The Shums.com

The Lord has blessed us with some new Moroccan friends. The girls have made some friends from school and have had them over to play. Lena has attended birthday parties, field trips, and tea times with other moms and their children. We’ve also gotten to know our nanny and language helper better. It’s been great to finally be able to communicate!

As a family, we’ve also met other singles and families who live near us or own businesses close by. We’ve enjoyed dinners and BBQs together. Culturally, we’ve had to get used to some differences such as drinking hot tea when it’s 90-100 degrees, men kissing men and women kissing women when greeting each other, and a male friend holding Andrew’s hand while walking (that’s common here). But we are so thankful for these new friendships and hope they continue to grow.

You can view the pictures HERE.

It’s hard to believe we have been here in Morocco for 3 months. We just finished our first 4-week course of intensive language training with an oral and written exam. It concentrated on greetings, family, shopping, and hosting house guests.  Towards the end, we learned the rules to conjugate verbs in past, present, and future tenses. The next class will focus on learning lots of verbs and vocab words.

We needed to renew our tourist visas so we made a short trip to Melilla, Spain. It is an enclave located in North Africa. We took about a 5-hour taxi ride to the border and walked our luggage across. We met one of Lena’s relatives who lives there and whom we stayed with for 3 nights. It was a great time as we enjoyed relaxing at the beach, meeting new people, being able to communicate more effectively, and eating pork. It was also a frustrating time trying to switch back to Spanish. It seems our brains can only fit one other language at a time. Hopefully we can get rid of the cobwebs and learn/retain/acquire multiple languages.

You can view the pictures HERE.

We are finally settling into our apartment. We moved in the beginning of the month and we are slowly furnishing it. It is feeling more like home every day. The girls are busy w/ school and our 1-hour per day language classes are all that we can take right now. In March, we start the intensive language program which will be 3 hours per day in the classroom and an expected equal amount outside the classroom practicing. We are walking a lot and getting acquainted w/ the neighborhood. We are trying our best to communicate w/ the few words and phrases we’ve learned. Lena is teaching ESL at the elementary school three days a week.

You can view the pictures HERE.

We finally made it to Morocco! We arrived into Montreal from Denver as planned late Thursday night (January 8) to find our flight to Casablanca canceled. It turns out the plane that was supposed to take us back to Morocco never really left Morocco because of some technical problems. So the hotel in Montreal for two nights was much better than floating in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean…or the Hudson River. Praise God!

Saturday morning (January 10) was our new departure time which meant we would arrive into Casablanca at 11pm and arrive into Fes just after midnight. We left Montreal almost 3 hours later than expected and we feared we would miss our connection to Fes. During our flight, we met Mohammed who was also supposed to catch the same connection. He had dual citizenship in Canada and Morocco and spoke very good English. He helped our family navigate the Casablanca airport, make our connection, catch taxis from the Fes airport to our hotel, and retrieve our bags and stroller which arrived 1 and 2 days later than us. Praise God!

We stayed in a hotel room for the first week. We explored the city (old and new), the American school, the language school, and McDonald’s. We experienced exuberant contributions to the Moroccan economy (i.e. getting ripped off) and how to battle others in catching little red taxis. Last Friday (January 16), we moved in with another family in the old city (Medina). They live in the top portion of  the house while we are staying in the bottom portion. Hannah and Karin started school last Thursday – Karin in  preschool and Hannah in 1st grade. We are planning on putting a deposit down on an apartment this Friday which will become available February 1. We have not nailed down language school yet, but may start next week with an introductory Arabic course, some conversational French for the month of February, and then the intensive Arabic in March. That just happens to be when the intensive courses are scheduled right now. Once we get moved into more permanent housing, we hope to start volunteering part-time at Amicitia, the American school – Lena w/ elementary grades and Andrew w/ high school and ESL night classes.

You can view the pictures HERE.

Hannah celebrated her 6th birthday at the ice rink in Boulder, CO. Everyone enjoyed the warm weather, hot chocolate, and lemonade. It was a great time with old and new friends from school. Parents joined in on the action too.

You can view the pictures HERE.

We celebrated Jenna’s first birthday tonight by going out to dinner with our family at China Gourmet in North Boulder. Afterwards, we headed over to Play Grounds and enjoyed their unique play and sitting/dining area. You can sit back and enjoy a drink as your children play with other kids. They let us use the party room for free and allowed us to bring in our own cupcakes. You can view the pictures HERE.

I just completed a 60-hour TEFL training course offered by Oxford Seminars. Most of it was great for people with no formal teaching experience like me. The most helpful information dealt with learning styles, classroom management, lesson planning, grammar review, and the practicum (teaching 20 minutes of a 60-minute lesson that we created). Things I thought should’ve been omitted were talking about culture shock and how to write cover letters and resumes. The extra time could’ve been spent on extra grammar practice (not just define grammar terms and list an example) and practical “how to teach” examples. It should be more a part of the 60-hour training instead of an extra 40-hour add-on that Oxford offers.

The experience has given me a greater respect for educators after experiencing just a tiny bit of what my wife and countless others go through as educators. It has also left me frustrated and confused about the entire TEFL industry, certification process, and the conflict that is evident between non-native English speakers with teaching degrees and native English speakers with simply a certificate (no matter how extensive the certification process might be).

Horizons hosted a Fall Festival last week. We were able to take some photos of our children and our friends’ children. You can view the photos HERE.

Our family is currently working on updating our site with a new look and some long overdue content. Please check back with us later. Many thanks to Jesse Varner, who took the original photo of the Flatirons, and Schambo, who edited it. We used this image for our header. It is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License.