I come home to Vanessa's shining face.

I am a markedly better teacher this semester than last. I owe a formal apology to anyone I taught last semester:

I'm sorry. I just didn't know.

I'm far more aware now.

I got cornered on the train back from Rabat yesterday morning by some Mauritanian holy rollers. Shockingly, I was able to catch the six am back to Marrakesh and so passed out immediately upon sitting down. There were two moroccans in the cabin and two gloriously dressed 'africans.' (See Chapter 6: Cultural Delineations on the Dark Continent) I slept solidly for three hours then woke occasionally because I thought I heard people speaking in english. I've been doing this a lot lately. On the bus from Zagora last week in a sleepy haze I couldnt figure out if I understood arabic or if i was mutating the sounds around me into eglish. I'm pretty good at permutations, but hearing english disrupts my sleep. So I roused myself into coherence and gazed out the window wondering seriously if I was in fact on the right train because I don't remember there being so many palm trees outside Marrakesh.
I listened in to the half english, half derrija family-values lecture the Mauritanians were laying on the Moroccans. I should have twelve children, for when we are judged, god is going to ask why we didn't allow these muslim souls to be born. The moroccan woman asked how could she afford to send twelve children to college? God will provide for them if he desires them to go to college.
I easedropped for awhile, uninterested in joining this very polite moral fray but very interested in what was being said. But the moroccan man blew my cover when he asked me what time it was in arabic and I responded in garbled derrija numbers- clearly not a native speaker. BUSTED. The woman was shocked aswell, I apparently run a decent charade as a moroccan as long as I keep my mouth shut.


I have to go to class, i'll try to work on this later.