Thursday, March 03, 2005

The meeting

Had a wonderful meeting yesterday with Mr. Mustafa Toure. He is the head of the IT department of the Ministry of Education. I brought him the educational software that was donated by the InterVol medical team. It was perfect timing! The government of Belize is starting a teacher training program soon and did not have any software yet to work with. So now this software will be used as part of the program. Isn't that great? And, of course, the programs will be available to schools too.

Mr. Toure was very impressed with my digital camera (Fujifilm Finepix S700). It has 12 mega-pixels and is just the most perfect gadget. I can take pictures and then edit what I shot in the camera, zooming into people's pupils or in to a raindrop on a flower petal, without hardly losing any picture quality. Anyway, Mr. Toure introduced me to almost everybody at the Ministry of Education and made me show off my camera by taking everyone's picture. It was good fun.

The Ministry of Education now wants to include the Jaden Foundation in the charities that they officially work with & will post an announcement on their website about The Jaden Foundation. I'm very happy about that.

By the way, the thing that's most challenging to me is being diplomatic. Although I have to say, I'm getting better. Yesterday I kept saying to myself "you can never be too polite, you can never be too polite" & I think it worked. Usually when I meet government officials I slap them on the back and crack stupid jokes, but this time I reigned myself in. You see, in my old MTV job I had to do the opposite. I had to treat famous people like they were my old school mates. But I had already discovered that in a place like Belize, that type of behavior is not appreciated. Especially not in politics. So anyway, I'm getting better. It's quite a funny challenge, actually.

Right, that'll do for today. I was quite moody before I started writing this, but I feel better again already. Or is that the effect of the coffee?
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