Getting Beyond Beauty
REID HARMAN | THE HARBINGER
EAST PEORIA — The latest Fulbright Scholar to visit Illinois Central College has left one of the most beautiful countries on Earth to teach Arabic in what he calls “the most powerful nation in the world.”
29-year-old Mohammed Kasmi arrived in Illinois in mid August from the African country of Morocco and immediately had to move into Woodview Commons because he had a class to teach just three days later.
He is one of 14 Moroccan teachers brought to the U.S. this year by the Institute of International Education and the Fulbright Program and the only one in Illinois.
“I was teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) in Morocco,” Kasmi said. “[IIE] had been looking for [Arabic-speaking] people that could speak English in order to make it easy for people here to understand them, so using English to teach Arabic.”
ESCAPING HOUSE ARREST
Kasmi has lived in the coastal city of Nador, and he describes it as a beautiful area where the temperature is always about 84 degrees, much different than Illinois.
“It’s warm along the year, it’s not cold. It’s getting cold right now here, so… I can’t handle it. It can go below zero here sometimes — that’s freaking cold.”
Much of the reason Kasmi is accustomed to warmer temperatures is that this is the first time that he has been allowed to leave his country due to Morocco’s strict policies against emigration.
“They know if they give you a visa you are not coming back anymore because of corruption and a lot of things,” Kasmi said. He is required to return.
Courtesy panonad.blogspot.com
A STEADY FUTURE AT HOME
“Teaching is my number one interest; my number one hobby,” Kasmi said. However, while he says American students “are motivated all the time and interested, too,” this is much different from the Moroccan students.
“They don’t trust in the system because our system is corrupted,” Kasmi said. “It’s not like [America’s]. I know corruption is everywhere, but it differs from one country to another. Our country is a corruption-dominated country and here it’s just a little bit.”
“Here, if you get a degree you can work, but in Morocco it doesn’t matter if you get a degree or not. Maybe you get a job or maybe you never get a job. That’s why people aren’t interested in education at all.”
That is why he hopes to use this international experience as another stepping stone to get him closer to his goal of working at the nearby University of Mohammed I. A job there would bring him into a higher salary bracket and help him afford the needs of a family.