I'm back in Valencia, but I'll be posting periodically about my trip to Morocco. There's so much I want to share!
I'll start with my experience with Rotary Club Casablanca Al Manar.
Before I left for Morocco, I contacted Rotary clubs in the cities that I would be visiting to see if I could be a guest at their meetings, and I was able to meet with Rotarians in both Casablanca and Tangier. Because some clubs did not provide an email and only a phone number, I also called a few clubs after arriving in Morocco. Luckily, Anouar Zyne responded kindly to my phone call (and extremely broken French), and he and Najat Buchmann Kamal of the Casablanca Al Manar club offered to meet with my mom and me despite the fact that there was no official meeting because of the holiday.
There are quite a few Rotary clubs in Casablanca, the largest city in Morocco, and Al Manar (which means lighthouse in Arabic) is the newest club, just having been accepted in December 2011. Al Manar is quite a modern club than the typical; about half of the members are women and most of the Rotarians are middle-aged, under 50 years old. Also true to Rotarian tradition friendship and famous Moroccan hospitality, Anouar and Najat were great hosts. Even though Rotary almost always operates in French in Morocco, Anouar and Najat were kind enough to do their best with communicating in English. They spoke proudly of their city but also offered a cosmopolitan worldview. I could definitely sense an enthusiasm that Anouar and Najat exuded for the first year of their club and what they planned to accomplish, and there's no doubt in my mind that Rotary Club Al Manar will succeed in lighting the way in Casablanca!
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