Hiking Adventure in Rural Morocco

Les Pieds Marcheurs is a hiking group that consists of Moroccans of all ages.  I heard about the group from one of my roommates friends and I immediately knew it was something I wanted to get involved in.  I have always loved spending time in nature, but after having lived in Casablanca for several months it has become something I seek out actively (think traffic, pollution, garbage, and noise 24/7 and you have a pretty accurate image of Casablanca).  The city is definitely a far cry from the quaint town of Kingston, Ontario, where I have been living for the past four years, but by no means am I complaining, I love this city and find long walks in the medina or along the main boulevards a great pasttime.

Ok but back to Les Pieds Marcheurs.  So naturally when I heard about the group I did the same thing anyone who grew up in my generation would have done.  I found them on Facebook.  Once I knew the details of their next trip I was convinced that I wanted to go.  I copied down the information for the registration meeting and then tried to recruit some friends to join me.  Unfortunately I was unsuccessful in finding a friend to join, so in true Sarah fashion I showed up to a meeting of strangers on my own.

As I climbed the stairs to the second level of the cafe that serves as the meeting place for Les Pieds Marcheurs I wondered who and what I would find around the corner.  At the top of the stairs I tentatively walked towards a group of Moroccans I saw sitting at some sofas in the corner.  As I approached they all looked up at me with blank expressions, waiting for me to ask them for directions or something.  When I explained that I was there for the Les Pieds Marcheurs meeting they all looked slightly taken aback, but quickly concealed their surprise by offering me a seat with welcoming smiles.  Apparently there haven't been many foreigners who have (1) heard of the group and (2) participated in a hike.

Ok let's jump to the hike.  I won't go into details because I wrote about 10 pages in my travel journal and that would be far too tedious to type up haha.  Essentially it was the most amazing experience I have had in Morocco so far.  The views, the people, the hiking, the food, the music and dancing at night, the sunsets etc etc.  Everything was just amazing and I feel so fortunate to have been on such an authentic Moroccan trip.  So instead of describing it I'll post some pictures for you.  Enjoy!

We arrived at the hostel around 4am, therefore it was pitch black.  When
I woke up, this is what the view from my window.  Not too shabby.

I had my first spelunking experience on this hike, with a head lamp and everything.  This is the cave next to the one we explored.  The entrance to the one we went into was nowhere near this big and anything more than a tight crouching position while moving it resulted in a head bang or a battered knee. 

The landscape on the hike was absolutely incredible.  I pulled an Aliza Sovani
and took approximately 500 photos over the two day hike :)

Hanging out with one of our guides during a break.   

Oh hello there paradise valley!

Paradise valley, in the other direction there are cliffs that the guys and I jumped off of.
I won't post the pictures of the cliff so that my mom doesn't faint haha.
Haven't felt my heart beat that fast/such an adrenaline rush in a while :)

Just living the dream.

You know you are becoming Moroccan when you have piled into the back of a truck with a bunch of people in the middle of the back country haha.  There wasn't enough room in the truck for everyone, so our guide was hanging out the back with the door open (his arm is the white-sleeved one that is slightly visible at the back). 

The crew.

On our way to our accommodations for the night.  Sun is starting to set over the mountains.
Watched the sun set from the room of our auberge while drinking some Moroccan tea.   

Nothing is better at the end of a hike than a swim at the beach.  Taghazout is a surf town
that is definitely on my list of places to visit again.  And who doesn't like watching
camels roam the beach as you soak in some rays?

For my next post I will share stories about my experience participating in the religious holiday Eid al-Adha with one of my friend's family.  Spoiler alert: I saw 3 sheep get slaughtered and then proceeded to help clean and cook the intestines and stomach of one of them.  That will be a post you won't want to miss :)

Cheers,

Sarah

What is Sarah doing in Morocco?

I would like to thank those of you who have filed complaints with me recently regarding the infrequency of my blog posts. The guilt resulting from your pleas was the push I needed to finally sit back down on my couch and divulge some details on my covert Moroccan life.

So let's start with my internship. What am I doing here, other than soaking in some sweet Moroccan culture?

I am working for a project called YouthInvest that is run by MEDA Maroc, which is MEDA's Moroccan branch. First I will share a bit of information about the project and then I'll delve into what my role is. So as not to reinvent the wheel I am graciously borrowing snipits of the project description from the MEDA website for your reading pleasure:

Within five years, YouthInvest will directly touch the lives of at least 50,000 young people, 15-24, connecting them with innovative financial and non-financial products and services that will help them develop skills to increase their possibility of finding meaningful work.

Activities included in the project are:

Training: MEDA’s 100 Hours to Success program includes three key curriculum areas: life skills, business and entrepreneurship training and financial literacy.

Savings: all participants open a safe and secure bank account with one of our commercial banking partners. These partners have developed special youth- specific products with lower minimum balances.

Loans: Youth who have completed the 100 Hours to Success training and who are interested in starting their own business are referred to one of our MFI partners. Each partner has developed a youth-specific loan product, taking into account the needs and requirements of younger clients.

Internships: Job placement and mentorship will allow selected participants to gain practical experience in the workplace, an essential step in securing meaningful employment.


My title at MEDA Maroc is Communications Development intern. My role consists of two parts: developing communication materials and creating a knowledge management system. The following is a description of each of these parts.

Communications:

- We are currently working on the redesign of our website. There are several things wrong with the website; it is very static, only available in Arabic, not aesthetically pleasing, and does not have enough interesting content for youth to browse. In the last several weeks we have met with many communication agencies in order to get quotes for the redesign. Our team has a bunch of great ideas for the new website and we are all looking forward to getting the redesign underway (we are still waiting on a couple quotes before we can select an agency). To take a look at the site as it is now check out: www.medamena.org

- In the past two weeks we have been preparing the November issue of the quarterly newsletter. It has proved to be a difficult task to have one person writing it in Arabic and the other in English while maintaining a certain level of consistency between the two versions. We are hoping to have it published early this week. I will post a link of my blog to the English version for those who are interested in reading it.

- We are also meeting with communications agencies to get quotes and accumulate ideas for an educational campaign in Casablanca on the importance of savings. In Morocco there isn't a culture of savings, especially among youth, therefore one of our goals is to raise awareness of the importance of savings and facilitate the relationship between banks and youth. The savings campaign would make use of several mediums of communication in order to disseminate messages in the voices of youth who are discussing their experience with saving. We hope to use the radio, newspapers, the internet, signs, etc. to get the message across. It is likely that this campaign will be launched in January.

Knowledge Management:

Since YouthInvest was launced in 2009 the members of the team have accumulated a lot of knowledge and created numerous documents. However all of this knowledge is currently stored in the heads of the staff or on their personal computers. In order to document everything the team has learned I am conducting extensive interview with all the members of the MEDA Maroc team and partner organizations. The format for those interviews is based on a format used by the UNDP during their Knowledge Management campaign.

The information collected in these interviews will be used to create a toolkit for other similar organizations who can learn from the experiences of MEDA Maroc. This toolkit will include documents such as guides for developing a monitoring and evaluation system, guides for training trainers and instructions on how to collect and write Success Stories. The knowledge collected will also be summarized in a report that I will be writing near the end of my internship.

The task of collecting and documenting as much knowledge as possible from the team is a daunting task but it is also an incredible opportunity for me. Having the opportunity to speak to a wide range of people in the organization means that by the end of my internship I will truly have an in depth understanding of the different roles and responsibilities of the members of an NGO.

Last week I conducted the first interview with our Monitoring & Evaluation Specialist. Her job is fascinating and getting to hear the lessons she has learned in the field over the last several years was very interesting. This week I have 3 interviews scheduled with the Communications Officer, the Training Specialist, and the Director of Financial Services at MEDA, who manages the YouthInvest project.

I'm looking forward to a trip to Oujda at the end of November to partake in a workshop for partner organizations. Throughout the day I will have the chance to perform interviews with the participants to ensure that knowledge from our partner organizations is being documented as well. I had a great time in Oujda last time I was there so I can't wait to see all of development agents again.

My trip to Oujda also happens to coincide with the 3 month mark of my time in Morocco. Since I'm on a tourist visa here I have to leave every 3 months. Therefore I will be making the trip to Melilla, a Spanish enclave that is attached to Morocco, in order to get my passport stamped so that I won't have any difficulty leaving the country later. I have spoken to many expats who stayed even just a day longer than their 3 months and they were detained at the airport and missed their flight. So there is not point in taking chances, and it's off to Spain I go soon :)

I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about what I have been doing at work. I'm going to follow this post with a quick post about my life outside of work as I have had many adventures during my time here. Check back soon for that post! (possibly later tonight...and I promise it will include some pictures)