Day Three and Four

So we have gone thru a couple of days so far now, and it has been mostly meetings. Some good, some boring. The good news is we nailed our presentation and almost everyone enjoyed it. Which was a real big success for us. Now if I only been able to get Morgan Freeman to do the voice over for us, it would have been a huge hit.

But the first night we had a little mixer, the next we were on our own, the third night (Wednesday night) we had a Bedouin Dinner. So this page may load a little slow due to the pictures I am putting up. These pictures are not all mine, as I lost the power cord for the camera and so mine is dead. But CLI has two brilliant photographers in Jon Lawrence and Rich Miller and they were nice enough to take some pictures for me.

So the first night we had a “mixer” type thing. Which was nice. During Monday day, we went to the Medina (town square) and I got a couple of things. One of them was a jalaba, or robe like thing. So I wore it to the mixer. I was trying to speak French and native Arabic to the servers (because after all, I am in their country now) and they were very appreciative of that. They also loved the jalaba. They said I looked like a distinguished gentleman in it. Which was nice. They also had a belly dancer, and yes, I did take that picture.

And I make no regrets about taking that picture. I did notice however, that only the guys at the event were taking her picture. Wednesday was more meetings, but at night we went to a Bedouin Dinner. We went out of the “town” about 15 miles, and had a great party. The place was really wel decorated, and we were walking on rugs the entire time.

We did not eat right away, but when we did, we had a vegetable plate, lamb, then chicken cos cos. The food was not that bad, but I barely ate. The entertainment was wonderful. We had a smashing good time with some of the stuff. There were fortune tellers there (I did not go to those, I knew my fortune, to fly home on a freaking long flight and be cramped). But there was a “tattoo” artist there, who put on these cool designs using specialized mud, and it is supposed to last for a month.

Unfortunately, mine had wiped off. I needed to do something else than drink red wine all night. Ok, so I did not drink red wine, because it smells like vinegar to me. But I did load up on soda, or Coca as they call it here. I did have to go ride a camel. First I had to pick one out, then I had to test ride the thing. Then I decided the camel was not for me, so I returned it to the “lot”. Camels are great for people who do not want to be comfortable, and do not mind taking off and landing at a 90 degree angle.

There were also guys who were either drinking way too much alcohol and trying to light a cigarette, or they were fire breathers. Either way, they had to keep this kerosene type of liquid in their mouth for this, and I can not imagine how bad that must taste. But even after that, we got to dance with the entertainment “tribes”. Which was nice. I wanted to go out there. All night the entertainers and the staff were telling me how much they liked my jalaba. So I was able to go out and dance with all the cool dances. I am not sure what I was saying (or trying to say), in those songs, but it was a lot of fun.