Christy from Nigeria obviously shined that night not only because of her regal bearing but also because of the elaborate design of her national dress. Truth to tell, I even requested to have a picture with her.

We even met our good-looking consul before the presentation began so we also posed with him.

Of course a workshop in Israel would not be complete without us experiencing their customs and traditions, thus, we have a Sabbath dinner one Saturday evening. Ms Janette's grandson specially came to lead the thanksgiving prayer before the meal. Judit and Joke represented the English group in the presidential table reading verses from the bible appropriate to the occasion and Bracha who sat with them on that table also offered a prayer that commenced the eating.   

A closing ceremony for both the English group and the Spanish group was jointly held at 11:00 oclock in the morning on March 25, 2004. It was attended by MASHAV dignitary in the person of Consul General Uriel Norman, and the participants ambassadors or their representatives. The Cultural Attaché of the Philippine Embassy, Ms. Fe Rosales came to confer the certificates of the Philippine participants. A scrumptious lunch followed the ceremony.

It was a lovely splendid day, the sun was shining warmly, and there were even colorful flowers on the triangles near the entrance of the airport. The airport had a tight security, we had to pass through checkpoints several times but the driver of the van that brought us to the airport fortunately knew the magic words so we passed them freely. As usual, I let the older ones precede me but of course Mr. Kien of Vietnam, being a gentleman, wanted me to be ahead of him, so at first I was the fourth in our line. Ms Shirley kept ramming her push cart on Portias leg and maybe Ms. Shirley thought that I might be more forbearing than Portia because we shared a room for 28 days so she asked me to changed places with her, thus I ended up the third one. Because of our official passports, Kein and I, had it easy with the good looking airport personnel. Aside from undergoing body search, removal of their socks and shoes to have their feet scanned, Besy, Portia and Shirleys things had been meticulously examined and scanned by a detector one by one, page by page of the notes and handouts given to us during the seminar, every piece of clothing and souvenirs.

Even my actual flight home was pleasant. El Al and Thai airlines had vegetarian meals for me, and I was one of the few people who were served first unlike in my flight to Israel when I had to content myself with salad and desserts because they had no provision for a vegetarian like me. The steward and stewardess were all smiling and pleasant on both airlines too, so no sudden awakening for me, no one righted my seat so suddenly because were going to land and I was hard to awaken, like the flight I had before the training. Thus I had my wits with me and was not disoriented by sudden awakening, so no incident of forgetting my passport in my bag when we need to go out of the plane for transit. No babies crying on and on, despite the fact that I could see children of all ages, babies, toddlers, school age and adolescents on the plane, wherever I look because of the Pesak holiday. The Israeli children are well behaved and happy children I think, and trusting too. A mother from Beer Sheba had to go to the toilet and her baby boy was held quietly by the steward until she got back. Her adorable little girl of about 3 years old, even sat contentedly on Besys lap for a time and before that she had to be passed by me to Portia then finally to Besy who was the one sitting by the windows, because she wanted to see the clouds better. She kept a running desultory commentary on the clouds and what she saw during the landing that her mother attentively replied to. The other children were giggling and sometimes walked meanderingly in socks clad feet like some of the adults do to the toilet. And the man behind me even open the baggage compartment on top of our head for me because the latch was placed too high for me to hold on. Besy and her husband even called a taxi for me and text me to see if I arrived safely.