Part 3

So the conference is over.

I didn't learn as much as I thought I would have, only because I have attended similar trainings on the subject in the past. The material presented was interesting and I was glad we had the chance to plan our own practice seminars, which I found very helpful.

I met some incredible people though. And I am now firmly convinced in the superiority of the Greek culture.

The most important lesson I learned was, ironically, conflict management.

One of the delegates started out being cheerful and funny. However, towards the end of the conference, became argumentative, unresponsive, "difficult" and just plain creepy. He didn't speak much English and I often acted as his translator. He was a member of our practice group and he accused us of not being "open minded". He complained incessantly about everything, from the fact that our party at the club was for us only and that everyone was always working in the same groups.

We explained that:
a) the party *was* for us only
b) due to security issues, we didn't want non-conference people with us
c) if he wanted to hang out with non-conference people, he had to walk two metres off the dance floor to talk to them
d) he himself was guilty of always wanting to work with the same people (due to the language issue)

And so on and so on.

We discussed his actions with the coordinators. He's from a minority group in his country and has probably encountered a fair amount of racism and discrimination during his life.

I could give a laundry list of things that he did during the conference but after we contacted the embassy who contacted a psychiatrist, we think he's schizophrenic and I can somewhat understand his behaviour and I will therefore refrain from listing everything he did.

He kept insisting on giving us "feedback" for the activities and our own actions. In the middle of our presentation (of which he was a member of the group), he left and started drawing on a big piece of paper. We found out later that this was his feedback for the group. He called our group leader a Nazi Dictator (because she wouldn't make allowances for him), me a sheep (because I always backed up the leader), Maria perfect (because she never said anything) and Ludo close-minded because he wouldn't sympathise with his "plight".

The other delegates were getting as fed up as we were with his behaviour. I posed this question to the reflexion group and I'll ask you this too:

At what point to do you forgive someone's actions for what they have experienced in the past, and at what point do you say "suck it up, everyone's experienced bad moments in their life, you can't use your history as an excuse to treat other people badly".

I can understand that he would be upset that we wouldn't let the regular Turkish patrons be part of our party in Ankara. He is a member of a minority group in his own country and we're positive that this has brought back bad memories of discrimination for him. I can understand some of his experiences because when I lived in France, I was often not allowed in clubs if I went out with my minority friends.

We made so many allowances for him and things kept getting worse and worse (we did not realise he was a schizophrenic at this point). So what's your opinion on this?