Saturday, January 3, 2009

Day 1 and a beautiful beach resort

Greetings from Al Khor, Qatar! It's been a great day here at LeaderShape. Our first day has gone so well. The students are already engaged and the energy level is strong. The faculty are connecting well to one another and to the students. It's a good start to the week. Hoorah!

I am learning that time is a bit relative here on the Gulf. This is a bit challenging to me as I do like to be on time. Additionally, the LeaderShape curriculum is pretty time sensitive. I will certainly need to work on balancing my time expectations with the cultural practices here.

I'm also trying very hard to learn and correctly pronounce the names of the participants. Many of them are from Qatar and the Middle East and, of course, have names of the region. They are unfamiliar to me, but I want to be able to address folks by their names without butchering them. I'll keep trying! :)

We are staying at the Al Sultan Beach Resort. It is a lavish hotel. Check out the photos of some furniture in my room. I have a bed fit for an Emir! My room also had a lovely fruit plate, bottle of water, and dish of pistachios waiting to energize me when I arrived.
The hotel is also located right on the water. The view is stunning. I will be sure to take photos and post them here. It was extremely windy today, making it a bit unpleasant to be outside longer than it took to walk from one building to another. Who knew such a cold wind could blow in the dessert.

Where we hold the large meetings of The LeaderShape Institute is called The Learning Community (see photo with chairs). Next to our LC, we have a lounge for the students to relax in. Here are a couple of pics of the lounge (photos with couches). It is very fancy! In the States these sessions are held at camps (like church camps and 4-H camps). The lounge space has never looked like this. It is interesting to learn about the differences in expectations when it comes to retreat space. :)


It has been a long day and we have breakfast at 7:45am so it is off to bed for me! G'night all!

1 comment:

  1. Wow, you are not kidding! What a lavish room to have as a LC! Looks a *bit* different than the Allerton Conf Center! ;-)

    BTW -- your room is amazing...

    ReplyDelete