Bailundo

It is very tiring to be the recipient of training. Add when the training is entirely in a foreign language, it is doubly exhausting. I was so tired after training that I couldn't bring myself to blog.

Saturday morning I got to the office with Lourdes a little before 7.

I was delighted to see that Mango had created a drawing of our cell phone storage box. He gave me a copy.

Chilufya overslept and didn't make it, but we had a mini-bus and a Land Rover to drive to Bailundo. The M&E guys and I were in the Land Rover at around 7:30.

It was really a beautiful drive. The roads are in fantastic shape! They don't even have the dozens of speed bumps that I've become accustomed to in other African countries. There were occasional rumble strips to warn of cross walks, but that was all.

Bailundo is not very far. We arrived a bit before the mini-bus so they decided to take me to the warehouse first. The warehouse is still under construction. It is several shipping containers welded together: part making an office, part a distribution center, and the other part for storage. They have already finished the cleaning area for Spray Operators to clean up after spraying. This area is located beyond the municipal hospital.

We arrived at the school where the training was to take place. There were a LOT of students in the room. Then Mango told me that a lot of them had not yet arrived! The attendance process took nearly 30 minutes alone! When the remaining students arrived the room was PACKED. There were 110 students!

A Packed classroom.

Adriano and Mango did most of the training. Adriano is very animated and very good at holding attention. Mango is very good at getting the class involved and getting them to come to the correct answers.

Mango took pictures of some of the forms as people were filling them out and then he connected his phone to the computer to display the forms on the screen. I helped to adjust the brightness and contrast of the forms to make them legible from the projector. Mango led the group to see errors on the forms.
 
It was fascinating that through the training process they were able to identify the team leaders from the group as the ones who were participating more, the ones who had done the best on the exercises, and the ones who seemed responsible.

The selection of team leaders

By 3:30 the training was done and a lunch snack of juice, a sandwich and a fruit was provided.

The line to get lunch

I fell asleep on the ride back from Bailundo. My scratchy throat had turned into a hoarse voice and a bit of a cough, so it was probably a good thing that I slept.

When I arrived back at Lourdes's house it was around 5PM and she was preparing a feast for several people who came over for the evening.

Chilufya, Lourdes, Addy, Miriam and Allan
enjoying wine and appetizers.