Repost from June 23, 2012
Well it is officially Day 2 in South Africa, and I think I am on my second wind of the day - no nap for me. I did wake up at 3am local time. No alarm clock, no outdoor noise, a peacefully sleeping roommate, and no nightmares. My body was telling me that it had slept for two days and it had enough rest. But I stuck it out, tossed and turned under my eye mask just so that I could try to acclimate internal clock.
If breakfast is any sign of things to come, I will love waking up in the mornings - well at least while we stay at this hotel for in-country orientations. A full hot breakfast (sausage, bacon, eggs, potatoes), omelete bar, fruit, yogurt and a table of assorted granola, and juices - I haven’t had fresh guava juice since I lived in Hawaii as a kid. At the end of breakfast I was starting to feel drowsy - so much for acclimating.
The morning orientation was intense. Deep emersion into personal emotional awareness, shared openly and honestly, in a giant circle. The meditation reflection was great. I felt refreshed. It was interesting seeing the many different ways we described our emotional experience. Of course there was a tea break. The second session was a little more awkward and more observational than reflective. I registered less emotional awareness and more tactile and sensory awareness - the slimy sound of 20 people massaging their hands with lotion was a bit to gross. I became hungry and tired. Lunch at 2pm.
Mr. Gilmour came to our group discussion to tell the story of the journey of LEAP. In a true social-emotional fashion, he took a reading of our emotional and physical state of that present moment. I felt really bad that I was so physically and emotionally drained. We were all fading fast, and no one wanted to be rude to such and interesting man.
We were all dismissed to go our separate ways for dinner. I was ready to nap, and just order food from the restaurant down stairs. However, when I arrived in my room, turned on my computer and was soon distracted by Skype. Why wasn’t ichat/gchat and facetime working? This was the start of my second wind. I was invited to dinner by friend in the TWA group to head to Melville - where there was a funky street of restaurants.
When we returned we tried to go to Bassline a live music venue, but alas it was shockingly not opened that day. Our taxi driver was great, he took brought us on a detour back to the hotel, passing a few landmarks in Johannesburg. My only real taste of the city besides the hotel and Melville.
When we returned to the hotel I was super excite to see the stars. I managed to convince two other people that I was not crazy for wanting to see the starts in the southern hemisphere. The hotel grounds have some views of the starts but the tree coverage was too much, but a view from the roof, that would be awesome! A little of nudging and demo of Starwalk convinced the kind man at the front desk to find a room with a balcony we could use for 10 minutes. There certainly was a lot of light pollution from the hotel grounds and Johannesburg, but we clearly saw scorpio - it was right above us, and also libra. There were a few more that we were able to see only looking though the iPad.
It’s past midnight, I’m not tired yet. How do you feel?