You live in a country called ‘Derdia.’ There is a deep canyon between your village and the market of the nearby town This is a huge inconvenience, because if you want to grocery shopping there, you have to walk for two days to get around the canyon and reach the market If there was a bridge over the canyon, the trip would take only hours Now a construction company from the EU have been hired by the Derdian government to visit you and teach you the science of building bridges That means you are going to be the first engineers in Derdia with a license to construct bridges all across the country You will use cardboard paper, pens, scissors and glue to make the bridge You are familiar with the materials, but not with the construction methods YOUR SOCIAL RULES Touching Touching each other is very important for the Derds It is grossly improper and tactless not to touch during conversations However, you not have to touch each other directly If you touch a chain of people, you can communicate with each member in the chain Saying yes/no The Derds not use the ’N’ word, that is the word ’no’, because it is considered very rude You say ’yes’ when you mean ’yes’, and say ’yes’ while very markedly nodding your heads when you mean ’no’ Introductions It is also hugely important to greet visitors kindly A Derdian man may not make contact with another man until a woman introduces them to each other This woman can either be a Derd or a foreigner Conduct during work The Derds touch each other during work when they wish to communicate The tools all have a gender: the paper and scissors are feminine, the pencil, pen, glue and ruler are masculine The men must not touch a feminine tool, while the women must not touch masculine tools (I guess it has to with their cultural traditions or religion) Very important: You take your own cultural customs for granted (=you can’t imagine that others may have different customs), so you not explain anything to the engineers! Greetings The traditional greeting is to greet each other with a kiss on the other’s shoulder The first person to greet the other kisses the other’s right shoulder, and then the other one returns the same greeting Any other kinds of kisses are considered rudely impolite The worst possible offense in Derdia is to shake hands as a greeting A Derd who was offended by not being greeted upon meeting or not being touched during conversations behaves rather indignantly Foreigners The Derds are sociable people, who especially like meeting foreigners You are very proud of yourselves and your culture So while you highly appreciate the assistance in building bridges, you not regard the foreigners superior You Derds expect the foreigners to accommodate to the Derdian culture and customs You are engineers working for a multinational construction company in the European Union The company has recently contracted with the Derdian government, and thereby offered to hold a training to teach a group of Derds how to construct bridges You will visit their village and build the first bridge together You have to keep the deadline agreed upon, otherwise the contract will be terminated and you will lose your jobs Derdia is a mountainous country (beyond the Operentsian Sea) with deep canyons and valleys, but without any bridges There is a deep canyon between the Derdian village you are visiting and the market of the nearby town This is a huge inconvenience, because if they want to grocery shopping there, they have to walk for two days to get around the canyon and reach the market If there was a bridge over the canyon, the trip would take only hours It is important not simply to build the first bridge, but also to train the first Derdian engineers and enable them to build bridges all across Derdia PREPARATION FOR THE TRAINING Construction Decide together on which contruction method to use in building a bridge for the Derds In the meantime, two members of the construction team can make a quick, 3-minute visit to the Derdian village where the first bridge will be built, e.g to make contact with the villagers, discuss details of the contract, confirm the forthcoming arrival of the team, and gather (=collect) information on the natural and weather conditions Then you’ll have 10 minutes to share the new information with your team, and make the necessary preparations Finally, your whole team of engineers travels to Derdia to teach the Derds how to build bridges The bridge The bridge is symbolized by a paper bridge You will build the bridge out of cardboard paper, using pens, scissors and glue The bridge has to connect two chairs or desks standing about 80 cm from each other It has to be strong enough to bear (=hold) its own weight, and the scissors, pencils and other construction tools You cannot assemble parts of the bridge in the EU to transport the parts to Derdia, because, on the one hand, it would not be costeffective (=cheap), and on the other hand, the Derds could not master (=learn) the skill of bridge construction It is very important that they learn all the stages of construction Each panel of the bridge has to be drawn by a pen/pencil and a ruler, and cut out with scissors The time limit 30-40 minutes for preplanning the construction process and the visit to Derdia 25-30 minutes for teaching the Derds to build bridges