Dar Chebab (Youth Center)

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To be successful, the first thing to do is fall in love with your work. -Mary Lauretta

I really think I have the best Dar Chebab ever. The bulding itself is nice with new paint, doors and even new bathroom facilities. Out back we have a large space that is virtually devoid of trash. It has a court with a removable volleyball net and basketball goals at both ends (with rims!). The court is very slippery when it rains, but otherwise is great. Teams from all over Kelaa go there to train.
Inside the Dar Chebab there is the mudir's office, a little closet-turned-office that I share with the Japanese volunteer, three large meeting rooms, one small one and a room that will hopefully be a library and computer lab in the future. It is now being used as storage for the books and computer materials we have collected so far. In the hallways there are several bulletin boards that we change every once in a while. Since December 1 (international AIDS day) one of them has had a bunch of educational AIDS posters that Peace Corps gave me. At least one of the others has a display of stuff the director brought back from the Marrakech film festival.
The mudir (director) is nice, helpful, enthusiastic, motivated and always smiling. Working with him is a delight. There are no other employees at our DC right now, but there are so many other people here helping out that I don’t think we really need any - though the mudir may have a different opinion.
The other volunteer, Takéfumi, has already been working at the DC and living in Kelaa for over a year. He’s from the Japanese organization JICA, which is a lot like Peace Corps from what I can tell. Recently Peace Corps and JICA made some sort of agreement to cooperate on some projects, but not all of the information has trickled down to me yet.
Také's program is a lot like PC’s Youth Development and in French they call him an ‘animateur’ though he spends a lot of time working with the local sports teams too. His biggest project at the moment is making marionettes and building a portable stage to take around to elementary schools in the surrounding villages. He is working with several other guys from Kelaa in the process and they are also going to write educational skits about the environment and other important issues. But he’s diversified and also helps out different associations and works with setting up a computer lab in the Dar (contingent on receiving the necessary materials from the Ministry). He probably spends most of his time working with sports clubs and trying to inspire a lacross team - unfortunately lacross is fairly unknown here. I am still dreaming of starting up a frisbee club, and am only lacking a frisbee and some motivation to get that project going.
We have decorated our office with origami, which I am trying to learn, and posters about Japan and Idaho. I don't yet have enought stuff to make a poster about all of the US, but used some of my photos and postcards to make a nice Idaho display at least. The captions are only in English and French so far, but I'm almost done with the Arabic translations. Maryam is helping with that part of the project.
Another wonderful thing about my Dar Chebab is that it is very active with lots of associations. I’ve heard some Dars are empty and quiet, but mine is rocking. Of course, during the day it’s quiet because everybody is at school, but starting around 5pm people start showing up and by 6:30 it’s packed. The only disadvantage to this is that there is virtually no room available for me to teach English in, though this really doesn’t bother me. I found other times to teach and I like taking part in the associations and learning about what they do too.
We have 18 active associations registered with the mudir who are allotted rooms to meet in. They range in topic from cinema to sports to women's issues to Scouts (there are at least three scout associations which organize summer camps and seem a lot like scouts in the US).
So my Dar Chebab is pretty fun so far and I like hanging out there. It's nice to have Také and I's little office to plan lessons in, tutor students who come in for help on homework or even to just sit and chat with Také and the kids who hang out there.
I'm sure my role will change as time goes on, I want to get more involved with some of the associations, but for now am mostly focusing on getting to know people there and teaching my English lessons.

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