Out of Breath

In the interest of disclosure, this photo is borrowed from a fellow trainee's blog - I forgot my cable for downloading photos

In our training group here in Colorado there are 39 adults and 30 children, so after lunch and after dinner the playground out back is absolutely swarming.  I took it upon myself to create an obstacle course for the kids: up the rock climbing rock, ridge run, jump to the ground, across the monkey bars, down the slide and back to the start.  Of course I had to demonstrate (25 seconds!) - and collapsed on the grassy bank afterward, my chest heaving.  More than 7500' feet above sea level there is distinctly less air.  I was wiped out.

In a very different way the classes are exhausting.  Our language learning techniques section is over and now we have embarked on the cross-cultural/conflict section - we were told the former was all technique/brain, the second would be 'all heart'.  So far, that's an understatement.

It's one thing to mentally assent to cultural differences, conflict, another to have your own unrecognized prejudice held up like a mirror *this far* from your face.  It's useful, effective, but hard.  I alternate between thinking our primary instructor is a genius and hating his guts.  When I have a chance between sessions to catch my breath, I usually revert to thinking he's a genius.

A statistic - out of the 39 of us, they tell us, 31 of us will leave our posts prematurely due to stress/culture or conflict.  Sobering, but we're all eager to go.