What is Josh's job?

Joshua here. Rachel has been bugging me to make a post to explain what my job is here in Morocco. Or, more specifically, what I do when I'm gone all the time. So, here's what my job is.....

I'm a Foreign Area Officer, or FAO, pronounced "Fay-Oh". That means that, in the US Army, I'm one of a very small number of subject-matter experts on Sub-Saharan Africa. My job is to know the language, culture, politics, and other relevant information about my region. So, my assignment right now is to travel all around Africa, learning as much as I can.

The Army has FAO's for every region of the world. We're there to provide expertise to the commanders and the generals when cris(es) happen in our region, and to help them make informed decisions about military operations and US policy. We're the guys who answer questions like, "Where is Darfur and why are the Janjaweed killing people?" and "What's so significant about the Niger River Delta?" and "Why were the Tutsis and Hutus having problems in Rwanda?"

When I'm not travelling around Sub-Saharan Africa, I work at the US Embassy here in Morocco, in the Office of Defense Cooperation. In the ODC, I'm an Exercise Officer, meaning that I help plan, coordinate, and execute training exercises here in Morocco.

For example, back in December I helped coordinate a bilateral training exercise between the Moroccan Army and the US Army. Pictured here is a US Army soldier teaching some Moroccan soldiers about the finer points of American small arms. That's Army talk for guns.




And here are some American and Moroccan soldiers preparing for a live fire exercise. That has got to be the ugliest HMMWV in the US Army.



But, as fun as that is, my main focus is travelling and learning all about Africa.

Back in January I travelled to Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire. Cote d'Ivoire, as you might now, recently finished a civil war. The peace process is going well, and both sides are slowly working toward compromise. I was able to attend a DDR ceremony. That stands for Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration. It is basically the process by which armies and militias stand down from fighting and try to go back to their normal lives. Pictured here is a battalion of infantry from the Loyalist (pro-government) side of the conflict.



And here are some of the Ivorians that came out to watch the ceremony.




In Ghana, we got to visit some of the castles along the coast. During the Slave Trade era, these were used to collect, guard, and ship out the Africans who were taken as slaves to be sent to America. Pictured here is one of the mortars used to defend the Cape Coast castle.





Some of my travels take me to some interesting, "touristy" places. Pictured here is the mosque in the Senegalese city of Touba. It is the largest (and most beautiful) mosque in Sub-Saharan Africa. Every year in February over 2 million muslims from all over Africa make a pilgrimage to this mosque. That's why Africans call it "Le Mecca Noir".




Smaller, but no less interesting, is this mosque in the Malian city of Djenne. It is built in the Saharan/Sahel mud style. Yes, the walls are entirely made of mud. It has to be reapplied each year, a process that involves the entire city's population.



And here is the ferry that we had to ride on to get to and from Djenne. It was big enough to fit a few cars and a lot of goats and chickens.



Some of my travels take me to some pretty out of the way places. In western Mali, we drove from Kayes down to Bamako. There were few paved roads. Most of it involved putting the vehicle into 4WD and going from one little village to another. Here is the Toyota Landcruiser that we drove across Senegal and through most of Mali.



In eastern Mali, just south of Timbuktu, is a region referred to as Dogon country. These villages go back thousands of years and are built into the cliffside of the escarpment. The view is stunning, to say the least. Most of the villagers speak very little French, absolutely no English, and a little bit of Arabic that they learn in the madrassas. Suffice it to say that language ability is absolutely necessary for a FAO.



In this village, the kids have fun sliding down a smooth rock face, just like a playground slide.





Many West African countries are mounting some very aggressive HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns. This is particularly true amongst their military forces. Pictured here is one of the more ... interesting posters that I've seen, courtesy of the Senegalese Gendarmerie (national police".




So that's what I do when I'm gone on trips all the time. While I miss Rachel and the kids, it is some very interesting work. I'm getting to see parts of the world that most people don't even know exist.

If you want to learn more about some of these places I visit, the easiest way is to go to www.wikipedia.com and search by their names, such as Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal, Mali, Gambia, Benin, Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda, or South Africa.