• Life Is Blooming

    by  • May 15, 2012 • 0 Comments

    Everywhere I look here in the camps, I’m seeing more signs of life than I’ve ever seen before. Of course, that might be because I’ve been spending so much time in the school garden! We’ve got a couple dozen trees now that are at least 6′ tall, mostly Moringa, but also a few tamaracks....

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    Saharawi Voice

    by  • April 26, 2012 • 0 Comments

    Are you interested in stories from Saharawi youth in the refugee camps?  Check out Saharawi Voice! Saharawi Voice is a blog designed to let people know what happened in the occupied territories of Western Sahara, why half of the population lives in refugee camps in southern Algeria and who are the Saharawi people. Our...

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    These are a few of my favorite things

    by  • April 19, 2012 • 0 Comments

    3 cups of tea Not to be confused with the ‘book’. The Saharawi cups are much smaller, but delicious with every sip. You start your day with tea, then there’s mid day tea, then there’s afternoon and evening tea. And oh, if someone stops by for a visit, guess what? That’s right, more tea....

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    Memorable Students

    by  • April 16, 2012 • 0 Comments

    It’s hard to sort through six years of teaching in refugee camps and find moments that stick out in your mind. So many students have walked through our doors, some for years, some for months, some even just for weeks, but many of them are hard to forget, and we hope we have made...

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    The Man with the Black Suitcase

    by  • April 5, 2012 • 0 Comments

    I have five Saharawi host sisters. The second oldest one recently got married. Almost one month later we are still on a wedding high. Just a few days ago we finally got to watch the video from the wedding, after finally finding a VCR that worked. Yes, that’s right, I said VCR! I’d been...

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    Saharawi Cultural Videos

    by  • March 29, 2012 • 0 Comments

    Are you interested in learning more about Saharawi culture?  The Five College Center for the Study of World Languages has a website called CultureTalk, featuring videos with native speakers from a variety of countries.  The Western Sahara section features videos on language, food, clothing, traditions and more.  The interviewees speak Hassaniya Arabic, the dialect...

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    Ooops! My bad!

    by  • March 22, 2012 • 0 Comments

    We started a new unit in our English curriculum called “Broccoli is good for you!” I always love the catchy titles of our curriculum lessons. This unit talks about food, go figure! So we are learning about the food pyramid, different U.S. snacks and dishes, etc. Oddly enough the food here is not that...

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    Delicious, Nutritious Moringa Trees

    by  • March 15, 2012 • 0 Comments

    One of the objectives of our family gardens project is to distribute Moringa trees to Saharawi families in the camps.  Moringa trees have highly nutritious leaves – “nature’s multivitamins”-that can provide a great benefit to refugees who typically do not have balanced diets. On a visit to the camps in Fall of 2011, I...

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    He Speaks to Me in the Desert

    by  • March 8, 2012 • 0 Comments

    I was so excited to be back in the desert again. I was excited to see my family and reconnect with the friends I’d made, and I was on a spiritual high from the religious dialogues. What I wasn’t excited about was teaching my beginner class again. With God’s help, I had survived last...

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    Popsicles and Cartoons

    by  • March 1, 2012 • 0 Comments

    The following story is a childhood memory of one of our Saharawi friends.  His name has been changed to protect his identity. Fred’s father had a job in Western Sahara that had supported their family buying a home, as well as a few modern appliances.  The two that made the greatest impression on that...

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    Let’s Celebrate!

    by  • February 23, 2012 • 0 Comments

    Wow! Who would’ve thought I’d get a vacation in the desert. Well, probably not the kind of vacation you’re thinking about. We had some time off of school for a holiday here called La Eid (spelling may vary). This holiday is celebrated in Islam every year. This day recognizes when Abraham followed the Lord’s...

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