Small Victories

So I finally have a few projects that I’m working on, I’m really excited because I am finally feeling like I have a reason to be here. One of the projects that I am working on is teaching my counterpart’s employees what a business is and the different aspects that go into a business, such as marketing, planning, productivity, etc. My counterpart’s hope is that by them understanding how a business functions they will see how their lack of productivity or their constant mistakes costs the company money. Sounds like it should be pretty easy, but as I mentioned before I am teaching this to a room full of men who do not live in a consumerist society, so what seems basic for us such as the need for marketing or keeping track of income and expenses is not, so I have my work cut out for me. My first class was quite interesting, I spent the day before class preparing, trying to think of how to explain everything in what I thought were simple terms, and mind you this was all done in French. So I walked into class the next day feeling prepared and ready to go, thinking for sure that by the end of the hour they would all be able to tell me what a business is and give me examples. Well after spending the hour talking to the guys and thinking they really understood it I asked them to give me an example of what a business is, they then proceeded to look at me like I had a third eye. So guess all my hard work didn’t pay off. So now what, back to the drawing board I guess. So for the next week I stressed out about how to get through to these guys, I was stuck as to how to explain this any easier, I mean my definition was somewhere where you can buy goods and services. However, after working for a while I found a way to reword this; I then proceeded to translate it into my broken Pulaar (the local language) thinking that this might help. So off I went to my next class, nervous and not that confident. I told the guys we were just going to sit and talk, I then read my spiel in Pulaar and asked them if they understood, even though they said yes, I had a feeling that they didn’t. I told them that much and asked them what part they didn’t understand, finally one brave soul said it was the word “service”; they didn’t know the meaning of it and so it was blocking their understanding as to what a business was. So I spent the next half hour explaining, re-explaining, using my broken Pulaar and numerous examples to try and get them to understand what a service was. And at the end of the hour when I asked them to give me an example of what a service was, they all gave me examples!!! I was so excited that they got this concept down!!

Now this may seem like something insignificant to you, but as I said these guys have no formal education, some barely understand English, and they live in a society that doesn’t understand consumerism. To me this was a little victory in what is going to be long but worthwhile journey!!

Here are some of my students working. It's a metal shop and waste removal company.

Here is my counterpart (the one in the green hat) teaching one of his employees how to make a gate.