Avuncular American

Go Fund Her: Salma Goes to University

Sometimes "right time, right place" makes all the difference.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/salmas-university-education?utm_campaign=m_pd+share-sheet&utm_content=undefined&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer&utm_term=undefined

Before leaving the American Legation in Tangier Morocco in 2014, we scheduled a screening of Deborah Perkin's documentary "Bastards." The film featured Rabha El Haimer, whose fight to have the courts recognize daughter Salma's birth was inspiring.  We were so impressed with this young woman, giving her all for the sake of her daughter.  It was the beginning of a decade of friendship.

We'd been discussing staffing needs at the Legation, especially someone to clean the museum.  Hence the lightbulb moment: how about Rabha?  So that's how it happened: Rabha jumped at the offer and moved from a windowless room in Casablanca to Tangier and a job in a pleasant environment where she is treasured by her colleagues and supervisors; Salma started school and is now poised to start her first year at university; and Rabha, without any formal education, has enrolled in the Legation's Arabic literacy classes and learned to read and write.  Deborah Perkin's film did indeed lead to life-changing impact, and not only for Rabha and Salma; we now have "family" in Morocco. 

The little girl who appears in the film is now 19 years old and worked hard to pass her secondary school "bac" exams.  We're impressed with her intelligence and maturity - at 14, she helped her mom recover from cancer - and we're happy to participate in this GoFundMe effort. Please consider donating, and - small or large - know that your investment in Salma's education will "pay off" for her and her mother.

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Participer à une cagnotte ? Oui, pour aider notre jeune amie Salma à poursuivre des études universitaires à Tanger.

Qui est Salma ? Le film de l'anglaise Deborah Perkin "Bastards" - sorti en 2014 - raconte le combat de sa mère Rabha pour faire reconnaître officiellement son propre mariage et ainsi établir une identité pour sa fille.

Arabic Literacy and Much More

Hundreds of Tangier medina women have graduated from the literacy program which TALIM does in partnership with FTAM, the Fondation Tanger al-Madina, a Moroccan NGO.  The basis is teaching them to read and write in Arabic, but we also offer cooking, sewing, and foreign language classes, thanks to a number of volunteers from the expatriate community.

Recently we hosted two more events with the women, where their horizons were further widened.  The above photo shows Mitchell Chanelis of Stories Exchange, where, thanks to a hookup organized by Rachid El Mziryahi of the American Language Center, and interpretation provided by two student interns from the Fahd School of Translation, the women were able to converse with American playwright and storytelling coach Robbie McCauley, currently doing a residency at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles.

Here is a video link to the storytelling session.

"Our women" - we tend to say that in reference to the students in the literacy program - represent rich ground for the storyteller, and Robbie's and Mitch's encouragement elicited a number of touching tales of parental loss, early marriage, divorce... the stuff of life.

One woman, who hesitated because "she didn't have anything interesting to say," turned out to have a fascinating story.  There we were, sitting in a room we've begun to set up as a "community museum" (within our own museum), dedicated to the women's stories of living in the medina.  And the woman who had nothing to say proceeded to show us a photo on our wall which featured her grandfather, who was an official in the employ of the pre-independence Sultan of Morocco!

The women also participated in a presentation by Mohammed Abid, director of research at the Institut Pasteur in Tangier.  Abid had given a presentation on food safety at the AIMS Public Health conference in Tunis in 2011, and this time it was tailored to the concerns of women trying to keep their families safe and healthy.

Abid - who brought along two medical colleagues to form a panel for the questions that followed - was very impressed with the level of awareness of the women.  He wants to return to take up other subjects of interest: diabetes, hypertension, gynecology.  This is really of great benefit to the women, who don't always have the possibility of getting expert advice - for free.

Gerald Loftus

Angels, Monsters, and Bastards

It's not too difficult to spot the bastards in Deborah Perkin's documentary of that title.  And they certainly aren't the little angels who didn't ask to be born out of wedlock.

"Bastards" played to a capacity audience at the Legation last Friday, its premiere in Morocco, prior to its official presentation tonight at FIDADOC - the Agadir International Documentary Festival - where Perkin's film opens the festival. On May 4 at 9:30 PM, Moroccan TV network 2M will air an edited version.

Perkin's 2014 documentary shouldn't be confused with the 2013 Claire Denis film "Les Salauds," whose international title "Bastards" accurately conveys the sense of "despicable person."  We flinch at the word - our post-film interpreter used "monsters," a good substitute for the reference to these extreme deadbeat dads - and I even hesitated to use it in this blog post title line, for fear of censorious filtering in internet browsers.

If you think that the idea of stigmatizing "illegitimate" children is a phenomenon limited to Morocco or other Muslim countries, think again; activist group "Bastard Nation" in the US fights for the rights of millions of adoptees.  And an Englishman in our audience recalled the opprobrium that was the lot of single mothers in the England of his youth, where concerns of "what will the neighbors think?" outweighed considerations of humanity toward the women and their innocent children.

Deborah Perkin is at pains to show the strides that Morocco has taken - in particular with the reforms of the mudawana or personal status law - to regularize and modernize the institution of marriage.  But it's hard to overcome centuries of tradition, where in the past, a sense of honor and a simple recounting of the "fatiha" or opening sura of the Koran sufficed to create a marriage bond.  And in many remote parts of Morocco, the practice continues.

The strength of Deborah Perkin's film is its simplicity, in subtitled Moroccan Arabic with no narration and a few explicative captions.  The film's main subject is a courageous young woman, Rabha El Haimer, whose arranged marriage at age 14 is at the root of her problem.  The traditional or "fatiha" marriage with a cousin has no legal standing, and her pregnancy coincides with her eviction from her husband's home.  The code of honor no longer suffices; now it's "no papers, no recognition."  Her baby is born a "bastard."  Other cases are followed, but the core of the film is Rabha's quest for legitimacy - for her marriage, and therefore for her daughter.

And that's the magic of the film; daughter Selma (who is pictured in the poster), is a little angel, and gives lie to the archaic notion of illegitimacy and "bastardy."  Deborah Perkin reminds us that the dictionary definition of bastard does more to describe the people who got girls like Rabha into their plight and then abandon them to their fate.

Rabha El Haimer (without headscarf) and admirers (photo: Rachid El Mziryahi, ALC Tangier;

More photos here)

The emotion generated by Bastards, in the presence of filmmaker Perkin and especially heroine Rabha El Haimer, was palpable among the Legation audience.  Composed largely of the women from our Arabic literacy program and members of "100% Maman," a Tangier NGO for single mothers, our audience could identify with the ordeal of Rabha and women like her.

A particularly moving comment during our post-film discussion, in halting English by a young woman whose pregnancy led her to leave Marrakesh for Tangier - "we are your daughters, your sisters... we are good women" - led our event partner Mark Holbrook of the American Language Center to offer her a scholarship on the spot to follow courses to improve her English.  He went on to offer the same to the women of "100% Maman."

Were it not for associations like 100% Maman and Darna in Tangier, and Casablanca's Association Solidarité Féminine (ASF), the lot of these single mothers and their children would be even more dire.  For many children, it can be a death sentence: babies abandoned in the elements, or street children prey to disease, drugs, and a short, brutal existence.  "It is a long, slow road," says ASF founder Aicha Ech-Channa, of changing the mentality that leads to exclusion.

This validation of her film by scores of Moroccan women was especially gratifying to Deborah Perkin.  She knows that her film isn't going to rake in the big royalties, but if it can help change minds, then it will be all the compensation she needs.

US readers: "Bastards" will feature at the Lincoln Center's New York African Film Festival on May 9 and May 12.

Gerald Loftus

Arabic Literacy Graduation

Lots of proud students and their families at the TALIM/FTAM (Fondation Tanger al Medina) ceremony to award diplomas to the women of the Arabic literacy program.

FTAM President Adil Alaoui presents diploma with French and Arabic teachers

Capping the end of the academic year, women received recognition for their work learning written Arabic, as well as cooking, sewing, and foreign languages (French and English).  The range in ages is surprising: we've had enrolees as young as 15, and one of our star students is in her 84th year!

 

Teachers Fatima Benguerch (Arabic) & Rahma Bouhali (sewing/cooking) with graduate

Though the Arabic course can last up to a maximum of four years, some of our women never want to leave.  Some stay on through the foreign language, sewing and cooking classes, the latter recently spinning off a budding cooperative which has been providing catering services to TALIM and other customers.  

Recently we reported on the IBM Corporate Volunteers who advised FTAM on its organization and future directions.  It was clear in that exercise that the Arabic literacy program is a core activity, not just of FTAM, but of TALIM as well.

In the past several years, we have encouraged students of the summer CLS Arabic program to spend time with the women of our literacy program, putting American students learning Arabic together with Moroccan women learning how to read and write Arabic.

The mix has always been fulfilling - and fun, as seen by the picture at right (courtesy CLS staffer Saddam Issa).  What better way to learn a bit of darija than through a Moroccan recipe?  And for the women of our literacy program, greater ease in interacting with foreigners can be a boon for those who seek employment opportunities.

Gerald Loftus; photos by TALIM Associate Director Yhtimad Bouziane.

IBM's Cookie Class Road to Development

Photo of IBM Corporate Volunteers and Tangier NGO reps (Misha Santa Barbara)

For the past month, Tangier has been home to an international group of corporate social volunteers.  IBM's Corporate Service Corps has sent 9 volunteers - all from IBM's worldwide operations, from Rio to Tokyo - to Tangier, fanning out into three teams with three different non-profit associations.  Organized by the Morocco office of CDC Development Solutions, the teams have been working with AMED, a university-based group active in sustainable development, the TMSA Foundation, the corporate social responisbility arm of the Tangier-Med port, and FTAM (Fondation Tanger al-Medina), TALIM's partner in the Arabic literacy program for the women of Tangier's medina.

Though TALIM hosted the kickoff event for the entire IBM contingent (photo at top), we've been especially closely involved in the work of the FTAM team: Misha Santa Barbara from the Czech Republic (and IBM's Atlanta office); Lavinia Frota Flach from Brazil, and Ryosuke ("Ryo") Sawazaki from Japan (photo at right, with Mohammed Hammich of the Tangier acrobats, one of the community artistic groups at the FTAM-sponsored cultural center of Borj El Hajoui).

Painstakingly interviewing members of FTAM, the team came to form an accurate picture of the foundation and its challenges.  Through a series of facilitated workshops with the leadership of FTAM, IBM's corporate volunteers used their experience in management to stimulate frank discussion of impediments that have prevented the foundation from reaching its full potential.

FTAM's group has chronicled their work in blog posts, including two (Lavinia's and Misha's) on their work with the women of a spinoff cooperative from our Arabic literacy program. They unearthed a great Moroccan variant on MBWA, management by walking around - "work and you will be strong; sit and you will stink."  The women of the cooperative are certainly hard-working, though concepts like pricing to cover their costs sometimes elude them. The IBM team provided them with another idea to augment their income: offer cookie-baking classes to foreign visitors willing to pay to get hands-on training.  They tested out the concept in a fun cooking class.

Sometimes it takes an interested outside look to help spur a fresh approach, which has helped FTAM focus on its core values, and the strategy necessary over the medium to long term to achieve its objectives.  And we are happy to find an interested partner in IBM, which is looking at the possiblities of adapting its online literacy program for use in our literacy classes.

Gerald Loftus

 

Whispering With Horses, Students, Bosses

Update: The Student Whisperer is on YouTube!

Clarity, calm, self-assurance... traits that will impress that prancing behemoth who could overrun you.  Whether it's a horse, a classroom full of unruly adolescents, or a boss who never got past the playground bully stage of development.

Silvia Cristina Bechet, teacher of English as a foreign language to students at the American Language Center in Fez, knows her horses too.  And she has taken lessons learned from dealing with those beautiful - but potentially lethal, if badly handled - animals and applied them to the classroom.  From our poster announcing her March 22 talk at the Legation:

Classroom management is a major issue for all educators.  Classroom management would determine whether my job would be that of an educator or a babysitter.

Cristina managed to rivet the attention of our audience of teachers and interested citizens through a series of anecdotes and videos from her time dealing with horses.  We saw examples of mastery of the craft of horse handling, and a pretty scary clip of what not to do with a beast who could damage an unsure handler with a swift kick.

 

Photo by ALC-Tangier Rachid EL MZIRYAHI

We know from numerous classroom dramas the pitfalls of dealing with "at risk" students, whether it's in the inner city of Detroit or the innermost parts of the medina.  You have to assess the environment, make a plan, and develop a relationship with your audience.  It can't be rushed, and it has to be genuine.

Be Prepared: A lot of what Cristina Bechet says about the role of a successful teacher sounds like character traits taken from the Scout Merit Badge list: be consistent, fair, connected.  Teacher requirements: leadership, simplicity, clarity, humor.

The turnout on a stormy Friday evening was just right: teachers from our co-host the American Language Center in Tangier, from Spanish, French, and British schools, from community associations working with disadvantaged populations, volunteers from TALIM's women's literacy program, and Tangier's English Language Fellow, a teacher of English teachers at the CPR, Morocco's training institute for future teachers.  An international audience - Moroccan, American, European - typical of Tangier's educational scene.

Cristina Bechet, in her quiet, assured way, showed that she is a master of getting horses to respond to her cues, and provided lessons not only for teachers, but for managers in dealing with motivation, team-building, and just plain people management.  As one audience member, who came up from Rabat for the event, put it, "it's not just horse or student whispering, it's how to interact with people, period."

Gerald Loftus

Resolution 2013: Lobby for the Legation

Disclaimer: This is not just another call for money (though that's always appreciated!).  Rather it is a plea for you to invest an even more precious commodity - your time.

In 2012 many people helped the Legation further its programs, and contributed time, effort, and funds to keep this unique historic institution alive.  Thank you for your support.

Now let's consider a New Year's resolution that is like a buffet table - you pick from a selection of actions and donations-in-kind for 2013 which would help us beyond writing that much-appreciated annual donation check.  And here's our smorgasbord of projects for you to choose from:

• Letter to the editor. Got a connection with the Washington-based organization, the National Trust for Historic Preservation?  Maybe you subscribe to their Preservation Magazine.  These are the people who care about saving America's National Treasures.  What we need from them is a little love.  Though the Tangier American Legation, more than many lesser sites, meets their definition of "irreplaceable, threatened, endangered," we can't even get past Square One with the NTHP because the Legation, though considered American soil, is physically outside the US.  As readers know, it is in fact the only US National Historic Landmark abroad.  All we'd like is to educate National Trust members by writing an article on the Legation.

• Cultural tourism map.  We're on it for the Road Scholar (formerly Elderhostel) program, whose members have truly enjoyed their Legation visits.  Unfortunately, thousands of tourists pass right by us every year and never get a chance to see this unique slice of American history.  Maybe you pay dues to the AARP?  Consider the lost opportunity for hundreds of their members, whose tour groups literally pass us by during their Tangier visits.  AARP needs to know what they're missing. 
  

• Legation day the Archives.  Have a free morning to spend at the US National Archives?  Imagine the impact on visitors to our museum - especially Moroccans - if we were to display a scanned facsimile of the 17 January 1829 "passport" (actually a letter signed by Secretary of State Henry Clay) issued to the "Prince Among Slaves," whose "emancipation from slavery would be very agreeable to the Emperor of Morocco."  A few hours in College Park Maryland at "RG 84" (Legation records) should unearth it.

• Mail-a-Mac.  Giving someone a new iPod for Christmas?  What will they do with their old one?  Replacing a perfectly serviceable MacBook with a shiny new iPad?  Or swapping an older iMac for the latest version?  We're trying to migrate to Mac, so your niece's old Mac would help us in our quest.  Write us and we'll give you our US mailing address.

• Find-a-Foundation.  Imagine - you know of this well-kept secret, the American Legation in Tangier, oldest and first US diplomatic property, an institution that practices citizen cultural diplomacy in the heart of a Moroccan medina, one that helps women become literate in Arabic, where scholars can come and research historic ties with the first country to recognize the United States.  Don't you think a foundation or philanthropist or preservationist in your state would jump to help such a place?  Contact them, and give them our address on America Street (since 1821).

• Send-us-a-semester (abroad program).  Maybe you're a faculty member of a college or university, or the parent of a student, or an alum.  Wouldn't it be nice if your university sent its students to TALIM, either as part of a semester abroad program or during a Morocco (or even Spain) student trip?  Dartmouth does it, and the University of New England (UNE) is setting up a campus in Tangier.  And consider how all these students who learn about the Legation will become advocates for its preservation and for its educational activities.  Some of them might graduate from interns to board members.
  

• Furnish-us-some-furniture.  Period furniture, that is.  We have US Government surplus furniture that is serviceable, to be sure.  But as we re-cast the public areas of the Legation - illustrating the heyday of 19th and early 20th century Legation diplomacy in the museum - it would be great to have a few authentic pieces (chairs, bookcases, etc.) to recreate the atmosphere. Wouldn't it be a nice project - giving America's first property a refound elegance - for a generous interior designer among our readership?

• Buy-us-a-boat: Not just any boat.  The USS Olympia, which came to Tangier at the order of Teddy Roosevelt, part of the gunboat diplomacy invoked in the 1904 Perdicaris Affair.  A generous donor among you might have the $1,550 (plus $130 S&H) for an amazing scale model of this other US National Historic Landmark, which today floats in Philadelphia harbor.
  

• Broker-a-benefit (concert). The High Atlas Foundation does it.  How about us?  Imagine the research books a few $30 concert tickets could buy.  "Music for a Museum."  "Tango for Tangier."  "A Legation Legacy."  You make up the event, and our programs reap the benefit.
  

Anyone out there with some clout (financial perhaps, but also using your name)?  Two private-public partnerships born in the US State Department are of direct relevance to the Legation.

The Foreign Affairs Museum Council is dedicated to raising money to establish a museum of American diplomacy at the State Department.  FAMC Chairman Ambassador William Harrop has referred to our work in Tangier, tracing the long history of American diplomacy in Morocco, as "symbiotic" with FAMC's goals.  Now all we need is for Legation supporters to encourage FAMC to make that symbiosis concrete.

Similarly, the new Fund to Conserve America's Treasures Abroad is raising private funds to augment State Department efforts to preserve America's historic diplomatic buildings.  None of which are more historic - and endangered - than the Legation.  Again, the people behind the Fund to Conserve need to hear from influential supporters of the Legation, to make sure it is at the top of their preservation funding to-do list.

I'm sure you can think of even more ways to get us the support this institution deserves.  That's the hidden power of networking, of "bundling" - as political candidates do - the organizational and fund-raising efforts of many into something that makes an impact.  You don't have to have an office on Washington's K Street to lobby for the Legation - you have a phone, a keyboard, and your commitment to this institution.  That's all you need.

Two centuries is a long time in the history of American diplomacy, and the Legation as The Only, the First, and The Oldest needs major shoring up.  You don't want to see nasty pictures of structural cracks and mold in this festive season, so let's accentuate the positive.  I leave you with a vision of the Legation as it once was, and how it might be again.  Happy 2013!

 

Legation drawing room 1940s, from the UVA Rives Childs papers

Gerald Loftus

All Women, All Week

 

International Women's Day, at least in Tangier, looks more like Women's Week.  Today, of course, March 8, is the official day.  But things started here on Tuesday, with the Cinémathèque launching a Nadia Kaci film retrospective, then her one-woman show "Ladies In(tro)spection," part of a trilogy involving views of women in Morocco (the woman in the couple), Algeria (woman and work), and Tunisia (woman in politics).

Yesterday, the women of the TALIM/FTAM literacy program were treated to a showing of "Where Do We Go Now?" the latest Nadine Labaki (Caramel) film, a tragi-comedy particularly relevant in a context of social change, with its themes of religious co-existence (or loss thereof), the aftermath of war, and women's ultimate power to drum sense into men's heads.

Today, at the Legation, we hosted two showings (just to get everyone in!) of Mokhtar, Halima Ouardiri's short film which was featured at the Moroccan National Film Festival.  Ouardiri, a Montréal-based Swiss-Moroccan film maker with EyeSteelFilm, had wanted to be with us, but her travel schedule didn't permit.  Her thought-provoking film, with its portrayal of rural life among the Tashalhit-speaking Berbers of Morocco's Sousse region, shows the enduring power of superstition, no surprise to people who live in isolated regions all over the world.

The idea was to mark International Women's Day with an encounter, around Mokhtar, of the women of our literacy program (many of whom speak Tashalhit, part of the rural exodus to Tangier's medina), with the women of Tanger Accueil, a Francophone group of Moroccan and expatriate women who provide newcomer services and are active in a wide range of charitable activities.

To round it out, we invited several young women from the King Fahd School of Translation, part of Tangier/Tetouan University.  They too speak Tashalhit, and helped the group navigate between Berber, Arabic, and French.  The discussion was followed by tea and cakes, and the Legation resounded to you-yous when the teachers received presents.

Moroccan radio carried special programming today, and while many of the interviewees lauded the work of women throughout the Maghreb active in the cause of women's rights, many regretted what they saw as a regression in Morocco, with only one woman minister in the new government.  Reports from across the region highlighted a common concern: violence against women, ranging from general harassment in public places to physical violence at home.

Our little event - well-attended, by women from widely varying walks of life - was a chance to honor the people, staff and volunteer, who make the women's literacy program possible.

Gerald Loftus

Tangier Filmmaker Finds His Dream Audience - at TALIM

 

 

El Ayel - A Muslim Childhood - Le Gosse de Tanger

Poster by AST Head Librarian Serena Epstein

"They accuse me of making 'intellectual' films, so the presence here of so many women from the medina - from our Beni Idder neighborhood where Le Gosse de Tanger is set - is extremely important to me."  So Moumen Smihi, veteran Tangier and Paris filmmaker, greeted our very respectable gathering on Wednesday, on the margins of Morocco's National Film Festival, in Tangier for the 13th year running.

"Respectable," not only in terms of the quality of the people attending, but in their number: we had literally just gotten the word out less than 24 hours before, and our posters (above) were only distributed hours before our showing.  But most importantly, the women that Moumen Smihi were referring to were "our" women from the TALIM-FTAM women's literacy program housed at the Legation.

Why was this so important, to us and to the filmmaker?  Well, it was a first.  Smihi is used to appearing before cinéphile audiences, congnoscenti who know what he means when he compares his returning references to the Tangier of his youth to Woody Allen's use of New York as a setting for his films: "it's the place I know best... with its multiplicity of languages and cultures, and the destiny of people to live together, whatever it takes."

And it was that aspect of Le Gosse de Tanger (2005, 90 minutes) that spoke most strongly to the women of our literacy program.  Several of the older ones (Smihi's film takes place in the 1950s, when Tangier was still the International Zone) vividly remember this very neighborhood in the days when Muslim mothers brought in Spanish seamstresses to make trousers for their sons, or a Jewish matron sought advice from a Muslim sage, or Christian prostitutes shared the street with their colleagues from the other communities.

Sure, the x-rated language of the Fifties-era street kids did shock some in the audience, and some of the mothers regretted that they couldn't show the film to their children.  Of course Moumen Smihi understands this, but explained that his goal was to portray the reality of growing up in a time and place where the respectable lived next door to the rejected, and the tempations of the street were a danger to boys even from the happiest of families.

For our impromtu showing, we even had the benefit of academic analysis - in French and Arabic - by Dr. Peter Limbrick of the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC), Smihi friend and professor of Arab and Middle Eastern cinemas.  Be sure to read Peter's excellent "guest post" after the page break at the bottom of this post.*

There are touches of Cinema Paradiso here, and one of the most memorable images is of the little friend "Ouahrani" mesmerized in one of Tangier's old cinemas before the flickering black and white images of a world that he will never grow up to know.  Moumen Smihi has given us a loving, lasting work, one that would be a nice addition to any serious study of Tangier, International Zone, as seen by the Muslim population of the time.

Gerald Loftus

*UPDATE 29 January: Guest Post by Dr. Peter Limbrick

A Muslim Childhood at TALIM: Putting le gosse back in Tangier!

One of best things about writing and teaching about film is getting to experience a film with new

 

Copyleft Your True Story: Histoires Vraies de Méditerranée

 

 

François Beaune wants your (true) story.  Your Mediterranean story, in whatever language (French, Arabic, Hebrew, English, Spanish... the Med is a melting pot of languages too) you choose.

And though the invitation is open - "I believe in copyleft, and want stories to be shared" - there are some conditions for submissions.

Inspired by American writer Paul Auster's 2001 compendium of NPR radio stories, published as True Tales of American Life, Beaune has enlisted the city of Marseille - European culture capital in 2013 - and his publisher Editions le bec en l'air in an inspired project: collect stories from thirteen Mediterranean cities from Barcelona to Tangier to Haifa to Palermo, in the language of the storyteller's choice.

HistoiresVraies.net has published our true Tangier story, The American Diplomat in Tangier Who Saved Jews in Budapest, the story of wartime Legation Chargé d'Affaires J. Rives Childs and his intervention with the Spanish occupation authorities, which we uncovered last year after years of its languishing in the archives.  This kind of story is compelling, and not just for our museum visitors or library researchers: last month Spanish prime time TV aired the story of a Spanish diplomat, Ángel Sanz Briz, El Ángel de Budapest, who saved thousands of Jews.

Yesterday at Tangier's venerable-but-trendily-updated Librairie des Colonnes, Beaune enthralled the audience with his description of the project - "I have the best job in the world, travelling across the Mediterranean, listening to people's stories."  2012-2013 is his "raw material" stage.  To get our storytelling juices flowing, he recounted a wonderful tale from a French woman who had traveled to Spain in the days immediately after dictator Francisco Franco's death in 1975.  A gripping lost traveler's tale transformed into an uncanny insight into the fear of living in a police state.

François Beaune says "we don't all have a novel in us, but everyone has a true story to share."  He has chosen his Moroccan Mediterranean city well; Tangier has stories on so many levels.  Tangier International Zone.  Tangier the city forgotten by King Hassan II.  Tangier the freewheeling city of the Beat Generation.  Tangier, Boom Town.  Tangier-As-Casablanca (the movie).

One level that would perhaps otherwise be ignored would be stories by people who cannot write them, people who are struggling with illiteracy.  TALIM's women's literacy program includes hundreds of medina women who are either current students or who have graduated newly literate over the last thirteen years.

We've introduced François Beaune and the Histoires Vraies de Méditerranée team to our women, and are hopeful that, like the American NGO Stories Exchange, we can get our medina neighbors to share their stories.

The story of the Mediterranean will be all the richer for it.

Gerald Loftus