life goes on in Morocco

Another exciting weekend in Morocco is almost finished.

First of all, my French classes are awesome! I love it very much and I'm looking forward to each lesson. In September / October I plan to subscribe for another course for whole year or semester. We'll see what interesting I will find. My French is definitely improving. Today, I was sitting in my room and working and suddenly friend of my room mate entered my room. I guess she wanted to get to know me better. She barely spoke English so I had to speak French. She was very supportive and thanks to efforts of both sides we managed to have a small conversation. It wasn't easy to speak French but it was exciting to see my progress and practice more. This French course gives me a lot of power and motivation. I even start to think in French. Whenever I want to say something in English I think how I should say it in French. I have even happened to name one of my pics album on Picasa in French - La Plage Shrate instead of The Beach Shrate.

My week was of course not only French classes. I had 4 planning meetings with my MC team (each at least 3 hour long) so all my evenings were busy with work. Of course, I had to work on my own on other stuff and besides that I also had a meeting with my VPs Finance and LCPs (Local Committee Presidents).

The most challenging issue for this and next week will be to implement accounting system. For now, I will only implement excel sheets (no software until we find something cool and someone cool who will help us in starting it). The most crazy thing is that I need to establish chart of accounts (PL - zakladowy plan kont) which is in French of course. I think I will not have problems with translating it into English and then Polish. The thing is that accounting is sometimes a bit complicated if you study it on your own and you can expect to have some problems even if it's in Polish (I wish it was in Polish - not French:)

On Thursday, we had Tracy's farewell dinner. We went to the Syrian restuarant. The food was delicious. The dinner was on Thursday but Tracy will leave today (unfortunately :( ). I really have to get used to saying goodbye. In my flat, people come and go and I'm the only one who will stay here so long. I will be getting attached to people and after a few months will have to say goodbye. Well, but for those cool moments with such cool people it's really worth to experience all these sad goodbye.


Photo - a sign with my street name on a wall near to our apartment


Photo - 4 crazy Americans during farewell party (from the left - Allen, Christina from Ohio, Tracy from Minnesota and Daisy from New Mexico / Connecticut)

On Friday, we (MC) were invited for dinner / cocktail organized by MEPI - Middle East Partnership Initiative - a grant founded by US to strengthen relations between US and MENA countries. One of the guests was US Ambassador in Morocco - Thomas Riley. The event took place in Hilton Hotel in Rabat. Everything (food, place, people etc) was as posh and sophisticated as possible. I had a few interesting chats with a few interesting people. I had to take the role of Ambassador of AIESEC and of Poland. E.g. I explained that Helsinki is not the capital of Poland :)

The same Friday night, we had a crazy clubbing in Rabat - first in a pub with some tequila shots then in Amnesia (a nightclub). The most craziest part of the night was our way back home. Details not to publish - amnesia :)

And of course today. My first time on a Moroccan beach (swimming and sunbathing of course). First impressions - different sand, huge waves. The water of Atlantic was not very warm. I expected more from Africa. But the waves were so big that no one cared about temperature and everyone just had fun. But the biggest shock for me was taste of the ocean water. I didn't drink it on purpose but when you swim in the sea / ocean it's hard not to taste it. It was extremely SALTY! At some point I even felt pain in my mouth and eyes! I didn't expect it. Actually, it was my first swimming in other sea than Baltic which is the least salty sea in the world. I'm still shocked.


Photo - Kamil and Atlantic

My blog has brand new stuff - it shows countries and cities of my visitors. I sometimes wonder how some of you find this blog. If you have some time, please let me know. I am really willing to hear it.

And if you managed to read this long post until the end, just let me know. See you next time!