27monthswithoutbaseball

We had our first election today and I won. There are four committees here - Gender and Development, AIDS, an acronym I don't remember that is basically like student government, and then not really a committee but Volunteer Support Network. If you're on one you can't be on any others. Today's presentation was on Gender and Development. Development philosophy used to focus on men - then they realized that they had to get women involved so the initiative was called Women in Development (when I interviewed with CARE this year I was enlightened as to the importance of women - if you give men money they buy cigarettes or things for themselves and if you give women money they buy things to improve their businesses or their families). Now it is Gender and Development...taking into consideration men, women, girls and boys. The GAD committee (more acronyms!) consists of one person from each sector and stage (I've been saying class but they use the term stage here). It meets three times a year (or four) in Rabat and then is a resource for camps, workshops and activities - so it'll be a way to be in touch with everyone else in my group. I decided to throw my hat in the ring and I won! I feel a little bit like Sally Field (gee, people like me!) but it could also be that I've built up some credibility as well (I mentioned that I have two young nieces and want them to have opportunity and want people here to as well and that I want to be in touch with everyone...neglected to mention any corporate or organizational experience that I might have...). In a way I wish they held all the elections at the same time - I might have liked being on a couple of the other committees as well or instead, but I decided to jump right in on this one, and I think that raising my hand to nominate myself right away might have precluded others from nominating themselves. So - that's my big news for the day! I'm really happy to be on this committee. It's an important issue - I'll talk more about gender roles here at some point. I also feel that if I have an unsatisfying project for whatever reason, I will have something satisfying in this.

I tried adding pictures again - this time from an apple, so I understand what I did. I see what looks like picture html but not a picture, but I am hoping that's just a matter of turning it off and turning it on again and that I'll see them tomorrow. I hope YOU can see them!
New haiku:

A stick can be as
precious as a big dollhouse
if it's your sole toy

We call it Big D
Watery, puddingly, plop
Gotta go again

There's an ode to srisra (Arabic name much nicer, no?) being created and that's my contribution to it.
Reminder - tomorrow we leave for CBT again, this time for six days. We'll do SWOT and come up with individual projects to work on. I won't have internet access but I'm bringing all of my mail to answer.

Yesterday we had a presentation on the Moroccan economy. I found this very interesting and realized that I am really captivated with the strategic thinking and the policy at the macro level. Here it's all micro level. Well, I kind of knew that with Princeton club stuff - my comfort level involved raising money and mentoring a person who worked in community service as opposed to mentoring a high school student and actually doing community service. So am I in the wrong place? No - this is my chance to experience the grass roots and build experience and credibility and then maybe in two years I can build on that and on my past to get to a more strategic level.

We have a tea time talk in a short while...I'm going to check the Yankees-Tigers score and quickly check e-mail and if I have a chance I'll come back, but if not, I'll be back next week!