Translations in progress...
Finally some progress!! Jessica returned from Egypt two weeks ago and had all my surveys translated within an hour's time. I felt ridiculous having waited over a month for something she could do in an hour, but believe you me, I tried to find someone.
French copies in hand, I scheduled a meeting with the tourism committee to review them and get a Moroccan perspective; nail out details. I had computer packed up, copies and pens for marking in tow. Miriam arrived at the door: Monday was a holiday. Okay, another time. I was going to a wedding on Tuesday and Wednesday, and mentioned Thursday. On Thursday, however, it was souk day, and I had had six hours of sleep in the past three days due to weddings and caffeine, so I slept in, assuming everyone would be at the market. The doorbell rang at 11am, I was still in my underwear. By the time I had every limb appropriately covered, I ran down and no one was there. Attempt two failed. I visited them that afternoon and we planned a meeting for Friday morning.
Friday morning, we actually made it to the Baladia (local government office, kinda like a town hall), but none of the "boys" were there. We walked over to Abdullahim's house and asked him where everyone was at. Traveling, at weddings, etc. We scheduled a Saturday morning meeting with him, hoping he could get the key for the Baladia.
10AM, Saturday morning, attempt number four. Miriam and I were to meet Abdullahim (?) at another local. He had come straight from an all-night wedding (most weddings here last a week and go all night). No one else was there. I thought three persons was perfect for such a meeting, so we could actually make some headway. We discussed some finer points, nailed out a few problematic questions and added a few to give us a better picture of where a shipping service might be most helpful in the region. It felt wonderful to be talking on these levels with Moroccans (though sometimes they had to repeat themselves three times). We finished, divied up tasks. I am taking the brunt of it, in committing to conducting most of the surveys, but I was just happy enough that Miriam was going to translate them into Arabic, and Abdella to search for a source of funds for making copies (otherwise I'm paying for all transportation and copy fees out of my pocket, which is quite empty currently), as well as take copies to a few associations he is familiar with.
Since then, I have distributed final surveys to other volunteers for translations into Spanish and German, and checked the progress daily with Miriam on Arabic. We're hopefully going to type them out together in Arabic this afternoon or tomorrow. Then I hit the road!
I felt like I actually put in a days work or so. :)
French copies in hand, I scheduled a meeting with the tourism committee to review them and get a Moroccan perspective; nail out details. I had computer packed up, copies and pens for marking in tow. Miriam arrived at the door: Monday was a holiday. Okay, another time. I was going to a wedding on Tuesday and Wednesday, and mentioned Thursday. On Thursday, however, it was souk day, and I had had six hours of sleep in the past three days due to weddings and caffeine, so I slept in, assuming everyone would be at the market. The doorbell rang at 11am, I was still in my underwear. By the time I had every limb appropriately covered, I ran down and no one was there. Attempt two failed. I visited them that afternoon and we planned a meeting for Friday morning.
Friday morning, we actually made it to the Baladia (local government office, kinda like a town hall), but none of the "boys" were there. We walked over to Abdullahim's house and asked him where everyone was at. Traveling, at weddings, etc. We scheduled a Saturday morning meeting with him, hoping he could get the key for the Baladia.
10AM, Saturday morning, attempt number four. Miriam and I were to meet Abdullahim (?) at another local. He had come straight from an all-night wedding (most weddings here last a week and go all night). No one else was there. I thought three persons was perfect for such a meeting, so we could actually make some headway. We discussed some finer points, nailed out a few problematic questions and added a few to give us a better picture of where a shipping service might be most helpful in the region. It felt wonderful to be talking on these levels with Moroccans (though sometimes they had to repeat themselves three times). We finished, divied up tasks. I am taking the brunt of it, in committing to conducting most of the surveys, but I was just happy enough that Miriam was going to translate them into Arabic, and Abdella to search for a source of funds for making copies (otherwise I'm paying for all transportation and copy fees out of my pocket, which is quite empty currently), as well as take copies to a few associations he is familiar with.
Since then, I have distributed final surveys to other volunteers for translations into Spanish and German, and checked the progress daily with Miriam on Arabic. We're hopefully going to type them out together in Arabic this afternoon or tomorrow. Then I hit the road!
I felt like I actually put in a days work or so. :)
posted by Rachel Beach | 5:50 PM
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