Remembering NS

Sonam Ongmo's post on National Service Experience reminded me of my own national service experience. It was in the mid-1980's and with another four ladies. Three other ladies had dropped out from fear of their own imagined terror and misery in rural areas.

The experience was truly awesome. Nine months! We relished the sweet innocence of the rural people. We were honoured with special treatment by every single community. We were all ladies and were treated like the most beautiful looking girls the rural men had ever set their eyes on. Not kidding!

We visited countless number of rural and remote communities in all the districts (18 at that time) of the country, checking smokeless stoves and health and hygiene for the National Women’s Association of Bhutan (NWAB). We wrote a report at every district and sent it to the NWAB Office in Thimphu. We loved the part when we would identify village people with serious health problems in need of immediate medical attention and send the details to NWAB.

We had moments in the eastern region when we longed for tea. We would most times be greeted with plenty of the locally brewed wine. We would at times get drunk and not be able to walk properly back to our destination. One of us had such a terrible fall in Trashiyangtse once that she had to be led down steep rocky cliffs from Jamkhar to Chazam (bridge). One can imagine how long that might have taken with a sprained ankle to take care of. At other times, the right amount of wine would help us forget the pain and exhaustion from walking for hours. It made us wonder if people there relished the local wine for the relief it brought to them after a hard day’s labour.

We also had moments in the southern region when we would lie down flat on a bench outside a rural house after trying out a few puffs from extremely intoxicating tobacco wrapped in maize cover. It wasn’t surprising that we witnessed at least one elderly person in almost every house coughing badly. The best of all was that we would be greeted with a steel glass of lovely homemade curd – very refreshing when thirsty in the almost unbearable heat of the southern region. The most admirable was their spic and span oven area - a result of applying fresh layers of mud after use every day. I would sometimes feel I might have a vision of some Goddess guarding the kitchen.

Further, we had moments in the western region when we would long for some wine and there would be no trace of it. We were greeted with flasks of milk tea and butter tea each time we managed to get into a house. We would desperately ask, “Do you have some wine that we can buy?” “No!” The toughness and surefootedness of the people in this region was admirable. I interact with vegetable women sellers from Paro at the Thimphu vegetable market today and recognize these qualities in them even today. I silently wish I were as capable as these women in business.

In essence, the national service made us experience a variety of traditions first hand in different regions of the country, besides the hardship of rural life. We saw that our country was heterogeneous in its societal design and culture, each region as warm and hospitable with us irrespective of our origin and poor conditions in the villages. Mingling with the people in whichever part of the country we went to was surely the easiest thing to do. I remember our every moment being made a happy moment by people who actually underwent a lot of hardship on the farms. I think that’s what constitutes the uniqueness of our country – happiness in giving and showing compassion, despite limitations.

24 and 3: They and Me

There were 24 of them. Multiple of the lucky number three. Great!

The expected number was 28. Also multiple of a lucky number - seven.

Twelve of them were girls. That made 50%. Gender equality honoured. Wow!

The number of days we were to be together was three. Lucky number again – yeah!

All went well. Unity was our strength. Smile was our motto.

We agreed “It is better to light a candle than to curse the dark.”

We also agreed “In order to inspire team members, leaders themselves have to be inspired.”

The first day was MY DAY, with me doing a lot of talking. However, integrated in between was a deliberate attempt on my part to make the sessions highly interactive between them and me through the use of the questioning technique that I’m personally very fond of. There was slow interaction, but worth the encouragement and patience that I adamantly stuck to throughout. I was aware that giving up was easy for the facilitator, but I was convinced what really paid off was repetitive encouragement and extended patience particularly considering the young fun loving age group. (Doing this with experienced adults would be making fools of ourselves! They would feel stifled rather than encouraged.)

The second and third days were THEIR DAYS, with a lot of group work and presentations by them. There was great interaction among themselves! I understood better that young adults felt more at ease with their peer and the facilitator had to be tactful in creating a conducive environment.

By the end of the third day, it was EVERYBODY’S DAY. Everybody was actively engaged in something or the other. Nobody reminded me of the time to stop for the day. I myself didn’t realize that time had flown. Amazingly true! Everybody appeared to be enjoying the empowerment they had gained! What greater satisfaction for a facilitator?

The fourth morning – THE MORNING! The outcome from the workshop had to be presented to the CEO of the institute. I was at the institute the earliest despite being an externally hired facilitator. I guess I wanted to be there for them in the spirit of good leadership. Pleasantly surprising was the early arrival of the participants as well. They had been told it was ok for them to be there by 9:00 but most of them were there before 9:00. What greater happiness for the facilitator? It was an opportunity for them to prove to the CEO that they made a good ‘Student Government’ – that they had been rightly elected by the Student Body. So, how did it go? SUPERB! FANTABULOUS! Tears literally welled up in my eyes. It wasn’t a group of in-service people I had dealt with on those three tiresome days, but a group of first year college students! They hadn’t been taught subject matter from the college programmes, but rather ‘basic leadership skills’ with a focus on planning and proposal writing. Such a workshop can be stressful for a facilitator owing mainly to the age-related challenges associated with young adults, who think mostly of fun and are bored easily by work-related talks and activities. The trick – integrate fun activities as energizers in between. That’s what I did. I had a collection of songs/music of my daughter’s choice on CD that I used tactfully to keep the group energized. I also provided silent meditative moments first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening with the use of soothing music and recitation of mantras by experts on DVD, with the objective of starting off and ending off on a clear conscience and positive note. Would you believe me if I told you that the participants – the fun loving young adults - themselves reminded me of the meditative moment all three days? Yes, they did! I thought that was a lesson for us experienced adults to NOT take the young for granted or underestimate them.

Most pleasantly surprising for me on the fourth morning were the following:

• All of them had prepared well and most of them presented confidently and in good team spirit.

• One of the boys, who had been quiet and awkward most times, made a presentation! (I wasn’t aware he would. For me, that was the most touching moment given his sad history and his hesitation to mingle.)

• One of the girls, who was also the least participative during the workshop, made her presentation so clearly and fluently. (I was aware she would be doing the presentation, but I hadn’t known she could speak so well. I guess what hindered her from participating was her own guilty conscience of having violated certain rules. I think her group members made her feel guilty.)

• One other boy had made the effort to improve his presentation skill. (When he made presentations during the workshop, he tended to speak in incomplete sentences. I think he was aware he had the unique ability to speak with American accent, but what he probably wasn’t aware was that THAT wasn’t enough. I had provided him feedback and told him he could do much better and, yes, he did it! That was another touching moment for me.)

Most important of all, had the workshop outcome been achieved? Yes! The Student Government had semi-final draft proposals of student activities for this semester (Spring 2010) that the Student Assembly would be presented with and also a sample operational work plan of activities approved in principle that would be applied with the other activities once approved.

The most deeply feared thing in my heart, though, is whether the process of ‘assessing where we are’ with SWOT analysis, followed by ‘what we need to do’ and ‘what we need,’ followed by proposals of student extracurricular activities and proposals of possible solutions for improvement in the welfare of the Student Body this semester will be applied every year. This is the actual test of the effectiveness of workshops and at the moment I remain unsure of this given the experience with some groups of people, who tended to view in country training workshops as additional workload rather than a learning event to improve their capability, efficiency at work and effectiveness of their work.

Nevertheless, I remain undeterred in my belief:

...that participation at workshops involves the head, heart and the hand simultaneously.