How a solo journey to Morocco modified my life eternally

Journey had at all times introduced Nancy pleasure, however a current journey introduced her an entire lot extra – together with an across-the-world transfer and a whole profession change. 

‘What nation doesn’t have fun Christmas?’ I tapped the query into my cellphone.  

I scrolled by the search outcomes: Bhutan, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Morocco, Mongolia. 

I clicked and skim and contemplated for over an hour, however my scrolling stored bringing me again to Morocco.  

Winter was shortly approaching my hometown of Sherwood Park in Alberta, Canada. I puzzled what the approaching days and months would appear like. I considered all of the issues that wanted to be completed – get the yard cleaned up, put the winter tyres on the automotive, determine what to do for Christmas. Proper, Christmas. My first with out him. Our Christmases have been usually spent tucked away at house with good meals and our little traditions, surrounded by family and friends. 

However I misplaced Jay in June.  

My husband had spent three years preventing the illness that will take his life. For 20 wonderful years, we selected a life collectively. Then it was simply me. With the vacations approaching, I wanted to be elsewhere. I craved house and time by myself, in a special place. Journey had at all times introduced me pleasure. Hopefully, it will present a bit escape for me now.  

By the point I went to mattress that night time, I’d secured the final spot on Intrepid’s Premium Morocco in Depth journey, leaving in mid-December and taking me proper by the vacation interval. Lastly, one thing to sit up for.  

The journey that modified all of it 

Till that December, I had at all times travelled independently, both solo or with my husband, and took as a lot pleasure in planning a visit as truly taking it. However after all the things I’d been by, I selected to journey with a small group and a pacesetter, in order that I’d have some journey companions, be capable of take off my planner hat and simply take pleasure in. 

By the point I bought on the airplane, I started to sense a bit of that acquainted pleasure effervescent up. It was an vitality that I hadn’t felt in a really very long time.  

The journey offered a lot by way of historical past, meals, tradition and nature. I marvelled on the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca as I learnt about Islam. An area household in Meknes welcomed us into their house for a household dinner and we loved infinite glasses of tea. As a former scholar of archaeology and anthropology, I geeked out on the Roman ruins in Volubilis. And I watched the solar set over the Sahara on Christmas Eve.  

As we crossed over the Atlas Mountains, our van following winding roads previous tiny villages of stone-stacked homes, Allal, our journey chief, shared some info about life within the mountains. He defined a number of the challenges the native Amazigh folks face and famous that as many as 70 per cent of the ladies in these rural areas are illiterate.  

Teenage ladies in these distant mountain villages usually wrestle to finish their training. Between the apparent geographical obstacles, just like the very actual mountains between the ladies’ properties and colleges, and extra nuanced limitations like cultural beliefs that devalue girls’s training, many women don’t end college. Poverty and early marriages additionally play a job in stopping ladies from graduating from highschool, happening to school and having careers. 

Allal then instructed us about Training For All, an Intrepid Basis companion that establishes boarding homes in rural areas to assist deal with the limitations to training confronted by younger girls.  

‘Training For All gives home-like environments with devoted native housemothers so these ladies can go to highschool and entry tutoring and different assist,’ Allal shared from the van’s entrance seat. 

We learnt that not lengthy after Training For All arrange its first boarding home, households in native communities might see the advantages. Women’ grades improved and ultimately many went on to graduate from college. To date, Training For All has arrange six boarding homes throughout the Excessive Atlas area, welcoming almost 200 ladies every college yr. 

I appeared up on the mountains and regarded what it should be wish to stroll to highschool in scorching warmth or snowy winters. No surprise ladies right here face such challenges every day simply to get to class.  

Many instances throughout that journey, I noticed the lived experiences of ladies in Morocco, from the mountains that stand between ladies and their training to the cooperatives the place girls come collectively to create items that generate profits to assist their households and neighborhood. 

Letting life prepared the ground 

By the point I landed again house in Canada in January, I used to be formulating a plan to return. One thing about Morocco was drawing me again – I simply couldn’t fairly put my finger on it. 

I made a decision to return for a second time on the finish of the yr and requested a number of additional weeks of unpaid volunteer go away from my undertaking supervisor function on the vitality firm I used to be working at. It was a brutally chilly Tuesday morning once I approached my boss, Charlie, with my request. 

‘You recognize what?’ he requested, to my shock. ‘The corporate has a coverage the place you’ll be able to take as much as a yr off for volunteer work.’ 

At first, I didn’t know what to say. My thoughts flicked to my house within the countryside that I shared with my canine and three cats. Then it flicked again to Charlie’s workplace after which to Morocco. 

‘Alright, I’m taking a yr off,’ I blurted out earlier than my thoughts caught as much as my phrases. 

And from that second, all the things unravelled in essentially the most extraordinary method. One after the other, family and friends provided to deal with sit and care for my pets (three cats and a 155-pound pet) in my absence. I contacted Training For All to ask about volunteer alternatives and after interviews with the CEO and her workforce, they provided me a 10-month place to start in September. I marvelled at how this was all coming collectively so simply! 

I had some trepidation round sharing these plans with my circle. A journey like this was uncommon and nobody I knew had ever taken such a leap. I used to be ready for somebody to succeed in throughout the desk and be like, ‘Are you positive about this? Do you assume this can be a response to your grief?’  

However each single one in every of them simply checked out me and mentioned, ‘Yeah, this suits. Have the most effective time! And let me know the way I might help.’ 

Take a life-changing journey

8 September 2023 

I keep in mind it clearly. It was a Friday night. I used to be at house after work when my cellphone lit up with information of a large earthquake that had struck Morocco.  

I attempted to piece collectively what little data I had. It felt like a lifetime had handed earlier than I heard again from Allal and my contacts in Morocco to search out out they have been OK. 

However the 6.8-magnitude earthquake triggered widespread destruction, with the worst of it in a number of the most weak areas of the Excessive Atlas Mountains. 1000’s died and houses and buildings have been destroyed.  

Training For All misplaced 5 of its six boarding homes, together with one close to the earthquake’s epicentre in Talat N Yacoub, the place I used to be to name house in simply two weeks. 

Training For All shortly moved into emergency response mode, making an attempt to succeed in the entire ladies and assist their communities. Because the mud settled and the extent of the catastrophe was revealed, they’d no alternative however to cancel my volunteer task. 

My coronary heart was breaking for the nation and the folks whom I’d come to know throughout my journey. And with an unclear path forward, I referred to as my mother to lament that, having spent the previous months packing up, studying some Arabic and placing my life in Canada on maintain, I had no thought what to do subsequent. 

‘Effectively, have you ever bought your work gloves packed?’ she requested. 

She was proper. I might assist. I had no thought the place or how, however I might assist. 

And with that, I bought on my flight 12 days later, with nowhere to reside and no work to do and went to Morocco. That was a call that, nonetheless, to today, I can’t fairly consider I made. 

Learn extra: How can journey assist after a pure catastrophe? 

Gloves on, self-doubt off 

As soon as I landed in Marrakech, I discovered myself some non permanent lodging and started providing assist to any and each organisation that would use it. As an introvert, I’m uncertain what drove me to place myself on the market like that. But it surely labored, and earlier than lengthy, I discovered myself volunteering with one other Intrepid Basis companion, the Excessive Atlas Basis.  

The organisation often focuses on sustainable improvement, supporting Moroccan communities with agricultural initiatives, however on the time, it was on the bottom, serving to get assist into distant communities. For 3 months, our workforce organised the availability of meals, hygiene objects and non permanent shelters to the worst-affected communities. 

I’d by no means completed something like this earlier than, however I’d managed initiatives again house; as an alternative of doing it within the context of an vitality firm, I used these abilities to organise protected consuming water, hygiene and sanitation amenities and supply non permanent shelters to the homeless individuals who have been now going through winter within the mountains.  

I reached out to Training For All, letting them know I had nonetheless come to Morocco and remained obtainable to assist them in any method I might. In January 2024, I began volunteering with Training For All full-time. By this time, they’d managed to safe non permanent boarding lodging for 58 ladies from Asni in a neighborhood close to Marrakech the place colleges have been open and I had the possibility to go to one in every of their boarding homes to satisfy the ladies and the housemothers. I used to be warmly welcomed by all and was amazed on the perseverance of those girls.  

Regardless that the non permanent homes had little additional house, I used to be provided a room with a easy mattress and a desk full with tea, sweets and different considerate facilities. Moroccan hospitality is known for a purpose! These days and nights spent on the boarding home have been handed going for walks, serving to with homework, practising English, main bedtime yoga and listening to the ladies’ tales of their lives within the mountains.  

Totally different paths and completely different locations 

In April of that yr, three months into my volunteering function, the Training For All board proposed that I tackle the function of undertaking supervisor for the rebuilding work, having begun to formulate plans for homes that will should be rebuilt and the surviving one requiring intensive repairs.  

I took a while to think about what this might imply – one other yr away from my house and beloved pets, one other yr away from my household and mates. One other request to my employer to think about extending my go away.  

However I had witnessed the devastation in these villages, heard the tales of the individuals who had misplaced a lot, and seen firsthand the significance of Training For All’s work and the way it supported the ladies I hung out with. 

There was actually no query of what to do – I used to be staying.  

I stepped into my new function in September 2024, which by that point had developed right into a program director place. The workforce labored onerous to broaden our non permanent boarding homes and return virtually 200 ladies to highschool. Rebuilding within the mountains is a gradual course of, and we nonetheless have an extended method to go. My function places me in contact with the Intrepid workforce because the Intrepid Basis is a long-term companion of Training For All, and, collectively, we’ve arrange an internship program to offer alternatives for Training For All graduates. 

Throughout a current go to to the Intrepid workplace to satisfy the workforce and chat about our rebuilding efforts, I met Zahra, an Training For All graduate who now works at Intrepid. She walked me across the workplace and launched me to all people. It was such a full-circle second to see one in every of our Training For All grads so assured and thriving in a spot that supported her by her college years. 

I didn’t know Zahra when she was finding out with Training For All, however her story nonetheless strikes me. Though she was a high-achieving scholar, earlier than becoming a member of Training For All, she’d sacrificed her personal training and dropped out in order that her dad and mom might afford to ship her 4 brothers and sisters to highschool. She joined one of many boarding homes close to her village when she was simply 12 years previous. 

After this, Zahra graduated highschool with flying colors after which turned the primary lady in her household to graduate from college. Throughout college, she led bike excursions round Marrakech to cowl hire. She occurred to have the day without work when her earlier housemother contacted her to ask if she would thoughts accompanying the Intrepid workforce on a visit from Marrakech to her previous boarding home in Asni, within the Atlas Mountains.  

Throughout that journey, she met Intrepid’s managing director of EMEA, Zina Bencheikh. They bought speaking and Zina provided her a paid internship with the workforce. That was greater than 5 years in the past. She’s been promoted thrice since then and is now a senior gross sales guide.  

Spending time with the ladies at Training For All after which seeing Zahra out within the workforce at Intrepid has been such highly effective proof of how we’re impacting folks.  

I had learnt concerning the lengthy, steep, dusty mountain paths that stood between ladies and their training throughout that first journey. And now, I can see the trail that Zahra has carved out for herself and the way that’s paved the best way for thus many different girls in her neighborhood. 

Virtually two years after that devastating earthquake, the method of rebuilding continues – as does my dedication to Training For All and the ladies in our care. I now face one other crossroads in deciding what’s subsequent for me. No matter path I take, I’m grateful for this expertise – the chums I’ve made, the locations I’ve been and the views I’ve gained. After taking an opportunity on that first journey, I feel I’ve a greater understanding of what it means to reside with goal and to contribute to one thing that adjustments a bit nook of the world.  

You’ll be able to assist Training For All through The Intrepid Basis. And should you’re in search of your individual life-changing journey, observe in Nancy’s footsteps and discover Intrepid’s Morocco journeys.