Tribes

Being thrown into a foreign land without speaking the language has caused me to think about tribes. I have left my tribe and am on the periphery of another. I can't communicate in anything more than a rudimentary manner. People have been very kind and helpful, but I am an outsider and would remain so for a long time.
I have now joined another tribe - the geoanalysts. Here, despite being from many different lands - Brazilian, Mongolian, English, American, Oz, South African.......you get the picture - and speaking many different languages, we're all united by our common interest in geoanalysis. Phil Potts knew BWC, Maggie knows Nick Bradshaw, Jenny and Doug used to work with Janice and Michael was at ANU at hte same time as Champo. 6 degrees of separation.
This morning I needed help putting up my poster. The Mongolan contingent came to the rescue. They were thrilled to see I was from Geoscience Australia (their organisation is the Mongolian equivalent). They couldn't speak English and I couldn't speak Mongolian, but we managed to communicate and they helped and now we're friends. I mentioned that we use their CRM OSHBo, and we had another common thread.
I feel very much a part of this tribe - we all speak a peculiar common language. I have had discussions on furnaces, XRF, the dark art of Rietveld analysis. And birds and beer.

Jacinta welcoming delegates to the conference
 

What fun.