Guests From USA

April Khori
Hi
My name is April Koury and I am a Peace Corps volunteer currently working in Ulad Larabiya, a small village in Skoura. I was born in America and grew up mostly in the humid, semi-tropical city of Houston in the state of Texas. At the University of Texas I graduated with degrees in international business, Germanic studies, and Middle Eastern studies; and because of my degrees, Peace Corps placed me within their Small Business Development sector. My basic job as a volunteer is threefold: first, to pass on technical skills to the people I work with; second, to educate Moroccans about American life and culture; third, to educate Americans about Moroccan life and culture. Peace Corps assigned me to Ulad Larabiya this past December after I completed 3 months of language and cultural training in Azrou. Thus I’ve been in Skoura for about 5 months, and I much prefer my warm, dry village to cold and rainy Azrou (although I’ve been told I’ll miss the cold north when summer rolls around). For my first two months in Skoura I lived with an amazing host family who took me in and treated me as if I was their own blood. I’ve met so many wonderful, generous people in my village and I now have a new huge Moroccan family to introduce to my American parents. In Ulad I am working with both the potters and a small women’s association. The potters produce mainly bread ovens while the women’s handcrafts range from carpets, to crocheted items, to traditional embroidery. I hope to be able to educate both the men and women about basic business skills and help improve their livelihoods while they in turn teach me their traditional arts and how to cook a proper tajine. So far my cousin has taught me carpet weaving, I’ve just begun to learn traditional embroidery from my sister, and I hope to pick up crocheting next. I have a total of two years to spend here and I already know that Morocco and its people through their openness and hospitality have changed me for the better and given experiences I’ll never forget. I only hope that I can return the favour in some small way.

Guests From USA

Hillary Lynn: Peace Corps Volunteer

Hi!


My name is Hillary Presecan or Yasmeen as some people in Morocco call me. I am a current Peace Corps volunteer working in the city of Skoura, Morocco. I arrived in Morocco in September of 2008 and will be working here until November 2010.
Being a Peace Corps volunteer is a lot of fun. I get to help the youth in Skoura with any English help that they might need, play volleyball with a group of kids on a Saturday afternoon, and have movie nights at the Dar Chabab. I also help out at the local Mourkeb in Skoura with an English Club that does everything from writing newsletters in English to doing theatre in English. The children of Skoura are all eager to learn and always happy to see me every time I have had the pleasure of meeting with them for class or when I am walking down the street from Souq.
Later this year I will be starting up a couple different clubs within the Dar Chabab. I will have an Art Club, which will have theatre, music, and different kinds of arts and crafts. If the youth of Skoura would like to do other things and start other clubs up, I am willing and able to help them with that. I hope that in time I will be able to meet all the people in Skoura and be able to bring my skills and talents to them to help out in any way possible.

Ezzaitoune Our school

By: Ali Ayous and Abdelaali Ibrahimi




Our school name is EZZAITOUNE; it is in SKOURA, province of OUARZAZATE. It is a big school. It was built in 05/09/1984. In Our school There are 1500 students (boys; girls). In EZZAITOUNE School, there are 51 teachers. Two English teachers, Pr. ABDELLAH & Pr. RACHID.
There are 40 classrooms in EZZAITOUNE School and it has a lot of facility. We


have a Library, a Xeroxing room, large Sport stadiums, a mixed dormitory and three equipped rooms for Computer studies and new technology.

In addition to all this our school looks so green because it contains a huge number of olive trees, the reason why it is named Ezzaitoune School. The school uses the incomes of olives to fund different activities.

Greening

The Invironment Club, led By Mr. Mimoun Bouass, Mss. Amal Chmiti and Mr. Taibi Abdellah, Mr. Abderrahman Ait Abderrazaq organised an open-air workshop to plant 80 trees in the school yard.

More than 60 students, boys and girls, participated in this workshop by digging planting and watering. The students enjoyed these activities too much. They wanted to leave their finger prints in this school when they leave it.

English Club Skoura, News In brief

Ezzaitoune English Club organises meetings occasionally on Saturdays, afternoon. Each meeting, I invite other teachers or people who are interested in the field to help. Mss. Hillary Lynn,the Peace Corps volunteer, Pr. Houssam Zrirak and Pr. Abdelkader Ghazali the main parteners.

The club aims to give a variety of activities in which students can express themselves and use what they have learnt in class.

These are not extra activities as some students call it. It is rather important, exactly as the grammar lessons they take in class. The necessity of these activities is due to the fact that the number of classes the students take per a week is not enough. Moreover, the number of students is large 45 in a class, which means that if we divide the 3 hours they study on the number of students, we will find that each student has 2 minute to talk in class regarding the Teacher Talking Time.

In the club we mainly focus to skills work like reading, listening, speaking. For this reason, we provide students with activities that can enrich and improve these skills.
For reading, I provide students with simplified short stories. They read them in groups and answer some comprehension questions then discuss the meanings with the teacher. After that, Students rehears their short stories in front of teachers.

Poor Little Puppies in skoura

Last week, I saw a very dangerous phenomenon in Skoura, a terrible event that shakes the heart. Two little puppies were killed in a horrible way. Their faces were broken by a sharp tool.

At first, I thought that this terrible massacre was done by a huge wild animal. But unfortunately, I discovered that it was by some little kids in a primary school. It was a way for entertaining themselves after school.

I never thought that little kids in Skoura find pleasure in killing little creatures like this. The problem is that nobody even asked about why?

Personally, I think that these kids should be punished for that crime because this is the absolute path of becoming future criminals. We have to cure this problem from now.

The Cultural Complex, Skoura

The complex is an educational and cultural space for young and old people in Skoura .This space is offered by the foundation of Mohamed 5 for solidarity.

During the school year, many activists organize activities in the building. There are cultural, artistic, educational and sport activities.

The building has many facilities. It consists of the office of the director, treasurer, room hall for the scenes, theatre hall, a room for languages and four latrines the wing. Sports stadium and there are one to two tanks first football and basketball for second.