What Clothes can Do

Clothes make the man as Mark Twain once said. No one can deny that. To make sure that clothes make of one a respectable man, try not to dress well and enter an office or an academy and see whether or not anyone is going to pay attention to you.

I tried it many times, and now I am certain that they really do. At the same time, I have learned that what makes the influence of clothes in Morocco different from that of other developed countries is that in Morocco clothes make the man one hundred per cent. That is, once one dresses up here no matter how stupid, backward, uneducated, and uncivilized, everyone is going to take off their hats out of respect.

The other way around is also the case. That is, no matter how educated, intellectual, wise, and intelligent one is, he or she must bear in mind that no one is going to give him as much importance as his well-dressed counterpart. No doubt the choice of clothes is of paramount importance, but the influence of it on one another differs from one society to another. Dressing up is so much appreciated abroad, but not dressing up there doesn't have so negative an impact as it does here in Morocco. What a shame!

My Curiosity

Even as a child, I so much enjoyed poking my nose in others' lives by listening alone. I did not do that so as to know about the ins and outs of their private life, but in order to put one of my main principles into practice, that of halving the trouble shared. Now as a grown-up, I no longer poke my nose this way out of innocence, but I have instead chosen writing as the sole medium whereby I share and halve the troubles I encounter and those of the people I have befriended in a more effective manner.

Nearly every day, I with awe listen to people recounting their stumbling blocks, injustices done to them, and complaints of different sorts. Only when I go home do I put them onto paper, for I very well know that countless are those who take delight in reading about life experiences similar to their own. Meeting new friends broadens my knowledge about the meaning of life.

The latter lies in that confronting bitter realities only strengthens one's soul, one's tenacity and one's aspirations. Living both lives, mine and that of others that I mainly write on, will hopefully help me face worldly concerns with more ease than before. I wouldn't say no to hearing of, and being in contact with, more life experiences in the minutes to come.

Let us Revolt to a Man

Take to the nearby street;

Stamp on the ground out of repression,

And stay there with banners until you render every corner neat;

I am coming! Stay there! Revolt to a man! No regression;

Dogged and resolute, I am still here until I see one by one abandon the seat;

Down with nepotism! Down with dictatorship! Down with oppression.

Somebody knocked my head and my heart palpitations began to beat;

I stooped to touch the street when the mirage turned into a peaceful cushion.

Sour Grapes

Sour grapes is a psychological condition in which one starts to deny or look down on something simply because he or she cannot achieve it. Some move on to criticize so many things the moment they discover that they can not attain them one day in their lives.

Either consciously or unconsciously, everyone on earth has already undergone this feeling. And concrete examples proving this are countless. One of them is about my experience when I did not join a leisure trip organized by my school towards Tinguir.

At first, I was called upon to take part in the trip, and I accepted with so much pleasure. But later on, I forgot to take down my name in the list. On the day before the trip started, I learned from a friend of mine that they would depart the following day. I was too late to register my name, the thing that eventually prevented from participating in the trip.

I deeply regret it. Today, many flimsy excuses have come to my mind to help me find a way out of this regret. No matter how hard I try to discard them, they are still in mind trying to make me believe that a trip with students is not well worth taking. But in reality, this is not true.

And I need some time to convince myself that it was my fault. Anyway, I am not the only one who has suffered from sour grapes. No doubt saying so to you now is itself another sign of sour grapes.

Even a friend of mine has expressed her sour grapes unconsciously today when she said to me that beauty is not a criterion which has to be taken into account on the day of the proposal. If she were beautiful, I am certain she would not have said so. Oh, how sour the grapes really are!

Some Students' Dreams

Not a long time ago, I had a chat with a few young students. And we started to talk about the importance of studies; what really attracted my attention was the dreams and ambitions they had in mind. Most of the students had the same ambitions that I too once had and which I failed to realize.

Some aspired to become engineers, doctors, ambassadors, etc., while others were less ambitious and hoped to become only teachers, nurses, simple officials, etc. Anyway, where there is a will, there is a way. You never know! They may realize them and ultimately outshine me.

The fact that I began to explain to them that to realize an ambition in a country like Morocco, one may have to resort to more than a will has brought about controversy. Unlike in other developed countries, a will must be accompanied with other criteria here. I agree that a will is everything, though.

As I carried on the discussion with them, I instantly felt that the students and I had merely been talking at cross purposes. Then, I left them alone, a failure. Nowadays, it is so hard to convince students of the bitter realities we witness every day mainly because they are still innocent. How amazing young students' innocence really is!

On Strike

Today, I talked to one of my colleagues who said that he had rarely or never gone on strike. And he added that he is against strikes. When I asked him why, one of the reasons he gave me is that he is originally from Zagora and as a native citizen, he had to work for the sake of those students.

His likes have given me other reasons, among the latter are: As muslims, we have to work every day to provide the best for the students no matter what the circumstances. Others go on to believe that by going on strike, we are damaging and putting harm to the quality of education. Some others excuse their not going on strike by having to catch up on the lessons not taught yet. Worse are those who do not go on strike mainly because they want to prove to others that they are committed, hard-working teachers.

Anyway, countless are the flimsy and unfounded reasons and excuses non-strikers make.In fact, I do respect their views as long as they do not interfere with my going on strike. In response to the excuses or so-called reasons above, I would mainly attribute not going on strike to the fact that some teachers are short-sighted and immature.

They just worry about the current situation of the educational system and rarely or never about the future situation. They have to read over and over again the real, logical reasons behind going on strike. Teachers who have not been paid yet must go on strike so that they can be paid the soonest possible to guarantee the future of millions of coming teachers and students, not the present ones.

Teachers working in remote areas must go on strike so that they will be paid better than their counterparts to guarantee a good future for coming students, not the present ones. Underpaid teachers must go on strike because when they think about financial problems, they do not teach as well as well-paid ones.

Here, present students may lose lots of things as a result of strikes but coming ones will have good teachers. This is just to name but a few. Anyway, I have come to the conclusion that those who go on strike are implicitly or explicitly demanding reform and a better future for their students, whereas those who do not go on strikes are merely making the current situation of the educational system stagnant and worse.

It is true that they work, but I am certain that this work is short-lived and will have no long-term results. Not going on strike must mean either that everything is already going as planned or that our hopes for a good educational system are already dashed and therefore it is no longer use going on strike.

Wrinkles

Wrinkles are by nature repulsive to most of us when our eyes fall on an old man and woman. We find them more horrendous the moment we observe them growing on every corner of our faces. It is not long ago when a female, old beggar came to the cafe where I frequently sit, and she began to beg for money.

The only thing I was transfixed by was the wrinkles that had covered her face. I frankly fell in love with them simply because in them, I saw the beauty of leading a meaningful life, the wonderful moments she had during her childhood, and the amazing willingness to confront obstacles until she became what she was the day I saw her. In them, I could see that she had once loved with an unrequited love, that she had traveled long tracks to pay her dear friends visits, and that she had learned that life without risks was worth nothing.

I could also see that she had got married to a cruel man whose family tortured her with taunting words. I could see that if she had not been barren, she would have raised generations and wrinkles of this sort would not have formed. At the time, the aged woman was a carrying a crutch and a bundle on her back. I could then see that her wrinkles formed rapidly after she had worked day and night to serve herself.

I could then see in those wrinkles that many chaste kisses fell on her face as a child. I could then see that life had been hard to her and at the same time it had taught her never to yield in order to live. She resisted hardship and went to ask of all diners in the cafe. Her wrinkles proved to me that she was not like any other simple woman.

Her Wrinkles showed to me that welfare were not the key to her longevity. Experiences of different sorts which tore her body apart, including her wrinkles mainly made it clearer for me that her soul was healthy and insurmountable. If only I could have a soul like hers.

An Untold Story

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you, said Maya Angelou. Whether you all like it or not, I am sorry to say that you all bear an untold story deep inside. It is an untold story which you have to unfold inspite of yourselves just the same way you can unlock the locked book below as long as you have the key; it is a book that sums up your life up to now.

No doubt no one dares tell that untold story, and this is the agony we have always implicitly talked about. I too would like to tell it to you, but I very well know that it will simply cause both of us more agony. That is why we desist from telling it until our death when people closest to you will know it. But it will be too late, then. Just meditate for some time and try to think of all the events that have made up the untold story inside you so far.

Take it for granted that you have the untold story in mind now and that you think about it every day. What makes it amazing here is that we have lots of common when it comes to the incidents narrated in the untold story. Being sick and tired of the agony resulting from still bearing the untold story, I have turned to writing. I have yielded to the agony, and now I am about to finish my untold story.

I tell it line by line, incident by incident and complex by complex. Not only closest people to me will read it, but the whole world too will have become acquainted with it by the day of my death. Until then, I deeply advise you to tell your untold story to one another the soonest possible in case you can not set it down on paper.