27monthswithoutbaseball

I have a headache - my first really bad one since I got here. A good night's sleep will resolve that...and then tomorrow we leave for CBT phase III. During this phase the SBD programming people will come to interview us individually about what we want site-wise. This is a chance to think about my experiences over the past month and how they might have changed my interests/desires/needs. I stayed up late talking to one of the current volunteers - he had some good strategies. He's the only person who works with woodcarvers so he has had a lot of opportunity to go to craft fairs and to become the woodcarver expert. He also reminded me not to tell any HCN anything that I don't want the whole town to know, and that anything I tell someone can't be taken back, so to be careful with what I choose to reveal. I gave some more thought to the imaginary boyfriend thing and decided it's better not to lie. Perhaps to avoid being fixed up constantly, I can put an end to it by saying that I am here to focus on work. It's not in Moroccan culture to understand that people want time to themselves.
Thinking more about the action plan - the timelines reminded me of the Planning and Scheduling days back at Stone and Webster, with a little bit of Quintessence timelines thrown in. How nice to be able to draw on that experience! I always liked timelines. We're supposed to develop an action plan that we implement with the artisans during CBT Phase IV. I have to think about it over the next week, of course, but I think a nice bonding exercise with some cookies seems in order! Maybe chocolate.

We find out where our sites will be on the 28th - the suspense, speculation, rumors et. al. will be over. I have been listening to information but not seeking much, since much of it seems like potential misinformation. We could be anywhere, working with any set of artisans...

In today's discussion of leadership, we had to think of a leader from our own culture (however we defined that) who we admire and why, and a leader from another culture who we admired and why. I chose President Tilghman (of Princeton) and Nelson Mandela. It was nice to take myself out of Morocco for a minute and think about Princeton and about my time in South Africa! It was also interesting hearing the choices of some of the other people...I have said that I don't see our group as particularly altruistic compared to what I might have expected ahead of time (maybe small business development doesn't lend itslf to the altrusitic as much as maybe environment or health would) but there were a lot of pacifists among the leaders our group admired....

So...while I am gone I will send some telepathic messages cheering on the Mets and on a friend who is running the Chicago Marathon (she usually stayed with me the night before - a tradition I will miss) and try to attend Edie's pumpkin-carving party in spirit. Next month I'll miss my first home Harvard or Yale game since I graduated. Well, I said I could miss anything except Reunions...there's a lot I'll be missing (and/or attending in spirit).

Also - almost forgot to mention - we got another book today. Participatory Analysis for Community Action. It's a small book but I don't have much more room in the plastic bag! The picture is of some pillows at the Auberge made with traditional Berber designs.