Cuba: what's wrong with listening?

Feeling spritely this morning after a night embracing the local culture. A few of us are blessed with the ability to feel energized from such occasions whereas the rest of the charrette team are looking rather subdued. They are managing to concentrate despite their heavy heads.

My summary of the charette goes something like this: it would be too easy to dismiss the event as simply a way of creating drawing monkeys and obtain a profit. I do feel that there are individuals who are passionate about the idea of creating a vision for the future. I think that all the participants shared a common goal to learn from one another. Whether that has been achieved to the extent of how it could have been stretched is a point of interest. There has been little dialogue taking place and almost no discussion about the socio-economic problems of Cuba. It feels like an elephant has been sat in the middle of the room for the week. On Monday the elephant was there and a few people tried to point it out and by Tuesday the same people had decided to just get on with the process because you have to make of a situation and experience what you can.

It seems the Cuban participants are more used to this style of working. But for myself, I do not appreciate feeling as though I am back at college. An injustice to my college perhaps: at the time at least I felt there was acknowledgement of me and my ability / potential ability, but I was too immature to make of it what I could. Hindsight.

Obviously (X) just got nervous as came over and asked me whether I wanted to be integrated into the charette by working in another team. Or whether I wanted to continue working with the team I am in. I explained that I do not feel I can contribute any more to the teams as I have tried during the week and feel it has been a stop and starting process and do not feel it has worked. He expressed that he felt it did work and I explained that I meant for me. He appreciated my honesty and asked to know more about the work I am doing. At that point he was called to another person but has not yet come back to me to speak more.