Paul (Phillips) here. Today was moving day as we prepare to depart Morocco in the morning. We spent our last morning in Essaouira walking the streets, walking the beach, and finalizing our Morocco bucket list. We left Essaouira around lunch time, and stopped by an argan women’s cooperative on the way to the airport. After a highly entertaining flight delay, we arrived in Casablanca this evening. After touring the magnificent Hassan II Mosque and watching the sunset over the lighthouse, we had with the leaders of Corps Africa. They were excited about our trip and adventure in Morocco, and the students were inspired by their work and their story. We are now trying to settle in to our Riad and get some rest before our 5am wake up call for the airport. Hopefully we’ll get some sleep on the first leg of a very long day. We should see you all in Nashville around 10pm tomorrow night!
See you all soon - Paul Wazzup families! Another groovy day. We had breakfast on our hotel’s terrace with a beautiful view of the city. Afterwards, we had a tour with a local who taught us about the history of the city and its architecture. We got to see the port (which had shops that were even selling eels and stingrays – oh wowzza) and lots of religiously famous doors that had roots in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic culture. It was so interesting to learn about the history of Essaouira.
We had lunch at a seaside restaurant looking out over the beach. Then, throughout the day, we shopped at a wood store, a jewelry store, and the open market. The wood store was filled with tons of impressive pieces, and we had a lot of fun looking around at all the handmade crafts, some having taken years to make. At the jewelry store, we got to browse even more impressive handmade pieces of jewelry made right in that workshop by students. Then, at the market, we learned some tips from Mourad about how to bargain with the shopkeepers; the starting price for all the items was always way more than the actual price of the item. We learned not to show our excitement for the specific items we wanted, which was hard since they all looked so amazing. Can’t wait to show you all the cool things we bought! After shopping, we stopped back at our hotel and continued working on our world leadership skills by refining our stories and sharing them with more people. Shortly after that, we went out to a marvelous candlelit dinner and had a great time. When we returned back to the hotel, we had one final activity of writing good characteristics about each other anonymously. The activity was so sweet and we’ll remember it foreva. Livin the life Lila and Paul |