Tomorrow, April 17th, I will run the Boston Marathon for the 2nd time.  This will be my 6th marathon and I am excited and nervous.  While work achievements in business and science have always been important and something that I excel in, personal and family achievements are also important.  Qualifying for and running the Boston Marathon is one of the awesome things that I have accomplished in my personal life.  It is a huge bucket list item.  It is  As one of the top marathons in the world and difficult to get into.

I have been back in the United States since last Thursday.  There are a number of videos from my CSC experience that I did not have the chance to share.  Uploading them in Morocco was difficult, the files were too big for the available bandwidth.  Now, in New York I have the bandwidth so here we go.. Enjoy the videos,  they are a great testimony to the breath, reach, impact and positive influence of the IBM Corporate Service program.  They are also a wonderful example of the joy and caring nature of the Moroccan people. I have more to blog about from the end of my trip.  I will be working on additional posts this upcoming holiday weekend.  @ibmcsc @ibmaotalbany #ibmcsc

Overview of the IBM CSC Morocco9 experience:

One of our first adventures was going to the Saharan desert to ride camels near Zagora.   Before getting to Zagora, we had to buy turbans to cover our faces from the sand.  We found them the night before our trip in the Marrakesh medina (market).  Below is Kazu from Japan, getting a lesson on how to tie a turban.

 

After buying the turbans (for $4 each), we then drove to Zagora the next day (about 9 hours) where our camels were waiting to take us to an overnight camp in the desert.  We each climbed onto a camel (some seemed 10 feet tall when riding them) and off we went into the desert.

That night, we ended up around a campfire.  The Moroccan guides were playing their drums.  One of our team members, Linda from China joined them and started to play.  It was so cool!

The following week, we spent a day doing community service in Rabat at a local agency which helps children with  down syndrome adjust back into society.  I spent the day at a local horse farm, encouraging the children with down syndrome while they were riding.

That evening we had a surprise for one of our team members Ji Hyun Shin (Korea)

The following weekend, we visited Pottery makers in the ancient City of Fez.  The city was founded around 950 AD and now has the largest medina market in the world.  The market is at least 10 square miles of very narrow and windy streets of vendors selling a wide variety of goods.  The pottery is hand made (see the five videos below) and is beautiful.

 

 

 

 

@ibmcsc #ibmcsc

The Moroccan people have a reputation as being friendly and caring.  Our host for IBM CSC Morocco9, Fouzia Lamnasfi from MASciR (Moroccan Foundation for Advanced Science, Innovation & Research) is a wonderful example.  She has been very supportive and helpful during our stay and last night she took the four of us (Jessica O’Gorman, (Canada), Kazutaka Nakao (Japan), Venkatraman Umakanth (India), Larry Clevenger (USA)) to the medina district and showed us the shops where the locals go to.  Fouzia (head scarf in the pictures below) was born in Rabat and actually grew up in the medina.  Our first stop was the best candy shop.  As the pictures show below, the shop was about five feet wide.  They make the candy underneath the shop and it is some of the best candy I have ever tasted.  We moved on to leather and then key chains!  The key chain vendor made them while we waited and he personalized each one.  We would have never found these places without Fouzia!  When you visit Rabat, be sure to look for these shops in the medina!  @ibmcsc @ibmaotalbany #ibmcsc #cscmorocco9

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

 

Last week, our entire IBM CSC Morocco9 team gathered at the local IBM office for some networking with the local staff and cool pictures.  @ibmcsc @ibmaotalbany #ibmcsc #cscmorocco9

In our exploring of the office, we found some IBM “letters” and decided to take some fun pictures. Below is a great picture of our entire CSC team on assignment in Morocco.  Top row, left to right is Venkat Umakanth (India), Jessica O’Gorman (Canada), Larry Clevenger (USA), Georges Maamari (Canada), Kent Van Horn (USA), Phillipa Hartley (USA), David Vincent (India), Manasi Raveendran (USA), Kautaka Nakao (Japan), Lucrecia Barrilli (Spain), Adnre Luis Peres (Brazil) and Dushyant Khale (India).  Bottom row, left to right is Alena Nemcova (Slovakia), Ji Hyun Shin (Korea) and Li Jing Wang (China)

As I have mentioned in previous email, we are working in sub-groups.  I am teamed with three others (pictured below, left to right, Venkat, Jessica, Kazu and myself) in working with MASciR (Moroccan Foundation for Advanced Science, Innovation and Research).

One of the other groups is working with Fondation Mohammed V Pour la Solidarite on a Marketing Plan for Women Owned-Cooperatives and Youth Micro Entrepreneurs.  They are (pictured below, left to right Phillipa, Lucrecia, Dushyant and Manasi.

One of the small business owners they have worked with is amal sghiouri (far right on picture below,amal.sghiouri1@gmail.com) who specializes in the manufacturing of high quality Moroccan rugs in a small factory located in Rabat.  Ms. Sghiour was able to bring some of carpets to our hotel for the entire team to look at and we did purchase a few.  For those of you who visit my home in Rhinebeck, NY, you will see the carpets I am holding displayed on the walls. I have attached her business card to this blog.  Please feel free to send her an email.  The carpets her company produces are high quality and reasonably priced.

 

Today, we had the official kickoff pictures at the IBM Morocco office.  Yes we are about two weeks late!  Our 15 member CSC team from 8 countries is pictured on the left below.  What a handsome crew we are!  Our IBM host, Sidi Ali Maelainin is also in the picture with us. Sidi also invited all the local  IBM Morocco colleagues to join us (picture on the right).  It is was a great experience to meet them.  As with all the Moroccan people, they were very kind and engaging hosts.  All the CSC assignees are very grateful for all the support from the IBM Morocco team!  #ibmcsc @ibmcsc #cscmorocco9

My first blog entry this past summer was about the Moroccan city of Chefchaouen.  This past weekend, our team explored this city and the nearby Rif mountains. Chefchaouen is a 4 and 1/2 hour drive from Rabat.  It is located in north west Morocco in the Rif Mountain range just inland from Tangier.  I remember when I posted my first blog, that I was really anticipating the chance to visit Chefchaouen.  This past weekend, we went there and it was an awesome experience.

Chefchaouen is called the blue city.  Below are pictures from the Spanish Mosque overlooking the city.  About 50% of the building are painted blue.  The blue buildings started to appear in the 1930’s and there a number of different local legends on why.  For those who visit the city now, the blue streets and buildings give the city a special feel.

 

Once inside the old section of the city, you are surrounded by narrow blue lined streets in every direction.  Another name for narrow streets in North Africa is  “medina”.  From wikipedia:  medina quarter (Arabic: المدينة القديمة‎‎ al-madīnah al-qadīmah “the old city”) is a distinct city section found in many North African cities. The medina is typically walled, with many narrow and maze-like streets. Chefchaouen is about 650 years old and the streets are narrow and wind around in arbitrary directions. Below are some examples with a number of my IBM teammates from around the world.

 

Chefchaouen is also know for its shopping markets filled with local crafts.  I am a shopper and me and two of my other shopping coworkers, Jessica O’Gorman and Phillipa Hartley spent Saturday afternoon in the markets. A few examples of the shops are shown below. We purchased rugs, pants, granite figurines, handbags and paintings all for very reasonable prices.  When shopping in the markets of Morocco, it is important to remember that everything is negotiable.  A typical fair price is about 1/2 less than the starting price and much bargaining and walking away is required to get to this price.  It also is very helpful to have someone with you who speaks French or Arabic.  Very few merchants in Morocco speak English.

 

The hotel we stayed at Saturday night was as blue as the rest of the city and was awesome. The building was very old and decorated in a very cool traditional Moroccan style.  I loved every minute there and my only regret is that my family was not with me.  I will always remember the place.

 

On Sunday, we went hiking in the nearby Rif mountains to Cascades d’Akchour (waterfall).  It was about an 8 mile round trip hike from where the bus dropped us of (about 1 hr drive time from Chefchaouen).  On the way up the “trail” there were numerous tea cafes along the stream, a few donkeys carrying farming supplies and a very small  field with two local farmers harvesting corn.  Five of us did this hike and we were the first people up the canyon.  When we got to the actual waterfall, it was about 100 meters high with some very cool geological features (yes.. that is me behind the falls in the picture below!).  Of course, there was a cafe at the base of the falls and we enjoyed an espresso before heading back to the bus and then back to Rabat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I was doing my daily evening workout, I realized that I had not explained in my blog the importance of the fertilizer project my three IBM teammates and I are consulting on with MASciR (Moroccan Foundation for Advanced Science Innovation and Research).  The graph below on the left is a page from the report that we have developed.  By 2050 the world population will be almost 10 billion people and we will need an ~ 69% in food calorie production to feed our planet.  The region of the world where most of this increase came come from is sub-Saharan Africa in the areas of increase crop yields (top right) and increased acreage for crop production (bottom right).  The four of us from IBM are focusing on enabling MASciR to develop novel fertilizer techniques combined cognitive agriculture to positively impact these trends for the continent. It is a good example of how IBM Corporate Service gives back to the world that we serve.  @ibmcsc #ibmcsc #cscmorocco9

There is a big difference for my weekend activities for this October compared to previous years.  This past weekend, my CSC team explored the Sahara desert on camels (I am the third from the right in the picture below. #ibmcsc @ibmcsc #cscmorocco9

Compare this to what my close friends back in Vermont who are skiing now.  I will take the camels for now and I will be back in Vermont all too soon!  Below is a picture of the Killington ski resort in Vermont taken earlier this week.  This is where I spend about 40 weekend days a year skiing  every winter starting in October.