First Seminar, Last Performance

We had over a hundred paying attendees at our seminar. After a quick poll we realized that most of them were small business owners and the rest were either in middle management or planning on starting a new business in the next few months. Even though the audience was English proficient professionals we still had a translator which is good because I have been accused in the past of talking too fast. Our translator was really impressive. He spoke perfect English and was able to translate on the fly and even change some of our answers to be more relevant to the culture.

Arthur had put a lot of work into creating a really good presentation. He did a lot of research and came up with a very cohesive interesting program. We gone over how we would tag team the delivery so one person would talk about a particular point while the other supported. We had a series of cues to communicate non-verbally to et the other know when we wanted to speak, or hurry up or clarify. Since I wasn’t all that involved with creating the material and I didn’t have a huge amount of time preparing I had to improvise a lot. Luckily I am really good at winging it. It couldn’t have gone any better.

Everyone was paying attention and the energy of the room was excellent. It was a much more interactive session than I thought we could have. People were participating, volunteering answers and asking questions. It must have been relevant to what they wanted to hear about because very single person came back after the lunch break. We added a half hour question and answer period when our original three hours were up. A bunch stayed after to talk to us and even take pictures with us.

Cambodia Television Network came in right after we finished our workshop to set up to film the dress rehearsal and stayed to film the live performance as well to be broadcast later. That night was our final Panchapor performance and it was very well attended. We had invited all of our sponsors to the first show so tonight’s show was mostly people who heard about it from word of mouth or the newspapers. What was really great to see was that such a large proportion of the audience as made up of young people, precisely who we are trying to reach. We had quickly filled up all of the seats and any available sanding room. We had to turn away people who showed up late because there just wasn’t any space. I as well as most of the project team and many of the mentees volunteered o stay outside to make space for the guests.

Trent came to dinner with us and on the way home he sang us two hauntingly beautiful Khmer chants. The first one was about offering flowers and the second was of the last words of Buddha. Back at the apartment he translated the Khmer writing on my temple paintings.