Initial Orientation in Barbados

Monica, Heidi, Rick, Joe, Lillah, Shelly, Stanley

Our first full day in District 7030

We arrived last night a few minutes late at the airport in Bridgetown, Barbados. We were met by GSE Coordinator Joe Steinbok and a group of Rotarians from the three Barbados Rotary clubs.

We were just enveloped in hospitality from these wonderful Rotarians - we felt like relatives coming home rather than a team of five strangers from the Pacific Northwest. We like to think of ourselves at home as friendly and hospitable, but these people must have the patent.

This morning, we met with Joe and Barbados Rotarian Stanley MacDonald at Joe's office for our initial orientation on what we will be doing for the next month here in District 7030. The coordination that must occur for any GSE team is a challenge - now imagine doing that for clubs on four different Caribbean islands that are all different countries - the air travel arrangements alone are astounding. We presented a small token of appreciation to Joe for his efforts on behalf of District 5110 GSE Co-Chairs Justin Baird and Chandra LaHusen.

The district here has set up a packed vocational and cultural exchange program on the four islands - each island has its own character. On a personal aside, we noted that they did build in a few tourist stops for us - the small piece of Barbados we have seen thus far has been like walking though a post card.

We are off tomorrow to the island of Dominica, where we will be for next week. We will begin our vocational exchanges there as well as making a team presentation to the Rotary Club of Dominica on Wednesday.