Tuesday 19 June 2007- Day Eighteen

We were invited to a three-day workshop concerning child headed households focusing on capacity building and community mobilization. The first day was loosely relevant to our work (the third day is more relevant so my research partner and I will attend that day). What has struck me about committee meetings and workshops here is the dedication of the people to parliamentary procedure and politeness. The first hour and a half of the meeting was filled with a debate over the rules decided on by the group (no cell phones, speak loudly, raise your hand, don’t dominate the discussion, ect). In the states these are things that would never have to be said. Today I observed a 30-minute discussion on the merits of setting cell phones to vibrate verses turning them off. When it was decided that off was the group’s decision we had to spend additional time discussing what constituted an emergency and who would be exempted from turning their cell phones off.