Roller-coaster

[da]

I'm feeling a bit ragged at the edges, but on the whole, fairly OK.

I'm looking forward to starting my new (old) job in my new (old) office. (Yes, I have the same office I had when I worked for the CS Department before. Well, the second of four offices in that job. I chose the size and location of the white-board and cork-board, though my predecessor/successor chose the wall and furniture colours. Confusing? Yes, slightly.)

I moved my stuff on Friday. My new boss asked me when I was coming in on Monday. I said 9ish. He said he hoped I wouldn't be offended if I got in before him. Not at all, sir; not at all.

Friday afternoon I borrowed a projector from the KWLUG and pnijjar, and in the evening, went to help set up the Quaker Meetinghouse for a "half-yearly meeting" to be held all day Saturday. We expected 20-30 Quakers from the region (which covers the southwestern part of Ontario and also the Niagara area to the East). I was nominally leading the committee that put it on. I say "nominally" because my experience in hosting such a meeting is, um, nil; and I relied heavily on my committee. And ultimately, I'm proud of how we did!

There was an afternoon presentation by two local people in their mid-20s who went to Africa on service projects. Lisa and Rachel impressed me when we got together to plan: they both had serious questions about the appropriateness of Westerners' "best intentions" in African communities. Their presentations balanced each other well.

Lisa has a social-work degree and she spent much of her time while in Burundi this winter trying to fit her theoretical understandings around the project, designed and led by African Quakers, to heal communities torn apart by the Hutu/Tutsi genocide. She went with a skeptical mindset, and came back fairly strongly convinced that this particular project is useful, though she still has questions about the appropriateness of Westerners going over to lead similar such projects.

And the other presenter, Rachel, went on a North-American led (Friends United Meeting, for those who know the name) project in 2002 that went totally awry. The leaders went with a mindset of "we will fix what's wrong with your community, for you." They broke the rules that had been set for them in advance, ignored the local community leaders, and at the end of their two weeks, they were chased out of town by an angry mob. Rachel had never been debriefed or had a chance to fully process the trip; until now, she hadn't felt up to the task of talking about it in any depth. And there were discussions, and after the presentations we led a session on the query, "What draws us to service? Is it primarily to satisfy our own feelings and needs? When we enter into service, are we willing to be the people receiving?"

The day was quite full, and somewhat exciting as to whether things would work out properly. And so they seemed to.

And in the evening I stayed home with my sweetie, who was having a rough time.

And today, d. wanted some quiet time alone, so I went to Quaker Meeting and afterward helped polish off some of the leftovers from yesterday's wonderful food prepared by seasonalontfood a.k.a. ferdzy. You know, I think with Quakers it's mostly about the eating. The distressing Quaker events are those with bad food. OK, it's getting late and I won't follow this thought to any conclusion tonight.

But I will say I'm glad melted_snowball is doing somewhat better tonight. And tomorrow's a new day.