A More Fortunate Family Reunion

    Dave's brother, Steve, recently visited us in Morocco. They last time Dave had seen Steve was in Paris due to Steve's medical evacuation. He's fully recovered now and looking much better. We had a very relaxing week filled with good food, soccer, and surfing.
     Surprisingly for us, this visit brought on a sense of "culture shock" for Steve - who is not used to living with electricity, a working refrigerator, reliable hot water, an abundance of English-speaking friends to talk to, American-style dining options at the Morocco Mall, modern entertainment options such as an ice skating rank, etc.. We tend to take these "luxury" living arrangements for granted, so it was neat to be humbled by someone with such a different perspective on what life looks like in Africa.

*For those of you who don't know already, Steve works in Sierra Leone as the Chief Operations Officer for a juice company. You should check out his blog here.

Dave & Steve @ Hay Hassani soccer with our landlord and his son

    Unfortunately, Steve's visit to Morocco coincided with the very first week of school at GWA. Therefore, Nicole didn't get to take off any time to hang out with the boys. Instead, she was cooped up in her classroom getting to know a brand new group of third grade students, and a brand new team of third grade teachers. Nicole was also upgraded to a brand new classroom, which just happens to be the best room in the entire school....literally. Check out the view from her classroom window:

This year is certainly going to be different than last year for her, but it should still be good.

Nicole & Ruth T. (substitute teacher)

     While Steve was visiting, we were able to finalize our Christmas plans. We booked tickets to visit him in Sierra Leone. Dave's parents will also be flying out at the same time, meaning that this will be our first Christmas where all of us Gruddas are together in 4 years. We are looking forward to experiencing a new culture and enjoying Christmas where he lives. :)

     More recently...ever since Steve's comment about how modern Casablanca is compared to Sierra Leone, we've been trying to be more grateful of how blessed we are. Yesterday, we received a very obvious blessing that was impossible to take for granted:

    We woke up yesterday morning with one completely flat tire. Apparently, we had run over a nail the night before and it had flattened overnight. Since Saturdays are soccer/work-out days, we scrambled to find alternative transportation to GWA so that we could continue with our busy day as planned. Dave intended to work on the tire later in the afternoon. When "later in the afternoon" finally came; however, we looked outside to find that our car had been fixed. Through some careful investigating we were able to discover that one of our Moroccan neighbors, whom we have never once interacted with, saw our car out the window and fixed it while we were out. We were blown away by such a spontaneous act of kindness from some complete stranger that we have never met before in our lives. That would never happen in America. We are planning on making some baked goods to bring over for a proper "thank-you" today.

     Another recent blessing is that we were both able to move up in the technology world by getting i-phones...for FREE. Two good friends here in Morocco gave us their old i-phone 3G's when they upgraded this summer. We are so grateful. Nicole had been anxious to get one in order to start utilizing it in the classroom (Class Dojo - an extraordinary, technology-based classroom management tool). We had budgeted carefully to allow us to get one used i-phone for her this year, but were blown away when we were gifted two free ones instead. We have great friends. :)

     In other news, we have both recently been very dedicated to staying healthy and fit. Dave has been holding to an intense soccer/surfing regime every day. He is incredibly fit and has been having fun staying that way. Nicole, who is admittedly less inclined to work out for "fun", created an exercise chart. She has started to run and follow exercise videos. Every time she works out, she gives herself a star in hopes of reaching a monthly goal that will allow her to receive a reward. She didn't meet the monthly goal in August; however, we're both still proud to show this off:

 

There is a 1/2 marathon in Casablanca on October 27 and Nicole is planning to

 participate in it (walking/running). Dave is still considering.

From this post you can clearly see that we've been busy. :) We'll catch you up some more later...

-David & Nicole