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Uncharted Country Newsletter Spring/Summer 2000 "I presented two workshops on the ROM Dance during the conference. [The participants] came from many different nations...[and] were eager to learn this modality." Imagine sitting on a veranda, overlooking a beach and the aqua-colored Indian ocean...a gentle warm breeze circulating air...the sun shining brightly...a morning break for tea on the beach...and a chance to put your toes in the warm water and feel the waves lapping at your feet. Such was the scene at the First International Congress of the Africa Region Group (OTARG ) held in Mauritius July 25-30, 1999. Mauritius is a small Paradise island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, several hundred miles off the coast of Madagascar. It is a multi-cultural, multi-racial country that has English as its primary language and French commonly spoken. There are over a million inhabitants on this island, with seven OTs providing service. The country is working with the World Federation of Occupational Therapy to establish a training school that will educate future clinicians. There were 90 occupational therapists attending the week-long conference, along with various government officials and other dignitaries from Mauritius. I presented two workshops on the ROM Dance during the conference. They were held on the veranda of a beautiful hotel, overlooking the ocean. It made the imagery in the script of the ROM Dance very real! There were approximately 20 clinicians at each of my workshops. They came from many different nations-Northern Ireland, Great Britain, Mauritius, Australia, Germany, Uganda, Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa, USA, Canada, Rwanda, Denmark, Pakistan and Scotland. The conference participants were eager to learn this modality, so that they could teach it to the patients they treat in their respective countries. I taught them the sunlight, moonlight, and wheelchair versions of the ROM Dance, and they were impressed by the gentle movements. I am maintaining correspondence with several of the conference attendees and one has thus far shared her experience with me. Samantha Shann, an OT originally from the United Kingdom, is a therapist at the Mulago Hospital in Kampala, Uganda. She has taught the ROM Dance to her patients with some success, although she reports that they struggle a bit with the beach imagery, as there are no beaches in Uganda. There were many other wonderful workshops at this conference such as "The OT's Role in Community Based Rehabilitation," "The Heritage of Play," "Job Analysis and Ergonomics: Ensuring Health and Productivity in Coal Mines," "Developing an O.T. Service in a Leprosy Setting," and "Dance and Drama: the Influence of Culture" just to name a few. One of the most popular workshops was "Making O.T. Devices from Waste Materials" in which participants learned how to make splints from paper-mache, adaptive cups from empty beach bottles, toys from empty yogurt containers and hand exercisers made from tree branches and scraps of rubber tire. The national bird of Mauritus is the dodo, which has been extinct for several hundred years. Jacqueline Laurent, Chief Occupational Therapist in Mauritius, told everyone a story about "The Land of the Dodo", which she said stands for "Dedicated OT and Determined OT". The Congress Theme of "The 2000 Challenge in Africa" was articulated by the OTARG Chairperson Justine Nanyonjo as an opportunity to explore the crucial issues of appropriateness, resources, effectiveness, and new directions of our services. These are certainly universal themes facing our profession today.
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