Greetings and Happy Midweek!
And it’s just before mid-month, so it’s time for another of our RAP sessions (Review and Process, deeper and wider). In our Global SKILLs training, we emphasize how ‘Review and Process’ are key components of strategic planning and implementation. Each of these mid-month RAP sessions revisits a cross-cultural theme or topic from a previous Connect, going more deeply into what we’ve begun to explore.
This month we are going to revisit cross-cultural PROcess as one of the 3 pillars (PROfile, PROcess, PROgrams) of our PROACTive learning strategies*. Returning to the Senegalese tea ceremony we introduced last year (check out the 4/28/21 post), let’s linger this week with the 2nd of the 3 cups of tea as we explore PROcess together...
This cup is often just the right mix of bitter and sweet, steeped with the 2nd addition of black tea leaves and several more sugar cubes. The drinkers are relaxing, touching on deeper issues they want input on, or working through a thorny community challenge they face. Hard stuff and yet, also, comfort and affirmation are offered and accepted - as they share the tea, and their thoughts.
This PROcess, lived out daily in West African tea ceremonies and in cross-cultural work everywhere, highlights the fact that, despite bitterness which occasionally comes with interactions and exchanges, there also is a sweetness of entering into, lingering with and working through these times together.
How about you ~ what kind of ‘2nd cup’, bitter-sweet cultural moment have you had recently? Share about that with a friend or note it here.
And check out the Global SKILLs LINKs below for more thoughts on cultural bitter sweet mixes
Thanks for being part of this Connect community.
Until next week,
Betsy
* PROACTive Learning Strategies: PRO = PROfile, PROcess, PROgram
ACT = Application, Collaboration and Transformation (which we looked at today)
~ contact me for more information on these strategies and how you might use them in your current programming
Global SKILLs LINKs
Enjoy these food-related bitter-sweet resources…and think of how they reflect cultural realities:
2022 ~ Celebrating 40+ years of working in
intercultural communications and global community building
“It takes a community to build a community”
Please Note: this is copyrighted content.
Please do not reproduce or share without my permission (betsy.barbour@gmail.com)