First of all an apology for not sticking to the Wednesday blog all the time. I have realised that trying to fit everything in is difficult and I do this, predominantly, for pleasure and to keep a certain side of my creative brain ticking along. Also I like to remember the stories. It needs to feel like something I want to do rather than something that adds another bucket of water to an already over flowing pool. So, only a week or so late…we go back to Russia.
One of the the return trips to Moscow the accommodation we were provided with was in a flat. On most of these trips I tended to travel with a colleague, Mark. This flat had a living room diner kitchen all in one room and a bedroom. This was a family flat and considered to be a relative luxurious one because of the separate bedroom and because it had a small bathroom. Some of the family were meant to sleep in the living room part and the children , I assume, in the one bedroom. There were still old Russian tenements about at that time that had one shared bathroom on a landing. That bathroom would have been shared between four families with everyone having to work around each others works schedules and commitments. At least for us there was a little bit of privacy from . At least for us there was a little bit of privacy from each other.
On this particular training day we were doing an exercise that practically caused a stand up row with one male participant. The exercise involved splitting people into pairs. Once in pairs one of the pair was blindfolded and the other was to lead them around the building. After a certain amount of time those roles were swopped. One of the most hilarious moments, on an observational basis, came because one of the participants was blind. As far as I can remember she had no sight at all but she did know the building. When she was being led round it didn’t effect her in anyway particularly and her partner was slightly baffled. When they swopped roles Svetlana led him around very fast and terrified the poor man. Once the exercise was over the discussions began.
What do you think the exercise was about? What did it bring up for you? etc etc. The exercise, as I am sure you know, had nothing at all to do with experiencing what it is like to be blind. That would be ridiculous and patronising to say the least…implying you could give someone a real taste of someones entire life as a blind person in 20 minutes. No. It was a communication exercise designed to get at the assumptions we make about other people and how we can better communicate to include others in our decision making and create a more equal feel in our organisations etc etc. It really is a brief description but hopefully you get the picture.
My role would be to some times pose questions e.g. “Did you ask your partner how they wanted to be lead round the building?” (or did you just grab their arm and head off). It’s that classic comedy sketch where some kind well meaning individual grabs an elderly persons arm near a road crossing and ‘helps’ them across only to be told that they hadn’t wanted to cross the road. Then you get into the real nitty gritty about what is helpful, what might be, why some things are helpful for some and not others and why if you simply ask you might prevent a whole lot of grief for the person you really want to help and frustration for yourself for having got it wrong. I think culturally too the Russians have some personality traits that can be quite similar to some British ones. That being, in order not to appear stupid you make a decision because asking the question might be perceived as a weakness. If you remember our participants were setting up new charities and we were trying to find memorable ways of helping them arrive at good communication channels that really consulted their participants.
Anyway, one man stood up ad said that he felt the exercise was about experiencing what it was like to be blind and how amazing that was. I very politely and gently pointed out that you couldn’t truly experience that through this exercise but he wasn’t having any of it. he insisted and indeed said ‘I was wrong’. Svetlana even piled in backing me up but he just wasn’t having it. I gave up in the end saying that we would have to agree to differ.
What’s lovely about these training exercises is they often have unexpected results and not always in the way you expect . Over the course of a couple of days there are usual a few, what we call, light bulb moments where someone suddenly has a greater understanding of how they might proceed as things fall into place in their head. Svetlana was one of those. You might have thought that she, of all people, would be keen to make sure her charity was consulting it’s participants. Not so. Originally she was quite resistant saying that consulting people was bound to cause problems and make life difficult and ‘we’ already knew how to help them. By the end of the course her light bulb had switched on and she had changed her mind. The obvious thing to say is that consulting people does cause problems but it can reap the best results for all and help build organisations that will last because the people it most wants to help have a vested interest in it’s development and services. It is also about not making assumptions about everyone’s needs and experiences even if we can empathise.
Svetlana’s partner in the exercise hadn’t felt she was particularly helpful towards him because he was too busy being terrified as he was led around the building twice as fast as everyone else. She’d tell him there were steps etc but not give him much time to adjust. Funny to be observing but not experiencing and we never interfered as that would have informed the later discussions .
I can never remember whether it was that trip or one that came soon after that involved us working alongside a young American who worked for the NGO’s. I remember he wore a ring on his thumb. I even started doing it for a short while . But also I remember in restaurants he liked to order and eat his desert first just to make sure he had room for it as that was the most important part of the meal as far as he was concerned. Caused quite a lot of hilarity. I also remember, coming back into Moscow after overnight train journeys and going to an American diner near by. A chrome caravan that did all the ‘eggs over easy’ ,’sunny side up’ up etc. It was’t bad either. Mostly Mark and I ate in Russian restaurants but, as we were usually there in winter there was little in the way of fresh vegetables. I remember being given some kind of black charcoal type tablets to eat as I soon became bloated and felt unwell on a heavy meat and dumpling diet and when I got back to the UK I over filled my basket with everything green..broccoli and spinach in particular. The vegetables that were on offer in Russia were pickled in jars. Not the same at all and there was Russian salad of course. I enjoyed the Blini and other things but it wasn’t a diet that suited me at all.
Next time I’ll talk about the other places we went to in Russia.
Jo Freya’s Musings 