Poetry:
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Life is in no way what I thought it would be

I used to see it like a fair rose sparkling with beauty

With a sweet heavenly fragrance permeating the air

Or a pretty fairy moon spreading its joyous light

Over the gloomy face of this sad universe

I used to be full of hope at every new sunrise

And every single atom of my body used to dance

To the sweet and melodious music of morn

All is right with the world, I used to say

And may it be so and even better

Till every sinful soul surrenders to its Lord

Alas, how naive and a dumb fool I was

Mohamed Chhilif

How Sad....

How sad it is when you lose your soul
And no longer find your own self.
'Tis too bad to see it slip through
Like grains of sand on a deserted beach.
Or evaporate in the air like boiling water
That travels high up into
The vast sky and is no more.
What's dearest to one in this whole universe
If not his ego,his core, his essence?
Is it not a real shame he sells it so cheap
And dives head first into hollowness?

Mohamed Chhilif

Using wikis and blogs in education.

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Teaching Education teaching ppt

Texas school district to let teachers carry guns

Fri Aug 15, 2008 3:41pm EDT

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A Texas school district will let teachers bring guns to class this fall, the district's superintendent said on Friday, in what experts said appeared to be a first in the United States.

The board of the small rural Harrold Independent School District unanimously approved the plan and parents have not objected, said the district's superintendent, David Thweatt. School experts backed Thweatt's claim that Harrold, a system of about 110 students 150 miles northwest of Fort Worth, may be the first to let teachers bring guns to the classroom. Thweatt said it is a matter of safety." We have a lock-down situation, we have cameras, but the question we had to answer is, 'What if somebody gets in? What are we going to do?" he said. "It's just common sense."

Teachers who wish to bring guns will have to be certified to carry a concealed handgun in Texas and get crisis training and permission from school officials, he said.

Recent school shootings in the United States have prompted some calls for school officials to allow students and teachers to carry legally concealed weapons into classrooms.

The U.S. Congress once barred guns at schools nationwide, but the U.S. Supreme Court struck the law down, although state and local communities could adopt their own laws. Texas bars guns at schools without the school's permission.

(Reporting by Jim Forsyth in San Antonio; writing by Bruce Nichols in Houston, editing by Vicki Allen)

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Read this doc on Scribd: Word Formation In English

Strolling leisurely downtown
Not too early and not too late at night
Streets back to quiet again
After a lengthy and busy day
Garbage heaps in every corner
Stray dogs here and there
Feeding on man's remains he
Miserely keeps from his fellow mortals
And heedless of their need and hunger
Generously squanders all year round
Homeless people lying in heaps
With no shelter but the vast sky
Others in a remote slimy corner
Drink out their woes into oblivion.

Mohamed Chhilif

Animal Farm ( George Orwell )

The good old days

The Good Old Days

A computer was something on TV
From a science fiction show of note
A window was something you hated to clean
And ram was the cousin of a goat.
Meg was the name of my girlfriend
And gig was a job for the nights
Now they all mean different things
And that really mega bytes.
An application was for employment
A program was a TV show
A curser used profanity
A keyboard was a piano.
Memory was something you lost with age
Compress was something you did to the trash
Not something you did to a file
And if you unzipped anything in public
You'd be in jail for a while.
Log on was adding wood to the fire
Hard drive was a long trip on the road
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived
And a backup happened to your commode.
Cut you did with a pocket knife
And paste you did with glue
A web was simply a spider's home
And a virus was just the flu.
I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper
And the memory that's in my head
I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash
But when it happens they'll wish they were dead.
Author Unknown
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE POEM

SMART BOARD ( Interactive Whiteboard)

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Twenty First Century Education

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Wikis in Plain English

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Working with sounds in Powerpoint

Blog tutorial in Blogger

In his fairy universe
As gentle as a feather
As soft as a cloud
He lives in another world
A world of imagination at its best
Kings and queens
Princes and princesses
Valient soldiers in fortresses
Riding sturdy steeds
And heading towards victory
To win the heart of a beloved princess
No limit to his imagination
No boundaries in his world.

Mohamed Chhilif

A Sick Man

Day and night his suffering mounts
Pain of the worst type poisons his life
Such a terrible pain keeps him awake
Counting stars through an endless night
Everything is so tasteless and so plain
And life is but an everlasting agony
Frightful memories haunt his soul
And make his mood even worse
Gnawing insidiously at his tormented heart
And tearing apart his ailing spirit
So fragile, so vulnerable and so weak
Such is his miserable life day and night.

Mohamed Chhilif

Tough guy / Delicate Mum

It was a very emotional time for me -- my youngest son was about to leave for basic training. I took the day off so we could spend his last day as a civilian together. My son likes to pass himself off as a tough guy, but as we climbed into the car, he blurted out in a halting, sad voice, "I'm going to miss you." Well, I just about lost it. The tears flowed from my eyes as I turned to say how much I was going to miss him too. That's when I saw that he was addressing a can of Pepsi he'd just opened.

Security measures

On a business trip, my father approached a security checkpoint at the airport. The National Guard shift was rotating, and a guard, in full uniform, was in line in front of him. As with everybody else, the soldier was ordered to go through the metal detector. Before doing so, he handed his M-16 rifle to security personnel along with other items such as handcuffs and a flashlight. Still the alarm sounded when he walked through. Further inspection revealed a Swiss army knife inside one of his pockets. "Sorry, sir," security said to the soldier, "but this item is prohibited." Taking the knife away, the airport worker then handed him back the M-16.

Robert Newman: History of Oil

Web2.0 & language learning

Noam Chomsky: An American Revolutionary

Should teachers strike?

30 days- Muslims in America

Israel: the terrorist state, the rogue state, the failed state

(WASHINGTON, DC) (July 17, 2006) Developments in the Middle East permit only one conclusion: it is time for the United States to "cut and run" from Israel, not Iraq. The Israeli government has become the enemy of every American, and endangers every American with its suicidal policy of terrorizing the Middle East. Truly, the leading terrorist state, rogue state and failed state in the Middle East is Israel.
First, a timeline to the truth. President Bush and many world leaders have repeated the big lie that Hamas and Hezbollah "provoked" the latest war. That simply isn’t true. Palestinians voted in a free and fair election for a Hamas administration. Hamas was a party to a cease-fire.
Bush and Israeli leaders began a campaign of terror,
intimidation and assassination to undo a free and democratic election. Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinian people as a whole, and particularly against the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. The Gazans who attacked Israeli military installations and took an Israeli soldier prisoner were only defending themselves in a war that Israel has continued relentlessly for decades. They only acted after decades of mealy-mouthed peace efforts by world leaders and the hypocrite-in-chief American President (insert name of your choice).
Israel responded to the military attack by launching a terror campaign against Palestinian civilians.
Hezbollah reacted in sympathy with Hamas, and sought to take the pressure off the besieged Palestinians. Who can condemn them for that? Hezbollah also attacked military targets. Once again, Israel responded by launching terror attacks against women and children, as the latest gruesome photographs now establish. Bottom line: Israel, not Palestinians, is the aggressor. Israel is the occupier.
Second, Ralph Peters is a columnist for the New York Post and author. We have disagreed on virtually everything concerning Iraq. I was right and he was wrong. But today he made some observations with which I agree. Peters writes that "Israel picked the wrong fight" by attacking innocent, civilian Lebanon. He's right.
Peters and I also disagree in that I once took a military oath of enlistment to defend the U.S. Constitution, and only the U.S. Constitution. Peters apparently took a loyalty oath to both Israel and the United States. That's a mistake.
I am not pro-Israel or anti-Israel, not pro-Arab or anti-Arab. I have only one loyalty, one priority, and one polestar: the interests of the United States of America and the U.S. Constitution. That's why Peters and I often part company: he wants to sympathize with Israelis; I only want to argue the vital interests of the American people and no one else.
Now, why is Israel the worst terror state, rogue state and failed state in the Middle East? Let’s look at the evidence.
First, terrorism. The state of Israel was created by terrorists, who terrorized the United Nations into partitioning the Palestinian Mandate. The nation was conceived and born in terrorism. (OK, so was the United States, but then that's another story.) Since its founding, Israel has maintained a policy of relentless terrorism against the lawful inhabitants of Palestine.
Israel could buy peace tomorrow by ending the occupation and agreeing to live in peace with its neighbors. But Israeli leaders don’t want peace any more than some Palestinians do. Both sides would have to yield their dreams to reality, and admit they might not get all they want in a final settlement. So the extremists on both sides, Israelis and Palestinians, find it more convenient to labor on with warfare.
Second, rogue state. Israel is a rogue state. Once again, Ralph Peters: "[The United States] can influence Israel. But we don't control Israel." I opposed the war in Iraq, but many Americans supported president Bush in 2003. Many people, including high elected and appointed officials, thought that by attacking Iraq they would open an avenue to peace. Today hundreds of thousands of Americans are in harm's way in the Middle East implementing President Bush's policies.
By launching it's terror war against Gaza and Lebanon,
Israel has all but destroyed President Bush's Iraq policy. It won’t be long before the Iraqi people are rising against their American occupiers, and we face a situation similar to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. There was never any chance that Bush's misguided and misinformed policies would succeed; but even if there was a slight chance, Israel's terrorism destroyed that remote possibility.
Despite the fact that American taxpayers subsidize Israel's warmongering, while Israeli investors take money out of that country and invest in New York real estate, Israel has betrayed President Bush. (Israeli real estate investors are voting with their dollars concerning the future they see for the Israeli state.) In other words, Israeli leaders have repaid Bush's loyalty with the treachery of an unprecedented campaign of terror against unarmed civilian populations.
Finally, failed state. Israel is a failed state. U. S. Senator Charles Schumer was quoted this weekend as saying Israel was created as a response to the Holocaust. Why should innocent Palestinians have been forced to pay for Europe's atrocities? Palestinians did not murder a single French Jew or German Jew or Polish Jew.
It is often said that Shakespeare gives some of the best lines to fools. The prime Minister of Iran has said some awful, foolish things about the Israelis. But he has also stated a truth that becomes more accepted in the world with each passing day: "Why make Palestinians and Arabs pay for the crimes of others, by allowing Israel to punish Palestinians and Arabs as payback for the European Holocaust?"
Today there is no prospect that Israel can ever be a nation in the normal sense of living in peace with its neighbors. Israel is too strong to be defeated, and the Arab world is also too strong to be defeated. Neither side can defeat the other. But Israeli dreams of superiority, hegemony and victory are just that: pipe dreams.
It is time for the United States to put America first, and
abandon Israel. Then maybe the Israelis will be forced to make peace.
President Bush's promise to shed American blood to defend Israel, while Israelis milk Israel to invest in New York, will not find the support of any rational American (but many craven politicians). The Israeli experiment has been tried, and failed. A state that can only exist by terrorizing its neighbors, by incinerating helpless and unarmed women and children, is a failed state in the truest sense of the word.
I realize that the Arab world is also populated by egregiously failed states. I do not stand up to defend the Mubarek dictatorship, or the insanity that was Iraq, or the Saudi conspiracy, or Libya under Ghadaffi. But none of these nations continues to prey on its neighbors the way Israel does. They are all failed states, but only one endangers America: Israel.
The Bush administration has made a great deal of Democratic Party dithering over whether to "cut and run" in Iraq. I'm not sure we can. Bush & Co. have made it impossible to just pull out of Iraq. But I am certain the president should announce that he is revoking a commitment to shed American blood for Israeli real estate investors, and that as of now Israel is on its own. Cut and run. Then, and only then, can a new day dawn in the Middle East, and can Americans expect to live in a more peaceful (but still dangerous) world.
I don’t wish Israelis harm. But I do wish they would stop harming their neighbors. And if we can’t stop them from being a terrorist state, at least we can admit Israel is a failed state and withdraw our encouragement and support for Israeli atrocities.
NEXT: WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST: WHY ARABS MUST DIE TO ELECT REPUBLICANS
________________________________________________.
Andy Martin is the Executive Editor and publisher of ContrarianCommentary.com. © Copyright by Andy Martin 2006. Comments? E-mail: AndyMart20@aol.com. Media contact: (866) 706-2639. Andy is a Middle East expert who is Executive Director of the Revolutionary War Research Center. He has spent 36 years in and out of the Middle East and spent much of 2003 in Iraq

Animator versus Animation

Animator vs Animation

Israeli FM and her weird logic

Israeli FM Tzipi Livni recently made a preposterous declaration about how she figures out any solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem and what amount of land the state of Israel is ready to give the Palestinians to build their state . FM Livni made it clear that the Palestinians have no right to make any claims on the territories that were occupied by Israel before 1967. Her argument for such a misleading claim is that there was no Palestinian Authority and as a matter of fact no Palestinian state before that date. FM livni seemed to be oblivious of the fact that before 1948 there was no State of Israel in Palestine,either. Therefore, if she were to deprive the Palestinians of building their state on the land of their forefathers, a land that belongs to them by force of law, then the same logic is to be applied to the state of Israel itself; and logically enough, the International Community and the UN should interfere to put back the entire region to its status-quo before 1948. This state of affairs is a clear-cut evidence to anyone who supports Israeli occupation of Palestinian land that they had better reconsider their position on this issue and try as much as possible to be fair towards Palestinians and their just cause.

Mohamed Chhilif

Child Abuse

The problem of child abuse has become very serious
Wafaa Al-Kredia
guest contributor

CHILD abuse is a worldwide problem and not only in Saudi Arabia. We unfortunately don't like to talk about the problem and so too often ignore it. In the United States, on the other hand, the problem receives attention from many authorities and organizations for children's rights. Between 1985 and 1992, the problem of child abuse has become very serious, increasing by 50 percent - from 30 children abused per 1,000 to 45 per 1,000.

I have recently received a briefing about this problem in Saudi Arabia; it was sent to me by Dr. Huda Abdullah Qattan, chairperson of the Committee for Protecting Children's Rights at King Faisal Specialist Hospital. Dr. Huda affirms that the problem is real, horrifying and hushed-up. This is due to a number of factors, such as the difficulty of finding clear evidence of an alleged abuse, the possibility of harming the reputation of the child's family as well as other personal, social and legal considerations.

Since doctors who might go public with cases of child abuse fear being harassed by the authorities or concerned families, they decide to drop the case. This doesn't mean that the problem doesn't exist; it does - as Dr. Huda confirmed - but we lack corroborating figures or reliable statistics.

According to the report sent to me, violence in the family is due to three principal reasons: the parents' psychological state, the existence of an aggressive child in the family or some event which has caused tension and stress within the family. Violence increases in such circumstances and, the report continues, are represented by the existence of disabled children or children suffering from malnutrition, unwanted pregnancy and families who are socially isolated or run financial troubles. Violent accidents occur, first and foremost, to the females in the family, said Dr. Huda.

King Faisal Specialist Hospital has established an unprecedented program, the aim of which is to uncover cases of child abuse in the Kingdom, channels for reporting the cases and ways to avoid such cases in the future. In support of these aims, the Committee for Protecting Children's Rights was established in 1994.

IN Columbia, the police arrested a young man accused of stabbing a woman. It was not difficult to arrest him since the assault did not kill the woman and she lived to describe the defendant to the police and identify him in a lineup. The young man, curiously, confessed to the investigator that he had killed three women in the past year.

He described his three crimes in full detail. In light of his confessions, he was given the death penalty. The story should have ended here, but it did not. There was another surprise for the court when the young man calmly stated that he had killed 35 women over the past two years. Although the judge laughed when he heard the number, the young man did not flinch. When the judge asked him why he had committed such crimes and against women in particular, the young man replied that he was avenging himself for a mother who had ill-treated him when he was a child. When he married, his wife treated him the same way.

My advice to mothers and wives, 'Don't be tough. Treat your husbands and children nicely. Beware violence and ill-treatment.'

Say No To Child Abuse( click here to read more )

George Galloway Savages SKY NEWS!

The interview of Sky News with George Galloway

About the war in Lebanon.

- Question of Sky news: How can you justify your support to Hizbullah and his leader Sheikh Hassan Nasralla?

- Answer from Galloway: What a preposterous way to introduce me and a preposterous question. 24 years ago and on the day my daughter was born, I had to dash to the maternity hospital. There was a mass demonstration in London against the Israeli occupation to Lebanon. Israel was invading Lebanon all the 24 years of my daughter's life. Hizbullah are a part of the Lebanese national resistance, who have successfully driven out most of Israeli troops out of Lebanon in the year 2000 and trying to get back the thousands of Lebanese prisoners who are kidnapped by the Israelis under the terms of their illegal occupation to Lebanon. It's Israel that is invading Lebanon; it is Israel that is attacking Lebanon and Lebanon attacking Israel. You have been showing a report of Israeli soldiers getting ready to invade Lebanon and you are asking us to moan this operation as if it were some kind of a war crime. Israel is invading Lebanon and has killed 30 times more Lebanese than have died in Israel. So it is you who should be justifying the evidence bias which is written on each line of your face and in every nuance of your voice and loaded in each question you ask.

- Sky news: You put your finger on the button, didn't you? When you said that Hizbullah was set in the 1980s in order to remove every Israeli soldier from Lebanon and its soil and you said that they achieved that?

- Galloway: No, I didn't, this is a key point that you are concealing from your viewers. Israel was forced out of most of south Lebanon in 2000. It is still occupying a part of Lebanon and it has thousands of Lebanese prisons in Israeli jails.

- Sky news interrupting: According to Israeli draft, there are 3 Lebanese prisoners that were taken to court of law.

- Galloway: Please, have a slight longer memory than 4 weeks; I am talking about the thousands of Lebanese that were taken during the 18 years of Israeli illegal occupation of south Lebanon. These are the prisoners that have to be released in exchange for the Israeli soldiers that have been captured at the beginning of this wave of the crises.

- Sky news: can I ask you about a report that was today on the Sunday telegraph, which said that Iran has given Hizbullah long range missiles capable of targeting any part of Israel. Iran according to this Iranian NP who helped to establish Hizbullah who said that Iran is giving the organization authorization to attack Tel Aviv. Can you blame Israel for wanting to destroy these missiles?

- Galloway: too preposterous, America is giving Israel missiles that can target every part not only in Lebanon, but every city in the Arab and Moslem world including Iran. Why should America be allowed to give long range missiles to Israel including hundreds of nuclear missiles and Iran is not allowed to give to Hizbullah?

- Sky news, but they are a terrorist organization!

- Galloway:They are not a terrorist organization. Only in the mind of sky news, the sun, the times etc.

- Sky news, I will have to stop you there Mr Galloway, one man's terrorist, is another man's freedom's fighter. You know this perfectly well. In most people's eyes, (like the IRA), they had a choice,

- Galloway: They had nothing to do with the IRA, you are totally wrong to say that in most eyes, Hizbullah is a terrorist organization. In most people's eyes, Israel is a terrorist state. You cannot comprehend that fact that leads to the bias that's running through all your reports and every question you have asked me in this report.

- Sky news, hmm, can I ask you one more question, I was relating to the IRA that have decided to embrace politics. Hizbullah had the chance to embrace politics. They have 2 representatives in the cabinet, why did they capture 2 Israeli soldiers?

- Galloway: Because Israel occupies their country and hold thousand of their compatriots as kidnapped hostages in their dungeon. It is very simple unless you think in a clock that goes back only 4 weeks. If you know and you are old enough to know better, the origin of this conflict are not 4 weeks, 4 month or 4 years old, but decades old. You want people to think that the crises started when it started to tick on sky news?

- Sky news: No I don't, I wanna ask you one final question, do you think that the 4 weeks has set back Hizbullah's ambitions. Not only that Israelis are across the borders in sizable numbers, their claims to be a democratic organisation .... etc seems to blows now.

- Galloway: Silly question, what a silly person you are, Hizbullah is winning the war, you can see on the other half of the screen (clip of Israeli soldiers casualties was shown in the other half of the screen) . Hizbullah is more popular today in Lebanon amongst Christians, Sunni, shias and amongst all Arabs and Moslems than it has ever been. It is Israel who has lost the war and Bush and Blair for politically organizing the war, they have lost politically. It is a defeat for Israel and Bush and Blair. Everyone but you can see it.

- Sky news, Let me separate out that question then, set it in another way, Hizbullah was trying to get Israelis of their soil, aren't there more Israeli soldiers now than it was 25 days ago?

- Galloway, They seem to be having a very good hiding on the screen that I am watching, maybe you can see it, but I am watching them getting a bloody good hiding. So, if that is a success, I am not sure what a failure would look like. The reality is, that this conflict will go on. The UN resolutions solve nothing, give Lebanon nothing, give the prisoners in Israeli Dungeons nothing. Israel has even kidnapped more Palestinian politicians, members of parliament and thousands of prisoners are sitting there in Israel. This war will continue until an overall settlement is reached. This settlement must mean, Israelis must withdraw from occupied territories that it currently holds since the war in 1967. The release of all political prisoners, and a state for the Palestinians with east Jerusalem as its capital. NO JUSTICE NO PEACE. You are not going on a job as a news caster in Jerusalem soon believe me,

- Sky news, I must say, that some families will find it offensive when they moan their dead to hear you say it was a bloody good hiding.

- Galloway: You don't give a Damn, you don't even know about the Palestinian families, you don't even know that they exist. Tell me one name of the 7 family members slaughtered on the beach of Gaza by an Israeli warship. You don't even know their names, but you know the name of each Israeli soldier who was taken prisoner in this conflict, because you believe ,whether you know it or not, that the Israeli blood is more valuable than the blood of Lebanese or the Palestinians. That is the truth and the majority of your viewers already know it.

An Old Man

To his secluded nook he remains confined
Pressing his rosary bead after bead,
Chanting psalms for Him Whose Name is Glorified
And his Messenger the holder of the creed.
His face is all wrinkles and his body all through.
Each wrinkle tells the story of a painful and toilsome life.
Palsy shakes his frail body and his grey hair,
And lethe retards his perplexed brain.
Little lads and lasses we were when squatting around him
He told us wonderful stories of a bygone time.
"Glamourous was mine time ,lads, while thine is dim.
And cheerful were mine men with noble hearts
That were never grim."

Mohamed Chhilif

Like a Stargazer

Like a stargazer I spend my nights
Recalling a bygone time.
A genuine time oozing hours by hours.
Fading away and dissolving
Into the abyss of eternity.
"No time to waste," They say
In these folly-stricken days.
And nobody cares a straw about the destiny of humanity.
Of wisdom ancient philosophers spoke
And so did all the bards of the world.
Yet wisest is him who does not easily believe.
Belief nowadays is so hard an enterprise.
And likewise doubt is in no way a relief.
Forlorn am I in this world of hatred
Where kinship is forsaken
And bloodshed is the motto.
No love, no tolerance, no humanity
And man to man is for life an enemy.

Mohamed Chhilif

The life of Rosa Parks

Martin Luther King - I Have A Dream Speech - MLK

Say No To Child Labour ( click here to watch the video )

Samira M.

Sixteen-year-old Samira M. has worked in “four or five houses” in Casablanca, Fes, Meknes, and Rabat since she began working as a domestic at about fourteen. She told Human Rights Watch that she has never stayed long in one job because “all of the women I worked for treated me badly,” adding, “I would go home for the `Eid [holiday] and not come back because of the bad treatment. When I would go home they wouldn’t give me all the salary owed me, for example they wouldn’t give me the last month or two months or one-and-a-half months.”

Samira M. summed up her most recent job, where she said she worked eighteen hours a day, without rest breaks or days off: “When you finish something you start something else—even sitting you have to be doing something, cleaning vegetables, something.” She said she especially disliked childcare responsibilities in this and some other jobs she has had: “They would go out and leave me with young babies and tell me to make bottles for them but I didn’t know how, and the babies would cry and keep me up at night.”

Samira M. told Human Rights Watch that her mother received 400 dirham (dh) per month (about U.S.$44) for Samira’s work, from which her mother paid 100 dh (about $11) to the broker who placed Samira, but that she herself received nothing. Samira said she was not sure of any other details of her parents’ agreement with the broker because her mother hadn’t taken her with her when the agreement was made: “My mother made the agreement and the broker took me to the house.” She told us that she didn’t object to working since her family needed the income, “but I wish it would be work that would be good work.”

Samira M. told us her last employer was often abusive: “She used foul language. She would say bad things about my mother or she would say she would bring the police to beat me. Sometimes she would hit me with her hand or choke me…. [I]f I didn’t bring things to [the employer’s mother] quickly enough [the mother] would complain and the employer would hit me.” She added that the employer kept her inside, and excluded her even from socializing with the other members of the household. “I would eat in the kitchen, whatever was left over. It wasn’t enough but I was afraid to complain lest she hit me or something. I slept in a small storage room under the stairs. It had been a bathroom and had a bad smell coming from the drain. It was very small, my feet would hit the door when I slept…. I didn’t go out except to take out the garbage.”

Samira M. might have tolerated these abuses until, as with her previous jobs, a religious festival gave her an excuse to go home, but she told Human Rights Watch that the hard work and lack of sleep became too much for her to bear. “I left without permission. I left because I was working from 6 a.m. to midnight and it was hard work, scrubbing, and when I would be sleeping [the employer] would come and wake me up roughly. The work there was more than a lot.”

Because she left without permission, and without money or a way to get back home, Samira M. put herself at risk of arrest for vagrancy or, if her employer had wished to punish her with a false accusation, arrest for theft, as well as risk of recruitment into prostitution, or rape if she was forced to spend the night on the street. She was lucky. She told Human Rights Watch that police at the Casablanca train station found her crying and asked her whether she wanted to return to the house where she worked. When she said no, they searched her “to see if I had stolen anything,” and when they found she only had one loaf of bread with her, they took her to a local nongovernmental organization (NGO) working with street children, including former child domestics.

Is it me standing here at the sill of your door?
Or is it some transparent shadow
Returning aghast from the hollow pit of time?
I cannot know whither I belonged ere this time.
Nor do I know who on earth I am.
Time is the disease of the flesh
And life is so transient and so slippery.
What on earth could I do in your awesome presence?
And what could I possibly say?
Words crowding at the tip of my tongue,
I cannot, to my disgrace, utter your name.
Benumbed am I and to your pitiying looks
I am damn naught but an eccentric fool.
Fools are no foolish were not there
Mortals to assume they are fool.
And beauty is no beautiful
Were not there eyes to behold.
There, in front of me you are standing
And your frail body ashaking
I can see millions of querries
In the lustrous glow of your eyes
Querries I know and others I know not.
Perchance you are wondering what brought me here.
And whither was my shelter after all this gloom.
Or haply your little heart is throbbing
Bewildered at this unexpected turn of doom.

Mohamed Chhilif

Iraqi Plight

It was dark as darkness could be
Smells of gunpowder and human flesh
Permeating the air to form a stench
As ugly as any unholy alchemy
Cries of pain and agony
Bodies scattered in every street and alley
Disfigured, rotten and swollen!
Feverish soldiers in a hell of a frenzy
Shooting in all directions, shooting to kill
Any living soul: man, woman, boy and lassie
Hovering planes launched bombs
To flatten to earth any desolate house or shanty
Explosions here and explosions there
Innocent souls silenced to death
Hateful GI's armed to the teeth
Entered mosques and slayed worshippers
Kicked, trod and spat on holy books
And like dirty swines urinated all over the place.

Mohamed Chhilif