Ben Jones graduated from Rice University in 2018, where he majored in history. He currently serves with the Peace Corps in Zaouia Cheikh, Morocco.
Spencer: Could you please describe the current project that you are working on as part of the Peace Corps in Zaouia Cheikh, Morocco?
Ben Jones: I live right in the middle of Morocco where the Atlas mountains meet the plains. It is a beautiful place. Peace Corps all around the world work in different sectors, like agriculture or health. But in Morocco, the sector is youth development. The Peace Corps in Morocco works with the ministry of youth and sports. We work on building the life skills of youth here. We work on public speaking, teamwork, and communication so that they can enter the workforce and also be productive and engaged in their communities. We do lots of different after-school programming, clubs, and activities that try to engage youth to learn more about their world and help out their communities. For example, I teach English here in town at the local high school and my primary work site is dar alshabab, which literally means “house of youth.” It is sort of like a youth center or after-school area. We just work on lots of projects throughout the year. For example, right now I am working with some people to do a potential Model United Nations with university students in the area and we are also looking at organizing a chess tournament.
Spencer: What made you want to go into the Peace Corps in Morocco?
Ben Jones: For a long time, I have been considering graduate school and my goal is to get a Ph.D. eventually. Looking at fix or six more years of school after graduating from Rice, I realized that I wanted to get out into the world and experience something else. In addition to that, I had studied Arabic at Rice, but I hadn’t really gotten far enough in the language to consider myself proficient in it so I considered it a great opportunity to learn the language and the culture. And one thing I really appreciate about Peace Corps is that I’m not living in a big city, like Casablanca or Rabat, but I am really integrated into the culture. My town is about 20,000 or 25,000 and I am interacting with everybody in town and everybody knows me, or at least it feels that way. I get to really know people and experience life here throughout the year and experience every aspect of it.
Spencer: What was it like studying Arabic in Jordan and living in Jordan?
Ben Jones: My junior year, I did a semester abroad in Aman, Jordan. It was sort of a mixture. I spent half the day in Arabic classes and then the other half of the day we had lectures and discussions about different aspects of Jordan politics, Jordanian culture, and that sort of stuff. And then after that in the following summer, I returned to Jordan and I worked on an archaeology dig. I was a student helping out with this archaeology program. I think I maybe learned as much or more Arabic in that summer than my whole time studying in the program in Aman, Jordan. In the archaeology program, it was a mixture of American and British students with local guys working on the dig and I quickly became their favorite because I was the only one who spoke any Arabic. And we just had lots of lunches and breakfasts and talking about anything throughout the day as we were digging through the day.
Spencer: Did you have one history professor at Rice that had a profound impact on you? If so, could you please speak about that professor and the class that you took with that professor?
Ben Jones: I took a class with Dr. Byrd. I don’t remember the specific title of the course, but it was about the history of education, especially in the South. It was also about the history of segregation and desegregation of education. The class was fantastic. And what I really appreciated about Dr. Byrd was that he challenged us to think about how history really plays a role in our lives in an everyday way and also about how our moral obligations as students of history should make us think about different implications. And I remember one class, we were studying students who had gone on strike in Virginia. Basically, Black students protesting segregation had gone on strikes from their school for more than a year in either the 1950s or 1960s. He just took a moment and said that must have taken a lot of courage. He asked us “when was the last time you have ever done anything courageous?” And that really stuck with me thinking about those people. I think it is really easy in a history class at a university to take on a very analytical framework, but I really began to consider it from a very personal level.
“And I remember one class, we were studying students who had gone on strike in Virginia. Basically, Black students protesting segregation had gone on strikes from their school for more than a year in either the 1950s or 1960s. He just took a moment and said that must have taken a lot of courage. He asked us “when was the last time you have ever done anything courageous?’”
Interview conducted by Spencer Moffat for the Rice Historical Review Short Form