The Reader

When I was growing up, I spent the summers on my cherished lavender Schwinn. I rode to Ben Franklin for penny candy—gummy strawberries and Cola bottles, Tootsie Rolls, and SweeTarts suckers—or to Hugga-Booms, the red snow cone stand fashioned after a train car, for lemon-lime shaved ice. I raced down Theater Lane, so named for the single converted home outfitted by the local theater guild, but dubbed by the neighborhood kids as Theater Hill for the road’s steep descent. And I wound my way through the suburban streets to the public library, where I traded in my Schwinn for the pleasure of a book.

My library adventures were solo excursions. There was a separate room in the back for kids, complete with a couple cushy chairs for reading with your mom or dad. I rarely curled up in those armchairs, opting instead to sit cross-legged on the carpeted floor, hunched over the book in my lap—this remains my favorite position in bookstores today. When I had exhausted most of the books—at least the ones that interested me—in the children's section, I began spending more time with the young adult fiction. I would sit and read Sweet Valley High for hours because my dad thought it was trashy, and I was too embarrassed to bring it home. And I always took a turn through the tall steel-framed bookshelves that held the huge volumes. I would find an excuse to stand on one of those stools, usually of the beige variety that squeaked under any weight, so that I might peer up at the top shelves. I wondered who checked out those unwieldy tomes when there were so many stories unread. 

When I left for Peace Corps, I was determined to read as much as I could about Morocco and Islam. I would have ample reading time to explore texts about Morocco's history and culture to complement my lived experience. The Peace Corps office in Rabat has a library, and volunteers can check out books; however, my attempts to crack a history volume have failed miserably. Reading has always been a means of travel—novels transport me elsewhere. This might explain my fascination with international authors. In high school, I fell in love with Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Italo Calvino, and in college, Jeannette Winterson captured my fancy. (Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler is one of two books I brought with me to Morocco, the second being Nobody’s Home, by Dubravka Ugresic.)

During my first year of service, I read mostly fantasy. I reread Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series in time to open the fourteenth and final installment that was published last January. Everyday was stretch, whether it included eating lunch with my neighbor, teaching an English class, or buying vegetables at market. I wanted quick reads that sucked me in between the pages, so that I left the olive groves of my town far behind. After two years, my integration endurance is at an all-time high. I have the energy to be an active reader again, which has been a great comfort. In my continued absence from home, I crave authors who can carry my imagination there. M'Hamed, our librarian, recently mailed me a box of Morrison, Steinbeck, and Vonnegut. I never finished Grapes of Wrath during my high school American Literature class (there was usually one book that fell to the wayside each year), but now it sits on my shelf, waiting its turn.

As I was learning the local dialect during my first two months of training, I quickly discovered that the verb for “to study” and “to read” is the same. I tried to communicate that I wanted time to read by myself, but my host mother admonished me: Khadija will help you study, speak! I resorted to reading by headlamp at night when I went to bed. With my second host family in Foum Oudi, I was less evasive. At afternoon tea, I opened my book while the family watched soap operas. When I had exhausted my limited vocabulary for conversation, I read in the kitchen with Mema while she made bread. (During those first months she never let me prepare anything, although I did bully my way into doing dishes.)

My father taught me from an early age that you never leave the house without a book. I often find myself waiting in Morocco—at the taxi stand or for a bus, for students to arrive or an event to start—and my book has never failed me as a companion. In Morocco, my love of reading is novel. While it is not out of the ordinary to see people reading the Quran, small religious texts, or the local newspaper, rarely do I see anyone else with a book.

Morocco’s complex linguistic landscape offers a possible explanation for these absent stories. All books are written in Standard Arabic, a language not taught until elementary school; the spoken language (Darija) is a dialect that bears some resemblance to its formal counterpart. Foum Oudi is also one of the many Amazigh (rather than Arab) towns in Morocco, and most people prefer to speak their Tamazight dialect.

Undeterred and armored with my passion for books, I organized a reading program at the youth center that partnered preschoolers with middle and high school students last spring. I loved watching the children open picture books half their size and subsequently struggle to turn the pages. After youth expressed greater interest in reading, I wrote a grant to fund a library for the youth center. Grant funding refurbished the space with new shelving and stacks of books.

The library opened at the beginning of February. Children are coming, trickling in at the beginning of the week and arriving in full force on Fridays. If success were measured by attendance, I could be satisfied, but older students rarely come to read with them now, as they are too concerned with their exams. And while some kids read in earnest, most spend their time talking. The atmosphere does not resemble a library, but then again, none these children have likely ever set foot one.

It is also likely that none of my students will ever have the privilege to travel abroad. By sharing books with them, a small window looking out past Morocco opens—even if they only glance at the pictures.