With regard to my “desert trials,” I first have to say that I totally jinxed myself with my last posting, whining about being stuck with friends for a couple of hours one morning on a washed out road. The very day I posted that, on my way home I dealt with an exponentially worse version of the same thing – one much bigger river, one flash flood, and a longer and far less comfortable wait with no English speaking friends anywhere nearby! I came very close to having to spend the night in a transit on a road in the middle of nowhere (which did end up happening to a couple of Berber women I got to chatting with during the long wait), but thankfully made a last minute escape and got home, only a little muddier, more tired, and generally worse for the wear than when I usually get home from my travels! I’ll spare you any further details here, but if you want the full adventure.

Anyway, I was returning from a trip that has actually proven to be one of the more interesting projects I’ve been involved with here so far. A couple of months ago, I got an e-mail from my colleague Moshay, who is a youth development volunteer posted in a small (but not nearly as small as Assoul!), deathly hot desert town a few hours south of me. Even though I generally don’t feel inspired to do excessive amounts of work with children, in this instance, Moshay rightfully anticipated that I was happy for any excuse to officially tap into my interests in comparative law and women’s empowerment. So during the last month, I made two trips down to Moshay’s town to help him put together a mock trial event, which the students would perform in both Arabic and English. I have to say that Moshay did most of the serious legwork, including arranging for some of the girls in his class to meet with a local judge!
During my previous visit, the class warmed up by asking me questions in English (and making me sing for them!) Then, I spoke to some of the students about their assigned roles as lawyers and witnesses – teaching them new vocabulary and giving them tips about how to be clever in their presentation of evidence.

The first trial, in English, was a criminal case, where two men working in a bank had been accused of stealing money. In the second, Arabic trial, we tried to introduce concepts of the Moudawana – Morocco’s recently revised family laws – with the story of a young wife filing for divorce from a husband who had failed to support her financially. The students were allowed a lot of creativity to flesh out their stories, produce evidence, and ultimately decide the fates of the parties, and I thought they did an excellent job! In both cases, the panel of judges (because Morocco is a civil law system, rather than holding jury trials, the judges play a larger role in investigation and deciding the case) decided for the defendant, letting the accused thieves off the hook (the boys playing the defendants brought a lot of emotion to this moment!), and ordering the estranged couple to make further

For me, this was a wonderful opportunity to feel productive in my Gender and Development work, as well as a nice justification for studying up on some local laws and the Moroccan legal system (which, in truth, I’d already begun to do just for my own intellectual enrichment…)! I certainly never lose sight of the fact that, as much as I hope to contribute while I am here, that has its limits, so I had better learn as much as I can as well!
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