Day 23: Saturday Study Prep and Shopping

Saturday was the first day of the entire trip that we did not have to get up early for work or early for travel to another city to visit.   I was very excited about finally sleeping in a little but then we (i.e. Andrew) decided that we needed to be at the medina for shopping early.    I say this jokingly but he was right.  We each had a list of the gifts that we had not yet purchased and wanted to make sure that we got the last of these items this weekend since it is our last weekend.

We wanted to get our shopping done early since we had most of Saturday blocked off to work on our final deliverables.   I didn't take any pictures of the 6-7 hours that we spent working in our 'hotel restaurant office' (be grateful ~smile) but I hope you enjoy the pictures below of our last shopping expedition.

We also had a team dinner at a very nice French restaurant that Andrew, Rahul, and I had eaten at lunch earlier with Nabil Bassou from the IBM Morocco office.   On a site note, many of our group (including myself) have been dealing with one form or another of stomach bugs.   I battled one most of this weekend but the French dinner was still very delicious.   As much as I have enjoyed Moroccan food, I think my stomach is ready to get home.  :-)

Heading our early Saturday to walk to the Medina for shopping.

Walking by the kasbah on the water on the way to the Medina.

Re-visiting our favorite hat vendor to buy some Fez hats.   I got a note over the weekend from my husband Paul who was visiting Port Aransad to visit our friends Paul and Shirlee.  They had watched Casablanca in my honor and asked about Fez hats.  Paul Page .... I have a 'surprise' for you when I get back.  :-)

Tracey modeling a Fez hat.

We had an interesting bargaining exercise to get to our final price.   We would write one number, he would write another, and this went on for some time.

Karen, Mihoko, and Austin trying to find a good place for lunch in our Morocco guide book.

Tracey buying a few more pair of shoes.

Andrew did some serious shopping.   No rest for the shopping weary.  :-)

Last view of the Rabat market.   It wasn't crowded since we got their early.

French restaurant that we visited.

Working to decipher the menu in French.

Karen about to enjoy her crepe suzette for dessert.

Day 21 and 22: Saadli and Satellites

Thursday and Friday of week 3 were primarily spent on working on completing the first draft of both our comprehensive whitepaper and Executive Summary for our final client presentation.    The information is coming together well but it is a lot of information to pull together.   We had almost 20 interviews, meetings, and site visits in the course of our three weeks so far and we have gathered a lot of great information during these discussions.

Our goal is to complete the first draft of both documents to give to our client next Monday.   We could tell when we first put together our project calendar that we would be working this weekend and we will indeed.  :-)  I think we are in a good place though.

We were also very excited when two of our clients invited us to their personal homes to experience Moroccan meals with their families.   Mohammed has invited us to lunch on Sunday afternoon and Redouan has invited us to eat dinner at his home next Tuesday night.  We are really looking forward to both!

Since working on final deliverables 10-12 hours a day doesn't lend itself well to interesting pictures, I will try to capture other interesting pictures that I have taken during my stay in Morocco.   One of the things that has fascinated me while here is the number of satellites that you see on all of the buildings.   Even the most modest of homes have satellites and we have been told that it is very important to the average citizen to have access to information from all over the world.   Listed below are some of my satellite pictures from the last three weeks.

Enjoy.  :-)

Every morning Saadli picks us up at the hotel to drive us to the Ministry of Agriculture.   He also brings us home every afternoon.   He speaks French so we are able to communicate a bit with him.   He is very nice and is an excellent driver.   It's a good thing because we all agree that it would be very difficult to drive in Morocco.... and probably even more difficult to be a pedestrian in Morocco.  :-)

This is a picture of our group in the meeting room at our hotel.   On Friday we are trying to have a Skype status call with Jailan who is back in Washington and it was almost humerous.   Between four PCs who were setup for Skype, only one was able to get it setup because of the lack on wi-fi and connectivity at the hotel.   Even the one Skype that we were able to get working, we were only able to use voice because the picture would not go through.   We have learned to improvise when it comes to technology.  :-)

This is a picture of rooftops that we took from a rooftop restaurant in Marrakesh.   You will notice that even the most modest homes have satellites.  They are everywhere you look.

A closeup of a rooftop in Marrakesh.



Another picture of the 'sea of satellites' that was taken from a rooftop in Fez.   I know they are difficult to see because the pictue is small, but there are literally thousands of satellites across the city.



This was a picture of a nearby rooftop taken from the rooftop restaurant from our hotel in Rabat.

This picture was also taken from the rooftop of our hotel in Rabat.   You can see that nearby buildings also have satellites off of their balconies.

One last picture taken from our hotel rooftop in Rabat.  I like this one because you can also see how close our hotel is located to the ocean.   We commonly walk to the medina which is right on the water.

Day 20: National Geographic and Peaceful Dinners

Wednesday was another 'heads down' day working on our final whitepaper and deliverable.   It doesn't lend itself very well to great pictures (ha ha) but it is what we are spending 90% of our day and many, many hours working on.  We continue to make good progress on working on the initial draft of our white paper to get all of the raw content into place.   I'd say we are about 70% there so far but it is very rough.   We also completed the draft of the executive presentation and I think it looks very good.   I think we will be able to use many of the pictures that we have taken during our project as part of the final executive presentation which will be fun.

We are also starting to complete the first drafts of the architectural overviews that show both the current state and future envisioned design.   Andrew is taking the lead here and is doing a great job.  It's nice to see the many disparate interviews and meetings that we have had starting to come together into united use case scenarios, actors, flow charts, architectural diagrams, etc.

On the non work related front, we have been getting to know a National Geographic crew that is also staying at our hotel and is actually starting to shoot footage there.    Tonight it was a bit like a movie set in the lobby with all of the equipment, cameras, food set up, etc.   It's the crew and actors that film the National Geographic series 'Locked up Abroad'.  I haven't seen it but apparently depicts the stories of Americans who travel overseas on vacations and end up doing something illegal that lands them in jail.   I think the episode that they are filming now is actually related to a story that happened in Egypt.   Not sure why exactly they are filming it in Morocco but it makes for an interesting night to see them at the hotel.

Our group walked to dinner tonight to a seafood restaurant that is right on the water.   It was about a 20 minute walk from our hotel but it was nice to walk along the water and listen to the waves.  The food was very good.

See you tomorrow.

Amy

View of the water as our group was walking to dinner.  Very pretty.

Andrew, Sridharan, and Austin at dinner.

Rahul and Karen split a seafood paella that was very good.

Yummy seafood dinner with a great view of the ocean.

Day 18 and 19: Back to Work

Our 'mini vacation' to Fez was a nice memory as we returned to our office at the Ministry of Agriculture on Monday and Tuesday.    This is a very busy week for our team since our goal is to complete the first draft of both the whitepaper and the Executive Presentation by the end of this coming weekend.   We are hoping to get the initial draft completed by this Friday so that we can spend the weekend 'polishing' it but we will have to see how it goes.   We want to be able to get the first draft to our Ministry of Agriculture team by next Monday so that they can help with an revisions before we present this to the executive team at the Ministry of Agriculture either next Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning.

I have to say that we have an awesome IBM team working on this project and the three of us definitely bring individual talents for a pretty 'balanced' team.   Andrew is very, very technical.  In his job at IBM, he actually writes and tests software code that goes into the hardware chips that power our P series boxes.   He is focusing on the first draft of the technical architectural diagrams, use cases, etc.   Rahul is a Technical Lead in GTS and commonly works on very large, complex RFP responses.   He has been owning the Table of Contents and has been the 'catcher' for the information that each of us is creating.  My background is Consulting and Project Management and both have come in very handy during this assignment as we capture, organize, and prioritize strategic information and recommendations for the final deliverable.

We are trying to wrap up the remainder of our interviews so that we can focus on the final deliverables for next week.   You can see from the pictures below that we still have a few interviews scheduled this week that we were not able to fit in last week.   It is definitely going to be a busy week.  :-)

Meeting with Mohammed and Jamila in her office.   Jamila was walking us through the project of how they create an online survey to capture pricing information for different food, livestock, and input (e.g. fertilizers, feed, etc.) information.

Mohammed and Jamila working together to create a new survey.

After we get back from the Ministry of Agriculture of Agriculture each day, we typically work in our 'second office' in the upstairs restaurant at the hotel.   It is usually pretty quiet until the dinner time crowd comes in.  This is usually about the time that we head out to dinner with our IBM team.

Rahul, Tracey, and Andrew enjoying a cup of mint tea in the lobby before we head out to dinner.

We walked to a very authentic Moroccan restaurant.  At the entrance, they provide water to wash your bands before entering.

Karen and Austin showing the menus that are individually handprinted on leather scrolls.

This salad was very delicious.  There was one made of spinach, one of carrots, and one of eggplant.   This is something that I will miss when I head home.

Cup of very traditional Moroccan soup.   Notice the handmade wooden spoon.  The group decided that this was one of the best soups that we had on this trip.

Group picture eating underneath the tent at the restaurant.   It's hard to tell but we were eating on the roof in the open, chilly air.

Day 17: Fez Farewell

The pictures below are from our last stop at Fez on Sunday before heading back to the train station.   Below are the Meditrels which some referred to as the 'Gateway to Fez'.   They were located on one of the highest points in Fez and it provided great views of both the lush green mountains on one side and view of the city on the other side.

We later headed back to the train station for our 2 1/2 hour journey back to Rabat.

One of the Meditrels.   You could see this from almost anywhere in the city.

View from one side of the perch were the Meditrels stood.   Tracey said that it reminded her of the mountain views in New Zealand.

Group picture in front of the mountain view.

Train station in Fez.

Heading to our train.

Sleepy ride after a long, fun day of exploring Fez.

Arriving back in Rabat a little before 7pm.

Day 17: Fez Morning and Mosiacs

On Sunday morning, we woke up to another beautiful morning in Fez.   Our train didn't leave until almost 4pm so we had time to have a leisurely breakfast that was included in the price for our room at Fes Yamanda.

We later decided to rent another tour guide - this time getting a mini bus so that we could drive to see some of the sites outside of the actual Fez Medina area.

The pictures below are from our breakfast at the Riad and then some of our tour stops at the King's Palace, Military Fort, and Mosaic factory.

View of the breakfast area as seen from our room that over looked the lobby area. 

We were served juice, coffee, homemade breads with jelly, butter and goat cheese.  It was very good.   It is going to be difficult to get back to my normal coffee only breakfasts when I return to Austin.  :-)

Picture of Karen, myself, and Mihoko in our room by the stained glass window.

Our first stop was at the King's Palace in Fez.   This is where he and his family stay when they visit the city.

This is a military fort that we visited.   Although we couldn't enter the building, it had great panaramic views of the city from its high perch on the hill.

Group picture at the Fort.... great views of the city of Fez below.

We later stopped at a mosiac factory where we saw many beautiful pots, fountains, floors, and tables being hand made.   This man showed us how to make a tangine.

Rahul getting in on the fun.

This is an example of the clay fire pit that they use to bake the pottery.   I thought my son Thomas would be interested in this since he takes Ceramics in high school.

This is one of three men who were hand carving individual tiles.

This was an example of a completed fountain that was handmade here.   The estimated cost was 55,000 dirhams which is a little less that $7000 dollars.  They estimated that it would cost nearly this much to ship it to the US as well.   Very beautiful though... unbelievable the amount of hand labor that goes into each one.