Planetary Permaculture Pilgrimage - Day 3!

Hi Folks!

No watching ourselves on film tonight so I'm able to blog this evening! Its been a great day, lots of good stuff and some bug pics coming later. Some of us are hanging out in the student common room skyping or emailing, Delvin and I blogging the PPP- and doing some collaboration for the PRI web page - and the frogs are croaking right outside the window.

So today - some highlights - Nadia came in to talk to us about teaching in the middle east - cross cultural issues - and gender. In the past Nadia has run women's courses but has also translated when Geoff was teaching - with mixed students. In the muslim culture, the women prefer to sit behind the men - where they can not be stared at or oggled, sometimes they even prefer to be behind a curtain. Some will speak up, others will pass questions forward on paper. I had lots of questions about gender and teaching - being a woman teacher myself and expecting to have mixed classes, though I'd love to teach women only classes too.

The awesome Nadia Lawton - bedouin woman and permaculture teacher extraordinaire

The afternoon was taken up with student presentations - this time a five minute one on topics from the PDC - using Geoff's must hit points. Geoff stressed the beginning, hitting the mid point and getting a good close. We divided up into chosen topics - Soil, Climatic factors, Plants, Animals and Trees and forests. I chose animals and gave my talk on animal husbandry, animal input/output and animals being essential to diversity. I felt much more relaxed today, I even sat down to write on the board - about pigs, oak trees, bugs and guilds. People have improved out of site, and it was like a mini PDC with all the 5 minute presentations covering the topics above.

Delvin with Latifa and Blue Dog, both desperate to get in for a swim.

Dinner was very welcome after the hot afternoon here in the tropics, I enjoyed my food sitting talking with Delvin and others on the decking for the dam. It turns out both our dads are hard core athiests and I shared my stories about my dad inviting Jehova Witnesses in to try and convert them to athiests. A few of my classmates jumped in to the lovely warm water, fully clothed for modesty and had a great time. We stood around enjoying the frivolity and splashing and I found out that Helene had seen Ducky on this blogs last year and did this pose for him :)

This ones for you Ducky!

I took the opportunity of my camera working to go for a walk around the zone 1 and 2 gardens and food forest. I headed over to say Hi to the ducks - and a small one came up - to tell me that she and her friend had missed out on being put away for the night - so I let them in and had a chat to the ducks for a while.  I noticed some cool lichen growing on a citrus tree and notice a mother bug laying her eggs. She let me take a few pics, but the light really wasn't good enough for really good pics - you'll have to bear with me - some are a bit fuzzy but they have some awesome info in them.

It was quite an animal day today - lunch I spotted a brown snake in the grass and tonight the yellow tailed black cockies squarked in the trees near the camp ground - and I heard some baby birds among the adults. I also got an email of Ducky enjoying himself down with Lynn, my wonderful ducksitter.