27monthswithoutbaseball

We're back at the seminar site after CBT phase II. It's hard to believe we landed in Rabat a month ago today! Normally the first weekend of the playoffs is one of my favorites of the year - with a potential for eight baseball games, I pull out the accumulated holiday presents and start wrapping and identify gaps. That helps me justify staying inside all weekend and watching baseball! This year I wrapped holiday presents over the summer and sent them out...and I spent the weekend in language class and working on a questionnaire to use with the artisans...and interviewing my host family about the history of TimHdit. I did call and text my sister so I know who made it through to the AL and NLCS, and I have been providing my group with updates (whether they want it or not).

My sister told me that she read my toy haiku to my niece and she immediately went to get some toys for the kids. That's so sweet - I wish I could give her a hug! That doesn't mean everyone should send toys - it's not capacity-building or sustainable - but it's right from my niece's heart and my heart goes out to her for caring about the children of TimHdit.
It was a good trip - six days instead of nine was good, I think. We're here until Tuesday and then we go back for ten days. Then we come back here and find out where our sites are. I wrote more about CBT phase I in longhand...so more on that when it gets typed in. For CBT phase II we did SWOT (which was actually pretty interesting, watching the women think about their organization) and then each picked a different topic to ask about. We wrote questionnaires which our LCF then translated into Moroccan Arabic, and read them to the artisans. Much to our surprise and pleasure, the artisans could understand us (somehow it felt different than the halting conversations we have with our host families - I'll write more about the language later). We met to analyze our results and then shared them with the artisans. I focused on the organization of the cooperative, since it is just getting started. The women are really motivated and talented and work well together - they're off to a good start! This afternoon we are presenting our findings to the rest of the group; I'm sitting with my group now to discuss our presentation. So...more later.