Tuesday, May 29 -- a long flight to RDU (Raleigh Durham International) from Oakland, leaving early morning, over packing for two weeks away. ... looking forward to NOT living my nightmares about the upcoming gathering. Chapel Hill seems so much smaller than I remember it, and less glamorous ... the 15-501 is the same highway I remember from my days in Durham, and Durham, must have grown, but somewhere else ....Central to the theme of IRRTI and popular education in general is the concept of opening space for dialogue. So much of the "technology" of popular education is embodied in the way that facilitators open space for participants, as well as wroking to ensure that the full complement of people that arrive are the ones who need to be in the conversation. So far, we have always been challenged to be able to bring all our people fully into the space, and partially that is because of all the real kinds of diversity and experience that is embodied in the rooms. We were lucky that the beautiful space at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill was made available to us. The energy of the space - open, light, color - I think helped reinforce the kind of energy we wanted and needed.
Wednesday, May 30 -- spent all night uploading documents to Kinko's for the participant packets, and revisiting the rooming list. Visited mary&parrish events LLC. The hotel is full, and we started sending people to the other hotel. Man, are we really paying for all this?! Phone calls all day. The Highlander crew arrives this afternoon. Yeah! The workshops are great, getting worked out, and Chris Z. arrived in time to hang out and drink beers with FF and MH and me ... good times ....Thursday, May 31 -- Facilitator briefing, site tour. The facilitator and volunteer briefing ended up happening BY THE POOL! who says we don't roll in style? People arriving all day. An orientation to the South and to the shared goals of the IRRTI in the region. Long nights with all the different facilitation crews for the different workshops we're all working on .... 
Friday, June 1! -- Opening Day! Chris Z's new name is Kinko's Guy. Our opening combines the IRRTI tradition of taking full time to get to know each other, of setting up the space for multilingual settings -- the skits really helped to reinforce the space --
Leah and Monica's South / mapping exercise is a great way to help build collective education and knowledge on the diversity of the South, the regional geography in relation to space and natural resources use, very important in a military-ag-prison-industrial complex economy that shapes social and economic, geographiocal and political, and some times cultural, relationships. ....
Here's some of what we brought with us to IRRTI .... to Chapel Hill ....
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