mid-week Connect: 3/1/23 ~ Cultural Crossroads

Greetings and Happy Midweek!

I had a delightful ‘cultural crossroads’ moment yesterday, in an unexpected context…so I thought I’d share it with you today and we could explore this together. It fits right into the HARBOR component of our Global SKILLs 3D Dynamics Framework, since it was a coming together of two very diverse ‘worlds’, resulting in several dynamic mutual interests. *

As part of my work in client support at Liberation Tiny Homes (https://www.liberationtinyhomes.com/ourhomes ), I give tours of the shop where the homes are built. During a tour yesterday, the gentleman got a call & was speaking a language I did not recognize. Later in the tour, his partner said to him, “Can you see tiny homes in Africa?”. And he said, “Definitely!”.

SO, of course, I immediately asked him where he was from in Africa…and guess what?? He is Senegalese, and lived until quite recently in Dakar - the city where I spent almost 20 years! After greeting him in the local language of Dakar which is Wolof (you can imagine that totally shocked him!), we had a wonderful ‘old home week’ time (in Wolof, English and French) - comparing notes on all things Senegalese. And his partner explained she is a “cultural influencer” and wants to get tiny homes on the global map…starting hopefully in Senegal. Wow…there’s a huge area of mutual interest for us both, for sure.

By the way, I later asked Samba what he was speaking on the phone, and he explained it was Soninke which is his mother tongue (spoken in eastern Senegal). If Africa in general hadn’t come up and then the fact that he is Senegalese, that crossroad would have been passed without any connection…what a loss that would have been.

So just a heads up - be alert because you never know when you’re at a possible crossroad of mutual interests, unless you engage!

How about you ~ what’s one cultural crossroad you did notice and made a fun connection?

Share about that with a friend or note it here.

And check out the Global SKILLs LINKs below for more on crossroads, which have of course been the meeting place of cultures throughout history.

Thanks for being part of this Connect community.

Until next week,

Betsy

Global SKILLs LINKs

~ Eastern European crossroads: https://edinburgnorth.ecisd.us/ourpages/auto/2020/3/10/50376180/Ch_%2013%20Sec_%204%20RG.pdf

~ Maritime Southeast Asian crossroads: https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/maritime-southeast-asia-not-just-a-crossroads

~ the crossroads of globalization from a Latin American point of view: https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/bellagio-library/the-crossroads-of-globalization-a-latin-american-view/ Notes

* Through my business Global SKILLs and several partner subsidiaries I offer unique cross-cultural consulting and training including:

3 Dimensional Dynamics Model:

1st dimension = HOME ; 2nd dimension = HOST ; 3rd dimension = HARBOR (which we explored this week)

PROACTive Learning Strategies: PRO = PROfile, PROcess, PROgram

ACT = Application, Collaboration and Transformation

~ contact me for more information on this model and these strategies and how you might use them in your current programming: betsy.barbour@gmail.com

2023 ~ Celebrating 40+ years of working in

intercultural communications and global community building

“It takes a community to build a community”

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