Summary and Santiago
I´ve just got back to Mendoza and am taking advantage of internet at the airport to do a quick blog entry since I´m going back to restricted access.
The conference was great fun. A quick debrief: There were over 350 delegates from different countries all over Latin America and spanning the range of denominations. Our team worked flat out (so did the host team) but it was so worth it. I was hopping round doing slides for the talk one minute, translating filmed interviews the next (not sure how good a job I did of that one!), manning the resources desk, and just generally doing anything else that came up. By the end, the delegates seemed to be really excited about the course (having come along knowing very little) and they had enjoyed themselves, which is great.
It was funny to me to see HTB´s immaculate punctuality, efficiency, order and structure meet Peru´s laidback-ness. It wasn´t unusual for people we were meant to be meeting to go off shopping just minutes before we were due to start, or for pre-arranged taxis not to turn up! Needless to say we spent a lot of time waiting but it´s all part of the cross-cultural experience.I loved being back with some of my old colleagues, too, and meeting lovely new ones - a very unexpected surprise in the middle of the year.
I woke up at 3am this morning to get to Santiago, expecting that I would spend the day waiting in the airport for the 5pm flight to Mendoza... but at the airport they let me loose so I had a couple of hours walking round Santiago city centre -- what a bonus!! It´s great, really really hectic (as much so as central London) but with magnificent buildings.
Now I am going to go and collapse in bed....
Till next time!
The conference was great fun. A quick debrief: There were over 350 delegates from different countries all over Latin America and spanning the range of denominations. Our team worked flat out (so did the host team) but it was so worth it. I was hopping round doing slides for the talk one minute, translating filmed interviews the next (not sure how good a job I did of that one!), manning the resources desk, and just generally doing anything else that came up. By the end, the delegates seemed to be really excited about the course (having come along knowing very little) and they had enjoyed themselves, which is great.
It was funny to me to see HTB´s immaculate punctuality, efficiency, order and structure meet Peru´s laidback-ness. It wasn´t unusual for people we were meant to be meeting to go off shopping just minutes before we were due to start, or for pre-arranged taxis not to turn up! Needless to say we spent a lot of time waiting but it´s all part of the cross-cultural experience.I loved being back with some of my old colleagues, too, and meeting lovely new ones - a very unexpected surprise in the middle of the year.
I woke up at 3am this morning to get to Santiago, expecting that I would spend the day waiting in the airport for the 5pm flight to Mendoza... but at the airport they let me loose so I had a couple of hours walking round Santiago city centre -- what a bonus!! It´s great, really really hectic (as much so as central London) but with magnificent buildings.
Now I am going to go and collapse in bed....
Till next time!
posted by Karen Tigar @ 11:32 PM
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