What day two of Orientation looks like

Tomorrow is the final day of Orientation in Accra for the team, and it will be a full day!   We start out in the morning playing the Pole game, which is a great revealer of present team dynamics, and go on from there to a guided discussion about team building.    After a snack break to help fight off jet lag for the ex-pats, we have a session on local medical issues, in which the Ghanaian participants help answer the ex-pats questions.    Then we prepare them for a longer expedition than yesterday, in which they will take local transportation to Makola Market, a huge market in Accra.

Together we look over the cross cultural living skills they decided they needed to develop and talk about where they made progress as well as where they want to focus now.  Then we give them their objectives for the day:

·         Learn how to get around the city,

·         get acquainted with the market,

·         eat lunch there,

·         have opportunities to do some language and culture learning…and a bonus:

·         have an opportunity to buy some items they may need.

After talking about some specific ways they can do culture and language learning, we give them some money and send them off in small groups of 3 or 4 again.   They will be gone from noon until around 5; some will get back even later.   The leaders will stay behind and finish preparing for the teams travel tomorrow…and hopefully get a 15 minute break to kick up their heels.  When the participants begin to arrive back at the guest house, they will have plenty of stories to tell, and the leaders will want to be available to hear them, as well as be available for their daily goal setting.  There is little rest for leaders during Orientation….especially the first few days!

Later on, in the evening over dinner, the leaders will help the team process their experience by asking guided questions.  There is always a lot of laughter as we hear each others adventures, and some frustrations expressed as well….often from the Ghanaian participants who are having a very different market experience then they usually do when in the company of their foreign friends.   After dinner we tend to some "housekeeping"; we tell them that we want them to make a team covenant over the next several days and give them some guidelines for that.  We also tell them we want the team to now begin to take responsibility for the music and prayer part of the devotionals we have together each day (the leader's continue to lead the devotionals as each days devo is correlated to the subject they will be discussing in Orientation).  Then we talk about our travel plans for the next day, and go over how they need to prepared for that….and end early because we will be departing before the sun comes up in the morning.   The leaders are often busy dealing with varied issues/question with the participants before they can turn in and call it a night.  And so ends the second day of Orientation!