Eyewitness to an Unveiling

I have an excellent memory of which I am inordinately proud - it's not photographic but pretty darn close. If it's written in print, then I can easily commit it to memory; however, if it's a facial feature, I'm screwed. This is how the gods have repaid my hubris. In fact, it's safe to say that when I meet someone for the first time, even engage in a lengthy conversation with that person, it's highly unlikely that I'd be able to pick them out of a police line-up three hours later. Undeniably, I would make the world's worst eyewitness.

Now this is not the most coveted quirk to possess if you are a teacher. I realize that students appreciate to be called upon by their names and be recognized in the hallway. By their instructor. And I try - I truly do. I have even developed several non-earth shattering strategies to make me less of a nob in class: I write down abbreviated descriptions next to the names on my enrolment sheets ('glasses', 'bald', 'scarf', 'mind-numbingly stunned'), I try to memorize seating plans (although students are wont to change positions on me, either capriciously or wilfully), I record their names into a portable cassette recorder and play this mantra back during my sleep through headphones. But for the most part, I can - at best - successfully identify by name 40% of my students by the end of term. In my defence, having 4 Fatima Zahra's in the same class at any one time doesn't help. Fortunately, they don't mind being numbered Fatima Zahra 1, Fatima Zahra 2. Fatima Zahra 3, and Fatima Zahra 4.

Let me add that if a student changes his/her hairstyle or forgets to wear his/her eyewear, any progress I've made in learning their name and assigning it to his/her face is completely undone. So this afternoon, it came as little surprise that on the 2nd last day of class I should chance upon a student whom I didn't recognize. This happens frequently. But this was a class that I've had for 3 hours a week for the last 10 months - the scholarship students from the slums of Salé about whom I have already rhapsodized - what the hell was my problem? In a world where my bar of recognition is already set disturbingly low, this was a personal best. And by personal best, I mean a nadir.

Then I put on my glasses realized that it was Fadwa, a wee 15-year old girl and the only veiled student in this particular class. But rather than wearing her usual hijab - Saints preserve us! - she was wearing a diaphanous black veil. I could sort of, kind of see her hair. She was more suitably attired to crawl over broken glass on her knees up the steps of the Our Lady of Lourdes' shrine than pray before Allah five times. I cleverly hid my flustered surprise - I cunningly dropped the handout I was passing her - and went on with the day's lesson. But if my nerves weren't already frayed enough, Fadwa appeared after break sans veil. What fun she and her friends must have had in the bathrooms! She had hair - who knew? Gorgeous hair that she deigned to sluttishly proudly exhibit before me and the testosterone-engorged boys in class. How can she now protect her modesty and discourage unwanted attention from her male counterparts? Had she really thought this through?

Her best friend in class pointed to her and said, "Teacher! We have a new student!" Fadwa giggled licentiously demurely. "And a beautiful new student too," I responded. Not very clever, I know, but it's been a rough week and my brain activity repartee is always the first thing to go.

So I now have a new & improved Fadwa in my class. I am very, very happy because I can't abide headscarves on women. Although I want to be able to say that I support a woman's right to wear whatever she wants on her head - even an armadillo - if she so chooses, I'd have to say that I'd rather she wear a placental mammal than a hijab. Which probably makes me a bit of a hypocrite but at least an honest one. Scarves are not only scraps of politically charged fabric but all too ugly manifestations of sexual and religious oppression. In a word, I hate them.

So I had a pretty good Morocco Day today: all because of a whisp of a girl and a radical decision she made, a decision whose motives I will try to ferret out of her tomorrow. And I can only hope that tomorrow - it being my last class with this group of amazing kids - the new & improved Fadwa returns in all of her Rapunzelean glory. That she doesn't have a change of heart, a lapse of courage. That her father doesn't have a near-stroke and obliterate her sexuality from the world.