It’s the end of the week and I find myself smiling with delight as I drive my 125 cc motorbike home from the office. Nothing extraordinary has occurred this past week, just the accumulation of many wonderful moments:
- Time shared with my housemate eating pizza together for the first time at a restaurant we have frequently driven past for many months.
- The arrival of a new team member from America who is filled with the anticipation and excitement of living in a new culture for 11 months.
- Sipping a fresh mango, banana, pineapple fruit shake.
- Good conversation with a small group of friends from Japan, Scotland and Australia.
- Sharing a meal in the home of a co-worker who graciously invited us to his home to learn more about Lao culture.
- Meeting together with an MCC partner to learn about their school, the role of the new MCC English teacher and gain an understanding of the expected code of behaviour for teachers and students. (Just an aside note: female students must have long straight hair with no bangs/fringe, no perm or no hair colouring aside from black. If they do points can be deducted from their behaviour score.)
- Eating BBQ and soup at yet another unfamiliar restaurant with the MCC Service Worker/SALT’er team. A clay pot filled with charcoal coals is positioned in a hole in the centre of the table and on top of the coals is placed a grill with space to grill meat in the centre and a ring around the outside to cook meat and vegetables in coconut water.
- Participating in a Human Resources Network meeting with national Lao staff representatives from various International Non-Government Organizations (INGO’s) and talking about approaches for staff performance appraisals. Many of the women I had met during the past year and so there was a feeling of comfort as we talked.
- Joining together with the MCC team for a Baci, the traditional Lao string tying ceremony and blessing ritual, for the newest arrival from North America.
What wonderful moments have you experienced this past week?
1 comment:
first of all - I would really like to visit that restaurant when I come visit.
second - it has been a hard week (hard month), but if I had to pick three good moments they would be: a) hooking up my new kareoke machine and singing b) sleeping in until 8am this morning c) seeing all my flowers recover this week from the previous weeks of neglect!
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