Sarah Robinson

Atlanta, GA | Musical Arts, Music History | 2018

Sarah Robinson, originally from a suburb of Atlanta, is a member of the class of 2018. Sarah is pursuing a major in Musical Arts with a concentration in Music History. She will be serving in Rabat, Morocco with OACS this summer. The two-part program includes pre-trip trainings and informational sessions followed by six weeks of on-site service. While in Rabat, she hopes to gain a deeper understanding of Moroccan culture while examining the role and status of women in Islam in light of ongoing, modern social changes.

To read more about Sarah’s experiences in Morocco, please visit her page on the Morocco 2017 Cohort blog.

Blog Post One:

Morocco is hot yet beautiful! I have felt completely safe traveling alone, but finally meeting up with my OACS cohort has been a bit of a relief. I wasn’t totally sure what my placement would end up being; I had originally wanted to work at the research site in Rabat but later preferenced Attadamoun, an NGO which offers a variety of classes to the community at no cost. When I found out I’d be teaching English there, I was thrilled! I had found the little teaching I had done before to be incredibly rewarding, and I looked forward to the added challenge teaching in Morocco would present.

 

TALK ABOUT ADDED CHALLENGE.

 

My co-teacher and I walked into Attadamoun on our first day and were silently escorted to a room where we sat waiting for our orientation to the organization to begin. After about 15 minutes, we realized that there was no orientation, and the other people sitting in the room were our students. Incredibly flustered, we threw together a two-hour lesson that we hoped would appeal to ages 6-28. Yes, ages 6-28 all together in one giant two-hour class. We are hoping we can split the class up into two sections and have a more consistent class time after Ramadan is over.

 

I think this will be a great experience for me, as I am considering teaching abroad after I graduate, and I think the situation will be similar, especially concerning the limited resources and language barrier. I hope that I can overcome these challenges as soon as possible so that I can partner with the organization to facilitate effective service and teach my students as much as possible!

Final Blog Post: 

 

One of the biggest things I gained from my experience at Attadamoun was an understanding of non-Western conceptions of time. It was not my place to decide what is best for the organization; I was there to serve by doing whatever task I was given. That being said, there was such little communication that I don’t think I was truly able to partner with the organization and effectively serve the community. Part of it was definitely the language barrier, which was on me for going to Morocco knowing I could neither speak Darija nor French.

 

Couldn’t my time have been better spent serving communities in my own country? Where I speak the language and have a better understanding of the culture? I am still grappling with these questions, but I think the cultural understanding that I did gain in Morocco will be perhaps more important than anything else I could have done there. The things I learned about Islam and Moroccan culture will be something I can take back to the United States and use as ammunition against Islamophobia. For example, I proudly showed my family the recording I had made of Rabat women performing dhikr, the repetition of the names of Allah. My grandmother responded with an eyeroll and a comment about all the bad things she had read about Muslims. It was the perfect opportunity to share my experience in Morocco and tell her about all the different Muslims and forms of Islam I had encountered there—specifically Sufism, which is promoted by the government to combat terrorism! Going back to the U.S., I feel more motivated than ever to serve my own community at home and continue doing ethnographic research. I am so grateful to have had this opportunity.