Day 5: Arriving at the Ministry of Agriculture



The Ministry of Agriculture as seen from across the park area.



Rahul walking up to the Ministry of Agriculture on our first day onsite.



The inside of the Minstry opens to several outside courtyards.   Many of the offices open to balconies that overlook these courtyards.  It is very pretty and the weather has been very nice and cool everyday that we have been in Rabat.




Mohammed showing us our new office for the first time.




Meeting in Mohammed's office where he was showing us how the current pricing application works.



Inside of a Hamman (spa).  This is a table where someone lies to have their skin exfoliated.  After our day at work, the girls in the group visited a local Hamman.  Jailan, who has been to Morocco before, said that it was an experience that we needed to try once.  It was quite an experience.  :-)



Boutana, Tej, myself, Anup, Tracey, and Karen visiting the inside of  massage room at a Hamman.

This morning was our first day to actually go to the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) building. The MOA provided us with a driver who will pick us up and take us home each day. His name is Saadli and he is very nice. He only speaks French so it gives us an opportunity to practice our limited French with him. I am very grateful to have a Saadli drive us because I have found the traffic in Morocco to be very 'fluid and dynamic'. There are much fewer traffic signals and stop lights than what I'm used to and the traffic seems to be constantly merging in traffic circles. It seems to work here though so I 'go with the flow' so to speak.

We were greeted by Mohammad Kamali who is our primary contact at the MOA. He is a pleasure to work and speak with and I look forward to working with him during this next month. The Ministry building itself is a very nice building. Most of the offices open to outside balcony areas that overlook central courtyards of gardens. It is a very open and airy building. We met initially in a conference room where Mohammad introduced us to many of the individuals who work on the current farm pricing application. We were shown several demos and had very helpful initial discussions. Mohammad took Rahul, Andrew, and I to our office that we will share while working on this project. We spent a good portion of the afternoon trying to get connectivity in our office but unfortunately we were not successful yet. We spent the remainder of the day having conversations with the MOA team to start to confirm the specific scope that we will focus on while here.

After we got back to the hotel that night, the six females in the group went to a Hamman which is a Moroccan spa. We were told that it was one of the experiences that we need to try while in Morocco ... it certainly was an experience. :-)