Mubarak is old!

Adapted transcript from my meeting with Tiffany, my co-teacher for teaching English to Refugees, deciding how to structure our first class


Blah blah blah... What are we going to do..... I'm nervous.... blah blah .... getting sidetracked.... previous Arabic experience.... Morocco....

T: "Oh, you were in Morocco? ALIF?"
H: "Yeah! You did it too?"
T: "Yep. Did you stay with a family?"
H: "Yes, did you?"
R: "Yeah. Where did you live?"
H: "Batha"
T:" Ha, I lived in Batha, too. Which family?"
H: "Alami Hassan"
T: "6 kids, two crazy little girls?"
H: " No way! You stayed with my family!"
T: "No way, you stayed with my family! Omar, Si Mohammed, they were my favorites"
H: "My favorites, too!"

Ahh the world is so small. I hadn't known Tiffany in any capacity before, but somehow our fates aligned and I happened to mention Morocco (I try not to be too obnoxious about mentioning it and doing the whole Morocco vs. Egypt thing... but it does come up) and lo! and behold! I met someone who had stayed with the EXACT SAME FAMILY as I did. Pretty incredible. Some of the taxi cabs play annoying songs when their doors open, and the most common one is "It's a Small World After All." I guess the next time I hear it I'll just shake my head and smile. We live in a crazy world.


I'll write more later, especially about my crazy first night of teaching English. It isn't so exciting to relate as it was to live it, but it was a whirlwind. Oh, and I got a cellphone! Finally! Turns out I should have just kept my Moroccan phone instead of giving it away and then I could have just changed out the SIM card. Oh well, at least my cell phone isn't only in French and Arabic- I've got an English one! woo hoo. I did cringe when I read my "Welcome to Vodaphone, the largest communication corporation in the world" packet. I'm part of the largest communication corporation in the world!