Mukhayyam Dakhili

'Mukhayyam Dakhili' is Arabic for indoor camp. That's where I was last weekend; attending a training programme (for ladies only) organised by the NGO that I belong to (IKRAM). The camp was held at Anguilla Beach House Resort, about 20 minutes from our home. It's a lovely place; comfortable rooms and the food was good... The programme started around 11 am on the 4th and ended about 2.30 pm the next day. The first day was more of a physical and out-doorish type of activity while the next day was filled with talks. We were quite worried at first because a couple of days before, it was raining on and off (with high winds). In fact the morning of the day we arrived it was blustery and wet. But Alhamdulillah, the weather cleared up in the afternoon...and the next day!

Anguilla Beach House Resort - by the beach..

Pretty landscaping

Well, the first activity was ice-breaking and yours truly and another friend were given the task of coming up with ideas and managing it and also the team-building after that.. (Thank God for Google!) Here's one activity which was quite effective in breaking the ice: The ladies pair up, look into each others' eyes and say: "I love you sister (or name of the person) but I just can't smile". The other person says the same thing and they have to remain serious. Whoever smiles or laughs first will be out of the game...Hillarious! The winner finds another partner and it goes on until only one person remaining. However we had 5 winners who were quite serious in remaining serious..

Trying not to smile, trying not to smile..

Two of the winners (God, they're both headmistresses - and, no wonder)

The first team-building exercise was the 'Helium stick', so-called because it tends to float up no matter how you try to bring it down. The stick is just an ordinary lightweight rod but when a group of people hold out their fore-fingers together to lower it down to the ground without anybody's finger leaving the stick...you get one stubborn rod which keeps floating upwards.. (it's the upward pressure of everyone's fingers which is greater than the weight of the stick) Brilliant! This teaches the group about teamwork: strategics, patience, leadership, concentration...

All right, everybody concentrates..

Oh no..it's rising again!

Ok girls, lower it slowly, slowly..

Next is the 'group-hugging' activity.. the tightest group-hug wins! This emphasizes communication, cooperation, patience as well as issues pertaining to physical proximity...

OK gang, are we tight enough?

Help..I'm gonna fall..!

Time to measure the length of tightness.

Next on the programme was the treasure-hunt/explorace activity (I didn't get to take part as some of us had to help fascillitate..*sigh*). There were 6 groups and they had to find clues, solve puzzles, recite a surah from the Quran from memory, answer quizzes and find stuff for cleansing apart from water.. (one of the groups used my camera for documentation, so I have their pictures to blog):

Finding the first clue 'washed ashore'..

Putting together the 'text'-puzzle

5 things to cleanse with (Please God, help me not to ever have to resort to using them..)

Answering the quiz..

Unfortunately this group didn't win (but they got a hamper anyway!) but we had fun and learn many things in terms of working together. The next day we sat indoors for talks session and after lunch and prayers we had the closing ceremony with prize-giving and cleaning up and straight to postmortem (for the committee members) before heading home exhausted..but contented for a programme having achieved its intended objectives..or most of them anyway!

Listening to a talk on the second day..

The participants nearing the end of the programme