Education Archives - Southern Girl Gone Global

Meet One of the Most Fascinating Moms in History, Josephine Baker, at Riad Star

February 22, 2023May 1, 2023Cindy McCain

Play Me

Updated on May 1, 2023

Riad Star, Marrakech Medina — Photo Courtesy of Riad Star

Here’s to an icon who should be celebrated beyond Black History Month, Women’s History Month, and Mother’s Day. I’m forever grateful for the invitation to stay in Josephine Baker’s former Moroccan home. Like many women, she found rest and strength to reinvent herself in Morocco. If you need inspiration, try on a bit of Josephine Baker at Riad Star. When I raided the library, I discovered a missing part of my education. I met a superstar, a spy, a hero, and a mother. She was the only woman who spoke at the March on Washington alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. When he was killed, Corette Scott King asked Josephine to take his place. She declined, saying that her children were “too young to lose their mother.”

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When people ask How? Why? I moved to Morocco sight unseen, I think to myself, I didn’t. Though I’d never been to Africa, my soul brimmed with vivid images from exotic Arabian tales my grandmother read to me from my dad’s childhood book.

I was lured by sultry desert tents, regal riads, and secret gardens where princes and princesses lounged in plush, cushioned comfort. In my imagination, birds sang by day and lanterns glowed by night in arched Andalusian courtyards of fabulous fountains, mosaic tile, and intricately carved woodwork. I was meant to come here — a place where so many desires of my heart have been fulfilled for which I am forever grateful.

Likewise, for some time I felt drawn to the Moroccan home of Josephine Baker, Queen of the Jazz Age. I was first attracted by the place and a moment in time — the blending of beautiful Marrakesh design with an era I’ve loved since I was a little girl dressing up in my grandmother’s drop waist dresses and pumps. As an adult obsessed with Post- World War I Paris expats and Harlem Renaissance artists, I teach The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, and Jazz, and when living in the US had students play dress up, too, for our annual ’20s Day event.

I finally stayed at Riad Star and met “Jazz Cleopatra,” the legend for whom the boutique hotel is named.

I now realize that what drew me there was more than one period of history. It was a Renaissance Woman who before and beyond Harlem and the 20s never stopped changing, growing, giving, and overcoming. A woman of tenacity and tenderness.

Josephine Baker's banana skirt at Riad Star — Josephine Baker’s banana skirt that made her famous.

Statue of Josephine Baker at Riad Star — Josephine Baker’s banana skirt that made her famous.

You can meet Josephine Baker at Riad Star by trying on the banana skirt that made her famous as well as her flapper-era frocks…

Closeup of Josephine Baker's beaded dress at Riad Star — Closeup of Josephine Baker’s beaded dress at Riad Star

Josephine Baker's dress at Riad Star — Queen of the Jazz Age

Josephine Baker’s beaded dress at Riad Star

Joesphine's Baker's hat, dress, cape at Riad Star — Queen of the Stage and a Mistress of the House

You can meet Josephine Baker at Riad Star in many ways. When Aziz greeted me at the taxi, walked me to the riad, and placed my bag in her very suite, The Josephine Room, I was in awe. There, under a photograph of Josephine’s close friend, Grace Kelly, my favorite American Hollywood actress since I was a teen…

Photo of Princess Grace of Monaco in Josephine Baker sutie at Riad Star — Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco, was Josephine Baker’s lifelong friend.

You can meet Josephine Baker at Riad Star by devouring her biographies. I found book on her life in my room and the library downstairs. Like Own Wilson in Midnight in Paris (a movie where a writer returns to the Jazz Age and meets Ernest Hemingway, Josephine Baker, Salvador Dali, and other icons of the Roaring 20s), I was transported to the Jazz Age and met my fascinating host …

Josephine Baker's pink dress at Riad Star — Josephine Baker’s dress

biographies on Josephine Baker at Riad Star Morocco

In the afternoon sun on the rooftop

near the cool courtyard,

and under the covers at night,

like Owen Wilson in Midnight in Paris I was transported to another time.

There I discovered a new treasure in Marrakesh..the “Black Pearl”…the “Bronze Venus” who Ernest Hemingway, her fellow expat in Paris, called “the most sensational woman anyone ever saw.”

Before Beyonce…

Or Rihanna

Or Angelina Jolie…

josephine-baker-rainbowkids2 — Framed photo at Riad Star of Josephine and her children

You can meet Josephine Baker at Riad Star by studying the framed photos of the mom who energetically entertained crowds for fifty years and raised her “Rainbow Tribe.”

josephinebakerkids2 — Framed photo at Riad Star and her family

Baker was the first black woman to star in a major motion picture, Zouzou (1934) and to become a world-famous entertainer. A superstar before Marilyn or Madonna, Josephine was named in 2012 Time magazine in the Top 100 Fashion Icons of All Time.

03 Sep 1930, Deauville, France — 9/3/30-Deauville, France- Josephine Baker, colored American musical comedy star, as she gave Deauville a thrill by promenading with her latest pet, a baby leopard. — Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS

Likewise she was muse for artists and intellectuals of the 1930s such as Picasso, Pirandello, Georges Roualt, Le Corbusier, and e.e. cummings. Dance Magazine explained the allure of Josephine — the “geometry” of her oval head and lithe body — during the Cubist and Art Deco movements, both influenced by African art and sculpture. You can meet Josephine Baker at Riad Star where you’re immersed in artistic eras she inspired.

A World War II spy for the French Resistance, Josephine Baker was awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Légion d’Honneur by General Charles de Gaulle and the Rosette of the Résistance. At her death, she was mourned in Paris by 20,000 people including Princess Grace who gathered for her funeral procession. She was buried with military honors in Monaco, a place she and her family visited often as guests of the royal family.

Joséphine Baker en uniforme de l’Armée de l’Air française en 1948

A civil rights activist, she was the only woman who spoke at the 1963 March on Washington alongside Martin Luther, King. She told the crowd that day:
You are on the eve of a complete victory. You can’t go wrong. The world is behind you.

Later she said of her personal victory:

Until the March on Washington, I always had this little feeling in my stomach. I was always afraid. I couldn’t meet white American people. I didn’t want to be around them. But now that little gnawing feeling is gone. For the first time in my life I feel free. I know that everything is right now.

download — Josephine in Washington with Lena Horne

And for a time, she lived in Marrakesh in a room I just stayed in.

Mike and Lucie Wood, British owners of Marrakech Riad, added Riad Star in 2010 to their collection of boutique hotels in the medina. Mike explained their mission:

We bought our first riad (Riad Cinnamon) in 2005 after I was introduced to Marrakech by a Moroccan friend. We are passionate about introducing our guests to Moroccan culture, especially first-time visitors. As well as the riads we are very involved in a charity which we founded with another English couple. It’s called Henna Cafe and has an active programme of education.

The Pasha Thami el Glaoui formerly owned what is now Riad Star, a guest annex to the palace which is now the Marrakech museum. Mike says he learned Josephine Baker stayed there when talking to a neighbor. The people of Derb Alilich still remember her warmth and she appreciated theirs. In the Josephine Room there’s a window looking onto the street–nonexistent in most riads where windows, doors, and balconies face inward toward private courtyards. It is believed the Pasha of Marrakech paid children to sit outside Josephine’s window and read for her while she was convalescing after a nineteen-month stay at a hospital in Casablanca in 1941-42.

Mike Wood says of the purchase:

The restoration was extensive and took two years with a team of highly skilled local craftsmen. We did not really change much except adding the rolling roof which is very practical and putting in more bathrooms.

Ah, but the details the Woods added are symbolic of a spirit whose beauty, sensitivity, and toughness transcended adversity. There are nine rooms at Riad Star, each named for a part of Josephine’s life, such as the Jazz room, Paris room, Chiquita room, and Rainbow room. Though historically themed, each room has modern conveniences, such as refrigerators, WiFi, and flat-screen televisions.

Photo of Josephine’s family at Riad Star

Josephine was born in 1906 in St. Louis to Carrie McDonald, daughter of former slaves, and vaudeville drummer Eddie Carson who carried her onstage when she was a toddler but left the family soon after. She cleaned houses and tended children for white families who told her not to kiss the babies. One mistress burned her hands for using too much soap when washing clothes. At age twelve she began a waitressing job at The Old Chauffeur’s Club which led to being married off unsuccessfully at thirteen. At fifteen she was noticed for her street dancing and recruited for vaudeville. After witnessing the St. Louis race riots and experiencing abusive treatment which led to a time she lived on the streets and ate from trash bins, she moved to New York City during the Harlem Renaissance and performed at the Plantation Club. As the last girl in the chorus line, her role was to make the audience laugh–something she loved doing her entire life. But in 1925 Paris she moved from last to superstardom overnight when she opened in La Revue Nègre at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees. Continuing to amaze crowds with her sensual dances, costumes, and charisma, by 1927 she earned more than any entertainer in Europe. And then she took on another continent…

In Josephine: The Hungry Heart, Jean-Claude Baker, and Chris Chase wrote of Josephine’s “Arabian Nights” when “she came to Northern Africa with twenty-eight pieces of luggage and her animals.” Before she adopted twelve children from various countries (she suffered miscarriages and “many surgeries” trying to have her own and a complication that confined her to the Casablanca hospital ), she had a menagerie consisting of Chiquita, her famous leopard she walked on a leash; Ethel, a chimpanzee; Albert, a pig; Kiki, a snake, and a goat, parrot, parakeets, fish three cats and seven dogs. In Morocco, her monkeys played in the orange trees.

You can meet Josephine Baker at Riad Star in the exotic, colorful signature Moroccan way of life all around. Her son records accounts of his mother’s time at Riad Star :

Every morning, as soon as the birds started singing, Josephine was up and running around in the buff going to the kitchen to help the servants cook… The house had four bedrooms—one which had her big brass bed from France… She adopted Arab customs. She liked eating with her hands, wearing the loose djelleba, going with her maids to the hammam, the Turkish baths, once a week.

….And wasn’t it queer that Josephine, who had spent her childhood dreaming of kings in golden slippers, should find herself there? In a place where, even more amazingly, racial discrimination did not exist? Thami el Glaousi, pasha of Marrakesh and the most powerful tribal chieftain in French Morocco at that time, was himself black.

From northern Africa, Josephine was safe from Nazi racism. Langston Hughes wrote she “was as much a victim of Hitler as the soldiers who fall in Africa today fighting his armies. The Aryans drove Josephine away from her beloved Paris.” Nonetheless, while in Africa as she’d done throughout Europe, Josephine continued entertaining troops for Charles de Gaulle and carrying information for the Allied forces from Spain. Among the dignitaries who visited her while in the hospital in Casa was Jacques Abtrey, Head of Intelligence against the Germans. Outside as a military parade with American, French, and Moroccan troops marched by, he and Josephine toasted with champagne. He recalls: “We raised our glasses to America, to England, and to our eternal France.”

Bennetta Jules-Rosette, Director of the African and African-American Studies Research Center at the University of California – San Diego and author of Josephine Baker in Art and Life: The Icon and the Image wrote of Josephine making Paris her home and learning not only French but Italian and Russian:

As a black woman, had she stayed in the United States, she could not have accomplished what she did….She never made a Hollywood film. But at the same time she was recording in France, you had the likes of Hattie McDaniel playing maids in Gone with the Wind…[She] was among the early path-breakers to use performance celebrity for political ends.

When in the US she refused to perform in venues that did not admit minorities. Says Jules-Rosette: “She was the first person to desegregate the Las Vegas casinos, not Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.”

Still, in 1951 she was refused admittance to some hotels and restaurants, and when she charged the Stork Club in New York City of racism when the owner would not serve her, she was placed on the FBI watch list and lost her US citizenship rights for over a decade. In 1963 she returned with the help of Attorney General Robert Kennedy to speak at the March on Washington. She told the crowd:

You know I have always taken the rocky path…I never took the easy one, but as I get older, and as I knew I had the power and the strength, I took that rocky path and I tried to smooth it out a little. I wanted to make it easier for you. I want you to have a chance at what I had.

Summing up her journey, Josephine said: “I did take the blows [of life], but I took them with my chin up, in dignity, because I so profoundly love and respect humanity…I believe in prayer. It’s the best way we have to draw strength from heaven.”

When not reading at Riad Star, I chatted over dinner with a lovely group of ladies on holiday from England. All moms, they had decided to treat themselves to a girls’ getaway. For information on package deals including a Girls’ Getaway and other specialty escapes, go here.

The next morning, I spent breakfast with a little bird by the pool, then took off with Aziz to see two other properties owned by the Woods. I’m a fan of Girls’ Getaways and solo travel. Women need safe, peaceful places — especially when in need of a reset or reinvention.

Though all guests are provided a downloadable App and cell phone to navigate the medina, after two years here and still taking wrong turns at times in the medina, I was thrilled Aziz was happy to walk me to and from the taxi as well as show me two other riads.

Les Nomades of Marrakech carpets — Right around the corner from Riad Star is a gigantic Moroccan rug shop called Les Nomades of Marrakech. See inside here.

Marrakech archway tiled entrance — The Marrakesh medina is a window to antiquity and to modern local life.

Riad Cinnamon has five suites, each named for a city in Morocco: Fez, Essaouira, Chefchaouen, Casablanca, and Meknes. Since I’ve been to all but Meknes, four of the rooms transported me to fine Morocco Moments across the country.

After raiding my grandmother’s trunk for dress up clothes, I’d wear them out into her garden to watch butterflies playing in the flowers. At Riad Papillon (Riad Butterly), imagination takes flight in rooms named for blooms, such as Bougainvillea, Jasmine, and Rose known to attract those feathery-winged wonders. The riad is just off Dar El Bacha, one of my favorite shopping streets in the souks, while Star and Cinnamon are just around corners from Merdersa Ben Youseff, a medina must-see. All are also near the Spice Square and Henna Cafe.

Riad Papillon Marrakech — Riad Papillon courtyard is so pretty… the picture of sunshine and butterflies.

Riad Paillon fireplace marrakech — An Alladin-style fireplace for winter nights at Riad Papillon.

I enjoyed the morning and my Midnight in Marrakesh experience. HBO’s 1991 movie, The Jordan Baker Story, winner of five Emmys and a Golden Globe now tops my list of must-see films. In “My Josephine Baker” her son explains in The New York Times how and why he had to write a biography of her: “When she died, something was taken from me. I suffered a loss and I wanted to know who she was, that woman I had seen in so many ways, sometimes a criminal, sometimes a saint.”

When she passed away in 1975, no doubt there were mixed opinions of her because she was– and her critics are– after all, human. Her legacy lives on in Riad Star in the Red City where others find rest and shelter and at the Henna Cafe that promotes appreciation of diversity, cross-cultural communication, and understanding. Though Josephine left school to work as a child, she later learned French, Russian, and Italian, an inspiration to language learners everywhere.

Cindy McCain Southern Girl Gone Global at Riad Star Marrakesh

Thank you to Riad Star for the hospitality. As always, the opinions here are my own.

Travel is the Ticket to the Life You Want in 2023

December 30, 2022December 31, 2022Cindy McCain

Planning new adventures can cure post-holiday blues and cabin fever. Intentional travel can provide what you need and value most for a happier, healthier new year.

Vowing to make travel a priority this year is more than a resolution. It’s the means for fulfilling goals and desires. Time away improves mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health. Paradoxically, journeys are essential for leading us home to the people we’d like to be.

Your heart knows the way. Run in that direction.

— Rumi

Time away gives space and perspective to…

bond with family and friends
meet kindred spirits
learn something new
rest, reset, or reinvent your life
scout where you want to spend a gap year or retire
be amazed at how big and beautiful the world is

In fact, just PLANNING and anticipating a travel experience makes us happier than a material purchase and the mood lift lasts longer. Travel benefits us before, during, and after the trip by:

making us more “mentally resilient”
enhancing creativity
relieving stress
enhancing work productivity
providing a new lens to reevaluate ourselves and our home culture
motivating us to continue something we enjoyed on vacation once we’re home (i.e.) language, cooking, Latin dancing classes or Meetups

When I started this blog, my focus was to encourage moms to take time outs. Mentors taught me the foreign concept of self-care when I became a single parent. They urged me to take a walk, eat on a pretty patio, or go to a movie when the kids were at their dad’s. I eventually took annual solo trips to a Tennessee B and B and volunteered with strangers in New York City, Ireland, and Italy. Teaching literature is fun, but even better is leading students on educational tours because Saint Augustine was right: “The world is a book and those who don’t travel read only one page.”

Moving 4400 miles away to survive the empty nest is not for everyone. It was counter-intuitive for a Stage 5 Clinger Mom like me. For years I showed my students Dead Poets Society and sent them off to college with Carpe Diem! Find Kindred Spirits! Fulfill Dreams! After two years in an empty house, I knew that I needed to seize the day before the day ceased. I needed rest, a new purpose, and to see the world with childlike wonder. I needed to live by faith, let go of fear, and begin again. Thank God I did.

When I started writing my book about living abroad, I called it my “No-Mom-Left-Behind Memoir.” I encouraged women to use the empty nest as an opportunity to do what their children were doing — spread their wings. I didn’t realize the window between caring for my children and caring for a parent was already closing. The mom who couldn’t be left behind became my mother rather than me. Since then, I’ve talked with so many empty nesters who I’ve met in passing, reconnected with at a class reunion, and interviewed for Second Harvest Food Bank at food pantries. MANY are caring for partners, parents, in-laws, and grandkids.

Someone in the world develops dementia every 3 seconds. According to the Alzheimer’s Association: “More than 6 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s. By 2050, this number is projected to rise to nearly 13 million. 1 in 3 seniors dies with Alzheimer’s or another dementia. It kills more than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined.”

According to a new study by AARP, 46% of caregivers are between the ages of 18 and 49. That same study suggests that the average age of a person receiving care is roughly 69. Thus, a mother who gives birth at 29, which is above the average age in the U.S., would likely need some sort of care by the time her child turns 40. Research also shows more women are affected by dementia than men. Worldwide, women with dementia outnumber men 2 to 1. While we live longer than men on the average, dementia is caused by diseases of the brain rather than age alone. 50% of women develop dementia. Travel Therapy has been proven to benefit caregivers and those with dementia, too.

Fulfilling deferred dreams after we retire may not be an option.

My mother, a former Recreational Director at an assisted living facility, often says how thankful she is for the travels she did while working. Most of those trips were with her residents. When I told her I’d been offered a teaching job abroad in 2014, she hugged me and said: “We only go around this way once.”

The Bottom Line

We don’t know how much time we have here. The same is true of places we want to see. In 2021 and 2022 I featured Sarasota, Anna Maria Island, Captiva and Sanibel Islands, and Fort Myers as Top US Destinations. The first two were threatened and the last three pummeled by Hurricane Ian this year. Last summer a trip to The Kentucky Wildlands was cancelled due to catastrophic flooding. In March 2020 my trip to Sicily was snuffed out days before departure. Climate change and a global pandemic have taught me that life as we know it can grind to a halt or mutate at any time.

In light of the Ukrainian War and other humanitarian crises happening now, spending money or time on travel, entertainment, or other luxuries can feel selfish. When I first supported volunteers with travel funds and raised support for service trips I’ve done, I’d wonder… Wouldn’t that money be better spent if sent to program directors who would give it directly to the people in need? Now I know that getting involved up- close- and- personal builds ongoing relationships, raises awareness of needs, multiplies resources exponentially, and makes us more empathic global citizens.

Travel is an investment. It’s the best form of education I know. Thanks to international teaching, leading students on service and educational trips abroad, and travel writing, I’ve had experiences that I could have never imagined or afforded on my own. I’ve met people on the road serving with the Peace Corps and other non-profit organizations, working remotely for US and European companies, running tour companies, managing hotels, and waiting tables who are adding value to others’ lives while loving their own.

I love the story of the single mom who started the “coffee can revolution” that Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, shared. There are many resources online for funding travel and living abroad. I’m now enjoying Kate Jordan’s How to Quit Your Job and Travel the World. Even though much has changed since 2015 when it was published, she still gives inspiration and practical tips for finding work abroad for an extended travel or expat experience.

My children are grown now, but we continue making memories traveling. Our favorite holiday gifts weren’t wrapped in boxes under a tree. We still speak of that Christmas in London and Marrakesh. And the holiday trip to New Orleans. This Christmas my daughter, Taylor, and I received the most exciting gift ever. My son, Cole, surprised us with tickets for a March getaway to California. We’ll return to Santa Monica, our favorite summer vacation spot ever, and drive to Palm Springs. Next week my sister will join me on a blogging trip to Key West, and in June, the dream of leading a writing retreat in Morocco is finally happening. We have a couple of spots left if you’re interested.

So where do you need to go this year? What do you want to do, learn, see, or be?

Lonely Planet’s Ideas for Learning Something New

I love Road Scholar, a non-profit travel adventure company. They offer financial assistance from donors to folks over 50 with need. If you or someone you know is a caregiver or educator wanting to get away, see below. They also have trips that don’t charge more for singles as well as online adventure scholarships. Road Scholar is my kind of people!

Grants for Caregivers at Road’s Scholar

No Solo Traveler Fees at Road’s Scholar

Educator Scholarships

Have you booked a trip already? Where are you going? Know of other travel learning experiences you’d like to share in the comments?

Moments and Memories of International Teaching

June 28, 2016August 10, 2020Cindy McCain

Jen, Emily, Bethany, Julie, Rachel, Eliza, Ali, Audrey

“What will be your moment this summer?” asked Jodie as eighteen coworkers sat Indian style on our apartment complex rooftop under a full moon.

A packed school year had ended with high energy and emotion— Moroccan Heritage Day, ASM’s 20^th Anniversary Celebration, Graduation, our final faculty meeting sending some of us off for summer…others for good. Tears, hugs, and kisses had given way to a mellow mood. I’d sat in circles with colleagues over the last two years not only discussing work but life. Good times gathered around turkeys at our annual Thanksgiving dinners, birthday cakes, desert camp fires, and pools…challenging times around family members sick at home or a loved one in a hospital bed in Marrakesh after an emergency appendectomy…confusing times as we wondered what was going on with sad world events and the US Presidential race. The next day we’d disperse all over the globe—many traveling for ten weeks and some going home for summer. I couldn’t imagine not seeing these people again in August at our annual Welcome Back rooftop cookout.

“So…your moment? What will be that thing you can’t wait to do?”

“Hang gliding over the fjords,” said Sylvie. We’d hiked in the mountains together and she biked to school—a trek that took our bus 30 minutes to make. She’d been to Nepal last Christmas, hosted our annual Thanksgiving meal in her apartment, and shown me an amazing French cheese store and bakery in our neighborhood.

“What about you, Jodie?”

“Driving a scooter on the coast of Crete,” she beamed. “You know, I can’t believe we are living this life. We’re going to Greece! I always thought if I did do something like that it would be the trip of a lifetime. Now we take school breaks and say, ‘Want to go to Paris? Tickets are $20.’” She sat beside her husband, Jordan, as she did daily on the bus. They had raised four children and now the empty nesters were loving their first year of freedom abroad. Their summer plans also included doing the Camino de Santiago alone. Both witty, she’d sit on the outside on the bus each morning energetically singing, laughing, and proposing we contact the show, “Pimp my Ride” to enter our bus for a makeover. By afternoon his soft –spoken zingers, naturally timed with hers, made them a comedy duo. Both have huge hearts and when they’d kiss each other bye as she turned down the kindergarten wing and he headed to the middle school to start their days, I smiled. Jodie and I had bonded as moms and bloggers. She’d recorded my southern accent reading a children’s book for her students and we’d held babies together at the orphanage.

“Jordan?” We looked at the other half of the Dynamic Duo.

“I’m excited about the history in Greece and I also look forward to just reading books on the beach.”

“Mike?” He’d taught in Ecuador last year and we all loved his one-of-a-kind laugh.

“Having a beer made at a monastery that has produced it since 1050.” He was meeting his dad in Germany and then would continue onto several other countries.

“Jason?” We turned to half of another kind couple.

“Seeing my new nephew who is now six months old,” he grinned. Jason had taught middle school in our English department, would be upper school principal next year, and headed a writing workshop at the beach last spring. I’d taken yoga from his Irish fiancé from Belfast, Siobhan, a doctor, blogger, and all-around Renaissance woman. They’d met in Costa Rica where he was teaching and both have hearts of gold.

“Thelma?” Thelma and Laurance, also empty nesters, had been in my yoga class and writing workshop. They’d owned a café in Nicaragua where she was from and had given me valuable tips on The Dominican Republic where they vacationed. Their daughter, pretty and sweet like her mother, was studying close by in Nice. Both dedicated teachers, Laurance was a talented screenwriter and made us laugh. Both helped me lighten up by encouraging me to sell my house as they had done to allow for travel and expat life in this new season.

“Seeing a national park Laurance and I have always wanted to visit in Croatia.”

“Rachel?” The age of my daughter, she sat beside me as she did most mornings on the bus. Eliza was sleeping strapped to her chest. She’d taught me how to do a bun I now call “The Rachel” because it saved me from heat and bad hair days. Her husband, Jon, had tutored me in photography and painting. He’d led the Marrakesh Photo Walk last fall and was an amazing artist who first came to Morocco to do commissioned work. I’d seen Eliza grow from a month old infant to a toddler in dog ears. We’d laughed and prayed together and I’ll miss them so much. They are moving to Casa.

“Seeing my mom again who has been sick. It will also be special for Jon’s grandmother to meet Eliza for the first time.”

Other destinations included Kilimanjaro, Zanzibar, and Korea. We traveled every school break during the year and traded stories to plan future trips. My coworkers were from ten countries I can think of—probably more: Canada, Russia, Scotland, England, the Philippines, Australia, Portugal, France, Morocco, and the US. Fellow Americans were from Oregon, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Colorado, Virginia, West Virginia, Michigan, Texas. They’d attended schools like Berkeley and taught previously from Alaska to Las Vegas to Harvard. Overseas they’d taught in the Bahamas, Costa Rica, Europe, Korea, Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia, the Middle East….

I hope Tennyson was right when he said, “I am a part of all I’ve met.” Though we are from different places, backgrounds, and religions and teach students aged three to eighteen, we are all committed to being part of something bigger than ourselves. Together we worked hard and tried to love each other and our kids well. We respected each other. We collaborated. We listened. We lived out hope before our students. To be part of the solution rather than shout and shame others over the problems. To mute voices that promote negativity, fear, hate. To believe in and fight for a world of peace and understanding. I’ll miss these guys and am forever grateful for the community.

“I’m glad I met you Cindy McCain. What’s your moment?” Jodie asked before I hugged her bye and headed down to my packed apartment. “Hanging out with your kids–a movie night in perhaps?”

“Exactly,” I smiled.

That was just over a week ago. As I post this I see on Facebook Ritchie thrilled to be with her aunt in Milan, Emily having a big time in Germany thanks to the kindness of strangers, Todd and Jose on the beach in Portugal, Jodie surrounded by statues in Crete with hands in the air giving Julie a shout out for her signature pose. Moments in Morocco and beyond. We’ll remember.

1st Year…

2nd Year…

Hope to see Ali again in Nova Scotia one day

Hope to see Ymane when she visits Texas and makes a stop in the Dominican

Hanane offered her home should I return to Marrakesh.

12182422_10205011446516848_5534174735870555037_o — Julie from VA, Jodie from Colorado, Siobhan from Belfast and Andrena from Glasgow do Girl Power classic, Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.”

13221340_10153519104247019_3015092313357525774_o — Jon’s Art Class

I will miss Ritchie, my dear friend, and my sweet neighbors across the hall, Christopher, who kept my Mac running and provided karaoke for everyone, Bevs who fed me Filipino cuisine, and their three little ones who grew so fast and made me laugh.

Jasna, my ASM bestie on one of the few occasions she allowed herself to be photographed.

12771646_1187117327965416_3099318337047832794_o (1) — Writing workshop at Sidi Kaouki. Photo by Siobhan Graham.

13467675_10206372837910782_1127846459_o — Photo of bus buddies, Rachel and me, by Julie Tumasz

Just before our 7:15 AM commute, teachers dashed to the hanut (mini market) next to our apartment complex for egg sandwiches, clementines, or whatever else we needed for the day. Likewise, when we dragged off the bus at 5 PM needing water, gas for our stoves, vegetables for dinner, or fresh mint for tea, this young man welcomed us in with a smile and asked about our day. He and his brothers work seven days a week until 10 PM–always friendly no matter how high the temperature or how many locals stormed the counter.

Version 2 — Ismail was our go-to driver for excursions around the country (like our trips to the Atlas Mountains and Ouzoud Falls; social events; and airport drop offs and pick ups. He also transported our families and friends who came to visit including a last-minute cameral ride for my niece, her boyfriend, and me. If you’re ever in Marrakesh, contact him at Morocco Desert Adventures.

Mary (below) and her husband own Les Jardins de Bala–my favourite Sunday lunch spot where Anu, another teacher, celebrated her birthdays and my guest including my kids loved. We taught Mary’s sweet son, and I enjoyed her French flair for fashion. On the right is a chic dress she designed for 200 DH/$20 USD which included the cost of fabric and a tailor. She is beautiful inside and out.

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How I miss Sayida. She kept the Woods and me organized and was nanny to their three children. Coming home to a spotless apartment, clothes and sheets washed, and dinner ready and mint tea brewed was a treat I’ll never forget. Just before I left, she surprised me with this beautiful gift. She was a Godsend and a great friend.

13467567_10206372681706877_1710517554_o — Nick, Anu, and Steve at our going away pool party

1914975_10154531371249466_4556676461399732253_n (1) — Bringing in 2016 in Venice with Jasna and Anu

88 Kisses and 44 Smiles: Sweet Success of Project SOAR

June 6, 2016March 12, 2019Cindy McCain

To laugh often and much;

To win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;

To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;

To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;

To leave the world a bit better, whether by
a healthy child, a garden patch
or a redeemed social condition;

To know even one life has breathed
easier because you have lived;

This is to have succeeded.

–Ralph Waldo Emerson

Growing up southern, I’d hear my Mama Sargeant and Grandaddy say when they greeted the grandkids : “Give me some sugar.” A couple of weeks ago, I exchanged eighty-eight kisses Moroccan- style, one on each cheek, with forty-four sweet girls as they excitedly entered the Project SOAR gates as they do every Sunday during the school year. My students and other volunteers were all smiles and laughs, too.

Last week the last session ended the season for summer break, but sadly, for me, it was another marker of the end of my season in Morocco. Lord willing, or as Moroccans say, Inshallah, I will be teaching students in the Caribbean when Project SOAR resumes in the fall. I will miss the girls, my students who love working with them, and the wonderful people who started and sustain Project SOAR. I am forever grateful for the hospitality shown to me by Maryam and Chris and the opportunities to teach their son, Tristan, and to serve Douar Ladaam girls. I believe in Project SOAR’s mission to “empower underserved Moroccan girls through art, sports, and health education…(and to) help keep girls in school, breaking the cycle of girl marriages and early motherhood, and preparing girls to have productive and fulfilled futures.”

From afar I will continue to invite others to get involved in person or through financial support. Though it is time to be nearer my family and leave Morocco, a country I have come to love the last two years, I will carry this place, these people forever with me in my heart.

Sports instructor, Alice Elliot explains circuit training to ASM girls, Zineb and Rania, who will lead sports for the day.

My former student visiting from the US, Jessica Markwood, will being interning in Mozambique this fall. Four years ago we had just returned from a service trip where we worked with children in Ecuador.

After sports at Peacock Pavilions we walk to the Project Soar Center in the village.

Bochra Laghssais leads art class with an empowering project to make leaves for a tree that lists their personal goals and pursuits.

Last winter students Abla, Najma, and Kenza also volunteered with me. Project SOAR was chosen to pilot the Be Girl program in Morocco–the first Muslim country that is keeping girls in school by providing them with a hygienic, eco-friendly, vital product.

Both beloved by the girls are Warda Belkass and Brenda Garcia Jaramillo.

Volunteering with the girls of Project Soar has been good for students of The American School of Marrakesh as well. They love laughing and playing with the girls. Below, they demonstrated ballet moves and then asked the girls to strike a pose. I am so thankful for their beauty, innocence, and enthusiasm.

Memories Made at Project SOAR:

In Marrakesh Girls SOAR

Painting Party at Project SOAR

International Women’s Day

Roaming Rome Like the Romantic Writers and Artists Did

April 3, 2016May 14, 2024Cindy McCain

I first met Rome in the movies in the ’60s when my family spent Easter week watching Ben-Hur and The Robe. Later I sighed at her heroes in Gladiator and King Arthur, and still turn to Roman Holiday and Three Coins in the Fountain for escape, classic style, and fun frocks. And though recently I giggled at Brit wits, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in The Trip to Italy based on their pilgrimage to places Shelley and Byron lived, I do love teaching literary legends —particularly The Romantic writers who lived in Rome. Long before the Left Bank of Paris brimmed with expat genius, Rome was a muse to so many who for centuries have transported readers to the Eternal City via memoir, fiction, and poetry. Still, nothing is like being in Rome for real. I was there last week on a detour; but as with many of life’s detours, I realized Plan B was To Be.

There’s a power struggle going on across Europe these days. A few cities are competing against each other to see who shall emerge as the great 21st century European metropolis. Will it be London? Paris? Berlin? Zurich? Maybe Brussels, center of the young union? They all strive to outdo one another culturally, architecturally, politically, fiscally. But Rome, it should be said, has not bothered to join the race for status. Rome doesn’t compete. Rome just watches all the fussing and striving, completely unfazed. I am inspired by the regal self-assurance of this city, so grounded and rounded, so amused and monumental, knowing she is held securely in the palm of history. I would like to be like Rome when I am an old lady.

—Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

Since moving to Morocco in 2014, I began planning my Dream Week for Spring Break 2016. I didn’t know if I’d stay abroad after my initial two-year work contract, so I saved the best for last. I’d fallen in love with Italy in 2000 and have since returned eight times; but in 2004 I was swept away by the Amalfi Coast and hoped this year to perch on a Positano terrace across from Capri, the island that enchanted me more than a decade ago. A Mermaid in Marrakesh, I felt I’d find my muse staying between the Path of the Gods and the ocean below. Nothing moves me like the sea, and I couldn’t wait to live like a local and go no farther than a boat ride to a restaurant I’d read about. I’d write in the sun. I’d breathe.

I booked the perfect villa last August beside the iconic Le Sirenuse, the set for Only You, a 1994 film my sister and I love . The plan was to join friends from the US in Tuscany the first week of the break, then travel alone by train to the coast. Sadly, an unforeseen circumstance that caused much stress forced me to cancel that second week, but a colleague offered a Plan B. She suggested I stay with her in Rome and catch the Ryan Air flight on Tuesday for $26. My flight and stay at a hotel inspired by my favorite painter, Modigliani , cost less than changing my original ticket. (To understand the bohemian artist scene from the late 16th century to the early 20th century in Paris and Rome and to learn more about Italy’s native son, see the 2004 film, Modigliani.)

Lately, I’ve been faced with huge decisions and it seemed all roads were, indeed, leading to Rome. I’m passionate about several paths — family, travel, writing, education — and have been praying for a way they can all convene. Birthdays are when I pull over to reevaluate the map of my life journey. While in Tuscany I celebrated the one that was my father’s last. He died at work. So young. So missed.

Roaming, resting, relaxing in Rome in my favorite neighborhoods (near Piazzas of Spagna and Barberini) proved to be poignant. I loved seeing friends in Tuscany, but I’d spent the week fighting the flu. Being in Rome on Easter and finally visiting The Keats-Shelley House—where Keats, too, came to Rome seeking a kinder climate for his health—moved me. I’d always loved Keats’ “When I Have Fears I Will Cease to Be” where he confesses concern that he’ll die before writing all he felt placed on earth to write or before marrying his beloved Fanny Brawne. I thought, too, about Lord Byron who said “If I don’t write to empty my mind I go mad” and Henry David Thoreau, an American Romantic, who said, “The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” I’ve never wanted to be one of that mass. Keats died after just three months in Rome beside the Spanish Steps at twenty-five; Shelley was living in Tuscany when he drowned off the coast of Italy at twenty-nine. Byron died from exhaustion in Greece at thirty-six. All so young. So much more to write. To live. I returned to Marrakesh with a renewed gratitude for my health and the warm climate I enjoy daily. And I continue to seek the best way to live what’s left of my life.

‘I sometimes fancy,’ said Hilda, on whose susceptibility the scene always made a strong impression, ‘that Rome–mere Rome–will crowd everything else out of my heart.’

—Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance

The entrance to the Keats-Shelley Memorial and Museum is located at the foot of the Spanish Steps.

From this bed Keats watched Rome pass by until he died.

View from Keats’ bedroom

beatles_tshirt_website — I loved this “Romantic Beatles” T-shirt in the gift shop–appropriate since the revolutionaries/flower children of the 1960s were legacies of the Romantic Era. My fascination with these four started in college and was piqued by the 1988 film *Haunted Summer* and Veronica Bennett’s novel, *Angelmonster,* focusing on the obsessions, dysfunctions, heartaches, and genius that led to Mary Shelley’s writing of *Frankenstein*.

Second-generation Romantics Percy and Mary Shelley, Byron, and Keats followed the fathers of the movement, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Blake, in philosophically opposing tenets of the previous period, The Enlightenment — institutions, tradition, conformity, science, and reason. Romantics were (and are) the Carpe Diem Crowd — idealists who value individualism, democracy, experimentation, emotion, imagination, social reform, change, and nature. Other European Romantic artists were Pushkin, Hugo, Turner, Beethoven, Schubert, and Berlioz. Romantics were influenced by the philosophies of Goethe (who lived in Rome for a time) and John Locke. Most believed a human is born innocent by nature — a tabula rasa (blank slate) but society (nurture) can write our story. Thus, they championed “the noble savage” — be he a Native American or Mary Shelley’s creature in Frankenstein who became a monster because the doctor recklessly created and abandoned him and villagers who feared and abused him. They also believed in Jean-Jacques Rosseau’s “social contract” (fair play between the governing and governed which fueled the French and American Revolutions).

I thought about how the tension between the two temperaments (classicism vs romatinticism) Reason vs Emotion, Duty vs Passion, and Fact vs Feeling vs Faith affects decisions. Just as I lived the questions while wandering Venice three months ago, I roamed Rome believing I’ll live into the answers. Meanwhile, I’m learning to wait in passionate patience.

I brought back writing inspiration from the vibrant literary landscape that is Rome. I walked the streets off Via Condotti where writers gathered around wine at restaurants and coffee at Antico Caffè Greco. In the area around The Spanish Steps known in the 19th century as the “English Quarter” lived not only the Shelleys, Byron, and Keats but also Sir Walter Scott, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, William Thackeray, Henry James, Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne, the subject of my Master’s Thesis, wrote The Marble Faun based on the Faun of Praxiteles displayed in the Capitoline Museum. I returned and read Edith Wharton’s “Roman Fever” and plan to read Charles Dickens’ Pictures from Italy and Henry James’ Italian Hours.

I loved studying filmmaker Federico Fellini in grad school who said:

Rome does not need to make culture. It is culture. Prehistoric, classical, Etruscan, Renaissance, Baroque, modern. Every corner of the city is a chapter in an imaginary universal history of culture. Culture in Rome is not an academic concept. It’s not even a museum culture, even though the city is one enormous museum. It is a human culture free from cultural faddishness, or neurotic trendiness.

Maybe…

One thing is for sure. From the bizarre to the sublime, Rome is human history. To learn more about expat life in Rome past and present whether planning a visit or move, check out this monthly publication.

I’d enjoyed seeing the Forum, Pantheon, Colosseum, Catacombs, and Vatican City on two previous trips, but this time it was nice to do what Romantics (and Enneagram 4s) do best. Feel. Truly Rome is an Ode to Joy, a Sonnet called La Bella Vita.

Fountain of Triton Rome — The Fountain of Triton is located in Piazza Barberini where expat artists gathered and lived.

Yellow vespa — My dream mode of transportation is a Vespa.

Hotel Modigliani is located just up the hill on Via della Purificazione, a street built in the 18th century runnning from Barberini Square to Via degli Artisti. I loved my stay for its old-world charm, top-floor balcony, and PERFECT location. It’s a five-minute walk to Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, Via Veneto, and Villa Borghese and within 3 km of all main sites. Barberini Metro and Square are a two-minute walk away. I walked everywhere during my stay and the hotel called a cab for my departure flight.

Modigliani Painting — Before visiting Paris or Rome see the 2004 film, *Modigliani.*.

Upon arrival, I was thrilled that I’d been moved to the top floor at no charge where I had a terrace view. Just around the corner, I found pizza with prosciutto and a nice glass of wine. By serendipity, I later strolled past Harry’s Bar. In the 1960s Fellini filmed La Dolce Vita here. I would have loved wandering in when Frank Sinatra played the piano here or Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, or Marlon Brando were regulars. I hope to return one day with a reservation (or at least dressed appropriately to stop in for a drink).

Borghese Park Rome trees — Borghese Park, one of the largest public parks in Europe, is located in the center of Rome. Cool off rowing the lake, wandering the gardens and art galleries, or watching Italian cinema.

See a map to plan your visit to Borghese Park here. This is a favorite spot for locals and tourists with children along with other places I’ve featured in my Mom’s Guide to Rome.

The Aurelian Walls surrounding Rome were built between 271 AD and 275 AD during the reign of Emperor Aurelian.

gelato in Rome — Life is short. Eat dessert first, especially when it’s gelato.

Easter Sunday I attended a church, revisited the Pantheon, and had lunch at Piazza della Rotonda.

Pantheon Altar Rome — The Pantheon, “Temple of All the Gods” became a Catholic church, Basilica of St. Mary and the Martyrs, in 609 AD.

My favorite shop in Rome is Antica Sartoria. Stores are located throughout Italy.

The. Altar of the Fatherland — The Altar of the Fatherland was built as a national monument to King Vittorio Emanuele II in 1878. With the rise of Fascism prior to World War II, it became Benito Mussolini’s headquarters and backdrop to military parades. When Italy became a Republic in 1946, the monument was stripped of all its Fascist symbols and rededicated to the citizens of Italy.

wine bar Rome — After climbing the Spanish Steps, relax and take in the view at a wine bar.

dogs painted on pink and blue doors in Rome — Just before Harry’s Bar, I passed these fabulous doors of retro Rome.

Trevi Fountain is always my first stop where I throw in a coin so it isn’t my last.

I’m grateful for roaming Rome which confirmed two things. I’ve been missing my children since December and want to travel and do life with them again more than anything. In Positano a gorgeous villa awaits, but I hope to go when they or my sis can join me one day. And, like it or not, the only constant is change. The Romantics knew this and thus seized the day knowing too soon the day ceases. I’ve experienced adventure, beauty, and new relationships aplenty. So much in my life has changed in the last two years. Places. People. Paths. My comfort is knowing the One who holds this gorgeous globe, my family, and me. He has already picked our next path. It’s good to be at peace with peace.

Note: If you need inspiration for cooking Italian food or living your best life, check out recipes, classes, and the amazing story of Renaissance Woman/Italian-American Chef Paulette.

Cycling Through Costa Brava’s Medieval Villages: Part IV

May 28, 2015April 26, 2016Cindy McCain

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”—St. Augustine

Photo by Alba Plana of www.costabrava.org

No history text or virtual tour can compare to cycling through Medieval hill towns in a land where BC structures and prehistoric cave paintings remain. Nor can a classroom feel like wind tangling my hair, smell like lavender abuzz with bees, or taste like fresh bread in an olive grove. Such was my escape to Emporda, Spain.

Each time I leave the classroom to travel–to breathe history, literature, life–I return a better teacher.

I”ll never forget finally touching the wall William the Conqueror built in 1066, commencing the Medieval age of castles, chivalry, and courtly love. Homer and Sophocles were beside me when I climbed a hill in Athens to the Parthenon and roamed the Coliseum in Rome. As a teen I’d studied about partygod Bacchus and Christian Paul. But blushing at pornographic paintings in Pompeii VS standing in an amphitheater in Ephesus where the latter preached faith over religion made what I know to be true feel even more real.

Last month while in Catalonian countryside, I saw a wall older than all but one of the ancient edifices I’ve experienced. Built only one century after Delphi’s Temple of Apollo, Ullastret was the first Iberian establishment raised in 6^th century BC in Girona.

In the following centuries, as Romans, Visogoths, and Muslims invaded, more walls, castles and towers would be raised for protection from attack.

Sentries watched for pirates, but even when the coast was clear, in the wetlands below marshes bred malaria which claimed lives. Today, Costa Brava still isn’t tame though locals no longer fight to survive. It is a place of adventure and natural beauty. Here one can thrive and feel alive.

Rather than a trusty steed, I powered through stone villages and past poppy fields on a burricleta, an electric bicycle named for its burro-like benefit of providing horsepower to handle high altitudes.

We began our journey (see our route here) in Gualta.

First stop was a famous bridge, rutted from wagon wheels.

We pedaled our way through Fontclara, Sant Feliu de Boada, Peratallada, and other towns. Five hours later we parked for lunch in Pals.

20150505_111953 — Cycling Through Costa Brava’s Medieval Villages

The plowed fields reminded me of Kentucky farms where I grew up.

Chef Jordi, of Hotel Mas Lazul met us in the grove after rising early to bake loaves for the tasting and for us to tote home. The master baker formerly worked alongside Santi Santamaria, chef of 3-star Michelin restaurant, Can Fabes. We sampled six types. My favorite was the dessert bread with pumpkin and raisin. He said children are given bread with wine and sugar as a treat. Each recipe takes 24 hours counting the rest and rise times. While he taught, our hosts made fresh aioli. The bread and spread…delicious.

Riding buddies, Heidi and Patti, above, Rachel and Betsy below.

Lunch time in Pals

Painting Party at Project SOAR

February 2, 2015June 23, 2020Cindy McCain

Surrounded by olive trees, lavender bushes, and mustard-colored blooms, we painted, stretched like yogis across the tent panels of the Project SOAR art area. Too cold to fan their plumes, the namesakes of Peacock Pavilions perched, watching us work to Dave Matthews with a rooster crowing as backup. Maggie requested a Lionel Ritchie encore.

Maggie O’Neill, American artist whose prolific portfolio includes designing the Washington, DC Twitter headquarters, flew in with friends from the Hill to volunteer in the grove. Meeting her was even better than I imagined. Not only because when I asked her about meeting President Obama for the first time she said he was so easy to talk to, so humble, so real, but also because she is, too. Energetic, funny, and friendly, she made our work play.

She said she had talked to the President surprisingly easily until asked to show him the portrait she’d painted of him. Then she became emotional. With tears in her eyes (which triggered tears in mine), she extended her arms to show how she had presented her work to him as an offering. All she had been able to say was, “I made this for you.”

On Sundays the girls now see our offering to them– newly painted walls of blues and greens on their sports court and walls left for them to finish in their art tent. Project SOAR is a beautiful space for beautiful girls. It’s a community of volunteers who cultivate confidence and nurture creativity through arts and sports.

Over lunch Maryam Montague, always the perfect hostess and founder of Project SOAR with her husband, Chris Redecke, shared stories of life in Marrakesh and needs for the girls and the village. The Be Girl program, a success in South America and South Africa, will roll out soon with Project SOAR chosen as pilot for Muslim countries. Health initiatives such as dental care and designs for trash pickup and a hamam for the village were discussed. If you’d like to volunteer or donate, please see how you can help here.

I left with new friends, like my painting partner, designer Adrienne Chinn, visiting from London. As her Twitter page reads, “Life isn’t about finding yourself. It’s about creating yourself.” And bringing together creative people who care.

Artist Jonathan Wommack http://www.jonathanwommack.com/

Saturday American Artists To SOAR

January 26, 2015August 12, 2015Cindy McCain

I can hardly wait for Saturday to return to Project SOAR, this time to paint alongside master American artists like Maggie O’Neill of Swatchroom.

She and other creatives are flying in to decorate welcoming spaces at Peacock Pavilions and the non-profit’s new Dourar Ladaam village center. There girls and their moms will take classes in health, sports, and yoga. Also coming in 2015 is a Big Sis program and a Be Girl pads launch. Learn more about how you can help.

DC-based fine artist Maggie O’Neill paints works inspired by fashion, travel, and music. She also specializes in interesting Washington places and folks from Uncle Sam to Honest Abe, Teddy Roosevelt to President Obama. Partnering again with Maggie are the girls of Gypsy Mint, a Minnesota-based company donating stencils for the weeklong mission. Committed to giving back and eco-friendly best practices, painters and designers, Alicia Danzig, Kelly Fee, and Peg Malanaphy worked with O’Neill at Project SOAR in December 2013. You can be a part of ongoing support provided by Maggie O’Neill Fine Art and Gypsy Mint.

On the Gypsy Mint website is this inspiration:

Showing girls how to discover their own passions means also modeling pursuits of our own. I’m thankful that since moving to Africa to do a couple of things I love– teach and travel–other passion paths have aligned. Writing, serving, finding community, even painting again. For all of us, taking the road less traveled does make all the difference.

In Marrakesh Girls SOAR

December 7, 2014November 19, 2018Cindy McCain

Like many who come to Morocco, I have stepped off a camel onto sand soft as powdered sugar. I have stepped onto a balcony overlooking nothing but ramparts and sea. I have stepped around a corner in the mountains knowing that more blue alleys await. All marvels and memories under the Moroccan sun. But one of my best Marrakesh moments was stepping into a circle of girls who show up Sundays at Peacock Pavilions ready to SOAR.

Since before moving to Morocco I’d been following the award-winning lifestyle blog, My Marrakesh. I loved the author’s story of moving to Morocco and building a beautiful oasis for guests and girls. Maryam Montague, a writer, interior designer, and international humanitarian aide specialist, founded Project SOAR with her husband, architect Chris Redecke. I hoped to meet them one day when I moved to Africa but had no idea it would happen so soon. They are parents of one of my students and this fall the American School of Marrakesh began volunteering with the nonprofit organization, Project Soar, whose mission includes working with girls from the village Dourar Ladaam. From that first Sunday when I caravanned through gates where girls gathered excitedly, I saw all the good growing in an olive grove, hugged girls SOAR serves, and met students and adults of all ages volunteering. From near or far there are ways we can all help here. Led by a college mentor (her interview below), they filed in, took their name tags from the board, and joined hands with volunteers from Chicago to Texas, New Zealand to Austria. We all introduced ourselves and then, through wide smiles, the girls said their mantra: “I am strong. I am smart. I am capable. I am worthy.”

Maryam Montague and a volunteer show the girls America, the home country of their teaching artist, Designer Amy Butler.

Half of the girls were led to the arts tent where internationally known artist and designer, Amy Butler, taught them teamwork in making textile necklaces.

Saloia, fourteen, plans to go to university. She said she has been coming to SOAR for about a year and added: “I have learned sports and arts and how to be independent and work with my friends. I use what I learn here back home to be a good person.”

Souad (left) is thirteen. She said she has been coming since Ramadan in August : "I've learned to make kites and bowls. I've learned how to play sports and health information from the doctor who comes when we take yoga." — Souad (left) is thirteen. She said she has been coming since Ramadan in August : “I’ve learned to make kites and bowls. I’ve learned how to play sports and health information from the doctor who comes when we take yoga.”

ASM student Chama (center) translates from Arabic to English for Khadija (left) who does all things with giggles and confidence.

Outside, the other half of the girls learned teamwork as well as ASM student, Mehdi, and Upper School Principal and Basketball Coach, Todd Stiede, taught them drills and how to run relay races.

It takes a village to raise a child. Likewise, children inspire us to rise to our best selves. On any given Sunday one finds community, creativity, collaboration, and global citizenship here. Two ASM volunteers explain. Chama: “It’s important to share special moments with people from different cultural backgrounds. We open their minds to a bigger world and the idea that we girls in Morocco can do big things….The SOAR mantra is true, and no one can take that from you.” Says Sophia when asked why she regularly volunteers: “We have to. It’s the least we can do. As much as the girls learn from us, we learn from them.”

The American School of Marrakesh Is A New Adventure

September 6, 2014May 2, 2023Cindy McCain

The great teachers fill you up with hope and shower you with a thousand reasons to embrace all aspects of life… The world of literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave anything out. I have read like a man on fire my whole life because the genius of English teachers touched me with the dazzling beauty of language. Because of them I rode with Don Quixote and danced with Anna Karenina at a ball in St. Petersburg and lassoed a steer in Lonesome Dove and had nightmares about slavery in Beloved and walked the streets of Dublin in Ulysses and made up a hundred stories in The Arabian Nights… —nPat Conroy, author and former teacher

Robert Frost, Sylvia Plath, Maya Angelou, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, William Golding…writers who were also teachers. The latter based his classic, Lord of the Flies, on his classroom experience. The Harry Potter creator began her saga as an English teacher in my now-neighboring country, Portugal. (So almost did a legendary songwriter from my home in Nashville, Kris Kristofferson, who after studying literature at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, took an English position at West Point. Though he resigned to move to Music City it’s a fun fact for me to remember that he and Conray have Southern accents, too. I first worried about having the only drawl on staff until some of my new coworkers told me they like it.)

I have to remind myself that despite the demands of teaching, there is no excuse not to keep up with blog posts. As Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat told me in an interview when I asked how she managed to teach and write: “The way anyone finds time to do what they most want to do. The time is there. It’s just a matter of priority.” By the way, she taught at the school of one of two of my brilliant new English department colleagues, who, like the rest of the faculty, work really hard daily and care deeply about our students. One of the many firsts this new school year is being the only female and non-Brit of the department.

I’ve been teaching as long as I’ve been writing. After elementary school each day, I’d run from the bus to play teacher to my sole pupil, Granddaddy Ladd. My grandmother, Mama Lou, had taught in a one-room schoolhouse before she married, at a home for special needs children after my grandfather died, and in an elementary school until she was eighty. She gave me my father’s book, The Arabian Nights, from which I’ll teach a story this year alongside The Alchemist, a book that inspired my move to Marrakesh. Although I’ve been at this teaching-thing more than thirty years, the first day of inservice I felt like a kid again. Like a first grader, I had little idea of what to expect, and not since a ninth grader had I boarded a bus for school. Most of the teachers live in the same complex and ride the bus into work daily. Our stop is just around the corner. Since our school doesn’t have a cafeteria, teachers who don’t pack lunches pop into the hanuts to grab fresh baked bread or snacks for the day on the walk to the bus stop. I either take leftovers or, more often, though I’ve never been much of a bread eater I find myself stuffing a loaf into my backpack and pinching off pieces throughout the day; that, a Fanta, and a 1.5 liter bottle of water are plenty for me in summer heat.

Cindy McCain Southern at American School of Marrakesh — I feel like it’s my first day of school — ever.

My thirty-minute commute has rendered many firsts — passing a neighborhood mosque, posses of pigeons in parks, donkey-drawn carts of chickens, weary workers gathered around tea in an alley before work (we leave for school at 7:15 AM–an American school schedule that lasts till 4:30–atypical of Morocco where families eat dinner/sleep/open shops later). Terra cotta apartments topped with satellite saucers give way to suburban living– villas and turnoffs into spas and luxury hotels along a boulevard lined with bushes trimmed into poodle tails, palm trees, olive groves, and walls laden with cascading bougainvillea. As we turn off the now-country highway, the guards swing open the huge wooden gates. Our bus driver parks, we gather briefcases and bags and walk through the school’s orchard. After two weeks I still marvel at the beautiful building and massive grounds– the arched doorways, long stone hallways, private alcoves, scrolled iron balconies, and olive trees on the playground tempting children to pelt each other with olives.

Our headmaster reminds us we’re one of only five schools in Morocco recognized by the US State Department. We discuss the Mission Statement which begins, “The American School of Marrakesh is a multicultural community of learners.” True. My colleagues from Morocco, France, England, Scotland, Singapore, the Philippines, Russia, India, Canada, and many US states and assorted countries do work and life together, whether interpreting for the French and Arab teachers at faculty meetings; discussing curriculum on the bus or movies or vacations together at our Friday night rooftop gatherings; cheering on a colleague’s son who rides his bike without training wheels for the first time in our complex courtyard; or taking a coworker’s daughter home so Daddy can play Friday afternoon soccer after school with the faculty and staff. Like many 21st-century schools, ASM strives to “foster excellence through critical thinking and creativity; build resilience and character; promote responsible, global citizenship, and encourage lifelong learning.” But unlike most international schools, students are expected to not only master English and their native language but also become fluent in French and classical Arab (different from Darija, the local language).

American School of Marrakesh — Lunch areas at ASM

Basketball court and rose bushes at American School of Marrakesh — Basketball/soccer court and rose bushes outside my room at ASM

The American School of Marrakesh — View from my room at ASM

We meet off the courtyard for in-service where most of the children eat lunch. Our headmaster reminds us we’re one of only five schools in Morocco recognized by the US State Department. We discuss the Mission Statement which begins, “The American School of Marrakesh is a multicultural community of learners.” True. My colleagues from Morocco, France, England, Scotland, Singapore, the Philippines, Russia, India, Canada, and many US states and assorted countries do work and life together, whether interpreting for the French and Arab teachers at faculty meetings; discussing curriculum on the bus or movies or vacations together at our Friday night rooftop gatherings; cheering on a colleague’s son who rides his bike without training wheels for the first time in our complex courtyard; or taking a coworker’s daughter home so Daddy can play Friday afternoon soccer after school with the faculty and staff. Like many 21st-century schools, ASM strives to “foster excellence through critical thinking and creativity; build resilience and character; promote responsible, global citizenship, and encourage lifelong learning.” But unlike most international schools, students are expected to not only master English and their native language but also become fluent in French and classical Arab (different from Darija, the local language). My room, which I now affectionately call “the annex” has its own private entrance. It’s beside the basketball court and has its own rose garden!

Last summer I made posters for “windows to the world” using my travel pictures to entice students to read world literature and embrace global citizenship. They want to know where I’ll take them and when, and I’ve assured them class trips are being discussed. My students are high energy–most movers and shakers (kinesthetic learners and/or highly motivated), social and warm–and they all greet me each period with a “Good Morning/Afternoon/Hello, Miss!” and bid adieu with a, “Thank you and have a nice day, Miss!” I really like them. I have 15 in my 9th Grade Advanced, and a dozen in my 10th Grade Standard, 11th Grade AP, 12th Grade Standard. I also teach an elective, Journalism.

Old friends from home and the ASM library

President Obama's photo in ASM library — President Obama’s photo in ASM library

The library is full of classics and other interesting reads. Teachers check out books regularly for pleasure. During inservice we were treated to hot mint tea, pancakes, and pastries, and catered lunches of traditonal Berber tagines served on china. Yesterday we celebrated our first week of teaching with a high tea–mint tea, chilled strawberry and avocado drinks, pastries, and assorted almonds and other local nuts.

American School of Marrakesh Morning Tea and Soccer — Mint tea and pastries for Morning Break

And though my first couple of days the temperature was 108 degrees and I wondered how we’d ever manage without AC, the weather has dropped to the mid-90s and become bearable. In fact, the mornings have been 70 degrees and I love preparing for my day, windows open to nothing-but-green– soccer field in the front, flowers in the back– as my daily visitors, wee birds, fly in, land on the floor, and say hello. It also helps in a new place to be surrounded by not only new friends…but old ones, like Bronte and the crew, as well.

As students and teachers we get two new starts each year–one in January, the other now. Then again, we all can learn something new everyday for the rest of our lives. From the land of oranges, pomegranates, and figs, here’s to a fruitful year.

Southern Girl Gone Global

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The Bottom Line

So where do you need to go this year? What do you want to do, learn, see, or be?

Have you booked a trip already? Where are you going? Know of other travel learning experiences you’d like to share in the comments?

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See a map to plan your visit to Borghese Park here. This is a favorite spot for locals and tourists with children along with other places I’ve featured in my Mom’s Guide to Rome.

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