Hotel Hilton Rabat

... was originally designed to be 86 meters high, but neither the minaret nor the mosque were finished due to the death of the architect, and shortly after, in 1199, the death of the Almohad sultan, Yacoub al-Mansour, who commissioned the buildings.

Today the carved red sandstone minaret stands in a plaza once covered by the mosque. Its walls are 16 meters square, 2.5 meters thick. The mosque was ...

... who goes around taking pictures for a fee.

I'm happy I got to hang out with my little guy every day this week. He was really moody at first yesterday, but eventually shook it off. I had a hard time leaving and almost cried when it was time to go, but I didn't. Heather and I received lots of hugs and kisses on the cheek from the kids, so I'm thinking they did know we were leaving - at least the older ones. Either way, life ...

... issues in Morocco and I'm equally excited for that.

Today, work was wild! About 30 minutes in, the kids discovered a HUGE bug on the wall. I have no idea what it is, but it was about the size of my palm and spoke intermediate Arabic. :-) After lots of laughing/screaming (laughing from the kids, screaming/gasping from me and Olivia), the kids took care of it, and one of the dads came in and cleaned it up. About an hour later, we had a ...

... I sliced the onions, which was a satisfying contribution to the dish. After that, we had an impromptu Arabic language class with our Program Director, Mohamed. There was only a handful of us sitting in and we had a blast. Do you recognize this song? Mohamed sang it for us, so use your imaginations. And, yes, it was just as funny as you're probably thinking it would be. But it ...

Up at 7:00 for breakfast duty - scrambled eggs, roll, fruit. Whilst I was cooking Oliver pulled down the tent and packed away our things. Long drive ahead so left site at 9:00 and headed to supermarket so cook groups 2 and 3 could grab food and others restock personal goodie bags. As we're heading up into the Atlas Mountains where temperatures drop below zero I invested in a lovely full length traditional ...

... local) where we're trying to get this all down while our heads stop spinning.  After a siesta (getting to be a pattern here) we headed out for the last site we wanted to see in the city.  As we walked along the streets we came across the entrance to the medina and were surprised at the massive amount of people that now worked their way through its narrow streets.  The whole city seemed to have come alive at dusk and people poured out along the sidewalks on ...

... to a nearby shopping center so that the girls could have their hands and wrists covered in henna. Considering that Iman's hands are only marginally larger than golf balls, and henna must be carefully preserved for at least ten minutes until it dries, this was a little easier said than done. In what I imagine must also be a tradition, we then had to hold both the girls' arms out and constantly instruct Iman to keep her hands open as we steered ...

... this meal always include a spiced vegetable and chickpea soup called harira, but this is only one very small part of the meal: it is complimented by all sorts of sweets and heavy treats until everyone's shrunken stomachs are swelling. The very first day I happily indulged in each part of this one real meal of the day, nearing my host-father's expectations for how much I should eat for the first time. After a few hours of doing my homework the ...