Wednesday, November 16, 2016

THE WEEK OF THE MINISTERS

Agriculture is dead, the report of the WIM's Executive Committee has been dealt with, while that of the WIM's review and placement is peaking up into insurmountable battle lines as fresh reinforcement beefed up Oxfam's contingent in Marrakesh. 


That's two negotiating streams less and suddenly, I was able to go back to the hotel earlier than usual and therefore discover more of Bab Ighli, including a previously unknown-to-me Moroccan cultural show every late afternoon between the huge white tents and the bus depot.  





It was almost a holiday except that negotiators refuse to budge on their trenches for the review of the WIM until the chairs of the Subsidiary Bodies came into the room with deadlines that stole two nights to informal/s[3x] and the usual huddles, and ruined my plan of watching the Super Moon rise while dining on grilled lamb and cold Casablanca beer at Amani Hotel's La Terraza, the great expectation of which had made me subsist on Skyflakes and Change Chocolates in anticipation of the dinner that never was.


These I reported to the Philippine minister to inform her decisions in the upcoming political process that will hopefully break deadlocks and move the Paris Agreement forward, which unfortunately did not happen, although I did took the floor once to make sure that 1.5 degrees don't eclipse our adaptation aspirations.   


But we did dispose some of Riza's booklets on Asian women farmers although we have to ditch the Vietnamese hat because we are not sure of the protocol that will make ministers wear it.


And I did discover a mother lode of alcohol at Menara Mall's Carrefour which made my week complete with four precious samples of Moroccan brew plus a surprise rack of SMB.



Finally, our last team dinner at Al Fassia Restaurant for a taste of Moroccan home cooking [bread, a Moroccan salad sampler, couscous, tanjine chicken and vegetables, roasted shoulder of lamb] and the house wine, in my honor perhaps as my imminent departure from Oxfam has been announced and the short speeches on my COP work from Tracy and Vicky that came with the dinner, and three Casablancas from what would have been a surprise for me last Tuesday if I have gotten my Skype address right.   



And that was it, the seeming conclusion of my COP life during the week of the ministers, the end of COP 22 for ALDAB [A-dapatation, L-oss and D-amage, A-griculture B-arkada], and an in-session lunch of pizzas, pasta, and a farmer's wife salad to cap that all.  

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