physical skills.
Moreover, children growing up today are pressured to succeed. We stress good grades and high test scores. We keep hammering them with such words as “success,” “a good job,” “money,” and “future” until they become terrified, sick, tense, and hostile. We pressure the teachers who pressure the students with homework, assignments, and tutoring until the kids become pressure cookers ready to explode. And they do explode sometimes.
Last but not least, today’s children miss out on the beautiful life in the country. Many of them cannot even imagine life there. Many kids have never touched a calf, a pony, a lamb, or a chick. Many have never ridden a horse, or a donkey, or a mule… Many cannot tell the difference between marjoram and mint… An American Peace Corps volunteer friend of mine in Morocco once asked me for the meaning of the English proverb, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” I sympathize with her because she was born and grew up in a city that never sleeps, New York.
I am not following on George Carlin’s or Lenny Bruce’s, or Richard Pryor’s footsteps – and I can’t - and I am not being cynical about kids but I feel sorry for them. We think we do them a service by boxing them in by rules and regulations and by locking them in and flooding them with toys and gadgets. Even books cannot help them if they lack experience of the real world because “Books can expand our knowledge but cannot create it from scratch.” They need to take risks to grow into mature, responsible and independent adults.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

An Evil Chance never Comes Alone







What a crazy weather this is! Friday morning, March 7, 2008 was sunny and warm until 10-ish. Then suddenly a storm started to dump the snow on the city of Kent.
We were scared on our way to the Islamic Community Center for the Friday prayer. Everything was white and did not know how the van driver knew he was “on the road.”
Saturday morning was even worse. The city was buried under more than 20 inches of snow. Yet, I had to go to The Student Center to participate in “Read across America” activity because we had received no canceling email from the people in charge. I had a quick small breakfast because I usually got up late as I often times stayed up late at night. I was the only creature at the bus stop and the place looked creepy like a deserted haunted city. I waited for more than half an hour but there was no sign of any bus coming. I was covered with snow all over like the trees around me before I decided to go back home. I was not “singin in the rain” but trembling and as wet as a chick out of a pail of water. Once on the lift up to my room, my Moroccan friend Abdesalam called me on my cell phone to tell me that the activity had been cancelled. Too much hustle and trouble for nothing.
Back in my hibernaculum, the TV which I had forgotten in my hurry to catch the bus was blaring across the room. It announced that Daylight Saving Time would begin the next day, March 9, 2008 and that people should set their clocks one hour ahead. D*****. It would deprive me of 60 minutes of sleep and the internships would start soon in Lakewood, one hour drive from Kent. This meant at least 60 more minutes of sleep deprivation. I thought of how sleepy, drowsy, tired and irritable I’d be most of the time because I am a late-sleeper and it’s hard to change.
Does this DST really save energy? No economist, or newspaper article or TV report has, so far, convinced me that it does so. It should be called Daytime Somnolence Torture instead.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Super America


What makes the US a powerful and a successful country? Some people would argue that America had many opportunities and it ceased them and benefited from them such as WW II when it produced and sold weapons and geared its industry to build most of the destroyed parts of Europe and then made a huge amount of money out of that. This argument is definitely true to a point. However, the American character also has played a role.

First, American success is built on lot of hard work by a lot of different people. These people are crazy about work and work to make money and build success. Many people here have more than one job. I was talking to the maid in this campus this morning and she told me that she’s got another job and that her daughter has got two, too. There is usually more than one worker in the same household, as in the case of this lady. This lady likes her two jobs, takes them seriously and does them efficiently. So do most Americans. Also, Americans bear with their jobs, at least, if they don’t like them and do them well and perfectly. I have noticed their work ethic includes: responsibility, reliability, accountability, and honesty. Even the American dream of success, fame and wealth is based on hard work and thrift. American system of education, as well, is a school-to-work program. Kids go to school to be prepared for a job, for a future, for the “Almighty Greenback”. For them, you’re never too old or too young to work. I’ve seen people as old as my granddad work and kids as young as my daughter make money by the sweat of their brow. I liked the fifteen year old boy on the
19Actionnews TV channel this morning who ceased the opportunity of class cancellation to clear the snow outside houses to make money “to buy shoes and clothes” as he said. It’s all work and little play that makes America a super country.

Secondly, linked to hard-work is time, and “time is money.” Americans value time and have great respect for it. It surprises us to see them eat on their way to work, while driving, on the bus… They eat while working and work while eating. Students bring food and drinks to the classroom because they have no time to waste - but they have freedom. They eat on the go because work and business are before pleasure. They “don’t put off until tomorrow what can be done today” because they believe in continuous productivity and perpetual activity. They are very conscious of time and view punctuality as extremely important especially in business settings because they usually have other fish to fry. For them, good time is always used or saved, but not wasted or killed.

Thirdly, Americans are pragmatic, practical, and realistic people who rely on a common sense approach to life. They put ideas philosophies, and theories into action and use and they would try every trick in the book to make them work. Even the American 'dream' is not a sleep dream with all the thoughts and images and emotions. It is all about success, hard-work, and wealth. Their pragmatism changed the face of this country in record time and changed the face of the Earth as well. America is a success and achievement-oriented country whose citizens are always putting ideas into action and whose actions, today, speak louder than words. They are not only pragmatic but also persevering and “ready to fight fifty years to win” as Benjamin Franklin said, so as to get to the end-goal.


Fourthly, Americans are very informal, casual, and hate protocol and titles. Even those with PH Ds here in Kent State University urge their students to call them by their first names and so do bosses with their employees. Yet, it’s their dress informality that I favor best because I have always believed in the saying that, “l’habit ne fait pas le moine.” This means that clothes are deceiving or something like "you can't judge a book by its cover". I have noticed that Americans look you in the eyes when they talk to you and do not look at your washed jeans, or casual baggy trousers, or open-necked shirt. Nice external appearances mean nothing if a person’s head is just an empty can. Casual clothes help people work more comfortably and help others feel comfortable to approach you. Informality is also linked to to the value of equality which is the foundation of American democracy and stressed by the American Declaration of independence that “all men are created equal.” Needless to say, as well, that prejudice and discrimination often arise from difference in appearance, and clothes are part of the appearance. Linked with informality, also, is the value of freedom; freedom to choose your way of life, your clothes, your hairstyle…There is no strict dress code and everyone is free to choose their attire.

Last but not least, Americans are positively patriotic. I say positively because they show their patriotism spontaneously without being forced to do so. This is one of the benefits of a democracy. I have seen the Stars and Stripes wave above individual houses, patriotic neon flags in workplaces, patriotic pins prominently displayed people’s clothes and bags, patriotic stickers on people's cars that read "Proud to be American" or "God Bless America" etc…But Americans rarely brag about their country when they talk to you; they prefer to show their patriotism by working hard for it.

There is, of course, always an exception to the general truth because there are always people there who do not realize how fortunate they are to be born as Americans. However, as Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “There is nothing wrong with America that the faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure. .”

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Homesick



“A man may live in many places and still not call them home.”(Harold Robbins, Stiletto)

Dearest family,
Today is february19 and it’s 21:31. I am in my room now at the University Inn, Kent. It’s windy, snowy and cold outside and I am by my own. The TV behind me is harping on about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s war of words in American primary elections.
I am unmindful to that because it’s the same thing all day long and because I miss you back home in Morocco. It has dawned on me that "East or west, home is best". It has only been almost a month and a half but I can’t stand it anymore and I miss you.
I miss you my family terribly. I miss you my wife because you have been special to me since the moment I met you. This is the first time that we've been apart for so long since we've been married. Now I discover that we cannot live without each other and that we always took each other for granted before. We have been through so much. We had our ups and downs, highs and lows, joys and sorrows like everybody else but we've always brought our differences to a happy ending.
I miss you my daughters because you are the greatest kids on earth and no daughters have ever been loved, cherished and wanted more than you have. I miss getting up in the middle of every night to put you back to bed and cover you again. I miss reading to you and listening to your jokes and your school stories. I miss your fights with each other, your complaints about your Mom not letting you go out to play with your friends in the street.
My friend Lahcen, God bless his soul, once told me that it would be selfish of him to leave his wife and daughters for more than a month. Now I understand the deep meaning of his wise words.
Though I am always in touch with you, dearest family, by sending you emails, by IMing you, by calling you almost everyday, I still miss you. None of these can be a supplement to the face to face family reunion. None of these can heal my homesickness.
None of these can compensate for your love, your hugs, your smiles, your warmth, and collective family life.
Because I miss you I find it hard to get uninterrupted nights’ sleep and I find it hard to concentrate on my work …
Because I am homesick I lack motivation and I feel isolated and lost.
I wash, I eat, I pray, I go shopping, same as I do back home but I am not back home and I miss home.
I miss my friends, the shopkeepers, the artisans, the beggars, the shoe-shines, the street vendors, the road sweepers…I miss my colleagues at school, my students (those who email me and those who don’t), my supervisor who keeps me updated with news and funny stuff from home by email on all but regular basis.
I miss hanging around with friends and watching soccer together in cafés, sipping coffee and swearing at the players and coaches and calling them names at times and praising them other times. I miss reading Almassae -my favorite newspaper- at Patio cafe every day before going to work.
I miss Friday family gatherings over Moroccan Couscous after prayers. I miss green tea with mint, I miss Harira, I miss Tagine, I miss Kefta in Kamuni village every other Sunday, I miss all the Halal food.
I miss driving on the winding roads to my parents’ in the country during our many national holidays while listening to Berber songs on my CD player. I miss the hills there, the forest, and the sheep and goats crossing the road in front of my car.
I miss everyone and everything back home except our politicians's policy because that's what pulls us backwards.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

A Moroccan in Snowy Kent, Ohio.




Snowfall caused class cancellation on Feb. 13th in Kent, Ohio. So, I locked myself in my room at the University Inn. It was an opportunity for me to catch up with all the assignments I had missed. After breakfast, I sat by the window and looked outside at the white houses, the white cars, the white trees… everything was white. I thought about the weather in this part of the world. It was not only snowy but chilly as well. The only creatures that dared to go out were the squirrels. They were constantly running back and forth looking for food under the flakes of snow. For me, it was just ‘snow’ but people here certainly see different kinds of snow and have different names for it. I see one snow and they see a lot of different kinds snow. When I told them that it was cold, they usually responded that that was nothing compared to what was coming in February and March. They must have a wealth of names for cold. They must have been the ones who contributed the most synonyms of the word ‘cold’ to Thesaurus Word Dictionaries.
Thought led to thought and I started to think about how this weather has dictated and shaped people’s lives. Because of the snow and cold, very few people walk and this must have contributed to the problem of obesity. Because of the cold, people talk about the cold to start a warm conversation and so do I sometimes on the bus to the Student Center, Acme, Wal-Mart and Ravenna when I want to start a conversation to loosen my tongue and practice my English. Cold must have contributed to their sedentary, stay-at-home lifestyle. They travel less and don’t know where
Morocco is.
I also thought about the amount of energy needed to keep all the heaters running 24 hours a day in buildings, cars and buses and everywhere. How much energy is used to provide hot water to the citizens? How much energy is used to keep
electric cookers running?
I thought and thought but more often than not it was and is hard to find the right answers or imagine them…So, I quit thinking and I started my laptop to do the
assignments.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

First Night at Kent, Ohio, USA







On January 11th, 2008, around 10:30, I arrived in Kent, Ohio, to attend a semester-long academic program at KSU. The program includes auditing courses on teaching methodologies, curriculum development, and the use of technology for education. It also includes ESL classes and an eight week internship at Lakewood High School. I had to stay at the University Inn which is not very far from the White Hall where we take courses. For dinner, I had some juice, bread, and a yogurt provided by the Inn because I had forgotten my dinner on the plane . It was not snowy or rainy as we expected but it was cold outside. The room was heated and had all the necessary furniture in it: Bed, TV, phone, tables, chairs, a fridge, an electric cooker, a microwave, hot running water etc. I had a shower first, then I started to unpack. I did not sleep until 1:15 and I was dead tired. At 02:05, I woke up, startled by the sound of the smoke detector. I thought something was burning in my room and I looked all over but there was no fire, no smoke, no smell no nothing. I didn’t know what was going on and it was my first night there. Maybe I inadvertently did something wrong! I called the desk but James was not there. He does not work at night. I called Abdesalam, my Moroccan friend in his room but he did not know what to do either. I looked at the crazy buzzing thing for some time then decided to go back to bed and forget about it. Impossible. The sound was deafenning. I stood up and looked through the window and saw nothing but darkness. I went back to the paper James had given us on arrival and read it word for word. It read, “Our emergency number after hours is ### ### #### or extention 511”. I quickly dialed the three digits and could not believe my ears when a voice said “Hello.” The night guard soon came up to my room and used one of my towels to blow air at the crazy thing. Maybe he thought I was smoking or something though I had never lit a cig in my life. The obstinate detector went on buzzing. He then stepped on a chair and reached for it and opened it. “It’s the battery”, he said. “I’ll have it changed tomorrow.”