If anybody feels like it's a déjà vue when you look at the photos here - you are right. I did take some new pictures that I wanted to upload but for some reason it is impossible to upload anything that uses Flash - both in the hotel and at the Ministry. It wasn't like that last time so some things HAVE changed ;-)
So I am not able to upload new photos right now. I am trying to find a solution and will also try to take my laptop downtown Thimphu and try in some other places with Internet connections. So you have to look at the old photos from my first trip - they are already saved on my blog so luckily I can use them J But I am uploading some photos to Facebook - this I can do because I don't need Flash to do it.

In the morning Carsten, Steffen and I went to the Ministry together and said hello to everybody. I got the same work place as last time and it felt very familiar taking my laptop out and connecting it ;-)

Steffen left for the Automobile Institute where he is to teach and I had a meeting with Norbu Dema (female) and Karma Dorji (male), my 2 closest colleagues here. I was very excited about the course and how much had been arranged. They had finally got some names from the technical schools and we went through them and picked the participants. That is how it is done here. The management of the technical schools nominates 2 persons and the Ministry chooses one. The teachers or instructors as they call them don't apply for the courses themselves.

The electricity system was down all morning and didn't come back until 1 pm, so everything was very slow and there was no Internet. People at the Ministry all have their own laptop but after a little while they were all out of battery so there wasn't much to do until the electricity came back. Karma Dorji and I went to the small outdoor "café", which consists of some tables and chairs and a place to boil water. They serve coffee and tea and we had a cup of sweet Bhutanese tea. It was wonderful to sit outside in the warm sunshine. Everything is turned upside down here when it comes to temperatures - it is very cold inside at the Ministry but warm and nice outside so we put on clothes when we go inside ;-)

It turns out that half the participants at the course for Master Trainers come from the Ministry and the other half is instructors from the technical schools - I thought the majority would be from the schools so I'll have to make some corrections, change some assignments, etc. so that people who don't teach can also use the material - to a certain degree.

Tomorrow we will start printing the material so I ate at home and stayed in my room all evening to make the corrections. NOW I'm ready!