Untukmu Para Pengunjung

I have been unable to write for the last few weeks because of the slow internet at hostels I have been staying at. However I did record a podcast with Peter Wagstaff on Marketing Today about some of the interesting advertising I have seen in South Africa and Argentina.

So click on the link and listen to the endless interruptions from doing an interview on a public phone on the streets of Buenos Aires.


Click here to listen to podcast

Here is a video of the Nike Barrio Bonito.

Last weekend we visited the beautiful city of Angouleme, it is about 1hr45mins drive from La Rochelle.

We went to the Gastronomades. This is a great example of how things differ here in France. Everywhere was free to enter and all about food!

We watched a really classy demonstration of how to produce spectacular Japanese food, by the highest rated Japanese chef in France. He prepared this freshly under the drooling gazes of 300 people. My son won the opportunity to sample the most expensive dish on any menu by winning with a raffle ticket given out on entering the hall, Sylvie also won with the next drawn ticket, you couldn't make it up!

So this post is more about photo's than words:-


This was a chocolatier demonstrating how to carve chocolate!

Sunday afternoon I took the plan home from Vic Falls. It was a small plane, so we were flying quite low, and I was marvelling at the landscape. I had several of those, "wow, I am in Africa moments" and felt awed at the privilege and honour of living here.

Monday morning I couldn't go for my run, because our compound gate was locked (the security guard hadn't showed up). I went back to work, and I was locked out of my office because my work-mate has lost his set of keys as well as the extra set, so he borrowed mine. I was also locked out of the main building, because I'm not important enough to have a security key! It took 2 hours for my computer to logon, and I can't access my email or the internet. Printing a letter took 3 hours and a lot of running around. Yesterday I was just frustrated.

I guess that's life - ups and downs, good days and bad days. I once said to my dad (full of youthful enthusiasm), "you know, you should live each day as if it were going to be your last). And he said something like, "it's a nice idea, but sometimes you just have to have ordinary days." True. (By the way, speaking of my dad, please go to my brother Joel's blog and watch his video of the week - it is HILARIOUS!)

I just got back from Victoria Falls, and John's still there. We decided we needed a mental-health weekend away, and it did just the trick. (John has a few extra holidays so he stayed on, but I'm assuming that he WILL come back to Harare on Tuesday...) :) We saw the glorious, majestic falls, we ate a lot of food, we swam in the pool, we watched movies late into the night (t.v. is such a novelty!) and we read (by the way - we both just read "The Glass Palace" by Amitav Ghosh - set in Burma - recommended!) We didn't take any photos - but we just rested, relaxed, and avoided talking about work. We've been married about 5 1/2 years, and we're still so in love - it's awesome. I hope you had a good weekend too!

Today means another early start for me. The La Rochelle Marathon, 3rd largest in France, is this morning.

In 2006 the weather was beautiful, large crowds and bands on every street corner, this year the weather is a bit grim, raining and cool, it probably suits the professionals. Will it suit the crowds?

I shall be staying at home for the first hour and half because it passes by my front door and well, I can drink my black coffee and watch in comfort. You can watch the streaming video here, I will post up photos later:-

marathon live video
Finishing between the towers

Every finisher gets their own pack of oysters!

I miss having the internet at work (something blew up...) and I can't believe we didn't get a raise this month. My monthly salary is currently worth about 26 cents. I make $3us a year! Oh well. They were having a discussion in the combi about how we're not going to receive pay slips anymore because the cost of the paper/ink/envelope is more than the actual salary. You know it's bad when...

But I shouldn't complain. I was reading the story in the Bible about the Israelites starting to complain about being sick and tired of manna. Really they should have just been thankful that God was providing something for them to eat every day. I am truly thankful for daily provision - in a way I never was in Canada. The other day a friend was saying to me, "when you go back to Canada people will try to convince you to stay. And it's true that we don't have food here, and our economy is terrible. But you just remember that people here love you. We need you here." It was sweet. Another friend just got her cast removed from her arm. She came to show me because where the cast used to be, her skin is quite white. She said it made her think of me! :)

I was just shown a great survey by Merrill Lynch on Social Networking, by @jbond on Twitter (note the link will take you to his Twitter). It offered a decent insight on how the users of Social Networks view things. I have my views but reading through the results has made me think of a few changes to Fuelmyblog.com more on that another day!

So, I have picked out the key responses and listed them below, Social Networking will be referred to as SocNet for obvious reasons:-

Firstly, of those surveyed so far, 67% are male with the average age between 22 and 25 years old. Interestingly only 5% are over 40 years old.

So, to the findings:-

59% purchase products on the net occassionally
89% use the net regularly to contact friends and colleagues.

76% of the SocNet users prefer to meet people face-to-face with the LEAST favoured form of contact being Video Chat. I wonder how this will change with increased internet speeds and technology?

36% use SocNet's daily.

53% use just one SocNet regularly, meaning that on average, a user has one favourite site, 80% use Facebook, 2nd most popular is Linkedin with 22%. Interesting is that 49% have between 100-500 connections across the sites they are members of.

The highest percentage of responses state that the user has invited between 0-10 people to join a site they use, this is a hard one to read into, if true, how do sites become viral?

The last time the majority (71%) of the SocNet users signed in to their accounts, they did so to contact a friend.

Asked the question "Which services would you use based on recommendations or offerings on a social networking site?", the highest percentage, 53%, would use/view Entertainment.

83% have never used a SocNet for professional opportunities.

And 57% would not use mobile to access a SocNet.

Finally, 82% would never pay to use a SocNet.

Any shocks in there? Some really interesting results, i'd love your views.

We found a loaf of bread and bought it. This is an event in Zim. We got home and cut it - imagining a nice chewy piece of bread with home-made (not by us) peanut butter. But the bread wasn't cooked inside. What a shame! But we're ok... We'll be in Canada for a holiday in less than a month! I hear they still have lots of bread there...

Did you miss me? I've been away from my internet life for a week. Oh, it was a stressful week, but an amazing one too. It was the final ingathering for the Zimbabwe School of Youth Leadership. I wasn't sleeping much, and marking papers almost every moment of every day (I even gave up running for a week, and trust me - this morning was painful!) But the graduation
was on Thursday night and it was SUCH a blessing. I felt like a proud mom. 12 graduated, and I think another 2 will finish (they couldn't attend because of medical reasons). The school has been challenging, in terms of finding enough money for basic food items and getting support for a new programme, but I feel like it's been a really good thing, and an accomplishment. The students have written some amazing stuff, and I'm hoping some of it will be published somewhere. The students bless me and encourage me. They're great leaders, and I know they'll become even better. And this country is crying out for good, non-corrupt, unselfish leaders.

The day after the graduation the students were doing some visitation at the men's shelter on our compound. They were moved by some of the men's stories. They came to me and asked if they could do laundry for all the men who stay in the shelter here. So they washed all their
blankets and sheets, etc. by hand and then shared their last bit of food with them. And they all said - "this time last year, we would have never noticed these men, never mind talked to them, but now we now that God is at the margins and we have to be too." Ah, it was a blessing! Leadership is influence. I'm not saying this to be arrogant, but I feel proud that they learned this message from our school (my particular interest for the marginalized and for justice!) and that this will affect their leadership for the rest of their life.

Wednesday I attended the Zimbabwe AIDS network national annual general meeting. It was sort of surreal. We were at this amazing hotel, and when they reported how much money was spent on this one day conference, I must admit that I felt angry. Think of how many people could go on ARVs for that! But anyway.... I felt privileged to be there. There were 2 other white
women, but they were with donor agencies.

Sometimes life in Zimbabwe is really tough. But sometimes I just look at where I'm sitting, and who I'm sitting with, and I feel incredibly privileged and honoured that I get to be here.

Today was one of those days where you crave fresh crisp air and clean away the internal cobwebs of life. Whilst I enjoyed Vegas, the networking and meeting great people, I really missed fresh air and fresh oysters. I am lucky that I live just ten minutes walk from the sea in La Rochelle, I say lucky, it has been hard work getting here and there is a certain amount of emotion leaving your home country but after a day like today, I have no regrets!

Oysters are everywhere in La Rochelle, and when the tide is out, the farms are revealed. The rules are that each person is allowed to scavenge 5 kilos per day but not from 20 meters of an oyster farm.


The oyster beds are about 1 mile out to sea, yes, that far. The farmers store the oysters in special sacks while they grow.


These sacks are kept on racks sunk into the ocean bed


So, we keep well clear of them! They also store mussels too..


Walking to the part we are allowed to take them from takes about ten minutes at a brisk pace! When you arrive, you see a bed of oysters, some empty, some full! While searching you must keep an eye on the tide..


My collection today in the bag

Walking back with the sun slowly setting..


Back home and after cleaning the shells


And finally, the succulent meat..wonderful.


Have you ever tried oysters? What did you think?

I will not be blogging as much over the next 3 months as I am on holidays. I am backpacking around South America (Argentina, Chile and Brazil). I will also be stopping off in South Africa for a week on the way over.

I guess the blog will be more about my learnings from these foreign places rather than new technology slant.

One of the most interesting things I have found with travelling is the feeling of yuor life being on pause. Because you are not having those day to day interactions or relationship building activities with people it feels like your life is being put on hold. It gives you time to step back and look at the where you are at and where you want to go.

Catch,
Jules

I have been a fan of Jason Calacanis for a long time and really admire Mahalo, I see it more than a search engine, more of an online encyclopedia, with some great creative reviews and to do guides.

So why am I writing about it here? Basically, I would love his guys to review my blogging community, fuelmyblog.com and write a page about it, so we have to ask for them to put us on the MahaloToDo list, maybe they will pick up on this and write one for us.

We would also like Jason to join in on our new book "the human behind the avatar" and help us promote it, every penny we would make from the sale of each book (15%) is going to Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres charity, we will have this book ready for delivery by Christmas, the main aim is to show people that although we have avatars, there are real people behind them, real people that have hearts. We haven't yet started to promote the idea and Jason would be great to help us.

Why else? Well, we have recently added the new friends widget, this is in effect, a visual blog roll, it allows the fuel users to add their friends and arrange them in an easy to click voting space. Why should anyone be interested in fuelmyblog? It is a great community for new bloggers, for example, this is generally what happens when a blogger sets up a new blog, they generally go to blogger or wordpress, write a few posts, then tell their friends and family.. after a few weeks, their friends and family tend to drop off and the new blogger is alone. Fuelmyblog allows the new blogger the opportunity to find like minded bloggers, get new readers and win prizes. We would love Mahalo to write a page about fuelmyblog and hopefully help bloggers find new readers. So, please add this request to the MahaloToDo list and fingers crossed that we get a page. Thanks guys.

I had a great time meeting loads of interesting people at BlogWorld in Las Vegas. You can read more about it here. I also would like to thank Rick again for the hard work that went into it, I hope we can do something this side of the pond one day..

I also met, not mentioned on the fuel blog, iJustine, we have been talking for a while now about something coming up soon, she is very cool and is Miss Web 2.0! I'd love her to get a passport..

I wanted to show the following "gadget" I picked up. There are many things in the USA that are alien to us Brits, take the following for example, a drinking cup that is effectively a tiny envelope:-


Much more to come once the jet lag has gone!

So I was reading Time magazine over the weekend, and read a startling fact that for every 100 births in Eastern Europe (including Russia), there are 105 abortions. More babies are being aborted than being born in that part of the world. To me, that's scary. In elementary and high school I used to be a strong advocate of anti-abortion - in my writing, speechifying, etc. Then I went to university and was introduced to feminism and realized that there are lots of special circumstances, and that women's control over their own bodies and their ability to make choices is important. So, like any social issue, it's complicated. But I read a stat like that and I wonder... In the same issue I was reading about all kinds of heroes who are fighting climate change and other environmental issues. And I became so thankful for these scientists, entrepreneurs and businesspeople who are using their brains to save our earth. Reading about them made me grateful, but it also made me wonder about all these aborted babies; all of this potential life that is just gone. What if they were going to be the next brilliant minds? What if one of them was going to find the cure for cancer? What if they were going to be the next generation of great political leaders? Just wondering...

I went to my first kitchen party on Saturday afternoon. It's pretty much like a bridal shower. My friend's young sister is getting married in December, so a whole house-ful of ladies got together to celebrate with her. We ate a lot, and sat on the ground in a big circle in the living room. When the programme started, the soon-to-be-bride had to sit in the middle of the circle and be covered with a towel. She was only allowed to be "revealed" when enough money was raised for her (don't worry - I gave more than a month's salary!) Then all the advice started. The main items of advice were: always look sexy/smart, keep your house really clean, and don't talk too much! One lady suggested that you clean your house in a mini-skirt because it kills two birds with one stone! (I guess three birds if you clean the toilet in a mini skirt and don't talk while you're doing it!) I was fascinated by all of the practical sex tips, and there was a lot of advice about in-laws too. I continue to learn new things every day. I was glad I wasn't asked to give advice though. Most of the things that make our marriage really good would have taken the party in a whole new direction (i.e. sharing house-hold chores, respect for one another, communication and telling the other person you love them every day, enjoying each other...) To each her own!

Well, we're still making $350,000/month, but now instead of 4 tomatoes, we can only buy 2 (and one of them has to be small). Inflation is killer!

OK, don't judge me but this week I spent a year's salary on a box of Rice Krispies (well, not really Rice Krispies, but a South African version of them - the Rice Krispies were out of my league). It's not in my nature to spend all of my money as soon as I get it, or to blow a month's salary on a breakfast cereal, but this is Zim....

Under watchful eyes, we form a united front.

I remember reading "Teacher Man" by Frank McCourt over the summer, getting myself pumped for my upcoming job (ironically, I didn't like the book, but whatever). There was one part where he talks about how, when an administrator walks in, the classroom dynamic instantly changes, and there's this unity between the students and teachers that forms for as long as admin stays. Students aren't dumb - they know that when admin walks in, teachers are being evaluated. Thus, it's a test of how much they like you; if they go silent and do everything you say, you're liked and respected. If they run amok, they're trying to screw you over and make you look bad.

One day I was in grade 10 science, ready to throw up an overhead on naming polyatomic compounds. I reviewed a bit on the criss-cross rule of coming up with chemical formulas, and how to name ionic compounds. As soon as I threw up the overhead, a student said "Sir, someone's at the door."

I opened, and in walks the principal. She had spoken before how she likes to randomly walk into classrooms just to see what's going on, and to not acknowledge her presence at all.

"Hi." I said.

"Hi." was the response, and she quietly took a seat by the right side of the class.

As I walked back to the front, I saw every student looking at me with a worried look on his/her face. Hard to describe, but it looked like eyes asking "What do we do???"

"OK, so continue copying the overheads and stop when you reach this point. Once you're done, think about how it links back to ionic compounds, and then we'll discuss it as a class." As I said it, I shot them all a look that said "Stay calm, we'll be alright." And we were; she left after 10 minutes.

As soon as she did, I literally saw all of them deflate. "Sir what was that about?" "Nothing, she just wanted to see our class, that's all." "Sir, are you in trouble?" "No Sara, I don't think so." Of course, I wanted to know what she thought.

After school I walked into her office and asked for her opinion. "Oh, it was good; I had been watching for about 10 seconds before you opened the door - you had complete class control, everyone was focused and engaged. And they clearly like and respect you. But I do have some suggestions for improvement." and she broke down how I need to improve my questioning abilities. I put people on the spot, and she went into great detail about how there's no safety in failing (i.e. people are set up to possibly feel humiliated if they get the question wrong). Thus, the only people who will put up their hands are those who are extremely confident. She gave me suggestions on how to improve that and get more people willing to put up their hands. I tried it, and it's worked, though I don't use it enough.

A couple of days ago, both VP's walked into my first period class (grade 12 advanced functions) and gave a little walk around. I wasn't teaching; I was merely walking around keeping students on task and helping them out, as I had given them an assignment to help them independently form the concepts of graph transformations for trig functions.

They left after 5 minutes. Same results - the classroom went quieter, people who were in and out of focus stayed on task - though there was some chatter, but focused chatter, because I had encouraged them to help each other out.

Yesterday during lunch, I was on my way to the office to check my mailbox for my attendance updates for last two periods, and the principal and two VP's motioned me over. "Oh shit...." I thought.

"Y'ello???"

"Hi, we have an opportunity for you."

"That sounds good."

"We'd like to see your first period class. It'd be just me (principal) along with Mike (department head). We want to see how your teaching has come along, and since Mike's experienced, we want his opinion on what you're doing right, and how you could improve."

"Sure, I'm in!"

Although I like professional feedback and constructive criticism, this does worry me somewhat. With the two VP's having walked into the same classroom a day earlier, I'm wondering if they saw something they didn't like. Am I being watched? Mike spoke to me during lunch and asked me about it. He said "I don't know, she said she wants my opinion on what makes a good math class. I said 'OK, whose class should we see?' and she said 'What about one of Andrew's classes?' 'Sure OK.'" I get the sense that this was just a way of getting him to watch a class of mine to evaluate me. Is there a possibility that they're looking into hiring me full-time, and this is a test of some sort? Who the heck knows? All I know are a couple of things:

1) It's happening sometime next week, and

2) Whatever happens, I'll be alright - myself and thirty-four hormonally-charged teenagers will form a united front.

My mom & dad sent us the movie "Click" which we got in the mail yesterday and watched last night (did you know that we've had power for 4 nights in a row? It's a bit eerie!) I wasn't expecting to get anything out of an Adam Sandler movie, but I was actually quite moved by the story. If you haven't heard of it (I have no idea if it's new or old) - it's about a guy who gets a magical remote control and starts fastforwarding his life (intentionally and then unintentionally) so that he can skip showers and fights with his wife and sickness and boring times at working waiting for a promotion. And he learns to absolutely dread this fastforwarding because although he is skipping over tough times, he is also missing out on amazing moments and years! I cried (and this was ALMOST as ridiculous as crying at "Jack Frost"!) but it was just really touching to remember that in all of the tough times there are good times, and I don't want to fast-forward through any of my life. I want to live it and feel it - with all the ups and downs, feasts and famines, tears and laughs, hugs and fights. Life is the great adventure.

This morning a friend was talking about her 10 year old son. At Sunday school, his teacher had asked him who created the world. He thought for a second and then answered "Mugabe." She figures it's because he is praised so much and given credit for so much in the media everyday. The propaganda machine strikes young - yikes! (John thinks the scariest part is that his parents are pastors - shouldn't the identity of God as Creator of the world have come up in conversation?)

Confidence is my favourite kid. I know you're not supposed to have favourites, but she's mine. She's just so cute, and from day one she has made us feel welcome and special in this country. She made me a card the other day and this is the inscription: "For my friend Rochelle from Confidence. I love you like a golden bus moving on a silver road." So sweet!

I was reading the Ten Commandments this morning, and the last one struck me - about not coveting/not being jealous. Yesterday we walked to the supermarket at lunchtime. The shelves are pretty much empty, but we did find some beans, corn and peaches, so we brought them to the checkout counter. The woman who was packing our bags placed a loaf of bread in our bag and quietly said to the till manager "just charge them $100,000." We haven't seen bread in shops for months! It was a real treat, and $100,000 for a loaf is a steal! When we got back to work, everyone was asking about the loaf. Some were congratulating us on our success. The 3 ladies I work with in my building were angry because they had been to that same shop and did not get any bread. They were jealous, and refused to speak to me for the rest of the afternoon. A loaf of bread. If I'm honest I'll admit that there are some days when I'm jealous of my friends who are actually making/saving money, driving cars, enjoying electricity every day, embarking on careers and families, etc. Jealousy is not good - it tears us apart rather than bringing us together. I think that's why it makes a nice 10th commandment. I guess we all have a lot to learn about just being content with what we have, instead of always wanting what others have.

We got an unexpected announcement that our office would be closed on Friday and that we all had the day off. Unfortunately, we both had to work. John went to Howard where the chief of the region was donating 100 tonnes of maize to the Howard Hospital. And I went to Kadoma with two other women to lead a grief seminar. I find the seminars really interesting - for example hearing about the myths and superstitions surrounding death (such as if a twin dies, no one should cry/mourn because it means that the other twin will die - how tough for the parents - and for that other twin!!) I also led a very interesting discussion on how men and women grieve differently. The women were all saying that men don't feel anything and get over death quickly. They believe this because men don't cry and stay outside of the house during all of the mourning. Of course, the men said that they do feel grief, but they show it in different ways (I tried to point out that society would never allow them to cry or be on the inside). The women wouldn't buy it. They're convinced that men just don't care.

Saturday John went to Mazowe high school for their prize giving day, and I stayed in Harare doing normal things - lining up for an hour to get a bag of rolls from the bakery, visiting with friends, watching "Simon Birch" with some teenagers who haven't had electricity at their house for 2 months. I cry every time I see that movie (the girls all cried too). There's just something very beautiful about true friendship. Saturday night we were planning on going to hear Fred Hammond. There are posters all over town advertising "Fred Hammond in concert." I was thrilled that one of the best gospel singers in the world was coming to Harare! We went to buy the tickets and someone admitted to us that Fred wasn't actually coming, but that members of the church would be singing his music. He admitted that they were using false advertising to try to make some money. That's corruption for you... This is Zimbabwe!

Happy Birthday today to my Grandpa - bless his heart. Saturday was John's dad's birthday, and Friday was Johnny's birthday, so we are very thankful for the lives of these 3 special men, and pray God's deepest blessings of peace and joy on all of them.

Peta Menzies interviewed me last week for an article on Politicians using Social Media. Here is the article.

Politicians mission to cyber space
By Peta Menzies

'Australian politicians are trying to win the vote of Generation Y this federal election through internet social spaces though the 18-29 age group are not convinced that the campaign websites are enough to engage young voters.


Both the major political parties have joined the campaign revolution through internet networks like Facebook Myspace and Youtube. The sites advocate party policy and are designed to promote political awareness amongst the younger generation. While it is seen as an attempt to bridge the generation gap it is being considered a fractional one.


22 year-old Julian Cole is a digital strategist for Naked Communications and says that political leaders need to be authentic when they are in these online spaces. “It rings a bit mass. I think there is a role for them there but if they are wanting to get a message out they have to access the right people, the opinion leaders,” Mr Cole said.


The Political sites act as a billboard rather than a two-way interaction that the social space intends.The sites are designed for networking and just like real-life opinionated participants emerge.“It’s a misnomer to think that everyone using this online space has an equal voice. We’ve found that some people have a louder voice and therefore have a bigger audience,” he said.


Labor candidate for Dobell Mr Craig Thomson says politicians are attempting to connect with the younger generation now more so than what has happened in the past.
“The Labor party is very much aware of the need to engage with Generation Y through the mediums that are better used to communicate with them like Youtube and Myspace,” Mr Thomson said.

Mr Thomson acknowledges the need for political parties to continually develop their use of web based social pages.“At the moment the campaign pages are not having a conversation with people, its talking at them rather than anything else,” he said.'


In other news concerning Politics and Facebook, here is a great stunt from the Chasers boys on Kevin Rudd’s Facebook Friend.

Kevin's Facebook Friends

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Following on from The Big Ad and Flashbeer comes the next Big Fosters Idea, ‘VB Stubby Symphony’

Just like the past campaigns they have housed it on a main site, thank god someone ripped it on Youtube. I think they really let themselves down by not letting people view on Youtube and embed the video on blogs.

However there are some nice consumer involvement treats in this site. They have used SuperVirals as the host site for their ‘Create Music using VB Stubbies Competition’. However again (see past post) I think that Supervirals is such a narrow channel, this should really of been done through Youtube.

I think overall this is a great idea, and as was pointed out to me, it is capitalising on the most iconic part of the VB brand, the song.

George Patterson Y&R are behind this idea with Jim Ingram and Ben Couzen cracking this big idea. Well done boys!

Ordinary thing: It's hot! October is the hottest month of the year here. It's not humid though, so I love this weather! It will be nice when the rains come though. We've planted some corn and coriander and green beans in the garden, so we want to see them grow!

Sweet thing: Yesterday John went to a grocery store and found meat! It's been over 4 months since we've seen meat in any shops, so it was quite exciting! He made this lovely lamb dinner last night - it was almost like we were back in Canada. And he found cream cheese. This morning I had a toasted bagel with cream cheese - it was heavenly. The other day John also brought home red roses for me. I have a really good husband.

Embarrassing thing: Monday morning I was to attend a workshop at the Zimbabwe Council of Churches re: HIV/AIDS and the Churches' response. The letter said to meet at the Kentucky Hotel. So I went there and waited around. It was supposed to start at 8:00am. At around 8:20 I was starting to get a bit anxious, so I went outside, and heard some singing coming from the building marked "Zimbabwe Council of Churches." I slipped in through the front door and sat down in the only available seat and started singing and clapping. It turns out that it was being reserved for the chairman of the meeting, so that was a bit embarrassing, but they went and got another chair. I sang, and listened to the devotions. And then came announcement time. And I realized this wasn't the Zimbabwe Council of Churches - but rather a board meeting for Christian Care (who had moved into the building, but hadn't changed the sign!) and then I was introduced as the special guest!!! I tried to explain that I was in the wrong place, but it wasn't translating well, so I just tried to say some encouraging words about Christian Care. It was awkward and difficult to leave, so when I finally did, I was an hour late for my own workshop that had started at the hotel!