Jessica Watkins in French Speaking Morocco - 1998
There are only about 45 children at the orphanage in Taroudant,
aged 0 to 5, after that they are sent away to another orphanage.
The 4 of us on the second placement were mainly looking after six
children who were either mentally disabled or psychologically traumatised,
for want of a better phrase. I was concentrating on a little girl
called Boushra, who had double vision and, at least to begin with,
was stimulated by very little and wouldn't interact with the other
Children. At 4 she would still only eat through a baby's bottle.
My care involved getting her up, washing, dressing, feeding her,
playing with her, trying to get her to walk properly, generally
talking to her and putting her to bed.
The 3 volunteers before us had made a point of giving one-to-one
attention, but as a group we decided to have a broader approach
since the orphans with whom the others had been working had come
to depend on receiving exclusive attention.
The Orphanage day out to the beach We had to recognise that they were orphans, and after all the volunteers
have to leave one day. One little boy went down hill in a major
way for the first month of our placement, to the extent that he
was hitting himself and tearing his hair out when upset: presumably
because of the loss of attention. By the second month he seemed
to be improving and we got him to play with the other children again.
I was so pleased to see that Boushra started to identify certain
toys as her own, started playing on the swing where before she had
been afraid of it and took greater interest in things going on around
her. It was a change that the monitrices noticed too and although
I know it wasn't just due to us, I am sure we made an impact.
We donated two cassette players and a speaker to the school at
Tetouan, at Casablanca we repaired a minibus essential for getting
the children to school, and a computer for the children to use at
the centre for the handicapped at Khemisset. We have an ongoing
project to secure a more promising future for an autistic boy called
Aziz at the Taroudant Orphanage. At 9, he should have been sent
elsewhere years ago, but no other orphanage will accept him because
he can often be violent and unmanageable. He has recently been accepted
by a special needs day-school in Agadir, although as yet no accommodation
has been found, but some of our donations will go towards looking
after him.
Everyone helps everyone! I know I have gained a lot personally from the last six months,
the opportunity to use French and the lessons in Classical Arabic
should stand me in good stead for my studies at Cambridge from October.
But I have also become a lot more socially confident and I now have
a definite appetite for travelling — to the extent that I
am a bit restless at the moment. Being on my own for my first placement
gave me a great sense of independence. I've been able to travel
all over Morocco, seen the huge cultural and economic differences
between North and South, and the natural contrasts; at Easter we
went down to the Sahara desert, 5km from the Algerian border. Two
days later we were at the top of Mount Toubkal, highest mountain
in North Africa, with ice picks and snow up to our knees. Morocco
has made me realise how much I have to appreciate and to experience
in the future. Even so it is good to be home, and, after six months
of Spanish and French and interruptions by the Call to Prayer, to
hear the Mass said in English.
Weekday Arabic lessons for the ladies
Evening Supper
Weekends in the mountains north of Agadir
Afternoon initial projects, lads learning leather-bashing |