“Each day provides its own gifts.” Martial
R gave me a beautiful gift of cloth coasters that were both embroidered and decorated with shells. Just lovely. She apparently has a store where she makes and sells these items. These are very warm, loving people.
We always close with a celebration of blowing bubbles and then thanking people for what they did to enrich their learning during the training. They had a blast blowing bubbles to Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration.” T even took my camera and got some great shots of them blowing lots of bubbles.
Everyone came to either hug and kiss me or shake my hand to thank me on their way out. Every one of the folks who spoke only Arabic during the class thanked me in English!
Lots of people helped to break down the room and we were lucky enough to be able to leave the two huge suitcases and several large boxes and bags at the hotel for storage, instead of having the schlep them to my hotel room.
Before I left the training hotel, both M and M D separately invited me to do something on Saturday. I’ll tell you, I’ve never had such a full social calendar before.
Once I got back to my hotel, I found a bouquet of flowers on my desk. I am guessing it is the way the hotel celebrates spring, which begins tomorrow. We have to set our clocks forward tonight, which means that now I’ll be 7 hours ahead of the east coast and 8 hours ahead of the Midwest.
I also got some wonderful news. Ecodit is going to reimburse me for that expensive ticket. I can’t tell you what a relief it was to receive that news.
Tonight, I’ve uploaded 131 photos from the five days (photos of flip chart work, pipe cleaner creativity, and various group activities) and mailed them to L to send to the participants. Once I get their emails, I can send them more information directly.
I also washed a week’s worth of underwear and lighter weight clothing in the bathroom sink. The gentle dripping serenades me. It complements the sound of the rain falling outside.
I have 10 lesson plans to read, 5 of which are in Arabic, so I’m going to have to wait until I can sit down with M D. in a week to translate them for me. Then I’ll have to write up my comments and send them.
The participants who were in the other two rooms also want me to review their videos and send them feedback. That will be time consuming, but I have to admit I can’t wait to see their facilitated activities.
As in Nigeria, the participants voiced an interest in getting everyone’s videos, so M will be working on that. He designed a beautiful cover page for the DVD’s. I wish I could take him home with me to do all of my graphic design (then I would HAVE some graphic design!)
A just called me to find out which hotel I am staying at- and to tell me I should dress warmly, wear pants and a coat, because we would be walking and it would be very cool. She is definitely intent on taking good care of me, bless her heart.
When I asked T the driver what he would do this weekend, his answer: go to the mosque, go to his parents, eat, smoke shisha (the water pipe), and play cards. The very traditional males really have it made here- there was no mention of domestic chores or childcare… However, I know he loves his children very much, because he spent the night in a hospital earlier this week when his 3 year old ran a very high fever.
May your learning be sweet.
Deborah
