Link (self)Love: OnIslam Coming Home with the Cows

Being one of those Muslims who spent a lot of time using the resources available online while coming into my deen (and I still do of course!), it is especially exciting for me to have written an article on parenting, nature and green stuffs for the site OnIslam.

“Allah also gave me an opportunity to get away from it all. I don’t mean the five-star sort of getting away; rather it was a chance to try this simple living thing that so many people pine for, though I had never.”

Recently I read an interview with Ibrahim Abdul-Matin, the author of ‘Green Deen,’ in which he laments about how and why so many Muslims are out of touch with the nature and therefore, apathetic to environmental issues.

Seated 1200 feet above sea level in my mud house located in a mostly self-sustaining farming community in the High Atlas Mountains, I was geographically so far away from Abdul-Matin in Brooklyn and living a much different lifestyle, still I embarrassedly felt that he spoke exactly about me.

Before moving to Morocco, I assumed that I would relocate there, creating my long dreamed of suburban family home, but with Arabic (or French) subtitles. I don’t knock myself (or anyone else) for having such dreams.

I wanted a big chunk of Allah’s glorious bounty: my own semi-private yard, a comfortable car and enticingly displayed foods for sale within a short driving distance.

Please keep reading here.

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Homeschooling: Getting Dad on Board

I frequently hear moms asking “How do I get my husband to agree to homeschool?” and, well, I have great empathy for their plight. I’ve heard that if it’s not dad’s idea to begin with, it can be very difficult to convince him to homeschool. This week when someone asked me about this common dilemma I thought back some ten+ years to the beginning of my family’s journey and tried to remember- how did I get my husband to agree to homeschool our kids?

Initially the husband seemed to agree with my homeschooling idea. Perhaps he saw my enthusiasm- pouring over hsing books, joining hsing groups, taking parent and child courses at our local Waldorf school- and he thought something like, She’s going to be great at this! I just asked him how he was so easily convinced in those early days and he says it has to do with him being “weird” by which he means “unconventional” and he says that he’s quick on his feet and “just got it right away that homeschooling was a good thing to do.” I may try again to jog his memory about that time because…

… and then about a year later we moved to Morocco and the man buckled. He began pressuring me to put our four year old into preschool. Now he says “that was only about the language.” Yes, of course. Muslim homeschoolers who move overseas often cite language acquisition as a reason for indoctrinating putting their children in schools once they are in Muslim majority countries. The other main reason is so that the children will learn Quran and Islamic values.

The first two neighbourhood schools I begrudgingly toured with my husband were taught primarily in French. And they happily informed us that the children learn all about Papa Noel and wear costumes for Halloween. Did this appeal to the Western Mom? No. Their curriculum was also cra substandard and they did not have an outdoor play area for the children. Well they had cement driveways. Nice. The third school we toured was a 40 minute drive (not during commute hours) from our home. It was an “Islamic school” located within the compound of a lovely mosque. There was a plush lawn covering the grounds and a slide. One of those detached slides you might buy from a toy store for your own kids.

We arrived at Option #3 just in time for Thuhr prayer and got to witness all the little kids (remember- preschool) pulling on their hijabs and thobes, rolling out the enormous plastic rugs, and lining up to pray. Truly adorable. Then we learned about the curriculum. Yes, we were proudly informed, these three and four year olds were learning not only Classic Arabic (as opposed to the Derija or Tshilhit they speak at home) but they were also learning English. Argh. I was hoping to follow the Better Late Than Early model. The husband was impressed. He decided the son would go. He decided my little four year-old would-be-homeschooler should commute to school six days a week for several many hours every day. I remember there was an option for him to come home for two hours every day for lunch, but obviously that would be futile with the more than an hour’s worth of driving back and forth, so he would be there all day. Full-time.

I decided to opt out. “You want him to go, you have to get him up, get him ready, make his breakfast, get his lunch ready, drop him off, pick him up. I’m not doing anything to help,” I said (and meant). My husband did not get up and get my son ready and make his breakfast and make his lunch and drive him in Casa traffic (similar to LA or NY) to school and then drive back to our side of town and then go back hours later to get him. My husband didn’t put our son in school after all. This solution didn’t come to me immediately or easily, but it came to me and it worked. That was the end of that and the beginning our homeschooling journey.

I hear that dads are more inclined to listen to professional advice regarding these matters of making choices that very much go against the current grain, especially the advice of other males. So you may want to do another thing I did, which was to load the coffee table down with books and printed out data about the success rates of homeschoolers. But then again, that didn’t seem to entirely work for us. Otherwise, some Muslims appreciate a good fatwa, so here’s one if it helps at all- though I’m sure you could find support out there for an opposite view…

Homeschooling our Children is an Act of Obedience to Allah

Question:

If a woman wants to home school her children, to protect them from evil influences, can she do so against her husband’s wishes? Can you provide any articles about educating our children, especially in this secular liberal society?

Answer:

The danger in the non-Muslim schools is definite, and sending our children there when there is a good alternative available is an act of disobedience to Allaah. If you know that you can properly home-school your children, and you know that you can get by it despite your husband’s opposition, then do it by all means, because, “No obedience may be granted to any creature that involves disobeying the Creator.”

Shaikh Muhammad al-Jibaly

imanbendjedidi.blogspot.com

Note: You do not have to be a teacher or have a university degree to teach your children at home. Studies have proven that home educated children are approximately five years ahead of children that attend public school, regardless of their parent’s level of education.

More and more Imams are encouraging homeschooling and some are stating it is a requirement, alhamdulillah.

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Try Your Hand at Tie Dye- Discover Magazine

You’ve probably seen people wearing clothes with an explosion of rainbow colours known as “tie-dye,” but did you know that tie-dying is an ancient fabric colouring technique used by people all over the world, including Muslims in parts of Africa and Indonesia?

Tie-dye is the art of strategically folding or randomly clumping cloth and then tying it with string or a rubber band to keep it together while dying. The string covers parts of the fabric, preventing the dye from reaching areas under it. Terrific designs are then created by adding various colours of dyes to different sections of the wet fabric.

Bright colours are typically used for tie-dying, and the fabric is usually cotton but any natural fibre can be used. You can purchase a tie-dye kit from an arts and crafts store and explore this ancient art yourself!

There are also tutorials online that demonstrate how to make cool patterns like spirals and stripes. My family had so much fun tie-dying our t-shirts that afterward we dyed socks, underclothes and even our thobes – we wanted to tie dye everything in the house! Try your hand at tie-dying and you’ll see how much fun it is to add your own splash of colour to your clothes.

Did you know…

• The oldest remaining examples of tie-dye come from Peru and date from 500 to 810 AD. Their designs have small circles and lines, with lively colours including blue, green, red and yellow, made from plant materials.

• Tie-dye methods have also been used for hundreds of years by the Hausa people of West

Africa, in the famous indigo dye pits around Kano, Nigeria.

• Shibori is a type of tie-dye from Indonesia and Japan that dyes the clothes by binding,

stitching, folding, twisting, etc.

• Tritik is an African form of using stitches to tighten the cloth before dying.

The result is usually quite bold.

• Hausa techniques dye the cloth and then heavily embroider it in traditional patterns. It is said that the hippie fashion was inspired by the Hausa techniques

• Mudmee tie-dye is mostly from Thailand and parts of Laos. Black is its base colour,

and it uses different colours and shapes than regular tie dye.

By (Budding young writer, insha Allah) Badier G Benoit-Elkaoui and originally appeared in Issue 4 of Discover Magazine- the magazine for curious Muslim kids

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I Go To School… At Home

Asalam alaikum, my name is Zakariya and I am eleven years old. I have always been homeschooled, so I really don’t know what a typical day at school is like, but I do have an idea of what an ideal homeschooling day would be …
My perfect day would start with a big breakfast, including waffles and hot chocolate, but usually I just make myself a sandwich with honey and homemade peanut-butter. I really like to have extra sweet coffee or black tea, but my mom usually only lets me have chamomile or green tea. We don’t live near a bakery, so my mom pays my brother and I to make our own bread, which is pretty awesome because I get money and homemade bread is delicious.

On a perfect day I could jump into my favourite projects right after breakfast, but actually I have some chores to do. My brothers and I take turns washing dishes; we also feed our food scraps to our neighbour’s cows, chickens and cats. Sometimes I have to clean the hammam (bathroom) or wash my clothes, which we don’t have a machine for. In an ideal world, we would have a washing machine and I would never even have to use it!
After chores we have ‘project time.’ Right now my main project is learning about architecture and doing architectural drawings. I draw with pencils and the computer. I’ve used some architecture software and am hoping to get some better illustrating software soon.
I tried making three dimensional building models with balsa wood, but found out that I really like making toy guns instead. I also draw a lot of comics and have been thinking about writing a whole story about what World War III might be like.
Lunchtime always sneaks up on me while I am working on a project. On an ideal day, we would have Chinese take-out or pizzas with fountain sodas delivered, but actually, just like with chores, my brothers and I take turns helping to make lunch, which is usually our biggest meal of the day. My mom says that I am really “detail oriented” so she usually has me cut vegetables into small pieces for fresh salads or sautéing.
After lunch my parents like to have “quiet time,” which for them and my little sisters usually means taking a nap. My brothers and I like to use the computer during this time, either to watch a movie or play video games.
The athan for Asr lets us know that quiet time is over, and, after we pray, we can play outside until Mahgrib if we don’t have any chores to do. I usually use this time without my brothers and sisters around to do my own work on the computer, like right now I like to take a lot of math tests online or make stop animation movies with Lego or paper cutouts.
Usually right after Mahgrib we eat a simple dinner of leftovers or other simple food and then begin getting ready for bed. Most nights we have ‘story time’ and my mom reads either a storybook for my sisters or a chapter from one of the books we have on our Kindle. We don’t live near a library, so most of our reading is done on the e-reader, and after story time my older brother and I take turns reading on it. Right now we are reading through all of Rick Riordan’s books. If it’s not my night to use the Kindle, I usually draw for a little while before I go to sleep. Occasionally I actually stay up longer than my parents and having the whole house to myself is really perfect – the best way to end the day!

~~~

Originally published in Discover- The Magazine for curious Muslim Kids, Issue #3

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Confessions of An Unschooling Hypocrite

I have been wanting my kids to learn Arabic since before they were born, of course. And since the first child’s birth I was irritated for nearly a decade (maybe more) that this acquisition wasn’t happening naturally via my husband speaking to them in Arabic. It seemed like he just wouldn’t do it,  though he could. It took me very many years to understand that he is not a native speaker. Yes, yes- he learned Arabic in school and can read, write, and speak it, but it is his second (or third language) so it does not come naturally to him, just as German, Spanish and French (languages I have somewhat acquired) do not come naturally to me. He did teach the kids how to read Arabic phonetically and got a bit into grammar stuffs with #1 and #2, but when I finally caught onto to the non-native speaker problem I began hiring tutors, which got them much further in the acquisition process. Doesn’t sound exactly like unschooling philosophy, does it? Then this week my eldest son vehemently refused to continue with his Arabic instruction.

While the Arabic tutor worked with my second son, I nagged, begged, threatened and attempted to bribe the heel-dragger, while being awash with a sweeping myriad of emotions all connected with a resounding feeling of failure. He simply wouldn’t do it. Later, he would explain that he “just prefers self-taught learning,” like he is doing with his Latin studies. That sounds like unschooling doesn’t it?

But before he inadvertently helped me to recommit to our unschooling ideals, I had another thought. All this time I have been wanting for my children to learn Arabic, knowing that it will be beneficial to their deen, but for myself I had a dozen or so excuses about not having time to learn Arabic over the last 16 years or so of being Muslim. Um, yeah. So those recently opened slots our Arabic tutor has on Wednesday and Saturday- they’re mine.

لديك فكرة جيدة!

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Hijrah Diaries: Into the High Atlas Mountains

Mountains in the distance with a sprinkling of trees and shrubbery in front in a valley, from SISTERS Magazine’s November ’12 issue.

Day 2: While I was in a fairly frantic speed-settling mode, first thing this morning The Kids (#1- #5) burst out of the house with their homemade arsenal of wooden weaponry and introduced themselves to the neighbourhood. Though I was happy to get them out of my way, I really didn’t feel this was the most effective approach to meeting the neighbours, you know, sharing cookies maybe… but it actually went really well, which just reinforces how little I understand the male species. They were happy, their new friends were happy; the injuries were few and superficial, and still, I got next to nothing done. Perhaps this is because I have a continually nursing one month old and unrealistic expectations.

A small circle of men had gathered round and were discussing a pressing problem in the village – our children.

This is one of the many things I am hoping our move up here into the mountains will do for me. I am hoping that I will learn to let go, to “hand it over to Allah (SWT)” as they say. Though I certainly don’t consider myself a “control freak,” I am open to the possibility that I could be wrong. I know that I do too much, but I don’t know what else to do – or not do! The problem can’t be prioritising as there is nothing on my list that I can give up: I cannot give up nursing Asiya – it is her right and was extended to all of her siblings, so that would just be too wrong for me to do. I do truly feel that nursing her is a blessing and our relationship is symbiotic. I don’t interrupt her feedings for anything, and I also don’t walk around while feeding her (I am lacking in grace and coordination) so at least breastfeeding forces me to SIT. I also cannot give up on working, and even though I sometimes fantasise about giving up homeschooling, the kids won’t let me at this point, as they say “We won’t get on the yellow bus!” Obviously I cannot give up the bare essentials: praying – I already don’t feel that I do enough acts of ‘ibadah and should be adding in this area; eating – I am perfectly content to eat simple foods, but the family has been really spoiled by my SIL and trying to one-up each other in the kitchen the last couple of years. I’m sure eating gruel three times a day isn’t going to be an easy adjustment for the husband and kids to make (though I will serve it up); and sleeping – even though for decades I have tried to reduce my sleep time, Alhamdulillah my body won’t deny me that right. And there is so much more I want to do, like hiking in these beautiful mountains, and everyone else manages somehow. So ultimately I lean towards thinking that my problem is about time management, though I have an inkling that it is worse than that – it’s a problem with my belief. I believe that I can do it all and just haven’t found a way yet, but I may be wrong there. Allah (SWT) may just show me what I have to let go of – I hope!

Day 7: Zaynab, the nearly six years old, has quickly assimilated the local schedule. She knows exactly when the bread starts to be baked in the outdoor ovens and makes the rounds looking for scraps. “Please don’t let your children go around begging for food,” the Husband whined. Of course I assumed the ladies just gave it to her because she’s so cute, masha Allah, but upon questioning it turns out she demands it. In her limited Tshilhit, Zaynab goes around saying “Give me bread.” Lovely, she’s not a beggar, she’s a forty pound bully. And today I saw her coaching the three year old on how it’s done.
Day 9: Husband went back to Casablanca after Fajr this morning and I just want to bawl about it, but I am really too tired and dehydrated to shed a tear. There is just so, so much not the way I want it. I have no idea how to refill the prepaid electricity card and no idea how long it will last, and neither does the landlord or anyone else because who knows how excessive we Americans will be in our use? And I don’t even know where he lives or how to use the phone to call him or anyone else! I forgot to ask husband to explain how this phone works as it has a passcode and uff!

My biggest concern is the kids. Salams, my name Brooke is and I am a permissive parent. And if I don’t get a hold on things fast we are all going to really suffer. They are completely out of the habit of doing any chores as the extended family did everything for them. And even though I insisted to the husband that “I can do this with or without you,” since he needs to take care of things in the city too, truth is, it’s less than ideal to be out here all alone (but I know that I am not alone, I just have to remember that). Many of the women around me have husbands and other relatives who emigrate to Morocco’s cities and beyond for work, but they also have extended family to help with everything from chores to dealing with the kids, and I just moved away from that help. I am having plenty of doubts, but then I just look around me at the incredible beauty of this valley and the amazing opportunities to learn hands-on so much about nature and life… I’m continuing to make a lot of du’a and begging for guidance.

Day 15: I am exhausted. Snoring and drooling into my pillow exhausted. The domestic workload around here is just too much. I said I could do it without a fridge and a washing machine, as it was too much of commitment to drag them up here in case we didn’t like it and did only stay a month, and I am doing it – but exhaustedly. Yesterday, I finally “let something go” and got out of the house for the first time in nearly a week! I went for a walk in the orchards and fields with my friend who lives in the valley and came into the village for Jumu’ah. She was shocked to hear that I am handwashing nappies – every other day! But how could I not?! How could I distribute my toxic disposable nappies into these (nearly) pristine hills? And just as I was asking her that, we serendipitously passed by a plastic nappy caught up in a blackberry bush. And then we came upon a few more along with other non-biodegradable debris caught in the branches above the river. These signs did not encourage me to quit, but less than 12 hours after my friend insisted that “all the locals use disposables” (as evidenced by them hanging about!) I sent one of the kids to the hanoot to get me some. I am weak. And tired. And plotting how to get a washing machine, insha Allah.

Day 19: Husband is back less than a day and walked into one of his worst possible nightmares this afternoon. Turning to leave the mosque after Dhuhr prayer, a man pointed at him and called out “There’s the father!” A small circle of men had gathered round and were discussing a pressing problem in the village – our children. Seems they had a blast in the communal irrigation canal – the Splash Mountain meets Children’s Museum Water Table kind of fun. They ran through it and filled it with rocks and opened all the gates to let the water rush out into the fields. Yeah. It never occurred to anyone of them this may be bad, even when they vaguely understood the village children’s admonitions that “the water is bad for the plants.” How could water be bad for plants my smart children insisted? I have read that home-schooled children can occasionally be a little too self-confident.

The community was very understanding, and explained to my husband that the kids were welcome to play in the water as the other children do, just not to interrupt the flow in any way, such as blocking it with small boulders or bodies and not to open the gates. What a great teachable moment about the sunnah of shura, the history of aquaducts, the importance of being humble – after my husband recovered from his mortification, of course.

Day 21: Camp is over! The Husband has installed a gas water heater and has therefore redeemed himself of every wrong he has even considered committing towards me. Even though it vacillated between scalding and freezing, it was still the best shower I have ever taken. I had to seriously resist making cooing Mr. Bean like noises while I was in there. Instant hot water is such a luxurious blessing, Alhamdulillah.

Living in the High Atlas mountains with her husband and six home-educated children, Brooke Benoit is (mostly) savouring living in a community where hands-on and doing from scratch are the norm.

This article originally appeared in the November ’12 issue of SISTERS Magazine- the magazine for fabulous Muslim Women.

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Unschooling – Discovery New Possibilities

Before we moved to Casablanca, I anticipated that I would be a full-time home-educating mom once we got here. This would be the first time in forever that I hadn’t worked some job either at home or out of it, either as my family’s primary income or as a supplemental income. Actually, when we had lived in Casa seven years prior- that was the last time I hadn’t worked, and this time I was determined to “dedicate all my time to my kids.” I imagined that I would do some writing when the creative drive presented itself and maybe do a little tutoring too in order to build up a resume. Thank God it didn’t happen at all like that.

Soon after arriving in Casa I was invited to write for SISTERS Magazine. This was a very exciting surprise for me, but also left me feeling conflicted. Not only was I worried about busying myself and therefore neglecting my kids, I would also be writing about us and well- could I do that in a tactful, non-backbiting and still interesting way? I thought long and hard and prayed istikarah and you see what happened.

I should have known better on several fronts. I’ve expatted before so I know it doesn’t work out as planned. And aside from that, I have read about a kuzillion home-educating, parenting and pedagogy materials in the last decade and I know that nurturing oneself is critical to being a well-rounded parent, yet I was still falling for the Mommy Martyr bit. Again, thank God, I was pulled out of it!

In addition to being my little outlet, writing for SISTERS was an opportunity for me to demonstrate to my kids how to produce. I’m raising up a gang of prolific readers, which although some find it hard to “produce” readers, well my concern is more with producing producers- whether they be writers, artists, inventors- whatever their inclination may be, my concern has been with helping my kids to find that drive, that confidence, that whatever which will encourage them to contribute. I had hoped that by writing for a magazine it would create a sort of blasé base in my kids- if mom can do that, what can I do?

Well, they can do that too. I am pretty ridiculously excited to direct you to the newly launched Discover- The magazine for curious Muslim kids and my eldest son’s writing debut:

Discover is being printed this week, please check the facebook page to find out where you can get it: https://www.facebook.com/DiscoverMagazineKids

Read! And contribute!

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Hijrah Diaries Update – Into The High Atlas

Brooke Benoit returns to her long running series about gracelessly adjusting to living in Morocco- this time in the bled.

Many people (read my mom and two of my dearest friends) have asked me to update my series about moving with my husband and five children (now six) from Alaska, USA to Casablanca, Morocco.  I’ve been uneager to write since the time in Casablanca was full of hardship for my family as we experienced many of the discomforts familiar to muhajiroon: unfulfilled expectations, too-close quarters, financial strains, new cultural clashes between spouses, culture clashes between three generations of family, and just a whole lot of general discomfort. Let’s not dwell, again, on the heat, the pollution, the unIslamic behaviour, and the bedbugs! But finally I have good news, some relief and a little inspiration to share: we have given up big city living and have moved to a rural village in the High Atlas mountains.

Nearly 2 years in: We are fast coming up to our two year anniversary here in Casablanca and facing my incessant demand of “What next?” I begrudgingly agreed to live in an apartment with too many people that is much-too-small-for-mosts’ comfort for two years – a seemingly infinite amount of time – and though it has crept by quickly enough, I am still very, very ready to move on and out. These last few months, I have really felt the strain of nearly every movement I make being restricted by my worrying about how will it affect someone else. I mean every movement. And while I am uber eager to know what the next move is for us, the husband doesn’t have any idea or tangible options, so I am scurrying around looking for possibilities of what to do with ourselves. I am willing to move either the entire family or just the portion I birthed, but we must move some bodies very, very soon!

A friend of mine has been suggesting for a few years that I go live near her, out in the deep, deep bled (countryside) which she loves so much. While I have been skeptical about what I would do there and how I would manage such a different lifestyle, the idea has really grown on me. Access to nature has been so depressingly lacking in our home-educating experience here in Casablanca and this would surely be remedied by living in a mudhouse in the mountains. Or maybe it’s the only option I can really see happening at this time. Either way, I am pestering the husband to “go get a place there” and not thinking too much about the harrowing logistics of dragging my kids and furnishings up a narrow, windy road into the Atlases. And while I am excruciatingly nervous about actually doing this move, recently I remembered how, when I was a teen, I would frequently drive up the coast of northern California with my mother or friends and dreamed of someday living in a small, rural, artsy community in the woods. Was that dream so far off from what I am anticipating now? Several people have told me that they “would love to do that!” But what is that? Some people want to do the whole live-off-the-earth/back-to-the-land thing, while others want to stockpile for a vacation or a retirement in the relaxing countryside. I can’t and don’t want to do either. While my husband often says that his “hands are tied,” I feel that my hands have been turned.

Access to nature has been so depressingly lacking in our home-educating experience here in Casablanca and this would surely be remedied by living in a mudhouse in the mountains.

~~~

Day 1: I cannot believe the van the husband rented to get us here. It’s rented with a driver- actually three drivers which is problematic considering our family alone is over maximum capacity, plus we have a few tons of stuff and the van is miniscule! The whole while the kids were dragging their stuff downstairs to be loaded into the van, Husband kept saying “Is there more?! Is there more?! It won’t all fit!” Yeah, it didn’t. Ok, I fully admit that while he has agreed to one month with the possibility of two or three more, I have packed for one year, but still. He knew the size of the vehicle he was renting and he knew I was adamant about getting all of the bikes in good working order before we left, so why didn’t he understand that they were supposed to go with us? Alhumdulillah, the bikes, the dozen baby chicks eldest son just bought specifically to take with us and the children’s playstands were the only things left behind. Oh, and of course the box with my books didn’t make it and we brought the power cord but not my laptop! We did bring the other laptop though, so alhumdulillah. Somehow Husband managed to bump off one of the drivers too, so just the two drivers traded off during the several hour drive which we did overnight and I got a little extra leg room while husband squeezed himself up front.

Apparently, these journeys regularly happen by leaving Casablanca at one in the morning to avoid the baking midday heat in the mountains. Sure we missed the scenic drive, but I am so thankful to do it this way as otherwise I would have been horribly carsick and almost completely useless to care for the kids other than being handed the baby to breastfeed. I took motion sickness pills – both over the counter and homeopathic – and slept through most of it along with everyone else, except the incredibly chatty drivers. At about seven in the morning we arrived in the little town that was three-hours from our destination and had a quick breakfast and bathroom breaks before the hardest leg of the journey- the slim (but paved) roads that wind through the Atlas valley, the loveliest bit of the ride I’m sure, but I took more drugs and passed out again. The half hour or so that I was awake to nurse the baby was a sickening enough blur of cameo colours outside the thankfully curtained windows to make me not want to do the drive again for at least a year. We stopped at a little trickle of a waterfall, but I didn’t trust my legs enough to stand and see it. Instead I sat at the side opening of the van staring off to the other side of the valley at a simple lone house nearly blending into the dirt from which it was made. I thought to myself, ‘Why do they chose to live this way?’ then had the sudden realisation: ‘Oh God, why did I choose this?!’

A half dozen ridiculously friendly kids of varying ages met us upon our arrival in the village and helped dragged our dozens and dozens of pieces of luggage and odds and ends into our truly lovely mud and thatched-roof rental house. I was absolutely paranoid about leaving anything of need or value tucked somewhere into a fold or crook of the van, but was too dizzy to do much more than make a silent du’a and bark something incoherent to the husband. Feeling like a stinky disheveled mess, I just wanted to scurry into the nearest room to hide from any and all potential helpers or visitors, but none of the rooms had doors! None of them. Not even the bathroom or the shower. And the bathroom is… a traditional… very common around the world… even luxurious to many people… hole in the ground. With a little porcelain foot base thingy, of course, but not what we (me and the kids) had hoped for. ‘Hope’ being all we could cling to since Husband would not answer any questions about the bathroom, which he had seen when he procured the place a week ago and now we know why he had kept mum. But really- no door?!?! When the homeowner said it was “unfinished”… no bathroom door?!?! And when he said he would finish it before we got there, he didn’t mean to install a bathroom door?!?! And then I remembered that we forgot the water heater, also not provided with the rental…

~~~

Living in the High Atlas mountains with her husband and six home-educated children, Brooke Benoit is (mostly) savouring living in a community where hands-on and doing from scratch are the norm.

  This article originally appeared in the October 2012 of SISTERS Magazine.

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Unschooling Update: Earth and Media Studies

Recently my family relocated to a rural village in the High Atlas mountains. We also got a fairly kid-friendly camera/video camera. So. Here’s a little visual demonstration of what unschooling looks like for us these days:

PE, Outdoor Ed, Geography

Geology, Technology- building a tumbler for our finds.

Botany

Biology, Scatology

Biology, Anatomy, Animal Husbandry

Agriculture, Economy, History

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Unschooling Muslim-style Among The Stacks

Sitting in the library yesterday I looked up to see my ten year old praying in a corner next to the circulation desk. The library is basically one long rectangle with the big circulation desk at one end, an L-shaped table covered in computers at the other end, rows of long tables with chairs in between, and full bookshelves all along the wall. There is a very small room annexed off this main room which houses reference books and new arrivals, and a lovely garden with cushioned seating off the main room. Little offices and other rooms are tucked away out of sight, but obviously they are there as the building is two-stories plus a basement.

I snickered a bit when I saw him praying there in the corner as he is who we, the family, call “The Oblivious Child.” Now, my little blog entry here could easily be spun into some pro-hijrah propaganda, but truth is- I’ve never seen anyone else pray in this small library in a huge city in a Muslim-majority country. I know there are other Muslims praying in there, there is always a little congestion around the one bathroom during prayer times and the tile floor often reveals the tell-tale puddle of the aftermath of several wudu-makings. When I pray at this library, I borrow a prayer rug from the security guards or the librarian and take myself out to a side of the garden where I am less likely to be distracted by hushed (and not so hushed) conversations and the sensing of people coming and going behind my prostrating-self. My thirteen year old follows my lead and heads over to the same corner when I hand him off the rug. But my ten year old is the only person I have ever seen openly, unabashedly praying in front of dozens of people in the library.

Of course I’m happy for him that he isn’t shy about who he is and what he needs to do, as he shouldn’t be—neither here nor back in the US. But the thing is- I can’t include this as one of the “Blessings of Living in A Muslim Country,” because, like I said, I’m not seeing this as normal behaviour ‘round here. His lack of conforming to social norms has much more to do with him being home-educated than with him being a Muslim, living in a Muslim majority country. I’m pretty sure he would have done the same thing back home in a US library, even though I know few people who do such things. Myself and friends have “hidden” ourselves away praying in the “stacks” at the university library and one student librarian told me about a woman actually be harassed by a lead librarian while the woman was praying in the ‘berry.  Normally when I pray in public places, I try to tuck myself away a bit, mostly due to not liking “to be butt-up in the air” in public, but really I seldom saw anyone praying in public back home and not so much here either. Though theoretically it should be perfectly acceptable for us to pray in the Land of The Free and in the Land of The Muslims, that’s just not the reality for all, everywhere.

As we continue on this home-educating journey, one of the many things I try to objectively-as-possible observe is this interesting thing of when and where my kids conform and don’t conform. I fully admit to having to actively resist forcing trivial norms on them, like telling them to change their clothes or change their childlike legit, yet socially-unacceptable behaviors. I pray they are given the strength and wisdom to remain steadfast to the right things.

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