Generation: I Don't Really Know Yet by Negina Pirzad

So far on our stay here, I have had countless run-ins with the children of Morocco. There have been pleasant experiences, and unsettling ones too, but every occurrence has been really different from the one before. Even just comparing the kids in Casablanca to those in Marrakech to the ones in the Atlas Mountains, the children vary so much that it’s hard to make a general opinion of this nation’s newest generation.

In Casablanca, the kids that we encountered seemed to be more adamant to sell things to us because we looked like tourists and they were also more adamant to gain our attention in negative ways. I remember two girls on the Casablanca Beach who wouldn’t give up on selling us gum. They tried Arabic, French, and even some English, but all that came across was a sad desperateness that couldn’t be hidden behind their young charm. It seemed incredibly annoying at the moment, but looking back on it, it's really unfortunate that some children, by choice or by the demand of parents, feel the need to spend their days nagging touristy looking people for a few durhams that would actually make a pretty big difference in their lives. Another negative experience with the kids of Casa was when we passed a group of boys after our couscous lunch. It seemed like they wanted the attention of us Americans so badly that they used the only material they thought would work on us: cursing. A four letter word here, a middle finger there, I was definitely rubbed the wrong way.

My exposure to kids in Marrakech, so far, has been both good and bad. The most touching and most positive of all would have to be going to The Center of Hope baby orphanage. A group of us visit the infants, toddlers, and children with handicaps that stay there on a weekly basis. Our job is to basically brighten their days. Even though I look like an obnoxious crazy person when I’m singing and dancing for ten not-so-enthusiastic babies, it is so worth it to see the slightest grins on their adorable faces. Since there are usually only about four caretakers present while we're there, a lot of the babies have gotten the self-soothing method down. And despite the countless nurseries the orphanage has, it’s surprising and a little eerie how quiet it can get.

During our time in the High Atlas Mountains, I also got to see another side to Moroccan children that was dramatically different from the two cities before. The Amazigh, or Berber, kids we ran into along the village streets carried enough amazingness for me, but when we visited the public school, I felt like we were in their worlds for those short fifteen minutes. We were in their classroom where their educational careers were beginning, where their dreams are starting to come alive, and where their peer interacting was blossoming. I loved just looking at their ten year old-ish faces, trying to figure out what was going through their minds when twenty Americans disrupted their lesson. For the most part, the kids out in the mountains just seemed to have genuine ambitions that they worked for day in and day out. Of course we experienced the select few who were begging for pens or hair ties and followed us until they got one or the other, but overall, the Amazigh experience was an amazing one. The youth out there don't have parks or soccer fields to play in, they have nature and their imaginations to get them further in life. 
          I'm happy I've gone through every positive and every negative experience I have with a handful of Morocco's youngest generation. Every day is another major lesson in the school called life for me (don't worry, I know what you're thinking, but there is seriously no other way to describe Morocco). I'm genuinely interested in finding out what the kids of Marrakech, Casa, and the Atlas Mountains will make of themselves in the future because as of right now, I'm supes confuzzled.

Once again, until next time,

Negina