CASABLANCA, Morocco – Casablanca, Morocco’s largest city, conjures images of Rick’s Bar, couscous and the third largest mosque in the world, built at fabulous cost on land reclaimed from the sea. Only those in Mecca and Medina are bigger.

Critics complain that the close to billion spent in the 1990s on the Hassan II Great Mosque, which has a thousand ton sliding roof and the world’s tallest minaret, could have been better spent on helping people more directly, like cleaning out Casablanca’s legendary slums.

The mosque is indeed spectacular, with praying room for more than a 100,000 people. But the problems of the slums are spectacular too – places of mindless violence, desperate poverty and hopelessness.

All 12 suicide bombers who blew themselves up in Casablanca in 2003, killing at least 33 people, were Jihadist products from the local slums. So were the bombers in 2007 who killed a dozen more. 

The government is working hard to move the country’s slum-dwellers to better homes. But to see the lives of the people still left behind, about half a million people nationwide, is truly shocking – yet in a few cases, humbling and inspiring.

That’s because of Boubker Mazoz.

White-haired, mustached, bronzed, slim and charismatic, the 58-year-old voluntary community organizer is a dead ringer for Omar Sharif, the famous actor. Seven years ago, while continuing with his day job at the public affairs office of the American Embassy, he founded an organization with the goal of bringing hope into the lives of the hopeless.

“Education is everything,” he said, as we strolled in one of his classrooms among 10-year-old boys and girls being taught English, French and Arabic by high school seniors, all volunteers, many of them slum-dwellers themselves. “They must stay in school, become independent and especially, not be dragged down by all these stereotypes people have of them that they are failures, criminals, the bottom of society.”

Mazoz grew up outside Casablanca in a poor Moroccan village and through his education he made a better life for himself. He’s worked at the embassy for the last 30 years – while most of his extended family is still back in the villages. When Mazoz came to Casablanca, he wanted to help people make the best of themselves – especially through education.

At the community center I watched as one young girl, her hair covered in Islamic traditional style, enthusiastically pointed at letters. She mouthed them, and two boys and a girl, leaning across the table, one half-sitting on it, stroked the letters with their fingers and imitated her. A drone of English and French and Arabic vowels rolled across the room.

“They’re all from the neighborhoods,” Mazoz said proudly. “They are such good kids, they just need a chance.”

“Who is the girl teaching them?” I asked. And therein lies a tale.
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DONGGUAN, China – “It’s been a rough year,” Ben Schwall shouted above the rumbling furnaces of a giant Chinese glass factory. He watched as workers, blowing down long tubes, transformed blobs of molten glass into juicers, bowls and lights.

“Orders are picking up. Things are getting better,” he said. “The telephone is starting to ring again. Everybody feels there is something coming back.”

We were in Dongguan, in the manufacturing heartland of southern China. Frequently called the “workshop of the world,” the region was battered last year when the world stopped buying and exports collapsed.

Schwall supplies Chinese lighting equipment to the United States, linking American buyers with Chinese factories. Before the economic crisis, he was shipping 70 containers a month, but then his business fell by nearly two-thirds.

Thousands of factories across China closed last year, and some 20 million migrant workers lost their jobs.

Suddenly, though, this region is buzzing again. Factories are being renovated and are hiring. Vast public works and infrastructure projects have transformed parts of the area into sprawling building sites. Shops are full, with electronic goods flying off shelves; car sales have almost doubled over last year.
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BUKIT LAWANG, North Sumatra, Indonesia – It’s said one should not take work along on vacation. “Leave the BlackBerry at home!” my supervisor insisted. But, no way was I going to leave behind the camera with the opportunity to spend a week on an eco-tour in Indonesia.

In the forests of North Sumatra, Indonesia, there’s a delicate balancing act going on, witnessed by a few eco-friendly tourists every year. It’s not easy to see, but well worth the trip. And you might even see a little piece of yourself looking back at you from high in the trees.

The location was new for me and the trip was special, hardly work, particularly when I can share the experience (through the video links here) with others.

VIDEO: Saving Sumatra’s orangutans

I set out to find a critically endangered species, the orangutan, in their native habitat before they become extinct. Its estimated just 6,600 Sumatran orangutans remain.

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KABUL, Afghanistan – If there was ever one “foreign devil” on the Silk Road who most fascinates amateur history buffs, it must be Sir Marc Aurel Stein.

The Hungarian-born British archaeologist’s career sparked an obsession of mine – and no doubt of countless others – with the history of the Silk Road, a series of trade routes linking China to the Mediterranean.

So upon hearing Stein was buried in Kabul, I made a beeline for his gravesite as soon as I arrived here.

Adrienne Mong / NBC News

The British Cemetery sits on a dusty road in central Kabul.

Born in 1862, an era when archaeologists could still raise funds for lavish expeditions and gallivant about the globe, Stein single-handedly put the Silk Road back on the map, as it were, with a series of incredible discoveries in his later life. 

The fruits of his excavations and scholarship shed new light on the region by tracing the original trading routes along the Silk Road and, most importantly, documenting the spread of Buddhism from India to China.

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BANGKOK, Thailand – Paper plane champ Mong Thongdee returned to the Thai capital Monday with a bag full of trophies after competing in a Japanese paper airplane contest – but the young boy’s joy may be fleeting.

The 12-year-old boy, who has no official nationality, brought home a third place win in the division for elementary school students in the Chiba, Japan paper plane competition. And his three-person Thai team also won first place in a group competition where the young contestants had to quickly fold their planes and then throw them into the air. 

Koji Sasahara / AP

Mong Thongdee prepares to release his paper plane during the team indoor flight duration competition at the All-Japan Origami Airplane Contest near Tokyo on Sept. 19.

Mong glowed while cameras flashed as he greeted his Myanmar migrant parents – whose trip to Bangkok from their home in northern town of Chiang Mai was made possible by a last minute sponsorship from an airline.

Mong’s story captured media attention when he appealed for travel document to compete in Japan, where he would represent Thailand.

The initial rejection of his request to travel – on the grounds that he isn’t a Thai citizen and can’t leave the country without losing his temporary residence permit – brought to light the complicated issue of thousands of people who live in Thailand, but have no citizenship or official status.  

At the airport on Monday, Mong thanked all Thais for giving him endless support throughout his journey and said he wished to give his medals to the Thai king.

But after going all the way to win his paper plane titles in Japan, Mong returned home to the same state he’s been in: a stateless boy in the country he calls home.  

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