Morocco!

I don't even know where to begin. I've been thrown right into the mix of things and have been working day and night and weekends. No internet at home yet so I am taking advantage of the hotel I'm in up on the Algerian border.

I am truly at a loss for words for the power of the work that Moroccans all around the country are doing for Moroccan-US relations. I have been to a Ministry of Youth Music camp, seen American High school students learning Arabic, given orientations to Moroccan students going to America, a basketball camp in the far north (Oujda and Nador), the Oujda American Corner, given TV, internet, and radio interviews in French, and oh yeah, learned how a US Embassy works (well, sort of).

I am totally and completely exhausted, yet energized by the power of the programs and the work so many people put into making them happen. The below pictures are from a trip this week.

2 students from Oujda singing "A Coat of Many Colors" - they were amazing

A play about Cinderella in English. This is in Oujda American corner in the conservative north.

Basketball Camp girls in Oujda

Nador girls!

I don't know why this river is this color, but it incredible. I begged the driver (thank you Larbi!) to stop

Walls of the imperial city of Fez. All of these I took from the window of the moving car, no time to stop! :(

Graveyard, somewhere near Fez

Roman ruins dot the countryside everywhere

Who knows, but it's beautiful

Walls around Fez, thousands of swallows fly around and sit in the ventilation holes

The medina in Fez

Entrance to Fez medina, the biggest in the Muslim world

A museum in Fez, they just had the Sacred Music Festival the night before

This is the most beautiful country in the world

Bye Bye Betsy

I loved you from the moment I saw you, a true coup de foudre. Hopefully you will come back to me whole.At home where you belongAck! KidnappedI now have an empty driveway :(

Goodbye

I feel like I've committed the ultimate adultery by living in DC these last 6 months. Baltimore is hometown and somehow I had always cultivated this adversarial thing against DC. But, really it IS apples and oranges. This is a false city, a false construct. Visitors, dignitaries, fancy buildings will never/never compete with the spirit, soul, blood, sweat, and tears that comprise Baltimore City.

I love you, Greatest City in America. I will miss you.