Sylvia's Journal

As with so many other things during this trip, I was wrong about where we would be staying. The pattern seems to be that I get wrong or incomplete information followed by a surprise.

The workshop started on Sunday night with the arrival of everyone at the conference center. It was as if we also surprised the conference staff. There was much coming and going and missing and then getting towels and soap and toilet paper and finding matches to rooms and packs of remotes (airco, TV, cable), tied together with the masking tape, probably left over from a previous workshop.

The arrangement for food was not clear – at least three quarters of the participants were fasting and their meal times do not coincide with ours, the non-fasting minority. They eat after it is dark and before daybreak, while we do the opposite. It’s all very complicated to organize – there are the per diem arrangements that require much negotiation and calculation. It is falling on the shoulders of the brand new office assistant who came in from a neighboring country – and she is doing admirably well it seems.

It took a while to get everyone settled and by then it was time for ‘la rupture,’ the breaking of the fast. First there was the coffee, tea or Citronelle, next to the large swimming pool, then the first prayer and then, by now in the dark, a meal that was only recognizable by the flashlights of our smart phones (a piece of beef and an onion sauce with limp and lukewarm fries – not bad, just limp).