First Day of Work!

Yesterday I went to 'work' for the first time in Morocco. A bit of a shift from the lazy days of beach and mountain walking.
During my fieldwork, I'm occupying a bizarre space between student, staff, and researcher at Dar Si Hmad. Dar Si Hmad for Development.
Education, and Cultre is a non-governmental organisation in southwestern Morocco that contributes to rural and urban livelihoods, gender equality, cultural heritage, and environmental sustainability with a variety of educational, vocational, and water projects. I'll be spending six weeks in their office, helping with projects as they arrive and my skills/experiences will be of use. During that time, I will also be conducting one-on-one interviews with the staff about their time with the group and their views on environmental peacebuilding and facilitating a full-staff stakeholder analysis, asking them to identify who and what has power over the work that they do.
There are always a multitude of projects winding down and starting up around here; I've been impressed in just a day and a half with how many things various staff have come in to talk about.
After years of being a spoiled student without a real schedule, it's a bit strange to be in an office from 9am-6pm...but probably quite good for me! Things have gone very well thus far; I am hoping I'll be useful to them in some respects, and certainly they're going to be useful to my PhD.


For more stories from Americans in Morocco, check out the blog of my housemate Zeke, who is teaching in Agadir as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant: https://unplatanoencouscous.wordpress.com/.