Home

And now the final stage.  Sitting on the Concord Coach in Boston's South Station waiting to depart. My good friend Martha will pick me up in Concord NH and I will consider myself home!

For those of you who where hoping to see more blog posts, I apologize. As it turns out I did not have the mental stamina to think of a well crafted blog post at the end of a busy work day or a whirlwind touristy day. Instead all I could manage was the occasional Facebook status or picture. Or sometimes only a comment or like of another team members's post. In fact most of my colleagues are FAR better at this social media thing than I. By the time I would get around to posting they would already have done so and clicking 'like' was an easy way to let my friends know what I was doing. For those of you who are not on FB and are interested, we will simply have to catch up in person!

I think back now to that bus ride 30 days ago and while I was excited about the adventure before me I was also really sad about leaving. Now on my way home, I am nostalgic about my experience and very emotional about returning home. That in fact will be one of my lasting impressions from this trip - how important home, family and friends are to me. I have lived in many places, had many jobs, met many people in my life so far and what has become clear is that the places and the jobs don't mean anything, only the people. So thank you to all the people in my life, past and present, I carry you all in my heart.

Language

What language am I speaking? What language is he speaking? I am getting so mixed up! As the token french speaking person in our sub-group it is my responsibility to translate back and forth as we work in our project, order food in a restaurant, navigate directions with the taxi drivers, communicate with hotel and other tourist staff, help colleagues bargain in the souk for better prices ... all this has resulted in some rather strange occurrences. I find myself speaking English with a French grammar rules, I find myself speaking English with French intonation. I can't remember English words and so just use the French equivalent but worst of all - I have started translating to my colleagues, even when the speaker is communicating in English!

I am not sure whether this means I am completely immersed in the language of the country or whether I am just going completely insane!!

One week or one month?

(caveat - I wrote this a week ago, and had every intention of uploading a whole lot of pictures but due to technical difficulties, I do not have all my pictures on on device, I'll post pictures as I can)

 

Was it one week ago that I arrived in Morocco or one month ago? On the one hand we have only had three full days at the client's site and the reality is that it was in fact one week ago that we gathered for our first CSC meting; on the other every day and throughout the day our we are experiencing something new, all of our senses open and receptive to new sights, sounds, smells, even the air feels different. Visits with our client are filled with new information, new aspects to consider and thought provoking conversations. This all makes us feel as if we have been here for much longer. We have toured Casablanca, visited Fes, wandered around Chefchaouen, driven through some magnificent countryside and today a day of exploring Tangier awaits us. Three more weeks of this amazing experience awaits us - will it feel like three weeks or three months? Maybe three years? Whichever it is, it will likely change me in some unforeseen way.

Sue and Duki's grand adventure

A little out of order, but I just got back from exploring the church beside the hotel. Duki and I decided to take a walk over to see the church and the park it was in.

It is a very magnificent looking building from the outside. Inside, it was being set up for an art exhibit and was closed at the time, however we were able to pay 20 Dh to walk up to the top of one of the towers. At one point up the staircase we were able to go out onto a balcony that had a gorgeous view of the inside of the church

The real adventure though was when we went a bit higher: walking along the rooftop afforded interesting views - just don't look down!


And we kept going, all the way to the top where we could see the entire city stretched out before us - as Duki said: Helps you understand why it is called Casa 'blanca'

Panorama view from the top - in the distance you can see the mosque as well as the port.

Down below us, a group of boys were playing soccer in front of the church

Stairwell back down.

Starting anew

Moving my blog from tumblr (http://moroccanadventure.tumblr.com) as it seems a bit hard for folks to communicate on that platform.

A brief overview: as a lucky volunteer with the IBM Corporate service Corps, I am on my way to Casablanca Morocco for a month. Along with 14 other IBM'rs I will be working on an assignment with a local organization. In my case I will be working with Grant and Duki developing a roadmap for a pharmaceutical distribution and information management system. It is a tremendous honour to be part of this group sometimes I wonder what qualifies me to be included.  Now that I am actually on my way, I can't believe how excited I am! Almost time to head to the gate!