As I sit here, I can hear a thunder storm blowing outside. This is not a Oregon storm where it lasts for a night and we only get a few every year. but one where you can get three inches of rain in less than an hour and sitting on the second floor I can feel the wind sway the building a bit.
I have found one of the few free times during this experience where everyone is off doing their own thing and I can be anti-social without feeling guilty. Not that I don't like being social, because that's the problem...I have been staying up really late and getting up really early because I don't want to miss out on a time to build a relationship with all of these new people, especially because they are all so cool.
So far, I have learned a ton of great information and more than that, I have been encouraged. it has been a long time since my spirit has felt refreshed and renewed, as well as feeling as though I am a part of a family and fit in. The speakers have had such affirming words and the paricipants has been so inviting and loving.
More than any other lesson I have learned in the last week has been the fact that I was meant to be in this place at this time. I can't wait to get to Germany, but I will always look on this experience with affection.
On the second full day, we had to do an activity where we were split into twelve groups and each group was given a different set of characteristics, i.e. reserved, affectionate, layed-back, and then we had to decide as a group what sort of gestures and sayings our culture would say to communicate this. I was in the friendly extraverted group, which is a stretch I know. One of the things we did was this wiggle dance while saying "ooga booga" to greet people. This completely overwhelmed some of the other groups and we were put of by the more ordered groups that had a system for everything. The exercise was to debrief about our feelings of the other groups when we interacted with them. Almost all of our comments were negative no matter what the group, even about mine! This was an interesting insight into what culture is and what is it's main function: to make it's own feel comfortable.
We did another exercise where we played the card game mau and had to learn the rules as we went along by our powers of observation and problem solving. The twist was that three of the five people at each table (minus the king and associate) would move to a different table periodically and the rules from the previous round still applied, even for the new people. I had the priviledge to play at one of the tables that was being observed by one of the speakers and then I made a complete fool of myself, which was then shared during the large group debriefing.
I thought I had figured out the rule, but had been given a bunch of infractions (fine of two card for breaking one of the pre-set or new rules) and it was immediately my turn to play after the "point break" and I hadn't had time to collect my cards in order, so I just played the first one that I thought fit and really exaggerated the motion that was supposed to come after the play and immediately was doled out an infraction for the wrong card and had to rush to say thank you before they gave me an infraction for not, but could not help laughing because of how much I had just made myself look like a fool and immediately had another infraction doled out to me (because there is no talking or laughing in mau). This story was then shared to the whole group by the speaker and everyone had a good laugh. She enjoyed the moment and so did I.
Basically I am having a ton of fun and working through a lot of stuff as well!
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