Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Wednesday 29th November 2006 2 days to go...
Was a pretty hectic day in the Work Room yesterday. I counted Journalists at different intervals and got about 125 at 1pm and possibly over 100 until well after 7pm. The workroom was busy until 12:30-1am and the games haven't even started.
Thankfully by now my evening shift volunteers seems to be able to handle things after I leave. There will be more tests of this as we move forward but I'm happy to see that processes seem to be followed and the service to Press has been excellent to date.
It was interesting yesterday talking to Shaza, one of my volunteers who is from Sudan. She has been living here for 5 years as her family moved here. She is 29, single and working in a good job in Doha of which she has been released to work for the games. I noticed she was wearing the colorful Games scarf on her head and asked her whether she wore the Abayah at work. She tells me that sometimes she does. This is intriguing as I suspect this is not what people wear in Sudan. We search online so that Shaza can show me the national dress in Sudan, the Toub as it's shown on the internet- a white robe pretty different to the black abayah. But Shaza tells me that sometimes she is rushed in the morning and the abayah is an easy way to dress. She can wear anything underneath even her pyjamas and no one will know. Same for the hair. No need to have perfect hair when you wear a scarf over it. And, we both laugh at the concept that you could just show up in pyjamas with the light abayah over the top and suddenly you look very respectable. Shaza smiles all the time and is bright and fluent in english. I enjoy her company and her help. She translated and typed a document in Arabic for me so that I can hand it out to Arabic Journalists. When I checked with others they tell me her translation is excellent.
The next few days promise to be very very busy in here before the Press and photographers can head out to the venues to cover the games. We are ready for them and I'm anticipating the work room to be busier today, tomorrow and Friday before the Opening Ceremony.
bye for now
Was a pretty hectic day in the Work Room yesterday. I counted Journalists at different intervals and got about 125 at 1pm and possibly over 100 until well after 7pm. The workroom was busy until 12:30-1am and the games haven't even started.
Thankfully by now my evening shift volunteers seems to be able to handle things after I leave. There will be more tests of this as we move forward but I'm happy to see that processes seem to be followed and the service to Press has been excellent to date.
It was interesting yesterday talking to Shaza, one of my volunteers who is from Sudan. She has been living here for 5 years as her family moved here. She is 29, single and working in a good job in Doha of which she has been released to work for the games. I noticed she was wearing the colorful Games scarf on her head and asked her whether she wore the Abayah at work. She tells me that sometimes she does. This is intriguing as I suspect this is not what people wear in Sudan. We search online so that Shaza can show me the national dress in Sudan, the Toub as it's shown on the internet- a white robe pretty different to the black abayah. But Shaza tells me that sometimes she is rushed in the morning and the abayah is an easy way to dress. She can wear anything underneath even her pyjamas and no one will know. Same for the hair. No need to have perfect hair when you wear a scarf over it. And, we both laugh at the concept that you could just show up in pyjamas with the light abayah over the top and suddenly you look very respectable. Shaza smiles all the time and is bright and fluent in english. I enjoy her company and her help. She translated and typed a document in Arabic for me so that I can hand it out to Arabic Journalists. When I checked with others they tell me her translation is excellent.
The next few days promise to be very very busy in here before the Press and photographers can head out to the venues to cover the games. We are ready for them and I'm anticipating the work room to be busier today, tomorrow and Friday before the Opening Ceremony.
bye for now
# posted by AdeC @ 9:09 PM 
