Ciaowdy,
Today was another routine day of rest in preparation for our day in Rome tomorrow. We had a similar Italian breakfast and continued lessons at the language institute.
After our second Italian lesson, we played a card game called Barngo where we had to stay silent for the whole time following the rules on the paper at our table. As people silently moved between tables, we slowly started to realize that we had been set up! Each table had different rules, leading to confusion while trying to play the game. We communicated through frantic hand gestures, which got us nowhere. When the exercise was done, we were so frustrated we were told to quiet down by the people next door.
It was a valuable lesson about the language barrier and cultural differences that many people face, not only abroad but even at home at Texas A&M. We have many different customs and backgrounds in College Station, and we should be mindful that not everyone we meet will think or be like us.
We had some free time after lunch to absorb what we learned, and our classmates from the Qatar campus prepared their presentation about their own culture.
Afterwards, we had our two special guests fly into Italy and meet us right here in Assisi. We all read Lee Walker’s book “Imagination House” before we came here, and prepared some good discussion questions for him and his protégé, former Austin mayor Will Wynn. They both shared stories from their rich life and taught us about the importance of sticking to our values. We need to harness our values and skills in order to reach our goals in life.
We wrapped up our day with the Qatar presentation to clarify any misconceptions we may have had about their culture. We had a final briefing about the history of Rome and the things we can do there to prepare for tomorrow.
We had an early gelato to get a good night’s sleep for tomorrow’s early wake up!
See you tomorrow evening!
Annaliese & Omar
