Hello Mr. President and Hello France

So far I've really been enjoying this "Independent Study Period" - I get to sleep in, do work on my own schedule, and treat myself with trips in my free time!

On the days when I do research, I usually hole up in the UN library. Everyone there is so serious; they all wear suits and ties while reading important-looking documents and pouring over thick, leather-bound international law books. It definitely motivates me to get off Facebook.

The landscaping at the UN building is also gorgeous, so when I need a study break, I spend time just walking around the grounds:

I've also been taking a lot of hikes around my neighborhood in the Alps. Springtime has made everything so beautiful. Although sometimes you have to ignore the smell of cow pies and manure, because there are cows everywhere now.

One day this week, I also happened to meet the PRESIDENT OF THE SWISS CONFEDERACY.

Now, as I noted in a "fun fact" post before, the president is not a very big deal here. As my host mom put it, "he takes the train to work just like everyone else." No special treatment, no nothing. The president is also a rotating position, so it changes every year and most Swiss people can't even keep track of who the current one is.

So, the reception in town for the president was about equal in scale to a mayor's reception in the U.S. Actually, Mayor Bloomberg or Mayor Menino probably have events even larger! There were no secret service agents and no barriers, so we just strolled up to the front row.

Ueli Maurer, the current president, stopped to have a nice chat with us students - apparently his wife lived in Seattle for about 4 years and he has been to the U.S. before. Then we posed for a picture and a local reporter interviewed me about the experience. Totally surreal.

Posing with the pres

After that crazy experience, we all embarked on a ship to France to take a casual day trip to the medieval city of Yvoire. It's right across the lake and very picturesque. We mostly lounged around in the sun and at gelato. All in all, time well spent.

That's about all to report for now though. Back to work for me!

UN Visits, Midterms, and FREEDOM!

This is my first non-travel related post in quite a while. But I figured you all could use a little update on what I've been up to in Switzerland - remember, that place where I'm actually supposed to be living?

Our schedule following the Morocco trip has been a bit unconventional. We had two weeks of UN agency visits and guest lectures, all leading up to midterm exams yesterday. It was pretty much like having a field trip every day. We would take the train into Geneva as a group and visit places like:

• The International Labor Organization (ILO)
• The United Nations Development Group (UNDG)
• The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
• The World Health Organization (WHO)
• The International Organization for Migration (IOM)
• The headquarters for the International Committee of the the Red Cross (ICRC) 
• The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office

*Sorry for all the alphabet soup. If you think it's hard to keep track of in English, try doing it in English and French (the acronyms all change!)

World Health Organization

 UN building and Broken Chair (symbol for the effect of land mines) 

Every lecture we attended at these organizations was health-related, to fit the curriculum. We learned about so many fascinating topics, from the Global Polio Eradication Initiative to the effects of climate change on health to treatments for PTSD in refugees. 

This field trip week was also perfectly timed with the weather - cloudy Geneva finally turned beautiful! I never thought I would say this, but I actually got sunburned quite a few times while eating lunch down by the lakefront and exploring the outdoor markets. 

Sunny days in Switzerland!

Lounging by the lake

I also had another surprise treat during these laid-back weeks - it turns out I have Swiss relatives! One of my aunts (through marriage) comes from an Austrian family and still has family living in Europe. She put me in touch with her cousin who lives just a few towns away and works at The Economist in Geneva. We grabbed a drink after she got out of work and swapped lots of family stories - plus she gave me plenty of great tips for things to do when in Switzerland!

Then, as a last hurrah before our midterms, all of us students took a French cooking class. Most of my family and friends know that the culinary arts are not my forte, but being in such a large group made it easy. The menu we prepared was: 

• Flan d'asperges et chips de jambon cru
• Magret de canard aux légumes printaniers
• Pommes de terre à la fleur de sel
• Mille-feuilles aux fruit frais

Or, in simpler terms, we made (and ate) asparagus flan with ham chips, duck with vegetables and potatoes, and fruit tarts. I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Once cooking class ended, the party was finally over; the next two days were completely consumed by midterms. At 8am in the morning, we received nine essay prompts and were given until 6pm the next day to complete three. I basically shut myself up in my house for 36 hours - it was pretty grim.

This midterm period also coincided with all of the sad news coming out of Boston. I spent a good deal of time glued to my computer screen, trying to find news reports and checking in on friends back home.

However, by Friday afternoon, everything was better! My exams were turned in, the marathon bombers had been caught in Boston, and I had finished classes for good. The Independent Study Period has now begun - meaning I have no more early morning lectures or daily homework! Just free time to complete my research project.

Oh yeah, I do!

The students all decided to celebrate today by going to a wine-tasting festival together. It was a great time, and possibly the last occasion when we'll all be together as a group - it's hard to meet up when we don't have regular class time to force us all together.

Anyways, the next (and final!) five weeks should be quite an adventure. I hope to do some more traveling - that is, if I can get all my research done. I'll keep you updated on the exciting things in the meantime. À tout!

Nice is Nice

Because we had a long-weekend following our return from Morocco on a Thursday, most of the students decided to plan some kind of weekend trip. What we hadn't anticipated, unfortunately, was our insurmountable exhaustion and jet lag... oh well.

We landed in Geneva at 7pm on Thursday night. However, trains run less frequently at night and my train home comes once every hour. Long story short, I didn't reach my doorstep in Arzier until well after 10:30pm.

I met up with my host mom, who had stayed up waiting for me with dinner, and we caught up briefly on Morocco. But I couldn't stay for long - my friends and I had booked a 6am flight for Nice the next morning. There aren't even trains running that early! 

So, I had to shower, dump my dirty Moroccan clothes out, throw my few remaining clean clothes back in, and catch the last train down from the mountain at midnight. I stayed overnight with a friend who lives close to the train station, slept 2 hours, and woke up at 3am to catch the first train into Geneva at 4am. It was possibly the most miserable, grueling travel experience of my life.

That's ok though, because when we landed at 7am, we were in the SOUTH OF FRANCE! It was so beautiful - although a little chillier than anticipated since it's been such a rough winter. But we lounged on the beach, shopped, and ate lots amazing food: croissants, omelettes, crêpes, macarons, gelato, you name it. We hadn't realize just how much we had missed European food while in Morocco, so we may have gone on a bit of a binge.

We also took an impromptu day trip to Monaco - it turns out that the bus to Monaco is only 1 euro! It was so strange to visit such an absurdly wealthy area after being in Morocco though. Every store was a brand name: Cartier, Gucci, Valentino, Versace. Yacht clubs were on every block. Ferraris lined the streets (I kid you not). It was wild. I took a lot of pictures, but we didn't go in anywhere: just to go inside Monte Carlo, you have to pay 10 euros!

Monte Carlo

It was pretty hectic getting there, but such a nice and relaxing vacation once we finally arrived.

I think I've gotten the travel bug out of my system (at least for a little while), so don't expect any huge news the next week or so. Midterms are coming up as well, so wish me luck! Until next time, à tout!

Morocco: Rural Life

For the last portion of our program, we left city-life to live in a Moroccan village. These rural communities are often those most plagued by public health concerns, so it was certainly relevant to our curriculum.

We took a four hour bus ride out of Rabat, stopping for lunch at a beautiful private house on the way. The house in Ouazzane had a stunning view, and it was also our last chance to use a western toilet before arriving in the village (yikes).

After a glorious meal at the guest house, we drove a bit further, then hopped off the bus to hike half an hour up the Atlas Mountains. It was a beautiful walk, with lambs and donkeys speckled across the hillside and locals coming and going in colorful head scarves.

Once we'd arrived in the village of Farraha, we were all rationed 3 giant bottles of water and 3 rolls of toilet paper to last throughout our stay. Then we went off to meet our host families. Katie (my roommate from Rabat) and I wound up living with quite a large group, since families in rural communities tend to be much bigger. In our one little farmhouse, we lived with:

• a host father and host mother
• their three-year-old daughter Ayah and their seventeen-month-old son Mohammed
• our host dad's brother and his wife
• our host dad's mother and father

I should also mention that the family cows lived in one room of the house as well. 

The family home - set up like a courtyard with rooms all around it

Our glorious Turkish toilet - it's even harder to use than it looks

Me, Azzizah (host grandma), Ayah, and my host dad Ahmed

Host dad, me, host mom and Mohammed, host grandpa, Ayah, and host grandma at dinner

Meeting the family cows

Host mom and Mohammed

Mohammed washing his hands in a bucket with grandpa

My host family was so incredibly sweet. They lived very simple lives: they never changed clothes in the three days we were there, they had no running water in the house, and they used a Turkish toilet (aka squatty potty). And yet they were so generous with us! They bought us special cakes and dressed us up in their best traditional Moroccan clothing - laughing all the while. 

And our wonderful farm family completely over-fed us: we would start with a snack around 4pm, but there might be three different dinners before we finally finished for the night! Everything was made fresh, with unpasteurized milk from the family cows. Katie and I suffered no dietary complications, thank goodness (Turkish toilets are not ideal for intestinal distress), but a lot of students didn't adjust so well. 

Dinners were also quite the cultural experience. Our host father was the only person who spoke any French, but Azzizah (our host grandmother) was determined to speak with us in Arabic anyways. She'd talk, pantomime, dance around, whatever it took. And still we understood "walo" (arabic for "nothing") and she would just laugh and laugh at us.

Our host dad loved practicing reading English, so we gave him some of our old school papers to use as we coached him every night. It reminded me of when I did ESL tutoring at BC and how much I miss it now. He was so excited to have us there with him - people who live in Farraha rarely, if ever, leave the area. This is one of their only chances for many to meet people from outside the village. 

Katie and I slept on couches in the main sitting room, which we shared with Azzizah and Ayah (see picture below). Each morning we woke up early to help the family with chores like milking cows and preparing food.

As for "classes," things weren't all that organized. We met with local villagers to engage in some cultural dialogue and we tried to do a couple of small projects: planting trees and creating seed balls (made from compost and plant seed, to ensure that seeds survive through harvest). We also walked through the countryside with locals, as they pointed out plants they used in traditional medicines.

Learning about traditional medicine

Seed balls

But really, aside from these small projects, we spent all of our time just taking in the landscape and playing with the local kids. They were adorable and, even though very few of them spoke French or English, you come to appreciate that some games are international: Rock, Paper, Scissors and Pattycake for instance. And you never need to translate laughter. 

Our stay was far too short (which is something I never thought I'd say, given the lack of showers and hygiene!) But we ended our last night with a sunset hike to the top of the mountain - a perfect end to such an amazing experience.

And with that, mes amis, I conclude my incredibly long series of blog posts gushing about Morocco. Next up will be Nice, and then I'll be on a travel hiatus at long last. Slama (bye in Arabic) for now!