Transatlantic

After an afternoon of collecting a significant amount of trash, we dove write into a mural project to finish up our day of community service. Sidi ou sidi High School was gracious enough to let us paint a mural at the school to signify our visit. Now - I am no artist. If you've ever seen me try to draw on the board while teaching, you will firmly agree (no offense taken whatsoever). This means that the school was VERY gracious since I was all hands on deck with this project.

The amazing thing about Sidi ou sidi is that they value student art. Even though art isn't a subject that is taught in Moroccan schools, there were many student murals around school. The first day arrived, I was amazed by the talent. Students receive no formal lessons and the murals were incredible.

For our mural, we chose to paint a globe and some various artwork. Around the globe, we placed all of our hand prints, firmly marking our place in Morocco. The rest of the artwork encouraged the viewers to not be afraid to do things differently

My host teacher, Hassan, found an area very closer to the wifi area - sure to get significant traffic! One student jumped right in and created a perfect circle using a piece of string. We decided to create a globe to symbolize our work on global education. After we had our perfect circle, we proceeded to paint the continents. To switch things up, the continents were painted blue. Really no reason what so every... other than who says they need to be green?

After North America and Africa were painted, I decided to add small little red hearts to the cities of Minneapolis, New York and Taroudant. Being so welcomed with open arms into this community even though they knew very little about me, was very special for us as Americans. The unconditional friendship that the Moroccan students and teachers offered to us is something that takes weeks or even months to accomplish in the United States. I was so happy to hear that I would be leaving my handprint in Taroudant - I also wanted to leave my heart there!

Our amazing host teacher, Hassan Ait Man. So thankful for his Transatlantic friendship

When it was all said and done we had a stunning piece of art. A piece of art that the students I grew close with will get to see every day and be reminded of our short time in Taroudant.

I am so grateful for my transatlantic journey to Morocco and my newly formed transatlantic friendships.