when you've been to Africa, you can't get the dust off

Marilyn at her coffee work stationfriends on a field trip in Paia
do you see the gecko?

Lou's area of responsibilities next 9 weeks.

pool and east wing of Haggai

The title of this blog entry was a quote from one of the participants who comes from an African nation. It seemed to us that he was saying that Africa was an amazing continent from which to come and visit, and that you could not easily forget that visit. One of the categorical highlights for us being here is continually meeting leaders from emerging nations. We meet at dinner times or at the pool, in the lobby, in the fitness room. This evening we had dinner with Raj from India who explained to us the challenges of being a parent of a four year old daughter. A discussion on parenting ensued for half an hour.

Exercise is a major part of our day. Our propensity to walk stairs instead of riding the elevator has been reinforced by the administration at Haggai. Hydro bills have been astronomical, therefore it is a cost saving incentive for them. For us it saves time that we need not be working on the stair master in the gym and it helps us to keep our youthful figures. Of course, our daily work duties keep us moving. When our day is done we usually go for a further walk or a swim.

Because a picture is worth a thousand words, and several visitors to our blog asked to see more pictures, we are including some of the encounters of the last week and pictures of the pool area. Lou will be in charge of pool duties beginning tomorrow and he is obviously looking forward to that work. Should his perspective change, we'll let you know.

The participants in the current training sessions number about 110 and come from 29 countries. The largest contingents are from India, Brazil and Philippines. Its difficult to estimate the %age of our guests who are engaged in business, industry or one of the professions, compared to those who are in full time vocational christian service. We just know that in discussions with the men, frequently we hear of professional, business, etc, quite often. People also come from govt roles, NGO's and parachurch organizations. It is most fascinating learning many things daily.

Most of you who read this blog also are faced with filling your vehicles with gasoline and just in case you wanted to know, the price for unleaded regular here in Kihei is $4.57 at the lowest.

It may be a Labour Day holiday for many of you but it definitely is not Volunteer Day, so we will be working as normal. We will, however, be earning triple time. . .3 times nothing is still zero. Who's complaining when the forecast for the next 4 days is 90, 90, 89, and 88 degrees. Smile.