October 6th – Training Day Has Arrived

(Mark Nash) We all awoke with anticipation this morning.  Today is the day we start training our local drill team.  We haven’t met them yet, but have high hopes for the day….

Frank is going to work with church officials on technology issues while Gwen, Janet and Lisa tour various departments of the Disciples of Christ Church national offices.  Steve and I will be with Carmen and Jacques training the team.

After breakfast, we returned to the guest house after a lengthy tour searching out various types of soil to use in the training.  Our original plan was to pick up our equipment and meet the ten team members selected by the church, then drive to Mbandaka Three Church for the training.  However, a change in plans left us to do the training at the guesthouse.  So now we are only one and a half hours behind.  While this takes some getting accustomed to if you are from the instant-gratification West, it is no big deal to Carmen and Jacques who are used to the easy pace of the African culture.  The only problem when we arrived was that there were 35 eager young men waiting to be trained.  I can tell you as someone who trains works as part of my job; you cannot do practical hands-on training with that many students.

After several conversations, Carmen is able to convince church officials that this number must be reduced to a maximum of twelve.  It is heartbreaking to see people wanting to work and being told to go home, but trying to train too many would have certainly resulted in failure on our part.

We did get the training on geologic theory completed and after another few small problems, we built our tripod (in the fading light of day and in the rain).  Throughout this update I felled to mention that when we started the class, Steve and I were completely drenched in sweat.  But, one hour in, a front came through and with both rain and wind, we were cool for the first time in three days.  

Tomorrow we drill!