Training

Surprisingly, the day was scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m. Our office normally opens at 10 a.m. and even then we normally just mull about, read the paper and drink tea until about 11 a.m. Nothing in Ahmedabad is open at this time. I don’t expect the staff to be open. On my way to work the coffee shops hibernate through the dark winter hours of night and show no signs of stirring for the approaching Spring day of business. Days are jolted to a start, and jolted again and again, not with a caffeine narcotic in a coffee form, but a different, more saccharine British version – a cup of tea, and it is these tea stalls that start the day. Throughout the world, this combination of water, milk, black tea, and sugar sustains millions of people as breakfast lunch, a welcoming offering, a medicine, and a snack. The day revolves around tea. It is made in the office, on the street, in homes, in stalls, on the sidewalk, served with the natural ease of a pendulum’s path.

Around 9:20, the staff begin to trickle in. Some are bleary eyed, visibly tired from the long journey on loud uncomfortable busses, likely sat next to fat coughing men. I so much appreciate the effort they’ve made. By 9:32, I am being chided to begin, to start my training to a half empty room because, the assistant director tells me, the staff were told to arrive on time and we should start without them. For a second, because of the dust in the air, I couldn’t see just right. Punctuality? Is that you? This is like the first sighting of land, a beacon of hope in a sea of confusion that lies between the tropics of Capricorn and Cancer as the goalposts of punctuality. Whether you touch down at 9:30 a.m. in Panama or 10 a.m. in Costa Rica, it doesn’t really matter – you’ve made it, you’re here. Where’s the tea? And, the training is not for the empty white plastic chairs staring at me, it is for the people who will sit in them.

A boxer before a match, I mull about, jump a little rope through the slides of my presentation, break a sweat not on purpose, and try to think of my best, really bad Hindi. More sweat now. Am I trying to fit too much in too little time? Will they understand? How am I going to communicate?

Who cares – it is time to start and like all anti-climactic New Years countdowns, I realize that 9:47 is not that different from 9:48.

Thank you all for coming. This training is for you, so please please please, if you have any questions, just ask. I am really happy to be here and want this to be a conversation more than a lecture, something helpful that you can walk away with, an introduction of a skill that will translate back to the field…

Blank stares. Great start. I really wowed ‘em.

My workshop is on work plans. All week I’ve been planning a program on how to plan programs, hoping to introduce a more logical, long-term, specific sort of thinking. I know I am between Capricorn and Cancer, but the Equator is gone, there is no direct line of communication. With the hopes of getting as much across as possible, I continue.

Anjali and I stand at the front and while I flounder in the ocean of blank stares, she calmly extends a life jacket from the rescue boat. It isn’t easy working in translation, but she is so familiar with the staff and understands what I am trying to communicate that she really if a lifesaver. Slowly, we start to move., a few notes jotted down here, a request to hold that slide just a touch longer, a question.

We talk through some more things and then I just skip a couple of slides to get to the exercise. In developing this training I was trying to think of an example that was relatable, that would get the women involved, and require detail but not be too excruciating. Cooking – a perfect example of my ineptitude that would allow the staff to laugh at me and the women to stand in a position of power.

Screaming in capital letters at the top of the screen, the slide read: I need your help!!! The premise: I was having 10 dinner guests but don’t know how to cook. Develop a work plan (goals, objectives, activities, needs, timelines, person responsible, deliverables) for this event.

Buzz. Confusion. A few smiles.

And then, one of the most brilliant 15-second interactions, a marvelous exchange that summarizes the millions of pages of development literature on the importance of women in the ‘third’ world.

Above the hum of giddy voices, one man belted out: “Tell the women to do it.”

No sooner than the T was pronounced, without missing a single beat, one of the women said: “Order in.”

Game. Set. Match..

In break out groups, the women scolded the men on their stupid suggestions of starting the rottie before the vegetables, or cleaning the table before the cooking was complete. Teams worked together, creating grand ballrooms and five star hotels out of my house, creative and imaginative to an inspiring degree.

Once tea was served, we came back together. This took a long time, people comparing notes, scrambling to add something last minute before handing in their exam, see what other people were serving, what they forgot. Everyone wanted to present first. I was hoping to “just run through some stuff,” in an attempt to get to the next step, of making the connection between this exercise and their work, but there would be no such running. Each group had to speak and with time, pride, and eloquence.

A feast of work plans prepared, we moved forward, overfull with the practical applications of such a process. It was awesome, divine intervention I am sure. I asked if this was helpful and, after the delay in translation, a dramatic pause that allowed me to notice each drop of sweat as it crawled down the side of my body from my armpit, the staff erupted in nods and smiles.

That moment was euphoric. I felt very proud of that work, to have provided something that was fun and useful. Asking how we could go forward, the staff demanded that I do a training once a month at the monthly staff meetings.

Later in the day, I pulled one of the staff aside and asked him if the training was good, of what I could do better next time. He just smiled at me and said, “Very usefiul.”