A Four-Year Emotional Turmoil Noureddine Boutahar

Completing university and graduating from Teacher Training School marked the close of one chapter and the start of another. It was the end of an era of studies and the beginning of a professional career. With my teaching degree in hand, I knew exactly what I wanted: to earn enough to live, to travel, and enjoy life. I looked forward to the relief from exam stress, the thrill of living alone, and the satisfaction of earning my own paycheck. However, it was disappointing to step into quicksand just when I was looking forward to enjoying both my professional and personal life.
I counted the days until my appointment after graduation, confident that, as one of the top graduates, I would be posted to the city I requested: Khemisset. However, mid-September  1986, brought bitter disappointment and boiling anger. Instead of Khemisset, I was assigned to Rommani, a small agricultural town 40 miles from Rabat, technically part of Khemisset province. The prospect of working in such a remote place, after having grown accustomed to the bustle of Rabat, was both dispiriting and disheartening. 
An hour's drive from Rabat in my brother’s car brought me to a town isolated by uneven terrain, dotted with sparse, dusty neighborhoods. The houses had long lost their original color to dust and neglect. A few poor coffee shops and a handful of small shops stocked only with life's bare essentials completed the bleak picture. I found myself cursing fate and fortune, for it was neither choice nor will, but chance that had led me to this forsaken corner of the country. 
The school I was to teach at stood alone, surrounded by rugged hills and set on a dry riverbed that would flood during the rainy season. Aside from the red tiles on its roof and the sprawling park in front, the building had no distinguishing features. It was plain, nondescript, and wholly unremarkable. The large park of the school felt almost ceremonial, serving no real purpose—none of the teachers at the time owned a car. I once joked with a French teacher and friend, saying perhaps the intention was for us to park our shoes there instead.
Finding a place to live proved to be the first challenge. Housing options were limited—most homes consisted of little more than a few rooms with a toilet and a couple of water taps. No real kitchens, no bathtubs, and few electrical outlets. Rent was so high that sharing a house was the only viable option, but at the beginning of the school year, I hadn’t yet found anyone to share with. So, I rented a house on the outskirts of town and lived alone for the first two months. Eventually, I found two fellow teachers willing to split the cost of a house in the town center. Together, we shared rent, food expenses, and the inevitable frustrations of life in Rommani. 
One of those frustrations was water. We had access to running water for only two hours every other day. During those brief windows, we filled plastic bottles and buckets and would discard out most of the old water when the new supply came—a poor habit, but we had no choice. Sometimes we left the taps open overnight, hoping to wake up with filled buckets, but too often we found water pooling under our beds. Looking back, I deeply regret that careless, wasteful, and unsustainable behavior we were compelled to adopt after being dealt a bad hand. 
Another challenge was the lack of essential goods. Basic items like bananas had to be pre-ordered and paid for in advance with the grocer. We teachers even pleaded with a shopkeeper who also sold papers to set some aside for us, sometimes paying double the price. Trips to larger cities to stock up on supplies were frequent, but with no refrigerator—and barely enough salary to afford one—much of what we bought ended up wasted.
Transportation was another obstacle. Despite Rommani being only 40 miles from Rabat and 50 miles from Khemisset, getting there could be a nightmare. We often had to wait hours to catch a ride to Rabat or anywhere else, especially in the afternoons. At times, we offered taxi drivers a premium fare to reach our destination. On other occasions, we sought out gypsy cabs—unlicensed operators who, like sardines in a can, crammed more passengers into their vehicles than they were meant to hold. 
Also, Rommani lacked any form of entertainment or amenities, so I traveled to Rabat twice a week—on weekends and Wednesday afternoons—returning Thursday mornings. The routine was exhausting, time-consuming, and financially burdensome, and after nearly two months, I had to cut it down to just once a week, limiting my trips to the weekends.  I endured the monotony of small-town life, grappling with the profound emptiness and boredom of having nothing to do and nowhere to go. 
At school, I was assigned to teach four 12th-grade classes. The students were my peers, and some were even my age. Teaching without textbooks, I relied on a vague syllabus and some notes. This required an immense amount of effort to find suitable teaching materials—exercises, texts, games, tests—especially in a pre-internet, pre-cell phone era when English resources were scarce. I often visited the American bookstore and British Council in Rabat, scouring for material, which I would photocopy or even copy by hand at times, as it was difficult to take some books outside the library for photocopying. 
I taught English solely in English, without any Arabic translation. This approach was unfamiliar to my students who complained at first, but over time, they accepted and even appreciated it. As a novice teacher, I exhausted myself, talking too much, over-explaining, and striving for an unattainable perfection. The stress led to burnout, depression, and near obsessive-compulsive behavior. I eventually visited a doctor, who gave me a week off—the first of only two medical leaves I took during my 38 years in teaching. 
To make matters worse, the hardships I endured in Rommani—the constant stress, the unhealthy diet I was forced into, the water my stomach couldn’t tolerate—culminated in a painful stomach ulcer. It took nearly a year to recover, through strict dieting, rigorous treatment, and the soothing remedies of my grandmother’s herbal cures. 
I spent four monotonous years in Rommani, and things steadily worsened. My passion for reading waned, my enthusiasm for teaching faded, and I felt increasingly trapped. Unable to balance my personal desires with my professional obligations, I confided in my father and brother that if I couldn’t transfer to a larger city, I would resign. My father, ever supportive, spoke to a family friend who had considerable influence in Khemisset, and soon enough, I was transferred to Abdellah Guennoun school in Khemisset, where I would spend the remaining 34 years of my career. 
It has been 34 years since I left the Zaari town, and most of the memories I carry from that time are far from pleasant, save for the friendships I forged with fellow teachers, students, and a few locals. My experience has given me deep sympathy for teachers assigned to even more remote and isolated corners of the country, facing challenges far greater than my own, which makes my problems pale in comparison to theirs. Perhaps those hard four years were the rough sea that made me a skilled sailor. As Steve Jobs said, 'Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.'