Day 3

Today we split into three groups: Michelle and Claudine did the library tour and spoke at the national library; Julie, Dave, and Shelly went to the veterinarian college; and then the five all went shopping (and saw a camel). Tom and I started at 9 at the university, spoke to about 150 folks - a mix of young professionals and college kids, with shezhad and Bali. Nevil introduced us and shezhad did a bit on polio and rotary and then we had a young lady sing an invocation from the Koran. That has to be the most beautiful way to start an agile training course I have ever seen. We did the presentation somewhat more free form than usual, I tried to keep the group engaged without any major cultural faux pas. We got through about half the slides before the SW eng class had to go to their midterms. They all seemed to enjoy the talk- I even worked in an anecdote on Julie's wedding shoes and all the women in the audience tittered. Language was not a problem. Tom got to do his task board pitch after the kids left to the remaining 20 or so professionals that stayed and we had several rounds of great questions.

Lunch was then with the faculty. They were mostly US educated- the dept head  did his phd at nyu. Apparently many professionals come back to PK when their daughters get to marriageable age. The faculty was curious about rotary- it was not something they were familiar with and kind of dismissed it.
Shezhad explained what rotary was and what they did and I went through how my stuff (agility) and rotary went together. We got polite nods, but I am not convinced they got the concept. A little disappointing.

The afternoon session was for 35, including several 'C' level folks from several companies. In the introduction we talked a bit about poising PK for a 'pole' position in IT outsourcing for when world capitalism has forgotten all about the current issues with fundemtalism and political corruption. People nodded politely, but their assessment was pretty negative on the forgetting part.

We spent an hour or two on slides and discussion and tried to keep the game to two, but by the time we overcame technical difficulties with the game pieces, almost three hours had gone by. After a short wrap up we left the room to be cleaned by the staff (it was a mess) and went to visit Nevil's office, and then to dinner back with the rotary group at Irtezah's, where he wanted me to show his mom the pictures of colored eggs!

On the way home, we stopped at no less than 8 banks on the way back to shezhads with no joy. We will need to find a bank when we get back to repay the rupees we have borrowed!

Last thing to do tonight is pack for Islamabad, where we are off to first thing in the morning!