Getting to Morocco and the CCS Home Base

The Paris Charles de Gaulle airport is a crazy place.  It's huge and spread out.  I decided to be adventurous and fly a discount European airline called EasyJet from Paris to Morocco.  I believe the reason that EasyJet has such cheap fares ($125 roundtrip Paris/Casablanca) is because they are advertisement whores - the back of every seat was plastered with an ad for some cell phone company and the flight attendants actually go through the cabin trying to sell you stuff, multiple times throughout the flight.  It was amusing.

Anyway, I arrived safely in Casablanca with gorgeous weather.  As I walked into the terminal they were playing some awesome Middle Eastern/Arabic tunes.  Then as I waited to go through immigration, the next song was a Muzak version Careless Whisper (George Michael) - ha!!  I muddled my way through immigration and security, got to the train station and managed to purchase a ticket to Rabat.  Score!

The first train from Casa airport was a confusing, hot, sweaty mess.  There was no AC, it was about 85 degrees outside, and for some reason the folks sitting next to windows did not feel the need to open them.  People (myself included) were sweating like crazy and it was completely packed.  I got  the lucky seat right next to the toilet, so that was a nice scent mixed in with all the sweat.  ;-)  I am so glad it was a quick 30 minute trip to my next stop!  And I am very thankful to the woman beside me who looked at my ticket and told me when to get off the train!!  I would have completely missed my stop, as the stations are not labeled in English or French.  Probably not in Arabic either, but I can't be sure about that one.

The second train was MUCH BETTER.  Air conditioning!  Lots of leg room! Fantastic views of Morocco on the way to Rabat!  Yay! 

And I saw the poverty very clearly - trash piled along the side of the roads, rows and rows of dilapidated multi-family housing, buildings that look like they are about to crumble, etc.  At the same time, there are some beautiful, lavish grounds that obviously belong to wealthy people.  It's funny, a friend I was talking to before this trip was really surprised when I said I was going to volunteer in Morocco.  She has a friend from Morocco who is from a wealthy family, so the only things she's heard about the country are how beautiful everything is and how much her friend loves living here.  Just like in many countries, there seems to be a sharp divide between the rich and the poor here.

After planes, trains and automobiles, I made it safely to the CCS home base in Rabat.  Yay!  The home base grounds are beautiful, in a very nice neighborhood/suburb of Rabat (the royal family lives down the street).  I met several of the volunteers as soon as I arrived, and was informed that it was the last night of a huge, free music festival.  During the prior week the volunteers had seen BB King, Santana, and Elton John - I got to see....STING!  Woot!!