I’ve caught a cold! Actually if I recall this happened when I was in Peru as well. It’s quite the inconvenience, and hopefully the rest of our group doesn’t get sick, but there’s not much to do but go on to class.
Today we tried out our new presentation style, spoken in Bahasa and illustrated in English. This was my group’s attempt to try a new technique and see if we could effectively get the information across to the English speakers. Unfortunately it didn’t quite seem to work, but I am still happy we tried it, and it is definitely something I would not have normally agreed to.
In the afternoon we had to tackle the huge topic of choosing an issue that we are going to address for the next three weeks. As I had expected, no one else in our group even brought up environmental problems, which I had been hoping to work on. Instead our overarching topics were education, health, and a lack of communication or awareness between NGOs. My group was pretty set on the communication issue when I told them I really wasn’t too enthused about it…whoops!
But really it was true, and although I definitely see the importance of connecting NGOs it was not what I wanted to work on for the next three weeks. We then commenced a few more hours of hashing out different issues, moving forward a step, jumping back two….and after 6pm (class ends at 4:30) we decided on School Dropouts.
Tomorrow we will have to define that more and really hash out the details of what we want to do with the rest of our time here, but for today I think we were all relieved to come to an agreement, although perhaps halfhearted for some.
I had a cup of noodles for dinner, prepared by the lovely water cooler in the lobby, and also enjoyed some cheese bread from the free wifi bakery we went to last night. Then we had a whole group reflection on our experiences this far. It really amazes me that everyone on this trip seems so genuinely positive, especially because as many of you may know, that’s not really me. Some of the people are just so enthusiastic about trying new things and experiencing different aspects of Balinese life, and while I can’t really relate to the vigor with which they undertake these goals, I do at least admire them for that enthusiasm. Perhaps I will come away from this trip with a new outlook on life, but the realist in me says nope, probably just some cool stories, new friends, and good memories. We shall see, but for now, gotta sleep to beat this cold!
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