In October Penny set off on her third volunteer placement with people and places – this time to Morocco.  She was the first in-country volunteer they had been able to accept since the earthquake, and she arrived at the start of the school year, as the girls were settling into their new boarding house and enjoying returning to school in Asni.  These are some extracts from the reports Penny wrote at the end of her placement.

‘I have done 2 placements with P & P before and really enjoyed them. I like living among different cultures rather than as a tourist and ‘giving back’ what I can to these worthy causes.  This project fitted into my window of time and sounded exciting.

My window of time was limited. Dianne was great at getting everything organised very efficiently within 6 weeks of me contacting her with my wish to volunteer for the programme. I found the new adaptation by Dianne of zoom calls a better way for us to correspond rather than just by email. Sallie was also very quick to successfully resolve my bank transfer problems.

On my first day Latifa came to meet me from the guest house.  She warmly welcomed me and took me to the boarding house after an orientation of Asni. Khadija made me very welcome and the girls were keen to meet me.

I was prepared to be flexible with the girls’ lessons as I knew school had not long started for this academic year, but fortunately Khadija had already prepared a timetable for me. I was very pleased about this as I felt my placement would be structured and used to its full potential.  This involved groups of 4/5 girls per session with 3 sessions each per week. The girls were in mixed ability/age within the group. To begin with I thought this may be a problem but the older girls helped the younger girls and the younger girls probably progressed quicker because of the older girls interaction. Due to the small group I was able to tailor lessons to accommodate the older girls as well.

My first step was to reassure all the girls – through Khadija – that it didn’t matter if what they said was wrong and not to be embarrassed or shy of trying to speak English.

I soon realised that this placement was different in that my previous placements had been ‘guided’ as they were in school environments. I was free to approach this as I saw the need. My TEFL qualification was invaluable for this purpose.

Firstly I looked at the girls’ English books (those who were already studying English.) After the first day of lessons for all ages/abilities I came to the conclusion that English pronunciation was really good in all cases but basic vocabulary was lacking. This became part of the lesson structure.

With older girls who had a very good understanding (4 girls ) we were able to talk about Morocco’s population compared to England, its capital, big cities etc. They told me about Ramadan and some cultural facts.

The girls have a wonderful attitude and enthusiasm to learn. I was able to bring fun and engagement to our time together, partly because of them being so receptive to me. Hopefully by making lessons fun and engaging they have learnt some valuable English and a little about English culture.

Khadija and I spent an uninterrupted hour together most days with the aim of furthering her English. We talked about our homes, families, her work, Moroccan culture, cooking. I asked her questions that arose from my day to day experiences of being in Morocco.
I went shopping with her, paying bills, buying various things. We incorporated this into furthering her conversation practice/ skills. She was very keen to learn. 

Khadija made my time with her very enjoyable. We laughed, joked at both our shortcomings and learnt about each other’s lives. She always made time for my questions and helped me with any issues. I can’t thank her enough for her kindness and help in making this a very rewarding experience. I hope she feels she had a good chance to further her English skills.

I genuinely had a great time and personally this is probably the best of the three placements with P & P I have been involved in, probably because this was in a relaxed non-school environment which suited me well.’

We would love to find more people who would like a similar volunteering experience in Morocco. If you are interested email dianne@travel-peopleandplaces.co.uk, and follow this link to learn more about this project.